Collective Land Ownership: Journey and Implications Part 2

Gradual fading of nationalism into regionalism and globalism is a natural process that shouldn't be feared.

In part 1, there was some exploration of the meaning behind a claim that the environment belongs to all of us. It began to appear that people already do collectively claim indirect ownership over all the land within their specific national boundaries (nationalism has done a good job of ingraining that notion). Various conflicts throughout the 20th century have demonstrated that average citizens don't take international trespassing lightly.

This is beginning to change.

The political elites of powerful countries have long moved beyond viewing themselves as sovereign landowners and masters of just their territory. The scale perception of a jet flying, conference attending globalist politician is radically different from perception of a nationalist citizen. To globalists, the world is but one country in the process of being put together due to the necessity of large scale cooperation and prevention of a nuclear war. To put it another way, they think the world can enter into a more perfect union the way the 13 colonies did.

It seems absurd to many international elites to have the equivalent of a giant village hurtling through space where every house or block is strictly sovereign and militarized. Thus powerful landowners (members of state governments and their oligarch backers) routinely meet to enjoy drinks and to hammer out ways to have more joint collective ownership and management over the planetary surface.

The United Nations was a solid start to this project. Rather than making nation states share sovereignty under some umbrella body within a federal structure, it allowed the landowners to have the final say in all matters and remain sovereign. UN literally does not exist without its components. The slow progress of global integration in the past 50 years has been due to some major differences of opinion among largest landowners on the security council when it comes to what planetary managerial approach is best. Every plantation boss whether it be Chinese or American government desires to be the backbone of a future world government.

Gradually, the more educated people in the northern hemisphere began to partially follow the thought process of their political elites. This is most evident in their acceptance of E.U. confederate structure without a violent insurgency. At this very moment, French, Spaniards, Irish, etc are increasingly claiming psychological collective ownership of land within the borders of neighboring countries and allowing citizens of neighboring countries to do the same. It may be objected that they are prodded/dragged by their unaccountable internationalist masters in government but the same objection was brought up during the formation of United States, Germany, Italy, and many other states.

And it is true to a large degree. As the perceptive scale of elites expands beyond their city walls to include first nation states, then entire continents, and then the whole world, the people follow. The process is a mix of coercion from above and voluntary acceptance from below due to understanding and desire to solve large scale problems. There was very little input from average people when landed oligarchs founded the American republic. Constitutional Convention was not transparent and not open to social networking for debate. If it happened today there would be a furious outcry and accusations of smoking rooms and conspiracy. This is not to say that transparency and public input should not be allowed in the future. Regional and global integration is no joking matter to be at risk of group think.

Implication 2: Some sort of tighter planetary unification and collectivist global governance is inevitable.

The political end point (before the arrival of technological singularity) will likely be a planetary confederate structure between various continental and semi-continental unions. There are many reasons for this from providing security from nanotechnological terrorism to fulfilling the psychological desire of global elites to compete (but in a non-violent manner) while preserving some of their wealth and position in a world transitioning to post scarcity socioeconomics.

We are well on the way towards formation of South American Union, North American Union, Arab Union, etc. The heads of these unions will have a bigger claim to be represented on the UN security council in the years ahead compared to claims of Brazil, Japan, India, etc. It is to be noted that the UN general assembly is already split by regional blocks. Overlaps of trade blocs and regional organizations will just pick up pace barring some catastrophic event.

Considering the absolute humanitarian failure of Anglo-American globalist "free trade" project, there are understandably major reservations among nativists the world over when it comes to further planetary unification. This manifests in partially true conspiracy theories involving global banking cartels that use American imperial center of force for their own needs until they find another host body whether inside EU, Russia, or China.

The almost total transplantation of US economy onto Chinese soil seems so deliberate as to imply a half baked attempt at standardizing the world's citizens to a certain degree. Third worldification of the West and first worldification of the East is bringing enormous pain but to those with the eye for world governance may seem no different than New York getting poorer at expense of South Carolina. This unprecedented reshuffle of world wealth has largely run its course and can't really go further without creating a blatantly revolutionary situation (actual famine in parts of the West). We should now see people demand (and get) much needed protectionism on continental scale. China is showing that mercantilism definitely works.

Additionally, there are serious disagreements among globalists concerning which route is best to take. The severe decline of the English speaking world due to imperial transnational financial parasitism will discredit English speaking globalists and reduce the influence of their sympathizers among globalists of Germany, China, and Russia. That is, after the American economic crisis deepens substantially, Alan Greenspan equivalents in Beijing, Berlin, and Moscow will be displaced. Since Soviet route to planetary unification is also discredited, the future route is likely to take a creative rethinking of EU model with major helpful input from Asian/Russian elites.

The nativists the world over may truthfully note that regardless of what type of road to world government we take, the people in charge will find a way to profit from it. That is correct. It is also likely that many of the financial banking parasites who caused the current worldwide depression will find themselves in new positions of power as high powered civil servants in other global power centers.

