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Comment by gspencley | Hacker News Reader

I approach this from a matter of principle. I don't recognize anyone's "right" to enjoy someone else's privately owned property or, stated more honestly, to infringe upon the property rights of others.

My wife and I currently live in a medium sized city but we are not the type to enjoy city life at all and thus dream of buying a sizeable chunk of land for the both of us to enjoy and retire to. The biggest factor motivating us to want to make that "investment" is our ability to enjoy peace, quiet and solitude on our own property, knowing that there is not another human being within several acres of us.

Our lives and property do not exist for the enjoyment of others. We are not your tools. Find somewhere else to loiter, wander, roam or whatever. Our property is private for a reason. We have no desire to encounter anyone else on it regardless of what they are up to.

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> I approach this from a matter of principle. I don't recognize anyone's "right" to enjoy someone else's privately owned property or, stated more honestly, to infringe upon the property rights of others.

I also approach it from a matter of principle - I don't recognize anyone's right to truly "own" land. They didn't create it. It existed before they were born and it will exist after they die. Allowing a market in land doesn't, beyond any fringe degree, encourage the creation of new land. Disallowing a market in land does not decrease the supply of land. So by what right can a person "own" a piece of land they didn't create?

On a base level, land is what a country is. Your citizenship of a country entitles you to exist upon the land of that country. Imagine if a child were born into a country where every scrap of land was privately owned, and every land owner refused that child the right to exist upon "their" land. What is the child supposed to do?

I recognize that there are social and economic advantages to allowing people some exclusive rights of access to some land. I recognize that there are advantages to allowing some people some limited rights of monopoly when they make improvements to land. But I do not recognize that a private entity can truly "own" land, completely and in perpetuity, as if they had created it from whole cloth.

> I recognize that there are social and economic advantages to allowing people some exclusive rights of access to some land. I recognize that there are advantages to allowing some people some limited rights of monopoly when they make improvements to land. But I do not recognize that a private entity can truly "own" land, completely and in perpetuity, as if they had created it from whole cloth.

What's the difference? Of course nobody truly "owns" land in the cosmic sense, for the reasons you stated; and of course most societies nevertheless permit the legal fiction of "land ownership", also for the reasons you stated (that generally it results in more favorable outcomes for society as a whole). So you're back to square one.

A Georgist land-value tax is the fairest solution to this problem, I think. Let society as a whole enjoy the fruits of that which no landowner caused to happen (the value of the land without any improvements), and let the landowner enjoy the fruits of his own improvements upon the land.

100% true. The cult of land ownership is one of the most absurd norms in almost the entire world modulo the few nomadic peoples still around. It’s not just unjust and unsustainable but simply not pragmatic, judging by all exceptions: air space, pollution, zoning, rivers, damming, emergency access etc etc.

From a human development perspective, what makes sense is to define usage rights. If you’re using the land for X I can use it for Y. This originates in the principles of refining nature: for instance if I build a boat out of a log, then it reasonably becomes my property because of the human labor that went into it. Where to draw the lines between when, where and how nature gets refined enough to get usage rights can’t easily be deduced from principles, and will vary across regions and cultures. For instance in sparse regions you can afford a larger buffer zone around dwellings. Even within a country (like the US) human lifestyle varies so much that it’s reasonable to have different rules in different places.

Perhaps people are married to the concept of owning land so much that the wording cannot be changed. But it’s already obvious that nobody owns the land, the rivers, the lakes, the air. It’s absurd that it’s illegal to walk in the wilderness because of an imaginary line in the sand.

I’m from a country with freedom to roam, so I have my bias. That said, to its credit the US has despite its strong private land ownership laws, an amazing and vast set of national-, state parks and BLM land. So from an access-to-nature POV, it’s an incredible country overall.

> I don't recognize anyone's "right" to enjoy someone else's privately owned property or, stated more honestly, to infringe upon the property rights of others.

There are those that do not recognize your "right" to exclude them from passing peacefully over land. Notably, in the real world, the FAA doesn't care one bit if you think you own your land. They will use the force of the federal government to let anyone fly a plane over your house (including at low altitude).

As a more extreme example, many indigenous people do not recognize your right to own land that was never sold.

Your principle doesn't really stand up well in the real world.

There are all sorts of exceptions to private property rights. People can legally come onto your land without your permission for all sorts of reasons (utility workers, aircraft overflying, government agents, police, private citizens who haven't been told not to, etc..) The 'right to roam' is just an extension of that, that says that if an undeveloped piece of land lies between where you are and where you need to go, you can pass over that land in a way that does not interfere with the landowner just like all the other exceptions to a landowners "exclusive" right to the land.

