Freedomain Radio

With DROs, communities can be formed in which guns are either permitted, or not permitted. Marijuana can be approved or forbidden. Half your income can be deducted for various social schemes, or you can keep it all for yourself. Sunday shopping can be allowed, or disallowed. It is completely up to the individual to choose what kind of society he or she wants to live in. The ownership of property in such communities is conditional on following certain rules, and if those rules prove onerous or unpleasant, the owner can sell and move at any time. Another plus is that all these "societies" exist as little laboratories, and can prove or disprove various theories about gun ownership, drug legalization and so on, thus contributing to people's knowledge about the best rules for communities. (From "Practical Anarchy")

These communities (guns banned, Marijuana banned, etc.) can presumably only be formed if a property owner builds a community and sells or leases land only with a contract to not own guns, not shop/sell goods on Sunday, etc. Presumably violation is handled by appropriate DROs like any contractual violation; effectively, the violator is fined, has to undo the act, may have to leave the community, rates will go up, etc.

Is it considered legitimate in a stateless society to sell property with a perpetual contract (i.e., property cannot be resold without the same contract)? It would seem so; it's just another contract; on the other hand, can one truly be considered to own something so encumbered? Regardless, while that's an interesting side point it can be gotten around by having the owner lease/rent property rather than selling it outright.

Can't the state be considered as one big DRO? Certainly there is not an unbroken chain of voluntary property transfer to it, but there is a reasonable chain of ownership by exploration, voting in a state, and ceding power and land to a central government (e.g., the 13 colonies' ceding of westward land claims for the formation of new states). Unless at the time a stateless society is formed, all property becomes "up for grabs", it's reasonable for property to stay owned by whoever owned it in the previous system. So the previous political leaders could form a DRO, possibly providing increased legitimacy by handing out stock to the taxpayers.

Then this "state DRO" may, like the DRO described in the quoted passage, own land and establish rules by which it is rented or "sold". It could decide that, for example, it will let anyone living within its borders have a vote to control how it is governed. It can tax. It can appoint people to positions of authority, establish police, etc.; in short, since it is now a private property owner - a landlord - and not "the state", it may do all these things as owner that it could not do before, and people must agree to them to buy or lease property within said state. Any violence committed has been agreed to by contract or would be in response to what would now be property crime (e.g., speeding laws).

I don't like this result, but it appears to be a natural result of the ability to encumber property ownership. Then as now, you can move elsewhere: but if every former regional government turns itself into a DRO, then it's hard to move out of the reach of onerous rules entirely equivalent to today (punishment for victimless "crimes", taxation, etc.).

If a land owner decided he wanted to rent/sell land to only people with XYZ DROs and not ABC, due to the strict regulation of .... pet and lawn maintenance, then that would be his right. If he sold the land and gave over all rights as a land owner to a new owner than that could cause a problem. He would have to have it written into contract that the new owner could only sell to people with XYZ DRO. It would have to be agreed upon beforehand and written out very carefully. The people who bought the land would have to hold pet and lawn maintenance to great importance also. If they didn't, why would the purchase land that came with such a specific contract?

If you owned property and then all the property around you was bought by the above land owner you would not have to participate in the social scheme of your neighbors. It's your land and you have your own DRO to represent your rights as a land owner. They would have to deal with your fifteen cats and rock garden.

If you found you neighbors shuning of you distasteful you could sell your land, probably for a good price and move to a different community, or you could get more cats and put up pink flamingos. You own your land. It's your call. If they act violently against you, your pets, or your property than you could take them to your DRO and get restitution.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. One of my questions was whether sales can be encumbered with a perpetual contract (e.g., that all sales need to have this same contract, indefinitely); I'm not sure if you're saying yes or no. On the one hand, do you really own something that you can't freely sell? On the other hand, it would be a voluntary contract and nobody has to buy the land. How long can such a contract bind the owners of the property? Forever? Although if the case is changed from sale to lease, that difficulty goes away (but if the lessee dies the property can be sold, absent trusts etc., whereas a contract that stayed with the property would never die - but if brought to court, who defends it, which validates the idea that a true sale can't be so encumbered).

