What are the implications of not having any landowners?

[Roxxy]

This is for an industrial Pathfinder setting. The basic gist is that a country based heavily off of the idea of Vinland, called Markkheim. It has Canadian inspired geography, original population was a Finn analog, followed by Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes, has had plenty of violence with First Nations but now has land sharing agreements and has First Nations representatives sitting in Parliament, fair number of Western and Eastern European and East Asian settlers later on, late 19th to early 20th century technology (the colonial era of this fantasy world does not correspond to the years of our world's colonial era, and the social attitudes of the world to not correspond to real world social attitudes of the early 20th century. Tends to be more modern in outlook.). I was reading up on Swedish culture, and found the concept of Freedom to Roam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam) interesting. I was thinking Markkheim might actually take this a bit further, and constitutionally prohibit anyone from owning land under the logic that the land of Markkheim belongs to all the Markkish people. It is permissible to own a fixture upon the land, such as a house, and to restrict access to that fixture (so, you can build a fence around your house, and you don't have to let anyone in if you don't want to). It is also permissible to use the resources upon the land, though you very often need a permit (to avoid overexploitation). If you are a farmer, you own the crops, and can restrict access to those crops (such as by building a fence around the farm and not letting people in), though the farmland itself is not legally yours, it is licensed to you. What would not be permitted is to buy a chunk of forest for a private estate, own your own beach, or the like. Markkheim is best described as a social democracy, so property ownership and private enterprise are permitted. Just not land ownership. What economic, cultural, and social implications you guys can think of that come up from banning it in a social democratic economic structure?

[Yora]

Can you claim exlusive use of an iron deposit? Or a peat field?
What about claiming farm land? You could make a claim that a parcell of land is designated for a larger development project, and since you want to build huge farms, you are already fencing the area even though the first work will take on that ground only a few years in the future.

Private enterprise without exclusive use of land seems like a weird idea. Pretty much all natural resources are in the ground.

[Roxxy]

Can you claim exlusive use of an iron deposit? Or a peat field?You can gain exclusive use of a natural resource deposit by leasing it, the fees from which are in lieu of taxing those resources you gather, and you own whatever you extract. So, a logging company can buy a lease for logging, which is an ongoing fee. They can fence off their buildings and equipment, and they can fence off an area they are currently operating in (though it has to be unfenced once they are done operating there). All of the logs are the company's property. The lease fees are their taxes, so the logs and revenue from selling them will not be taxed. As long as they are paying to work that land, no other company will be granted use of the land. Mining, peat extraction, and the like are the same way.

What about claiming farm land? You could make a claim that a parcell of land is designated for a larger development project, and since you want to build huge farms, you are already fencing the area even though the first work will take on that ground only a few years in the future.If you have a good reason to wait a few years before beginning development, you can lease the land (meaning the government won't grant anybody else permission to use it), but you can't fence it until you start developing it. So, nobody can build a house or plant crops on that land while you wait to be able to develop it, but you can't keep hikers and campers off of it until you begin development.

Something came up on another forum: a homeowner or landlord does not have to lease land. As long as they own the buildings upon the land, they are de facto permitted to use the land free of charge. The buildings themselves do have property taxes, however. The same would apply to a business.

If you build yourself a nice house in the hills, and then put a fence around your house to keep it private, that is perfectly legal. If you fence off a yard, it depends on the permit. You can often get permission to fence off a section of land around the house between .5 and 2 times the square footage of the house itself, depending on the location you are building in. You don't have to let anybody on this land, and can press charges for trespassing if someone enters it against your wishes, but it still technically isn't actually owned by you. You just have license to exclusive use of that yard as long as you own the house. If you want to have more than that, it would not be legal. You can't go and fence off five acres around your pretty house in the hills as a private estate.

[falsedot]

Probably filled with lawyers, loopholes and otherwise the same?

"Oh look, I'm actually harvesting wild mushrooms in my private forest and sand for my glass factory from my private beach. And there are these little greenhouses around my estate so I can have a huge garden."

One way to avoid this would be having some measure of utilisation effectiveness so if I dont show a big profit from the forest I leased it will return to the public domain again.

[jqavins]

Since the term you use is "lease" the implication is that the government owns the land, which is different from no one owning it. That would likely lead to very large government facilities, such as large estates granted to friends of officials. It would work like this: the government, which owns the land, does not lease it to anyone. No private citizen or business may fence in a large amount of land it is not using, but the government can and does. The government builds a palacial estate thereupon, and some fat cat gets to live in it as a guest of the state.

The yard ranging from .5 to 2 time the house's footprint is really small. In 1960s build suburbs, a 1/4 acre plot is somewhere from typical to a little small. In more current suburbs, I think 1/8 to 1/6 acre is not too uncommon. And, 2500 sq.ft. is a quite good size house. 1/8 acre is about 5445 sq.ft., so your good sized house comes with, at most, a really tiny yard. If that's what you intend then so be it. Otherwise, a lot size of 5 times the house footprint (just over 1/4 acre for our 2500 square footer,) or a maximum of 1/4 or 1/2 acre or something whatever size house you put on it, is far from extravagant.

What about provincal and local governments?

[aspekt]

I think overall your idea has real promise.

The primary issue you will run into is that in our world at least Industrialism is deeply rooted in Capitalism. And that form of economy combined with Industrialism requires private property ownership backed by the power of the State.

But you're not in our world so it might be interesting to experiment with various ideas. How might older merhods of propagating technology contunue to work? The plow, the stirrup, metalsmithing, numerous crops and tamed animals all spread without the need for the kinds of exchange found in 19th century Capitalism.

This could also be a source of tension with neighboring countries.

Lots of good potential storytelling here.

[Weltall_BR]

What exactly is property? If you can claim exclusivity on a plot of land based on any title and have this claim backed by the authorities, the actual title doesn't really make a difference -- except in regards to the authorities which back your claim. You may be unable to sell "your" property, a circumstance which, according to economic theory, would lead to sub-optimal use of land and consequently less prosperity (unless the authorities who distribute land do it in a very equitable and efficient manner -- which is quite improbable, as this situation would probably result in the creation of an oligarchy which would in turn capture the authorities and lobby to preserve the status quo even if not to the benefit of the community as a whole). Feudalism was a system in which none could claim property over land, which belonged solely to the king, who "leased" it to the nobility.

On the other side, if exclusivity claims over plots of land are not backed by any authorities, rights are irrelevant, and you own whatever you can defend.

[jqavins]

What exactly is property? If you can claim exclusivity on a plot of land based on any title and have this claim backed by the authorities, the actual title doesn't really make a difference -- except in regards to the authorities which back your claim. You may be unable to sell "your" property...
When you own a piece of property, it's not just selling that you are able to do. You can pass it on your decendants. You can hold large areas whether you use them for anything or not, which is not possible in the proposed system since the government will not grant a lease without an economic use. Unless there are environmental regulations - a rarity in the pseudo-medieval environment of the typical fantasy game or the pseudo-Victorian of the proposed system - you can clear cut, fill swamps, burn, hunt, or build anything you want, which also is not allowed under the proposed system unless it is the specified purpose of the lease.

In our modern real world system, you can have a lease on a house, which gives you exclusive use of it that is backed up ny law, but that's a far cry from owning it.