In a bid for true wealth, vs. material wealth, owners of property can sell their land at half the market value, on condition that the new owner will sell, in turn, at half their purchase price and/or bequeath the property to common ownership. Eventually, the price on the land would revert to zero (or, in effect, priceless), and join the common pool. Such a model would entail a true and lasting gift to one’s children and grandchildren, ad infinitum, as the question of shelter would become, once again, viable and natural. It makes no sense to bequeath private property to one’s heirs, not only on a karmic basis, but also in that, unless those descendants were to relegate themselves to elite status, more and more of their associates would wind up homeless, semi-homeless, or shelter-challenged. To follow the tangent of our present real estate debacle can only lead to deplorable conditions for the common lot.

Meanwhile, how do we proceed in a manner that contributes, less and less, to the real estate industry? A minimalist lifestyle translates into a space of a mere hundred square feet, or so - in effect, a one-room cabin, either on communal land or on wheels, which becomes moveable when needed. Joining a sustainable community resolves the land question in that communal ownership is closer to the everyone-owns-the-land reality. Further, because of communal pooling of funds, the banks, which are the right hand of the real estate industry, get only minimal, if any, percentage of the financial activity. (note that a future Earth Vision Current issue will address alternative banking - in an article entitled, “Where are the Green Banks?”) The reader can refer to the links on the EV website for further information on some of the above options. Above all, the reader is invited to entertain further resolutions to the land allocation issue, and contribute to the evolution of this article. This is an open-ended article, as is the associated weblog. Feel free to send responses via email to the author, or to enter them on the blog.

Think what you can do with your life, now that you have freed up so much time due to a pragmatic resolution to the question of shelter. . . .

See other Current Issues of the Earth Vision project on the Earth Vision website:

http://www.evbooks.net

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