Homesteading/original appropriation

Economics Economics Questions
1

So, I have a difficulty with homesteading that I have not seen addressed in AC writings.

This is how I understand the homesteading principle: “Everyone has the right to appropriate any unused resources to themselves and, in so doing, they come to own the unused resource.”

Now, property is an exclusive right to use something, so homesteading dovetails nicely with the definition of property in that there can be no conflicts over something which is unused so, by virtue of using a previously unused resource, the homesteader earns the property right (right to exclusive use) in that previously unused/unowned resource. This principle is particularly valuable for minimizing waste by allowing people the right to assume ownership of abandoned property - many of the things that people throw into the garbage or recycle could be put to valuable use. There is no reason that dumpster diving could not be a profitable business in its own right. Property which is not in use is not owned. Mere claims of ownership do not constitute ownership in AC theory and this is what makes it immune to the “property is theft” arguments of the Marxists since all property is property-in-use in AC theory.

But here’s where things get sticky - defining “use” is not so obvious. Does putting up a fence around a large tract of land constitute “use” of that land? If so, why couldn’t one of the early Western settlers have fenced off the state of Nevada and passed the whole thing to his heirs in perpetuity ensuring they would be spectacularly wealthy for many generations, even if they did nothing but squander their inheritance? What about a farmer who is allowing his farmland to rest for a year, as is common, do his future plans to use that ground the following year constitute “use”? When I am not driving my car, in what sense is it owned/in-use? Let’s say someone takes my car in the middle of the night for a joyride and returns it by morning with the same level of gas so that I wouldn’t even know it has been used during the night. How is that theft if I am not using the car? And so on.

Can someone help me sort out the ambiguities surrounding the definition of the word “use” and how these are resolved in AC theory? I understand that many particuars would have to be hammered out in (private) law, but I’m looking for the big-picture issues here. If I start mining a gold mine, when I’m not in the mine at night, I’m not using it, so how can I justify excluding someone else from coming in at night and cuckolding me from the mine? I hope you get the idea.

Clayton -

2

Good question.

3

If you are the first to make improvements on a piece of nature, e.g. land, then you are entitled to its ownership. If you do nothing else with it afterward, you are saving it for future use but not relinquishing ownership.

If you create a gold mine and don’t use it at night, it remains yours till the morning when you resume ‘use’ of it.

4

The fence builder owns the fence, not necessarily everything inside it. The problem does arise of how anyone can reach the homesteaded land in the middle of the fence with trespassing on the fence. Perhaps, it could be viewed as an illegal fence. If a person builds a fence around my property imprisoning me, I have the right to pass through it. A fence designed to keep people away from something the builder has no right to control might be in the same category.

First, your assumption that since ownership begins at use it ends with unuse is incorrect.

For example, your dumpster diver would be a trespasser and a thief, if the owner objected. The fact that the trash creator intends to transfer his trash to a landfill for disposal does not make it common property. What the landfill does with the trash, whether shredded private documents or sell them to the highest bidder, is a matter of contract.

Now if a piece of property falls into disownership, if no one with a link to it longer claims it, it can be rehomesteaded.

You’re right in one sense. If it were actually possible for two people to use a single item without effecting the other’s equal use, it wouldn’t be stealing. But thats not the case for real property. Though, it does happen to be true of intellectual “property”.

However, multiple people can hold non-conflict property rights over the same item. My enjoyment of solar rays does not impede on anyone else’s equal enjoyment (on their own property) so in a sense all humans are co-owners of the sun and every individual has property right in the sun that prevents any other individual from using it in any way that hinders its ability to produce light.

5

Strictly speaking, if the car was returned in exactly the same condition as it was taken, this is not theft. However, with any actual physical object, joyriding causes damage that interferes with your future right to use it.

You do own the right to use the mine (and the gold inside) in the future, and this right is interfered with by someone taking the gold at night. The rights to future actions are homesteaded in the presentand can conflict with other peoples’ present actions. To take an extreme example, killing someone in their sleep is not really violating the present rights, since they do not “experience” anything, but certainly this violates their future right to live.

Someone (I think it was Walter Block) wrote an article describing this situation as the crime of “forestalling” homesteading; that is, preventing someone from making use of unclaimed scarce resources without yourself claiming them. The way I see it, the fence-builder does not acquire the right to prevent people from accessing Nevada because this right does not exist in the first place—it does not “come with the land,” you might say. I know this sounds rather vague and wishy-washy, and raises even more questions, but whole books could be written on this topic. I’ll have to think about it some more.

6

Yes, this corresponds with my intuition, as well. The example I gave was extreme for illustrative purposes but I think you can then make an inductive argument to smaller and smaller scales - fencing off an entire county seems unreasonable, but some people have fenced off tracts of land almost that large. Another poster mentions the “crime of ‘forestalling homesteading’” which it seems reasonable to me to define as a crime since it is a sort of “aggression against everyone” by prohibiting everyone from making use of unused resources.

At what point is an unused piece of land small enough that fencing it - but not making use of it - does not constitute forestalling of homesteading?

Thank you for pointing that out, and I agree for the most part. However, let’s say I stake a claim on a gold mine and begin mining. After a few months of not finding anything, I get disheartened and give up. I abandon the mine but do not formally relinquish my claim. In the meantime, someone with a claim a few hundred yards away strikes a vein and believes that it extends into the mine which I have abandoned years ago. Why should he have to pay me when I have, for all practical intents and purposes, given up ownership of the mine by my long disuse of it?

Yes, I agree. Dumpster-diving was a poor example (I had in mind that the diver would pay the owner of the dumpster to allow him to dive.)

Well, here’s the thing. Take my mine example above. So long as no one shows interest in my mining claim, I will continue to assume it is worthless and show no further interest in it. I will move on to other things. But as soon as someone shows interest in the mine, I will (rationally) assume they have some knowledge of its value and demand payment. Now, I could have homesteaded the mine for this specific purpose, that is, as a speculation. In this case, my homesteading of the mine creates value for the same reasons that any form of speculation does. But if I simply homesteaded the mine and then effectively abandoned it, why should I be paid by the next person who comes along? How does my use of the mine, long ago, entitle me to be paid by someone else who comes later and who is doing nothing different than I did (using unused resources) when I first homesteaded it? In other words, if I abandon it (not formally) long enough, doesn’t my abandonment constitute a return of the resources to a state of unuse? If we don’t allow resources that were once used long ago to be abandoned through long disuse, then we reduce the real cost of property claims to effectively no higher than they presently are whereby drawing a line on a map constitutes a valid “claim” on real property resulting, predictably, in the massive over-production of claims in real property and the resultant inefficient disuse of natural resources. All one has to do, in this case, to become very rich on land that has not be homesteaded is drive some stakes around and scrape at the ground with their pickaxe a few times and say the land was “homesteaded” and is “in use” and that this constitutes a valid property title in perpetuity.

I agree since there is still wear and tear.

IP is bogus IMO. Please note that my paycheck is ultimately derived from IP law (I am a computer engineer), so my view on this is not flippant.

Clayton -

7

Agreed.

OK, I agree so far, except that my primary concern is how long into the future does my present use guarantee my ownership? If we say forever (at least, until I die), then the problem arises that this reduces the costs of making property claims virtually to nothing and property claims will be overproduced (even as they are in our present property system in which original homestead claims had almost zero cost).

I think the real issue still hinges on the word “use” and exactly what it means to use any property, especially real property. I think abandonment is also just as important as homesteading since if no period of disuse constitutes “common law abandonment” (to abusively and ignorantly coin my own legal phrase), then the costs of making property claims is almost zero and property claims will be overproduced leading, effectively, to the rampant “forestalling of homesteading” that occurs in our present system.

Here’s another brain twister. Think of a for-profit nature preserve - this is land that is owned specifically for the purpose of not being used! In an anarchic society, it is perfectly natural to assume that certain spectacular land features or areas with extraordinary biodiversity would be purchased by private organizations like Greenpeace for the express purpose of being preserved. Yet, this “preservation” constitutes purposeful disuse! Nevertheless, it is obviously valuable to society that this disuse occur since people will willingly part with their own wealth in order to fund it.

If anyone can point me to any scholarly work that devles into depth on these issues of defining “use” and “abandonment” I would be highly appreciative.

Clayton -

8

‘use’ of property needs to be understood teleologically not mechanically. once done your dilemmas about nature parks go away.

9

OK, but then the claim of AC theory of property that property claims are not costless go out the window. A teleological definition of “use” would require only a statement to the effect of what end or purpose the individual claiming to own the property is putting it. If so, property claims are basically costless since anyone can make such claims all day long basically for free.

I’m not trying to be difficult, just trying to get to the heart of this issue of defining “use.” I don’t think it’s as easy as it at first seems to be. I am beginning to suspect there would need to be an entire corpus of property law developed specifically around this philosophy of “property claim through use/mixing labor” to define exactly what constitutes use in the myriad scenarios in which people make property claims.

Clayton -

10

you can’t overproduce ‘property claims’… i don’t really understand what you are saying.

11

You probably mean de facto abandonment.

Holding property always has a cost. Even if it costs you zero dollars to maintain ownership, by holding it idle and not selling it, you are losing potential income.

The Problem of Land Theft

The Appropriation of Raw Land

This is actually a problem with the Lockean conception of property that homesteading resolves. It is not necessary to “mix nature with labor” in order to use it. There types of nature that are used, but are never transformed from their natural state. (eg the sun)

A nature preserve is a type of property, while wilderness is not. Greenpeace can not choose a remote untouched region as its preserve, it would have to be some location that they are somehow linked to and have the ability to control.

Title

Possession is the actual holding of a thing, whether or not one has any right to do so. The right of possession is the legitimacy of possession (with or without actual possession), the evidence for which is such that the law will uphold it unless a better claim is proven. The right of property is that right which, if all relevant facts were known (and allowed), would defeat all other claims. Each of these may be in a different person.

For example, suppose A steals from B, what B had previously bought in good faith from C, which C had earlier stolen from D, which had been an heirloom of D’s family for generations, but had originally been stolen centuries earlier (though this fact is now forgotten by all) from E. Here A has the possession, B has an apparent right of possession (as evidenced by the purchase), D has the absolute right of possession (being the best claim that can be proven), and the heirs of E, if they knew it, have the right of property, which they cannot prove. Good title consists in uniting these three (possession, right of possession, and right of property) in the same person(s).

Now, if the financed automobile referenced above was purchased by a company and was being loaned out by a car rental organization, the person who rented the vehicle would have possession; the rental company would be the registered owner and have right of possession, while again, the lienholder would have right of property.