# Think Tank > Political Philosophy & Government Policy >  What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

## Mahkato

Land Value Tax on Wikipedia




> A *land value tax* (or *site valuation tax*) is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an _ad valorem_ tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements. A land value tax (*LVT*) is different from other property taxes, because these are taxes on the whole value of real estate: the combination of land, buildings, and improvements to the site. An LVT _does_ take into account the effect on land value of location, or of improvements made to _neighbouring_ land, such as proximity to public works or a shopping complex.
>  Although the efficiency of a land value tax has been known of since Adam Smith,[1] it was perhaps most famously promoted by Henry George in his best selling work Progress and Poverty (1879). George argued that the value of land was created by the community, and therefore its rent belonged to the community.[2]
>  Land value taxes have been implemented in Taiwan (Republic of China), Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia and Estonia, as well as in some localities in the American state of Pennsylvania, the Australian state of New South Wales and Mexicali, in Mexico. The government of the Republic of Ireland is considering the introduction of an LVT.

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## Dr.3D

I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.

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## JackieDan

I say: eliminate all taxes, and then institute a nation wide sales tax of 5 %. That would be enough to fund government.

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## wizardwatson

I've read Progress and Poverty and I think George's reasoning is sound.  It's a tax on rent which, if you understand the Law of Rent, I think is much more fair than some sort of flat sales tax.  A sales tax punishes the consumer more than the producer.

I take George's idea even further.  I think there should be a flat tax on wealth itself.  This to me, after all I've looked at, seems to me the most fair.  You could tax people on their average daily/monthly/yearly net worth.  This would allow a flat percentage to be taken from everyone equally and wouldn't be a burden on the lower class any more than the upper class and producers.

The only problem with this is the difficulty in enforcing fairly.  Perhaps we could just start with measuring real property/assets and also on your average daily bank balance.

I've said this elsewhere on the boards and many disagree saying that you shouldn't get taxed on what you already own, so they think a flat sales tax or import tax or whatever is more fair.  I disagree.

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## Travlyr

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


Secure in their possessions. It is fundamental to liberty.

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## donnay

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


Absolutely!

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## Tod

I agree 100%.  Property tax is even worse than an income tax.  I can't think of a worse form of taxation than one that can result in your home being confiscated.

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## Napoleon's Shadow

Taxation = theft

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## donnay

> I agree 100%.  Property tax is even worse than an income tax.  I can't think of a worse form of taxation than one that can result in your home being confiscated.


As it stands right now, property owners are just glorified renters to the state.  The American Dream is an illusion, so long as there is a tax on ones property.

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## erowe1

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


What makes it your land?

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## Dr.3D

> What makes it your land?


The title of ownership does.

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## erowe1

> The title of ownership does.


If that's the case, then all the government has to do is write a title with themselves as the owner, and the land is theirs.

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## Dr.3D

> If that's the case, then all the government has to do is write a title with themselves as the owner, and the land is theirs.


Heck, they already think they own everything I have.   I wouldn't put it past them to do such a thing.

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## ctiger2

> I say: eliminate all taxes, and then institute a nation wide sales tax of 5 %. That would be enough to fund government.


I agree. I also wouldn't be against luxury taxing people who own multiple plots of land. Primary residence should NOT be taxed, so this would cover 95% of the population. You just don't want people hording land so I'd think a minor land luxury tax might be a good idea.

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## erowe1

> Heck, they already think they own everything I have.   I wouldn't put it past them to do such a thing.


Then is that all that really makes the land yours? Just that the government says so is on a title? When they give titles for enormous amounts of land to various utilities and other companies, is their ownership of that land as legitimate as some family's homestead?

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## Mahkato

I know that many people here would like to see all taxes abolished. I'm wondering if you think LVT is an improvement over traditional property taxes or other taxes. As long as a government exists, what would be the most liberty-friendly way of funding that government? Does LVT have a place in funding local governments, for example?

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## Dr.3D

> Then is that all that really makes the land yours? Just that the government says so is on a title? When they give titles for enormous amounts of land to various utilities and other companies, is their ownership of that land as legitimate as some family's homestead?


What should be and what is are two different things.   I worked hard and paid for the land, it should be under my supervision, not anyone else.  The state has done nothing to deserve what I own.

I'm not going to get into a philosophy debate here.... 

Do you believe you own anything or are you one of those people who believe the state owns everything.   If you believe the state owns everything, then welcome back to the age of Lords and manors.

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## erowe1

> What should be and what is are two different things.   I worked hard and paid for the land, it should be under my supervision, not anyone else.  The state has done nothing to deserve what I own.
> 
> I'm not going to get into a philosophy debate here.... 
> 
> Do you believe you own anything or are you one of those people who believe the state owns everything.   If you believe the state owns everything, then welcome back to the age of Lords and manors.


I don't believe the state owns everything. But I also don't believe that all of the land ownership according to current legal titles is legitimate. You may have bought your land, but it can't be taken for granted that the person who sold it to you legitimately owned it in the first place. I'm honestly not sure what to do about this problem.

I'm against all taxes, and I think all taxes are theft. But if I were to get into a debate where I had to choose one kind of tax over others, I'd choose a tax on land (possibly based on acreage, rather than assessed value), and it would include a true homestead exemption, where individuals would not be taxed at all on a single plot of land up to a certain size. I also wouldn't have a problem with having the tax rates above that size increase progressively with the amount of land owned. I think a scheme like this would ameliorate the problem of corporate welfare in the form of land grants.

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## tremendoustie

> I say: eliminate all taxes, and then institute a nation wide sales tax of 5 %. That would be enough to fund government.


I like the first part of your plan.

We need to freely choose who we do business with. To grant that the government has the right to forcibly take money from people to fund itself is to lose 100% of the principle of personal ownership and property rights.

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## tremendoustie

> I don't believe the state owns everything. But I also don't believe that all of the land ownership according to current legal titles is legitimate. You may have bought your land, but it can't be taken for granted that the person who sold it to you legitimately owned it in the first place. I'm honestly not sure what to do about this problem.
> 
> I'm against all taxes, and I think all taxes are theft. But if I were to get into a debate where I had to choose one kind of tax over others, I'd choose a tax on land (possibly based on acreage, rather than assessed value), and it would include a true homestead exemption, where individuals would not be taxed at all on a single plot of land up to a certain size. I also wouldn't have a problem with having the tax rates above that size increase progressively with the amount of land owned. I think a scheme like this would ameliorate the problem of corporate welfare in the form of land grants.


I agree that most of the original land grants were illegitimate. However, it's not possible to correct all of the grievances of history, and I certainly don't see how taxing people's property has anything to do with justice at all.

It's best just to work for freedom starting now. Land ownership will balance out over time, and revert to those who really produce things their neighbors need, if the government is not there to prop up their corrupt buddies.

I would support opening up national forest to reasonable homesteading.

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## mczerone

Who values the land?  Isn't value subjective?  Couldn't I make a profit from "unimproved" land, and couldn't I lose money by improving my land?

And if I improved my own homesteaded land, why do govt cronies get to take a cut of my efforts?  Did they come and build irrigation channels and lay a cement foundation?  If I didn't ask them to help in any way, where do they get off trying to create a duty for me to pay them?

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## tremendoustie

> What makes it your land?


I would say having purchased it via voluntary agreement constitutes legitimate ownership, regardless of whether whoever owned it 300 years ago acquired it legitimately.


Obviously we can't fix all wrongdoing through history. Actually though, I'd even say the same thing on a shorter timescale. If you steal a TV set, then sell it to me (in a manner that would not lead a reasonable person to suspect that it's stolen), I think you're liable for the value of the TV set, to the victim of your theft, but I'm not obligated to simply give it back.

Of course, homesteading is a legitimate way to acquire land also, but it's not so common these days.

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## erowe1

> I agree that most of the original land grants were illegitimate. However, it's not possible to correct all of the grievances of history, and I certainly don't see how taxing people's property has anything to do with justice at all.
> 
> It's best just to work for freedom starting now. Land ownership will balance out over time, and revert to those who really produce things their neighbors need, if the government is not there to prop up their corrupt buddies.
> 
> I would support opening up national forest to reasonable homesteading.


I agree that we shouldn't try to correct those past injustices. But I also don't think that methods of taxation and lack of available homestead land are entirely unrelated. I got the idea from Jefferson, who said it better than I could.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl41.htm

But again, none of this is to defend any tax over no taxes at all, just one tax versus another.

Edit: I guess that letter is kind of long. Here's the money quote:



> Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation.

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## erowe1

> I would say having purchased it via voluntary agreement constitutes legitimate ownership, regardless of whether whoever owned it 300 years ago acquired it legitimately.


Practically, this might be the best way to go. But if I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge through voluntary agreement, that wouldn't make it rightfully yours, since it's not mine to sell.

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## Krugerrand

> Practically, this might be the best way to go. But if I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge through voluntary agreement, that wouldn't make it rightfully yours, since it's not mine to sell.


How much do you want for it?   j/k

The more I think about, the more I like poll taxes.  If you want a government, when you vote is a great place to pony up.

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## erowe1

> How much do you want for it?   j/k
> 
> The more I think about, the more I like poll taxes.  If you want a government, when you vote is a great place to pony up.


Actually, that's a good point. I forgot how much I preferred poll taxes to others. Being able to get out of taxes just by not voting, and letting those who pay taxes be the ones who vote on the representatives who decide how their own money gets spent, is probably as fair as any tax could be.

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## loveshiscountry

> _Originally Posted by erowe1 What makes it your land?_
> The title of ownership does.


technically unless you have an allodial title you do not own the land.

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## Dr.3D

> technically unless you have an allodial title you do not own the land.


Well, judging from history, technically, those who have the ability to defend the land from being taken from them own it.

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## tremendoustie

> Actually, that's a good point. I forgot how much I preferred poll taxes to others. Being able to get out of taxes just by not voting, and letting those who pay taxes be the ones who vote on the representatives who decide how their own money gets spent, is probably as fair as any tax could be.


It's so fair, it could hardly be called a tax . More like a fee.

Of course, this only works if the government doesn't start trying to run the lives and property of people who didn't vote/consent ...

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## tremendoustie

> Practically, this might be the best way to go. But if I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge through voluntary agreement, that wouldn't make it rightfully yours, since it's not mine to sell.


That's certainly true. Brooklyn bridge is a bit different from a TV set, because physical possession is less practical -- also, the bridge is currently controlled by the government.

That said, suppose some private individual built Brooklyn bridge, but you, as the biggest baddest guy in NY (perhaps the government), manage to send men over to take it over and start charging tolls. A couple months later, I show up as a rich immigrant in NY, with no clue about this history. You then "sell" it to me for a fair price.

I'd say you owe the original builder of the bridge full damages, but I get to keep the bridge. Alternately, you might return the money to me (along with extra $ for the inconvenience), and I return the bridge to the original owner.

Regardless, I do have a legitimate claim on the property at that point. Simply taking it from me and giving it back to the original victim of the theft would not be justice.

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## spacehabitats

> I take George's idea even further.  I think there should be a flat tax on wealth itself.  This to me, after all I've looked at, seems to me the most fair.  You could tax people on their average daily/monthly/yearly net worth.  This would allow a flat percentage to be taken from everyone equally and wouldn't be a burden on the lower class any more than the upper class and producers.
> 
> The only problem with this is the difficulty in enforcing fairly.  Perhaps we could just start with measuring real property/assets and also on your average daily bank balance.


I agree. I believe that the Income Tax was designed to avoid a WEALTH tax which would have been the fairest tax. In fact, most Americans thought that they were getting a de facto tax on wealth. Initially, only the richest Americans were going to be taxed and at a very low rate.
The Conspiracy that established the Federal Reserve System recognized that there would be many ways for the wealthy and politically well-connected to avoid paying an INCOME tax, and history has born this out.

The problem with collecting on a wealth tax could be solved by making the individual estimate their net worth and agreeing to sell their property to anyone willing to come up with the cash.

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## wizardwatson

> I agree. I believe that the Income Tax was designed to avoid a WEALTH tax which would have been the fairest tax. In fact, most Americans thought that they were getting a de facto tax on wealth. Initially, only the richest Americans were going to be taxed and at a very low rate.
> The Conspiracy that established the Federal Reserve System recognized that there would be many ways for the wealthy and politically well-connected to avoid paying an INCOME tax, and history has born this out.
> 
> The problem with collecting on a wealth tax could be solved by making the individual estimate their net worth and agreeing to sell their property to anyone willing to come up with the cash.


Income was originally an accounting term related to corporations/businesses.  The term for personal 'income' was always 'wages', not 'income'.  So some claim that this was part of the 'sleight of hand' used to pass the income tax legislation.  People I don't think ever thought that 'wages' would be taxed.

And the tax on wages is really a tax on revenue.  An individual doesn't enjoy the rights of businesses in being allowed to deduct expenses as corporations/businesses can.  If businesses had to pay a 'revenue' tax the way wages are taxed it'd be a different story.

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## spacehabitats

Arguing about government ownership is a red herring. The only thing that allows a multi-billionaire to acquire such wealth is a state with laws, police, courts, and armies to support their claims to ownership. The idea that Bill Gates should pay no more in taxes than a pauper is absurd and everyone knows this.

Bill could TRY to protect his property from the starving masses using a private security force. And it would probably work too, until his chief of security decided to take Bill's place.

Government at its best is a mutual insurance company allowing sovereign citizens the opportunity of living in a stable society where everyone is not spending a huge percentage of their time and resources just protecting their life and property.

Even if every human life is of equal value, their property certainly isn't, and it takes proportionately more to protect the "rights" of the rich.

What's so hard about this concept?

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## FortisKID

> I've read Progress and Poverty and I think George's reasoning is sound.  It's a tax on rent which, if you understand the Law of Rent, I think is much more fair than some sort of flat sales tax.  A sales tax punishes the consumer more than the producer.
> 
> I take George's idea even further.  I think there should be a flat tax on wealth itself.  This to me, after all I've looked at, seems to me the most fair.  You could tax people on their average daily/monthly/yearly net worth.  This would allow a flat percentage to be taken from everyone equally and wouldn't be a burden on the lower class any more than the upper class and producers.
> 
> The only problem with this is the difficulty in enforcing fairly.  Perhaps we could just start with measuring real property/assets and also on your average daily bank balance.
> 
> I've said this elsewhere on the boards and many disagree saying that you shouldn't get taxed on what you already own, so they think a flat sales tax or import tax or whatever is more fair.  I disagree.


...... And you support Ron Paul?

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## wizardwatson

> ...... And you support Ron Paul?


You have a better option?

Of course the government taxes too much, the question is what would be the most fair.  Is the Georgist idea more fair than the current system?  I think it is.  You can be a purist all day long and say taxation = theft but that doesn't solve the problem of creating/supporting a fair tax system.

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## LibForestPaul

No, I dislike money stolen from me to pay for services that I do not use, have not requested, are not authorized by the constitution, and which goes to connected cronies and pay-offs of corrupt public and private unions.

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## LibForestPaul

Again taxes = dead horse
Spending ,Violence and involuntary servitude = what needs to be focused upon.

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## Zippyjuan

My state (CA) property taxes include two numbers- one for the value of the land and the second value of "improvements". Taxes on the estimated value of something are in my opinon wrong because a person does not actually realize any increased "value" of their land. You only get that when you sell the property. In some places, that can mean that people lose their property because somebody bought the neigobor's property for some significantly higher value.  Kind of like you getting taxed on the price of gold going up- even if you didn't actually sell your gold and get those profits.  That is why I am glad that California limits the increases in property taxes until it is actually sold and a new title (and basis) issued.

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## redbluepill

Milton Friedman once said "the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago"

I go a step further and say that the land value tax isn't just the 'least bad tax' it is actually a good 'tax'. I say 'tax' because I believe it isn't really a tax, it is rent for the privilege of monopolizing a piece of land and keep others from using it.

Let me ask this question to those who are for the monopolization of land: How is property created?

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## redbluepill

> The title of ownership does.


Where does that title of ownership come from?

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## Seraphim

Epic fail.

Go to Russia or Cuba, Mr Commie. From there...tell me if the other side really is greener.




> Milton Friedman once said "the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago"
> 
> I go a step further and say that the land value tax isn't just the 'least bad tax' it is actually a good 'tax'. I say 'tax' because I believe it isn't really a tax, it is rent for the privilege of monopolizing a piece of land and keep others from using it.
> 
> Let me ask this question to those who are for the monopolization of land: How is property created?

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## redbluepill

> I'm not going to get into a philosophy debate here....


This whole forum is about debating philosophy...

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## redbluepill

A few quotes in support of the geoist/Georgist philosophy:

Men did not make the earth It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.  *Thomas Paine*

Ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.  *Adam Smith*

I have already read Henry Georges great book and really learnt a great deal from it Men like Henry George are rare, unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form, and fervent love of justice.  *Einstein*

"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of [landed] property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise." --*Thomas Jefferson*

"Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." - *John Stuart Mill*

The landowner who withdraws land from productive use to a purely private use should be required to pay higher, not lower, taxes. *James Buchanan Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1986*

Assuming that a tax increase is necessary, it is clearly preferable to impose the additional cost on land by increasing the land tax, rather than to increase the wage tax.- *Herbert Simon
Winner, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1978*



***Little known fact amongst libertarians: Libertarian Party founder David Nolan was a supporter of the land value tax!

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## redbluepill

> ...... And you support Ron Paul?


Do we have to agree with Paul on everything? Economist Fred Foldvary supports Ron Paul as far as I know and he is a geolibertarian.

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## redbluepill

> Epic fail.
> 
> Go to Russia or Cuba, Mr Commie. From there...tell me if the other side really is greener.


I expect knee-jerk reactions from neocons, not Ron Paul supporters. Read up on Henry George and his ideas and come back and tell me he was not a huge supporter of the free market.

Edit: You calling Milton Friedman a commie?

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## J-Lib

Which is one reason why I'm for it! 

Dr. Paul has said that he wants to abolish income tax, the IRS, and all the invasion of privacy and liberty connected to income taxation. He also says, rightly, that the so-called FairTax is still a sales tax and therefore, it still burdens the economy and contributes to a black market. Then you have the problems associated with taxation in general, in that nearly all taxes burden desired activities and do not directly correlate to any benefits received from government. 

Therefore, the most libertarian and sensible solution is land value "tax," or rather, user fee for use the Earth's space and resources. 

Totally untaxing labor, profits, sales, trade, and (at the local govt. level) real estate improvements, will remove a tremendous dead weight from the economy as we cease to penalize productive work and the efficiencies of trade. 

Rather than taxing the above, we would collect rent on the use of resources, according to their market value. Economists have shown that unlike traditional taxes, shifting to land value revenue (LVR, like "lever"): 

- is fairest since it corresponds to both ability to pay and benefits received;
- is most efficient since it does not penalize any productive activity; 
- is a free-market source of revenue since one can choose what amount to pay (you choose where to live) and land values are set by the market. 
- tends to downsize government, since governments would limit their activities to those that would support higher land values. 
- tends to decentralize government, since most land is subject to a local and/or State jurisdiction. 


Many other benefits -- see The Founders' Plan

If we are ever going to muster up the political will to radically revamp the federal tax system -- or even abolish the IRS and other unneeded federal bureaucracies -- then we can transition to a full LVR-based system, beginning with the federal government. 

- Economist Fred Foldvary recommends an amendment to the united States Constitution prohibiting or phasing out all productivity taxes (income, sales, excise, tariffs, VAT) and replacing them with LVR. The government must live off the land. No fining people for working or for creating jobs. No revenue agency reaching into your pocket and bank account. No punishing people for buying or selling stuff. The fedgov would have to depend on revenues from things such as oil and mineral rights and extraction, grazing, fishing and hunting rights, other user fees, the use of interstate conduits such as railroads and pipelines, and EM spectrum. (Nominally, the people own the airwaves as a commons, but we are a lousy landlord -- giving away beachfront EM properties to big corporations like AT&T.) 

- Simultaneously, be radically downsizing and decentralizing FG functions to the Constitutionally authorized entities (States, localities, or individuals). Over time, the abolition of deadweight taxation will radically change the economic landscape, such that many government programs purporting to "help the disadvantaged" will be unnecessary anyway. 

- If any additional revenue is thought to be needed (such as for emergencies), require the fedgov to go through the States, like in old times (apportionment). In the past, the FG was free to levy taxes in this fashion and to specify land as the asset taxed. 

- Have federally owned land within States assessed as if for taxation, to illustrate the tremendous amount of land value preempted by the fedgov which could instead be going into State and local coffers. Showing people what they are losing would spur more intense scrutiny of Federal activities. 

- Return a portion of proceeds directly to citizens. Study Alaska, which actually is able to pay a yearly dividend based on natural resource development. This was spurred by "a desire to put some oil revenues out of direct political control" and directly benefit the People. A simplified version of the Alaska Permanent Fund could be operated by the fedgov (for rents/royalties on federal lands) and by States (for State lands). 

Also see Foldvary, The Ultimate Tax Reform.

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## J-Lib

A LVT (I call it Land Value Revenue, LVR -- a powerful "lever" for prosperity) is a tax on wealth that the owner did not create. This would be sufficient. You don't want to tax wealth that a person _did_ create.

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## Seraphim

It was your "monopolization of land" comment. There is more then enough land to go around for each of us to get our own if we desire it and pay for it.

If you want to charge rent to land owners through government taxation, you do not believe in private property or free markets. You can't have it both ways.

No I did not call him a commie. In fact, read the quote again yourself. He says it is the LEAST BAD tax...he was NOT advocating it. The lesser of evils is still evil. 

Shall we call Rationalization Man so he can save the village?




> I expect knee-jerk reactions from neocons, not Ron Paul supporters. Read up on Henry George and his ideas and come back and tell me he was not a huge supporter of the free market.
> 
> Edit: You calling Milton Friedman a commie?

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## Seraphim

Nice rationalization. 

Land is the foundation in which we can create said wealth. Tax the land, you hamper the ability to create said wealth and you remove the incentive to do so.

By your own logic we should tax every re-sale item because you didn't create that wealth, someone else did.

Yay for rationalizations. sarc/

 By that, I mean...Can we please stop trying to figure out the least offensive way to steal from others? It's pretty retarted to be honest. It's baboon like.






> A LVT (I call it Land Value Revenue, LVR -- a powerful "lever" for prosperity) is a tax on wealth that the owner did not create. This would be sufficient. You don't want to tax wealth that a person _did_ create.

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## J-Lib

Ahh, huge land & resource giveaways to crony corporations! That's the stuff America is made of. That's the stuff LVR is meant to stop. 

Average Joe does not benefit from the status quo. BigCronyCo, Inc. and "Speculators 'R' Us" are the prime beneficiaries. 

See "The Menace of Privilege" p.37 
at Google Books

At Archive.org

LVT/LVR  (I prefer the latter) would leave the land title --  with all the rights of secure tenure, privacy, control, transferability, etc. --  in private hands. Only the rent becomes public revenue. This is what enables taxes (including the tax on buildings) to be abolished. 

You pay rent for land _anyway;_ either as part of a lease agreement or a mortgage. (And generally, a negligible amount as part of the real estate tax.) The LVR system just shifts this land rent, which we already pay, from being mainly a subsidy to private parties and mortgage lenders, over to a source of funds for your local government. This funds government to maintain the services that largely put the value _in_ the land in the first place. In reality, it's like a company reinvesting its profit. 

And to extend the corporate analogy: if a jurisdiction so chooses, it can also pay out a portion of its surplus as an equal dividend to all "shareholders", i.e., citizens.) 

Under the LVR system, tax incidence is transparent and 100% fair. Essentially, you'd pay proportionate to the value of land held. (Paying for what you get is a basic free market principle.) However, it's not on improvements, only on land. _No one_ gets penalized for building things. (Pay for what you take, not what you make!) 

This means there's no incentive to speculate on land, but rather, to building and to do useful things with it. 

Removal of negative incentives and restoration of positive incentives is all the "stimulus" our economy needs to thrive. LVR does both of these things.

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## Travlyr

> Ahh, huge land & resource giveaways to crony corporations! That's the stuff America is made of. That's the stuff LVR is meant to stop. 
> 
> Average Joe does not benefit from this system. BigCronyCo, Inc. and "Speculators 'R' Us" are the prime beneficiaries. 
> 
> See "The Menace of Privilege" p.37 
> at Google Books
> 
> At Archive.org
> 
> ...


Or they can tax you out of your home under your plan. How is that liberty oriented?

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## -C-

> Under this system, high-value land owners (that's probably _not_ you, dear reader) would pay the most. As they should. It's a basic free market principle. Pay for what you take. (Then, we could stop paying for the things we _make.)_


What? I can't be reading that right.

----------


## E.J.Dodson

Wizardwatson wrote: 
"I've read Progress and Poverty and I think George's reasoning is sound.  It's a tax on rent which, if you understand the Law of Rent, I think is much more fair than some sort of flat sales tax.  A sales tax punishes the consumer more than the producer."

E.J.Dodson here:
We agree on the reasoning provided by Henry George, a perspective that had a long history even when George came to it in the 1870s. A full appreciation of the law of rent leads one to view "rent" as by nature a societal claim on production and not a tax on legitimate private property. This position comes out clearly reading Adam Smith and David Ricardo, as well as Henry George.

The only sales tax that can be justified is a sales tax on the sale of land because land only has a sales price because society fails to collect the full annual rental value of land, the net after any property tax capitalized into a selling price by market forces.

***
Wizardwatson wrote:
I take George's idea even further.  I think there should be a flat tax on wealth itself.  This to me, after all I've looked at, seems to me the most fair.  You could tax people on their average daily/monthly/yearly net worth.  This would allow a flat percentage to be taken from everyone equally and wouldn't be a burden on the lower class any more than the upper class and producers.

E.J. Dodson here;
This idea fails to distinguish between assets individuals have produced or acquired by payment to the producer (e.g., buildings, machinery, any sort of tangible asset) and assets are not produced by labor and/or capital goods (e.g., nature, of course, and financial assets which are, in effect, claims on what we produce rather than material assets). Far better, I argue, to institute a truly progressive form of individual income tax, one that greatly reduces or eliminates the taxation of income flows earned by producing goods or providing services and raises most revenue from income derived from speculative (and inherently nonproductive) investment activities. We could exempt all individual incomes up to the national median, then impose an increase rate on higher ranges of income. At the higher levels of individual income, most is passively derived by speculative investment.

----------


## redbluepill

> It was your "monopolization of land" comment. There is more then enough land to go around for each of us to get our own if we desire it and pay for it.
> 
> If you want to charge rent to land owners through government taxation, you do not believe in private property or free markets. You can't have it both ways.
> 
> No I did not call him a commie. In fact, read the quote again yourself. He says it is the LEAST BAD tax...he was NOT advocating it. The lesser of evils is still evil. 
> 
> Shall we call Rationalization Man so he can save the village?



There certainly is enough land to go around for each of us! However, land is limited. Good land is even more limited. We have poverty because of the lack of access to the land and its resources. The government gives to the powerful what mother nature provides and the rest suckle their teet. The land value tax helps level the playing field.

And Milton Friedman said he LIKED the land tax. I would say that is advocating it.

"*Yes, there are taxes I like.* For example, the gasoline tax, which pays for highways. You have a user tax. The property tax is one of the least bad taxes, because it's levied on something that cannot be produced  that part that is levied on the land."
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/quotable_nobels.htm

----------


## redbluepill

> Or they can tax you out of your home under your plan. How is that liberty oriented?


The tax is based on the market value. Not what the government decides is the value.

----------


## redbluepill

> Nice rationalization. 
> 
> Land is the foundation in which we can create said wealth. Tax the land, you hamper the ability to create said wealth and you remove the incentive to do so.
> 
> By your own logic we should tax every re-sale item because you didn't create that wealth, someone else did.
> 
> Yay for rationalizations. sarc/
> 
>  By that, I mean...Can we please stop trying to figure out the least offensive way to steal from others? It's pretty retarted to be honest. It's baboon like.


