Vested Right

Hydro-Quebec, a Canadian public utility, and Avangrid, a national, Iberdrola-owned, publically-traded, sustainable energy company - partnered to supply Massachusetts with electricty generated from hydropower. To this end, Avangrid got Maine government permission to cut a corridor.

Green Power?

When the Mainers found out, they demanded the permission be undone. But by that time, it was too late. The judges said no. The developers had a “vested right”.

The leaders of the movement are dead in the water. I spoke to one, whose response was dumb amazement. We had a public referendum, and 59 per cent of the population agreed. If that doesn’t work, nothing will.

Well, I beg to differ. Perhaps this will: eminent domain. The planned corridor is a chain of parcels. Take one.

Eminent domain is revealing of the nature of property. Property means ownership. One has it in a thing. But today everything is had by two persons: you and the state. Officially, it is the town; you pay it a property tax. You pay it more as the real estate you have property in has more value. If you do not pay, it will revert to its original owner.

There is some fondness for exaggerating the similarity of municipalities to private corporations. We are paying for services. This is true of water and sewer. But you cannot opt out of roads and school. Nor are these insignificant, as any one familiar with town finances will tell you. School is by far the largest budget item, even while the number of children is not proportional to the aged.

In feudal language, the distinction is allodium and fee simple. Either it is held of no superior, or it is held in return for a service. That is to say, it is you who are the servant.

“Eminent” is a modern usage, perhaps in an attempt to create a break from the past. It introduced the idea that taking something can be more than a fight between individuals. It is associated with Republics, and has more of a sense of altruism, than tyranny. Now it is the “the people’s”. “Domain”, meanwhile, is ownership. One has dominion over something. It is one’s domain: a synonym of property. Thus it is best understood as a verb. The public takes by virtue of its original ownership.

Eminent domain has two sides. On the one hand it is oppression, on the other hand power. If it means taking what you have, it should be minimized. If it means taking what the developers have, maximized.

Most people in the US associate it with the former. Idealism frequently stops short of committing that ultimate sin. Far be it from me to suggest a distribution. I think there are few things better than owning your own land. But I also think the fear of losing it is crippling.

The general reason to fear eminent domain is that you are politically alienated. You think common actions are more bad than good. You think should a reversion of property occur, it would do you the same. Perhaps it would be direct; perhaps society collapse, indirect. In both cases, you do not have enough control.

Three particular reasons make this attitude convincing: Western Expansion, Russian/Chinese Communism and experience. The first because there was a lot of basically free land. On the one hand, all you had to do was remove Indians: the government let you. On the other hand, this disordered acquisition felt unsteady: call it a guilty conscience. But let me tell you something: the Indians are gone. And despite all the publicity, reparations on a large scale will not occur.

Second, is the Red Spectre. Neither people was democratic. Both were previously feudal empires. And the slope is not so slippery after all. Communism is rightly named, in preaching common ownership. This was done from the beginning. This is different from doing violence to private corporations of a certain size.

The third impediment is the hardest. In my experience, eminent domain has always done more harm than good. The thing taken establishes new conditions, which ruin everything. Thus the railroads received land by eminent domain, and created national society. Powerlines were set down likewise. All so-called “services” tend to include more or less of it. And all of them tend to prop up the potential for centralization: increasing market size. The other eminent domain - it could be said - is the draft. The state is in control of your body. It periodically kills you.

But I suspect these are all the result of the size of “the people” and the government, than anything wrong with publically taking something. At the level of hundreds of millions, neither accountability nor individual influence are possible. Your vote is wasted. Parties take over, and we are relegated to spectators. This is especially true for us, a nation of immigrants addicted to religious liberty. But there are also towns. These too are bodies politic.

Corporations as persons is a merely legal fact: should not be understood morally. To take from one is not to wound. Perhaps you think the rowdy mob will get you. Remember this: you are the majority. Everyone loves their gun and privacy. Violating a legal fiction needn’t be revolution.

Thus if a solar farm or grid battery or any project of a large corporation enter your town, you should be able to seize just enough land to stop it. People are busy. They haven’t time to be on top of everything at the official moment.