No, I don’t think it would stand up either. But I am trying to come up with worthwhile theory.
I think in a lot of ways we already do trespass, by sending out radio waves for example. If they somehow hurt someone (maybe by interferance), there would be a conflict of property rights. But in most cases, no conflict is apparent, and people can homestead the same physical space at the same time.
This brings up an interesting point. Can you forestall homesteading because you’re afraid of the risk it would represent? Certainly if everyone could be counted on to behave, there would be no issue. But I think this is a slippery slope. This leaves open the option to forcefully forestall any peaceful homesteading on the grounds that the homesteaders might act abusively.
So does forestalling homesteading count as aggression? If so, that would make all sorts of precautionary principles applicable and etc. Regardless. We are quickly running into consequentialist territory here. The principled response is to say that anyone can do anything so long as it does not infringe on another’s rights/claims.
what is odd to me is that the govt has no problem letting smeone walk to the poeples land of the grand canyon…right along the edge where you can jump off but they have ‘us property - no trespassing’ at a stupid corps of engineers lake.
in a discussion on property right and air pollution, someone tried to flip the script on me and say that there could never be something such as unowned land that could be homesteaded in a state of having a certain level of man made pollution. The person argued that by polluting from owned land onto unowned land that he was this homesteading the previously unowned land.
Surely this cannot be considered sufficient can it?
But I guess there isn’t really a way to ‘prove’ him wrong, because the actual standards would be things that have to be determined in the real world.
So he’s imagining the worst possible case where first there’s a factory, and it pollutes the whole continent before anyone can homestead it. Viva la coase theorem.
The land will be put to its most efficient use, regardless of the initial distributions of property rights. Cities will purchase pollution rights from the factory so as to make the area livable. etc etc.
Surely this cannot be considered sufficient can it?
Probably not, no. Up to courts to decide whether to uphold it. They’ll develop principles to handle what constitutes sufficient homesteading over time. At best, emitting pollution would grant you easements to pollute. Nothing more.
thats what my original argument was. That someone who homesteads land that already has a certain level of pollution coming out every year, doesn’t have a legal claim to get the polluter to stop. He would have to pay the polluter to stop.
If so, that would make all sorts of precautionary principles applicable and etc. Regardless. We are quickly running into consequentialist territory here. The principled response is to say that anyone can do anything so long as it does not infringe on another’s rights/claims.