Land and Egalitarianism versus Land and Capitalism
by John Spritzler
August 19, 2024
Land use and ownership in an egalitarian society is fundamentally different than in a capitalist society.
In our capitalist society
In our capitalist society, if one considers almost any parcel of land and asks how the current owner obtained it, one will learn that the current owner purchased it from the previous owner, and that previous owner from yet an earlier owner, and so forth until one finally goes back in time to when somebody obtained the land not by purchasing it but by violently seizing it from people who were using it. With some exceptions (government owned land and some small land trusts, etc.) land in a capitalist society is private property that the owner can sell and that somebody with enough money can buy. Land is a commodity and because wealth becomes more and more concentrated in a capitalist society the ownership of this commodity ends up being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. USA Today reports, for example, "The top 1% of American earners now own more wealth than the entire middle class."
Thus today, John Malone personally owns more than twice as much United States land as the acreage of the entire state of Delaware--twice! He owns 2.2 million acres of land. Ted Turner personally owns 2.2 million acres in 12 states and Argentina. Archie Aldis 'Red' Emmerson owns 1.84 million acres. Brad Kelly owns 1.5 million acres, the Irving family 1.2 million acres, the Singleton family 1.11 million acres, and the list goes on for the 100 largest landowners listed here.
In our capitalist society, the people who own land use it to make money, to get a good return on their investment (what they paid to buy the land.) Land owners make money from the land by renting it out for as high a rent "as the market may bear" or by selling for a profit something they (or more typically people they hire) produce on it or harvest from it.
In our capitalist society, the profit-logic of capitalism means that, for example, land will be used to produce luxury crops for wealthy people but not used to produce food crops for poor starving people because wealthy people will pay a lot for the crop while poor starving people cannot pay much at all.
In our capitalist society many people, even people with full time jobs, are homeless and living outdoors in tents *, not because there are not vacant homes available for them to live in but because the owners of these homes (which often exceed in number the number of homeless people in many U.S. cities) want to rent them or sell them to wealthy people who will pay a higher rent or purchase price than homeless working class people can afford.
Clearly the capitalist way of deciding ownership and use of land is horrible if one wants to shape society by the egalitarian values of no-rich-and-no-poor equality and mutual aid and fairness and truth.
In an egalitarian society:
Here is one way to decide ownership and use of land that reflects egalitarian values.
Consider what egalitarians (who called themselves anarchists) did in Spain during the years 1936 to 1939 when they had the real power in about half of Spain because of their revolution (referred to in capitalist books as the Spanish Civil War.)
The first thing to note is that these egalitarians abolished capitalism. In several provinces of Spain an egalitarian revolution either eliminated money altogether or made its use secondary while making primary the principle of "from each according to ability, to each according to need." Thus where money remained at all, a person's wage was based on how much he or she needed (how big was their family, etc.), quite unlike in our present capitalist society.
"In the village of Magdalena de Pulpis a visitor asked a resident, 'How do you organize without money? Do you use barter, a coupon book, or anything else?' He replied, 'Nothing. Everyone works and everyone has a right to what he needs free of charge. He simply goes to the store where provisions and all other necessities are supplied. Everything is distributed free with only a notation of what he took.'” **
Read a detailed first-hand account of a local assembly meeting (genuine democracy unlike our capitalist fake democracy) in a village in the Aragon region of Spain during the Revolution here.
The second thing to note is how these egalitarians decided land ownership and use. An illustration of what they did is this anecdote reported after the defeat of the revolution in a book published in 1968 in Spain, during the rule of General Franco.
During the revolution peasants collectivized the land properties of Count Romanones: “The peasants altered the topography of the district by diverting the course of the river to irrigate new land, thus tremendously increasing cultivated areas. They constructed a mill, schools, collective dining halls, and new housing for the collectivists. A few days after the close of the Civil War, Count Romanones reclaimed his domains, expecting the worst, certain that the revolutionary vandals had totally ruined his property. He was amazed to behold the wonderful improvements made by the departed peasant collectivists. When asked their names, the Count was told that the work was performed by the peasants in line with plans drawn up by a member of the CNT Building Workers’ Union, Gomez Abril, an excellent organizer chosen by the Regional Peasant Federation. As soon as Abril finished his work he left and the peasants continued to manage the collective. Learning that Gomez Abril was jailed in Guadalajara and that he was in a very precarious situation, the count succeeded in securing his release from jail and offered to appoint him manager of all his properties. Gomez declined, explaining that a page of history had been written and his work finished.” **
In an egalitarian society (as I describe one possible way for it to be here) the highest body of government is the Local Assembly of Egalitarians, as discussed here and illustrated by the Spanish local assembly meeting described in the above link (and again here.)
