From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 7 Jan 1993 00:44:08 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <5JAN199316484012@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov> secsu@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov (Ralph O. Clark) writes:
>In article <1ic9pvINNt8@armory.centerline.com>, mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes...
>[Huben argues that a large middle class inherently depends on goverment
> subsidies for its existence.]
>
>>Yes, but that large middle class was a product of pre-industrial government
>>subsidy: ever hear of the Homestead Act?  And its long list of predecessors?
>>And state agricultural research?  That large middle class consisted primarily
>>of farmers until the major migrations to the cities that engendered massive
>>public education.  Giving small allotments of farmland away for free is a
>>subsidy that has seldom been replicated.
>
>1) The Homestead Act was just a formalization of the process by which this
>country was settled: arrive, stake out claim, clear land, build house and
>defensive structures if necessary, farm land.

The Homestead Act was just one of many such acts, most of the others by
states or colonies which LAID CLAIM to the land.  The states then doled it
out in small parcels.  Giving away state-owned, undeveloped land is a handout.
Compare to other nations where large properties were granted (many of which
persist to today in Latin America), as opposed to here where most "claims"
were limited by law to approximately what would constitute a sound family farm.

>2) It was not generally "farmland" that was given away, but undeveloped
>wilderness, in whatever state that wilderness tended to be---wooded,
>prairie, whatever. Preparing the land to be farmed was a tremendous amount
>of work. The farmland was not free.

The alternative in the rest of the New World was trying to BUY a portion of the
large estates: homesteading was not possible because the land was already
owned.  Since large landowners seldom sold, the alternative really turned out
to be sharecropping.

The land was given away at less than market value, for a small registration
fee and the labor of improving it.  It was restricted one alotment per family
to prevent buying up of many parcels by corporations, absentee owners, etc.

>3) If you're interested in replicating this subsidy, free up the ocean floor,
>Antartica, and outer space for homesteading.

Certainly, as long as the lessons of the past are observed.  First, and most
important politically, there must be a clear claim to the property by a
government.  That is not the case for any of the potential properties you list.
Second, unexploitably vast holdings should not be granted: they should be
doled out in hunks of reasonable economic size for the technology.  Third,
the technology dictates how much to give away at once: the technology might
not be ripe enough to allow property distribution on as wide a scale as
with the homestead act.  Fourth, there should be major setasides for future,
infrastructure, and ecological purposes.

Note that governments excluded claims until security, political, and
technological issues were resolved.  Then they were able to distribute to
a LARGE number of people, rather than a few.

Mike Huben

"To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage
to proclaim what reason shows to be true."
	Bertrand Russell in "The Prospects of Industrial Civilization".
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian