[P2P-F] Libertarians

[Kevin Carson]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Sandwichman <lumpoflabor at gmail.com> wrote:
> What an incredibly odd argument to encounter on a P2P list concerned with
> reclaiming the commons!

> To say that the aboriginal people of the Western Hemisphere didn't "own" the
> land is as relevant as saying they didn't read English or worship Jesus
> Christ as their savior. Europeans stole the land by imposing their own
> peculiar property regime, along with the metaphysics that viewed such
> peculiarity as both natural and universal.

I agree.

First of all, the "some" Indians who were nomads were pretty much
those centered on the Great Plains.  That leaves out all those who
practiced some form of sedentary horticulture or field cropping, like
the Five Civilized Tribes (pretty much anything south of the Ohio or
east of the Mississippi), the corn growers of the Southwest, the lodge
peoples of the Northeast and Eastern seaboard (who friggin' taught the
English colonists about native crops, fer chrissakes), the potlatch
peoples of the Pacific NW....  It's a bit like "Other than that, Mrs.
Lincoln, how was the play?"

And second, the idea that any form of ownership other than allodial,
fee-simple commodity ownership on a one-family-per-parcel basis is
invalid is nonsense.  The claim that common ownnership of hunting
grounds is null and void, and that expropriation is fair game because
those who covet them can put them to more efficient use, smacks of the
"best and highest use" arguments for eminent domain.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Research Associate, Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Desktop Regulatory State:  The Countervailing Power of Super-Empowered
Individuals http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html