re: "Rent is Theft" - a new communist meme

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Locke has 2 important points on it....

1) Property that was made useful through work belongs to he who did the work. This is a natural law. That would not apply to the unimproved value of land. That derives its value from something that no man can claim to be the fruit of his labor.

2) It is entirely permissible to "fence off" raw land for personal use if it is so plentiful that it does not take from a limited common stock that we inherited the Earth in. He uses the example of somebody not injuring society if he drinks from an endless stream. Only if he takes water from the communal well.

Nothing that Locke wrote allows for people to "fence off" land that could be valuable to another man and which the fencer has no intentions to produce on it or personally enjoy it just so that he can then profit on the rents from allowing somebody else to dwell or labor within his fence.

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