David Giesen

Apothanein Kerdos, It's quite so that God authorized or even divided up the land of Israel for apportionment among the Jews, but I don't know of God doing anything like that anywhere else in the world. That leaves it up to humanity to determine land ownership and land rent ownership. I do not question private title to land, but I do question, as a matter of good public policy, privatizing the rent of land. Where private title to land's rent persists, there there persists land speculation, the hoarding of land against others use. That's hardly a Christian sensibility, is it, to withhold Creation from others unless they pay a premium to whom? Inevitably someone who bought Creation from someone who bought it from someone who either mashed someone else's brains in or who arrived somewhere on Earth a split moment or a generation (what's the difference) before anybody or everybody else. Now there's a fine howdy-do for a little babe: Welcome to Earth but it's all laid claim to--at least the bits that the naturally social beings that humans are want to occupy--and you'll just have to pay rent to the current occupants or title-holders of any particular bit of Creation. No matter that it's the fact that you want to use the earth, your heavenly Father's gift to humanity, that gives land its value. The little baby's need for taking sustenance from the earth is what gives the earth its rental value. Were there no babies, nor anyone else, then Adam had no rent to collect. But just as soon as the next human wanted to use the same piece of Creation as another (because not all land yields the same return on the same application of human labor), just that soon did land rent appear. Land rent only appears where two human beings desire to use the same bit of Creation. Wages are different. Wages are the direct result of human labor. If you grasp an apple from a tree (that is wild or which no one else has planted or cared for), that apple is your wages. If you plant a vine on land which no one else desires, the fruit of the vine is your wages, all of the fruit. But where two or more people desire to use the same bit of earth to grow grapes upon, it is only the surplus of grapes above the rent of the land which constitutes wages. The premium for using one piece of land (in its unimproved state) rather than another is land rent. It is a value that arises irrespective of any labor applied. A bare parcel of land in the middle of a town or city will command rent, sometimes enormous rent, without the owner having so much as cleared the weeds and litter. Why? Because other people see in that bit of Creation the ideal or sufficient location for locating a business. Now, before a single lick of work is done, the landowner demands a contract saying such and such a land rent will be paid for mere opportunity to use the earth. What does the landlord care whether Creation is used or not as long as the rent is paid when the rent is due! God created. God's creatures desired to use Creation. But someone, a King of Spain or a Duke of Wales or a Thomas Jefferson or a David Giesen (that's me!) has got title to Creation first. . . not from God, mind you, but from someone who got it from someone, etc. mashing of brains, good luck in "discovering" Creation, prior birth, etc. and now, lest these late arrivals to Creation dare use Creation, there I stand, title deed in hand (title deed, mind you, not to a book or a shovel or a gallon of paint or a software program I've made, but title deed to God's Creation!), demanding that everyone else pony up or move along to the next title-held piece of Creation. There's always the high desert or the wilds for those who want to live off of free BLM land far from community, Christian or otherwise. Au contraire, there is free land in the midst of community. The sidewalks of New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Kansas City, Louisville, Columbus, Washington, D.C. Enough and to spare! Plenty of free underpasses and doorways and sidewalks for the broken , the halt, the vets, the drunks, the outcasts. Plenty of free land in the midst of community for the kind of flea-bit pariahs whom Jesus touched with the hands of a magnificently-trained masseure. Bring it on! We offer foodbank blocks of cheese and a fiver from our wallet and a kind word and a Coca-cola from Jack-in-the-Box. We may even offer a job. But equal shares in Creation?! God forbid! "They hanker after even the dust that settles on their heads!"

I know it. Domain as a community is where it's at rather than dividing the earth up as a private kingdom that challenges God as Father of all.

Most of the recent rise in value of a gallon of gasoline is owing not to increased costs of production but owing to scarcity of the natural resource relative to demand. That natural resource, petroleum, is a gift of nature/a gift of the Creator. The rising value of petrol, then, is a social-generated value and it ought to be fully retrieved by community rather than largely pocketed by the mere owner of the petrol in the ground. Here is a brilliant example of how distinguishing gifts of the Creator from human-made things can lead to: 1) proper and increased funding for community programs; 2) kill the incentive for private interests to exploit God's Creation for personal gain.

Any that you recommend?

