Eric tags into a @robkroese thread about a zoning issue that I brought up.
So I'll respond to Eric.
Eric, what is the origin of property rights?
Specifically, in the US. You purchased your house from someone, who purchased it from someone, who paid for a house built on land https://twitter.com/EricChr15868637/status/1216863988899831820 …
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3/ it's something close to that. Or perhaps you live in England or France or wherever. The same story repeats itself. A bunch of pretty calm bourgeois market transactions...but peel back the history a few layers and it's built on theft and murder. OK, so we've established >>
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4/ that all property, even if sold fairly recently, has murder a few layers deep. Does this invalidate the title to that property? May a native American kick you out of your house and take it because his great^12 grandfather owned it before your great^8 grandfather took it?
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5/ That's a serious question! I'd love your answer
@EricChr15868637, but I'll assume that it's "no". (If it's "yes", please tell me your addr, because I have a relative that's partially native American and I'm sure she'd like a free house). So, if the answer is no >>Show this thread -
6/ Then you have either an explicit or an implicit moral theory that says that property, even if initially allocated in ways that you (and I !) dislike, is still property, and can and should be defended through legal and - perhaps - other means. Yes?
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7/ So. What is "ownership" ? This is a well studied legal topic. The right to use, to lease, rent, sell, destroy, convey, etc. a thing.
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8/ What is "property" ? It includes land, personal goods, contracted rights, intellectual property, etc. If you and I lived next door, I might ask you for an easement over your land for a driveway. You might choose to sell the right to travel, while keeping the land itself.
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9/ You started with a piece of land, with 10 or so rights (right to build a house, right to build a wall, right to mine and sell the coal beneath, right to travel over it, right to FORBID others to travel over it. And if you sell me that easement, you have partitioned off >>
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10/ One of those rights, the right to forbid me to travel over your land, and REMOVED it from your bundle of rights. ...and added it to my bundle of rights. And the cash payment from me to you is compensation for that.
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11/ I've got a friend who owns a few acres of land. He started with 10 or 15 rights to it, found out that there's natural gas under it, and peeled off one of those rights ("right to drill for gas") and sold it to an oil company. So: we've established, I think, that
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12/ * "ownership" of "property" means a bundle of distinct rights * one may peel off and sell or trade one of those rights * ownership and property are real and useful and valid, even if there's coercion buried in the past yes?
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13/ So, let us imagine that, before you bought YOUR house, maybe 10 or 110 years ago, the state government said "we are taking this lake from Bill, paying him, and then associating the right to swim in this lake with the title of each of the nearest 100 houses".
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14/ So, in this example, when you buy your house you're buying * 1 acre of land * 1 house * minus gas rights (bc, perhaps, those were sold off) * plus an easement over property X * plus guaranteed access to lake Y
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15/ You understand and agree that this is how property works in the US and under Anglo American law, yes?
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16/ So in this example, let us presume that neighbor Z, who owns the property over which your driveway runs (because of the easement) asks the town for permission to build a wall blocking your driveway. The town says "yep, looks good!" You, as a good libertarian >>>
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17/ DEFEND your neighbor's right to build a wall that blocks the easement that you own, yes? It doesn't matter that that easement was factored into the purchase price of your house. Your house WAS worth $400k and is now worth $300k, but that's OK because LIBERTARIAN
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18/ And let us next imagine that another neighbor, who is closer to lake than you, asks the town for permission to build a building across the boat ramp. The boat ramp that you have access to because of a redistribution of property rights 110 years ago. Once again you are cool
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19/ Now, to make these examples a bit closer to the actual zoning case, imagine that in 1923 the town passed a zoning law saying "we declare this a resiidential zone ; none of these 500 houses may build a shopping mall or a steel mill". You had two small rights peeled off of
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20/ your bundle of property rights, and 1,000 new small ones added to the bundle: you can be guaranteed that neighbor Z will never build a steel mill and ruin your views or air. And you paid for this, in a sense, by losing your own right, via this mutual "contract" of sorts.
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21/ So, that's the bundle of property rights that you purchased. And you learn, today, that the town has approved your neighbor's plans to build a steel mill...about 18 feet off the property line, and 32 feet off the road. Your curb appeal takes a bit of a hit!
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22/ ...and your property rights were violated. BUT BECAUSE YOU ARE A LIBERTARIAN, you say "the government is good, I love the government, anything the government does is wonderful, THIS IS FINE". yes?
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23/ So, in my case, I purchased this farm 6 years ago. I read the zoning law, start to finish, 7 years ago - before I made a purchase offer on the farm. I learned at that point in time that the bundle of property I was bidding on included:
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24/ * 12 acres of pasture * 40 acres of forest * 1 house * 1 barn * 1 pond * the guarantee that no buildings would be built within 30 feet of my land or within 50 feet of the road * MINUS the right to build within 30 feet of MY property line and that's what I purchased.
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25/ But then a GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL decided to remove one of those pieces of property from me, without due process (5A, 14A violation) and without just compensation (5A violation). And your argument is: as a libertarian, I should ignore this.
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26/ This is an extremely good rebuttal
@EricChr15868637 https://twitter.com/EricChr15868637/status/1216868827046318080 …This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread -
27/ I'm not sure what a "personally written contract" means. Explain, please? I do, in fact, have a contract with the town. That contract is the zoning code plus the state laws that insists that it be applied correctly and with due process. https://twitter.com/EricChr15868637/status/1216867689274265600 …
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29/ It's not a "Home Depot do-it-yourself shed". It's a ~25 foot tall, 2,500 square foot ground footprint, up to 5,000 square foot internal layout (bc 2nd floor) industrial steel building located 18' feet off my property line. https://twitter.com/EricChr15868637/status/1216865588427087873 …
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30/ Dude has almost 2 acres of land, could have put it anywhere he wanted ... but chose - because town violated the law and said he could - to put it WAY up in one corner.
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31/
@EricChr15868637 so you seem to suggest that inconvenience don't real, but quantifiable cash damages do, yes? So if the government violates the law and causes a decline in property values, is that a taking? https://twitter.com/EricChr15868637/status/1216870130703126528 …This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread -
32/ Exactly. Many software engineers never grasp pointers, or meta programming. Many libertarians never grasp Kegan levels beyond 2, or stable markets, or any property more abstract than a toothbrush or a gold coin.https://twitter.com/JasonTrippet/status/1216872128982609920 …
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