Libertarian Land Philosophy:
Man's Eternal Dilemma
Oscar B. Johannsen, Ph.D.
BOOK VII: RESULT OF STATE'S INTERFERENCE
Chapter 3 - War
One of the most perplexing and heinous activities of man is this
organized mass murder called war in which he seems to be constantly
engaged. On the one hand, he loathes war, yet, on the other hand, he
engages in it, and so often that some assume that man is by nature
aggressive and that war, rather than peace, is his normal desire.
If this be true, then man's condition is hopeless for no matter what
he does to improve the environment and conditions under which he
lives, no matter what is done to elevate the desires and aims of man,
if he Is by nature aggressive, then he will continue to engage in this
mass murder.
But if he is naturally aggressive, would he be making so many efforts
for peace? The history of the world is replete with organizations,
treaties and programs to attain perpetual peace. Men In all fields and
in all ages have advanced suggestions. The great philosopher, Immanuel
Kant. developed a program in his tractate, "Perpetual Peace".
He wryly pointed out, however, that these words were the "satirical
inscription on a Dutch innkeeper's sign upon which a burial ground was
painted". But the peace which man seeks is not that of death but
of life. If that is so, then why does he engage in war?
Apparently, man is the only species which wages war on its own kind.
The lower animals feed on other species; they may fight one another
over mates; they may even sometimes kill their own young, but they do
not engage In organized wars on their own kind as man does.
The lower animals kill to survive. It appears to be a law of nature.
However, once they have filled their stomachs, they are prone to
ignore other animals and are content to leave well enough alone until
they are hungry again. If they do hunt in packs, as wolves do, it is
for the purpose of obtaining food. They kill in order to live.
On an individual basis, men do not seem to be much different from the
lower animals as regards killing one another. Men occasionally indulge
in cannibalism, but this is usually the result of extreme privation
and hunger which it is impossible to alleviate by normal means. It may
also be due to superstition and to primitive religious beliefs that by
eating the body of some heroic enemy warrior his spirit may be
assimilated by the eater.
And men do kill one another over mates and for reasons of passion, as
envy and hate. But the amount of killing on an individual basis is
small. In comparison to the killing In major wars, as World War I with
its 18 million deaths and World War II, with its 10 million deaths,
murders by individuals are insignificant.
It is when men organize into groups known as States that the killing
of their own kind reaches such astounding figures. And if history is
to be believed, men engage in organized killing for some of the most
trivial and preposterous reasons imaginable. Mythology asserts that
the Trojan War was fought because Paris enticed Helen of Troy from her
husband. Americans were propagandized into the ludicrous belief that
they were entering the ghastly bloodbath of World War I to make the
world safe for democracy. While the Versailles Treaty, with its
cynical division of the spoils among the European victors, awakened
them from their dreams, it did not prevent them from entering upon the
even more sanguinary conflict of World War II.
It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the causes of war are
complex. Historians will argue ad infinitum as to which are the major
causes for wars of the past. Although some of the ancient historians
seem to have given short shrift to economic causes, today economics
usually looms large in any evaluation of the reasons men engage so
often in these gory carnages.
In analyzing the economic factors of war, this writer wonders if
enough attention has been given to the land. No doubt, this writer is
biased. Nonetheless, it does appear to him that the land and how it is
dealt with is the common thread which seems to run through most, if
not all, wars, directly or indirectly.
It also appears to the writer that this is the most important cause
of most wars. It is not, by any means, the only cause, but so
important as to warrant much more careful analysis of it than
historians have given to it in the past.
Primitive tribes, engage in wars. Often they raid one another to find
mates, but any extensive war is more likely to be due to the need to
have access to land. If living conditions in an area deteriorate for
some reason, tribes will migrate to other land. If they are not
welcomed, or tolerated, they will fight for the right to remain.
Huntsmen and herdsmen apparently do not interfere with one another if
there is plenty of land available on which to hunt and feed their
flocks. But if unusual conditions occur due to drought, floods or
meteorological disturbances making it difficult to hunt or feed their
flocks, then, if necessary, a fight would ensue for whatever land they
felt they required. In the United States, there has been constant
physical and legal warfare between cattlemen and sheep herders to this
very day.
The interminable wars among lords, dukes and kings were primarily
over land. Whoever had control over any particularly desirable portion
always had to be on guard. Sooner or later, he knew someone else would
attempt to wrest it from him. Marco Polo, in the engaging story of his
travels, relates that in the 13th Century, Kubla Khan was constantly
warring in China to acquire more territory. He even tried to conquer
Japan. And he was always beset by his own subordinates and others.
Whenever they thought the time propitious, they would try to take away
a portion of the territory he controlled.
