LVTFan's Blog

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 30 -- Rudyard Kipling

Me voici, owner of some four hundred well developed pines, a few thousand tons of granite scattered in blocks at the roots of the pines, and a sprinkling of earth. That's a town lot in Vancouver. You or your agent hold to it till property rises, then sell out and buy more land further out of town and repeat the process. I do not quite see how this sort of thing helps the growth of a town, but the English Boy says that it is the "essence of speculation," so it must be all right.

— RUDYARD KIPLING, From Sea to Sea, Chap. XXVIII

 

"Stir Up" Sunday

I always thought of "Stir-Up Sunday" as the reminder that it was time to bake fruitcake, but will now probably think of this passage:

The Church Reformer (London) says: "On Sunday next before Advent the priest before every altar in England prayed for a divine excitement - 'Stir up, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the wills of thy faithful people.' Men are beginning to see what is at the bottom of our misery. Henry George's enormous vote in New York has compelled attention to the fact that whether or no relief works and eight-hour bills and free dinners are to come, nothing can do any good permanently while land, the mother, is divorced from labor, the father of all wealth. If then God's servants who did the church's work on that Sunday in Trafalgar Square, in creating a divine excitement, in asking the question how the hungry are to be fed, and in protesting against the oppression of the poorest laborer, are to continue their work to completion, they must go boldly for nothing less than the full restoration to the people of the whole of the value they give to the land; they may nationalize machinery, capital, what they like, but until they have nationalized the land the poverty of the workers will remain."

-- from The Standard, January 8, 1887

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 29 -- Goethe

The overplus of wealth in torpor bound,
Which in thy lands lies buried in the ground,
Is all unused; nor boldest thoughts can measure
The narrowest boundaries of such a treasure.

— GOETHE, Faust, Part II., Act r, Scene 4. (Translation of Bayard Taylor.)

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 28 -- Morris and Ruskin

He may, and often he does, engross the first necessity of labor, land, and neither use it himself or allow anyone else to use it, and though it is clear that . . . he is injuring the community, the law is sternly on his side.

— WILLIAM MORRIS, Signs of Change, p. 194.

Land should be given to those who can use it.

— JOHN RUSKIN, Fors Clavigera, Part II., Letter ii, p. 96.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 27 -- Turgot

Not only can there be no income which is not the product of land, but it is also land that furnishes all the capital which constitutes the mass of all the sums advanced in agriculture or commerce.

— TURGOT, On the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766), Sec. 99.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 26 -- Balzac!

"You are living off my land," said the general with jesting severity.

"Do you think I can live off the sky?" returned Gaubertin with a sneer.

— BALZAC, Sons of the Soil (1845), Chap. VI., p. 722.

The Earth-for-All Calendar -- addendum: St. Ambrose and Pope Paul VI

A sig-file on a listserv brought to my attention a quote from St. Ambrose, which, to my surprise, Ernest Crosby didn't include in his Earth-for-All Calendar:

"You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich."

 

A bit of research led me to a number of mentions of this passage, including Pope Paul VI's 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio, which sets it in this context:

Issues and Principles

22. In the very first pages of Scripture we read these words: "Fill the earth and subdue it."(19) This teaches us that the whole of creation is for man, that he has been charged to give it meaning by his intelligent activity, to complete and perfect it by his own efforts and to his own advantage.

Now if the earth truly was created to provide man with the necessities of life and the tools for his own progress, it follows that every man has the right to glean what he needs from the earth. The recent Council reiterated this truth: "God intended the earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of justice and in the company of charity, created goods should flow fairly to all." (20)

All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle. They should in no way hinder it; in fact, they should actively facilitate its implementation. Redirecting these rights back to their original purpose must be regarded as an important and urgent social duty.

The Use of Private Property

23. "He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (21) Everyone knows that the Fathers of the Church laid down the duty of the rich toward the poor in no uncertain terms. As St. Ambrose put it: "You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich." (22) These words indicate that the right to private property is not absolute and unconditional.

