On land ownership
An English perspective
Author: Alex Ugur
There is for the common person no difference in effect between capitalism and communism. I find it stunning to realise that the only viable alternative lies buried in English history and that less than two years ago a very significant anniversary passed by, virtually unnoticed.
THE CHARTER OF THE FOREST
A vital, but deliberately neglected part of the Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest, celebrated its 800th anniversary on 6th November, 2017.
So why is the charter so important and why, over the last 800 years, have those in power increasingly denied its implementation?
Throughout the last century, talk of freedom has been derailed and been presented as a false dichotomy, as an either/or argument between capitalism and communism, whilst ignoring where the real freedom lies:
Communism is no alternative to capitalism, as both come from the same mindset: a collective policy to own and control, whereby the collective in both system variants is usually run by a close-knit cabal that pretends to operate in the interests of the general public/collective. Both were -and are- imperialistic in foreign policy. And domestically, as well as in terms of colonialism, Privatisation by corporations, banks, big business, inherited wealth, or the state is no different than Collective Control by the 'party', the ideological elite, or the state: the commons are taken into control and access manipulated by those in power, in order to deny free access to the average citizen and thereby to have leverage over such citizens.
In legal terms, the real opposite, the real alternative, can be found within the Magna Carta as a subsection called Charter of the Forest, which today would more accurately be described as the Charter of the Commons. The Norman kings of the time had usurped common lands amounting to somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the English countryside. These 'privatised' lands where then known and managed as the King's Forest and were a great source of income for the crown. However, due to their forceful and brutal exclusion from the bountiful resources of these lands, many common people suffered severe deprivation and hunger. (In the language of the time, 'forest' meant the 'wild outdoors' and included all types of landscape.)
The Magna Carta originally existed through four charters, two of which were 'lost'. Parchments of the final Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest have survived; they were used to control the King and simultaneously used to set down a legal framework for managing the lands, a huge part of which were traditionally freely available to the commoners and were to be reinstated as such. They were to remain under continued care of the commoners, ie the areas were to be of benefit to all, in a self sustaining and self replenishing form. Clearly, the Lords and the King, when negotiating, were not only looking for allies, but understood that commoning was an empowering, a productive and yet self sustaining way of doing things and that it therefore needed protection from the abuses of those in power. Considering what people once had in the commons, all the current abuses and ravages are clearly identifiable as being caused -or set in train- by the capitalist or communist collective mindset, take your pick.
Commoning (or variations thereon pre-dating the rule of Law) is something that has worked for mankind for over 200,000 years, whereas the enclosures acts (or similar controls) and the industrial revolution, ideologically acted-out both within capitalism and communism, have largely managed to take into possession and destroy much of the global commons (our wider natural habitat) in a mere 300 years.
When I talk of liberating or reinstating the Commons, both natural and man-made, people rarely understand what I'm talking about: They see free access to the land and to our built infrastructure as some kind of impossible and unworkable utopia.
Yet here it is, written into the foundational document of western democracy, enshrined in law as a human right. A right protecting a holistic and sustainable way of life, that has worked for millennia.
So now I wonder if in the public sphere pay any attention to this incredibly important document, the Charter of the Forest, and the message it carries; the new possibility of such a charter, which in the absolutist corruption of our current times would prove to be a real game changer?
Alex Ugur
April 2019
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It is the Settled Folk who Lost their Freedom
With a similar sentiment to my comment above, this one is describing an important transition that happened in Ireland, starting at around the same time. (It was King John's despotic feudal rule that inflamed the resistance of the some of the Lords and brought about the Magna Carta.)
I have often wondered why so many bigots hate travellers, immigrants, the unemployed, and the destitute. Perhaps it's in the stories we tell.
I think it would serve us well, if we taught and shared Irish history from a completely different perspective:
800 years ago, people here were semi nomadic: there were no stone boundary walls carving up the Irish lands; the lands were understood as a commons that served everyone.
This all changed with English (Norman) rule under King John; a brutal settler colonialism that misappropriated the lands, initially into crown ownership and then into private ownership. What's more, under threat of deadly curfew laws, the Irish people themselves were also forced to settle, in order to be counted and to be taxed.
So it is the folk forced to settle, who initially lost their freedom, yet nowadays their offspring have forgotten they are no longer free: for centuries now, they have been conditioned to work hard, in order to gain at least some access to property in order to survive. However, in doing so they do not realise that the properties, the lands, and the resources for which they are striving are nothing other than the recycled spoils and ill gotten gains that resulted from centuries of colonial rule; the very things of which their ancestors were so violently deprived.
Even today, this vast misappropriation of the commons, both man-made and natural, still continues, but now this misappropriation is re-branded under the euphemisms of privatisation and 'free' market forces, ...a more apt descriptions would be market fundamentalism and neoliberal fundamentalism.
For centuries, it has been a system, whereby it is the settled folk who are taxed, owned, and exploited; either that, or they are discarded and left in enforced destitution, ....and it is the latter that such institutionalised people fear the most.
So whilst I have taken the Irish perspective here, if we were to view Europe and go back much further in time, I'm sure we would find similar stories of how our natural habitat, our environment (that which we call the commons) was misappropriated and taken into ownership. It is of vital importance that we begin to tell these stories, for only then will we be begin to understand.
Alex Ugur
April 2019
https://www.facebook.com/alex.ugur.7
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Adventurers' Act
Long title: "An Act for the speedy and effectual reducing of the Rebels in his Majesties Kingdom of Ireland to their due obedience to his Majesty & the Crown of England."
"The main Act was passed by the Long Parliament on 19 March 1642 as a way of raising funds to suppress the Irish Rebellion of 1641. The Act invited members of the public to invest £200 for which they would receive 1000 acres (400 ha) of lands that would be confiscated from rebels in Ireland. 2.5 million acres (1 million ha) of Irish land were set aside by the English Government for this purpose. The entire country of Ireland is roughly 20 million acres (8.44 million ha).
Repayment would come from confiscating the rebels' lands and selling them."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventurers%27_Act
Discussion: https://www.facebook.com/alex.ugur.7/posts/2560863143943180
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https://libcom.org/history/short-history-enclosure-britain
Published on Facebook by Dave Downes on 31 May 2019.
https://www.facebook.com/100013091943402/posts/680319095747816/
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Suggested reading:
* Enclosures: "A very English theft: how the countryside was taken
from the public, using profits from slavery".
Enclosures and slavery.pdf
[Article and additional information via DropBox]
http://bit.ly/enclosure-slavery
* Against the Renting of Persons
David Ellerman
http://www.thestraddler.com/201715/piece2.php
* Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping
A very English theft: how the countryside was taken from the public, using profits from slavery
http://bit.ly/enclosure-slavery
Note:
Above two writings appeared in a discussion on Facebook on the 14th of April 2019.
The post mentioning the "Adventurer's Act" was added on 06 May 2019.
Both first entries were for reason of convenience brought together here and made available at the url: https://justpaste.it/au-landownership
No permission to do so was requested. Image added by republisher.
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