I guess the truly libertarian position is that the government doesn’t have the right to do anything. 
I don’t know much about the property situation in Hong Kong, but if the governement does own all the land there, chances are it was not obtained legitimately so they really have no moral claim to the land. I would say a Libertarian position supports whomever is currently occupying the land (as homesteaders) deciding who they allow on it.
If a corporation legitimately owned an island and then leased it out to developers, businesses and workers who in turn transformed it into a city exactly like Hong Kong except the administrators were called a corporation instead of a government, would the “corporation” have a right to bar immigrants or are leasers always entitled to determine who can enter their leased property?
Fool on the Hill wrote:
What about a place like Hong Kong where the government owns all of the land? Do they have a right to bar immigrants under libertarianism?
Under libertarianism, the government and corporations wouldn’t have a right to exist.
well…corporations would…but people would probably deride them and favor cooperatives for virtually anything. Tech giants like in Blade Runner would be the only corporations hahaha.
If a corporation legitimately owned an island and then leased it out to developers, businesses and workers who in turn transformed it into a city exactly like Hong Kong except the administrators were called a corporation instead of a government, would the “corporation” have a right to bar immigrants or are leasers always entitled to determine who can enter their leased property?
Under the usual libertarian interpretation, the corporation would have that right, unless specifically waived in their contracts with leasers.
What about a place like Hong Kong where the government owns all of the land? Do they have a right to bar immigrants under libertarianism?
It “owns” the land according to its own laws, not to what the liberatarians (e.g., rothbardians) would consider legitimate. In fact, all governments act as if they own all the land, they just do not explicitly acknowledge it.
Note that there are multiple meanings of “owns”: owns by homesteading and/or voluntary trade, owns by the law of the state, owns by exercising control over it. The usual governments own only in the latter sense, HK’s govenrment owns in the two latter senses, none of them owns in the first sense.
Thank you, Andris! Your answers were very clear and helpful. This is probably a really noobish question, so you can point me to a source if you don’t want to spend time answering it, but how does one own by “homesteading”? I have a vague idea, but I’m curious to see how it’s actually outlined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle
The homestead principle in law is the concept that one can gain ownership of a natural thing that currently has no owner by using it or building something out of it.
The answer is clear cut to me. anti-immigrations is a rights violation. Stemming from governments welfare rights violations. Basically goverment creating problems. The source of the problem is welfare, no need to inact more rights violations to protect other rights violations.
If you read up on immigration, it is based on racism.
What if one doesn’t read into it? Is it still based on racism? Or is one’s reading a causal factor in determining whether or not it is racist?
I don’t think it has anything to do with racism, it has all to do with property rights (and their violation).
BTW, it may be worth it to define what do we mean by anti-immigration policy.
It’s one thing if it just prohibits entry into country by controlling all the entry ports (to be legitimate, requires legitimate ownership of all the ports or having a contract with legitimate owners).
Another thing if it means hunting down all the “illegal” immigrants across the country (to be legitimate, requires legitimate ownership of all the country or having a contract with legitimate owners AND requires a contract between immigrants and owners of the land where they are located allowing prosecution).
It’s even third thing if it means hunting down all the people who cooperate with the “illegal” immigrants across the country (requirements are even stronger).
I don’t know much about the property situation in Hong Kong, but if the government does own all the land there, chances are it was not obtained legitimately so they really have no moral claim to the land. I would say a Libertarian position supports whomever is currently occupying the land (as homesteaders) deciding who they allow on it.
Sorry for resurrecting this, but I have another question. I heard that Rothbardians don’t believe that illegitimately acquired land should be given up if the rightful owners of said land can’t be located. For example, say I inherited a large plantation which was originally built upon land that was violently cleared of Indians and then “homesteaded” through illegitimate slave labor. Under Rothbardian principle, I am still entitled to own the land and employ others to work it because no descendant of the original Indians or slaves can be established as a rightful owner. Is that a correct representation of the Rothbardian position?
If so, then it logically follows that the government of Hong Kong is the rightful owner of all of Hong Kong. Whether it acquired the land legitimately is irrelevant because the rightful owners can’t be located. Saying that the current occupants are entitled to the land would be the same as saying that the current laborers of a former slave plantation are entitled to that land.
If I’m not mistaken, that is not exactly Rothbard’s position. His position is that, if the previous owners or their decendents cannot be found, the land should be treated as unowned and can then be homesteaded. This would mean that the current users/occupiers would be in the best position to homestead it. In a lot of cases this would turn out to be the current owner, so it ends up staying in the same hands, but it does not necessarily have to be.
So in other words, the workers I hired to work my plantation would gain ownership after an ancap revolution? And since virtually all property has its origins in illegitimate acquisition, all property would revert to employees and tenants. There would be no billionaires, landlords, or stockholders left. Sounds kind of like a socialist revolution. I guess the difference is what happens after?
I think the misunderstanding here lies with the treatment of the intermediate property owner. here are two examples:
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if person A steals land from person B, person B dies with no heirs, and person A is renting the land to person X, person X could have a legitimate homesteading claim on the land.
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if person A steals land from person B, person B dies with no heirs, and person A sells the land to person C, who then rents to person X, person C still has the more legitimate homesteading claim on the land.
Here it is in Rothbard’s own words:
whole article here.
