THE BLOCKIAN PROVISO AND THE RATIONALITY OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

Abstract

THE PRESENT PAPER confronts the general question of the lawfulness of forestalling both potential owners from originally appropriating unowned land and actual owners from exiting their property. This kind of forestalling, which poses problems for libertarian theory, consists in a pattern of appropriation that allegedly puts a given individual in such a position that it is impossible for him to appropriate an unowned tract of land or to exit his property without trespass.