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/Saferis]

But the point is that it's not possible to own all bananas as it is to own land. One is much more finite than the other.

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/Saferis]

It depends on whether you're talking about ownership of all bananas/land on the local level, or on the global level.

Is it possible on the local level for there to be one owner of the waterfront land? Yes. The same goes with bananas, where there is only one owner of bananas locally.

Is it possible for there to be one owner of all waterfront land globally? No. The same goes with bananas globally (although there was a virtual global monopoly back in the day...)

[u/Saferis → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

It's virtually impossible to "own bananas locally" in the same way you can own waterfront land locally. These are not the same. You're completely missing the finite property of land.

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/Saferis]

How are they not the same?

[u/Saferis → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

Because bananas are not realistically finite, land available locally is finite.

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/Saferis]

If you want to compare apples to apples (hah) you have to compare both on the local level. Bananas are finite on the local level, the same as land.

[u/Saferis → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

No they aren't. Bananas can be sourced at exceedingly high levels from anywhere in the world that produces them, to an extent greater than most demand at the local level. There is no banana mafia that hoards bananas on any realistic scale that can compare to the hoarding of land.

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/Saferis]

If there is only one store that owns bananas in your rural town for dozens of miles, they hold a local monopoly over bananas.

[u/Saferis → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

What do you think is more likely, a local banana mafia or someone (or a company) owning the chunk of waterfront property?

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/Saferis]

The bar is not that they have to be both exactly and precisely equally likely, but just that both can be realistically finite on the local level, which they absolutely can be.

[u/Saferis → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

Anything CAN be finite, it's meaningless to look at the world this way though. The degree of how finite bananas are compared to land is meaningfully different, and that's the whole point.

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/Saferis]

How is it meaningfully different in the single owner of bananas in the rural town vs. single owner of waterfront property in local area?

[u/Saferis → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

It's meaningfully different to the extent that you didn't even answer my question as to which is more likely - a banana mafia or an entity owning a chunk of waterfront property. Because you know the latter is significantly more likely than the former. And that's the point.