The State is the functional, and widely recognized, owner of all real property within its self-defined geographical boundaries. It acquired and maintains this “owner” status by the threat or use of force.

Over time, others who might have made a plausible counterclaim to ownership have disappeared and been replaced by those who can make no such legitimate counterclaim. This leaves the State as the entity with the strongest claim.

Unfortunately, Austrian economists posit as a fundamental right that a property owner may unquestionably dictate whether ‘occupants’ may possess gold or guns — or even engage in self defense without civil or criminal sanction.

The result is that the State enforces its rights as an owner while the Austrians defend an owners’ right to deny tenants desire to hold gold or guns. This is the worst of both worlds.

Austrians have lost the individual-as-rightful-owner argument.

Austrians would now better serve the individual by acknowledging that the State is, even though wrongfully acquired, the owner of all real property — then describe how to best maximize individual liberties under our now-permanent State-as-landlord, individual-as-tenant condition.

VHarris

The physical gold/silver shortage story is – and has been for like two years now – a complete bull (or should I openly call it fear mongering?), as anyone near the business will attest. Don’t know about guns, they isn’t an exactly free and liquid market for them anywhere in Europe.

To Mr. VHarris,

I don’t even know how to reply to your message because your thesis is nonsensical. The State exerting ownership rights does not prove ownership. That’s like saying the Mafia owns New York because at any time they could demand protection fees.

The permanency of the State is also highly questionable. I mean when was the last time you heard someone speaking Uruk dialect Sumerian?

Well Nate and Ty – how many times has a government had to use a coup d’etat to seize power? Most governments evolved, the U.S. Government was founded in the late 1700s voluntarily after the Revolution and has evolved since to the state that it is now. On the other hand, the Australian Government has even greater claim to ‘homesteading’ as the previous inhabitants were nomadic as none of the tribes had ‘homesteaded’ the land hence Australia being ‘invaded’ in the late 1700s is a misnomer.

Are you saying that people who buy guns in order to “protect” themselves (from god knows who) are mre civilized than those who oppose this draconian mindset?

Are you saying that the country’s stability could get so much worse that it could lead to anarchy??

Or is the future so unpredictable that you think every “civilized” person should buy a gun or else, who knows what??

VHarris,

First the State’s land grab was legitimate. Now you don’t care how it was acquired. You may as well say that when a carjacker steals a porche the car is now his property. Actually, the claim that the State owns all the land in a country is even dumber than that. Anyway, go ahead and try to establish that the State owns all the land.

Gil,

One problem with saying that the State can “homestead” the entire land mass that makes up a country is that such a notion causes the word “homestead” to lose all meaning. Also, do you not realize that granting ownership of all land to the State provides the State with near infinite power? Under such a system, the State can do whatever it wants. After all, the people are living on State property. Yes states are often replaced through revolution or coup d’etat. This certainly isn’t a good thing. Many resources are squandered and many lives are lost in the process. How to put an end to this cycle? Greatly diminished or completely eliminated State power as a result of private property seems like a good starting point.

Rather than try to refute the States’ power by denying the States’ functional ownership of all real property it claims, a better approach for Austrian Economists would be to (1) repudiate their own notion of an owners’ absolute right over property, (2) cede State ownership with limited power and (3) describe free human action under that limited-power, single-owner structure (e.g., a limited monarchy a la Hoppe).

If Austrians will concentrate on showing how a single land owner (i.e., the Landlord/State) may maximize it’s own economic benefit by liberating its tenant/populace to do the same, Austrians may actually positively influence the outcome of the ongoing friction between the State and the governed.

If Austrians continue to insist on what is essentially the destruction of the State, Austrian theory will fail.

Indeed, items 1, 2 and 3 in VHarris’ last comment have already been exercised by every governmental-supporter for every government on the earth. Every single one.
It’s in “3″ where things get sticky.

As a practical matter the definition of property, more specifically, “my” property, is the nagging dilemma. Is it the keyboard I am now touching, the lot of land upon which this house sits, the air inside this house, which permeates this lot of land, the view of sky above it, the sound that emanates from this household onto the snow-covered neighborhood, the sunlight that touches it?
There is general (sadly not universal) acceptance that this body of mine constitutes my absolute property. We extend this to “…and all the fruits of my labor…”
Theoretically, right on.
Practically speaking, it’s ambiguous, lacking clarity; it’s the great conundrum.

Happy new year, all.

VHarris raises excellent points for thought and discussion.

