I know this was discussed many times, but I’d appreciate if you could oblige me in another discussion. I recently thought of the following. If a group of people decides to fence off a land for which there is no other claimant, this might very well be a legitimate homesteading act. States are similar in nature. A certain area was fenced off, and thus legitimately acquired by the government. If we ignore the wars and oppressions commited in order to achieve this initial ownership, and if we ignore the the minorities who did not consent to be subjected to the state, we might very well think of the state as a legitimate entity.
Since the original inhabitants of the lands do not exist anymore, United States could be said to be owned by the American people in general. The homesteading process allows people to fence off, even a very big area. So is the United States or any other country is at least partially legitimate in your view?
Is that what the government did - fencing off area? Or is it more like it told people that if they did not hand it over they would come over with guns. Sort of like the American Revolution…
No, the United States nor any other country is legitimate in the least in my view.
I understand your reasoning on how you demonstrate a hypothetical rightful ownership by the government. Even if we ignore the wars and oppressions, I still reject it that explanation of rightful ownership. Homesteading sounds good from a utilitarian sense but as far as I am concerned, homesteading of the past does not trump the injustice of slavery/taxation in the present.
In other words, just because you are the rightful owner of a land mass, it is morally incorrect to force people to pay taxes to you if they were born there.
Playing devil’s advocate a bit… Are you saying that if my tenent’s kids were born in the house that I own, they don’t need to pay rent when they grow up?
No, because they weren’t party to the agreement between you and the tenant. If you want to (legitimately) charge them rent when they grow up, you’ll need to make a new agreement with them. On the other hand, you’re also not obligated to let them live in your house for free when they grow up.
Edit: I think an important distinction to make here is between the existence of a prima facie obligation and the lack thereof. My point above is that the tenant’s kids aren’t obligated to pay you rent simply by virtue of being his kids. But you’re free to charge them rent if they want to stay in your house.
In my opinion, homesteading does not involve wars or oppressions - the very things you propose we ignore in this thread.
Once upon a time, there were kinship groups which could be said to own areas of land more or less jointly among their members. I think this, combined with wars and oppressions, is the origin of the state.
You are completely correct, of course. I honestly thought the distiction was implied, but rereading my post, it wasn’t. I ought to have added, “if they choose to continue living in my house,” or some such. Just because you were born on my land does not mean you have the right to stay on my land rent free.
According to Rothbard’s theory of homesteading the Government didn’t homestead the land and those who did homestead the land did not give or sell the land to the government and therefore it is illegitimate.
I’m not sure how much of Rothbard’s theory that I buy but I certainly don’t consider something as ridiculous as government legitimate. Even if it were homesteaded or donated to I wouldn’t consider something as large, involuntary, idle, and harmful as the state to be legimitmate in most places.
But that’s a very utilitarian analysis. If it acquired the land by legitimate means, then it is legitimate. Now, if it unreasonably violated the NAP to get people off of its land, then it’s bad. But that’s not the case.
Legitimacy is subjective and due to the inherently subjective nature of morality itself at some point almost everyone will consent to some sort of utilitarianism.
The demanding of duties for an extended period of time with no sort of contract or spoken agreement would probably be considered illegitimate by an independent arbitrator, another thing which the state refuses to give. Furthermore my analysis is independent of the NAP.
This is just one of a million other ways to try to say “national borders = property lines” and it’s just not true. No matter how you phrase the issue, no matter what “angle” you take, national borders are not property lines and the unique powers of the State (judge, punish, tax) are necessarily immoral.
The demanding of duties for an extended period of time with no sort of contract or spoken agreement would probably be considered illegitimate by an independent arbitrator
You remaining on their property is illegitimate. In fact, you also bring more and more products onto their property and you keep exiting and entering their property (such as public roads, if we assume those to be obtained in legitimate ways).
That doesn’t make you their slave, at some point individual property rights must be considered respectable upon the lands of others when there is no spoken agreement that the continual use and improvement of X for decades constitutes duties from group Z, especially when the way that it is handled is through direct violence and imprisonment, not “get off my land”.
And once again we’re living in the perfect libertarian paradise again.
