Question for libertopian ideologues

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As we know, a lot of evangelical (property rights based) libertarians get giddy asking "statists" or "socialists" (as it seems any system that doesn't align with their ahistorical, "pure" conception of capitalism is socialism) stark, deontological questions. How can you absolutely, arguing from first principles or natural rights, justify this, that and the other thing.

Well, I'd just like to ask the libertopians out there who think this type of absolutist moral reasoning rocks a question.

How do you justify property ownership?

Surly, property ownership begins when one exerts force to legitimize one's ownership of property. Just think of land and the numerous wars fought over it so as to claim ownership of it. Many USian libertopians seem to romanticize early US history and the supposedly libertarian character of it, when that was the period in which great force and coercion was initiated by settlers to displace indigenous peoples and claim ownership over the areas in which they lived.

What legitimizes current property titles, how is claiming ownership over things not coercive, and what makes property titles absolute and inalienable, no matter the cost?

What legitimises current property titles? In most cases, nothing. Vast tracts of land granted by the state are no basis for claiming the right to a piece of land, even if you paid for it - if you buy stolen goods, they don't become yours. The actual moral ownership of the rights to the land are the people who use them. But as for the ownership of land itself, not every libertarian believes land can be owned - Geoists believe you should pay rent to the community for the rights to the land (but that has some, probably surmountable, problems), and many others believe you can only have usufructury rights to the land and other natural resources (you have the right to protect your usage of the land, as but absentee ownership is not permitted). There's also the debate regarding improvements in the land vs. unimproved land - I personally tend towards the view that only improved land can have "ownership" as such, but if someone occupies your property and you do not make any effort to evict them, it's clear that you have abandoned your rights in that property. I also have to agree with the Lockean proviso - you don't have the right to take any more natural resources than you can without depriving people of the chance at living (there always has to be somewhere people can homestead).

As for the creation of rights in a piece of property, I believe you gain ownership of property by applying labour to it - you own what you make. After that you're free to dispose of it as you will, be it by trade, consumption or abandonment.

Of course, ultimately you're going to get down to axioms, wherever you start. But it's critical that, whatever axioms you start with, your framework is internally self-consistent, and ultraminimalism/libertarianism/anarchy is the most consistent framework I've come across.

Who are these "libertarian ideologues"?

anyone who thinks that the question applies to them, in this limited instance.

^
'phew, saves me some time then.

"applying labor"? What kind of labor? Can land that is used as hunting grounds be owned, then, or just land that is farmed, mined, or otherwise extracted from? What about land that is merely admired, like Yosemite? Is it valid to show up on land that someone else hunts on or considers sacred, plop down some potatoes, and call it yours because you've 'applied labor'?

I wonder...

With the current marijuana legalization drive in several countries, are we going to see even *more* political pipe dreams on WrongPlanet in the near future?

Last edited by YesIKnowThatPipeDreamOriginallyReferredToOpiumAndNotWeed on Sun Apr 4, 2014 4:20 pm; edited 420 times in total, dude

The question is moot in the U. S. because people don't really own their property; it still is owned by the government.

There have been many cases involving the government taking it from people (easements, eminent domain), because the government wants it. Also, if you fail to pay your "rent" (i.e., property taxes) or comply with ordinances then they can take it.

"The Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) affirmed the authority of New London, Connecticut, to take non-blighted private property by eminent domain, and then transfer it for a dollar a year to a private developer solely for the purpose of increasing municipal revenues". ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain )

Recently we have the EPA handing over a city to American Indians ( http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/envi ... ian-tribes )

several cities have proposed using eminent domain to buy the underwater mortgages of homeowners within their limits, refinance them, and then sell them back to the owners on terms that the owners can handle; it would prevent a lot of the blight and boarded-up windows caused when banks foreclose and people are kicked out of their homes, making it a win-win for the cities and the home owners.
The banks, however, are royally ticked off by the idea, and are apparently doing everything they can to prevent it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/busin ... .html?_r=0

Do you have a more credible source for the supposed hand over of a town to Native Americans? That one cites a tribe that does not exist (there is a Wind River Reservation, but no 'Wind River Tribe'), not to mention all kinds of other conspiracist-sounding stuff about the UN and 'agenda 21.'

edit: ahhh, nope. It didn't happen:
http://www.rivertonwy.gov/news_detail_T2_R104.php
what a surprise.
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/show ... oming.html
The town was build on reservation land opened for European-American settlement by congress in 1905 or thereabouts, and the EPA basically said that opening the land for settlement didn't change the reservation's borders. The case is still being litigated.

