More from Devin

Devin doesn't like my answer much. He inquires further:

Second, since land/natural resources is finite, and population is not, all land/natural resources will eventually be occupied. I don't see how this has anything to do with justice (it's always injustice if the land was seized wrongfully, but that can happen whether or not all land is occupied). It would also seem bizarre and crazy if the moment the last slab of land is occupied then all property rights in the world become unjust and void.

1. Population Growth is negative in all rich countries, I believe. This is at very best not-obviously true.
2. Justice, in the common conception, concerns the question of what is owed to whom. If straight Fred cannot find enough food to eat, because gay Joe claims ownership of all the land nearby...but what does Fred owe Joe? Nonviolence and compliance, up to the point of giving blowjobs for food? This is at the very best non-obvious. It's not quite obvious that at some point, Fred is morally allowed (but not required) to put Joe's head on a pike, and farm enough to survive.
3. The only justification I am familiar with for property rights that is even moderately supported philosophically requires (a) admixture of labor with the natural resources (your planting a flag gives you no moral claim...your making a farm, on the other hand does give you a moral claim.) and (b) lack of over-scarcity. If you arrive 3 seconds before I do, and "claim" the only fruit tree in the area...your claim gives me very little reason to respect it...and most moral intuitions would say you were unfair.
4. I agree with Rand that the normal state of affairs is NOT that person A must lose if person B wins, as per the case where all land is owned. We are so far from that point now that we might as well be talking Danegeld. This si properly a discussion of corner cases that aren't relevant to discussions of anything.
   

Are any of these controversial?

More Devin:

Right now, virtually all the natural resources of the United States are occupied or being used (or else being set aside as preserves for future people).

1. This is an absurd (false) claim as stated. Could every adult in the US get 40 acres of fertile land from government holdings? I'm not sure, but it's close.
2. Obligatory Julian Simon reference. Which makes this doubly nuts.

But Devin goes baiting :) and so I'll play:

So let me return to my scenario for a second, and try and get Aretae to actually give a straight answer :-) We have 500,000 fiefholders, who all own their land because ancestors long ago homesteaded the land (or so the fiefholders say, no one can prove otherwise). The world has reached a bulging population, and all the valuable land owned by these fief holders is basically being used, whether as pastures, farming, for industry, or as parks for tourists.

Is it moral/just for a fiefholder to say:

a) you can come build a house on my land, but you must pay me rent (taxes)? b) you can come work my fields and earn a wage, but you must follow my rules? c) you can open a shop in my town, but you cannot sell heroin d) you can come live in my apartment buildings, but you must go to church on Sunday?

Which of these four demands is it ok/moral/just for the fief holder to make?

I find b, c, and d obviously bad. I find (a) strongly questionable, under the lifeboat/no exit conditions laid down by Devin. One human being attempting to force another human beings to do as the first person prefers is morally odious.

One has to leave the artificial lifeboat conditions that Devin builds though, before one would get a response that has some relevance to the real world that he and I live in.

Let me turn the question about to address standard moral intuitions. If there is one piece of productive land on an island...and Robinson Crusoe lands there and begins collecting food from the tropical orchard...and declares it his. The Swiss Family Robinson arrives the next week...and will starve unless they get some food.

1) How much must SFR suffer from RC before violating his property "right"? Sell their daughter (UPDATE: OOPS, no SFR daughter. Wife/Mom instead?) into sexual bondage? Their son? Just work 14 hour days (all of them) doing stuff for RC, so he'll share a little fruit? Are you kidding?
2) How long must RC have sat on the unimproved land before the situation changes, and SFR has an obligation?
3) How much improvement must RC put into the orchard, before the situation changes, and there is some obligation on the part of SFR to respect his "rights"?
4) Does the situation change at all if there's a 2nd Orchard next door that is unoccupied?
5) What if RC claims that Orchard 2 is "his" too, but he's never been there?

My answer is that there is no property right in case 1, and no amount of time for case 2 changes anything. Case 3 is (a) hard, (b) the case Devin is addressing, and (c) very rare in real life. Case 4 changes the landscape entirely...and the question vanishes. Case 5 is the normal situation in the world today, and morally identical to 4.