Many libertarians support the LVT because it creates the least amount of market distortion.

From the Free State Project website (I'm sure you've heard of it) :

"The efficiency argument for land value taxation is that, unlike almost all other taxes, *it does not discourage productive activity or distort choices among consumer goods.* A tax on wages discourages work effort. The property tax on improvments discourages construction and other improvements. Tariffs on imported goods discourage international trade. But the supply of land is fixed, given by nature. *A tax on the value of land (based on its potential use), will not discourage the landowner from making the land available.* The owner must pay the same tax regardless of what he does or does not do with the land. It should be noted that the method of assessing land values is crucial; changes in the market value of land attributable to permanent improvements to a site should not be included in the taxable land value."

http://freestateproject.org/about/es...lvtaxation.php

----------


## redbluepill

“it is the value of the improvements only, and not the Earth itself, that is individual property." - Thomas Paine
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/underpop/Paine.htm

I guess Mr. Paine is a commie/socialist too...

----------


## libertybrewcity

you lost me at "tax".

how about no taxes!

----------


## Dr.3D

> This whole forum is about debating philosophy...


Whoops... guess I got in the wrong forums.

----------


## redbluepill

> you lost me at "tax".
> 
> how about no taxes!


'Tax' is really a misnomer imo. Ground rent is a more appropriate term. We would be reimbursing the community for the privilege of keeping a piece of land for ourselves.

----------


## Travlyr

> 'Tax' is really a misnomer imo. Ground rent is a more appropriate term. We would be reimbursing the community for the privilege of keeping a piece of land for ourselves.


Furthermore, as one grows older and can no longer afford to pay the rent, the community can take it away from the owner and find someone else who will pay the ransom.

----------


## johnrocks

I detest any type property tax.  My Brother had cancer and got behind on his mortgage and had a $1500 property tax bill hit and almost lost his home due to this,  while the mortgage company worked with him, government could care less about his "sob story".


Screw property  taxes!!!

----------


## Travlyr

> I detest any type property tax.  My Brother had cancer and got behind on his mortgage and had a $1500 property tax bill hit and almost lost his home due to this,  while the mortgage company worked with him, government could care less about his "sob story".
> 
> 
> Screw property  taxes!!!


I agree. One of the great promises of early America was that people were like the _"kings"_ in that their land was theirs and theirs alone. Nobody could take it away from them without just compensation. Sovereign title to property delivers security to homeowning individuals and should be restored.

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## archangel689

> Land Value Tax on Wikipedia


Indeed, property taxes are more evil than regular taxes and this is just that, a more evil property tax. If they can take your home away for non-payment, they are basically claiming to be the true owner of the property. What is the reason why they think they can take money from you? Because they have guns, that's the only reason.

 If anything, property tax should be one of the first ones to be removed and the only thing more evil might be inflation or VAT taxes.

----------


## archangel689

> I agree. I also wouldn't be against luxury taxing people who own multiple plots of land. Primary residence should NOT be taxed, so this would cover 95% of the population. You just don't want people hording land so I'd think a minor land luxury tax might be a good idea.


What gives you the right to take guns to the door of a man and demand that he give you money so that you can give it to someone else based on how much wealth he has?

----------


## archangel689

> I agree. I also wouldn't be against luxury taxing people who own multiple plots of land. Primary residence should NOT be taxed, so this would cover 95% of the population. You just don't want people hording land so I'd think a minor land luxury tax might be a good idea.


What gives you the right to take guns to the door of a man and demand that he give you money so that you can give it to someone else based on how much wealth he has? His ownership does not impede the life liberty or property of anyone else.

----------


## erowe1

> I detest any type property tax.  My Brother had cancer and got behind on his mortgage and had a $1500 property tax bill hit and almost lost his home due to this,  while the mortgage company worked with him, government could care less about his "sob story".
> 
> 
> Screw property  taxes!!!


That kind of thing couldn't happen with a plan like Jefferson's that only levies taxes on larger plots of land.

----------


## redbluepill

> Furthermore, as one grows older and can no longer afford to pay the rent, the community can take it away from the owner and find someone else who will pay the ransom.


Why do you assume one cannot afford it as they get older? On average older people tend to be much more well off than younger people. Plus the removal of the income tax, sales tax, capital tax, etc will more than offset the burden of the land value tax.

----------


## Pericles

> I agree 100%.  Property tax is even worse than an income tax.  I can't think of a worse form of taxation than one that can result in your home being confiscated.


Correct answer. Taxes should be based on consumption, in order to encourage savings and capital formation.

----------


## Seraphim

> There certainly is enough land to go around for each of us! However, land is limited. Good land is even more limited. We have poverty because of the lack of access to the land and its resources. *The government gives to the powerful what mother nature provides and the rest suckle their teet. The land value tax helps level the playing field.*
> And Milton Friedman said he LIKED the land tax. I would say that is advocating it.
> 
> "*Yes, there are taxes I like.* For example, the gasoline tax, which pays for highways. You have a user tax. The property tax is one of the least bad taxes, because it's levied on something that cannot be produced  that part that is levied on the land."
> http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/quotable_nobels.htm


You say government creates the distortion and then your plan is to tax and further empower the government.

"With enemies like you, who the $#@! needs friends" - so says the government.

----------


## psi2941

> I agree. I also wouldn't be against luxury taxing people who own multiple plots of land. Primary residence should NOT be taxed, so this would cover 95% of the population. You just don't want people hording land so I'd think a minor land luxury tax might be a good idea.


I strongly agree, even when you see people on tv, you see people hording crappy little things. Primary residence should not be taxed. after, that 3-4% property tax should keep land prices really low.

but one begs the question what about commercial property and farm land?

about farm land, most farmers don't own their land, they "rent" is from "owners"

EDIT: to play devils advocate, if you really support ron paul, you can't say property tax is unconstitutional. because the property tax is at the city, county, and state level. if you don't like move to a state with no property tax, oh wait there isn't any

----------


## VBRonPaulFan

The least 'evil' tax isn't a tax at all, it's voluntary contributions by the populace to keep said government running. Also, user fees for government services provided that are necessary in one form or another.

Allowing the government to levy a fee on your land cedes your sovereignty of ownership over said land. You're basically telling them they can have it and let you know what you need to do to keep it.

----------


## LibForestPaul

I pay 50 gold pieces for a plot of land with a house on it.
I have no more income for paying my assessed yearly LVT.
"Laws" prevent my eviction. 
However, at the end of my being, my land and house is to be taken back by the state?
Why does the state get my 50 gold pieces? What value have they added to my land?
Did they cut back my trees? Did they perform yard work for me? Grow a garden for me?

----------


## redbluepill

> You say government creates the distortion and then your plan is to tax and further empower the government.
> 
> "With enemies like you, who the $#@! needs friends" - so says the government.


The LVT is based on market value. Not whatever the government says the 'tax' should be. It empowers those who would normally become 'slaves' to the landlord, who acts no differently than a government.

----------


## redbluepill

> The least 'evil' tax isn't a tax at all, it's voluntary contributions by the populace to keep said government running. Also, user fees for government services provided that are necessary in one form or another.
> 
> Allowing the government to levy a fee on your land cedes your sovereignty of ownership over said land. You're basically telling them they can have it and let you know what you need to do to keep it.


I like user fees as well. I have no problem paying tolls (though i do have a problem with politicians dipping into toll money for things other than transportation).

Government has no rightful claim to ownership of land. God provided land for us all to share, not to horde.

----------


## CaptainAmerica

land tax?no. HELL NO>

----------


## redbluepill

Nobody ever disputed the Thomas Paine quote. I'll post it again: it is the value of the improvements only, and not the Earth itself, that is individual property."

Is Thomas Paine wrong? If he is wrong in his assumption then what is the definition of individual property? Is property what we create through the fruit of our labor? If that is the case then how does an individual create land or its resources?

----------


## redbluepill

> land tax?no. HELL NO>


Happy to see a thoughtful contribution to the thread. ;-)

----------


## Seraphim

> I like user fees as well. I have no problem paying tolls (though i do have a problem with politicians dipping into toll money for things other than transportation).
> 
> *Government has no rightful claim to ownership of land. God provided land for us all to share, not to horde*.


And yet your solution is to use government to enforce your ideological belief of what is "productive" use of land.

----------


## redbluepill

> And yet your solution is to use government to enforce your ideological belief of what is "productive" use of land.


Government has a role to ensure that land is not monopolized by just a few. We have continuous poverty in the best nation in the world because we have allowed a select few to control nearly all of it.

Ever played the game Monopoly? Did you know that Monopoly is based on The Landlord Game. It was created to teach people how landlords prevent true productivity. At a certain point in the game its nearly impossible to win. Very similar to the real world. Did you know that only 3% of the population owns 95% of the land? Without the right tax reform this is not going to change (and will prbly only get worse).

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## redbluepill

Seraphim, I would like it if you addressed the Paine quote.

----------


## VBRonPaulFan

> Nobody ever disputed the Thomas Paine quote. I'll post it again: “it is the value of the improvements only, and not the Earth itself, that is individual property."
> 
> Is Thomas Paine wrong? If he is wrong in his assumption then what is the definition of individual property? Is property what we create through the fruit of our labor? If that is the case then how does an individual create land or its resources?


There isn't really any argument there because he is stating the obvious. Of course, he never gives any indication of how to determine the value... because it is wholly subjective. Being that it is subjective, there is no way of definitively creating a price for all intents and purposes. But your solution of the LVT gives the ability to the government to define an arbitrary price for purposes of defining a taxable amount. I think that is fundamentally unsound.

----------


## redbluepill

> There isn't really any argument there because he is stating the obvious. Of course, he never gives any indication of how to determine the value... because it is wholly subjective. Being that it is subjective, there is no way of definitively creating a price for all intents and purposes. But your solution of the LVT gives the ability to the government to define an arbitrary price for purposes of defining a taxable amount. I think that is fundamentally unsound.


It is not subjective. Realtors assess value of land separate from improvements every single day. And for the third time, government does not determine the rent, the market does.

----------


## redbluepill

More evidence of Friedman's geoist leanings:

“Free to Choose: A Conversation with Milton Friedman” — July 2006: http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/ The following is an edited transcript of a conversation between Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn and Milton Friedman, which took place on May 22, 2006, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, California, during a two-day Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar celebrating the 25th anniversary of Milton and Rose Friedman's book, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement. excerpt:

    LA: Let me ask you about demographic trends. Columnist Mark Steyn writes that in ten years, 40 percent of young men in the world are going to be living in oppressed Muslim countries. What do you think the effect of that is going to be?

    MF: What happens will depend on whether we succeed in bringing some element of greater economic freedom to those Muslim countries. Just as India in 1955 had great but unrealized potential, I think the Middle East is in a similar situation today. In part this is because of the curse of oil. Oil has been a blessing from one point of view, but a curse from another. Almost every country in the Middle East that is rich in oil is a despotism.

    LA: Why do you think that is so?

    MF: One reason, and one reason only — the oil is owned by the governments in question. If that oil were privately owned and thus someone's private property, the political outcome would be freedom rather than tyranny. *This is why I believe the first step following the 2003 invasion of Iraq should have been the privatization of the oil fields. If the government had given every individual over 21 years of age equal shares in a corporation that had the right and responsibility to make appropriate arrangements with foreign oil companies for the purpose of discovering and developing Iraq's oil reserves, the oil income would have flowed in the form of dividends to the people — the shareholders — rather than into government coffers. This would have provided an income to the whole people of Iraq and thereby prevented the current disputes over oil between the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, because oil income would have been distributed on an individual rather than a group basis.*

    LA: Many Middle Eastern societies have a kind of tribal or theocratic basis and long-held habits of despotic rule that make it difficult to establish a system of contract between strangers. Is it your view that the introduction of free markets in such places could overcome those obstacles?

    MF: Eventually, yes. I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual's natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they're responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of.

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## libertybrewcity

i'd rather own my land than rent it.

----------


## Wesker1982

> Correct answer. Taxes should be based on consumption, in order to encourage savings and capital formation.


*Is a Tax on Consumption Possible?*

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I know that many people here would like to see all taxes abolished. I'm wondering if you think LVT is an improvement over traditional property taxes or other taxes. As long as a government exists, what would be the most liberty-friendly way of funding that government? Does LVT have a place in funding local governments, for example?


Phew, I thought your opening post was going to be a set up for Invasion of the Georgists!  From this post and looking at your posting history, I see that's not the case.

Charles Adams gave a whole series of lectures available on http://Mises.org on this very thing: taxation, how does it affect things, what are the least destructive methods of taxation, etc.  The Greeks thought a lot about it, too.  The Greeks figured that the more indirect the tax, the better, while direct taxation (like an income tax, estate tax, or property tax) was inimical to liberty.

The Greeks were good thinkers and we ought to consider what they had to say.  Certainly we had more of a spirit of liberty and independence when the federal government was funded with tariffs and excise taxes (which are indirect taxes).

However, ultimately Adams admits that the rate of taxation is a huge factor, maybe even more so than the method.  He gives the example of when he used to live in a country with a poll tax (one of those evil direct taxes), and he absolutely loved it.  The rate was so low, it was wonderful.  Yes, it was direct taxation, but you could pay this small amount of money and boom, you're taken care of for the year.  No IRS, no withholding, no nothing.

I personally think a *poll tax* would be a fantastic way to go, as long as it was literally a tax on going to the polls.  Make the law: thou shalt pay $1000 per year if you want to vote in the elections.  Otherwise, if you don't pay, you can't vote that year.  That's well-nigh voluntary.  If I don't want to pay taxes, I can't vote (over-rated anyway) but I am otherwise left alone.  No Tax-Evasion Prison, no IRS spying on bank accounts, no nothing.  Plus the people paying for it make the decisions, and that's only fair.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I say: eliminate all taxes,


 Screech!!  Stop that sentence right there!  Do not proceed any further.  Nothing you could follow those words with could possibly improve the sentence.  Just stop while you're ahead and I will say Amen, Hallelujah, right on Brother JackieDan!

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## heavenlyboy34

The OP's idea is more reasonable, moral, and Constitutional than the Income tax, but I still say that people should avail themselves of the IRS' "patriotic donation" program instead of insisting on any sort of tax.  Tariffs are okay too, IMO.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> What makes it your land?


 The life and liberty that I put into making it mine.  I worked and saved, using my time, talents, and energy, and thus was, after a long time, able to trade someone for the land.  To rob me of my property, to claim it isn't mine, is to claim that portion of my past which I traded for it was not or is not mine.  It is to rob me of years of my past, just as to murder me is to rob me of (potentially) years of my future, and to enslave me is to rob me of my present.  All these acts are fundamentally evil and anti-life.

That is why it is mine.  I came by it honestly and upstandingly.  It would be dishonest and despicable to rob me of it.

----------


## redbluepill

> The OP's idea is more reasonable, moral, and Constitutional than the Income tax, but I still say that people should avail themselves of the IRS' "patriotic donation" program instead of insisting on any sort of tax.  Tariffs are okay too, IMO.


I don't think I have ever met a geolibertarian/Georgist who was pro-IRS.

----------


## redbluepill

> The life and liberty that I put into making it mine.  I worked and saved, using my time, talents, and energy, and thus was, after a long time, able to trade someone for the land.  To rob me of my property, to claim it isn't mine, is to claim that portion of my past which I traded for it was not or is not mine.  It is to rob me of years of my past, just as to murder me is to rob me of (potentially) years of my future, and to enslave me is to rob me of my present.  All these acts are fundamentally evil and anti-life.
> 
> That is why it is mine.  I came by it honestly and upstandingly.  It would be dishonest and despicable to rob me of it.


Alright, you bought it from someone. What made the land theirs?

You have a natural right to work the land. You also must acknowledge the right of others around you to have equal access to land. When you have a few people grabbing up all the land then you have a problem. That is why there was and is such a huge gap between the wealthy and impoverished in the South starting in the colonial days. Many poor people became indebted to a few wealthy landowners. They never experienced freedom because they were not allowed access to the land without permission.

I once asked a fellow libertarian to consider the following scenario: 

There is an island where one man lives. Since he was there first he claimed the island as his property. One day another man who is shipwrecked shows up on the island. The first man declared that if the second man is to stay he must become his servant.

What did the fellow libertarian say? He said the first man had every right to make the second man his 'bitch'. I was appalled.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I don't think I have ever met a geolibertarian/Georgist who was pro-IRS.


I'm not pro-IRS, but until we transition away from the prevailing system, we've got to work with what we've got.  It took more that 100 years to get here, and it's not going to be fixed overnight.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Alright, you bought it from someone. What made the land theirs?
> 
> You have a natural right to work the land. *You also must acknowledge the right of others around you to have equal access to land.* When you have a few people grabbing up all the land then you have a problem. That is why there was and is such a huge gap between the wealthy and impoverished in the South starting in the colonial days. Many poor people became indebted to a few wealthy landowners. They never experienced freedom because they were not allowed access to the land without permission.
> 
> I once asked a fellow libertarian to consider the following scenario: 
> 
> There is an island where one man lives. Since he was there first he claimed the island as his property. One day another man who is shipwrecked shows up on the island. The first man declared that if the second man is to stay he must become his servant.
> 
> What did the fellow libertarian say? He said the first man had every right to make the second man his 'bitch'. I was appalled.


This is not true.  People are limited in how much land they own by how much money they earn.  All men have equal rights, but not all men are created equal.  Since you start with this faulty premise, the rest also falls apart.

ETA: Your use of the labor theory of value here is poor.  It's not labor alone that gives a man a title to property.  Otherwise, the workers would own the means of production, and we would be living in the mythical workers' paradise.

----------


## redbluepill

> I'm not pro-IRS, but until we transition away from the prevailing system, we've got to work with what we've got.  It took more that 100 years to get here, and it's not going to be fixed overnight.


Agreed. Too radical of a change too soon may have a negative rather than positive effect.

----------


## redbluepill

> This is not true.  People are limited in how much land they own by how much money they earn.  All men have equal rights, but not all men are created equal.  Since you start with this faulty premise, the rest also falls apart.
> 
> ETA: Your use of the labor theory of value here is poor.  It's not labor alone that gives a man a title to property.  Otherwise, the workers would own the means of production, and we would be living in the mythical workers' paradise.


Except when you work for a business you are agreeing to forfeit any ownership of what you create and get reimbursed through wages, benefits, etc. But we cannot trace back the creation of natural land to any single person or company. Therefore, land is different from capital and therefore must be treated differently.

Not all men are created equal? So I assume you disagree with the Declaration of Independence?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You also must acknowledge the right of others around you to have equal access to land.


 I must not and do not acknowledge any such outlandish thing.

You know perfectly well the homesteading theory.  If potential property is unowned, you come in and claim it, in the case of land by fencing it off and making use of it.  It's straightforward, you just disagree with it, on the grounds of some "enough and as good" tripe.

I have just one question for you, because this is what all Georgist conversations come down to.  If I fly up to space and claim a small asteroid, are you going to force me to pay land tax on it?  Have I somehow violated the rights of the poor and land-less by owning the asteroid?  Or under your philosophy may I own the asteroid, absolutely, free and clear?

----------


## LibertyEagle

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


Quoted for truth.

----------


## redbluepill

> I must not and do not acknowledge any such outlandish thing.


Right, so outlandish that libertarians, paleoconservatives and classical liberals like Frank Chodorov, Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, Libertarian Party Founder David Nolan, William F. Buckley, Stephen Moore, Fred Foldvary, and Albert Jay Nock have voiced their support for geoist theory.






> You know perfectly well the homesteading theory.  If potential property is unowned, you come in and claim it, in the case of land by fencing it off and making use of it.  It's straightforward, you just disagree with it, on the grounds of some "enough and as good" tripe.


Most homesteaders lived a hard life because all the good land was immediately horded by those before them.

_Born in Wisconsin of a farming family, familiar with the related questions of land and poverty through actual experience on Iowa and Dakota farms, [Hamlin Garland] was ready, when he picked up by chance a copy of the Lovell edition of Progress and Poverty on a Dakota homestead, to accept the truth of George's ideas. "Up to this time," he wrote later in his autobiography, A Son of the Middle Border, "I had never read any book or essay in which our land system had been questioned. …I caught some glimpse of the radiant plenty of George's ideal Commonwealth. The trumpet call of the closing pages filled me with a desire to battle for the right. . . ." For some time he had been searching for the cause of the misery and poverty which he saw about him in the lives of the homesteaders, and with Henry George as his guide he discovered the answers for which he searched. In Boston a few years later he heard George address a meeting in Faneuil Hall (an experience he described in detail in A Son of the Middle Border), and he came away convinced that he now knew the cause of poverty. He shortly joined the Anti-Poverty League which had sprung up under George's influence, spoke from the platform in defense of the movement, and did his best to convince his friends, among them William Dean Howells, of the need for economic and social reform. He had not yet turned his mind to literature, but when Joseph Kirkland, the author of Zury, a grimly realistic novel of farm life, encouraged him to "write the truth" about what he saw, he began in 1887 to write stories of the life he had known in the Midwest, drawing upon his own experiences for the background of his work and upon Henry George for its controlling philosophy._ 

http://www.cooperativeindividualism....nd-george.html





> I have just one question for you, because this is what all Georgist conversations come down to.  If I fly up to space and claim a small asteroid, are you going to force me to pay land tax on it?  Have I somehow violated the rights of the poor and land-less by owning the asteroid?  Or under your philosophy may I own the asteroid, absolutely, free and clear?


No one else is living on that asteroid. Not an issue.

Let me ask you about a similar scenario: Suppose you are on a spaceship that malfunctions and crashlands on an asteroid. Now suppose another man is already living on that asteroid. He says you have now right trespassing on his asteroid and must leave. Of course you can't because your ship is no longer operational. Since it is his asteroid and you have 'no right' to be there he says you may stay as long as you remain his servant (hey, better than being shot for trespassing on his rock right?)

----------


## redbluepill

Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
by Mrs. Mary Atterbury

"Friday," said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must
lay you off."

"What do you mean, Master?"

"Why, you know there's a big surplus of last year's crop. I
don't need you to plant another this year. I've got enough
goatskin coats to last me a lifetime. My house needs no
repairs. I can gather turtle eggs myself. There's an
overproduction. When I need you I will send for you. You
needn't wait around here."

"That's all right, Master, I'll plant my own crop, build up
my own hut and gather all the eggs and nuts I want myself.
I'll get along fine."

"Where will you do this, Friday?"

"Here on this island."

"This island belongs to me, you know. I can't allow you to
do that. When you can't pay me anything I need I might as
well not own it."

"Then I'll build a canoe and fish in the ocean. You don't
own that."

"That's all right, provided you don't use any of my trees
for your canoe, or build it on my land, or use my beach for
a landing place, and do your fishing far enough away so you
don't interfere with my riparian rights."

"I never thought of that, Master. I can do without a boat,
though. I can swim over to that rock and fish there and
gather sea-gull eggs."

"No you won't, Friday. The rock is mine. I own riparian rights."

"What shall I do, Master?"

"That's your problem, Friday. You're a free man, and you
know about rugged individualism being maintained here."

"I guess I'll starve, Master. May I stay here until I do? Or
shall I swim beyond your riparian rights and drown or starve
there?"

"I've thought of something, Friday. I don't like to carry my
garbage down to the shore each day. You may stay and do
that. Then whatever is left of it, after my dog and cat have
fed, you may eat. You're in luck."

"Thank you, Master. That is true charity."

"One more thing, Friday. This island is overpopulated. Fifty
percent of the people are unemployed. We are undergoing a
severe depression, and there is no way that I can see to end
it. No one but a charlatan would say that he could. And if
any ship comes don't let them land any goods of any kind.
You must be protected against foreign labor. Conditions are
fundamentally sound, though. And prosperity is just around
the corner."

http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell...0409/0030.html

----------


## LibForestPaul

> Government has a role to ensure that land is not monopolized by just a few. We have continuous poverty in the best nation in the world because we have allowed a select few to control nearly all of it.
> 
> Ever played the game Monopoly? Did you know that Monopoly is based on The Landlord Game. It was created to teach people how landlords prevent true productivity. At a certain point in the game its nearly impossible to win. Very similar to the real world. Did you know that only 3% of the population owns 95% of the land? Without the right tax reform this is not going to change (and will prbly only get worse).


They own 95% of the land because a, the free market prevents them from buying land or
b, a fascist regime/corrupt government/banking cartel ensures that they are not privileged to buy land.

The first step to breaking monopolies is liberty; not ever greater monopolistic application of violence and force.

----------


## redbluepill

> They own 95% of the land because a, the free market prevents them from buying land or
> b, a fascist regime/corrupt government/banking cartel ensures that they are not privileged to buy land.
> 
> The first step to breaking monopolies is liberty; not ever greater monopolistic application of violence and force.


Corrupt government certainly does ensure the denial of land access for the majority so I pick b.

Henry George was very pro free market: _"Free trade means free production. Now fully to free production it is necessary not only to remove all taxes on production, but also to remove all other restrictions on production. True free trade, in short, requires that the active factor of production, Labor, shall have free access to the passive factor of production, Land. To secure this all monopoly of land must be broken up, and the equal right of all to the use of the natural elements must be secured by the treatment of the land as the common property in usufruct of the whole people."_ ~ *Protection or Free Trade by Henry George*

----------


## redbluepill

A little more on the compatibility of a free market and geoism from Mason Gaffney:

*Common Property in Land is Compatible with the Market Economy.*

    You can enjoy the benefits of a market economy without sacrificing your common rights to the land of Russia. There is no need to make a hard choice between the two. One of the great fallacies that western economists and bankers are foisting on you is that you have to give up one to enjoy the other. These counselors work through lending and granting agencies that seduce you with loans and grants to learn and accept their ideology, which they variously call Neo-Classical Economics, or "monetarism," or "liberalization." It is glitter to distract you and pave the way for aliens to acquire and control your resources. 

    To keep land common while shifting to a market economy, you simply use the tax system. Taxation is the form that common property takes in a monetary, market-oriented economy. To tax is to socialize. It's then just a simple question of what you will socialize through taxation, and how; but in the answers lie success or failure.

    Not only can you have both common land and free markets, you can't have one without the other. They go together, like love and marriage. You need market prices to help identify land's taxable surplus, which is the net product of land after deducting the human costs of using it. At the same time, you must support government from land revenues to have a truly free market, because otherwise you will raise taxes from production, trade, and capital formation, interfering with free markets. If you learn this second point, and act on it, you will have a much freer market than any of the OECD nations that now presume to instruct you, and that are campaigning vigorously to make all nations in the world "harmonize" their taxes to conform with their own abysmal systems.

* The very people who gave us the term laissez-faire — the slogan at the core of a free market economy — made communizing land rents a central part of their program.* These were the French economistes of the 18th Century, sometimes called "Physiocrats," who were the tutors of Adam Smith, and who inspired land reforms throughout Europe. The best-known of them were François Quesnay and A.R. Jacques Turgot, who championed land taxation. They accurately called it the "co-proprietorship of land by the state."

    Since their time we have learned to measure land values, and we have broadened the meaning of "land" to comprise all natural resources. Agrarians will be relieved, and may be surprised, that farmland ranks well down the list in terms of total market value. Thus, a land tax is not primarily a tax on farms; only the very best soils in the best locations yield much taxable surplus.

http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Free_Market.html

----------


## Travlyr

> Why do you assume one cannot afford it as they get older?


Because it is a likely event in the hypothetical scenario. Let us assume that even after removing all other taxes from society that there remains one or more individuals who are too decrepit to earn enough to pay the taxes on their home and have depleted their savings. What right do others have in taking their home from them?



> On average older people tend to be much more well off than younger people. Plus the removal of the income tax, sales tax, capital tax, etc will more than offset the burden of the land value tax.


How is this relevant? What would you do for the below average people who lose their home for non-payment of taxes? Put them in a poor house?

----------


## redbluepill

> Because it is a likely event in the hypothetical scenario. Let us assume that even after removing all other taxes from society that there remains one or more individuals who are too decrepit to earn enough to pay the taxes on their home and have depleted their savings. What right do others have in taking their home from them?
> 
> How is this relevant? What would you do for the below average people who lose their home for non-payment of taxes? Put them in a poor house?


A system under the LVT would dramatically reduce costs making this scenario much less likely. Under your system where you are fine with individuals and companies monopolizing the land someone who is strapped-for-cash is more likely to be sent to the poor house because rent costs would escalate.

----------


## Travlyr

> A system under the LVT would dramatically reduce costs making this scenario much less likely.


Let's just say it did anyway. Would you kick them out of their home?




> Under your system where you are fine with individuals and companies monopolizing the land someone who is strapped-for-cash is more likely to be sent to the poor house because rent costs would escalate.


I never proposed a system. How would rent costs go up if an individual owned the land outright?

I advocate no property taxes so that people can OWN their homes and acreages without anyone being able to take it away from them without just compensation. _"Secure in their possessions."_

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No one else is living on that asteroid. Not an issue.


 It is an issue.  Are you saying that even if a few years down the road all the asteroids are claimed (hey, high birth rate maybe), none are left, and there's a thousand people who really want to live on my asteroid, I can rightfully deny them that, and also never be charged any land value tax, forever?  That is, may I own the asteroid absolutely, free and clear?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

By the way, BillG is that you?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I never proposed a system. How would rent costs go up if an individual owned the land outright?


 Much the same way product costs would go up if we repealed regulation on businesses.  Without Big Bubba Government stopping them, businesses/landowners will consolidate into powerful monopolies and jack up the price of rent/products like you wouldn't believe.  Wages will be pushed down to bare subsistence levels, too.  We will essentially all die in the street, landless, helpless, and alone.  Alone except for the georgists who will be there educating us, reminding us they were right all along.

----------


## redbluepill

> Let's just say it did anyway. Would you kick them out of their home?


No, because the home is actually private property. And he still is allowed access to the land. He just has no rightful claim to exclude others from accessing the land.





> I never proposed a system. How would rent costs go up if an individual owned the land outright?


Do you not endorse a system where landgrabbing is allowed unrestrained?

I'm sure you acknowledge when there is a monopoly then costs go up. Same goes for land.





> I advocate no property taxes so that people can OWN their homes and acreages without anyone being able to take it away from them without just compensation. _"Secure in their possessions."_


Homes are capital. Acreage is land. A georgist would never advocate taxing a home let alone taking it away from the owner.

----------


## redbluepill

> It is an issue.  Are you saying that even if a few years down the road all the asteroids are claimed (hey, high birth rate maybe), none are left, and there's a thousand people who really want to live on my asteroid, I can rightfully deny them that, and also never be charged any land value tax, forever?  That is, may I own the asteroid absolutely, free and clear?


A thousand people who really want your asteroid when theres probably billions if not trillions in this solar system alone? Can you come up with a more logical scenario please?

----------


## Roy L

> Of course, he never gives any indication of how to determine the value... because it is wholly subjective.


Value is not subjective, it is a fact of the market: what a thing would trade for.  The notion that value is subjective is an Austrian school confusion.  It is utility (the capacity to satisfy human desires) that is subjective, not value.



> Being that it is subjective, there is no way of definitively creating a price for all intents and purposes.


Appraisers prove that claim false every day.



> But your solution of the LVT gives the ability to the government to define an arbitrary price for purposes of defining a taxable amount.


No, it does not.  LVT is automatically limited to the land rent.  Any attempt to charge more than that simply makes the land value negative and results in abandonment and no revenue.  LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE tax system that aligns the government's own financial incentives with the public interest.

----------


## Roy L

> They own 95% of the land because a, the free market prevents them from buying land or


There has never been any such thing as a free market wherein people can buy or own land, and there never can be.  Owning land is inherently a privilege of violating others' rights to liberty -- a welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner -- and by definition, no such privilege can exist in a free market.  



> b, a fascist regime/corrupt government/banking cartel ensures that they are not privileged to buy land.


Only a corrupt government can possibly privilege anyone to buy or own land, as proved above.



> The first step to breaking monopolies is liberty; not ever greater monopolistic application of violence and force.


Bingo.  Property in land inherently violates people's rights to liberty, so the only way to stop government from applying ever greater violence and force for the benefit of landowners is to require landowners to repay more of what they take from society with government's help.  That is what LVT does.

----------


## erowe1

> Only a corrupt government can possibly privilege anyone to buy or own land, as proved above.


Do you really believe that there are no circumstances where I, by natural law, can claim some plot of ground as specially mine to the exclusion of others? If I choose to inhabit some unoccupied land and build a house there, is every day of my continuing to live in that house just a privilege that the rest of the human race allows me to have, and any time the rest of them want to use that land where my house is, it's every bit as much theirs as it is mine?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> A thousand people who really want your asteroid when theres probably billions if not trillions in this solar system alone? Can you come up with a more logical scenario please?


 I said, high birth rate.  That's the scenario, love it or leave it.  Are you going to force me to pay land tax in exchange for the "privilege" of keeping the asteroid monopolized all to myself and the teeming rock-less hordes at bay?  Also, are you BillG?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Do you really believe that there are no circumstances where I, by natural law, can claim some plot of ground as specially mine to the exclusion of others? If I choose to inhabit some unoccupied land and build a house there, is every day of my continuing to live in that house just a privilege that the rest of the human race allows me to have, and any time the rest of them want to use that land where my house is, it's every bit as much theirs as it is mine?


 Yes, they really believe that.  That is a completely accurate presentation of their view.  That's why eventually BillG or his clone redbluepill is going to admit (yet again) that he would steal my asteroid.

You see, Smithian economics sets up these three classes: Capitalists, Landlords, and Laborers, and they're always battling each other for scarce resources, with the landlords and capitalists winning, of course.  Smith figured the landlords have the upper hand against the capitalists and long-term will generally win out, over time expanding and expanding their land holdings and charging higher and higher prices.  Thus you've got these useless parasites called landlords and you need to use the state to tax and smash them as much as possible, to level the playing field.  Marx built on Smith and Ricardo's ideas but figured the capitalists were going to be the dominant class and thus they must be smashed.  So if you want to smash the landlords, you're a Georgist.  If you want to smash the capitalists, you're a Marxist.  Some people take both paths, becoming Marxo-georgists.

----------


## Roy L

> Let us assume that even after removing all other taxes from society that there remains one or more individuals who are too decrepit to earn enough to pay the taxes on their home


LVT does not levy any tax on their home.  The tax is on the value of the LAND: i.e., what the landholder is taking from society.



> and have depleted their savings.


Assuming these people are more intelligent than LVT opponents (not much of a stretch), long before their savings were depleted they would sell their home to someone able to use its location more productively, and seek accommodation in a location better suited to their needs and means.



> What right do others have in taking their home from them?


No one is "taking their home from them."  That's just a fabrication on your part.  They would simply lose the privilege of excluding others from the land, and so probably sell the house (houses can also be moved, if they could afford to do that).  The more relevant question is: what right have THEY to deprive others, without just compensation, of the liberty to use the land nature put there?



> What would you do for the below average people who lose their home for non-payment of taxes? Put them in a poor house?


Nobody would lose their home for non-payment of taxes because homes would not be subject to taxes.  People who couldn't afford the land tax would just sell their houses and move to a location better suited to their needs and means, same as they do now if they can't afford to pay income tax, sales tax, property tax, etc.  Same as tenants do if they can't afford a rent increase.  Why do you believe people are too stupid to figure that out?

----------


## Roy L

> Do you really believe that there are no circumstances where I, by natural law, can claim some plot of ground as specially mine to the exclusion of others?


Correct.  You have no right forcibly to deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation.  By what right could Crusoe claim to own "his" island, and tell Friday to either be his slave or get back in the water?



> If I choose to inhabit some unoccupied land and build a house there,


You mean just as people did for thousands of years WITHOUT owning or forcibly excluding others from the land....?



> is every day of my continuing to live in that house just a privilege that the rest of the human race allows me to have,


The privilege is not living in the house but forcibly excluding others from the land.  Try not to change the subject.



> and any time the rest of them want to use that land where my house is, it's every bit as much theirs as it is mine?


The land is no one's.  If you want to deprive others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all, make just compensation to them for what you deprive them of.  Simple.

----------


## Travlyr

> There has never been any such thing as a free market wherein people can buy or own land, and there never can be.  Owning land is inherently a privilege of violating others' rights to liberty -- a welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner -- and by definition, no such privilege can exist in a free market.  
> 
> Only a corrupt government can possibly privilege anyone to buy or own land, as proved above.
> 
> Bingo.  Property in land inherently violates people's rights to liberty, so the only way to stop government from applying ever greater violence and force for the benefit of landowners is to require landowners to repay more of what they take from society with government's help.  That is what LVT does.


Given the fact that people need food, water, and shelter for survival along with the fact that all wealth comes from the earth makes this  counterintuitive. Pure liberty doesn't sound like fun. No IP, no land, self-centered individualism ... seems like an uncreative, unstable, lonely state of being.

----------


## Roy L

> That's why eventually BillG or his clone redbluepill is going to admit (yet again) that he would steal my asteroid.


What could make it "your" asteroid, other than your having stolen it (with or without government's help) from everyone else who would otherwise be at liberty to use it?



> You see, Smithian economics sets up these three classes: Capitalists, Landlords, and Laborers, and they're always battling each other for scarce resources, with the landlords and capitalists winning, of course.  Smith figured the landlords have the upper hand against the capitalists and long-term will generally win out, over time expanding and expanding their land holdings and charging higher and higher prices.


And Smith certainly appears to have been right.



> Thus you've got these useless parasites called landlords and you need to use the state to tax and smash them as much as possible, to level the playing field.


The state tilts the playing field by giving landowners their privilege of parasitism.  The state can therefore level the playing field by rescinding it.



> Marx built on Smith and Ricardo's ideas but figured the capitalists were going to be the dominant class and thus they must be smashed.


But Marx was clearly wrong, as unlike ownership of land, ownership of capital (in the economic, not the accounting sense) rarely results in significant accumulation of wealth.



> So if you want to smash the landlords, you're a Georgist.  If you want to smash the capitalists, you're a Marxist.


Right.  The difference being that capitalists contribute to production while landowners do not.  That is why Marxist China stayed poor, while semi-Georgist China has rapidly become richer.



> Some people take both paths, becoming Marxo-georgists.


There is no such thing as a "Marxo-georgist."  Marx and George, who were contemporaries, detested each other, and their views are inherently contradictory.

----------


## Roy L

> Given the fact that people need food, water, and shelter for survival along with the fact that all wealth comes from the earth makes this  counterintuitive.


Nope.  Our remote ancestors got along fine without owning land, and would (rightly) have considered the modern notion of property in land not only counter-intuitive but absurd and evil.  



> Pure liberty doesn't sound like fun.


It sounds like fun to me.



> No IP,


Hurray!  



> no land,


Huh??  Please explain how not owning land would make it disappear.



> self-centered individualism ...


Individualism gives people the choice of being self-centered or not.



> seems like an uncreative,


IP PREVENTS creativity.



> unstable, lonely state of being.


No one owns land in Hong Kong.  Do you think it is unstable or lonely?

Your claims are just objectively false.

----------


## Roy L

> Are you going to force me to pay land tax in exchange for the "privilege" of keeping the asteroid monopolized all to myself and the teeming rock-less hordes at bay?


By what other right would you deprive them of their liberty to use the asteroid YOU claim the liberty to use?

----------


## erowe1

> Correct.  You have no right forcibly to deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation.  By what right could Crusoe claim to own "his" island, and tell Friday to either be his slave or get back in the water?


I don't think he did have that right, nor is he presented as having such a right in the book. In the book Crusoe didn't make use of more than a fraction of the island, and hadn't even explored the whole island. Hypothetically, Friday could have made his home on there somewhere with the two living at peace with one another. But Crusoe did have a home on that island that he built and made constant use of. If Friday had chosen to live on that island independently, then he would have had to choose some other piece of land on it besides that particular piece Crusoe was using, or else arranged some kind of agreement with Crusoe that would allow Friday to make use of the home Crusoe had built and the crops he had grown. As it happened to go, Friday chose to give himself to Crusoe as a slave in exchange for Crusoe's saving his life, having nothing to do with any particular philosophy of land ownership that I could see.




> You mean just as people did for thousands of years WITHOUT owning or forcibly excluding others from the land....?


This is news to me. What people did that? I want to read more about them.




> The privilege is not living in the house but forcibly excluding others from the land.  Try not to change the subject.


Forcibly excluding people from certain land is what the walls of a house do.




> The land is no one's.  If you want to deprive others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all, make just compensation to them for what you deprive them of.  Simple.


How do I make just compensation to 6 billion people for excluding them from certain land? And doesn't the fact that I also let them exclude me from certain land balance out the ledger?

----------


## osan

> Land Value Tax on Wikipedia


I am opposed to all taxation because it is theft and, therefore, criminal in nature.

Property taxes are the worst of them all because if unpaid, one's home may be seized and auctioned.  Loss of home, for some, is tantamount to a death sentence.

I support the abolition of all taxation, worldwide.

----------


## Roy L

> Would you kick them out of their home?


Do you advocate that PRIVATE landlords should not be allowed to kick delinquent tenants out of their homes?

One of the BENEFITS of a free market system is that resources tend to move into more productive hands.  When the unproductive are forcibly depriving the productive of access to resources, how can we ensure the economic incentive to yield those resources to the more productive is effective?



> I never proposed a system.


How convenient.



> How would rent costs go up if an individual owned the land outright?


There would be no cost of hoarding.  Look at rent costs in the states with the lowest property tax rates: CA, HI, DC, etc.  Compare that to rents in high-property-tax states like TX, NH, WI, etc.



> I advocate no property taxes so that people can OWN their homes and acreages without anyone being able to take it away from them without just compensation.


They have taken the acreage away from everyone else without just compensation, so your view looks like arrant hypocrisy.  And anyone who couldn't afford the land tax would just sell their home and buy one in a location better suited to their needs and means.  Do you really believe people are too stupid to figure that out?



> _"Secure in their possessions."_


Even the ones they stole....?

----------


## Travlyr

Doesn't sound fun to me,



> The errors of Hans-Herman Hoppe
> Or take the famous paragraph from his Democracy book:  There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They  the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism  will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.

----------


## Roy L

> I am opposed to all taxation because it is theft and, therefore, criminal in nature.


It is private appropriation of land that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Land value taxation redresses that theft.



> Property taxes are the worst of them all because if unpaid, one's home may be seized and auctioned.


When has that ever happened?  We see this claim over and over again, but where is the documented case?  People who can't afford their property taxes just sell and move to a less affluent neighborhood.  It's not rocket science.

If you were really concerned about people losing their homes, you would support HIGHER property taxes.  The proof is in California, which passed Proposition 13 for the purported purpose of ensuring people would not lose their homes.  But what happened?  Lower and relentlessly declining property taxes inflated a huge housing bubble; so now, instead of a handful of Californians each year deciding to sell up for a nice profit and move, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Californians really are LOSING their homes, and their savings, and have been financially destroyed.

It is not an accident that lower property taxes make more people lose their homes.  It is the intended purpose.



> Loss of home, for some, is tantamount to a death sentence.


And as I just proved to you, loss of home becomes more likely the lower the property tax rate.



> I support the abolition of all taxation, worldwide.


Then you support anarchy.  How's that Somalia thing workin' for ya?

----------


## wizardwatson

I read up on George's ideas a while back (Progress and Poverty) and have also read (also a while back) Rothbard's critique as well as a Georgist critique of Rothbard's critique.

I'm sympathetic so both sides because I do believe there is a "land problem" but I'm not sure if the remedy George describes is feasible and I'm not quite sure Rothbard's critique is totally sound.  Would nationalizing the land be possible without essentially driving the market price of land to zero?  Will it actually create land at the margin that people could essentially homestead for free (realizing rental values after the fact)?  Would there actually be a practical simple way for the government to determine rental values objectively?

Anyway, I feel like after reading both sides that I have more questions than answers and even some of my own.

For instance... Let's say the land in a Georgist situation has a market value, and that rental calculation is easy.  I'm not sure it is, but lets say it is for this example.  Let's say I'm a homesteader in some backwoods of Kentucky.  I'm totally self-sufficient and get my food and water directly off my land which is at the margin so the rent is zero.  However the government soon builds a road along my property line.  The appraiser then increases the rent to $100 a year as my land is now worth more.  Then someone opens up a hotel and gas station across the street and my rent is increased further.  

Now the same scenario occurs in our current system as your land can get reappraised and the property tax can go up.  However in the Georgist scenario you don't have lease options.  In the current system a gas station for instance (in order to protect investment) might lease a piece of property for 20 years at a fixed price, whereas in a Georgist scenario my rent/lease amount could skyrocket over this 20 year period.

This is only one of a multitude of questions I have about the land problem.  I think its still an unsolved problem even from a strictly intellectual standpoint, and certainly is unsolved as related to actually implementing it.

I'm drawn to the idea of a fair and balanced single tax system just don't know if George's ideas would work, but on the other hand, I haven't seen a sound argument for a single tax system from the Austrian side either, it's always "tax=theft" or "no taxes at all" or "voluntary tax" and what not.  Would love to see a debate on what an ideal tax system would be as I don't think in our current system we're going to see taxes become voluntary in the near future.

----------


## erowe1

> Would there actually be a practical simple way for the government to determine rental values objectively?


That's a question I have too.

And who are these anointed people you call the government in this question anyway? What gives them the right to charge everyone rent for what is supposedly common property? And how does paying this rent to them somehow work as a proxy for paying all the other people in the world whom you are excluding from your land?

----------


## Roy L

> I don't think he did have that right, nor is he presented as having such a right in the book.


But you are claiming he WOULD have such a right, had he chosen to exercise it.



> In the book Crusoe didn't make use of more than a fraction of the island, and hadn't even explored the whole island. Hypothetically, Friday could have made his home on there somewhere with the two living at peace with one another.


I'm not talking about what happened in the book, I'm talking about what you claim Crusoe had a right to do.



> But Crusoe did have a home on that island that he built and made constant use of.


The home was not land.  You are trying to change the subject again.



> If Friday had chosen to live on that island independently, then he would have had to choose some other piece of land on it besides that particular piece Crusoe was using,


Why?  People have lived on the same land for thousands of years without troubling each other.



> or else arranged some kind of agreement with Crusoe that would allow Friday to make use of the home Crusoe had built and the crops he had grown.


The home he built and the crops he grew are NOT LAND.  You are still trying to change the subject.



> This is news to me. What people did that? I want to read more about them.


Every human being who existed before the concept of private property in land was invented.



> Forcibly excluding people from certain land is what the walls of a house do.


False, as any squatter could explain to you.  You are trying to change the subject again.



> How do I make just compensation to 6 billion people for excluding them from certain land?


You are only excluding the people who could actually use the land.  That would not include peasants in Pakistan.



> And doesn't the fact that I also let them exclude me from certain land balance out the ledger?


No, of course not.  The greater the value of land you exclude others from, the more unbalanced the ledger is in your favor.  You might ask the homeless if they think they are being justly compensated for being forcibly excluded from using the land.

----------


## erowe1

> But you are claiming he WOULD have such a right, had he chosen to exercise it.


I'm not sure where I said this. Can you provide the quote?




> I'm not talking about what happened in the book, I'm talking about what you claim Crusoe had a right to do.


OK. So then why did you mention Robinson Crusoe?




> The home was not land.  You are trying to change the subject again.


The home occupied land. All homes do. You keep saying I'm changing the subject. Is there some reason you are so zealously avoiding any question about owning homes? Seems like it might be something you recognize as a weak spot.




> Why?  People have lived on the same land for thousands of years without troubling each other.


Who? I want to read more about these people.




> Every human being who existed before the concept of private property in land was invented.


Can you tell me about any specific ones, along with primary sources I can read that describe how they lived?




> False, as any squatter could explain to you.


I admit that I haven't asked any squatters about this. But if I were to be a squatter, one of the things I would use the walls of the house I'm squatting in would be to keep other people out of it. Do you have a reason to think otherwise?

Naturally, keeping them out of the house would entail keeping them off of the land it occupies.




> You are only excluding the people who could actually use the land.  That would not include peasants in Pakistan.


How do I determine which of the 6 billion people on the planet count as ones who could actually use the land?

----------


## wizardwatson

> That's a question I have too.
> 
> And who are these anointed people you call the government in this question anyway? What gives them the right to charge everyone rent for what is supposedly common property? And how does paying this rent to them somehow work as a proxy for paying all the other people in the world whom you are excluding from your land?


All good points, like a lot of posters in this thread, and I just don't know.  George makes a convincing argument but I'm not yet convinced that ground rent taxation makes 100% sense.  But I'm also turned off by the anarcho's knee-jerk reaction of tax=theft.  We have a current system.  This system can be changed, albeit with much difficulty and over a period of time.  So what is the ideal tax system, and how do we move from here to there.

Everyone gets stuck in philosophical debates regurgitating things they've read, but we don't have a consensus on the remedy, much less any strategy to get us there.

I'm partial to a general wealth tax simply because I haven't heard anything better.  The opinion of others is that we should have a tax on consumption as that would encourage savings and investment in capital goods, but it seems to me this punishes non-savers.  Anyway, I'm all ears for a ideal tax but I'll stick with my general wealth tax until someone convinces me otherwise.

----------


## erowe1

> All good points, like a lot of posters in this thread, and I just don't know.  George makes a convincing argument but I'm not yet convinced that ground rent taxation makes 100% sense.  But I'm also turned off by the anarcho's knee-jerk reaction of tax=theft.  We have a current system.  This system can be changed, albeit with much difficulty and over a period of time.  So what is the ideal tax system, and how do we move from here to there.
> 
> Everyone gets stuck in philosophical debates regurgitating things they've read, but we don't have a consensus on the remedy, much less any strategy to get us there.
> 
> I'm partial to a general wealth tax simply because I haven't heard anything better.  The opinion of others is that we should have a tax on consumption as that would encourage savings and investment in capital goods, but it seems to me this punishes non-savers.  Anyway, I'm all ears for a ideal tax but I'll stick with my general wealth tax until someone convinces me otherwise.


I agree. I remember being uneasy about Medina wanting to replace a property tax with a sales tax, as though property taxes were uniquely bad in a way that sales taxes weren't. But most people around here seemed to agree with her reasoning.

----------


## Dr.3D

Next I suppose we will hear about how gold is like land and those who already own it all, won't allow others to have any.  Gold is really money.  People used to buy land using gold.   People would sell land for gold.   For the right price, nearly any piece of land is for sale.

I suggest those who believe all of the land is already taken, should go out and earn some money (gold) and buy some land.   No one has a right to a handout.  You want to live on this planet, you are going to have to pay for it some way.  You can buy land and use it to supply your needs for survival, but you originally bought the land with money, or had it passed on to you by your relatives.   In order to get the land to produce your needs, you are going to need seed and implements to work the soil, those cost money.      There are property taxes to pay as well.    There is literally no way a person can live on this planet without working or spending money.  That is unless of course that person is being taken care of by others.

People who belive land is something no one can own, need to work for a living and buy some land.   I'm pretty sure if they owned some, they would understand, land is like anything else, a commodity.  It is bought and sold and thus is not being kept from others who wish to work to get the money to buy some.

----------


## osan

> Next I suppose we will hear about how gold is like land and...


...should be taxed on a recurring, annual basis just as is real estate.

----------


## Roy L

> I read up on George's ideas a while back (Progress and Poverty) and have also read (also a while back) Rothbard's critique as well as a Georgist critique of Rothbard's critique.


I demolished Rothbard's idiotic anti-geoist screed here.



> Would nationalizing the land be possible without essentially driving the market price of land to zero?


There is a difference between market price and exchange value.  Market prices would not get to zero.



> Will it actually create land at the margin that people could essentially homestead for free (realizing rental values after the fact)?


That is effectively guaranteed, even in the absence of a universal individual land tax exemption to restore the right to liberty.



> Would there actually be a practical simple way for the government to determine rental values objectively?


Modern computer models make this not only practical and simple but cheap.



> Let's say I'm a homesteader in some backwoods of Kentucky.  I'm totally self-sufficient and get my food and water directly off my land which is at the margin so the rent is zero.  However the government soon builds a road along my property line.  The appraiser then increases the rent to $100 a year as my land is now worth more.  Then someone opens up a hotel and gas station across the street and my rent is increased further.  
> 
> Now the same scenario occurs in our current system as your land can get reappraised and the property tax can go up.  However in the Georgist scenario you don't have lease options.  In the current system a gas station for instance (in order to protect investment) might lease a piece of property for 20 years at a fixed price, whereas in a Georgist scenario my rent/lease amount could skyrocket over this 20 year period.


It's possible but unlikely.  There would typically be lease-like terms, options to pre-pay rent for future years, etc.



> I think its still an unsolved problem even from a strictly intellectual standpoint, and certainly is unsolved as related to actually implementing it.


Both the intellectual and implementation problems have been solved.  Implementations may be different in different jurisdictions depending on the prevailing systems.



> I'm drawn to the idea of a fair and balanced single tax system just don't know if George's ideas would work,


As all government spending on services and infrastructure goes to landowners as a matter of economic law, LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE fair and balanced tax system that does not inherently give a welfare subsidy to landowners.



> but on the other hand, I haven't seen a sound argument for a single tax system from the Austrian side either, it's always "tax=theft" or "no taxes at all" or "voluntary tax" and what not.  Would love to see a debate on what an ideal tax system would be as I don't think in our current system we're going to see taxes become voluntary in the near future.


The debate has already been won.  See my demolition of Rothbard, referenced above.

----------


## Dr.3D

> ...should be taxed on a recurring, annual basis just as is real estate.


I'm thinking more the other way around.  Tax neither of them.

----------


## Roy L

> Next I suppose we will hear about how gold is like land and those who already own it all, won't allow others to have any.


Gold ore in the ground is land.  The gold people use is a product of labor and thus rightly property.



> I suggest those who believe all of the land is already taken,


All the good land is certainly taken.



> should go out and earn some money (gold) and buy some land.


"Why, you are not a slave, Uncle Tom!  You are at liberty to go out and earn money to buy your freedom any time you like!"

Sorry, but being nominally "at liberty" to buy your right to liberty is not the same as actually having a right to liberty.



> No one has a right to a handout.


Except landowners....?



> You want to live on this planet, you are going to have to pay for it some way.


The way people rightly pay to live on this planet is by labor: using what nature provided to produce what they need to sustain themselves.  Please explain why they should have to pay a landowner for doing nothing in order to have the liberty to sustain themselves by their own labor.

Rights are something people have WITHOUT having to pay for them.  If you have to pay to exercise your right to liberty, you are a slave.



> You can buy land and use it to supply your needs for survival, but you originally bought the land with money, or had it passed on to you by your relatives.


The original owner didn't.  He got it by stealing it from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.



> In order to get the land to produce your needs, you are going to need seed and implements to work the soil, those cost money.


Wrong again.  People lived on the land for thousands of years without seed and implements.  People can survive without paying others for the opportunity.  But they can't survive without access to land.



> There are property taxes to pay as well.    There is literally no way a person can live on this planet without working or spending money.


I can see why people have to work to provide a livelihood for themselves.  But, explain for me again why they should also have to work to provide a livelihood to idle landowners.



> That is unless of course that person is being taken care of by others.


Like a landowner, you mean.



> People who belive land is something no one can own, need to work for a living and buy some land.


How will they work for a living without access to land?



> I'm pretty sure if they owned some, they would understand, land is like anything else, a commodity.


Unlike commodities, land is not a product of labor.  Please try to find a willingness to know that fact.



> It is bought and sold and thus is not being kept from others who wish to work to get the money to buy some.


??  ROTFL!  "I am not keeping your liberty from you, Uncle Tom.  You need only work to get money to buy it from me!"

----------


## Roy L

> I'm thinking more the other way around.  Tax neither of them.


Gold does not get its value from government and society.  Land does.  Try to find a willingness to know that fact.

