Source: https://aaeblog.com/2007/09/11/easy-rider/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 08:38:51+00:00

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I’m not entirely sure what I think about this issue, but I lean toward Walter’s position – not because I agree that “libertarianism abhors a property vacuum,” but because Walter’s position seems like a natural extension of what I already believe about easements. I’ve long argued that one property owner cannot legitimately buy up all the land around another’s property and thereby either keep the latter prisoner (if she was on the property at the time) or bar the latter from her own home (if she was away) – since one cannot legitimately use one’s own property to interfere with the liberty and property of others. (And why should we count this kind of action as “interference”? Well, that’s where thick libertarianism and unity of virtue come in. And yes, I recognise the irony of invoking those sorts of considerations on Walter’s side in a debate!) And I’ve recently extended that argument to a defense of open borders, on the grounds that even if the government were the legitimate owner of the nation’s borders, it would not have the right to prevent immigrants from moving freely on to property where they are welcome.
Well, then, let A be a circular plot of land owned and resided within by you; let B be a doughnut-shaped plot of land owned by me and completely surrounding plot A; and let C be the rest of the planet, ex hypothesi unowned. I have no right to imprison you within A by denying you an easement across B allowing you to travel between A and C.
Looked at from one side, the wall enclosed a barren sixty-acre field called the Port of Anarres. … The wall shut in not only the landing field but also the ships that came down out of space, and the men that came on the ships, and the worlds they came from, and the rest of the universe. It enclosed the universe, leaving Anarres outside, free.
Looked at from the other side, the wall enclosed Anarres: the whole planet was inside it, a great prison camp, cut off from other worlds and other men, in quarantine.
So anyway, those are my initial reactions.
Roderick, imagine a guy who owns an acre of land in Kansas. He’s surrounded by a patchwork of millions of tracts of land owned by other private owners. Say he wants to go to France. The only way to get there is to get permission to cross over the property of thousands of others. What if none of them grant it? Then does he have an easement over any property he selects, even though he doesn’t need it (he only needs a few). If he only has one easement-route, that seems arbitrary.
You can imagine the donut is owned by 100 people. Cross any of their tracts gets him in or out. Which one does he have an easement over?
Or how about this. Imagine a fully-owned planet. I want to fly to Jupiter. I can build a rocket, but I don’t own enough land to place it on. I need a 100 acre tract to use as a takeoff pad. No one will sell me their land. Do I have a “rocketpad” easement on — someone’s? — property? Otherwise, they’re “trapping” me here on earth.
“the problem of enclosing others’ estates is not a new one that is the product of the imagination of libertarian theorists in their armchairs. It is a problem since antiquity and the law has found ways to deal with it. Maybe libertarian, maybe not, but one would think that one would want to be aware of and analyzie these practical solutions which were found by people trying to find a just solution to an apparently conflict of property rights. Why we think we would be any better at it than them, I don’t know, assuming their attempt to solve the problem was not based on any non-libertarian premises or rationales. In short, maybe we can lean something from history? Maybe a study of continental civil codes, or the Roman law, or the common law, might prove fruitful? If a libertarian society were achieved, do we think judges faced with difficult decisions might not read up on what judges 500 years ago did in similar cases?
Art. 689. Enclosed estate; right of passage.
bound to indemnify his neighbor for the damage he may occasion.
Art. 690. Extent of passage.
of road or railroad reasonably necessary for the exercise of the servitude.
Art. 692. Location of passage.
least injurious to the intervening lands.
Art. 693. Enclosed estate; voluntary act.
Art. 694. Enclosed estate; voluntary alienation or partition.
mention a servitude of passage.
Art. 695. Relocation of servitude.
Which one does he have an easement over?
I’m inclined to think: whichever one he likes, unless the owners come to some other agreement. You have a right to defend yourself against a rights-violation, whether the rights-violator is an individual or a group.
I’ll ponder your further questions when I’m less sleepy.
Thanks, er, Administrator. 🙂 And see the Mises comment thread–I added lots of claritude there.
Reading Dr. Long’s claims, I think I see how easements work. If you’ve landlocked property A by building a donut property B, then people have a right to trespass if they have to cross B for 1) food & water, 2) clothing, 3) vacations to France. They have no easement and hence no right to trespass if they want to 1) develop A as a vacation resort, 2) vacation to Mars, or 3) hit the mall and hang out.
I’m having an Azandean Witch moment. On the one hand, I can’t find any specific inferential flaw, but the notion that you have the right (and thus the right to use force to assert that right) to use someone else’s property simply because you want to (which is how this idea boils down in my mind) troubles me greatly.

References: Art. 689

Art. 690

Art. 692

Art. 693

Art. 694

Art. 695