Land monopoly
A land monopoly occurs when an entity or a class is able to corner the market on land. According to Winston Churchill, "Land monopoly is not the only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies – it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly."[1] According to anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard, "Land monopoly is far more widespread in the modern world than most people – especially most Americans – believe. In the undeveloped world, especially in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, feudal landholding is a crucial social and economic problem – with or without quasi-serf impositions on the persons of the peasantry."[2] Mutualist Benjamin Tucker classified, as one of the four forms of monopoly, the state's enforcement of "land titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation."[3]
There are numerous mechanisms of ameliorating land monopolization.
- The Land Value Tax
- The Lockean proviso
- Public land
- Standards of abandonment
- Usufruct
- Easement
- Adverse possession
- Right of way
- Real covenants [4]