Difference between revisions of "The worthless Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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Go ahead: identify the original owners of land in any part of the US, and explain how their ownership was not by conquest. You can't even do it for the Native Americans, because they also fought wars of conquest amongst each other. There is no part of the world where ownership hasn't changed due to conquest except unowned international waters and perhaps Antarctica. | Go ahead: identify the original owners of land in any part of the US, and explain how their ownership was not by conquest. You can't even do it for the Native Americans, because they also fought wars of conquest amongst each other. There is no part of the world where ownership hasn't changed due to conquest except unowned international waters and perhaps Antarctica. | ||
==What about homesteading?== | ==What about homesteading?== | ||
| − | About the only claimed historical example of homesteading in the Lockean sense was Medieval Iceland: but they stole that land | + | About the only claimed historical example of homesteading in the Lockean sense was Medieval Iceland: but they stole that land by expelling Irish Catholics who probably stolen it from aboriginal inhabitants. |
The brief homesteading period in the US was a government method of giving away land it owned (stolen from the Amerinds), not spontaneous removal from a commons. It resulted in government-recognized ownership, not a natural right. | The brief homesteading period in the US was a government method of giving away land it owned (stolen from the Amerinds), not spontaneous removal from a commons. It resulted in government-recognized ownership, not a natural right. | ||
