I think the problem with my argument is that I haven’t provided a detailed enough counter example. So let me do that and clarify what I gather are the important points in my first example. Let’s consider two situations: Situation A and Situation B.
Situation A
This is the landlord situation that I have outlined in my previous posts, so I won’t repost everything here. Through our discussion, I think we have agreed on the following points:
-
A contract exists between the landlord and the construction workers.
-
Only one worker signed the contract, but the contract is binding to the other workers because the other workers have signed a contract with the worker-employer.
-
The contract includes these three clauses:
A. The landlord will pay the construction workers a designated amount.
B. The construction workers will build a house according to the specifications of the landlord in within the designated area.
C. The land and materials worked by the workers in fulfilling the terms of the contract will be the property of the landlord.
- Clauses A and B constitute prices each party pays. Clause C determines ownership.
Situation B
For situation B, I’d like to use a situation that Murray Rothbard describes in these words:
"In the United States, we have been fortunate enough to largely escape continuing aggression in land titles. It is true that originally the English Crown gave land titles unjustly to favored persons (for example, the territory roughly of New York State to the ownership of the Duke of York), but fortunately these grantees were interested enough in quick returns to subdivide and sell their lands to the actual settlers. As soon as the settlers purchased their land, their titles were legitimate, and so were the titles of all those who inherited or purchased them. Later on, the United States government unfortunately laid claim to all virgin land as the “public domain,” and then unjustly sold the land to speculators who had not earned a homestead title. But eventually these speculators sold the land to the actual settlers, and from then on, the land title was proper and legitimate."
http://mises.org/daily/4047
From this we can infer the following points:
-
A contract exists between the Crown and the settlers (i.e. he says they “purchased” the land).
-
Only “favored persons” (may have) signed the contract, but the contract is binding to the actual settlers because the actual settlers have signed a contract with the favored persons.
-
The contract includes these three clauses:
A. The settlers will pay the Crown a designated amount (This may occur via the favored persons). The settlers may settle the designated area. If they do, Clause B and Clause C apply.
B. The Crown will provide the settlers with all services it provides to such citizens in the designated area (e.g. defense).
C. The land and materials worked by the settlers in fulfilling the terms of the contract will be the property of the Crown.
- Clauses A and B constitute prices each party pays. Clause C determines ownership.
I suspect that our only disagreement–correct me if I’m wrong–is over Clause C of Situation B. Is Clause C in the contract? Here are two reasons why I think so:
-
The Crown claims that the designated land is already a part of the British Empire. The Crown would have to specify that the contract removes the designated land from its claim. Otherwise, Clause C is implicitly there.
-
Clause B specifies that the Crown provide the settler with a never ending amount of service while Clause A only specifies that the settler pay a finite amount of money. If the Crown is to offer Clause B, it seems reasonable that it would do so with a separate clause providing it with a never ending supply of tax revenue. Clause C provides this ability.
Rothbard provides a more detailed description of Situation B in the following article about William Penn and the settling of Pennsylvania: http://mises.org/daily/1865
“In his quest for such a charter, Penn was aided by the fact that the Crown had owed his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, the huge sum of 16,000 pounds for loans and back salary. In March 1681 the king agreed to grant young William, the admiral’s heir, proprietary ownership of the lands west of the Delaware River and north of the Maryland border in exchange for canceling the old debt.”
We see that Clause A is present here (Penn essentially pays the Crown 16,000 pounds).
“The Privy Council could veto Pennsylvania’s actions, and the Crown, of course, could hear appeals from litigation in the colony.”
The latter falls under Clause B.
“The Navigation Acts had to be enforced, and there was an ambiguous provision implying that England could impose taxes in Pennsylvania.”
This provision, along with the one establishing the authority of the Privy Council, clearly supports the presence of Clause C.
Now the question is, Did the actual settlers sign with Penn or did they make their way to the land themselves and settle without permission (thus avoiding the contract and obligation to honor Clause C)? Here is what Rothbard says:
"Penn was anxious to promote settlement as rapidly as possible, both for religious (a haven to Quakers) and for economic (income for himself) reasons, Penn advertised the virtues of the new colony far and wide throughout Europe. Although he tried to impose quitrents and extracted selling prices for land, he disposed of the land at easy terms. The prices of land were cheap. Fifty acres were granted to each servant at the end of his term of service. Fifty acres also were given for each servant brought into the colony. Land sales were mainly in moderate-sized parcels. Penn soon found that at the rate of one shilling per hundred acres, quitrents were extremely difficult to collect from the settlers. Induced by religious liberty and relatively cheap land, settlers poured into Pennsylvania at a remarkably rapid rate, beginning in 1682."
The settlers must have signed a contract since they “bought” the land. Further, Rothbard states that Penn wanted to “sell” the land in order to produce tax revenue for himself. Thus, he must have included Clause C.
Curiously, Rothbard goes on to state the following:
“He soon found his expectations of large proprietary profits from the vast royal grant to be in vain. For the people of the struggling young colony of Pennsylvania extended the principles of liberty far beyond what Penn was willing to allow. The free people of Pennsylvania would not vote for taxes, and simply would not pay the quitrents to Penn as feudal overlord. … The laws had called for a small payment to the councillors, but, typically, it was found to be almost impossible to extract these funds from the populace.”
So the people who signed the contract started to violate it, just like the construction worker descendant who claims the landlord’s house and the tenant who refuses to leave. And what does Rothbard say of this contract violation?
"the reality must be faced that the new, but rather large, colony of Pennsylvania lived for the greater part of four years in a de facto condition of individual anarchism, and seemed none the worse for the experience. … Pennsylvanians persisted in their de facto anarchism by blithely and regularly evading the royal navigation laws [i.e. the laws that the contract specified must be kept]."
So violating a contract constitutes an act of anarchism. And what’s more, violating such a contract is a good thing!
“William Penn had the strong and distinct impression that his “holy experiment” had slipped away from him, had taken a new and bewildering turn. Penn had launched a colony that he thought would be quietly subject to his dictates and yield him a handsome profit. … Unable to collect revenue from the free and independent-minded Pennsylvanians, he saw the colony slipping gracefully into outright anarchism … Penn frantically determined to force Pennsylvania back into the familiar mold of the old order.”
Penn sounds a lot like the landlord in my example, no?
So am I missing something here or is Rothbard contradicting himself?