Discipulus

Thank you very much for the information. I'll have to hunt down the references you provided me with. Much appreciated@

I was hoping that somebody could either englighten me or direct me to a source which might adress a question I've been pondering. In disputes with a somewhat liberal friend of mind, he has denied that property rights are anything but an arbitrary invention of man. He says claiming property is an act of coercion, and therefore any philosophy which accepts the non-coercion principle cannot accept the idea of private property. This led me off on a tangent. In the state of nature, how exactly are property rights established? If two people claim the same piece of land, and neither has any prior claim to it, then what is to be done? Do they just fight it out? Should they just "share" and split it down the middle? I'm sure that Rand addressed the idea of the basis of property rights at some point, but in most of her work their legitimacy is accepted implicitly. A more explicit explanation of her views would be most welcome, and greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.