Resources are Limitless

Lately I have been hearing a lot about 'finite resources' and all the problems the human race has or will have in the future because of them. Oil, water, air - all these things get mentioned. Historically, the most important resource which was argued about in this way was land. This wouldn't be a problem in itself if not for the terrible conclusions these people were led to. Namely - land socialism. This is the phenomenon we now see similarly in the case of evironmentalists, who are air and water socialists (though most of them seem to care more about ice than water). The most important proponent of land socialism (or 'common ownership of land') was Henry George. Otherwise a free-treader, George was a fanatic when it came to the land issue. Frighteningly enough, a case for moral land socialism is made even in early writings of Herbert Spencer (although he concedes that it is impossible to practice land socialism). These writings of George and Spencer heavily influenced many modern 'left libertarians'. Land is given some kind of special status because it is finite. And why does this supposed limit of quantity pose a problem when it comes to land? Because it is argued that Lockean Homesteading can only be justified when land is limitless - when people who don't have land and can't live have the ability to just go somewhere and homestead their own land. This, in turn, has been the cause of many of these modern 'left-libertarians' and most 19th Century individualist anarchists (such as Benjamin Tucker) turning away from Lockean homesteading and instead favouring 'occupancy and use' doctrines. Such doctrines maintain that if a person is not currently living on or using a piece of land, it has now gone back to the common stock and may be homesteaded by anyone else. Clearly this is a huge block on capital accumulation and eliminates landlords and land-rent by definition. Furthermore it has been argued that this land socialism was actually Locke's position, clearly he thought all the Earth was owned in common by all men.
Now, I hate to disappoint my friends on the left, but their beliefs are actually false. If we use their definition of 'finite resources', then everything in existance is a finite resource and must be socialized. But I claim that NOTHING in the physical universe is a finite resource. As far as we know, the only limited resource may be vacuum in outer space because space itself might not be infinite. The rest is up to man's INGENUITY and thus open to change by TECHNOLOGY. Take the example of oil (which is now being hailed as a finite resource as opposed to resources like solar power). There have been opinions going as far back as the late 19th Century that oil is running out. What we see in actual fact is that human ingenuity has discovered ways to get a lot more oil from many different locations on earth and technology allows us to do it efficiently and quickly. Oil is not running out. New oil fields have just been discovered in Canada (100 years worth of oil!). Rants in support of anything being finite, whether it be oil, air, water, the ice caps, or land, are just a symptom of primitive Malthusian panic. Thomas Malthus claimed that resources would run out and overpopulation would destroy humanity. Now, over 200 years onwards, this has not only failed to happen, we cannot even see signs of this being viable. Standards of living increase as populations increase because human labour and human ingenuity (enterprenourship) are the only conceptual finite resources of humanity. The more people, the more work and the more good ideas!

I also hate to disappoint all the land socialists, but not only is land infinitely available throughout the universe, but it is barely beginning to be occupied here on Earth. Imagine the possibilities: space stations, other planets, asteroids, huge skyscrapers, underwater cities (or floating cities!) here on Earth. Currently land - most of which is not even being occupied here on Earth yet due to either government meddling or lack of technology - covers only 30% of the planet. People have used technology to enlarge it, but soon maybe technology will allow us to simply live in the water-covered areas as well. Austro-Libertarian Dr. Walter Block has called for the privatization of the world's water for just this reason (as well as environmental reasons). As he says it "water is just fast moving land, and land is just slow moving water".