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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

How Much Mixing of Labor with Land?


I recently had an email exchange with Walter Block; the conversation began on the topic of culture as raised in this essay of mine – with which Walter approved: “Another magnificent essay of yours….”

I have asked Walter’s permission to use our email exchange publicly, to which he agreed.

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I began by expressing some confusion regarding Walter’s positive comments to the referenced post:

I have been thinking about your initial email to me, at the beginning of this chain.  I must admit, I am confused - and I am sure this is on me and not on you. 

You are an advocate of open borders - or something resembling this.  Yet my post is not strictly about culture, as it also describes the risks to liberty associated with open borders.

What am I missing – at minimum, certainly misunderstanding?

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Walter responded with a clarification, breaking the issue into two component parts:

In my analysis, we can have our cake and eat it too. We can adhere, rigidly, to libertarian principle (open borders is the ONLY view compatible with libertiaranism, since the outsider who starts homesteading virgin land, or govt claimed land, violates no rights, and anyone who stops him is acting incompatibly with libertarianism), and, also, keep hordes of undesirables from our borders (by privatizing every single square inch of territory.) See below. Thus, you, Murray, Hans, most scholars associated with the MI are wrong. You, they are satisfied with the second of these desiderata, but give up on the first. I argue we’ve got to keep BOTH (I applauded your recent excellent defense of the second of these; but what about the first???)

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My reply:

As to government controlled land...I own it.  I know you disagree, and I suspect we will forever remain stuck with this chasm between us.

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Walter:

Ok, forget about government parks, streets, stuff like that. How about totally virgin land, never touched by humans, like in the middle of Wyoming, Alaska. This land is govt controlled, to be sure. But, according to Locke, Rothbard, Hoppe, on homesteading, no one owns it. How can you, or anyone else, own this land?

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And this entire preamble was for the benefit of background for my answer to Walter, focused on homesteading: 

Let’s expand the definition, from an expert; here, I found one:

Block: In the latter, correct homesteading view, you own only that which you mix your labor with.

So, I think I can safely say that homesteading is the mixing of labor with virgin land, land never before touched by human hands.  Is this a fair definition?

I will begin with a side point: I am not sure I agree that homesteading as defined by “mixing labor with land” (and subsequent legal transfer) is the only way to come to own property – but I haven’t developed my ideas enough to the point where I care to write about this.

Walter, I will begin with the practical: in today’s world, how many immigrants are moving to “virgin land, never touched by humans”?  I will suggest that the answer is about as close to zero as one can get.  In Europe, they are not climbing to the top of the Swiss Alps, in the US, they are not setting up camp in the middle of the Mojave (or in untouched land in Alaska).

So even if I grant your point that this is virgin land, never touched by humans, I find no practical use of your concept in today’s discussion of immigration.  Therefore, I find it dangerous to speak of open borders immigration based on a model that no immigrant employs.

If you are speaking purely theoretically, and at the same time speaking against the form of immigration we see around us today (in other words, your definition of “open borders immigration” is significantly narrower than the definition employed by those who demand it), this is a different matter – but I (and many others) would appreciate it if you said so clearly.

Now…how much mixing of labor with land is required to make one an owner?  Do you have an objective answer for this?  An answer that fits in all situations, all cultures, at all times?  An answer that can be derived solely from the NAP?

If you do, this would be a real breakthrough.  Remember – an objective answer: ten minutes of labor per square meter per week – something along these lines.

Now, absent an objective answer – meeting all of my conditions noted above – I suggest that the amount of labor to be mixed with the land is not fixed; the answer is to be subjectively derived.  Yes, at the extremes (just like with the extremes in defining “aggression”) we can all agree: a farmer ploughs the field, builds a home and barn, plants crops and regularly rotates the field, etc.  This is easy.  Conversely, for me to claim ownership of the sun would be kind of silly – and equally as easy to point to as the (opposite) extreme.

But absent an objective answer to the question…where do we draw the line between two such points?  After all, it is in the points in between – the continuum, as I believe you put it – where the difficulties (from a pure NAP standpoint) lie.

