Founding
Fathers, First Families
As a country, we tend to honor the founders
of the country. And they should be honored, to the extent that they created
the framework for a society that works for all of us. But it is also useful
to notice that most of them were large landholders, and that they set things
up in ways that were profitable and advantageous to their class. Their
heirs tended to have a lot of land, often very good land. Fortunes were
made on that land, and their slaves and their tenants were the losers in
the equation. And today, there are important remnants of what they set
up which still disadvantage most people with respect to land.
And even when someone's ancestors braved a long trek in a time of less
infrastructure and little technology, does that entitle them to be treated
differently today, paid for by their more newly arrived neighbors?
How should we honor such claims to our labor today? Wealthandwant
contends that we must not, and that the way to correct the inequity — and
iniquity — is by placing our primary tax load onto the value of
our best land.
Rev. A. C. Auchmuty: Gems from George,
a themed collection of
excerpts from the writings of Henry George (with links to sources)
THE general subjection of the many to the few, which we meet with wherever
society has reached a certain development, has resulted from the appropriation
of land as individual property. It is the ownership of the soil that
everywhere gives the ownership of the men that live upon it. It is slavery
of this kind to which the enduring pyramids and the colossal monuments
of Egypt yet bear witness, and of the institution of which we have, perhaps,
a vague tradition in the biblical story of the famine during which the
Pharaoh purchased up the lands of the people. It was slavery of this
kind to which, in the twilight of history, the conquerors of Greece reduced
the original inhabitants of that peninsula, transforming them into helots
by making them pay rent for their lands. It was the growth of the latifundia,
or great landed estates, which transmuted the population of ancient Italy
from a race of hardy husbandmen, whose robust virtues conquered the world,
into a race of cringing bondsmen; it was the appropriation of the land
as the absolute property of their chieftains which gradually turned the
descendants of free and equal Gallic, Teutonic and Hunnish warriors into
colonii and villains, and which changed the independent burghers of Sclavonic
village communities into the boors of Russia and the serfs of Poland;
which instituted the feudalism of China and Japan, as well as that of
Europe, and which made the High Chiefs of Polynesia the all but absolute
masters of their fellows. How it came to pass that the Aryan shepherds
and warriors who, as comparative philology tells us, descended from the
common birth-place of the Indo-Germanic race into the lowlands of India,
were turned into the suppliant and cringing Hindoo, the Sanscrit verse
which I have before quoted gives us a hint. The white parasols and the
elephants mad with pride of the Indian Rajah are the flowers of grants
of land. — Progress & Poverty — Book
VII, Chapter 1, Justice of the Remedy: Injustice of private property
in land
TRACE to their root the causes that are thus producing want in the midst of plenty,
ignorance in the midst of intelligence, aristocracy in democracy, weakness in
strength — that are giving to our civilization a one-sided and unstable
development, and you will find it something which this Hebrew statesman three
thousand years ago perceived and guarded against. Moses saw that the real cause
of the enslavement of the masses of Egypt was, what has everywhere produced enslavement,
the possession by a class of the land upon which, and from which, the whole people
must live. He saw that to permit in land the same unqualified private ownership
that by natural right attaches to the things produced by labor, would be inevitably
to separate the people into the very rich and the very poor, inevitably to enslave
labor — to make the few the masters of. the many, no matter what the political
forms, to bring vice and degradation, no matter what the religion.
