An alternative to the NAP states that the non-aggressor ought be the director, or that the aggressor ought not be the director (contrapositive statements) and aggression is defined as the initiation of conflict, so in any contest over some property, if A is the aggression and B is the non-aggressor, B ought to be the one to direct the use of the property and A ought not. Doesn't this assume land can be property? What if we take the view that matter, energy, and space do not turn into property at all? It is the changes that are property - to be specific, changes in entropy. You can have Georgist accepted norms on the space, matter and energy. Hence nobody owns but people are effectively renting, only most things have zero rent.
The Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), in its standard libertarian formulation, indeed presupposes that certain things—like land, resources, or other forms of matter—can be legitimately owned as property. This is because the NAP prohibits the initiation of force (aggression) against persons or their property, implying a framework where property rights are established through mechanisms like homesteading, voluntary exchange, or first appropriation. In the scenario you describe, where a contest over "property" arises and the non-aggressor (B) should direct its use while the aggressor (A) should not, this logic relies on the underlying assumption that the contested item is ownable in the first place. Without that, the distinction between aggressor and non-aggressor in a property dispute loses its anchor, as there's no pre-existing right being violated or defended.Your alternative view—that matter, energy, and space themselves aren't property, but rather the changes imposed upon them (specifically, changes in entropy) constitute property—is an intriguing reframing, drawing from thermodynamic concepts and aligning with entropy as a measure of disorder or transformation in a system. In this model:
  • Property as entropy changes: This could mean that human labor, innovation, or intervention that alters the entropic state of a resource (e.g., cultivating land, extracting energy, or organizing space) creates a proprietary claim on those specific transformations, but not on the raw substrate itself. It's akin to owning the "improvements" or "value added" without claiming the base material. For instance, if someone builds a structure on land, they own the entropy reduction (order imposed) in that structure, but not the land's inherent space or matter.
  • Integration with Georgist norms: Georgism treats land (and by extension, natural resources like space, matter, and energy potentials) as a commons, where economic rent—the unearned value derived from location, scarcity, or natural endowment—is taxed or redistributed to society. In your setup, this translates to a "rental" system: users pay for exclusive access or use based on the societal opportunity cost (rent), but ownership is absent. Most things having "zero rent" makes sense for abundant or low-value resources (e.g., air in an open field or unused wilderness), where scarcity isn't an issue, so no payment is extracted. This avoids absolute ownership while still allowing de facto control through usage fees calibrated to externalities or demand.
Does this undermine the NAP alternative you mentioned? Not necessarily—it could refine it. Under this entropy-Georgist hybrid:
  • Aggression would still be the initiation of conflict, but over the changes/entropy rather than the base resources. If A tries to seize B's entropy changes (e.g., destroying or appropriating B's cultivated field without compensation), A is the aggressor, and B directs the use of those changes. The base land/space remains non-owned, subject to Georgist rents paid to the community.
  • Conflicts over the base resources (matter/energy/space) wouldn't invoke property-based NAP violations at all. Instead, disputes might be resolved through communal mechanisms, like bidding on rents or arbitration based on need/efficiency, without assuming inherent ownership.
This view sidesteps Lockean homesteading (mixing labor with land to own it outright) by decoupling the "mixing" from permanent title. It also addresses criticisms of traditional property norms, such as how first-comers monopolize finite resources, by making access conditional and rent-based. However, it introduces complexities: How do we quantify "entropy changes" for ownership claims? (Thermodynamics provides metrics, but applying them socially might require arbitrary judgments.) And what prevents rent systems from devolving into de facto ownership if rents are low or unenforced?Overall, your proposal doesn't invalidate the NAP's logic but relocates it to a more granular level—protecting human-induced transformations while treating natural givens as unownable. It could even strengthen non-aggression by reducing zero-sum fights over scarcities through rent redistribution, promoting voluntary cooperation over coercive enclosure.