So, now we can address this virgin land in Wyoming or Alaska – government controlled, to be sure, and as you clarify.  What mixing of labor, if any, has a government employee or contractor done with this land?

Certainly they have built roads along the land; they provide security services over 100% of the land; they offer fire prevention services over 100% of the land; 100% of the land is regularly patrolled; they have built structures of various sorts – land offices, tourist rest stops; they manage it for proper use of forest harvesting; they manage the game on the land; etc. 

In every way, they treat the land as a private owner would treat similar land (except for the very important distinction made by Hoppe regarding Monarchs vs democracies, the distinction being irrelevant to this discussion). 

For example, it is said that Ted Turner owns a few million acres of forest.  I am certain he is not ploughing fields every day, nor is he having any of his employees do this.  Weyerhaeuser, similarly, owns hundreds of thousands if not millions of acres.  Yet, would you say neither Turner nor the lumber company “owns” the land? 

So what is different in these two cases – the public vs. the private?

Sure, you can say – “bionic, that is not enough mixing of labor!”  And I would say – “Walter, give me your objective definition to the issue of how much labor is required – and base this solely on the NAP.” 

And I suggest, in the end, you cannot.  My answer to the question of “How much labor?” is just as good as your answer to the question.  The NAP offers no guidance to this.

Now, given that my answer is just as good as yours, and I paid for the government employees and contractors who did the work and provided the services on that property in Wyoming and Alaska, well…just like Ted Turner…I own the land.

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Walter’s reply:

You say this: “Walter, I will begin with the practical: in today’s world, how many immigrants are moving to “virgin land, never touched by humans”?  I will suggest that the answer is about as close to zero as one can get. ”

As far as I’m concerned, this might even be a minus number. You are of course correct; the number is probably zero. Well, maybe one or two, in the history of the entire world. Immigrants usually go to big cities, sometimes to farming areas, virtually never, ever, do they settle in virgin unhomesteaded territory.

However, I think this is irrelevant to our discussion. I don’t even need one such person to make my point. Even a hypothetical such person will do me just fine. In my book Defending I, I defended the pimp. As far as I know, there is not a single solitary pimp who does not abuse his prostitutes. But I was discussing a sort of Platonic Pimp: a hypothetical one, who did not in any way abuse his prostitutes. I was trying to make the point that a pimp NEED not violate the NAP, even if all of them did. I was defending the idea of a pimp, not any actual one. I now make much the same point with regard to the immigrant who settles in virgin territory. I don’t much care if any ever have done such a thing. But, my Platonic immigrant COULD have done this. With this, I think I have proven the case for open borders. There is nothing, NOTHING, intrinsically wrong from the libertarian perspective with an immigrant violating immigration law. Any immigration official who stops him is himself violating the NAP. Remember, the policy advocated by opponents of open borders makes no provision to a (hypothetical) immigrant who wants to settle in the middle of Wyoming or Alaska, on virgin territory. The argument that you (and other US citizens) really own this land, so that my hypothetical immigrant is really trespassing, goes against everything that Locke, Rothbard, Hoppe, have ever said about homesteading, which, I assume, you and I agree upon.

I am just as concerned as you are about being overrun by hordes of rapefugees, and bombfugees, and running over people with a truck-fugees. I insist that my way of looking at the matter enables us to have our cake and eat it too. Privatize every square inch of the country. Then, and only then will an immigrant who enters this country be guilty of trespass. And then, along with open borders, we can retain our hold over the libertarian NAP. My fear is that your stance, and that of Murray and Hans, too, jettisons something very important to libertarians, the NAP.

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"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."

-          Don Knuth

My closing thoughts….

I will summarize my two main points from my lengthy response: first, Walter’s position – even if one grants that it is correct in theory (which I do not, given my second point and also for other reasons) – is a theory in search of an application in reality; second, the government controlled land is owned by me – and every other individual who has been forced to pay for the associated government labor.

