This, of course, is only a summarized statement of the alleged benefits of State purchase. They are expanded into great detail by the Land Nationalization Society in its various publications.
The Socialistic Confiscation Schemes
The chief characteristic of the “socialistic schemes” is confiscation pure and simple. How exactly that is to be effected depends upon the particular school of Socialism; the constitutionalists say by legislation; the revolutionaries say by direct action culminating in the social revolution.
The Conceptions Underlying Each Scheme
The fundamental conceptions underlying the schemes are as follows:
(a) The Georgites contend that the bare land was given by God to the human race but was afterwards stolen by robber barons, or taken by wicked kings from the people and handed over on fictitious grounds or nefarious reasons to courtiers who did the royal will.
(b) The Land Nationalization Society builds up the whole of its case for State purchase upon this basic axiom:
“All men have an equal right to live, and as no man can live without land, it follows that all men have an equal right to the use of the land that is necessary to sustain their existence.” Notwithstanding this, land still remains private property; the private owner is supreme in regard to it; he can exclude everyone from it with dire economic results. Only under State ownership, says the Nationalization Society, can this be remedied.
(c) The Socialists, that is to say, the National Guildists and Syndicalists, found their scheme on both the foregoing assumptions, the Syndicalists in addition claiming that no rent should be paid even to the State, but that the land should belong outright to, and be distributed among, the people.