Property rights as conceived by Adam smith, John Locke, and even the most ruthless anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard does not acknowledge the right of ownership of land from merely seeing it and declaring everyone else is blocked from accessing the next place. In all such systems, ownership is first derived from developing or homesteading the land.
People that own undeveloped land purely for the reason of blocking someone else do not have any place in the capitalist system. It is nice someone is working on undoing that, through the mechanisms they have available.
Fantastic. I am a native of Montana and in my lifetime there has been a huge move toward locking the public out of their own lands by closing off access, violating a century of norms between ranchers and farmers and the public. As the state becomes more popular from really dumb TV shows a larger and larger number of people who don't understand the land culture of Montana are slicing the state up for private monied interests and making public land their private playground. Refreshing to see it move the other way a little bit.
> The group bought the land from two billionaire Texas brothers who’d kept the public locked out of one of the only western access roads into adjacent public land,
There's something uniquely evil about locking the public out of public lands.
America needs more land that’s under stewardship of people who want to conserve it for the future. We’ve lost so much native biodiversity, but there’s still pockets that can revive it if managed appropriately.
The UK has a much more intelligent (though far from perfect) approach to land use.
It has public rights of way (if on foot, horse or bicycle) crossing the whole country. You can walk from one end of Britain to the other without trespassing, and without using roads (much). Many of these paths are very, very old, in a few cases Roman or pre-Roman, although more are medieval. Until recently, they were based on common law rights, although they're now in statute. The situation is a happy hangover of the medieval approach to property rights, which is based on custom and usage and negotiation instead of strict statute. The American eighteenth-century enlightenment approach is an attempt to make everything tidy: it's based on the rationalist idea that a thing is its definition and nothing more. So private property is private, that means nobody else can use it: case closed.
The medievals also held in theory (not always in practice, hahaha) that one had a moral duty to use wealth for the public benefit, and that not doing so was theft. So buying up land and kicking everybody off was not only frowned upon, but could also get you into legal trouble, and possibly into trouble with the Church.
EDIT:
A few points since I didn't mean this to be a controversial comment but it seems to have started an argument:
- I should have mentioned the vast public lands in the western US, since they provide a counterpoint.
- The liability issue in the US obviously affects access to land, but could be ameliorated in principle (I would think).
- My comment is not a general defense of British land usage approach. There are huge problems, including but not limited to the tiny number of big landowners. I should have prefaced my first paragraph with "in some respects". Similarly, it is not a general defense of the medieval approach, and certainly not of serfdom.
- The UK's problem with vast landowners got worse in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteen centuries, with the Dissolution, the enclosure acts and clearances. Land becomes far more concentrated at this time, and the social distance between landlord and tenant much greater. Older lords' houses tend to be built very near roads where anyone can talk to them (whether to beg or to threaten), whereas the eighteenth century ones, as well as being much bigger, are far from the road in huge parks, guarded by layers of servants. The historian E.P. Thompson talks about the "triumph of law over custom" -- in other words, "what you and your ancestors have agreed with us and our ancestors up until this time doesn't matter, we've managed to get this law written down that gets you off the land, now get lost".
Owners of land that blocks access to significant amounts of other public land should be required to maintain public access roads or lose ownership (of a path of the states choosing).
Seems like a good thing but I was definitely a bit wary from the title. I was worried it would be a MAGA-aligned organization pushing to “unlock” public lands for commercial exploitation (e.g. drilling).
We should not exempt non-profits from property tax. For these conservation projects, it will be a defacto ad valorem tax and it's a good thing. Americans will lock themselves out of prosperity and then blame The Rich, The Politicians, Foreigners and so on rather than allow for the development of the vast acres of land that America has.
Conservation is fine. But perpetual free locking away of land is total bullshit. The highly performative yelling of "we are IN A CRISIS!" while actively promoting said crisis is getting old. I've had enough of it.
I have a friend that grew up near this and he has told me repeatedly that many of the locals are very against it since they believe it takes ranching (their jobs and the local economy) away from the area. It is interesting when this much land, or this much of any resource, is involved how many and how big the secondary consequences can be. That being said, we have to have this kind of thing, but it should be more of a national or at least state wide effort to help make those impacted whole. The US national parks system has proven to be one of the best investments the US ever made. It is too bad that as a country we barely recognize the value to the point that private efforts like this one become needed.
Classification of wildlife vs livestock is a complicated issue.
You should read about the history of Yellowstone and its creation :) You'll end up with an opinion that probably matches your current opinion, but at least you'll understand where it all comes from.
17 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 37.4 ms ] threadPeople that own undeveloped land purely for the reason of blocking someone else do not have any place in the capitalist system. It is nice someone is working on undoing that, through the mechanisms they have available.
That reminds me, I still have to put up the explanation at oneoftheonly.com for why this phrase doesn't make sense and is the new "could care less".
There's something uniquely evil about locking the public out of public lands.
I'm looking at you, too, Vinod Khosla.
It has public rights of way (if on foot, horse or bicycle) crossing the whole country. You can walk from one end of Britain to the other without trespassing, and without using roads (much). Many of these paths are very, very old, in a few cases Roman or pre-Roman, although more are medieval. Until recently, they were based on common law rights, although they're now in statute. The situation is a happy hangover of the medieval approach to property rights, which is based on custom and usage and negotiation instead of strict statute. The American eighteenth-century enlightenment approach is an attempt to make everything tidy: it's based on the rationalist idea that a thing is its definition and nothing more. So private property is private, that means nobody else can use it: case closed.
The medievals also held in theory (not always in practice, hahaha) that one had a moral duty to use wealth for the public benefit, and that not doing so was theft. So buying up land and kicking everybody off was not only frowned upon, but could also get you into legal trouble, and possibly into trouble with the Church.
EDIT:
A few points since I didn't mean this to be a controversial comment but it seems to have started an argument:
- I should have mentioned the vast public lands in the western US, since they provide a counterpoint.
- The liability issue in the US obviously affects access to land, but could be ameliorated in principle (I would think).
- My comment is not a general defense of British land usage approach. There are huge problems, including but not limited to the tiny number of big landowners. I should have prefaced my first paragraph with "in some respects". Similarly, it is not a general defense of the medieval approach, and certainly not of serfdom.
- The UK's problem with vast landowners got worse in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteen centuries, with the Dissolution, the enclosure acts and clearances. Land becomes far more concentrated at this time, and the social distance between landlord and tenant much greater. Older lords' houses tend to be built very near roads where anyone can talk to them (whether to beg or to threaten), whereas the eighteenth century ones, as well as being much bigger, are far from the road in huge parks, guarded by layers of servants. The historian E.P. Thompson talks about the "triumph of law over custom" -- in other words, "what you and your ancestors have agreed with us and our ancestors up until this time doesn't matter, we've managed to get this law written down that gets you off the land, now get lost".
IDK anything about Montana, but that feels inexpensive.
Conservation is fine. But perpetual free locking away of land is total bullshit. The highly performative yelling of "we are IN A CRISIS!" while actively promoting said crisis is getting old. I've had enough of it.
I find it quite amusing how many conservatives ignore basic reality.
You should read about the history of Yellowstone and its creation :) You'll end up with an opinion that probably matches your current opinion, but at least you'll understand where it all comes from.