Wealth in The Form of Land
In the western tradition, the concepts of owning land and accumulating wealth in the form of land were engendered in the rise of the first state, for a primary service and power of government was, and is to this day, the awarding and adjudication of land use rights.
Land ownership was also justified according to John Locke. He claimed that because we mix our labour with the land, we thereby deserve the right to control the use of the land and benefit from the product of that land (but subject to his Lockean proviso of "at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.").
Additionally, in developed countries post-agrarian society (industrial society) this argument has many critics (including those influenced by Georgist and geolibertarian ideas) who argue that since land, by definition, is not a product of human labor, any claim of private property in it is a form of theft; as David Lloyd George observed, "to prove a legal title to land one must trace it back to the man who stole it."
Many older ideas have resurfaced in the modern notions of ecological stewardship, bioregionalism, natural capital, and ecological economics.
Read more about this topic: Wealth
Famous quotes containing the words wealth in, wealth, form and/or land:
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think we have a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it ... try to fake three laughs in an hour—ha ha ha ha ha—they’ll take you away, man. You can’t.”
—Lenny Bruce (1925–1966)
“Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed”
—Edward Thomas (1878–1917)