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Land and freedom of property

Started by pjkeeley, May 02, 2008, 04:28:15 PM

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pjkeeley

In the past three years my worldview has shifted from radical socialism to the opposite, something closer to libertarianism. On social issues I took very little convincing, but on economic issues the transition has been harder. One major problem I have with libertarianism is the concept of land ownership. How can anyone come to legitimately own land? To me owning land ought to be a right, since it is an extension of our right to life. Without a roof over our head we cannot be free and we cannot live, at least not without relying on the charity of others. However, we are born into a world in which land has already been concentrated in private and 'public' hands, through the course of events that took place over hundreds of years and that had nothing to do with us. It is left to chance whether we are born to a family that owns land, how much land, whether we will be entitled to any, whether the land is of a type that can be put to use, what natural resources on the land can be exploited, and so on. Granted, individuals can acquire land privately, but people who have land in the first place are in a much better position to do so (especially if the land is exploitable).

In reality this will never change, but in libertarian theory, what's the solution here?  I can't advocate a more equitable redistribution of land without it infringing on someone's property, the right to which is one of the central pillars of libertarian thought. Yet the way in which land is currently distributed seems to undermine the idea that success is attainable according to the measure of a person's merit; we can't equally be entitled to the same opportunities if we aren't equally entitled to certain land or natural resources, surely?

Signed, a deeply confused wannabe-political theorist.  :confused:

LARA

Wow.  That is one of the very fundamental sources of inequality isn't it?  It seems like over time as land power becomes more concentrated, that we will drift away from a free system to a system more like fuedalism.  If I think about my situation right  now, I could consider myself a property owner, until I realize that I am actually indebted to my mortgage company.  I start getting these weird feelings of deja vu when I think about modern property ownership.  The situation starts to remind me of fairy tales I used to read as a child  where the peasants were starving and not allowed to hunt on the king's land.

But back to the real world here.  I don't know the solution, but I do think that one of the the first steps is easing of zoning restrictions.  Excessively authoritarian zoning codes are one way that businesses hold onto power and property.  They keep small start-ups out of residential neighborhoods, keep people from legally starting at home businesses and drown potential new business owners in red tape.  Granted some restrictions are good where they are actually in the public interest and reasonable, like not putting schools around a dangerous industrial area and ensuring environmental and saftey codes are accounted for, but in smaller cities unnecessary zoning restrictions hamper growth and commerce.  Easing some of these restrictions could help start-ups use the land they do have for what they want instead of being held back by older competition.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
                                                                                                                    -Winston Smith, protagonist of 1984 by George Orwell

SteveS

Hey pjkeeley - good frickin' question.

I perceive two parts of this: one is that a child's opportunities seem necessarily limited by the means of it's parents, and the child does not get a choice in who it's parents are.  I don't know how to correct this.  It is not equal, nor is it just, but this isn't a problem created by people: nature burdened us with this one.  Extend this problem out and you'll see that this situation burdens us with all sorts of injustices: why should little Sammy have to suffer from diabetes just because his parents are both diabetic?  Well - the only choice is whether or not to have a child.  If they have a child, then the child has diabetes just because of the way the world works.  Little Sammy doesn't deserve it, but there's no way to prevent it (short of better bio-tech that could correct diabetes, but then somebody would still have to pay for it).

The second part is a much harder issue, IMHO, and speaks to preventing monopolies and market-cornering.  What if someone acquires so much land, for instance, that everyone else is screwed?

The closest thing I think we've ever seen to a libertarian economic model was the laissez-faire capitalism of earlier America or pre-communist Russia, and it seems that this has always (or at least usually) led to a large amount of property in a very few hands.

While I don't think we can do anything to create complete equality (without giving up our freedom), we can certainly, all of us, prevent this sort of situation from occurring (at least in theory).  If I'm worried that one person is buying up all the land in town and that this will ultimately lead to my detriment, then why the hell would I sell that person any of my land?  Because I'd turn a short-term profit that way?  Maybe, but what about the long-term?  Everybody looking out for themselves will work if everyone is okay at doing it.  A population of stupidity will end in disaster, and then we're back at the first problem: why should I be disadvantaged just because my parents were stupid?

