A Cityless and Countryless World
An Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism
Henry Olerich
[A condensed and edited version of the book
originally published by Gilmore & Olerich, Holstein, Iowa, 1893 /
CHAPTER 15 - Ownership of Land]
Land is not produced by labor, and, therefore, we [cooperative
individualists] do not consider land wealth. Of course the improvement
made on land is wealth and belongs exclusively to the producers. We
recognize the right of owning land only by occupancy and use, not by
deed, or paper title, as you pretend to own it. Vacant land is as free
with us as air and sea, because there is much more highly productive
land now, and probably ever will be, than the human inhabitants of any
planet can utilize. At least, I believe, no one can produce
trustworthy evidence to the contrary. By vacant land I mean all that
land which is not worked at all, and all that which, under monopoly,
is worked for a landlord, by renters or by wage-workers. For example:
A vacant farm or town-lot, a rented farm or town-lot, and a farm or
town-lot worked for a land-owner by wage- workers under monopolistic
laws like the laws of owning land by deed or paper title. In short, by
vacant land, I mean all unoccupied land, and all land that would not
be utilized by the present owners if all monopolistic land privileges
were removed.
Our communities consist of about 120 families, or 120,000 persons
each, and contain about 144 square miles of land, populated nearly
twice as densely as Belgium. Yet there is plenty of. highly productive
land left unoccupied for additional communities or individuals, should
they ever desire it. We never entertain any fear of over-population.
It is highly probable that a highly-intelligent, well-adjusted human
society will never be pressed with over-population.
[We] feel that it is wrong to own and control the whole or a portion
of the earth's surface by virtue of a deed, or paper title. If a
person has a just right to own, by deed, forty acres of the earth's
surface and all what is beneath that surface to the center of the
earth, for that is the depth a farm is claimed to extend downward,
then he has an equal, just right to own, in a similar manner, any
amount of it.
When an individual or collection of individuals own land by occupancy
and use only, he makes his own physical powers the measure of the
amount he can occupy and use, which can cover only a small area; for
man's physical powers to occupy and use land are very limited. He can
use but a very limited area to stand on, to lie on, to build his
residence on, and to use for agricultural and sportive purposes. He
can occupy and use only so little of the earth s surface that there
will be more left than all the rest of the human race can similarly
utilize. Under these conditions there could be no land monopoly, and
with the disappearance of land monopoly nearly all other monopoly
would disappear; for all wealth comes from the land by the application
of labor, and if vacant land were free all could apply their labor to
land and produce their necessary wealth. No one would be out of
employment. No one would work for less than he actually earned. With
vacant land free no one would be the industrial slave of another.
By deed, under certain conditions, an individual, or a small
collection of individuals, may own the whole land area of the earth or
of any other planet or world. There is no further limit to the amount
of land an individual may own by deed. This causes land monopoly and
industrial slavery, because if a few own large tracts of land by deed,
there is not enough left to supply all the remainder of mankind. This
causes land monopoly, and land monopoly causes either directly or
indirectly nearly all other forms of monopoly. Let us illustrate this
a little more fully:
A person who claims to own a forty-acre farm by virtue of a deed he
holds of it, claims to have a legal right to remove forcibly any and
all human beings from the same if he chooses, and, if he cannot remove
them as an individual, the government from which he bought the deed
must assist him in making the removal or eviction.
But if one has a legal right to own 40 acres by deed, he has an equal
legal right to own 40,000 acres, or the whole United States, or the
whole earth. Under this condition, the individual or individuals who
own the earth would be masters, and all the rest of the human race
would be slaves.
The owner or owners of this land, composing the United States or the
earth, would have a perfect legal right to demand all his or their
fellowmen to vacate the land. But he (if one owns it) owns all the dry
land, and nothing but water surface is left for the non-land owners.
And, if the non-landowners are loyal and true to their government and
to the landlord, they must immediately vacate all dry land, which
implies that they must all drown in the water area not covered by the
landlord s deed, whenever the landlord demands it; if they refuse to
do so they are rebels and a deed becomes a legal farce.
There is one other important point to be considered under this head;
the point is, that if we trace the abstract of a deed back to the
first pretended owner, whether individual or nation, we find him to be
a fraud, a thief, or a robber; that is, he obtained the land by fraud,
or by force, or by robbery, or by conquest, or by discovery. He did
not create it by labor, nor was the deed given to him by the Creator.
