Monday 29 March 2010

It might be said that some people have not left enough land to others

The problem which creates issues to do with land rights is that other people own the land, to excess. If we are born into a world where all of the land is owned by someone else and they choose not to sell any of it to us, then we have no choice, if we want to eat, to either rent a field, or to work for one of the landowners in the hope that we will be able to purchase food.

The problem is that such a person is not being granted their natural rights to land which is being denied by the ownership held by other people. The Earth is finite so there is no way around this without restricting the ownership of the aristocratic (as far as land ownership is concerned) class.

The issue is not that others own too much, we are not jealous, instead that not enough land is left to the remainder, as has already been suggested by John Locke...
Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and as good left, and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself. For he that leaves as much as another can make use of does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same.
But to what extent is one person able to feel guilt for taking too much land when so many do the same, and so many take much more? It is a 'class' of people who are at fault? The individual feels no particular remorse because they are surrounded by so many other people doing the same, or worse. If accused, they will point to the others around them who take more land than they themselves are taking.

A sufficiency of land must be left to those who have none, to allow natural justice to take place.

Rather than to accuse those with an excess of land of having too much we should say that they have not left enough for the rest of the population, for it is not their fault, but that of God, or should we say Nature, that there is only a finite amount.

If we have not left enough land for others, then we might justifiably be encouraged to divest some of it, either by giving it away, or selling it for a cheap price.

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