Walter has addressed the first – he agrees his is a theoretical position with no useful application in today’s world – certainly not in the west. 

Given the significance of the issue to immigration, culture, government control, etc., (and in the context of the dialogue occurring today), I return to what I wrote earlier:

So even if I grant your point that this is virgin land, never touched by humans, I find no practical use of your concept in today’s discussion of immigration.  Therefore, I find it dangerous to speak of open borders immigration based on a model that no immigrant employs.

If you are speaking purely theoretically, and at the same time speaking against the form of immigration we see around us today (in other words, your definition of “open borders immigration” is significantly narrower than the definition employed by those who demand it), this is a different matter – but I (and many others) would appreciate it if you said so clearly.

We are not speaking today of pimps and prostitutes; there is no ongoing debate on this topic amongst libertarians.  There is a context to the dialogue of open borders and immigration – just ask Sheldon Richman, Jacob Hornberger, and many others on the left.

Given how well associated he is with “open borders,” it seems to me that it would serve our community well that Walter make clear the point: his “open borders” position has nothing to do with the general dialogue of today – the practical application of this topic within the context of today’s dialogue; his “open borders” position is irrelevant to the situation today.

Maybe Walter has done this; if so, I – and many others – have missed it.

30 comments:

  1. Pimps? Another moving of the goal post, like Wenzel.

    Did I miss the answer to:

    Now…how much mixing of labor with land is required to make one an owner? Do you have an objective answer for this? An answer that fits in all situations, all cultures, at all times? An answer that can be derived solely from the NAP?

    If you do, this would be a real breakthrough. Remember – an objective answer: ten minutes of labor per square meter per week – something along these lines.

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    1. This was not answered, but I am lenient on this - at least for a time. I am assuming Walter gave me a quick reply on the one point; I didn't want to include it in my summary above initially, because the lack of answering the second part would be glaringly obvious (as you note).

      But I wanted to include the response as it was - at least to me - a revelation. Again, maybe I am the only one who has missed this (and, admittedly, there is no chance I could read the several dozen papers Walter has written on this topic), but I have never read:

      "As far as I’m concerned, this might even be a minus number. You are of course correct; the number is probably zero. Well, maybe one or two, in the history of the entire world."

      This is significant.

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    2. BM -

      Have you written previously on the question of who owns government land?

      If yes, what, if any, basis did you (and if you haven't written on the topic) do you advance in support of the proposition that your real estate holdings include the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, Edwards AFB, Fort Bragg, Yellowstone, and Yosemite?

      Perhaps you have answered the question before, but, how does such ownership square with the traditional attributes of ownership, such as the right to build and develop, evict trespassers, lease, sell, and the like?

      Of course, granting that you are just one "shareholder" that owns such real estate is to concede the argument that you, in your individual capacity, would then not be the owner. Besides, most shareholders either buy or inherit the stock of the entity, they are not forced to be owners.

      Nevertheless, if one is a stockholder of a corporation that owns real estate, one would, presumably be able to exert some control with regard to the uses of the real estate by means of management, stockholder meetings with rights to dictate policy and remove management, and the right to entertain buy-outs, even if hostile.

      What bundle of ownership rights do you actually have with regard to government land?

      Liberty Mike

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    3. "If yes, what, if any, basis did you (and if you haven't written on the topic) do you advance in support of the proposition that your real estate holdings include the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, Edwards AFB, Fort Bragg, Yellowstone, and Yosemite?"

      I would like to know more on this as well. It appears you are claiming some kind of collective ownership of a thief's (the government) holdings as a result of being its victim. This is not a concept that fits well with my understanding of libertarians.

      More to the point, if your extorted funds give you claim to property held by the thief, do they also render some responsibility for the destruction of property and lives the thief's war machine has wrought all over the world? Or do the others have a similar claim on government property? If it's the latter, I would say your claim is a strong argument for the refugee's "right" to immigrate.

