alt.politics.economics

jmh wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 08:19:40 GMT, royls@ announced to all in
>
>
>>On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:05:14 -0500, nat wrote:
>>
>>
>>>If you have a property right in the products of your labor, then by
>>>necessity you must also have a property right in the harvesting of the
>>>resource. Which is just another way of saying you have a property right
>>>in the resource itself.
>>
>>Wrong. Having a right to own the fish you catch does not give you a
>>property right in the ones you don't catch.
>
>
> If *we* don't have a property right in the sea or in the
> fish as a whole then why does anyone need to compensate others
> for doing any fishing to begin with?

We must compensate others if we take more from nature than our share because NONE
of us has the right to greater freedom than the rest. Use of the sea is exercise
of freedom. Property is a form of limitation of freedom. If everybody has the
right to use a thing, it is nonsensical to conceive of that thing as property. The
atmosphere is one example of non property. Another is the sea. There are various
ways fishing is regulated in order to prevent SOME from taking the freedom of
others. There may be for example limits set on how many fish may be taken per year
per boat.

If WE had joint property in the sea, then every person on earth would have to give
permission for any person to use the sea. Every person has the right to use the
entire natural earth because it is NOT property. But NO person has the right to
use the earth in a way that unequally restricts the liberty of other to also use
the earth.

Mark M.