No comment.
Obviously enough a libertarian land reform would be far different from a hit-and-miss socialist land reform. Legitimate owners have nothing to fear. Also have nothing to fear are many of the current owners who are basically ‘illegitimate’ (in some moral sense), but who are the least illegitimate of all possible candidates induvidually (and therefore legitimate as per libertarian ethics).
8. Rights Are Primary - The central commitment of the Libertarian Party will have to reflect the higher costs of doing
business there and the must be to individual liberty on the basis of rights and moral principle, and not on the basis of
economic cost-benefit estimates.
There is no picking and choosing. What is right is right. Or have you turned a utilitarian on us?
Not true. Abolition of serfdom worked out very well in 1789-1918 Europe.
I don’t recall that involving the forcible redistribution of landholdings.
I don’t think the French Revolution or World War I turned out very well either.
Who decides ‘legitimacy?’ And more importantly, who enforces it?
Oh, so the aristocracy relinquished their hold voluntarily?
What, you’re saying there is a legitimate function of the state that can not be performed by the market?
That is a different thing entirely. The aristocrats’ lands were expropriated by the State, not redistributed to the serfs.
No. I’m asking two questions. If you’ll answer them so I don’t make an attribution you didn’t intend, I’m happy to continue the discussion.
During the industrial revolution in England it was common for the aristocrats to go broke and sell their land off to the rising capitalist class. The reason was that the capitalists were attracting labor to the cities and it became impossible to conduct agrarian business the old way.
The point to remember is that serfdom only works by controlling capital. Once the capital owners can freely compete with each other, there is nothing that can keep serfdom in place.
At least in the Habsburg empire, abolition of serfdom was not a land reform. Abolition of serfdom meant that the aristocrats didn’t have a say in personal life of the former serfs anymore. Like who the serfs could marry or if whether they could leave the village.There was an option for the serfs to buy the land they were working on from the aristocrat, but there was no forced redistribution of property.
Even after the abolition, the former serfs were still obliged to perform “robota” - to work on the aristocrat’s land for free for certain amount of time evver week. Alternatively they could pay money, it was up to the aristocrat. Serfdom was abolished in 1781, “robota” was abolished in 1848, first serious land reforms took place after World War I.
Here the agrobusiness is quite dinamic, the typical “land owner” was replaced by business men. Brazil is the world largest producer of soy, orange, sugar, coffee, ethanol (from cane, subsideless and very profitable), cattle for beef, chicken.
The land reform movements are quite lost when it comes to anything agritucultural, nowdays they got more people from cities that has zero experiencie with agriculture. The big problem we have here is that the state doesn’t respect the right to an owner defend his property, if a bunch of rufians start to invade and wreck your farm, you cant shoot them. (and it’s nearly impossible to obtain guns legally here)
Here are some videos of the land reform folks doing what they do best
Serfdom was finally abolished in Austria in 1848. It was accompanied by land reform with monetary compensation for nobility. The compensation was 2/3 of the value of the land. 1/3 of that was paid by the state, 1/3 by the peasant.
It was a land reform not a market transaction. The noble could not decide that he was not going to accept the compensation and not relinquish his hold on the land. It was not “buying”.
More globalization is the answer.
I agree that it is ideal for illegitimately owned land to be returned to the descendants of the legitimate owners. But would you really trust the state with it’s hit and miss land reform policy? When the proponents of land reform are communists who don’t give shit about private property? When it’s virtually impossible to trace legitimate ownership except for those obviously illegitimate landowners owning thousands of hectares? When land reform would lead to bloodshed in the countryside?
For all the elegance of Rothbardian ethics, you must remember that the question is set in the context of a statist world.
I am not sure what that changes? Because we live in the confines of a statist world do you therefore propose we come out against the police going after thieves? That we speak up for decriminalization of theft because it is inevitable the police are going to frame some people for theft?
We are consistently in favour of property rights. There is no other position. The context plays no role in it. We are in favour of police defending property rights of victims of theft and we are against the police jailing innocents accused of theft. We are in favour of expropriation of thieves and we are against expropriation of rightful owners.
If you don’t elaborate, I’m going to assume you’re an idiot. Agrarian reform and/or localism are completely at odds with globalism. Explain?
I understand. But you would still have to consider if there are more legitimate landowners to be expropriated than illegitimate landowners. So in relation to what you said about utilitarianism, cost-benefit is a factor.
“I understand. But you would still have to consider if there are more legitimate landowners to be expropriated than illegitimate landowners. So in relation to what you said about utilitarianism, cost-benefit is a factor.”
I take this back by the way. The reason land reform is so difficult to make a stand on is that almost all the land reform policies in underdeveloped countries are hit-and-miss. Common policy expropriates both legitimate and illegitimate landowners. We are not trying to create a land reform policy here, just deciding if we should support current land reform policies. So are you willing to expropriate landowners regardless of legitimacy of ownership or not? Or maybe you take a cost-benefit stance depending on the legitimacy of the majority to be expropriated?
That at least 5% of the population stop paying/obeying the government until it goes broke and disappears, then the market can take care of property distribution.