“There is another fundamental question, Mr. Midith, that I have been wanting to ask you for some time,” said Mr. Uwins as we were ready the next evening to listen to Mr. Midith’s Marsian narrative, “and that question is the ownership of land. I have thought and written quite extensively on that subject, but have thus far not been able to solve it to my entire satisfaction. We would undoubtedly be very much pleased to have you give us an account of the Marsian theory and practice of owning land. It is certainly a fundamental question, for, as you said, all wealth comes from or out of the land by the application of labor.”
“That is very true,” said Mr. Midith; “it is one of the fundamental problems of economics, and, when once solved, it is apparently the simplest.
“Land is not produced by labor, and, therefore, we do not consider land wealth like you do. Of course the improvement made on land is wealth and belongs exclusively to the producers. We recognize the right of owning land only by occupancy and use, not by deed, or paper title, as you pretend to own it. Vacant land is as free with us as air and sea, because there is much more highly productive land now, and probably ever will be, than the human inhabitants of any planet can utilize. At least, I believe, no one can produce trustworthy evidence to the contrary. By vacant land I mean all that land which is not worked at all, and all that which, under monopoly, is worked for a landlord, by renters or by wage-workers. For example: A vacant farm or town-lot, a rented farm or town-lot, and a farm or town-lot worked for a land-owner by wage-workers under monopolistic laws like the laws of owning land by deed or paper title. In short, by ‘vacant land,’ I mean all unoccupied land, and all land that would not be utilized by the present owners if all monopolistic land privileges were removed.
“Our communities consist of about 120 families, or 120,000 persons each, and contain about 144 square miles of land, populated nearly twice as densely as Belgium, the secret of which I have already told you. Yet there is plenty of highly productive land left unoccupied for additional communities or individuals, should they ever desire it. We never entertain any fear of over-population. It is highly probable that a highly-intelligent, well-adjusted human society will never be pressed with over-population, as we shall consider more fully under the head of sex relations.”
“But did the Marsians always own land only by occupancy and use like you now do?” asked Mrs. Uwins.
“Oh, no; our ancestors owned it by deed like you own it now. But in time, the most thoughtful men and women began to feel that it is wrong to own and control the whole or a portion of the earth’s surface by virtue of a deed, or paper title. They reasoned something like this: If a person has a just right to own, by deed, forty acres of the earth’s surface and all what is beneath that surface to the center of the earth, for that is the depth a farm is claimed to extend downward, then he has an equal, just right to own, in a similar manner, any amount of it.”
“Upon what principle, Mr. Midith, do you claim that it is more wrong to own land by deed than to own it by occupancy and use?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“The principle of the one is entirely different from the principle of the other. When an individual or collection of individuals own land by occupancy and use only, he makes his own physical powers the measure of the amount he can occupy and use, which can cover only a small area; for man’s physical powers to occupy and use land are very limited. He can use but a very limited area to stand on, to lie on, to build his residence on, and to use for agricultural and sportive purposes. He can occupy and use only so little of the earth’s surface that there will be more left than all the rest of the human race can similarly utilize. Under these conditions there could be no land monopoly, and with the disappearance of land monopoly nearly all other monopoly would disappear; for all wealth comes from the land by the application of labor, and if vacant land were free all could apply their labor to land and produce their necessary wealth. No one would be out of employment. No one would work for less than he actually earned. With vacant land free no one would be the industrial slave of another.
“By deed, under certain conditions, an individual, or a small collection of individuals, may own the whole land area of the earth or of any other planet or world. There is no further limit to the amount of land an individual may own by deed. This causes land monopoly and industrial slavery, because if a few own large tracts of land by deed, there is not enough left to supply all the remainder of mankind. This causes land monopoly, and land monopoly causes either directly or indirectly nearly all other forms of monopoly. Let us illustrate this a little more fully:
“A person who claims to own a forty-acre farm by virtue of a deed he holds of it, claims to have a legal right to remove forcibly any and all human beings from the same if he chooses, and, if he cannot remove them as an individual, the government from which he bought the deed must assist him in making the removal or eviction.
