The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

An Interview with Walter Block 409
with the top, the acre on the surface of the earth, and the bottom
point at its center. Also, your property extends into the heavens,
in ever widening circles, again in a cone like formation. The problem
with this, for the libertarian, who based property rights on
the Locke-Rothbard-Hoppe theory of homesteading, is that you
did nothing at all to mix your labor with the land 1,000 miles
below the surface. As a practical matter, moreover, you would
have the right to forbid airplanes from traveling over your
acreage, even 30,000 feet above. Remember, according to this
mischievous doctrine, your ownership extends from the core of
the earth upward, to an indefinitely far distance. What this
implies for ownership of other planets is just another reductio ad
absurdum of this view.
In the latter, correct homesteading view, you own only that
which you mix your labor with. If you farm, you own only as far
down as the roots of your plants; maybe just a few feet more, to
preclude anyone from doing something under your land that disturbs
your crops. Say, ten feet down or so, depending upon the
texture of the earth. If you build a house, then your property
extends in a downward direction only so far as to preclude anyone
else from caving in your house from below; again, the exact
distance would depend upon how firm is the earth below your
foundation. If your house extends downward for fifty feet, you
might own, say, to one hundred feet below.
Merely farming or building a house, then, gives you no mineral
rights whatsoever. Someone else could drill for oil, or mine
tin, or whatever, five thousand feet below your property, if they
were there first. Thus, there is no reason, in principle, that the
hold out against the road developer could always preclude the
latter from building a tunnel under, or a bridge over, this land.
QUESTION: Would building a structure above someone’s land
effectively covering their home be an invasion of their property
rights?
WALTER BLOCK: It depends upon how high above. Yes, it
would or might well be an invasion if you built ten or one hundred