Today’s exasperating story on NPR was about oil companies and landowners in Colorado. It seems that due to an almost century-old law, in much of the West when you buy property the government retains the mineral right to that property. Lately, due to high oil prices and the need to reduce dependency on foreign oil, the government has been selling off these mineral rights to the oil companies. What this means is that you can be minding your own business on your own land, and one day you get a letter in the mail saying “Hi, we here at BigOilCo have decided to drill your land”. And you can’t do anything about it.
Colorado is trying to pass a law which would require the companies to at least compensate the landowners for damages. A previous similar bill was defeated by concerted oil company lobbying. NPR played a clip of an oil company exec whining about how they would have to compensate dozens of homeowners for each drill site, because of the proliferation of subdivisions. Cry me a river. You know what? I hope the new law passes. But it really isn’t enough. The law which deprives landowners of the rights to the minerals beneath their feat is beyond bad. It’s immoral. It’s evil. Those companies should have to offer a fair price for every single plot that they want to drill on. And if the landowner refuses, they should have to suck it up and move on.
Yet again, corporations profit at the expense of the individual, and it is made possible by the collusion of the State. This is why it just baffles me when people claim that a libertarian society would be some kind of corporate paradise, where Wal-Mart rules and the people are screwed. Where does this notion come from? Libertarians believe in the primacy of property rights. I don’t think many people have thought through just how much a total respect for individual rights, including property rights, would change society. It wouldn’t make for a corporate paradise, I can promise you that.
Very common out west, and many people buy “both rights”.
I think there are also sometimes water rights. Those may fall under mineral rights though.
It’s not the theoretical side of Libertarianism that I disagree with…
Of course, theoretically, Libertarianism should protect property rights… but in practical terms, if you strip the state down of power–of competent people and institutions that have jurisdiction over such things–then in the end such disputes will come down to the big bad evil oil corporation vs the private individual…. Historically big government came about only after the 1920’s–a time that pretty much resembled Libertarian ideals–small government run by people who believed in the power of private enterprise and no intrusive governmental institutions and what not…
and part of the end result was an economic depression, not because corporations are evil inherently–but because when there was no real counteracting force, most individual corporations in a competitive environment try to maximize their own profits at the expense of everyone else–including the system itself if need be–and there was no one strong enough to take a stand against it..
It is for these practical reasons that I have problems with it… because in most places where the the government gets smaller, the practical situation of “might makes right” seems to play a far greater role…
Overall, I have many of the same complaints about Far Leftist ideas about Governance–namely that in thoroughly socialist economic systems–theoretically there are some very beautiful things about them–namely that everyone does what they can and gets what they need out of them–everyone gets to be happy in theory in a very christian like way… –but in practice they become complete and utter monsters….
In this particular case–we might also recognize that claiming that there is much difference between BigOIL and the leadership of the Federal Gov’t is somewhat doubtful–Bush was in oil and his father uses his old gov’t position to get information so that he can invest in more petroleum interests, Cheney was the CEO of a Haliburton–an oil technology firm–and from 2001-2005, I believe, got paid something on the order of 2-4 million dolllars of “deferred salary” from his halliburton position…
Can we talk about conflict of interest….
In the end–I pay little heed to what people claim a political party believes in–what its ideals are (hey, Republicans are also all about small government, financial responsibility, and high moral standards–yet they preside over huge debts, bribery scandals, and intrusions into people’s personal lives (schiavo et al)..) –because when they get power, then most all groups tend do what they need to keep power…
If you could give me good practical ways that a libertarian administration would actually be able to implement its policies–how it could enforce the primacy of property rights for the small man vs corporations–in the system that it wants to set up.. I’d be more inclined to view it sympathetically..
Re: It’s not the theoretical side of Libertarianism that I disagree with…
You don’t seem to make a distinction between a government’s size, and it’s power. You equate small government with inneffective government. I think that’s a simplistic view, and not really in line with experience. Sometimes the most bloated governments can be the most inneffectual. When a libartarian of the typical American minarchist sort talks about small government, he’s not talking about powerless government, he’s talking about a government with strictly limited powers – but within those limits, it is very powerful indeed. It’s really just the idea of a constitutional republic – a government with total power within the bounds set by it’s constitution, and no power outside those bounds.
