Here's another article that was
sent in response to "An Internet
Awakening."
FYI:
Jay.
1. Financing Planet Management: Sovereignty, World Order and the Earth
Rights Imperative, Published by the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, New
York, January 1994, 2nd edition printing, 1995.
Financing Planet Management: Sovereignty, World Order and the Earth
Rights Imperative -- By Alanna Hartzok
"We have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very
powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and all
its riches, and all the franchises and other privileges that yield a
return. These monopolistic positions are kept by a handful of men who are
maintained virtually without taxation . . . we are yielding up sovereignty."
- Agnes de Mille (1905-1993)
FINANCING PLANET MANAGEMENT
"Heaven has its reasons, Earth has its resources, Man has his political
order, thus forming with the first two a triad. But he would err if he
failed to respect the ground rules of this triad and infringed on the other
two."
- Xun Quang Xunzi, 3rd c. BC
Defining the parameters of sovereignty is a key component of the world
order dialogue as it struggles to reach consensus regarding the
boundaries and prerogatives of power.
Sovereignty is the status of a person or group of persons having supreme
and independent political authority. In dealing with the concept of
sovereignty, we are dealing with the reality of power. It is a power
over territory, over land and water, oil and minerals, as well as those
life forms which have miraculously emerged out of the mud of the earth.
The kings and queens of Europe, Africa, and Asia were sovereigns. They
reigned supreme and were thought to be divine. They descended from those
having the strongest might and force to prevail over territory. The
larger and richer the territory they could hold under their power and
authority, the higher their status. They were both feared and courted by
other humans.
These were the dominators who ruled the land and made the rules. Their
rules became law. Their territorial law was that of "dominium" -- the
legalization of control over lands originally obtained by conquest and
plunder. All real estate was the royal estate. Might made right, as the
rules of power became the laws of the land.
Peter Hansen, executive director of the Independet Commission on Global
Governance, has stated that the "United Nations cannot by the nature of
things, have the formal attributes of sovereignty, which has been
defined around a territory, around a (specific) population, because
centralized control of a sovereign body with a given territory and
population, is not the same thing as a sovereign U.N. To assume that it
would be is not a very meaningful way, in my opinion, to define the
subject." -- World Peace News, November 1993
But it seems to me that the U.N. has in fact been defined around a given
territory, that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a
specific population, which is all the planet's people. The issue here is
not that of populations and boundary lines, but of the demarcation of
power and control over the earth that is the foremost "formal attribute
of sovereignty" to be debated.
To speak of enforceable world law is to speak of world power. A world
legislature would have the power to make the laws of the land and to
make the rules for the territory of the earth. And this is what concerns
me, because we have not yet discussed the rules of territorial control
and ownership in sufficient detail.
Consider these realities:
Fact: A U.N. study of 83 countries showed that less than 5% of
rural landowners control three-quarters of the land.
Fact: The most pressing cause of the abject poverty which
millions of people in the world endure is that a mere 2.5% of landowners
with more than 100 hectares control nearly three-quarters of all the
land in the world, with the top 0.23% controlling over half. (Susan
George, How the Other Half Dies, Penguin Books,1976, p.24)
Fact: At best, a generous interpretation would suggest that about
3% of the population owns 95% of the privately held land in the U.S.
(Peter Meyer, Land Rush-A Survey of America's Land - Who Owns It, Who
Controls It, How Much Is Left; Harpers Magazine, Jan.l979)
Fact: According to a 1985 government report, 2% of landowners
hold 60% of the arable land in Brazil while close to 70% of rural
households have little or none. Just 342 farm properties in Brazil cover
183,397 square miles--an area larger than California. (Worldwatch Oct.
l988)
Before a global authority, be it a reformed United Nations or a federal
world government, can be trusted to wield power benignly, the problem of
the current undemocratic control of the earth must be addressed.
Innumerable battles and wars have been fought, and many are currently in
progress, over territorial control. The fair and peaceful resolution of
such conflicts requires a deep consideration of ethical principles
regarding land tenure.