And with the foresight of the philosophic statesman who legislates not for the
need of a day, but for all the future, he sought, in ways suited to his times
and conditions, to guard against this error. — Moses
THE women who by the thousands are bending over their needles or sewing machines,
thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours a day; these widows straining and striving
to bring up the little ones deprived of their natural bread-winner; the children
that are growing up in squalor and wretchedness, under-clothed, under-fed, under-educated,
even in this city without any place to play — growing up under conditions
in which only a miracle can keep them pure — under conditions which condemn
them in advance to the penitentiary or the brothel — they suffer, they
die, because we permit them to be
robbed, robbed of their birthright, robbed by a system which disinherits the
vast majority of the children that come into the world. There is enough and to
spare for them. Had they the equal rights in the estate which their Creator has
given them, there would be no young girls forced to unwomanly toil to eke out
a mere existence, no widows finding it such a bitter, bitter struggle to put
bread in the mouths of their little children; no such misery and squalor as we
may see here in the greatest of American cities; misery and squalor that are
deepest in the largest and richest centers of our civilization today. — Thou
Shalt Not Steal ... go to "Gems from George"
Henry George: Coming Increase of Social Pressure (Chapter 3 of Social Problems, 1883)
[03] This westward expansion of population has gone on steadily since the
first settlement of the Eastern shore. It has been the great distinguishing
feature in the conditions of our people. Without its possibility we would have
been in nothing what we are. Our higher standard of wages and of comfort and
of average intelligence, our superior self-reliance, energy, inventiveness,
adaptability and assimilative power, spring as directly from this possibility
of expansion as does our unprecedented growth. All that we are proud of in
national life and national character comes primarily from our background of
unused land. We are but transplanted Europeans, and, for that matter mostly
of the "inferior classes." It is not usually those whose position
is comfortable and whose prospects are bright who emigrate; it is those who
are pinched and dissatisfied, those to whom no prospect seems open. There are
heralds' colleges in Europe that drive a good business in providing a certain
class of Americans with pedigrees and coats of arms; but it is probably well
for this sort of self-esteem that the majority of us cannot truly trace our
ancestry very far. We had some Pilgrim Fathers, it is true; likewise some Quaker
fathers, and other sorts of fathers; yet the majority even of the early settlers
did not come to America for "freedom to worship God," but because
they were poor, dissatisfied, unsuccessful, or recklessly adventurous — many
because they were evicted, many to escape imprisonment, many because they were
kidnapped, many as self-sold bondsmen, as indentured apprentices, or mercenary
soldiers. It is the virtue of new soil, the freedom of opportunity given by
the possibility of expansion, that has here transmuted into wholesome human
growth material that, had it remained in Europe, might have been degraded and
dangerous, just as in Australia the same conditions have made respected and
self-respecting citizens out of the descendants of convicts, and even out of
convicts themselves.
...
read the entire essay
Louis Post: Outlines of Louis F.
Post's Lectures, with Illustrative Notes and Charts (1894)
d. Effect of Confiscating Rent to Private Use.
By giving Rent to individuals society ignores this most just law, 99
thereby creating social disorder and inviting social disease. Upon society
alone, therefore, and not upon divine Providence which has provided bountifully,
nor upon the disinherited poor, rests the responsibility for poverty
and fear of poverty.
99. "Whatever dispute arouses the passions of
men, the conflict is sure to rage, not so much as to the question
'Is it wise?' as to the question 'Is it right?'
"This tendency of popular discussions to take
an ethical form has a cause. It springs from a law of the human mind;
it rests upon a vague and instinctive recognition of what is probably
the deepest truth we can grasp. That alone is wise which is just;
that alone is enduring which is right. In the narrow scale of individual
actions and individual life this truth may be often obscured, but
in the wider field of national life it everywhere stands out.
"I bow to this arbitrament, and accept this test." — Progress
and Poverty, book vii, ch. i.
The reader who has been deceived into believing that
Mr. George's proposition is in any respect unjust, will find profit
in a perusal of the entire chapter from which the foregoing extract
is taken.
Let us try to trace the connection by means of a chart, beginning with
the white spaces on page 68. As before, the first-comers take possession
of the best land. But instead of leaving for others what they do not
themselves need for use, as in the previous illustrations, they appropriate
the whole space, using only part, but claiming ownership of the rest.
