[diggers350] Re: Ownership...ermm then what?

[binty at lycosmail.com]

Gavin Parker wrote:
> 
> So regardless of 'ownership'  ( how defined please) how will land be
> regulated and used? This is what interests me most - landowners
> are simply tenants -  lets change their tenancy agreement!
> 
Well, once it is ours we can set up local auction houses and
sell leases at auction. I would like the length of leases to
be determined locally by democracy.

If it was down to me, I would declare this country a member
of the Commonwealth in which all rent from the land we own
is shared equally between us.

In which case, the income from all the auction houses in the
Commonwealth would be added and divided by the number of
people to determine everybody's share.

Others say, sod that global contract, we'll run our auction
house and share the money locally, which I am not sure
about. I have heard it said that it would work if free
immigration was allowed. I am worried about hostility to
immigrants. If people in some area have prime land, they
won't want people moving in and sharing their privilege.
Best thing would be to try both and see what problems come
up.

Natural resources must have prices that rise as more are
used. Rather than share the profits from oil sales
immediately, we could save it to share out in twenty years.
Money leaving our time and going to the future, will reduce
our ability to guzzle all the resources up and also provides
compensation to the next generation in lieu of the resources
we guzzled.

> Some might find our terms unacceptable and prefer to sell up...but
> of course if its played right no one will want to buy it except the
> state or mutuals...
> 
I don't think we have a right to demand that landowners put
the community before their own family, because so few of the
rest of us would tolerate the state demanding such loyalty
from us.

I think we should tell the landowners of Scotland a tale to
break their hearts and ask them to bequeath their land (not
the house necessarily) but the land it is on to the
community when they die.

Let us tell them that the people in the olden days imagined
and declared they owned the land forever, but did nothing to
deserve to own it at all. 

We can tell them that those who buy land have made no
contract with us. They have made a contract with the
individual they bought it from, but not us. So if we refuse
to recognize their ownership, we are not doing violence, nor
breaking any contract or promise, nor are we stealing
something that was never property.

We can tell them that the land, being a resource necessary
to life, must be guaranteed to every new human being born.
Otherwise they are born with no land because the previous
generation has claimed it and decided they own it from now
on. They are required to work and pay for permission to live
on our planet.

It is beyond the right of any legal system to grant
permanent ownership of land because by doing so you are
stealing it from the unborn. Most of our children will be
born slaves until land ownership is abolished.

Then tell the owners of Scotland we don't want to know
whether they decide to leave the land to us; we will wait
until they die to find out. We don't want to judge them or
put them under moral pressure to put community before
family. If they choose to, they prove they are better people
than most of us who stand to benefit.

I reckon you could get a big chunk of it back that way and
can use the rent from that, to buy the rest.

> The word 'ownership' obscures many evils and pitfalls. I would go
> as far as to say that it obstructs our thinking on land matters -
> getting beyond such a mutable and amorphous concept is boxing
> clever?
> 
Do you mean planning permission? I would have thought that
land use would be determined by the market. When people buy
leases they will no doubt plan to make the most of it. Local
people must be the jury on local planning permission and the
problem now is, how to get them interested?

I think we need a computer program which displays our local
area as a map on which a little red right flashes like a bat
signal on any plot of land for which a planning application
is current. This could make a person feel like a general,
looking down on it all and in control. By clicking on any
area they can find out how the land is used. The flashing
red light means, land use on this plot may be changing.

So you arm people with this map software and tell them it is
their only weapon as they stand alone to defend England
against the invading tide of greedy, morally-nihilistic
property developers who want to build a car park in their
area. Package the software with an armband and a picture of
the Queen and advertise it in the Daily Telegraph.

Bish bash bosh, problem solved. Don't thank me; being a
genius is a privilege and I just want to give something
back.

------------
Stephen Bint


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