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Topic: A workable compromise on the common/private dispute? (Read 2328 times)
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SteveA
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There has been mentioned the difference in ownership between claiming a right to use something and a right to deny use to others.
There's merit to having government more realistically portray private interests in land. The more accurately ownership titles reflect individual interests in land, the less conflict there is between people and the system.
In my view, the only time a state should enforce a claim to deny usage of land by someone, is when such use poses a real threat to, or harms someone elses vested interests in the land. If use of land doesn't harm or place at risk vested interests someone else has in it, there's little reason the state needs to be involved in stopping this use. If someone is walking across an open field that noone has any real interest in, there's no legitimate reason to harrass that person. Yet the typical view of land ownership seems to imply such harrassment is possible (though unlikely to be enforced). For a clearer example showing a difference between a right to use and a right to deny ownership, consider public property, like a freeway (specifically not a privately created freeway). There are many people that have real interests in them and have built their life around access and use of these. They each have some legitimate claim of a right to use (after all they paid for it too) but noone has a right to deny use by others (people aren't free to build a home in the middle of a public freeway). Some natural resources are similar, like a lake that many people use for fishing.
The problem with common ownership is that when a right to use is detached from a responsibility to maintain it (which is addressed by private ownership), there's the typical reduction in value of the shared resource. If the common resource didn't need any maintainence or there were no real indirect costs to usage then there's no need to exclude usage (people climbing a rocky hill) but if one persons usage does have costs to others, then either some voluntary arrangement needs to exist regarding this or the claim to deny use becomes a stronger argument (for example, people can claim a right to use it but the costs of maintaining it for others or the indirect costs of increased traffic should be addressed somehow ... if it weren't publicly owned the situation would be a bit clearer, but that's not currently the case).
Anyway, I just popped this up here in case it might stimulate some thoughts on how, for at least land, ownership might be better addressed by government. Separating claims to a right to use from right to exclude use could help a lot in reducing conflict over land ownership.
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Logged
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"Fruitless, born a thousand times, lies barren. Unguided inspiration, yields random motion, circumscribed in destination, going nowhere. Guidance uninspired, always true in facing, stands immobile. But fixed upon that destination firmly and with inspiration lofted; beget your dreams."
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Greenbacks
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. If use of land doesn't harm or place at risk vested interests someone else has in it, there's little reason the state needs to be involved in stopping this use. it places a legal obligation on those who are excluded... The problem with common ownership is that when a right to use is detached from a responsibility to maintain it (which is addressed by private ownership), there's the typical reduction in value of the shared resource. we are talking about common ownership in theory not in practice. individual private land occupancy is the best system that protects the private property that results from the fruits of one's labor. we are only talking about common ownership of the return on land (economic rent) to protect the private property rights (fruits and self-ownership) of those excluded. |
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Gabriel
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I forget where I saw this idea, but I found it very persuasive: Rather than homesteading a resource, consider a settler to homestead a "means of action". You don't own the land, you own the use that you are deriving from the land... which means that anyone else can homestead *other* uses for the same land, as long as they don't interfere with yours. Any use is valid as long as it does not infringe on more senior uses.
This makes a lot of otherwise-complicated situations very simple. The question of how far up and down a homestead goes becomes trvial: You have no valid claim to the atmosphere overhead nor the minerals underfoot unless you're *using* them. If you homestead a means of braodcast action rather than an entire radio frequency, then you have no right to exclude others from the frequency unless they're interfering with the uses you've already homesteaded. And so forth.
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Greenbacks
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I forget where I saw this idea, but I found it very persuasive: Rather than homesteading a resource, consider a settler to homestead a "means of action". You don't own the land, you own the use that you are deriving from the land... which means that anyone else can homestead *other* uses for the same land, as long as they don't interfere with yours. Any use is valid as long as it does not infringe on more senior uses.
