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On Property

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Current speaker I partly agree with you. I agree that there must be a way for people to acquire some sort of property rights in the state of nature. And certainly that would include some sort of a right to land and other natural resources.  But from there on it get's tricky.

      • I agree that people in the state of nature have or can acquire the right to WORK or USE land. They need it to grow food, and I agree that it would be morally absurd to say that they must stand by and starve because they have no right to use it. So far, so good.

      • I would also agree with you that acquiring or appropriating natural resources in the state of nature cannot morally require everyone's consent or agreement. That just wouldn't be possible. Again, people would end up starving while they waited to get everyone's consent.

      • But I don't see how that argument gets us to really strong property rights in land. A use right is not the right to extensively control and to permanently exclude others from use or control. Let's call that an EXCLUSIVE right. I think that's what you are driving at and I don't think you have argued for it yet.

Here is my first argument against your view: If no one owns anything to begin with, and if clearing and planting land confers a really strong ownership right (a permanent, extensive, and exclusive right) then it follows that a few people in the state of nature could justifiably take control of all the good land and other people would have only what is left. Carry this a little further and one group could justifiably acquire all the land and the rest would have nothing. The group with the land could force the others to accept work at the lowest possible wage (or the smallest possible share of the crop) simply to survive. All of this would be quite justified if your view is correct, but it seems morally absurd to me. Here's a second argument: The exclusive acquisition you are advocating completely ignores and overrides the use rights that everyone had to begin with without providing any compensation whatever. Therefore, your view that by occupation or working land people in the state of nature can acquire a permanent, extensive, and exclusive property right in that land is unacceptable.

I think Locke was right when he said that people in the state of nature had the right to USE land as long as they could work it and there was "enough and as good" left for others. In other words, there must be no loss to others when the first occupiers take possession of the land. If there is a loss, some other arrangement must be found or the others must be compensated. So there can be limited property rights, but nothing close to the classical liberal or modern libertarian view of property.

And let me add this: The compensation I am talking about is not a one-time deal. It isn't something due just once at the time of appropriation. The benefits of appropriating natural resources continue to accrue over time and therefore the compensation that owners owe to non-owners must continue to be paid as long as the benefits continue to accrue.


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