Ownership Of Land - A Deeply Flawed Concept?

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Sonoran Na'vi

Native Americans may have had a general custom to how the land shall be used, or didn't have a large enough population in order to use up the resources of the land. But if we apply game theory to the use of land without ownership of the resources, we'll find that people will generally overuse resources on the land.

Well - custom and culture is one way to restrict or control overuse for sure. Like the "seventh generation rule" (meaning to treat the land you live on in a way that allows the seventh generation to come to live on it as you do).
I dont believe in population as an issue. Population of any animal including the human animal grows until it reaches a natural limit of growth, determined by the resources available on the area. To move on to neighboring areas is impossible as there are other people living there, so that confinement naturally restricts a population to one area and population to the limits or resources in that area. Now you have two ways to deal with overuse of resources - accept that one day you will not be able to live on this land (or your childrens children will not be) - or become violent and start wars of conquest, which usually is not a good option as the land you conquer also has limited resources that are used up by the people who live there and such a war is an intense investment. Nevertheless, people would probably try, but basically it is a back-and-forth then. Within a short time after a conquest, the new lands are again populated and population growth and resource consumption return to a balance.
Of course if one culture decides to ignore sanity and simply strip their own land of all its resources to build a large army and waltz over the planet, that works. This is why the "fertile crescent", the origin of the dominant culture of the earth these days is a cruel joke. In the end of course it is only a temporary thing as there are always limits to growth.

Originally Posted by redpaintednavi

A company is really not owned by anyone. A company is a collective effort, even if it is one particular person who started it.[...]
Since a company in reality is a collective effort the revenues should be equally distributed among those who work in it

Indeed - very well spoken. The person who starts a company is usually just an organizer. He is good at organizing sales, marketing, machines, workers. That is certainly a skill, but the profit of the company hinges on every worker that is going there daily as well as on the machines (and the people who built them) an the organizers. That is the way, a cooperative works - There is a "boss", but he is mainly the organizer and the whole company is owned by all the workers and employees equally. In modern corporations, the owners are usually also many people, but not the same that work there - rather some people who did nothing but to lend money at some point to form that company.
To see the founder of a company as the boss and organizer and all that - it used to be back in the days when a corporate empire was still ruled by one king who started out in the garage inventing machines. That is not how modern coprorations wirks, in which CEOs are also just employees. Actually family owned large businesses usually have way more consciousness, treat their workers a lot better than stock market corporations. Such an owner can have a morale, he can decide what the money is used for - to increase wages, to sponsor pension plans or healthcare or build workers homes. A CEO is not even allowed to do so, as the company regulations forbid this to him as long as it does not in some way profit the company. He would loose his job if he did something like that...

Originally Posted by txen

It means that I pay rent to the government. The fact that it's called taxes doesn't really mean much.

yeah - makes one wonder, doesnt it?
Also - who actually gives the government the right to own land in the first place. It simply took it into posession or more likely killed people in wars for it. Then again who really fought these wars? People, not "the government".

The Bavarian constitution also has some nice paragraphs on open access to all mountains and lakes and the right of people to collect wild things. The way they found to limit this is however that as long as there is still some way to get to a lake, the rest of the shore can be sold. And if one wants to restrict foraging, "landscape protection areas" are called into existence. A huge part of the land is now such a protected area and while they are not nature reserves, you are not allowed to do all you would like in them either. And of course hunting and fishing is basically something reserved only for the rich, as you need a ridicolous amount of very costly regulations, courses, licenses and rights.