If a person must cross a piece of land to access another piece of land for access because there are no direct roads, wouldn't an easement be in order?

…wouldn't an easement be in order?

What's an "easement"?

ease·ment, n

- (law) the privilege of using something that is not your own (as using another's land as a right of way to your own land)

- Law. A right, such as a right of way, afforded a person to make limited use of another's real property

- (Law) A liberty, privilege, or advantage, which one proprietor has in the estate of another proprietor, distinct from the ownership of the soil, as a way, water course, etc. It is a species of what the civil law calls servitude. --Kent

- an interest in land owned by another that entitles its holder to a specific limited use or enjoyment (as the right to cross the land or have a view continue unobstructed over it) —see also dominant estate and servient estate

- affirmative easement
: an easement entitling a person to do something affecting the land of another that would constitute trespass or a nuisance if not for the easement

- easement by implication
: an easement that is created by operation of law when an owner severs property into two parcels in such a way that an already existing, obvious, and continuous use of one parcel (as for access) is necessary for the reasonable enjoyment of the other parcel called also easement by necessity implied easement way of necessity

The question would be whether an easement is acceptable in a libertarian institution. As a practical matter, I think it would be. Sure, you can be very hard ass about access via your (monopoly) roads but let's face it, the practical result of such actions is a neighbor war, an ugly phenomenon where vehicle unfriendly "trash" (nail studded boards and other modern caltrops) would "mysteriously" appear on the road, making the road practically unusable without a paramilitary hazard clearance every few hours.

I would think that property that did not have easement agreements (inholders essentially) would collapse in market value so any privatization agreement to privatize roads would have to write easements into the sale otherwise what's happening is a massive, unpaid government taking at time of sale of value from the easement-less property holders.

In other words, the problem, as is so often the case in privatization "problems" is an artifact of improper government action. You would only get to the point of being hostilely surrounded without easement when you've been a victim of government theft as your easement rights in the public system were sold without you being justly compensated for them.

My problem with such arrangements is that (presumably) when you got round to privatising the road you would have to include in such "easements" all the existing rights eg access, access in a motor vehicle at all times at no cost, parking. The problem being that by the time you've lumped all these in it would be almost impossible to do anything.

I don't see any hard and fast rules about parking, snow removal, garbage collection, etc. but I think that if you have rights under the old system but lose them in the new, that is, in effect, a taking. Takings should be compensated, even partial takings. If you don't want to compensate, don't take.