RoR: Forum

Best price can still be at a loss. I don't support that. In that case its should be held.

The state can hold land which has a high future potential value (say oil shales which cannot now be profitably mined) but a negligible current value until it fetches a good price. In the meantime it can be bid out for grazing rights or other uses.

The government being in the "rental business" itself is a silly straw man - I said the government allowing public assets to be managed by private interests for the best return if the asset cannot otherwise be sold for a reasonable price.

The government "competing" with private land owners is another straw man. I have already said that if the land can be sold at a reasonable price it should be sold. If the land is in any way competitive, then obviously it will fetch a reasonable price. (And to truly be a competitor in land one needs to be in the market to acquire land. The government would obviously not be seeking to actively buy land in the domestic market.)

My understanding of the problem with land in the West is not that there are no buyers for the land but that the government will not sell even the the land will fetch a good price and that valuable land has been set aside as "national monuments" to prevent its development. Didn't Clinton grab a lot of minerally wealthy land in order to keep it off the market to benefit one of his Malaysian cronies?

My assumption, even though you say you don't know what selling at a loss is, is that you agree there are circumstances under and times during which it is appropriate for the government not to sell public property, and that at such times it is appropriate for the government to have the land managed as profitably as possible.

Post 41

Friday, March 19, 2010 - 7:01pm

Define loss - seems you are having your subjective valuing as the 'key' to whatever you consider the value, and if to go less than that, is a 'loss'...

Post 42

Friday, March 19, 2010 - 7:26pm

You are right to ask the question, Robert. Obviously there's an actual loss, such as giving away for free land which was purchased at a real cost. But there's also selling below current market value for similar land, and there's selling land which has a high expected future value (such as oil shales or coal beds, etc.) without regard to that potential value.

One can imagine all sorts of circumstances. Of course there is an element of judgment. In reality one would consult an expert who would make a judgment based on the fact that the state is an owner with a long investment horizon who is in no inherent hurry to sell.

The bottom line is that it is legitimate for the state to hold land so as to maximize its very long term return whether that means selling now or holding to sell later. That is the reason why governments act in terms of 99 year leases. To insist that the state simply get rid of public property, even when holding that property for the long term would be the better long term investment, is to insist that the state be altruistic on principle. When dealing with the public's assets only the principle of best long term return is justified.

Post 43

Friday, March 19, 2010 - 9:32pm

The government owns more land in some states than the total of all of the privately owned land in the state - that isn't "investing" - it is out of control statism. And if our government were interested in our best long term fiscal outcome it wouldn't be creating debt to fund unsustainable spending while not even considering selling assets.

Post 44

Friday, March 19, 2010 - 11:13pm

Ted wrote,

As for the public ownership of land, the only way I can interpret Bill's stance is not that he denies it in fact, but that he prefers to describe it as something other than ownership.

In Post 27, I quoted Rand's view on the proper acquisition of original property, to wit:

A notable example of the proper method of establishing private ownership from scratch, in a previously ownerless area, is the Homestead Act of 1862, by which the government opened the Western frontier for settlement and turned "public land" over to private owners. The government offered a 160-acres farm to any adult citizen who would settle on it and cultivate it for five years, after which it would become his property. Although that land was originally regarded, in law, as "public property," the method of its allocation, in fact, followed the proper principle (in fact, but not in explicit ideological intention). The citizens did not have to pay the government as if it were an owner; ownership began with them, and they earned it by the method which is the source and root of the concept of "property": by working on unused material resources, by turning a wilderness into a civilized settlement. Thus, the government in this case, was acting not as the owner but as the custodian of ownerless resources who defines objectively impartial rules by which potential owners may acquire them.

Observe that she does not regard the government's custodianship as "public property," even though that's what it was called, for she states, "The citizens did not have to pay the government as if it were an owner; ownership began with them, and they earned it . . . Thus the government in this case, was acting not as the owner but as the custodian of ownerless resources . . ." I agree.

- Bill

Post 45

Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 12:16am

A custodian is an employee, of an owner.

A government setting the conditions of ownership, acts as owner.

Post 46

Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 8:40am

Doug,

A property owner can deny others the right to acquire ownership of the property, if it so chooses. As Rand is describing the government's role here, it cannot do this; it must grant title to whoever satisfies the conditions of ownership, so technically the government is not an owner.

