Winstanley, Marx and Henry George

[PJShannon]

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[Socialist Party Head Office]

Letter received by editorial committee:Have to disagree with you when you say that the value of land is not the product of labour.Primitive farmers cultivated the tops of hills when the soil was thin and any tree cover easily removed: but soon thereafter, farming moved to the more fertile valleys where forestry had to be cleared, wet soils drained, either heavy clays broken up with the addition of lighter soils, or thin sands and chalks given fertilitv by the adding oi manure, compost or clays.Then, particularly in Roman times or in the USA during the 1920s & 30s massively extensive farming without care, came in where no effort was made to keep the land fertlle, and large areas of previously fertile land became semi-desert. Much the same is now happening in Brazil.Strangely enough the last time I had to argue this, was with one of my fellow anarchists, who had argued that Marxist economics were wrong because labour had no effect on the value of land.Laurens Otter 

[ALB]

Editorial committee reply:Even though it has a price uncultivated land has no value as it is not the product of labour. Improvements to land due to the exercise of labour will have value and will affect the price of land, but, economically speaking, these improvements are capital rather than land even if they are incorporated in it. It remains a fact that land, as such, is a pure product of nature and that those who own it are able to extract an income from the rest of society purely and simply because they own it and without having to cultivate or develop it. Of course they can do this, in which case their income will be part monopoly rent and part profit on capital. But it still remains the case that part of their income (or price of the land if they sell it) reflects the fact that they monopolise a part of the Earth's surface which provides them with an income for literally nothing.

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