We may distinguish the used part with red color, and that which is appropriated
without use with blue. Thus: [chart]
But what motive is there for appropriating more of the space than is
used? Simply that the appropriators may secure the pecuniary benefit
of future social growth. What will enable them to secure that? Our system
of confiscating Rent from the community that earns it, and giving it
to land-owners who, as such, earn nothing.100
100. It is reported from Iowa that a few years ago
a workman in that State saw a meteorite fall, and. securing possession
of it after much digging, he was offered $105 by a college for his "find." But
the owner of the land on which the meteorite fell claimed the money,
and the two went to law about it. After an appeal to the highest
court of the State, it was finally decided that neither by right
of discovery, nor by right of labor, could the workman have the money,
because the title to the meteorite was in the man who owned the land
upon which it fell.
Observe the effect now upon Rent and Wages. When other men come, instead
of finding half of the best land still common and free, as in the corresponding
chart on page 68, they find all of it owned, and are obliged either to
go upon poorer land or to buy or rent from owners of the best. How much
will they pay for the best? Not more than 1, if they want it for use
and not to hold for a higher price in the future, for that represents
the full difference between its productiveness and the productiveness
of the next best. But if the first-comers, reasoning that the next best
land will soon be scarce and theirs will then rise in value, refuse to
sell or to rent at that valuation, the newcomers must resort to land
of the second grade, though the best be as yet only partly used. Consequently
land of the first grade commands Rent before it otherwise would.
As the sellers' price, under these circumstances, is arbitrary it cannot
be stated in the chart; but the buyers' price is limited by the superiority
of the best land over that which can be had for nothing, and the chart
may be made to show it: [chart]
And now, owing to the success of the appropriators of the best land
in securing more than their fellows for the same expenditure of labor
force, a rush is made for unappropriated land. It is not to use it that
it is wanted, but to enable its appropriators to put Rent into their
own pockets as soon as growing demand for land makes it valuable.101
We may, for illustration, suppose that all the remainder of the second
space and the whole of the third are thus appropriated, and note the
effect: [chart]
At this point Rent does not increase nor Wages fall, because there is
no increased demand for land for use. The holding of inferior land for
higher prices, when demand for use is at a standstill, is like owning
lots in the moon — entertaining, perhaps, but not profitable. But
let more land be needed for use, and matters promptly assume a different
appearance. The new labor must either go to the space that yields but
1, or buy or rent from owners of better grades, or hire out. The effect
would be the same in any case. Nobody for the given expenditure of labor
force would get more than 1; the surplus of products would go to landowners
as Rent, either directly in rent payments, or indirectly through lower
Wages. Thus: [chart]
101. The text speaks of Rent only as a periodical
or continuous payment — what would be called "ground rent." But
actual or potential Rent may always be, and frequently is, capitalized
for the purpose of selling the right to enjoy it, and it is to selling
value that we usually refer when dealing in land.
Land which has the power of yielding Rent to its owner
will have a selling value, whether it be used or not, and whether
Rent is actually derived from it or not. This selling value will
be the capitalization of its present or prospective power of producing
Rent. In fact, much the larger proportion of laud that has a selling
value is wholly or partly unused, producing no Rent at all, or less
than it would if fully used. This condition is expressed in the chart
by the blue color.
"The capitalized value of land is the actuarial
'discounted' value of all the net incomes which it is likely to afford,
allowance being made on the one hand for all incidental expenses,
including those of collecting the rents, and on the other for its
mineral wealth, its capabilities of development for any kind of business,
and its advantages, material, social, and aesthetic, for the purposes
of residence." — Marshall's Prin., book vi, ch. ix, sec.
9.
"The value of land is commonly expressed as a
certain number of times the current money rental, or in other words,
a certain 'number of years' purchase' of that rental; and other things
being equal, it will be the higher the more important these direct
gratifications are, as well as the greater the chance that they and
the money income afforded by the land will rise." — Id.,
note.