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    4. Mike

      One could go through the exercise of tracing title back to the first individual who mixed labor with land; I will not begin there, as I am sympathetic to Hoppe's position on this matter.

      That I am one of many shareholders does not make me any less of an owner.

      That a thief is in possession of goods stolen from me - in this case using goods stolen from me to pay for the mixing of labor with land - does not in any way make the property less "mine."

      A thief has control, use and disposition of your car. Does this make him the owner?

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    5. Jeff

      I am entitled to receiving goods stolen from me; as the thief spent the money to build roads and toilets in the mountains, I lay claim to the property - as my money went to develop the land.

      To the extent the thief does something destructive with that which he stole from me - whether bombing an innocent or otherwise - that's on him, not me: I have a right to reclaim my property; I have no obligation to be punished for the actions of the thief.

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    6. BM, I agree with you, but you missed the last point. Do the victims of the destruction also have a right to reclaim their property. In effect, should the refugees be allowed to come here and take back from the government what was taken from them?

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    7. Right of possession and disposition but no right to title. Like real property and property taxes.

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    8. Jeff

      As the refugees' property (and lives) was destroyed, what is there to "recover"? What happens when a thief destroys your property? He pays restitution in some other form or otherwise suffers some form of punishment.

      As "the government" has no property with which to pay restitution, I say put the war criminals in prison; better, send them for trial in the country of their victims.

      The refugees "right to immigrate" does what, exactly? In the world as it is today, this just makes victims of those now involuntarily supporting refugees; in a private property world, refugees have no such right.

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    9. BM,

      Thanks for the reply.

      I will have to think about this some more. I get your logic, and may even agree with it, or at least I don't have a strong argument against it. But I find the ends disagreeable.

      More than disagreeable, I find it intolerable the people harmed the most would have no claim, while the people who financed that harm - the vast majority doing so willfully - would have a claim. And all based on a technical definition of ownership.

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    10. BM -

      Thank you for your reply.

      Upon some reflection, I think that one could make an argument in support of your position that the government is holding Yosemite et al in constructive trust for your benefit.

      In property and tort law, the courts long ago created the doctrine of constructive trusts with regard to a myriad of situations. Its application, like so much of Anglo-American law, has historically been for individual, not collective, situations.

      For example, A gives B the money to purchase Trumpacre. A tells B that he's going away on a trip around the world and will be back in 6 months. So, B buys Trumpacre and takes title in his own name. When A returns, B tells A to go pound sand and that he, B, owns Trumpacre.

      A then sues B. A's lawyer should ask, inter alia, that the court hold that B is holding Trumpacre in constructive trust for A and order B to convey the real estate to A.

      However, applying the constructive trust doctrine upon a collective basis with regard to Yellowstone et al does not easily lend itself to a satisfactory NAP result. To wit, should the government sell the land and distribute the proceeds pro rata to every person who has paid any type of federal tax?

      The progressive might agree with the constructive trust principle and argue that the government is already holding and managing public land in trust for the benefit of all of us who have paid federal taxes (along with those who have not).

      You, I am sure, have considered the proposition that the government should be forced to sell public land to the highest bidder. That prescription would not compensate you for the money the government confiscated from you in order to acquire and maintain the lands.

      Just some thoughts.

      Liberty Mike

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    11. Jeff

      I understand your point; let me offer the following possibility / guidelines:

      Consider the situation of a bankruptcy: a court decides, based on law and precedent, which creditor / claimant receives how much of the assets. Rarely is everyone made whole, but there is some priority order.

      In this case, the taxpayer would have a claim as would the victim of being bombed (for different reasons, obviously). How that might play out is very subjective, and beyond my intent in this discussion - as either way, the "land" would end up in private hands, with the new owner free to determine the rules (hence, "someone" owns that land). But, to your point, there is a path for all victims to recover something.

      The second condition: to achieve the distribution noted above, no further violations can be mandated: in other words, I, the one who had his wealth stolen to build the bombs, cannot be held liable for the criminal activity of the one dropping the bombs.

