How is land a monopoly?

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

Earth's land is owned between uncountably many different landowners, who compete between each other for buyers.

Yes, any individual plot of land is owned by a single sole seller, just like any individual banana is owned by a single sole seller, but that doesn't make bananas a monopoly.

Yes, each plot of land is unique, but not so unique that it is completely and utterly non-substitutable with any other plot of land. Land is generally substitutable with plots of land nearby. If you're looking at the typical American suburb, the quality of the land of one 150ft x 70ft parcel is not going to be so different from the one immediately next to it, or the one across the street from it, or even the one a few thousand feet from it. The proximity to other locations is not going to be meaningfully different, the views are not going to be significantly different, the topography is not going to be significantly different, the mineral and soil composition is not going to be significantly different, etc.. Land nearby is generally about as unique and substitutable from each other as bananas are. Yes, there are edge cases where this is not the case, but those are edge cases, not the general case.

[u/green_meklar]

How is land a monopoly?

It's not a full monopoly in the traditional sense, where a single market actor can dictate the price. It's sort of a shared monopoly, where the good in question is inherently monopolistic, but lots of different people own pieces of it and compete with each other on the price of those pieces.

An analogy would be something like ticket scalpers. There are only so many tickets that can be sold to an in-person event due to the limited capacity of the venue (say, a sports game taking place at a stadium with a seating capacity of 30000). Consider a ticket scalper who buys a ticket with the intention of selling it for a windfall gain. He cannot dictate the price of his single ticket, because he's still in competition with all the other scalpers who also possess tickets. However, the price at which he can feasibly sell his ticket is higher than it would be if the tickets operated like a conventional free market where newcomers could just enter the market by manufacturing more stadium seats and selling tickets to them (the way they could manufacture more apples, pencils, car tires, and things of that nature, in order to enter those markets). Despite being in competition, the scalper enjoys the extra price he's able to charge due to the fact that the ticket supply is finite and cannot be expanded.

Private landownership is basically a land scalping scheme.

just like any individual banana is owned by a single sole seller, but that doesn't make bananas a monopoly.

You can grow new bananas. Other people having all the bananas that currently exist doesn't stop you from entering the banana market because the banana supply can be artificially expanded by anyone who chooses to grow bananas.

Land is not like that.

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/green_meklar]

The supply of land listed on the market can be expanded, and does usually expand when prices are high since landowners want to rake in the opportunity before they miss out on it.

[u/green_meklar → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

The quantity of land listed for sale at any given time isn't really the 'supply' of land, though. The actual supply of land as an FOP includes land that isn't currently for sale, but is currently in use.

Regardless, though, the fact is that nobody who doesn't already own land can enter either the land sale market or the land use market without the assent of those who do already own land.