I would recommend reading/listening to a lot of Jeff Tucker’s articles, and also Stephan Kinsella’s. Here is a really good Jeff Tucker article on the subject: http://mises.org/daily/4630
Yes, you do spend resources on the creation of the idea/book/song, but after it is created it can be infinitely replicated, without ever losing any quality, or ever getting rid of the original copy.
I would recommend reading Stephan Kinsella on Homsteading and Title Transfers (there are a lot more articles covering the topic, but you can search for those on your own):
And what about your claim to a certain parcel of land? You would have better case if you buy a title for a certain piece of land, and the amount you can buy above/below your land would be determined by the Title market. If there is a conflict between two persons over a certain parcel of land, it is settled “by some court somewhere”.
Which is an illegitimate claim, it is unowned land.
Isn’t the idea that human beings belong in collectives a concept?
Isn’t the idea that nobody owns property a concept?
It’s also amazing how you define the concept of private property as something different then the concept of owning something because I can carry it?Separating possessions from private property is still a concept. Theft is still a concept.Does it mean it’s not true?
Thanks for the recommendations; I will look into them.
Why claim land in swaths? Why can’t you just claim the land your stuff is on? You already have a right to easement, so you don’t have to own a path to your property. What is the point of claiming rectangular lots? Of course I presume rectangular lots, but that is with the status quo.
And what is a technological unit for a home? I don’t see how you answer that since this becomes very subjective once growing food is no longer the primary measure.
Drew, I wasn’t talking about concepts. I was talking about intangible property. But everyone seems to think territory/land is purely tangible.
You are, plus anything that is needed in your “effective possession” (Technological Unit), as explained in that Rothbard article. He also goes into more detail in The Libertarian Manifesto and Man, Economy And State (which both can be found on this site).
Who is claiming rectangular lots? Your lot can be any shape you want.
What does food have to do with a Technological Unit (TU)? Take for example, mining underneath your house. You do not own to the center of the Earth. If the ground around you is a porous dirt for hundreds of feet, perhaps this is not as stable as granite, or a stronger stone. Thus the TU would be much deeper in dirt than in stone (digging below that point will not effect the stability of your house in any way).
Same with the air. If you built your house first, an airport would not be able to be built right next door to you and have airplanes taking off right over your house unless they were above a certain height (this TU would probably be more consistent).
What is your definition of tangible and intangible?
I was thinking about having to conform to a lot of land based on what someone deemed was adequate (to live on, as for growing food). The article refers to a provision of 160 acres being standard and inadequate for ranching and grazing. I wasn’t thinking of an AnCap application. I was questioning the legitimacy of someone telling me what amount of land I would be allowed to have. That obviously wasn’t what you were talking about.
My point was that people often claim lots bigger than their stuff as a buffer from neighbors. The shape of the claim rarely conforms to the stuff. Is this buffer illegitimate? I used to live in a house that was literally like 6 feet from the neighboring houses, so I know the minimum buffer needed can be pretty low.
My definition of tangible is that you can touch it. And the antithesis for intangible.
Obviously you can touch the earth. My point was that a claim to land is a territorial claim that exists only in the mind. You can touch the dirt in a lot, but you can’t touch the lot itself since it is just an idea. People don’t claim the earth so much as they claim the space.
Some animals respect the property of other animals, or just their own? Even if they appear to respect the property of others, how do you know that they aren’t just afraid of retribution?
I was talking more of the vertical height of land which can be legitimately owned, not horizontal. Horizontal is just basic Homesteading.
If the land is unowned, there is not really a problem of you taking the land for your own use. If the land is already owned, then you will have to buy it from them.
This is why I recommend reading the Kinsella articles on Title Transfers, perhaps that will smooth out many of your questions.
The first question should be, was the land unowned? If yes, then there is no problem. If no, then there is a title dispute.
And if your next question is “but what if I decide to claim an unowned piece of land the size of Nevada?” This just comes down to abandonment:
I can touch the lot, and I can walk through the volume the lot occupies. It is tangible.
Perhaps you are just thinking of air as some nonexistant thing. What if I owned a large cube of water in the shape of my lot, is this tangible according to you?? Now what is the difference between the air cube and the water cube??
A car has matter (i.e. fundamental particles) in it, but it’s also a spatial construct. The same applies to all other “things”, including people.
Fundamental particles interact in different ways. These fundamental interactions form patterns, which can in turn form other patterns, etc. If external reality had a point of view, it wouldn’t think in terms of anything except the fundamental particles and their fundamental interactions. It wouldn’t have any concept of “atoms”, let alone anything “larger” than atoms.
Atoms are transient phenomena. They aren’t permanent. They’re also mostly empty space.
I think your tangible-intangible distinction is insufficient. While space is, strictly speaking, intangible, it can be occupied. No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. Such exclusivity of occupation does not and cannot apply to ideas.
Sure, but property isn’t necessarily tied to specific fundamental particles. Therefore property exists only in the mind as well.
Au contraire. The OP is absolutely correct and it reveals something very profound: the definitions of our philosophy are arbitrary.
Here you demonstrate my point:
What does super-abundant mean? Who gets to decide? Why should that even matter?
Using the term “super-abundance” is nonsense at best. Any definition that you can provide for that word will always and everywhere be arbitrary.
There is nothing proper about limiting the debate of IP to only things that are “super-abundant” or limiting it to any other concept for that matter.
The best thing we anarchists can do is to fully understand the assumptions we make and embrace them unapologetically. Outside of anarchist circles, we should employ any techniques we wish to convince others to adopt our axioms.
I don’t think we have to embrace anything . If a socialist can’t answer my questions above then it’s nonsense.
A society that doesn’t respect private property cannot work.
I was talking to someone the other day and he said" we don’t live in the 18th century anymore, overpopulation, everyone should get a free house", that statement is nonsense because it’s not going to solve overpopulation. No society like that can exist.
Using the term “super-abundance” is nonsense at best
I’m pretty sure land is not super-abundant, if my definition of super-abundant is correct. Then it means infinite, or the quantity is unknow. When it comes to land we know exactly how much land we have through out the entire world.
Symbols are abstract concepts. It is impossible for an abstract concept (aka symbol) to have an absolute definition. Words are a string of symbols.
I want to expand the scope of the OP.
Contracts are a type of (subset of or howerver you want to define the concept of a part of, etc.) intellectual property
I oppose intellectual property but I do not oppose voluntary contracts that are only enforceable among parties to the contract. The question then becomes… what is an enforceable contract and who are the parties to the contract? Let me propose criteria to define an enforceable contract:
Parties to the contract must agree on how to resolve disputes.
Does land fit the criteria of a voluntary enforceable contract? I think not. Land is a border contract.
Are trespassers a party to a deed (aka. border contract)?
What is proper notice to a person subject to a use of force who is not a party to a contract?
Is it ever ok to subject a person to a use of force who is not a party to a contract?
Is it ever ok to subject a person to a use of force who is not a party to a contract if that person has not initiated violence?
In summary to this important topic:
One of the most important challenges human beings have ever had, currently have, or likely will ever have on the planet earth is how to get along sharing the same land…
What do you mean define “work”? I think it’s already been done. I’t s called prosperity, innovation, progress.
Another beauty of capitalism, which I’m sure you’re aware, Is, that I don’t ask anyone to follow my definition. If people want to be socialists they can do that in a capitalist society, whereas in a socialist society, I don’t have the same privilege to follow my road. Private property will always exist, I think it has to do with our self-love.
If you’r going to say" well prosperity is not everyone’s definition of “work”" we can also say the sun is blue and not yellow. But I suppose you’re right, some people want to live in slums and get addicted to meth. And if that’s the case, then guess what… They can do that in a capitalist society.
Most communes still depend on capitalism. The idea that that people will selflessly help one another is bunk, because even then we only help those we care about.