No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life. In short, "as the Fathers of the Church and other eminent theologians tell us, the right of private property may never be exercised to the detriment of the common good." When "private gain and basic community needs conflict with one another," it is for the public authorities "to seek a solution to these questions, with the active involvement of individual citizens and social groups." (23)

The Common Good

24. If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation.

Vatican II affirms this emphatically. (24) At the same time it clearly teaches that income thus derived is not for man's capricious use, and that the exclusive pursuit of personal gain is prohibited. Consequently, it is not permissible for citizens who have garnered sizeable income from the resources and activities of their own nation to deposit a large portion of their income in foreign countries for the sake of their own private gain alone, taking no account of their country's interests; in doing this, they clearly wrong their country. (25)

 

(19) Gn 1. 28.

(20) Church in the World of Today, no. 69: AAS 58 (1966), 1090 [cf. TPS XI, 306].

(21) 1 Jn 3. 17.

(22) De Nabute, c. 12, n. 53: PL 14. 747; cf. J. R. Palanque, Saint Ambroise et l'empire romain,Paris: de Boccard (1933), 336 ff.

(23) Letter to the 52nd Social Week at Brest, in L'homme et la révolution urbaine, Lyon: Chronique sociale (1965), 8-9.

(24) Church in the World of Today, no. 71: AAS 58 (1966), 1093 [cf. TPS XI, 308].

(25) Ibid., no. 65: AAS 58 (1966), 1086 [cf. TPS XI, 303].

 

Those interested in Catholic Social Thought should look for a new book which came out of a 2007 conference held at the University of Scranton, and edited by Professor Kenneth R. Lord of UScranton, entitled "Two Views of Social Justice: A Catholic/Georgist Dialogue."  The version I've seen is the October, 2012, issue of The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, and I understand that it will be made available in other forms as well.

The abstract for the book:

Sixteen scholars have come together in this issue to examine eight social-justice themses from the perspectives of Catholic Social Thought and the philosophy of Henry George.  The themes they address are natural law, human nature, the nature of work, the nineteenth-century papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, causes of war, immigration, development, and wealth, and neighborhood revitalization.  While they sometimes wrangle with each other, their common aspiration is the same as their nineteenth-century predecessors,: to find solutions to the human suffering caused by injustice. 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 25 -- Alfred Marshall

The use of a certain area of the earth's surface is a primary condition of anything that man can do; it gives him room for his own actions, with the enjoyment of the heat and the light, the air and the rain which nature assigns to the area; and it determines his distance from, and in a great measure his relations to, other things and other persons.  We shall find that it is this property of "land" which, though as yet insufficient prominence has been given to it, is the ultimate cause of the distinction which all writers on economics are compelled to make between land and other things.

— PROF. ALFRED MARSHALL, of the University of Cambridge,

Principles of Economics, Vol. I., Book 4, Chap. 2, Sec. I.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 24 -- Martineau

I suppose the result must be . . . the establishment of society under a wholly new idea. . . The leading features of any such radical change must be a deep modification of the institution of property — certainly in regard to land, and probably in regard to much else.

— HARRIET MARTINEAU (1853), Autobiography, Vol. II., Sec. 10, p. 119.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 23 -- Carlyle and Conway

Soil, with or without plowing, is the gift of God.

— THOMAS CARLYLE, Past and Present, Book III., Chap. 8.

It was a part of his (Carlyle's) view, for instance, that private property in land should be abolished.

— MONCURE D. CONWAY, Thomas Carlyle, p. 92.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 22 -- Matthew, Psalms & Jeremiah

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

— St. Matthew, v. 5.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. 

— Psalms, XXIV., i.

Thus saith the Lord, . . . I will return and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage and every man to his land.

— Jeremiah, XII., 14-15.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 21 -- William Morris

"And how shall it be when these are gone? What else shall ye need when ye lack masters?  Ye shall not lack for the fields ye have tilled nor the houses ye have built nor the cloth ye have woven."

— WILLIAM MORRIS, A Dream of John Ball, Chap. IV., p. 40.  (Speech of John Ball.)

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 20 -- Isaiah

They shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat.

— Isaiah, LXV., 21-2.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 19 -- Rawlinson

But if Egyptian civilization had its victims, it had also its favorites.  . . .  There stood . . . that upper class . . .  owners of a large portion of the soil, and so possessed of hereditary wealth, one which seemed born to enjoy existence and "consume the fruits" of other men's toil and industry.

