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Worth noting 1% of England's population is about 550,000 people, as is mentioned in a linked article - half of Scotland is owned by ~600 people! https://www.ho

Worth noting 1% of England's population is about 550,000 people, as is mentioned in a linked article - half of Scotland is owned by ~600 people! https://www.holyrood.com/articles/comment/land-reform-and-inequality-what-does-debate-tell-us-about-scotland https://www.holyrood.com/articles/comment/land-reform-and-in... Edit: In my own opinion, this iniquitous state of land ownership in Scotland is somewhat compensated for by the fact we have the Right To Roam - which means even though a lot of land is kept as hunting estates anyone can wander about pretty much as we please (with some fairly minor restrictions).

sdoering 8y ago
Wow. Thanks for enabling me to learn something new.
jacobush 8y ago
I wonder, with the Right to Roam in Sweden, if that has its roots in the same tradition, given the large Norse influence in Scotland.
- WhoBeI 8y ago
  The right to roam is said to have it's origin in the middle ages when merchants and other travelers where allowed to grab a hand full of hazelnuts from anywhere to sustain themselves. Similar traditions where common throughout the land. The name "allemansrätten" (right to roam) was invented in the 40's and in the early 90's written into law. Funny thing is that it's not defined in the legal text, it just says: everyone has access to nature as described in the "allemansrätt". We're expected to know what that means.. :)
OJFord 8y ago
Are you saying that's awful or good? English, and honestly can't tell the mood. (Sounds very roughly what I'd expect, for whatever that's worth.)
- arethuza 8y ago
  I happen to think there are good social, and perhaps most importantly, ecological reasons why the current land ownership situation in Scotland isn't ideal. And that's without looking at the rather nasty and complicated history of land ownership here - but I can recommend Andy Wightman excellent book The Poor Had No Lawyers to explain that.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  Scottish expat here. It seems like a mixed bag for sure. The current land ownership state of affairs combined with the right to roam does tend to keep the large estates free from development and open for tourism. That's good. But, as the sibling comment mentions, there's a long history of oppression of tenant farmers, who until recently were prevented from buying the land they tend. And the economic impact - while some estates have changed hands over the years, as far as I know, they tend to be sold relatively intact, so there's little chance for people of more modest means to own any of this land.
  - subjectHarold 8y ago
    If you are a tenant farmer, you aren't being "oppressed" by not someone not selling you land. If you offer me £20 for my house, are you being "oppressed" if I don't sell it to you? The Church of England, Anders Povlsen, and others have all acquired huge amounts of land recently (that is why there is so much complaining about landowners from England who only come up to shoot). There is tons of forestry to bid on, and if you offer the right price then you will find willing sellers...if you offer the right price.
    - jacobolus 8y ago
      If some aristocrat’s great-great-...-grandpa was a thug soldier in a conquering army or the screwup third son of some foreign noble who the king owed a favor to or possibly a merchant who made a fortune in the slave trade and then married into a noble family (or whatever, pick your favorite backstory), and the aristocrat’s tenant farmers’ ancestors were the local people pressed into involuntary labor who then literally built everything nearby with their own hands over the subsequent few centuries, why should the family whose main claim to fame is aggressive use of force sometime in the distant past continue to own everything, while the ones doing all the work own nothing?
pytester 8y ago
Article seems to think that it's actually 0.04%: >half the country belongs to just 25,000 landowners, some of them corporations.
- FabHK 8y ago
  Yes, why on earth would they round 0.04% to "less than 1%"? Might as well say that "More Than 2% of England Is Owned by Less Than 1% of Its Population" - still true, nearly as misleading.
