[phone[phone]]

Capitalism has _everything_ to do with this as while the _amount_ of land may not be growing, the economic system does _nothing_ to cap the price of this essential commodity. The only cap on the price of land is the amount someone is willing to pay for it.

To say that the advantages of location are not capital (or equivalent to capital) is just ignorant. There are plenty of pieces of land that act just like capital - access to natural resources, access to a coastline, fertile for farming, or in a location where a toll road or similar could be employed.

It becomes very difficult for someone to build and own a sapphire mine if they don't have the capital to buy the land that has the sapphires in it!

[trgn]

I think point of gp is that land is _not_ a commodity. It thus cannot be treated as capital, the way it is more traditionally understood. Supply/demand dynamics in a market does not make something capitalism.

[alexb_]

That's exactly right. Land is not a commodity, in fact it is the absolute furthest thing from a commodity. Plots of land are different, and command different valuations based on location. It is not produced by anyone and has an unchanging supply. To call it a commodity is so completely backwards.

There are supply and demand dynamics in the land market. However much excess value you get from occupying a certain location on Earth, is how much people will be willing to pay for that. The demand will always be high as long as the value from the location is higher than the cost to occupy. This cost will soak up any advancements in society, which is why despite everything we have done to progress the state of man there is still a class of renters giving everything extra they make due to societal advancements to landowners.

[PaulHoule]

Also capitalism provides plenty of capital to bid up house prices.

There wouldn't be many $1 million ranch houses if there wasn't a bank that would give you a mortgage on a $1 million ranch house.