Recent paper: Wojciech Gamrot, “The Labor Theory Of Property Does Not Mandate Easements,” Social Communication 27, no. 2 (2025): 59–68.
Abstract:
Some libertarian theorists advocate for recognizing easements by necessity. In specific circumstances they would guarantee the right of passage through the land that is already owned. One popular argument in favor of such easements concerns a situation where landowners’ exercise of their property rights prevents others from entering non homesteaded areas and taking them into ownership. The argument holds that a firstcomer who mixed labor with some parcel that blocks access to unowned land de facto owns that land as well. It is argued that such a property right is self-contradictory because the only legitimate method of original appropriation is labor mixing and the firstcomer actually acquires the virgin land without doing so. Easements of necessity are then postulated as a means to rectify this alleged contradiction. In the present paper this argument in favor of easements is examined and refuted.
According to an email from the author, this paper defends my criticism of the Blockian proviso, on which, see:
- The Blockean Proviso
- Kinsella, “A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre” (May 9, 2024), the section “Forestalling and the Blockian Proviso”
- Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023)
- Van Dun on Freedom versus Property and Hostile Encirclement
- Adam Haman and Matt Sands on Immigration, Property Rights, and Hostile Encirclement
- Van Dun, Barnett on Freedom vs. Property
- Dominiak & Wysocki, “Libertarianism, Defense of Property, and Absolute Rights”
- Down With the Lockean Proviso
- Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p. 410
I will comment here later.
