Land monopoly

“ Capital in the hands of shrewd people, is always on the alert, waiting for such opportunities for investment. These investors through capital wish to live without effort, upon the proceeds of the labor of others. They seem to understand clearly, that to own land, is to own the services of the people who must have access to the land in order to live. This is why a land monopoly is more to be feared than other kind. ”

“ If monopoly in land produces such results as these is it not to be condemned as subversive of correct social adjustments and the perpetuity of government? The question admits of but one answer. If monopoly in land compels a government to "assist" its able-bodied men, its laborers, its producers of wealth, its soldiery, to go to other lands, is it not to be condemned as parasitical, destroying the very bone and sinew of government? ”

“ This system of land monopoly having failed completely as a land code, as is evidenced in social discontent, prevalence of poverty, and non-fulfilment of the obligations upon the performance of which it could alone rest a claim for existence, it becomes both the duty and the right of the State to call upon "the unjust steward to give an account of his stewardship, for he can now be steward no longer." ”

“ In the last analysis it is evident that the monopoly of entrance to a city is really a monopoly in land, or, we might more properly say, in space. We are fortunate in this country in having millions of acres of land still awaiting cultivation; and while it is not intended here to defend the policy of giving away the estate of the public which our government has pursued, there is no danger for a long time to come that an actual monopoly will exist in agricultural lands. The price of land used for business purposes in a city, however, depends almost wholly upon its location. ”

“ Its answer leads directly to a discussion of the question of taxation.
"A land monopoly, is more to be feared, more harmful to the poor and more disastrous to the interests of the general public, than any other kind. The worst form of land monopoly, may be found in full force, along the outskirts of large cities. These monopolies are made possible, by the unjust application of a faulty system of taxation.
"As a preliminary step, a hungry host of individual capitalists and land syndicates, proceed to purchase large tracts of adjacent lands at farm prices. ”

“ Let us abandon all attempt to get rid of the evils of land monopoly by restricting land ownership. An equal distribution of land is impossible, and anything short of that would be only a mitigation, not a cure, and a mitigation that would prevent the adoption of a cure. Nor is any remedy worth considering that does not fall in with the natural direction of social development, and swim, so to speak, with the current of the times. ”

“ Second in importance comes the land monopoly, the evil effects of which are seen principally in exclusively agricultural countries, like Ireland. This monopoly consists in the enforcement by government of land titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation. It was obvious to Warren and Proudhon that, as soon as individuals should no longer be protected by their fellows in anything but personal occupancy and cultivation of land, ground-rent would disappear, and so usury have one less leg to stand on. ”

“ While the fact that land is natural wealth must be freely acknowledged, it is only where population is most dense that any great monopoly appears in its ownership. The principle is well established, indeed, that private ownership of land cannot stand in the way of the public good. ”

“ Land.—While we believe that the proper solution of the financial question will greatly relieve those now in danger of losing their homes by mortgages and foreclosures, and enable all industrious persons to secure a home as the highest result of civilization, we oppose land monopoly in every form, demand the forfeiture of unearned grants, the limitation of land ownership, and such other legislation as will stop speculations in lands, and holding it unused from those whose necessities require it. ”

“ With a percentage of the profits from the use of the land, which is never burdensome to the tenant, it has been enabled, and has found it to its interest, to carry out agricultural and municipal improvements and enterprises which individual ownership would never undertake. It has drained our marshes, and reclaimed our desert lands in the most efficient manner, without the necessity of creating, as with you, an exacting monopoly, which would claim of industry its lion’s share of profits from the work. ”

“ Agricultural land in this country is so abundant and its ownership is so widely diffused that any monopoly of it is now impossible. Each farmer competes with every other farmer, and the extension of transportation facilities has so broadened the field of competition that in no industry is the day when the few competing units shall replace the many, and monopoly shall ensue, farther off than in this. In Great Britain and Ireland opposite conditions prevail. A limited amount of land is held by a few owners, and its rental is fixed without competition ”

“ Some explain this by showing how land monopoly prevents men going back to the farms. While this is perfectly true, it does not answer the question why farmers now in possession of farms are not working them near their capacity. ”

“ It is at once evident that rent is the effect of a monopoly. The reason why land-owners are able to require rent for their land is, that it is a commodity which many want, and which no one can obtain but from them. If all the land of the country belonged to one person, he could fix the rent at his pleasure. This case, however, is nowhere known to exist; and the only remaining supposition is that of free competition; the land-owners being supposed to be, as in fact they are, too numerous to combine.
The ratio of the land to the cultivators shows the limited quantity of land. ”

“ I am satisfied that nothing will ever prove effectual but the abolition of our present land system. This huge monopoly has, like Belshazzar, been weighed in the balance and found wanting. All history condemns the idea that a few people have absolute right to the use of the earth, to the exclusion of the rest. History informs us that landowners were simply trustees to the State for the land held, and were under the obligation to provide and equip at their own cost the defences of the nation, besides having other onerous dues to pay and duties to perform. ”

“ It would rather seem that Attic land was passing into fewer hands, and that the employment of stewards or overseers, free or slave, was one of the features of a change by which the farming of land was becoming a symptom of considerable wealth.
But beside the decision as to labour there was the question as to a means of checking land-monopoly. Such monopoly, resulting in the formation of a discontented urban mob, was a serious menace to the stability of a constitution. For all poor citizens to get a living by handicrafts was perhaps hardly possible ”