Such is the condition of ownership of land by deed.
All wealth comes ultimately from the earth, and requires labor for
its production. The man and the land must be permitted to come
together or the man must starve.
Under the deed system, the landlord has first the right to fence the
poor off from the land, and then make a bargain with him for his
labor; the laborer is bound to accept what the landlord is pleased to
pay him, or the laborer must starve, since the laborer is prevented to
apply his labor to land from which all wealth is produced. Land is
monopolized by deed. To illustrate: The present population of the
earth is about one-and-a-half billions, and the total land area of the
same is about fifty-three millions of square miles. Hence, each
individual born on earth is by nature entitled to a proportionate
share of this land; and his fair share of this land is far more than a
person could utilize, if land were owned only by occupancy and use.
Hence, if any person is in need of land, somebody has robbed him of
his birthright.
Thus is the laborer at a great disadvantage, when the land is owned
or monopolized by deed. But now notice the difference when vacant land
is free. If the landlord had to make the contract with the laborer for
his work, before the landlord had the legal right to fence the laborer
off from the vacant land, the laborer would work for no less than he
actually earned; if the land lord would not pay him that amount, the
laborer would work land for himself wherever he would find some
vacant, and receive the full benefit of his labor.
Thus if one person owns the whole surface of the earth, or other
planet, by a deed or paper title, and all the remainder of the
inhabitants were living on it by his permission, the conditions of the
world would be the worst conceivable as regards owning land. If ten
individuals owned it similarly, the conditions would be bad, but
somewhat better than they would be if one owned it, and so on up.
[Cooperative individualists] gradually came to the conclusion that no
one ought to be prevented from using and occupying, without paying for
it, as much land as he wants wherever he finds it vacant; because
there is, as I have already stated, more highly productive land than
can be utilized for all practical purposes now and perhaps for all
future ages. And further because when a person is born and can utilize
land for the maintenance of his existence, he is entitled to his
proportionate share of the earth s surface without paying for the
permission of living on earth.
By experience, personal and ancestral, which always constitutes the
entire stock of intelligence, we slowly learned that the
monopolization of vacant land is doubtless the principal cause of a
vicious, social and industrial system. 1. Because it produces an army
of forced idlers who are prevented by the landlord from applying their
labor to land from which all wealth proceeds, and toward which all
industry must be directed. 2. It practically forces the laborer to
accept the landlord s offer whatever it may be. And 3. It affords an
army of rent-takers who are enabled to live an idle life by
appropriating the earnings of the laborers. Hence nearly all other
social and industrial evils may be traced directly or indirectly to
the monopolization of vacant land.
[Under cooperative individualism] vacant land is perfectly free to
any one who wants to utilize it; no one pays for living and there is,
notwithstanding the dense population, more land than all the
inhabitants can utilize, the same as [in any society] if vacant land
was free. With us no one can, or desires to monopolize land, and
therefore no one pays rent. We have, by the economic arrangement of
freeing vacant land, completely eliminated rent. We have then, as far
as I have explained our social and industrial system to you, neither
profit, interest, nor rent.
[In other societies] vacant land will never become free by physical
force or by statute law. It will be monopolized by law as long as the
people, both landlords and landless, do not clearly see the evil of
owning it by deed. But just as soon as the landless man and woman
begins to see that the landlord lives from the products of his or her
labor, which necessitates the masses to remain poor, cruel, ignorant,
and as soon as the landlord clearly sees that this poverty, cruelty
and ignorance caused by the monopolization of land endangers his life
and property, and prevents him from living in a world of refinement in
which all can be rich, kind and intelligent, vacant land will become
free, and not before. Just in proportion as man will clearly see and
feel this, vacant land will become free, like the chattel slave who
was gradually set free from the bond age of chattel slavery. In my
opinion there is no escape from the conclusion, that the masses of
your people will soon see, that there is something very wrong in
owning vacant land.
If vacant land were free for all, the servants and hired help would
work land for themselves, unless the rich paid them just what the
laborer actually earns, under which condition the employer can not
grow rich from the labor of others. Men and women can grow rich only
by the monopolization of land or some other natural opportunities by
appropriating the earnings of some one else.
CONTENTS
|
