Global Dialogue 2008
Issues # |
Read contents |
| 457 |
Who owns the Earth? |
| 458 |
The planet-Life-Soul of Humanity symbiotical relationship |
| 459 |
To extend democratic principles down to the ownership and control of the earth. |
| 460 |
Our present land ownership affects our community, our politics, our environment, and quality of life. |
| 461 |
Global Economic Model proposed by the Global Community has a primary goal
the protection of all life on this planet. |
| 462 |
"A global community" is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. One could think of a typical community that does not have to be
bounded by a geographical or political border. It can be people living in many different locations all over the world. The Global Community is thus more
fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the street where we live and contained by a border. |
| 463 |
A typical community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group
of people with the same cultural background, or the same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The
people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's communications it is easy to group people in this
fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one community. The two villages may be found in different
parts of the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together. |
| 464 |
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities"
contained therein. A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with the Global Community, it has
ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries. We will see in the Preview how this new system can work. |
| 465 |
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water,
electromagnetic spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property. |
| 466 |
The Global Economic Model proposes to collect for the people a payment for the use of natural resources and to remove taxes on labor. |
| 467 |
A condition of "ownership" of any particular landsite or natural resource is payment for the use of natural resources back to the community as a whole. Payment for the use of natural resources
is a source of public finance for the needs of the community. |
| 468 |
The community "allows" individual private use of sites on the
condition that its fair rental value is paid to the community. If a particular land site is mismanaged then the community must charge a higher rate to
pay for damages and cost of restoration. |
| 469 |
On the global level the Law of the Seas Covenant is an example of payment for the use of natural resources
Ocean resources are the common heritage of all and a proper source of funding for global institutions. Water belongs to the earth and all species and is sacred to life therefore, the
world’s water must be conserved, reclaimed and protected for all future generations and its natural patterns respected. |
| 470 |
Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels of government; therefore, it should not be commodified, privatized or
traded for commercial purposes. These rights must be enshrined at all levels of government. In particular, an international treaty must ensure these
principles are noncontrovertable. |
| 471 |
All the Earth natural resources belong to the Global Community to be used, developed and protected for the maximum benefit of the people and
of all life. |
| 472 |
The Global Economic Model allows for the establishment of micro credit facilities
for farmers and women to promote their access to forms of
land tenure that facilitate ownership of land. |
| 473 |
The goal of the Global Economic Model policy is to create a model of public finance which offers incentives for
correct distribution of wealth amongst every global citizen. |
| 474 |
The model makes a clear distinction between private property and common property. Private property is that which is created by labor. Common
property is that which is provided by nature. The Global Economic Model policy removes taxes from wages and other private property and increases
taxes and user fees on common property. |
| 475 |
Only the Global Community can rightfully claim ownership
of the Earth. |
| 476 |
The theme of this Global Dialogue being "The planet-Life-Soul of Humanity symbiotical relationship", we will see how the relationship can help this
generation of young people and the next ones to remain healthy. |
| 477 |
The young people of to-day are interested in all the secret wisdom behind all the existing religions and sifting out the common truths. They seek the best of
the best. They are aware of the Soul of Humanity and have established a spiritual symbiotical relationship with it, and thus with God. They seek the
exaltation and merging of their Souls into one to gain strength, friendship, creativity, love and light. |
| 478 |
The young people today are educated to understand a broad panorama of human truths ~ all those universal needs and rights every one shares. The Scale of Human and
Earth Rights has become an inner truth and the benchmark of the millennium in how they see all values. The Earth Court of Justice brings security, peace
and justice for all. They no longer fear the unknown as Justice is for everyone and is everywhere, a universal constant. The Global Justice Movement for
all life is now driven by these young people. |
| 479 |
The United Nations (UN) cannot have characteristics of
sovereignty, which has been defined around a territory and population, is not the same thing as a sovereign UN.
