I cannot see how the homesteading implementation in the U.S. was anything but almost the opposite of 'socialist'.

I happen to live on property which was homesteaded around the turn of the century by my direct relatives though I had to buy back a fair chunk of the original.  Yes, there was emphasis on developing granted land, but the benefits accrued to the grantee almost totally.  Naturally there were expected to be taxes paid, but the main benefit to society was very much as Elwar mentioned in an earlier post; individual owners operating in their own best interest would produce products and jobs which would support society as a whole.

My recent outrageous hassles with the EPA (or DEQ in my state) were indistinguishable from racketeering and very far from 'environmental protection.'  This got me researching just what the fuck is going on.  An amazing document I ran across is Habitat-I - Land which is well worth a read (quick and easy:)

The interesting thing is that whatever one's level of agreement with the overlying rationals (and a green friend of mine said "Nobody believes that!') the prescriptions called out in the document are an exact match for how our policies and the bureaucracies built up to implement them operate today.

I also read 'Agenda 21'.  It was the most tedious goddamn thing I've ever tried to wade through.  It clearly came out of Vancouver above, but was a little more sedate it being recognized that certain cultures would have difficulties with the core (socialist) philosophies which drive the action plan.  Agenda 21 is certainly a real thing but it does not call for mass euthanasia as some of the more shrill in the alternate media would have one believe.  Here again, in analyzing policy and structures there is no doubt in my mind that:

  - Agenda 21 is being implemented very actively indeed
  - it is the embodiment of 'socialism' in our modern world.
  - it is successful precisely because it serves the 'corporate oligarch neo-fascist capitalists' extraordinarily well, and
  - it sucks.

The funniest thing about Agenda-21 is that almost every fucking directive had the words 'especially women and indigenous peoples' tacked on.  Whoever wrote 'The Life of Brian' with Stan adding 'and women' onto everything was almost certainly familiar with editorial style of those who generated the Agenda-21 action plan.  More seriously, one Rosa Koire characterized Agenda-21 as accurately as anyone I've seen; A worldwide action plan of 'inventory and control' of all resources.

Again, socialism/collectivism as implemented today is pretty much the exact the opposite of homesteading of land back in the Lincoln's time (and before IIRC.)  That makes some sense since population densities and economies have changed, but it simply does not make any valid point about the Socialism v. Libertarianism or any other -ism, and to the extent that it does it makes a rather devastating one against the suggestion.