I am buying a house on a hilltop which overlooks a beautiful neighboring hill. On the other hand, the neighboring houses overlook another hilltop on which an ugly factory is located. Naturally my house is about 20% more expensive on the market. However if a new factory will be built on the currently empty, green and beautiful hill seen from my house, the price for the house will drop by 20% immediately. If more factories will be built, the price will drop like stone.
I am not talking here about noise from the factories or pollution, but only about the fact that these factories block the view, and instead of a pastoral atmosphere you get an ugly industrial one.
Do you think one can have some rights over the view from his/her property? If not, then how do you make sure that the view for which you payed your best money will not be significantly compromised? Are you supposed to build a much larger fence around your property to include all the places you don’t want ugly things to be built on?
I am astounded at this question. I mean, Eugene, of course you have a right to the non-entity known as “the view”. You can even inflict violence and imprison or even execute anyone who impedes this “view”. And if your house depreciates in value for any reason, you have a right to inflict violence upon everyone else, as the value of your house is your property, and just because this value resides in the minds of everyone else is no excuse. You have a right to beat them until they stop valuing your house less.
Come on Eugene, what is with you and fences? It’s always the fencing ‘solution’ with you. Why not go for something harmonious for a change? Why not try bribes? Bribe the owners of surrounding landscape into not building ugly things on it. Bribe them to clean up their yards and further improve your view. Be nice to your neighbours! Don’t go right for the fence! In fact tear down fences, they’re ugly an obstruct the view you paid top dollar for.
If it is a violation of B’s property rights for A to build an unsightly structure next to B’s house which causes the market price of that house to decline, then someone’s property rights are being violated every time a price changes: e.g. if I buy shares of ABC Inc at $100 per share, and the price drops to $80 a share because of some action someone else took (e.g. selling their shares), then by this logic my property rights have been violated. By this view, there can be no property exchange or market economy.
Does the mere fact that B doesn’t like the appearance of A’s structure constitute a violation of B’s property rights? If so, then it follows that a person cannot use his or her own property as he pleases unless no one else objects. By this view, there is no property at all.
So to answer the OP, no it is not a violation of B’s property rights for A to build an unsightly structure nearby. A violation of property rights means a use of some property by someone other than its owner and without the owner’s consent. By building his unsightly structure near B’s house, A did not use B’s property without his consent - he did not violate B’s property rights.
Given that any rights system is in some respects conventional it’s not inconcievable that a claim to certain environmental conditions could be established.
try to persuade. You bought a house, not a view, the view is merely a perk and not guaranteed when you signed to contract, unless the view was guaranteed but thats another matter. Is the view your property? Is all that you see in view span X belong to you?
Understand what “the view” actually is. It is not the land, structures, et al that one sees. It is the seeing as such. My view of a park and the park are not the same thing. “My view” is in the same class of existence as my thought, my attitude, my emotion, et al - i.e. it exists only subjectively. Such things are by nature ineligble to be property.
But suppose you say that “my view” is owned by me, and B is infringing on my property rights over my view by changing it without my permission (i.e. buiuldingh his ugly house or whatever). It would follow that any action (or inaction) which caused another person to have an unwelcome idea, or experience an unwelcome emotion, et al would constitute a violation of that person’s property rights: i.e. because you changed their idea, emotion, et al without the owner’s permission.
The point is that you can’t buy the hill if no one lives there, and once someone does live there, you probably won’t be able to give him money to move away. But even if you do, other people will come and erect ugly structures just to get your money.
Aha! Which is why you should pretend to like ugly structures and dislike pretty structures. Then other people will, to try to get your money, come and erect pretty structures and you will end up with a pretty neighbourhood and having screwed everyone in it!
Everyone in here seems to be assuming a particular property system and then taking that system as somehow inherent to nature or logically necessary.
Property rights do not have to be constrcuted around an individualistic and/or materialist framework. Its entirely possible that rights could be established over views or other “non-entities”
Property rights serve a purpose of conflict resolution over tangible scarce and rival goods; if there is an attempt to extend ownership to other non-such entities (i.e. intellectual property, views, reputation, etc. etc.) then property rights over tangible scarce and rival goods are undermined. This only mutliplies the field of conflict rather than narrowing it. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Theoretically thats one way to understand property rights, but again, there’s nothing about that interpretation that is inherent to nature in itself. To make the claim that property rights serve the purpose of conflict resolution over tangible, scarce, and rival goods you must hold a number of prior assumptions, such as the primacy of individuals as the unit of social significance or that only material goods can be owned. Each of these assumptions are contestable, and if they are contested then your claim does not follow.
So your conclusion is only a function of your prior assumptions, not the nature of property itself.
You are taking an entirely ‘property as social convention’ approach. From a completeley amoral and descriptive standpoint, you have a point. ‘so-called property rights’ could be anything. Arbitrary.
If you read Hoppe though, you would realise that only one ethic can be justified. The private property ethic. So I don’t waste my time exploring the ramifications of unjustifiable property ethics, except to critique them in the light of the private property ethic.
My lack of realization has nothing to do with having not read the propper material. His argument follows if you accept his underlying assumptions, namely those of methodolgical individualism and materialism.
He “proves” his property system is the only justifiable system if you accept his standard for justice (and even then there’s still problems with Hoppe’s argument).
There’s nothing intrinsically just about private property.
