Should poor people be allowed to grow their own food?

[chem1st]

Something that is not owned cannot be stolen. The unowned land was claimed. That's how life works, or certainly did when the land was claimed. You cannot declare a thousand years later that it was theft and must be 'returned' to an unowned state.

 

"The law is part of the theft"

 

This makes no sense, theft is a legal thing, you are attempting to redefine theft to mean something other than it does.

 

http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ten.asp

 

10. THE PROBLEM OF LAND THEFT

 

A PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT APPLICATION of our theory of property titles is the case of landed property. For one thing, land is a fixed quotal portion of the earth, and therefore the ground land endures virtually permanently. Historical investigation of land titles therefore would have to go back much further than for other more perishable goods. However, this is by no means a critical problem, for, as we have seen, where the victims are lost in antiquity, the land properly belongs to any non-criminals who are in current possession. Suppose, for example, that Henry Jones I stole a piece of land from its legitimate owner, James Smith. What is the current status of the title of current possessor Henry Jones X? Or of the man who might be the current possessor by purchasing the land from Henry Jones X? If Smith and his descendants are lost to antiquity, then title to the land properly and legitimately belongs to the current Jones (or the man who has purchased it from him), in direct application of our theory of property titles.

 

A second problem, and one that sharply differentiates land from other property, is that the very existence of capital goods, consumers goods, or the monetary commodity, is at least a prima facie demonstration that these goods had been used and transformed, that human labor had been mixed with natural resources to produce them. For capital goods, consumer goods, and money do not exist by themselves in nature; they must be created by human labor’s alteration of the given conditions of nature. But any area of land, which is given by nature, might never have been used and transformed; and therefore, any existing property title to never-used land would have to be considered invalid. For we have seen that title to an unowned resource (such as land) comes properly only from the expenditure of labor to transform that resource into use. Therefore, if any land has never been so transformed, no one can legitimately claim its ownership.

 

Suppose, for example, that Mr. Green legally owns a certain acreage of land, of which the northwest portion has never been transformed from its natural state by Green or by anyone else. Libertarian theory will morally validate his claim for the rest of the land—provided, as the theory requires, that there is no identifiable victim (or that Green had not himself stolen the land.) But libertarian theory must invalidate his claim to ownership of the northwest portion. Now, so long as no “settler” appears who will initially transform the northwest portion, there is no real difficulty; Brown’s claim may be invalid but it is also mere meaningless verbiage. He is not yet a criminal aggressor against anyone else. But should another man appear who does transform the land, and should Green oust him by force from the property (or employ others to do so), then Green becomes at that point a criminal aggressor against land justly owned by another. The same would be true if Green should use violence to prevent another settler from entering upon this never-used land and transforming it into use.

 

The legal system in this country denies people the right to settle land, and protects the land interests of people who have never even transformed a piece of land.

 

All that “feudalism,” in our sense, requires is the seizure by violence of landed property from its true owners, the transformers of land, and the continuation of that kind of relationship over the years. Feudal land rent, then, is the precise equivalent of paying a continuing annual tribute by producers to their predatory conquerors. Feudal land rent is therefore a form of permanent tribute. Note also that the peasants in question need not be the descendants of the original victims. For since the aggression is continuing so long as this relation of feudal aggression remains in force, the current peasants are the contemporary victims and the currently legitimate property owners. In short, in the case of feudal land, or land monopoly both of our conditions obtain for invalidating current property titles: For not only the original but also the current land title is criminal, and the current victims can very easily be identified.

[chem1st]

by chem1st's definition everything was once unclaimed. so everything must be stolen.

 

who owned the hole in the ground where we dig clay to make bricks? was that stolen? does that make the bricks a product of theft?

 

The acquisition of property through labor is legitimate.

[chem1st]

And conveniently for you you don't own any land and so won't have to pay any tax, but are convinced that you should be allowed to variously grow food and/or build a house on land that you don't own.

 

I should be able to grow food and build a house and pay tax for doing so, as I would be depriving other people of access to that portion of land. As long as I paid the tax I should have some security of tenure over said land. the products of my labour would belong to me, but not the land underneath.

[truman]

The acquisition of property through labor is legitimate.

 

According to you all land has been stolen so how can it be legitimate to gain any of it through labour..? My labour is exchanged for money why can't I use this to acquire property?

[Sid Umpley]

The acquisition of property through labor is legitimate.

 

 

but before that labour there as acquisition.

 

someone turned to a mate and said.

 

i am having that field. and i will dig a bloody big hole.

 

 

at that point there was no labour. simply theft?

[chem1st]

Perhaps the council could make the worst gardens on their estates into allotments? If people with gardens make no effort to even keep them tidy, then others could be given some sort of rental agreement to use the garden to grow fruit and veg. I'm sure the lawyers could come up with something.

 

The council would get a bit of rent, the occupier of the house would get a much improved outlook, and the gardener would get the produce. A win/win/win solution?

 

It is a potential solution, but there are plenty of other pieces of land that it would make more sense to use first. There are idle plots of land owned by the council that used to be allotments for example. There are vast swathes of land that is publicly subsidised and yield private profit under the CAP system.

[chem1st]

According to you all land has been stolen so how can it be legitimate to gain any of it through labour..? My labour is exchanged for money why can't I use this to acquire property?

 

The tatoes you grow, the house you build, the furniture you build, the ore you process etc. But not the land underneath it. There is some rationale for taxing mineral rights too, especially in large scale mining.

[Cyclone]

The acquisition of property through labor is legitimate.

 

Except land of course, which you believe should all be communally owned, or not owned maybe.

[Ms Macbeth]

It is a potential solution, but there are plenty of other pieces of land that it would make more sense to use first. There are idle plots of land owned by the council that used to be allotments for example. There are vast swathes of land that is publicly subsidised and yield private profit under the CAP system.

 

I don't know which swathes of land yield private profit, so I can't offer an opinion. However, we were offered an allotment about 3 years ago at Morley St, but it would have been an impossible task for my OH and I to clear it it was in such a bad state. I don't know if all the allotments there have been let because many were badly overgrown. Perhaps the council should be advertising for people who are willing to clear them and offer them first dibs with 6 months or a year rent free?

[Cyclone]

I should be able to grow food and build a house and pay tax for doing so, as I would be depriving other people of access to that portion of land. As long as I paid the tax I should have some security of tenure over said land. the products of my labour would belong to me, but not the land underneath.

 

So given that people do currently own land, and have paid money for it which they had saved in exchange for labour, how do you propose to reach your utopia without stealing the land from the current owners, or rendering land ownership irrelevant (which is the same as stealing the land from the current owners).