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I've got more to say about why I think Dee's argument for really strong property rights in the state of nature fails. My first argument was that It would justify a situation in which a few people take control of one of the necessities of life and could reduce the others to a condition near slavery. They might not do it, I agree. But that misses the point. The point is that they would be justified in doing it if your view is correct. That, to me, is morally unacceptable and I think most people would agree.

Dee, I want you to consider more problems with what you have said ---

First of all, you're talking as though all libertarians take a position similar to Roger Pilon or perhaps Robert Nozick. That's not true. If we think of libertarians as people who believe in very strong forms of self-ownership, then we must admit that there are both right-libertarians and left-libertarians. One left-libertarian, Peter Vallentyne, believes that original acquisition of natural resources requires that some form of compensation be paid to non-owners. My point is that you have to respond to left-libertarians as well as utilitarians like Ann and crazy leftists like Vera.

Second, you are claiming that in the state of nature there is some set of actions that can confer an extensive, exclusive, permanent right to property in land and other resources. How on earth can you prove such a thing? At best your argument justifies a limited right to USE land to raise food. That is nowhere near the exclusive rights you want to establish. What actions are supposed to confer these strong property rights on people? Is it mixing one's labor, as Locke suggested? It's hard to see what that means if it is more than a metaphor. But, as others have pointed out, it's even harder to see how it confers exclusive ownership. On the other hand, some people have said that first occupancy is the crucial act. Why is that so important? It might generate a USE right, but you want way more than that.

Samuel Pufendorf, the 17th-century German philosopher, said that he couldn't see how a "bare corporal Act" could confer ownership without the consent of others. That's still a very good question. You're trying to deduce a moral conclusion ("Person A has exclusive rights to control resource X") from simple descriptive facts like "A plowed the ground around X" or "A put a fence around X."  You need a moral premise -- a moral principle of acquisition -- that connects these two very different kinds of statement. What is it? You haven't offered anything.

Third, you seem to be forgetting that even if the earth was not held in common in the state of nature, everyone had a right to go forth and use portions of it. As people occupy land and take ownership of it, as you advocate, others lose the right to make use of it. Gradually there will be less and less for non-owners to use. Eventually there will only be the poorest land (or the least valuable resources) left. This is a huge loss. Because of it, the people who take ownership in the better land owe compensation to those who have lost the right to use it and acquire it.

And finally, the entire way that you are conceptualizing your argument completely ignores the possibility of competing moral concerns that limit individual rights and their exercise. You're trying to construct a strong property right in isolation from other moral concerns. That's a mistake. Life always involves many moral concerns that interact and limit each other. Property is not different from other rights in this respect. We would be better off it we made this clear from the start.

So in the end either owners have much more limited rights than you seek to establish or the owners have obligations to others that they must fulfill in order to justify their ownership.