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Let me say one more thing about this state of nature business. Let's grant for the sake of argument that individuals would have been justified in taking exclusive control over natural resources in the state of nature if they did it in a certain way. That's what Dee and Robert Nozick believe. Let's also grant that they would have been justified in transferring exclusive control over those resources to other individuals. Again, this would only be true if they had acted in certain ways. So far so good.

But, of course, we all agree that nothing of this sort ever happened. It's just a thought experiment. So what does it imply about what we should do today? Does it imply that we should keep, or take steps toward, a regime of strong, exclusive individual property rights? I don't think so.

We could only draw that conclusion if we could also show that the regime of such strong exclusive rights in natural resources was the ONLY justifiable system of property. We haven't done that. The best it would show is that such a system (call it the libertarian system) is ONE justifiable system of property.

Once you admit that people did NOT act in such a way as to justify libertarian acquisition and libertarian property rights, you are faced with a whole new problem. You have to argue that we should try to move toward that sort of system today after all that has actually happened. How are you going to do that? Talking about the state of nature won't help unless you can show that the ONLY justifiable system of property is the libertarian system. Or perhaps you could argue that there is something in our current situation that morally compels us to adopt the libertarian system. You haven't done that at all. The best you have done is to show that the libertarian system would have been justified if certain conditions had been fulfilled (which they were not).

I suggest that this leaves us (and other societies) free today to look at other options, other choices, for setting the rules of property in natural resources. Personally I would vote for a regime that included an element of collective choice. I think that would ALSO be a justifiable option.