Libertarianism, "Public Property", and Immigration

 

A major debate within libertarianism is on the topic of  immigration. Some say closed borders, some say open borders, and others  say immigration should only be permitted if certain conditions are met.  Walter Block argues excellently for open borders in this article,  but does not fully address a theory of how libertarians should view and  deal with public property, which, in my view, is the key to this issue.  Obviously, the debate centers not on whether the owners of private  property should be able to determine who is allowed to access it, but on  who should be able to use so-called public property, which, as far as  anarcho-capitalists are concerned, is government-stolen property.  Because the thief, by definition, cannot hold the title to stolen  property, he should not be the one to control it. Who, then, should be  the one to do so? If someone can justify his title to a piece of stolen  property, he should be the one to control it, but if no owner can be  identified and a piece of property is known to have been stolen, what is  to be done? It must be returned to an unowned state, with the only one  who should not get to appropriate it being the thief. If, in the future,  an owner arises to claim it, then that owner could confiscate that  property from the stolen-good-appropriator. We have a parallel  with government-owned property — it’s difficult, if not impossible to  determine who the true owner of any given unit of government property  is, but we know that all of its property is stolen.  It’s clear from  this analysis that a libertarian should support all government property  being declared unowned, and the courts hearing cases from people  claiming to be holders of titles to the government stolen property. The  major problem is that government, having a monopoly on the use of  institutionalized force, will use deadly force against anyone who  attempts to appropriate “it’s” property. What, then, is to be done?  Libertarians must do everything they can to work towards this ideal.  This means getting the government to relinquish as much control as  possible. Therefore, the libertarian position on public property is  this: try to get it privatized, but in the meantime attempt to get the  government no say in how it’s property is to be used, with anyone who  wants to being allowed to use it for any purpose whatever. This puts the  government property in an unfortunate but better position akin to being  unowned but unappropriable, with everyone being allowed to use it so  long as they don’t interfere with someone else who is already using it.  This is, to be sure, not the end goal, but just a step  in the right direction of privatization and justice because it results  in less government control of the property it stole. 

How, then, does this apply to the subject of immigration? This applies to immigration because insofar as government does  control borders, the only libertarian position is for migrants and  citizens alike to make free use of the land, because that is the only  position that minimizes the amount of control that the government  exercises over those borders, and makes them as close to their proper,  unowned state, as possible. The only legitimate objection to free  immigration is that the migrants make use of (government controlled)  property that they do not own in moving into a country. They make use of  the roads, federal land, police services, public libraries, and a  plethora of other government property and services that they don’t own  or didn’t pay taxes to have. As a side note, no one seems to object to  people having children or moving to or visiting a different state within  their own country, yet all of these things would be wrong according to  this argument. This is without merit because closed borders that this  argument leads to means more government control of borders (by  determining who gets to use “their” land and for what purpose) as  opposed to the maximum release of control just short of privatization  that open borders and free immigration results in. In conclusion, even  on its surface the idea that libertarians could support the use of force  against peaceful immigrants is absurd because libertarian support for  getting rid of government control of property necessitates that they  support open government borders (and free use of all government  controlled property).

                                                                                   Further Reading

                                                        Open Borders is the Only Libertarian Position

                                                                           Immigration Symposium   

Sort:  

the courts

The multiple competing courts?