1. It is true that as long as I am forced to pay real estate property taxes, I am “renting” from the government in practical terms.

2. It is also true that if the government wants my land, it can take it without my consent through eminent domain actions.

3. Moreover, the government defends my property with police and military actions.

However, each of these powers is bestowed upon the government by the people, thus:
1. Property taxes could (at least theoretically) be abolished.
2. Eminent domain is only selectively exercised and the recent Supreme Court ruling has resulted in backlash. For example, in Texas, restrictions on the use of Eminent Domain were passed on the 2009 state ballot.
3. And the defense of our property by police and military action is a foundational principle of the Constitution. Through the amendment process, this function of government could theoretically be taken away (I know, not likely).

Furthermore, private property (including land) is owned, bought and sold by individuals, not by a collective, such as the state.

Insofar as all power and authority of the government are derived from the consent of the governed, I conclude that the government actually owns nothing.

In his extraordinary book Democracy: The God that Failed, Hans Hermann Hoppe points out that the process of civilization is stopped when government continually violates property rights.

However, when government aggresses, it is considered legitimate and “a victim may not legitimately defend himself against such violations.” Democracy legitimizes this government aggression because the violence is sanctioned by a majority of voters.

In 2005 I wrote a letter to the Editor of the New York Times. My letter was not published. I was not terribly surprised.

Perhaps it was too ‘rich’ for the NYT and come to think of it, perhaps I was a little full of hyperbole or hyper-bull.

But frankly I was incensed.

In so many words I compared a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to Robert Mugabe’s bulldozers demolishing the shacks of the poorest people in Zimbabwe — in Mugabe’s efforts to ‘beautify’ his country. (Some Beautification Plan! — I will let you judge for yourselves.)

IMO governments rarely, ANYWHERE, of any stripe, know what is ‘right and good’ for the people.

That includes right AND left — please see Obama’s plans for his brand of Beautification via PPP-s (so-called Public Private ‘Partnerships’).

http://mises.org/daily/3240

You co-opt the Private Sector by making it look like you are doing it for ‘them’. What is the oldest trick in the book? Set one part of the private sector against the other part of the private sector. Pretty soon you have them eating out of your hand — the suckers!

I have taken a few quotes from the NYT articles to illustrate my point — by the way, what good came of this decision in 2005? — check out the NYT article from 2009 and you will see. What a fiasco! Yeah, you can rhyme of the list of usual excuses — we did not see the recession coming, we did it in good faith, it was for the good of the bigger community — PLEASE — when will you learn? Good Faith and Good Intentions can be The Road To Hell.

Whether the decision makers are the smartest people on the Supreme Court or in the government, you can NEVER be ‘smarter’ than the collective of all the ‘dumb’ people out there! (IMDHO = In My Dumb Humble Opinion).

If you have the time, please read about this tragedy at

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23wire-scotus.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/nyregion/13pfizer.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

http://kevin.lexblog.com/2008/03/articles/new-media/linda-greenhouse-leading-supreme-court-reporter-to-leave-ny-times/

Justice Stevens, examining the New London plan itself in light of the majority’s general analysis, said the plan “unquestionably serves a public purpose” even though it was designed to increase jobs and tax revenue rather than remove blight. He described the plan as “carefully formulated” and comprehensive. Sounding a federalism note, Justice Stevens said that state legislatures and courts were best at “discerning local public needs,” and that the judgment of the New London officials was “entitled to our deference.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor objected that “the words ‘for public use’ do not realistically exclude any takings, and thus do not exert any constraint on the eminent domain power.”

Both Justice O’Connor and Justice Thomas, who also filed his own dissent, emphasized that the decision’s burden would fall on the less powerful and wealthy. “The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more,” Justice O’Connor said. “The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.”

Justice Thomas, who called the decision “far-reaching and dangerous,” cited several studies showing that those displaced by urban renewal and “slum clearance” over the years have tended to be lower-income members of minority groups. “The court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution,” he said.

The decision was a clear defeat for the long-term effort by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Scalia to limit government control over private property. Although a series of decisions from the mid-1980′s through the early 1990′s had appeared to indicate a major shift in the court’s traditional deference to government land-use policies, that effort has stalled in recent cases.

Scott G. Bullock, the lawyer who argued the case for the New London homeowners, said in an interview today that his organization, the Institute for Justice, would accept the court’s invitation and “continue the fight in the state supreme courts.” As a result of the decision, he said, “we are going to see more eminent domain abuse and a growing grass-roots rebellion against this type of government action.”

