Stolen Property Concerns

This question is partly related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so here it goes:
Person A steals land from Person B, and Person A goes unpunished. Several decades later, Person A's son inherits the land from Person A. However, Person B's son claims tha the land belongs to him. How would a libertarian judge rule on this matter?

(Assuming Person A was the legitimate owner prior to Person A's theft), hopefully that Person B's son is right.

Paul:

(Assuming Person A was the legitimate owner prior to Person A's theft), hopefully that Person B's son is right.

 Since I'm not sure about the answer to the question (hence why I asked it), I'll play devil's advocate: Since Person A's son did not commit the theft, wouldn't it be wrong for Person B's son to take that property away from him?

shazam:

This question is partly related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so here it goes:
Person A steals land from Person B, and Person A goes unpunished. Several decades later, Person A's son inherits the land from Person A. However, Person B's son claims tha the land belongs to him. How would a libertarian judge rule on this matter?

In general, and in terms of property, you would be hard-pressed to find any piece of owned property whose current chain of ownership via otherwise legitimate means actually started out that way. People conquered and re-conquered their way across countries and continents. I'm not sure what the answer is for this, but it is something that needs further consideration.

However, I don't think the Israeli/Palestinian problem is really the same problem, at least in terms of the conflict that continually burdens the news. No, this is a case of nationalism and ethnocentrism. When the UN declared the Israeli state, a repellent and explicitly ethnocentric thing, against the wishes of the majority living there, even with the recent waves of Jewish immigration, the Palestinians and all the peoples surrounding were rightly outraged. The governments of Europe, once again, were treating the brown people of the Middle East as subhumans scarce worthy of consideration. This outrage is still, though just barely, in living memory.

Still, now, there have been several generations of those who call themselves Israelis born in the lands of Palestine, and who are we or anyone to tell them that they must be rendered landless because their ancestors committed a crime? Then again, who are we to tell the descendants of dispossessed Palestinians that they can never retrieve what was stolen from them and their ancestors?

The trick is, we need do neither. If there were no Israel, that doesn't mean we'd have to push out all the people who live there into the sea. There just wouldn't be a state called Israel. This conflict is less about property rights than two nationalistic viewpoints butting heads, one of which has almost all the power. Remove the nationalism, and you remove the problems. It really isn't about where a person buys his land over there, its how he identifies himself, whose territory he thinks he lives in. The simple and true answer, and the one that will end the conflict, is that that little patch of land is his own territory, and no one else's.

shazam:

This question is partly related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,

It's not really very related.  Just like the Native American land issue in the US, the premise it is based on is collectivized ownership.  Since there is no such thing, the questions are moot. Property ownership is individual.

If an individual claim of ownership can be established, even if it is intergenerational, just like any tangible property, it is the property of the original legitimate owner. I doubt there's any way to establish who the original legitimate owner is in these cases, so it falls back to homesteading.  In this, many Palestinians who were literally thrown off their land do have a legitimate claim to have at least individually homesteaded that land prior to the coming of the Isrealis.

The problem is that if you allow for no intergenerational attenuation of property rights claims even in the absence of explicit transfer of the rights claimed, and trace back the chain of implied rights claims backward indefinitely, you eventually (sooner rather than later in some cases) get to people who had no concept of property rights, nor even of individual property, and who occupied - or just claimed - territory, but never in fact individually homesteaded any specific piece of property.

If we're going to invoke a principle of property rights to restore possession to the rightful owners, it has to be applied equally to all the actors, past and present, who comprise the putative chain of ownership.

shazam:

Paul:

(Assuming Person A was the legitimate owner prior to Person A's theft), hopefully that Person B's son is right.

 

 Since I'm not sure about the answer to the question (hence why I asked it), I'll play devil's advocate: Since Person A's son did not commit the theft, wouldn't it be wrong for Person B's son to take that property away from him?

Why would it?  If Person A stole Person B's watch and immediately gave it to his son as a gift, would it be wrong to return it?  Why does waiting a couple of decades and the thief's death make a difference?

JCFolsom:

In general, and in terms of property, you would be hard-pressed to find any piece of owned property whose current chain of ownership via otherwise legitimate means actually started out that way. People conquered and re-conquered their way across countries and continents. I'm not sure what the answer is for this, but it is something that needs further consideration.

It really isn't relevant.  Either there's a clear owner or heir whose property it is, or there isn't.  If there isn't, it's res nullius and can be homesteaded - which is already done by the current owner if he did no wrong - then he is the rightful owner.

Hmm I'd agree. In this case, the donor would have to compensate the person whom they gifted (say for instance the son built a skyscraper on this stolen land, and now has to tear it down - the thief is the one liable.) On the other hand, say a few centuries pass after the theft.. and out of the blue comes the heir of the legitimate owner. Would they have much of a claim? Given a huge passage of time and potential developments of the property, it's hard to answer in the affirmative.

