Who are the worlds biggest landowners
madisontrust.com
madisontrust.com
For example- native tribes should more be thought of as nations than individuals or corporations. Land collectively owned by Inuit people is not a land owner anymore than just listing the size of a large country and calling it a "large land owner." The fact that they are not totally sovereign in the way most nations are is a technicality in this context.
Also, this huge amount of land owned by the British Royal Family seems to be just the combined size of all commonwealth countries? They have no real power or property rights to any of that land. I wonder if they are even counting only public land in those places, or also even considering privately deeded land in commonwealth countries?
It somewhat seems to me that at some point the power and wealth of the Crown was transferred to various private companies, some of which are still quite wealthy but no longer associated with the Crown.
Brit-ish means “men of the covenant/contract” in Hebrew - the covenant with God to go and conquer the world in His name and enforce it with the same kind of dead-paper laws as found in His book. This trumps living people just “on” the land. And as for the sea…
If they tried that there would be massive outrage, and immediate action to leave the Commonwealth.
Yet relatively small construction firms pull this sort of thing successfully everyday, all around the world. It would seem to me, those ordinary construction firms each have more real power than the Crown.
Neom in Saudi Arabia is also an example where this was actually done in modern times, showing that The House of Saud wields massive power.
Your assertion seems to be that the Crown is so powerful that they don't need to actually do anything? That sounds like insisting I'm the strongest man in the world, and am so strong I don't need to lift anything. Power is fleeting, and rapidly evaporates when it isn't wielded.
“Legal scholars Maurice Sunkin and Sebastian Payne opined, "the nature of the crown has been taken for granted, in part because it is fundamental and, in part, because many academics have no idea what the term the crown amounts to".[4] Nicholas Browne-Wilkinson theorised that the crown is "an amorphous, abstract concept" and, thus, "impossible to define",[5] while William Wade stated the crown "means simply the Queen".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crown
These scholars find it impossible to define because it’s the sort of entity that has set itself up to be impossible to define, even to the best scholars, and everyone invested in the legal system with the ability to try and define it still cannot define it, because to do so would be to talk “externally” to the very system of language and being in which they’re embedded and allowed to comment upon. But in reality, The Crown is much much more akin to a private corporation with private beneficial owners and controllers than it is to a government or state, it’s just now constructed where it looks like the state and can’t actually properly be defined to delineate it from the powers it has and wields through the state.
I’m really not trying to spread confusion or conspiracy, or talk shit, but you almost hit the nail on the head saying “I’m the strongest man in the world, and am so strong I don’t even need to list anything” because that’s basically correct as to the level of power and strength you’re dealing with.
Edit: e.g. for example, what does Gina Rinehart have to do with the Square Mile in London today?
Quickly though, Gina owns the land because the financial system she uses to get title from the legal system are one and the same. The legal system was implemented in Australia based on that run from London - barristers today still get their authority from the Inns of Court based in the city. So the legal system passes acts on paper saying “this is how you own things” and the state / the crown claimed dominion over the whole continent of Australia, ignoring and negating that there were already people there - the aboriginals were simply outside the system, and also didn’t have guns. So The Crown acts as the legitimising power of the legal system, the financial system, the military, basically the root of everything, that says “if it says on paper that you own it, you own it, and we’ll enforce it and ensure you own it (provided you pay us and we get a cut)” but the very idea that paper title means ownership was a system imposed, and one in this case formed in The City, so the whole system of The Crown is like a web that covers almost everything and one bit of it can’t actually be separated from any other any more. The Crown not only has land claims, it’s the force that legitimises land claims, and although now Australia is a federation that passes its own laws and has its own government, that new state is just so entangled with the old system of doing business that tracking back “all roads lead to Rome” in this case being London. The City of London is part of the corporation that is The Crown, because it itself is a corporation that goes back to time immemorial - before records - and the main mechanism for it doing business and maintaining order is both military power and legislation on paper. So when we talk about The Crown we’re pointing at a system that is a step above even ownership, it’s the system that legitimises and frames the very concept of ownership and then grants the force of law for that ownership to be enforced.
Like I say, it’s too complicated to really type out with my thumbs on my smartphone. It’s deep though, as deep and as baroque as it gets.
I always find silly the amount of ritual and ceremony around Kings, Popes, heads of state, and the like. It's so clearly this big theatrical production to try to convince everyone that these people aren't just frail, mediocre little humans whose backs hurt and whose farts stink. The vast majority of any "power" they have comes from people believing that they have that power, and the theatrics serve that purpose very well -- look at how deeply they've convinced you, for instance. They don't want to be hidden! If some small remnant of these formerly-powerful groups do take to the shadows, their power goes away, because nobody believes that they have it anymore. It'd be like talking about a secret group of celebrities -- it's an oxymoron.
