Should each person have a minimum quantity of land?

What happens (if) when we have no (fiat) money?

How to best allocate property rights?

If we envisage a State which acts not proactively, but in reaction to crimes then there will be no reason to have fiat money; we would not need it for taxes. Punishments would be apposite to the crime that has been committed, for example a speeding fine will result in prison or being restricted from use of the road for a period of time... So too for other crimes such as owning too much land, or having been violent.

Money would no longer be a store of value (it would be difficult to store value)... We would have wealth derived only from our knowledge and the environment surrounding us. Whatever we produce (if we produce anything for trading) we would likely exchange fairly soon after it is produced. It would be a more hand-to-mouth existence... Whatever we wanted we would acquire in the short term.

If we had a Citizen's Basic Rental Income you wouldn't be able to sell your property once it is below the State-mandated minimum... if you could not survive without doing so, charities and other organisations will step in (as they do in similar circumstances now...). The State would not recognise (without checking) that the purchaser now "owns" the property... they would need to verify that the seller has other, minimum (rental income) property... It would not be possible to purchase land (property) from someone who has no other property...

So each citizen would have a minimum of Land Value; even if they are incapable of farming the land (due to physical decrepitude) the citizen is able to rent the land (out, to others) for an income of some basic level...


An innocent person should have a minimum level of property, even if they have been "lazy"... if you have done no harm you have a right to a minimum of property. You should not be required to use violence (or force) to acquire a basic quantity of land. If they (the citizen) do not want the land then (perhaps) the State can "use" the land by allowing someone else to grow crops on the land (and the State is to give the rental income to charity?), but it still belongs to the citizen.

This prevents any individual from being fully "exploited" by the market (or other, more coercive forces).

If the citizen goes missing the land falls into the hands of the State, until the person shows up again. After a reasonable period of time (after which we can assume the person has died), the land can be "sold" (reallocated) by the State.

Any person can then claim a certain, minimum quantity of Land Value. If the State can show that they already control their (minimum) fair share of land, they will not be given (any) more land for free.

If the citizen claims the land is worth less than the minimum, the State could offer to buy it at the minimum price and re-allocate the individual in land purchased by selling the original plot. The citizen would not be given the option to move anywhere of their choosing, they would be given something purchased at the minimum price. Given that the land minimum price is at the discretion of the State, the individual would have not much bargaining power. The State would reward those people who it (the State) considers to be at the bottom of the list in terms of land value. They would identify those individuals independently, only rarely would they respond to individual complaints, since it would be clear (especially in reference to neighbours) who has the least Land Value.

So each citizen "should" have a Citizen's Basic Rental Income (or a Land Value Floor) by way of owning a minimum quantity of Land Value, the "rental income" would be accrued to them in the normal practice of occupying the land (synthetically paid to the landowner by the tenant which are both the same person).

Thursday 23 April 2009


Update: I have received a detailed comment in response to this blogpost, which for some unknown reason did not show up in the actual comments, only in my email. [please note: this has since been resolved] I have copied the comment below (in black) and my responses to it in beige, or fawn.

1. I think you should structure the blog with basic arguments first. That is, you should first explain why you want to eliminate money, before considering the implications regarding land ownership. If no argument is basic, (e.g. all arguments make a package), you should start with a summary of all the ideas and how they fit together. Most people like to understand things a bit from the start, rather than collecting a lot before starting to understand. There are other possible structures, for instance start with the problems, then explain your aims, then explain how to get there.

I accept these criticisms... since I accept them, I am not going to say too much about their content. This principle also applies to the remainder of my response: if I haven't given you much feedback on a particular point it is because I do not see too much wrong with it.

2. What use is it to envisage a state with no (fiat) money? For the last few thousand years all states of any size have operated with money. This "meme" has shown extraordinary fitness. Even if a good case could be made against it, things would hardly change. The main argument for money is that it simplifies trade. People only revert to barter when they can thus avoid taxes. It makes things easier to understand and calculate if there is one standard for measuring value. At least there should not be too many standards. The € was a jump in the right direction. It is important that the standard should be stable. In fact it seems to be useful to have about 2% inflation. This encourages people to invest money, rather than keeping it in a safe. It is hard to measure the inflation exactly. The same number of pounds now buys much more computer power than 50 years ago, but much less land in London. Theatres and concerts have remained expensive, but technology has brought us TV etc. as good cheap alternatives. Extreme inflation is caused by states that "print" too much money (e.g. Hitler Germany and Zimbabwe now). Except for the €, every significant currency is stabilised by a single state.
2% inflation is also good because it introduces a disguised wealth tax. 2% of the wealth gets taxed as if it were real income.

