The Legitimacy of State Property; Am I Really Entitled to My Land?

It is true that the state did not require its property justly, but is it not also true that almost no property in existence was part of an unbroken chain of voluntary transactions from the point the propeerty was originally taken out of nature and homesteaded? For instance, the land I live on in Arizona was probably taken from local natives by the Spanish, and then taken from the Spanish by the Americans. If this is true, do I legitimately own the title to my property? I obtained it from a voluntary transaction, but what if a long time ago the people who obtained the title got it using force? Am I really entitled to my property? If not, why is it that the state is not entitled to its property?

On a similar note, are there any good books that deal with the justness of property titles over long spans of time? I apologize if this is something I should already know from reading the basic literature.

Solid_Choke:

If this is true, do I legitimately own the title to my property?

Yes.  You've homesteaded it, or bought it from someone who did, or who... etc, etc,

Solid_Choke:

I obtained it from a voluntary transaction, but what if a long time ago the people who obtained the title got it using force?

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If an individual makes a claim that he holds a right aquired as per above, or through explicit inheritance of a rightful claim, the conflicting claims would have to be adjudicated in some way.  It's highly doubtful any such individual with a remotely valid claim exists.  "Ancestral homeland" is not a legitimate claim.

There is a point at which even legitimate claims are properly considered abandoned for failure to assert them.  Add to that the fact that, especially in the US, the chain of claims likely goes back to a homesteader who had no concept of rightful property, and it gets nearly impossible to prove any competing claim.

The criteria was not whether or not anyone ever in history has ever been screwed out of their land, it is whether there is enough certainty in the claim of being screwed to justify forcing you off land that you have invested resources in acquiring and keeping. Adn only individuals can be screwed out of rightful property, not collectives or "peoples".

Solid_Choke:

If not, why is it that the state is not entitled to its property?

Because the state is not a moral agent that has any rights whatsoever.

 

 

 

 

Solid_Choke:

If this is true, do I legitimately own the title to my property?

Yes, assuming you didn't steal it yourself. If property has no identifiable owner than it belongs to the first person who homesteads it. Thats you. Uncertainty about the past does not effect your ownership, the only person that could dispute your ownership would be an identified prior owner.

If a thief holds land known to be stolen, but the victim is unknown, then whoever dispossess the thief has the strongest(oldest) known claim to the land.

 

 

 

JonBostwick:

If a thief holds land known to be stolen, but the victim is unknown, then whoever dispossess the thief has the strongest(oldest) known claim to the land.

How is one to know that he is the thief if there is no known victim? The thief is the rightful owner by presumption of innocence.

 

To answer the original question, if the law says that you own your land then you own it. The homesteading principle is only good for resolving conflicts over future property. It is not retroactive.

To answer the original question, if the law says that you own your land then you own it. The homesteading principle is only good for resolving conflicts over future property. It is not retroactive.

As I've pointed out to you plenty of times before, the result of this viewpoint is the legitimization of all currently existing property titles, including the state's. "Because the law recognizes this, it is legitimate" is what your argument boils down to. That defeats the whole purpose of market anarchism and justifies the current state of affairs. The homesteading principle is also a way to find out if currenty existing claims to property are valid, and if they are not there must be justice to the valid owners. To just automatically assume the legitimacy of the status quo makes no sense from any libertarian perspective. Only a conservative one which will lead you to defend criminals.

