Aristotle said that “in some sense” property should be held in common but privately owned. Since we are talking about the possibility of creating a new social contract wherein the people finally get to view the government as themselves (by the people, for the people) rather than as some outside, hostile entity, it is also possible to consider that all the environment, land, water, air, sunshine, &c. really are owned by all of us, collectively. In order to allow the occupation of land for home or work use by individuals, it is only necessary to collect rent. Without all the externalities and land speculation that comes with corporate ownership of the land, I am convince that rent for the average individual would be much less than it is in our present economy. That rental income could also pay for a lot of good social programs.
I have already discussed the differences in the programs proposed by Paine, Skidmore, and George, but what they all had in common was a non-violent, legal, democratic, political solution. Thomas Paine and Thomas Skidmore were innocently naïve in that they believed in democracy and thought that it actually existed in their time and place. Skidmore even appealed to the literate citizens of New York State which he estimated to be a full 19/20 of the population (Skidmore [1829], 9), apparently assuming that literate also meant educated. It is true that in their time the industrial revolution had not yet reached its apex, and the power of corporations was not as overwhelming as it would later become in Henry George‘s (and Karl Marx’s) time. But both Paine and Skidmore, in their earnest appeal for a new social contract, overestimated the power of the educated masses, and underestimated the political power of wealthy landowners. Skidmore argued against Locke’s theory of labor, but too late. The U.S. Constitution had already been designed, a generation before his time, to use Locke’s theory to justify the government’s obligation to protect individual property ownership rights, and to bias the law in favor of property owners.
How prophetic that Skidmore should write, in 1829, that 1% of the population owns most of the wealth and the other 99% own very little or none at all, (Skidmore [1829], 17) about one hundred eighty years before the Occupy Wall Street movement of the 21st century.
So now, in a political/economic climate dominated by the wealthy 1%, and with the 99% of citizens undereducated and underrepresented (and under insured), I find myself in the unenviable position of the non-violent political philosopher, paraphrasing Skidmore, who was paraphrasing Rousseau. Their sentiment, and mine, is that if I were a legislator I would not bother writing my opinions, but would put them into action. Not being a legislator, I can only hope that the publication of my opinions can influence those who do have political power. (Rousseau [1762], 5) and (Skidmore [1829], 7-8).
Ethically any right to private property, either collectively or individually, should be justified on consequentialist grounds, but the consequences of making land, as well as labor, a commodity for sale, has not been morally justified by empirical evidence.
2. The price, or value, of Real estate is a derivative, based on purely speculative psychology and economic externalities..
3. Derivatives, of any kind, also create more negative externalities and should be regulated , taxed, or outlawed altogether
4. Rent on property should go to the government, not to the private sector.
5. The cost of negative externalities can be taxed to the appropriate corporations and converted to benefit to society in the form of progressive social programs.
6. To be really generous, the benefits of positive externalities could go back to environmentally and ecologically friendly corporations in the form of tax credits but the education of the public about the benefits of positive externalities has to be made more clear.
Tomorrow I explain how all of this fits into the World Peace Algorithm (WPA)with previews of coming attractions
Friday: I begin a series on psychologist, Dr. George Kelly and his theory of personal constructs.
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Alert all your friends who won't give up their racial identities and/or who make money from owning private property that this blog challenges their personal and social constructs.
For those of you who have only recently joined us, my rants began on January 1, 2011. Scroll down to that date to begin.
My rants on racial identity began on July 9, 2015
My rants on private property began on July 14, 2015
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