Mike, while I agree with much of what you said, a lot of the land in the UK wasn't bought by anyone. For that matter, most of the land in the US wasn't bought either. I'm sure we all know the origin of the term "stake your claim".
Lots of it has been passed down through the generations from an original "landowner" who, to put it bluntly, stole it from everyone else.
Someone, at some point, surrounded a bit of land, land accessible and exploitable by everyone, and said "this is mine and noone else is allowed on it". Just because that happened a long time ago doesn't make it right.
On the point of suing a landowner if you hurt yourself on their land - that annoys me intensely. How anyone can try to place blame when they turned their ankle on an uneven path or had a branch fall on them is beyond me.
There's a much bigger difference between field/woodland and home/garden. The latter is an issue of a person's dwelling and personal space. The former is an issue of a huge swathe of land that is private only in name. It would be a serious invasion of privacy to enter a person's house. To pass through a gate that is 5 miles away from a person's home is nothing of the sort.
The main difference is privilge and money. The haves have land and can use it whenever they like, the have nots have to beg and grovel to be allowed to do such. The fact that most of the private land in the UK was once common and later stolen and set asive for the "haves" and later passed on to other "haves" doesn't make the situation any less unjust.
That is why I'm so strongly in favour of changing the legal climate such that the "have-nots" can have access to land that were it not for the earlier theft by long deceased "haves" would be free for them to access anyway - while in the mean time freeing the land"owners" from any legal responsibility to those who use the land. That's something that should be put in place anyway.
That said - I've got no actual problem with someone controlling and exploiting a piece of land. I'm FAR from a socialist as I have far too many problems with that particular system. What I see as a problem is the exclusive nature of the current system. You can use and exploit land without barring every other living creature from it. It's the exclusivity I think is an issue.
Lots of it has been passed down through the generations from an original "landowner" who, to put it bluntly, stole it from everyone else.
Someone, at some point, surrounded a bit of land, land accessible and exploitable by everyone, and said "this is mine and noone else is allowed on it". Just because that happened a long time ago doesn't make it right.
On the point of suing a landowner if you hurt yourself on their land - that annoys me intensely. How anyone can try to place blame when they turned their ankle on an uneven path or had a branch fall on them is beyond me.
There's a much bigger difference between field/woodland and home/garden. The latter is an issue of a person's dwelling and personal space. The former is an issue of a huge swathe of land that is private only in name. It would be a serious invasion of privacy to enter a person's house. To pass through a gate that is 5 miles away from a person's home is nothing of the sort.
The main difference is privilge and money. The haves have land and can use it whenever they like, the have nots have to beg and grovel to be allowed to do such. The fact that most of the private land in the UK was once common and later stolen and set asive for the "haves" and later passed on to other "haves" doesn't make the situation any less unjust.
That is why I'm so strongly in favour of changing the legal climate such that the "have-nots" can have access to land that were it not for the earlier theft by long deceased "haves" would be free for them to access anyway - while in the mean time freeing the land"owners" from any legal responsibility to those who use the land. That's something that should be put in place anyway.
That said - I've got no actual problem with someone controlling and exploiting a piece of land. I'm FAR from a socialist as I have far too many problems with that particular system. What I see as a problem is the exclusive nature of the current system. You can use and exploit land without barring every other living creature from it. It's the exclusivity I think is an issue.