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| "Therefore do not defile the land which you inhabit, in the midst of which I [the LORD] dwell" Numbers 35. 34 |
1.— Introduction.
The concept of a land question does not often enter into political discourse through this age; nevertheless, it is still as significant as all other considerations, as the land is the foremost of all material resources, enabling the existence of just about everything else. Without it, humanity would perish. In fact, we would not have been able to exist in the first place. We are completely interdependent upon it. Yet, it does not receive the consideration which it should— and many modern conservative movements inherit the blame for this as well.
The British Conservative Party itself, as noted most directly in The Case for Conservatism (Quintin Hogg, 1948), would not have succeeded "had it not been for the consistent championship of agriculture by the Conservative Party". Times have since changed, and the most salient fact of this today is a quick glance at the current state of national agriculture. It even goes beyond the question of agriculture to one of land generally, including landownership, business conduct, housing, and all the rest; more, this question— rather than being monopolised by the Party itself— applies to any such conservative movement, provided that it wishes to keep true to its very namesake. Hogg's statement, although based upon the Party's conduct some decades ago, needs no further application for this to be understood.
Therefore, to keep its traction, a conservative movement needs to place the issue of the land question front and centre to its policy proposals: it helps elucidate the questions of food supply, labour, exchange and other business matters, housing, community contact, &c.— it addresses everything we know.
It is the very root and vine of our existence, and therefore deserves serious treatment.
2.— A traditional approach to the land question.
Before proceeding, it would help to better understand the question that surrounds land itself. It is one of historical importance and therefore merits its presence in any such conservative approach today. More than that, unless it is discussed, it cannot be addressed; if it cannot be addressed, neither can anything else— in any full capacity, at least.
Although there are many differing approaches to the land question itself, its central principle is that of how we can apply the land upon which we live in the most equitable and proficient way to sustain our individual, as well as our communal, livelihoods; it is contingent upon the recognition that the land is a vital part of the material (amongst others, of course) basis of our national life; it is therefore understood to be a beautiful product of God's design. To approach this reasoning, it helps to think of how romanticised— and rightly so— the British countryside has become, and, in contrast, to look at the dreary, Soviet-style concrete towers of flats which dominate the city's landscape as nothing less than a modernist eyesore. Nevertheless, the over-spill of the latter are slowly claiming the former and changing its image forever.
With this in mind, a traditional, conservative approach to the land question must emphasise its utility and beauty in a way which does not compromise its relation to the spiritual, and therefore also the cultural, basis of a nation. One is necessarily contingent and dependent upon the other. Therefore, alongside the material basis,— of which land is a part,— the spiritual heritage of a nation's culture is what best platforms this approach: in Britain's case, this is distinctively Christian. A conservative reply to the land question must correspondingly embody the Christian approach.
More than that, Aristotle's observations on the organic development from the individual, to the family, to the village, and finally to the city— which he regarded to be the logical and highest consequence of civilised order— are incredibly succinct when considering a conservative approach to this question. Ultimately, it re-frames the object of policy to consider first the good of the society, placing the family at the centre as the smallest functioning social unit; it forces us to consider the smallest in relation to the largest. Whilst the family must therefore find protection and veneration, it cannot even begin to exist without an adequate attachment to the land.
3.— The Bible and the land. [1]
As understood by the Bible, the land upon which we live was a purpose of God's creation to sustain us. This is confirmed by God's entrusting to man the dominion over the land and its animals, (Genesis 1. 26-28,) alongside the nations of our inheritance (Deuteronomy 32. 8; Acts 17. 26)— a responsibility which cannot be taken lightly. In fact, by God's sovereign decree, we are charged with the very stewardship and care over it and its people, as it is understood to be where the Lord also dwells amongst us (see also: Numbers 35. 34; Psalm 24. 1; Ezekiel 34. 18). A conservative worldview remembers this omnipresence of God.
This decree of God, this trust in us, and His continual presence amongst us presupposes a duty of stewardship over the well-being and function of the land. If we neglect that, we ultimately neglect His decree. Rightly, it could well be argued that this— what we see in the modern day— is a product of man's fallen nature; I would not argue otherwise; yet, deference to the Biblical record of man's existence upon the land, how it came to be, and how we are to approach it, is nevertheless fundamental if we are to move towards a rejoinder of the spiritual basis with the material. Such union is critical to a conservative approach.
If this point did not require to be pressed further, Paul the Apostle's warning is thus: "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." (1 Timothy 5.8.) How much more can the gravity of the land question be understood with reference to the Bible? Not only are we charged by God's decree to reside upon the land which He has granted us, but further, we are to provide our own households— our families. If the land is not there, or if we neglect the responsibility over it, we cannot fulfil even one of these commands.
It should be noted that this is a comparatively brief statement on the nature of the Bible's relationship to land. The point is to highlight the spiritual approach.
4.— The modern record of land at a glance.
In Britain, land ownership, business conduct, and agriculture have seen a dramatic shift in priority over the last century. This could not be marked more clearly by the way in which the Common Agricultural Policy (hereafter, C.A.P.) of the European Union has absolutely decimated the nation's propensity for domestic agricultural production. In fact, even before that point, there was a general increase in the accumulation and concentration of mass landholdings. Unsurprisingly, the decades in which this became most intensified were the corresponding decades in which the British land market was gradually opened to an increasingly globalised economy. It should also be noted that the agricultural workforce in Britain has seen a rapid decline in the same century.
How does the C.A.P. come into play? In short, it epitomised this trend, and enabled the British land and agricultural market to act prey to global landholders and corporations, receiving not only national government sanction but also that of the European Union. Aside from being famous for encouraging mass overproduction and waste, its very structure is what fuelled this trend: by providing taxpayer reimbursement to landowners based solely on the acreage of their holdings, many already large corporations were encouraged to expand their landholdings at the expense small, domestic agricultural businesses. This policy is one of the clearest examples of the way in which monopolising tendencies are exploited and enhanced by governments, both national and international.
Equally, it is not beyond reason to state that this policy emphasised an issue on a second front: the encouragement of wasteful, useless overproduction. This type of behaviour is not the product of capitalism per se, as such would be completely counterintuitive to the nature of a business— especially a small, localised one. Considering that such businesses are usually not the target of central legislation,— to the contrary, are somewhat neglected in comparison,— they are correspondingly less reliant upon the government and more upon their own conduct. Instead, what was seen of capitalism in the case of the C.A.P. is the type of capitalism which does not hinge its profit on reasonable and honest conduct, but rather, finds government-sanctioned reward, funded by an international tax supply, based upon loose-knit policies.
These are only a couple of policies to name, let alone the many others. With this in mind, it should go without saying that these things have also happened under the hands of 'conservative' governments, as well as those of 'labour.' Although neither have actively prevented or reversed the situation, the burden of guilt falls more upon the shoulders of those 'conservatives' who have gone any which way apart from their namesake's command.
5.— Approaching conservative solutions.
Conservatism, bearing the aforementioned paragraphs in mind, thus has a few avenues of reformatory suggestion. These involve predominantly focusing on a shift in economic policy— tax reform, land ownership, banking decentralisation, market deregulation, homestead policies, &c.— alongside active social policy which focuses upon the institutions of marriage, family, and household security. The latter points are also sanctioned by the Bible (e.g., Genesis 2. 21-25; Exodus 20.12; Psalm 127. 3). At any given point, there should be recourse to the spiritual and cultural basis mentioned, as it necessarily interconnects with our understanding of societal and economic institutions, and their relationship to the land also.
Some examples of propositions towards economic reform could include the following:—
a.— A tax on land value, proportionate to the acreage of the holding as well as its current productivity. This could replace most other taxes on labour, exchange, and property itself, which are unjust and self-defeating. Ultimately, this would benefit the small landholder and farmer, as they would pay a proportionately smaller amount of tax and, on developed or productive land, would pay still less;
b.— A corresponding relief of the tax burden, in gradation to the introduction of a tax on land value, to better support the small businessman and farmer;
c.— A decentralisation of the finance system, introducing regional banking institutions, which deal with savings deposits, credit unions, and loan-issuing;
d.— The rapid decrease (to zero) of taxpayer funding to global corporations in proportion to government expense cutbacks, as well as deregulation of the market and red tape which targets small businesses and farms, and often consumes them;
e.— A financial emphasis away from the mass rent market and towards the traditional understanding of property rights, including homesteading principles (this could be achieved with the decentralised banking policy); and, finally,
f.— The encouragement of homesteading practices through a voluntary, community-aided provision of the tools, materials, and seeds necessary to begin independent and individualised farms, to the direct benefit of small households and their families.
(To note: These are only brief pointers, and are not designed to fully elaborate the concept; this will be done in follow-up essays, dealing with each issue in more detail and in a more informative manner.)
6.— Concluding thoughts.
In conclusion, there are a variety of themes which interplay here, although the central principle is the same: if a conservative movement— be it political party or otherwise— wishes to keep its traction, there must be an emphasis on the issues surrounding the land question, which infrequently proposes itself in discourses today; yet all the same, it remains a question of sustainability and life on the one hand, or impasse and death on the other. In other to do so successfully, conservatism's namesake must further recourse to the spiritual and cultural heritage to which it has been entrusted, connecting the two bases of a nation— the spiritual (and thereby the social-cultural) and the material.
Either way, the purpose is not to make a statement of hatred against the Conservative Party as they're known today; rather, it is simply to call out the fact that the current behaviour sits in direct contrast to that which it embodied several decades ago, let alone its namesake. There is little in the way of an interest in the traditional landscape and its preservation, or other social institutions such as property and the family. Naturally, the modernist bent with which it is obsessed today is a product of the modern society. All the same, this does not mean that it is static in its objective, but rather could well be changed.
Instead, the idea is simply to level this brief critique with some constructive suggestions— to be followed up in more detail— towards a genuinely conservative approach to political economy and society. These can be summarised, shortly, in the following terms: a faith-based approach, veneration of family as societal nucleus, financial decentralisation, deregulation of small businesses and the self-employed, widespread property ownership and homesteading, and local exchange networks. It is believed that these things form the centrepiece of a traditional and just approach to conservative economy and society, against the trajectory of neoliberalism's modernising approach witnessed today.
+ God bless
[1] All quotes from this version of the Holy Bible (NKJV).