| > Then by your standards, a state would be just as artificial. 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. |