Land in a country that's not owned specifically is owned by the government by default. Ownership transfers eventually into private hands, but land always passes through a phase in which it's held in common. It's vitally important that the government have a good landuse policy in effect to start, because those self-correcting factors of private ownership don't kick in until later (if they ever do).
In the paper you linked they observe that Brazil's policies "reduce the chances of the poor to become farmers", and that the various tax and other economic incentives combine to heavily favor big business. Bottom line, it's big business pursuing a destructive land-use policy in the absence of government constraint, not the "ignorant natives"...and aren't you trying to say that enlightened business these days takes the long view and never willfully destroyes the environment? But in Brazil in the Amazon rain forest, there they are, burning and clearcutting and bulldozing in an orgy of profit-taking. Where's the enlightened stewardship of private property and private interests?
Off Topic » in reply to Who owns the rain forest?
Catch-22
The whole thread (42 posts)
- On property rights, continued from Geek Speak.
- re: On property rights, continued from Geek Speak.
- re: On property rights
- Farmer
- The Libertarian nonsense belongs with UFOs and Crop Circles.