Fine the Landlords

Part 3

By M. Randolph Hamilton

Fruits of Your Labor (continued)

The following quote was sent to me by the author of the first page you will see when visiting The Thomas Paine Network. I do not understand the reason for this, because when reading it, it supports the argument that one's labor is his property. If he labors to fund the purchase of land, he has produced the right to the land. It is true that he didn't actually make the land, but he did labor to have control over it. That is his land.

[John Locke]: "...Every man has a 'property' in his own 'person'. This nobody has a right to but himself. The 'labour' of his body and the 'work' of his hand, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. ... For this 'labor' being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. ... (John Locke, *Second Treatise of Government*, ch.5, sec.26-35)

In a free market, I can choose to pay a landlord to rent his land, or I can choose to buy my own land. I can choose to rent someone else's land if that is what I so desire. I can also choose to homestead in those areas where that still exists. If the landlord cannot get someone to rent his land, then he has a choice o either sell it or reduce the rent until he gets a tenant willing to pay his price. Rents can only be increased in any given market when there is someone willing to pay the price. That is why land in some ares cost $1,000 per acre to purchase and that much per square foot in others. The market always discounts everything. That is how a free market works. When the supply exceeds the demand prices go down. When the demand exceeds that supply, then prices go up. On one hand, people do need a place to live. One the other hand there are still places that one can homestead. You just need to be willing to move.

As to the quote above by John Locke, it is better served as evidence to the income tax debate, because it has nothing to do with land ownership and everything to do with owning your labor.

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