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NOTE 2.12. Property: The Appropriation of Raw Land

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12. Property, The Appropriation of Raw Land

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As we have stated previously, the origin of all property is ultimately traceable to the

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appropriation of an unused, nature-given factor by a man and his mixing his labor with this

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natural factor to produce a capital good or a consumer's good. For when we trace back

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through gifts and through exchanges, we must reach a man and an unowned natural resource.

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In a free society, any piece of nature that has never been used is unowned and is subject

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to a man's ownership through his first use or mixing of his labor with this resource.

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How will an individual's title to the nature given factor be determined?

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If Columbus lands on a new continent, is it legitimate for him to proclaim all the new

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continent his own, or even that sector as far as his eye can see?

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Clearly, this would not be the case in the free society that we are postulating.

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Columbus or Crusoe would have to use the land, to cultivate it in some way, before he could

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be asserted to own it.

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This cultivation does not have to involve tilling the soil, although that is one possible

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form of cultivation.

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If the natural resource is land, he may clear it for a house or a pasture, or care for some

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plots of timber, etc.

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If there is more land than can be used by a limited labor supply, then the unused land

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must simply remain unowned, until a first user arrives on the scene.

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Any attempt to claim a new resource that someone does not use would have to be considered invasive

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of the property right of whoever the first user will turn out to be.

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There is no requirement, however, that land continue to be used in order for it to continue

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to be a man's property.

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Suppose that Jones uses some new land, then finds it is unprofitable and lets it fall

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into disuse.

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Or suppose that he clears new land and therefore obtains title to it, but then finds that it

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is no longer useful in production and allows it to remain idle.

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In a free society, would he lose title?

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No, for once his labor is mixed with the natural resource, it remains his owned land.

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His labor has been irretrievably mixed with the land, and the land is therefore his or

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for his Assigns in Perpetuity.

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We shall see in later chapters that the question whether or not labor has been mixed with land

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is irrelevant to its market price or capital value.

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In catallactics, the past is of no interest.

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In establishing the ownership of property, however, the question is important, for once

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Since the mixture takes place, the man and his heirs have appropriated the nature-given

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factor and for anyone else to seize it would be an invasive act.

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As Wolofsky and Levasseur state, nature has been appropriated by him, man, for his use.

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She has become his own.

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She is his property.

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This property is legitimate.

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It constitutes a right as sacred for man as is the free exercise of his faculties.

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It is his because it has come entirely from himself, and is in no way anything but an

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emanation from his being.

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Before him there was scarcely anything but matter.

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Since him and by him there is interchangeable wealth.

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The producer has left a fragment of his own person in the thing which has thus become

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valuable, and may hence be regarded as a prolongation of the faculties of man acting upon external

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nature.

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As a free being, he belongs to himself.

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Now the cause, that is to say, the productive force, is himself.

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The effect, that is to say, the wealth produced, is still himself.

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Who shall dare contest his title of ownership, so clearly marked by the seal of his personality?

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Some critics, especially the Henry Georgists, assert that while a man or his assigns may

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be entitled to the produce of his own labor, or anything exchanged for it, he is not entitled

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to an Original Nature-Given Factor, a Gift of Nature.

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For one man to appropriate this gift is alleged to be an invasion of a common heritage that

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all men deserve to use equally.

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This is a self-contradictory position, however.

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A man cannot produce anything without the cooperation of original nature-given factors,

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if only as standing room.

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In order to produce and possess any capital good or consumer's good, therefore, he must

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appropriate and use an original nature-given factor.

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He cannot form products purely out of his labor alone.

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He must mix his labor with original nature-given factors.

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Therefore, if property and land or other nature-given factors is to be denied man, he cannot obtain

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In the question of land, it is difficult to see what better title there is than the first bringing of this land from a simple, unvaluable thing into the sphere of production, for that is what the first user does.

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was, he takes a factor that was previously unowned and unused, and therefore worthless

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to anyone, and converts it into a tool for production of capital and consumers' goods.

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While such questions as communism of property will be discussed in later parts of this book,

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it is difficult indeed to see why the mere fact of being born should automatically confer

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The problem will be clearer if we consider the case of animals.

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Animals are economic land, because they are equivalent to physical land in being original

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Nature Given Factors of Production

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Yet will anyone deny title to a cow to the man that finds and domesticates her, putting

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her to use?

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For this is precisely what occurs in the case of land.

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Previously valueless wild land, like wild animals, is taken and transformed by a man into goods

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useful for man.

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The Mixing of Labor gives equivalent title in one case as in the other.

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We must remember also what production entails.

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When man produces, he does not create matter.

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He uses given materials and transforms and rearranges them into goods that he desires.

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In short, he moves matter further toward consumption.

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His finding of land or animals and putting them to use is also such a transformation.

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Even if the value accruing to a piece of land at present is substantial therefore, it is

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only economic land because of the innumerable past efforts of men at work on the land.

