WEBVTT NOTE 10. The Problem of Land Theft 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Chapter 10 The Problem of Land Theft 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:13.000 A particularly important application of our theory of property titles is the case of landed property. 3 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:22.000 For one thing, land is a fixed, quotal portion of the earth, and therefore the ground land endures virtually permanently. 4 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:30.500 Historical investigation of land titles, therefore, would have to go back much further than for other, more perishable goods. 5 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:39.000 However, this is by no means a critical problem, for, as we have seen, where the victims are lost in antiquity, 6 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:45.000 the land properly belongs to any non-criminals who are in current possession. 7 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:51.120 Suppose, for example, that Henry Jones first stole a piece of land from its legitimate 8 00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:54.120 owner, James Smith. 9 00:00:54.120 --> 00:01:00.000 What is the current status of the title of current possessor, Henry Jones X? 10 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:06.760 Or of the man who might be the current possessor by purchasing the land from Henry Jones X? 11 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:13.120 If Smith and his descendants are lost to antiquity, then title to the land properly and legitimately 12 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:19.480 belongs to the current Jones, or the man who has purchased it from him, in direct application 13 00:01:19.480 --> 00:01:22.920 of our theory of property titles. 14 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:28.880 A second problem, and one that sharply differentiates land from other property, is that the very 15 00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:36.520 existence of capital goods, consumers' goods, or the monetary commodity, is at least a prima 16 00:01:36.520 --> 00:01:42.400 There has been a facie demonstration that these goods had been used and transformed, 17 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:47.920 that human labor had been mixed with natural resources to produce them. 18 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:54.340 For capital goods, consumer goods and money do not exist by themselves in nature. 19 00:01:54.340 --> 00:02:01.240 They must be created by human labor's alteration of the given conditions of nature. 20 00:02:01.240 --> 00:02:08.920 But any area of land, which is given by nature, might never have been used and transformed, 21 00:02:08.920 --> 00:02:14.800 and therefore any existing property title to never used land would have to be considered 22 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:16.640 invalid. 23 00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:22.880 For we have seen that title to an unowned resource, such as land, comes properly only 24 00:02:22.880 --> 00:02:28.320 from the expenditure of labor to transform that resource into use. 25 00:02:28.320 --> 00:02:37.320 Therefore, if any land has never been so transformed, no one can legitimately claim its ownership. 26 00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:43.040 Suppose, for example, that Mr. Green legally owns a certain acreage of land of which the 27 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:49.400 northwest portion has never been transformed from its natural state by Green or by anyone 28 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:51.680 else. 29 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:57.320 Libertarian theory will morally validate his claim for the rest of the land, provided as 30 00:02:57.320 --> 00:03:04.140 As the theory requires, that there is no identifiable victim, or that Green had not himself stolen 31 00:03:04.140 --> 00:03:05.800 the land. 32 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:12.100 But libertarian theory must invalidate his claim to ownership of the Northwest portion. 33 00:03:12.100 --> 00:03:18.200 Now so long as no settler appears who will initially transform the Northwest portion, 34 00:03:18.200 --> 00:03:20.920 there is no real difficulty. 35 00:03:20.920 --> 00:03:26.080 Brown's claim may be invalid, but it is also mere meaningless verbiage. 36 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:30.560 He is not yet a criminal aggressor against anyone else. 37 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:37.080 But should another man appear who does transform the land, and should Green oust him by force 38 00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:43.720 from the property, or employ others to do so, then Green becomes at that point a criminal 39 00:03:43.720 --> 00:03:48.380 aggressor against land justly owned by another. 40 00:03:48.380 --> 00:03:53.800 The same would be true if Green should use violence to prevent another settler from entering 41 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:58.720 Landing upon this never used land and transforming it into use. 42 00:03:58.720 --> 00:04:06.720 Thus, to return to our Crusoe model, Crusoe, landing upon a large island, may grandiosely 43 00:04:06.720 --> 00:04:13.180 trumpet to the winds his ownership of the entire island, but in natural fact he owns 44 00:04:13.180 --> 00:04:17.460 only the part that he settles and transforms into use. 45 00:04:17.460 --> 00:04:25.200 Or, as noted above, Crusoe might be a solitary Columbus landing upon a newly discovered continent. 46 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:30.580 But so long as no other person appears on the scene, Crusoe's claim is so much empty 47 00:04:30.580 --> 00:04:35.820 verbiage and fantasy, with no foundation in natural fact. 48 00:04:35.820 --> 00:04:42.460 But should a newcomer, a Friday, appear on the scene and begin to transform unused land, 49 00:04:42.460 --> 00:04:48.780 Then any enforcement of Crusoe's invalid claim would constitute criminal aggression against 50 00:04:48.780 --> 00:04:53.980 the newcomer and invasion of the latter's property rights. 