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I think there is a plausible connection between self-ownership and taking ownership of the objects we find around us. I say that because it is what I add to the object I find that gives it most of its value. It is my labor and my ideas that make the difference between uncultivated land that serves no one and a farm that can feed my family and others as well.

But let's set that aside. Let me start over, and this time I will not mention self-ownership.

I think that the best approach to understanding property is to think in terms of what Robert Nozick called an historical entitlement theory. The idea here is that the justice of the distribution of property at any particular place and time depends on the justice of initial acquisition and the justice of later transfers. If the initial acquisition was just and the subsequent transfers were just, then the current distribution is just. It doesn't matter whether the current distribution satisfies some other moral principle such as the principle of utility. It doesn't matter whether the current distribution fits a pattern that we think is ideal.

The big problem is the problem of "initial acquisition." How does anyone first begin to own anything? To answer that question, I want to take a very traditional approach by starting from what is often called the "state of nature." When we imagine people in the state of nature, we are imagining them without government. What would be the relationship between people and natural resources in that situation?

Take land for example. What would be the relationship between people and the land they find around them in the state of nature? It seems to me that the relationship would be as follows:

• No one owns any land to begin with. People would see land around them, but none of it is owned by anyone.
• Everyone is free to make use of a piece of land. In other words, the land is available to everyone.
• Since no one owns any of the land, it is available to be acquired.
  

Now, from this starting point, what can happen? What is morally permissible? It seems to me that people would be perfectly justified in doing the following:

• By taking various actions such as clearing and planting, individual people (or maybe families) could occupy land, work it, and raise a crop for their benefit. If people do not have the right to do this, then they would be morally bound to do nothing and starve. But none of us believe that to be true. It would be morally absurd.
  
• Furthermore, by occupying and working the land people would acquire property rights to it. It would violate those rights if other people simply came and took the land or the harvest for themselves. Again, it would be morally absurd to say that the rights of the occupiers are not violated if, after they have worked to raise a crop, others could come and take whatever they want.
  

That's my first argument. I have other arguments based on the contractarian approach, but we'll talk about that later.