Honorable mention goes to Robert LeFevre for “Ownership of Land” :Because governments are not living persons who care and can be motivated to do the right thing. They are collections of individuals — politicians and bureaucrats, not exactly the most desirable types — who pursue their own interests. Regardless of the rhetoric, their interests coincide with the public good only on occasion, like a broken clock being right twice a day. Even in the most enlightened times — even in the best of times — governments have huge incentives to spend more than they take in. These are not the best of times; the population has been trained for generations to expect subsidies and freebies as their due, without regard to who pays or how they will be paid.
I’ll give you an example. When I was on the Phil Donahue Show, the day before the national elections in 1980, I was making the same philosophical points I am now. I explained how they, the taxpayers, would pay for all the goodies — like Social Security and unemployment compensation — that they wanted. A middle-aged guy in the audience asked: “Well, why can’t the government pay for these things?” And the rest of the audience roared approval.
It was then that I first realized that resistance was futile and the situation was basically hopeless. And that someone who can seem perfectly sensible when he’s discussing sports, or the weather, or the state of the roads, was likely to be a moron when it came to economics. And that when he became part of a crowd, it was even worse: he might transform into an imbecile or even an idiot.
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One major problem that stems from this is that some people benefit from government money creation and some don’t. Who gets to spend it first, when it’s most valued, and who gets stuck holding the Old Maid card when it vanishes? It’s usually the little guy — the middle-class guy — who gets hurt when this happens. And in the U.S., the middle class is contracting. The financial gyrations we’re going through are destroying the middle class, which naïvely believes that traditional American values still hold sway and that their government is honest. The lower class has long since lost any values, and the upper class is way too cynical and self-interested to really care. Most middle-class people will end up joining one or the other of these two classes, and that’ll be a moral disaster for the country.
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Everything we’ve seen shows that they are doing what is predictable for politicians, since they can appear to be “doing something” with the consequences left to the future: they are destroying the dollar.
Currently in the United States, although we praise private ownership of the land as the bulwark of our system of land ownership, the taxes levied actually perpetuate a kind of collectivity in ownership. The social group — the city, county, or state — collects a fee for the use of the land. The governing body has a prior lien upon any property where the fee (tax) has not been collected. In this sense, all "privately" owned land in the United States is fundamentally owned by the collective. This practice, aided by the customs of eminent domain, central planning, and zoning, emphasizes that we still pay tribute to the primitive system of collective land ownership.
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When land is collectively owned or collectively managed, a dispersion of rightful authority ensues. Consider a city park. It is claimed that "the city" owns the park. But what is "the city"? It is a word we have devised to indicate that a number of people live in a compact urban area.
To say that the city owns the park merely means that the residents within the urban area are forced to pay a tax in support of the park. They may not ever enter the park, but they are required to pay for its maintenance. The payments they make cannot be redeemed. Thus, the payments made do not constitute an investment which could be sold or transferred. If the resident moves from the area, no refund is made to him. Nor can he sell that portion of the park he has paid for to a latecomer.
The resident may use the park, provided the city "authorities" permit him. But he can be excluded from the park, in spite of the fact that he has paid for it in part. Additionally, while he is said to be one of the "owners," as all other city residents are identified, he has no authority over the park. He cannot be shown that particular portion of the park his money has purchased and maintained. He can evince no preference as to how his portion of the park is to be used.
The city officials, who have no more financial interest in the park than he has, can exert authority over the property, but he cannot. His only recourse in the event he is dissatisfied with the park management is to attempt to elect other officials.
Thus, the lines of authority, which properly run from the purchaser and owner, to encompass the boundaries of what is owned, are dispersed. The "owner" cannot exercise authority. Non-owners exercise authority. And use of the park falls to the decision of the authorities who are not owners.
This results in inevitable conflicts of interest. A man who, has paid "his share" in maintaining the park, decides he and his family will picnic in the park. He is told when he arrives that picnicking is forbidden. His "rights" to the park, which he has purchased (theoretically) with his money, are ruled nonexistent, in favor of those others who have also purchased "rights" but who do not want to picnic.
Whose rights are supreme? Only those of the politically sustained "authorities" and not those of the purchasers or owners. One is reminded of a news item which appeared in the Catholic Digest: "Sign in downtown square of a small Kansas town: 'No ball playing. No pets. No bicycle riding. No loitering. Remember, this is your park!'"
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