Homesteading

[Eugene]

I quote David Friedman:

John Locke, several centuries ago, suggested that we acquire land by mixing our labor
with it, but he did not explain how, when I clear a piece of forest, I acquire not only the increased value due to my efforts but complete ownership over the land. How, in particular, do I acquire the right to forbid you from walking across the land— something you could have done even if I had never cleared it? Later libertarian theorists have suggested other grounds for establishing ownership in land, such as claiming it or marking its boundaries. But no one, so far as I know, has presented any convincing reason why, if land starts out belonging equally to everyone, I somehow lose my right to walk on it as a result of your loudly announcing that it is yours. It is easy enough to show reasons why the conversion of common property into private property is a good thing—why it makes us better off—but it is very much harder to derive property in land from some a priori theory of natural rights. That is why, at the beginning of this book, I conceded that the basis of property in unproduced resources such as land is shaky, and argued that it does not matter very much, since only a small fraction of the income of a modern
society is derived from such resources.

Friedman makes a lot of sense here. It is not just in my opinion to banish people from an area just because you’ve cleared this area or proclaimed it is yours. What do you think?

[nirgrahamUK]

it is not unjust to prohibit someone from entering land that you own that they acknowledge they have never owned, since you infringe no ones property right. or else it seems you have divorced your sense of justice from one that inquires into property rights, please tell us more of your theory of justice.

[Eugene]

The entire village likes to visit the forest. No one ows the forest. Now comes John of a neighboring village, puts a fence around the forest and proclaims he has homesteaded it. Now the village can no longer enjoy the forest. I don’t think its fair.

[nirgrahamUK]

what does fairness have to do with justice? what is this fairness notion and why is it important? should fairness and justice come in conflict why find in favour of fairness and against justice and liberty?

[The_Freeman]

Homesteading is much easier in theory than it is in practice.

But let’s see…

Walking across land is deriving an economic good from the land. If you own the land, you can sell such a right to someone in terms of a servitude, or contract personally with someone to grant this favour. It’s normally not a terribly valuable good compared to actually living on the land, or land uses which require extensive industrial or agricultural changes to the land, but it’s a valuable economic good nonetheless.

That means that the first person who walks across a piece of land homesteads it. Where are the boundaries? Since he is simply travelling from point A to point B, he has only homesteaded a narrow path. Furthermore, he has only homesteaded it inasmuch as he intends to homestead it. If he’s only travelling through the area once before moving on to greener pastures, he has clearly abandoned the property - if he ever intended to posses it at all - and it reverts to terra nullius as soon as he leaves.

So this is only an issue if people are regularly traversing the land for their economic enrichment, and you want to come in and establish some sort of permanent residential, industrial, agricultural or similar permanent arrangement which is going to preclude their use of the land. The issue is not that they could walk across the land before you came and ‘improved’ it - the issue is that they are deriving an economic benefit from the land which cannot coexist with the economic use you intend to derive from the land. You could argue that it’s unjust to hunt wild animals or forage for wild vegetables for the same reasons David Friedman presents - why is x allowed to preclude everyone else’s hypothetical right to hunt a particular deer?

Clearly you have to buy the land from anyone who has already homesteaded a claim to it, even if this claim is only to walk across it regularly. This is where opportunity costs come into effect. If all they are doing is walking across the land, and you intend to start a gold mine, you should be able to provide them with an offer they cannot refuse, as it were. Of course they can refuse any price if they want to - that’s freedom - but in the greater scheme of things, a high enough price will sway virtually anyone.

[Jon_Irenicus]

Next to no libertarian holds to Locke’s exact formulation of homesteading. If Friedman really wants to critique a relevant view, he could pick Rasmussen and den Uyl’s neo-aristotelian system of natural rights, Hoppe’s argumentation ethics (or various other justifications for homesteading he’s offered), to name but a few.

[gocrew]

Ownership is tied to the use established for it. So for instance, if I homestead a piece of land for use as my home, I may forbid someone to walk across it on grounds of privacy. However, let’s say some scientist is doing an experiment wherein radio waves pass through my house. May he be permitted to do this? Yes, but only if it can be shown that the radio waves will not in any away detract from my enjoyment of my established use for my property.