Dr. I.G. Patel, Independent Commission on Global Governance member,
governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and former director of the London
School of Economics stated that "We cannot talk (sensibly) about what
kind of global government we want until (1) agreement is reached on how
to deal with the causes of international problems and (2) if we are
going to have governance or government we will have to do something
about poverty." --World Peace News, Nov. l993
Dr. Patel is correct in his perception that the world order movement has
not dealt sufficiently with these issues. While there is a fair amount
of unanimity regarding the basic outline of a democratic global
political structure, i.e., the need for a democratically elected
legislature, a world judiciary to interpret and apply world laws, and an
executive to administer and enforce the laws, there has not
yet been sufficient thought applied to the consideration of root causes
of poverty and international conflict.
The problem is that democracy has not "grounded" itself. We have not yet
extended democratic principles down to the ownership and control of the
earth. Democratic government as presently constituted, and democratic
world government as currently proposed, ungrounded and unembedded in
equal rights to the earth, cannot create the world of peace and justice
that we seek.
THE CRACK IN THE LIBERTY BELL
To fully grasp the nature of the severe limitations in the current
ideology of the world government movement, it is necessary to follow
the thread of the democratic ideal back to its fundamental tenets.
Pondering the problem of persistent poverty within a democratic system
of government, Richard Noyes, New Hampshire State Representative and
editor of the book entitled, Now the Synthesis: Capitalism, Socialism,
and the New Social Contract, identifies the current land tenure system
as
"the one great imperfection, the snag on which freedom catches."
Noyes shows us that the "Age of Reason gave us a thesis with flaws."
John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government, the political bible of
the founding fathers, held that "The great and chief end of men's
uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government is
the preservation of their property." The central understanding was that
only through the guarantee of property rights, one's own body included,
could the individual really be free.
In further defining property rights, Locke stated that "every man has a
`property' in his own �person"', so that anything a man has "removed
from the common state," anything with which he has "mixed his own
labor," is rightfully his own. The securing of this right was to be the
main duty of a democratic government.
Locke also affirmed that "God hath given the world to men in common."
But the trouble lies with Locke's Second Proviso regarding property.
Locke maintained that it was correct for the individual in a state of
nature to mix his labor with land and so call it (produced wealth) his
own "since there was still enough (land) and as good left, and more than
the yet unprovided could use."
In the Second Proviso the reasoning of the primary mentor of the
founding fathers was faulty and limited. Locke failed to perceive the
consequences for democracy of a time when so few humans would come to
control so much of the earth, to the exclusion of the vast majority. Nor
could he have known how the forces of an industrial economy could drive
land values to such highs, to the benefit of landowners rather than wage
earners.
The property-in-land problem, insufficiently scrutinized by John Locke
and the founding fathers, is the crack in the Liberty Bell. It is the
root dilemma of democracy. Life and liberty without land rights breeds
unhappiness, unemployment, and wage slavery.
Adam Smith was of no more help than John Locke when it came to solving
the land problem. Although initially he made clear distinctions among
land, labor, and capital, he soon began using the terms capital and land
as synonymous factors. Consequently, mainstream economists have treated
land as essentially no more than a subset of capital in their own
two-factor (capital and labor) macroeconomics. This is why they have
failed to understand the grave problem of the maldistribution of wealth
which has grown out of the fact that a minuscule percentage of the
world's people have come to control and consume the vast majority of the
earth's land and natural
resources.
THE COMMON HERITAGE PRINCIPLE AND PUBLIC FINANCE
The resolution of the dilemma of democracy can be found in a
three-factor (land, labor, capital) macroeconomic approach. The products
resulting from the interaction of land and labor are rightfully held as
individual private property, while land (which term includes all natural
resources) is recognized as the common heritage.
Once the human right to the earth is firmly established in the minds and
policies of a democratic majority, land will no longer be taken by the
few from the many either by the force of military might or by the
mechanisms of the market. The market's ability to place value, combined
with the efficiency of money as an exchange medium, results in a range
of prices for land sites and natural resources. Those who simply "own"
earth resources, contribute nothing as such to the productive process.
Yet under the current private property ethic, they are in an
advantageous position of power and can extract the ransom of what
economists call "ground rent" from both labor and productive capital.
But if we now apply the common heritage principle to land, then it
follows that ground rent, which is a measure of natural resource value,
must be treated as "common property." The next step which three-factor
economists take is to link this insight with the public finance system.
Voila! The policy imperative becomes clear. A way to affirm the equal
right of all to the common heritage is to collect the ground rent for
the benefit of the community as a whole, a policy frequently referred to
as "land value taxation."