“ So far as concerned the great proprietors whom the English kings by letters patent endeavored to create, the settlers saw clearly enough the injustice of the attempted monopoly, and none of these proprietors got much from their grants; but the plentifulness of land prevented attention from being called to the monopoly which individual land ownership, even when the tracts are small, must involve when land becomes scarce. ”

“ Land Monopoly.—The Kansas City Times publishes a list of the leading foreign corporations that own lands in the United States, showing an aggregate of 20,740,000 acres, equal to more than one-half of England. Well, Americans may as well work to support foreign as home idlers; but a generation is nearing the voting age that will object to doing either. ”

“ Average holdings of one acre in a city may show a much greater concentration of land ownership than average holdings of 640 acres in a newly settled township. I refer to this to show the fallacy in the deductions drawn from the tables which are frequently paraded in the United States to show that land monopoly is an evil that will cure itself. On the contrary, it is obvious that the321 proportion of land owners to the whole population is constantly decreasing. ”

“ That same tendency exists everywhere. For instance, even in England there is not a complete monopoly of land; that would mean that all the land would be in a single hand. It has not come to that yet. Still, the land is to a very large extent monopolized, because it is in the hands of a comparatively few people, and that influences the price of the land. I say, when we are speaking of monopolies, we are speaking really of a wider social and economic phenomonon, of every interference with freedom—with the freedom of natural forces. ”

“ If not, a certainly effective means of inducement would be found in a tax on land values; for then, if a Trust refused to obey, the land upon which it rests could be so taxed as to render it unprofitable to hold it idle, and the Trust managers would [Pg 158] soon be compelled either to operate or sell the plant. The land monopoly evil is serious and threatening, since all our land is owned by about ten per cent. of our people, and, unfortunately, we are in the habit of inviting men to buy vacant land and hold it idle while waiting for a rise in values. ”

“ If lands cannot be developed because of lack of water and the government advances money to supply that deficiency, wherein lies the difference between that aid and the clearing of wild lands of stumps subsidized by the government? The only thing which lies in the way in either case is capital and long time credit. All history shows that land monopoly combined with a renter class, brings about the worst possible situation for a country. ”

“ That there are some circumstances connected with rent, which have an affinity to a natural monopoly, will be readily allowed. The extent of the earth itself is limited, and cannot be enlarged by human demand. And the inequality of soils occasions, even at an early period of society a comparative scarcity of the best lands; and so far is undoubtedly one of the causes of rent properly so called. On this account, perhaps, the term partial monopoly might be fairly applicable. But the scarcity of land, thus implied, is by no means alone sufficient to produce the effects observed. ”

“ Scores of books issue from the Press yearly, written by thinkers of various schools, dealing with the now universally admitted hardships of our land laws. It is time, however, that the people were permitted to speak for themselves, and in this book they have done so. From the South of England to the far North of Scotland men and women have sent in letters detailing the actual hardships they have suffered through land monopoly. ”

“ From this point of view the fact that the supply of land is practically limited, and that it is, therefore, a natural monopoly, renders it not less but more necessary that it should be allowed to be the subject of private appropriation. ”

“ The limitation of land fit for agricultural purposes has a tendency in itself to increase the profits of land-holders, under the principle of monopoly, though its chief effect is on land values. The increasing wealth of the world, and the greatly increased wants of the civilized community, multiplying manufactures, limit competitors more and more. The relative number of farmers in our country is gradually diminishing, while the demand for food is actually increasing beyond the increase in population. ”

“ Many economic writers, for example, have called landownership monopoly, saying that land being the work of nature cannot be increased by men, and therefore must always be scarce. Even if it were true that in the economic sense land could be produced by man, there still would be confusion here between a general class of goods and a special thing. The fact that a particular field cannot be duplicated does not make a monopoly of land as a whole, any more than the existence of desert land in Arizona makes land valueless or a free good. ”

“ From the regulations with respect to land, a coarser advantage was also derived, of a kind which at the present time will be effectively appreciated. It is a common matter of dispute whether landed estates should be large or small; whether it is better that the land should be divided among small proprietors, cultivating their own ground, or that it should follow its present tendency, and be shared by a limited and constantly diminishing number of wealthy landlords. The advocates for a peasant proprietary tell us truly, that a landed monopoly is dangerous ”

“ One great original source of revenue, therefore, the wages of labour, the monopoly must necessarily have rendered, at all times, less abundant than it otherwise would have been.
By raising the rate of mercantile profit, the monopoly discourages the improvement of land. The profit of improvement depends upon the difference between what the land actually produces, and what, by the application of a certain capital, it can be made to produce. ”

“ Wherever the tendency in any particular industry continued to run in the direction of combination, and wherever the increasingly centralized control of that industry was associated with a practical monopoly of some mineral, land, or water rights, the government might be confronted by another instance of a natural monopoly, which it would be impolitic and dangerous to leave in private hands. In all such cases some system of public ownership and private operation should, if possible, be introduced. ”

“ The large proprietor concentrates his energies on sheep. The owner of a small tract finds it pays to give a larger proportion of his land to arable cultivation. Subdivision of land encourages population. Monopoly in land has the contrary effect. If the increase of numbers, under good conditions as to standard of living, be one of the aims of government, it follows that concentration of ownership and occupation is contrary to public policy. ”