I should have been more explicit in that I mean the absence of fiat money in particular, not money of all types. Without fiat money people will adopt another type of money just as cigarettes become currency within prisons. I don't see a reason to object to many types of money, what's wrong with too many standards?

3. Similarly, all states are proactive, especially the more successful ones. For instance they organise education for children of the poor (or stupid), which is good for all. The alternative is a ruthless selection process, where the uneducated live by violence until destroyed by the others. Such eugenic methods are inefficient. We can do things more pleasantly.

I would agree that all States currently in existence are proactive, but I do not agree with a person who holds the position that they must necessarily be. I have written a blogpost on this topic, it is one of my better posts, in my opinion because it is well structured and concise. If you are interested it is here: http://economicsreform.blogspot.com/2009/04/eightysix.html

I disagree that State-imposed education is good for all. I think the standard of education offered by the State is woefully poor and does not seek to enlighten the children, rather make them complicit to the status quo.

4. Prison for every speeding offence would be rather draconian. Road use restrictions would be hard to organise and to make just. Here too the advantage of money is seen. It is similar to the barter problem.

What happens, though when the offender refuses to pay the fine? If a crime has been committed (and perhaps speeding is not actually a crime, without the crash?) what difference does it make if the person must then pay a fine, the crime is done, it has now happened? Is to engage in "civilised" Society a privilege, if it is then this has not been denied to the person who has only been punished with a fine...

5. "Hand-to-mouth" might work for a few people. Without investment, the world is capable of supporting only a small fraction of the current population. The rest would starve. That would have advantages for most other species. Is that what you are aiming for?

Without a fiat currency, it becomes difficult to store genuine wealth. Money can only have value if it desired by other humans and so if money is not imposed by Government fiat people will be free to choose whatever they like as money. However, if they are living a plentiful lifestyle (as I envisage) they will not be prepared to do much work to acquire more money because they already have most of their wants satisfied...

6. How can you have a "Citizen's Basic Rental Income" when there is no money? Why here the word "Rental" and the association with property? It would be simpler just to pay everybody a minimum income.

It is clear to me, reading this passage of the blogpost back to myself, that I was far from sufficiently explicit in explaining this part... In my mind, I associate property rights and rental income very closely. As far as I am concerned, if you own land then there is a rental income associated with it, even if it is not fully exploited by the landowner... All life is derived from the land and so if you own your own land you derive a rental income from that land even if you consume that income yourself.

So, for instance, if you have more land than you need, you can rent the land out for someone else to grow crops and sell the proceeds at market. If you farm your own land and consume the goods yourself you still have rental income derived from the ownership of the land.

Even if someone does not receive any payments from the State, they would still have a rental income (according to what I am trying to say here) if they have property granted to them by the State.

7. If everybody had this basic income, why would some be unable to survive with it?

I had in my mind someone who is not capable of farming the land granted to them by the State, a drug addict perhaps. As mentioned above, the Citizen's Basic Rental Income should be clarified in meaning to be nothing more than property rights, not a payment in itself.

8. Where will the charities get their money from?

The charity can help out by offering to farm the land, or simply by providing food.

9. How will the land value be decided? Some acres are worth more than others.

Yes, and this is difficult (to get prices) without a universal type of money. Essentially, the value would be based on the market price, remember that whilst the Government will make sure that you have a minimum of land, trade in land still goes on... It will be clear which people have land which is worth less than that surrounding them, these people will be offered more land as it becomes available.

10. If the population rises, where does the extra land come from?

If the population becomes larger than that which can be sustained by the natural resources of the Planet, or Country (if other Countries won't let us in) then there is no argument to live peacefully and no rules apply, we descend into a competition of brute force.

11. Land, as a basis for the currency is special, in that there is only a fixed quantity of it. For instance more gold can be dug up when the effort is worth it.

Yes.

12. I see no point in each person having a minimum piece of land, unless all other personal property is similarly restricted.

