Cliven Bundy got one thing right: His claim is absurd, but challenging property law is not

[PoliticalPothead]

Last edited Fri Apr 25, 2014, 06:56 AM - Edit history (1)

He may be a clown, but his actions raise a question: Who is the state to determine who gets to use what resources?

by Matt Bruenig

Clive Bundy’s property rights dispute with the federal government appears now to be over. For those unaware, basically this rancher wanted to graze cattle on federally owned land without paying the grazing fee, due to some strange legal theory that the land was really his. The spectacle generated an obscene amount of commentary to which I am guiltily adding here. I wouldn’t be adding any commentary to it except that all of the analysis I read on it seems to have missed the mark.

More than anything else to have gotten this much attention in a long time, what the Bundy saga shows us is that property ownership is a purely governmental construct. The allocation of resources in this country is done by government-imposed institutions, most especially through the biggest government programs in history: property and contract law. At its root, the Bundy dispute is not about who owns the land. We already know who owns it because the law is pretty clear. It is about who gets to decide the question in the first place.

In essence, Bundy’s actions challenge everyone to ask themselves: Who is the state to determine who gets to use what resources? Or, alternatively, why should we think that the way the state has currently determined that question is the correct one?

Bundy is a clown whose particular pleas are totally unsympathetic, though his identity presentation triggers the right tribal signals, causing political blocs to churn in predictable ways. But the basic idea of challenging property laws in this way is not a new one and the question of how to create our scarcity allocation institutions is a perpetual one.

Before Bundy, for instance, we had the civil rights movement and its famed sit-ins. Among other things, those sit-ins were straightforwardly challenging the state’s construction of property law in such a way that empowers certain people to exclude others from places based upon their racist whims (whims that the state enforces with its police, as the sit-in participants experienced quite directly). More recently, efforts to prohibit anti-gay discrimination in public accommodations present a similar protest, arguing that our statist property law institutions should not operate so as to keep people out of certain places because of their sexual orientation.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/04/21/cliven_bundy_got_one_thing_right_his_claim_is_absurd_but_challenging_property_law_is_not/


ON EDIT: a few posters seem to have missed the point of the article. The author is not defending Bundy, he's just saying that there is a long history of people challenging property laws and that our current property laws should not be seen as the objectively correct way to allocate land.

[snappyturtle]

1. In Bundy's case I think it is to his own misfortune that he doesn't point out that the

BLM changed the land use...thus he could not sign the contract and hence pay the fees. This article does point out the land usage is paramount which is believe is crucial.

[Blue_Tires]

2. Wow...So Bundy is now compared to the Civil Rights Era sit-ins?

Did I miss something? Is Bundy being discriminated against? Were the people participating in all those lunch counter sit-ins demanding for the right to eat for free?

And those elderly Asians he referenced? The ones burning half their day at McDonalds after buying one small order of French fries? They're just being monumental dicks...

[JoePhilly]

3. Bundy is like a civil rights protester?? Bwahahahahahaha!!!!

Are we sure this isn't the onion?

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. The distinction between public and private is arbitrary.

With sufficient public pressure, it's all public. Private property exists because there's a general consensus that it's a better way of doing things.

"The people" can do anything they want. We live in a box of tacit agreement... nothing more.

The entire southwest was "claimed" by spain, purchased by the US and given away to settlers.

[phleshdef]

5. This article is idiotic and ignores history

We passed the Taylor grazing act because of range wars and overgrazing ruining the land. There's damn good reasons for government to regulate grazing.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Indeed...it's navel gazing at its finest...But why should THEY get to decide????

Yeesh.

[oldandhappy]

6. His historic rights began in 1948

When his family bought the ranch. So much for his lies.

[DirkGently]

7. Errr. Strained argument for ... anarchy?

More recently, efforts to prohibit anti-gay discrimination in public accommodations present a similar protest, arguing that our statist property law institutions should not operate so as to keep people out of certain places because of their sexual orientation.

No, this was not a "similar protest" to protests against anti-gay discrimination. It was more like a guy claiming the U.S. government can't charge him grazing fees. Fees much lower, let us note, than the state would charge. And he surely is not advocating for dissolution of all those "statist" property laws that allow him exclusive use of his ranch land.

Salon's really on a roll with weird columnists lately. The one about how white women who belly dance are sucking the souls out of middle-eastern women or whatever was interesting.

[PoliticalPothead]

9. I think you may be reading too much into his use of the word "statist".

The author is not some libertarian idiot complaining about "statism", he's just acknowledging the fact that property laws are created and managed by the state. Libertarians (who love property laws but hate the state that enforces them) get mad as hell when you point this out.

[DirkGently]

10. Could be. Occupy will sensitize you to that word.

Either way, it's a strained comparison. Nothing about federal lands in Nevada, offered for grazing at hugely below-market rates, really raises a question about property rights. Bundy sure isn't standing for any kind of communal interpretation, standing on his ranch with guns and daring anyone to interfere.