I agree with everything you say but I don't think you've answered my question. The concern is that the current state could claim it is a legitimate DRO (the inverse of the question "What if one DRO decides to become a coercive state"), owning all the property in a particular region (country, state, county), having obtained its property through exploration, ceding, grants, etc., and that it thus has the right to place restrictions as a property owner - e.g., fine victimless crimes like breaking speed limits, or pass laws about how high the grass should be, with criminal penalties - and claim that since we are all on its property, we must abide by its rules (just as we would agree we would have to do if we chose to drive on a private road system or lease a private house).

Anarchists claim, for example, that the state of California is requiring taxes for many redistributive social programs, or making laws against victimless crimes such as drug use; California could turn around and say "We (the legislature, in trust for the people, or so they claim) acquired this property through exploration and working the land, and the people agreed to a certain style of government voluntarily; if you choose to enter and remain on our property you must follow our rules." They could claim that property sales within the state are actually leases, and the state retains rights to all property within its boundaries. What can one say to that? Its claims of property ownership are as reasonable as anyone's today, all of which are a patchwork including past wars of aggression, fraud, etc., but presumably an anarchist society would start with property ownership as-is (maybe not - maybe all ownership would revert to nobody and one would have to make use of land to own it; but that doesn't seem like an orderly transition and I haven't heard that touted as a plan around here).

Let me try again.

Considering everything is based on voluntary contracts, I would say yes some can write a contract wherein one would have restrictions on who the could sell the land too. That doesn't mean it would be a popular thing to do. There would be consequences to opting out of the contract that would have to be agreed upon prior to the sell. It would be up to the buyer to negotiate terms that allowed them what they perceived as necessary freedoms. Land in and of itself is not an entity.

DRO do not own their customers property. Individuals own property and DROs represent individuals. The could claim the individuals were their slaves, but that might not go over too well. People can opt out of their DRO and into another, or out of the system completely. People cannot opt out of their government. I would hope the credit rating beaura's would frown upon DRO's leasing land themselves. It's a conflict of interest. You're very correct about that. To me, that would be one of the first signs a DRO was becoming a coercive state. It's as immoral as an insurance company buying a pharmaceutical company.

If California decided to go anarcho-capitalist tomorrow, well there would be numerous problems. Anyone who owns land would still own their land. When it comes to state land, like parks and things, that's tough. Most state parks are funded heavily by donations. Each doner could make a claim to part of it, but that would just cause caosh. The people who currently take care of the land would probably continue to do so. The individual parks and rec department could go private and own the land. Honestly, there would be so much chaos that I doubt that would be the first issue. Universal morality needs to be accepted for an anarcho-capitalist society to work. If we assume universal morality is already widely accepted, then I would assume the parks and rec groups would hire a DRO to represent them and have to resolve disputes with investors for their claim on the land. Having several functioning DROs and credit rating organizations in place would bring order to the dispute over government land. The DRO's would be kept in check by the consumers and the credit rating organizations.

(Minor quibble.) There wouldn't need to be an opt-out clause - why? And the buyer wouldn't have much power if all the land in the region in which they wanted to live was owned by people that required this contract (either by choice or they inherited it when they bought their property). Granted, this probably wouldn't happen so perhaps it's as futile as arguing the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Not the main issue, anyway.

While DROs may not have to own their customers property, they are just corporations and could own property and sell or lease it. I agree it's a conflict of interest and would be frowned upon, although it could happen, perhaps only in isolated areas limited by other DROs refusing to sign contracts with such DROs.

I agree that if California decided to go anarcho-capitalist it probably wouldn't be because the people wanted to keep everything as it is now; they might start with current property ownership, but it would become real ownership, not "rental from the state" as now. I think that makes the most sense as to a practical objection and it makes no sense to waste a great deal of time on something impractical.

I suppose I'm looking to refute an argument like: A: "California should be anarcho-capitalist!"  B: "They [and by extension every nation that exists] already are... one DRO called 'the state' just happens to own all real property" (so, by remaining within its borders, buying things on its territory, or "owning" real property, you have to abide by the owner's terms including e.g., using its services exclusively, taxation and submitting to tyrannical penalties for victimless crimes). The 'state DRO' could claim it got its property by funding exploration and through voluntary cessions (e.g., western US claims being ceded to the federal government by states). If those claims are not legitimate, then neither are property claims of individuals who (going all the way back) bought their property from some state, which would apply fairly generally.