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©2009 J. R. Johnson
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17 THE BATTLE BETWEEN BIBLICAL STEWARDSHIP AND THEOWNERSHIP OF PROPERTY.
One of the stories of history is the constant struggle over the ownership of land. Itinvolves both the individual ownership of land and the corporate ownership found in businessesand governments. A person can learn much about history just by studying the changing boundaries of nations. If prostitution is called the oldest profession, it may find some debateover that by those who make maps. From the very first parts of history, the claim of ownershipof land by one person has found someone else claiming the same land. Property disputes arefundamental in almost every dispute.The rise of the free market can almost be located in the values placed upon property.Once ownership is claimed over a parcel, value is added to it. The question then arises, howmuch value. That is determined by a number of factors. If no one else wants your land, it hasvery little value beyond what the owner can gain by the use of the land. Value can be added tothe land by making improvements. Improvements usually are designed to increase the incomegenerated by the owner. The increased revenue adds to the desirability of others wanting thesame parcel of land. This leads to a second level of value.Once ownership has been claimed on a parcel, that land must be defended from thosewho find it cheaper to take the land rather than pay for it. If the land can be freely taken bywhoever desires it, the value reverts back to near zero. Thus in order to maintain a land’s value,ways must be found to protect the land from those who do not want to pay for it. For theindividual owner, it is cheapest to combine his interests with those of similar interests. Together,they can defend their lands from freeloaders. If the land is valuable enough, or if there aresufficient number of owners, a private army can be hired to protect the land.Many today think a deed is what determines the ownership of land. That is a rather modern concept. And it involves hidden costs that the owner is not usually aware of when hethinks of modern ownership. He pays taxes to a government to protect his deed from other claims of ownership. Government is necessary from the very first because ownership of land has been necessary from the very first. The problem with governments throughout history is that italso desires the ownership of all land under its jurisdiction. Just as the primitive property owner had to fear the army he hired to protect his land, so the modern owner has to fear the governmenthe has hired to protect his land. History teaches that land ownership is never certain.Even if the land owner trusts his government, there are other governments who covet theland under the protection of his government. The result is something called ‘war.’ While thereare many reasons to fight a war, it comes down to one reason: There are very few nations that aresatisfied with just guaranteeing the ownership of just the land it now controls. It wants to expandits role as land protector to neighboring territories. Of course, the value of the land closest to its borders determines its willingness to go to war. War has to be cost effective. While some landhas strategic value, most land is valued because people want to live and work the land. And whoare willing to pay taxes to the government that protects that land.180
 
Of course, land has strategic value to a state when the control of such land enables thestate to defend the land upon which it collects taxes. If the government did not foresee making a profit from the control of its lands, it would not see war as an option. One of the myths of history is the belief governments operate differently than any other business. Just as businesseshave a product or service to sell at a profit, so do governments. They sell a service to the peoplewho reside within its borders. The government tries to maintain the myth that it serves the people within its borders. In past times, the private army tried to maintain the same myth. Eventhe owners of the land, after they had created a private army, were now no longer served by thearmy. They were held hostage by the army and maintained their property only by the continual paying of the army’s ransom.That same principle has applied to every government in history. Our founding fatherssought to create a government that served the people and did not hold the people hostage to it.Their government of the people only lasted about seventy years. The other traditionalgovernments around the world could not tolerate this new form of government. From the veryfirst, various attempts were made to undermine the new government. Secret agents were plantedthroughout the nation to bring about its downfall. If word got out to the peoples of the world thata government could exist without holding its people hostage, then the whole world might followthe example of the American Revolution. That idea had to be killed.The battle over the various forms of government is not just one of political organization.It is not just how to conduct elections, or whether to have one or two legislative houses. The battle boils down to the question of property, its ownership, and protection. Much is made of thefirst property disputes on the North American continent. Around 250,000 roving bands of Indians claimed ownership of the whole continent. There were no title deeds. There was nogovernment to protect the land. The newcomers to America from Europe saw