The desire to bring back the guillotine (for people like Lloyd Blankfein) as revenge for massive historic Anglo-American financial exploitation is understandable but is very dangerous. The most likely event in the western hemisphere will be a packed transition. The way soviet elites had a deathbed conversion, former free market bigwigs will start changing their stripes (into technocrats, collectivists, social democrats, and socialists) when pitchforks appear on the horizon. Whether they pull it off remains to be seen but we can be sure that the power that they had in shaping the world of the future will pass on to top dogs in eastern hemisphere.

To conclude this part, there are many different conceptions of a New World Order that are being discussed. Some of these conceptions even maintain the sovereignty of major states like US, Russia, China, India within a more collectivist framework. It may be hard to believe but among the elites there are even factions (they tend to be "new money"/"new power") that want to genuinely improve the human herd and raise its welfare. Nihilism and hedonism has infected many top policy makers but not all. Now that the Internet is awakening thoughtful humans on the outside of power/wealth hierarchies, it'll increasingly become easier to connect with the "kind masters" to formulate a new type of globalization that is not a dirty word.

I'll discuss some alternative futuristic globalization models in part 3.

Collective Land Ownership: Journey and Implications Part 1

Beginning of exploration concerning certain issues on the way to global governance and international problem solving



Now that Georgism and resource based socioeconomic theory (technocracy) are having a major revival, it's time to look at the ins and out of collective land ownership.

As explained in one of my earliest articles Story of Joe the Land Baron, private land ownership is a feudal concept that capitalist/libertarian thinkers just came to defend without giving it much second thought. Their arguments on taxation being theft and coercion are much more applicable to private holding of territory (if basic history and dynamics of control over land are looked at). It is likely that in the years to come, there will be a rise in popularity of bridging theories (such as geolibertarianism) due to the desire of Internet hatched free market zealots to reconcile their socially atomizing beliefs with psychological communal longing.

The most likely focus of attack would be private land ownership (first the unrestrained corporate variety and then smaller scale slumlord variety due to severe housing shortages). Such a hallowed notion under attack is the result of educated individuals now increasingly seeing the world as one splintered country in formation and themselves as citizens within it. The globalist mentality of elites has been infiltrating the minds of middle classes for some time now as they realize that key problems are international in nature. The massive damage to the ecosystem puts large scale land owners under greater scrutiny than ever before. The realization that capitalist theory doesn't defend private land control makes this scrutiny all the stronger.

The nation's and world's environment being a collective responsibility inevitably leads to certain clarifications.


Idealist Statement: Environment belongs to all of humanity.
Realist translation of statement: The state is the ultimate landowner (practically and morally)

Working with accepted definition of the state being a monopoly on violence over a given area, it's clear that most of the land acquired throughout the world was via the state providing muscle, support, and protection. This could be anything from an absolute monarch settling a territorial dispute to the federal government engaging in Louisiana purchase.

In 2010, the ultimate defense of all the land in the world is given by statist military guarantee. At least on paper. There may be de facto areas not under state control in which case the armed individuals creating leadership in those areas become temporary micro states rather than remain private individuals. Yes, the public government may devolve power to individuals when it comes to day to day defense and maintenance of specific bit of land but you can bet that if another government lands helicopters there and puts a flag in, there would be a massive statist reaction (see Georgia 2008).

Idealist Statement: The government is people's tool and is a managerial extension of the people.
Realist translation of statement: People are indirect landowners of all the land under their state's military protection.

If people ideologically (and naively given the oligarchic reality) perceive the government as their tool and servant, then they claim ownership to the totality of territory under that government's control. This seems as a no brainer in that in many nations nativist patriots would be enraged and feel violated if a neighboring country's people invade with the goal of land acquisition. The concept of nationalism has psychologically imbedded the idea of collective ownership of land for many decades now. Statement of "our country" is amusing coming from the mouth of a pro-private land ownership libertarian. It's no less amusing if this person says "the state's country" and then proceeds to argue how he is just in some contract with the state to get contract enforcement, etc.

Whatever the socioeconomic structure and popular legitimacy of any given state is, it is evident that most people within it have had their ancestors acquire the state's land by force, kept it by force, and continually claim strong joint psychological ownership over it. The fact that the notion of private land ownership still exists in the modern world points to the continuing strength of feudal power (large landowners having incredibly larger leverage in using the government as a tool compared to masses at large). Seizure of land by the government from private interests "in the name of the people" is like a car owner seizing his glove compartment to reestablish control over it. Legality and morality of it is as absurd to discuss as legality of modern country borders. Ownership of improvements on the land (contents of the glove compartment) are a different matter to be discussed below.

Implication 1: Acceptance of collective ownership of land results in elimination of feudal middlemen as rents are now publicly collected.

The rents that land owners collect is based on the value of the land (that landlords are allowed to sit on by the state). Since the state is the ultimate landowner, these rents need to go directly to it while cutting out the feudal middlemen out of the equation. This means that private rent collection is to be eliminated as a practice. Private individuals are not allowed to collect whatever tax they like at the moment and same would apply to rents from locations they happen to occupy.

to be continued in part 2