— GEORGE RAWLINSON, History of Ancient Egypt, Vol. I., Chap. II., p. 533.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 18 -- Ebenezer Jones

The few to whom the law hath given the earth God gives to all
Do tell us that for them alone its fruits increase and fall.

— EBENEZER JONES (1820-1860), A Coming Cry, Songs of Freedom, p. 99.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 17 -- Shelley

Shrink to your cellars, holes and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

With plow and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England is your sepulchre!

— PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, Song — To the Men of England.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 16 -- Crabbe

But yet in other scenes more fair to view,
When Plenty smiles — alas! she smiles for few —
And those who taste not, yet behold her store,
Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore —
The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.

— GEORGE CRABBE, The Village (1783), Book I.

Want Less Inequality? Tax It

Want Less Inequality? Tax It.

Pigou, a key bridge figure in the history of his field, was one of the earliest classical economists to notice that markets do not always produce the best possible social outcomes. The pollution generated by a factory imposes costs on those who live downstream or in the path of its airborne emissions. The risks assumed by banks leading up to the recent financial crisis imposed costs on just about everybody. Market transactions often generate what economists call “externalities” — side effects, sometimes positive but often negative, that affect people who do not participate in the transaction. 

Pigou, having recognized the problem, was the first to propose a solution. Society should tax the negative externalities and subsidize the positive ones. This simple notion — if you want less of something, tax it — is why his ideas periodically bubble up in the service of combating a recognizable cost to society, like pollution. We think that his approach offers an answer to another great problem of our time: inequality.    

Does the extreme degree of inequality in America today really create, as Pigou would put it, negative externalities? Does the fact that hedge-fund manager Mr. Jones rakes in 100 or 1,000 times what office manager Mrs. Smith earns impose costs on everybody else? Plenty of Americans think not. Defenders of our skewed income distribution point out that a free-enterprise system requires some inequality. Unequal rewards give people an incentive to work hard and acquire new skills. They encourage inventors to invent, entrepreneurs to start companies, investors to take risks. It’s fine in this view that some people get astronomically rich. As Mitt Romney likes to say, “I’m not going to apologize for being successful.”  

On the other side, many of us have a gut feeling that inequality has gone too far. Our times are reminiscent of the Gilded Age’s worst excesses. Hence the popularity of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s slogan, “We are the 99 percent.”

LVTfan here: Wouldn't it be better to prevent the inequality by such measures as treating the natural creation as our common treasure, instead of permitting its privatization and then taxing back what is taken?   Treating the natural creation, and that which the community creates by its presence and its investment in public goods -- schools, roads, libraries, etc. -- as our COMMON treasure would create equal opportunity for all, a much better idea than permitting some to capture it and then taxing some of their booty back after the fact.   When we let some reap what others sow, and then take back a share after the fact, we're still permitting them to reap which deprives the sowers of that right.  Whether it be nature doing the sowing, or the community as a whole, no good can come of permitting the privatization of that.  Henry George, in "Progress and Poverty" and "Social Problems" showed the logical, efficient, just way to do better.

Land Speculation in Rural Indiana

It isn't just urban land that is the subject of speculation.  Rural farmland can also be speculated upon, to the private benefit of individuals, and the loss of ... the rest of us, the community!   

 

http://www.indystar.com/article/20121110/NEWS05/211100339/StarWatch-investigation-State-paid-twice-what-some-69-land-worth

StarWatch investigation: State paid twice what some I-69 land was worth
To secure path for I-69, INDOT offered $7M for property appraised at $3.34M
Written by Ryan Sabalow and Tim Evans  |  7:47 PM, Nov 10, 2012   

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- In 2006, Barry Elkins paid $850,000 for about 200 acres in Monroe County owned by former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight.

$4,250 per acre

Elkins told a local newspaper he had no plans to develop the land. He said he also was quite aware state officials planned to acquire at least some of the property for the new I-69 freeway project.

Nonetheless, Elkins told a reporter: "It's a heck of a piece of ground."

