| >>Without the existence of a state enforcing said property rights by threat of monopolized, any sorry of land "ownership" beyond physical occupation is meaningless. Then by your standards, a state would be just as artificial. Without the existence of a sufficient number of individuals capable and invested in engaging in violence for the defense of property, any concept of a state would be just that: a concept. An imaginary plaything. Enforcement of property rights can only come from people, not papers or buildings. And since a people precede a state, so to do their rights to own property. >> There would be nothing stopping someone else from inhabiting "your" land unless your able and willing to infringe on their rights to life and liberty. You're contradicting yourself. If one owns land, no one else has any right to life or liberty with respect to it. In other words, your rights end where mine begin. Proof of this is the fact that (contiguous) United States isn't bordered by Mexican Gulf, the Pacific Ocean, and the 49th parallel because nature or belief willed it. It's there because people physically occupied territory long enough to obtain legitimacy, people purchased other colonial territories (i.e Alaska, Colonial Louisiana), or people negotiated treaties that says they owns certain areas. None of this is any different from how ordinary people obtain or historically obtained ownership despite your claim of insufficiency in their case. If that's so, what makes it be inherently different for a so-called state? Nothing stops Canada from invading a la 1812 except for pieces of paper that merely claim it "can't". Canada chooses not to, not because it lacks a dedicated army with sufficient capability to capture some land, but because because it obtains benefits from an alliance and because provoking a potential retaliatory occupation by it's nearest neighbor isn't currently in the country's personal interest as a result of what violence would likely ensue. Ownership is not a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state. It's not even granted. Individuals have those rights to begin with. It is the exercise of those rights to pursue either agreement or defense that demonstrate ownership. |
Indeed it would be.
> And since a people precede a state, so to do their rights to own property.
Except that the concept of private land ownership without a state has yet to be demonstrated, specifically because said private land ownership is wholly a function of the state.
> If one owns land, no one else has any right to life or liberty with respect to it.
Says who? There's a reason why the rights to "life, liberty, and property" are in that order: property is meaningless without life and liberty, and liberty is in turn meaningless without life.
And further, because the state - like the notion of land ownership - is artificial, your ownership of land is at the mercy of those fellow members of society and their collective conjuring of the state - and its powers to enforce ownership over imaginary concepts like parcel boundaries - into existence. That said society happens to currently tolerate your exclusive claim on some parcel of land (without receiving anything even remotely resembling reciprocal compensation for the incurred opportunity costs) is a privilege, and one which can be revoked when it conflicts with the rights to life and liberty.
> Ownership is not a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state.
With respect to land, unless you live in Bir Tawil or have decided to invest in deep sea and deep space real estate, said ownership quite literally is a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state. That the state itself exists (ostensibly) as an action of the people it governs doesn't change the fact that your "ownership" of land is more of a lease, and that a superior landlord - the state - continues to exist.
If you disagree, then you're encouraged to brush up on your understanding of the difference between "fee simple" and "allodial" titles - hint: if you own land in a common law jurisdiction like the US, your land is almost certainly under the former kind of title, not the latter.