Are the wars which have been fought within the past several hundred
years any different fundamentally?
Every schoolboy knows that the American Revolution was fought for
such economic reasons as taxation without representation, the granting
of special privileges to the Britishers, the monopolization of
shipping by the British, and the levying of duties on a host of
products. But how many appreciate the important role that the land of
the Colonies and that west of the Alleghenies played? Many of the
settlers who had cleared land, made it productive, and considered it
to be their own found that they had failed to reckon with the King or
England. Quite blithely, he gave their land to his favorite parasites
or to his creditors. That someone was already on the land did not
deter him. The recipients of his favor, or their agents, sped to take
the land from the settlers. If in the goodness of their hearts, they
let them remain, they charged rent for it. And that kingly rogue
thoughtfully kept troops on hand to persuade the settlers of the just
ice of his actions.
For the most part, the Tories were the big landlords. They were hated
not only by their tenants but by small landlords, who often harassed
by them. The huge estates which they held were glittering prizes.
During the Revolution, their landed properties were wrested from them,
and divided among the settlers and soldiers by sale or gift. New York
confiscated the estates of fifty-five loyalists including the vast
Philipse manor of three hundred square miles, the 50,000 acre manor of
Sir John Johnson, and the holdings of James De Lancey, Roger Morris,
John T. Kemp, and Beverly Robinson. Pennsylvania confiscated the
immense estate of the Penn family, valued at 1,000,000 pounds.[1]
The land west of the Alleghenies was of particular importance. The
King wanted it for his sycophants and himself, whereas the Americans
wanted it for themselves. As for the Indians, they were callously
ignored by both the Americans and the British. In the South,
especially, the southern landlords looked with yearning eyes on this
land. They did not take kindly to the King capriciously donating such
land to whomever suited his fancy, particularly since apparently few
of the southern landowners suited him.
The incessant wars between the Americans and the Indians were over
the land. The white man made treaties with the Indians which he
impudently tore up whenever it appeared advantageous to him to do so.
The treaties guaranteed the Indians their rights to the land, but then
the white man brazenly stole it whenever he wanted it. Of course, the
white man did not really steal the land. He had as much right to it as
the Indians. But, instead of ruthlessly displacing the Indians, he
should have attempted to understand their view of the land and their
relationship to it. To the Indians, Mother Earth was an integral part
of their culture. To uproot them so unfeelingly was to deprive them
not only of their means of subsistence but to break them spiritually.
Had the white man made even the minimum of attempts to adopt some of
the Indians' concepts, which were far sounder than the white man's,
the continual warfare might never have occurred.
The purpose of the Mexican War was so obviously a land grab by the
United States that even the most unctuous of American apologists can
not defend it.
The psychopath, Hitler, was brutally frank. He wanted Lebensraum,
that is land which he felt the Germans needed. He waged the most
brutal of wars to get it from adjoining countries, and particularly
from the Soviet Union.
In the Vietnam War, it seems clear that the reason so many South
Vietnamese were apathetic is that most of the land was owned by
absentee landlords living in Saigon. The peasant had been rackrented
to death. No doubt, he probably looked upon the Americans as
mercenaries fighting to preserve the landlords' control over the land.
The communists cleverly exploited the desire of the peasants for land.
When they captured an area, they often gave the land to the peasants.
When the Americans regained control, the land was returned to the
absentee landlords. It is claimed that these landlords not only
demanded their rents but also demanded rents for the period when the
communists were in control. Is it any wonder that many South
Vietnamese had little interest in fighting? If they did fight, they
were only waging war for their further enslavement to these landlords.
The question which puzzles everyone is why the Americans were there?
They certainly did not want the land. The excuses advanced satisfied
no one except a chauvinist. The argument that it was to prevent the
spread of communism had a hollow ring to it. One might as well prevent
the spread of disease by blasting off atomic bombs. You cannot fight
false ideas with weapons. You fight them with truth.
America's involvement points up the fact that not only are the causes
of war complex, but may indicate that wars are sometimes fought not
for land itself, but as a result of internal problems largely produced
by the system of land tenure practiced.
When Mussolini headed Italy, as long as his support came from the big
landlords, he could not institute any viable land reform, even if he
had so desired. But the terrible poverty in Italy which was caused by
its system of land tenure made the problems of the poor increasingly
difficult and dangerous to the government. His solution was an age-old
one. Start a foreign adventure, which he did in Ethiopia. Why? Because
a war draws the surplus unemployed into the army. It creates an
armament industry which draws off more of the unemployed. At the same
time, the war tends to solidify sentiment around the government by
appeals to patriotism and fears of what will ensue if the war is lost.
It also enables the government to raise taxes from its allies, the
rich landowners, in order to prosecute the war.
