[Excerted without permission from New Alchemy (Spring 1988).`Subscriptions $8/yr (4 issues) from New Alchemy, 237 Hatchville Rd., East Falmouth, MA 02536.] WHO REALLY OWNS THE LAND? ------------------------- by Judith M.Barnet How does it come to be that a non-renewable resource like land and a basic human need like shelter are subject to the slings and arrows of the marketplace and the buisness cycle? The root answer to that subversive question takes us to the institution of private property, defined as that which can be sold and whose possesion confers exclusive rights upon the owner. THis aspect of our relationship to land is so thoroughly taken for granted in our culture that to even raise the topic seems absurd, until we remember that the ownership system brought to North American shores by the colonists constituted an almost unimaginable revolution to the indians. We tend to forget that in Native American culture it was inconceivable that land could be sold - because it wasn't something one owned. A further root of all this can be traced back to what is probably the largest privatizing operation in history; the enclosure movement in 15th century England, when common rights to land were extinguished, individual title was established and 15,000 peasants were cleared off 794,000 Scottish acres to create 29 farms, each inhabited by a single family (with imported servants) and 131,000 sheep. This institutional arrangement was required to launch the woolen industr y, and land became from that moment and for all time a commodity; to be valued at its 'highest and best use,' presumably determined by what the market could bring. Is it too great a leap from there to the speculation in real estate market today that has brought us the current housing crisis?