Unless I am mistaken, free market philosophy holds that the only way to take ownership of something is by voluntary transfer, is that right? It is never allowable for one person to take something that another has a right to without their consent.
This brings me to a conundrum, for I believe a strong argument can be made that natural resources, including land, were originally owned equally by all persons. Because these things were created outside of human agency, no one can claim any special right to them, yet, all of us can claim some right to them based, per natural law, on our nature, which demands space and resources to exist. Given the impossibility of obtaining everyone’s consent, no one therefore has a right to claim a natural resource for their exclusive use. This calls into question the legitimacy of ownership in general of anything but one’s own body and labor.
As socialistic as this sounds, it seems to me justifiable, inevitable by the very arguments of libertarianism. However, being rather hesitant about socialism, I’d like someone to demolish my argument.
No one knows what a “natural resource” is until someone appropriates it. Natural resources are therefore just as created as any other good. They must be found and extracted before they become actually useful.
Similarly, no one knows how many humans there are. If natural resources are owned by all humans, it is impossible to exploit them as it is impossible to get agreement from all owners. This condemns humanity to extinction, and therefore violates human nature.
Not exactly. When Europeans heard there was unappropriated gold in the Americas, they fled over there as fast as they could to mine it and for the gold that was already mined, they traded the Natives cheap trinkets. There were several similar gold rushes like this throughout history.
If people didn’t know that a natural resource was valuable until after it’s appropraited, they wouldn’t flock to places where they think valuable natural resources might be.
Right now, there is a ton of oil beneath the ocean. Almost none of it has been used. Despite that, there’s no denying that the first person to figure out how to suck it out of the ground is going to be a zillionaire.
In the case of some commodities, like gold, this extraction essentially just amounts to picking up a chunk of rock, then giving it to somebody else. It’s no so much extraction so much as just appropriation of natural goods.
We aren’t doomed to extinction if claims regarding natural resources and property are modified by the principles of fair and equal opportunity.
For more on this issue, see Progress and Poverty by Henry George.
I do not see this as a strong argument, at all. Until something is claimed and appropriated, it is unowned. The concept is simple to comprehend. Why ought we to assume ‘equal’ ownership? There is no God that gifted us nature. I do not base myself on natural rights of course, but rather, deontology. In fact, assuming equal ownership would get you nowhere, once titles were traded. It devolves into a latecomer ethic if you assume rights must always be re-allocated.
The person picking up the rock had to spot a demand for it (that no one else seemed to spot, or they’d be trying to pick it up too). In short, he must find a market for that rock. He must also expend the labor of picking the rock up off of the ground (although there is little labor involved, this will translate into a high supply and thus a low price).
The vast majority of what we refer to as “natural resources” (iron, aluminum, oil, gold) are utterly and totally useless to more primitive peoples. It is the application of one’s labor and mind to the natural environment which creates resources just as value is only created by each actor’s subjective valuations.
We look at the Aztecs trading beads (or whatever) for gold as being exploitation, but to them it was a fine trade. It only appears exploitive because we value gold highly. Had the Aztecs invaded Spain and their culture spread around the world, we might look at gold as valueless. Gold is no more useful in a practical sense than other useless trinkets.
Individuals only have to find markets for new natural resource.
Think about Jed Clampett in the show, The Beverly Hillbillies (based on an actual person).
He didn’t appropriate the land because he knew there was a market for oil and labored to pump it out. One day, Jed was just out hunting squirrels and boom, he struck oil. Through about as much labor as it takes to collect and spend taxes, Jed sold off his land to an oil company for huge amounts of money. He didn’t do anything you just said. He just got paid for it – not for the land he homesteaded, that he built his house on and homsteaded on. He got paid for oil wells that he never homesteaded that his land happened to be on top of.
This is because every act of homesteading creates an ambiguous radius of ownership. Why should land ownership be 2-dimensional?
