“The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property and all forms of wealth are produced by man’s mind and labor.” Galt’s Speech.
All property and all wealth is man-made.
Land is not man-made.
What is the origin of a Land ownership claim?
Isn’t land similar to, say, a deer or an apple. If a hunter-gatherer hunted a deer or plucked an apple, should it be his (or at least his tribe’s)? Then, if he settles and farms land, wouldn’t the same apply?
Welcome to the forum.
Thank you for welcoming me here.
I think there is a difference between Land and an apple or deer.
A hunter-gatherer identifies an apple or deer as food and gathers it and through his effort. The apple or deer he receives is his wage.
Now say the H-G collects some material from the forest, those materials are his wages. Rather than consuming them as he would an apple, he makes a basket to carry more apples. He transforms his wages into capital.
If he decides to farm, the farm he creates is man-made, it becomes his capital like the basket. The confusion is mixing up the concepts of farm and land.
The basket is made out of materials - one owns the basket but not the land from which the materials came. The farm is made out of materials - one owns the farm but not the land from which the materials came.
Land is not man-made.
So what is the basis of our claim to own land privately?
So what is the basis of our claim to own land privately?
Rights are the principle that guides social interactions. Property rights, including land ownership, is the principle that allows moral men to be productive and independent members of society. What else should be done with land, if it wasn’t privately owned and freely traded among individuals?
Thank you for welcoming me here.
I think there is a difference between Land and an apple or deer.
A hunter-gatherer identifies an apple or deer as food and gathers it and through his effort. The apple or deer he receives is his wage.
Now say the H-G collects some material from the forest, those materials are his wages. Rather than consuming them as he would an apple, he makes a basket to carry more apples. He transforms his wages into capital.
What do you mean ‘his wages’? Does the concept of a wage really apply to a person picking sticks in the forest? And why are you distinguishing ‘wages’ from ‘capital’?
The Objectivist perspective on property is that the institution exists to give man control, not merely over physical entities in reality, but over the value man creates. Locke’s views on land and what he calls the ‘mixing of labor’ are very good (although it’s the mind- not labor- that is the fundamental source of the value created), in my opinion. Land becomes property when you mix your labor with it, ie. when you create value. That’s why The Homestead Act was well executed. It gave individuals ownership over land once they made it valuable (by farming it). Once all of the land is privately owned, as Nicky points out, the question becomes: what grounds do you have for excluding land from the institution of private property? What right do you have to take the land from the owner?
Edit: Oh, and welcome to the forum :worry:
Hi Nicky,
We would say that trading people is wrong, knowingly trading stolen goods is wrong, or taking money from producers with force is wrong. There is reasoning which allows us to make these moral claims.
Now in the case of owning land (which is not man-made), what is the reasoning which supports such a practice?
Hi Critical Thinker
Yes, I think the concept of wages does apply in that context. Land, Labour and Capital are factors of the production of material values. The return to land is called economic rent, the return to labour is wages and the return to capital is interest. I hope that shows how wages so defined differs from capital.
As per my responses before I agree the man-made should properly be private property. A farm for example is private property. The farm is actually capital. If the farm was abandoned and became uncultivated, there would be only land. Who would own this land then and by what right?
Hi Critical Thinker
Yes, I think the concept of wages does apply in that context. Land, Labour and Capital are factors of the production of material values. The return to land is called economic rent, the return to labour is wages and the return to capital is interest. I hope that shows how wages so defined differs from capital.
I don’t know if I agree with that, as I haven’t thought about it much, but I see what you’re saying.
As per my responses before I agree the man-made should properly be private property. A farm for example is private property. The farm is actually capital. If the farm was abandoned and became uncultivated, there would be only land. Who would own this land then and by what right?
I don’t understand why you’re making a distinction with respect to land. What is a farm if not the land? When I plant a row of crops into the ground, controlling the production of my crops requires control over the land into which I planted the crops. How can you sow a field without using the field?
The fundamental issue is this: no matter is man-made. The sticks which make up a basket are not man-made. Even the plastic used to build my headphones is a re-organization of metaphysically given matter. The plastic itself is a man-made creation but the constituent parts of the plastic are not.