-Jon

shazam:

This question is partly related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so here it goes:
Person A steals land from Person B, and Person A goes unpunished. Several decades later, Person A's son inherits the land from Person A. However, Person B's son claims tha the land belongs to him. How would a libertarian judge rule on this matter?

I don't buy into the "all the land in the world is stolen" rhetoric. But in these cases, I say the land must be returned.

If their was a specific descendant that would make the validity of returning the property unquestionable. But even where direct heredity can not be determined I think property could be handed over.

However, I don't think the descendants should get a clear title. They may own the land, but not necessarily the improvements made to it. Rather, the descendents have the right to buy the property for the value of the improvements. If they chose to not buy it, they are entitled to receive payment for the value of the actual land.

But this leaves with the problem of determining property value, should we use property value of when it was stolen or of today? I don't see why Native Americans should be paid today's high urban land values, for example.

Paul:

It really isn't relevant.  Either there's a clear owner or heir whose property it is, or there isn't.  If there isn't, it's res nullius and can be homesteaded - which is already done by the current owner if he did no wrong - then he is the rightful owner.

Exactly.

JCFolsom:

In general, and in terms of property, you would be hard-pressed to find any piece of owned property whose current chain of ownership via otherwise legitimate means actually started out that way.

Much of the continental USA would fall into that. Native Americans only actually owned a small portion of the country, the rest was available to be homesteaded.

Where I sit right now was stolen from neither Indian nor Spaniard.

Jon Irenicus:

Hmm I'd agree. In this case, the donor would have to compensate the person whom they gifted (say for instance the son built a skyscraper on this stolen land, and now has to tear it down - the thief is the one liable.)

If he didn't know the land he built on was stolen, I'd say the two owners (of the building and of the land) just have to sort it out between them; the building doesn't have to be torn down - either the building-owner will buy or rent the land, or the land-owner will buy or rent the building or whatever...(or they won't agree and both will block each other's access to their respective properties, making it worthless to both of them, so they have good incentive to reach a mutually-agreeable settlement)

Jon Irenicus:

On the other hand, say a few centuries pass after the theft.. and out of the blue comes the heir of the legitimate owner. Would they have much of a claim? Given a huge passage of time and potential developments of the property, it's hard to answer in the affirmative.

That's easily solved by the issue of abandonment: if there's no ongoing dispute over the ownership (i.e., the legitimate owner isn't claiming it any more), after some period of time (arbitrary; needs to be decided by courts, etc., but certainly "a few centuries" is more than sufficient), it's considered abandoned and can be homesteaded again; since it's no longer owned by the previous owner at that point, it can't be passed down to the heir of his heir of his heir and so on who pops up a few centuries later.  So no, he has no claim.

Another point to consider here is that a person need not leave a piece of property to his or her offspring. Just because most do, does not make it inevitable. Given that we do not know whether the owner would have, in fact given it to their children had they not been dispossessed, we cannot establish that the descendant has any right to the land.

JonBostwick:

However, I don't think the descendants should get a clear title. They may own the land, but not necessarily the improvements made to it. Rather, the descendents have the right to buy the property for the value of the improvements. If they chose to not buy it, they are entitled to receive payment for the value of the actual land.

But this leaves with the problem of determining property value, should we use property value of when it was stolen or of today? I don't see why Native Americans should be paid today's high urban land values, for example.

I`m going to have to dissagree with you here. Rothbard addressed this issue in page 59 of The Ethics of Liberty. He basically argues that the property should be returned to the original owner regardless of any additions. The current owner has the right to remove or destroy any additions, but the new additions don`t impose any new debts upon the legitimate owner. With regard to value, no one owns the value of property, only its physical integrity and physical control over it.

JCFolsom:

Still, now, there have been several generations of those who call themselves Israelis born in the lands of Palestine, and who are we or anyone to tell them that they must be rendered landless because their ancestors committed a crime? Then again, who are we to tell the descendants of dispossessed Palestinians that they can never retrieve what was stolen from them and their ancestors?

The issue is not whether their ancestors commited a crime. The issue is whether or not they are the legitimate owners of the property they currently occupy. If it belongs to someone else, they should hand it over.

When you say that the issue is not about land but about nationalism and ethnocentrism, you ignore the possibility that it is about both. Humans can only come into conflict over scarce resources. The history of the modern Israelli state is the history of one big nationalistic land grab. And this is the single largest factor behind anti-Israelli sentiment in the Arab world. The best solution to the conflict is to allow the right of return to Palestinians and their descendents who have being ejected from their land.

Stephen Forde:

I`m going to have to dissagree with you here. Rothbard addressed this issue in page 59 of The Ethics of Liberty. He basically argues that the property should be returned to the original owner regardles