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OK. Just hold on a
minute.
You're referring to the so-called Lockean
proviso when you talk about leaving "enough and
as good" for others. Some libertarian
philosophers like Robert Nozick have accepted
that proviso. But Nozick also showed that it had
very little bite. In his view, it implied only
that those people for whom civilization was a
net loss had some right to compensation. There
are very few such people, I can assure you.
Nozick argued that the advantages of a system of
strong property rights were so great that almost
no one would be worse off that they would have
been in the state of nature. On this
interpretation, the Lockean proviso is almost
always fulfilled. Just think, for example, of
the increased production of all basic goods
(like food) made possible by strong property
rights. The people who don't own land gain
tremendously from that.
Other libertarian philosophers, like Roger
Pilon at the Cato institute, have argued that
the proviso is based on a mistake. Locke assumed
that God gave the earth to all mankind in common.
Pilon points out that if you want to make a
purely secular argument, you can't invoke God as
the original owner and giver of the earth. The
earth is simply there for people to occupy
and acquire. By performing various actions,
people acquire property such as land and that's
it. There may not be as much left over for
others, but their
rights have not been violated by those
who have acquired the land. We must "bite the
bullet" at this point, according to Pilon. And
frankly, I agree with him. Everyone begins with
the right to occupy land that does not belong to
anyone else. But once occupation occurs, the
situation has changed. Those without land must
occupy land that is still unoccupied or perhaps
occupy none at all.
You can make this situation sound terrible if
you want, but you're exaggerating. Even after
all the good land is owned, there will still be
people who want to sell or trade land for other
things. There will still be owners who want to
hire laborers to work on the land. There will
still be owners who go broke and sell their land
on the cheap. My point is that the consequences
are not nearly as bad as you say.
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