Altho I have to admit, my biggest fantasy would be to own thousands of acres of land and keep it as prime wildlife habitat, no hunting, no human development, no housing. Ted Turner did just that with a sizable portion of some of his land, but alas allowed regulated hunting.....some places without people are just better.
Quite obviously, I deplore the concentration of more and more land assets, as well as other forms of wealth, in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
Your article made me recall the work of David Ricardo, a great British economist of the18th or 19th century.
RICARDO IS STILL RELEVANT TODAY.
Although David Ricardo was a capitalist, he was extremely critical of landowners.
Ricardo said that landlords would eventually suffocate the entire economy.
Ricardo explained that a landlord does not have to produce a damn thing to make money. All he must do is collect rent.]
Ricardo further explained that since land is finite, a growing economy, and a growing population, would lead inexorably to higher and higher rents.
There are so many myriad ways in which the economic, and ultimately political, power of landlords manifest itself. Consider three examples:
A) The tax structure gives land owners benefits and bargains -- or more accurately legalized steals -- that are the envy of all other businessmen.
B) Years ago, I worked for an organization known as the Fund For Modern Courts. I had to assess where Judicial candidates got their funds from. I found that 90 percent of the money, for candidates for judges of the various New York Courts, came from the real estate industry
C) In the 19th century, New York State enacted rules, still with us, regarding eviction proceedings. These rules expedited suits against tenants. Whereas ordinary suits often linger on for several years, a landlord suing a tenant, who does not know how to play hardball or does not have a lawyer, can throw that tenant into the streets in a little over a month.
There is an interesting passage in Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin of Ineqality” that speaks to this very issue. Here it is: “The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!” This illustrates a fundamental, basic truth, the land that composes the earth “belongs” to no one. “Ownership” in the case of land, as in any other case, is an invented concept. No one “owns” anything in any real situation apart from some sort of legal decree. And legal decrees are simply invented concepts. As I’m sure any animal (and we are basically all animals) understands, the use of territory on this planet is simply a matter of force; who, by virtue of their strength, can assert control of any space that they want. And the land within any territory on the face of the earth is assigned to those inhabiting it on the basis of the imperatives of the entity (the country) controlling it. Land use, basicly, is based on nothing more than force. (There is nothing more absurd in the contemporary political world than Israel’s assertion that their people were designated ownership of the land between the Jordan River and the Sea by “God.”)
In addition to this, there is one other aspect that needs to be addressed. Land trusts were established to protect farm land from urban development. To use these as an instrument to create individual housing on land that could be used for crop production is to bastardize the very nature of the concept. Yet another testament to how laws, and the lawyers, can twist anything to benefit the powerful.
Altho I have to admit, my biggest fantasy would be to own thousands of acres of land and keep it as prime wildlife habitat, no hunting, no human development, no housing. Ted Turner did just that with a sizable portion of some of his land, but alas allowed regulated hunting.....some places without people are just better.
It is disturbing that those with the most continue to profit from those with the least. Hasn’t it been that way forever? It is sad.
Quite obviously, I deplore the concentration of more and more land assets, as well as other forms of wealth, in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
Your article made me recall the work of David Ricardo, a great British economist of the18th or 19th century.
RICARDO IS STILL RELEVANT TODAY.
Although David Ricardo was a capitalist, he was extremely critical of landowners.
Ricardo said that landlords would eventually suffocate the entire economy.
Ricardo explained that a landlord does not have to produce a damn thing to make money. All he must do is collect rent.]
Ricardo further explained that since land is finite, a growing economy, and a growing population, would lead inexorably to higher and higher rents.
There are so many myriad ways in which the economic, and ultimately political, power of landlords manifest itself. Consider three examples:
A) The tax structure gives land owners benefits and bargains -- or more accurately legalized steals -- that are the envy of all other businessmen.
B) Years ago, I worked for an organization known as the Fund For Modern Courts. I had to assess where Judicial candidates got their funds from. I found that 90 percent of the money, for candidates for judges of the various New York Courts, came from the real estate industry
C) In the 19th century, New York State enacted rules, still with us, regarding eviction proceedings. These rules expedited suits against tenants. Whereas ordinary suits often linger on for several years, a landlord suing a tenant, who does not know how to play hardball or does not have a lawyer, can throw that tenant into the streets in a little over a month.
There is an interesting passage in Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin of Ineqality” that speaks to this very issue. Here it is: “The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!” This illustrates a fundamental, basic truth, the land that composes the earth “belongs” to no one. “Ownership” in the case of land, as in any other case, is an invented concept. No one “owns” anything in any real situation apart from some sort of legal decree. And legal decrees are simply invented concepts. As I’m sure any animal (and we are basically all animals) understands, the use of territory on this planet is simply a matter of force; who, by virtue of their strength, can assert control of any space that they want. And the land within any territory on the face of the earth is assigned to those inhabiting it on the basis of the imperatives of the entity (the country) controlling it. Land use, basicly, is based on nothing more than force. (There is nothing more absurd in the contemporary political world than Israel’s assertion that their people were designated ownership of the land between the Jordan River and the Sea by “God.”)
In addition to this, there is one other aspect that needs to be addressed. Land trusts were established to protect farm land from urban development. To use these as an instrument to create individual housing on land that could be used for crop production is to bastardize the very nature of the concept. Yet another testament to how laws, and the lawyers, can twist anything to benefit the powerful.