"Value . . . means not utility, not any quality
inhering in the thing itself, but a quality which gives to the possession
of a thing the power of obtaining other things, in return for it
or for its use. . . Value in this sense — the usual sense — is
purely relative. It exists from and is measured by the power of obtaining
things for things by exchanging them. . . Utility is necessary to
value, for nothing can be valuable unless it has the quality of gratifying
some physical or mental desire of man, though it be but a fancy or
whim. But utility of itself does not give value. . . If we ask ourselves
the reason of . . . variations in . . . value . . . we see that things
having some form of utility or desirability, are valuable or not
valuable, as they are hard or easy to get. And if we ask further,
we may see that with most of the things that have value this difficulty
or ease of getting them, which determines value, depends on the amount
of labor which must be expended in producing them ; i.e., bringing
them into the place, form and condition in which they are desired.
. . Value is simply an expression of the labor required for the production
of such a thing. But there are some things as to which this is not
so clear. Land is not produced by labor, yet land, irrespective of
any improvements that labor has made on it, often has value. . .
Yet a little examination will show that such facts are but exemplifications
of the general principle, just as the rise of a balloon and the fall
of a stone both exemplify the universal law of gravitation. . . The
value of everything produced by labor, from a pound of chalk or a
paper of pins to the elaborate structure and appurtenances of a first-class
ocean steamer, is resolvable on analysis into an equivalent of the
labor required to produce such a thing in form and place; while the
value of things not produced by labor, but nevertheless susceptible
of ownership, is in the same way resolvable into an equivalent of
the labor which the ownership of such a thing enables the owner to
obtain or save." — Perplexed Philosopher, ch. v.
The figure 1 in parenthesis, as an item of Rent, indicates potential
Rent. Labor would give that much for the privilege of using the space,
but the owners hold out for better terms; therefore neither Rent nor
Wages is actually produced, though but for this both might be.
In this chart, notwithstanding that but little space is used, indicated
with red, Wages are reduced to the same low point by the mere appropriation
of space, indicated with blue, that they would reach if all the space
above the poorest were fully used. It thereby appears that under a system
which confiscates Rent to private uses, the demand for land for speculative
purposes becomes so great that Wages fall to a minimum long before they
would if land were appropriated only for use.
In illustrating the effect of confiscating Rent to private use we have
as yet ignored the element of social growth. Let us now assume as before
(page 73), that social growth increases the productive power of the given
expenditure of labor force to 100 when applied to the best land, 50 when
applied to the next best, 10 to the next, 3 to the next, and 1 to the
poorest. Labor would not be benefited now, as it appeared to be when
on page 73 we illustrated the appropriation of land for use only, although
much less land is actually used. The prizes which expectation of future
social growth dangles before men as the rewards of owning land, would
raise demand so as to make it more than ever difficult to get land. All
of the fourth grade would be taken up in expectation of future demand;
and "surplus labor" would be crowded out to the open space
that originally yielded nothing, but which in consequence of increased
labor power now yields as much as the poorest closed space originally
yielded, namely, 1 to the given expenditure of labor force.102 Wages
would then be reduced to the present productiveness of the open space.
Thus: [chart]
102. The paradise to which the youth of our country
have so long been directed in the advice, "Go West, young man,
go West," is truthfully described in "Progress and Poverty," book
iv, ch. iv, as follows :
"The man who sets out from the eastern seaboard
in search of the margin of cultivation, where he may obtain land
without paying rent, must, like the man who swam the river to get
a drink, pass for long distances through half-titled farms, and
traverse vast areas of virgin soil, before he reaches the point
where land can be had free of rent — i.e., by homestead entry
or preemption."
If we assume that 1 for the given expenditure of labor force is the
least that labor can take while exerting the same force, the downward
movement of Wages will be here held in equilibrium. They cannot fall
below 1; but neither can they rise above it, no matter how much productive
power may increase, so long as it pays to hold land for higher values.
