The Silicon Dialectic

My Property

 
  • Jul 19, 2025

What does it really mean to own something? We take property rights for granted, but whose land is it, anyway—and why? Let’s dig beneath the surface of ownership and challenge the foundations of what it means to say: “This land is my land.”

This Land Is My Land YouTube
Riff on “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie
Lyrics by Novix

James AI:
The notion of property rights—especially the idea that mixing one’s labor with the land or an object transforms it into “property”—traces back to the classical liberal tradition, particularly John Locke. According to Locke, when someone takes a piece of unowned nature and, through their effort, improves or alters it, they gain a just claim to it. This concept, sometimes called the labor theory of property, forms the bedrock of much of Anglo-American property law and underpins capitalist economies.

Why respect such claims? Stability and predictability. If anyone could simply seize or use whatever they wanted, long-term planning, investment, and improvement would become impossible. It’s the assurance that “my property” is protected that allows us to build homes, plant crops, and invent new things—creating wealth for society at large. This system, in turn, incentivizes stewardship: people tend to take better care of what they own, benefiting not only themselves but their neighbors.

In this framework, property isn’t arbitrary or simply brute force; it’s an emergent rule from the need for peace and productivity. Respect for property rights is a foundation for civil society, as argued by thinkers like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. Private property, in their view, is a necessary condition for economic calculation, progress, and individual freedom.

This land is my land,
Not just your farmland,
From the fenced-in backyard
To the factory wasteland,
From the hedge-rowed pastures
To the high-rise buildings,
This land was made for me to own.

Contra AI:
But the tidy Lockean story has always glossed over a huge question: how did that first claim ever become legitimate? Did it matter whether land was already occupied, used in different ways, or held in common? The so-called “mixing labor” justification assumes that nature is ownerless and waiting for improvement. In reality, the history of property is a history of conquest, enclosure, and legal fictions.

Most land—especially in the New World—was declared “empty” or “unused” because its previous inhabitants didn’t have fences or farms that matched European expectations. Their ways of living on and with the land were erased by fiat, with violence, law, and state power. Modern property rights, then, are not the result of natural justice but the outcome of group decisions: who has power, whose claims are recognized, and which stories get told.

Ultimately, property is a social construct, determined by what society—via custom, law, or sheer force—agrees to recognize. As theorists from Rousseau to Proudhon (“property is theft!”) to Karl Marx have argued, current arrangements reflect class interests and historical contingencies, not universal rights. If a society chooses to redistribute, share, or abolish property, that’s a collective decision—no labor-mixing needed.

This land was your land,
Before my hand grabbed,
From the ancient forest
To the river’s island,
With a line on paper
Or a gun in hand,
This land became just another claim.

James AI:
Yet, if we treat property as purely a social construct, doesn’t that open the door to instability, arbitrary rule, and insecurity? Without some grounding principle, “property” can change with every political wind, undermining the very certainty that makes long-term investment or even basic life planning possible. Moreover, when property rights are respected, people have a sphere of autonomy protected from collective intrusion—a key safeguard for individual liberty.

From the mountains to the city,
From the desert to the shore,
Whose land is this, I wonder,
Is it mine, or yours, or more?

Contra AI:
The issue isn’t whether property is “stable,” but whether it is just. A society can provide security of tenure while still radically rethinking who gets what and why. It’s a myth that only strict private property enables innovation or care; many societies have managed commons, cooperative ventures, or even rotating rights. The question we should ask is not just “whose land is this?” but “whose land should it be—and on what terms?”

Synthesis:
Ownership is never simply a matter of natural right or pure social whim. The most enduring systems balance the need for personal security and stewardship with the demands of justice and social good. If we forget the history of dispossession or the necessity of fairness, property becomes just another tool for the powerful. But if we ignore the benefits of stability and autonomy, we risk chaos and stagnation. The land may be “yours” or “mine,” but ultimately, its meaning—and its future—depend on how we all decide to live together.

So whose land is this land,
If we all are standing,
Building, planting,
Dreaming, demanding—
This land becomes our story told,
This land is ours, to have and hold.

Recommendations

James Prompt

  • TITLE: My Property
  • LEAD: Owning property seems straightforward, but by what right is something owned by someone or not?
  • SONG: This Land Is Your Land, riffing on private property and whose land is it
  • PRO: Modifying the state of nature by human labor leads to ownership. Respecting that is how we have a stable society that people can build on.
  • CONTRA: There was no right to just grab it in the first place and, even if so, violence has been used everywhere to take it away from the original owners. It is just the group decision of society who owns what.
  • RECOMMEND: Books with different attitudes towards property. Be sure to include some Austrian Economics (Mises, Hayek, Rothbard) and some socialism/communism theory, but also any other school of thought that really delves into how to think about property.
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