Confiscatory taxes on labor and productive capital should gradually be
removed, as the value of earth resources becomes the proper source of
funding for the community as a whole. The "common wealth" finances the
commonwealth.
Three-factor economists thus advocate a practical policy that will solve
the problem of Locke's Second Proviso, which falsely assumed no
limitation to natural resources. Democracy can now be established on the
firm foundation of equal rights to the earth, our common heritage.
While this perspective is newly emerging, it is not new. No less a
figure than Tom Paine stated that "Men did not make the earth. . . It is
the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is
individual property. . . . Every proprietor owes to the community a
ground rent for the land which he holds." Where does that leave us in
our consideration of the world order movement, the concept of
"sovereignty," and the need for financing the activities of the U.N. or
any other global body?
THE NEW DEMOCRATIC COVENANT
Clearly, the mandate of a benevolent yet powerful sovereign global
governmental body must be to protect the property rights of the bodies
of individuals as well as the products of their labor (private
property), as well as to protect and to fairly share our common body
Mother Earth.
This is the new territorial imperative, the new democratic covenant, the
higher synthesis resolving what has been the difficult and
too-often-destructive dialectic of left versus right.
A properly constituted global authority will seek to further these
principles both within and among the current nations. Once the
importance of the new territorial imperative of equal rights to earth is
grasped by the world order movement, then it follows that ground rent
(land value) should be advocated as the appropriate source of public
finance from local to global levels.
EXAMPLES OF GROUND RENT POLICIES
This taxation approach is not merely theoretical but is being
implemented, at least in part, in a number of places. In the United
States, enabling legislation in Pennsylvania gives cities the option of
shifting their property taxes off of buildings (productive capital) and
onto land values only (common heritage). The fifteen cities taxing land
values at the higher rate have been experiencing statistically
significant economic benefits.
Alaska retained its oil lands as public land, subject to fair leasehold
arrangements for use plus a tax on each barrel pumped for market. Assets
in the Alaska Permanent Fund are about $13 billion. 'There are no state
income or sales taxes, and every citizen of Alaska receives an annual
dividend of about $1000 each with an additional $250 per month to every
citizen 65 years or older.
Movements in this direction are underway through- out the world. In the
spring of 1993, representatives of eighty Russian cities signed a
resolution to reform their public revenue system in this manner.
On the global level, the Law of the Seas, the Moon Treaty, and the
treaty now governing Antarctica are all based on the common heritage
principle, a principle that now must be extended worldwide to include
surface lands, as well as oil and mineral resources.
HATCHING MANY BIRDS OUT OF ONE EGG
As the taxation of land values, essentially a "user fee" system, becomes
an integral component of the agenda of planet management, several birds
will begin to hatch out of one egg.
Simultaneously,
(1) land tenure will be based on fairness, not force, thus ameliorating
territorial conflict, a root
cause of war;
(2) land resources can be equitably allocated;
(3) the economic playing field is leveled;
(4) a genuinely free market is encouraged;
(5) the gap between the rich and poor narrows; and
(6) the necessary collective activities of humanity are properly funded,
which include peacekeeping and the restoration and protection of the
environment.
COMMON HERITAGE FUNDING: LOCAL TO GLOBAL
It has been suggested that such a system of finance would be based on
principles of subsidiarity in terms of implementation. The ground rent
of certain specific types of land re- sources can be collected by
clearly delineated governing bodies from the local to the global level.
Thus, cities and counties would draw their funding from the ground rent
of surface lands; regional authorities would collect the ground rent of
oil and minerals, and global governing agencies would be funded by a
percentage from these two levels as well as that of deep sea resources,
the electromagnetic spectrum, satellite orbital zones, and other
transnational resources.
Democratic rights to the planet can be vested in the people as a whole
in a way that can be understood easily and administered practically. The
advent of the information revolution combined with the personal computer
enables such a system to be monitored by the masses. Who owns what,
where, and how much ground rent they pay into the common fund could
become the most enlightening computer game on earth.
A WARNING AND AN APPEAL
If we fail to tax land values for the common fund, the concentrated
control of earth in the hands of the few will continue unmitigated, thus
advancing the conditions of social turmoil which too often burst into
flames of hatred, murder, and war.
Marx is in the morgue, and in the West there is a dawning realization
that the huge bureaucracies of the welfare state, which confiscate the
wages of the middle classes through the income tax in the attempt to
provide a safety net (rather than a safe nest!) for the poor, are not
only unwieldy but unworkable as well.
