It’s not a new idea of course. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels advocated the: “Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.”
But Martin Adams has a new take on this issue in his book Land insisting that historically we have falsely treated land or nature as capital, despite the fact that we cannot produce land ‘whereas capital is a result of human production’. Adams continues: “This failure to distinguish land from capital prevents economists from recognising the monopoly that allows people to extract incomes from society.” It is also one of the many reasons why we have never had a truly free market.
Adams argues for what he calls a ‘land leasehold model in which land is owned in common, even as it is privately used’. Further, land users should make ‘community land contributions’ based on the value of their land, which is determined not by the land user but the ‘combined value of all the natural and social benefits’ that they ‘receive through their possession and exclusive use of the land’.
But a further question arises when we ask what ownership means. One possible answer comes in a book called Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. In this book Graeber argues that our concept of ownership is rooted in slavery. In most traditions property is seen as a right to the exclusive use of an object, which is essentially a relationship between people. But he points out that the Romans were able to imagine ‘property not as a relation between people, but as relation between a person and a thing, if one’s starting point is a relation between two people, one of whom is also a thing’. And from this we move on to the weird notion of property being a relationship between a person and an actual thing like a house, when it should be simply an exclusive right to use. And this changes our entire conception of what ownership is – a relationship between people and not dominion over a thing – particularly land.
So what is the situation in England and Wales? (Land law has been devolved in Scotland and Ireland). Well, ultimately, all land is owned by the Crown with land owners only holding an estate in land. So why not transfer all Crown land to common democratic control, held as freehold – to reflect the view that no-one actually owns land – with all ‘landowners’ holding leasehold only? This is actually similar to the situation that exists in Letchworth Garden City and not so very different from the current relationship between landowners and the Crown.
Of course, the big landowners might take a different view!
There is an argument that land is already nationalised. The planning system effectively takes away many of the rights landowners would have if it didn’t exist. It is not – with a few exceptions like farming – yours to do what you want with but you have to conform to the needs of the community this being expressed via local plans etc.
There is a strong argument for land to be taxed though. As we will argue elsewhere that income is taxed but the ownership of land is not. This seems to be an anomaly. There is a tax – stamp duty – when you buy and sell but not on actual ownership. Schedule A disappeared a long time ago.
Who owns what is an unknown for large parts of the UK. Although the land registry has data on transactions, some of the large estates are not accounted for. The land owned by the Duke of Buccleugh – possibly the largest landowner in the country – is unknown even by people live on it. Attempts to produce a complete picture of land ownership have been frustrated by the Lords and others.
Despite the planning system being admired around the world it is constantly being reformed and tinkered with because of lobbying by house builders and the like who want large greenfield sites. The developments on the outskirts of the city on the A360 and A345 are grim examples of giving the developers what they want. Rows of houses – which do look quite attractive – but devoid from any community. Just houses which give the developers their profits.
Would nationalising land make a difference to these developments? Not sure, since the community already has the means to do something via the planning system but does not or cannot.
The argument that Adams makes is powerful though and those who have inherited land – often acquired from the proceeds of slavery and the compensation they received when slavery was abolished – should pay something into society. A lowly farm worker will be taxed on his income whereas the owner of the land he or she farms will pay nothing for the land itself.
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I’m not sure that something counts as being nationalized if the owners can’t do exactly as they please with it under either the ‘relationship’ model or ‘dominion’. If you own a hammer then using it to bang a nail in is perfectly OK unless you’re banging it into someone’s head. And using a chainsaw in a garden for cropping your hedge is acceptable but most uses of it outside the garden are likely to be be frowned upon. But we wouldn’t want to say that either the hammer or the chainsaw is therefore held in common.
I think the importance of distinguishing between the ‘relationship’ model and ‘dominion ‘model is that the former fits better with Adams’s notion of ‘land being owned in common, even as it privately used’, switching from Crown ownership and effectively nationalizing it. He also sees this as a way of moving away from tax altogether towards a contributory system
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