----------


## Roy L

> I'm partial to a general wealth tax simply because I haven't heard anything better.


LVT is better for reasons already explained.



> Anyway, I'm all ears for a ideal tax but I'll stick with my general wealth tax until someone convinces me otherwise.


I used to think as you do before I realized that all government spending on services and infrastructure inherently goes to landowners as a matter of economic law.  The value of (most) other forms of wealth does not come from government spending.

----------


## Roy L

> I agree. I remember being uneasy about Medina wanting to replace a property tax with a sales tax, as though property taxes were uniquely bad in a way that sales taxes weren't. But most people around here seemed to agree with her reasoning.


Advocacy of reduced property taxes is a reliable indicator of dishonesty.  Reducing property tax rates simply increases the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.  The effect this has had in California since Proposition 13 passed in 1978 is too obvious to require explanation.  Prop 13 has proven to be the greatest public policy blunder committed by any state since the Civil War.

----------


## wizardwatson

> I agree. I remember being uneasy about Medina wanting to replace a property tax with a sales tax, as though property taxes were uniquely bad in a way that sales taxes weren't. But most people around here seemed to agree with her reasoning.


Yeah, consumption tax doesn't make sense to me.

A wealth tax seems to me the easiest way to do it.  The total net worth of households in US is around 50 Trillion.  If we could shrink federal government back to what the budget was in 2003 (approx. 2.5 trillion) that would mean a yearly wealth tax of 5%.  Sounds good to me.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Doesn't sound fun to me,
> 
> The errors of Hans-Herman Hoppe
> Or take the famous paragraph from his Democracy book: There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They  the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism  will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.


Does to me!  The nice thing about freedom is that it will allow those who do think that hedonism, nature-worship, homosexuality, etc. are feasible elements to base a successful society on will be free to buy up land and have their way of life as well.  Amish Paradise, Greenwich Village (anything goes), Gay City, and Family-First Traditional Land can all exist in peace and may the most successful society win!

----------


## Dr.3D

> Gold ore in the ground is land.  The gold people use is a product of labor and thus rightly property.
> 
> All the good land is certainly taken.
> 
> "Why, you are not a slave, Uncle Tom!  You are at liberty to go out and earn money to buy your freedom any time you like!"
> 
> Sorry, but being nominally "at liberty" to buy your right to liberty is not the same as actually having a right to liberty.
> 
> Except landowners....?
> ...


Of course you do know there are other jobs besides farming right?   

When I first started out, I didn't own any land, I rented.  I went to work in a factory and earned money.  I save the money and finally had enough to make a down payment on a mortgage to buy a piece of land with a house on it.  I then worked another 30 years to pay off the mortgage.  

Good luck at going back to the way it was here before white man came to this continent. Of course back then, there were tribal wars in years when game became scarce.   There was also a lot fewer people on this continent at the time too.  If everyone who is on this continent were to try to live like the native Americans did, there would be mass starvation and fighting like you never saw before.   

You have to pull your own load through life.   Nobody is going to give you a free ride.

----------


## osan

> It is private appropriation of land that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Land value taxation redresses that theft.


Because you say so?  You will have to do a whole lot better than that.




> When has that ever happened?  We see this claim over and over again, but where is the documented case?  People who can't afford their property taxes just sell and move to a less affluent neighborhood.  It's not rocket science.


What planet are you on? Bizarro?  Do a search for tax lien sales - thousands of property tax sales every year.  Those people lose the properties.  Read the law.




> If you were really concerned about people losing their homes, you would support HIGHER property taxes.


Your powers of reason are truly staggering.




> The proof is in California, which passed Proposition 13 for the purported purpose of ensuring people would not lose their homes.  But what happened?  Lower and relentlessly declining property taxes inflated a huge housing bubble; so now, instead of a handful of Californians each year deciding to sell up for a nice profit and move, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Californians really are LOSING their homes, and their savings, and have been financially destroyed.


I don't know what you are smoking, but you need to stop.  I was living in  CA when 13 passed.  Properties were already well on the way up for years before it passed.  





> Then you support anarchy.  How's that Somalia thing workin' for ya?


Is that the best you have?  Really?  Nothing more?

Sad.

----------


## Roy L

> I'm not sure where I said this. Can you provide the quote?


You said it more as a rhetorical question, in post #114:

"Do you really believe that there are no circumstances where I, by natural law, can claim some plot of ground as specially mine to the exclusion of others?"

Is that not what Crusoe could do, and tell Friday to get back in the water?



> OK. So then why did you mention Robinson Crusoe?


I was alluding to post #100.



> The home occupied land. All homes do.


So do cars.  So do people's feet.  So...?  The only relevant fact about homes is that they are normally FIXED to the land and can't easily be moved to another location.



> You keep saying I'm changing the subject. Is there some reason you are so zealously avoiding any question about owning homes? Seems like it might be something you recognize as a weak spot.


How could it be a weak spot?  Homes are not land.  Why do you keep trying to change the subject from land to homes?



> Who? I want to read more about these people.


I already told you: people who lived as hunter-gatherers, before any land was ever appropriated as private property.  But you do not want to read about them, so don't pretend you do.  You refuse even to know the fact that all land was once unowned.



> Can you tell me about any specific ones, along with primary sources I can read that describe how they lived?


??  There are any number of primary sources on e.g., aboriginal Americans, as you know very well.  Here are a few:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/in...rratives_3.htm



> I admit that I haven't asked any squatters about this.


And you won't, because you already know that I am right.



> But if I were to be a squatter, one of the things I would use the walls of the house I'm squatting in would be to keep other people out of it. Do you have a reason to think otherwise?


The walls didn't keep YOU out, did they?



> How do I determine which of the 6 billion people on the planet count as ones who could actually use the land?


You don't have to.  Government administers possession and use of land, and has no such authority outside its borders.

----------


## Seraphim

This post takes the cake for most retarted statement to ever hit these forums.




> Gold does not get its value from government and society.  Land does.  Try to find a willingness to know that fact.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> What could make it "your" asteroid, other than your having stolen it (with or without government's help) from everyone else who would otherwise be at liberty to use it?


 Ding, Ding, Ding!  Looter exposed.  Now let's see if BillG will come back and also advocate theft.




> And Smith certainly appears to have been right.


 Oh yeah, obviously.  That's why all our wages have been inexorably pushed down to subsistence levels, the richest men in the world are all landlords, and we're all dying in the streets from their rampant exploitation.




> The state tilts the playing field by giving landowners their privilege of parasitism.  The state can therefore level the playing field by rescinding it.


 Private property in land happens in the absence of the state.  Historically, repeatedly.  So.... yeah.  Kind of baffling, that, eh?




> But Marx was clearly wrong, as unlike ownership of land, ownership of capital (in the economic, not the accounting sense) rarely results in significant accumulation of wealth.


 Those poor paupers the Rockefellers.  If only John would've been smart and gone into land speculation!




> Right.  The difference being that capitalists contribute to production while landowners do not.


 Oh, yeah, definitely.  Allocating scarce land, making sure land is arranged and divvied up according to it's highest productive use?  Coming and fixing the plumbing when it breaks?  These guys are completely worthless!  Kill the bums!  Spill their blood!  Kill the bums!  Spill their blood!




> There is no such thing as a "Marxo-georgist."


 Sure there is.  You just advocate smashing both landlords and capitalists.  Pretty simple.  There's plenty of people who are all for this program of smashing.

----------


## erowe1

> Is that not what Crusoe could do, and tell Friday to get back in the water?


No. By the reasoning I used in that quote, Crusoe could only exclude Friday from the land he was using, such as his home and garden.




> So do cars.  So do people's feet.  So...?  The only relevant fact about homes is that they are normally FIXED to the land and can't easily be moved to another location.


I don't see how that is a relevant fact. You're right, I could also have mentioned one's ownership of one's own car or feet as a way of making the same argument. To say that a person has no right to exclude others from any land is not only to prohibit the ownership of land, but also of houses, cars, and feet.




> How could it be a weak spot?  Homes are not land.  Why do you keep trying to change the subject from land to homes?


If it's not a weak spot then why not just answer the question? If you have an answer then you could have spared yourself 4 or 5 times of saying something about how you think I'm changing the subject just by saying whatever your answer is.




> I already told you: people who lived as hunter-gatherers, before any land was ever appropriated as private property.  But you do not want to read about them, so don't pretend you do.  You refuse even to know the fact that all land was once unowned.


I have read about people who lived as hunters and gatherers, but only ones that believed in owning property. What are some specific ones that didn't? Do you know of any at all?




> ??  There are any number of primary sources on e.g., aboriginal Americans, as you know very well.  Here are a few:
> 
> http://womenshistory.about.com/od/in...rratives_3.htm


Which of those sources talk about how they didn't own land?




> The walls didn't keep YOU out, did they?


Apparently not in the hypothetical you're making up. No. But so what? Do squatters not use walls the way the rest of us do? Do you imagine squatters saying to themselves, "Since I'm a squatter, I must not believe in owning land. Therefore, I won't lock this door."?




> You don't have to.  Government administers possession and use of land, and has no such authority outside its borders.


Where does this group of people you call "government" get any authority at all? Who sets these borders and tells some group of people that you're calling "government" that they own all the land in those borders and have a right to charge taxes to anyone else to use it? And how does this government's ownership of all that land not violate the anti-land ownership dictum you say you believe in?

----------


## redbluepill

> There has never been any such thing as a free market wherein people can buy or own land, and there never can be.  Owning land is inherently a privilege of violating others' rights to liberty -- a welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner -- and by definition, no such privilege can exist in a free market.  
> 
> Only a corrupt government can possibly privilege anyone to buy or own land, as proved above.
> 
> Bingo.  Property in land inherently violates people's rights to liberty, so the only way to stop government from applying ever greater violence and force for the benefit of landowners is to require landowners to repay more of what they take from society with government's help.  That is what LVT does.


*Thumbs up*

----------


## redbluepill

> I said, high birth rate.  That's the scenario, love it or leave it.  Are you going to force me to pay land tax in exchange for the "privilege" of keeping the asteroid monopolized all to myself and the teeming rock-less hordes at bay?  Also, are you BillG?


There would never be such a high birth rate, especially since people would probably be living in spaceships anyways under your scenario. If you want to claim a section of outerspace and not allow people to go through your part of space without paying a toll then yeah I think that's a bit ludicrous. 

But to humor you lets assume there was such a population of humans in outer space. You have no more right to claim the asteroid as 'yours' anymore than you did on Earth. As Thomas Paine said, "There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity on any part of it."

What do you think of the scenario of the astronaut crashlanding on someone's asteroid? What about the island scenario I posted?

No idea who BillG is. This is the only username I've ever used on this site.

----------


## redbluepill

> Some people take both paths, becoming Marxo-georgists.


Type in 'Marxo-georgist' in Google and no links pop up. Marxism and Georgism are nowhere close to being the same. Henry George referred to Marx as the king of all muddleheads. Marx considered George's ideas as 'capitalism's last ditch'. Unlike Marx, George vehemently opposed collectivism and strongly supported the free market.

----------


## Athan

The tax penalizes and discourages home beautification and estate growth. A young couple that suddenly needs to make room for children tend to decide not to add improvements to the home as it will increase their taxes. Further, well maintained homes and neighborhoods are the ones that deal with higher tax values. While those who allow their homes to be run down and go without maintenance are rewarded with less taxes due to their homes of "lower value".

I used to be a real estate appraiser. I have seen the system personally from the inside and on the ground. Anyone who is against such a system should be aware that Debra Medina has created the website "We Texans" to combat this form of tax.

----------


## Seraphim

A sympton of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Don't tell the Marxist Commies though - they may start twitching and frothing at the mouth as they know deep down inside their philosophy is writ with illogical nonsense, denies human nature and extends power to a select few to "bitchify" the rest of us.

You and I will always be wrong though (to them) as we are not the type to stand idly by while a few ideologues make claims that it is FOR ZE GRETA GOOD!!!!

Nazi/communist/socialist ideology needs to be systematically destroyed. It is our only hope. If these ideas are allowed to permeate unchallenged, we will continue to feed on our own host (OURSELEVES).

To deny property rights (INCLUDING LAND) is to deny humanity any chance of peace and longstanding survival (that we can control...I.e, excluding an asteroid).




> The tax penalizes and discourages home beautification and estate growth. A young couple that suddenly needs to make room for children tend to decide not to add improvements to the home as it will increase their taxes. Further, well maintained homes and neighborhoods are the ones that deal with higher tax values. While those who allow their homes to be run down and go without maintenance are rewarded with less taxes due to their homes of "lower value".
> 
> I used to be a real estate appraiser. I have seen the system personally from the inside and on the ground. Anyone who is against such a system should be aware that Debra Medina has created the website "We Texans" to combat this form of tax.

----------


## redbluepill

> The tax penalizes and discourages home beautification and estate growth. A young couple that suddenly needs to make room for children tend to decide not to add improvements to the home as it will increase their taxes. Further, well maintained homes and neighborhoods are the ones that deal with higher tax values. While those who allow their homes to be run down and go without maintenance are rewarded with less taxes due to their homes of "lower value".
> 
> I used to be a real estate appraiser. I have seen the system personally from the inside and on the ground. Anyone who is against such a system should be aware that Debra Medina has created the website "We Texans" to combat this form of tax.


You have clearly not read anything on what the land value tax is. If you did you would know that adding improvements to the land you occupy would not increase the tax you have to pay.

----------


## redbluepill

> A sympton of the Tragedy of the Commons.
> 
> Don't tell the Marxist Commies though - they may start twitching and frothing at the mouth as they know deep down inside their philosophy is writ with illogical nonsense, denies human nature and extends power to a select few to "bitchify" the rest of us.
> 
> You and I will always be wrong though (to them) as we are not the type to stand idly by while a few ideologues make claims that it is FOR ZE GRETA GOOD!!!!
> 
> Nazi/communist/socialist ideology needs to be systematically destroyed. It is our only hope. If these ideas are allowed to permeate unchallenged, we will continue to feed on our own host (OURSELEVES).
> 
> To deny property rights (INCLUDING LAND) is to deny humanity any chance of peace and longstanding survival (that we can control...I.e, excluding an asteroid).


Are you including Frank Chodorov, Adam Smith, John Locke, David Nolan, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Jay Nock, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, David Ricardo... (and I could keep going) as some of those "marxist-commies"?

----------


## Seraphim

You seem to believe that land cannot be owned - these people most certainly believed in land as property. 




> Are you including Frank Chodorov, Adam Smith, John Locke, David Nolan, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Jay Nock, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, David Ricardo... (and I could keep going) as some of those "marxist-commies"?

----------


## LibForestPaul

> It is private appropriation of land that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Land value taxation redresses that theft.


It is private appropriation of mineral resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Mineral resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of food stuff that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Food stuff resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of well water resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Well water resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of solar energy resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Solar energy resource taxation redresses that theft.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You have no more right to claim the asteroid as 'yours' anymore than you did on Earth.


 Ding, Ding, Ding!  Looter exposed.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> It is private appropriation of mineral resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Mineral resource taxation redresses that theft.
> 
> It is private appropriation of food stuff that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Food stuff resource taxation redresses that theft.
> 
> It is private appropriation of well water resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Well water resource taxation redresses that theft.
> 
> It is private appropriation of solar energy resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Solar energy resource taxation redresses that theft.


 Bin-go.

Georgism is such a backwards agrarian philosophy (invented by a guy who was just bitter because he was never rich and landowners were as easy to blame as anyone else.  The whole thing is just an elaborate excuse for his failure in life).  If some matter must kept sacred as the Perpetual Common Heritage of All Mankind (TM), why allow other matter to slip into the evil grasping hands of Private Interests (shudder)?  Why is a field of oats unproperty while a couch is property?  Oh, one is raw and elemental, the other is manufactured.  OK, fine.  What about a rock?  Why can a rock be property?  What about new land created with big dykes, as in the Netherlands.  Why can a boat be property but not a manufactured island?  What if I carved a big chunk out of the earth and launched it up into space to create a manufactured asteroid.  Then it would be created with labor, like a boat or like a gold coin extracted from the Earth.  Would the manufactured asteroid then be ownable?   The whole thing is utterly devoid of any consistency.  I believe in consistency.  Georgism fails the consistency test.

----------


## Roy L

> The tax penalizes and discourages home beautification and estate growth.


That's just objectively false.



> A young couple that suddenly needs to make room for children tend to decide not to add improvements to the home as it will increase their taxes.


That is objectively false.  A land value tax is unaffected by improvements.



> Further, well maintained homes and neighborhoods are the ones that deal with higher tax values.


Well maintained neighborhoods do tend to have higher land values, but that is a result of what the whole neighborhood does, not just one homeowner.



> While those who allow their homes to be run down and go without maintenance are rewarded with less taxes due to their homes of "lower value".


Again, that is objectively false.  You are talking about the current property tax, not a land value tax.



> I used to be a real estate appraiser.


Then you know that land is much easier to value than improvements, and improvements do not affect land value.  If the house burns down, the land value stays the same.



> I have seen the system personally from the inside and on the ground.


No, of course you haven't.  You are just makin' $#!+ up.



> Anyone who is against such a system should be aware that Debra Medina has created the website "We Texans" to combat this form of tax.


Look what Proposition 13 has done to California.  Are Texans going to be as stupid as Californians?

----------


## Roy L

> Ding, Ding, Ding!  Looter exposed.


Yep.  The land grabber is the quintessential looter and greedy parasite.

----------


## Roy L

> It is private appropriation of mineral resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Mineral resource taxation redresses that theft.


Correct.  



> It is private appropriation of food stuff that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Food stuff resource taxation redresses that theft.


Assuming you mean food resources like wild fish, game, fruit and nuts, etc., then yes, that is correct.



> It is private appropriation of well water resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Well water resource taxation redresses that theft.


Correct.  In many cases well water extraction depletes aquifers that others also want to use.



> It is private appropriation of solar energy resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  Solar energy resource taxation redresses that theft.


If someone is depriving you of sunlight, then of course that deprivation should be compensated.  But in most cases sunlight is not scarce, and would thus have no taxable value.

----------


## Roy L

> The nice thing about freedom is that it will allow those who do think that hedonism, nature-worship, homosexuality, etc. are feasible elements to base a successful society on will be free to buy up land and have their way of life as well.


"The nice thing about being owned, Uncle Tom, is that you are free to buy your liberty from me and live as you please!"

----------


## Roy L

> Of course you do know there are other jobs besides farming right?


Please name a job people can do without using any land.

Thought not.



> When I first started out, I didn't own any land, I rented.  I went to work in a factory and earned money.  I save the money and finally had enough to make a down payment on a mortgage to buy a piece of land with a house on it.  I then worked another 30 years to pay off the mortgage.


So, you figure because you were victimized by an unjust system, everyone else should be, too?



> Good luck at going back to the way it was here before white man came to this continent.


No one is suggesting that.



> Of course back then, there were tribal wars in years when game became scarce.   There was also a lot fewer people on this continent at the time too.  If everyone who is on this continent were to try to live like the native Americans did, there would be mass starvation and fighting like you never saw before.


I realize that like slavery, landowning was a quick and dirty solution to a real problem of allocation in settled societies, a problem that did not exist in hunter-gatherer societies.  But just as we now know better ways than slavery to solve the problem of labor allocation, we also know better ways than landowning to solve the problem of land allocation.



> You have to pull your own load through life.   Nobody is going to give you a free ride.


Unless you are a landowner, of course.  Then you need not lift a productive finger:

"The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent."

-- Thomas Carlyle

----------


## Roy L

> Because you say so?  You will have to do a whole lot better than that.


One cannot do better than identifying self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.  It is self-evident and indisputable that were it not for the landowner, others would be at liberty to use the land.  The landowner therefore deprives them of their liberty.  It is not possible to dispute such facts.  It is only possible to lie about them.



> What planet are you on? Bizarro?  Do a search for tax lien sales - thousands of property tax sales every year.


Please provide evidence that ANY of those sales are of owner-occupied residences, AND result primarily from high property taxes rather than other forms of financial stress.  In almost all cases there is also a delinquent mortgage, an absentee owner who cannot be located and may have died, an alcoholic or drug addict drowning in credit card debt, etc.  Property taxes are just something that people let slide because they know the city or county will not do anything about them for quite a long time, often several years.  In most cases the tax lien sale is merely the final phase of a prolonged financial downfall due to medical bills, divorce, unemployment, gambling or drug addiction, etc., NOT property taxes.  If it was merely that they could not afford the property taxes, they would just sell and move.



> Those people lose the properties.


No, they receive the sale price less the taxes owing and associated costs.



> Read the law.


Good advice.  Please take it.



> Your powers of reason are truly staggering.


Economics is subtle and often counter-intuitive.  Sorry.



> I was living in  CA when 13 passed.  Properties were already well on the way up for years before it passed.


It passed in a period of high inflation, so of course properties were going up; but since then they have gone up much faster relative to inflation.



> Is that the best you have?  Really?  Nothing more?
> 
> Sad.


It's good enough to demolish you, anyway.

----------


## Roy L

> This post takes the cake for most retarted statement to ever hit these forums.


You just refuse to know facts that prove your beliefs are false.  Simple.

----------


## reardenstone

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.



Who owned the land originally? Was there an original deed?

I happen to like the land use Georgism approach. We can't make more land nor can humans create it (yet).

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> 'Tax' is really a misnomer imo. Ground rent is a more appropriate term. We would be reimbursing the community for the privilege of keeping a piece of land for ourselves.


The fundamental presuppositions of this "rent" idea is flawed.  It assumes that the government 'owns' the land, and that regular folks are just tenant serfs.  If you want a logical, fair way to fund the government, make it all voluntary.  Donate whatever % of income to the IRS you want, and call it a "patriotic donation".

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Who owned the land originally? Was there an original deed?
> 
> I happen to like the land use Georgism approach. We can't make more land nor can humans create it (yet).


The land was originally given to man in common (as Locke correctly noted).  As man became civilized, the need for private land became apparent.  The recognition of the concept of property is one of the things that raises us above animals.

----------


## Roy L

> Ding, Ding, Ding!  Looter exposed.


Right: the landowner is exposed as the quintessential looter.



> Now let's see if BillG will come back and also advocate theft.


The apologists for landowner privilege are the advocates of theft, and I don't know who BillG is.



> Oh yeah, obviously.  That's why all our wages have been inexorably pushed down to subsistence levels,


Without welfare, minimum wage laws, union enabling laws, publicly funded pensions, health care and education, etc., typical wages would be at subsistence or lower, as they are in countries that have private landowning but lack such social safety nets, like Pakistan, Haiti, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Myanmar, Colombia, etc.



> the richest men in the world are all landlords,


While it's true that Smith did not foresee the emergence of vast intellectual property monopolies, broadcast spectrum allocations, etc. that have made a few people very, very rich, the fact remains that most of the richest people in the world have obtained their wealth primarily by owning land and other natural resources: Carlos Slim Helu, for example, made most of his money on broadcast spectrum.  Many of Warren Buffet's investments have had large real estate and natural resource components.  Sam Walton's fortune was predominantly in land value. Etc.



> and we're all dying in the streets from their rampant exploitation.


Smith also did not foresee the social safety net that is all that stands between the landless and destitution.



> Private property in land happens in the absence of the state.  Historically, repeatedly.


No, it has not, and can't.  There is a difference between property and forcible animal possession.



> So.... yeah.  Kind of baffling, that, eh?


It's baffling how you manage to concoct such bizarre beliefs.



> Those poor paupers the Rockefellers.  If only John would've been smart and gone into land speculation!


He did, Captain Ignorance.  In addition to his immense oil resource holdings, he bought into land speculation deals in the Pacific Northwest, in Wisconsin, and of course in NYC ("Rockefeller Center," hello?), mining and railroad land deals, and on and on.



> Allocating scarce land,


The landowner does not allocate land.  He simply accepts the high bid.  The market does the allocating for him.



> making sure land is arranged and divvied up


The landowner has no such function.



> according to it's highest productive use?


Ah, that would presumably explain all the vacant privately owned land, abandoned buildings, etc. in every major US city...



> Coming and fixing the plumbing when it breaks?


That is looking after improvements, not owning land.  Stop trying to change the subject.



> These guys are completely worthless!


The landowner qua landowner is a pure parasite.  This is proved by your inability to answer The Question:

"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"



> Sure there is.


No, there is not .  You are just makin' $#!+ up.



> You just advocate smashing both landlords and capitalists.  Pretty simple.


And pretty simply a fabrication on your part.



> There's plenty of people who are all for this program of smashing.


Name one.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> *One cannot do better than identifying self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.  It is self-evident and indisputable that were it not for the landowner, others would be at liberty to use the land.*  The landowner therefore deprives them of their liberty.  It is not possible to dispute such facts.  It is only possible to lie about them.


So what?  One man's ownership of land does not prohibit other men from owning land.  If there were no recognition of property boundaries, society would crumble quickly-as the American pilgrims discovered after the severe mass starvation that resulted from all land being collectivized.  More recently, the collectivization period in the USSR is illustrative of the horrors that result from it.

----------


## Roy L

> The fundamental presuppositions of this "rent" idea is flawed.  It assumes that the government 'owns' the land, and that regular folks are just tenant serfs.


Oh, garbage.  Government administers possession and use of land in any case.  That's what government IS: the sovereign authority over a certain area of land.  The only question is, will it discharge that function in the interest and to secure the equal rights of all the people, or only in the narrow financial interests of a small, wealthy, idle, privileged, greedy, parasitic landowning elite?



> If you want a logical, fair way to fund the government, make it all voluntary.  Donate whatever % of income to the IRS you want, and call it a "patriotic donation".


LVT IS voluntary.  You pay for exactly what you take from society.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Oh, garbage.  Government administers possession and use of land in any case.  That's what government IS: the sovereign authority over a certain area of land.  The only question is, will it discharge that function in the interest and to secure the equal rights of all the people, or only in the narrow financial interests of a small, wealthy, idle, privileged, greedy, parasitic landowning elite?


That's what the government has _become_, but it has not always been that way-and you have not shown that it is ideal.  I have given you examples to demonstrate that such an arrangement is destructive, but you failed to address it.




> LVT IS voluntary.  You pay for exactly what you take from society.


No, it is not voluntary.  Noone "owes" society anything.  To come to such conclusions, you had to use false presuppositions, as I showed previously.

----------


## Roy L

> So what?  One man's ownership of land does not prohibit other men from owning land.


How is that relevant to the fact that it violates their rights?  One man's ownership of a slave does not prohibit other men from owning slaves, either.  If government were issuing literal licenses to steal (a land title is only _effectively_ a license to steal), one man's ownership of a license to steal would not prohibit others from buying licenses to steal.  Do you really imagine that somehow alters the fact that what they are doing is stealing?



> If there were no recognition of property boundaries, society would crumble quickly


Secure tenure and boundaries do not require private landownership, as Hong Kong proves.



> -as the American pilgrims discovered after the severe mass starvation that resulted from all land being collectivized.


You are misstating the historical facts.  It was not that the land was collectivized, but that PRODUCTS OF LABOR were collectivized.  Try to find a willingness to know the difference.



> More recently, the collectivization period in the USSR is illustrative of the horrors that result from it.


Same error: the USSR collectivized the PRODUCTS, not just the land.  All land in Hong Kong has been publicly owned for over 160 years, and it has been a model of freedom and prosperity.  By being willing to know the fact that land is not produced by labor, I am able to understand why the USSR and the pilgrims failed, but HK succeeded.  Because you refuse to know the fact that land is not a product of labor, that difference in result is inexplicable to you.

----------


## Roy L

> That's what the government has _become_, but it has not always been that way-and you have not shown that it is ideal.


No, all governments administer possession and use of land, and always have.  That is what government IS, by definition.



> I have given you examples to demonstrate that such an arrangement is destructive,


No, of course you haven't.



> but you failed to address it.


Don't be silly.  I have demolished everything you have said, in all ways.



> No, it is not voluntary.


It is as voluntary as paying for the groceries you take home from the store.



> Noone "owes" society anything.