All material production is the re-arrangement of the metaphysically given in such a way that a human value is created. Whether that means taking sticks and weaving them into a basket, or writing a piece of software, or developing a plastic headphone, or hoeing a piece of land, the fact remains the same. When a value is created, the value becomes the property of the creator.
Hi Critical Thinker,
About productive labour (directed by one’s mind) being the source of property rights, we are in agreement.
Anything we produce uses Land, it is a pre-requisite of production.
If I collect water from a lake, I do not own the lake as a result. I do own the water I have collected (my wage). If I pick berries from a tree, I do not own the tree as a result, I own the berries.
If I clear a field the land is able to yield more as a result of my intervention, my creating a farm. The farm is capital, only in conjunction with labour will the increased yield (the interest) be harvested. Being capital, the farm falls under Galt’s definition of private property. So one can establish private ownership of their farm accordingly.
The distinction is between land as a source of material values and material values that have been mixed with labour. Material values mixed with labour leads to the creation of man-made objects, which meet the ‘Galt criteria’. Land does not meet the criteria as it is not man-made.
People claim they own land privately. I want to establish what the basis of such a claim to own land is.
I am strictly applying the Galt criteria as it is rational and logical. Where ownership is declared outside of that criteria, my guard goes up. That is often the way looters get our wealth is it not?
That’s why I want to understand what basis ownership of land rests on. Thanks for giving this your thought.
If I collect water from a lake, I do not own the lake as a result. I do own the water I have collected …
You only have a right to the water if you have the right to take the water from the lake. In other words, you do have a form of primitive type of “property right” in the lake, even when it is not an exclusive ownership. If you establish a home and farm nearby and routinely take water from the lake over a long period, a proper legal system would recognize that you have a continuing established right to do so. In which case, someone else cannot simply come in a drain the lake.
Ownership is a bundle of rights that allow you to control something, subject to any rights offered to others (as in easements). So, asking why one should have a right to land is asking: why should I be allowed to do whatever I wish with this land? Since ownership is your freedom to act on the land, you are asking: why should I have the right to build on this land, to farm on this land, to make a path going to my field, to keep some land fallow, to leave some as an enclosed forest for future use? The answer is that you should have the freedom to do all these things. The freedom to act is not a reward bestowed for action; rights are not just a reward bestowed for work done: they’re also the freedom to perform the action.
The other way to look at rights is that they are lines drawn around you. Other people have little say inside those lines. Imagine that a thousand people were to descend on an uninhabited area to set up a civilization. Imagine that they space themselves out evenly and that each draws a square around himself, so that no two squares intersect, and so that there are spaces for roads every so often. The squares are the mechanism by which each person establishes a zone of control where his neighbors have little say. Rolling the example back to more primitive times, people who settle and start to farm establish a zone of control: this is my farm, that is yours; I’ll plant what I wish here, you plant what you wish there. And next season, I still have the right to plant on my farm.
OK let us explore this.
Why wouldn’t I have a right to take water from the lake?
Perhaps someone claims to own it already.
What would be a legitimate basis for that individual to claim the lake to be his exclusively?
Perhaps he has been taking water from it for a long time (earning part of his living directly - the water is the wage and it is life-sustaining when consumed). He wants control of the lake to prevent others from taking water from it.
Firstly by what right can he come to declare the water in the lake and the lake itself to be his, rather than just the water he has by his effort taken from the lake? (This seems a logical leap to me - imagine a hunter who, on killing deer for food, thereby declares that all deer in that forest, and the forest itself now belong to him. Would we accept such a claim? Why not?)
Secondly, imagine a scenario where the individual’s claim to own the lake is recognised in law - rightly or wrongly. He then moves away from the state to live somewhere else. On what basis would the lake then continue to be his?
Could you clarify what you mean about the primitive property right?
Thanks for your thoughts, I am finding this a valuable exchange and hope others are too.
BTW I wasn’t ignoring the comments about civilization - it’s just it does not apply. As discussed before, all wealth is man-made and there is a clear basis for property rights. Land can be used residentially, for farming, mining etc but the use reflects the kind of capital applied to the land in conjunction with labour, to create material values. There is no question of property rights in that context.
The lake is a better example to explore because it is not man-made.
