At what point does stolen property become legitimate property?
For example, land stolen from Native Americans… how can it rightfully be deeded to a US citizen and then passed on to subsequent heirs?
This is something I’ve long wondered about. The problem is that almost everything has a history of violence attached to it, so how can there be any rightful property at all?
When it is seen as legit by relevant customs
Therefore, taxation is legitimate?
But doesn’t that mean that taxation is not theft?
lol… beat me to it!
I think this is a can o worms…
I suggest you read Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution by Murray Rothbard.
Andway, if property has been stolen, it belongs to the rightful owner or his heirs. But if you cannot prove who the rightful owner is, then there is no way to know who the rightful owner is. The property becomes “unowned” and can be homesteaded. Whoever is the current user of the unowned property has the best claim to the property and homesteads it by being the new first user.
Regarding the land owned by Native Americans, well this is even harder to prove. You see, not only would the Native Americans have to be able to point to the specific heirs of the owners of the land, they would have to prove which land was owned to begin with. It’s not enough to just say, “Well, this general area was owned by Native Americans of such and such tribe. So return it to the heirs of the tribe.” That is not how it works. You need specific people to have specific claims, and then they have to prove them.
I hope I didn’t go in circles too much.
ya… but that just means that rightful ownership depends on documentation… Is property something inherent or is it relative to what documents say?
If I destroy all records of your ownership, and pay off or kill everyone who knows the truth about your property, then I can become the rightful owner?
No, that is not what it means. Rightful property belongs to the just owners. That is what it means. If the rightful owners are dead, then it passes on to who has the best claim, which is their heirs or whoever they name in their will. If there is no one, then it is unowned property and can be homesteaded by the next user.
Documentation only helps prove who the rightful owner is. One does not need written documentation if there are witnesses who people can believe, but written documentation is much better. Documentation plus witnesses is even better.
The point is, regarding the Native Americans, that if specific people cannot prove that they are the legitimate owner of X property, then we have no way of knowing if this is true or not. Are we supposed to just kick out the current owners because some people are claiming they are the rightful owners, and they aren’t even going to try to prove it?
The burden of proof ought to be on the plaintiff, not the defendant.
No, you are not the rightful owner. Just because you murder the rightful owner and no one else has a better claim to the property doesn’t mean you can be the rightful owner. And I seriously doubt any customs would ever come to be that would okay that practice.
Native americans who owned property have living heirs… so it is still their rightful property? Or does rightful inheritance stop after one generation or something?
So if i take your property, say your car, at what point does it rightfully become mine?
I know it sounds assinine, but i think it is a perfectly valid question based in logic. We clai that we rightfully own our property as americans, so we have to explain at what point it became our rightful property and not that of the native americans…
There might be an out that hasn’t been mentioned yet: That even though the native Americans are the rightful owners of the land, the current owner as decided by US govt documentation has a stronger claim of ownership than another US citizen. I.e. If I steal your car, even though you are the rightful owner, I still have a stronger claim to it than someone who would steal it from me.
So this may be a somewhat satisfactory solution, but it also destroys any sense of rightful ownership in favor of ownership defined by the most successful use of force — to the victor goes the spoils.
So… since the native americans cannot prove specific claims of ownership, then they cannot be returned their property. But we cannot prove rightful ownership ourselves, and we don’t have to… the onus is on the rightful owner to prove ownership.
So if I steal your property and you cannot prove rightful ownership, then how do I not become the rightful owner? What if I have provided all the required forged documentation?
Once again, that we know the US land was stolen from someone, means, by definition, that the current owners are not rightful owners. So does this means that most property in the US is not rightful property? How do we get around this? At some point, the theif or the heirs of the theif must become rightful owners…
But doesn’t that mean that taxation is not theft?
No clue. However taxation can not rationally tell me anything, distribute things, or do what it claims to set out to do. There is no legit way taxation can say it is doing something “good”. This will just send us down the rabbit hole of subsidies and their nature.
So what plot of land are these specific Indians supposed to rightfully own? There need to be specific claims. It is not enough to say, “Well, my ancestors lived somewhere in the vicinity of what is now Houston, TX. So I want my land back, please.” Maybe there are rightful heirs, but we need specific claims and proof.
Well, it may be the case that not all libertarians will agree with me on this, but I would argue that it never rightfully becomes yours, as you stole it. I suspect most libertarians would agree with me on this point.
I disagree with this. In my opinion, the thief can never become the rightful owner.
