Abstract: This paper argues for the consistency of adverse possession in land with a strict Lockean-liberatarian understanding of property rights due to the impermanence of man-made improvements by which unowned property is originally appropriated. This approach to property rights reconciles left- and right-libertarian positions as end points on a continuum of “temporal attitudes” toward property retention. The adoption of adverse possession within a libertarian framework also dampens the potential tension between extensively held private property and the “Lockean Proviso.”

Keywords: Adverse possession, property rights, homesteading theory, John Locke

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