Hi Critical Thinker,
About productive labour (directed by one’s mind) being the source of property rights, we are in agreement.
Anything we produce uses Land, it is a pre-requisite of production.
If I collect water from a lake, I do not own the lake as a result. I do own the water I have collected (my wage).
Bodies of water are publicly owned in this country. Using them as an example is probably not going to lead to a fruitful discussion. In any event, the type of property right that you have over a given piece of property is determined by the nature of that property. Intellectual property is not identical in to land rights which are not identical to personal property rights which are not identical to water rights. Notice that libertarians make the same mistake with respect to intellectual property. They compare IP to land, and when it’s discovered that the two forms of property are not exactly the same, they declare IP to be invalid. The philosophical foundation of all property is what is important.
The distinction is between land as a source of material values and material values that have been mixed with labour. Material values mixed with labour leads to the creation of man-made objects, which meet the ‘Galt criteria’. Land does not meet the criteria as it is not man-made.
Land is NOT a source of material values. The mind is the source of material values. Land does not just give us values. Land has to be shaped and formed and toiled with such that it becomes a value. A big stretch of arid desert is not a value and neither is a field in Iowa until a person takes the actions (directed by the mind) to make it a value. You say that land is not man-made but what does it mean for a value to be ‘man-made’? It means that man has re-arranged a metaphysically given piece of matter such that it becomes a value. No raw material is man-made. The plastic fork I’m holding is no more of a man-made value than the land being farmed in Iowa. The plastic fork is a rearrangement of metaphysically given oil molecules that existed before man just as the field in Iowa is a rearrangement of a metaphysically given stretch of earth that existed before man. The philosophic foundation of why both values are property is the same, but that does not mean that the property rights protecting a fork (personal property) and a piece of land (or a lake of water) are the same.
I agree with Snerd’s point. Who then, if not private individuals, should have control over the ground you walk on? Who should decided what you can and cannot do in a specific area? Snerd is reminding us (and I needed reminding) that the institution of private property exists to give man control over the values he creates so that he has control over his own life. Viewed from this framework, land is a foundational form of private property. That’s probably why it is a focus of Locke’s work, although I never really thought about that before.
… the water is the wage…
This formulation might imply a person gets rights as some type of payoff. In fact, he had the right to take water from the lake, and this right preceded his effort.
Perhaps he has been taking water from it for a long time …
It is the nature of human beings that they have to plan their lives long term. By a few steps or reasoning, we come to the principle that the person who establishes himself by the lake and draws water from them, establishes an ongoing right to such use. It does not imply that he should get ownership of all the lake, or that others may not use it at all. Others can surely use it if they do not interfere with his established rights.
Secondly, imagine a scenario where the individual’s claim to own the lake is recognised in law …
While appropriation and usage are important to establish rights, there is a degree of subjectivity to them. Continuing to use them in a modern society would require a lot of subjective judgments about who owns what. The modern solution is to create property deeds, in order to objectively document who owns what. That way, a person may swap his land with someone from another state. Or, dropping barter, he could sell and buy the deeds.
Hernando de Soto’s book “The Mystery of Capital” explores this topic. He has done a lot of work in Brazil and in other countries, trying to get informal, subjective property rights converted to formal property deeds. Doing this in the slums of Brazil does not just convert squatters into land-owners, it converts them into owners of capital who can decide to sell and put that capital to better use in another city. It also undercuts the power of the slum-mafia, in their role as “private government” enforcing the informal and subjective property rights.
This book is a must-read on the topic of property rights.
Similar to the Brazilian case, some African countries still have a lot of land legally designated as village property. Or, the property is used privately but the village-chief has a say in its disposal. The lack of deeds has introduced subjectivity and held back the exploitation of land.
Britain went through a phase where a lot of land, much of it “commons” of some type, were re-designated as deeded property, owned by specific people. There was a time when almost nobody moved from one place to another – the bulk of villagers were not even allowed to do so without asking their lord. As industrialization began to set in, and the focus shifted toward more freedom for individuals, property deeds were an important step. The book to read is “The Industrial Revolution” by T.S.Ashton. There’s a brief review here (I’m not endorsing the review, but it gives some info on the book).