No, everyone owes society what they take from society.  The value of land is precisely equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes.



> To come to such conclusions, you had to use false presuppositions, as I showed previously.


You showed no such thing, and you won't.

----------


## Anti Federalist

Everybody trying to re-invent the wheel here.

Tariffs and duties.

----------


## Xenophage

Taxes are bad, mmkay?

How about we establish a completely voluntary society of no institutionalized coercion?  I like that idea better.

----------


## Roy L

> As man became civilized, the need for private land became apparent.


With the advent of agriculture and large-scale fixed improvements, there was a need for secure exclusive tenure.  Private ownership was merely a quick and dirty solution to that problem, just as slavery was a quick and dirty solution to the problem of surplus captives and scarce labor.  But we have better solutions now, for both problems.  In fact, the "solution" to the land tenure problem has BECOME the land problem.



> The recognition of the concept of property is one of the things that raises us above animals.


That doesn't mean all property is valid, as slavery proved.

----------


## Roy L

> Taxes are bad, mmkay?


Try having a civilization without them.



> How about we establish a completely voluntary society of no institutionalized coercion?  I like that idea better.


Then you oppose private property in land, as it is inherently institutionalized coercion.

----------


## Roy L

> Everybody trying to re-invent the wheel here.
> 
> Tariffs and duties.


Check out the ONLY source of federal revenue in the Articles of Confederation the Founding Fathers wrote before the Constitution:

"Article VIII. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the united States in congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to* the value of all land within each State*, granted or surveyed for any person..."

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Who owned the land originally? Was there an original deed?
> 
> I happen to like the land use Georgism approach. We can't make more land nor can humans create it (yet).


 Humans can and have and do make and create more land.  Dykes in the Netherlands created huge tracts of new land.  Artificial islands off Dubai are new land created by man.  For practical purposes, technology has made tons and tons and tons of previously useless, unusable, worthless land into economically valuable land, feasible to occupy or put to some use.  Though this land may have technically existed before, as far as humans are concerned it may as well not have because we couldn't put it to any use.  Now we can.

----------


## Roy L

> To deny property rights (INCLUDING LAND) is to deny humanity any chance of peace and longstanding survival (that we can control...I.e, excluding an asteroid).


Hong Kong has done very well with no private ownership of land for over 160 years.  You are therefore objectively wrong.  Try to understand why.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Taxes are bad, mmkay?
> 
> How about we establish a completely voluntary society of no institutionalized coercion?  I like that idea better.


 That would be good.  Looters go home!

----------


## Roy L

> Humans can and have and do make and create more land.


No, that is logically impossible.



> Dykes in the Netherlands created huge tracts of new land.


No, they merely allowed pre-existing land to be dried out.  That is why the dykes were built there, and not just anywhere.



> Artificial islands off Dubai are new land created by man.


No, that is just building up pre-existing land.  And again, it was only possible because the water covering the land was not too deep.



> For practical purposes, technology has made tons and tons and tons of previously useless, unusable, worthless land into economically valuable land, feasible to occupy or put to some use.


Yes, but that is not creation of land.



> Though this land may have technically existed before, as far as humans are concerned it may as well not have because we couldn't put it to any use.  Now we can.


The new technology enables certain more productive uses of land, but it does not create land.  The point is that even though no one may have wanted to use the land before, they were at liberty to do so.  The advent of new technology does not somehow justify depriving them of that liberty without just compensation.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Does to me!  The nice thing about freedom is that it will allow those who do think that hedonism, nature-worship, homosexuality, etc. are feasible elements to base a successful society on will be free to buy up land and have their way of life as well.  Amish Paradise, Greenwich Village (anything goes), Gay City, and Family-First Traditional Land can all exist in peace and may the most successful society win!


 You know what I thought of?  Freedom will even allow our good friends the Georgists to buy up a bunch of land and then tax themselves for their crime of monopolizing the land.  They can form their own little gated community where everyone must pay land tax and then that is distributed to everyone in their community or whatever their particular version of Georgist theory teaches them should be done with the money.  Maybe they will even send some small checks to those of us living outside the community in the larger libertarian society in return for ripping us off by monopolizing their land.  And if their ideas are as awesome as they _know_ that they are, it will be so wildly successful eventually everyone will be following their lead.  Freedom is fantastic!

----------


## Roy L

> You seem to believe that land cannot be owned - these people most certainly believed in land as property.


Most of them were aware of the problematic character of property in land, which is one factor that makes it suitable for taxation, while other, more valid forms of property are not suitable.  Remember, none of them lived under an allodial land property system: landed property was always recognized to be a privilege issued by government, and was always conditional, especially on payment of taxes.

----------


## Roy L

> Freedom will even allow our good friends the Georgists to buy up a bunch of land


If we had our freedom, what would be our motive for paying some parasite for what nature provided for free?



> They can form their own little gated community where everyone must pay land tax and then that is distributed to everyone in their community or whatever their particular version of Georgist theory teaches them should be done with the money... And if their ideas are as awesome as they _know_ that they are, it will be so wildly successful eventually everyone will be following their lead.  Freedom is fantastic!


Hong Kong.  Now being imitated by China.  'Nuff said.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Taxes are bad, mmkay?
> 
> How about we establish a completely voluntary society of no institutionalized coercion?  I like that idea better.


Now you're talkin!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No, that is logically impossible.


 Well yes, obviously.  I mean there's only a fixed quantity of land, period, by definition.  I mean, that is, if you define it a certain way.  And, I mean, there's probably only one way to define it, right?  I mean, land is land and it's, like, special somehow, right?  Like, mystical almost.  I mean, some matter is land and always will be and some matter just isn't and never can be.  Whoa, I'm blowing my mind here.

Anyway, you told me quite clearly that I can't answer your *The Question*, and so if I can't even do that it's obvious as all get-out that you've totally crushed and embarrassed me in debate just as you effortlessly crushed and humiliated Rothbard and so I guess I really don't understand why you're even bothering to write to an inferior such as myself and I kind of wish you would stop.

----------


## Roy L

> Georgism is such a backwards agrarian philosophy


It is not agrarian.  You are just makin' $#!+ up.



> (invented by a guy who was just bitter because he was never rich and landowners were as easy to blame as anyone else. The whole thing is just an elaborate excuse for his failure in life).


That is an absurd and despicable fabrication.  The idea of taxing land alone was originated by the French physiocrats Quesnay and Turgot, both of whom were wealthy, eminent and successful.

You know you are in the presence of naked, smirking evil when those who oppose injustice are accused of envy for its beneficiaries.



> If some matter must kept sacred as the Perpetual Common Heritage of All Mankind (TM), why allow other matter to slip into the evil grasping hands of Private Interests (shudder)?


It's very simple: some matter is as nature provided it, other matter has been made into products of labor.



> Why is a field of oats unproperty while a couch is property?  Oh, one is raw and elemental, the other is manufactured.


Wrong.  Inevitably.  Both are products of labor and thus rightly property.

You are just makin' $#!+ up.



> OK, fine.  What about a rock?  Why can a rock be property?


Because it can be removed from nature.



> What about new land created with big dykes, as in the Netherlands.


That land was there all along.  It was just wet.



> Why can a boat be property but not a manufactured island?


The manufactured island IS property.  Just not the land it is sitting on.

Everything you are saying about Georgism is false and dishonest.



> What if I carved a big chunk out of the earth and launched it up into space to create a manufactured asteroid.  Then it would be created with labor, like a boat or like a gold coin extracted from the Earth.  Would the manufactured asteroid then be ownable?


Yes.



> The whole thing is utterly devoid of any consistency.


That is a fabrication on your part.  It is very consistent.



> I believe in consistency.


I have proved you do not.



> Georgism fails the consistency test.


Flat false.  You are just makin' $#!+ up about what Georgism plainly says.

----------


## Roy L

> Well yes, obviously.  I mean there's only a fixed quantity of land, period, by definition.  I mean, that is, if you define it a certain way.  And, I mean, there's probably only one way to define it, right?


"Land" has a number of different senses (it can even be used as different parts of speech), but only one relevant one: the economic one.



> I mean, land is land and it's, like, special somehow, right?  Like, mystical almost.  I mean, some matter is land and always will be and some matter just isn't and never can be.  Whoa, I'm blowing my mind here.


In economics, land is the whole physical universe other than human beings and the products of their labor.



> Anyway, you told me quite clearly that I can't answer your *The Question*, and so if I can't even do that it's obvious as all get-out that you've totally crushed and embarrassed me in debate just as you effortlessly crushed and humiliated Rothbard and so I guess I really don't understand why you're even bothering to write to an inferior such as myself and I kind of wish you would stop.


Oh, I'm sure you do.

----------


## Roy L

> No. By the reasoning I used in that quote, Crusoe could only exclude Friday from the land he was using, such as his home and garden.


Suppose he is using the whole island for a game preserve, as the English aristocrats did their land?



> To say that a person has no right to exclude others from any land is not only to prohibit the ownership of land, but also of houses, cars, and feet.


No, because they are not land.  They were not already there, ready to use, with no help from anyone.  Land was.



> If it's not a weak spot then why not just answer the question?


Because that would lend it legitimacy it does not merit.



> If you have an answer then you could have spared yourself 4 or 5 times of saying something about how you think I'm changing the subject just by saying whatever your answer is.


A home is a product of labor and thus rightly property.  Land isn't, and thus isn't.  Why is this so hard for you to understand?



> I have read about people who lived as hunters and gatherers, but only ones that believed in owning property.


Not property in land, they didn't (unless they learned it from other societies where it was practised).  You are AGAIN trying to change the subject from property in land to all property.



> What are some specific ones that didn't? Do you know of any at all?


Of course.  There are even many specific quotes to that effect:

"What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?" -Massasoit of the Pokanoket

"One does not sell the land people walk on." --Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota

"We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?" -Seattle of the Duwamish

"My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away" -- Black Hawk of the Sauk



> Which of those sources talk about how they didn't own land?


All of them.



> Apparently not in the hypothetical you're making up. No. But so what?


So you are wrong.



> Do squatters not use walls the way the rest of us do?


Right: to keep weather out, not to keep people off the land.



> Do you imagine squatters saying to themselves, "Since I'm a squatter, I must not believe in owning land. Therefore, I won't lock this door."?


The door prevents access to people and products of labor, not just the land.



> Where does this group of people you call "government" get any authority at all?


Legitimation models are outside the scope of this discussion.  Please stop trying to change the subject.



> Who sets these borders and tells some group of people that you're calling "government" that they own all the land in those borders and have a right to charge taxes to anyone else to use it?


I didn't say they owned it or that anyone told them they owned it.  Borders are established by mutual agreement or by force.  Stop makin' $#!+ up.



> And how does this government's ownership of all that land not violate the anti-land ownership dictum you say you believe in?


Why are you just makin' $#!+ up about what I plainly wrote?

----------


## Roy L

> And who are these anointed people you call the government in this question anyway?


Why are you pretending not to know how governments are established?



> What gives them the right to charge everyone rent for what is supposedly common property?


It is government's JOB to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the products of their labor.  It cannot do that unless it recovers the publicly created value of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it.  Anything else inherently subsidizes landowners at the expense of the productive.



> And how does paying this rent to them somehow work as a proxy for paying all the other people in the world whom you are excluding from your land?


It is government that administers possession and use of land, and our government has no authority over other people in their own countries.  So you don't compensate them, but they also don't compensate you.  As long as countries are fairly big and diverse, it's more or less a wash.  Borders are to some extent arbitrary -- think of some of the boundaries between states -- but it is just a practical reality that governments only exercise their authority within those boundaries.

----------


## redbluepill

> You seem to believe that land cannot be owned - these people most certainly believed in land as property.


Really? If they believed land is no different than capital then please address the quotes I provided from Milton Friedman and Thomas Paine. I can also provide quotes supporting Henry George's ideas. from every other individual I listed.

----------


## redbluepill

> The fundamental presuppositions of this "rent" idea is flawed.  It assumes that the government 'owns' the land, and that regular folks are just tenant serfs.  If you want a logical, fair way to fund the government, make it all voluntary.  Donate whatever % of income to the IRS you want, and call it a "patriotic donation".


The government has no more right to ownership of the land than you or I. There is a difference between a 'commons' and a 'collective'.

----------


## osan

> The government has no more right to ownership of the land than you or I. There is a difference between a 'commons' and a 'collective'.


Bingo.  Well said.  You stopped short, though.  Should have explained it.

----------


## osan

n/m

----------


## erowe1

> Why are you pretending not to know how governments are established?


I do know how they're established. The ones that actually exist in the real world were established by one group of people conquering and subjugating another group of people. But I don't see how that set of events gives any legitimacy to the claim of those in the former group to have the right to tax those in the latter group.




> It is government's JOB to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the products of their labor.


Maybe in some imaginary world it is. But in the real world the government's job is to maintain and increase the power the rulers have over those they rule.




> It is government that administers possession and use of land


So then all I have to do to attain the right to own land and rent it out to people is call myself a government?

----------


## erowe1

> The door prevents access to people and products of labor, not just the land.


Yes. But it doesn't only prevent access to people and the products of their labor. It also prevents access to certain land. Do people have a right to use locked doors to prevent others from accessing certain land or not?

If the answer is no, then how else do they prevent them access to people and the products of their labor?

----------


## erowe1

> Of course.  There are even many specific quotes to that effect:
> 
> "What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?" -Massasoit of the Pokanoket
> 
> "One does not sell the land people walk on." --Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota
> 
> "We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?" -Seattle of the Duwamish
> 
> "My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away" -- Black Hawk of the Sauk
> ...


Thank you for finally providing examples.

Before I concede that I was wrong I have two questions that still need answering about them:
1) Did these Indian tribes have property taxes? Since you have claimed that it is necessary to have property taxes in order for people not to own land, then either they did have property taxes, or they did believe in land ownership, or else your premise about property taxes is wrong.
2) Did these Indian tribes ever use any means to exclude people from any parcel of land? Such means would include the existence of any structures, either permanent or movable, which they understood to be any person's or family's exclusive property. Since, if they did have such things, they did, de facto, have land ownership.

----------


## redbluepill

> You are misstating the historical facts.  It was not that the land was collectivized, but that PRODUCTS OF LABOR were collectivized.  Try to find a willingness to know the difference.


Yup. and it was the collectivization of the product of labor that led to starvation. They dealt with this problem by adopting a geoist system where the land was still common territory but each individual/family was able to keep the fruits of the labor. It was a big success.

http://www.progress.org/fold65.htm

----------


## reardenstone

> Yes. But it doesn't only prevent access to people and the products of their labor. It also prevents access to certain land. Do people have a right to use locked doors to prevent others from accessing certain land or not?
> 
> If the answer is no, then how else do they prevent them access to people and the products of their labor?



These are tough questions and I think this is where local civic engagement comes in for voluntary organization. As a lone wolf on the hill you may have problems but if you surround yourself with like minded folk you can help watch each other's lots. You could also benefit from having additional shared food production labor and by helping run your own private energy grid off the main bloat grid of the city-state proper.

I have no issue with the fenced in what you can use for real sense of property, but I have serious problems with the historic acquisition of land and misuse of the state which granted privilege and access which still casts a spectre over it today. In Iceland the original rule/agreement was that any man could claim any land that he could light fires around within one day and any woman could lead a herd animal around within one day. 


On to land rights use though. I was looking at some land in the North Georgia Mountains and the land use laws are ridiculous. No manufactured homes, no multiple home sites, covenants out the wazoo, and no other animals besides cats and dogs. This is not a community decision but a bank land holder decision.

So I guess I can't go there and raise chickens and be self supportive. I still have to tie in to the grid and live "unfree". So there is that issue too. How can you be free if you have to observe bank dictated covenants and not do with your land what you want so long as it doesn't harm anyone else? Neighborhood decisions are one thing, bank property management which molds "subdivisions" into collectives with fascist rules is another.

In general I think land use should be free, but there should be an "insurance" tax on businesses or dirty polluting companies that want to devalue the land and immediate environment and lower everyone else's quality of life and property.

And finally: Should supermarkets and leased lots be able to prohibit carpoolers from parking in empty Kroger parking lots on threat of towing or booting? A small user fee perhaps, but not a ridiculous impoundment. I was thinking voluntaryist and thought it would be great for the green movement, traffic reduction, and parking woes of city dwellers if they could turn to a private shuttle service in Atlanta that had routes to a few popular destinations that have poor parking access, such as the Capitol and Georgia State University. Shopping centers have plenty of parking and they could even get a small cut. But greed, unwillingness to share and ridiculous laws would prevent this sort of mutual innovation.

----------


## redbluepill

> Humans can and have and do make and create more land.  Dykes in the Netherlands created huge tracts of new land.  Artificial islands off Dubai are new land created by man.  For practical purposes, technology has made tons and tons and tons of previously useless, unusable, worthless land into economically valuable land, feasible to occupy or put to some use.  Though this land may have technically existed before, as far as humans are concerned it may as well not have because we couldn't put it to any use.  Now we can.


Land CANNOT be created. Those dykes and artificial islands are merely improvements upon land just like a house.

----------


## erowe1

> I have no issue with the fenced in what you can use for real sense of property, but I have serious problems with the historic acquisition of land and misuse of the state which granted privilege and access which still casts a spectre over it today.


I agree. To me the distinction between recognizing certain problems with land ownership, on the one hand, and denying any right of anyone ever to exclude anyone else from any piece of land, on the other hand, is pretty important.

----------


## reardenstone

> Thank you for finally providing examples.
> 
> Before I concede that I was wrong I have two questions that still need answering about them:
> 1) Did these Indian tribes have property taxes? Since you have claimed that it is necessary to have property taxes in order for people not to own land, then either they did have property taxes, or they did believe in land ownership, or else your premise about property taxes is wrong.
> 2) Did these Indian tribes ever use any means to exclude people from any parcel of land? Such means would include the existence of any structures, either permanent or movable, which they understood to be any person's or family's exclusive property. Since, if they did have such things, they did, de facto, have land ownership.




Part of my field of study was the political economy of the Southeastern Indians, so you will have to take my imperfect word on it and wait for references and further reading.


  The Indian societies were not "perfect" though they used land well. Their societies went through several transitions form extended family kin group band, to free tribes, then to consolidated city-states, then post DeSoto demographic collapse, back to free tribes, so there is no perfect "noble savage" era in the southeast so to speak, but that does not invalidate their claim and right to the land. When they were in the Mississippian phase of paramount chiefdom rule, "tributes" were expected from people and the petty under-chiefdoms, but in general land was shared and was for the most part land use and production relationships could be compared to European feudalism then in later period more like that of the "free-state" Iceland. After this period and into the historic post contact period, tribes utilize a mixed form or property. The people had their own small home plots and small private gardens but they also shared common land to augment the common food supply. Strength in sustainable numbers helped them mutually survive and protect their way of life from future paramount rule. Hunting land was shared but for the most part tribes remained apart and were territorial.

To answer your questions, the Southeastern Indians had a mixed approach to "ownership" of small plots, and personal belongings, yet still shared the land proper. They didn't exclude members of their own tribe, but recognized constriction zones where unofficial borders existed between "territories".

We can't recreate that tribal territorialism but what we can do is borrow from the example of small private use and local group shared resources.


The larger issue I see coming out of the bigger framework of materialism is the issue of land ownership. Theft, trickery, usury and violence was used to wrest this land from the people that were pre-existing. We cannot be vulgar about "ownership" rights now unless we want to embrace the violence and long long history of our kind that got us here. We cannot pay for the sins of our fathers, but we can "check" how we think about legacy and reform how we think about using land. Private ownership is fine in the truly useful subsistence sense, but we have the opportunity to build the notion of the co-op and base land tax based on the notion that a dirty plant takes land away from everyone else and devalues its use. So the plant then is paying everyone else for the right to use it and not just paying some bank financed goon who happened to know the law of usury and state privilege to strong arm everyone off the land.

To make things simpler, large corporations campuses can be charged a land tax which then gets paid out not to the state but to the local organization of people. Land taxes should also be considered for individuals who buy a large amount (20+ acres?) of land and never add use to it while excluding all others.

On the other hand, if your plot just has room for a house and a garden and some power generating and a family size coop of hens, you get off property tax free.


We may not have the answers but the discussion is important because it challenges us to think about the history of land and why it is not a fair comparison for a commodity that someone makes, with possible exceptions to those who truly rescue barren zones and create something fertile.

----------


## redbluepill

> Bingo.  Well said.  You stopped short, though.  Should have explained it.


Common property is not under the control of the government. An example of common property is an open park. Anyone can use it. Anyone can access it. However, governments tend to have so many restrictions on parks that they become collective property. Unfortunately, socialists have perverted the term "commons" to make it practically synonymous with "collective"

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## Athan

> That's just objectively false.
> 
> That is objectively false.  A land value tax is unaffected by improvements.
> 
> Well maintained neighborhoods do tend to have higher land values, but that is a result of what the whole neighborhood does, not just one homeowner.
> 
> Again, that is objectively false.  You are talking about the current property tax, not a land value tax.
> 
> Then you know that land is much easier to value than improvements, and improvements do not affect land value.  If the house burns down, the land value stays the same.
> ...


None of what I said is false. In Texas we value land AND improvements and combine the two for a total property value. For every 100 dollars of property value, you pay more of your districts' tax rate. Land itself is indeed easier to tax through mass appraisal. However you are boned if you begin to build on it. Then you will be penalized with roll back tax for 5 years for the area you approved on. 

Every three years we are required to reappraise all property values in the county we work in. If you have any new additions then we need to measure the square footage and add that to the property value. 

Are you on something? Or is this just an issue of me being an appraiser for a different state than you?

----------


## Athan

> You have clearly not read anything on what the land value tax is. If you did you would know that adding improvements to the land you occupy would not increase the tax you have to pay.


That is incorrect when it comes to the Texas Property Tax Code. Build a second story or additions and you will be seeing Appraisers with tape ready to measure and increase your property value. If you don't want your taxes to go up, your community will need to bring down tax rates in the whole district.

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## erowe1

> That is incorrect when it comes to the Texas Property Tax Code. Build a second story or additions and you will be seeing Appraisers with tape ready to measure and increase your property value. If you don't want your taxes to go up, your community will need to bring down tax rates in the whole district.


Does the Texas Property Tax Code claim that it's a land value tax? If not, then aren't you talking about something different?

----------


## Athan

Everyone should realize that accepted rules for State Property codes vary from State to state. Each county in Texas has an appraisal system that is an arm of the state government and the county itself has no affiliation with the Appraisal District. The Texas Comptroller oversees it. Only when its schools have board members appointed.

Don't take me for someone lying and especially who doesn't know what I am talking about. I've had to go to homes with or without the owner there and possibly a dangerous pet. Measure the house if even if the owner wasn't there. Appraise it, and move on to the next property. Its not a fun job and I don't recommend it. Hell I don't recommend the ad valorum tax system itself.

----------


## erowe1

> Everyone should realize that accepted rules for State Property codes vary from State to state. Each county in Texas has an appraisal system that is an arm of the state government and the county itself has no affiliation with the Appraisal District. The Texas Comptroller oversees it. Only when its schools have board members appointed.
> 
> Don't take me for someone lying and especially who doesn't know what I am talking about. I've had to go to homes with or without the owner there and possibly a dangerous pet. Measure the house if even if the owner wasn't there. Appraise it, and move on to the next property. Its not a fun job and I don't recommend it. Hell I don't recommend the ad valorum tax system itself.


But isn't the point of the OP that a land value tax is not the same thing as a property tax?

----------


## Athan

Texas Property Tax Code does state it is an ad valorem Land value tax. Improvements are included in the appraisal method.
Land value itself alone not including improvement varies from market value to location.

When I say you are penalized from beautification, it isn't because you make the land look pretty. I mean you discourage increasing value of your property improvements. Adding a pool, second story, additions (YES THEY ARE TAXED), and etc. 

When you covert land from farm use to home use, you will suffer roll back taxes for 5 years of being charged ag use.

----------


## Athan

> But isn't the point of the OP that a land value tax is not the same thing as a property tax?


It is the same thing in Texas. It is just one part of the total account. It does tend to be less value unless you are talking about multiple acres.

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## spacehabitats

We have a genetically derived sense of justice that includes a sense of what constitutes "property', "theft", and "sharing".  Our sense of right and wrong are shaped by what we have "learned", but is limited by a rather strong template derived through millions of years of natural selection.

Most of that template evolved before land ownership (or anything like it in a modern sense) was even possible. We understand that "wealth" (including but definitely not limited to land) is "property". We also understand that owning property carries with it certain rights, privileges, and *obligations*. Trying to exclude products of labor from taxation will inevitably lead to a sense of injustice in almost every citizen because it flies in the face of our innate sense of "natural law".

As satisfying and convenient as it may be to propose anarchy or a government funded exclusively through a tax on land, neither is sustainable because we all KNOW* that is "unfair". 

We also "know" that there are collective rights that should be respected.

No matter how much or little land Bill Gates "owns", how "productive" he was in acquiring his wealth, or what he earns in annual "income"; 99.9% of the population will believe that he should be required to pay much more in taxes than the average citizen.

* Excepting of course the possibility of the occasional mutant or one whose education has allowed near perfect uncoupling of their consciousness from what the rest of us humans would call "feelings".

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## redbluepill

> That is incorrect when it comes to the Texas Property Tax Code. Build a second story or additions and you will be seeing Appraisers with tape ready to measure and increase your property value. If you don't want your taxes to go up, your community will need to bring down tax rates in the whole district.


And that is exactly what Georgists oppose. Land Value Tax negates the improvements you make.

----------


## redbluepill

By declaring land as capital you all have accepting Marx's redefinition of land. Classical liberals made it clear they viewed land as different from capital. Capital has an original creator. Land does not. Pretty simple stuff.

_Ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them._ --Adam Smith

_ Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title._ --John Stuart Mill ...

_Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds._ --Tom Paine

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## redbluepill

I know a lot of libertarians like to quote AJ Nock so here's a good one:

The only reformer abroad in the world in my time who interested me in the least was Henry George, because his project did not contemplate prescription, but, on the contrary, would reduce it to almost zero. He was the only one of the lot who believed in freedom, or (as far as I could see) had any approximation to an intelligent idea of what freedom is, and of the economic prerequisites to attaining it.... One is immensely tickled to see how things are coming out nowadays with reference to his doctrine, for George was in fact the best friend the capitalist ever had. He built up the most complete and most impregnable defense of the rights of capital that was ever constructed, and if the capitalists of his day had had sense enough to dig in behind it, their successors would not now be squirming under the merciless exactions which collectivism is laying on them, and which George would have no scruples whatever about describing as sheer highwaymanry. Free Speech and Plain Language, February 1935, p. 159

http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commo...ml#antimarxist

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> The government has no more right to ownership of the land than you or I. There is a difference between a 'commons' and a 'collective'.


Incorrect.  You and I do have the right to purchase and own land.  This has been demonstrated by Locke, Mises, Schaffer, Rothbard, Hume, Blackstone, and numerous others.

Look at what you missed by selectively quoting Adam Smith:
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of  property, is, in reality, instituted for the defense of the rich against  the poor, or of those who have property against those who have none at  all." (from Wealth Of Nations)

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> By declaring land as capital you all have accepting Marx's redefinition of land. Classical liberals made it clear they viewed land as different from capital. Capital has an original creator. Land does not. Pretty simple stuff.
> 
> _Ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them._ --Adam Smith
> 
> _ Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title._ --John Stuart Mill ...
> 
> _Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds._ --Tom Paine


Quoting 3 classical liberals doesn't represent the opinions of all of them.

----------


## wizardwatson

Two questions.

*First,* how do we determine the value of land after the nationalization of it?  Assuming we implemented LVT immediately, we obviously have current market prices to determine the value.  Then I'm assuming (unlike how it works in the market) the rental value will be a fixed percentage of the land value per year, which I'm assuming would be uniform throughout.  But how do you "reassess" values after something like severe currency inflation?  How do you determine the value of a plot that a speculator doesn't want anymore because the rental value siphons off all the value of the property?  Are people still going to buy land even though its essentially in a state of perpetual mortgage?  

