THE LATEST IN THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA: OUR CURRENT FEATURE ARTICLE
Table of Contents
FROM BEHIND ENEMY LINES:A Conservative Libertarian Inside Academia
SOUTHERN HERITAGE: Dedicated to the truth about the War of Yankee Aggression
Constitutional Law
NEW WORLD ORDER, UNITED NATIONS, ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT AND AMERICAN SOVERIGNTY
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Compiled and Summarized by
Dr. Jimmy T. (Gunny) LaBaume
Our Enemy, The State: A Study of Social Power vs. State Power and of The State in Colonial America by Albert Jay Nock. Available from the Mises Institute at www.mises.org
Chapter 4. Land Monopoly and American Independence (Pages 85-108)
As we have seen in previous chapters (the hunting tribes and early attempts at feudalism in colonial America), man can not be enslaved if he has another place to go. Therefore, after conquest and confiscation, the States first concern is with control of the land. It accomplishes this by simply declaring its right of eminent domain. This essentially turns the landholder into a tenant with the State as the ultimate landlord that distributes the land on its own terms.
Under the State-system of land-tenure, every land transaction confers two monopolies.
The first is the right to labour-made property. It is a monopoly of the “use-value” of the land and involves the right to keep others from using or trespassing on it. It confers the right to exclusive possession of values produced by the application of labour to the land—that is values produced by the economic means.
The second monopoly conferred is the right to purely “law-made” property. It is a monopoly of the “economic rent” of the land. This involves the exclusive right to values accruing from the desire of other persons to possess that property—without regard to any exercise of the economic means on the part of the land holder. Economic rent, naturally, increases directly with the number of persons competing.
The State is the organization of the political means. Its sole purpose is to enable the economic exploitation of one class by another. A fundamental postulate of economics holds that the only way wealth is produced is by the application of labour and capital to land. Therefore, if a man's free access to land is preempted by law; he can apply his labour and capital only on the terms and with the consent of the landlord. At this point exploitation becomes possible. Expropriation always precedes exploitation. Therefore the first concern of the State must be with its policy of land-tenure. It is simply that the State system of land-tenure is necessary to the State's existence.
(Editor's Note: The above explains precisely how over 85% of the land area west of the 120th meridian became “property” of the uS government.)
There was no large amount of land trafficking under feudalism. There was hardly any economic rent so landed estates did not yield much of that rental-value and only moderate use-value. On the other hand, the feudal regime was one of status and landed estates carried a large amount of “insignia-value.” However, as the merchant-State encroached, the importance of rental-values was recognized and speculative trading in land became more wide spread.
As we have seen, the merchant-State appeared full-blown in America. From the first colonial settlement to the present, America has been a limitless field for speculation in rental-values. Every colonial proprietor after Raleigh understood economic rent and the conditions necessary to enhance it.
The presence of a population engaged in the economic means (also known as ”working for a living”) gives rise to economic rent. However, if you owned all of the Carolinas and produced wealth by the economic means, not a foot of your land would be worth a penny in rental-value if no population was present. Furthermore, you would have no chance of exercising the political means.
Under the feudal-State, living by the political means was enabled only by the accident of birth or personal favor. By contrast, under the merchant-State the political means has become open to anyone. In this regard, America has provided unlimited opportunity. The effect has been to produce a race of people whose primary concern is to avail themselves of the opportunity to exercise the political means.
The Edict of 1763 and Land Speculation
The causes of the American Revolution described in schoolbooks can be dismissed as trivial. More likely are the long line of adverse commercial legislation imposed by the British that directly affected the business interests of the colonies.
One of the major incidents was the British attempt to limit the exercise of the political means with respect to rental-values by, in 1763, forbidding the colonists taking up lands west “of the source of any river flowing through the Atlantic seaboard.” This was a serious ruling that affected everybody.
Resentment of this arbitrary limitation on the political means was surely great. For it would seem quite natural for the colonists to desire possession of this territory and the ability exploit it for themselves without interference by the British. And this, by necessity, meant political independence.
Most colonial land-speculation was through the company-system. A number of speculators would unite and obtain a charter from the British State, secure a grant of land (also from the State), survey it, and then sell it off as fast as they could. Their aim was a quick turnover. They did not hold, much less settle, these lands. These ventures were nothing but pure speculation in rental values. The names of some of the persons involved in these undertakings reveal a definite connection with their attitudes towards the revolution and their subsequent careers as statesmen and patriots—General Washington, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams and others.
Common sense says that British interference with the political means was at least as great an incitement to revolution as its interference with the freedom to exercise the economic means. There would be two logical reasons why. First, because it affected a more numerous class of persons and second because land speculation represented much easier money. Independence would open access to this mode of exercising the political means as well as many others.
The colonists could see that the merchant-State in England could distribute various means of economic exploitation. For example, it forbid the colonists from shipping goods on any ship but one that was English-built and operated. It was plain to the colonists that this enriched British ship owners by the difference between monopoly rates and competitive rates. Also, similar interventions existed on behalf of “cutters, nail makers, hatters, steelmakers, etc.” These interventions were simple prohibitions.
Another type of intervention used was customs duties which were, for example levied on foreign sugar and molasses. The primary reason for a tariff is the exploitation of the domestic consumer. So, long before the Union was established, the merchant-enterprisers were prepared to confront the new administration with an organized demand for a tariff.