If the court had not upheld the Connecticut Supreme Court, he said in an interview, “it would greatly limit what cities and towns all over the country could do.” Mr. Taylor said he read the opinion not as a green light for the wholesale use of eminent domain but as “a green light for continuing to do careful and responsible planning.”

By the same token, the decision was the latest success for Justice Stevens, the 85-year-old senior associate justice who appears to be having one of the most productive Supreme Court terms of his 30-year tenure.
The New London case was among the final decisions the Supreme Court was expected to make in this term. The court indicated that Monday would be the final day of the term.

“…the decision was the latest success for Justice Stevens…” — some success!

Of course the much bigger tragedy unfolded in Zimbabwe to the people who could least afford such an attack on their existence. At least the people in America who were dispossessed had their day in Court and had some remuneration for their losses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/international/africa/13zimbabwe.html?pagewanted=2

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/27/international/africa/27zimbabwe.html

The notion of public property is a mere hypothetical construct — it doesn’t really exist.

The State claims and enforces property rights over the land within it’s stated geographical boundaries. Such claims and enforcement are indistinguishable from that of so-called ‘private’ owners — evidence that the State functions essentially as a private-property owner.

As such, there is no theoretical reason the State cannot exert its ownership rights to maximize its economic benefit — being the sole land-owner is no bar.

A. Viirlaid

The US Constitution doesn’t necessarily correlate with either the fundamentals of Austrian Economics or US Federal/state government behavior.

Regarding ‘Private Property’ above, ostensibly a list of rights private property owners retain, is rather more a list of privileges the State sometimes grants to occupants. All these privileges can be, and frequently are, revoked by the State on ‘due process’ — conducted by the State.

Consider that one privilege a US ‘private’ property owner still enjoys is to transfer ownership to another for value.

Yet one right the State does not yet fully exert is to tax real property at market rates — the functional equivalent of rent.

Market-rate taxation would cause a deed-holder’s equity to evaporate (presumably without compensation) since the entire revenue generation potential of the property now goes to the State.

Once taxes equal market rent levels, it will become clear that, in truth, the State owns all real property. With the acquisition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the State is well on its way.

Oh, and a Happy New Year to all of you as well.

“Also, do you not realize that granting ownership of all land to the State provides the State with near infinite power? Under such a system, the State can do whatever it wants. After all, the people are living on State property.” – Nate Y.

So? A private landowner would have the same ‘near infinite power’. A private landowner can pretty much what they want on their land and anyone else wants to stay on the land has to give in to the demands of the private landowner and theoretically they could be prevented from leaving if they have any outstanding debts.

Jonathan Finegold Catalan:

You are absolutely right–progress of sorts is definitely being made. And, if it’s kept up at the presemt rate, we can well expect the superiority of our ideas to gain ascendancy just about the time life on earth ceases to exist due to global warming.

Son, the rate of population increase alone among the ignorami (potential voters all) far outstrips even the most significant gains made by “our side.” At best, any reasonable claim must be that we keep the ideas from dying out entirely (and I’ll settle for that, since I don’t know how better can be accomplished.)

Please excuse my bluntness.

The protection of property rights by a consent-of-the-governed mechanism doesn’t work. Governments create factions via concentrating benefits for a few and diffusing costs to others. This empowers officials to garner votes and retain office through the forcible redistribution of wealth.

In the US, private property rights have continually been eroded. That this erosion ostensibly occurred by consent of the majority is not an explanation of how individual property rights are preserved, but rather a justification for their negation.

That the State has come to own most rights over real property through consent of the populace is irrelevant. Also irrelevant is that, in theory, the populace could undo State ownership. The fact remains that the State presently owns those rights.

By holding the theory that an ‘owner’ has unlimited rights and powers over their real property, Austrians exacerbate the States’ threat to its populace.

Restated, my thesis is that, with respect to real property, Austrians would better serve by (1) repudiating their unlimited-rights-of-owners theory (a la common law), (2) ceding that the State is the in-fact owner (a la Hoppe’s limited monarchy) and (3) describing a human-action theory wherein officials maximize their own economic benefit by maximizing the States’ citizens economic liberty (a la VHarris).

That is, the better occupants do, the better State officials do.

The current Austrian practice of pleading with the State to relinquish control of, and return property rights to, the individual will not work.

Starting with an example that has already been brought to the table, I presume that Kim Jong-il believes he is acting in his own best interest — he behaves as he does because he is convinced it the best way to achieve his ends.

