Do humans have a right to use land?

[Anders Hoveland]

One argument that is often made against helping the poor is that it is wrong to tax the wealthy, and that the poor have no right to any wealth. In this post, I would like to suggest that the poor may be entittled to compensation from the land and natural resources which are being withheld from them.

 

"The deadliest form of violence is poverty" - Ghandi

 

"The earth is the general and equal possession of all humanity and therefore cannot be the property of individuals." - Leo Tolstoy

 

"When the 'sacredness of property' is talked of, it should always be remembered, that any such sacredness dos not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land. It is the orginal inheritance of the whole species.. It is no hardship to any one to be excluded from what others have produced ... But it is some hardship to be born into the world and to find all nature's gifts previously engrossed, and no place left for the new-comer ... To me it seems almost an axiom that property in land should be interpreted strictly, and that the balance in all cases of doubt should incline against the properitor." - John Stuart Mill

 

"Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself." - John Locke

 

"Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right." - Thomas Jefferson

 

"Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property." - Ayn Rand

 

"So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied." - Niccolo Machiavelli

 

"Don't you know that if people could bottle the air they would? Don't you know that there would be an American Air-bottling Association? And don't you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is." - Robert Ingersoll

 

"Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it." - G.K. Chesterton

 

"Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them." - Henry David Thoreau

 

"Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail." - Abraham Lincoln

 

"The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." - Jean Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

 

"In my opinion, the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument." - Milton Friedman

 

"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce." - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

 

"A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent." - Adam Smith

 

 

I am not trying to use this philosophy to justify anything extreme, just to suggest that there should be a land value tax on the unimproved value of land and natural resources, and that each person (at least within the country) deserves to be given a payment for being deprived of such land and natural resources. The tax could be used both to help fund the government, and to make the payments to citizens. This would be a fair and practical way to help reduce poverty.

 

Many economists think that income taxes create disincentives in the economy, so one solution to this potential problem would be to shift away from income tax, and start to use a land/natural resource value tax instead. If a person's land value taxes were less than his entittled compensation payment, he would not be liable to pay any land value tax. Which is to say that those who own less than the average price value of land, less than their "fair share", would not be required to pay such a tax.

[Phi for All]

One argument that is often made against helping the poor is that it is wrong to tax the wealthy, and that the poor have no right to any wealth. In this post, I would like to suggest that the poor may be entittled to compensation from the land and natural resources which are being withheld from them.

Really?! Often made? More than just the times you've made it on other forums (since those are the only places I found it on a Google search). I've never heard anyone say that it's wrong to tax the wealthy (not even the wealthy people I know). I've heard people say taxes in general are wrong, or too high, but they never seem able to tell me where the roads they drive on would come from. I've also never heard anyone say the poor have no right to any wealth. I've heard people say the poor have no right to THEIR wealth, and I can understand that viewpoint. However, I don't think enough of the common people would give a portion of their wealth for the poor unless it was mandated by taxes.

 

Who is withholding land and natural resources from the poor? I think it's rather the case that education is being withheld, something that could help the poor get rich enough to buy some land. Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to give everyone a better education so they could become as wealthy as they wanted to?

 

And can you define "land", please? Is the quarter acre most suburban homes sit on enough, or are we talking about several acres? 160 acres? Who gets to decide where my land is? Is this land going to have utilities on it so I can build a home? Will there be roads connecting my land to the nearest city?

 

I guess I would have to say that, if my taxes could pay for a K through college level education for everyone who wanted it, then, barring some disability, I think a person doesn't deserve the land he should have the right to buy if he won't earn the money required by law.

[jeskill]

 

 

Who is withholding land and natural resources from the poor? I think it's rather the case that education is being withheld, something that could help the poor get rich enough to buy some land. Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to give everyone a better education so they could become as wealthy as they wanted to?

 

 

Land is being taken from the poor at a fairly high rate.

 

Specific examples include Uganda, Latin America, and Indonesia.

[Anders Hoveland]

Only useful education helps create more wealth.

 

But it seems that most forms of education is modern society are not useful, only competitive demonstrations of competency. In this sense then, education does not help create more wealth, but rather, in a way, is a waste of time and resources.

 

While on the scale of an individual, education leads to a higher personal income, this is not necessarily the case in society. Education often only leads to higher income because the employer would rather give the good paying jobs to those that have more education. So if other people obtain higher educational credentials, it will just mean lower incomes for the people that do not have such credentials.

 

I believe this misunderstanding is referred to as the fallacy of composition. And the phenomena of economic disincentives caused by non-practical overeducation in a society has been given the name credentialism.

 

A society only needs a small portion of individuals to be educated in science, medicine, or advanced mathematics. Trying to teach a greater number of people these specialised areas of knowledge will not benefit society.