51 00:04:53.980 --> 00:04:59.340 Note that we are not saying that in order for property and land to be valid, it must 52 00:04:59.340 --> 00:05:02.480 be continually in use. 53 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:08.940 The only requirement is that the land be once put into use, and thus become the property 54 00:05:08.940 --> 00:05:14.340 of the one who has mixed his labor with, who imprinted the stamp of his personal energy 55 00:05:14.340 --> 00:05:21.500 upon, the land. After that use, there is no more reason to disallow the land's remaining 56 00:05:21.500 --> 00:05:29.940 idle than there is to disown someone for storing his watch in a desk drawer. One form of invalid 57 00:05:29.940 --> 00:05:37.000 land title, then, is any claim to land that has never been put into use. The enforcement 58 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:42.540 of such a claim against a first user then becomes an act of aggression against a legitimate 59 00:05:42.540 --> 00:05:48.960 property right. In practice, it must be noted, it is not at all difficult to distinguish 60 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:55.160 land in its natural virgin state from land that has at some time been transformed by 61 00:05:55.160 --> 00:06:02.160 man for his use. The hand of man will in some way be evident. 62 00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:07.600 One problem, however, that sometimes arises in the validity of land titles is the question 63 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:10.600 of adverse possession. 64 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:17.520 Let us suppose that a man, Green, comes upon a section of land not obviously owned by someone. 65 00:06:17.520 --> 00:06:21.560 There is no fence, perhaps, and no one on the premises. 66 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:24.240 Green assumes that the land is unowned. 67 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:29.560 He proceeds to work the land, uses it for a length of time, and then the original owner 68 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:34.000 The owner of the land appears on the scene and orders Green's eviction. 69 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:35.700 Who is right? 70 00:06:35.700 --> 00:06:42.540 The common law of adverse possession arbitrarily sets a time span of twenty years, after which 71 00:06:42.540 --> 00:06:48.380 the intruder, despite his aggression against the property of another, retains absolute 72 00:06:48.380 --> 00:06:50.840 ownership of the land. 73 00:06:50.840 --> 00:06:57.580 But our libertarian theory holds that land needs only to be transformed once by man to 74 00:06:57.580 --> 00:07:00.020 to pass into private ownership. 75 00:07:00.020 --> 00:07:07.020 Therefore, if Green comes upon land that in any way bears the mark of a former human use, 76 00:07:07.020 --> 00:07:13.060 it is his responsibility to assume that the land is owned by someone. 77 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:19.040 Any intrusion upon his land, without further inquiry, must be done at the risk of the newcomer 78 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:21.460 being an aggressor. 79 00:07:21.460 --> 00:07:27.460 It is of course possible that the previously owned land has been abandoned, but the newcomer 80 00:07:27.460 --> 00:07:33.340 Remember must not assume blithely that land which has obviously been transformed by man 81 00:07:33.340 --> 00:07:36.180 is no longer owned by anyone. 82 00:07:36.180 --> 00:07:42.100 He must take steps to find out if his new title to the land is clear, as we have seen 83 00:07:42.100 --> 00:07:46.280 is in fact done in the title search business. 84 00:07:46.280 --> 00:07:52.000 Of course, everyone should have the right to abandon any property he wishes. 85 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:58.600 In the libertarian society no one can be forced to own property which he wishes to abandon. 86 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:04.240 On the other hand, if green comes upon land that has obviously never been transformed 87 00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:10.800 by anyone, he can move on to it at once and with impunity, for in the libertarian society 88 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:17.180 no one can have a valid title to land that has never been transformed. 89 00:08:17.180 --> 00:08:23.020 In the present world, when most land areas have been pressed into service, the invalidating 90 00:08:23.020 --> 00:08:28.440 of land titles from never being used would not be very extensive. 91 00:08:28.440 --> 00:08:33.980 More important nowadays would be invalidating a land title because of a continuing seizure 92 00:08:33.980 --> 00:08:37.980 of landed property by aggressors. 93 00:08:37.980 --> 00:08:43.660 We have already discussed the case of Jones's ancestors having seized a parcel of land from 94 00:08:43.660 --> 00:08:50.340 of the Smith Family, while Jones uses and owns the land in the present day. 95 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:56.220 But suppose that centuries ago Smith was tilling the soil and therefore legitimately owning 96 00:08:56.220 --> 00:09:02.640 the land, and then that Jones came along and settled down near Smith, claiming by use of 97 00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:09.700 coercion the title to Smith's land, and extracting payment or rent from Smith for the privilege 98 00:09:09.700 --> 00:09:13.420 of continuing to till the soil. 99 00:09:13.420 --> 00:09:30.420 It is that now, centuries later, Smith's descendants, or for that matter, other unrelated families, are now tilling the soil, while Jones' descendants, or those who purchased their claims, still continue to exact tribute from the modern tillers. 