Is the government a custodian? Well, as it is normally defined, a custodian is one who is entrusted with guarding and keeping property. In this case, one could say that the government is entrusted with guarding and keeping potential property -- what will become property, once the prospective owner fulfills the stated conditions of applying human effort or labor to a natural resource for a productive purpose.

If you don't want to call the government the "custodian" in this case, call it something else. I think it's pretty clear what Rand is referring to here. The government sets the conditions for original property acquisition, and allows them to be met by anyone wishing to acquire property.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 3/20, 8:44am)

Post 47

Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 6:43pm

Thanks for the response, Bill. It seems there is no way to describe this principle without awkward "sort of"s. Public property that isn't property, custodianship without ownership. I'll try to think of another analogy that fits better. I've always been leary of custodian arguments (we're custodians for god's land, didn't you know?).

To the point, this role of government seems contrary to the Objectivist stance. Government's proper function is to act when rights have been violated, and to provide defense of property, right? Wouldn't you agree that dictating terms of "fresh property" acquisition is technically outside this role?

BTW, Great article, Bill.

(Edited by Doug Fischer on 3/20, 6:44pm)

Post 48

Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 7:29pm

Doug,

Thanks for compliments on my article. You wrote,

To the point, this role of government seems contrary to the Objectivist stance. Government's proper function is to act when rights have been violated, and to provide defense of property, right? Wouldn't you agree that dictating terms of "fresh property" acquisition is technically outside this role?

Well, the proper role of government is also to pass laws that define what constitutes a violation of a right, and, accordingly, to define what constitutes rightfully owned property. Without the latter, it is impossible to protect someone's rights, because the government wouldn't have a clear, explicit understanding of what would violate property rights.

If I claim the right to own a stretch of land by fencing it off, without doing anything productive to improve its value, someone might argue that I've appropriated it unjustly by denying others access to it. If the government is to prohibit this kind of arbitrary appropriation, it must have a legal justification for doing so. Without a law stipulating what constitutes rightfully acquired property, it would have no basis for its prohibition.

So, it needs to authorize the acquisition of unowned resources by virtue of some principle or standard. An example of this kind of authorization was served by the Homestead Act of 1862.

- Bill

Post 49

Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 7:55pm

Ok. I think I'm ready to agree with you if this can solve one of my shelved questions:

If I fly a ship of my own to Mars, is it properly mine by virtue of my getting there, or by government sanction? Or is it not mine until I build a mine there, based on an analogous premise to the Homestead act?

Sorry, i know this is a tangent.

Post 50

Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 11:12pm

Doug, you asked,

If I fly a ship of my own to Mars, is it properly mine by virtue of my getting there, or by government sanction? Or is it not mine until I build a mine there, based on an analogous premise to the Homestead act?

Sorry, i know this is a tangent.

Oh, this is a very interesting question. If you were the only one capable of getting there in a space ship, and no one else occupied the planet, then upon your arrival, there would be no issue of ownership, because the land area would not be contested by anyone else, and so at that point, there would be no reason for assigning property rights either to a part of the planet or to the whole of it.

But let's assume that you were not the only one capable of getting there in a space ship -- that many other people could fly there as well and were interested in exploiting the planet's natural resources. Then, the issue of who owned what and who had a right to what would arise and would have to be solved by some principle of land acquisition.

Who would decide the principle? Would it be the U.S. government? I don't think so, because by flying to Mars, you would no longer be within the geographical domain nor under the aegis of the U.S. government, in which case, the U.S. government would have no more right to dictate the content of that principle than it would if you had discovered a hitherto unknown and unoccupied island in the South Sea. Any such principle would have to be decided by those who actually set foot on the planet. In other words, a new government would have to be formed by the new settlers.

What then would be the best principle for determined ownership of Martian land or natural resources? I would say that it would have to be something similar to the Homestead Act, in which the ownership of a given acre of land would be earned by again developing it for some valuable or productive purpose. The first explorer to land there couldn't claim ownership of the entire planet and then demand that anyone else who set foot on its surface had no right to settle there or to acquire any of the planet's natural resources.

I know that Harry Binswanger argues that the first people to land on Mars are justified in claiming ownership of the entire planet, but that doesn't seem any more correct to me than to say that the first settlers to arrive in North America would have been justified in claiming ownership of the entire continent and in excluding anyone else who came after them from developing the land and thereby acquiring ownership of it.

- Bill

Post 51

Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 6:57am