Power does not grow as it ages. Old power is just diluted remnants of wistful theatrics that occasionally shits its pants.
What I’m saying isn’t even controversial, it’s simple to look up. I’m not some “believer” in a conspiracy. It’s just that how an entity such as “The Crown” wields its power is done in a way that confuses almost everyone, because it’s not really an entity like any other, being some hybrid of government, corporation, trust, club, society, and one whose members all do other things and are embedded in other roles in the state, so it’s both clear and in plain sight while actually being totally weird and hidden. Just go to the Square Mile in London - you’re in London and not, both at the same time, and there’s no passport control, but it’s nevertheless some kind of alternate domain that’s privately, not state, controlled at its fundamental level. It’s not woo woo, it’s just how it operates, and has been doing for about 1000 years.
See also the Dutch East India Company - a private company / entity that acted as if it was a state, because it had the backing of the Dutch state, and why not, it may as well be the state given it’s on the other side of the earth and there’s nobody to stop it acting like one.
I want to read a Dan Brown-style thriller about them
Some Americans think they don't have to pay income tax because the 16th Amendment (1913) was never properly ratified. Some people think they own a star because they have a certificate that says so. You'll see this kind of analysis in all sort of "secret knowledge" conspiracy-theory-eqsue posts like this. It turns out these hundred-year-old (or much more) technicalities pretty much always handily lose to the modern reality of whatever the people alive today want. Nobody gives a shit if Pope Pius V signed a proclamation in 1571 that gives half of Finland to the Knights Templar, and a group today still claims to be the same Knights Templar, or whatever weird shadow cabals always creep into these discussions. If these "Knights Templar" went to claim Helsinki with that justification, they'd be told to get fucked, and they could do nothing about it. If "The Crown" decided to exercise their rights to this "ultimate title" they hold over all of Australia or whatever, they'd be told to get fucked just the same.
If Australia becomes a republic and its own place then maybe, but I can’t see it happening.
Power is a dynamic social thing that involves your ability to influence others behavior. Organizations, laws, governments, titles, positions, even money have no inherent power associated with them, and often reflect vestigial/historical power structures rather than the actual power structures at the present moment.
Sounds to me The Crown holds an NFT to Australia.
I can't find anything like this except for on Conspiracy Wiki, which is... not a great source. Every legitimate source I can find describes "crown land" in the non-UK Commonwealth as effectively just being the Commonwealth version of federal land in the US.
(Edit: to clarify, they've mixed in some legitimate truths about some quirky historical artifacts to do with the City of London. I'm objecting to the whole shadowy conspiracy allegations—unless there are some solid citations it doesn't feel appropriate for HN.)
You have some legitimate truths about the City of London mixed in with a bunch of things that I can find no sources for. I'm not going to engage further with you without sources, I just wanted to flag this (both literally and figuratively) to try to restore some sanity to this discussion.
You might not be looking in the right places.
1 - https://www.ncai.org/tribal-directory/alaska-native-corporat... 2 - https://www.propublica.org/article/what-are-alaska-native-co...
The British Royal family and the Catholic Church... those lands were stolen and should be returned to the people.
Given that most of that list is meat farms, that would be a lot of forests, a lot of carbon storage, and a lot of biodiversity.
The American version of British History is that Henry broke with the church so he could marry more people and have an heir. I think he knew damn well that the Church was consuming England whole and he may be one of the last monarchs that still had the power to stop it.
History is complicated and events rarely have a singular explanation.
How is this even possible? Even in communism the state owns all the land. Native American tribes also went to war with each other to control different areas. Legally recognized by many or not, some person who group is going to control the land.
Every individual in nature has to find it's own space and protect it, agreed.
But their young don't inherit their claims, as humans do.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-REB-35714
The Wealthy in Florence Today Are the Same Families as 600 Years Ago
Researchers compared data on Florentine taxpayers in 1427 against tax data in 2011 and found about 900 surnames still present in Florence
The idea is just that everyone gets to own or lease or whatever you want to call it some land and does not have to buy it from others who have accumulated it over the generations and keept it for themselves. If you want more land than your share, you can get it from someone who doesn't want their entire share, but only until their death when they lose control over that land and therefore can also no longer lease it to you. At which point you have to return it or find someone else who will lease the same amount of land to you.
I guess you could say that my idea is that you get control over a certain area of land during your lifetime but it does not have to be a specific piece of land and you can freely exchange and transfer this control as you like, but not past your lifetime.
I hope lab-grown meat will lead to our next Renaissance
It would be impossible to determine the original owners. Every nation and tribe took land from others who took land from others who took land from others, etc. We shouldn't just give land back to the previous owners when they stole it from others.
False.
There are, in fact, actual OG land owners who are first people:
Aboriginal mitogenomes reveal 50,000 years of regionalism in Australia
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21416
Note that this is sound genetic evidence that post dates Quadrant literary opinions that waffle on about circulating patterns and waves of takeover.
When the Sahul paleocontinent was first settled by humans they arrived, spread out, and more or less stayed where they stopped moving.
There are a few problems though.
One, we don't know for sure that the aboriginals were the first in Australia. It is possible a tribe made it to Australia and were attacked by the present day aboriginals who came later. Your paper presumably doesn't disprove that?
Second, it seems like you are suggesting that no aboriginal tribe ever attacked another tribe and took their land. That seems like a ridiculous assertion and I need definitive proof, because that has never happened anywhere else in the world.
Even if you posted is accurate, which there is no proof of, it would be an exception that proves the rule.
Weird - anyone that routinely reads actual science papers knows how to access them:
https://sci-hub.ru/10.1038/nature21416
> Your paper presumably doesn't disprove that?
There's an entire body of work on human diaspora from first origins, it's been making great strides in recent decades with DNA comparisons dating movements by degree of change over time - that'd be a good place to start your study.
> because that has never happened anywhere else in the world.
That seems like a ridiculous assertion and I need definitive proof, can you back that up?
Good luck in furthering your education and best wishes to you MrShoelaces.
I skimmed your paper and don't think it disproved anything I said.
Let's take this simple scenario. There is some uninhabited land. Nobody has ever lived on the land before. A tribe ends up moving to the area. Something happens and the tribe decides to split into two. The land is also split. A short time later (prior to any DNA changes) one tribe attacks the other and takes the other tribe's land.
The idea that DNA can prove that never happened of that is utterly ridiculous. I skimmed through the paper and it didn't suggest that it could. Please point to the page where it says DNA can prove a tribe never attacked another tribe.
> The British Royal family and the Catholic Church... those lands were stolen and should be returned to the people.
If something is owned by nobody, how can it be "stolen?" If lands were "returned," how can someone who disclaims ownership receive it?
In your hypothetical "nazi gold," the stolen goods were owned by specific people who did not voluntarily repudiate ownership.
Imagine that someone disclaimed ownership of a dollar bill. Another person picked it up and bought a tasty dollar menu item. Would the first person have any claim to the resulting soft-serve ice cream cone? (Postulating a working soft serve machine.)
https://www.eater.com/2020/10/23/21530265/mcdonalds-soft-ser...
No, most of those farms are in Australia, and they're so big because it's so arid. They're not taking the place of forests.
"There’s a myth that Europeans arrived in the Americas and divided the land up, mystifying Native Americans who had no concept of property rights. In reality, historian Allen Greer writes, various American societies had highly-developed systems of property ownership and use. Meanwhile, European colonists sometimes viewed land as a common resource, not just as individual property."
-- https://daily.jstor.org/yes-americans-owned-land-before-colu...
"Many Indigenous societies practiced communal ownership of land and natural resources. Land was often viewed as a shared and sacred entity that belonged to the entire community or tribe. It was not seen as something that could be privately owned or bought and sold as in Western concepts of land ownership.
While the concept of private ownership was rare, Indigenous groups often had rights to use certain areas for specific purposes, such as hunting, fishing, farming, or gathering. These rights were often based on traditional customs and were respected within the community.
Indigenous peoples generally held deep reverence for the land and nature. They saw themselves as stewards of the environment, with a responsibility to care for the earth and its resources for future generations."
https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/who-owns-mos...
(It's the same presentation, scoped to the US)
> Who owns the most land in the U.S.? While not private landowners, the U.S. federal government owns about 640 million acres of land, which is 28% of the land in the country.
Anybody want to get together and purchase 1350 sq. miles of Nevada? (for comparison, about twice the size of Houston). Timeshare? Tech commune? Minerals? (According to this site [1] previous region mining and known minerals are: Au, Ag, Cu, Sb, Be, Coal, Fluorite, Flourspar, Pb, W, Zn; although not much of claims near the actual property.) Low-water surface farming or ranching? Bragging rights?
[1] https://data-ndom.opendata.arcgis.com/pages/criticalminerals
0. https://theprint.in/opinion/waqf-boards-are-indias-big-urban...
1. https://myvoice.opindia.com/2022/06/who-owns-most-of-india/
Let's blame it all on the Norman Invasion.
Personally, I don't think guilt helps us move forward, we need to do what is right now.
Interested in anyone's thoughts here.
No matter the status or origin of your parents, don't you deserve a share of fertile land (or it's proceeds)?
This has a major impact going forward, some native peoples land are going to not exist due to sea level rises ...
Just for avoidance of doubt, imperialist colonisation is absolutely wrong, IMO. Morally indefensible. But that's not because it infringes property rights; we've got one planet and, intrinsically, none of us have any greater birthright in that planet than any other.
Would it also be more interesting to list by asset value instead of area basis?
I think it's also possible to hold interests and control over assets (land) through companies and trusts without your family's name needing to show up on Top 100 lists. Certainly something I would be interested in doing if I was a billionaire.
If a government is really effectively just a large corporation, are they effectively the real land owners? When you get down to it, what is land ownership besides the right to determine what's done on and with property? And are governments with military and enforcement bodies not the ultimate arbiters of who controls land, where disputes are ultimately resolved in some sort of conflict?
Is land ownership a little bit more of a complicated subject?
Do Australians really have that many cows?
Or do they just have a fewer large farms, and large farms show up on this list, as opposed to in US that has lot of smaller farms.??
So does US eat more beef, but have smaller farms?
Might be because they deforested those lands and have been grazing those cows there for god knows how long now.
EDIT:
It seems I somehow managed to overlook we're talking about the outback, not the eastern Australia.
https://wwf.org.au/news/2021/australia-remains-the-only-deve...
AUSTRALIA REMAINS THE ONLY DEVELOPED NATION ON THE LIST OF GLOBAL DEFORESTATION FRONTS
In the 13 years from 2004 to 2017, an area of forest six times the size of Tasmania, more than 43 million hectares, was lost in the 24 deforestation fronts.
The report says “cattle ranching” (the destruction of trees to create pasture for cattle) was “by far the most significant driver” of forest loss or degradation in eastern Australia.
However, I believe that Australia could be one of the best places in the world for reforesting those deserts.
The Outback reportedly receives up to 100cm of rain every year already. Reforestation could start at the coasts and then slowly move inland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-bigg...
Astonishingly, there are more cows than sheep in Australia these days even though the sheep is the iconic fam animal of Australia.
In practice it seems to be mostly owned and controlled by provinces.
So again, technicality true, but if a monarch attempted to actually use the land, they'd be thwarted by the Canadian legal system from actually doing so. In much the same way the Canadian legal system has acted to prevent our "head of state" from acting as one in practice.
Edit: "The Crown" really is just the state in Canada. When you commit a crime, it's The Crown that prosecutes you. Obviously that's not literally referring to living royalty..
Local legislatures exercise full control over it. It belongs to the king only in name.
If the king were to ever make alternate use of the land in such a way that would upset enough people, a war or other means of resolution would break out.
#politics
Which ones were here tens of thousands of years ago?
The beginnings of agriculture and civilizations are very interesting, sometimes even surprising, in light of new findings. I'd recommend "The Dawn of Everything"; it delves into these topics in great length.
Loads of things in the British system are basically undefined but this is as much of a feature as a bug now. It seems to be about as useful as a nailed-down system of constitution that can't ever be changed, because that's just how things were written. The results are about the same so I'm not fully cognisant of what your critique is.
The English monarch was weak the past, and has been weakened further such that today they only remain as a figurehead, and everything they do is dictated to them by the democracies that they are supposedly “ruling”. Those democracies keep the monarch at their whim. (I believe Barbados just removed them, and Australia has been getting closer to doing so.)
“The crown” in those countries that do retain the monarch refers to all of the powers once exercised by a single person, but now exercised by the democratic governments of those places. That there also is physical object called “the crown” that rarely sits on the head of the vestigial monarch is not significant.
The King is our head of state and through the legal concept of the Crown may technically be the "owner" but in fact they're controlled by the elected government. Likewise the nunavut land (which is effectively uninhabitable arctic) would be governed by whatever self government they have, but you might as well say the citizens of the US own all federal land. I thought adding these made the list look silly, they should have stuck with ownership as it's commonly understood. In which case I suppose it would have been just Australian ranchers.
Therefore everyone can have an equal amount of land (by value -- land in the middle of a major city is clearly more valuable than land in the middle of nowhere), and the only thing they then need to do is build appropriate shelter.
This should be clear to anyone who has been involved with, or even just witnessed, expropriation proceedings, for example.
The bureaucracy involved with building or extending common structures on property that one "owns" can be extremely costly, time-consuming, and painful.
Even trimming or removing a tree on said property can involve significant restrictions and bureaucracy in some places.
The royal family's real income come from other sources than these nominally held lands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_the_British_royal_...