thumb|Under the homestead principle a [[farmer putting unowned land to use gains ownership over it]]
The homestead principle is the principle by which one gains ownership of an unowned natural resource by performing an act of original appropriation. Appropriation could be enacted by putting an unowned resource to active use (as with using it to produce some product),
joining it with previously acquired property, or by marking it as owned (as with livestock branding).
Homesteading is one of the foundations of Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism and right-libertarianism.
In political philosophy
Mohammad
In Islam, a "dead" land (not previously owned or under use by the public) can be owned by "reviving" it, as per the prophetic saying: "If anyone revives dead land, it belongs to him, and the unjust root has no right."
This principle, however, does not deprive the community from some common rights in the land, including the right to pass water through it to the neighbor's land, for example.
John Locke
In his 1690 work Second Treatise of Government, Enlightenment philosopher John Locke advocated the Lockean proviso which allows for homesteading. Locke saw the mixing of labour with land as the source of ownership via homesteading:
<blockquote>That ownership is originally acquired both by occupancy of a thing not owned by any one and by labor, or, as is said, by specification, the tradition of all ages as well as the teaching of Our Predecessor Leo clearly testifies. For, whatever some idly say to the contrary, no injury is done to any person when a thing is occupied that is available to all but belongs to no one; however, only that labor which a man performs in his own name and by virtue of which a new form or increase has been given to a thing grants him title to these fruits (Paragraph 52).</blockquote>
Murray Rothbard
Libertarian philosopher and Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard argued that homesteading includes all the rights needed to engage in the homesteading action, including nuisance and pollution rights. He writes:
<blockquote>Most of us think of homesteading unused resources in the old-fashioned sense of clearing a piece of unowned land and farming the soil. ... Suppose, for example, that an airport is established with a great deal of empty land around it. The airport exudes a noise level of, say, decibels, with the sound waves traveling over the empty land. A housing development then buys land near the airport. Some time later, the homeowners sue the airport for excessive noise interfering with the use and quiet enjoyment of the houses.
Excessive noise can be considered a form of aggression but in this case the airport has already homesteaded decibels worth of noise. By its prior claim, the airport now "owns the right" to emit decibels of noise in the surrounding area. In legal terms, we can then say that the airport, through homesteading, has earned an easement right to creating decibels of noise. This homesteaded easement is an example of the ancient legal concept of "prescription", in which a certain activity earns a prescriptive property right to the person engaging in the action.</blockquote>
Rothbard interpreted the physical extent to which a homesteading act establishes ownership in terms of the relevant "technological unit", which is the minimal amount necessary for the practical use of the resource. He writes:
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand did not elaborate on the characteristics of homesteading, but she expressed support for compatible laws such as favourably citing the Homestead Act (1862):
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