This is my basic problem when understanding how this would actually work.  Yeah, you can determine "relative" values like saying plot A is 3 times as valuable as plot B but how do you determine the baseline?  If after nationalization the buying and selling essentially stop, what mechanism to you use to tie the rental values to something that has a market value?


*Second,* would there be enough value collected as rent to fund our 3.5 trillion dollar federal budget?  If so how can we know this?  Anyone have any idea what the 'rental' value of all land in the US is?


There's a lot of intellectual football on the thread but I'm interested in the details of how the Georgist system would operate.  I understand the Georgist position of 'why' its not unjust to implement this system, but I don't understand the 'how'.

----------


## redbluepill

> Incorrect.  You and I do have the right to purchase and own land.  This has been demonstrated by Locke, Mises, Schaffer, Rothbard, Hume, Blackstone, and numerous others.



You mean the John Locke who said, "God gave the world in common to all mankind.... When the 'sacredness' of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property."

You mean the William Blackstone who said, "The earth, and all things therein, are the general property of all man-kind, from the immediate gift of the Creator."

I do know that Rothbard and Mises opposed Georgist views. Hayek also disagreed but he did consent that urban land was 'unique' and even stated: 

_"If the factual assumptions on which It Is based were correct, i.e., if it were possible to distinguish dearly between the value of 'the permanent and indestructibte powers of the soil,' on the one hand, and, on the other, the value due to the two different kinds of improvement - that due to communal efforts and that due to the efforts of the individual owner - the argument for its adoption would be very strong."_
~The Constitution of Liberty





> Look at what you missed by selectively quoting Adam Smith:
> "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of  property, is, in reality, instituted for the defense of the rich against  the poor, or of those who have property against those who have none at  all." (from Wealth Of Nations)


Ummm, whats your point with this quote? Do you even know what he means by 'property'?

----------


## redbluepill

> Quoting 3 classical liberals doesn't represent the opinions of all of them.


I have provided several others throughout this thread while you have made false assumptions about several of these economists and philosophers.

----------


## Roy L

> *First,* how do we determine the value of land after the nationalization of it?


At that point exchange value would no longer mean much, so market rental value would be used.



> Assuming we implemented LVT immediately, we obviously have current market prices to determine the value.


Right, and current exchange prices can be combined with current rental prices to determine a relationship between exchange value and rental value for each market.



> Then I'm assuming (unlike how it works in the market) the rental value will be a fixed percentage of the land value per year, which I'm assuming would be uniform throughout.


No, once the rental values were initialized based on current data, exchange value would be pretty much ignored.



> But how do you "reassess" values after something like severe currency inflation?


Look at market rents.



> How do you determine the value of a plot that a speculator doesn't want anymore because the rental value siphons off all the value of the property?


That would ideally apply to all land: the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners would be eliminated, and thus also the land's exchange value, which is simply the discounted current value of the future subsidy.



> Are people still going to buy land even though its essentially in a state of perpetual mortgage?


Do people rent land?

The Empire State Building is built on rented land, and all of Hong Kong is built on rented land, so that answers that question.



> Yeah, you can determine "relative" values like saying plot A is 3 times as valuable as plot B but how do you determine the baseline?


From the statistical relationship between exchange value and rental value in each market.



> If after nationalization the buying and selling essentially stop,


As allocative efficiency would be improved, there would probably be even more buying and selling, just at greatly reduced exchange prices.



> what mechanism to you use to tie the rental values to something that has a market value?


Rental value IS a market value.



> *Second,* would there be enough value collected as rent to fund our 3.5 trillion dollar federal budget?  If so how can we know this?  Anyone have any idea what the 'rental' value of all land in the US is?


There is much disagreement on this question, even among Georgists.  Some say the abolition of other taxes would make land use so economically advantageous that it would raise rents enough to pay for all of government (Smith argued that all taxes come out of land rent anyway).  Others believe rents would adjust, but the aggregate total would be about the same.  And a few think that releasing all the land speculators are hoarding would flood the market, greatly reducing rents.  Personally, I don't think it matters much because whichever way it turns out, it will benefit everyone but the top few percent of landowners.  Most people will be FAR better off.  If more revenue is needed, there are unjust privileges other than land titles that can be taxed.

----------


## Roy L

> Texas Property Tax Code does state it is an ad valorem Land value tax. Improvements are included in the appraisal method.


A land value tax ignores improvements, so no matter what the law CLAIMS the tax is, it is not a land value tax



> Land value itself alone not including improvement varies from market value to location.


Care to try saying that in English?



> When I say you are penalized from beautification, it isn't because you make the land look pretty. I mean you discourage increasing value of your property improvements. Adding a pool, second story, additions (YES THEY ARE TAXED), and etc.


Then it is not a land value tax.  Full stop.

----------


## Roy L

> I do know how they're established.


No, you very obviously do not.



> The ones that actually exist in the real world were established by one group of people conquering and subjugating another group of people.


Many were, but not all.  Do you know what a "vote" is?



> But I don't see how that set of events gives any legitimacy to the claim of those in the former group to have the right to tax those in the latter group.


First you need to find a willingness to know the fact that governments are not all identical.



> Maybe in some imaginary world it is.


That would be the world of the Declaration of Independence.



> But in the real world the government's job is to maintain and increase the power the rulers have over those they rule.


OK, so you refuse to know the difference between the governments of Switzerland and Swaziland.  Fine.  Thanks for playing.



> So then all I have to do to attain the right to own land and rent it out to people is call myself a government?


You can never obtain a right to own land, as that inherently violates others' rights to liberty.  Government merely administers the possession and use of land, like a trustee.  Trustees do not own the trust assets.  If the people empower and trust you to secure and reconcile their rights, then you can do that.

It has become obvious to me that you are being deliberately obtuse in order to avoid knowing the facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.

----------


## wizardwatson

> But how do you "reassess" values after something like severe currency inflation?
> 			
> 		
> 
> Look at market rents.


Are you saying that there would still be a market for rents, in the sense that people would still be buying selling land even though all the geo-rent is being taken from it?

I'm really trying to wrap my head around the mechanics of how the government would operate such a system.  That wealth and want site is a good resource (I think redbluepill posted the link).  I'll also check out that Hong Kong system.  

I applaud both you and redbluepill for your contribution to this thread.  I studied it a while back and had numerous arguments with people about is as you guys are doing.  And sidenote: if you think people here are against this idea, try going on the Mises forum, when I tried debating it there never seen so much stubbornness to even considering the idea.  So +rep to you and redbluepill! (You guys have obviously invested a lot of typing in this thread)

But I never could take it to the level of explaining the specifics of how the appraising and all that would work.  I still can't wrap my head around it totally but that wealth and want website has a lot of stuff I haven't read so far.  Subscribing to this thread and will come up with more questions as I can think of them.  Thanks for the input.

----------


## Roy L

> Do people have a right to use locked doors to prevent others from accessing certain land or not?


Only if they make just compensation.



> If the answer is no, then how else do they prevent them access to people and the products of their labor?


As access to the people and products inside is not something others would otherwise have, no compensation for its deprivation is warranted.

----------


## redbluepill

> Are you saying that there would still be a market for rents, in the sense that people would still be buying selling land even though all the geo-rent is being taken from it?
> 
> I'm really trying to wrap my head around the mechanics of how the government would operate such a system.  That wealth and want site is a good resource (I think redbluepill posted the link).  I'll also check out that Hong Kong system.  
> 
> I applaud both you and redbluepill for your contribution to this thread.  I studied it a while back and had numerous arguments with people about is as you guys are doing.  And sidenote: if you think people here are against this idea, try going on the Mises forum, when I tried debating it there never seen so much stubbornness to even considering the idea.  So +rep to you redbluepill! (You guys have obviously invested a lot of typing in this thread)
> 
> But I never could take it to the level of explaining the specifics of how the appraising and all that would work.  I still can't wrap my head around it totally but that wealth and want website has a lot of stuff I haven't read so far.  Subscribing to this thread and will come up with more questions as I can think of them.  Thanks for the input.


It wasn't long ago I was in the same boat as you wizard. In college I realized I was a libertarian. By default I read a lot quite a bit on Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. But when I started reading Henry George it was like all the pieces fell into place. Not saying he was infallible, but he was pretty much on target.

And yeah, going into the Mises forums and posting something on George is like jumping into a lion's den. The vitriol you will experience over there is astounding.

----------


## Roy L

> 1) Did these Indian tribes have property taxes?


Of course not.  As I said, you are being deliberately obtuse in order to avoid knowing the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> Since you have claimed that it is necessary to have property taxes in order for people not to own land,


<sigh>  At this point, you have exactly two choices: you can provide a direct, verbatim, in-context quote where I made that claim, or you can admit that you are just flat-out lying about what I plainly wrote.  Failure to do the first will constitute doing the second.  And you will not be doing the first.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> then either they did have property taxes, or they did believe in land ownership, or else your premise about property taxes is wrong.


The premise in question is an outright fabrication on your part, as you are well aware.



> 2) Did these Indian tribes ever use any means to exclude people from any parcel of land?


Of course.  They often contended with rival tribes over the boundaries of communal territories.



> Such means would include the existence of any structures, either permanent or movable, which they understood to be any person's or family's exclusive property. Since, if they did have such things, they did, de facto, have land ownership.


No, that's just another dishonest fabrication on your part.  Respect for temporary enclosure of space by a dwelling in no way implies ownership of the land under it.  There was no notion that the land would still be exclusive to the current user after the dwelling structure was moved or abandoned.

You are employing every dishonest rationalization you can contrive in order to avoid knowing the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.  Every apologist for landowner privilege does the same thing, without exception.

----------


## Roy L

> Are you saying that there would still be a market for rents, in the sense that people would still be buying selling land even though all the geo-rent is being taken from it?


Yes.  Exchange prices would just be dominated by improvement value and pre-paid taxes rather than by the expected future subsidy, so they would no longer be a good guide to current land rent.



> I'll also check out that Hong Kong system.


The HK system is complex, and has been tweaked often -- and become noticeably more corrupt -- since 1997.



> And sidenote: if you think people here are against this idea, try going on the Mises forum, when I tried debating it there never seen so much stubbornness to even considering the idea.


Yes, the name-calling and dishonesty there are immediate and vicious.

----------


## Roy L

> I agree. To me the distinction between recognizing certain problems with land ownership, on the one hand, and denying any right of anyone ever to exclude anyone else from any piece of land, on the other hand, is pretty important.


No one has said that.  You can obtain a valid right to exclude others from the opportunities nature provided by justly compensating them for the deprivation you impose on them.  When there are a large number of them, the only practical way to do that is by paying the market rent to their representative agent, the government.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I have provided several others throughout this thread while you have made false assumptions about several of these economists and philosophers.


You selectively quoted them.  I made no such false assumptions.  I only go by the words of the philosophers/economists/praxaeologists themselves.

----------


## Seraphim

You're logic is so astoundingly retarted I want to beat my face in with a brick to end the intellectual pain that your are inflicting upon me.

By your logic, I am not privy to the water I purchase, because it "deprives you of nature".

GTFO before you dislodge my brain aneurism.




> No one has said that.  You can obtain a valid right to exclude others from the opportunities nature provided by justly compensating them for the deprivation you impose on them.  When there are a large number of them, the only practical way to do that is by paying the market rent to their representative agent, the government.

----------


## Roy L

> None of what I said is false.


Yes, it is.  You have described the Texas property tax as if it were a land value tax.  It is not.



> In Texas we value land AND improvements and combine the two for a total property value. For every 100 dollars of property value, you pay more of your districts' tax rate.


Which describes a property tax, not a land value tax.



> Land itself is indeed easier to tax through mass appraisal. However you are boned if you begin to build on it. Then you will be penalized with roll back tax for 5 years for the area you approved on.


Which describes a property tax system, not a land value tax system.



> Every three years we are required to reappraise all property values in the county we work in. If you have any new additions then we need to measure the square footage and add that to the property value.


Which describes a property tax system, not a land value tax system.



> Are you on something? Or is this just an issue of me being an appraiser for a different state than you?


It's an issue of you refusing to know the fact that improvements are not land.

----------


## Roy L

> On the other hand, if your plot just has room for a house and a garden and some power generating and a family size coop of hens, you get off property tax free.


To restore the individual right to liberty, a land value tax would have a universal individual exemption analogous to the universal individual income tax exemption.  The difference is that not everyone has income, but everyone does use land.  The exemption would apply to tenants as well as landholders, and would enable significant reductions of spending on poverty relief, abolition of minimum wage laws, etc.  People don't have a right to money from the government.  But they do have a right to access opportunities without having to pay a private landowner to stay out of the way.

----------


## Roy L

> You're logic is so astoundingly retarted I want to beat my face in with a brick to end the intellectual pain that your are inflicting upon me.


Then you can imagine how _I_ feel...



> By your logic, I am not privy to the water I purchase, because it "deprives you of nature".


What water do you purchase?  If you are talking about a fee for using a natural water source, then you are ALREADY paying for it.  You are just probably paying the wrong party.  If you are talking about buying bottled water in a store, that is not nature, it is a product of labor.

----------


## Roy L

> Texas Property Tax Code does state it is an ad valorem Land value tax.


But it self-evidently ISN'T one, as proved by:



> Improvements are included in the appraisal method.


See?

----------


## Roy L

> It is the same thing in Texas. It is just one part of the total account. It does tend to be less value unless you are talking about multiple acres.


WTF do you imagine you think you might be talking about?

----------


## Roy L

> Trying to exclude products of labor from taxation will inevitably lead to a sense of injustice in almost every citizen because it flies in the face of our innate sense of "natural law".


Really?  Or is that just religion, habit and tradition talking?



> As satisfying and convenient as it may be to propose anarchy or a government funded exclusively through a tax on land, neither is sustainable because we all KNOW* that is "unfair".


I do not know that.  It depends on what the government is doing.



> No matter how much or little land Bill Gates "owns", how "productive" he was in acquiring his wealth, or what he earns in annual "income"; 99.9% of the population will believe that he should be required to pay much more in taxes than the average citizen.


Gates has profited from a different kind of unjust privilege, so they are right.



> * Excepting of course the possibility of the occasional mutant or one whose education has allowed near perfect uncoupling of their consciousness from what the rest of us humans would call "feelings".


LOL!

----------


## Roy L

> You and I do have the right to purchase and own land.  This has been demonstrated by Locke, Mises, Schaffer, Rothbard, Hume, Blackstone, and numerous others.


No, it most certainly has not.  It has been CLAIMED from time to time, but certainly never demonstrated.  Landowning inherently violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.  There is no way to argue against this self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  One can only ignore it, dismiss it, or lie about it.



> Look at what you missed by selectively quoting Adam Smith:
> "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of  property, is, in reality, instituted for the defense of the rich against  the poor, or of those who have property against those who have none at  all." (from Wealth Of Nations)


And your point would be...?

----------


## erowe1

> Landowning inherently violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.


Merely existing as a person inherently violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to occupy whatever space you occupy in the universe.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

*This thread will reach 100 pages.*
Mark my words!  These georgist/mutualist guys were on the free state project forum, too. 

You guys are charming, BTW, redbluepill and Roy L.  Simply charming.  While you lack logos, we simply can't resist being persuaded by your endearing pathos and ethos.  Soon you will convert the whole forum.  I mean, I'm sure erowe1 appreciates being repeatedly called an idiot.  I know I did.

----------


## Seraphim

Thank you for joining me in pointing out his complete lack of intellectual honesty and logic.

Shall we start framing our arguments in a consistent manner now, Roy?






> Merely existing as a person inherently violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to occupy whatever space you occupy in the universe.

----------


## Dr.3D

> Merely existing as a person inherently violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to occupy whatever space you occupy in the universe.


Thank you! 

Edit: Yeah, we should all have to pay a SVT, (space value tax).

----------


## Roy L

> Merely existing as a person inherently violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to occupy whatever space you occupy in the universe.


ROTFL!  Your "argument" is self-refuting, as those others only have rights in the first place because they also exist, and thus likewise occupy space others would otherwise be at liberty to use.

See how easily all your dishonest garbage is proved to be dishonest garbage?

----------


## Roy L

> I mean, I'm sure erowe1 appreciates being repeatedly called an idiot.  I know I did.


There is a difference between proving that someone is making idiotic statements and calling them an idiot.  Why lie about what we have plainly written?

----------


## erowe1

> ROTFL!  Your "argument" is self-refuting, as those others only have rights in the first place because they also exist, and thus likewise occupy space others would otherwise be at liberty to use.
> 
> See how easily all your dishonest garbage is proved to be dishonest garbage?


I didn't honestly think I was saying something true. I'm glad you agree.

The problem is the claim that occupying space to the exclusion of others violates their rights is no different than the claim that occupying land to the exclusion of others violates their rights.

----------


## Roy L

> Thank you!


So you actually found that masterpiece of illogic persuasive?

Remarkable!

----------


## Dr.3D

> So you actually found that masterpiece of illogic persuasive?
> 
> Remarkable!


Same logic you are using.

By his logic, we should all have to pay a (SVT) Space Value Tax.

----------


## Roy L

> Thank you for joining me in pointing out his complete lack of intellectual honesty and logic.


Another poster who self-evidently has no training in logic and no inclination to honesty...



> Shall we start framing our arguments in a consistent manner now, Roy?


You can join me any time.

----------


## Roy L

> Same logic you are using.


No.



> By his logic, we should all have to pay a (SVT) Space Value Tax.


To compensate everyone who is likewise occupying space and paying the tax...?

ROTFL!!

----------


## Seraphim

Round and round we go, where will this stop? NOBODY KNOWS!




> Another poster who self-evidently has no training in logic and no inclination to honesty...
> 
> You can join me any time.

----------


## erowe1

> No.
> 
> To compensate everyone who is likewise occupying space and paying the tax...?
> 
> ROTFL!!


Some people occupy more space than others, and should, therefore, pay more taxes.

----------


## Roy L

> I didn't honestly think I was saying something true. I'm glad you agree.


It's true but an ignoratio elenchi fallacy, as the right to life implies a right to occupy the space one's physical body takes up.



> The problem is the claim that occupying space to the exclusion of others violates their rights is no different than the claim that occupying land to the exclusion of others violates their rights.


No, that's just self-evidently false, as the right to life does _not_ imply excluding others from land, as proved by all the people who lived just fine before any land was ever appropriated as private property.

As I already explained to you, you are grasping at every cretinous rationalization you can contrive in order to avoid knowing the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.  You are willing to sacrifice even your tenuous grasp of reality, your very mind and sanity, in order to preserve your irrational and evil belief system.  I find that sad, but not unexpected.

----------


## Roy L

> Some people occupy more space than others, and should, therefore, pay more taxes.


<sigh>  Please remember: when I prove that your statements are idiotic, it does not mean I am calling you an idiot.

Taxes exist to support government.  Government's task is to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the products of their labor.  As one must occupy space in order to live, it would be inherently self-contradictory for government to tax that use of space.

----------


## Dr.3D

> Some people occupy more space than others, and should, therefore, pay more taxes.


Maybe the lazy bastards who feel the need to be compensated should just work to acquire the ability to occupy more of that space.

----------


## Roy L

> Maybe the lazy bastards who feel the need to be compensated should just work to acquire the ability to occupy more of that space.


If you have to work to pay for your rights, you don't actually have rights, and are therefore a slave.

----------


## Dr.3D

> If you have to work to pay for your rights, you don't actually have rights, and are therefore a slave.


No one is born with a right to land.  Sure, they can walk around on the land of others, with  their permission, but until they pay for something, no matter if it is food, clothing, fuel a home or land, they have no right to it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> There is a difference between proving that someone is making idiotic statements and calling them an idiot.  Why lie about what we have plainly written?


 Repeatedly calling others liars is always good form, too.

Oh wait, I'm so so sorry.  You didn't call me a liar.  You just said I lie.  Similarly, you would never dream of calling anyone an idiot.  That would just be low.  You just say that they are idiotic.  Totally different.  Also that they have a tenuous grip on reality , and even that small grip they have lost in the attempt to maintain their false, evil, dishonestly garbage and, yes, cretinous beliefs.

But you'd never call anyone an idiot.  How dare anyone accuse you of that?  Anyone who did that is just naked, smirking evil, obviously despicable in every way, and has the same tragically low intelligence as everyone who opposes land taxation.

----------


## WilliamC

What about the idea that only individuals can own land, and that when the individual sells the land or dies there is a a one-time property title transfer tax paid to the State when a new individual buys the land?

I've read a bit about Georgism and LVT and, given that government has some authority to collect taxes, I can see where a land tax is possibly the most transparent (can't hide land) but as with any tax it can and will be abused if at all possible.

But the thought of someone being thrown out of their paid-for residence for failure to pay property taxes is abhorrent and should never happen.

----------


## Seraphim

> What about the idea that only individuals can own land, and that when the individual sells the land or dies there is a a one-time property title transfer tax paid to the State when a new individual buys the land?
> 
> I've read a bit about Georgism and LVT and, given that government has some authority to collect taxes, I can see where a land tax is possibly the most transparent (can't hide land) but as with any tax it can and will be abused if at all possible.
> 
> *But the thought of someone being thrown out of their paid-for residence for failure to pay property taxes is abhorrent and should never happen*.


Than eliminate property taxes - there are no alternatives. 

PS: Rationalizations are not alternatives.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> What about the idea that only individuals can own land, and that when the individual sells the land or dies there is a a one-time property title transfer tax paid to the State when a new individual buys the land?
> 
> I've read a bit about Georgism and LVT and, given that government has some authority to collect taxes, I can see where a land tax is possibly the most transparent (can't hide land) but as with any tax it can and will be abused if at all possible.


 How about this proposal for the Georgists: if there _is_  a tax on land, only those who pay this tax are allowed to vote.  Also, their votes are tallied in proportion to how much LVT they paid -- if you pay twice as much LVT, you get to vote twice as much.  One dollar, one vote.  That's only fair.  Let net-tax-receivers vote and you guarantee the tax rate will forever be increasing.




> But the thought of someone being thrown out of their paid-for residence for failure to pay property taxes is abhorrent and should never happen.


Agreed.  Of course, the Georgists think that's not abhorrent at all, but that what is abhorrent is this: themselves not being able to occupy whatever land they want in whatever location they want.  Oh yeah, and one more minor detail: they are entitled to it without paying anyone anything.  Oh, the injustice they must suffer!  My heart is bleeding, here.

----------


## Dr.3D

> Than eliminate property taxes - there are no alternatives. 
> 
> PS: Rationalizations are not alternatives.


That way the heirs to the estate wouldn't have to cough up a fee (tax) when they were to take possession of the land.   If they couldn't get the money for the transfer, then they would be thrown out of their paid-for land.   No tax is the only way to keep that from happening.

----------


## WilliamC

> Than eliminate property taxes - there are no alternatives. 
> 
> PS: Rationalizations are not alternatives.


Again, not rationalizing, but starting with the premise that government has some legitimate authority to tax, and that land is the most transparent form of wealth, then taxing land title transfer could be a least-bad way for the government to tax.

----------


## WilliamC

> How about this proposal for the Georgists: if there _is_  a tax on land, only those who pay this tax are allowed to vote.  Also, their votes are tallied in proportion to how much LVT they paid -- if you pay twice as much LVT, you get to vote twice as much.  One dollar, one vote.  That's only fair.  Let net-tax-receivers vote and you guarantee the tax rate will forever be increasing.


The idea that the right to vote should be linked to paying taxes is worth exploring, since as is obvious once people can vote to spend other peoples money then there is no end to the damage democracy can do.

----------


## Dr.3D

> The idea that the right to vote should be linked to paying taxes is worth exploring, since as is obvious once people can vote to spend other peoples money then there is no end to the damage democracy can do.


Careful, they will claim you are just trying to keep them slaves to the tax payers.

----------


## Roy L

> No one is born with a right to land.


Yes, they are, and must be, because without a right to use land, one can have no right to life or liberty.  We already proved that with the Crusoe-Friday example.



> Sure, they can walk around on the land of others, with  their permission,


All are naturally at liberty to use all land, whether greedy thieves claim to own it or not.  That is just a fact of physical reality.



> but until they pay for something, no matter if it is food, clothing, fuel a home or land, they have no right to it.


Clearly that is self-contradictory, because without using land, no one could ever have worked to obtain the means to pay for land.  The right to use land therefore has logical precedence over any claim to payment for land.  Therefore, it is logically impossible to subordinate the right to use land to any claim to ownership of land.

----------


## Seraphim

If I could imbed a real world scenario in the dictionary, to illustrate what a rationalization is - I would use this.




> Again, not rationalizing, but starting with the premise that government has some legitimate authority to tax, and that land is the most transparent form of wealth, then taxing land title transfer could be a least-bad way for the government to tax.

----------


## Roy L

> The idea that the right to vote should be linked to paying taxes is worth exploring, since as is obvious once people can vote to spend other peoples money then there is no end to the damage democracy can do.


Once upon a time, landowners paid all the taxes, and only landowners could vote.  Problem is, the first thing those landowners voted for was to make someone else pay the taxes.

----------


## WilliamC

> Once upon a time, landowners paid all the taxes, and only landowners could vote.  Problem is, the first thing those landowners voted for was to make someone else pay the taxes.


Well I guess we could just do away with my assumption that government has some legitimate authority to tax and go back to running it all with voluntary contributions and user fees. 

That works for me.

----------


## Seraphim

Right. And in our current reality, people vote to steal from others to pay for their ideologies - with the HAPPY TO SERVE YOU government, that LOVES to steal from some to pay for others.

How about THIS - No more rationalizations. Taxation is theft. Arguing over which tax is least offensive is like trying to pick out of a line of girls, all of whom have STD's. "I'll take the one with crabs, that bitch with the Ghonnorhea sludge is just too gross".

$#@!. THAT.

"My form of stealing is less offensive then your form of stealing!!"

And people wonder why society is $#@!ed up. 




> Once upon a time, landowners paid all the taxes, and only landowners could vote.  Problem is, the first thing those landowners voted for was to make someone else pay the taxes.

----------


## Seraphim

Good, I'm glad.

Assuming the government should, or does, have the right to steal...is mistake #1...and the foundation for all that is $#@!ed up in society.




> Well I guess we could just do away with my assumption that government has some legitimate authority to tax and go back to running it all with voluntary contributions and user fees. 
> 
> That works for me.

----------


## Dr.3D

> Yes, they are, and must be, because without a right to use land, one can have no right to life or liberty.  We already proved that with the Crusoe-Friday example.


Had food been scarce and Crusoe not been lonely, Friday would have been floating face down.



> All are naturally at liberty to use all land, whether greedy thieves claim to own it or not.  That is just a fact of physical reality.


That's pretty much what those who have no land would say.



> Clearly that is self-contradictory, because without using land, no one could ever have worked to obtain the means to pay for land.  The right to use land therefore has logical precedence over any claim to payment for land.  Therefore, it is logically impossible to subordinate the right to use land to any claim to ownership of land.


Those without land are granted permission to use someone else's land to obtain the means to pay for land.  Thus the right to land is a fallacy conjured up by those who have no land.

----------


## Roy L

> Repeatedly calling others liars is always good form, too.


It is at least quite a bit better form than repeatedly lying.



> You didn't call me a liar.  You just said I lie.


Everyone lies from time to time ("Do these pants make me look fat?").  That is not the same as being a liar.



> Similarly, you would never dream of calling anyone an idiot.  That would just be low.  You just say that they are idiotic.


No, their statements.  If you feel you have been exposed to ridicule as an idiot, perhaps you should consider the nature of the claims you have been making.



> But you'd never call anyone an idiot.  How dare anyone accuse you of that?  Anyone who did that is just naked, smirking evil, obviously despicable in every way, and has the same tragically low intelligence as everyone who opposes land taxation.


Stupidity is only one reason for opposing land value taxation.  There is also ignorance, greed, cowardice, laziness and dishonesty.

----------


## WilliamC

> If I could imbed a real world scenario in the dictionary, to illustrate what a rationalization is - I would use this.