“But if one has a legal right to own 40 acres by deed, he has an equal legal right to own 40,000 acres, or the whole United States, or the whole earth. Under this condition, the individual or individuals who own the earth would be masters, and all the rest of the human race would be slaves.
“The owner or owners of this land, composing the United States or the earth, would have a perfect legal right to demand all his or their fellowmen to vacate the land. But he (if one owns it) owns all the dry land, and nothing but water surface is left for the non-landowners. And, if the non-landowners are loyal and true to their government and to the landlord, they must immediately vacate all dry land, which implies that they must all drown in the water area not covered by the landlord’s deed, whenever the landlord demands it; if they refuse to do so they are rebels and a deed becomes a legal farce.
“There is one other important point to be considered under this head; the point is, that if we trace the abstract of a deed back to the first pretended owner, whether individual or nation, we find him to be a fraud, a thief, or a robber; that is, he obtained the land by fraud, or by force, or by robbery, or by conquest, or by discovery. He did not create it by labor, nor was the deed given to him by the Creator. Such is the condition of ownership of land by deed.
“All wealth, as we have already seen, organized-self, material and mental, comes ultimately from the earth, and requires labor for its production. The man and the land must be permitted to come together or the man must starve.
“Under the deed system, the landlord has first the right to fence the poor off from the land, and then make a bargain with him for his labor; the laborer is bound to accept what the landlord is pleased to pay him, or the laborer must starve, since the laborer is prevented to apply his labor to land from which all wealth is produced. Land is monopolized by deed. To illustrate: The present population of the earth is about one-and-a-half billions, and the total land area of the same is about fifty-three millions of square miles. Hence, each individual born on earth is by nature entitled to a proportionate share of this land; and his fair share of this land is far more than a person could utilize, if land were owned only by occupancy and use. Hence, if any person is in need of land, somebody has robbed him of his birthright.
“Thus is the laborer at a great disadvantage, when the land is owned or monopolized by deed. But now notice the difference when vacant land is free. If the landlord had to make the contract with the laborer for his work, before the landlord had the legal right to fence the laborer off from the vacant land, the laborer would work for no less than he actually earned; if the landlord would not pay him that amount, the laborer would work land for himself wherever he would find some vacant, and receive the full benefit of his labor.
“Thus if one person owns the whole surface of the earth, or other planet, by a deed or paper title, and all the remainder of the inhabitants were living on it by his permission, the conditions of the world would be the worst conceivable as regards owning land. If ten individuals owned it similarly, the conditions would be bad, but somewhat better than they would be if one owned it, and so on up.
“So the Marsites gradually came to the conclusion that no one ought to be prevented from using and occupying, without paying for it, as much land as he wants wherever he finds it vacant; because there is, as I have already stated, more highly productive land than can be utilized for all practical purposes now and perhaps for all future ages. And further because when a person is born and can utilize land for the maintenance of his existence, he is entitled to his proportionate share of the earth’s surface without paying for the permission of living on earth.
“By experience, personal and ancestral, which always constitutes the entire stock of intelligence, we slowly learned that the monopolization of vacant land is doubtless the principal cause of a vicious social and industrial system. 1. Because it produces an army of forced idlers who are prevented by the landlord from applying their labor to land from which all wealth proceeds, and toward which all industry must be directed. 2. It practically forces the laborer to accept the landlord’s offer whatever it may be. And 3. It affords an army of rent-takers who are enabled to live an idle life by appropriating the earnings of the laborers. Hence nearly all other social and industrial evils may be traced directly or indirectly to the monopolization of vacant land.
“In our system vacant land is perfectly free to any one who wants to utilize it; no one pays for living on Mars, and there is, notwithstanding the dense population, more land than all the inhabitants can utilize, the same as here if vacant land was free. With us no one can, or desires to monopolize land, and therefore no one pays rent. We have, by the economic arrangement of freeing vacant land, completely eliminated rent. We have then, as far as I have explained our social and industrial system to you, neither profit, interest, nor rent.”
