What was the Roman View of First Possession? Roman Rule v. John Locke [No. 86]

What is required for someone to claim ownership to land? Professor Richard Epstein explores the historical basis for property in Roman Law, which was primarily based on advertised occupation. He then contrasts this idea to John Locke’s theory of ownership which ties property rights to cultivation.
Professor Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.
As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.
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• Roman Law [Course] [No...

[@mns8732]

This answered many of my questions about Roman law. Thanks. Seems like something devolved overtime however.

[@muhammadjonburiyev903]

Background music is so annoying.

[@nobodynowhere7163]

Brilliant as usual, Prof. Epstein, I got interested in Roman Law thanks to him. Too bas the Native Americans didn’t know Roman Law. Worse that the early English Colonist DID KNOW Roman Law but disregarded it.

[@crypastesomemore8348]

Read my comment on the video- this is drivel. Bastardized history wrapped up in glib legal analysis.

[@Yanolala]

Does anyone know if the roman rule requires "occupation *and* use"? Was, for example, absentee landlordism allowed?

[@coreykatzelnick2982]

He addresses that, but barely. Romans required actual occupation, notably not involving use of the land *think of farmers* who make soil and seed into food. The second requirement was notice to others. Hence the later in time rule bit came to undermine the argument of legitimate occupation, because there was no underlying rationale except the temporal business, which plainly seems arbitrary and devoid of morality. Thus, "use" seemed natural as well as distinguishing enough, and was ultimately a good thing for breeding more explicit competition between competing land occupying forces. Which today exist of companies mainly.

[@crypastesomemore8348]

@@coreykatzelnick2982 later in time does not undermine anything about legitimate occupation itself, given that it alone does not encompass any special use or greater legitimacy. As I stated in another comment on this video, Epstein’s analysis here is a bastardized interpretation of Roman property law, extending it to “aboriginal/native” people while wholly ignoring that Romans conquered and incorporated mass areas through brute force. Extracting liberal theory from Locke’s treatises is similarly problematic.

[@crypastesomemore8348]

This is largely nonsense- decontextualized analysis that aims to apply modern liberal interpretations of property rights upon antiquity. Roman land rights discussed occupation and notice within territory they already controlled, which usually came through conquest- it has little to do with the conquest itself, meaning that the extension to “aboriginal/native” people is a superimposition by Epstein, carrying varying racist implications (e.g., the same victimization narrative about Western Europeans conquering Native Americans, despite Native Americans practicing massive gennnoccidal tribalism and conquest amongst one another at the exact same time). Epstein’s analysis of Locke is equally bastardized, given that Locke’s treatises on government and property stem from a philosophical approach under rule of law, as opposed to directly contemplating the brute force of the age of conquest. This is why I couldn’t wait to get out Epstein’s class: I had to vomit up the same drivel he spews in this video to get my stinkin’ B+ at NYU law.

[@Atm10397]

Thanks. I saved my time

[@splitjustice3634]

Automatically picked up on your top down processing …which was confirm when you mention you got a B+ from Epstein …reason being that no where in this video states that …no other “individuals” couldn’t occupy the land …hence your argument completely collapsed afterwards,followed by derogatory adjectives which says more about you than anything else

[@splitjustice3634]

Where in this video does it say that no other “party” couldn’t occupy the land? No where!….your top down processing of Epstein in this video was confirmed when you mentioned your B+ …as to the rest of your derogatory language says more about you than anything else

[@BirchTales]

Not as much wrong as incomplete. He is trying to fit a complicated subject into a 3 minute video. Of course John Locke’s ideas are simplified if he is trying to explain them under a minute, in school you would get an entire lesson to talk about him.

[@coreykatzelnick2982]

The use of "public" lands became hotly debated later in American life, Mr. Epstein. Georgists I think, have a good enough retort: enough with ownership bit - public lands is just that - public. Those improved by "use" as Mr. Locke asserted, was rationally based to be public no more. Thus, I am not sure Locke refuted Roman law here, though he certainly refuted its central principle of occupadio with a component of use. That's not so much refutation as a refinement of this discourse of law the Romans themselves feared lent to incumbents of traitors. A nobility in law runs a constant theme here. Locke was a good man making sense of our laws against the undisovered lands. Would it have been better had the natives of America understood our culture of legal system, the transition would have been more peaceful. The use component is not harbinger of false laws, only an improvement to which Locke himself could not admit the natives proved to satisfy. Let their industry of protection of our native lands prevail, as the natives indeed taught us all,over the arc of historical justice.

[@crypastesomemore8348]

The source of the improvement is paramount- lands improved by public sources/revenue do not cease to be public. Epstein blasphemes Roman law by failing to recognize that its application was to controlled territory, not conquest (since he then goes on to opine on “favoring aboriginal/native peoples”). Similarly, Locke’s discourse largely sidesteps the pragmatic brutality of conquest, centering on value creation via labor. This is not a refutation of Roman law, but rather an induration of pragmatism via novel construct (i.e., the much cited “mixing labor and land”). Again, Locke’s ideas, if anything, would have favored “aboriginal” land rights, which is why application to conquest is a modern superimposition. The natives of America had every prerogative to refuse and contest the aggression of foreign forces, just as they had every prerogative to defend themselves against the gennoccidal tribalism they waged against one another. Their “acceptance” of “our culture of legal system” is immaterial to the fact that a stronger force conquered and/or forced them from their land. Again, Locke’s use construct did not contemplate outright conquest, so you are correct about it not being a “harbinger” of false laws (though the path you take to reach this conclusion is suspect). The natives taught us little about “industry”: had Western Europeans not come and conquered much of them, the lands of the Americas would likely still be occupied by fairly primitive and ethically abhorrent practices, as opposed to ushering in an age of unprecedented prosperity and progression (more than doubling of lifespans, rapturous medical advancements, modern-day ethics, the comforts and conveniences of modernity, etc.).
It is one thing to analyze antiquity, but it is a fool’s errand to impose modern day sensibilities and extensions on an age foreign to them.