boatingaccident on Nostr: So about halfway through the Mises Institute podcast episode. A few thoughts so far: ...

So about halfway through the Mises Institute podcast episode. A few thoughts so far:

Simon Guenzl starts by making the distinction between state-confiscated land, meaning taken from a specific person or group by the state, and state-claimed land, which is previously unowned land that the state is claiming. I think this is a valuable distinction because these are two different circumstances.

He then goes on to make the case that while state-confiscated land has a definite owner (the person or group from whom the land was confiscated) but state-claimed land is unowned in a libertarian sense rather than owned by the net taxpayers as argued by Hoppe.
While the former point is well taken I don't think I agree with the latter point, at least in most circumstances, for a few reasons.

First, often when land is confiscated by the state through eminent domain or other processes, the rightful owner (victim) is often given some form of compensation for their now-stolen property. If the correct action from a libertarian prospective is to give back the land that was taken (I agree it is) then the question arises who is the rightful owner of the compensation which the state gave to the victim when the land confiscation occurred? Surely that asset (likely money) is not unowned, I would contend that it is rightfully owned by the taxpayers from whom that money was also confiscated. The victim of land confiscation is entitled to get back what was stolen from them, but does not get to keep the stolen compensation as well. This indicates that the net taxpayers are owed *something* based on what was taken from them.

Second, I'll start by saying that for state-claimed land that is entirely unimproved, such as a national forest which has been left in a state of nature, I agree with his premise that this is in fact unowned land. However I do not think the same is true of state-claimed land that has been subsequently improved to a point where it would be considered owned land if the improvements had been conducted by a private actor. For example if a private actor were to build a road through otherwise unimproved land, the land upon which they built the road is now owned by them in a libertarian sense. In a similar way, if a state were to confiscate value in the form of taxes, then use that confiscated value to build a road through unimproved land, then in the same way as the first scenario those net taxpayers from whom the value was confiscated are owed compensation for what was taken from them. While the funds which were stolen are no longer available as compensation for them, the road which they were used to build might serve as a form of in-kind compensation.

So far, Mr. Guenzl's arguments have left me unmoved from my position. In my understanding accepting his line of reasoning would lead to one arguing that land confiscation, but not other types of state confiscation, deserve restitution under a libertarian framework. That being said I do think his differentiation of state-confiscated and state-claimed property is a valuable insight.