“Would you, then, take the land away from the landlord and give it to others, perhaps to some who have always lived an idle life?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“I would by no means do any forcible or legal taking or giving as you call it. Vacant land will never become free by physical force or by statute law. It will be monopolized by law as long as the people, both landlords and landless, do not clearly see the evil of owning it by deed. But just as soon as the landless man and woman begins to see that the landlord lives from the products of his or her labor, which necessitates the masses to remain poor, cruel, ignorant, and as soon as the landlord clearly sees that this poverty, cruelty and ignorance caused by the monopolization of land endangers his life and property, and prevents him from living in a world of refinement in which all can be rich, kind and intelligent, vacant land will become free, and not before. Just in proportion as man will clearly see and feel this, vacant land will become free, like the chattel slave who was gradually set free from the bondage of chattel slavery. At one time they sold for more than a thousand dollars apiece; now they are not worth 15 cents a dozen financially. So with vacant land. In my opinion there is no escape from the conclusion, that the masses of your people will soon see, that there is something very wrong in owning vacant land, for thousands of your foremost thinkers see it already more or less clearly.
“Under the head of ‘How the transition from the old to the new order of things was accomplished,’ I shall explain how vacant land on Mars was set free.”
“I think I clearly see the effects of it now,” said Mr. Uwins. “If vacant land were free for all, the servants and hired help would work land for themselves, unless the rich paid them just what the laborer actually earns, under which condition the employer can not grow rich from the labor of others. Men and women can grow rich, as you call it, only by the monopolization of land or some other natural opportunities—by appropriating the earnings of some one else. I must confess your land system appears very just and simple when once explained.”
“Now let us see,” said Mr. Midith as Mr. Uwins had finished speaking, “if we can summarize the most important points of the Marsian social and economic system, as far as I have told you about them.
“To begin with, the Marsites, as I have explained, have no cities and towns. It is a well-known fact that, in the lowest stages of savagery, even among your present savages, man has no cities and towns and no particular fixed habitation. A single individual, or at best a few, roam together with no permanent residence; but as civilization advances, the individuals form a closer union and choose a more permanent place of residence. From this closer association and co-operation, man, like the gregarious animals, reap advantages and these advantages continue to unfold man’s social nature; and in order to satisfy this social nature to the fullest extent, during a certain stage of civilization, he builds large cities. At this city stage of intellectual development, he feels the need of association and co-operation, but he does not yet see and feel the disadvantages, the uselessness, and other evils of cities and also of a lonely country. But as man’s intellectual powers continue to unfold, as his sensibilities become more acute, and as he employs more and more machinery to perform his manual toil, he slowly but gradually discovers the evil effects of dividing the population into cities and country; for both are faulty, both are unhealthy, both are inconvenient, and both are useless.
“After man has discovered this, he begins to locate his large buildings in beautiful parks, at short intervals, in straight lines, on the perimeter of a rectangular community. (See p. 58.) The large size families and the nearness of the buildings satisfy his social nature; the arrangement of buildings, in straight lines, gives commercial and mechanical advantages; the large families give him social and domestic advantages which greatly conduce to his health, prosperity and happiness. The form and size of our communities give us the greatest commercial and agricultural advantages. We all live right on the edge of the agricultural land from which all wealth must be produced, either directly or indirectly. With us a farmer need not come to town to sell his produce, nor need a townman go into the country to farm.
“Thus you see that some labor and some commerce is managed exclusively by the individual, such as keeping his private apartment, buying his own meals, clothes, etc. Some by the family, such as buying the goods for the family store, etc. Some by the community, such as agriculture, mining, etc. Some by the neighborhood, such as railroading, etc. Some in the Fano and some in the Modano. All is justice, equity, order, kindness and harmony. Everybody and everything has, by the force of free competition, drifted into that for which each is best fitted.”