I am appealing to my brothers and sisters in the world order/planetary
peace and justice movements to deeply consider the fundamental
assumptions of the planet/people relationship as it concerns the entire
question of land tenure. I trust that this consideration will discard
both the power politics of "dominion," as well as the market construct
of buying and selling our Mother Earth for private profit.
Currently, certain monetary and debt repayment policies and practices of
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are strangling the
economies and harming the people of many developing nations. This
reality relates to the theme of this exposition in a major way.
A significant proportion of the "profit" that has poured into the global
banking system in the past several decades was not a product of honest
labor, but was in fact a pool of funds generated from the ground rent of
oil resources. These funds were loaned to numerous developing countries
where they were frequently of benefit to the ruling elite rather than
the people as a whole. However, the debt repayments have now fallen upon
the middle class and poor citizens who neither voted for nor gained from
the borrowed money.
Morally and ethically, a vast amount of the funds of the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank represent a theft from the global
commons. Under the common heritage principle, these funds would have
been used to benefit the people of the world either by direct dividends
or as interest free loans through a revolving loan fund type of system.
These "oil theft loans" made by the world financial institutions should
therefore be declared illegal and invalid. In the future, any other
money loaned to governments by global financial institutions should be
repaid from the ground rent of the indebted nations. Such repayments
would therefore fall primarily upon those who are unjustly reaping the
benefits of valuable land holdings rather than further burdening the
struggling wage earners, small business owners, and the oppressed poor.
Unless a reformed or empowered United Nations or other world government
is built firmly upon the principle of equal rights for all to our
planet, then both the government and the planet will be controlled by a
handful of vested interests. It is up to the intellectual leadership of
the world order movement to grapple with this issue NOW - to stop
hedging and waiting for the messiah of world government to descend.
Before we purport to know the global governmental recipe for success,
let us consider how to make one city succeed. What would it take for the
wealth gap between rich and poor to begin to narrow each year instead of
widening, for the murder rate to plummet rather than skyrocket, for the
schools to become safer rather than scarier?
If the present political structure of democracy were sufficient for the
task, then Washington, D.C. would be the New Jerusalem, Philadelphia
would truly be a city of brotherly love, and every slice of the Big
Apple would taste sweet.
To have peace on earth, we must work to create the conditions for peace
in our own towns and cities. If we would revitalize our urban habitats
by improving schools and libraries, creating livelihoods and affordable
housing, and maintaining safe and beautiful parks and playgrounds, then
we must urge our city council members to collect the ground rent of land
to finance public services and greatly reduce or eliminate most other
forms of taxation.
If the politics of the planet are to be based on fairness rather than on
force, then equal rights to earth must become the guiding principle, the
sovereign, supreme rule. The fundamental human right which now needs to
be affirmed is this -- THE EARTH IS THE BIRTHRIGHT OF ALL PEOPLE.
Alanna Hartzok co-chaired the Alternative Economic Commission at the
recent Conference on Global Governance sponsored by the Association of
World Citizens and the Campaign for A More Democratic United Nations
(CAMDUN). She is the United Nations Non-Governmental Organization
Representative for the International Union for Land Value Taxation and
Free Trade
and Executive Director of Earth Rights Institute.
COMMENTS
"World citizens must be concerned with the growing gap between rich and
poor in the world and within democracies. Conventional economics has failed
miserably. Alanna Hartzok's application of the common heritage principle to
land and 'land value taxation' offers a refreshing new approach."
Ross Smyth, President World Government Organization Coalition
"Alanna Hartzok has recognized that the earth is the birthright of all
peoples and that prevailing notions of state sovereignty must yield to the
new thinking that the only real sovereigns are the people If we are all to
live together in peace and dignity, it must become a reality that the land,
the sea, and the air we breathe are a common heritage to serve the basic
rights of human kind."
Dr. Benjamin B. Ferencz Prosecutor, Nuremburg War Crimes Trial Adjunct
Professor of International Law Pace University
"Alanna Hartzok has given us a fascinating account of the economic
necessity of building democracy in human terms from the ground upwards.
World governmentalists should start their re-think from here."
