What do you think?
http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html
I quote:
The problem with basing ownership of land upon continuous use is the problems that would arise with defining what constitutes continuous use. The standard of how much labor constitutes a sufficient amount to acquire property would probably be that you make it known that the land is yours by marking it in some way. By building a house, a farm, or even just marking a few trees around the property would probably be sufficient. Think of farmers and stone walls, for example. In the case of water I would say that if it flows through your land then it´s yours. In the case of open water a fence system ( buoys for example) might work, or drawing the coordinates with GPS perhaps.
The error the writer makes is to conflate so-called ¨ Royal¨ libertarianism´s view of land ownership with the modern day concept of land ownership and the historical concept of a governmental authority, such as a monarch, giving its buddies large tracts through grants. For me, at least, land that on paper is A´s becomes B´s if A is aware of the presence and did nothing, nonwithstanding lack of action due to fear of reprisal, to eject B from his land, especially if it can be shown that B made improvements to the land with A´s knowledge and that there was no tenancy contract between A and B.
True, but leaving property so some guy who clearly does not use it for an extended period of time is unfeasible (trust a guy living in a country were absentee landlords of the best pots are the rule). Some practical rule will have to emerge in arbitration practice.
True, but I would very very cautious with the continuous use justification of taking somebody’s title to land away.
Its walking a very thin line but it has to be done somehow.
Its as difficult to define what is a continous use as it is to define how large is the piece of land you can claim ownership of. So in this both the geo-libertarians and the “royal” libertarians have gaps in their knowledge.
Just responding to the excerpt:
I have no problem with the idea that land title - or other kinds of property title - be considered “abandoned” after a certain period of disuse. However, speculation counts as a use, so this must be taken into account. People can hold a piece of property with the sole “use” being its eventual resale. No reasonable time window can be placed on speculation (maybe it’s a multi-generational speculative endeavor) so land or other property can be held for generations in apparent disuse as long as the owners claim they are holding it for speculative purposes. I don’t think this is the root of the State, however, even though it is a strategy commonly employed by monarchs and nobility who are subsidized by public monies and, therefore, able to engage in unprofitable (excessive) speculation for other purposes.
Grandfathering and easements are the customary legal solution to problems of encriclement, bottlenecks and barriers created by private land holdings. If people have been long accustomed to traveling over a particular North-South road, building an East-West railroad across that road (entirely on private property you have purchased) does not entitle you to begin charging tolls to cross your railroad. It is you who must accomodate the long-standing public easement, not the other way around.
Clayton -
From what I can tell, he never bothers to substantiate this. Which is odd, given that he’s accusing other thinkers of attacking straw men and misinterpreting Georgist ideas. Who says land belongs to the first user forever, with no possibility of abandonment? And why would a learned libertarian actually appeal to the “you own the oceans because you take a fish out of it” straw man?
No kidding. “Continuous use” is a very dangerous concept.
If someone owns land with valuable untapped mineral resources under it, are they allowed to exercise time preferences, wait and save these resources until a more opportune time comes to start mining or alienate the land? Or will this attempt to save for their future result in their land being taken away from them?
On the other hand, it’s certainly not impossible to abandon land.
The instance of the guy speculating on land or its mineral resources is not entirely fair, since you can still rent the land while waiting (actually, you should). So it would not count as unused during that time. Or wouldn’t it count?
I am of the opinion that you have to actually touch the land to claim it. Governments are known for just looking at a map and pointing and saying, “that’s mine”. I don’t care if all you do is cover the land with lime, it creates a barriar to entry that makes it so governments (or individuals) can’t just blanket call a whole continent “owned” by them.
A good example is the moon. It’s silly that someone can just look at the moon and say, “that piece is mine”. However, if they were to go to the moon with say, a plow and level out a section of it then I would say that they owned all that they plowed and they have the right to sell that.
The purpose here isn’t that they did something you or I may consider useful, it’s just a barrier to entry that requires some non-zero proof of work in order to claim land.
A railroad going through across a country owns the land the railroad is built on, but not the whole country. Just as a trail blazer would own the trail he cleared through a jungle but not the entire jungle.
I don’t think that would be enough. If in the future some mechanism will allow you to plow an entire conintent in two hours, then the first man on Mars could easily own the entire planet. I think Locke’s provisio should be respected. You can’t take all the resources, you have to leave some amount to other people.
If everyone has access to the 2-hour continent lime spreader then it’s still a non-zero time constrant and there will be competition to get as much as you can (a land grab). Technology shortens that time frame is all. In ancient history it may have taken days to cover an acre whereas today we can do an acre in an hour. However, since everyone can cover about the same ground in about an hour the purpose of the non-zero time constraint still applies.
Also, since any given piece of land can only be occupied by a single person at a time this leads a definitive situation where there is only one owner. Whene people just draw lines on a map two people can draw lines on different maps at the same time and we are left with neither being able to claim true ownership.
The point of the landrush is that it requires a non-zero amount of time and the amount of time required to lay claim to land increases linearly with the amount of land covered. Lines drawn on a map don’t scale linearly with respect to the amount of land taken. That is, drawing a perimeter is a lot easier than actually covering the entire surface.
I don’t think I am comfortable with this all or nothing proposition. It migth thousands of people who use billions to try and get to Mars. Only one succeeds, and applies the super quick lime spread mechanism. Should he own Mars exclusively and all the rest spent their billions in vain? That’s too monopolistic. What if will never be able to reach beyond Mars, and the only habitable planets will be earth and Mars. Can we really let one person hold the entire Mars just because at some moment in time he was smarter or had more capital than others? I don’t think its proportionate.
If you are going to assume a 2 hour continent lime spreader then it seems reasonable to assume easy access to mars and/or other planets. 
If we use a more realistic time frame for spreading lime then by the time the first guy to mars even gets to 1/100th of the planet others will have arrived. He has the advantage of “first pick”, but he won’t get to it all on his own.
Folks, do not take initial appropriation too seriously. In an effective free market, resources always end up being owned by who can exploit theme better, with no regard in the long-run for who owned them initially. I’m not saying that initial appropriation rules are not important, but just that there are far more important things.