A question for Locke and George: Is land really a finite resource?

John Locke wrote that, when private property is carved out of the commons, everyone else should be compensated. Henry George and his followers propose a 100% annual land value tax to compensate non-owners with an annual subsidy, with many breaking even, the wealthy paying more (and giving them an interest to sell to tenants) and providing all social welfare costs necessary for the poor. All of this is based on the following assumption:  Land is a fixed resource. Is this still true? Was it ever?

My grandfather had a small farm and feed store in Kent, Washington. My mother was raised there and got married in the local Catholic Church. She went back for her 50th High School class reunion in the 1990s. The farm no longer existed. There was a suburb where the farm used to be. She and my father could not have found it they tried.

When my then-wife and I went to Ireland on our honeymoon, we visited the ruin of her grandfather's farm house. When he left for America, he sold the house and land to John, his cousin. A neighbor showed us the ruin and then we visited John's grandson - also John. The land where the cattle was grown was partly open meadow and part caravan (mobile home) park. We did not inquire whether the tenants were Travelers or summer renters. It was no longer Foley land.

A few years ago, I looked at Google Earth to check in. The Caravan Park (and presumably John) had moved up the road to the other side of town. The location had better access to Dingle Bay and newer infrastructure for both permanent and seasonal Travelers and Tourists. A housing development was located where the old family farm used to be.

John likely got a good payday when he moved. My grandfather did not, as he had abandoned the land (either selling it or losing it) years before the property was developed - so there was no payday for the family. Whomever the lot was sold too surely got paid. The Allen farm was gone. The Foley ruin may or may not still be there - I could not tell from the satellite picture. 

My great-grandfather's farm was visited by my parents. Gravestones (modernized) were at the farm site and the farmhouse was still standing, but the wood had greyed and the house was not being used. At some point, someone will eventually buy and destroy the house and land and either disinter the graves and move them, or dig down and find no remains to move. 

My paternal grandparents bought a house during World War Two. It was a duplex that was turned into a single family home. After my parents were married, my mother moved in while my father was working as a test engineer. My aunt and another uncle (who was a quadriplegic) lived there as well. 

My mother soon joined my father full time, my uncle bought the half-lot next door to build a garage to protect his car and boat from the Minnesota winter. For one summer, after my siblings and I were all born (5 kids in 7 years), my father lost his job and did not know to file for unemployment, etc. My aunt had gotten married and moved out and my uncle Bobbie and grandfather had passed. 

A house that held six people when my mother lived there held two when we brought seven in. After we left, the family home was a haven for stray grandchildren during summers and for my family when they visited. When my uncle got married and moved out, my elderly grandmother was moved into a nursing home. 

To qualify for Medicaid, her assets were sold off, as was my uncle's garage. A small house was jacked up over the garage, creating a new address. The house was made a duplex again and is probably home to students at nearby Bethany College (whose property bordered the alley behind the family home). One large lot which housed two people was turned into homes for three households. 

The yards on 6th Street were big enough to split in half, elevate the back with terraces, buy a portion of the forest owned by the college and create 7th 'Street. If the Midwest were not declining in population, it would be a reasonable investment - provided a developer existed to take the risk. 

In all four cases, land was literally destroyed and created anew. The landscape of each ancient farm or house was or will soon be destroyed and become unrecognizable. The earth was or will be moved (the equipment to do so is called an earthmover).  A new use was created and the person who developed the site earned the profit from doing so.

It is most likely that the land sold for nowhere near what it was resold for to make housing. It can be argued that the land that was sold was abandoned and given over to salvage. This is part of the human life cycle. The only real issue is how to compensate those who live on the land that is abandoned for salvage. 

In Alexandria, public housing and private housing was sold to developers with those selling private land probably unaware of what would bring once their home was demolished. For most of these properties, townhouses now stand with more families on the land then before the land was sold.

In Montgomery County, there is a section of land served by a private road. Down the street, there was a development put up without regard for the nearby landholders, who were descended from families of newly freed slaves which had been held for more than a century. There were not bad houses. I am not sure how this worked out, but because there was news coverage, I hope the landholders got reasonable access and compensation for their trouble.

The task of government is to make sure that when development happens, those who are inconvenienced are compensated - including tenants or public housing clients. In Alexandria, a high rise apartment was build or bought for these families to live in. It is not a bad building, although parking is a nightmare (which is a good thing because it bespeaks prosperity).

Should there be clawback rules for landholders who did not demand a high enough sales price when selling to developers? Possibly. If they were not aware of what the property would bring - almost certainly. Adequate compensation would lessen the "hold out" problem - where an entire neighborhood agrees to relocate, but a small number or a single landowners blocks the project - either out of stubborness or avarice. The law needs some work.

In Israel, the land where Zionists occupied was sold, fair and square. The problem was that the tenants who had a sense of ownership of where they lived got nothing. Decades of warfare resulted. The landowners got their due. The people on the ground did not and shooting commenced.

The issue in many cases involving tenants (and to some extent landowners) is not physical development but instead, human development. A society which does the latter adequately - including teaching financial literacy - the easier the former is to accomplish.

Human ownership is also an issue. In capitalism, most workers do not own the entire product of their labor. With education, they are better off - but those who purchase their time are often much better off. Social democracy is an attempt to ameliorate this problem - but in reality it produces a better cage. State socialism simply trades one group of connected owners for another. In Russia, Putin would have thugged his way into a nice Black Sea estate in either the old Soviet or the current autocracy.

Cooperative socialism (which my great-grandfather, Silas Allen helped establish at Land O' Lakes) is a better answer. If land ownership, human resource development, work, consumption and finance are united in the same hands and democratically administered, there is no exploitation. Land could be held in trust, with housing owned by either the cooperative (for younger workers and families) or the individual worker. 

The cooperative would pay any property taxes - including what Georgists call land rent - to compensate anyone living on land trust property who is not part of the cooperative and/or to provide them the same public services that members receive. Preferential hiring would also be included in such a deal - including remedial or advanced education to the extent desired or required by new members.

A major reason LVT and human development is needed (and especially equal employment and housing opportunity laws with CRIMINAL penalties) is that people want the right to pick their neighbors. That is not a liberty right, that is simply racism.

The nature of land itself is changing. Not only are we destroying old land (use) and creating entirely new land from what was salvaged; we can also turn any empty space into what would now be considered "land." We can dig down, we can build up. We can do both, raising the "ground" elevation by moving the lawn and public space to a higher elevation. What had been the old land may be in the middle of a store, an office, a church or someone's bed room. 

Rising sea levels are not an issue, provided we find someplace to put excess water or build effective barriers - both of which are done skillfully in the Netherlands. Doggerland is gone, but more people live in what is left than ever lived in what was lost.

We can do this in Manhattan, we can do this in New Orleans. The main problem is not the land resources. Space is infinite to a good builder - and humans are good builders. Matter and energy are also infinite in this universe. 

The key factor is how we deploy and develop our humanity. If we do this justly, all other things are possible. Can capitalism do this well? I give it a D minus in some places, a solid B in others. We can do better if we value people - and their potential - more. This potential is also infinite if treated with love. Capitalism, by nature, has a love deficit.