Some laborers would continually be pushed back to land which increased
productive power would have brought up in productiveness from 0 to 1,
and by perpetual competition for work would so regulate the labor market
that the given expenditure of labor force, however much it produced,
could nowhere secure more than 1 in Wages.103 And this tendency would
persist until some labor was forced upon land which, despite increase
in productive power, would not yield the accustomed living without increase
of labor force. Competition for work would then compel all laborers to
increase their expenditure of labor force, and to do it over and over
again as progress went on and lower and lower grades of land were monopolized,
until human endurance could go no further.104 Either that, or they would
be obliged to adapt themselves to a lower scale of living.105
103. Henry Fawcett, in his work on "Political
Economy," book ii, ch. iii, observes with reference to improvements
in agricultural implements which diminish the expense of cultivation,
that they do not increase the profits of the farmer or the wages
of his laborers, but that "the landlord will receive in addition
to the rent already paid to him, all that is saved in the expense
of cultivation." This is true not alone of improvements in agriculture,
but also of improvements in all other branches of industry.
104. "The cause which limits speculation in commodities,
the tendency of increasing price to draw forth additional supplies,
cannot limit the speculative advance in land values, as land is a
fixed quantity, which human agency can neither increase nor diminish;
but there is nevertheless a limit to the price of land, in the minimum
required by labor and capital as the condition of engaging in production.
If it were possible to continuously reduce wages until zero were
reached, it would be possible to continuously increase rent until
it swallowed up the whole produce. But as wages cannot be permanently
reduced below the point at which laborers will consent to work and
reproduce, nor interest below the point at which capital will be
devoted to production, there is a limit which restrains the speculative
advance of rent. Hence, speculation cannot have the same scope to
advance rent in countries where wages and interest are already near
the minimum, as in countries where they are considerably above it.
Yet that there is in all progressive countries a constant tendency
in the speculative advance of rent to overpass the limit where production
would cease, is, I think, shown by recurring seasons of industrial
paralysis." — Progress and Poverty, book iv, ch. iv.
105. As Puck once put it, "the man who makes
two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, must not be
surprised when ordered to 'keep off the grass.' "
They in fact do both, and the incidental disturbances of general readjustment
are what we call "hard times." 106 These culminate in forcing
unused land into the market, thereby reducing Rent and reviving industry.
Thus increase of labor force, a lowering of the scale of living, and
depression of Rent, co-operate to bring on what we call "good times." But
no sooner do "good times" return than renewed demands for land
set in, Rent rises again, Wages fall again, and "hard times" duly
reappear. The end of every period of "hard times" finds Rent
higher and Wages lower than at the end of the previous period.107
106. "That a speculative advance in rent or land
values invariably precedes each of these seasons of industrial depression
is everywhere clear. That they bear to each other the relation of
cause and effect, is obvious to whoever considers the necessary relation
between land and labor." — Progress and Poverty, book
v, ch. i.
107. What are called "good times" reach
a point at which an upward land market sets in. From that point there
is a downward tendency of wages (or a rise in the cost of living,
which is the same thing) in all departments of labor and with all
grades of laborers. This tendency continues until the fictitious
values of land give way. So long as the tendency is felt only by
that class which is hired for wages, it is poverty merely; when the
same tendency is felt by the class of labor that is distinguished
as "the business interests of the country," it is "hard
times." And "hard times" are periodical because land
values, by falling, allow "good times" to set it, and
by rising with "good times" bring "hard times" on
again. The effect of "hard times" may be overcome, without
much, if any, fall in land values, by sufficient increase in productive
power to overtake the fictitious value of land.
The dishonest and disorderly system under which society confiscates
Rent from common to individual uses, produces this result. That maladjustment
is the fundamental cause of poverty. And progress, so long as the maladjustment
continues, instead of tending to remove poverty as naturally it should,
actually generates and intensifies it. Poverty persists with increase
of productive power because land values, when Rent is privately appropriated,
tend to even greater increase. There can be but one outcome if this continues:
for individuals suffering and degradation, and for society destruction.