Turns out, it produced a heck of a profit, too.

In July, state highway officials paid Elkins $2.41 million for an easement covering 140 of the 200 acres. That's almost four times the $658,800 that state appraisers said the easement was worth.

$17,214 per acre for the 140 acres. $658,800 is $4,705 per acre. The $2.41 million represents a profit of $1.56 million since 2006, still leaves the owner with 60 acres with no easement and 140 acres with an easement.  The $1.56 million profit in 6 years on an $850,000 investment is 84%!  Quite a return!  For what effort?  What did society get in return?

... 
According to I-69 cost estimates INDOT provided this summer, $162.6 million in state and federal funds were spent on right-of-way purchases along the new stretch of freeway.

...

He said the property payments also haven't caused the project to go over budget. He said the I-69 project is 25 percent under budget estimates. Officials this summer pegged the cost of the Evansville-to-Bloomington project at $1.5 billion.

...

The land Elkins bought from Knight wasn't the only Monroe County property along I-69's path that he sold to the state for far more than its fair market value. He and two co-owners also got $348,600 for a 27-acre property appraised at $194,625; and $795,956 for 58 acres appraised at $278,295.

As for the former Knight property, the state purchased the easement to create an "environmental mitigation site" to make up for damage to forests, wetlands, wildlife habitat and other natural resources caused by the new freeway.

After the $2.41 million payday -- which was nearly three times the amount Elkins paid Knight for the entire 200 acres -- Elkins still owns the picturesque expanse of undeveloped pasture and woods about eight miles southwest of Bloomington.

The easement forbids any development on 140 acres of the land but allows Elkins to use it for "low-impact" recreational activities such as hiking, photography and hunting.

And he doesn't have to pay property taxes.

One might reasonably ask what valuation Elkins was paying property taxes on before the transactions.

One might reasonably ask how much the labor costs on this project were -- what men and women got paid for their hours of labor put into building the highway, and then compare that to Mr. Elkins' and others' receipts as passive landholders!!  Quite amazing that we treat the "rights" of landholders as more sacred than we make the rights of the community or of those who work.

One might reasonably wonder how soon the communities along the route of this new highway will revalue their land, and whether the communities will collect more from those whose land benefited from the presence of this highway (and less from those whose properties were in reality negatively impacted, should that be the case).   In general, the aggregate benefits will far exceed the aggregate negative impacts, and would likely be enough to pay all the costs of the construction.

Mr. Elkins' free lunch did not come out of thin air.  And likely, his heirs will continue to enjoy the benefit of it.  

THIS is how wealth concentrates.  This is why we are forced into taxing wages, and sales, and other things we have no business taxing!

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 15 -- O'Reilly

The dead are below and the landless and those who live to labor,
And grind forever in gloom that the privileged few may live.

— JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY, From the Earth, A Cry, The Statues in the Block, and Other Poems, p. 41.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 14 -- Jones

Our place we know, we're so very, very low,
    'Tis down at the landlord's feet;
We're not too low the grain to grow,
     But too low the bread to eat.

— ERNEST JONES (1819-1868), Song of the Lower Classes, Songs of Freedom, p. 127.

Corn Belt Farmland: The Newest Real Estate Bubble? : NPR

Corn Belt Farmland: The Newest Real Estate Bubble? : NPR.

As you read this, recall that a single acre of urban land can be worth $250,000,000 or more -- over 23,000 times what the recently-doubled farmland described in this article sold for!!  Also, it seems worthwhile to point out that 160 acres (one quarter of a square mile), at $10,700 each, works out to $1.7 million -- currently well below the threshold for the federal estate tax! 

Consider, too, what it is that the land speculator brings to the process of production, and what he is rightly entitled to in a fair and just society, and what society is entitled to, and what the workers -- the farmer and his employees -- are entitled to, and what the capitalist -- the fellow who pays for the buildings and equipment -- is entitled to.  Seems like the land speculator is making out awfully -- awefully! -- well but isn't producing or creating anything!!  Why do we do things this way?  Did the absentee landlord deserve a share of the crop the farmer created?  If the farmer has to pay rent to someone, shouldn't it be the community?  Wouldn't it be better if America's investors were motivated to put their funds into better equipment (capital) or employing people (labor)?