A property claim is a bundle of rights, and people democratically decide what is in the bundles. What something being (your) property means is up to all your neighbours to decide. Fortunately someone with more exclusionary view can move to a place where lots of people think like them - a community of solitude is what you need!

It is is inversely up to each individual decide if they will abide with their neighbors democratic decision.

There is always a push and push back to the individual/social dynamic.

Uh, no? My neighbors have literally no say whatsoever regarding what is or isn't a legally permissible use of or activity on my property, and no governing body exists to permit them any kind of referendum on the subject.

You write this as if your land is a sovereign nation... Regardless of where you are in the US you are under many layers of government(by the people/your neighbors) that absolutely regulate what you can do on your property.

Heck the people can even legally forcibly aquire your property if the will was there.

I feel like we're having some kind of vocabulary issue here? My neighbors (the individuals who own property bordering mine) are neither legislators nor lobbyists. As such they have no access to the legislative process, and thus no control over what is or isn't a legal use of my property. To be absolutely clear "The People" can't do a damned thing. Local/State/Federal government is another matter entirely to be sure, but it's not like my neighbor can walk into the county courthouse and reasonably expect to have legislation drafted that alters land ownership rights.

Unless your neighbors are convicts or something, they have access to the legislative process. If you're doing something on your property that annoys enough of your neighbors, those neighbors call in to a local representative, an ordinance gets passed, police show up if you keep doing it. This can and does happen. Maybe you live in a county that's really lax, but still there are local laws in place that got there pretty much exactly by some neighbors getting together and bugging their representative.

It's like you watched the "I'm just a bill" video and that was the end of your research into how government works... Your naivete is charming.

So how do you think local ordinances get passed into law? I'm not talking about congresses next trillion dollar bill.

This is so hard to understand as a European. Why does it need to be your very own land to be enjoyable? I regularly go hiking in the alps. Sometimes I walk for hours without meeting a single other soul, but if I do, it's always a friendly greeting as we pass another. Why can't we share these places?

You're not asking anyone to share, though. You're asking for the government to grant you a legally enforceable entitlement to use property that someone else worked to acquire and maintain.

So your question becomes "why should property rights exist in the first place?"

The answer is that our existence, by nature of being a human being, has material requirements. Humans have non-material requirements as well (friendships, hobbies, art etc.), but you can't dismiss the material requirements of the human experience. The same reason that it needs to be your food, your bed, your clothing is the reason that land ownership needs to be a protected right as well. If you weaken respect and protection for land ownership then, rationally, you weaken the recognition of all property rights from food to clothing to musical instruments to your tech devices. Each material "property" may serve different purposes for the owner, but that doesn't negate the necessity of owning property. And a claim to property is the ability to control its use.

Private property has never really been exclusive. This isn't a new line that is being crossed.

"Owning" land gives you some rights over it, but not exclusive ones. It doesn't even give you exclusive right to access the land. People can temporarily access the land for a variety of legal and valid reasons like utility work, police investigations, sales, surveys, etc. They can even permanently access the land through easements.

Right to Roam isn't saying that you don't have property rights, it is just providing another limited exception to an already long list. It is saying that people have the right to enter your unimproved land for the purpose of crossing it in a way that does not interfere with the property owner's other rights. In some places it also includes the right to temporarily sleep on the land.

There is no 'material requirement' to being a human that requires that if you own a large piece of unimproved land, people cannot peacefully walk across the parts you aren't using.

To use an analogy: In the US there are fair use exemptions to intellectual property rights. That doesn't mean there's no such thing as intellectual property, or that it's meaningless.

The right to roam in some other countries is a fair use exemption to land ownership rights. That doesn't mean there's no such thing as land ownership, or that it's meaningless.

