[Ilya Somin, February 22, 2007 at 3:36am] Trackbacks
Buzz Aldrin on Property Rights in Space:
Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, and space policy analyst Taylor Dinerman have written an interesting article on the economic potential of space. They argue that the Moon and possibly other parts of the solar system might contribute greatly to fulfilling future energy needs, and also produce other valuable products. More importantly - from my parochial perspective as a property professor - they emphasize the importance of creating private property rights in space, rather than leaving everything to government ownership:
A base on the Moon does not have to be a permanent government-controlled and owned facility. After it has been fully established, control could be handed over to a private non-profit consortium that would lease space to companies and governments which will then pursue their individual goals, such as energy, research, tourism, or developing the technology and supplies needed for further space exploration.
Handing off control of the base to a private group means that we will have to establish rules explaining what exactly is and is not private property on the Moon. According to the Outer Space Treaty, the Moon is “common heritage of mankind”. No one has ever been able to agree on exactly what this means, but few space law experts outside the United States seem willing to accept the idea that there is room for private entities to claim any sort of recognizable property rights on the Moon. The best they are willing to concede are long term leases with the rent being paid to the United Nations.
Still possession is nine tenths of the law. An American moon base would insure that traditional American ideas such as private property and homesteading would influence the future legal regime. Otherwise the Europeans and others might try and push their model of tight government control and high taxes onto the off-Earth economy of the late 21st century . . .
Greg Allison, Chairman of the National Space Society’s Policy Committee states that it “believes that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty can be interpreted as permitting public and private entities to appropriate resources that they can directly utilize and to establish a ‘reasonable’ zone of operations around sites of activity.” An American base, even one with substantial international participation, would create a precedent that would not only apply to the Moon but to all the other accessible bodies in our solar system.
I lack the expertise to assess Aldrin and Dinerman's claims about the economic potential of the Moon and other parts of the Solar System. Perhaps they greatly overestimate that potential, in which case the issue of property rights beyond Earth will be largely academic.
But if they are right conclude that the Moon or other bodies in the Solar system have tremendous potential utility, then they are also right to emphasize the importance of establishing private property rights. While some government-owned facilities in space and on the Moon are probably inevitable and desirable, imposing government ownership on all property beyond Earth orbit, as the conventional interpretation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty seems to do, is a recipe for disaster. A vast socialist empire in space is no more likely to be a good idea than earthbound socialist empires have been.
Obviously, these issues are not yet urgent, since we are still years away from establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon, much less seriously beginning to exploit its resources. However, if those resources turn out to be valuable, it will be essential to consider the appropriate property rights regime for them ahead of time. If either national governments or the UN are able to establish government ownership over the Moon and other extraterrestrial bodies, it will be much harder to establish a private property rights regime after the fact. The entire history of modern government shows that it is much easier to limit government power over an issue area in advance than to roll it back once it has become established. The old saying that government programs are "immortal" is an exaggeration, but it does contain a large measure of truth. I suspect that this will be no less true in space than it has been on Earth.
volokh.com
Mho (mail):
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is literally a product of the Twilight Zone era, when the future looked like anthropomorphic aliens in silver suits landing nozzle-down in their rockets, and most Americans actually believed that the UN was worth something.
Fact is, the resources of space will render moot the "limits on growth" we keep hearing about from present-day Malthusians. Near-earth asteroids are incredibly rich sources of iron, nickel, cobalt, and dozens of other useful minerals, including water...
volokh.com
RadCap:
"I lack the expertise to assess Aldrin and Dinerman's claims about the economic potential of the Moon and other parts of the Solar System. Perhaps they greatly overestimate that potential, in which case the issue of property rights beyond Earth will be largely academic."
It is the current lack of defensible property rights which makes the "economic potential" of solar bodies small to non-existent. Without such property rights, men have little personal incentive to risk their limited time and effort on projects which are highly speculative.
However, if one wishes to get an idea of the "economic potential" which exists in privately owned space bodies, imagine - just as an exercise - the "economic potential" which men would create and exploit if the US granted ownership rights for the ENTIRE planet Mars to anyone who could reach it and stay there productively for 10 years (something along the lines of the Homestead Act, but as a one time deal). Now, I don't necessarily propose this as a serious option (one could grant ownership of half of mars, or one-fourth or one-eighth). The point of the example is to show that, if one offered such an amazing deal, one would be witness to a historically unprecedented explosion of productive activity, all aimed at making the planet Mars a value to men. In other words, the point of the example is to show that private property rights are not only essential to productiveness - ie essential to the creation of values - but that they also serve to drive the discovery and manufacture of such values. It is the lack of such private property rights today which limits "economic potential" - be it on Earth or on some other celestial body.
Put simply, it is impossible to "overestimate" the "economic potential" of the entire solar system - just as it would have been impossible to "overestimate" the "economic potential" of the New World. The wildest, most 'insane' "overestimate" of its value in the time of Columbus isn't even a fraction of its actual value today. The same is necessarily true of the solar system - so long as men are left free to think and to act in order to create wealth.
Conversely, so long as men are denied private property rights beyond the Earth, the "economic potential" of the entire rest of the solar system will necessarily remain largely "academic." For it is the absence of such ownership rights which relegates "economic potential" to the realm of the "academic" (of thought) rather than to the realm of the actual (of deed) where it rightfully belongs. This is as true in space as it is on Earth.
Without a free market,a free mind is useless (and in fact is not free at all).
volokh.com
KeithK (mail):
The Outer Space Treaty was created at a time when all space activity was government owned and operated and socialist ideas were strong on earth. I doubt the US would sign the same treaty today. I suspect that if private US interests establish reliable non-government access to space there will be pressure on the US government to repudiate the treaty. The idealistic (and foolish) idea of "mankind owns outer space" will fade befoer the power of the almighty dollar.
Unfortunately this will probably take quite some time. There's a long way between Space Ship One and a reliable, commercially viable Space Ship Two. And even that is only suborbital, which has essentially zero relevance to outer space property rights. Private access to earth orbit is still quite a ways off.
volokh.com
Ilya Somin:
A major problem with private industry investing in space is that the initial investment is very large, and the return takes a long, long time to materialize (if ever). I suspect a Mars venture would take much longer than 10 years to break even.
It is a problem, but not necessarily a fatal one. Private entities often make longterm investments that may not pay off for a long time. IN fact, many of the British colonies in North America were initially founded on this basis, with primarily private investment (or even exclusively in some cases).
volokh.com
happylee:
Fear not, the greens will figure out a way to pass a law making human action on the moon, mars, etc. illegal because it would 'change' the 'natural' condition of the planet and endanger some rare form of lunar rock that has a greater right to exist than some puny, carbon-spewing human.
That said, the question is what one's definition of property rights is, and how someone goes about attaining the right to a specified piece of property. Most folks think that some king/elected leader proclaims sovereign ownership over the land and then generously sells title, evidenced by royal/democratic deeds to individuals. Others modestly suggest that property rights can exist whether the sovereign agrees or not. So, for example, if Billybob launches a space mission and successfully settles and uses 10,000 acres on the moon, it's his fair and square, unless someone else got there first.
The US Gov't's failure to recognize true property rights is one of the many reasons we still have forestry and cattle ranching issues in the west, to name a select few unresolved problems resulting strictly from sovereign policy.
volokh.com |
