I'm assuming that most of you will say yes, since it's well established in our collective western minds. So what I'm going to do is play Devil's Advocate.
First, I would say that land differs from other forms of commodities such as services or widgets in a one very significant aspect: it cannot be produced, which means that land ownership is a zero-sum game. This in turn has two consequences. First, land ownership does not incentivise production in the same way that other forms of primary property ownership do. The ability to buy and sell iPods, for example, has a positive effect on society because it stimulates further iPod production. The same is not true for land (it is however, true for the produce of land).
More importantly, it means on a foundational level all private property claims on land are inherently suspect. Consider what private property actually entails: it is a legally enforceable monopoly on the use of a certain thing. If own an iPod, that means I'm allowed to use it and you're not; if you violate this rule, I'm allowed to call the police and have you arrested for theft. I acquired this property when I entered into a contract with Apple to purchase it; Apple in turn acquired this property by creating it, combining labor, intellectual capital and raw materials to create new property from scratch. In both cases, the claim to private ownership is solid: I acquired the property by a just transfer, while Apple acquired it by creation. However, land can not be "created". So, while I may be able to acquire land by means of a just transfer, and the person I purchase it from may have done the same, at some point in the chain of ownership this was not the case. At some point in the past, all land was public land; it only became private land when distant ancestor walled it off, declared it private, and chose to enforce his monopoly using force of arms.
Two questions arise from this. First, is there any possible philosophical justification for this? John Locke suggested the idea of "improvements" as a basis for establishing private land ownership. By moving onto a piece of public land and then "improving" it (for instance, by constructing buildings or tilling fields or planting crops on the land), the people who used the land obtained ownership of it. But this seems self-contradictory to me. If "improvement" can justify transferring land from public ownership to private, why not from one private owner to another? In other words, why can't a squatter move onto someone else's land, make improvements to it, and then claim it for themselves? The "improvement" principle may be used to justify the acquisition of private property, but only at the expense of undermining the private transfer system. Tellingly, even the libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick largely gave up on trying to establish any just basis for the initial acquisition of private land, preferring to look at the idea of just transfer.
Second, does the dubious origin of all private land affect our claims to it today, given that the majority of private land has been transferred (usually justly) many times since its initial acquisition? Arguably yes. I can buy a stolen iPod that has since been resold dozens of times, but even if I acquired it justly, if the police find it they will take it from me and return it to the original owner. If all land claims are suspect, then land should be returned to its original, public state of ownership, therefore (as in the original question) land should not be a commodity to be bought and sold.
The title question still stands. What are your thoughts?
First, I would say that land differs from other forms of commodities such as services or widgets in a one very significant aspect: it cannot be produced, which means that land ownership is a zero-sum game. This in turn has two consequences. First, land ownership does not incentivise production in the same way that other forms of primary property ownership do. The ability to buy and sell iPods, for example, has a positive effect on society because it stimulates further iPod production. The same is not true for land (it is however, true for the produce of land).
More importantly, it means on a foundational level all private property claims on land are inherently suspect. Consider what private property actually entails: it is a legally enforceable monopoly on the use of a certain thing. If own an iPod, that means I'm allowed to use it and you're not; if you violate this rule, I'm allowed to call the police and have you arrested for theft. I acquired this property when I entered into a contract with Apple to purchase it; Apple in turn acquired this property by creating it, combining labor, intellectual capital and raw materials to create new property from scratch. In both cases, the claim to private ownership is solid: I acquired the property by a just transfer, while Apple acquired it by creation. However, land can not be "created". So, while I may be able to acquire land by means of a just transfer, and the person I purchase it from may have done the same, at some point in the chain of ownership this was not the case. At some point in the past, all land was public land; it only became private land when distant ancestor walled it off, declared it private, and chose to enforce his monopoly using force of arms.
Two questions arise from this. First, is there any possible philosophical justification for this? John Locke suggested the idea of "improvements" as a basis for establishing private land ownership. By moving onto a piece of public land and then "improving" it (for instance, by constructing buildings or tilling fields or planting crops on the land), the people who used the land obtained ownership of it. But this seems self-contradictory to me. If "improvement" can justify transferring land from public ownership to private, why not from one private owner to another? In other words, why can't a squatter move onto someone else's land, make improvements to it, and then claim it for themselves? The "improvement" principle may be used to justify the acquisition of private property, but only at the expense of undermining the private transfer system. Tellingly, even the libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick largely gave up on trying to establish any just basis for the initial acquisition of private land, preferring to look at the idea of just transfer.
Second, does the dubious origin of all private land affect our claims to it today, given that the majority of private land has been transferred (usually justly) many times since its initial acquisition? Arguably yes. I can buy a stolen iPod that has since been resold dozens of times, but even if I acquired it justly, if the police find it they will take it from me and return it to the original owner. If all land claims are suspect, then land should be returned to its original, public state of ownership, therefore (as in the original question) land should not be a commodity to be bought and sold.
The title question still stands. What are your thoughts?