'This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land'

Not any more, in certain countries: Food crisis leading to an unsustainable land grab
Sue Branford, Guardian (via EB) --

The world map is being redrawn. Over the past six months, China, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other nations have been buying and leasing huge quantities of foreign land for the production of food or biofuels for domestic consumption. It's a modern day version of the 19th-century scramble for Africa.

It seems that governments (and corporations) are now able to accomplish through the force of money (and a economic system that works to their advantage) what used to take the forms of arms. Land is a common good, and those who inhabit a certain territory have a sort of universal ownership (which is compatible with 'private property rights'). To take what should be employed for the benefit of the natives in order to produce food and other materials to be used by non-natives does seem to be wrong and unjust. But if we subscribe to a simplistic understanding of the right of property, which is not limited by other laws and the common good, then any form of restriction on the sale and purchasing of property by non-natives would seem to be wrong.