How US libertarians vote
A while ago, regular commenter JC raised the question of how a libertarian would vote in America. Interesting, the Cato Institute has been doing work on the same question.
In their paper called “The Libertarian Vote“, David Boaz and David Kirby first look through various surveys to find the size of the libertarian vote. While only 1-2% of Americans self-identify as libertarians, the survey responses indicated that over 10% of Americans could be considered broadly libertarian.
Mineral Rights
Under Australian law all minerals in the ground belong to the state or federal governments. If you own land you do not own any petroleum or minerals buried within the land and the government can force you off your land (with compensation) in order to access the minerals buried below. Owning land in Australia merely means that you have a right to use the surface, not what is buried below.
Australia is not unique in this regard. In fact only one nation on Earth (the USA) aligns general land ownership with ownership of mineral rights. As a result the USA has half of all the worlds oil wells. Ownership of mineral rights is a primary motivator for exploration and extraction in the USA.
Aboriginal Land Rights are an exception to the rule. On aboriginal lands the mineral rights often belong to the aboriginal collective that owns the land.
It is an open question as to whether Australia is under performing in the minerals sector due to government ownership of mineral rights?
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