RSA Lecture - Who owns the world?

Journalist, author and RSA fellow Kevin Cahill presented an RSA lecture in June 2006 entitled "Who owns the world?" The lecture precedes the publication of his forthcoming book of the same name (published in November 2006), and furthered his argument for land reform as a vital means of achieving more equal and economically prosperous societies.


Who owns the world? is highly significant as the first ever attempt to survey every piece of land on the planet. In a typically provocative lecture, Cahill made reference to how little attention has been paid to startlingly accurate primary sources such as the Doomsday book in attempts to understand and research into land ownership in Britain. He also pointed to the inefficiency of land usage caused by the current system of land ownership, criticized the Campaign to Protect Rural England for presenting a false picture of the threat posed by planning and development to rural areas of Britain, and argued that land reform is key in the task of alleviating poverty in the developing world.

The Caledonia Centre for Rural development has an extensive on-line information base for issues around land reform and ownership which contains, among other things, articles on UK agriculture subsidies, community based land reform, and urban land reform.

Kevin Cahill's book Who owns Britain? is available to borrow from the RSA Fellow's Library. Read a New Statesman review of Who owns Britain?.