Many are familiar with the fact that on July 4th, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
While it’s quite obvious what Life is, and we have a pretty good idea what Liberty is, the pursuit of Happiness is a little more subjective. What’s not subjective is that the 5th Amendment of the U. S. Constitution declares, “nor shall (any person) be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”.
The theory that property, once obtained, is an inalienable right can be traced to John Locke, a philosopher of the English enlightenment who had a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States and other thinkers of the time.
He also proposed that property comes about through labor, as in the example of a person entering a public forest and finding and eating an acorn. The act of labor involved in gathering the acorn is what transitioned that acorn from being an unowned, public thing to a part of the person’s property who gathered it (chapter 5, section 28, Second Treatise of Government, 1689).
This, he wrote in an age of exploration in which the European powers were still discovering the New World and there was still a frontier. A person could conceivably go to the New World, go West, and claim a plot of land and make it his or her own as far as the European powers were concerned without need of deed or title.
We no longer have so open a frontier. In the modern day, all land in the United States is either owned privately or by the U. S. government, the population is 130 times larger than the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, and new housing isn’t being constructed quickly enough to meet its demand.
In many places throughout the United States, it is essentially illegal to be homeless. If you don’t have a place to stay, you can try to sleep on a park bench, but then the police might harass you and kick you out. While charitable organizations and homeless shelters exist, they are in rare enough supply so as not to be able to meet the demand of all homeless people. Not only this, but one must give up some of their Liberty in exchange for their services, such as being obligated to follow their rules.
One can’t simply go West and build his/her own log cabin and grow his/her own garden anymore. There is nowhere to go if there is nowhere to go. So homeless people often make camp under bridges or go to homeless shelters, but are at the mercy of if there is a bed available that night or if the police decide to move them because a big concert is expected to attrack a lot of out-of-towners.
If we were to divide up the United States by its population, there would be 6 acres of land per person. We should adjust this number a little bit, though. In reality, __ acres are currently owned by National and State governments (mostly in Parks and Forests), so this leaves __ acres currently owned by private individuals. We also shouldn’t count children in the population since children always live on the property of their parents or a guardian. <cut this passage and simplify to private property per 18 yo >
This currently leaves __ acres of private property per adult American. Most of this is farmland or privately owned forest. Some of it includes the deserts of the Southwestern United States, but it is all privately owned land.
<the reader isn’t ready yet for this next section>
Not that we should, but if we were to institute land reform resulting in a perfectly equal society, this is how much each person would have. Considering the division of labor that is so key to our success in Modern society and that such a move would result in each family having to grow its own food on top of trying to engage in whatever occupations the adults currently have, this would be a step backwards from progress.
Most single-family homes, which are considered low-density housing, sit on 1/4<?> acre of land, and most families are satisfied with this as plenty. Certainly plenty to survive and thrive upon.
<of course a married couple’s fair share would be the combining of their individual shares—later: this also applies to business partners>
<18 has to be the figure because one can become homeless at 18>
Sometimes people squander it