How to homestead a national park...

Economics Political Theory
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No fuckin clue..

My brain + Rothbard = How do you mix labor with a bunch of land that you, essentially, do not want to mix labor with, but conserve the current state of.

I don’t think this is impossible, but I was just meditating and contemplating (getting baked) and I just can’t seem to think of a scenario where one could homestead a bunch of land to not use it.

And if so, would one have to use it first (ex. homestead a field into a crop), then create a conservation?
Would fencing in an area constitute the mixing of labor?
If not (which I believe wouldn’t, and I think this example has already surfaced) - how could one, in a free market, homestead or appropriate that said property to conserve?

Sorry to rehash this, I looked for the older thread first…

Homesteading for a natural reserve
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Maybe if one uses the park as a function…one can use the park as a tourist attraction… one can use it for camping trips… the person who owns the park can offer services to schools so they can study nature or provide summer camp services. I would say all of these examples is mixing your labor with the land and stil conserving the land…

Fencing an area isn’t necessarily mixing your labor with the land within the fenced area… Walter Block talks about this in almost all, if not all, of his homesteading lectures…

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Put markers on every tree. Put netting over fields. Place signs around. Essentially create things that you could bring forward in a court to argue that you were using the land prior to the person with whom you have a dispute.

Also, have you seen the film Princess Mononoke?

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Make some money, build some walkways and take care of the place. Claim you own it as a preserve, and if enough people tolerate it for a long enough time then you become the owner. That’s how homesteading works, not this alchemical nonsense about mixing labor.

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I too think fencing off an area for the explicit purpose of doing absolutely nothing with it is problematic.

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I’d say you could get away with it if it’s a limited area, people put up with it and you set yourself up as a conservatory. Basically your job would be keeping it clean and intact; rock and tree maintenance.

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Thanks for the replies everyone.

@Aristippus -

No, I haven’t but I’ll check it out.

I see what your saying with the ‘marking of trees’, but I still see a problem should someone decide that a lack of your markings on every single tree or rock indicates a lack of homesteading.
I believe that same ‘lack of homesteading’ is along the lines of what Walter Block speaks about when he talks about the ‘fencing in’ scenario.

@Izzy -

If one were to use this space as a camping site, he would definitely have to do some mixing of his labor (ex: build roads, clear areas, restrooms, a dock if theres a lake - which could defeat the purpose of the conservation), but if that’s the case, why must I offer services with my property? Is that not dictating what I may, or may not do with it?

I own studio gear, but owning it dosen’t require me to offer recording services to people.

@Ricky James -

Again, why do I have to build something on and/or modify a location I am trying to conserve, just to ‘convince’ the people around me that the property is mine? And since when does the just ownership of property include the whims and toleration of others?

Me, I own a lot of herb. A lot..
Now, someone dosent have to like, nor tolerate, my habits or use of my property, but their disapproval certainly does not constitute a lack of proper ownership.

As for the mystical labor mixing, I don’t think that I would own a bunch of picked berries just because ‘people tolerate it long enough’. I mixed my labor with an unowned berry bush, there my goddamn berries, even if someone believes that “we all own the berries”.

If it comes down to toleration, then it should work the other way, but a factory doesn’t justly transfer to the workers just because they might not recognize or tolerate the owner’s right to his own factory.

Also, assuming that people “put up with the ownership” of this said location, how much is “a limited area” - and who gets to make that call?

And what the hell is rock maintenance?
When I Google that, I find landscapers, who hardly work in the ‘conservation market’, but residential/commercial establishments..

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@Sonik

the whole purpose of homesteading is that you mix your labor with the land… if you do not mix your labor, you do not homestead it. You can still conserve the land even by mixing your labor with it, I do not see how it defeats the purpose of conservation. If by conservation you mean that you NEVER touch the land you “homesteaded,” then I would say you did not properly homestead it because you HAVE to mix your labor with it.

Now you ask " if that’s the case, why must I offer services with my property? Is that not dictating what I may, or may not do with it?" The answer is no because it is not your property… Again, you have to be mixing your labor in order to homestead property, if you did not mix your labor, you are not an owner.

“I own studio gear, but owning it dosen’t require me to offer recording services to people.”… Yes but chances are that you probably BOUGHT the studio gear…that is much different than homesteading…

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@Izzy

Thanks for the fast reply. I like your posts dude.

