Land and Labor Acknowledgments

“Fountain of Time” by Lorado Taft. Photo by artistmac (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Deed )

Land Acknowledgment

We recognize that this land was occupied by other folks before us. Some of them may have practiced more just systems of land tenure. Because no human created land, all land titles are necessarily the result of conquest, force, and fraud.

We assert that land belongs in usufruct to the living. And that rent is justly shared among the community.

Determining exactly who is the “community” and how the rent should be shared among them are legitimate topics for discussion, that we’ll probably never all completely agree on.

Labor Acknowledgment

Unlike the Federal capitol, none of our buildings was constructed by slave labor, and our city is not named after an enslaver. Labor improved the land we occupy by raising its level to improve drainage, and by building, maintaining and continuing to operate the infrastructure which makes it more useful.