Who Owns the World?

My oldest friend and his wife live in Canada, where Queen Elizabeth owns their house. That makes them fortunate on a planet in which only 15% of the people own land. In Europe, less than 6% of the people own 59% of the arable land. And these enormously wealthy folks get subsidies from the European Union to farm it. That's a good deal.

The world's richest person, far richer than Bill Gates, is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, who owns Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. In fact, she owns lands totalling about three times the size of the United States. The humans who live on her land have two forms of tenure: freehold (a type of tenancy) and leasehold.

This situation is, of course, a continuation of feudalism. A labor parliament passed the Human Rights Act, which offers protection for inferior owners (the Queen is called the superior owner), but any future parliament has the power to repeal this protection. The injustice is not a technicality. During World War II, the British government seized eleven million acres of land while paying little or no compensation.

About 26 kings, emirs, etc., own 20% of the earth's surface. Most of the rest is owned by governments. Every inch of China, for example, is owned by the state, which leases some of it back to the people. The Cuban government owns Cuba. In Ireland, all land is owned by the nation, which took over the British Crown's feudal ownership. And so on.

The first country to encourage ordinary citizens to own land was the United States.

In many countries today written constitutions have built protections for inferior owners. It is unlikely that Queen Elizabeth will actually take control of my friends' home in Canada. What is most curious about the history of landowning-- a history of nearly everyone on earth renting living space from some king--is how, for many thousands of years, we stooped and kissed the whip of superior owners (and still do). What does that say about us?

. . . . read WHO OWNS THE WORLD by Keven Cahill