The homesteading principle and its application
Over at the Freedom Democrats blog, blogger ka1igu1a recaps the marvelous fun Stephan Kinsella has been having lately playing devil’s advocate. I want to record here my comment and the comment on the post that I was responding to.
The “Homesteading Principle”
#6959 On Tue, 2008 12 09 10:22 neuralnoise said,The “Homesteading Principle” is itself hardly a principle but a weak and silly rationalization employed to shove the square peg of resource monopolization into the round hole of liberty.
I harvested an apple from this tree last summer! Therefore my descendants own this piece of the earth in perpetuity!
To which I replied:
Share ThisYes, the Homesteading Principle
#6960 On Tue, 2008 12 09 18:46 bradspangler said,
The problem with your argument, neuralnoise, is that you’re using a reductio ad absurdum on an aspect of a broader [body of] theory that posits its usefulness only in applications where it wouldn’t be absurd. More specifically, showing the picking of a single apple as a self-evidently absurd case only indicates this particular example of occupancy/use (i.e. “homesteading) doesn’t rise to a level of significance sufficient to establish a property right. It doesn’t invalidate the principle any more than one cracker not being enough to stop you from starving would invalidate the concept of eating food to avoid starving. If it’s an absurd example, it would be of no use to arbitrators seeking to settle disputes. Clearly there ARE instances in which occupancy/use would establish what a reasonable person would recognize as ownership. The only question is where said threshold might be in particular cases or with regard to particular types of property or particular homesteading methods. With regard to these specifics, it’s up to claimants to make property claims, disputants to dispute them and arbitrators to arbitrate them. As time goes on, standards will emerge.Brad Spangler
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Agorism: Revolutionary Market Anarchism
http://agorism.info/