Right. The onus is on the plaintiff to prove that the defendant is guilty. That is what “innocent until proven guitly” is for.
The thief can never be the rightful owner. If you can fool society, you may become the legal owner.
The rightful owners are those who have the best claim to the property in question. Heirs are not always those with the best claim, it is just usually the case that heirs do have the best claim. When a rightful owner dies, his property becomes unowned. Whoever has the best claim becomes the rightful owner. Typically these are heirs or people designated in a will, but it does not have to be the case. It may be that a neighbor may have a better claim than the owner’s son. Who knows? Who has the best claim is not set in stone.
Regarding Indians, the problem is that there are no specific locations that the so-called rightful owners are claiming to own. Maybe there are Indians with rightful property, but we have no way of knowing, because it cannot be proved. The property then goes to the people who do have the best claim, which is the current user.
You have two choices:
No native american property was stolen.
Some US property is not rightfully owned.
Or is there a logical option I’m missing?
Yes, there is. This is getting a little tiring repeating myself. Where is this so called property that is supposed to have been stolen? Is 109 Main Street Oklahoma City, OK? Or is it 314 School Street Kansas City, MO?
You can’t say that the Indians owned all of Ohio, as they did not own all of it. So, where is this land in Ohio that they are claiming was stolen? What specific plots of land?
I very much agree so far, but with one addition. We could, and I think should, take into account the wishes of the original owners from whom the land has been stolen.
In your case I would not deem it too much of a stretch to say that the original owners in the case their direct heirs/descendants could not be found would want for their land to pass at least onto ‘the heirs of the tribe’ that you talk about.
Or is there a logical option I’m missing?
Yes, things and perspectives change. The frameworks being talked about are elastic, not Platonic
EDIT
@ gotlucky,
I didn’t know you responded. I don’t think I repeated your argument this time though, at least not verbatim
@vive
lol, now you are just making me feel bad
I get the concept of having to prove a specific claim of rightful ownership. Do you see that this means rightful ownership depends on being able to prove it. So if I steal your property and you cannot prove the specific claim that I stole it, then you do not have rightful ownership.
Maybe I am incorrect in concluding that theft can be a source for rightful ownership since the theif would still potentially have to prove it later on.
Maybe it can be mroe clearly understood that rightful ownership is a mental state of understanding within a group of people. It is not an absolute concept. If rightful ownership requires proof, then it requires acceptance by the group as proof. If the group doesn’t accept your proof, then you simply are not the rightful owner.
If I stole your car and have all the necessary forged documentation, and society accepts it as legitamate, then I am the rightful owner since I have proven it. Thee is no way for anyone to know it is stolen since you cannot prove it.
This means that there are two types of rightful ownership:
Actual or absolute rightful ownership as first user without the use of force.
Practical rightful ownership, which is relatvie to the recognition of society at large (requires proof).
It seems like some here are talking about #1, but then switch to #2 or conflate the two.
For example, the absolute rightful owner of a particular tract of land may be a particular lineage of Native Americans. But the practical rightful owner is whoever holds the US recognized deed. Similarly, although you may be the absolute rightful owner of your car, I may be the practical rightful owner because you cannot prove your ownership to the court, but I can (although forged). We could not hold anyone at fault for honoring me as the rightful owner (the practical rightful owner). Of course this is how rightful ownership works in practice — it requires proof. So what I am arguing is that the only type of rightful ownership we need concern ourselves with is of the second kind.
This destroys the notion of absolute rightful ownership (which is what I am trying to draw attention to). In other words rightful property is not a product of labor, first user, voluntary exchange, etc… it is the product of being able to convince (prove to them) others that you are the rightful owner.
Now I know that everyone here will disagree with this. So why is it wrong?
In your two options given
a) In set up 1, you merely own something when you do. It’s a very sparse and nearly empty statement. However, this would be at the heart of the matter, and show the Ontological nature of an Austrian approach. It will show the imperatives and consequences of action. This is actually where “proofs” would be, if there are to be any..
b) Set up 2, is something that is going to come out of set up one, and put us in some type of context. It is from here we would finally enter into an epistemological necessity, in order to make sense of anything. And from here, there are no “proofs”, just demonstration, custom, expectations.
It’s not so much about deed holding as it is about the individuals calculations and expectations against the relevant societies calculations and expectations.
Either way, these are empty sets, because we can’t really say much more about a practice in an abstract form. Nor can we go into narrative or conformation biases in historical readings, in such an abstract setting.