concepts of land ownership

Tue Nov 23 23:39:45 GMT 2010

Yes , it would be  for the best in the best of all possible worlds if there was a way of  "promoting  beneficial  land management "  in an ownership society, but that is exactly what is impossible when 'ownership' is exclusive . The recurring result of exclusive ownership is exploitation of non -owners. 
Who on earth would advocate 'giving away land free?'  That inplies 'giving away'.  After giving  land away-  you have resurrected the ownership system.  Selling Life time personal tenancies is compatible with common opwnership of the land.     
You confuse ownership with usage.
It is not necessarily the use of the  land that is the issue.  More its current mis-use .
The planning system would still  designate land for housing and for farming and for caravan sites etc.
But the market for land would be removed from its malign influence on the use of  land.
Reference to 'the original owners' is a hopeless dream. It also begs the question. It implies that ownership to-day should be based on some hypothetical ownership in the past  - but how far back are you to go?- and advocates of 'no ownership to-day' would logically and vigorously demonstrate the inequity of ownership however far back you could demonstrate it.
Just one instance- 
Duke William of Caen, and William Eu, and Henry de Ferrers and Bernard de Neufmarche    ..... carved out for themselves great estates
 by the sword.  Does that give good title?  Occupation by conquest is both  illegal to-day and and  condemned by the church then.
The questiion of legality you raise  is also raised  on that issue since  The Normans introduced new title to land- All the land of England  was held of the  king - as a feu- in return for knights service.  The king who made the law and defined legality - took the land by illegal armed invasion.
Dont stop there in your essay into the past - Harold at Hastings was Danish . Go furher back and you find in Bede cica 700  that 'the king  gave wilfrid land at Selsey together with the slaves on it to Wilfrid.  SO  land ownership then implied the now illegal practice of slave  ownership.  This was not uinusual but the norm. It was tehnorm for Anglo Saxons to enslave the native Britons - the indigenous populatin   So going back in history is not the way forward.
For a More up to date approach refer to the last clause in the  title of the 1947 Town and Country Planning and COMPULSORY PURCHASE ACT.(where land can be c p'd by the state  at less than market value.) Legal is as legal does. 
I suggest the desirability of de commodifying land is not essentially to change  the  usage of the land but  to end two endemic weaknesses  of private exclusive ownership as at present.
a) End Monopolising land ownership and using the monopoly against the public interest 
 eg to garner CAP benefits paid for by the public which thepublic don't qualify for (£3.9billion a year at present.) another example is  
plc housebuilders cornering land with Planning permission and then not building thehoises required  so that thescarcityu value drives uop the price of new houses and also the  value of teh  landbanks of horded land.

b) buying and selling land as a commodity and speculating on  it.  The systemic rise in price of  farmland from  around £2,000 and acre to 
currently anything up to £8,000  yields a staggering bonus to  land monopolists (some 197,00 of them) At 70% of UK land as farmland and 60million acres in UK you work out the benefit to the  exclusive 'owners' and the harm to  new entrants into farming and to food prices.. 

Maybe I'm wrong and or misguided .  Please correct me 
James      

 gers350 at yahoogroups.com
From: liliapatterson at hotmail.com
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:32:04 +0000
Subject: [Diggers350] concepts of land ownership and protecting the biodiversity of the land

Dear Everyone,

there seems to be some discussion about the difference between ownership and responsibility of ownership and also freedom of distribution and also of management practices towards different possessions that can be either owned or shares. 

Can I remind some people that these concepts are all different and mutually exclusive and also just because someone might say that they want to own some land and then give it away for free - does not necessarily mean that giving land away for free is the best way for the biodiversity of the planet to be improved.

Personally I would state that promoting beneficial land management practices is a million times more beneficial than the concept of promoting for land or other resources to be given away for free. 

I would also state that it would actually be grossly criminally negligent for members of TLIO to continue to promote the confused concept that giving away land and resources for free is a positive ideal. It most definitely is not. 

If one would like to consider for example - that the land and mineral resources of the Palestinian people of Gaza have just been taken for 'free' by the Israeli government, through use of military intervention of the Israeli navy against both Palestinian and international citizens, then this would be an 'example' of a collective group of people taking 'land and its resources for free' and then re-distributing them as they see fit, against the consent of the original landowners. 

This is against international laws and the acts performed by the Israeli military and navy constitute war crimes. 

Therefore I would really suggest that if TLIO wants to continue in the future as a 'credible' organisation, that some people consult 'lawyers' in relation to 'land rights of ownership and management policies' in relation to how to effectively promote better ecological systems to help more healthy lifestyles for people on this planet as a credible part of the environmental movement in the future, otherwise their statements are questionable and therefore ridiculous, in the wider international context of the debate about how the 'environment' and 'biodiversity of life on this planet' should effectively be managed in the future in a way that is equitable and fair for all, including landowners, whose rightful access to their own land is being exploited or abused. 

Lilia 

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