Land Reform Background

What follows is additional background and points for a proposed solution for solving deadlock in the Texas political process and achieving the fundamental aims of both the Left and Right. Some of it rests on moral arguments, but there are also economists and various "credible people" from a wide range of life. Warning - in what follows, there will be some hasty generalizations.

Consider and entertain: in American politics, the so-called Left seems to focus on everyone getting their "fair share", whereas those on the Right seem concerned about excessive taxes and entitlements. Neither side is really happy, but perhaps both are not wrong, but not entirely right either and would need to be willing to entertain the other side's concerns, for even a moment, in the hopes of resolution. Not possible? Well, consider that Kennedy and the leader of the USSR at the time, Khrushchev, managed to avoid global thermonuclear war. Try to keep an open mind in what follows, please.

Imagine that all of us just woke up here one day - no history, no governments, no houses. We'd all pick a nice spot to live and settle down. Life would be great until we started to run out of room and some were eventually forced to live on the North and South poles. Perhaps there is a way around such polarization? Consider, hypothetically, that if it were possible to claim ownership to the Sun and deny access to others? What if one could even sell access to the Sun light? Wouldn't that be sort of ... ridiculous? Of course. We could make a similar argument for the Ocean or perhaps the moon.

These examples are easy to see and everyone, Left and Right, can agree.

Do we treat land, a natural resource, differently, because we can divide it or claim it with force? Let's divide it:

Consider -none has an inherent / natural right to your labor or mine, any more than one could claim right to your grades in school.

Yet, our model of everyone picking a nice place to settle down breaks down as soon as someone starts claiming more than he needs or there are no more good spots for the new people being born.

Some will counter that not all labor is the same (e.g., the ditch digger works harder than the comedian perhaps) as justification to tax some people's labor more than others, but we can all agree that to survive in this world certain basics are needed: air, sunlight, water, shelter, food, etc. In our present system, we help the new people by laying claim to the labor of some folks via income, sales, taxes on the improvements on the land. These are all taxes on productivity - like putting an anchor on a boat. The money from taxes is used to make schools to give these new folks skills to buy their own place one day. Basically, the way our system is designed, new folks feed themselves, by being forced to to rely on the labors (taxes) of others. Depending on where born the result can be relatively painless or someone can be born into a ghetto environment. Is there any reason why a ghetto environment should exist in the first place? Can't we do better AND not take from the labor of others while doing so?

Consider and entertain: Isn't the loss of jobs to foreign nations what gets Trump's supporters excited? Likewise, isn't the same thing in a different form, promises of more education, presumably to get better jobs, what motivates the Sanders' supporters? Can you see how it is sorta the same thing? Sorta?