I am serious. Who has ownership over the stars? Can anyone claim ownership?
I have also been thinking about this. The answer is nobody.
Nature is unowned until it is homesteaded - after which it becomes property. As stars are giant balls of hot gas it’s a bit difficult to “mix your labour with them”.
Anyone who buys a “certificate of ownership” for a star has just bought a very expensive, but meaningless piece of paper.
I can sell you some if thats what your after. I have a lot of nice ones in stock.
Aliens ?
What are you using them for that interferes with someone else’s use?
If and when homesteading them becomes possible, then one may own them.
-Jon
Dyson sphere!
The more contentious question would be “who owns the moon?”
Does pinning an Amercian flag, taking a stroll and playing golf count as homesteading?
So if aliens were about to destroy the sun we should accept it?
You know, you might as well just read what Rothbard had to say about this in the Ethics of Liberty or a number of other books. Buying a certificate of ownership is useless if you haven’t homesteaded the damn thing. Using the logic that justifies “claims = ownership,” Columbus had a right to claim the entire Americas when he landed on Hispaniola. Does this make any sense?
From an ethical POV, considering that you agree with self-ownership, can you really claim a right to anything you haven’t mixed your labor with?
No more than me saying I own you makes it so.
I thought Disney owned the Stars. Just look at the carrers of George Lopez and Tim Allen.
Taking a stroll on the moon is not homesteading. Homesteading is, by definition, “mixing your labor with the land.” A better question would be about the natures of contracts and property ownership. Take this as an example: say I homestead part of the moon and then sell it to someone on Earth. Later, I leave that plot of the moon to go back to Earth. Considering that nobody is on the moon and that the person who “owns” the plot doesn’t actually work it, is it fair to say that that plot is actually owned or is it unowned since it is not worked?
Why wouldn’t it be owned?
//Nature is unowned until it is homesteaded - after which it becomes property. As stars are giant balls of hot gas it’s a bit difficult to “mix your labour with them”.//
If I put my time and labour into spitting onto a field does this make it my property?
What if i spit on something you claim to be your field?
Would anybody dare answer my question?
ill claim ownership.
First you might want to explain how it is even possible to destroy the sun.
I completely agree with you, as usual, Kaju. It would be fair to say that it is unowned.
But I recall reading something different in MES, that once labour is mixed with nature that it remains the owners’ or his assigns’ land. So, according to Rothbard, if Crusoe were to homestead some part of the island, abandon it for 50 years, then he could legitimately remove any person living on that land, as the land is Crusoe’s “in perpetuity”. This is probably one of the few things that I disagree on with Murray.
Nope. You don’t gain ownership of the ocean by pouring a tin of tomato juice in it.
Your question is another variant of the “lifeboat situation”. Rothbard deals with these in a chapter of TEOL.
This also remids me of a different thread called Anarcho-capitalism defeated? where the OP constructed a hypothetical scenario involving a Star Trek transporter machine.
Frankly if aliens had the ability to destroy the sun then our pewny ammunition would hardly put up much of a fight in defending it.
Why not exactly? If it’s still part of their plans and they’ve mixed their labour with it, and it has hence become an extension of themself why isn’t it legitimately their property? Why would time make any difference and what period of time has to pass before you can say it isn’t theirs, any line your draw has to be entirely arbitrary. In any case what do you consider to be suitable, 50 years? 100 years? 1000 years? In any case it shouldn’t matter where the land is, you seem to point out that if it’s on an uninhabited island it doesn’t count and yet do you hold the same views for some land in the middle of country in England or the USA?