vesinisa 8y ago
The article seems to suggest Right to Roam was only introduced in 2004 in Scotland. Is this really so? In Scandinavia Right to Roam (alle-mans-rätt / All Men's Right) predates even the earliest modern laws, so is generally not even codified but based on an immemorial legal tradition.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  It was codified in 2003[0] but dates back centuries. Here's the wikipedia entry for the code that governs access.[1] The tl;dr is "you can go where you want, just be responsible" - don't camp in somebody's garden, don't annoy the sheep, don't interrupt the hunts/stalking, and leave no trace. It really is a fantastic tradition. As a Scottish expat, but frequent visitor, it's nice to be able to hike, bike, canoe, and camp pretty much anywhere. Trying to do the same in much of the US is likely to result in being chased off with a gun. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Reform_(Scotland)_Act_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Reform_(Scotland)_Act_200... 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    "Trying to do the same in much of the US is likely to result in being chased off with a gun." this is a real problem in the West of the US. There is so much land fenced in that it's really difficult to do cross country hiking. When I visited Scotland it was a breath of fresh air to see how easy it is to get around there.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Running into barbed wire at neck level, in a canoe or kayak, is no fun either. Some of us carried wire cutters.
      - UnpossibleJim 8y ago
        There are pretty huge swaths of public lands in America that are easy to look up on a computer. Texas is one if the few states that's deficient in them, by comparison. As unpopular as this statement may be, it really does behoove you to look up where you're going before you start just cutting down fences. But I never bought into that whole anarchy argument, as it quickly devolves into might makes right, by default.
giardini 8y ago
Does the right to roam include hunting rights?
- oliwarner 8y ago
  No, that's armed trespass, poaching, etc.
subjectHarold 8y ago
...yep, and the fact that the population of Scotland is tiny and over 50% of that population live in the Central belt. Afaik, the only solid evidence against is an apparent lack of "participation" from local communities on land use. Unfortunately, this is an issue that applies as much to council as private landowners in Scotland and also tends to elicit opinions on what "should" be the case, rather than what is actually possible (i.e. people who live in the middle of nowhere complaining about the lack of economic development, complaining that the landowner isn't selling them a house at a cheap enough price, complaining that the landowner only comes up from England to shoot, etc.) There has been an abundance of loose reasoning on that is justified only by the perception that of unfairness (and, unf, a bit of light bigotry about the English). One of the sources for the rather brief Land Commission report was some political theory on power and participation (https://landcommission.gov.scot/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Research-Review-Concentrated-ownership-final-20190320.pdf https://landcommission.gov.scot/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/R... - Section 5 - I studied Politics postgrad btw, theory shouldn't be used this way...it is basic). Madness.
- neffy 8y ago
  It's not really a "perception" of unfairness... it's a long rooted and fossilised class system, acting to the detriment of the entire country. (Hopefully your politics postgrad included the clearings.) England at least had the Civil War to equalise things a bit, Scotland has never had any kind of revolution or similar to break very old land ownership structures. Scotland's second biggest problem is England, in the form of unbalanced monetary transfers from borrowing from London, and the brain drain to England, and for that matter the rest of the world. But its greatest problem is itself, and the domination of control in a few families hands.
  - subjectHarold 8y ago
