Ariadne's Thread on Property
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Speaker Don't be so quick to throw out the idea that labor and occupation creates a strong right to natural resources such as land and the product produced from those resources.

Assume for a moment that we are talking about a small group of people that existed five thousand years ago. Assume that they have a collective form of land ownership if you like. Let's say that this group of people occupied some land and grew corn. What would you say if another group came at harvest time and took the corn? I think you would consider that seizure unjust. But doesn't that imply that labor and occupation created a right to the product of the land and the right to exclude others from consuming that product?

If you agree that the first group had a right to consume the corn they grew and exclude others from it, and you reject the theory of initial acquisition based on labor and occupation, then you need to come up with another theory.

Do you have anything else to offer?





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