I will work without ceasing to attest the sufficiency of God's Creation in meeting every human need. I'll do that by speaking up whenecer there is a conversation about wickedness or poverty or behavior that is not socially healthy. For instance, I too am grateful that George W. is in the White House because now we people of faith have an opportunity to speak to the Presidency about public policy that harmonizes with the perspective that the earth is the birthright of all people, a gift to all from the Creator. Sadly. despite many respectful missives sent to the Bush Administration, it refuses to honor God by establishing Creation as the commonwealth. Instead, the Bush Administration continues on with the long train of misguided public policy that serves those who have taken hold of Creation as their personal potential income=generating instrument. How Christian it would be to socialize Creation's market rent (without taking away people's title to land)! And, of course, by socializing land rent we could curb if not abolish the various taxes that socialize privately created income, eg. the sales tax, the income tax on earned income, etc! Write your letter to GW today!

I really appreciate this site and learn a great deal from reading the posts; still, as someone new to discussion boards, I'm interested in visiting still other web-based Christian and theologically informed discussion boards where the intersection of public policy and spiritual values gets deliberated. Any ideas? Thanks, David

Write on! And how many preachers aver God's abundance for all, manifest in the earth itself? How many quietly abide the division of the earth upon terms that alienate the people from the land! We all know the earth is the irreducible source of all material satisfaction and yet the pulpit says nary a word about treating the rent of the earth as the birthright of all people. Is it any wonder that huge wealth piles up on one side and abject poverty weighs down the other when the earth is treated as though its community-wide desirability (market value) is a proper source of private income? Honor God and yet hoard Creation's rent for one's own? Absurd! Who can expect others to live in abundance when paper title to land is wielded as a lever to extract the community-generated desirability of the abundance of Creation from community as private gain? Ah the itching ears leading the twitching fingers to fondle the pocket book. . . and God's Creation!

Lord, we ask that the Iraqis accept the gift of Creation as the whole peoples' and that they use the entire free market rent of the oil under the soil for wholly social purposes such as the building of schools and museums, hospitals and youth centers. We pray that the Iraqis will witness that their entire population, Sunni and Shiia and Kurd and all others, too, are the children of God and will witness that the land upon which they stand is the birthright of all as a gift of the Creator to all and that therefore they will live in brotherly and sisterly peace. And Lord, we pray that what holds true for Iraqis holds true for Amreicans as well, and that the entire free market rent of land of these United States be used for wholly social purposes such as the building and operation of schools and museums, hospitals and youth centers. And we pray their hearts be softened, Lord, those people who have hardened their hearts in Iraq and in the United States and believe that Creation is a special gift that has come to them by their own effort (as though they could singly earn title to God's Creation and exclude others, demanding of their brothers and their sisters the free market rent of Creation as a condition for the use of Creation). We pray that an abiding sense of the sufficiency of your Creation in meeting the material needs of all people fill all people, Lord. And that we stop coveting your Creation as a private income source, which alienates some people from the abundance of your Creation. We acknowledge that it is this breaking up of Creation and holding it as a private economic income force which has contibuted to the pain and suffering of many of your people and has led many of them to desperate acts of terror and villany. Lord, we pray that we witness your Grace in granting all people equal access to Creation, which Grace affords every family and every community the fullness of Life and themeans of living in peace one with another.

I will revisit the scriptural verse inspiring that song and impress it upon my heart! It is an anthem rallying us to treat the rent of land as a commonwealth, is it not? God's people paying the rent of Creation to community in order to use it for the duration of rent payment. And that rent funding community programs such as Bible study, schools, fire protection, health care, street paving, museums! How marvelous is the economy of the Creator!

Yes, whose house and whose land? Well, we could say truly that whoever built the tabernacle or masonic temple or yurt tent, to him (or her) it belonged. But the earth itself? That is the Lord's. God doesn't need a house for Creation is God's habitation, as is the heart of humanity. That story wonderfully reveals such a pure truth, namely that though we may build society and cities with an earnestness born of our desire to model God's Creation, we do not build for God for God has all and enough already. David's task was to lead society in a way that reflected the harmony of Creation. That harmony included full, complete, unobstructed access to Creation on the part of the living beings part of Creation. For instance, there is no example in Creation of one member of a species, or of one species among other species, holding title to land/Creation based simply upon a piece of paper! No. It is by the constant effort of the individual to best use Creation (that's what evolution really means: to constantly respond to the circumstances of environment) that use of Creation is admitted. Only humanity, in its most broken tryst with God, claims private title to Creation based not upon response to environment (in this case society) but based upon paper title. What a glory it is to God to treat Creation as the home of all people; that Creation is enough and to spare in meeting human needs, both the personal and the communal!