November 8, 2012 

Howard Audsley has been driving through Missouri for the past 30 years to assess the value of farmland. Barreling down the flat roads of Saline County on a recent day, he stopped his truck at a 160-acre tract of newly tilled black land. The land sold in February for $10,700 per acre, double what it would have gone for five years ago.

Heading out into the field, Audsley picked up a clod of the dirt that makes this pocket of land some of the priciest in the state. 

"This is a very loamy, very productive, but loamy soil," Audsley said. "A high-clay soil will just be like a rock and that's the difference between the ... soils. And the farmers know this and the investors know this. That's why they pay for it what they do."

A Steep Surge In Prices

It's not just the value of Missouri cropland that's rising. Corn Belt farmland prices from Iowa to Illinois and Nebraska to Kansas have been sky-high lately, boosted by $8-a-bushel corn.

"We paid about $3.3 million for [about 650 acres] in Southeast Illinois in 2009," said Diggle, who is the CEO of Singapore-based Vulpes Investment Management. The company handles $250 million of investor money, about 15 percent of which is in farmland.The high commodity prices have helped encourage investors like Steve Diggle, who have no connection to farming, to compete for their very own acreage in the Heartland.

"This year we sold it at auction and we got $5.1 million," he said, referring to the Illinois farmland. "That's 55 percent higher than we paid. Plus we got two yields — one of 3.5 percent and one of 5 percent. So, you know, as an investment, that's 63 percent over three years. [It] is great and we're extremely happy with it."

Diggle says his firm also purchased a 1,400-acre tract in Illinois two years ago. The company plans to hold on to it to make money through cash rents and land appreciation.

"The value of your land may go up or down. But as long as bond prices remain where they are, it's very hard to see how we'll have a sustained bear market for agriculture," Diggle said. By comparison, he said, the extremely low returns in the bond market are "just so inferior."

A Safer Investment

You don't have to be a billionaire to invest in farmland.

Physics professor Andy Trupin, who lives in Delray Beach, Fla., bought a 155-acre tract of farmland in Lebo, Kan., two years ago because it looked like it would make him more money than gold or the stock market. He also owns another tract that's primarily pastureland.

"Farmland seemed like a much safer vehicle to get an income stream even though ... it's not a high-income stream. At least it's more than you would get on Treasuries at any duration," Trupin said. "And at the same time, [farmland offers] price appreciation or to at least [holds] its value in the event of an inflation period."

The investment has paid off so far, Trupin said. He rented out the land to a local farmer who grows corn, soybeans and wheat. Even the brutal drought failed to knock down the investment.

"Amazingly we managed to get 20 bushels to the acre of corn even though the place was as dry as Las Vegas last year," Trupin said. "I'm willing to let the income from this thing fluctuate. In bad years, it's a slight loss — maybe a couple of thousand on the year — and in good years, you gain up to $10,000 on it."

Trupin found the land online and got help purchasing it by Realty Executives of Kansas City. The company says 90 percent of its new customers are investors like Trupin, and it holds seminars for investors that walk them through the process of evaluating and buying farmland and how to find local farmers to rent the land.

"There's probably a higher percentage now of people who are strictly investors, stock market people, money-market-type investors, and ... they're buying all types of land," said Dale Hermreck, a broker for Realty Executives who says he sold $21 million worth of farmland in Kansas last year.

"We have a lot of outside interest from Texas, Chicago, New York," Hermreck said. "I get calls and inquiries all over the United States."

The Specter Of A Bubble

But to University of Missouri agriculture economist Ron Plain all of this sounds a bit like the housing bubble burst of 2006. He is concerned a similar bubble could be happening in farmland.

"You get several years going up faster than that long-term trend of 6 percent [annual increases] and you're then in a situation where you're sort of due for a correction," Plain said. "And the way you correct is pull those land values down — or 'pop the bubble' ... and so there's concern about that and it's kind of reasonable to worry."

Plain said that with mortgage rates at their lowest in 60 years, it's reasonable to expect the cost of borrowing to go up eventually. And if crop prices retreat from record highs, he said, that means "less income per acre and therefore less ability to pay for farmland."