These interventions caused those affected to look favorably on political independence. They could see the positive as well as the negative advantages from having a State of their own that they could bend to their own purposes. A State that would ”help business” and be administered by easily manageable persons of persons with their same interests. Thus a distinct common purpose united the merchant-enterpriser with the speculator in rental-values.
The colonists were of a single frame of mind with respect to the nature and primary function of the State. It was not unique to them. It has been held by the beneficiaries of the State as far back as the State's history can be traced. Voltaire referred to the State as ”a device for taking money out of one set of pockets and putting it into another.” Simply stated, the colonists regarded the State as the organization of the political means. And, despite all the romance, poetry and glamorous myths that have been propagated to the contrary, no other view was ever held in colonial America.
The Right of the People
The Declaration of Independence stood on ”unalienable” natural rights and popular sovereignty. These doctrines would be acceptable to all classes in American society. In addition, a sparse population coupled with vast resources would strongly favor natural rights and economic individualism. The same is true for the idea of popular sovereignty. The colonists' situation made them natural economic individualists. It also made them natural republicans. However, American history is rife with examples of great principles having been diverted to paltry ends.
From the beginning the new political institution was to be the continuation of the merchant-State that already existed. There was no idea of setting up “government” that would function as a purely social institution with no object other than to secure the natural rights of the individual. From the beginning, the idea was to perpetuate the State—the organization of the political means. And this is exactly what they did. No one knew any other kind of political organization.
The American complaints were only of bad administration, not the essentially anti-social nature of the institution being administered. Dissatisfaction was with the administrators, not the institution itself. At the time the character of the State itself had never been scrutinized.
Revolutionary movements have their source in abuse and malfeasance. Such movements are conducted with no idea beyond getting these abuses rectified or avenged. The basic philosophy of the institution responsible for the malfeasance is never examined. Therefore, those same abuses quickly re-occur in some other form or perhaps they are replaced by others which are exactly like them in character.
Only Mr. Jefferson came within reaching distance of the crux of the matter. He advocated an extremely decentralized system with the ultimate source of political authority in the smallest unit possible—the township. From there power should be delegated upward, not vice versa.
In 1816 Jefferson wrote in a letter to Joseph C. Cabell: What is it…that has “destroyed liberty…in every government which has ever existed…? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body…” The secret to freedom is the individual being “the depository of the powers respecting himself…and delegating only what is beyond his competence…”
It is absurd to assume that any man or group of men can arbitrarily exercise their “wisdom, interest and sentiment” over an entire nation with any degree of success. The political organization set up in 1789 contained no such idea of popular sovereignty.
It is true that Harington, Locke and Adam Smith laid the foundation that the American architects followed. From Harington came the idea that the basis of politics is economic. He stressed the importance of landed property (although, neither he nor Locke made any natural distinction between law-made property and labour-made property). Political power proceeds from land ownership and diffused land ownership insures a satisfactory distribution of power. Locke added the idea that the first business of the State is to preserve the absolute inviolability of general (all) property rights. In fact, the State itself could not violate property rights because to do so would be acting against its own primary function.
The American architects assented “in principle” to the philosophy of natural rights and popular sovereignty. However, their practical interest in this philosophy stopped short of its justification for a ruthless economic individualism and political self-expression. In fact, Locke himself did not believe in what he called “a numerous democracy” and never considered a political organization that would include anything like it.
The philosophy of natural rights and popular sovereignty were not a satisfactory set of principles on which to found the new American State. Once political independence was won, the doctrine of the Declaration came to a halt. The rights of life and liberty were recognized by a constitutional formality left open to interpretation or even simple executive disregard. “The pursuit of happiness” was narrowed to acceptance of Locke's doctrine of property rights with law-made property on par with labour-made property.
With respect to popular sovereignty, the new State had to be republican to suit the general temperament of the people. Therefore the task was to present the appearance of actual republicanism without the reality. A representative system was used to accomplish this appearance without substance. Also, three auxiliary devices were added which have been very effective. The first is the fixed term which regulates the system's administration by the calendar rather than by political considerations. The second is judicial review which is a process whereby anything can be made to mean any thing. And third is the requirement that legislators reside in the district they represent. This has provided an excellent mechanism for building an immense body of patronage. All these devices have worked in harmony towards a great centralization of State power.
The British surrender at Yorktown marked the sudden and complete disappearance of the doctrines expressed in the Declaration. Jefferson lived in Paris from 1784 to 1789. Upon his return, “he was greatly depressed by the discovery that the principles of the Declaration had gone wholly by the board. …though the Declaration might have been the charter of American independence, it was in no sense the charter of the new American State.”
Copyright ©2004, FlyoverPress.com
Jimmy T. LaBaume, PhD, ChFC is a full professor teaching economics and statistics in the School of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, TX. He does not speak for Sul Ross State University. Sul Ross State University does not think for him.
Dr. LaBaume has lived in Mexico and spent extended periods of time in South and Central America as a researcher, consultant and educator.
“Gunny” LaBaume is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. His Marine Corps career spanned some 35 years intermittently from 1962 until 1997 when he refused to re-enlist with less than 2 years to go to a good retirement. In his own words, he “simply got tired of being guilty of treason.”
He is also currently the publisher and managing editor of FlyoverPress.com, a daily e-source of news not seen or heard anywhere on the mainstream media. He can be reached at jlabaume@sulross.edu.
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