Unemployment

[Jester]

There are interesting questions about property rights that I'm not sure have been adequately resolved even now. If I buy a 5 acre lot, can I chop down every tree? How about 500,000 acres? We assume that land owner will be good stewards, and this is not always the case (e.g. strip mining).

Funny. Some would say that land ownership rights are just that - ownership rights. You can treat your land as you would treat your house, to live in, rent out, or demolish as you see fit. That's what liberty is, right? The ability to do what you want with what's yours, free of interference?

Or, as noted Objectivist parody Andrew Ryan put it:

On the surface, I once bought a forest. The Parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and demanded that I establish a public park there. Why? So the rabble could stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise earned. When Congress moved to nationalize my forest, I burnt it to the ground.

Rather interestingly, land stewardship was one of the major original arguments for the development of enforceable private property rights in the first place. Tragedy of the commons, and all that.

-Jester