Free Land, or the ideal mean for a Location Value funded Citizen's Dividend

If we want to liberate ourselves from one another, we can buy into the idea that we can more effectively share this planet. We can do so for the purposes of maximizing human autonomy and the experience of equal liberty for every citizen of the Earth, through each of their local communities. We have the means today to voluntarily buy into a federation of neighborhood scale land trusts with a global reach. Existentially, our birthrights are the greatest lottery of all of history. We can make that a game with winning odds for everyone.

The desire to be free, to choose to live how we each wish to live, is strongly felt within each of us. But those who experience it most, unfortunately, value it least. They become so accustomed to protecting or jealously expanding their own experience of it that they have created a system of enforcing their own privileges at the cost of others. I believe all people ought to choose whosoever's service they wish to enter, but I do not believe any of us can truly feel like we are serving at our best unless we are the ones to choose that service, without being compelled by others into said service.

The maximization of our autonomy is up against the friction of claims of conquest, Rights over the Earth carrying demands of tribute from others for its use. This is our existing system of real Private Property, and the material reality of historical domination is the precedent it cites for its glutonous form of so-called justice. It is time for this tired form of justice to come to terms with the reclamation of the commons in the present.

It is time for the meek to inherit the Earth. They must give it to themselves by marching on their Exodus, escaping existing systems of domination and earthly authority conceived in the past by our species. Only then, will all men have their Right to the Earth respected, to share and share alike in harvesting from it the fruits of their labors.

There have been many studies recently that have shown that the most efficient allocation of resources to allay the desperation of the impoverished is astonishingly simple: provide them directly the means to improve their plight. In other words, give them cash. It is cheaper for both the thief and merchant to simply give those thieves driven by hunger and want what they would otherwise steal. Thus, many would-be thieves instead have no drive to become thieves in the first place. Such gratiutous and gracious cooperation with others to improve their personal plights will help create ferociously fructicious societies.

If we would like to share such a greater bounty with one another, we can do it by granting any usufruct the means to maximize their productivity. We can create societies where access to the land is free to all. At first, it may seem that this will come at the cost of a heavy price, those who currently hold title and bear the responsibility for the Earth (at least according to States) must choose to pay for such a privilege. But they too will reap an even more bountiful life, much as the pauper of today in many countries has access to greater amenities than the rulers of ancient societies could even dream of attaining. 

The price they will pay, the ground rent location value of their claimed dominions, will justify the privilege they hold to demand a tenant rent for the use of said Land. All will receive a dividend funded by that location value as remuneration for in turn respecting the claims directing its use. This balance of land rent and dividend finds its mean where the price of the rent matches the dividend, ensuring that there will always be good enough in kind accessible to those who want to help the community.

I wish to convey that a simple ideal is possible. All of humanity requires a space to lay their head, and it is possible for that space to be available gratuitously. Those of us who wish to hold authority over any space for the purposes of production and income ought to show our gratitude to those who form the communities. We reserve it for our autonomy as we leasehold our own space. The mean ground rent paid would ideally be equivalent to the dividend, making the use of land gratuitous to the vast majority of mankind. Those claiming private authority over the most valuable land will pay a net rent to fund a dividend for the rest of their neighbors, which will be worth it for the advantage received from authority over that location. Those claiming land of minimal location value will receive a net dividend for their economy in occupation, and still receive a basic income to obtain a share of the bounties of their society.

If men are free to live on the Land, they are not forced to serve anyone. I believe this will liberate them in such a way from one another that they will end up choosing to serve each other anyway. Give the multitudes the land, and they will give each other everything. For many this might require that they recalibrate their understading of the Pursuit of Happiness, it will require readjusting their perception of justice in the Right of Property in Land. Luckily, we have the precedent of humanity revising its perception of justice with respect to property, highlighted in its pursuit of the abolition of slavery, or Property in Persons. That is just to say that it is indeed possible for humanity to achieve such a large and lasting change in custom on a large scale.

If location values were used to fund a dividend for everyone within their respective communities, and federations of such communities chose to share the revenues of said dividends with one another, we will achieve a peace and prosperity hitherto unimaginable. The majority of humankind would receive more by this association than they would pay to fund it. Those who fund it will have more autonomy to put the highest value locations to their most productive uses.

It is a win-win proposition, for all of us.