Land cannot be alienated, therefore land cannot be owned. Therefore people may not take parts of the land for themselves, as this constitutes alienation of land, which is impossible. So no raw materials guys. This will not be a problem as soon as we expropriate the bourgeosie.
What definition of “alienate” are you using?
Land cannot be owned, and therefore it cannot be alienated (tranfered into ownership of another).
What definition of “own” are you using?
And after we expropriate them, the proletariat gets to occupy the land because, well, someone’s got to and it might as well be the poor unsung workers who will soon be starving to death.
Dibs on the Playboy mansion!
Whichever definition fits my argument at the time, just like I learned at left-wing militant camp.
Well played.
Socialists and propertarians are using very different definitions of “land.” To us “land” means natural resources: one comes to own them when/if one is the first to mix one’s labor with them: i.e. homesteading. But to them, “land” means area in the abstract: i.e. not the dirt, rocks, trees, etc, but the actual area in an abstract geometrical sense. Their argument is that area is not a product of labor, and cannot be owned, and since area cannot be owned, it is a commons, and since use of anything in that area necessarily involves use of the area, whoever uses something in an area (which of course is anyone doing anything anywhere) is violating other persons rights to use the commons, and this creates a positive obligation, such as a tax that has to be paid to “the community.” Note that, to be consistent, they have to make the same argument with respect to volume that they made with respect to area, so you end up with everyone paying a tax for everything they do, including a tax for literally taking up space. Aside from the absurd consequences (or not so absurd if your goal is totalitarian socialism?), there are massive problems with the argument itself at every level, but that horse has been beaten to death, butchered, and shipped off to the glue factory. See the following threads:
Theoretically everyone has the right to everything on the planet equally where the ownership of the object has not already been claimed. But as we live in a real economy and have real conflicts, we have to make use of what we have (the planet) in order to survive and ultimately for civilisation to prosper. Ownership of land becomes an essential concept for a civilisation to develop, even ownership the concept in general. As ownership of land is not much different than ownership of an iphone for example. The whole world before and after labour has made use of it, is own-able and usable by all. Just because a natural resource has been combined with labour and has value, does not mean that raw materials can not be owned or traded in of themselves without labour.
But as the government’s of the world have claimed ownership of the majority of the land at some point in history and in some cases called it public ownership. This has made land more scarce and distorted the market significantly. Public ownership is not technically ownership as it is essentialy sharing. Sharing and ownership are different non compatible terms. How to say the public do not realy own the public land, but that should go without saying.
Ownership of raw materials and land then becomes a mechanism for civilisation to develop whilst minimizing conflict. Mankind would be far more primitive if they were still arguing over who should own the land around a specific lake. Ownership then becomes a pragmatic mechanism to avoid conflicts and to create incentives.
I do think though that there are some land owners that probably own more than than they can make use of or more land than they can physically protect. Whether in a stateless society people would have more opportunities with regards to homesteading is definitely debatable but for one without the regulations on informal settlements, at the so called public land would see far more homesteading taking place.
That’s why I sometimes use times use “area of land”, but we still include the natural recourses that are on that area.
Woah, wait at a little.
It only means that once you stop using some area of land and abandon it, it is free to be used by someone else. You can’t homestead the area e.g. by tilling soil, and then you stop tilling it and go away and still have exclusive use over that area although it has returned to it’s state of natue, and someone else comes there to start tilling it and you pull out a paper that says how that area of land and all on it is yours and he can’t do anything there unless you give him the permission.
Georgism doesn’t exactly fall under socialism.
We socialists disagree.
Labor theory of property actually means that.
thats what everyone believes, you guys just equate “going to the grocery store” with “abandonment.”
socialists are anti-civilization so this means very little.
good luck getting people who own property, or aspire to own, to agree, rather than simply those who covet the property of others.
Stsoc, let’s say I build a fence around an area of land that no one (else) has ever set foot on. Then I sit in a chair and admire what I see as its exquisite natural beauty. Would you say I’m using that land? Why or why not?
+1 Malachi
That’s either an idiotic misunderstanding or a malevolent lie to misrepresent our views.
Just like the slaveowners didn’t have to agree to not owning slaves, capitlaist will not have to either.
well if its a misunderstanding its your fault because you refuse to define your terms. And if theres a malevolent lie anywhere, its you telling us you are against hierarchy when you think you are in a position to approve or deny the voluntary relationship of two people who dont care what what you think. regardless you need to define “abandonment” as I’m not using my house when I go to the grocery store any more than my boss is using his tools that he lets me use at work.
you cant bear to think about this subject without equivocating can you? The fallacy is so daunting and immense that even you cannot bear to think about it without telling yourself that a welder who likes his job and makes $30/hr is “basically the same” as an aboriginal man from sub-saharan africa who was abducted across sea and traded for 2 barrels of whiskey.
I don’t think you can seriously compare the use of slaves in history and an individual in modern times owning a small business that has employees.
‘Land can’t be owned, only occupied’
Hey! Get off that land I been occupying! That’s mine! I got there first!
Your concession is accepted.
All theories of abandonment undermine property rights, not just the socialist theories. They also serve no useful purpose, as the fear of property sitting around unused is irrational.
Suppose Jones abandons some property, just walks away, never to return. Bob would like to homestead the property, but in the absence of abandonment as a principle in the law, the property remains Jones’, and so the property goes unused. This is what we’re afraid of, but it makes no sense. If Bob would like to use the property, then the property has market value: i.e. it could be sold to Bob for something. And Jones would of course prefer getting something to getting nothing. It makes sense for Jones to abandon the property only if it has no market value, which means no one wants to use it , in which case it will sit unused regardless of whether there is a legal provision for abandonment.