The Global Community can. |
| 480 |
The Global Community 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 the Global Community. 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. |
| 481 |
The task of conservation, restoration, and management of the earth is vitally linked to the question of
"Who owns the Earth?" The large gap
between rich and poor is the cause of conflicts and wars. |
| 482 |
The impacts of our democratic institutions are devastating when so few people control most of the earth. |
| 483 |
The cost of peace has too often been the cost of continued injustice and conditions of
economic servitude. Only Global Parliament has adequate legislation to overcome this problem. |
| 484 |
What we are seeing is the state of a new geography of conflict - a global landscape in which competition over vital resources is
becoming the governing principle behind the disposition and use of military power. The result is a new strategic geography in which the control and use
of natural resources rather than political boundaries are the major defining features. |
| 485 |
The primary social adjustment of the Global Community is
to make sure that politics is not a pathway to wealth acquisition. |
| 486 |
We need to take a giant step forward to a new form of democracy. We, the Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all. |
| 487 |
The Global Community has proposed a new democratic mandate recognizing that land, and all other natural resources
rightly belong to the Global Community. The earth is our birthright and our common
heritage. |
| 488 |
This criminal maldistribution of wealth must be stopped. We need to make some fundamental changes. We need political and economic systems based
upon the human right to land and other natural resources. |
| 489 |
An individual, or a business should hold no more than is required for their home and sustenance. All that is not used should be held
for the free use of family to make homesteads, and to hold them as long as they are so occupied. |
| 490 |
When it comes to property ownership it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.
Every proprietor owes to the community a payment for the use of natural resources. |
| 491 |
The land problem is the root cause of the deterioration and mismanagement of our planet:
loss of species and topsoil, polluted air and water, global warming and climate change - the list of catastrophes grows each
day. |
| 492 |
The concentration of property in private hands began very early in Rome and was based on the idea of absolute and
exclusive individual ownership in land. Modern civilization has not yet discarded this antiquated ownership concept.
In fact, this is one of the main reasons of the present global crisis in which the rich becomes richer and the poor becomes poorer. |
| 493 |
Democratic governance is based on the firm
foundation of equal rights to the land and resources of the earth, a democracy for all people which removes the burden of taxes from
those
who labor and directs government to collect the value of our common wealth for the benefit of all. |
| 494 |
Democratic systems of governance have must support the
right to land as a human right. |
| 495 |
The unfair
distribution of land ownership affects our community, our politics, our environment, and the quality of life on Earth. The
Global Economic Model will have first and foremost the well-being of all the people on this planet. |
| 496 |
The Global Economic Model is based on respect and value all life on earth. It recognizes that we as human
beings are trustees and caretakers of all life on Earth. The Global Economic Model extends the democratic mandate to solve the land problem by affirming the equal right of
all people to the earth. |
| 497 |
The Global Economic Model is global, as people are freed to move beyond borders and boundaries and
claim the whole earth as their birthplace.
|
| 498 |
How the earth should be owned is the major economic question of this time. The world should be owned by all life.
Our Bill of Rights does not proclaim the human right to the earth. |
| 499 |
We must grasp the injustice at the core of our present economic system.
Our use of the earth as a market commodity is the basic flaw in our economic system. |
| 500 |
When land became a 'commodity' and lost its status as provider and sustainer of life, society began its history of subjugation and exploitation
of the earth. |
| 501 |
Astronomical sums are currently accruing as unearned income to a relatively few individuals, families and corporations who are holding large amounts of land,
and other natural resources as their own exclusive private property and as unearned income. |
| 502 |
One of the major functions of global governance is to grant clear titles to land and other property. We need only reflect for a moment on the fact that in Canada,
for example, land was acquired by the colonizers from the native peoples under the old Roman empire land laws of "dominium" - the legalization of land
acquired by conquest and plunder. |
| 503 |
Democratic political rights have not given society democratic economic rights. |
| 504 |
Taxes on labor and productive capital should gradually be removed, as the value of earth natural resources becomes the proper source of
funding for the community. |
| 505 |
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 funds generated from the use of natural resources such as oil. |
| 506 |
As payments for the use of natural resources are made, land speculation and poor land utilization
diminsish. |
| 507 |
Those with minimum wage incomes are finding it increasingly difficult to afford decent housing.