Jed didn’t own the stuff he labored upon. He owned what the government-issued deed said he owned – which apparently includes all the land miles below the Earth, not just the land we use on the surface. But one has to wonder, then: Should we not each own our own airspace? Where does the radius end? Why does it go down, but not up, and how far out should it extend? What about communal goods, like oceans, aquifers a& springs, fisheries, and hunting grounds? These tend to be impossible to homestead in full, so they end up being shared until someone tries to make a contentious claim to ownership.
Lastly, for you to call gold “useless,” seems to go against subjective utility.
How exactly does a collection of people valuing something render its value, objective, i.e. separable from and independent of their mental appreciation of it?
If its so easy, whats stopping everyone from doing it? Valuable resources are necessarily hard to appropriate, or else they wouldn’t be valuable (as everyone would have them). Some people do get lucky and strike gold (or oil), though.
I said useless in a practical sense (e.g., you can’t eat it). Nowadays you can use it to make electronics, though.
Understanding why gold is useless to certain individuals involves understanding the categories of means and ends. If gold is not instrumental to any further human end (e.g. as a status symbol), and thus is of no value whatsoever to the actor, it is, essentially, from the actor’s POV, useless.
It isn’t independent of their mental appreciation, but it can be regarded as objective, because it objectively and equally prevents them all from getting what they subjectively want.
You’re making the mistake of claiming “subjective utility” is “subjective value.”
Let’s say, for instance, that I do not want pizzas, but I do want tacos.
Even if I don’t want pizzas, pizzas still have value to me in as much as they yield a market value that allow me to sell them and buy tacos.
Hence, even though we all want different things, market value is objective because it’s what determines how much we have to pay to get what we want, regardless of what we want.
To say value is totally subjective makes basic economic calculation impossible!
How would an Austrian suggest running a business? Run outside and shout, “Hey, guys! What do you want?” Or just basically make a random business decision and hope it works? It throws the potential for all rational economic analysis out the window.
I mean, aside from abandoning empiricism, you had may as well abolish the use of mathematics in Austrian economic analysis if you actually adhere to the claim that all value is totally, utterly subjective.
You’re basically agreeing with me, but disagreeing with Grant (who was poorly defended by Inquisitor) while trying to keep up the appearances of agreeing with him.
We completely agree, Yan.
But what Grant said above about gold being useless outside of people’s subjective preference doesn’t make any sense, based on what you just said, because there is no value judgment outside of subjective evaluation. To call something, like gold, objectively “useless” is to make an erroneous assertion just as to say gold is subjectively “useful.”
Grant slipped up and made an assertion of objective value. I don’t blame him. The theory of intrinsic value is deeply ingrained in culture worldwide. I should just think he could admit the mistake himself or defend it himself, without needing a team of comrades to defend his statement for him.
So, at what point did you homestead the land underneath your property and the airspace above it?
Do I homestead the atmosphere by breathing?
So, you mean in terms of its objective qualities? That makes sense, but you’re still assuming that it’s “useful” to make electronics, and so on. I’m sure you follow what I mean.
It isn’t independent of their mental appreciation, but it can be regarded as objective, because it objectively and equally prevents them all from getting what they subjectively want.
You’re making the mistake of claiming “subjective utility” is “subjective value.”
Let’s say, for instance, that I do not want pizzas, but I do want tacos.
Even if I don’t want pizzas, pizzas still have value to me in as much as they yield a market value that allow me to sell them and buy tacos.
Hence, even though we all want different things, market value is objective because it’s what determines how much we have to pay to get what we want, regardless of what we want.
To say value is totally subjectivem makes economic calculation impossible.
I mean, aside from abandoning empiricism, you had may as well abolish the use of mathematics in Austrian economic analysis if you actually adhere to the claim that all value is totally, utterly subjective.
You’re basically agreeing with me, but disagreeing with Inquisitor while trying to keep up the appearances of agreeing with him.
We completely agree, Yan.
But what he said above about gold being useless outside of people’s subjective preference doesn’t make any sense, based on what you just said, because there is no value judgment outside of subjective evaluation. To call something, like gold, objectively “useless” is to make an erroneous assertion just as to say gold is subjectively “useful.”