Well, I'll be odd man out. If you buy stolen land, you've bought nothing. It is unfair that you take a loss and the thief gets rewarded, but why is it more fair (less unfair) to leave things as they are and dispossess the original owner? Now, I'll grant that leaving things as they are doesn't involve coercion, and changing things does, so of course, the claimant needs to bring convincing evidence to the court, but the court's basic principle is, if the evidence is convincing, to give the property to the claimant with the substantiated, further-back claim. Then let the innocent person who bought the land without knowing it was stolen collect damages from the thief, not from the person who was robbed. Rothbard says there is a "presumption of innocence" with regard to land - that our initial assumption is that any particular parcel belongs to the current owner. I agree with this. The problem comes with someone comes to court with a convincing claim that goes back further. Someone, say, might do a title search and find conflicting title. He might also bring his grandfather's will giving the land to his father, and his father's will giving the land to him. This is not unowned land that the current owner has claimed by laboring on it, this is owned land that the current owner is squatting on. The court should therefore give the land to the claimant. Rothbard also said that if we see a situation where most people are working land belonging to others, while a few own large tracts of land on which they extract rent, we should have a presumption that theft has taken place, since this is an unlikely scenario. This is seen in most of the world today. My own belief is that government will do nothing to improve the situation, and almost certainly will make it worse, so there is no call to do anything to address it today. If we could establish a Rothbardian system, though, we'd need private courts and private title search companies to address it. Some people hold that claims that are old are not valid. I suggest that this belief arose out of the true statement that older claims are harder to verify and less likely to exist - most old claims will end up not being valid for the person making them. When they are validated, though, this doesn't lead to the idea that we shouldn't do anything with them. This is discussed in some depth in The Ethics of Liberty. This subject is usually one of the points on which Rothbard is called a 'radical' to differentiate him from vulgar libertarians.

Brainpolice:

As I've pointed out to you plenty of times before, the result of this viewpoint is the legitimization of all currently existing property titles, including the state's.

The state doesn't have any property titles. A property title is granted by a third party.

Politicians who create private property out of public property should be rewarded for what is an act of homesteading.

The state's claim to land is legitimate since most property is stolen from previous native people. But claiming property and making others who do not use it pay for it is theft. The state 's claim to it is legitimate, but it's ownership is not, hence they are not entitled to it. The tax payers are.

Stranger:

Brainpolice:

As I've pointed out to you plenty of times before, the result of this viewpoint is the legitimization of all currently existing property titles, including the state's.

The state doesn't have any property titles. A property title is granted by a third party.

Politicians who create private property out of public property should be rewarded for what is an act of homesteading.

 

Why can't the state have property titles? If I own land and sell it to the state, then their claim to it is valid, is it not? ( All ethics and morals aside. )

Stranger:

JonBostwick:

If a thief holds land known to be stolen, but the victim is unknown, then whoever dispossess the thief has the strongest(oldest) known claim to the land.

How is one to know that he is the thief if there is no known victim? The thief is the rightful owner by presumption of innocence.

Because it belongs to the State. It possible to know land is stolen without knowing who rightful owns it.

 

The situation I was imaginging was if a person kills your neighbor and moves into their house. If they have no heir, or if that heir is not identifiable, then the land will belong to whoever dispossesses the murderer, atleast until an heir is found.

 

 

Andrew:

If I own land and sell it to the state, then their claim to it is valid, is it not?

No, because the state payed for it with other people's money.

 

JonBostwick:

 

The situation I was imaginging was if a person kills your neighbor and moves into their house. If they have no heir, or if that heir is not identifiable, then the land will belong to whoever dispossesses the murderer, atleast until an heir is found.

That makes no sense. If you dispossess a criminal, you are claiming the rights of the victim. That means you are claiming to be the heir of the murder victim.

You have no right to touch other people's property, even if it has been stolen, without the agreement of the rightful owner.

Stranger:

The state doesn't have any property titles. A property title is granted by a third party.

 

A state - just as any legal person - can have property titles. And what about homesteading, that's not necessary granted by a third party. Do property titles have to be recognized by third parties? 

Torsten:

Stranger:

The state doesn't have any property titles. A property title is granted by a third party.

 

A state - just as any legal person - can have property titles. And what about homesteading, that's not necessary granted by a third party. Do property titles have to be recognized by third parties? 

Homesteading doesn't grant you any property titles until you run into conflict with someone and a court rules in your favor. The court ruling is your property title.

 

Torsten:

Stranger:

The state doesn't have any property titles. A property title is granted by a third party.

 

A state - just as any legal person - can have property titles. And what about homesteading, that's not necessary granted by a third party. Do property titles have to be recognized by third parties? 

 

I don't think that an entire organization can reasonably be recognized as a single person. That's collectivist to the core. Furthermore, property titles aren't necessarily the same thing as property rights or justly aquired titles. And I've yet to see any state based purely on homesteading or voluntary exchange.