A group of individuals can own property. Surely you wouldn’t deny that, for denial would fly in the face of reality.
Then that is no longer common property.
I believe so, communal ownership at the local level. And the thing is, I believe she was an Austrian economist (don’t quote me on that) according to FEE (I believe, don’t quote me on that).
If I own a plot of land and my neighbour owns an adjacent plot of land, then we commonly own both plots of land, right? Can you think of an example of common ownership that could not be resolved into seperate individual ownership? Because, I’m pretty sure that is what would fly in the face of reality.
I haven’t read both of Long’s works. I don’t think it’s worth the time. I’m pretty sure that for praxeological reasons, property is always individually owned. Only individuals can have possession and control over economic goods (i.e. property). Describing property as commonly owned, and meaning other than an aggregate of individual ownership, entails a holistic fallacy.
A group of people pool their money and buy some land. You can resolve this into individual ownership of a kind if you like, but I see no reason that that’s a better way of looking at it than the obvious way of describing it. Will their use of the land be inefficient? Probably - but inefficiency is not necessarily a reason not to do something, if you don’t wish to earn the maximum profit, but merely to be happy, and this makes you happy.
Now a worker’s co-op is a different story, because it itself introduces some efficiencies and it isn’t so clear that it is less efficient than, say, a corporation.
What exactly are you saying, though? What are the implications of this?
Do individuals own the property of the Ludwig von Mises Institute? Or is the Mises Institute an induvidual? Or something else?
I am saying that either common ownership is shorthand for a number of individuals owning property each individually in the same way that an organization owns property or else the concept is fallacious, as it is used by Long and Holcombe.
It would seem to me that communal property could be as simple as a two-man partnership or as complex as a complete town owning something. Whether either works well or not seems to me to depend upon the incentive structure that is imposed on the effort. A partnership can succeed or fail based on project choice and then incentives. But so can a town, based on the same two factors. In general, partnerships should succeed more often than towns because their motive is profit (presumably) and that provides a guidebook for how decisions should be made and whether in fact they are successful. Presumably the residual value problem is less in a partnership where partners have invested up front in the hopes of getting something on the back end. The communal issue for a partnership is also simpler where it is only partners and their families or approved close friends. To that extent it may work similar to a private golf club.
A town effort implies that everyone living within certain boundaries are members. “Investment” presumably came from taxes, allowing all to think they are owners and meddle in the management. It is harder to push a profit goal because of the tax dollars. It is also harder to get agreement when no one is an owner, perhaps no one has organizational or business skills and every parent has a different idea of how the place should be run. No one has any “skin” in the game and the residual values are minute when divided over so many more “owners.” Furthermore, the residual value may never come in the sense that the entity theoretically has an infinite life like a corporation. A few members cannot vote to terminate it. Only if it cannot be funded by continued tax dollars or not be self-supporting will it close. Then, presumably there is no residual value (land reverts back to the town).
I am absolutely certain communal property would continue to exist in a free market.
Common areas in condos, apartment complexes, and cooperatives are great examples of very common forms in which communal property exists on an entirely voluntary basis today. There is absolutely nothing that would suggest it would not exist if the state were eliminated. Without a doubt, it would continue to exist. No one is being harmed. Furthermore, if you were to ‘not allow it’, it would require violence.
I have suggested this in the past as a simple way to deal with subdivision/city roads as well. When a contractor constructs the neighborhood and begins selling the property, it would be feasible to include a stipulation which includes joint ownership over the roads. Further stipulations could include anything from security to yard maintenance to nothing at all. This would all be decided by the consumer the contractor is attempting to satisfy.
I have even developed a simple term which helps me to explain it to people. I call it “voluntary government”- though it has absolutely nothing to do with the coercive government or the state we have today. I even utilize the terms “coercive government” to further the dichotomy between the two. It helps people who don’t have any grasp of Anarcho-Capitalism or voluntaryism understand my points without looking at me like I am nuts.
[:D]
Have a good one! You are definitely on the right track!
I am a Realtor. My understanding of contractual cooperatives and communes is completely at odds with what you have said. It is certainly permissible to contract with multiple people for a single piece of property. See my post above. [:D]
Well a commune owns property in the same way an organisation like a chess club or a volunteer fire department owns property. Except the charter of a commune is ussually an unwritten one. Maybe you can transliterate this into fancy words and we will have answered the question?
The fancy word is ‘contract’.
But of course! A great reminder.
An air raid shelter that some apartment blocks have is a great example of communal property. If you wanted to divy it up into small parcels it would have to be an anonymous decision of all the apartment owners.
Not to mention the stairways and the hallways themselves. 
You said a group cannot own anything, yet clearly a group of individual can, given that non-stock corporations can have multiple people listed as owners, as well as many sports teams have multiple people listed as owners. Reality, it seems, is not what you phrased it to be. Perhaps in the future you will choose your words much more carefully. Do I make myself clear?
Good call. That must indeed be it.
Just as long we understand that there can be an unwritten, tradition-based contract.
The best source of reading that I know of describing joint ownership of anything is Harry Brown’s “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World”.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/kramer4.html
I think it was copyrighted around 1973, was out of print for a time, and I understand it is back in print. I also think a free PDF download might be somewhere on the web but I don’t know where.
Joint ownership is fine, but know the hazards (disagreements, fraud on the part of one or more partners, etc. etc.) before you sign.
Samarami
Long addresses something like this argument:
“One common libertarian objection to public property—and particularly, public ownership of land—is that the whole idea makes no sense: a resource cannot be collectively owned unless every part of the resource admits of simultaneous use by all members of the collective…”
Go ahead, look in the telescope.
You obviously don’t understand the point about methodological individualism, how it applies to ownership, or why Long and Holcombe are wrong. What you’ve made clear is that you’re not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.