Suppose Austrians accept the proposition that he is the in-fact owner of all North Korea, and have a full understanding of his ‘sometimes conflicting’ goals (e.g., militarization, reunification, deification, etc., etc.).

If true that his central-planning, command-and-control style seriously diminishes, say, the system-wide productivity needed to accomplish his goals, then it must be possible to describe some other, less centrally controlled, system to better achieve his goals.

What would Austrians propose?

VHarris asks anarchists to spend time designing a more tyrannical government. That’s a good one.

CJ –

Since “Governments create factions via concentrating benefits for a few and diffusing costs to others. This empowers officials to garner votes and retain office through the forcible redistribution of wealth,” how would the “VHarrisian” practice of pleading with State officials to “maximize their own economic benefit by maximizing the States’ citizens economic liberty” possibly work?

I don’t think it really is necessary, on the whole, to “plead with State officials”.

Many who don’t yet ‘get it’, soon will IMO come to see that the putative solutions proffered by Krugman, Bernanke, Geithner, et al, will not work. Even Obama will soon IMO turn against further debt incursion and The FED’s Quantitative Easing.

Individual states are reducing payrolls — that is painful and obvious enough to government officials.

Once they don’t get their required tax revenues, which are dropping like dead flies from the sky, they won’t likely turn to increasing taxes. Debt maybe, but the market wlll soon start to put such borrowers on a tighter and tighter leash.

The system does have some self-correcting mechanisms within it.

As we all start to realize that the year 2010 will not bring the hoped-for recovery, and in a few years start instead to recognize that we are in for a decades-long depression, all pretense of looking for solutions will disappear — we’ll be too focussed on survival.

As for turning one faction against another — yes, that did happen with the Wall Street bailouts — but next time, AND there WILL BE a next time, such institutions will be allowed to fail or be taken over by sounder institutions.

Politically, Obama can still say he inherited the Bush Plan for saving these big banks, and I doubt that next time he will follow that policy.
He has seen how angry Americans were with the last bailouts and knows that they will not accept another set of such bailouts.

Gil, when the Pilgrims and others came here, there was no State waiting for them.

Same goes for pioneers who went west.

The law followed.

May I suggest a different theory of the state, one that might contribute to more productive inquiry. When we say “the state” and attribute to it human qualities such as volition and ownership, this is not a figure. The ancients held that when people cooperate in a organized system, a separate living entity is created the actions of which are to a great degree independent of its human constituents. In its inception, the entity is somewhat constrained by the intentions of its creators but as it grows, its true nature will always manifest. States by nature have only two purposes: 1. survival and 2. growth. These are attributes of living things. In other words, we are dealing with a separate life form, and until we understand this there will continue to be endless discussions about what the state “should” and “ought” to be, coupled with continued frustration that it isn’t. One might as well fill libraries with books about what crocodiles “ought” to be like.

Gil,

“You’re going in for the notion that all goverments are party-crashers when most governments are formed by the original inhabitants.”

This just goes on to show that the party never lasts long and that you end up paying for it the rest of your life. It’s kind of like sex where you have 15 minutes of fun and misery the rest of your life.

Hi Gil,

As you correctly wrote “…when most governments are formed by the original inhabitants…”

Whether these are ALL of the inhabitants or exclusively big fat rich white men (excluding the poor, the slaves, the women), the fact is that it is The People of one stripe or another who form the State, not the other way around.

The people are the precursor to any State.

Did the American State form PRIOR TO the Revolution and then subsequently did it group the rebels into a rebellion to fight the British? Or did the Revolution spontaneously begin first — that is, did the rebels group themselves to fight before the State was formed?

If the rebellion began BEFORE the new young American State was established, then I would submit that it is the people who form the State. That is, it is the people who voluntarily send their representatives to a Continental Congress ‘of The People’ to form their government and Their State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Continental_Congress

Therefore IMHO, theoretically, The People can again send Their Representatives to another ‘Continental Congress’ to dismantle Their current State — The State in essence ‘belongs’ to The People.

Of course that won’t happen because the State would see that new ‘rebellion’ as High Treason.

It is similar to the ‘theoretical’ Right To Secede from The Union. It won’t happen because of the same reason.

The reason that this discussion is somewhat theoretical is that most ‘States’ form organically, as do families and tribes.

Thus deciding on the Exact Timing of the Formation of any State is somewhat arbitrary — except in the case of a revolution where it can usually be timed relatively precisely.