As to the question of what happens after (if the scenario you mentioned did happen), I doubt that all the workers of a company would want to bear the burden of losses as well as delayed profits that a capitalist must bear, so a good portion of those workers would probably sell their shares to those other owners who did want to bear those costs, and opt for wage labor instead.
if person A steals land from person B, person B dies with no heirs, and person A is renting the land to person X, person X could have a legitimate homesteading claim on the land.
if person A steals land from person B, person B dies with no heirs, and person A sells the land to person C, who then rents to person X, person C still has the more legitimate homesteading claim on the land.
Well then, I would say that the government of Hong Kong would clearly be person C in this case, and thus would have legitmate ownership. However, I found that Rothbard article somewhat confusing in the part where he talks about South America. Why do peasants there have a legitmate claim over the land they work but not those who work former slave plantations in North America?
Additionally, it seems to me that in capitalism one can employ others to homestead something for you. For example, if an oil company contracts with workers to drill an oil well, it’s the owners of the company that owns the land and not the workers. Rothbard views the colonizations of North America as states selling unowned land, something they can’t do in his theory. However, what if one sees those charters not as a sale per se but as a contract of employment? By signing such a contract, the homesteader is agreeing to relinguish ultimate authority over the land to the state in a similar manner that an oil worker relinguishes his ownership of the well he drills.
As to the question of what happens after (if the scenario you mentioned did happen), I doubt that all the workers of a company would want to bear the burden of losses as well as delayed profits that a capitalist must bear, so a good portion of those workers would probably sell their shares to those other owners who did want to bear those costs, and opt for wage labor instead.
And would land owners also sell the legal rights to their property to the state to avoid risk and secure protection?
I am not familiar enough with the honk kong situation, but seeing as all states are illegitimate, and get their wealth from expropriation, I would disagree with this statement.
It is not about who works the land, it is about who works the previously unowned land. Rothbard claims the peasants have claim to the south american land because their ancestors, which can be traced back, were the original homesteaders of the land.
As far as the slave plantations, that is a different story. They did not originally homestead the land. That said, there is an argument to be made (and I have read Rothbard making this argument) that the slaves have claim to damages based on the violation of there persons and property. So on those grounds, maybe they would deserve some or all of the land they worked, or a monetary compensation. But it has nothing to do with the fact that they worked the land. It ahs to do with the fact that their bodies and property were agressed against.
again, you are making the mistake that homesteading means “working land”. that is only the case if it is previously unowned land. If an oil company tries to contract workers to drill an oil well on land that was never owned, sure, the workers are really the homesteaders and would have claim to the land (it woulod in fact be an invalid contract under the title transfer theory of contracts, since there was no original title to the land). But most likely what happens in this scenario is that the oil company has bought the land from someone who originally homesteaded it (or the sellers had obtained it from such a source, etc), making the oil company the legitimate owners of the land. at that point, they can freely contract with people to work the land
I am not sure what you mean here. But, in general, any land or goods the state “owns”, even if it was aquired consentually, would have been aquired with expropriated money, so the proper owners of those goods would be the tax payers. If the state did not aquire the money through force, but instead aquired it through voluntary trade, it would cease to be a state. It would simply be agroup of people trading with other people. (I’m using this definition of a state: the group of people who hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of force)
I am not familiar enough with the honk kong situation, but seeing as all states are illegitimate, and get their wealth from expropriation, I would disagree with this statement.
Then any businesses formed by the descendants of slave holders are illegitimate because they got their wealth from expropriation.
As far as the slave plantations, that is a different story. They did not originally homestead the land. That said, there is an argument to be made (and I have read Rothbard making this argument) that the slaves have claim to damages based on the violation of there persons and property. So on those grounds, maybe they would deserve some or all of the land they worked, or a monetary compensation. But it has nothing to do with the fact that they worked the land. It ahs to do with the fact that their bodies and property were agressed against.
As I understand it, the slaves did homestead the land. They were the first to farm it. Isn’t that what homesteading is? If on the other hand, homesteading is the first to inhabit the land, then the Amercan Indians are the homesteaders, and thus the slave owners are still not homesteaders.
again, you are making the mistake that homesteading means “working land”. that is only the case if it is previously unowned land. If an oil company tries to contract workers to drill an oil well on land that was never owned, sure, the workers are really the homesteaders and would have claim to the land (it woulod in fact be an invalid contract under the title transfer theory of contracts, since there was no original title to the land). But most likely what happens in this scenario is that the oil company has bought the land from someone who originally homesteaded it (or the sellers had obtained it from such a source, etc), making the oil company the legitimate owners of the land. at that point, they can freely contract with people to work the land
So all of the oil wells out in the ocean and in the Arabian desert were on land already homesteaded? How did people homestead these places? Was the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge also homesteaded before people started drilling there?
I am not sure what you mean here. But, in general, any land or goods the state “owns”, even if it was aquired consentually, would have been aquired with expropriated money, so the proper owners of those goods would be the tax payers. If the state did not aquire the money through force, but instead aquired it through voluntary trade, it would cease to be a state. It would simply be agroup of people trading with other people.
Anyone who has inherited money gained through slavery or sold something to someone who participated in slavery and then invests that money has thus used expropriated money. Does that mean they can’t own anything? I’m sure virtually all businesses have some expropriated money invested in them.
(I’m using this definition of a state: the group of people who hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of force)
Does a group of people who own land have a monopoly of legitimate force over their land?