There have been all manner of land disputes over the course of human history, but one type of conflict that seems to surface time and again is a situation in which nonowners are suddenly barred from land that they have always had free access to.Just think of the English enclosures (roughly 1450 to 1860), in which manorial landowners fenced in lands that were legally theirs but which before had been governed by the rules of the open-field system, in which peasants all planted on individual slivers of a field in the springtime but grazed their cattle over the whole field in common after harvesttime. The enclosures barred peasants from using lands that they didn’t own but that they had always been able to use freely in this way. This of course created tension and displaced the population. The

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

In my neighborhood, we have an animal control problem.When I go for a walk, I carry dog mace (a nonlethal alternative to my usual revolver) because there are always, always, loose dogs out. I’ve been followed around by barking dogs many times, and they’re not always on the same streets, which means it’s hard to avoid them. One of my neighbors’ guests was bitten by a loose collie. I narrowly avoided having to break up a dog fight when an aggressive Boston terrier decided she didn’t like my female pitbull. Even with my trusty spray and my own large dogs to keep smaller dogs at bay, I’ve become hesitant to go on walks.As if the dog problem weren’t enough, we also have a stray cat issue. Some of the neighborhood’s many retirees think it’s a brilliant idea to feed the needy cats. They’ll take

Driving home one Friday afternoon, I got stuck behind an elderly woman going twenty miles per hour under the speed limit. The speed limit was forty-five. We were on a country road, so I couldn’t pass safely, and I was frustrated that this person was standing between me and the beginning of the weekend. I could see the woman’s thinly snowcapped head, and I thought to myself, I can’t believe this old bat is licensed to drive. She’s probably half-blind and too frail to control the vehicle. An unsuspecting driver could ram right into her. Her inconsiderate driving might push others to pass in bad spots, possibly causing other accidents.These kinds of roadblocks are fairly common on my rural commute, and I’ve vented to friends and coworkers before. They sympathize. One told me that old people

Driving home one Friday afternoon, I got stuck behind an elderly woman going twenty miles per hour under the speed limit. The speed limit was forty-five. We were on a country road, so I couldn’t pass safely, and I was frustrated that this person was standing between me and the beginning of the weekend. I could see the woman’s thinly snowcapped head, and I thought to myself, I can’t believe this old bat is licensed to drive. She’s probably half-blind and too frail to control the vehicle. An unsuspecting driver could ram right into her. Her inconsiderate driving might push others to pass in bad spots, possibly causing other accidents.These kinds of roadblocks are fairly common on my rural commute, and I’ve vented to friends and coworkers before. They sympathize. One told me that old people

One of the realities that nullifies persistent interpretations of the European colonization of the Americas as a cataclysm of subjugation is the existence of state exploitation in the precontact New World.