    It is amazing that you aren't able to distinguish between your opinion and reality. Unfairness is perception. And I am going to have to trouble you for proof of detriment. All you have said is that you don't like inequality, you have failed to demonstrate why a rational person should agree with you. You also, ironically, don't seem to understand what the Civil War was in England or that the Civil War had quite a large effect on Scotland or that the result of the Civil War for Scotland was imposition of govt from England. And my politics postgrad most certainly did not "include" the clearings (I am not even sure what this means...did you go to university?). The purpose of university isn't to indoctrinate and teach whatever version of truth is favoured. Perhaps this is linked to your misconceptions about the Civil War. Finally, the issue here isn't about the "class system". There has been turnover in the ownership of estates and, last I checked, someone who is poor in Scotland can become rich (although you will probably have to move away as you will find a lot of people hanging to your ankles if you stay). The issue relates to the use of land...but I will concede, however, that class is the main issue for most Scots, they just feel the need to justify their hate in logical terms rather than see it for what it is. Btw, saying that Scotland's biggest problem is England is an utter embarrassment (I say this as an SNP member/voter). It not only reeks of bigotry but is a self-destructive pattern of thought. Scotland's decline is a function of the nation and it's people. These "stab in the back" myths only help the weak-minded find (empty) solace in their failure.
externalreality 8y ago
1% of England's population is about 550,000, that is extreme inequality. You seem to think its OK for a small percentage of people to have everything as long as you have the right to roam around. I respectfully disagree. Wealth equals political and social power and it should be divided more evenly in order to ensure democracy. Make not mistake Capitalism mean fair and free - but in our warped form of Capitalism we have those with money rigging the rules for their own benefit and as such we don't have Capitalism we have Aristocracy.
- 0xADEADBEE 8y ago
  I think you're being uncharitable towards OP's post; he doesn't make the case you're suggesting. Although I'm not sure that your broader point is too far off.
- deepstream 8y ago
  how can we cure these poor people from this delusion that they have a right to possess what they have not earned? life is inequitable you have to fight to get a higher station. substituting taking responsibility to create wealth for convincing yourself you're entitled to it just disempowers you. I'm not saying it's not hard. but that it is hard is not special and that it is hard is the motivation to overcome it. and when you get there that your hard earned achievement can be taken away by people who don't want to overcome is wrong. The fundamental point is this wealth is not some free right it's not some magical thing that just exists. wealth is precisely the value created by overcoming difficulties. wealth is made by work and the people who make it ought to be free to choose what they do with it rather than coerced into surrendering it in the name of equity, a false equity which is inequitable to the moral nature of wealth, responsibility and hard work. that kind of idea is a disease that will erode away the social foundation. I'm not saying wealth disparity is easy nor that it creates no problems. it creates a lot of problems but I don't believe the solution is by redistribution. at least not at this stage of human and economic evolution. while our species is still bounded by the amount of energy we can extract from our surroundings. taxes yes, State yes, a social welfare net yes, but not to an excessive degree, and not to cure inequality. if energy was free of course it should be distributed to all without cost. like air. but it's not. to do so would bankrupt our species in the name of compassion. the greater compassion is the realization of the poor state we're in, and the preservation of all. not the temporary satisfaction of some who convinced themselves that things should be easy. one day as a species we will get there. no crushing disparity. but we're not there yet. trying to live like we are already there is a toxic delusion that doesn't help us get to that more compassionate future.

