Week 2: Sovereignty & Indigenous Land, First Possession Terms

Question 1

Initial distribution of property rights

Answer 1

• unlike European settlers Americans could only land —> mass settlements on small freeholds which policy ruled the majority of
• lead to governing institutions, which made it hard for the crown to control
  
  • local land reaction very strong —> colonies on path the revolution
  • Claire Priest, Credit Nation on expropriating indigenous title via reworking property law
  • Depending on slave ownership
  • Colonies resorted to legal instruments to keep land in the family
  • When debts mounted in government came for assets in the land was enclosed. The owners could attach claims to enslaved people— owners would rather keep the land than the slave/labor (no wealth generation from land without slaves)
• how property rights can be shaped in the crucible of power by a political majority
  
  • Property is not a natural God-given thing but human constructions remade overtime

Question 2

Property & sovereignty

Answer 2

1. Property is the product of sovereignty: without enforcement, no property
2. Property delegates sovereign rights to owners: by creating control over use of valuable resources, property gives owners legal control over others

Question 3

Nemo dat quod non habet

Answer 3

No one can give what one doesn’t have; grantee can only convey what they own
- we evaluate the chain of title

**Find Nemo!!!!!

Question 4

Right to alienate

Answer 4

1. Right to sell matters
2. Fact that gov’t can take land drives the value of occupancy down
3. Settlers encroach on land because their encroachment will be ratified
4. Gov’t continues to make treaties which incentivizes settlers to cross boundaries (ex: Neppourses)

Question 5

First possession or occupancy

Answer 5

(+): Prevent disputes about title encourages individuals to quickly find and claim useful property

(-): might be better served to use by others, especially who use it better (crossed a threshold of good use)

• malleable: tribes versus John Cabot— fact, dependent and differs across culture in time
  -contested: actual possession, notice (Crown’s claim, Cabbot), or use/exploitation (tribes weren’t using the land opportunistically)

Question 6

Labor theory of value (locke)

Answer 6

1. Labor base acts (I labored over this so I’m entitled to it) are powerful as a norm
2. Provide notice/signal
3. Demonstrates control communicated broadly, which can be good as an act of possession.
4. Stewardship of land feels like a valuable use of land that wasn’t the case of years ago (saving the land is better)

Question 7

Other theories/values of property

Answer 7

1. Stewardship (saving land)
2. Utilitarianism/economic (efficient use)
3. Legal realism (equal and opposing positions)
4. Kantian (everything wrong)
5. Personhood/Hume (part of them)

Question 8

Modes of decision-making (tools at our disposal)

Answer 8

Essentialist= essence of property right seems to implicate such important values of upholding the property owners claim (Jacque)

Functionalist= court say airplane should be allowed to fly because economy depends on it and happiness of people depends on this (legitimacy of courts)