      Perhaps within these two points there is a reasonable framework. Thank you for pressing me further on this issue.

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    12. Mike

      I have not tried to work through the many possibilities of the situation. My intent, is merely to present the case that the land is "owned" and therefore Walter's claim that anyone is free to move in is not correct.

      How / when / if justice (in the NAP sense) is delivered, is secondary to me, at least within the context of this discussion.

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  2. Good observation there. So when the theory doesn't match the real world application, we still have to follow the theory?

    We are going through a process that is going to put us in as vulnerable situation as the whites of South Africa, and after that of Zimbabwe. Why is this necessary, Professor Block?

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  3. "Certainly they have built roads along the land; they provide security services over 100% of the land; they offer fire prevention services over 100% of the land; 100% of the land is regularly patrolled; they have built structures of various sorts – land offices, tourist rest stops; they manage it for proper use of forest harvesting; they manage the game on the land; etc. "

    I find the bulk of this to be unlikely, considering the size of the areas Walter cited, i.e., Wyoming, Alaska, as well as others. The Canadians surely ignore areas.

    I guess the question is, considering i can only occupy the ground i'm standing on, what of 100 yards away, or a mile? I imagine there are several major blocks of land that are virtually untouched or unattended to by humans across all of history.

    Another interesting thought, the idea that no one is functionally immigrating this way. Walter conceded but gave away too much saying no one ever operates this way. What of the 19th century immigrants who came from Europe to the US only to travel west for expansion of civilization?

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    1. I have the same question, re. how much land can be said to be mixed with a man"s labor, oops how sexist of me, make that people (is that ok, or is it speciesist?).
      One man's NAP violation is another's labor.

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    2. Patrick

      The point I wanted to make is that the subjective "mixing labor with land" answers nothing.

      If we want to debate the subjective until it becomes objective, this is a different matter entirely - and futile. One man's hundred yards is another man's mile.

      Custom, in the end, is the most peaceful way out - if Ted Turner can own millions of acres, why can't I via the USG as described in the post?

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  4. An Anon, in his (very good) reply to JamieinTexas and Matt, from the previous post said this:

    "Rothbard knew this as evidenced by his statement that libertarianism is not a system of morality."

    I have not read this from Rothbard and would love to see a source (not that I don't believe Anon, I find it very plausible Rothbard said that).

    Block never learned that lesson from the man he learned everything else from.

    Block is a moralist. Albeit one who derives moral principles from logical propositions (which is totally backwards).

    What makes this so perverse is that his morals are explicitly based on defending things that are widely seen as immoral. Its like some kind of meta-morality where we decide the most moral way to manage immorality. Implicit in this calculation is that physical aggression is always worse than what provokes it. On this point he is completely wrong.

    As to the rest

    >stop rapefugees
    >uphold NAP

    Pick one.

    BTW, the homesteading principle is obviously lacking (good questions on the BM). Property is simply a question of who controls it and who recognizes that control as just.

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    1. Ask, and ye shall receive:

      "We will contend that it is a man’s right to do whatever he wishes with his person; it is his right not to be molested or interfered with by violence from exercising that right. But what may be the moral or immoral ways of exercising that right is a question of personal ethics rather than of political philosophy—which is concerned solely with matters of right, and of the proper or improper exercise of physical violence in human relations. The importance of this crucial distinction cannot be overemphasized. Or, as Elisha Hurlbut concisely put it: “The exercise of a faculty [by an individual] is its only use. The manner of its exercise is one thing; that involves a question of morals. The right to its exercise is another thing."

