"[I]t is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue. ...The plan I have to propose...is, To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years...a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of landed property....

"Man did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue." (Agrarian Justice, 1797).

John Stuart Mill:

Landlords "grow richer as it were, in their sleep, without working, risking, or economising." It is "a kind of income which constantly tends to increase, without any exertion or sacrifice on the part of the owners." (Principles of Political Economy, bk.5, ch.2, sec.5)

Adam Smith:

"[G]round-rents...are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Though a part of this revenue should be taken from him in order to defray the expenses of the state, no discouragement will thereby be given to any sort of industry." (The Wealth of Nations, Random House 1937 ed., pp. 795-6).

Thomas Jefferson:

"Whenever there is any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural rights. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on." (letter to Madison's father, Reverend Madison.)

John Locke:

"...Every man has a 'property' in his own 'person'. This nobody has a right to but himself. The 'labour' of his body and the 'work' of his hand, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. ... For this 'labor' being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in commmon for others. ...

"It will, perhaps, be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns or other fruits of the earth, etc. makes a right to them, then one may engross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of Nature that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too. ...

"He that had as good left for his improvement as was already taken up needed not complain, ought not to meddle in what was already improved by another's labour....

"[I]t was impossible for any man, this way, to entrench upon the right of another or to acquire to himself a property to the prejudice of his neighbor, who would still have room for as good and as large a possession...." (*Second Treatise of Government*, ch.5, sec.26-35)