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When we are considering legitimacy of title, the fact that land always embodies past labor

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becomes extremely important.

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If animals are also land in the sense of given original nature factors, so are water and

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air.

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We have seen that air is inappropriate, a condition of human welfare, rather than a

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scarce good that can be owned.

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However, this is true only of air for breathing under usual conditions.

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For example, if some people want their air to be changed or conditioned, then they will

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have to pay for this service, and the conditioned air becomes a scarce good that is owned by

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its producers.

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Furthermore, if we understand by air the medium for the transmission of such things as radio

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waves and television images, there is only a limited quantity of wavelengths available

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for Radio and for Television purposes. This scarce factor is appropriable and

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ownable by man. In a free society, ownership of these channels would accrue to individuals

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just like that of land or animals. The first users obtain the property. The first user,

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Jones, of the wavelength of 1,000 kilocycles, would be the absolute owner of this length for

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for his wave area, and it will be his right to continue using it, to abandon it, to sell

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it, etc.

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Anyone else who set up a transmitter on the owner's wavelength would be as guilty of

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invasion of another's property right as a trespasser on someone else's land, or a thief

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of someone else's livestock.

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If a channel has to be a certain number of wavelengths in width in order to permit clear

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Transmission, then the property would accrue to the first user in terms of such width.

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Federal ownership of airwaves was irrigated in the 1920s, not so much to alleviate a preceding

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chaos as to forestall this very acquisition of private property rights in airwaves, which

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the courts were in the process of establishing according to common law principles.

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The same is true of water. Water, at least in rivers and oceans, has been considered

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by most people as also inappropriate and unownable, although it is conceded to be ownable in the

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cases of small lakes and wells. Now it is true that the high seas in relation to shipping

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lanes are probably inappropriate, because of their abundance in relation to shipping

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It is rapidly becoming evident, however, that airlines for planes are becoming scarce, and in a free society would be owned by first users, thus obviating a great many plane crashes.

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This is not true, however, of fishing rights in oceans. Fish are definitely not available in unlimited quantities relative to human wants.

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Therefore, they are appropriable. They're stock and source, just as the captured fish themselves.

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Indeed, nations are always quarreling about fishing rights. In a free society, fishing

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rights to the appropriate areas of oceans would be owned by the first users of those areas,

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and then usable or saleable to other individuals. Ownership of areas of water that contain fish

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is directly analogous to private ownership of areas of land or forests that contain animals

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to be hunted.

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Some people raise the difficulty that water flows and has no fixed position, as land does.

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This is a completely invalid objection, however.

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Land moves too, as when soil is uprooted in dust storms.

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Most important, water can definitely be marked off in terms of latitudes and longitudes.

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These boundaries then would circumscribe the area owned by individuals, in the full knowledge

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that fish and water can move from one person's property to another.

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The value of the property would be gauged according to this knowledge.

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Appropriating water should be owned in proportion to its rate of use by the first user, that

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is, by the appropriation rather than the riparian method of ownership.

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However, the appropriator would then have absolute control over his property, might transfer

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his share, etc.

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Something which cannot be done in those areas, for example states in the West, where an approach

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Another argument is that appropriation of ownership by a first user would result in an uneconomic allocation of the nature-given factors.

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Thus suppose that one man can fence, cultivate or otherwise use only five acres of a certain land, while the most economic allocation would be units of fifteen acres.

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However, the rule of first ownership by the first user, followed in a free society, would

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not mean that ownership must end with this allocation.

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On the contrary, in this case, either the owners would pool their assets in one corporate

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form, or the most efficient individual owners would buy out the others, and the final size

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of each unit of land in production would be 15 acres.

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It must be added that the theory of land ownership in a free society set forth here, that is,

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first ownership by the first user, has nothing in common with another superficially similar

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theory of land ownership advanced by J.K. Ingalls and his disciples in the late 19th

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century.

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Ingalls advocated continuing ownership only for actual occupiers and personal users of

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the land.

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This is in contrast to original ownership by the first user.

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The Ingalls system would in the first place bring about a highly uneconomic allocation

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of land factors.

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Land sites where small homestead holdings are uneconomic would be forced into use in

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spite of this, and land would be prevented from entering other lines of use greatly demanded

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by consumers.

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Some land would be artificially and coercively withdrawn from use, since land that could

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not be used by owners in person would have to lie idle.

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Furthermore, this theory is self-contradictory, since it would not really permit ownership

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at all.

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One of the prime conditions of ownership is the right to buy, sell and dispose of property

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as the owner or owners see fit.

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If the small holders would not have the right to sell to non-occupying large holders, the

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small holders would not really be owners of the land at all.

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The result is that on the ownership question, the Engels thesis reverts in the final analysis

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to the Georgist view that society and the alleged person of the state should own the

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and Land.