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I have problems with the contractarian tradition and the initial acquisition of property. Lomasky and Narveson seem to think that people could reach agreement on what Jeremy Waldron calls a "principle of justice in acquisition" or a PJA. Waldron doesn't think that people would be likely to reach such an agreement.

Waldron argues that people "would know that by agreeing to a PJA at least some of them would be committing themselves to refrain from using resources to satisfy their pressing physical needs in circumstances where it would otherwise be open and perhaps sensible for them to do so. It seems to me that this is not a commitment that anyone can enter into in good faith....For these reasons, it seems unlikely that a PJA could secure unanimous acceptance in advance from those who were to be bound by it." [The Right to Private Property, p. 276-7]

Waldron points out that a PJA always specifies some act, call it A, the performance of which makes resources the exclusive property of some individual. But there will always be people who do not think they will be very good at doing A, whatever it is. These people will know that agreeing to a principle of justice in acquisition that requires the performance of A will put them at great risk -- perhaps they will even die because they cannot do A very well or do not have the opportunity to do A when it needs to be done. These people will hardly be willing to agree to a PJA that requires A to acquire exclusive property.

The bottom line is that Waldron does not think that a contractarian approach to justice and property will ever produce agreement on a principle of justice in acquisition that grants strong property rights (i.e., exclusive, permanent rights) to people who unilaterally go forth and perform some set of actions with respect to valuable resources unless it includes a strong Lockean proviso to protect others.