The Land and the Community

Samuel Whitfield Thackeray

[Excerpts from the book published in 1889 by D. Appleton & Co.,
with a Preface written by Henry George]

Chapter II (p.79)

Since all men have the same equal right to life, it follows that they must all have the same equal right to land. To deny the equal right to the elements necessary to the maintaining of life is to deny the equal right to life. As no law or custom or agreement can justify the denial of the equal right to life, so no law or custom or agreement can justify the denial of the equal right to land. It therefore follows from the very fact of their existence, that the right of each one to an equal share in the land is equal and inalienable; that is to say, that the use and benefit of the land belong rightfully to the whole people: to each one as much as to the other; to no one more than to the other; not to some individuals to the exclusion of other individuals; not to one class to the exclusion of other classes; not to landlords, not to tenants, not to cultivators, but to the whole people.

This right is irrefutable and indefeasible. It pertains to and springs from the fact of existence, the right to live. No law, no covenant, no agreement can bar it. One generation cannot stipulate away the rights of another generation. If the whole people were to unite in bargaining away their right in the land, how could they justly bargain away the right of the child who the next moment is born? No one can bargain away what is not his; no one can stipulate away the rights of another. And if the newborn infant has an equal right to life, then has it an equal right to land. Its warrant, which comes direct from nature, and which sets aside all human laws and title deeds, is the fact that it is born.

CHAPTER IV (pp. 89-90)

HOW MAY THE RIGHTS OF THE COMMUNITY BE RE-ASSERTED AND SECURED?

WE have already in Book I., Chapter V., statement of Section iii., given the answer to this question in brief. The problem to be solved may be re-stated thus:-

Recognizing the truth and justice of the theory that the land belongs to the whole community, and that every member of it has an equal right to share in its usufruct, and that it is practically impossible and unadvisable for every one to occupy what might be considered his own equal portion of the land, how then may the land be permitted to be occupied and cultivated by some only to the exclusion of others, without infringing the equal rights of those others?

The answer to this, which seems to be The answer simplest and best, is: - By requiring those who are permitted to occupy or cultivate the land to pay to the community a full equivalent for the special privileges which they thus enjoy; that is, in effect, requiring landholders to pay rent to the community for the possession of their land.

This, then, gives us the answer we seek, viz.: The rights of the community may be reasserted and secured through the appropriation of ground rents by taxation, and applying the proceeds for the benefit of the whole community.

In this way every individual in the community would be in effect a landowner, and would receive an equal share in the usufruct of the land. The amount which each landholder should be called on to pay would be the full rental value of the land which he occupied, so that no one by underletting would be able to obtain more as rental from the sub-tenant than the landlord would be required to pay over to the community; and likewise, no one, in transferring his occupation of the land to another, could obtain any payment as selling value for the bare land, because the selling value of all land (of course not including improvements) would be, in effect, wholly destroyed. No one would give anything as purchase-money for land from which he was not to be permitted to obtain any rental that he could appropriate to himself. There would, in fact, be no advantage to anyone in holding land, except for its actual use in cultivation, or in sites for houses, buildings, etc., the whole of its rental value being taken by the community, and its selling value being totally done away with. It is obvious that if the community should take a part only, and not the whole of the rental value, then the landlord would retain for himself the remaining portion of the rent, and as long as that was permitted to continue, the land would also continue to have some selling value, though diminished in amount in proportion.