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First, who appointed the author judge over what rewards are rightful and what are not?
They have PhDs... Therefore they think themselves appropriate judges for that.
the author's logic, he himself belongs to the commons, because the material and energy needed to produce his own being did not come from himself.
Beautiful. I shall invoke slavery now... Your body is not even your molecules, bitch!_
which case the answer to "Who owns the Sun" is simply "Whoever has the means to exclude its use."
I agree that it's (almost entirely?) all excludability, that is a technical and economic consideration, not a moral or political one
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The excerpt you posted about the sun seems fraught with some misconceptions.
No one was granted the right to harvest and sell the sun. They were granted the right to use the land for solar collectors and they contracted with the local power grid to sell energy to them.
First, who appointed the author judge over what rewards are rightful and what are not?
Second, the value provided by the entrepreneur is as much in the transformation of the energy as the production of it.
If the author would like to go to the logical conclusion of those who produced something are the only ones who can rightfully reap reward from it, then only God can reap any reward from nature because all matter and energy was produced by God and humans only transform it. I suppose the author is a Christian?
Same critique as above. Author has not justified his conception of "rightful rewards". Nor have they recognized the true nature of the energy production process, which is really energy transformation.
By the author's logic, he himself belongs to the commons, because the material and energy needed to produce his own being did not come from himself.
Lastly, I find the whole topic pointless and pedantic.
You can argue til you're blue in the face "who owns the sun". The answer right now is no one because no one has the technology to exclude its use. But you can be damned sure that if such technology is developed, there will be those who will lay claim to the Sun, in which case the answer to "Who owns the Sun" is simply "Whoever has the means to exclude its use."
There isn't any point debating normative economics until you have a firm understanding of the positivistic realities.