Those questions, alas, aren't exactly settled ones. Some would suggest that hunting gives you usage rights in the land, which remain until you stop hunting, and so if farming would interfere in such rights, it is not acceptable to do so. Others disagree with that. But mere admiration, I think, is not a valid reason to claim ownership.

Of course, you *could* implement a Geoist scheme which would deal with these troubles, by issuing every citizen 1 of N inalienable shares in the land, where N is the number of citizens. A share would entitle the citizen to occupy 1/N of the land - if they wish to occupy more, they have to rent the rights off someone else. So if Alice wants to occupy 50% more land than she is allocated, and Bob is willing to rent half of his allocation to her, she would be able to. If Bob decides that protecting part of Yosemite is more important to him than the money from Alice, however, he would be able to use his unused portion to stake a claim to that part instead. You could apply the same idea to non-renewable resources - you can extract as much as people are willing to sell to you. So is Geoia has a population of 5 million, and there are 5 million barrels of oil available for extraction, each Geoian has the right to a barrel of oil. If a company wished to extract all 5 million barrels, they would have to purchase all of the shares from the population.

I'm not saying that a am for implementing such a system, but it's a potential solution to certain problems.

Throughout history, ownership of land was defined by the ability to defend it with violence.

Until the end of the Dark Ages, ordinary people couldn't even own land. They could only rent it from land barons (thugs).

When this changed, the ability to own property have have that right protected as an operation of law was a major improvement over the old system.

The owner of the land can do with it as he wishes. If property is claimed to be abandoned, there are two different schools of thought regarding who can claim new ownership. One such school is that if someone comes in and puts the land to use, they should get the benefit of ownership.

While anybody who has thought about such matters has a concept of what the ideal society would look like, "utopian" suggests an airy disconnect from reality; while anyone with a mind has an ideology, "ideologue" connotes blind zealotry. I'm not certain what you mean by "evangelical" but no doubt that's intended to be derogatory as well.

It would look more like a serious question if it weren't wrapped in insults.

I've been trying to tell him that for years, but it just won't take.

I can't speak of prior views, but under English Common law, homesteading (mixing you labor with the land) is what makes it your land. You may simply put up a fence, but that is still mixing your labor with the land. Same with Biblical text telling people not to change the property boundaries.

Not exactly true. People during the Middle Ages became serfs tied to the land either because they couldn't afford to buy or to keep their land and were given a chance for them and their descendants to make a stable living, or they depended on the protection of the lord in the manor from Viking or Maygar raiders. Despite this, it's been found that there were still a good number of poor farmers who owned their own land in those days.

This is probably the main sticking point to me. Libertarians and Anarchists I know love to go on about how property rights are oh so important and theft is bad (mostly based on the USA) but they never seem to realize or care that most land was taken by force (i.e. stolen). Especially with Americans: most of them are on land that was outright stolen from the natives or from Mexico, but they don't seem to see the hypocrisy. I think this sums it up best from Paul Kienitz's excellent essay (http://world.std.com/~mhuben/pk-is-against-liberty.html)

I wonder how those same people would feel if China or Russia came in and stole their land? Would they be so quick to recognize the property rights of the new 'owners'? I found out the hard way that many of the well off who were cheerleaders for libertarianism were that way because it befitted them personally not due to any ideology. But I suppose US history books love to whitewash history, like how our local history books in school just mentioned how the natives 'went extinct' with no further explanation of how that might have happened so suddenly.