> If you weaken respect and protection for land ownership then, rationally, you weaken the recognition of all property rights from food to clothing to musical instruments to your tech devices.

there's a fallacy of scale here, in the same way a handgun isn't the same as a nuclear weapon, and so should probably have different provisions applied to it. land is vastly more useful, and usable, than someone's shirt or ipad. multiple people can enjoy a stream, or a forest, or even a singular tree on a piece of land at the same time, and in a multitude of ways. that's not true of an ipad or shirt. this diversity and simultaneity of use puts land in a different class. severing tight coupling of personal property(like shirts and ipads) with private property(land, generally structures on land, though the latter is admittedly more contestable), is pretty useful and seems totally rational to me. it seems less rational to think weakening one would weaken the other. If anything, the distinction between personal and private property opens up new ways of thinking about property that can lead to agreeable outcomes. more generally, see also the benefits of the commons - https://www.nature.com/articles/340091a0

that said i'm with you in certain respects, i generally like solitude personally, but though i dream of having ten or so acres myself, i don't want to deprive anyone else of thoughtfully, carefully, and temporarily enjoying it either.

You can reject one property right without rejecting all property rights out of hand (obviously. A simple counterexample: why shouldn't someone own all of the air? Are you against ALL property rights? etc..) Similarly you can reject one specific nuance of one right without rejecting others. The right of ownership (dominion) under roman law could further be broken down into the right to use (usus), to profit from (fructus), to destroy (abusus), to occupy, which can also be broken down into freehold, leasehold, commonhold, etc. It's not a silly question at all to ask whether your rights to dominion shouldn't prevent traversal by walkers etc, and your thinking on the matter seems to be quite simplistic and black and white.

I did not. I asked why you apparently cannot enjoy the countryside without owning the part of it you're standing on. I wonder what someone piecefully hiking through your land is taking away from you, how they diminish whatever you get out of owning it.

Property rights aren't boolean, but a gradient: You can definitely grant someone the right to pass through a given area without allowing them to permanently settle the place, or go hunting.

Having said this, I actually don't think the approach you take to ownership is a good one: Humans are social creatures. We benefit from sharing, and yes, that includes food, clothing, and musical instruments. Just acknowledging that we don't live in a feudal society anymore and can share some things doesn't immediately imply revoking all property rights or living in some kind of communist nightmare.

Going back to your original post: You mentioned your biggest dream would be owning some property in the country that you have to yourselves exclusively. If you had easy access to nature that wasn't bound in private property, would you have as strong a desire to have your own in the first place?

It's actually quite funny that the freedom to roam in large parts of Europe predates the USA by several hundred years and is universally accepted by landowners, yet it's talked about as if it's some sort of unprincipled anomaly.

As a matter of principle, what gives you the right to own a part of the Earth? Who did you buy it from and who did they buy it from?

Society is just a set of mutually agreed to rules. There’s no natural law for language, currency, culture, etc.

So saying property rights are bogus, but body autonomy rights are ok seems like an arbitrary line to draw that makes society worse.

We need some civil method of organizing and managing scarce resources, I think.

Property rights doesn’t have to be bogus for the right to roam to exist.

Can you develop random land under the right to roam? No, that remain the exclusive right of the owner. Same goes for logging, farming, and depending on legislature a whole heap of other benefits to owning land.

That doesn’t mean your country has to acknowledge a right to roam, it’s ultimately up to all legislatures to decide where to draw its lines.

None of those lines are self-evident, though it doesn’t matter which rights the land owner cares to acknowledge, as that is the prerogative of the legislator.

> So saying property rights are bogus, but body autonomy rights are ok seems like an arbitrary line to draw that makes society worse.

That seems obviously wrong to me. I can imagine a world without private land ownership that still grants people rights to privacy and autonomy in their home, even grants the privilege of open space around some of their homes (but since this is my imaginary world, ugly monocultured lawns aren't allowed).

The benefits of such a world are that wealth is less arbitrarily concentrated, that municipalities can own the land they govern, that cities and states have the ability to adapt to changing populations without running into private land barriers at every turn. Like in all things, it would be a balance, just as today we have a balance (albeit an extremely lopsided one) between individual rights and governments rights. Eminent domain exists, so the right of an individual person to permanently own a slice of the Earth and keep or grow or ruin it for future generations is already not absolute.

> I can imagine a world without private land ownership that still grants people rights to privacy and autonomy in their home

I dare say that you don't have to imagine, and there are past and current examples of societies that are closer to your vision than what modern developed nations allow for in terms of private land ownership. I think the median person is better off in systems that allow for private land ownership than not.

Look at China: they don't have to deal with private property rights, so they're able to build tons of infrastructure to benefit the people (good!). But the same powers that let government do that are also used to horribly oppress minority groups like the Uyghurs (bad!).

Of course, things owned by the people can be run for the benefit of the people if the people are composed of angels in perpetuity; but that, I'm afraid, will have to remain in the realm of imagination. ;-)

> But the same powers that let government do that are also used to horribly oppress minority groups like the Uyghurs (bad!).