It may well be that this is one of the principal reasons why some
countries which have no desire for more land still engage in war. The
economic conditions caused by an unjust system of land tenure become
so serious that there is danger of a revolt, either physical or at the
ballot box. So create an outside diversion. It does not necessarily
mean that the politicians may deliberately do this, although some
certainly do, as Mussolini did. It means that conditions arise which
seem to make it inevitable for a clash to occur.
Whenever a revolution erupts in one of the so-called underdeveloped
countries, it should not be surprising to discover that one of the
main causes is the system of land tenure. This may not be prominently
mentioned in the war dispatches as few journalists are economists.
However, the fact that the peasants are apathetic about aiding the
government may be a sign. The rebels may be demanding a change in
property relationships, although it may not be clear what changes are
desired. Often extraneous grievances complicate the situation. But,
almost invariably, the peasants want land for themselves and openly or
surreptitiously may be aiding the rebels.
The communists always promise the peasants that they may have the
land on which they and their ancestors have worked for years. Of
course, once the communists are in control, they live up to their
promises only long enough to solidify themselves in power. After that
has been attained, on the plea that modern techniques require large
scale enterprise, they usually seize the land and operate it on
collectivist principles.
Immigration harriers constitute a potential war threat. All men have
equal rights of access to any and all parts of the earth. For any
country deliberately to deny men access to the land over which it
claims sovereignty is to perpetrate an injustice. Of course, men do
not ordinarily think in terms of their right of access to the earth.
However, in a distorted way, they are vaguely aware of it. This is
evident when a nation claims it has the right to invade another one
for the land which it claims the other country is not using wisely.
Once man begins to segregate the land without taking into account the
rights of other men, the seeds of injustice have been sown which,
unless removed, will sprout into trouble sooner or later.
The progression may be along the following lines. Land is taken by
some men and divided up among them on first come, first served basis.
No consideration may be given to the fact that some land is better
than other land. Those who get the better land are considered
fortunate. But more people appear. They, too, want land, but it has
all been divided up.
What to do? The landlords may hire them, and this may serve for a
time. But as more enter the nation, the competition for the jobs which
the landlords offer grows. This tends to depress wages to the
subsistence level. The division between the landless and the landlords
becomes ever greater, as though a wedge was separating them. On the
top are a few with tremendous wealth. On the bottom are the masses,
barely able to make a living.
The division grows not only economically, but culturally. Because of
their wealth, the landlords are able to obtain the finest education
for themselves. They have the leisure time to invent not only
marvelous machines but to create works of art in the fields of drama,
poetry and music. If they cannot create such works themselves, they
can at least recognize genius or grant favors to and employ those of
the poor with the requisite ability to create masterpieces. But, at
any rate, the landlords do develop culturally. They fall into the
error of assuming that they are superior beings, and arrogate to
themselves titles to emphasize the distinction between themselves and
the rest of the people. They become convinced of their superiority by
noting how illiterate, possibly how unclean and apathetic the landless
may be. The wish being father to the thought, they conclude there is
some intrinsic defect in the masses. But the people are merely
suffering from lack of opportunity. They may not even be aware of
this. After generations of having been ground down, they may even
believe they are incapable of attaining the intellectual and cultural
level of the landlords, and so become resigned to their fate. However,
if conditions change and opportunities appear, these same people, or
at least their descendants, will raise themselves to the level of the
wealthier.
New Orleans was peopled by convicts and the dregs of society, as they
were called by the French. In order to get rid of them, the French
Government had deported them to the New World. In a few generations.
their descendants were the aristocracy of that fascinating metropolis.
In the freer atmosphere or America, with the greater opportunities
available as access to the land was easier, it was not long before the
innate capacities of these people and their children came to the fore.
As a nation grows, the problems of poverty and unemployment created
by the system of land tenure worsen. Superficially, it appears there
are too many people for the extent of land. So immigration barriers
are erected to prevent people from entering the country, but to no
avail. In the early 1920's, the United States stopped the steady
inflow of people from Europe and Asia, but that has not prevented
unemployment, poverty and depressions.[2]
Immigration barriers are as annoying to people as are fences to one's
neighbors. Instinctively, people feel they have as much right to be in
the country to which they wish to emigrate as those already there. If
requests to lower the barriers are ignored, they may raise an army and
smash the barriers by brute force. This is war.
Wars rarely solve problems on a permanent basis although temporarily
conditions may be improved. Many inhibiting rules and regulations
which had been imposed in vain attempts to alleviate the problems
raised by the unjust system of land tenure may be abolished. Economic
controls, as tariffs and quotas, may be eliminated. Possibly to secure
the cooperation of the landless poor, the conquerors may award some of
the land to them. It might well have been that prior to the invasion,
pacts may have been made with the poor, promising them land in return
for assistance. If the conquerors live up to their promises, the
distribution of the land among many people would tend to improve
conditions somewhat.
