A lone homesteader can go into what is an otherwise unoccupied and barren land, one that NOBODY WANTS, and can make aesthetically pleasing improvements - for himself only. Not to draw a crowd. Not to entice anyone or "rent" the property out to others. In fact, there is no "public" motive whatsoever to it. It is just land for him to live on, occupy and enjoy for himself, and possibly even a family if he has one. It may be a Rembrandt, but it wasn't for sale, and was never intended for public consumption. Artists have that right.
Another man sees the lone beautiful house in the middle of nowhere, and considers it Good. He does not COVET that man's house - which of course would be EVIL. No, this man doesn't want to take possession or control of what someone else has created (NOT the land - only the "privately created value", or improvements). No, this man is not an Evil Coveter of other people's works. He is actually a Good Man. He only admires the example of what has been accomplished. He wants to be near it, and to be associated with that kind of energy that he admires. So he does likewise. He builds a house of his own and makes improvements to his own land -
right next to the original house.
Now, the man who built the original house may not 'like' the fact that a new neighbor has gotten so close to him, any more than he wants to be seated next to a crowded table in an otherwise empty restaurant. He also wouldn't choose a urinal next to one man in a bathroom that has thirty empty urinals. Personal bubbles and all that. Why shoulder to shoulder? Why next door? Was there no other place to live?
But...he is also not an Evil Man, so he holds his peace. After a little thought,
he makes room in his mind. He fully recognizes that the world is not only his, and must be shared; that even if he preferred to live in isolation, he would never attempt to deny others their
equal right to a place of their own in the world.
Well, social gravity being what it is, and complex social beings being what humans are, two beautiful cottages in the middle of nowhere attract enough attention that it soon becomes ten thousand houses in the middle of what is now somewhere. Gravity. Strange attractors. Accretion. Planetary formation.
Now enter His Honor Roy L., the new Mayor of the new town. He goes to the man who built and still lives in the original house - the one that was once in the middle of nowhere - and declares to this man that his house now has
Publicly Created Value for which he must now pay RENT to the public. Why? Because many of them now COVET
his location...
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