I don’t see how that’s the case. I think a lord can live on the land he’s lord over and still be a lord. Most here seem to think it right that we honor the wishes of dead people in the distribution of what was formerly their wealth, so the fact that property is intergenerational does not make it illegitimate, to you. Perhaps Feudalism is the wrong term, but a agreement between price-fixing landLORDS doesn’t sem so unlikely to me.
I don’t see how land itself is ever the product of labor. That is part of the issue at hand.
It is not necessary that all do so, or that the land buyers are a pre-defined group. The group can be formed afterwards as a price-fixing scheme after the fact. Nor is it necessary, as I stated in another post, that all owners in the territory sell. It is only necessary that, firstly, the large landowners collectively own a significant portion of the land, and secondly, that all the land is claimed by someone or another. Smaller landowners will not be able to provide employment for large groups of people. If there are fewer useful properties available than people who need to use those means of production, those people who do not own MUST work for someone who does, and the ones who will provide that will be the ones who have resources in excess of their own needs or ability to physically, personally exploit. People will have to work for the large landowners, and if the large landowners agree to, as I said, a price-fixing scheme, that could leave the average employee with no options but to work under miserable conditions or starve. The large landowners, acting in concert, and with economies of scale, would be able to squeeze out many of the smaller land owners.
Land, in the Georgist sense, is never the product of labour. This, however, does not really matter. Human beings exist on this Earth with only the ownership of their persons. When a person mixes his labour with unowned land, however, it is called homesteading.
I, as a God fearing man, believe that land is the product of providence, but that providence created land without any assignment of land to anyone, and thus to no one. It takes man to transform the land and make it his own.
Agreed, and not only this, but the Georgist must advance a theory that creating value is what entitles one to a piece of homesteaded property. If such a creationist account of homesteading is rejected in favour of own which does not fall apart when trying to defend market competition, then creating value need not be the reason why one owns what they homestead, as opposed to mere labour-mixture.
Why are OTHERS allowed to claim community ideas and community standards, but not us ancaps? The local community decides if a claim is legitimate or not by whether or not they recognize it, or by using the legal system (common or customary system) to challenge the claim before the public. Then the claimant has to justify his claim before others–he doesn’t get a free ride simply because he claimed it first, although that does give a strong presumption on his side. “Local” is subjective, depending upon who is concerned or affected by it. Somebody claiming a few acres along an otherwise barren out of the way place is unlikely to be upsetting as many people as someone who claims miles and miles of land on a new frontier.
Of course, that’s just about homesteading unowned land. Once ownership is claimed, even if someone managed to make an unusually large claim without being challenged, then other factors, like the value and use of the land come into play. If you’ve claimed more than you can manage, you’re probably going to be in over your head, and will make little or no profit from the land, and it may even end up being a net loss. Other people may think they can manage the land better and offer you more than it’s worth to you and if they’re right, they will put the land to more productive use and profit from it. And, of course, land is divisible, so the original claimant doesn’t necessarily have to sell all of his land, just enough to get it down to a manageable size. Naturally, if it’s more land than one man can own, he’ll need to work with partners or employees, and they won’t work with him merely because he owns land, but because they’re getting an equitable deal or arrangement to work the land. All this modern “Lordship” stuff is just the bunk of a limited imagination.
Thus, there IS a land market, based on the value and use of the land, and this provides strong incentives to balance out unfavorable land claims.