Marx believed that once land is subjected to private property and competition, the superior economics of large-scale ownership will necessarily ruin and absorb the small proprietor. That sounds dramatic. It is also bad economics. The claim treats scale as a one-way ratchet and ignores everything that makes real markets real: rising managerial costs, local knowledge, entrepreneurial discovery, heterogeneous land, and the ever-present role of state privilege. In a genuine market order, land does not move automatically to the largest owner. It moves—imperfectly, but decisively—toward those who