This makes a lot of otherwise-complicated situations very simple. The question of how far up and down a homestead goes becomes trvial: You have no valid claim to the atmosphere overhead nor the minerals underfoot unless you're *using* them. If you homestead a means of braodcast action rather than an entire radio frequency, then you have no right to exclude others from the frequency unless they're interfering with the uses you've already homesteaded. And so forth.
simplify? sounds like a god awful bloody mess to me... You don't own the land, you own the use that you are deriving from the land... yes, deriving use from the land connotes labor being applied tansforming into private property. Any use is valid as long as it does not infringe on more senior uses two people can't physically occupy the exact same location... people use land area to create private property - houses, farming, etc. the use of that land area places an obligation on those excluded by way of a legal claim on the private property interest of the excluded - the fruits of their labor...either immediately via leasing of access to that specific location or later via a purchase which is just economic rent that has gone uncollected until the time of the sale. to the extent that the excluded are being materially harmed via this "value of obligation" by private enclosure is DEFINED by the economic rent that naturally attaches to ALL locations under scarcity conditions. the sharing of this economic rent is by DEFINITION the EQUAL right of self-ownership as it preserves the private property rights of the excluded to the FULL fruits of their labor. in other words - the greatest amount of EGALITARIAN LIBERTY for the greatest number of people. |
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« Last Edit: May 06, 2005, 11:13:07 am by Greenbacks »
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SteveA
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simplify?
sounds like a god awful bloody mess to me... Don't sweat over him, Gabriel. He loves to obfuscate simple things. I understand what you're saying perfectly. One problem with this is that it doesn't place anyone specifically as having an interest in the potential future value of the resource, unless they're already using it. Currently, if someone 'owned' a forest, they'd have an interest in protecting it from burning down, whether or not anyone currently benefitted in any way from it because the future utility of the forest is greater if it's not burned. By viewing ownership as being limited to current uses of the forest, if few people used it, there'd be little ownership interest in it and technically someone who burned down this resource wouldn't be doing much harm to anyones current interests in it. So, at least to promote efficient future use of resources, should include the ability to stake a claim in future value as well. Though the future utility of such a forest is rather easy to see, there are other things are less obvious, yet could benefit from having someone with an interest (or something at stake) in the future value of the resource. |
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Logged
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"Fruitless, born a thousand times, lies barren. Unguided inspiration, yields random motion, circumscribed in destination, going nowhere. Guidance uninspired, always true in facing, stands immobile. But fixed upon that destination firmly and with inspiration lofted; beget your dreams."
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Gabriel
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So, at least to promote efficient future use of resources, should include the ability to stake a claim in future value as well. Sure, but that claim on future value must be based on present labor. You can't just see an unclaimed forest and say "I will log this 5 years from now, everybody stay out"; an intention to exploit does not constitute a homestead. However, if you spend some time investing in planting trees, clearing roads, or whatever else is necessary to prepare a site for future logging, then you could be said to have homesteaded the logging use of that forest for a reasonable period of time; allowing a crop to mature is not at all the same thing as abandoning it. |
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E.Goldstein
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“How, for at least land, ownership might be better addressed by governmentâ€:
Thanks for the new thread. Please excuse the length of my reply - I am an incorrigible Victorian in terms of written discussion, and hope this does not annoy unduly.
I hope it will not be seen as nit-picking If I also suggest that of course, ‘government’ can not only refer to the State, but also to Jefferson’s Ward-Republics; and to self-government - everything from Community Land Trusts, to Housing Cooperatives, to Homeowners Associations.
“The more accurately ownership titles reflect individual interests in land, the less conflict there is between people and the system...
... the only time a state should enforce a claim to deny usage of land by someone, is when such use poses a real threat to, or harms someone elses vested interests in the land.â€
This would actually seem to be a good point of commonality for all posting here; the falling-out seems to arise over a) connotations of words and economic concepts used, and b) the implementation.
“The problem with common ownership is that when a right to use is detached from a responsibility to maintain it (which is addressed by private ownership), there's the typical reduction in value of the shared resource.â€
This could be absolutely correct, and again I think a potential point of commonality, but again with the same vital qualifications. In particular - and I am not trying to play word games with you - but it rather hinges on ones’ definition and usage-context of “commonâ€. A corporation might be said to be owned in common as a whole by its shareholders, but the shares are certainly private property. The historical commons of England were held in common, but there were certainly usage traditions and customs by the people who used it, and hence managed this use (without tragedy, so to speak).
“... if one persons usage does have costs to others, then either some voluntary arrangement needs to exist regarding this or the claim to deny use becomes a stronger argument...â€
Although I appreciate this was not your intent, I believe this may come close to the actual crux of the argument:
Any person’s exclusive use of any ‘land’ (using the economic definition) that has an exchange-value does indeed actually bear an opportunity cost on the rest of productive individuals in society. While this may be generally true of all economic goods, the special difference that is asserted with regard to ‘land’ is that it is the absolutely fundamental, the primary material medium and the fixed physical framework, of all economic activity - without access to which, no economic activity can exist. Murray Rothbard was very clear on this also (‘Man, Economy and State; with Power and Market’).
