Paper Example on Property Rights and Land

Introduction

Property rights are imperative for economic development since it gives individual security and confidence when engaging in business enterprises. The type of ownership of property in a society defines its economic status since economic decisions depend on how people view property ownership. Property rights like land contribute to wealth creation of a country since land is the main factor in productions of goods. Communal ownership of factors of production like land in our contemporary world contributes to conflicts among individuals hence the need for private ownership rights for pieces of land. Private ownership rights would be imperative to economic development because everybody will struggle to create his or her wealth unlike in communal ownership rights which promote laxity hence slowing economic growth.

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The government is the only authority that can regulate land ownership rights to control its access and use by its citizens. Land policies are essential for a country since it contributes to a large percentage of its revenue as witnessed in the 19th century. The criteria of the provision of land ownership rights dictate the wealth of individuals in a particular nation-state. Proper land policies enable people to engage in large-scale production of agricultural products because of the ownership security guaranteed by tilling of land parcels. Provision of title deed for American adversely affected income and distribution of land resource of the US. Land and other property rights are established to control the acquisition of parcels of land. The contemporary government can raise revenue by selling part of its idle land. Ownership of land rights enables an individual to be compensated by the government or any organization which might be interested in his or her property.

The United States land policies worked when people realized that there valuable minerals on large tracks of land. The private property rights came to existence after people realized that various parcels of land had valuable minerals such as gold and silver. Interested individuals in mining sought to have land ownership rights to exploit the valuable resources. The federal government could not give individual title deeds for lands with gold and silver since it wanted to charge monthly rates for the federal treasury. The lands believed to have valuable minerals were retained by the state and federal government. There were no private ownership rights for mineral lands. Land policy is the US efficiently worked in that it regulated the property and land ownership right between 1800 and 1900. The government only gave out lands with lease agreement but not on a permanent basis. Congress required states to be custodians of mineral lands. The mineral lands were distributed to people in the form of small parcels. Proper and secure mining rights should have been provided by the government to manage the conflict that might arise during the exploitation of the mineral areas.

Conclusion

US land policy failed to address the rights of land ownership in the 1850s because there was widespread conflict among the people. For example, after 1880, the conflict between livestock keepers and homesteaders increased because homesteaders had the Laws on their side. There were no land ownership rights for grazing land hence the homesteaders could force the livestock keepers to look for alternative areas to keep their livestock. Property rights are very crucial for the development and growth of a country's economy. The establishment of private ownership of land in the US consequently led to development ownership rights of other properties. Despite, the private ownership, one-third of the US remained under the control of the federal government.