Material values come into existence through exertion. I agree with you that production is led by the mind; the mind directs our exertion. Without land both our mind and our labours are impotent. This is an objective fact - try producing material values without a source of materials. The source of materials is land.
I hoped this discussion was about the philosophical foundations but I am concerned we are slipping into “what happens here is…”. Let’s try to bring it back.
“The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property and all forms of wealth are produced by man’s mind and labor.” Galt’s Speech.
This is the philosophic starting point.
Land is not produced by man’s mind nor his labour - land preexists both and serves also as a prerequisite. Given Galt’s Criteria, land cannot even be defined as anyone’s property. If someone claims it is their property, what is the philosophic basis of the claim?
What if the implication is that land cannot be an individual’s private property nor can it be the property of any collective. What if the conclusion is that it belongs to no-one?
My view is that this is exactly where Galt’s Criteria leaves us.
“By a few steps or reasoning, we come to the principle that the person who establishes himself by the lake and draws water from them, establishes an ongoing right to such use. It does not imply that he should get ownership of all the lake, or that others may not use it at all. Others can surely use it if they do not interfere with his established rights.”
I think I would agree with this but it needs elaboration. Say in a country people claim to own lands, via deeds. They do not live on the lands - maybe never did - the lands are now used by a local populace for a long time. A third party seeks to purchase the lands which will result in the local populace being evicted. Would such an eviction violate the rights of the local populace?
Material values come into existence through exertion. I agree with you that production is led by the mind; the mind directs our exertion. Without land both our mind and our labours are impotent. This is an objective fact - try producing material values without a source of materials. The source of materials is land.
I hoped this discussion was about the philosophical foundations but I am concerned we are slipping into “what happens here is…”. Let’s try to bring it back.
“The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property and all forms of wealth are produced by man’s mind and labor.” Galt’s Speech.
This is the philosophic starting point.
But that is not a philosophic starting point. That is a derivative idea that depends on prior knowledge and context. It depends on a proper understanding of wealth and production, among other things.
Land is not produced by man’s mind nor his labour - land preexists both and serves also as a prerequisite.
You keep saying that and making this distinction between land and other property. Is it true that the glass in my hand is not property because the sand it’s made of preexists my mind and labor? I’m just repeating myself now but all production (at the root) is a rearrangement of entities that preexist man.
Material values come into existence through exertion.
That’s the wrong way to think about it. While it’s partially true, it’s just not important (and it sounds like you’re thinking about this whole thing in purely Marxist terms, despite the references to Galt’s speech). Try this:
Imagine a world in which there was no idea of property. Anyone who needed gasoline could simply take some from their nearest gas station; anyone who needed shelter would walk right into the nearest house and make themselves at home; et cetera.
Now imagine, in such a world, living with the knowledge that anything you took could be taken by anyone else at any moment. How would that affect your life? I’m not even discussing violence or fear; imagine what it would be like to try to get groceries, without knowing whether any of them would remain intact by the next morning.
In such a world, would you be able to save, maintain or build anything- even something like a clean household- over any significant period of time? I think not.
If not, and if nobody else were able to do anything that required long term planning, what would happen to the quality of everyone’s lives?
If you grasp that relation between independence and productivity then you’ll see the benefits you gain, personally, by respecting other peoples’ property (once again, without taking violence of any sort into account in any way).
If you see that, and if you then saw that someone had built a fence around some patch of land, don’t you think the same principle would apply?
@ Critical Thinking,
You seem intelligent. I do not think you are giving the posts serious reflection - would that be fair to say? For instance I do not think you would have raised the issue of the glass otherwise. You would understand there is no disagreement that the glass in your hand is property. I have emphasised that capital is property; it is a sub-set of man-made wealth.
The purpose of this discussion is to understand the basis of land ownership. One which is consistent with Objectivist philosophy. Rand asserts that _all _property and all forms of wealth are produced by man’s mind and labour (via Galt). That is pretty clear isn’t it? Either this is wrong, and some/all property and some/all forms of wealth are not produced by man’s mind and labour, or it is right; we would then have to conclude that land is not property. This is just logic.
Would it be alright if I went into your house and rearranged everything into some incomprehensible mess without your consent, as long as I didn’t actually break anything?