Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/666

648 interfere and take the land occupied by such, individual, as the whole community acting in common as owners might have ejected the first taker, yet on the principle of natural justice and moral right it can do so only upon reimbursing the occupant for all improvements to the land that is, for all the product of labor expended upon it, including that which he has become possessed of by purchase. Since all the value in land is due to the employment of capital and labor, such reimbursement should equal the present commercial value of the land to the occupant (owner). Upon this naturally just and moral principle rests the constitutional restriction to eminent domain, that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.

Nor can I see that, because land occupied by an individual may have a value beyond the value of the labor expended upon it, by reason of its proximity to other lands upon which greater wealth has been expended by other individuals, the injustice of deprivation is lessened. The same rule of reasoning applies to this unearned increment as applies to the actual labor value of the land. The present owner has acquired it by the exchange of his capital, which was the product of his labor elsewhere, and it is really as much a value made in the land by the expenditure of capital and labor as that represented by the actual labor of the first occupant. If so, it is included in the present commercial value of the land.

And why should land alone be deprived of this unearned increment? Other possessions receive a borrowed value from extraneous circumstances, such as the occurrence of war, change of fashion, etc., and no one suggests that it is not a true value to which the property or commodity is entitled.

To recapitulate:

By natural law land is owned by all men in common.

The first taker or occupant might rightfully appropriate so much to his exclusive use as a proper use thereof permitted.

His possession, to the exclusion of every one else, might continue so long as he used the land, or while he was using it.

Upon possession ceasing, his right to use it ceased, and the land was again held in common, subject to be again appropriated for use.

Insecurity in the use, since the occupant's labor added to the soil what before it was devoid of—a commercial value—necessitated a more substantial tenure, a sort of property in the soil which is called private ownership.

To secure this to individuals, social governments and social laws sprang into being.

These latter, either by common usage long established and acquiesced in, or by express provision, not only recognize but assert the law of nature in respect to property in land.