      Then, the next page:

      "It is not the intention of this book to expound or defend at length the philosophy of natural law, or to elaborate a natural-law ethic for the personal morality of man. The intention is to set forth a social ethic of liberty, i.e., to elaborate that subset of the natural law that develops the concept of natural rights, and that deals with the proper sphere of “politics,” i.e., with violence and non-violence as modes of interpersonal relations. In short, to set forth a political philosophy of liberty. In our view the major task of “political science” or better, “political philosophy” is to construct the edifice of natural law pertinent to the political scene. That this task has been almost completely neglected in this century by political scientists is all too clear. Political science has either pursued a positivistic and scientistic “model building,” in vain imitation of the methodology and content of the physical sciences, or it has engaged in purely empirical fact-grubbing. The contemporary political scientist believes that he can avoid the necessity of moral judgments, and that he can help frame public policy without committing himself to any ethical position. And yet as soon as anyone makes any policy suggestion, however narrow or limited, an ethical judgment—sound or unsound—has willy-nilly been made.1 The difference between the political scientist and the political philosopher is that the “scientist’s” moral judgments are covert and implicit, and therefore not subject to detailed scrutiny, and hence more likely to be unsound."

      -Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty

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    2. "The fact is that libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life." - Rothbard, Myth and Truth about Libertarianism

      https://mises.org/library/myth-and-truth-about-libertarianism

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    3. I'm pretty sure Rothbard stated the very opposite more than once. (most) Libertarians believe in the morality of natural rights from which the NAP is derived - something like that, but more strongly stated. I will find a quote if no one else posts one soon.

      w.r.t. property ownership, I think you are just equating control with ownership, because control provides the same options as would ownership if we lived in a just world. But they are distinctly different concepts.

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    4. "But, more importantly, most libertarians rest their case on moral principles, on a belief in the natural rights of every individual to his person or property. They therefore believe in the absolute immorality of aggressive violence, of invasion of those rights to person or property, regardless of which person or group commits such violence.

      Far from being immoral, libertarians simply apply a universal human ethic to government in the same way as almost everyone would apply such an ethic to every other person or institution in society. In particular, as I have noted earlier, libertarianism as a political philosophy dealing with the proper role of violence takes the universal ethic that most of us hold toward violence and applies it fearlessly to government."

      https://mises.org/library/myth-and-truth-about-libertarianism

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    5. Jeff-

      You may accuse me of "splitting hairs", but I'd like to draw a distinction, which I believe Rothbard is doing himself, between "libertarianism" which in and of itself is culturally moral in concept to most cultures- and an actual "system" of morality which is itself very different. (like Christianity, Islam, etc.)

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    6. AN,

      Yes, I think I misunderstood his meaning until now. Thanks.

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  5. This bit, by Block:


    "Ok, forget about government parks, streets, stuff like that. How about totally virgin land, never touched by humans, like in the middle of Wyoming, Alaska. This land is govt controlled, to be sure. But, according to Locke, Rothbard, Hoppe, on homesteading, no one owns it. How can you, or anyone else, own this land?"

    Block can't get around the fact that the State is a real, live, legal entity. ONLY in the absence of the State, can you have purely "virgin" land on which one could homestead. Actually, once upon a time, prior to the State, that was the case at least until the claims by first owners, and then tribes, and then tribal leaders, and then monarchs, etc. But not anymore.

    This is the same nuance that Block tends to miss and that you, BM, throw a spotlight on in your position that there is no libertarian answer to the question of borders while we live in a non-Stateless society.

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    1. This is a point I am trying to drive home. If PPS is achieved it is not absent of pecedent conditions. Not even when the Vikings, much less Columbus, set foot in what we call the New World. Yes, much more virgin lands but not all. The musket and horses determined whose title to the land was valid, as an example.

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  6. "the government controlled land is owned by me"

    If a thief steals money from all the people on my street, at gun-point claims "ownership" of some untouched land, and uses threat of violence against anyone who tries to come at that untouched land...How does that transfer into my neighbors and I getting "ownership" of that land?

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    1. Was this the example I used? Did your thief do anything to improve the land?

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    2. So as long as the thief improves the land, then necessarily from that flows ownership to the thief's victims?

      A thief steals my money, puts up a fence around 100 acres and puts a dirt road through the middle of it...all with my stolen money and the thief's labor. Therefore I now have rightful ownership of that land?

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    3. In the context of homesteading previously un-owned land, yes.

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