The egalitarians (i.e., people with egalitarian values whether they have ever heard the word "egalitarian" or not) in the Local Assembly of Egalitarians are the sovereign power for the local community and this governing body decides how the land in the local community will be used to shape society by egalitarian--not capitalist!--values.
In the example from Spain above there were what the Spanish anarchists called "collectives" and what I call a "sharing economy" (discussed in the "Sharing Economy" section of the article about egalitarianism here, and discussed also here.) By whatever name, these are voluntary mutual agreements by people to produce and share goods and services according to the principle of "From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to need or reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need" (with the Local Assembly of Egalitarians deciding what is reasonable and equitable.)
It is important to note that, in sharp contrast to what the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union called "collectives," egalitarian collectives are voluntary. With respect to land usage, the peasants in Spain who wanted to be in a collective worked out the details of mutual agreements about who would do what, and on what land, and how the fruits of their labor would be shared, at the Local Assembly. They shared what they produced according to the principle cited above, "From each according..." This is how it would be in what I call a sharing economy.
In Spain (and in what I propose), those who did not wish to be in a collective were free not to be in it. The Spaniards called such people "individualists" and they were viewed as friends of the revolution and welcomed as members of the Local Assembly with the same equal rights as all other members. I agree with this policy.
The Local Assembly provided land (and appropriate material goods such as farm equipment, as available) for "individualists" to use as their own, and they were allowed to barter what they produced on the land as they wished. They were not, however, allowed to use hired (wage) labor, only their own labor--be it an individual or a family or a larger group of individualists. The individualists thus had a right to use as much land as they could--by their own labor only--reasonably put to good use, but no more. I agree with this policy.
Everybody in the local community, be they anti-egalitarians (who could not belong to the Local Assembly of Egalitarians) or egalitarians, be they people in a sharing economy ("collective") or people who chose not to be in a sharing economy, all had to obey the laws of the Local Assembly of Egalitarians. This Assembly would of course make deliberate and explicit egalitarian-based changes in land use policy as needed when circumstances changed.
I discuss in some detail how the egalitarian economy works on a larger-than-local scale here. The local assemblies of egalitarians use voluntary federation to reach mutual agreements among many local communities (even possibly on a global scale) to share the fruits of their labor according to the principle of "From each according..."
Is there private property in land in an egalitarian society?
Yes, in an egalitarian society there is private property, in land and other things. The difference between private property in an egalitarian society versus in a capitalist society is that what, and how much, a person may own as private property is determined by the egalitarians in the local assembly of egalitarians, on the basis of what is reasonable, as discussed further here. Private ownership of one's house and the land it is on and possibly land for a garden would likely be considered reasonable; private ownership of large tracts of land that could only be put to reasonable productive or recreational use by many people besides those who claim to own it would likely be considered not reasonable.
Is there a land tax in an egalitarian society?
In egalitarianism as I describe it there is no use of money, and hence no taxes. There is no need for money because things are not bought and sold; things are shared according to democratically made mutual agreements by egalitarians with egalitarian--not capitalist!--values. Barter is allowed, but not money. The reason for this is that people who do not want to share according to "From each according..." need some alternate way to make a living, and barter, unlike buying and selling with money, is a way for them to do so that does not lead to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few with terrible consequences that are discussed here (the important difference between barter versus buying and selling is discussed here.)
A friend of mine, Alanna Hartzok, advocates the "land value tax" famously promoted by the American political economist, Henry George [1839 – 1897] and discussed on Wikipedia here. Alanna Hartzok wrote a book about this, The Earth Belongs to Everybody, which argues that this land value tax would make society be much closer to egalitarian than our present capitalism. Well, maybe it would. That's an interesting question.
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* See what's happening to homeless people in this video and this video and this video and this video. Here's a Boston Globe article that shows why even people with jobs cannot afford to rent an apartment.
** These accounts of Spanish history are from The Anarchist Collectives, Sam Dolgoff, ed, p. 71, 73, 150 online here.