Grant slipped up and made an assertion of objective value. I don’t blame him. The theory of intrinsic value is deeply ingrained in culture worldwide. I should just think he could admit the mistake himself or defend it himself, without needing a team of comrades to defend his statement for him.
So, at what point did you homestead the land underneath your property and the airspace above it?
Do I homestead the atmosphere by breathing?
So, you mean in terms of its objective qualities? That makes sense, but you’re still assuming that it’s “useful” to make electronics, and so on. I’m sure you follow what I mean.
That seems to suggest that subjective evaluations can be compared, by comparing utility functions. Is that what Austrians believe?
The problem here is that the non-Nathyn respondents are using a really objectionable interpretation of an already objectionable theory of what it means for something to be a good. You guys are nowhere near well-informed enough about this subject to be calling people names. In particular, Yan owes Nathyn an apology for calling him “objectively stupid” when he was defending a view that is held by almost everyone who has written on this subject in the past 4 centuries. The subjectivity of value does not in any way entail the position that you guys seem to be advancing, which is that objects only take on the quality of being useful once they are found to have that use by appropriating individuals. I know George Reisman thinks that, and it’s possible that Rothbard did too (I’m not sure). Locke basically put this issue on the map, and he agreed with Nathyn, and even Menger acknowledged that unowned natural resources are “useful objects” prior to attaining goods-character. I recognize that you guys may operate within the Rothbardian tradition (I’m pretty sure he believed that it was appropriation which conferred value to objects), but you have to realize that you’re representing the minority view, and that there are very good reasons for not holding that view. Particularly, go back and (re)read the section in chapter 7 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia entitled, “The Lockean Theory of Homesteading.”
Stop getting so worked up, and stop insulting people who don’t agree with you. It’s unbecoming. I’ve had my share of disagreements with Nathyn in the past, but this is ridiculous. You guys are ganging up on him as if he was actually building the statue of Mises for the socialist ministry, and you’re not even doing a good job. I’m not saying that Nathyn’s position can’t be disputed. It certainly can (though I tend to think he’s right), but calmly!
[Edit: I didn’t mean to suggest that Nathyn is right about Georgism, which I oppose. I only meant that the specific points he made were correct.]
I didn’t intentionally make, nor do I defend, any sort of objective theory of value. If my post implied that, then it was a mistake of communication. The term “practical”, as I tried to use it, denotes a certain usage. For instance, someone might say “the Ferrari Enzo is a great car, but its just not practical for daily use”. That doesn’t imply any objective value, just the value within a context. Gold was valued highly because it was needed for some practical use such as farming or self-defense.
I never have, and I don’t think anyone here is arguing for something as absurd as a two-dimensional theory of property (how many galaxies would I own, I wonder?).
What you use of it, yes. For instance, adding a bit of helium or argon into the air wouldn’t effect anyone’s breathing, and so isn’t a violation of their property rights. However, if a significant amount of CO is being breathed, then we have problems. Obviously the issue of when these rights are or are not violated is complex, and I don’t think it is really relevant here.
I think you misunderstand (at least my position). I don’t think an object becomes useful because it is appropriated. Clearly, thats incorrect. I think it tends to be appropriated because someone foresees it as being useful. Those easy-to-appropriate objects which are held in high demand (say, gold nuggets lying around on the ground) quickly become very hard to get a hold of once people realize their value. I also think that markets put appropriated resources to their best uses, even if the initial allocation of property rights was inefficient (Coase’s theorem). Because human insight is limited, initial appropriation will always be flawed.
Since Locke did not know of the subjective theory of value, and how markets tend to make efficient use of scarce resources, I don’t know if his conclusions about the appropriation of scarce resources are really relevant. I believe he also based his conclusions on theological grounds, but I really haven’t read much on it. When it comes to philosophies concerning resources, I’d rather read the opinions of people who have the benefit of modern economics.