Let’s just say I randomly find a brand new continent (or planet, or whatever large, unclaimed area you choose). What are the limits to my homesteading it? Could i just, for example, claim the entire continent by fencing it off, or even just marking a map? I anticipate somebody saying “homesteading is applying labor to some unused portion of land,” but who’s to say whether I’m using it or not, right? Do I have to immediately use it in order to say that it’s actually mine, or am I allowed to hold onto it until I’m ready to use it in 5 or 10 years? If it’s really mine, it shouldn’t matter what I do with it, but then what’s to stop somebody from claiming, say, the moon, just in case his descendents ever want it? Is it like calling shotgun: you have to be close to it to call it?
Is there somewhere where this question is treated a little more thoroughly? And yes I recognize how impractical these questions are; just curious.
Do I have to immediately use it in order to say that it’s actually mine, or am I allowed to hold onto it until I’m ready to use it in 5 or 10 years?
Yes. The land wouldn’t be homesteaded unless you actually use it (and mark it), otherwise multiple people could claim that they were just waiting until they were ready (conflict).
Is there somewhere where this question is treated a little more thoroughly? And yes I recognize how impractical these questions are; just curious.
Here is a neat paper by M. Garrett Roth, it doesn’t cover everything you want, its interesting nonetheless.
Right that definitely makes sense. I guess my question is more, “what constitutes use?” I’m envisioning something like a farsighted pioneer finding unclaimed land, marking his territory so to speak, and “using” it in a very superficial way just for the purpose of holding onto it. Would this be legitimate homesteading?
Would soil analysis on a 30,000 acre potential Jurassic Park be considered homesteading? Or would I have to fence it all in in order to have homesteaded it?
I can think of a dozen other questions like this, which is why I’m probably better off with whatever somebody like a Hoppe wrote on the subject. If anybody knows, that would be great.
Edit Sorry about that I didn’t see your link there at the bottom. Thanks very much, I’ll take a look at that paper.
Right that definitely makes sense. I guess my question is more, “what constitutes use?” I’m envisioning something like a farsighted pioneer finding unclaimed land, marking his territory so to speak, and “using” it in a very superficial way just for the purpose of holding onto it. Would this be legitimate homesteading?
“Use” in this sense would be defined through common law. Hoppe has written on the subject - The Economics and Ethics of Private Property - Block as well has written some wonderful things, but I don’t think anyone has answered all of your questions.
Fencing would only cover the area that the fence rests upon. I could plant a 3m circle of fence on the moon (perhaps where the astronauts landed), and claim that I was just demarking the inside of the circle as land that is not mine. Due to the nature of a sphere, I would have technically “fenced in” the rest of the space, but I would not have mixed my labor with anything except the physical space occupied by the fence.
Ownership isn’t an inherent property of reality. There’s nothing that can be said to be truly yours aside from yourself. All external ownership is a mental construct only.
That being said, the question arises: which concepts of ownership are most conducive to humanity? Libertarians argue that something can only be thought of as owned by someone when, in the first instance, he has “homesteaded” it. Well, what does “homesteaded” mean? The term comes from medieval common law (if not earlier), where a person could be said to own a vacant plot of land if he farmed it and built a house on it to live in. Later writers generalized this concept, in which case any expenditure of human activity, or labor, on something made it owned by the person who made the expenditure.
When it comes to land, however, what expenditure of labor is enough to establish ownership? Land is tricky because it’s uncountable. There are no objective “land units” as there are “apple units” or even “people units”. It seems, then, that one can only own land that one has somehow labored directly over.
So in the case of fencing off an area of land, one can’t be said to actively establish ownership over all the land enclosed. However, fencing it off may well deter others from somehow using (part of) it. Typically such enclosures are done because the encloser wants to use the land inside.
I like to use one of the analogies I read from a daily, forgot which one, but it compared homesteading to rolling out a tarp to watch a parade. What happens if you roll out a giant tarp taking up a HUGE space for viewing the parade? People will most likely ignore your tarp and even “homestead” on top of your tarp. My guess is that would likely happen to you if you tried to fence off such an arbitrary amount of land. People will just ignore your fence and settle in around you, given you cover such a large area you probably wouldn’t notice either. The only thing that would really deter people from ignoring your fence is if you have nearby facilities or obvious signs of mixed labor with the land, such as farmland or roads etc..
Thanks for all the feedback. I’ll repost one of the scenarios I listed above and elaborate a bit:
“Would soil analysis on a 30,000 acre potential Jurassic Park be considered homesteading? Or would I have to fence it all in in order to have homesteaded it?”
I had just heard the Jurassic Park theme song so it was on my mind
But let’s say I do find some island that would be a perfect fit for my theme park, and let’s say that it is already owned by somebody else. If I purchase that island from that person, with the intent to first research and develop my park, and begin construction in 5 years, there is no problem, correct? I own the title to that land by virtue of having bought it from the previous owner, and as the owner I can choose to let it lie untouched for decades, if I so choose, or I can immediately make changes.
But what if we make just one change to the scenario and say that the land was unowned, and I have discovered it? Does this mean I need to rush through development and begin construction on my site NOW, just so that it’s clear to everybody that I own it? That seems sort of weird to me. In other words, could one claim to be homesteading that island abstractly, by using blueprints etc to show that, yes in 6 years we will begin construction, or is homesteading by definition a physical process?
I feel like domain names might be a helpful corrollary, but I’m not exactly sure how…
You wouldn’t need to rush construction necessarily, you would just have to mark the boundaries and keep them up over the 6 years. So yes, physical interaction with the land would be necessary.
Strictly speaking, land isn’t produced by anyone – unless it’s reclaimed from the sea, as in the Netherlands.
Strictly speaking then land cannot be owned.
Economically, land is not part of the economy until someone finds it, and why would anyone go looking for it if he does not own the product of his search?
It is completely a matter of local customs. There is no use or need to armchair this. Law is not something that springs ex nihilo from the brow of Rothbardians.
Law is custom based on schools of thought. If libertarian schools of thought are not fully developed, we will have no right to complain when our thought is not represented. I intend to have the right to complain.
Law is custom based on schools of thought. If libertarian schools of thought are not fully developed, we will have no right to complain when our thought is not represented. I intend to have the right to complain.
No. Procedural and dispensational elements of law are, sometimes, based on theory. But the substantive and practiced elements - such as property boundaries, norms and defaults for contract re-negotiation, payment standards for tort punishments, etc. are a product of customary and professional action; generally derived from whatever is acceptable to the parties involved. This armchairing is bizarre and pointless. I seriously recommend reading more about legal theory and history, for example Lon L. Fuller, before attempting going forward with this a priori nonsense.
Stephan Kinsella holds similar views to me on this, as does essentially everyone who has actually studied customary law. This is a serious weakness in the libertarian movement, and stems from the same kind of misguided absolutism that makes people fear the market in security because we can not name specifics of how private protection will be generated. We do not need to, nor would it be desirable for there to be ‘one law’. There will be multiple laws and norms which reflect the interests and agreements of the people involved. Trying to dictate how many hectares you can homestead by dropping salt from a helicopter is ludicrous.
