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[Excerted without permission from New Alchemy (Spring
1988).`Subscriptions $8/yr (4 issues) from New Alchemy, 237 Hatchville
Rd., East Falmouth, MA 02536.]
WHO REALLY OWNS THE LAND?
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by Judith M.Barnet
How does it come to be that a non-renewable resource like land and a
basic human need like shelter are subject to the slings and arrows of
the marketplace and the buisness cycle? The root answer to that
subversive question takes us to the institution of private property,
defined as that which can be sold and whose possesion confers exclusive
rights upon the owner. THis aspect of our relationship to land is so
thoroughly taken for granted in our culture that to even raise the
topic seems absurd, until we remember that the ownership system brought
to North American shores by the colonists constituted an almost
unimaginable revolution to the indians. We tend to forget that in
Native American culture it was inconceivable that land could be sold -
because it wasn't something one owned. A further root of all this can
be traced back to what is probably the largest privatizing operation in
history; the enclosure movement in 15th century England, when common
rights to land were extinguished, individual title was established and
15,000 peasants were cleared off 794,000 Scottish acres to create 29
farms, each inhabited by a single family (with imported servants) and
131,000 sheep. This institutional arrangement was required to launch
the woolen industr y, and land became from that moment and for all time
a commodity; to be valued at its 'highest and best use,' presumably
determined by what the market could bring. Is it too great a leap from
there to the speculation in real estate market today that has brought
us the current housing crisis?