I have a friend with family in Venezuela. A few years ago, Chavez decided that underutilized land is suddenly free for the poor to squat on. Their family member had bought the land after saving a long time, and was now saving for the funds to build a house on the land. Now the land is gone.
Land is a bit different; there is a fixed supply, and you are not sovereign over it (unless you're the prince of a principality). Depending on the legal system of the country you're in, your ownership isn't really ownership to do with as you see fit - you normally can't pollute on it, can't build without permission, often don't own it all the way to the core of the earth, almost never own all the space above it, etc.
The GP's analogy is extremely weak.