“You can not own land.”
“Yes I can!” “Prove it.”
“Uhhhh…”
(Americans in particular will not like this politically incorrect post 😀)
An object can be made or bought from the person who made it. Whether it’s big or small, the claim to ownership is clear.
Land is not an object. It was not created by a man and can not be bought from its Creator. Land “ownership” is a murky claim that exploits confusion in language.
In legal terms, land is an area of jurisdiction, the place to which our agreement to live lawfully together extends. In economic terms, land is a collective resource for the entire community associated with it. In ecological terms, land is a foundational part of an intricate living system.
In religious terms, land is a sacred home, in which all are welcome so long as we live moral lives.
Capitalism is a good system for exchanging objects but over the years I’ve come to realize that on the core issue of land “ownership” – which has structural, cultural, and political ramifications across society – it is inadequate to reality and fails to provide an effective or ethical systematic approach to the issues prior to the exchange of goods and services.
True, alternatives like Bolshevism were a disaster and central economic planning has often proven ineffective in many ways, and often results in systemic injustice – but thankfully there is more than one flavor of Socialism.
So the question is:
How do we, as Zionists in the 58th century, restore our relationship with this land to its proper mode?