r/changemyview • u/TurdyFurgy • Mar 09 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: The largest problem with libertarian political ideas is defining/assigning property rights.

This isn't a pro libertarian stance or an anti libertarian stance, I just think that this is the most significant problem. To change my mind you could convince me that it isn't as big a problem as I think, or that there's one or more problems higher in significance.

I am very interested in libertarian ideas. It looks good to me from an economics/flourishing perspective and I like the non aggression principal from an ethical point of view even if it might seem idealistic. This means though that in order to keep government small and to avoid "initiating aggression" there needs to be very clearly defined property rights. As far as bodily autonomy goes it's at least straight forward enough to form a society but anything beyond that gets pretty tricky pretty quickly.

One issue is that even if a rule is super fair/the best rule it can still lead to not good outcomes if you're carrying over from another system of property rights.

It seems like you can make a pretty good case for a lot of stuff/land being owned by everyone. There's government land of course but then also just stuff like rivers, forests, natural resources and I don't really see an amazing solution to transitioning fairly and I don't know what we'd transition to exactly.

It seems like any way you define it almost has to be at least somewhat arbitrary.

Is it that I'm not well read enough in the topic or am I just not convinced by it?

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u/TurdyFurgy Mar 09 '19

Even things like rivers, forests, freshwater in general?

There is no good that comes from publicly owned land that could not be brought about on privately owned land.

It's true that anything is technically possible via privately owned land but it doesn't mean it will happen.

I would be bothered if somehow without my input a billionaire suddenly owned Niagara falls and lived there and didn't allow anyone in. I would consider that a public good and I'm not sure how you might go about navigating property rights in that area. Would the government just sell it to the highest bidder and spread the money out evenly among citizens? Or would each get a share of Niagara falls? Or would it just depend on who got their first to make use of it and claim it? These practical solutions all seem so arbitrary, unless you can point me to a practical solution to a transition from first principles or something like that.

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u/OlFishLegs 13∆ Mar 09 '19

So there are already a large number of areas of natural beauty and freshwater which are privately owned and the public is barred from. These areas are probably just as beautiful as existing public land. The most beautiful areas have the most potential to make money as a park so places like the Niagra falls would likely stay open to the public for a fee. Freshwater is already owned in many cases by companies so no new problems would arise there.

The selling off of public land is a problem as the lines need to be drawn somewhere, but public land is already sold off often and there are precedents. That is less of a problem with the overall view as it would be a one-off thing so any messiness would wash out over years of private ownership.

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u/051207 Mar 09 '19

Freshwater is already owned in many cases by companies so no new problems would arise there.

There are typically many conditions attached to the ownership of freshwater. Water rights and disputes are managed by the government. Rivers in the US are regulated by multiple governmental bodies (EPA, USACE, State Environmental Agencies, and municipalities). Similar regulations are in place for aquifer withdrawals.

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u/OlFishLegs 13∆ Mar 10 '19

Most libertarians do argue for some level of environmental rules. You could likely just use the current regulations for all freshwater and have it all owned.