Comment by mohamedkoubaa

Prior to the enclosure period of English common law, land was assumed to be available to the private use of government subjects. The American West was the same before it was swallowed by the US government. The current situation is provably less free along this dimension. You could argue that this is not important relative to other things (this is a value judgement), or that things done outside of the state are outside of the discussion (this is a a fallacy, a lot of things once outside of the state find themselves inside it today), or you could say that this does not account for intra-community conflict between settlers and natives (this is a straw man)