What discourages the hoarding and exploitation of land though? and what motivation would those who wish to control others have to not use coercion and violence? I don't want to equate the concept of ownership with greed but isn't it possible that they reinforce each other?
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How does one hoard land if one has to pay for its upkeep? A lot of the land grabbing we can see around us currently is due in large part to the monopoly of government on conflict resolution. They decide who gets what, and they can subsidize some at the expense of others. Consider how much effort it takes to actually secure your house against trespassers absent a socialized police force. How much would you have to spend in order to make sure your home was safe from intruders? The costs would actually be less, but individuals would have to pay them out of their own pockets; it wouldn't be taxes providing for them.
As for what motivation would disincent people from using coercion and violence? Simple. It's the same concept as to why it's not profitable to be a shit-tier human on Steemit, except with guns. Without a monopoly on decision making, individuals alone present little threat, and the threat they do pose is restricted by their access to resources. How terrifying would the US military be if they had to fund everything through what would essentially be bake sales? Who would willingly contribute to it knowing the numerous immoral acts it has engaged in?
People don't necessarily have to keep up the land, what if they just buy it as a commodity that they could potentially make money or trade of in some other way that benefits them? It still seems like it would make way to a class of landowners and a class of tenants who would be subservient to them.
I am trying to understand because, at the very least, this all sounds a little bit better than what we have now, I just don't see how it would be sustainable coming from where we are coming.
As of now (and you are welcome to try and convince me otherwise, as I said, I'm more focused on what I can do to make the situation better right now), I see more potential in the idea that land belongs to no one, not a state, not an individual. Couple this with a return to a more tribal way of living where consensus is built within communities and then a similar consensus built between communities. I think these communities are already being formed now, as we speak and they're ability to solve problems efficiently would be pretty obvious if they weren't always the victims of coercion.
I think it's really impossible to come up with any substantial system or non-system that could really be sustainable if we don't first foster a culture of cooperation and interdependence and change the overall mentality from scarcity to abundance.
I am happy to learn more about your ideas though, the earlier we can find consensus with others the better :-D
If land belongs to no one - that is, no one can claim exclusive use - who gets to use a particular plot for what end?
That could be up for discussion in the community or between different communities. When there's a dispute other communities could be invited to mediate
So then one of the communities owns the land in question. Either way, the land is not open for anyone to come into and claim to use exclusively if its being currently used. Ownership doesn't denote that you somehow have physical possession of the land and you can take it with you. It just means that you have established that you exercise exclusive control of it. Nothing I've described would prevent what you're suggesting; it would actually facilitate it. It is likely, and advantageous, that private property owners would come together to create covenant communities like you're describing.
Private property norms seek to mitigate and help resolve disputes over the use of scarce, rivalrous resources. That's the purpose that ownership serves.
Ok but what if the ones who would like to start these kind of communities don't have access to land? Is it really hard to imagine why some people coming from the old would paradigm would want to hoard land in various ways for various reasons? How do you prevent those who are coming into this new paradigm with old world values from acting this way?
What's wrong with softening the concept of private property rather than relying exclusively on it?
You understand I'm not arguing, right? I'm curious.
Well, by virtue of the fact that you're engaging in a debate between opposing points, you're engaging in argumentation. Arguing doesn't mean yelling at each other :)
Again, hoarding land requires enormous use of resources unless that land is being utilized. Maintaining a nature preserve like Yosemite privately, for example, would be enormously expensive. The cost of hoarding land puts an upper limit on how much land can be hoarded just to keep it. If your concern is buying up the land to drive up the cost, developed areas would compete with those people hoarding land to provide housing for people, driving down the cost. Market forces exert a downward pressure on costs and an upward pressure on quality.
Access to land isn't a right. The only right you have is to not have your consent violated; it's the only so-called right that can be universalized to everyone. It's the reason why acts like murder and rape are always going to be immoral. Since private property extends from that (based in the exclusive control you exercise over your body, which is itself a scarce, rivalrous resource), softening on that opens the door to soften the ethical limits on trespass against individual human beings.
As for purchasing land as a commodity, how would you prevent trespassers from attempting to utilize your land and homestead it in violation of your property ownership? You'd have to expend resources to secure it, which is in effect the upkeep of that land. Maintaining large tracts of land absent a socialized enforcement agency like government is costly (though cheaper than the funds used to that purpose currently) and it would have to be paid by the individual attempting to maintain that land as a commodity. Excluding people from unused land just to hoard it is a financially losing proposition except in the very long term, and one would have to be unimaginably wealth in order to maintain that claim over time.
I would propose that in the case of land the correct property theory is that of the Individualist anarchists. They asserted that the only true title to land is 'use and possession.' That is, to rightly own land, you must be in possession of it. For example, you must be living on it, keeping it up etc. This would also follow for businesses. You can only own a business insofar as you must actively manage its day to day operations. This would prevent absentee ownership, or direction of operations from afar. However, it would leave ample room for incentive to work and accumulate wealth - up to a point. This would also solve the problem of vast and unaccountable hierarchies.