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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Property,justice,freedom
Message-ID: <241@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Nov-85 18:45:58 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.241
Posted: Sun Nov 10 18:45:58 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Nov-85 21:15:32 EST
References: <1099@mtuxo.UUCP> <238@gargoyle.UUCP> <239@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 34
Summary: Libertarian conception of "freedom"

A party of libertarians en route to a tour of Hong Kong was
shipwrecked on an uninhabited island.  After a certain time had
elapsed, they had each appropriated an area of land according to the
principles of just appropriation on which they were all agreed.  Each
person had enough land to provide a subsistence, and the entire
island was now under private ownership.  Each person, as was her
right, now built a fence around her property and guarded the borders
with dogs, traps, etc.  Now the people who had plots of land in the
interior of the island found that they could not travel outside of
their own tract of land without cutting deals with the owners of the
contiguous areas.  They were in effect imprisoned unless they could
meet the price of the adjacent landowners.  A few of them who were
comparatively unproductive found that they were de facto prisoners,
or that certain parts of the island were inaccessible to them.

Now our libertarian friends, those champions of freedom, would say
that no one has suffered any loss of freedom in the above scenario.
Indeed they would say that they live in a paradise of freedom.  But I
suggest that this is far too narrow a conception of freedom:  a
prisoner is still a prisoner even if his jailer is susceptible to a
bribe.

After a while a ship came along, and those living along the coast
went home, in their excitement forgetting to unlock the gates to
their property and leaving those in the interior imprisoned.  As they
had every right to do.

Here is a question for libertarians:  Since libertarians believe that
one may have just ownership of land, under what circumstances and by
what means may one obtain ownership of all or part of the sea?  The
atmosphere?  The sun (the star itself, not sunlight)?  

-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes