Do You Really Own Your Property? Feudal Ownership vs. Modern Ownership

Do you really own your property?  Well, sort of.

If you buy a house and pay the entire thing off, you are told you own it completely. But what if you do not pay the home owners taxes on the property? The government will still take your home, the one that you own, away from you.

What you have bought is the property with the understanding that you will still contribute to the funds of the local and national governing body in perpetuity per annum, through a codified agreement made by the individuals we voted to represent us in the government and those they delegate to create the details.  i.e We pay taxes. (This is a U.S. example; I don’t mean to be xenophobic). This is part of the American Social Contract.  If you do not pay the taxes, you have violated this contract, and forfeit the privilege of the agreement made in the property purchase.

This is why any property ownership deed explicitly says the owner will be subject to all taxes associated with the property.

In a feudal society a king would often give one of his vassals land “In Allod.”  In exchange for having been (or promising to be) in the king’s army, the king grants these lands completely and utterly to the lord.  The king collects no taxes on the land, but the lord may tax the land himself if he wants because anyone living on the land is living there at the lord’s discretion.  The land the lord lives on is basically its own mini-kingdom and the lord -the land owner- legally has complete control over the land, in perpetuity.

Is it any wonder that the word “Allod” is no longer used today? No one (at least in the U.S. and in the vast majority of the world) can own anything in Allod.  This type of land was also known as an Allod. (Allod is both a verb and a noun)

It does make you think…to what extent are the things we own actually ours?

Though, that might be getting a little more existential than the scope of this history blog.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!