There's a problem with human mentality, one practical aspect of this comes out with these damn red-light traffic cameras around me.  Don't stop completely at a red light, make a rolling right-turn, or stop over the line and a fancy camera snaps a picture proving your guilt and wham you owe a $100 fine.  Just about everybody I talk to thinks this is unfair and constitutes a cheap-shot, but the same buggers refuse to acquit people who are charged with the fine!  Its like they say to themselves "this law is unfair", but then when they're in a court room they say, "well, that is what the law says....".  They cede responsibility for thinking to someone else.  So we have only ourselves to blame.  If everyone charged with a red-light camera violation plead not-guilty, and everyone selected to hear the case acquitted, then we wouldn't have to worry about the cameras anymore.  A town could still put them up but they would be irrelevant.  We don't need laws and politicians to protect us from this, we just need thought and motivation (and confidence) to act.

The problem is that this same mentality could lead to the development of capitalistic monopolies.  Traditionally, we look to government to protect us from monopolies.  We let the government clean-up the long-term consequence of our actions so we don't have to think about them.  But we're really just giving up when we do this --- we trade a significant economic burden along with personal liberties for the safety of having a government protect us from ourselves because we'd rather aggressively pursue short-term interests and not worry about long-term consequences.  Its easy to see the short-term, hard to see the long, and we don't want to have to think that hard.  So we solve the long term issues with authoritarianism.  The government takes us up on our trade because they obtain power over the people (which is what they really want).  "We'll protect you, just give us your money, and follow our rules.  Did we mention that we're kind of a big deal around here?  So don't mess with us or we'll put you in prison and/or repossess your property!  Because we can.  Because you told us to.  Because you're afraid you won't be able to protect yourself.  Don't worry, its okay, this way you don't have to think so hard.  Now please excuse me, there's a great photo-op coming up and we love letting everyone see how important we are!"  ;)

I think that if everyone were reasonably intelligent and possessed of self-confidence then we wouldn't have to worry so much about this problem.  But, if everyone is not, then it becomes a very real and pragmatic problem, and I don't know how to solve it.

Moses

Well I guess the way I look at it is with a quote from Mark Twain: "The world owes you nothing, it was here first."

We also need to keep in mind that it is profitable to rent out land to people. That way they can get the shelter they need and the property owners dont have their rights violated. That is how it works for my Landlord and I. Also from a market viewpoint with land in such high demand, it has prevented over concentration of real estate. For instance if someone owned tons of land they could get all the richer by selling parcels of it to different people instead of just hoarding it for themselves when it can do very little for them that way. Also condominuims make up a further subdivision of land ownership amongst people The voluntary give and take of the market generally acts to prevent a land monopoly. If you want to see the real culprit behind land shortages AND urban sprawl just check out Zoning laws. I deal with them everyday for work.

Will

Capitalism/libertarianism leads inevitably to one of three things:
1) It balances out with elements of socialism (Europe)
2) It becomes a corprotocracy (current and future US)
3) It becomes anarchy (the American West several hundred years ago).

The problem is that overall, capitalism can't be self sustaining because there's no value put on collective good. Some individuals may invest in the public good, but either the government must compensate with socialist programs or there must be money to be made in public god (which is not always the case, especially in real estate). Classes automatically form based on income and the wealthy have too much power and the poor too little. Either the government steps in (1), the upper class takes control (2), or the whole thing devolves into whomever has the biggest gun (3).
I want bad people to look forward to and celebrate the day I die, because if they don't, I'm not living up to my potential.

Moses

I totally understand where your coming from Will. I just think that the modern corpotocracy that we live under now is do to corporations gaining political privileges. For instance just check out the Export-Import bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation etc etc. I distrust corporate america but mostly because the connected ones benefits from government laws and perks.

I am not an anarchist libertarian like some are. I am pretty much am what is called and minarchist. I think you might find the study of something called mutual aid society groups that use to exist before the New Deal interesting. They provided all sorts of health insurance, welfare benefits, unemployment insurance to their members and they did this long before the New Deal. Of course with the great depression they could not fund themselves anymore since they relied on small monthly dues. They also were not occupation specific and would include people from Upper middle class to working class.

It is interesting because before the new deal they fought the introduction of the welfare state very strongly since they knew it would hurt their reason for being. They argued that it is better for an organized group of citizens to take care of each other than a namless government official. These groups covered the overwhelming amount of families in the United States but these groups also use to exist in England and mainland europe (where the governments of the times were nervous about organized citizens so the mutual aid societies were weaker there).