When a person plants a field, that person uses land which he did not create to make space for the vegetables that he grows. Since land was not created by people, every person has the right to walk on any piece or land (land being unowned). In our case, the land is being occupied by the field, so people who want to travel to that piece of land, won’t be able to do this without damaging the field. Morally I believe the person who occupies the land for his own purposes should compensate those people who want to use it. In practice I’m not sure it is possible to verify who would have liked to travel or use the land, so I don’t know if this can be enforced or makes sense to do so. What is your opinion on this?
Explain why someone has to “create” something to own it. And while you’re at it, you might want to define what you mean by that word.
Owning something implies that you have the right to use force against other people. The use of force shouldn’t be taken lightly and it needs serious justification. If you created an object, I believe this justifies your use of force against other people in case they use the object without your permission. Simple occupation of land is not enough to justify the use of force, because land is not a fruit of your creation or labor.
What do you mean by creating an object?
First, practically all creation is rearrangement. Nothing is created ex nihilo.
Also, how do you determine the objective boundaries of this object? I may put a flag on Australia, and claim I created Australia with a flag, thus this new object (Australia with a flag) belongs to me.
When you rearrange raw materials to create a computer, you deny others the use of these materials. This is unjust, but the level of injustice is so small, that I don’t think you should compensate anyone for that. However, when you plant a huge field on some attractive central land, then you make it impossible for other people to use the land for building appartment buildings or offices. This causes serious damage to the wellbeing of other people, and I think you owe them some sort of compensation.
So basically it all boils down to a judgement call, lacking any objective criteria?
It is a continuum, as with many things in libertarian theory (such as level of noise allowed)
a) Why?
b) You still haven’t defined “create an object”
Why does it have to be a “fruit of your creation or labor”?
You know what, forget it. I won’t even make you answer that. Instead explain to me how one can “create” something out of nothing.
You already compensated the owner of the materials for your computer by buying them from him. The system by which everyone (a hive mind) owns everything and where anyone using anything could only “rent” it from “everyone” with “their” consent is called communism.
The amount of atoms being rearranged is irrelevant.
I’ll give you an example:
Suppose you are stranded on a small island with 10 more people. At the beginning you have the right to walk anywhere on the island, even though you don’t exercise this right because you are too busy with survival. But then someone uses the vast majority of the island to plant a field. Your potential freedom of movement is dramatically decreased because of that. That’s definitely infringement of your rights.
Since land was not created by people, every person has the right to walk on any piece or land
So we can’t create the concept of ownership or property, but we can create a concept of rights? I think you are capable of thinking a little more clearly than that.
How did you acquire this right? Why just the right to walk anywhere on the island and not the whole planet, the universe, my dining room, or just walk straight through me? After all, my very existence causing your inability to stand (or walk through) where I stand right now must be an infringement of these rights of yours too, no?
You’d think so, but…
Its not that you have the right to travel everywhere, but people shouldn’t have the right to use force to stop you from doing this. It is the use of force that needs to be justified.
Actually, everything was created ex nihilo, but that’s another topic entirely.
I didn’t create the berry I pick off the bush. Does that mean everyone has the right to eat it?
The fact is, I claim the berry by picking it, because I intend to use it, and from then on I can morally exclude others from its use in pursuit of my purpose with it. Because it was in a state of nature.
Similarly with land, I claim it and use it and exclude others.
That’s how it works.
Then I claim all uninhabited parts of the earth.
No that’s not how it works. You need to justify the right to prevent others from using natural resource. Intention to use is not enough. You can state that you intend to use the entire Sahara desert as a place for travel once every few years. This doesn’t give you the right to prevent others from going there.
So what is required for justification? Labor is required, but its not always enough. If you want to prevent others from using large amounts of expensive resources, your justification has to be really really good.
In the island example, you can justify using most of the island for farming as long as other people won’t need some of the space you currently occupy.
How is any of this libertarian?
You can’t reasonably work or oversee all such areas, so your claim would be rejected by all. The point of the claim is to avoid stepping on other’s toes who also have claims. Making a claim that excludes all other claims would be ridiculous. I said you need to use labor to ‘use’ it, naturally. You respect my claim, I respect yours.
But between the time you announce your claim to an area and finish working that area (say for farming), there is a substantial amount of unused land sitting there apparently unused but it has been claimed already, and there needs be protection from claim jumpers simply moving in. So we have claims as communication to avoid conflict up-front.
Now, the way this has been handled in the past is government will take de facto ownership of unused land and grand it out and administer claims. Naturally, being who we are, we want to avoid that.
Perhaps we could create free-market associations which deal with unclaimed land regionally and allow people to both post claims and bid on land, sort of a clearing-house. It would setup its own rules and act as a sort of pre-court assocation to prevent conflict in the claims process. The old west had these; they were setup iirc at post offices. Anyone could hit the local post office and see the claims maps.
Eugene. How about instead of continuing to dance around and introduce new “examples” and nonsense, you actually answer some questions that have been posed to you…
a) Why?
b) You still haven’t defined “create an object”
Why does it have to be a “fruit of your creation or labor”? Also, explain to me how one can “create” something out of nothing.