And this kind of thing doesn't happen outside of Chinese pseudo-Communism? That would be an unreasonable assertion.

Look at Vienna instead, where the municipal government owns a large share of quality housing. I've heard it works relatively well; for example, living in low-income housing doesn't mean that you get kicked out if your income rises. You get to stay in your community indefinitely even as you advance in your career. This is an example of how it's possible for good things to exist without some rando middleman getting rich off of it. (I mean, maybe some rando is getting rich here, I'm sure there's still a nonzero level of corruption; but it's not a system designed to enrich private individuals.)

Things owned by anyone will be run to the detriment of the people without wise and careful systems built. Build good systems and iterate on them and you can have good systems. Build nothing, and you can have bad systems run by private individuals. The idea that private owners of land/capital are somehow immune to the corruption that makes government so scary is complete nonsense. It's just that nothing works without putting in work.

> The idea that private owners of land/capital are somehow immune to the corruption that makes government so scary is complete nonsense.

Neither private nor public owners are immune to corruption, but private owners don't operate with the legal monopoly on violence that the government does, so the consequences are a lot worse in the latter case.

I believe what Vienna gets right that complements subsidized public housing is that it doesn't have US-style dysfunctional zoning and regulatory processes ("environmental" review, etc.) for construction, so the free market is actually able to produce enough supply to meet demand.

In addition, there aren't bizarre "tenant-friendly" laws such as those that prevent eviction even in the case of nonpayment of rent; it is my understanding that this applies to public housing, as well. And I would bet that the public housing of Vienna is not subject to the same level of social degradation as those in the US, making them altogether more pleasant places to live in.

I am not saying property rights are bogus, but they are also not a god-given principle. This is why I reacted.

There are lots of ways to draw the line. Allowing people to walk in a forest you "own" is one of them.

Hear, hear. Go back far enough and it's stolen land, insofar as any land can be owned. Entitled folks ranting about "their" property is kinda gross. You were granted that right by society, through ancestral collective agreements and cooperation wrt currency, labour, etc - not some divine right, privilege, or "hard work". Many times, killing or threatening people was how it was acquired not too long ago - and it's not too late for that to happen again (see Ukraine).

There are other ways to organize land-property rights. i.e. leased for some lifetime period, to be returned to the commons thereafter. There is only so much on this planet, and the richest individuals/corporations will gobble it up before too long; then what?

Many people view private property, and in particular land, as theft. The reasoning is that at one point private property was owned collectively by society so the only way that it could now have a single owner is if it was stolen at some point.

Note that in this case, private property is separate from personal property like someone's house, car, clothing, etc.

What do you mean by "society"? I could demonstrate that it is a word that is so vague as to be meaningless, but I will humour you and assume that you mean "all individuals coexisting within an arbitrarily defined geographical boundary" and I will shorten that to "all of us" for brevity, because I think (hope) that abides by the spirit in which you meant it.

Theft, by definition, is the forceful transfer of property from the owner to a non-owner, therefore infringing upon the owner's rights.

If "society" is "all of us" and "all of us" owns "all property" then the idea that recognizing and protecting an individual's rights to claim property is a contradiction. When I say "right" I mean a moral principle defining and sanctioning an individual’s freedom of action in a social context. So if "society" is sanctioning the freedom to acquire and maintain property, the "society" cannot have been "stolen from" as a result of "society" itself recognizing that right.

There's no ambiguity here and it's clear what is meant. At some point in the past, someone powerful enclosed a chunk of land and enforced that enclosure with violence. Hundreds of years of systematic enclosure of the commons in the UK denied many people the vital resources they needed to live and Right to Roam is the attempt to reverse some of that elitist legacy.

How did you get that land? Presumably you acquired it from someone legitimately. But how did they get it? At some point, it was enclosed and almost certainly enclosed to exclude others without their consent. It is the notion of private property that is the problem here, not problems you get by denying people their birthright.

You are not alone. My wife and I managed to attain that dream in the last year. 20 heavily wooded acres, each of the "neighbors" lots range in size from 10 to 40 acres. Being able to go entire days without seeing a rando is every bit of what you think it might be like and I strongly encourage you to make the move as early in life as you possibly can. large acreage frequently takes significant investments in time and labor to get into a configuration that suits you, don't wait until you're so old that that work pushes the limits of your physical abilities. Best of luck to you!

I'm curious where you think property rights come from.

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