... read the book
Walter Rybeck: What
Affordable Housing Problem?
Like all creatures — goldfinches,
squirrels, butterflies, cicadas — we humans are squatters on
this planet. We all need a part of earth for
shelter, nourishment, a work site and a place to raise the next
generation. Otherwise we perish. ...
In the 1980s, Washington, D.C., was concerned about its growing army of
homeless. At that time I found there were 8,000 boarded-up dwelling
units in our Nation's Capital — more than enough to accommodate
some 5,000 street people. I also found there were 11,500 privately owned
vacant lots in the District of Columbia, mostly zoned for and suitable
for homes or apartments. Decent housing on these sites held in cold
storage would have provided an alternative for the many low-income
families squatting in places that were overcrowded, overpriced, overrun
with vermin and overloaded with safety hazards.
These issues spurred my research described in a 1988 report, "Affordable Housing — A Missing Link."
Evidence from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and other
sources over a 30-year period revealed the following average cost
increases of items that go into the building and maintenance of housing:
- Wages of general building construction workers rose 14
percent a year.
- Wages of special trade construction workers rose 11
percent a year.
- Construction material costs rose 11.5 percent a year.
- Combined wage-materials-managerial costs for residential
building rose 12.5 percent a year.
- Fuel and utility costs for housing rose 13.8 percent a
year. All
of these costs closely tracked the Consumer Price Index which, over
these same 30 years, rose by 12 percent a year. According to those
figures, housing prices and housing rents apparently were held in check
Why do those statistics not seem to jibe with what you have been told,
seen with your own eyes, and felt in your own pocketbooks?
- How to explain that, during the last decade of my research
period, U.S.
households with serious housing problems increased from 19 to 24
millions?
- What caused the portion of renters paying more than 35
percent of their
income for housing doubled from 21 to 41 percent during the last two
decades of the study period?
- Why were over 2.4 million renters paying 60 percent or
more of their income for rent?
The
answers would be obvious except that, so far, I have not mentioned
what happened to the price of the land that housing sits on. Many of
those who talk and write about housing conveniently overlook the fact
that housing does not exist in mid air but is attached to the land, and
that the price of this land has gone through the stratosphere.
In contrast to those 11- to 14-percent annual increases in
housing-related costs, residential land values nationwide rose almost
80 percent a year, or almost 2000 percent over those three
decades. ...
A close friend in
Bethesda bought a house and lot there 40 years ago
for $20,000. Two months ago he sold the property for a cool half
million. That 2400 percent increase was entirely land value. The buyer
immediately demolished the house to put up a larger one, so he clearly
paid half a million for the location value — the land value — alone.
Officials, civic leaders and commentators who bemoan the lack of
affordable housing nevertheless applaud each rise in real estate values
as a sign of prosperity. Seeing their own assets multiply through no
effort of their own apparently makes them forget the teachers, firemen,
police and low-income people who are boxed out of a place to squat in
their cities and neighborhoods. ...
Many of our
Founding Fathers, George Washington included, had amassed huge estates.
But the property tax induced them to sell off excess lands they were
not using. ...
One
of the many virtues of a tax on land values is that it can be
introduced gradually. Cities that take this incremental approach report
that homeowners-voters-taxpayers hardly notice the change. What's important in modernizing
your taxation is not the speed of change but the direction you choose.
If you keep the present tax system with its disincentives for compact
and wholesome growth, you will experience the treadmill effect that has
been so familiar in so-called urban and housing "solutions." You will
have to keep running faster and faster with patchwork remedies to keep
from sliding backward.
A caution. Revising taxes as proposed
here will not end the need for
housing subsidies, at least not in the short run, but it will do three
things that should greatly reduce subsidies.