Fair enough on the studio gear, but whether I traded for it or homesteaded the equipment, the principle of me owning it still applies. And if I own it, I should be able to do, or not do, what I want with it.

As for conservation meaning that we never touch the land - I think thats what some conservationists actually mean - conserve and leave the land unaltered. One of the worlds best natural conservations is the DMZ in Korea. Too bad its maintained by the threat of force.

Regardless, whether I want to till every spec of dirt, or gently rub my finger on every 3rd tree - assuming I can homestead it, its my property and I will do as I see fit.

When you say that it cannot be properly homesteaded in this fashion (ie: lack of homesteading), you reiterate my point.

If we cant mix our labor with something, it seems to fail the criteria of homesteading.
If we do mix our labor with it, it seems to fail the criteria of conservation.

Again, I don’t dispute that one could ‘create’ a campground, but its hard to imagine someone creating an unaltered state of nature - and then charge a fee.

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I personally believe the feeling that one needs to conserve land in a “pristine” state of nature comes from the false dichotomy between man and nature. But, that’s just me.

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“I see what your saying with the ‘marking of trees’, but I still see a problem should someone decide that a lack of your markings on every single tree or rock indicates a lack of homesteading.
I believe that same ‘lack of homesteading’ is along the lines of what Walter Block speaks about when he talks about the ‘fencing in’ scenario.”

I was trying to suggest that the question of property is only important when it comes to disputes. Thus I was pointing to measures that would indicate one’s ownership to, for example, a body of arbitration.

Watch Mononoke and then answer me this: Do you think - from a libertarian perspective - that the anthropomorphic beasts had the right of property ownership over the forest? Did the humans have the right to simply take the forest by force? What evidence of homesteading is there for each side?

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@Sonik,

thanks for the compliment…

“whether I traded for it or homesteaded the equipment, the principle of me owning it still applies. And if I own it, I should be able to do, or not do, what I want with it.”

opps… you caught me off guard :p… Yes, you are right the law applies whether it is ownership by homestead or trade but you initally used the “studio equipment” example to show that since it is your property, no one should dictate how you use it. I assume you wanted to connect this example to the situiation where I say that you must mix you labor in order to homestead. For example, since you claim this piece of land is yours via homestead, you shouldn’t have to be told how you should use it. But the problem is in your claim of ownership by homesteading. Just because you claim of something as your property, does not mean it is yours. I am not dictating what you should do with your property because it is not your property to begin with. All I am saying is that in order for that property to be considered yours, you have to mix your labor but the property is not yours until you mix your labor, regardless of whether you claim it to be your property.

“Regardless, whether I want to till every spec of dirt, or gently rub my finger on every 3rd tree - assuming I can homestead it, its my property and I will do as I see fit.”

I am not sure what you mean by this statement so if I misunderstood you, let me know but I will talk about the statement as I personally understand it… I assume you are suggesting that by simply touching something , “gently rub my finger on every third tree,” you are saying that it is “mixing your labor”… but is that the case? Is simply touching a tree mixing your labor? I would say no, I am sure others would disagree with me. I know Walter Block has an article on this topic (is touching nature just mixing your labor) but I cannot find it right now… I know it is one of the articles listed on his publications page but he has ALOT a stuff on there and I do not feel like searching for the article at the moment, since it is late and im tired. But he would agree with me, touching nature, such as a tree, would not be considered mixing your labor.

“If we cant mix our labor with something, it seems to fail the criteria of homesteading.
If we do mix our labor with it, it seems to fail the criteria of conservation.”

Well I do not view conservatism as what we are considering conservatism to be in this discussion, so normally I would refute this statement, but you are right. We have a right to own property though, thus we have a right to homestead… if one is refusing to let another homestead because he/she wants to conserve the unowned land, that is a violation of the NAP.

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I guess conservation per se is pointless and wasteful - if you are not using the resource at all, it could as well be destroyed. So I am with Ricky James on this - make sure you are making good use of the resource so that people tolerate your ownership, and then it just becomes a new Schelling point.

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Again, why do I have to build something on and/or modify a location I am trying to conserve, just to ‘convince’ the people around me that the property is mine?

Because you don’t magically ‘own’ property through osmosis. The whole point of property law is legal disputation and contract, not some ethereal ‘right’.

And since when does the just ownership of property include the whims and toleration of others?

Since there ever was such a thing as property. If it wasn’t for other people, property wouldn’t even exist.