It is the ultimate, the primary Natural Monopoly, control of which constitutes control of all production, of Market Access, of Capitalism itself. Naturally, many libertarians would see this as a reason for the State not to own it, or to control access to it! For the sake of argument, let’s accept that point. The challenge arises when the exchange-value of ‘land’ is allowed to pass into the hands of someone, regardless of there being a State or not.
Effectively, this kind of ‘privatisation’ creates a State-like franchise - actually, the State in embryo - which rather than abolishing the State, merely recreates it, albeit in a geographically splintered form (but much more concentrated within each fragment.) It is as though one had shares in a joint-stock monopoly whose capital constituted the very foundations of all Capitalism. It would be like owning “The Market†itself; of having options on all production within it, and being able to levy charges for simply accessing it. This is arguably the antithesis of the Free Market, a perversion of itself, and the ruin of Rome and Latin America.
Mr. Rothbard did indeed list objections to “Geoist†notions, primarily motivated it seems because of an intense bias against the existence of the State and anything that could justify it (the question of whether, in fact, a State is strictly necessary in this context is actually an open one). I say this because the majority of his objections are actually quite weak and can be refuted easily. By far the strongest two rest a) on the absence of a price-generation mechanism, and b) the optimal allocation of land/natural resources absent this.
If we were to abolish such exchange-value, who would allocate who got which land? How would we decide? A total charge to remove all ‘rental’ value would seem to be self-negating, if it reduced the price to zero. However, this is arguably the ‘holding’ value which would reduce, not the ‘use’ value, which would still remain.
If instead of just title-holders, land owners were thought of as “Allocation Managersâ€, they would also be quite entitled to charge a fee for this service - a fee for which they could compete with others in the market. Again, this does not presuppose the existence or necessity of a State, only the medium and long-term self-interest of the individuals constituting a society and whatever form of government they choose to implement.
As regards the much unused land, physical space, and natural resources in existence: much of it has very little exchange-value (while accepting that opening up much under State-control would indeed reduce exchange-value in the short to medium-term). Again, this is the central issue: the wealth that can be extracted by allowing property to inhere in the _exchange_value of the ‘material matrix’ of the market. The issue should not be about all the other rights in the property-bundle we associate with ‘land’, which can be quite seperable from one another without any invalidation of those rights remaining, or of property in general (mineral rights are frequently seperated from surface rights; a leasehold - a type of property - can allow for reimbursement of improvements upon sale, while retaining increased site-value for the title-holder.)
“Separating claims to a right to use from right to exclude use could help a lot in reducing conflict over land ownership.â€
I would personally agree with this, with just an addition that exclusion should be proportionally fee-based in payment for all other members - the true government and enforcers- of the ‘Ownership Society’.
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Greenbacks
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a breath of fresh air in these parts E.Goldstein...
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Terry 1956
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a breath of fresh air in these parts E.Goldstein...
Yeah he made some good points and some of the stuff I have been saying for some time now. The Allodial manger idea is on the right track, a title defense service may of course charge for their services, a mutual association could of course be a title defense service with each member getting an annual dividen much like my electric co-op does. Of course my co-ops dividen usually does not go over a few bucks, I think maybe 20 dollars. Now on the other hand if my present county government issued me a title for a 400 dollar filing fee, I may have a case against them if they start saying they will not honor my title unless I pay them 400 dollars or 4000 a year. If I sell the land then that would be a new title, so that is bettwen the new owner and the county not me, they accepted 400 dollars so they should live up to their end. Now if the county offers additional gurantees then I might be willing to pay an annual fee. Actually I would perfer that the titles be giving free of charge and the corporations pick up all the fees and then only when the corporation sales the land to other, rents it to others, leases it to others, borrows money to buy it, or makes a suitable revenue. If that was not possible and I don't see why not then I would only approve of a land value fee in my area for l a land title, if every land owner agreed to it or a landowner could have the option of paying a percentage of their income instead of the land value fee and then I would still support present owners right to sue the county for arbitary increasing the landowners fee. 10% is a fairly good fiqure, so thus if a person made only 20,000 in income a year he would not have to pay more than 2,000 a year in title fees, if he made 5,000 then no more than 500, 1 million no more than 100,000 a year. Of course some people may perfer not to revel their income and would perfer to pay a higher price for that choice by paying the land value fee. Still I think only charging corporations, banks and governments a fee, leaving everyone else alone would be a far better options and would get a lot more popular support. If it doesn't work out, well you could always make new agreements. |
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