Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt
From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Freedom and property, round 2
Message-ID: <1739@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Nov-85 14:52:18 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1739
Posted: Sat Nov 30 14:52:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 16:06:12 EST
References: <1137@mtuxo.UUCP> <280@l5.uucp>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 59
Summary: 


>From Richard Carnes:
>
> Let me clarify what I am asking with an example.  Migrating down from
> the Bering Straits, Running Dog comes across a tract of virgin land,
> previously unused by humans.  He clears and tills 100 acres and grows
> corn.  Running Dog has read some "libertarian" writings and now, to
> the consternation of the tribal council, declares that he and he
> alone possesses the moral rights of ownership to the 100 acres; that
> is, he claims to possess the *moral* right to use, profit from, sell,
> or give away the land, and no one else has the right to do so without
> his consent.  The tribal elders don't buy it.  Who is right and why?
> If there is insufficient information to answer the question, what
> further information is required?  The case is important because all
> natural resources that people need to survive were at one time or
> still are in the same position as the 100 acres.
>
>There is a problem with this example.  100 acres is an awful lot of
> .....
>
>We don't want to participate in the agrarian revolution, and keep our old
>ways of hunting and gathering? Fine, but Running Dog, not being a slave,
>should be free to persue the farming way of life.
>
>-- 
>Laura Creighton         

Surely not if his tilling of 100 acres has damaged the ecology for the
hunters and gatherers?  This is far from an academic example, because
it is precisely the conversion of land to farmland (and other "wealth-
producing") activities that is likely to destroy us all.  The original
habitats of an enormous number of species are destroyed by our
"Running Dog" behaviour.  Is Brazil entitled to allow the Amazonian
forests to be destroyed because they are in its territory?  They have
the power, because we currently have a quasi-libertarian approach to
international affairs, but I strongly deny that they have a right to
do so.

Even under the libertarian principles of allowing conversion of land
to private ownership, there is a prior condition that the land is not
being used.  Did Running Dog enquire of the bears, birds, deer, and
other people whether they might have been using the land before he
started up his plow?  If you answer that the wildlife are not people, and
therefore need not be consulted, how far are you from denying that
Amerindians are people, in order to justify Homesteading?

The Running Dog example is a fine one, that clearly illustrates the
fallacy of the propertarian approach to ownership.  Ownership is not
an all-or-none thing.  One has no right to absolute ownership of anything,
but has rights to do with one's property only those things that are not
damaging to the rest of society.  Unfortunately, it is often hard to determine
when damage is likely to occur, so the limits of these "rights" are
hard to determine in practice. But practical considerations demand
that such limits must exist.
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt