Mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse (c.287–c.212 B.C.), who was also a geopolitical philosopher, noted: “Give me a place on which to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the Earth.”
Humankind’s relationship to geography is vital, driving individual and societal wealth, progress, and power. That relationship is once again at a critical juncture as yet another globalist movement subsides as a spent force upon the shores of nations.
Eternal lands and oceans have owned mankind and shaped human logic and behavior for the brief period humanity has existed, for all that we have claimed to have shaped the landscape. And yet “ownership” of the lands and seas has been the fundamental leverage that has enabled and empowered human progress throughout history.
Land ownership in an overarching national sense, but vitally at an individual level, builds comprehensive strategic wealth and a stable, reliable tax base if left unfettered. “Real estate” is leverageable and defensible.
Experiments with the abolition of private land ownership in favor of “state” ownership—in which lands are all owned by “the state” or the government—transform the land into an unrealizable asset because there is no market for it and, therefore, no possibility of assigning a value to it for acquisition, trading, or leverage. The land’s value becomes arbitrary and largely unproductive because individuals have no relationship with it. As such, it does not, on its own, inspire a passion to defend and safeguard it, neither in security terms nor in ecological terms.
It was only as the ownership and heritable transfer of real estate became of primary importance in the laws of societies that it became the bedrock of civilizations, particularly Western civilizations. Land ownership was the greatest stabilizing factor in societies because it retained the commitment of citizens to society and culture, and the mobility of individuals was constrained by the immobility of land. As it was fixed in law that the title to the land could be transferred, it acquired value through sale or asset leverage.
As such, it became the wellspring of innovation because it could become the guarantor for funding for commercial ventures. It is the cocoon of the entrepreneurial society and generally the essential leverage for the creation of small businesses, which hold the potential for economic growth.
Because real estate is fixed, it forms the basis of community security and cooperation, which is why crimes against property are, in many societies, viewed as seriously as crimes against persons. As a result, property ownership has been a vital stake in creating a serious representative government, and, as electoral franchises became—in the 20th century, particularly—vitiated by extending voting rights to people with “no stake in society” (property ownership) so, too, did the quality and responsiveness of governments to societies become weakened.
Some societies have attempted to build a national asset base of real estate based on leasehold property rights, which, in many cases, have uncertain legality, or state-controlled rental property. This has been the case with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, before it, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The USSR was unable to build a proprietary sense of connection to the land after the collectivization of property once the Russian Empire had been conquered. The rapidly growing Russian state, until World War I, became historically powerless after the Soviets destroyed entire cultures and societies through the disenfranchisement of people from their lands, cultures, languages, and religions.
After Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, the PRC, determined to avoid the fate of the USSR’s collapse in 1990, began establishing “private property” under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. However, it was not defensible private property; it was always subject to the arbitrary control of the Chinese Communist Party of China (CCP) and on a leasehold basis. The collapse of this weakened private property framework—pseudo-private real estate, in effect—in China, which began after 2012, showed how hollow the CCP’s economic and strategic framework had become.
Today, foreign investors do not value China’s “private sector” real estate market, and mainland Chinese people use it only because there is no alternative. This highlights the lack of depth of the communist Chinese economic framework.
As of December 2023, the total value of U.S. private homes was estimated at $47.5 trillion to $49.6 trillion, and commercial real estate was valued at a further $22.5 trillion. U.S. real estate—private ownership of land and buildings—is seen as the basis of U.S. economic viability, and its combined value offsets, at least perceptually or notionally, the value of the U.S. national debt (around $36.1 trillion as of Dec. 13).
The destructive nature of national debt can be seen when it takes such a high proportion of tax revenues to service, particularly in the United States. Still, at least the viability of the underpinning real estate ensures a relatively stable position. However, property ownership is tied to viable national entities, and when the overarching state control of territory is vitiated, so, too, is the viability of private property. For example, as Europe collectivized under the European Union, increasingly along the lines of the USSR, national borders—and the protection of private property—weakened. And as open borders in the United States have challenged the nature of society with its inherited values and inherited property, so, too, has U.S. authority diminished.
This crumbles Western civilization.
Property ownership, like democracy, is a reflection of the freedom that permits it and the transfer of land ownership at will. It is a fundamental pillar of any social contract that is created between society and its governorship.