If I establish use of a property for clearing - and perhaps regrowing - trees, may I prohibit others from wlaking on it? I prefer not to give a definitive answer, but to arrive at one we would have to determine if people walking across that property would interfere with the owner’s established use. We woudl also want to make sure that someone did not have a legitimate easement for walking across it.

[The_Freeman]

If I establish use of a property for clearing - and perhaps regrowing - trees, may I prohibit others from wlaking on it? I prefer not to give a definitive answer, but to arrive at one we would have to determine if people walking across that property would interfere with the owner’s established use.

What would happen to your forest clearing if millions of people decided to walk across it every day?

That’s why the owner has the discretion to admit only those he will allow. A right to traverse land is a real economic good that people can bid for. The landowner who arbitrarily disallows anyone from traversing his land suffers opportunity costs, but you can’t rightly say that he has no discretion to begin with regarding right of admission and transit. It’s clearly a scarce good.

[Eugene]

I agree with James. One cannot simply homestead a land that others already use, even though they did not officially claimed it. He has to buy their permission to exclude them from the land, or to acquire exclusive ownership of the piece of land they currently use.

[gocrew]

@James

The landowner who arbitrarily disallows anyone from traversing his land suffers opportunity costs, but you can’t rightly say that he has no discretion to begin with regarding right of admission and transit.

I didn’t.

[David_Friedman]

You might be interested in a piece I wrote later, dealing with the question:

Comment on Brody

The solution I offer there isn’t a very satisfactory one, but neither are the alternatives.

[Eugene]

Very interesting paper. It does seem like the right direction. Perhaps it can be developed further? As far as I know no one tried to describe a just homesteading process. Otherwise Georgists will win this argument

[Eugene]

Do you have any comments about the article that David Friedman linked to?

[Paul]

But no one, so far as I know, has presented any convincing reason why, if land starts out belonging equally to everyone,

It doesn’t start out “belonging equally to everyone”, it starts out “not belonging to anyone” (strictly speaking that is the same thing, of course: it belongs equally – i.e., not at all – to everyone; but I think that’s not the meaning most people understand when you start talking about “belonging equally to everyone”). If it “belonged equally (but non-zero) to everyone”, you couldn’t take it into private ownership because there’d be no chance to obtain the rights transfer from everyone.

[John_James]

@Eugene

I don’t think its fair.

Five words that have been used as justification for the opression of liberty for centuries.

[mikachusetts]

From Friedman’s article:

I plant wheat in a field. You come and want to plant wheat in the same field. I point out to you that the field is common property which you are welcome to use, but the wheat I have planted is my property (the result of my labor in gathering seeds, watering them so they would sprout, etc.) and you do not have the right to disturb it. Any way you can figure out to exercise your right to the field without violating my right to the wheat is fine with me. …When I “mix” my labor with the land I make it inconvenient for you to use the land without violating my right to my labor. If you figure out a way of doing so, fine. You still have the right of freedom of action, and that right is still limited, as it always was, by my right not to have my private property violated.

I agree with this insofar as the rights named are the rights that individuals actually have and not some other ones. But I don’t see any reason why any legal framework would end up with things like this:

“If every individual has the right to use all uncreated resources, then when I use force to keep you out of my living room I am violating your rights…”

I reject the premise, and I think the law would too (although probably not consistantly).

[David_K]

@Eugene

I agree with James. One cannot simply homestead a land that others already use, even though they did not officially claimed it. He has to buy their permission to exclude them from the land, or to acquire exclusive ownership of the piece of land they currently use.

Which libertarian theorist says that you need to “officially claim” a resource in order to homestead it?

Friedman writes:

“It is easy enough to show reasons why the conversion of common property into private property is a good thing—why it makes us better off—but it is very much harder to derive property in land from some a priori theory of natural rights.”

Natural-law theorists like Aquinas, Rothbard or Roderick Long do not think that morality has nothing to do with human well-being; to the contrary, these thinkers explicitly say that natural law is founded in human happiness / flourishing / “eudaimonia” or whatever they call it (see, e.g., the first part of The Ethics of Liberty).