Dr. Jeffrey J. Segal, Co-Founder Campaign for a More Democratic United Nations
"I enjoyed reading Financing Planet Management and found it to be a
valuable contribution to the quest for world government on a democratic
basis. We do need to have a politics based on fairness and with the earth
as our birthright."
Leland P. Stewart, Founder Unity-In-Diversity Council
"I'm very much in favor of the ideas proposed in your paper. I agree very
much with you that world federalists and world governmentalists need to
think through the fundamentals of economic justice"
Jack Yost, United Nations NGO Representative World Federalist Movement
"Your paper is a cogent and convincing reply to the appeal for an economic
engine to propel the 'democratic world order', 'global peace and justice',
and 'environmentally sustainable development' movements. It is an evocative
introduction to a crucial worldwide discussion by citizens locally and
opinion-makers internationally and confirms your qualifications to serve as
a coordinator for the Campaign for a More Democratic United Nations (CAMDUN)."
Dr. Harry H. Lerner, Co-Founder CAMDUN
"One thing that has troubled me about the world government concept is the
fact that our continuing failure to be able to use power wisely at any
local level, with which I am familiar, casts doubt on the possibility that
we homosapiens would be able to do any better at the highest level. Your
essay correctly isolates land title as the modern day weapon-- the one
which has so recently replaced the Auchelian 'almond-shaped hand axes'
Louis S. B. Leakey found at Olduvia, and the even earlier thigh bones which
seem to have bashed in so many skulls. Your essay is calculated to focus
the attention of the world peace movement at a critical place."
Representative Richard Noyes New Hampshire State House of Representatives
"Many organizations that advocate peace, human rights, or alleviation of
poverty suggest temporary charitable measures or a future ideal solution to
world problems, at once inadequate on one hand and frustrating on the
other. Alanna Hartzok in Financing Planet Management makes a vital
connection for creating world peace and order. In this concise but
insightful narrative, the author has us realize the importance of providing
a sound base from which democracy, justice, and equitable opportunity can
proceed."
Hal Sager, Media Producer Trustee, Common Ground-USA
"We are fond of citing history yet refuse to act in accordance with the
lessons that are apparent. Past civilizations have collapsed and perished
by their own making and by stubborn adherence to their profit and power
paradigms. The unchecked depletion and destruction of natural resources and
eco-systems, is an old story repeating again and again. In every case where
there was the holding of land by the few out of the hands of most, the
result was the horror of war or economic collapse. The nation-state
country-clubs have not been able to rise from the muck of myopic views and
economic illusions. Hartzok drops the veils through which we see economics
and profits courageously calls for a gentle revolution in our relationship
to the planet-one that is not only necessary, but vital to our very survival."
Mary Rose Kaczorowski Action Coalition For Global Change Ten Mile River
Watershed Association
"Ms. Hartzok has a firm, intuitive grasp of basic economic and political
principles."
Dr. Mason Gaffney, Professor of Economics University of California, Riverside
Dear Reader, I invite your comments on this essay which, with your
permission, may be printed in whole or in part in future editions. I invite
your questions as well, which I will try to answer in correspondence back
to you. Please write comments and/or questions on a separate page and send
or fax back with this form.
Most sincerely yours,
Alanna Hartzok
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Alanna, You have my permission to print my comments, in whole or in
part, in the
next edition of this publication.
Signature __________________________________ Date _________________
Name (clearly print or type) ______________________________________
Line of work, Association, etc. ___________________________________
YES! I have checked Yes to include my signature on the growing list of
those endorsing the
International Declaration on Individual and Common Rights to Earth.
YES! Put me in touch with others in my area who are working to
implement these ideas.
Street Address, Apt., P.O. Box ____________________________________
City, Town _______________________ State, Zip _____________________
Home Phone _______________________ Work Phone _____________________
Fax # ____________________________
PLEASE MAIL OR FAX THIS PAGE TO:
Alanna Hartzok, P.O. Box328, Scotland, PA 17254 USA
Message Phone/FAX: 717-263-2820 Res.: 717-264-0957
Earth Rights Institute
Box 328
Scotland, PA, 17254, USA
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###
Respectfully,
Jay Fenello,
New Media Strategies
------------------------------------
http://www.fenello.com 770-392-9480
Aligning with Purpose(sm) ... for a Better World
------------------------------------------------
"If we want to change the world, we have to
begin by changing ourselves" -- Deepak Chopra
