Sunday, 4 August 2013

We have a right to land if there is enough of it

The 'problem' with Capitalism is that without land we must beat the market to survive. Every profit that we make is at the cost of someone else... the harder we work the more inexpensive our products become and the more difficult it is for new market entrants. This is not a problem in itself apart from the reality that we are hurting other people. It is a paradox in a collaborative society that we would need to put someone else at a disadvantage merely to survive ourselves. This means we are not working together as a species. The solution to this apparent paradox of Capitalism is that we have sufficient land for everyone. Since no one is now (in the modern era) dying of starvation it is clear that we have sufficient land for everyone (assuming that this fact doesn't rely on the efficiencies derived from large-scale farms). This means that there is enough land for people to provide for themselves without needing to put a cost on the market by going to work in the traditional (competitive) sense. We do not need to hurt other people if we can make a living on our own from the land. The 'greed' paradox of Capitalism can be resolved by making sure that everyone has sufficient access to land and since there is demonstrably sufficient land for everyone... this is possible. If there is enough land (as there clearly is) then everyone has a right to at least some of it sufficient that they are able to sustain themselves. We have a right to land if there is enough of it. If there is not enough of it then we are left to fend for ourselves in an uncivilised manner but this has rarely if ever been the case.

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