For most other things, it’s clear to see how property rights are decided. You create something and that thing is your’s. Of course, you can trade that thing for something else and then that other thing will be your’s and the thing you created will no longer be your’s. However, it is not clear to me how we decide between competing claims on natural land that no one has owned before. Does the person that works the land own it? If this is the case, then the problem of air rights and ground rights becomes simple. What are your ideas?
Just FYI, I’m using natural land as land created by God. Land created like out in Dubai does not fall under this problem since the person who created the land owns it.
What is the difference between land created in Dubai and land created on the moon? In both cases it requires a significant capital investment to settle it.
Well there is the old-school Lockean justification that you can claim ownership over land if you “mix your labor” with it, insofar as you leave enough and as good for others. Robert Nozick revized this and said that you could claim land as property as long as you made no one else worse off than they were before the acquisition. Or more radically, you have Egoist justifications for land ownership, as proposed by Max Stirner or Benjamin Tucker, which state that any land which you are able to forcefully defend you can claim as yours. But I haven’t met very many people who supported this view of property.
In your situation, I think a general libertarian would say that whoever possessed the land first should have a claim to it, and if that was unclear then they could split the land or natural resources.
Land on the moon is created by God. Land created in Dubai is created by man. The men who created the land in Dubai own it. It is much more unclear who owns the land on the moon.
It seems to me that just decreeing that you own the land is not enough to get the land for yourself. I could claim that I own the land on Mars, but do I own it? Of course not. Does the first person who steps on the land own it? Not him either. Does the person who first builds a house own the land that he built the house on? I would say so. But what exactly is that justification? And to what extent does he own land? Does he own the land directly below his house, or does he also own some yard space?
Capital resources do not juts appear in nature. It requires action and investment to create them and supply them to the market. “Land” on its own is valueless. If you want to build a farm, or a mine, you have to invest savings. You have to secure it from predators and transform the soil to grow food. Until you do this, the place is worthless.
For example, most of Africa is open land. (It is one the least densely populated places.) But because it is so dangerous, the land has no value. If someone were to invest the considerable resources to drive away all the gangsters, then he not only would be first to get to the land, his investment and actions would entitle him to ownership.
What Stranger is saying is that some “land” is submarginal, and as such is not the subject of human action. However, if this is so it is not an economic good, which land is defined to be.
So by bringing the land into use, one is essentially asserting that it is an economic good, that it is land. The problem is that you’re getting confused wrt the meaning of the term “land”.
Someone who builds a house on a piece of land owns the right to use that house because they were the first person the use the house. The right to occupy the land on which the house rests follows from this, because one cannot use the house without occupying the land. Thus, we say that the house-builder “owns the land.” But of course this does not mean that the house-builder “owns” all the land all the way down to the core or all the airspace up to infinity, because the right to occupy these locations does not follow from the right to use the house.
Mere decree does not suffice to establish ownership over anything because it does not resolve conflicts, which is the function of property rights. If decree were sufficient, then everyone would simultaneously decree themselves ownership over the entire universe, and the problem of conflict would remain.
the first to come onto the land and put effort into its improvement get the righteous transferrable claim to it, even if it is under water or on the moon
In an anarchist society I would agree with the views of Stirner and Tucker (if you can successfully defend it, it’s yours). However, in a civilized and organized society where government assumes the role of protector it is much more difficult. The government, while not specifically staking claim to any land, does assume the responsibility of protecting specific parcels of land and, in effect, protecting individuals and their property inhabiting that land.
The only equitable way to determine land “ownership” could be by charging property fees. I say fee instead of tax because you’re paying for the government (police, military, and maybe fire department) to protect that land. The fees should be based on the area of land though, not what’s on top of the land.
There really isn’t that much of difference between land and any good. Basically, whichever party has the better link to land (or goods) is the rightful owner. Not necessarily the current occupant at all.
In an anarchist society, if my neighbors can’t successfully defend it, then that’s mine, too. [:D]
Which government are you talking about? I know of no government that does not claim specific real estate, and very few that don’t claim legal right to land they’re not actually using. About a half-mile (or 1 kilometer) from my house, government agencies have posted ‘No Trespassing’ signs on the commons, to keep mendicants from standing there, or skateboarders from using the concrete ramps.
If you pay a fee or a tax to retain control of a piece of land, you don’t own it - the entity you pay such rent to does. When I ‘bought’ my house, I didn’t actually expect to own it - I purchased the right to rent it from the local government, hoping that the rental fees would remain reasonably low. Nor do I consider the disingeniousness of calling a tax a fee to be relevant - if you must purchase a service you do not want in order to retain control over something, it’s not yours, and you’re being taxed on its basis.
In a sane society, I’d expect the first person to improve or inhabit land would have claim to ownership.