Smalcald, What is proposed is not the eliimination of private title to land but that the terms of ownership of land be payment of land's rent to society. This would end land speculation (adding field to field in Biblical language). Because there is an existential difference between land and things made by human beings--land existing anterior to humanity, while human-made stuff, obviously, comes into existence as it is fashioned by humanity--it is meaningful to recognize that until gifts of nature/Creation cease being a source of private income, there can be no genuine free market respecting human made goods and services. To illustrate: A man who owns valuable land need not produce anything at all, but can, rather, merely live off the rent of land paid him by those who rent the land and build a business there. Or again, to illustrate: where one man owns land but with a mortagage payment contracted years ago is making a land payment based upon past market value of land rather than the current value of land, that man has an advantage (past rent vs current market rent) over another man conducting an identical business who has to pay current market land rent. In such a case there is not a genuine competition between producers of goods and services because the fellow not paying currnt market rent can be less efficient in production and yet subsidize that relative inefficiency with actual or putative rent from land rent (which is unearned). In short, until Creation ceases being a source of private income there will be little true market competition between producers of stuff that has value added to Creation (buildings made out of earth, tools made out of earth, consumer goods made out of land, etc.)

Why so blind, How far north runs the land given to the Hebrews? And, for that matter, how far south? To the headwaters of the Nile to the tippy-top of the Euphrates (into Armenia?)? What do you think of treating the rent of land/Creation as a commonwealth?

Marnie, I fully support holding private title to land. The sticky issue is who does one pay rent to in use of the earth? Should one pay the bank or other entity which neither made land nor made its market rent value? Or should one pay society that market rent in recognition that the earth is the birthright of all of God's people? I argue that the latter conforms both with secular economic dynamics (the creator of value ought properly to enjoy that value) and with theological economics (Creation is the equal opportunity for all people and not an instrument for private economic gain). The gain in value of your home and improvements in and upon land is certainly rightfully yours, but I suggest that any rise in the value of land itself is a rise in value attributable to aggregte community interest in land. In short, rising land values are social equity, not properly privatable equity. I do not deny that land rent is and has been treated as privatable, but that tradition is injurious to the proper social functioning of society, not least because it trespasses upon the natural relationship between all people and Creation.

Apothanein Kerdos, First I will address your questions, though I must say you seem to have brushed mine aside. 1) Yahweh does indeed inform the Hebrews that they are sojourners in the land. Indeed, he aportions the land of Israel to the Hebrews. We are in agreement there. But has God aportioned any other piece of the earth to other particular people? What are we to make of Europeans coming to America and displacing First Peoples? Did God mandate North America specially for some and not for others? And if so, where are the vestigal First Peoples to go? Where are people to properly live? Is it a Christian notion that some parts of the earth are off-limits to some people upon equal terms. Surely you don't deny the earth is the birthright of people born upon it? What do you propose? The economic reason for attaching Hebrew people to the land via the Jubilee mechanism was, of course, to abolish the possibility of economic slavery. So long as people have access to land unobstructed by mere kingly interception of land rent, they have opportunity to make a just living. Slavery consists of having to surrender a portion of the fruits of one's labor not in exchange for a comparable value of the fruits of another's labor, but as the terms for merely being a human being. This is why, in the modern world, the payment to private parties of a portion of the fruits of one's labor for mere access to Creation is at once secular slavery and theological apostasy. We all are the family of God. The earth is our home. Private gain in permitting access to part of family to God's home traduces the equal interest all adults (and their children) have in occupying God's Creation. 2) I utterly defend private property right in things made by people. I suspect that in this regard I am more thorough than you. I asked you what you propose to tax in order to raise public revenue for streets, public health, public education, fire and police protection, etc. I would eliminate the tax on earned income. Would you? If not you are more the Marxist than me. I would eliminate the sales tax because it is a tax on the productions of human beings, a tax on property made by them. Would you eliminate this tax on private property? If not, you are more the Marxist than me. 3) In Scripture we see that every man will enjoy the fruit of his labors. He will not build and another occupy. Taxes upon the value of things and services made by people is equivalent to occupying what another has built. Land rent, in contrast, is not built by the owner of land. The value of land arises expressly out of the aggregate desire desire of community to use a piece of Creation. The market rent of land reflects society's market interest in Creation. Private ownership of socially-created land rent is privileged occupancy of the value created by another. The "another" in this case happemns to be community. Or would you argue that nothing is community's? Indeed, would you argue that community doesn't actually exist? God's family is a fiction? Christian fellowship is a mere ethereal pleasantry?

Apothanein Kerdos, Israel for the Jews notwithstanding, what about North America? For whom? Whoever arrives with the standard of the Pope or the King or the East India compnay? That there was a patch of land left for your family and mine to buy was nice, but what about the child born today? Is she to be your or my Creation/land rent vassal if she can't find a piece of unclaimed Creation? The theological question stands, "Is Creation the birthright of all people equally, or is Creation a special income-genreating commodity for some?" I am a land rent/ Creation rent socialist. What sort of socailist are you? What portion of other people's labor and things made are you in favor of taxing for public purposes? And what portion of Creation's economic value are in favor of leaving with those who have title to Creation based upon nothing more than force of seizure or imperial declaration? Title to one's time and the product of one's labor is established by the exertion which brings service or product into being. Of land there can be no such assertion as, "I made it."

Apothanein kerdos, The fall of man cannot alienate anyone from an equal moral right of access to Creation, only human legislation can do that. Throughout history different cultures have variously legislated who has right to land and upon what terms. That there is Creation which includes the material universe we know. How we as a people choose to determine access to Creation is a matter of public policy. I argue that a kind and just respect forthe humanity of all requires the socialization of Creation's rent and the putting of that revenue to purpose in satisfying community needs and wants such as fire and police protection, courts, streets, public health, education and transportation, etc.

Why so Blind, Your criticisms of government are just that, criticisms of government. I have proposed a change in public revenue source that conforms with a belief in Creation as a gift to all. I have not proposed a change in government process. Still a local, state and federal government here in the USA; still a body of elected officials carrying out the interests of the electorate. Only now, rather than heavy community taxation of business and labor through income taxes, business taxes, sales taxes and property tax on improvements, there would be a community collection of land/Creation rent. People would still have the same security they have in land as today: pay its rent and use it, build upon it, sleep on it, establish business upon it. The change in effect, though, would include the elimination desire of those who own land to lobby government for government expenditures that enhance the value of their bit of Creation/earth in order to see land values rise for their private gain! Fire protection, paved roads and public schools enhance land values. Those enhanced land values belong to community rather than to the mere title-holder to Creation.

The earnest effort to determine public policy that is socially just and which conforms with faith-informed values can be bewildering at times. For instance, how do we, as community, ensure that all are satisfactorily housed and have opportunity to pursue a suitable and sufficient livelihood? To what extent should welfare and employment programs travel in providing services to the unemployed and the poor? The recent federal deliberation over raising the minimum wage is a case in point: how intrusive should government be in the performance of business? Business is community, but community is also the people who work in and for businesses. How do we care for all the people and interests that community comprises? I believe distinguishing Creation from things made from Creation by humanity is a good starting place for sensibly simplifying (but not simplistically addressing) the establishment of right-values informed social legislation. The entire material universe outside of humanity can (and I argue should be) distinguished as a gift to all humanity. This Creation is like the Garden of Eden: it embodies all the natural opportunity humanity as a whole needs in order to satisfy its biological needs and Creation is not the special gift to some to the exclusion of others. The privatization of the economic value of land/earth/Creation is the fundamental cause of social distress. The taking of Creation as one's own, without full and recurring compensation to all interested parties for their equal moral right to the economic power of Creation is a fundamental theological blunder and an economic catastrophe. It is not enough to say that a family can sit in the shade of its own fig tree and eat the fruit of the vine it has tended if the land those plants grow on is owned by another, for in that case the mere owner of Creation will take a portion of the figs and of the grapes without any effort RELATED TO THE PRODUCTION OF THOSE FIGS AND GRAPES. Yes, the owner has bought Creation, but from whom? From its Creator? No, land is a gift to all and may properly be only taken title to if the rent of Creation, the rent of land, is paid to society. (This means, of course, that the family that owns its own land that has land rent should pay that land rent to society; just because one is owner rather than renter that does not mean that one is excused from paying land rent.) The property tax does this to a very little extent. Once society takes the whole of land rent, however, it immediately resolves a multitude of social questions. Socializing the rent of land recognizes Creation as the commonwealth. Socializing the rent of land abolishes land speculation. Socializing the rent of land clarifies what is properly private property: things and services produced by people. Socializing land rent abolishes land speculation and that means that those who wish to use land for gaining a livelihood are not dependent upon paying a premium in lower wages (the speculative part of land rent) in order to use Creation. In short, socializing land rent will end involuntary poverty; where all have equal access to the material universe because none are receiving income from mere ownership of Creation, the full rewards of labor are transparent. . . no longer need we wonder if it were effort or economic alienation from Creation which induced an economic circumstance. What do you thnk? Can Creation's economic opportunity for all people be seized by some? Can a child born today have, by some contract between adults unknown to her, have lost her equal birthright in the economic opportunity of Creation? We do not speak of the houses and businesses constructed by people--those are the creations of men--, we speak of the land under cities, farms and mining equipment. Are these not Creation? Are these not a gift "to the least of these?"