Sigh. 

PREMISE --  'Government has a legitimate authority to tax'.

PREMISE -- 'Land is the most transparent form of wealth (can't be hidden)'.

PREMISE --'Any form of taxation should be as fair and simple as possible'

CONCLUSION -- 'A land value tax is a valid mechanism of taxation'

Not rationalization, just advancing an argument for consideration.

----------


## Roy L

> What about the idea that only individuals can own land, and that when the individual sells the land or dies there is a a one-time property title transfer tax paid to the State when a new individual buys the land?


It's a lousy idea, why?



> I've read a bit about Georgism and LVT and, given that government has some authority to collect taxes, I can see where a land tax is possibly the most transparent (can't hide land) but as with any tax it can and will be abused if at all possible.


It is much harder to abuse than other taxes.  Corruption is of course always a danger under any system.



> But the thought of someone being thrown out of their paid-for residence for failure to pay property taxes is abhorrent and should never happen.


The land can never be "paid-for," because the occupant is getting an ongoing, permanent stream of benefits from government and the community.

You don't expect to go to a grocery store and buy some food, and then expect to get more food every week, forever, without paying any more.  Why do you expect to get access to the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides for an indefinite period without paying any more for them?

----------


## Dr.3D

> The land can never be "paid-for," because the occupant is getting an ongoing, permanent stream of benefits from government and the community.


Why not let the owner opt out of the permanent stream of benefits the government and community are supposedly supplying?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> It's a lousy idea, why?
> 
> It is much harder to abuse than other taxes.  Corruption is of course always a danger under any system.
> *
> The land can never be "paid-for," because the occupant is getting an ongoing, permanent stream of benefits from government and the community.
> *
> You don't expect to go to a grocery store and buy some food, and then expect to get more food every week, forever, without paying any more.  Why do you expect to get access to the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides for an indefinite period without paying any more for them?


You can say that about any object-even about a person's body.  That doesn't make it wrong-it just means you don't like it.  As for your last statement, the reason we get access to those things is because we pay for them, one way or another.  Nothing in this world is free.

----------


## WilliamC

> It's a lousy idea, why?


You tell me.




> It is much harder to abuse than other taxes.  Corruption is of course always a danger under any system.


And the power to arbitrarily raise taxes in order to remove people from their land is tempting for those looking to be corrupted.




> The land can never be "paid-for," because the occupant is getting an ongoing, permanent stream of benefits from government and the community.


But the tax could be paid for at time of title transfer, since the government (supposedly) lasts longer than any individual. 

Why should the government get money every year? Why not every 10 years or every week?

Why not at time of title transfer?




> You don't expect to go to a grocery store and buy some food, and then expect to get more food every week, forever, without paying any more.


Food is consumed. Land is not.




> Why do you expect to get access to the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides for an indefinite period without paying any more for them?


I don't. Let the free market provide these instead.

----------


## kuckfeynes

I've only gotten halfway through this thread but have seen Somalia mentioned several times as some kind of empirical evidence against the anarcho school of thought.

Personally while I think there are good arguments to be made for the Geoist POV, that's not one of them. Check out:

http://mises.org/daily/2066
http://mises.org/daily/2701
and especially
http://mises.org/daily/5418

Though it may be obvious where my philosophical preferences lie, I don't believe one side will ever be able to convince the other of its superiority. But that doesn't mean we can't be honest and responsible in our debate. The "Somalia" argument is a page straight out of the totalitarian propaganda book, and I have to say I am surprised to see supposed libertarians using it.

----------


## Roy L

> Had food been scarce and Crusoe not been lonely, Friday would have been floating face down.


Only if Crusoe was an evil, greedy fool -- i.e., a typical apologist for landowner privilege.



> That's pretty much what those who have no land would say.


As it is objectively correct.



> Those without land are granted permission to use someone else's land to obtain the means to pay for land.


No, that's self-evidently false, ahistorical, and self-contradictory.  No one was "without land" because no one had any right to deprive others of their liberty to use land.  And no one could ever have come to own land in the first place because there was initially no landowner to grant permission or to pay for it.

See how easily your dishonest garbage is proved to be dishonest garbage?

The rights to life and liberty do not depend on a grant of permission from some greedy, evil thief for their exercise.  If you need someone's permission to sustain your life, you are their slave.



> Thus the right to land is a fallacy conjured up by those who have no land.


LOL!  You are conveniently forgetting that in the first instance, no one "had" any land because it was all unowned, so no one could ever have survived if they had no right to use land.

See how easily all your claims are proved absurd and self-refuting?

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
   -- Voltaire

The more interesting corollary of Voltaire's astute observation is that those who would make you commit atrocities will first try to make you believe absurdities.  The purpose of your absurdities is to rationalize, excuse, and justify the atrocities committed in the name of the Great God Property.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The "Somalia" argument is a page straight out of the totalitarian propaganda book, and I have to say I am surprised to see supposed libertarians using it.


 Check your premises.  I think you may be the only one supposing that they are libertarians.  They never claimed to be.

----------


## Roy L

> Check out:
> 
> http://mises.org/daily/2066
> http://mises.org/daily/2701
> and especially
> http://mises.org/daily/5418


Why would I waste my time even clicking on a link to mises.org?



> The "Somalia" argument is a page straight out of the totalitarian propaganda book, and I have to say I am surprised to see supposed libertarians using it.


As Nobel laureate in economics Amartya Sen has pointed out, no democracy has ever suffered a significant famine -- a fact that is relevant to the case of Somalia for, in Dr. Strangelove's delicious phrase, "reasons which must be all too obvious at this moment."

So, how's that "meeza hatesa gubmint" thing workin' out for ya?

----------


## kuckfeynes

Well if you're not going to read the articles, I'm not going to engage in a tit for tat.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The purpose of your absurdities is to rationalize, excuse, and justify the atrocities committed in the name of the Great God Property.


 Of course Marx, from whom you so desperately try to distance yourself, agreed with you that property is the root of all evil.  As did Godwin, Proudhon and all the bad anarchists (left anarchists).

Libertarians, on the other hand, believe that property is the root of all good.

There really isn't any common ground.  If you were smart, like redbluepill, you'd interminably bring up quotes of liberty-lovers from days of yore, trying to at least give the appearance of some common ground.  But the fact is your philosophy and the philosophy of most of us on this board are diametrically opposed.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Why would I waste my time even clicking on a link to mises.org?


 That's just it: you wouldn't!  You're too smart for that kind of behavior.  I mean, you've already demolished everything they've ever written over there with a few well-chosen turns of phrase.  Point, set, match.  They're out of the game.  Courtesy of Roy L.  Mises is dead, long live Henry George!

----------


## Roy L

> How about this proposal for the Georgists: if there _is_  a tax on land, only those who pay this tax are allowed to vote.


Already answered: the first thing they voted for was to make someone else pay the taxes.



> Also, their votes are tallied in proportion to how much LVT they paid -- if you pay twice as much LVT, you get to vote twice as much.  One dollar, one vote.  That's only fair.


What's fair is to recover the publicly created value of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it.  The landholders in a rent recovery system are not paying their _own_ money in return for a proportional political voice.  They are REpaying value that was ALREADY GIVEN TO THEM IN RETURN FOR NOTHING.  When you pay for what you take home from the grocery store, that does not entitle you to be the boss at the store: you ALREADY GOT value for your money, just as landowners have.  LVT just asks them to pay market value for what they are used to getting for free.



> Let net-tax-receivers vote and you guarantee the tax rate will forever be increasing.


Already disproved by historical fact: landowners are the only net tax receivers, yet land taxation is relentlessly decreasing.



> Of course, the Georgists think that's not abhorrent at all, but that what is abhorrent is this: themselves not being able to occupy whatever land they want in whatever location they want.


Of course, you have no choice but to lie about what Georgists plainly say.



> Oh yeah, and one more minor detail: they are entitled to it without paying anyone anything.


Only to the extent everyone else is.  That's called having equal rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.



> Oh, the injustice they must suffer!  My heart is bleeding, here.


Despicable.  Landowner privilege inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, enslavement, oppression, suffering, starvation, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR -- and you are rationalizing and justifying it.

How many millions more human sacrifices must you lay on the altar of your Great God Property?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

_~~~





 Originally Posted by roy l


fact: Landowners are the only net tax receivers


_~~~

----------


## Roy L

> Of course Marx, from whom you so desperately try to distance yourself, agreed with you that property is the root of all evil.


Marx was angry, confused, and wrong; but he did finally admit, deep in the bowels of Vol III of "Capital" where no one would ever read it, that the excessive, unearned returns he claimed went to capitalists in fact all went to landowners.

Greed (unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money") is the root of all evil.  Privileges such as slavery, landowning, private banks' debt-money issuance, etc., are the institutionalized legal empowerment of greed.  They are evil implemented as public policy.



> As did Godwin, Proudhon and all the bad anarchists (left anarchists).


I am not an anarchist.



> Libertarians, on the other hand, believe that property is the root of all good.


If property is the root of all good, you must favor chattel slavery, taxi medallions, licenses to steal, and every other form of robbery and oppression that can be implemented as ownable property.  Ooops...

You need to find a willingness to know the fact that not all property is good or rightful.  Once you have progressed to that point, you can begin to consider what forms of property are rightful under what conditions, and why.



> There really isn't any common ground.


Not as long as you refuse to know facts that prove you wrong, there isn't.



> If you were smart, like redbluepill, you'd interminably bring up quotes of liberty-lovers from days of yore, trying to at least give the appearance of some common ground.


I could do that.  In fact I have, elsewhere.

Here's Milton Friedman: In my opinion, the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago.

Here's David Nolan, Libertarian Party founder: "My own preference is for a single tax on land."

Do these quotes and others convince you that I am something other than a raving communist?  Of course not.  You have made up your mind, and are not open to factual education on this subject.



> But the fact is your philosophy and the philosophy of most of us on this board are diametrically opposed.


I don't know what most on this board believe, but I do know that I was reading Rand, Mises, Friedman, Nock and the rest before Ronald Reagan even entered politics.  I know the libertarian canon better than most, and I have devoted a great deal more thought and research to the question of how rightly to fund government than almost anyone on this forum, I promise you.  I have come to understand why so many great economists and champions of liberty have advocated land value taxation because I have been willing to learn, and to change my beliefs when they were proved wrong.  I invite you to try to find a willingness to do likewise.

----------


## Roy L

> Well if you're not going to read the articles, I'm not going to engage in a tit for tat.


I've read ample similar apologias for Somali anarchy before.  I don't have to read every one to know what they say.  If you have an argument, make it.  Don't just post urls and pretend they make your argument for you.

----------


## Roy L

> Why not let the owner opt out of the permanent stream of benefits the government and community are supposedly supplying?


There is no way to do that, and in any case he is not paying because he is enjoying those benefits (he may just be a speculator, keeping the land idle), but because he is* depriving everyone else* of them.  If you buy a hamburger at McD's, you have to pay for it even if you are going to throw it away untasted, because someone else would have wanted to eat it.

----------


## Roy L

> Assuming that landowners should, or do, have the right to steal...is mistake #1...and the foundation for all that is $#@!ed up in society.


There.  Fixed it for you.

----------


## Roy L

> You can say that about any object-even about a person's body.


But not correctly.  Whatever benefit you get from government, you have to pay a landowner full market value for.  That is why land is so expensive.



> As for your last statement, the reason we get access to those things is because we pay for them, one way or another.  Nothing in this world is free.


We have to pay _landowners_ for them, one way or another.  The value of land is the precise measure of the extent to which landowners get them WITHOUT paying for them.

----------


## Roy L

> You tell me.


It violates the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of sound tax design: "beneficiary pay" and "ability to pay."



> And the power to arbitrarily raise taxes in order to remove people from their land is tempting for those looking to be corrupted.


Land taxes can't be raised arbitrarily, because anyone can see the land, and check the taxes against those on neighboring land.  Moreover, there is no way to increase the tax above the full rent, which is what should be paid anyway: the land would simply be abandoned, reducing the government's revenue.  And there is likewise no motive to remove people from "their" land if they are paying the full rent: no one else would be willing to pay more than that.



> But the tax could be paid for at time of title transfer, since the government (supposedly) lasts longer than any individual.


That just encourages people to hold and hoard land out of efficient use, hoping to evade the tax entirely.  See California since Prop 13.



> Why should the government get money every year?


Because it provides the landowner with the advantages of services and infrastructure every year.



> Why not every 10 years or every week?


The annual payment of land taxes was originally based on the annual agricultural cycle.  Nowadays it could just as easily be quarterly, monthly, etc.  But budgets are done annually, so that seems a good enough maximum length for a revenue cycle.



> Why not at time of title transfer?


Because that would encourage hoarding and the associated allocative inefficiency.



> Food is consumed. Land is not.


The benefits and advantages provided to the landowner in any given period of time are consumed in the sense that they are gone forever, and cannot be enjoyed by anyone else.  Try again.



> I don't.


Yes, of course you do.  In fact, you DEMAND them.



> Let the free market provide these instead.


The free market can't provide efficient quantities of public goods, as Somalia proves so very thoroughly.  This is Economics 101.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I don't know what most on this board believe, but I do know that I was reading Rand, Mises, Friedman, Nock and the rest before Ronald Reagan even entered politics.  I know the libertarian canon better than most, and I have devoted a great deal more thought and research to the question of how rightly to fund government than almost anyone on this forum, I promise you.  I have come to understand why so many great economists and champions of liberty have advocated land value taxation because I have been willing to learn, and to change my beliefs when they were proved wrong.  I invite you to try to find a willingness to do likewise.


 You are old; we are young.  You will die; we will win.

----------


## WilliamC

> It violates the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of sound tax design: "beneficiary pay" and "ability to pay."


Well the person purchasing the land from an individual (or their estate) is benefiting from owning the land so why shouldn't they pay the taxes? And if they can't afford to purchase the land and pay the tax then someone else will buy it instead, so I don't see your point.




> Land taxes can't be raised arbitrarily,


Of course they could be if corrupt people were running the system.





> because anyone can see the land, and check the taxes against those on neighboring land.


Oh, so I get to set my own tax rate? Cool, then I'll set it to $1.00 per years. 

Problem solved.




> Moreover, there is no way to increase the tax above the full rent, which is what should be paid anyway: the land would simply be abandoned, reducing the government's revenue.


No, the government could raise the taxes until the current owner could no longer pay and was forced off, then the government could take possession, turn right around and sell the land to it's buddies and then lower the taxes.

Corruption is a bitch.




> And there is likewise no motive to remove people from "their" land if they are paying the full rent: no one else would be willing to pay more than that.


Why not simply have government collect whatever taxes when the title is transferred then?




> That just encourages people to hold and hoard land out of efficient use, hoping to evade the tax entirely.



Nothing is sure but death and taxes, and government will be their waiting to collect it's tax after the current owner dies and before a new owner can take possession. 





> See California since Prop 13.


Why? Does it abolish annual property taxes in favor of a title transfer tax at time of sale?




> Because it provides the landowner with the advantages of services and infrastructure every year.


No, it provides these every second of every day. So why not have the government collect the tax monthly? Or weekly? Or daily? 

Or when the land is sold and the title transferred?




> The annual payment of land taxes was originally based on the annual agricultural cycle.  Nowadays it could just as easily be quarterly, monthly, etc.  But budgets are done annually, so that seems a good enough maximum length for a revenue cycle.


So it's arbitrary. Fine, then let government wait until the current owner is dead and collect the tax from the new owner before they take title.





> Because that would encourage hoarding and the associated allocative inefficiency.


How? If you have to pay taxes when you purchase property and before you take title then this would limit how much land one could buy to how much one could afford.

As long as the tax is paid up front why should the government care how long an individual holds the land? Government will be there after they have died waiting to collect from the next person wanting to buy it.



> The benefits and advantages provided to the landowner in any given period of time are consumed in the sense that they are gone forever, and cannot be enjoyed by anyone else.  Try again.


No, land is not consumed, and these 'benefits' you speak of I say should largely be provided by the free-market to begin with, and so the land owner would be paying for them anyway. No need to try again.




> Yes, of course you do.  In fact, you DEMAND them.


**looks at our exchange in this thread**

Where?




> The free market can't provide efficient quantities of public goods, as Somalia proves so very thoroughly.


LOL! Somalia has a free-market? That's news to me.

Tell me about how their government upholds contract laws and regulates against fraud and coercion in the market.




> This is Economics 101.


No, this is a cordial debate on RPF, not an economics class.

Thanks for the feedback.

----------


## speciallyblend

lvt means you never own the land, any tax on the land means you do not own the land ever!!

----------


## speciallyblend

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


until you get rid of land tax no one owns land

----------


## erowe1

> Of course they could be if corrupt people were running the system.


There's no if about it.

Any time the success of any proposal that gives someone power over other people depends on the occupant of that position being the right kind of person, the decision of whether or not to create such a position must be made with the assumption that the person who actually occupies it will be the wrong kind.

----------


## Dr.3D

Seems somebody is confused as to this being a libertarian forum.   LOL

----------


## WilliamC

> There's no if about it.
> 
> Any time the success of any proposal that gives someone power over other people depends on the occupant of that position being the right kind of person, the decision of whether or not to create such a position must be made with the assumption that the person who actually occupies it will be the wrong kind.


Yes, never give to government any power that you wouldn't want your worst enemy to have, 'cause you never know when they just might be elected.

----------


## Roy L

> You are old; we are young.  You will die; we will win.


The truth will win.  If you continue to oppose it, you will lose.

----------


## Roy L

> lvt means you never own the land, any tax on the land means you do not own the land ever!!


Such claims are not only false and absurd but irrelevant and self-contradictory: government issues and enforces the title, and you only get it on condition that you keep the taxes current.  So owning the land _means_ paying the taxes on it.  You seem to imagine owning land is like having your own little kingdom where you can do whatever you want, and need not answer to anyone else.  Sorry, that's just a puerile feudal libertarian fantasy world.

----------


## Roy L

> Any time the success of any proposal that gives someone power over other people depends on the occupant of that position being the right kind of person, the decision of whether or not to create such a position must be made with the assumption that the person who actually occupies it will be the wrong kind.


I see.  So, before you agree to a general anesthetic for surgery, you should assume the surgeon is a psychopath.  Yeah, that sounds real intelligent...

----------


## Seraphim

This




> i agree that most of the original land grants were illegitimate. However, it's not possible to correct all of the grievances of history, and i certainly don't see how taxing people's property has anything to do with justice at all.
> 
> It's best just to work for freedom starting now. Land ownership will balance out over time, and revert to those who really produce things their neighbors need, if the government is not there to prop up their corrupt buddies.
> 
> I would support opening up national forest to reasonable homesteading.

----------


## Roy L

> Well the person purchasing the land from an individual (or their estate) is benefiting from owning the land so why shouldn't they pay the taxes?


No, they are not benefiting from owning the land until after they have bought it -- when you say they should no longer have to pay any taxes on it.  Your claims are reliably the exact, diametric opposite of the truth.



> And if they can't afford to purchase the land and pay the tax then someone else will buy it instead, so I don't see your point.


You don't see that a billionaire who owns a lot of land and is able to (and rightly should) pay a lot of tax is not required to pay *any* tax under your proposal??

It is self-evident that you are simply refusing to know all relevant facts, and making claims that are diametrically opposed to the facts, in order to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil.



> Of course they could be if corrupt people were running the system.


No, they could not, because corrupt government officials are more intelligent (as well as more honest) than the sort of lying ninnies who typically oppose land value taxation.



> Oh, so I get to set my own tax rate?


No, the data are just all public, so corrupt anomalies are easily exposed.  But you do get to make $#!+ up about what I plainly wrote, a liberty of which you are taking remarkably comprehensive advantage.



> Cool, then I'll set it to $1.00 per years. 
> 
> Problem solved.


Let me know if you ever decide to address anything I have said.



> No, the government could raise the taxes until the current owner could no longer pay and was forced off, then the government could take possession, turn right around and sell the land to it's buddies and then lower the taxes.


Yes, and the government could also just kill everyone and take all their stuff.  But that is not an honest description of any plausible implementation of the proposed -- or any other -- tax system.

*GET IT???*



> Corruption is a bitch.


Dishonesty is a bore.



> Why not simply have government collect whatever taxes when the title is transferred then?


Because that would make the taxes proportional to how long it has been since the land was last transferred, making transfer less and less economically feasible the longer the land has been held -- the exact opposite of an efficient land allocation mechanism -- until neither buyer nor seller is going to be willing, or able, to pay 50 or 60 years worth of back taxes on the owner's death.  People with IQs greater than their hat size are able to comprehend such facts.  Dishonest people pretend not to know them.



> Nothing is sure but death and taxes, and government will be their waiting to collect it's tax after the current owner dies and before a new owner can take possession.


Ensuring that no tax is ever collected from the landowner who pockets all the benefits, and no new owner can afford to take possession.  Ingenious.



> Why? Does it abolish annual property taxes in favor of a title transfer tax at time of sale?


Almost.  It limits assessment increases to a very low level until the time of transfer, at which point the assessment is marked to market.  This means low property taxes for those who hoard their land, high property taxes for anyone who wants to buy it.  Result: declining market liquidity and increasingly inefficient allocation.



> No, it provides these every second of every day.


By "every year" I obviously meant "continuously," not "annually."



> So why not have the government collect the tax monthly? Or weekly? Or daily?


Many places do have monthly property tax payments, often bundled with mortgage and insurance payments.  People with IQs higher than their hat size are able to understand the fact that there are costs associated with processing payments, which is why utilities, landlords, credit card companies, etc. typically bill monthly instead of hourly or nanosecondly.



> Or when the land is sold and the title transferred?


Because that would create an ever-increasing financial barrier to title transfers, resulting in the tax never being collected and the title never being transferred.



> So it's arbitrary.


It's not arbitrary.  That is just another fabrication on your part.



> Fine, then let government wait until the current owner is dead


That violates the "beneficiary pay" principle, as the beneficiary dies without ever paying.  Indeed, that is self-evidently the only real purpose of your proposal: to make sure that the landowner is privileged to pocket the entire welfare subsidy giveaway from government, stealing as much as possible from society, and is never asked to repay any of it.  You simply want greedy, idle, parasitic landowners to be able to steal as much as possible from the productive.



> and collect the tax from the new owner before they take title.


The new owner hasn't received any benefit yet, so why would he be willing to pay 50 or 60 years of the former owner's back taxes?



> How?


By eliminating the holding cost of land, and relentlessly increasing the transaction cost of transferring it.  This is primer-level economics, which probably explains why you are completely ignorant of it.



> If you have to pay taxes when you purchase property and before you take title then this would limit how much land one could buy to how much one could afford.


I.e., it would make current landowners a permanent, privileged landed aristocracy, and prevent the riff-raff from ever being able to afford to buy any land at all.  Which is obviously your intention.



> As long as the tax is paid up front why should the government care how long an individual holds the land?


It can't be paid up-front, because no one knows what the future flow of benefits will be -- and it will often be so large that no one could afford to pay for it up-front anyway.  That is your evident intention: to make sure no landowner ever has to repay what he takes from society, and the landless are forever prevented from joining the idle, greedy, privileged landed elite.



> Government will be there after they have died waiting to collect from the next person wanting to buy it.


Meaning only the very rich will ever be able to buy land, which is your evident intention.



> No, land is not consumed,


No, that claim is just objectively false: "land" in economics includes depletable resources such as mineral ores, oil, soil fertility, natural standing timber, etc., which are indisputably consumed by use; and the consumption in question is in any case not of spatial locations per se, but of the benefits for which LVT is the just payment: locational _advantages_ (including secure, exclusive tenure) that are provided by government and the community as well as by nature.  You are simply trying to evade and obscure the fact that the landowner consumes these benefits, denying them to others, and thus must rightly pay for them.  You want him to be able to steal them, and consume them without paying for them.



> and these 'benefits' you speak of I say should largely be provided by the free-market to begin with,


The free market *includes* LVT, because otherwise landowning is inherently a subsidy to landowners, and there is no place in the free market for subsidies.  Natural resources -- the physical qualities nature provides -- by definition can _never_ be provided by the free market, as they already exist with no help from the free market.  The services and infrastructure government provides cannot be provided by the free market unless they are funded by LVT, because their value all goes to landowners, who are not required to pay for them in the absence of LVT.  The opportunities and amenities the community provides are provided by the free market, but there is no mechanism other than LVT that would require the landowners who get the benefit of them to pay for them.

Your notion of the free market is anti-economic nonsense.



> and so the land owner would be paying for them anyway.


The only way landowners can be required to pay for what they take is via LVT, because the advantages they take from society arise as externalities, not contractual consideration.



> No need to try again.


As all your "arguments" to date have been demolished as fallacious, absurd and dishonest, you will have to try again if you hope to rescue your proved-false beliefs.



> **looks at our exchange in this thread**
> 
> Where?


When you demand to keep the publicly created increase in the value of your land.



> LOL! Somalia has a free-market? That's news to me.
> 
> Tell me about how their government upholds contract laws and regulates against fraud and coercion in the market.


See the urls kuckfeynes posted in post #281:

http://mises.org/daily/2066
http://mises.org/daily/2701
http://mises.org/daily/5418



> No, this is a cordial debate on RPF, not an economics class.


It might be a debate if you were offering any arguments.  As it is, I am just schooling you in economics and logic.  And honesty.



> Thanks for the feedback.


Thanks for wasting my time with your fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap.

----------


## WilliamC

> Thanks for wasting my time with your fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap.


You're so welcome. I'll read your response and pick it apart later, if I feel so inclined.

It's just a matter of patience...

----------


## Roy L

> Quote Originally Posted by roy l 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				fact: Landowners are the only net tax receivers


Google "Henry George Theorem" and start reading.

----------


## Roy L

> I'll read your response and pick it apart later, if I feel so inclined.


No, you won't.  At best, you will essay ever-more-fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap, in a futile effort to rescue your already-demolished fallacious, absurd and relentlessly dishonest crap.  I have seen this pattern too often to imagine it will not be recapitulated here.



> It's just a matter of patience...


No, it is a matter of your choice to make the preservation of your false and evil beliefs a higher priority than the truth.  I have learned that even infinite patience on my part cannot overcome a decision not to know.

----------


## Roy L

> Property tax is even worse than an income tax.


Wrong.  Property tax is better than income tax because it bears more on economic rent.



> I can't think of a worse form of taxation than one that can result in your home being confiscated.


Your lack of imagination (and knowledge of economics and history) is not an argument.

The fact is, in 1978 only a handful of resident homeowners in California had their homes "confiscated" for back property taxes.  In every case, property taxes were the least of their financial problems, and in most cases their mortgages and/or other debts were also in arrears.  Liars called these unfortunate circumstances "being taxed out of their homes."

A somewhat larger number of Californians took large (and tax-free) capital gains on their homes that year and sought accommodation better suited to their needs and means in less pricey neighborhoods.  Liars also called this voluntary response to market price signals "being taxed out of their homes."

Putatively to prevent a few hundred such people from "losing their homes to property taxes" each year, Proposition 13 was initiated and passed, reducing and limiting property taxes, and resulting in relentlessly declining property tax revenue as a fraction of all state and local government revenue.

But that was not the only result of Prop 13.  No.  The relentlessly declining effective property tax rate blew an immense housing bubble -- as low property tax rates also did in Nevada, Arizona, and Florida -- entrapping MILLIONS of people into paying more for homes than they could afford.  *So now instead of a few hundred people each year "losing their homes to property taxes," HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CALIFORNIANS ARE LOSING THEIR HOMES -- AND THEIR WHOLE FINANCIAL FUTURES -- TO MORTGAGE DEFAULTS.*

That is the real result of people's stupid, anti-economic, anti-justice, anti-logical hatred of property taxes.  California committed suicide when it passed Prop 13, in the worst public policy blunder committed by any state since the Civil War.  You are witnessing California's slow strangulation by the enormous and relentlessly increasing welfare subsidy giveaways it is forced to give landowners thanks to Prop 13.