|
| 508 |
Intensively managed small farms and bio-intensive farming methods depending on renewable energy sources can bring both social and environmental stability. |
| 509 |
Our Global Movement for payment for the use of natural resources to create revenue can provide the basis for worldwide economic democracy. |
| 510 |
The solution to the problem of land speculation is payment for the use of natural resources to be used for the benefit of the whole community. |
| 511 |
Land value taxation can be the sole means of public finance. Under this policy, improvements on land will not be taxed, only the land value would be
taxed. In other words, the financial needs of the community would be adequately taken care of out of the economic rent of land. When people are not
taxed on their wages and the returns to capital, there would be no involuntary unemployment; and incomes would be good enough for everyone, such that
poverty would be a historical curiosity. |
| 512 |
Payment for the use of natural resources policies shift taxes off of labor and productive capital and onto land and resources. |
| 513 |
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 Global Community either by direct dividends or as interest free
loans through a revolving loan fund type of system. |
| 514 |
Loans made by the world financial institutions should be declared illegal. |
| 515 |
A condition of "ownership" of any particular landsite or natural resource is payment for the use of natural resources back to the community as a whole. |
| 516 |
The rights of individuals in natural resources find their limits
by the just rights of the Global Community. |
| 517 |
All the Earth natural resources belong to the Global Community to be used, developed and protected for the maximum benefit of the people and of all
life. |
| 518 |
A very powerful few are in
possession of the earth's resources virtually
without taxation. |
| 519 |
To speak of enforceable global law is to speak of world power. Global Parliament has the power to
make the laws of the land and to make the rules for the territory of the earth. Global Law has been and
continue to be researched and developed for this purpose.
|
| 520 |
The health of a person and
the health of the Earth is interrelated. |
| 521 |
Allowing anyone to own the land on which and from
which other people must live, we have given a person power that increases as material
progress continues on. |
| 522 |
We need to take a giant step forward to a new form of democracy. We, the Global Community, must
now direct the wealth of the world towards the building of local-to-global economic democracies in order
to meet the needs for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all. |
| 523 |
Global governance has not resolved an important global principle question. This question
concerns property rights in land - property rights in the earth itself. The fundamental question is, "Who
Should Own the Earth?" |
| 524 |
When people buy up large lots of land near
towns and cities without developing them they wait
for such a time when the land prices would go up so it could be sold at a larger profit. The rise in land value is a socially
created value and as such rightly belongs to the community. |
| 525 |
Land speculation affects development when land is held out of use. Those people or businesses who need land are denied
access. |
| 526 |
Democratic governance has not been concerned about how
the land was obtained in the first place. We need only reflect for a moment on the fact that in Canada, for
example, land was acquired by the colonizers from the native peoples under the old Roman empire land
laws of "dominium" - the legalization of land acquired by conquest and plunder. |
| 527 |
Land tenure in the West has been originally acquired by conquest and force, and thus democratic political rights have not given us democratic
economic rights. |
| 528 |
We can promote peace building a democratic governance on the principle of equal rights to the land and resources of the
earth. |
| 529 |
Today democratic governments have never affirm the equal rights for all to the land and natural resource base that
sustains all life. |
| 530 |
Banks collect an ever
increasing payment for the use of natural resources as private profit. As investments are made,
and land speculation continues, then land values increase more rapidly than wages.
And governments increase taxes on middle class wages in order to pay for social programs.
|
| 531 |
The Global Economic Model has a balanced and just relationship of citizenry to government. |
| 532 |
The Global Economic Model is global, as people are freed to move beyond borders and boundaries and
claim the whole earth as their birthplace. |
| 533 |
How the earth should be owned is the major economic question of this time. The world should be owned
by the people living in it. However, this absolute necessity for our very existence
is nowhere guaranteed in our constitutional laws. |
| 534 |
Treating the earth as simply a commodity is the root cause of the large gap between
those who have too much and those who have too little.
|
| 535 |
When land became a 'commodity' and lost its status as provider and sustainer of life, Western civilization
began its history of subjugation and exploitation of the earth based cultures. |
| 536 |
The Global Economic Model seeks to eliminate subsidies that are environmentally or socially harmful
such as: energy production,
resource extraction,
weapons of mass destruction and war industry. |
| 537 |
The Global Economic Model aims to eliminate taxes on
wages and earned income,
and on homes. |
| 538 |
The Global Economic Model also allows for an increase of taxes and fees on
emissions into air; pollution of water, or soil;
land sites;
lands used for timber, grazing, mining;
ocean and freshwater resources;
electromagnetic or radio-frequency spectrum;
satellite orbital zones;
oil and minerals; and
hydropower. |
| 539 |
The products resulting from the interaction of land and labor are rightfully held
as individual private property, while land and all other natural resources are recognized as the common
heritage of the Global Community. |
| 540 |
Once the human right to the earth is firmly established in the minds and policies of a democratic majority,
land and other natural resources 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. |
| 541 |
When we apply the common heritage principle to land and all other natural resources, we see
that land can be treated as 'common property'. |
| 542 |
Taxes on labor and productive capital should gradually be removed, as the value of earth
natural resources becomes the proper source of funding for the Global Community. |
| 543 |
The main causes of the present global crisis in which the rich becomes richer and the poor
becomes poorer. |
| 544 |
When Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire, the early Christian teachings on land
were overtaken by the Roman land laws of "dominium" - a legalization of property in land originally
obtained by conquest and plunder. |
| 545 |
The increase in the value of
land arising from the efforts of an entire community should belong to the community and not to
the individual who holds title.