the land as beingfree. After all, the land had none of the historic qualities of ownership. There were no armies to protect the land. There was no taxing authority to hire an army. In the historic sense, such landwas regarded as being free.Did the colonists steal the land from the American native Indians? The problem has to beapproached from two different angles. According to the patterns established through Westernhistory, such unprotected land was always free. With so few Indians and so much land, the rightof absentee ownership was not recognized. Uninhabited land and unprotected land had always been free. The Indian saw the whole continent as theirs. Of course, the various tribes had warsas they came into contact. But with so much land and so few Indians, many conflicts could beavoided. If the Indian population had grown to the point where conflicts became regular, theywould have had to work out some system of ownership. Their culture had no arrived to that point. Now the problem of land ownership was apparently never solved in Africa. Tribalwarfare was constant. The fighting over hunting grounds and the right to control the slave trademade warfare a way of life. It was easier for many tribes to steal the food of a neighboring tribethan to work to secure its own food supply. An African view of land ownership never developed.The concept of stealing is not part of their culture. Ownership of objects and people had anentirely different basis than that developed by Western Culture. When the first whites settled inwhat is now South Africa, there were very few blacks. The land was basically free for the taking.181
 
As the population of both races developed, there developed a war over who owned the land.While people read the Bible to gain insights into one’s spiritual existence, it is also a book about the ownership of property. To miss this fact is to ignore large portions of the Bible.The Israelites, after they had ‘stolen’ the land from the Canaanite’s, developed a philosophy of land ownership. With that concept there also developed a different idea of what a governmentshould be. There also developed a different idea of how to protect the land from others whosought ownership of the same land. The Israelites claimed the land was theirs to possess. Thatinvolved warfare with those who also thought they owned the land. Whose land was it? Andhow are title deeds transferred? Those are the questions the Israelites had to settle.The basic idea of any culture or civilization is a philosophy of land ownership. Differentideas of ownership will result in different cultures and different governments. Does property belong to individuals or families? Upon the death of an owner, whose property is it? Doesownership mean more than just a place to build a home? Can the government or one of itsagents enter the land for regulation and inspection? Can the government tax the land? How canthe title be transferred from one to another? What limitations are there on ownership? How isownership of land to be protected from others?All of these questions form the foundation of a social structure. The foundations of Western Civilization are based upon the Biblical idea of property. Do away with such ideas of  property and you have destroyed Western Civilization. As has been mentioned before, thetemptation is always to desire the results of certain beliefs, without believing those same beliefs.Mankind loves the civilization that developed out of the Biblical philosophy of property. Thecurrent experiment is to see if the fruits of that culture can be maintained without the old conceptof property. It is a grand experiment, and if the Bible is correct, civilization is headed for disaster. The problem is that no one considers it an experiment at all. Reality is portrayed as thecurrent way of living, and no choices are presented to society.The nature of property is the basic idea of government and society. Without anunderstanding of property, a true society cannot develop. The first level of understandinginvolves ownership. Whom has final ownership of property? In the modern world, the state nowclaims ownership over all of property under its control. The term used is ‘eminent domain.’Today’s national governments claim sovereignty over their land. The Bible claims that all of theland belongs to God. Man is steward to the land and holds that trust directly from God. Thestate is to protect the land, but it does not own the land. The modern claim of statist ownershipof all property and wealth within its borders is, in the Biblical sense, a claim of state sovereignty.This sovereignty brings it into conflict with the Bible and the God of the Bible.The original colonists saw God as sovereign. The word sovereign is never used in theconstitution. Also, the constitution gives no power of eminent domain to the federal government.Thus, the modern government even claims that the personal wealth of each individual belongs tothe central government. Individuals by way of exemptions are allowed to keep a small part of their personal income, but any money they keep is only at the permission of the state. Men intheir opposition to this invented the idea of personal sovereignty. All controls over men, by anygovernment, are a violation of man’s rights. Only nature and the laws of nature have any right torestrict the power of men.In the Bible the right of property ownership belongs to the family. It is to be passed ontomembers of the family through inheritance. The government is to act as a representative of the
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