Saturday 16 January 2010

The poor are owed a land dividend

Property is derived from a payment to exclude others, but if the item is made by our own hand we owe nothing because it is not a cost to others. If we claim land we do deprive others of its use and so we must make an arrangement which is suitable for the group as a whole...

It's not ownership if we pay someone to stay away from a patch of land... which can be thought of as renting the land from the common good. If we each have a similar plot then the rent due from and to each of us cancels out and nothing is owed; we have harmony. If someone is excluded from too great a proportion of the land then it is right that they be compensated for having an insufficient share of the land.

We don't own our clothes, but no one is owed rent for them because we are the creators of the clothes...

Your clothes are not owned by other people and they would be initiating violence if they chose to take, or use the clothes.

We do, however, owe rent on the land that we use and if someone has an excess amount then others are owed a dividend. If someone has not been paid sufficiently to stay off the land, it is not initiating violence to stray onto the land. We are not obligated to respect property rights if we have not been properly compensated. A land dividend is due from the wealthy but also a land dividend is due to all. We owe if we have much more land than the typical, acceptable quantity. This would compensate land inequality.

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