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American land monopoly & land tenure:All forms of wealth known to man have their genesis in the application of labor and capital to land. Consequently the first concern of governments everywhere is a policy of land tenure. Under America's system of land tenure, government is ultimate landlord by assuming the right of eminent domain over its territorial basis. Nonetheless each original land transaction conveys two distinct monopolies to the owner land-holder: 1. use-value - exclusive use of the land plus exclusive possession of values accruing from the application of labor. When free access to land is shut off by legal preemption, labor and capital can be applied only with the land holder's terms and consent. |
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2. economic rent - exclusive right to values accruing from the desire of others to possess the property. In 1879 Henry George argued the root cause of industrial depressions to be the private appropriation of economic rent.
(See Progress and Poverty; An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth; The Remedy)
Increasing land costs (economic rent) supress wages (labor) and interest (capital) -- the former a monopoly whereas the latter two are regulated by free competition.
Regardless it is the principal of economic rent that historically drives American land prices through the roof or into the tank. Of course that principal is not entirely separable from use-value as is apparent from the early colonial days.
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