Who owns the stars?

[MatthewWilliam]

@krazy kaju

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?

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.

@John hoffman

//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?

Nope. You don’t gain ownership of the ocean by pouring a tin of tomato juice in it.

@scineram

So if aliens were about to destroy the sun we should accept 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.