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Native Americans and Land
Chief Seattle Bill Batt: How Our Towns Got That Way (1996 speech)
Rutgers Professor of Urban Planning Donald
Krueckeberg more recently explained how real property
became for the first time a "commodity," much as the
market gives personal property exchange value. Native
Americans tied the concept of property not to ownership
but to use. "One used it, one moved on, and use was
shared with others." But the colonists took their notion
of real property from evolving British legal tradition,
defined largely in terms of what its owners could subdue
and control against challengers. John Locke's conception
of property was, in one sense, more akin to the Indian
notion in as much as one owned it only to the extent that
one "mixed one's labor" with it. ... read the
whole article
Bill Batt: The Compatibility of Georgist Economics and Ecological Economics
Hence it becomes important, critically important,
to understand the meaning of “ownership” and
“property” in the Georgist lexicon. But it is
not difficult, for they continue to have their classical
meanings, just as for John Locke, Adam Smith, and all the
major forerunners and thinkers of classical economics
until the advent of neoclassical economics. What was the
meaning of ownership and property in their classical
sense? Property was the product of human labor and
capital, and that alone. Items of property were household
goods, personal attire, armaments, and similar such
goods. Property belonged in the category of capital. Land
was not part of property, but rather was its own
category. Land, broadly defined,
belonged to everyone and was the common heritage of all
humanity.15 One could no more
“own” land than one could own water, air, or
other parts of nature, at least in the sense of ownership
that people often use today. Much like the
native-American concept of ownership, it was part of what
was classically called “ the commons.”
16 “What is
this you call property?” Massasoit, a leader of the
Wampanoag, asked the Plymouth colonists whom he had
befriended in the 1620s. “It cannot be the earth,
for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children,
beasts, birds, fish, and all men. The woods, the streams,
everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use
of all. How can one man say it belongs to him?”
17 Not only are human beings co-equal with other living beings of the earth, so also are beings yet born entitled to an existence. The Iroquois Indians of New York State are often quoted to the effect that “In our every deliberation, we should consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” 101 Several contemporary environmental organizations have adopted the Iroquois “Great Law of Peace” so that it has become the vernacular equivalent of the Brundtland Report’s definition of sustainability. Sustainable economics, or 7th generation planning, also requires Daly’s “steady state” economy, 102 where (as if natural resources constitute “capital”) one lives only on interest and not principle. Daly contrasts two notions of economic practice: growth and development. The former may momentarily increase economic productivity and wealth, but is in the long term a fatal course of policy. It increases quantity but not quality. Development, rather, is what should be aspired to, an increase in quality, efficiency, and fulfillment through minimal uses of energy and material resources. For development, the value-added dimension comes from treading lightly on the earth, from the use of mental capital rather than physical capital.103 Daly in still another article talks about three parameters of sustainability: “allocation, distribution, and scale,” which will lead to an economy which is “efficient, just and sustainable.” 104 ... read the whole article Indeed Georgists see a moral equivalency between monopoly ownership of land and nature and the ownership of slaves! ... Bill Batt: How the Railroads Got Us On the Wrong Economic Track
Rutgers Professor of Urban Planning Donald
Krueckeberg more recently explained how real property
became for the first time a "commodity," much as the
market gives personal property exchange value. Native
Americans tied the concept of property not to ownership
but to use. "One used it, one moved on, and use was
shared with others." But the colonists took their
notion of real property from evolving British legal
tradition, defined largely in terms of what its owners
could subdue and control against challengers. John
Locke's conception of property was, in one sense, more
akin to the Indian notion in as much as one owned it only
to the extent that one "mixed one's labor" with it.
... read the whole article Mason Gaffney: 18 Fallacies
7. "Economics is hostile to
environmentalism"
Partly wrong, although some economists are guilty as charged. Economics, properly pursued, deals with how best to meet human wants. Recreation, fishing, wildlife, amenities, clean air, pure water, sustained resource supply, watershed protection, good health, and conservation are legitimate human wants. ... Here are four reasons why environmentalists and economists are natural allies. (a) Economizing is conserving.
Indians are an extreme case, but most of us have a
streak of their psychology. Not many generations back we
shared the same kind of culture, a dependence on
traditional lands we held in common, in trust for our
descendants. These traditions affect current behavior,
and are totally disregarded in mechanical-type formal
micro modeling (except perhaps as tautological 'revealed
preferences'). ... Read the
whole article
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