How is it that ‘property rights’ have somehow morphed over the years from the right to retain your earnings untrammeled by taxation–and the things you own–to not having to pay our dues on real estate to which we hold title?

That’s some change!

English law rejects absolute ownership of land, and it’s said that the word ‘owner’ derives from the Middle English ‘owerner’: he who owes the rent. Accepting that we are all owerners would reduce land prices enormously and actually address housing unaffordability instead of paying lip service to the principle.

So, how come the labourer is no longer worthy of his hire? It seems private rent-grabbing has well and truly taken hold of western society? We’ll end up paying dearly for tax regimes that favour real estate spec over real wealth generation.

Did this transformation begin with the sleight of hand ‘temporary’ measure of income tax, dished out to us by neoclassical economists at the onset of the Great Depression?