To think that any of us individually has an absolute right to own a piece of the earth is preposterous.  Taken to its logical extension, it means that some have the right to deny others the right to live.  Every person has to live somewhere.  Yet if land can be owned privately, then that means a small group of people can own all the world's land, and have the right to deny access to that land to others, in effect allowing them to deny others the right to live.  The land is something to which we all have equal right.  Those who take land from the commons should compensate society for its loss, and that land ownership should be understood as a conditional right, not an absolute one.