As to the use of land, we hold: That —
While the right of ownership that justly attaches to
things produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may
attach to land a right of possession. As your Holiness
says, “God has not granted the earth to mankind in
general in the sense that all without distinction can
deal with it as they please,” and regulations
necessary for its best use may be fixed by human laws.
But such regulations must conform to the moral law
— must secure to all equal participation in the
advantages of God’s general bounty. The principle
is the same as where a human father leaves property
equally to a number of children. Some of the things thus
left may be incapable of common use or of specific
division. Such things may properly be assigned to some of
the children, but only under condition that the equality
of benefit among them all be preserved.
In the rudest social state, while industry consists in
hunting, fishing, and gathering the spontaneous fruits of
the earth, private possession of land is not necessary.
But as men begin to cultivate the ground and expend their
labor in permanent works, private possession of the land
on which labor is thus expended is needed to secure the
right of property in the products of labor. For who would
sow if not assured of the exclusive possession needed to
enable him to reap? who would attach costly works to the
soil without such exclusive possession of the soil as
would enable him to secure the benefit?
This right of private possession in things created by
God is however very different from the right of private
ownership in things produced by labor. The one is
limited, the other unlimited, save in cases when the
dictate of self-preservation terminates all other rights.
The purpose of the one, the exclusive possession of land,
is merely to secure the other, the exclusive ownership of
the products of labor; and it can never rightfully be
carried so far as to impair or deny this. While any one
may hold exclusive possession of land so far as it does
not interfere with the equal rights of others, he can
rightfully hold it no further.
Thus Cain and Abel, were there only two men on earth,
might by agreement divide the earth between them. Under
this compact each might claim exclusive right to his
share as against the other. But neither could rightfully
continue such claim against the next man born. For since
no one comes into the world without God’s
permission, his presence attests his equal right to the
use of God’s bounty. For them to refuse him any use
of the earth which they had divided between them would
therefore be for them to commit murder. And for them to
refuse him any use of the earth, unless by laboring for
them or by giving them part of the products of his labor
he bought it of them, would be for them to commit theft.
...
God’s laws do not change. Though their applications
may alter with altering conditions, the same principles
of right and wrong that hold when men are few and
industry is rude also hold amid teeming populations and
complex industries. In our cities of millions and our
states of scores of millions, in a civilization where the
division of labor has gone so far that large numbers are
hardly conscious that they are land-users, it still
remains true that we are all land animals and can live
only on land, and that land is God’s bounty to all,
of which no one can be deprived without being murdered,
and for which no one can be compelled to pay another
without being robbed. But even in a state of society
where the elaboration of industry and the increase of
permanent improvements have made the need for private
possession of land wide-spread, there is no difficulty in
conforming individual possession with the equal right to
land. For as soon as any piece of land will yield to the
possessor a larger return than is had by similar labor on
other land a value attaches to it which is shown when it
is sold or rented. Thus, the value of the land itself,
irrespective of the value of any improvements in or on
it, always indicates the precise value of the benefit to
which all are entitled in its use, as distinguished from
the value which, as producer or successor of a producer,
belongs to the possessor in individual right.
To combine the advantages of private possession with
the justice of common ownership it is only necessary
therefore to take for common uses what value attaches to
land irrespective of any exertion of labor on it. The
principle is the same as in the case referred to, where a
human father leaves equally to his children things not
susceptible of specific division or common use. In that
case such things would be sold or rented and the value
equally applied.
It is on this common-sense principle that we, who term
ourselves single-tax men, would have the community
act.
We do not propose to assert equal rights to land by
keeping land common, letting any one use any part of it
at any time. We do not propose the task, impossible in
the present state of society, of dividing land in equal
shares; still less the yet more impossible task of
keeping it so divided.
We propose — leaving land in the private
possession of individuals, with full liberty on their
part to give, sell or bequeath it — simply to levy
on it for public uses a tax that shall equal the annual
value of the land itself, irrespective of the use made of
it or the improvements on it. And since this would
provide amply for the need of public revenues, we would
accompany this tax on land values with the repeal of all
taxes now levied on the products and processes of
industry — which taxes, since they take from the
earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements of the
right of property.
This we propose, not as a cunning device of human
ingenuity, but as a conforming of human regulations to
the will of God.
God cannot contradict himself nor impose on his
creatures laws that clash.
If it be God’s command to men that they should
not steal — that is to say, that they should
respect the right of property which each one has in the
fruits of his labor;
And if he be also the Father of all men, who in his
common bounty has intended all to have equal
opportunities for sharing;
Then, in any possible stage of civilization, however
elaborate, there must be some way in which the exclusive
right to the products of industry may be reconciled with
the equal right to land.
If the Almighty be consistent with himself, it cannot
be, as say those socialists referred to by you, that in
order to secure the equal participation of men in the
opportunities of life and labor we must ignore the right
of private property. Nor yet can it be, as you yourself
in the Encyclical seem to argue, that to secure the right
of private property we must ignore the equality of right
in the opportunities of life and labor. To say the one
thing or the other is equally to deny the harmony of
God’s laws.
But, the private possession of land, subject to the
payment to the community of the value of any special
advantage thus given to the individual, satisfies both
laws, securing to all equal participation in the bounty
of the Creator and to each the full ownership of the
products of his labor. ... read the whole
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