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The possibility of
loss to non-owners is key here. They lose in
two ways:
- They lose when the
Lockean proviso is no longer fulfilled.
In other words, they lose when the good
land or other resources have been taken
and there is nothing left for others.
- They lose because
once the regime of private property in
natural resources has taken hold, the
possibility of organizing the control
and use of resources in some other way
has been lost.
Think what it would have meant for the peasants
who have worked the fields and the men who have
worked in the mines if some other form of
economic organization had been the rule!! I'm
thinking of an organization in which they had a
larger share of control and profit.
Or consider the fact that in some countries the
nation owns certain valuable resources. In
Israel, for example, a person who owns land does
not own the oil beneath it, if there is any. The nation owns that
oil and can use it for the common good. In a
libertarian regime private individuals would own
the oil. There can be a huge difference in the
outcome because of a difference like that in the way things are controlled. It
could be especially important for the poor,
depending on state policies. My point is that
once a regime of strong private property rights
is put in place, the non-owners lose the option
to organize property differently. That's a major
loss.
It seems to me that these considerations are
fatal to the strong property rights that
classical liberals and libertarians advocate.
Furthermore, if those strong rights are
established, the owners owe some sort of
compensation to the non-owners because of the
losses I've mentioned.
Let me just say this as well -- In my opinion, the whole idea
of distributing natural resources on a first
come first serve basis is absurd. We aren't
talking here about handing out party favors or
ice cream cones. We're talking about
distributing the most important economic
resources that a society has at its disposal.
These are the resources on which people's lives
depend. The distribution of these resources will
decide the fate of most of the people involved.
If we can't come up with something better than
'first occupancy' we're too stupid to breathe.
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