If all government is abolished, all land would become privately owned since the only alternative to private ownership is public ownership.
If land ownership is based on the idea of mixing land and labor, there would be no land left to claim and mix labor with.
Those born after this time would have no way of gaining land without purchasing it. They would have no way to subsist outside of the market. In my opinion that isn’t really free. These people would have no option but to work in the employ of others since they have no access to resources to work for themselves. Only after saving up money could they buy land to be free on.
Actually, I would think that if government were abolished tommrow, most of the now ‘government owned’ land would become unowned, thus allowing people the opportunity to homestead it.
What about it? I’m actually curious how your situation would be different from what we have now, aside from the fact that people will be able to buy/homestetad land that the governent current owns…
An immense percentage of the global geography is still effectively un-productive, idle, abandoned, desolate, and not inhabited. There is still lots of places to homestead.
Then you rent like many millionaires do. Who else can afford to rent a penthouse at, say, Trump Tower on 5th Ave?
Really, you need to free yourself from the Marxist mindset programmed into our brains during childhood about ownership always being tied to some 2-dimensional piece of land where you can simply order everybody around according to your arbitrary whim.
Ownership in a Capitalistic and free society has endless dimensions. You can own no physical land but still be the wealthiest man in the world.
This is basically the natural human condition. Unless you live on very plentiful land, you’re not going to subsists without trading.
Just because there isn’t unowned land, doesn’t mean people can’t generate wealth. They still own themselves, and they can sell their labor. The wealth created by their productive labor allows them to purchase land and any other goods they require.
This sounds like some sort of “land theory of value,” that all wealth is created and owned by the land owning capitalist elites.
What about it? I’m actually curious how your situation would be different from what we have now, aside from the fact that people will be able to buy/homestetad land that the governent current owns…
It’s not all that different. The point is that the there is no land for new people to claim in the US. Once all land is taken and there is no communal land, people have nowhere to stand freely. Your existence is conditional on the consent of others.
What exactly is wrong with exchange/saving/producing for ones self? Rather then expecting god to drop the free fruits of land down from sky? What do you want us todo? Parcel land for every man women and child and give it to them? Then leave a reserve for our expected population growth?
You act as if babies who will come into the free world wouldn’t have parents/guardians anymore. And that’s also assuming that babies these days pop out and go to the nearest realtor in order to purchase land and a home.
I am just making the case that freedom is dependent on the availability of land. If all land is claimed, you are forced to work for other people. I am also not saying that there is anything wrong with trading. I would prefer to trade goods and work for myself than trade my labor to others. I suspect this is true for most people.
I don’t understand where the idea comes from than land can be owned. We all agree that we are entitled to the fruits of our labor, but no one labored to create land. I have heard people say that you make the land your own by laboring on it. But what about land that is raw and has never been labored on? What right does a person have to claim that land?
Is it wrong that, by the title, I thought this was a thread concerning the short-lived Pirate republic in Madagascar?
As for the main topic, I believe its quite unlikely for us to reach a point where no unowned land exists. Certainly the ‘good’ land is taken up, but there is always, especially in the Americas, formerly submarginal land left to be homesteaded. Even if the whole of the Earth’s surfaceland is taken up, we need not be limited in our imagination. Its science fiction presently, but whose to say Rapture can’t exist? Tell you what, give me a few years to become a billionaire and we can build it together. Just bring a little sister with you, I’ll explain why later.
No really, why must we be limited to the surface? For that matter, why must we be limited to Earth? Why can’t we go homestead Mars? The Moon? Look up to the sky fellow Austrians, there exists countless sanctuaries from the state in the heavens above!
I doubt this discussion will go anywhere unless you define what it is you mean by freedom. Right now, it just seems like a term being thrown around, and I can’t help but assume that your conception of freedom is, to put it nicely, awkward.
And a few things regarding the original post: 1) land is not owned in perpetuity. It can be abandoned and once again open for homesteading. 2) As mentioned by others, labor is necessary for survival regardless of the availability of land. Except in the case of the low-maintanence hermit, is there a great difference between working a plot of land and working with and for others so as to buy/rent an apartment high above ground? What is the difference between homesteading a piece of land (labor) and engaging in the division of labor to accumulate money and then buy land (labor)? I know that I would prefer to perform a job that is mentally laborious and then buy a house or apartment, rather than performing the physical labor needed to homestead an idle piece of land and construct a house or apartment building on it.
Land is only one part of the equation of wealth creation, that being land, labor, and capital. As said above, ownership of land is not needed to generate weath and live wealthy in a world where all land is owned by others.
This thread is not about wealth. This thread is about the freedom to exist. If all land is private, you have no right to stand on other people’s property.
In a country where all land is owned, your survival is totally dependent on landowners. You literally cannot survive without their consent. At least not without using force to steal what you need. You can’t work any land, so you must work for landowners (or for those who lease from landowners).
What right does a man have to exclude people from unused land? Where does this right come from?
I don’t follow. You can be free on the ocean and not own it, right?
SirThinkALot: