The importance of land - Marinaleda

Marinaleda is a small farming village in southern spain, a region that has been poor for many decades. some rather balanced information.
The land was split between few landlords that hired the local population to work on the fields. Having no other opportunities to work, the common people had to live in poverty and do hard work on a daily basis for poor pay.

This is still the situation in most of southern rural spain today. Only in Marinaleda the locals rebelled and have changed their faith. The local landlord was not very interested in the region and did not even farm the land and let it sit bare. The locals started farming it illegally which was met by state repression. Apparently the landlord cared enough to prevent others using the land as it might otherwise undermine his claims to the territory. And the state was willing enough to do the fight. People got arrested and threatened. But the villagers did not give up and kept their rebellion alive for many years until the state finally stopped and granted them the right to farm 1200 ha of the local land in 1979. This fundamentally changed the future of the village. The local people did no longer depend on accepting an exploitive job and were able to work themselves and for themselves alone on the fields. Unemployment went down from 50% to 5%. The quality of life increased massively compared to the surrounding 'ordinary' villages. The village was able to give every citizen acces to enough food, a house and basic infrastructure. And all of this based on simple rural farming alone. The only change was that profits did no longer go to some distant holder of a special title, but stated locally in the community.

In addition the village has refused to accept police in their village saving some 380.000 euro a year. Quite a lot of money for nothing. Crime rates remain low without police and no chaos erupted because people can park wherever they want.

Of course not everything is great in the village of Marinaleda. The village is managing the land as a peoples cooperative and organise their village using socialist ideas. While this went well for most of the parts, granting each citizen the option to use some land according to their own vision might have been even better. Also the major acts a little like a local dictator. He has the right to decide which private businesses may be run in the city and seems to be suppressing all projects that do not follow his own vision. Work on the fields is limited and private work often not permitted since it might threaten the communist utopia. In the end this is similar to the old landlord not even using the land. Now the major is not letting people use their own potential out of fear of undermining his authority.

In the end this is not surprising, where there is power there is corruption. But I do not want to give too much focus to these problems. What I find amazing is that the simple fact of being allowed to work the local lands can support the lives of the entire village, not making everyone rich, but allowing everyone a decent and secure life. While in the next village down the road the situation is very different. The right to the land does not lie with the locals. People have no job and no opportunity to work. Poverty and unemployment is everywhere. People work for small pay on the fields and giving the profit to the landowners that do not add any value.

Owning land is fundamentally immoral. Nobody worked to create our world. It was gifted to each of us and we have a right to use it by our birth. Land cannot be bought or sold. Not even voluntarily with the agreement of every human on earth. Because every new human born would grow up in a situation where land is already owned. But why should they feel bound to deals that were done before they were born? Why should they accept that some people own land and others have to pay them just for the right to use the land? This sounds a lot like a magic title that randomly gives some special rights. Currently almost all of the world is owned and most people are excluded and own nothing. This is fundamentally unjust. Every new generation of humans have to decide again how to best use the land and this can only be done by giving every human a inalienable right to use land and homestead.

And while Marinaleda is partially a misguided communist project, it still shows that the combination of land and the own ability to work is enough to support a decent life. And this without use of modern technology. Adding the entire potential of human technology, just giving every human the right to land solves global poverty. It gives people freedom and ends the dependance on oppressive jobs. It gives the opportunity to take their fate into their own hands and have a positive vision of how to use their their time.

One of the biggest problems right now is not capitalism. It is that our planet is claimed by few individuals and we accept their rule. But it is our planet and we all have a right to its abundance.

Finally one word on communal socialism. I think it is perfectly fine to form workers cooperatives. What is important is that they are voluntary. When a group of farmers realises they can be more efficient organising together in a commune, that that is perfectly okay. But every farmer should be able to withdraw and use their part of the land alone. No authority, no exploitation, just voluntary cooperation. This does not seem to be the case in Marinaleda. The workers cooperative has effectively become a new government and controls the use of all land.