100 00:09:30.420 --> 00:09:34.420 Where is the true property right in such a case? 101 00:09:34.420 --> 00:09:40.300 It should be clear that here, just as in the case of slavery, we have a case of continuing 102 00:09:40.300 --> 00:09:47.260 aggression against the true owners, the true possessors of the land, the tillers, or peasants, 103 00:09:47.260 --> 00:09:52.820 by the illegitimate owner, the man whose original and continuing claim to the land 104 00:09:52.820 --> 00:09:57.700 and its fruits has come from coercion and violence. 105 00:09:57.700 --> 00:10:03.420 Just as the original Jones was a continuing aggressor against the original Smith, so the 106 00:10:03.420 --> 00:10:08.680 The modern peasants are being aggressed against by the modern holder of the Jones-derived 107 00:10:08.680 --> 00:10:10.800 land title. 108 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:16.940 In this case of what we might call feudalism or land monopoly, the feudal or monopolist 109 00:10:16.940 --> 00:10:21.080 landlords have no legitimate claim to the property. 110 00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:27.580 The current tenants, or peasants, should be the absolute owners of their property. 111 00:10:27.580 --> 00:10:33.280 And as in the case of slavery, the land titles should be transferred to the peasants without 112 00:10:33.280 --> 00:10:37.640 Compensation to the Monopoly Landlords. 113 00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:42.840 Note that feudalism, as we have defined it, is not restricted to the case where the peasant 114 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:49.500 is also coerced by violence to remain on the Lord's land to keep cultivating it, roughly 115 00:10:49.500 --> 00:10:52.800 the institution of serfdom. 116 00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:58.160 Nor is it restricted to cases where additional measures of violence are used to bolster and 117 00:10:58.160 --> 00:11:10.160 should maintain feudal land holdings, such as the state's prevention by violence of any landlord's sale or bequest of his land into smaller subdivisions. 118 00:11:10.160 --> 00:11:18.160 Such measures include entail, forcibly preventing the landowner from selling his land, and primogeniture, 119 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:25.160 coercively preventing him from bequeathing his land except intact to his eldest son. 120 00:11:25.160 --> 00:11:40.160 All that feudalism in our sense requires is the seizure by violence of landed property from its true owners, the transformers of land, and the continuation of that kind of relationship over the years. 121 00:11:40.160 --> 00:11:50.160 Feudal land rent, then, is the precise equivalent of paying a continuing annual tribute by producers to their predatory conquerors. 122 00:11:50.160 --> 00:11:55.160 Feudal land rent is therefore a form of permanent tribute. 123 00:11:55.160 --> 00:12:01.160 Note also that the peasants in question need not be the descendants of the original victims. 124 00:12:01.160 --> 00:12:09.160 For since the aggression is continuing so long as this relation of feudal aggression remains in force, 125 00:12:09.160 --> 00:12:15.160 the current peasants are the contemporary victims and the currently legitimate property owners. 126 00:12:15.160 --> 00:12:22.980 In short, in the case of feudal land or land monopoly, both of our conditions obtain for 127 00:12:22.980 --> 00:12:26.280 invalidating current property titles. 128 00:12:26.280 --> 00:12:33.020 For not only the original, but also the current land title is criminal, and the current victims 129 00:12:33.020 --> 00:12:37.480 can very easily be identified. 130 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:42.960 Our above hypothetical case of the King of Ruritania and his relatives is one example 131 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:48.720 All of a means by which feudalism can get started in a land area. 132 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:54.440 After the king's action, he and his relatives become feudal landlords of their quotal portions 133 00:12:54.440 --> 00:13:01.240 of ruritania, each one extracting coercive tribute in the form of feudal rent from the 134 00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:03.280 inhabitants. 135 00:13:03.280 --> 00:13:09.840 We do not of course mean to imply that all land rent is illegitimate and a form of continuing 136 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:11.240 tribute. 137 00:13:11.240 --> 00:13:18.040 On the contrary, there is no reason in a libertarian society why a person transforming land may 138 00:13:18.040 --> 00:13:21.920 not then rent it out or sell it to someone else. 139 00:13:21.920 --> 00:13:26.080 Indeed, that is precisely what will occur. 140 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:31.380 How then can we distinguish between feudal rent and legitimate rent? 141 00:13:31.380 --> 00:13:35.000 Between feudal tenancies and legitimate tenancies? 142 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:41.180 Again, we apply our rules for deciding upon the validity of property titles. 143 00:13:41.180 --> 00:13:47.100 We look to see if the origin of the land title is criminal, and, in the current case, whether 144 00:13:47.100 --> 00:13:53.360 the aggression upon the producers of the land, the peasants, is still continuing. 145 00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:59.280 If we know that these conditions hold, then there is no problem, for the identification 146 00:13:59.280 --> 00:14:03.940 of both aggressor and victim is remarkably clear-cut. 147 00:14:03.940 --> 00:14:10.340 But if we don't know whether these conditions obtain, then, applying our rule, lacking a 148 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:16.180 A clear identifiability of the criminal, we conclude that the land title and the charge 149 00:14:16.180 --> 00:14:21.200 of rent is just and legitimate and not feudal. 150 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:28.380 In practice, since in a feudal situation criminality is both old and continuing, and the peasant 151 00:14:28.380 --> 00:14:35.140 victims are readily identifiable, feudalism is one of the easiest forms of invalid title 152 00:14:35.140 --> 00:14:35.900 to Detect.