Many have concluded from this that land simply cannot be owned. However, a quick analysis of this position reveals it to be logically flawed.
Let's take our uncle Joe, the potato farmer, as an example. He has spent his whole life tilling the earth. He has provided potatoes to people for decades. He has invested countless hours of hard work into taking care of the land, yet he does not own it? How can this be?
Uncle Joe owns the potatoes that he grows, but not the land he maintained to do so. The land, according to the above logic, is owned by nobody.
Does this mean that anyone can take uncle Joe's fields and use them for their own purpose? Not really. That would simply transfer ownership from uncle Joe to somebody else. The land would still be owned, just not by Joe.
On the other hand, if uncle Joe is allowed to continue growing potatoes in the fields, he would by definition be the custodian of the land. He would still own it.
Thirdly, we may conclude that no-one can grow potatoes in uncle Joe's fields. However, such a rule can only be enforced by somebody with a higher claim to the land than uncle Joe. That somebody would presumably be a government bureaucrat, a flesh and blood person like everybody else.
One way or another, someone must be in charge of the land. There is no way that land in use can have no custodian. The custodian is either the one working the land, or somebody else.
Unused land, on the other hand, needs no custody. Claiming ownership of such lands is legally dubious. But this does nothing to save the original position. All we can say for sure is that land in use must have a custodian of some sort. It must be controlled by somebody. It is only unused land that can be logically deemed impossible to own.
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