What determines ownership of private property?
In various discussions with a friend, I've come across an interesting problem in ethics, politics, and human rights - how do you determine who actually owns a given piece of property? It's an issue that arises from, shall we say, our sordid past.
This idea that pretty much all land is stolen from someone else, and that someone else in turn stole it from a third party, yea, even unto four or five generations, is the fulcrum of political philosophies like (I think) geolibertarianism and libertarian socialism, the conclusion being that all land is essentially publically owned. This is an interesting problem, and I've had it on the back burner for a while. I think I've developed a solution; not a particularly ad-hoc one either, as it's derived from several principles regarding property, particularly how newly discovered land comes into someone's possession.
There was a real world example of this. I don't remember any of the specifics, as I think I came across this story at some point during the Clinton administration. Basically, there were a group of Native Americans who claimed to own a huge portion of some state (let's say, for sake of argument, Nebraska) and wanted it back. The thing is, they were able to produce in court incontrovertible proof that yes, they did indeed, own a huge portion of Nebraska. The judge said, well, clearly you own the land, but I don't think we can just give it back to you; there are towns and schools there and such. They were offered compensation for the land, but, being Native Americans, they declined the offer and simply went away.
So, the problem here is, you have a group that has had possession of the land for a long time, but it was originally ill-gotten. My conclusion is, the group that has current ownership of the land should retain it, but not because of how long they've had the land (there's no statute of limitations on human rights), but because they've mixed the land with the work.
This is usually only an important quantity when considering initial ownership of the land. Take as an example the Louisiana Purchase. The government didn't actually sell the newly acquired land; they distributed plots of land to farmers, and said, you work this land for five years and it's yours. Libertarians consider this the ideal way of distributing new land.
Of course, as Truman was once told, the whole world's already been explored already, so this sort of thing won't need to happen until serious colonization of the Solar System begins, if then. The basic principle behind it, however, is the important quantity when dealing with this sort of long-term land theft problem.
Ultimately, the land has changed ownership, because of the work that has been done with it by its new occupants. However, as the former occupants were wronged, financial compensation to that party must be mandatory, the exact amount probably to be determined in a court of law based on the value of the land at the time and other factors.
This should basically be considered a tactic for the transition to a completely free society; eventually, all ownership problems have been settled and no piece of private property is in question. Furthermore, stealing land and immediately working on it (say, building factories) cannot be used to forcibly acquire land in any free society for obvious reasons; also, if the original party who stole the land is still around, they should (if they still own the land) be forced to give it back (for obvious reasons), or (if they do not) be forced to provide the aforementioned financial compensation. In general, I'm discussing cases where the original thieves of the land are dead and gone, which are much more difficult because it concerns innocent people who are essentially in danger of suddenly losing their land.
This idea that pretty much all land is stolen from someone else, and that someone else in turn stole it from a third party, yea, even unto four or five generations, is the fulcrum of political philosophies like (I think) geolibertarianism and libertarian socialism, the conclusion being that all land is essentially publically owned. This is an interesting problem, and I've had it on the back burner for a while. I think I've developed a solution; not a particularly ad-hoc one either, as it's derived from several principles regarding property, particularly how newly discovered land comes into someone's possession.
There was a real world example of this. I don't remember any of the specifics, as I think I came across this story at some point during the Clinton administration. Basically, there were a group of Native Americans who claimed to own a huge portion of some state (let's say, for sake of argument, Nebraska) and wanted it back. The thing is, they were able to produce in court incontrovertible proof that yes, they did indeed, own a huge portion of Nebraska. The judge said, well, clearly you own the land, but I don't think we can just give it back to you; there are towns and schools there and such. They were offered compensation for the land, but, being Native Americans, they declined the offer and simply went away.
So, the problem here is, you have a group that has had possession of the land for a long time, but it was originally ill-gotten. My conclusion is, the group that has current ownership of the land should retain it, but not because of how long they've had the land (there's no statute of limitations on human rights), but because they've mixed the land with the work.
This is usually only an important quantity when considering initial ownership of the land. Take as an example the Louisiana Purchase. The government didn't actually sell the newly acquired land; they distributed plots of land to farmers, and said, you work this land for five years and it's yours. Libertarians consider this the ideal way of distributing new land.
Of course, as Truman was once told, the whole world's already been explored already, so this sort of thing won't need to happen until serious colonization of the Solar System begins, if then. The basic principle behind it, however, is the important quantity when dealing with this sort of long-term land theft problem.
Ultimately, the land has changed ownership, because of the work that has been done with it by its new occupants. However, as the former occupants were wronged, financial compensation to that party must be mandatory, the exact amount probably to be determined in a court of law based on the value of the land at the time and other factors.
This should basically be considered a tactic for the transition to a completely free society; eventually, all ownership problems have been settled and no piece of private property is in question. Furthermore, stealing land and immediately working on it (say, building factories) cannot be used to forcibly acquire land in any free society for obvious reasons; also, if the original party who stole the land is still around, they should (if they still own the land) be forced to give it back (for obvious reasons), or (if they do not) be forced to provide the aforementioned financial compensation. In general, I'm discussing cases where the original thieves of the land are dead and gone, which are much more difficult because it concerns innocent people who are essentially in danger of suddenly losing their land.
posted by GSJ at 4/02/2006 12:48:00 AM
1 Comments:
You seem to be ignoring the fact that people don't actually create land — no amount of labor on my part (for the foreseeable future) will generate a new plot of arable land without, say, destroying productive ocean space. So my right to retain that which I produce can't possibly apply to the land itself, but rather to those things I have produced using the land.
Adding work to property doesn't change its ownership — if I borrow a plow and use it to grow a field of crops, that doesn't make it my plow. If the case for land is different, why is that so?
Moreover, what happens to, for example, an orphan who doesn't own any property? How do you guarantee that person's right to produce for his own survival, if all land is already owned by claim and subsequent labor?
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