The argument for having a minimum piece of land is that a person, who is otherwise innocent, relies on the patronage of others to survive even if there is plentiful land available. When I say "patronage" here I don't mean only by direct charity, I also include free trade. So if you have insufficient land, you cannot live without the co-operative actions of another person and cannot live independently. This seems unfair although I do agree with the thought that to receive land only for the achievement of being born might be less than ideal...

The distinction between land and other types of personal property is that, as you say earlier, there is only a fixed quantity of it... If someone buys your non-land property, more of it (whatever the property is) can be constructed and so a paucity of this type of property is not so threatening for an individual. In practicality of course, there is a blurring of the two types of property especially when we observe that one can be freely traded for the other.

If no one will cooperate with them, a person is helpless without land, they are not so helpless if they have land and (must) rely on their own ingenuity to construct non-land property such as a Tractor to farm the land. At least in the latter case they have a chance...

13. Strangely, your proposal is very proactive. Do we really want the state to control where people live? How do you want the world's people to live, or are you only concerned with one country`?

When talking about property rights and specifically land rights, I am generally referring to the rights as they are recognised by the State. If someone else thinks that they own land... that (their opinion) is usually pretty irrelevant if the State disagrees with them. So, as far as property rights are concerned, the State will be acting reactively even if they are protecting a minimum of land: Someone will be ejected from the land if the land does not belong to them and it is claimed by someone else. This is why I mentioned that "The State would not recognise (without checking) that the purchaser now "owns" the property... they would need to verify that the seller has other, minimum (rental income) property... It would not be possible to purchase land (property) from someone who has no other property..." it means that if someone has insufficient property, other people will be excluded from their land (reactively, I would argue...) to make way for the rights of the landless person.

This can also be viewed as the State withdrawing the commitment to protect the (land) property rights of those from whom the land is being taken, so in that sense it (can be argued that, perhaps it) is not proactive but reactive...

The same rules can apply in other countries and I generally think (in this context) Globally without too much regard for national borders... If different countries choose to defend themselves against each other many of the same principles apply between them that are (similarly) established between people within a State.


There was a time when land was the main determinant of wealth. Mohammedans consider it a sin to sell land to unbelievers. Even as late as Hitler, he thought it worth starting World-War 2, in order to get more land for Germans. Currently, there is enough land to feed the world, population, so it is not seen as so valuable. Manhattan is not valuable for the land, but for the buildings and people there. People drift more and more into cities. but really fertile land is in rather short supply. The world population looks like stabilising in the next 50 years, but agriculture is very dependent on (cheap) oil for fertilisers and fuel. To avoid humans starving as oil runs out, we need various measures, such as renewable energy, new crops such as algae, and people eating less meat. Of course people are starving right now, but this is due to wealth inequalities and distribution "problems", rather than a world shortage of food. For centuries technology has been advancing fast enough to keep pace with population growth. I include economics (money and capitalism) and politics (representational democracy) as part of this advance. (Of course nothing is perfect. Evolution is needed and even reform, but nothing drastic unless there is a drastic problem). For instance crops could support more people than hunting. This advance has got faster and faster, but there is a limit to what speed is possible. We need to fix the energy problem before another jump in population.

Of course different countries have different situations:
- The developed countries have no population growth except through immigration. They make use of global cheap labour and an unfair share of natural resources, but could manage without these after a period of readjustment. They can organise a slow improvement in life, (except that it is not quite clear what is an improvement).
- China has no population growth. It is moving towards the situation of the developed countries, but is encountering problems.
- India is in a situation like China, except that it has a fast growing population. This means that the majority of its people are not improving their lives. It has more democracy, but this hardly affects the bulk of the population.
- South America seems to be becoming more socialist and better, but is rather unstable.
- Africa is in a mess, with various corrupt dictators. Countries that seem OK go down the drain (Zimbabwe, Kenya).


This is a normal evolutionary situation, where only the fittest systems will survive, but there may be different fitness niches. New systems may spring up.

True Christians and socialists should deplore how little is done for poor countries. Cynics will say that they should look after themselves. It would be nice if the poor countries could catch up so that their population growth would stop. But it is more likely that the current mess will continue.

Thanks for your comments.

Tuesday 28th April 2009 (comment received on Monday 27th)