Just because I don’t think the government should be able to tell me how to live my life, doesn’t mean I think that they should have no power to enforce the rule of law. Breadth of responsibility and power are orthogonal concepts.
a few quick things..
Actually, I think my correspondence between government size and power is very much in line with experience–especially at the lower end of the size spectrum… Everywhere in the world if you look at the size of a government and the power that it can wield over the every day affairs of the populace–or its ability to stand up to corporations–in the third world this is especially present–than smaller governments always have less power..
If you can find me an example of tiny governments (relatively) that effectively stand up to corporations.. I would be appreciative…
Also– power and effectiveness are also two different things… The old soviet government did have power–but wasn’t very effective… whereas for much of the time–despite propaganda to the contrary–the large U.S. government was incredibly powerful and effective…
Still.. you are not giving me any concrete examples of how such a libertarian government would effectively wield its power.. What institutions or laws would make it so… Saying.. “We will be small and lean and pack lotsa heat” doesn’t make it so.. (as a historical note–Eisenhower campaigned on just such a message–complaining about the bloated inefficient administration of Truman–and then he took power, and found out that, if anything, the administration he inherited was understaffed for the jobs it was expected to do…)
Not theory–examples… How would libertarian administration actually be more effective–what policies would it implement to be so efficient… (and no magic hand waving about how the “market” will just take care of it.. markets collapse all the time and have to be resuscitated and maintained by governments…)
Re: a few quick things..
I thought the “example” was self-evident in this case. No immoral laws about the government retaining mineral rights over people’s private property. Companies that want to exploit someone’s property have to negotiate it with the landowner. Except for cases such as the above and emeninent-domain siezure for private use, this is a actually pretty well-understood concept in our country, which for the most part is enforced already.
I think we need to define our terms a little more carefully. It still seems like you are conflating two things – the breadth of things a government takes responsibility for, and it’s size. Granted, these usually grow and shrink in tandem. But when I say “small government”, I am not saying “so small it can’t enforce the law”. Your example of the soviet government is very pertinent – it took responsibility for everything, but as you say it wasn’t very effectual. I don’t think it is necessary to have a department which defines serving sizes on food packaging in order to enforce property rights. If Bush laid off the entire FDA tomorrow it would not reduce the power of the judiciary one iota.
dude…
Although I agree with you that the law in question is bad in its current form and should be abolished/reformed to limit government “control” to be balanced with either due compensation and right to dispute.. I’m pretty sure I know where the law came from… Is the law you are talking about the Mineral Rights Leasing Act?
anyway.. when we finally get down to specifics.. I bet your libertarian “small” government would not be all that different from what I think an efficient “liberal” government would look like.. I would abolish the FDA also.. (as we’ve talked about before..) I also think the ATF is a crock…
There are a number of departments that I think could go… and areas that should be left entirely to the states…
If we ever meet in person again, we should seriously outline what a real government should look like…
Take it a little further…
remember Clinton selling the mineral rights out west to CHINA?!
Richest coal reserves around, clean burning, on federal parks land mostly, and he gave it all to China for campaign contributions.
You mean…
you don’t believe that other countries should be able to get the rights to minerals lying in foreign countries, good sir? (psst–Saudi Arabia–psst–exxon…)
As for the campaign contributions.. I agree with you there… that is totally atrocious.. and I know that you will join with me to smite the evil powers–be they foreign countries like china or corporations like enron–from trying to buy their way into government and will sign a declaration to oppose any administration that accepts such contributions…
Shall I write it up? 😉
Re: You mean…
no, I don’t mean that we should be locking away resources from other countries. I’m not Pat Buchannan!
But locking them away from our own people, and then handing them over to China is a bit insulting to our own folks, to say the least. People *here* had been trying to get their hands on those reserves for years will no success.
now, don’t try and get me sidetracked in my rage to pass “campaign finance reform” that stiffles the free speech rights of our own citizenry. Something tells me that we might not agree on the finer points of making elections “fair”.
Even without that law, thanks to the infinite wisdom of our supreme court in ruling in favor of Eminent Domain, it does not matter where you live. The corporation or goverment can knock on your door and take your property for the ‘good of the community’.