First acquisition (AC question)

[DougShrapnel]

Assume an ACist society. Assume that property is a natural phenomenon that arises from possesion and control. At what point does land become released as property and into the public domain for a "2nd first acquisition"? For instance I aquire land that no one is using. I build a house. At a point I move from my house and neglect the land. Since I have neglected the land, I have negated my ownership of the land. I neither have possesion of the parcel of land or control of the parcel of land. Without possesion or control no ACist should be able to make the case for ownership of the land. Assume that no one wishes to purchase the land, at the price you want for it. How does an ACist handle the transfer from ownership to a natural unowned state ready for first acquisition?

[BCPVP]

My first thoughts would be that if the original owner who left the property is still alive and continues to assert ownership, the land is still his. If he doesn't assert ownership, then it becomes unowned.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
My first thoughts would be that if the original owner who left the property is still alive and continues to assert ownership, the land is still his. If he doesn't assert ownership, then it becomes unowned.

[/ QUOTE ] Assert is an interesting term to use as it has a connotation of force. I will sever that secondary meaning and change it to affrim, if that has better explainitory power.

Is absense of possesion and lack of control enough to negativley impact ones abilty to affirm ownership of a parcel of land?

Also, in my OP I mentioned some ideas. Public Domain to which was rightfully change by you to unowned. What type of things that once they enter into the unowned status can never be part of an first aquisition, would these be considered a public good?

[Borodog]

Abandoned property becomes unowned. What constitutes "abandonment" cannot be deduced a priori; it's a matter of social norm; the definition arises in the market and will be reflected in court decisions.

But we can say something like this: Abandoned property is property where the owner no longer defends his claim (note that "defend" doesn't need to mean physical occupation or presence of guns or something; legal defense of claim would be enough). And example would be a property owner who dies without family or will; who owns his property? A nasty and rather arbitrary court case might ensue.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
Abandoned property becomes unowned. What constitutes "abandonment" cannot be deduced a priori; it's a matter of social norm; the definition arises in the market and will be reflected in court decisions.

[/ QUOTE ] It's comments like this that I like to see...Big guy X decides you abandoned it...

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
Abandoned property becomes unowned. What constitutes "abandonment" cannot be deduced a priori; it's a matter of social norm; the definition arises in the market and will be reflected in court decisions.

But we can say something like this: Abandoned property is property where the owner no longer defends his claim (note that "defend" doesn't need to mean physical occupation or presence of guns or something; legal defense of claim would be enough). And example would be a property owner who dies without family or will; who owns his property? A nasty and rather arbitrary court case might ensue.

[/ QUOTE ]Why should legal defense be enough? By legal defense I mean a document showing that you do have a claim to first aquisition, and you do have the abilty to transfer your property to some one else. In the case of abandonment, the document showing initial acquisition and entiltement to trade is out there someplace. However, I believe that a strong case can be made using lack of possesion and lack of control to show that the legal document is null and void.

In regards to the possible nasty and long court case that AC would render. Is this a case of where government handling would be a better solution. The abandoned land parcel is transfered to the state and it is sold at auction to the highest bidder, procedes going to the state.

[WillMagic]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Abandoned property becomes unowned. What constitutes "abandonment" cannot be deduced a priori; it's a matter of social norm; the definition arises in the market and will be reflected in court decisions.

[/ QUOTE ] It's comments like this that I like to see...Big guy X decides you abandoned it...

[/ QUOTE ]

And Small guy Y hires large security company X to retrieve his property and administer a beating on Big guy X.

Try again.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Abandoned property becomes unowned. What constitutes "abandonment" cannot be deduced a priori; it's a matter of social norm; the definition arises in the market and will be reflected in court decisions.

[/ QUOTE ] It's comments like this that I like to see...Big guy X decides you abandoned it...

[/ QUOTE ]

And Small guy Y hires large security company X to retrieve his property and administer a beating on Big guy X.

Try again.

[/ QUOTE ]Right now small guy Y hires large sevurity company GOvernment that forces Big guy X to pay for it and administers a beating on Big guy X. Why should Y have to pay for X's misteps?

And yes I know I'm gonna get pwned with the responses to this thread. But is it really that different than what you want except X, M, N, and O pays for X's misteps. Where in your solution Y pays for X's misteps.

[Borodog]

History is filled with examples of property rights developing in the market. Actually, all property rights developed in the market before they were monopolized by the state. A good example is property rights in radio frequencies, which were being sorted out quite nicely in the courts before the Federal government nationalized, i.e. forceably seized, all radio frequencies and handed them out to priveleged members of a new government-licensed radio cartel.

No matter what crazy people like Theftertarian believe, people really do seek to minimize costs. Conflict is costly. Property rights rise up spontaneously to deter and resolve conflicts over scare resources, as well as systems to establish, vet, and prove claims, as well as systems to resolve conflicts. Violent coercive monopolies are not needed at any point along the line.

The places where you see perpetual conflicts, high costs, destruction and depletion of resources, etc, are where governments either prevent property rights from developing or acknowledging them (meaning that claimants have no access to the state's monopoly courts to settle disputes).

History is rife with examples. For example the Range Wars occured because the federal government refused to allow claims of more than 160 acres. This stake size was far to small for the grazing of cattle and sheep; hence competing ranchers had to graze their herds in the Federal commons. This lead to not only a tragedy of the commons in the grazing lands, but also to violent conflict, as ranchers repeatedly tried to fence off claims which the courts then refused to acknowledge. The disputes got settled, as they always are when they can't be settled in courts, violently. The violence was very costly, but it was the cheapest option given that they had no access to the courts. Gosh, I wonder why the drug trade is so violent?

Another tragedy of the commons is underway right now in the oceans. Seafood species are being massively overfished, because governments (not just ours) refuse to allow property rights in fisheries to develop. Modern technology makes electronic "fencing", patrol and enforcement of oceanic claims a simple matter, yet governments refuse to allow such rights to develop. The result is a population crash in the oceans, with some estimates I have seen showing a 90% depletion rate amongst many seafood species.

Owners of property have two incentives: to make a living from the property now, but also to preserve the market value of the property, i.e. their capital investment. In a commons, the second incentive does not exist. Furthermore, in a commons, there is no way to exclude users of the commons (excepting of course through corrupt and politicized government privelege systems). These effects combine to produce tragedies of the commons.

Anyone (excepting possibly Theftertarian) should be able to understand that there are only tragedies of the commons where there are commons.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
And yes I know I'm gonna get pwned with the responses to this thread. But is it really that different than what you want except X, M, N, and O pays for X's misteps. Where in your solution Y pays for X's misteps.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is nothing stopping X, M, N and O from pooling their resources voluntarily to share these costs, mitigate risk, achieve economies of scale in provision of defense, etc.

As a matter of fact, I am a member of exactly such an organization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance