Speaking Truth to Power: Land Value Free Lunch part 1

Wendell Fitzgerald, President of the Board, San Francisco Henry George School. With Peter Melton. HenryGeorgeSchool.com. Produced by DanShaw.com.

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• George
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• economics
• progress
• poverty

[ourearthhome]

Ownership of land is a cornerstone of our society only because it confers the right of exclusive possession and use of land. The purpose is to protect ownership and use of permanent improvements and to ensure that he who sows on the land gets to reap without interference. When there was no more free land to be had land started to have a market cost and late comers had to pay first comers for access to their own planet. This enrichs landowners who do not earn the rent they get.

[gwenniepants]

a safe home for my family and I, shelter from the elements, food to eat, and clean water to drink. Anything else in my posession is not my right - it is my LUCK. I was fortunate enough to be born American, which means I was born into privilage. I have been around this globe, and I can tell you - our poor live far better than most of the world could ever dream. I would like to own, but I do not feel slighted that I lack the means. My home is warm, happy, safe and healthy. What else is there?

[gwenniepants]

I didn't say it was THE cornerstone of our society, I said that it was A cornerstone. Land ownership is nothing more than an economic expression of territoriality - you can find similar expressions in primates, only without the running water and cable television. This is nothing new, nor is it obscene or wrong. I personally am not a land owner - I rent. That being said, I do not decry those who own property, nor do I feel cheated out of some cosmic right. I have what I am entitled to -

[bluepearlamma]

There is no argument with ownership of land here but you are mistaken that it is the cornerstone of our society. Plenty of people rent land for every purpose just as if they were owners. The real cornerstone of our society is long term access to land for exclusive use. Use is the key here. Long term land leases accomplish the same purpose as ownership. The only other real purpose of "ownership" is to allow owners to collect the value of land they did not create thus giving rise to speculation.

[sylphiengel]

Check the wikipedia articles on "Land value tax" and "Henry George" if you actually want to learn some of the basics of what's going on here. Your assumptions are very wrong.

[gwenniepants]

Yes, but land ownership is a cornerstone of our society and economy. Take for example the two people speaking - they are not sitting in the middle of a federally protected forrest, they are sitting in somebodies back yard, as evidenced by the fence. This implies that the speakers endorse the very thing they are decrying. It also implies that they are sitting in the middle of the environmentally devestating suburban sprawl being whined about. Save this crap for your community college lectures.

[bluepearlamma]

Commerce is defined as "the buying and selling of goods". Land is not a good in that sense any more than human beings were properly called goods the proper subject of commerce when chattel slavery was legal. Yes land has a monetary value and can be legally bought and sold in the marketplace but land otherwise is in a category by itself. Land gets its monetary value and reacts to taxation completely differently than man made "goods". Owners of the earth prefer us not to get this.

[gwenniepants]

Aren't you academic blowhards really just describing commerce?

[wtfitzgerald]

We get this kind of incomprehension a lot. What we are talking about here is questioning the unexamined principle that some few of us have the God given right to charge the rest of us for access to our own planet. The real question is how the HELL is it possible that most people do not get that they have been reduced to virtual slavery by those who own the playing field who then have the hutzpah to tax our labor to pay for public services that make their land more valuable. Sheesh!

[gwenniepants]

What in the HELL are you people talking about? Sheesh.