Should a bubble burst, farmland might be harder to sell, especially compared with other more liquid investments. But investors argue that any bubble is still far off, and they believe that farm acreage will remain a solid long-term investment so long as the demand for food continues to grow.

It remains to be seen whether investors will be able to compete with farmers for the small supply of high-quality cropland available in the Midwest, says broker Hermreck.

"I have people call me all the time and I just don't have what they're looking for," Hermreck said. "Simply supply and demand. It's just not there. I could sell an awful lot more of this land if it was available. And people seem to hang on to something that's making some money and real popular. It's just real popular now to own land."

Abbie Fentress Swanson reports from Missouri for Harvest Public Media, an agriculture-reporting project involving six NPR member stations in the Midwest. For more stories about farm and food, check out harvestpublicmedia.org

Maybe California can shake off Prop 13?

Democrats Control Legislature: Now What? | NBC 7 San Diego.

By Larry Gerston |  Monday, Nov 12, 2012   

While most Californians watched the votes tallied for the presidency, a startling upheaval occurred right under our noses: Democrats captured absolute two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state legislature, a feat not managed since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978.  

What does a ballot proposition from more than 30 years ago have to do with last week's elections? Almost everything. 

Most people remember Proposition 13 for the provision that slashed local property taxes by about 57 percent, strapping local governments and increasing the burden on the state to help fund local programs and services. 

But another provision required that state taxes could not be increased without an absolute two-thirds vote of both houses of the state legislature--the highest threshold of its kind in the nation.

Further along, the article continues,

But the most important policy area for the Democrats will exist in the realm of taxes.

Currently, the state relies on the progressive income tax for more than sixty percent of its general fund--a percentage that will increase somewhat in the short-term with passage of Proposition 30 last week.

This proportion is neither sustainable nor desirable. Other sources must be tapped in order to decrease the reliance on a single source.

One idea is to tax oil as it comes out of the ground; California is the only oil-producing state (fourth largest in the nation) that does not do so.

Another possibility is to broaden the sales tax, which currently applies to only about 40 percent of all goods and services produced in the state.

Along these lines, "sin" taxes on liquor, beer and wine have not been touched for decades. California also ranks 33rd in tobacco taxes.

Still a third possibility might be to alter Proposition 13 by passing a statewide property tax for businesses which, in many cases, have paid the same amounts since 1978.    

Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/blogs/prop-zero/Democrats-Control-Legislature-Now-What-178454661.html#ixzz2C93bGhSd

Best of all would be to untax wages, untax sales, and untax buildings of all kinds, and to place the lion's share of California's taxation on the value of its land.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 13 -- Kingsley

We quarreled like brutes, and who wonders?
    What self-respect could we keep
Worse housed than your hawks and your pointers,
    Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep?

— CHARLES KINGSLEY, A Rough Rhyme on a Rough Matter.

To be worthy, not respectable

Came across this in a book of editorials from the Hearst newspapers, circa 1914.  It is entitled "William Henry Channing's Symphony."  

 

WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING'S SYMPHONY

The thought—

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common — this is my symphony.

William Henry Channing.

To live content with small means.

This means to realize to the full the possibilities of life. Contentment means absence of worry. It is only when free from worry that the brain can act normally, up to its highest standard. The man content with small means does his best work, devotes his energies to that which is worth while, and not to acquiring that which has no value.

To seek elegance rather than luxury.

The difference between elegance and luxury is the difference between the thin, graceful deer, browsing on the scanty but sufficient forest pasture, and the fat swine revelling in plentiful garbage.

Refinement rather than fashion.

The difference between refinement and fashion is the difference between brains and clothing, the difference between an Emerson or a Huxley and a Beau Brummel or other worthless but elaborately decked carcass.

To be worthy, not respectable.

In other words, to be like Henry George, and not like the owner of a trust.

Wealthy, not rich.

The man who has a good wife and good children, enough to take care of them, but not enough to spoil them, is wealthy. He is happier than the man who is rich enough to be worried, rich enough to make it certain that his children will be ruined by extravagance, and perhaps live to be ashamed of him.

To listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart.

This means to enjoy the noblest gifts that God has given to man. He is happy who takes more pleasure in a beautiful sunset than in the sight of a flunky with powdered hair, artificial calves and lofty manners, handing him something indigestible on a plate of gold.

To study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently.

To exercise in this way the brain that is given to us is to lead the life of a man, a life of self-control, a life that is worth while, that leads to something and helps forward the improvement of the race.

In the words which we have quoted at the top of this column William Henry Channing has given a recipe for wise living.

---------

Who was Channing?

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 12 -- Marmontel

"The land which saw you born has repudiated you; the laws have excluded you from this common inheritance; you have cleared it, but others possess it; you and the ox yoked to the plow are put on the same level.  Nature called you to a share in its domain, but tyranny has pushed you aside and says, 'You are not men; live like the beasts, to serve and obey me.' "

— MARMONTEL, Address in Favor of the Peasants of the North (1757), Oeuvres, Vol, X., p. 74. (Speech of an Imaginary Orator)

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 11 -- Blackstone

The law of nature suggests that on the death of the possessor, the estate should again become common and be open to the next occupant, unless otherwise ordered for the sake of civil peace by the positive law of society.

— SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, Commentaries, Book II., Chap. I, p. 13.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 10 -- Ruskin

The possession of land can only be maintained by military power.

— JOHN RUSKIN, Time and Tide, Sec. 142, p. 154.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 9 -- Bossuet

Take away the government, and the earth and all its good things are as common to all men as the air and the light.

— BOSSUET, Bishop of Meaux, Politique Tiree de I'Ecriture Sainte, Book I., Art. 3, Proposition 4; Oeuvres, Vol. XXXVI., p 26.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 8 -- Montesquieu

The law which prohibited people's having two inheritances was entirely well adapted for a democracy. It derived its origin from the equal distribution of lands and portions made to each citizen. The law would not permit a single man to possess more than a single portion.

— MONTESQUIEU, Esprit des Lois, Book V., Chap. 5.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 7 -- Gerrit Smith

I believe that all persons have an equal right to the soil. The Maker of the earth has provided one home, not two homes, for each person; not two farms, but one farm for each farmer.

— GERRIT SMITH, Speech in U. S. Congress (1854), Speeches of Gerrit Smith, p. 232.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 6 -- Spencer

Given a race of human beings having like claims to pursue, the objects of their desires — given a world it adapted to the gratification of those desires — a world into which such beings are similarly born, and it unavoidably follows that they have equal rights in the use of the world.

— HERBERT SPENCER, in 1850, Social Statics, Chap. IX.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 5 -- Clement

For your own sake, therefore, by command of God the water which was upon the face of the earth withdrew, that the earth might produce fruits for you.

— CLEMENT, Recognitions, Book VI., Chap. 7.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 4 -- Paine

Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born — a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing?

— THOMAS PAINE, Age of Reason (1793), Part I.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 3 -- Aristotle

Property in the sense of a bare livelihood seems to be given by nature herself to all, both when they are first born and when they are grown up. For some animals bring forth, together with their offspring, so much food as will last until they are able to supply themselves. In like manner we may infer that, after the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man.

— ARISTOTLE, Politics, Book I., Chap. 8; Jowett's Translation, Vol. I., p. 14.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 2 -- Massey

Behold in bonds your Mother Earth,
    The rich man's prostitute and slave!
Your Mother Earth who gave you birth,
    You only own her for a grave!
And will you die like slaves and see
    Your Mother left a fettered thrall?
Nay, live like men, and set her free
    As heritage for all.

— GERALD MASSEY, The Earth for All, My Lyrical Life, 2d Series, pp. 232-3.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 1 -- Michelet

Do not say that nature has become a step-mother. Do not think that God has turned away his fruitful gaze from the earth. This earth is always the good nursing-mother who only asks to help man; though sterile and ungracious on the surface, she loves him underneath. But it is man who loves no longer, man who is the enemy of man. The curse that bears upon him is his own, that of selfishness and injustice, the weight of an unjust society.

— MICHELET, History of the French Revolution, Introduction, Part II., Sec. 3.