sdoering 8y ago

Wow. Thanks for enabling me to learn something new.

jacobush 8y ago

I wonder, with the Right to Roam in Sweden, if that has its roots in the same tradition, given the large Norse influence in Scotland.

WhoBeI 8y ago
The right to roam is said to have it's origin in the middle ages when merchants and other travelers where allowed to grab a hand full of hazelnuts from anywhere to sustain themselves. Similar traditions where common throughout the land. The name "allemansrätten" (right to roam) was invented in the 40's and in the early 90's written into law. Funny thing is that it's not defined in the legal text, it just says: everyone has access to nature as described in the "allemansrätt". We're expected to know what that means.. :)

OJFord 8y ago

Are you saying that's awful or good? English, and honestly can't tell the mood. (Sounds very roughly what I'd expect, for whatever that's worth.)

arethuza 8y ago
I happen to think there are good social, and perhaps most importantly, ecological reasons why the current land ownership situation in Scotland isn't ideal. And that's without looking at the rather nasty and complicated history of land ownership here - but I can recommend Andy Wightman excellent book The Poor Had No Lawyers to explain that.
alistairSH 8y ago
Scottish expat here. It seems like a mixed bag for sure. The current land ownership state of affairs combined with the right to roam does tend to keep the large estates free from development and open for tourism. That's good. But, as the sibling comment mentions, there's a long history of oppression of tenant farmers, who until recently were prevented from buying the land they tend. And the economic impact - while some estates have changed hands over the years, as far as I know, they tend to be sold relatively intact, so there's little chance for people of more modest means to own any of this land.
- subjectHarold 8y ago
  If you are a tenant farmer, you aren't being "oppressed" by not someone not selling you land. If you offer me £20 for my house, are you being "oppressed" if I don't sell it to you? The Church of England, Anders Povlsen, and others have all acquired huge amounts of land recently (that is why there is so much complaining about landowners from England who only come up to shoot). There is tons of forestry to bid on, and if you offer the right price then you will find willing sellers...if you offer the right price.
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    If some aristocrat’s great-great-...-grandpa was a thug soldier in a conquering army or the screwup third son of some foreign noble who the king owed a favor to or possibly a merchant who made a fortune in the slave trade and then married into a noble family (or whatever, pick your favorite backstory), and the aristocrat’s tenant farmers’ ancestors were the local people pressed into involuntary labor who then literally built everything nearby with their own hands over the subsequent few centuries, why should the family whose main claim to fame is aggressive use of force sometime in the distant past continue to own everything, while the ones doing all the work own nothing?

pytester 8y ago

Article seems to think that it's actually 0.04%: >half the country belongs to just 25,000 landowners, some of them corporations.

FabHK 8y ago
Yes, why on earth would they round 0.04% to "less than 1%"? Might as well say that "More Than 2% of England Is Owned by Less Than 1% of Its Population" - still true, nearly as misleading.

vesinisa 8y ago

The article seems to suggest Right to Roam was only introduced in 2004 in Scotland. Is this really so? In Scandinavia Right to Roam (alle-mans-rätt / All Men's Right) predates even the earliest modern laws, so is generally not even codified but based on an immemorial legal tradition.

alistairSH 8y ago
It was codified in 2003[0] but dates back centuries. Here's the wikipedia entry for the code that governs access.[1] The tl;dr is "you can go where you want, just be responsible" - don't camp in somebody's garden, don't annoy the sheep, don't interrupt the hunts/stalking, and leave no trace. It really is a fantastic tradition. As a Scottish expat, but frequent visitor, it's nice to be able to hike, bike, canoe, and camp pretty much anywhere. Trying to do the same in much of the US is likely to result in being chased off with a gun. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Reform_(Scotland)_Act_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Reform_(Scotland)_Act_200... 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "Trying to do the same in much of the US is likely to result in being chased off with a gun." this is a real problem in the West of the US. There is so much land fenced in that it's really difficult to do cross country hiking. When I visited Scotland it was a breath of fresh air to see how easy it is to get around there.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Running into barbed wire at neck level, in a canoe or kayak, is no fun either. Some of us carried wire cutters.
    - UnpossibleJim 8y ago
      There are pretty huge swaths of public lands in America that are easy to look up on a computer. Texas is one if the few states that's deficient in them, by comparison. As unpopular as this statement may be, it really does behoove you to look up where you're going before you start just cutting down fences. But I never bought into that whole anarchy argument, as it quickly devolves into might makes right, by default.

giardini 8y ago

Does the right to roam include hunting rights?

oliwarner 8y ago
No, that's armed trespass, poaching, etc.

subjectHarold 8y ago

...yep, and the fact that the population of Scotland is tiny and over 50% of that population live in the Central belt. Afaik, the only solid evidence against is an apparent lack of "participation" from local communities on land use. Unfortunately, this is an issue that applies as much to council as private landowners in Scotland and also tends to elicit opinions on what "should" be the case, rather than what is actually possible (i.e. people who live in the middle of nowhere complaining about the lack of economic development, complaining that the landowner isn't selling them a house at a cheap enough price, complaining that the landowner only comes up from England to shoot, etc.) There has been an abundance of loose reasoning on that is justified only by the perception that of unfairness (and, unf, a bit of light bigotry about the English). One of the sources for the rather brief Land Commission report was some political theory on power and participation (https://landcommission.gov.scot/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Research-Review-Concentrated-ownership-final-20190320.pdf https://landcommission.gov.scot/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/R... - Section 5 - I studied Politics postgrad btw, theory shouldn't be used this way...it is basic). Madness.

neffy 8y ago
It's not really a "perception" of unfairness... it's a long rooted and fossilised class system, acting to the detriment of the entire country. (Hopefully your politics postgrad included the clearings.) England at least had the Civil War to equalise things a bit, Scotland has never had any kind of revolution or similar to break very old land ownership structures. Scotland's second biggest problem is England, in the form of unbalanced monetary transfers from borrowing from London, and the brain drain to England, and for that matter the rest of the world. But its greatest problem is itself, and the domination of control in a few families hands.
- subjectHarold 8y ago
  It is amazing that you aren't able to distinguish between your opinion and reality. Unfairness is perception. And I am going to have to trouble you for proof of detriment. All you have said is that you don't like inequality, you have failed to demonstrate why a rational person should agree with you. You also, ironically, don't seem to understand what the Civil War was in England or that the Civil War had quite a large effect on Scotland or that the result of the Civil War for Scotland was imposition of govt from England. And my politics postgrad most certainly did not "include" the clearings (I am not even sure what this means...did you go to university?). The purpose of university isn't to indoctrinate and teach whatever version of truth is favoured. Perhaps this is linked to your misconceptions about the Civil War. Finally, the issue here isn't about the "class system". There has been turnover in the ownership of estates and, last I checked, someone who is poor in Scotland can become rich (although you will probably have to move away as you will find a lot of people hanging to your ankles if you stay). The issue relates to the use of land...but I will concede, however, that class is the main issue for most Scots, they just feel the need to justify their hate in logical terms rather than see it for what it is. Btw, saying that Scotland's biggest problem is England is an utter embarrassment (I say this as an SNP member/voter). It not only reeks of bigotry but is a self-destructive pattern of thought. Scotland's decline is a function of the nation and it's people. These "stab in the back" myths only help the weak-minded find (empty) solace in their failure.

externalreality 8y ago

1% of England's population is about 550,000, that is extreme inequality. You seem to think its OK for a small percentage of people to have everything as long as you have the right to roam around. I respectfully disagree. Wealth equals political and social power and it should be divided more evenly in order to ensure democracy. Make not mistake Capitalism mean fair and free - but in our warped form of Capitalism we have those with money rigging the rules for their own benefit and as such we don't have Capitalism we have Aristocracy.

0xADEADBEE 8y ago
I think you're being uncharitable towards OP's post; he doesn't make the case you're suggesting. Although I'm not sure that your broader point is too far off.
deepstream 8y ago
how can we cure these poor people from this delusion that they have a right to possess what they have not earned? life is inequitable you have to fight to get a higher station. substituting taking responsibility to create wealth for convincing yourself you're entitled to it just disempowers you. I'm not saying it's not hard. but that it is hard is not special and that it is hard is the motivation to overcome it. and when you get there that your hard earned achievement can be taken away by people who don't want to overcome is wrong. The fundamental point is this wealth is not some free right it's not some magical thing that just exists. wealth is precisely the value created by overcoming difficulties. wealth is made by work and the people who make it ought to be free to choose what they do with it rather than coerced into surrendering it in the name of equity, a false equity which is inequitable to the moral nature of wealth, responsibility and hard work. that kind of idea is a disease that will erode away the social foundation. I'm not saying wealth disparity is easy nor that it creates no problems. it creates a lot of problems but I don't believe the solution is by redistribution. at least not at this stage of human and economic evolution. while our species is still bounded by the amount of energy we can extract from our surroundings. taxes yes, State yes, a social welfare net yes, but not to an excessive degree, and not to cure inequality. if energy was free of course it should be distributed to all without cost. like air. but it's not. to do so would bankrupt our species in the name of compassion. the greater compassion is the realization of the poor state we're in, and the preservation of all. not the temporary satisfaction of some who convinced themselves that things should be easy. one day as a species we will get there. no crushing disparity. but we're not there yet. trying to live like we are already there is a toxic delusion that doesn't help us get to that more compassionate future.