I’d never seen that before. Awesome! Thanks for showing me that.

David Ellerman develops that train of thought in his book, “Property and Contract in Economics,” available here: http://ellerman.org/Davids-Stuff/Books/p&c.htm
I found a link to it on Kevin Carson’s site when I started reading him, and it influenced my thinking substantially.

Here is my left-libertarian critique of Mr. Reich’s argument. Hopefully he will respond himself. Fingers crossed.

Lots of things are part of the anarchist tradition that I have either no interest in or no belief in, no allegiance to or appreciation for, e.g. the Lockean proviso, God-based connection to rights, natural law, Georgism and the stupid “single tax,” etc. So what?

I’m not much more than an occ/use “hobbyist” to be frank. I would say that my property views are close to Dr. Long’s. Like I said to John below, it is part of the anarchist tradition like it or not. It deserves a modern reassessment even if it ultimately serves only to teach us the flaws. I’m really looking forward to Shawn Wilbur’s proposed work:

Property: A Neo-Proudhonian Approximation – An attempt to address property, not as Proudhon addressed it in his late work, but as he might have addressed it, given his theories of liberty and collective force.

I hope it will be educational and expand our range of perspectives and starting points.

“What I’d REALLY like to see is Dr. Long’s take on property rights, from the ground up.” Have you listened to his lecture on the subject? It seems to be exactly that. The whole series is excellent. Required listening.

I can’t come up with a philosophically-grounded platform for occupancy requirements within a moral framework that recognizes the ability to homestead. It always comes down to arbitrary abrogation of property rights on consequentialist grounds. I don’t oppose the ends, necessarily, but the moral framework that insists on occ/use seems sort of… shaky.

I would feel much more comfortable with mutualists who argue for a foundation of Lockean property rights and a preference for the sort of voluntary constructs that Dr. Long mentions in his critique of Carson in the Journal of Libertarian Studies.

What I’d REALLY like to see is Dr. Long’s take on property rights, from the ground up. A critique of everything from the self-ownership principle to occ/use requirements. Maybe a cooperative effort with Mr. Carson, contrasting their two views and debating them – that’d be really cool. Great for a C4SS project, hint hint.

“I agree with you in finding occupancy-and-use problematic, in part for the contractual reasons you mention (though neverfox will no doubt want to press an analogy between such contracts and slave contracts).”

This would fail, since a slave contract has to do with rights in the putative slave’s body, whereas occupancy-by-contractual-agency concerns title to external scarce resources.

“But I think the occ/use proponent is entitled to grump a bit about the fact that you initially offered an objection, in boldface, that you now admit doesn’t actually apply to the theory you’re criticising,”

? The Blackstone quote makes a good critique of the pure-possession view of property. As best I can tell, the mutualist occupancy view is a sort of weak variation of this idea. It’s not as extreme but it is similar. So the Blackstone quote is indeed pertinent in my view. Blackstone was talking about the problem of ownership ceasing as soon as possession ceases (which really means there is no ownership; there is what the law refers to as a right of possession, but no ownerhsip rights beyond this). Mutualism, as far as I can follow it, apparently believes personal occupancy is also necessary for the occupier to maintain rights in the property, though the occupancy doesn’t dissipate as instantly. So it’s not as bad as what Blackstone was critiquing but in that vicinity.

“and when challenged on it you switch to a different objection. So why offer the other objection in the first place?”

There are several problems one can point to in the mutualist view of property and occupancy. I only briefly mentioned two here.