Although Americans made no deals with the Japanese poor, under
General MacArthur's relatively enlightened leadership, a certain
amount of land reform was enacted after World War II which contributed
substantially to Japan's post-war recovery.
However, with the passage of time, the old problems reassert
themselves for nothing fundamental has been changed. As long as land
is treated as though it were private property, sooner or later, the
old division will come into being. On the one hand there will be the
masses, mostly landless, living off their labor, unhappy and puzzled
why they are not able to rise in life. On the other hand, there will
be the landlords--mostly wealthy, well-educated, but also probably
vaguely unhappy. They are well aware that they may be dispossessed
from their position of power at any time by a revolt of the
discontented masses. Even if they are not overly concerned with this
eventuality, the condition of the people may disturb them. This may be
due to plain ordinary decency. After all, whether we are tenants or
landlords, we are human beings. Despite what the cynics may think,
within each of us is the desire to help the less fortunate. So,
landlords may practice charity to help alleviate the worst conditions.
Some of the wealthy, however, may degenerate, becoming deviates of one
kind or another, suffering from having too much wealth and lacking the
necessity of working for a living.
Despite all efforts to stay the process, the nation degenerates.
Cities decay. Prejudices rear their ugly heads. Riots flare up for the
most trivial reasons. No one knows exactly what is wrong. The
landlords look to the government to keep their priceless land-owning
privilege intact. They do not consider it a privilege. They consider
land-owning the most sacred kind of private property. After
generations have passed they have lost sight of the fact that land is
one thing and that wealth is something else.
The landless eventually become aware of the value of governmental
interference so they bring their demands on the administration in
power. But they do not ask for the government to sweep away all
privileges and establish conditions of laissez-faire. This is simply a
fair field to all with favors to none. They do not know why they do
not have the opportunity to develop. Their demands, thus, become
little better than asking for some privileges to counter-balance the
privileges of the wealthy class.
By this time, the government may consist of others besides members of
the landlord class. It may largely comprise professionals
administering the army, the raising of taxes, and the dispensation of
justice. They are eager to heighten their prestige. The demands of the
landless, with the consequent expansion of governmental functions, are
a heaven-sent opportunity. So, a bureaucracy mushrooms administering
the welfare state. The landless are given more goodies in the form of
unemployment insurance, medical care, social security and other social
gains. And the government waxes ever more powerful.
An internal fight arises between the propertied class and the
property-less. If the landlords can retain control of the government,
they may establish a fascist state. This is a collectivist state, but
one run by the landlords who hope to maintain as many of their
privileges as possible.
If the landless gain control, a collectivist state is also erected.
This one may or may not be called socialistic or communistic. But no
matter what label is put upon it, it is a collectivist one.
The collectivist government, whether a fascist or socialistic one, is
administered by politicians and bureaucrats with dictatorial powers.
But this power is enervating. It is similar to that of a man who has
grown to such gigantic proportions that he is actually weak. The
government becomes so corrupt that it is finally overthrown either by
a revolution or by a war.
Then, the pattern may begin all over again. There is no record of any
nation having adopted a sensible system of land tenure which took into
account the rights of all. Instead, it sometimes seems that history is
the record of men attempting to get access to the land without quite
realizing exactly what they were trying to do.
Man will probably continue to wage war on his fellowman until he
adopts a just system of land tenure and establishes Governments
instead of States. The reasons he will assign for those sanguinary
conflicts will be as trivial or as profound as he wishes to think they
are. Underneath them all, however, will be the one consuming need of
all men for the freedom to utilize their capacities to the fullest
extent possible. This means since land represents opportunity, access
to the land directly or indirectly. Anything which restricts their
freedom of access will bring unrest and uneasiness until it is
corrected.
War is wrong. Man knows it is wrong. Until he eliminates what are
probably the basic causes of almost all wars -- the unjust system of
land tenure and the ubiquitous States -- he will wage war on his
fellowmen time and again.
NOTES
- Sinews, p. 91
- Since it appears there are too
many people in existence, it is not long before the absurd
Malthusian theory is resurrected. This postulates that there is a
tendency for too many people to populate the earth than can be
provided for by the means of subsistence available. No doubt, if a
large island was inhabited by a small group of people, who due to
some institutional arrangement were forced to occupy only a small
segment of it, as long as no one noticed the artificial barriers
which prevented them from spreading out over the island, a
doctrine would sooner or later evolve asserting there were too
many people in existence.
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