The Land Lords
Land monopoly is not the only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies --
it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.
-- Winston Churchill
The law locks up the man or woman who steals the goose from the common.
But the greater villain the law lets loose, who steals the common from the goose.
-- 17th century protest against English enclosure
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ESSENTIAL READING Wealth Against Commonwealth Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons Who Owns America?: Social Conflict Over Property Rights The Guardian of Every Other Right : A Constitutional History of Property Rights No Trespassing!: Squatting, Rent Strikes, and Land Struggles Worldwide The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution |
There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one's native land.
The very lands we all along enjoyed
To prove a legal title to land one must trace it back to the man who stole it. |
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LINKS Diggers Archives (1960s Diggers, English Diggers, etc) OneWorld's Big Issues Land Rights |
It was all prices to them: they never looked at it: why should they look at the land? They were Empire Builders: it was all in the bid and the asked and the ink on their books... Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist. The land, the earth God gave man for his home, sustenance, and support, should never be the possession of any man, corporation, society, or unfriendly government, any more than the air or water.... Solving the land question means the solving of all social questions... possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral - just like the possession of slaves. Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds. |
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The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now, -- from The Digger Song |
Landlords grow richer in their sleep without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title. |
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Ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them. |
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God gave the world in common to all mankind. Whenever, in any country, the proprietor ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defense of landed property. When the "sacredness" of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. |
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The earth is given as a common stock for men to labor and live on. |
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The land shall not be sold forever; for the land is Mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me. |
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