- One, by deflating land costs it will enable the private
market to offer homes and sites at lower costs.
- Two, this will shrink the number of families needing
subsidies.
- Three, it will stretch subsidy dollars farther because
sites for publicly assisted housing can be acquired far more cheaply.
In Conclusion, I have tried to show that America has a housing land
problem, not an affordable housing problem. This problem can be
substantially alleviated by freeing the market of anti-enterprise taxes
and by turning the property tax right
side up -- that is, by dropping
tax rates on housing and by raising them on publicly-created land
values. Read the whole article
Fred E. Foldvary — The
Ultimate Tax Reform:
Public Revenue from Land Rent
Land value taxation was viewed favorably by
the classical economists, starting with Adam Smith, who wrote, “Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land,
are, therefore, perhaps, the species of revenue which can best bear to have
a particular tax imposed upon them. Ground-rents seem, in this respect, a more
proper subject of particular taxation than even the ordinary rent of land.”14
In the late 1700s, Thomas Spence proposed communities made up of leaseholds,
thus financing community expenses from the rent, an idea advanced later by
Ebenezer Howard, who influenced the design of residential associations in the
twentieth century.
Thomas Jefferson believed “the Earth is given as a common stock for
men to labour and live on.”15 In 1797, he suggested “a land tax
supply the means by which the individual States were to contribute their quotas
of revenue to the Federal Government.”16
From 1778 to the adoption of the U.S.
Constitution in 1789, the United States was governed by the Articles
of Confederation. Article VII stated the
expenses of the Confederation shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,
which shall be supplied by the several states, in proportion to the value
of all land within each state, granted
to or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements
thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States
in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The
taxes for paying
that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction
of the legislatures of the several states within the time agreed upon
by the United
States in Congress assembled.17
Thus, the states would levy taxes and each would pass on a share of the federal
budget based on its land value. Individuals would pay taxes only to their state
and local governments.18
Thomas Paine, the eighteenth century political
philosopher and activist known for his important role in the American
Revolution, advocated in Agrarian Justice
that land rent is the proper source of public revenue.19 Paine wrote, “it
is the value of the improvements only, and not the Earth itself, that is individual
property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land owes to the community
a ground-rent, for I know no better term to express the idea by, for the land
which he holds ...”20
Bill Batt: The Compatibility
of Georgist Economics and Ecological Economics
In the
Georgist context a titleholder has the right to ownership of land in usufruct,
but not in fee simple. As long as an owner uses land and other elements
of nature in accord with the rules and laws of society, one retains a possessory
interest. That interest extends to the privilege to use land for
all purposes consistent with its proper maintenance and care. It extends
even in some cases to the right to preclude others from any trespass at
all. But what it typically does not include is the right
to any speculative gain that would follow from title in freehold, or the
right to use land beyond what it is capable of sustaining. Use implies
that its quality is not diminished for the future availability of others,
and that there is an obligation for the user to pay to society a just price
in exchange for such use. One had no right, for example, to strip a forest
of its trees. Enough is known now about the arrangements of land ownership
and use in comparative perspective to assert with confidence that the historical
practice of title in fee simple or freehold has been far more the exception
than rule.20 Taking the
long view of history, title in usufruct has been by far the more common
pattern of ownership of natural resources, except where Roman jurisprudence
and its offspring have spread throughout the world and come to dominate.
In the United States, the definition of real property as explicated
in the legal Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone may have been pivotal in
the adoption of freehold interpretations of ownership over leasehold.21 For several
years after this nation was founded which system of title would prevail hung
in the balance.22 Thomas Paine
was certainly an advocate of the latter,23 as was Jefferson.24 Hamilton, on
the other hand, was a defender of propertied interests and titles in fee simple,
and especially to his in-laws, the landowning families of upstate New York
known as the Patroons.25 Leaseholds
were used in several of the colonies, with the fees paid to governors.26 ... read the whole article
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