1 post tagged “private property”

Just to be clear, when it comes to internal rules on property, the only way they are just is if and only if the given property is privately and legitimately owned. A thief that stole land property from someone else cannot be said to have the right to apply any legitimate rules on it. Those rules would be null and void. In a case like this justice would demand that it be returned to the victim. The same is true with State property, strictly speaking. It is illegitimate because it was either stolen from someone else or the "virgin" land was transformed into non-virgin land by stolen money.

[In regards to "second best" rules as it relates to the usage and management of public property, which I do believe in, the issue gets a little fuzzy. But this blog entry is not the appropriate place to talk about that. Instead see this.]

Ludwig von Mises, the great classical liberal, said that the essence of liberalism was private property. Everything in old-style liberalism logically followed that principle. The same can be said of libertarianism, and even more so because libertarian political philosophy takes this principle and applies it to its ultimate and logical conclusion as it relates vis-à-vis the State.

Man's house, as they say, is his castle. Private property therefore means, unlike democracy, exclusivity, difference and even hierarchy. No one "puts it up for a vote, " and to the extent that this has happened in modern society it is only a sign of how much the private property ethic has been lost. The owner of his house can also enter into contractual (covenant) agreements with other households to create private law and order in the neighborhood or community. This can allow man to create conservative and moral communities. Violators of the covenant would be kicked out. Those that live under an owner’s house must follow his rules, or leave. The same is true for any guest who wishes to visit, who must first get permission to enter. Otherwise a man who did not get permission first would be trespassing.

Certainly no man has any kind of "right" to trespass into or violate another man's private property. There is accordingly no right to be on someone's private property (on any space of it). The private property owner has every right to kick out an intruder, even with force if absolutely necessary.

(Similarly: It should be equally clear that a restaurant, or any other place, has no obligation to let you in as a customer. They have every right to be as "discriminatory" or "nondiscriminatory" as they want to be. Although, whatever policy they choose does not shield them from the consequences. That is to say, if they choose to discriminate against red heads, they will then have that much less in customers, and other restaurants will have that much more in customers. But, at the same time, they would not be fully "open" without any discrimination whatsoever because that would offend the majority of their customers if they let in, for instance, very rude people.)

An invited guest that enters another man's property has to follow the rules. These rules can be anything up to the point of forcing the guest to stay. If the guest does not like the rules at some man's house, he can then leave and go to another place or back to his own place. An owner of his house has no right to force any guest to stay. And any guest has no right to stay at another's property and invade and violate it.

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A Couple of Articles to Read:
"Market Chosen Law" by Stringham
and "Natural Order, the State, and the Immigration Problem" by Hoppe.