Biblical Authority to Fight Against Land Monopoly

W. B. Carpenter

[Reprinted from The Gargoyle, August-September 1978]

Henry George and students of Henry George, whether they realize it or not, seem to me to be trying to keep alive in the minds of men and women the Creator's economic Law for nations. This never changing LAW of God concerning land ownership was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. IT IS WRITTEN clearly in Leviticus 25: 1,2,23 and 24. In verse 23 God told Moses, "THE LAND SHALL NOT BE SOLD FOREVER... etc. In verse 24 God indicated to Moses a method to be used to enforce that economic Law. It was designed to prevent selfish, greedy, deceitful men and women from monoplizing the ownership of the land and its natural resources thus dispossessing the majority in future generations. Moses did well in enforcing that LAW of God for those chiefly agrarian times. After Moses died the leaders of the Israelite nation ignored and disobeyed that economic LAW of God. This resulted in decay from within and oblivion for the nation.

A study of Biblical and of lay history proves that all empires -- ancient Egypt, Babylon, the Medes-Persian, the Greek, the Roman empire and the British Empire -- have decayed from within from the same basic cause, the monopoly of land ownership. In each of those succeeding empires a few and their minions became abnormally rich. The majority of the people eventually became slaves to the landowners. Either chattle slaves or in modern times economic slaves.

Henry George saw the symptoms of decay from within in the United States, England, France and Australia. He recognized the basic cause -- land monopoly. In the 1800's Henry George wrote PROGRESS & POVERTY, and other books. These books explain in detail why the monopoly of land ownership causes corruption in governments, unemployment, poverty, increasing taxes for those with earned income, periods of inflation and then depression and wars, increasing crime and immorality.

Today, in 1978, the ownership, of _ land and natural resources is even more monopolized than in the 1880's. Henry George devised a method, similar to the one in verse 24 above and suggested in his books an intelligent method to enforce God's economic LAW for nations. So that monopolization by selfish, greedy, deceitful, unscrupulous men, women and corporations may be discontinued and eventually destroyed in these complex, highly mechanized times.

I believe that there is enough intelligence among sincere Georgists to devise a way to inform the people of the facts as related in Henry George's works. Any thinking person any high-school or college student who studies Henry George's writings cannot help but see and feel the truth in them.

Elimination of monopolies of all kinds can be accomplished in the United States under the provisions of the Constitution, providing first the people become well informed of the economic facts. (Please note: It would help if the clergy did their duty to the Creator by preaching all of the gospel instead of ignoring God's LAW concerning the evil, world _wide_ system of land monopoly.) The power to accomplish economic justice rests with the people -- "Know the truth and the truth shall make you free."