|
| 546 |
The planet and all its resources of land, water, the air, forests, minerals, the atmosphere, electro-magnetic
frequencies, and even satellite orbits are the common heritage of all and must no longer be appropriated
for the private profit of a few to the exclusion of the many. The Global Economic Model makes sure that
the profits of the earth will benefit all life. |
| 547 |
The incentive signals of the world's taxation systems currently promote waste, conflicts and wars, environmental
damage, and the concentration of wealth. |
| 548 |
A clear title to land gives the security of use rights and also
permits owners to speculate and profit from land as a market commodity. When owners are unable to obtain employment to pay rent for housing,
the cycle of poverty and landlessness starts all over again. |
| 549 |
Holding land as investment property and a way to accumulate wealth is a primary cause of the maldistribution
of wealth. |
| 550 |
The commodification of land and land speculation inflates land values to the point where those who have
only labor to contribute to the productive process must pay ever higher amounts for access to land for
shelter. |
| 551 |
Workers must borrow to pay for land. They borrow from
those who already have acquired surplus wealth and have deposited their funds in banks. If the
workers lose their jobs and cannot pay the mortgage, they must surrender their land to the banks.
This is the land problem - the fact that so few now control so much of the land and resources of the world. |
| 552 |
As the payment for the use of natural resources becomes an integral component of Earth
management many good things happen.
|
| 553 |
The Global Economic Model has put forward a system of finance based on payment for the use of natural resources.
Thus, cities and provinces would draw their funding from the payment for the use of natural resources such as surface lands; regional authorities would collect
from the of oil and minerals, and of other Earth natural resources, global governing agencies such as the Global Community 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 global natural resources. |
| 554 |
Sufficiently high user fees and pollution permits encourage business and industry to find more efficient and
cost-effective controls. Pollution taxes function as pay-for-use fees for common heritage resources of
land, water and air and make the tax system work for all life and the planet. |
| 555 |
Property tax relief for agricultural land may increase the likelihood that it will attract those looking
primarily for tax shelters and speculative investments. Such nonproductive incentives ultimately inflate land
values overall, making it increasingly difficult for working farmers to access and maintain acreage for
viable agricultural enterprise.
|
| 556 |
The high price of land means that the modern food and agriculture system provides no options for those
who cannot find a paying job other than subsistence on charity or government supports. Those with
minimum wage incomes are finding it more difficult to afford decent housing. |
| 557 |
This Global Movement for land value taxation and payment for the use of natural resources for revenue can provide the basis
for worldwide economic democracy. |
| 558 |
Land is
affordable when it is freed from speculation and private profiteering. |
| 559 |
The Global Community Land Trust leases can secure title and tenure to the poor and
landless while eliminating the problem of the commodification of land.
|
| 560 |
Corporate profits from real estate related activities often
escape from taxation via offshore accounts and other tax
shelters. |
| 561 |
To extract natural resources or to use water or air would require the advanced
payment of environmental security deposits. A heavy pollution tax would drastically increase
incentives for clean technologies.
|
| 562 |
Global commons are those universal values, principles, ideas, concepts, beliefs, truths we have
all in common. They may also be symbiotical relationships.
Global commons are the many reasons why humanity get together in times of uncertainty and distress.
Wars and conflicts, environmental disasters, earthquakes and Tsunamis, are a few examples. Other times
we get together in research and development, the exploration of space, development of new technologies,
education, so many reasons for us all to meet and dialogue. The list goes on a long way.
Today we are getting together to find new global commons that can help for the survival of humanity and
all life on Earth. And so you are asked to participate in Global Dialogue 2008.
|
| 563 |
Most issues and aspects of global governance and Earth management are already being applied by the
Global Community. But there is no agency powerful enough to protect life on Earth from those who
care not about it. At best what we have is the Global Justice Movement for all life which has found a
process for the establishment of justice amongst us all. What we have not done is the actual governing and
managing of the planet as per the Global Constitution and Global Law. And that is our first priority
now. |