----------


## WilliamC

> No, they are not benefiting from owning the land until after they have bought it -- when you say they should no longer have to pay any taxes on it.  Your claims are reliably the exact, diametric opposite of the truth.


Well if I purchased land I would certainly anticipate being able to benefit from doing so, otherwise why would I purchase it?





> You don't see that a billionaire who owns a lot of land and is able to (and rightly should) pay a lot of tax is not required to pay *any* tax under your proposal??


He's already paid property tax under our current system. He would pay title transfer tax for each separate property he purchases under the system I'm making up.




> It is self-evident that you are simply refusing to know all relevant facts, and making claims that are diametrically opposed to the facts, in order to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil.


What is evil is forcing people from their homes that they have paid for and lived in for years because they are unable to pay property taxes, which have often been raised repeatedly whilst they were living in their homes.

Making someone pay a title transfer tax isn't evil, well no more so than any other tax.




> No, they could not, because corrupt government officials are more intelligent (as well as more honest) than the sort of lying ninnies who typically oppose land value taxation.


Oh, now we see some rudeness coming out. Something the matter with having your premises questioned?




> No, the data are just all public, so corrupt anomalies are easily exposed.


But what if they aren't acted upon? Whomever gets to enforce tax collection could selectively decide when and where to do so. I imagine a corrupt tax enforcer could make a lot of money by falsifying records of tax payments.

Who polices the tax collectors? 




> But you do get to make $#!+ up about what I plainly wrote, a liberty of which you are taking remarkably comprehensive advantage.
> 
> Let me know if you ever decide to address anything I have said.


Just bringing up uncomfortable possible problems with your land value tax, that's all.




> Yes, and the government could also just kill everyone and take all their stuff.


Well gee I'm glad this has never happened in human history.

/sarc.




> But that is not an honest description of any plausible implementation of the proposed -- or any other -- tax system.


Gee, I'm glad no government has simply decided to kill it's people and take their land. That makes your system so much more acceptable.

/sarc.




> *GET IT???*


Yes, I get it. First kill everyone you don't like, take their land, then distribute to who you do like.

It's happened time and time again.

Tell me Roy, do you support a fully armed citizenry that gets to keep and bear weapons in public?

If so then I'm inclined to be a bit more charitable towards your proposed LVT system.

If not....




> Dishonesty is a bore.


Which is why I am completely upfront about where I'm coming from.

I don't oppose all local property taxes but I don't think there should be any Federal tax on land or land ownership.




> Because that would make the taxes proportional to how long it has been since the land was last transferred, making transfer less and less economically feasible the longer the land has been held -- the exact opposite of an efficient land allocation mechanism -- until neither buyer nor seller is going to be willing, or able, to pay 50 or 60 years worth of back taxes on the owner's death.


Then lower the tax rate.




> People with IQs greater than their hat size are able to comprehend such facts.  Dishonest people pretend not to know them.


And those who resort to insulting their debate opponents have already lost the argument, but I do appreciate your effort and I don't totally disagree with the concept of property taxes, depending on how they are implemented and collected.




> Ensuring that no tax is ever collected from the landowner who pockets all the benefits, and no new owner can afford to take possession.  Ingenious.


Like I said, lower the tax rate. 




> Almost.  It limits assessment increases to a very low level until the time of transfer, at which point the assessment is marked to market.  This means low property taxes for those who hoard their land, high property taxes for anyone who wants to buy it.  Result: declining market liquidity and increasingly inefficient allocation.


So the State either ends up with the land after the current property owner dies because it's trying to get too much tax, or the State takes possession of the land from the current owner before they die because they are trying to get too much tax.

Sounds like the State needs to lower property taxes to me.




> By "every year" I obviously meant "continuously," not "annually."
> 
> Many places do have monthly property tax payments, often bundled with mortgage and insurance payments.  People with IQs higher than their hat size are able to understand the fact that there are costs associated with processing payments, which is why utilities, landlords, credit card companies, etc. typically bill monthly instead of hourly or nanosecondly.


So the timing of when the government collects the tax is arbitrary. Yearly, monthly, or, wait for it, upon death of current owner.




> Because that would create an ever-increasing financial barrier to title transfers, resulting in the tax never being collected and the title never being transferred.


Only if the State insists on trying to collect too much in taxes.

Lower the amount that the government wants to take from it's citizens and this won't be as much of a problem.




> It's not arbitrary.  That is just another fabrication on your part.


As far as I can tell we're both just making it up as we go.




> That violates the "beneficiary pay" principle, as the beneficiary dies without ever paying.


They paid a title transfer tax when they purchased the land. 




> Indeed, that is self-evidently the only real purpose of your proposal: to make sure that the landowner is privileged to pocket the entire welfare subsidy giveaway from government, stealing as much as possible from society, and is never asked to repay any of it.   You simply want greedy, idle, parasitic landowners to be able to steal as much as possible from the productive.


No, I just don't want people forcibly removed from their paid-for homes because they are unable to pay property taxes, and I can't see under a LVT what would prevent a government from arbitrarily raising taxes on those it wishes to punish and lowering them for their cronies.

Sort of like our current government rigs the tax codes to favor the wealthy and not the working class.




> The new owner hasn't received any benefit yet, so why would he be willing to pay 50 or 60 years of the former owner's back taxes?


Because they want to own the property? And again, if the State is asking too much in taxes then the simple solution is to lower the tax rate.




> By eliminating the holding cost of land, and relentlessly increasing the transaction cost of transferring it.  This is primer-level economics, which probably explains why you are completely ignorant of it.


Yes, you once more resort to insults to disguise your lack of interest in polite debate.

Hey, I'm not _forcing_ you to waste your time responding you know. 




> I.e., it would make current landowners a permanent, privileged landed aristocracy, and prevent the riff-raff from ever being able to afford to buy any land at all.  Which is obviously your intention.


No, my intention is to expose you as a communist land-grabber who wants the power to force anyone off of their property at any time so you can redistribute it more to your liking.




> It can't be paid up-front, because no one knows what the future flow of benefits will be -- and it will often be so large that no one could afford to pay for it up-front anyway.


Yes, we just don't know how much of our money that government will demand in the future, so we must always be willing to pay more. and more. and more.




> That is your evident intention: to make sure no landowner ever has to repay what he takes from society, and the landless are forever prevented from joining the idle, greedy, privileged landed elite.


No, my intention is to prevent people from being evicted from the homes they have paid for and live in.

That and wasting your time, obviously.




> Meaning only the very rich will ever be able to buy land, which is your evident intention.


Only if the government wants to charge too much tax.




> No, that claim is just objectively false: "land" in economics includes depletable resources such as mineral ores, oil, soil fertility, natural standing timber, etc., which are indisputably consumed by use; and the consumption in question is in any case not of spatial locations per se, but of the benefits for which LVT is the just payment: locational _advantages_ (including secure, exclusive tenure) that are provided by government and the community as well as by nature.  You are simply trying to evade and obscure the fact that the landowner consumes these benefits, denying them to others, and thus must rightly pay for them.  You want him to be able to steal them, and consume them without paying for them.


Ah, now you do have a point.

Mineral rights, water rights, and land usage are separate issues and the vast majority of 'property owners' own only their homes and the land their homes are on.

It is those people whom, once they've paid off their mortgage, who should be allowed to live on their property until they die without having to worry about being evicted.

Conflating them with your 'evil idle landowners' is problematic for your system.




> The free market *includes* LVT, because otherwise landowning is inherently a subsidy to landowners, and there is no place in the free market for subsidies.


Again, the vast majority of land-owners in the USA own the property their house is on, nothing more. Once you start tacking on mineral rights, water rights, timber harvesting, farming, ect that's a different set of issues than home ownership.





> Natural resources -- the physical qualities nature provides -- by definition can _never_ be provided by the free market, as they already exist with no help from the free market.  The services and infrastructure government provides cannot be provided by the free market unless they are funded by LVT, because their value all goes to landowners, who are not required to pay for them in the absence of LVT.  The opportunities and amenities the community provides are provided by the free market, but there is no mechanism other than LVT that would require the landowners who get the benefit of them to pay for them.


Unless those resources are brought to market then they do not benefit the land owner. It seems that there are already mechanisms in place to tax those sorts of benefits, but I freely admit I'm not much up on how much taxes people have to pay to operate a mine, an oil well, a timber plantation, or whatnot.




> Your notion of the free market is anti-economic nonsense.


A free-market must have some sort of system to enforce contracts and property rights or it's not a free-market at all, just anarchy.




> The only way landowners can be required to pay for what they take is via LVT, because the advantages they take from society arise as externalities, not contractual consideration.


Why cannot they be taxed when they bring the fruits of the land to market? 




> As all your "arguments" to date have been demolished as fallacious, absurd and dishonest, you will have to try again if you hope to rescue your proved-false beliefs.


No, I just enjoy watching those who want to take peoples homes from them try and defend their positions.

----------


## Roy L

> The American Dream is an illusion, so long is there is a tax on ones property.


Think: was the American Dream more vital in California in 1978, or 2010?  The big difference is the huge reduction in property tax rates since Prop 13 passed.

Are you aware of the Free State Project?  It chose New Hampshire because it had the smallest state government in the union.  It also had the *highest property tax rates*.  Coincidence?  You can probably contrive some rationalization to persuade yourself it is...

----------


## WilliamC

> No, you won't.  At best, you will essay ever-more-fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap, in a futile effort to rescue your already-demolished fallacious, absurd and relentlessly dishonest crap.  I have seen this pattern too often to imagine it will not be recapitulated here.
> 
> No, it is a matter of your choice to make the preservation of your false and evil beliefs a higher priority than the truth.  I have learned that even infinite patience on my part cannot overcome a decision not to know.


You're a funny guy Roy.

Thanks for posting 


edit: just in case you really don't get where I'm coming from Roy, and if I am grossly mistaken in my assumptions, try this...

_I know what I want and it isn't much just for all of my dreams to come true
It's not as if I wouldn't do them myself if how I only knew
So I guess I'll just imagine them now in my head a time or two
For to bring them to life may be beyond my might but to dream them is the least I can do

The first thing that I would wish for is for all of us to be friends
That every stranger be a person like me on whom others could come to depend
To speak from the heart and act out of love and seek only truth in the end
Until every encounter is more than mere chance and in each we all would win

Maybe then we would look around at our world and at our homes
Realize that they are one and the same for to each of us belongs
The inheritance of all of humanity, a species that has grown
From the womb of the earth being born into space our future the great unknown

For I believe we have a destiny both as individuals and as a race
To break free of the bonds of gravity and expand into outer space
So our children and theirs for a million years hence will never have to face
The threat of extinction grown all too real from the madness of the arms chase

In my dreams I see a future free of famine, war and disease
Where each individual accepts responsibility for the life he chooses to lead
Instead of looking for where to lay blame or how to appease the greed
We search instead for the inner peace that satisfies all of our needs

When all of this has happened and these things have come to pass
There is one final dream that would be just for me if it isn't too much to ask
Could somewhere out there be a woman who would love me faithful and steadfast?
For what good is life for a boy without girl or for a lad without his lass?
_

But you're welcome to form your opinions of me based solely on a single exchange of ideas we had on a thread about the proper role of taxation in a just society here on RPF, if that is what you wish to do.

----------


## osan

> Common property is not under the control of the government. An example of common property is an open park. Anyone can use it. Anyone can access it. However, governments tend to have so many restrictions on parks that they become collective property. Unfortunately, socialists have perverted the term "commons" to make it practically synonymous with "collective"


Good work.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Think: was the American Dream more vital in California in 1978, or 2010?  The big difference is the huge reduction in property tax rates since Prop 13 passed.
> 
> Are you aware of the Free State Project?  It chose New Hampshire because it had the smallest state government in the union.  It also had the *highest property tax rates*.  Coincidence?  You can probably contrive some rationalization to persuade yourself it is...


The "American Dream" is a fiction invented by Annon Hennesy to lure young boys.  It never existed outside of the realm of empty slogans and cliches.

----------


## Athan

Roy, seems clear from reading your posts that haters will be hating regardless of facts.

I'm not going to bother going line by line to refute you despite what you say because:

*1. EVERYTHING you say is based on semantics*. If a body of legislators decides to use a different appraisal method than what you propose which is more likely for our generations and future generations, then yes improvements can and WILL likely be considered part of an *Ad Valorem* tax. You can b.s. points of this and that but it won't matter. There will be evidence provided by skilled legislators, lawyers, and appraisers in a court of law that will refute everything you say about improvements not being a part of ad valorem. You could make the greatest case EVER and yet guess who the judge and jury will decide. Hint: Your side loses. Its like the income tax. There is no legal basis for it... but tell that to the IRS and try to get it overturned by Congress. Boom. "Its an excise tax."

*2. I was responding to the original poster and what I say is in reference to HIS question.* Your little rants frankly are meaningless and aren't what voters have to deal with when it comes to protesting ad valorem taxes to me as a real estate appraiser in an informal hearing, you'll be considered to be wasting your own defense time in Appraisal Review Board formal hearing, and they have no meaning when it comes to lawyers who are pressing law suits on residents who can no longer afford to pay their property taxes because of a death in the family or some sort of financial trouble which they are trying to recover from for multiple years and will have their property they once paid for in FULL now taken away. 

       When you can no longer consume because of the same financial trouble people cut back and make do and are not taxed accordingly, but they don't lose their home and estate. This is the heart of the problem. Ad Valorem in states (though I admit not all states may have the same methodology as of YET) does in fact discourage estate growth and beautification to home. I have witnessed it. To say otherwise is ignorance. I also don't care if you decide to nit pick this and that improvement not being part of ad valorem this or that system.. bleh bleh bleh, nag nag nag.... GUESS WHAT?! Your ARGUMENT DOES NOT MATTER and IS SEMANTICS. If your state decides to one day address their spending deficits and wants to incorporate improvements as part of real property then everything you tried to whine about here on the board was meaningless. 

3. You don't seem to know jack about market value and property characteristics effecting land value. Seriously? You ask for English when I speak of market value? What else do you not understand about land value? Ever heard of natural resources, accessibility, land use, inventory development? How much time have you been wasting rudely bitching at other posters like your some sort of knowledgeable troll when you don't know this basic $#@!? 

Keep grabbing quotes and making inane responses. I don't give a $#@! anyway as none of the responses you give apply to the real world.

----------


## Athan

Repost. Blast me having two windows at the same time.. Curses!

----------


## Athan

> And that is exactly what Georgists oppose. Land Value Tax negates the improvements you make.


Well, it gets warped pretty badly once you give the politicians that inch they want. I've seen the mentality of the appraisal district. It becomes "we need to do our job, or we face the lawyers from the taxpayer, state, or entities". You can have this or that philosophy to justify it, but once you get lawyers involved, it becomes less humane to attempt being fair. Taxpayers will rat out their neighbors, they will bring in lawyers. What you have is an unachievable ideal after enough time passes. Sorry to burst your bubble.

----------


## Roy L

> Well, it gets warped pretty badly once you give the politicians that inch they want...What you have is an unachievable ideal after enough time passes. Sorry to burst your bubble.


Politicians resist LVT with manic ferocity because they know it is the hardest tax to twist and corrupt.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, seems clear from reading your posts that haters will be hating regardless of facts.


IMO hatred is the appropriate response to an evil that inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, suffering, starvation, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR.



> I'm not going to bother going line by line to refute you despite what you say because:


...you can't refute a single sentence I have said.



> *1. EVERYTHING you say is based on semantics*.


The difference between land and improvements is not a semantic one.



> If a body of legislators decides to use a different appraisal method than what you propose which is more likely for our generations and future generations, then yes improvements can and WILL likely be considered part of an *Ad Valorem* tax.


If it is an ad valorem tax based on improvement value rather than land value.  However, that is not the subject of this thread.



> There will be evidence provided by skilled legislators, lawyers, and appraisers in a court of law that will refute everything you say about improvements not being a part of ad valorem.


"Ad valorem" means "to (i.e., directed at) value."  The value of WHAT is taxed determines what an ad valorem tax is a tax ON.  An ad valorem tax on LAND, which is the subject of this thread, does not include the value of improvements.  I don't know any clearer way to explain that to you.



> *2. I was responding to the original poster and what I say is in reference to HIS question.*


He explicitly stated that he was talking about a tax on LAND value, not current property tax systems which also tax improvement value.



> Your little rants frankly are meaningless and aren't what voters have to deal with when it comes to protesting ad valorem taxes to me as a real estate appraiser in an informal hearing, you'll be considered to be wasting your own defense time in Appraisal Review Board formal hearing, and they have no meaning when it comes to lawyers who are pressing law suits on residents who can no longer afford to pay their property taxes because of a death in the family or some sort of financial trouble which they are trying to recover from for multiple years and will have their property they once paid for in FULL now taken away.


<sigh>  Simple question, Athan: do you know what "land" is?



> When you can no longer consume because of the same financial trouble people cut back and make do and are not taxed accordingly, but they don't lose their home and estate.


Selling your house to seek accommodation in a location better suited to your needs and means is not "losing" your home or estate.  Being dispossessed after defaulting on your mortgage because inadequate land value taxation boosted land values too high for you to afford IS losing your home or estate.



> Ad Valorem in states (though I admit not all states may have the same methodology as of YET) does in fact discourage estate growth and beautification to home.


Because it is an ad valorem tax on improvement value as well as land value.  However, that is not the subject of this thread.



> I have witnessed it. To say otherwise is ignorance.


To say that improvements are land is not ignorance, because you know very well that improvements are not land.  It is dishonesty.



> If your state decides to one day address their spending deficits and wants to incorporate improvements as part of real property then everything you tried to whine about here on the board was meaningless.


Fixed improvements are part of real property by definition.  They are not part of land by definition.  I do not know any clearer way to explain that to you.



> You ask for English when I speak of market value?


I ask for English when you post ungrammatical and incomprehensible gibberish.



> What else do you not understand about land value? Ever heard of natural resources, accessibility, land use, inventory development? How much time have you been wasting rudely bitching at other posters like your some sort of knowledgeable troll when you don't know this basic $#@!?


Did you have a point you imagined you were making?

----------


## redbluepill

> You selectively quoted them.  I made no such false assumptions.  I only go by the words of the philosophers/economists/praxaeologists themselves.


I am not saying that all classical liberals would agree with the geoist system. I am merely pointing out the fact that a great number of them agreed land should be treated separate from property.

You claim to be going by their words but I provided quotes to the contrary by some you referenced.

----------


## redbluepill

> Maybe the lazy bastards who feel the need to be compensated should just work to acquire the ability to occupy more of that space.


Its the lazy bastards that are targeted with the LVT! A landlord does not have to do anything and make a profit collecting rent on something he never created. All he had to do was be the first on the land and claim it as his. The productive are rewarded. For they would not be taxed for their labor or product.

----------


## redbluepill

> No one is born with a right to land.  Sure, they can walk around on the land of others, with  their permission, but until they pay for something, no matter if it is food, clothing, fuel a home or land, they have no right to it.


Do you not realize how ludicrous your statement is? If you have no right to be standing on mother earth then you have absolutely no rights at all.

----------


## redbluepill

> But the thought of someone being thrown out of their paid-for residence for failure to pay property taxes is abhorrent and should never happen.


And it wouldn't happen.

----------


## redbluepill

> How about THIS - No more rationalizations. Taxation is theft. Arguing over which tax is least offensive is like trying to pick out of a line of girls, all of whom have STD's. "I'll take the one with crabs, that bitch with the Ghonnorhea sludge is just too gross".


Except Georgists don't argue for the LVT as the "least evil" tax. They argue for it because it is just compensation.

And I dont think you ever responded to my replies.

----------


## redbluepill

> Libertarians, on the other hand, believe that property is the root of all good.


Yes, all private property is good. The problem arises when you assume that land is property.

----------


## redbluepill

> If property is the root of all good, you must favor chattel slavery, taxi medallions, licenses to steal, and every other form of robbery and oppression that can be implemented as ownable property.  Ooops...
> 
> You need to find a willingness to know the fact that not all property is good or rightful.  Once you have progressed to that point, you can begin to consider what forms of property are rightful under what conditions, and why.
> 
> Not as long as you refuse to know facts that prove you wrong, there isn't.


^And I would add this caveat with my previous statement.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Its the lazy bastards that are targeted with the LVT! A landlord does not have to do anything and make a profit collecting rent on something he never created. All he had to do was be the first on the land and claim it as his. The productive are rewarded. For they would not be taxed for their labor or product.


Incorrect.  Lands owners have to maintain the land to prevent it from losing value.  Check your premises-they're still wrong, as are your conclusions(ditto for Roy L).

----------


## redbluepill

> You are old; we are young.  You will die; we will win.


Wow. That's real mature.

----------


## redbluepill

> Seems somebody is confused as to this being a libertarian forum.   LOL


I guess the term geoLIBERTARIAN means nothing to you then.

----------


## redbluepill

> Well, it gets warped pretty badly once you give the politicians that inch they want. I've seen the mentality of the appraisal district. It becomes "we need to do our job, or we face the lawyers from the taxpayer, state, or entities". You can have this or that philosophy to justify it, but once you get lawyers involved, it becomes less humane to attempt being fair. Taxpayers will rat out their neighbors, they will bring in lawyers. What you have is an unachievable ideal after enough time passes. Sorry to burst your bubble.


Georgists are for the LVT because they are well aware that government is easily corrupted. Only one tax, which will keep corporatist lobbying and tax evading politicians in check, while promoting the growth of the economy by allowing citizens to keep their paychecks and capital untaxed. It would help a lot against corruption.

----------


## WilliamC

> And it wouldn't happen.


Ah, if the appropriate safeguards were in place to ensure that people could not be evicted from their paid for residences (and I mean paid off the mortgage paid for) if they wind up too impoverished to pay taxes then perhaps I am more willing to consider a LVT.

I don't care if granny is living in a condo or a shack or on a 1000 acre estate, if it's hers and she's lived on it and wants to die on it then the State can damn well wait till she's dead before they try and redistribute it.

As for taxing rents or other income that someone makes as a result of working the land, well if someone is earning money as a result of their owning land then that's something that can be considered for taxing, but I don't know if it would rightly be considered property tax per se.

And I don't think I even have a huge problem with local governments having the authority to impose property taxes, but I think it should be local as property values themselves are often completely dependent upon their location.

But the idea of a Federal or Global government deciding what property taxes should be and when they should be paid and woe be it to anyone unable to pay because 'poof' you get kicked out of your home, no, that's not something I'd ever support.

And I've spent time conversing with georgists in the past who would never ever come out and say they were against this happening, which makes me suspectious that some try to use georgism as a route to communism.

----------


## redbluepill

> Incorrect.  Lands owners have to maintain the land to prevent it from losing value.  Check your premises-they're still wrong, as are your conclusions(ditto for Roy L).


Renters are paying for the privilege to be on the landlord's land, not necessarily for the improvements.

----------


## Dr.3D

> I guess the term geoLIBERTARIAN means nothing to you then.


Doesn't matter because a great many people in these forums are not Libertarian.  Best as I can tell, this is not a Libertarian forum.

----------


## redbluepill

> Ah, if the appropriate safeguards were in place to ensure that people could not be evicted from their paid for residences (and I mean paid off the mortgage paid for) if they wind up too impoverished to pay taxes then perhaps I am more willing to consider a LVT.
> 
> I don't care if granny is living in a condo or a shack or on a 1000 acre estate, if it's hers and she's lived on it and wants to die on it then the State can damn well wait till she's dead before they try and redistribute it.


The shack certainly is granny's as she either built it herself or paid others to build it for her. And her shack wouldn't be taxed under the LVT.




> As for taxing rents or other income that someone makes as a result of working the land, well if someone is earning money as a result of their owning land then that's something that can be considered for taxing, but I don't know if it would rightly be considered property tax per se.


Property tax as it is now is corrupt and discourages productive activity. We all want a healthy economy, why then should we fine those who who contribute to that economy?




> And I don't think I even have a huge problem with local governments having the authority to impose property taxes, but I think it should be local as property values themselves are often completely dependent upon their location.


Most geoists, especially geoanarchists are very much for a decentralized government where the LVT would be in place locally.





> But the idea of a Federal or Global government deciding what property taxes should be and when they should be paid and woe be it to anyone unable to pay because 'poof' you get kicked out of your home, no, that's not something I'd ever support.


I would not support that either. It wouldn't make sense for a Georgist to say everyone has right to access the land the Lord provided them and then say its okay for the government to kick them off that land. But it would mean the government will not recognize that individual's privilege to deny others access to that land.




> And I've spent time conversing with georgists in the past who would never ever come out and say they were against this happening, which makes me suspectious that some try to use georgism as a route to communism.


Well I think Roy and I have made clear our strong opposition to communism and socialism. So did Henry George:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...DA415B848CF1D3

It is true that socialists like Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader have spoken positively of George in the past. But then again, they both have spoken positively of Ron Paul as well.

----------


## redbluepill

> Doesn't matter because a great many people in these forums are not Libertarian.  Best as I can tell, this is not a Libertarian forum.


Unless you have a great many trolls on this forum I don't think that's true at all.

----------


## Dr.3D

> Unless you have a great many trolls on this forum I don't think that's true at all.


Perhaps you are confusing libertarian with Libertarian.

----------


## redbluepill

> Perhaps you are confusing libertarian with Libertarian.


I did mean libertarian. I capitalized all the words for emphasis. Not just the 'l'.

----------


## Dr.3D

> I did mean libertarian. I capitalized all the words for emphasis. Not just the 'l'.


Just so you know, I'm not a Libertarian.

----------


## WilliamC

> The shack certainly is granny's as she either built it herself or paid others to build it for her. And her shack wouldn't be taxed under the LVT.


Again, I don't care if granny is living in a condo or a shack or on a 1000 acre estate, if it's paid for and hers and she's lives on it and wants to die on it then the State can damn well wait till she's dead before they try and redistribute it.




> Property tax as it is now is corrupt and discourages productive activity. We all want a healthy economy, why then should we fine those who who contribute to that economy?


The property tax I pay on my property isn't corrupt.




> Most geoists, especially geoanarchists are very much for a decentralized government where the LVT would be in place locally.


The more local the better and if this is not something you are advocating as happening on a Federal or global level then I am more open to the idea.

Local governments could very well experiment with variations of this and if it ended up working as good as it's proponents say then the idea would spread.




> I would not support that either. It wouldn't make sense for a Georgist to say everyone has right to access the land the Lord provided them and then say its okay for the government to kick them off that land. But it would mean the government will not recognize that individual's privilege to deny others access to that land.


So long as granny came by her home legally and it's paid for then she gets to decide how it is used, regardless of how big the property is.

The State can wait, it will be there after granny is dead.




> Well I think Roy and I have made clear our strong opposition to communism and socialism. So did Henry George:


That coupled with open support for an armed citizenry able to keep and bear weapons in public would go a long way to making me more willing to consider a LVT. 




> http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...DA415B848CF1D3
> 
> It is true that socialists like Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader have spoken positively of George in the past. But then again, they both have spoken positively of Ron Paul as well.


Yes, it may be possible to build coalitions on specific issues with those that I don't completely agree with on every issue.

I'm glad you, at least, don't think I'm evil, dishonest, full of crap, and whatever else I've been called elsewhere in this thread by certain other proponents of georgism.

----------


## Roy L

> Well if I purchased land I would certainly anticipate being able to benefit from doing so, otherwise why would I purchase it?


OK, so you agree that your proposed property transfer tax imposes tax liabilities unrelated to benefits received, in direct violation of the "beneficiary pay" principle.  Good.  Thank you for agreeing that your proposed system simply secures the landowner's privilege of stealing from society and not repaying any of what he steals.



> He's already paid property tax under our current system.


OK, so your view is that having repaid a small fraction of the benefits he has taken from society by owning the land since he bought it, he shouldn't have to repay any of the benefits he takes from society henceforward.  Thought so.  That's what I have been telling you.



> He would pay title transfer tax for each separate property he purchases under the system I'm making up.


A payment totally unrelated to the benefits he will take from society as the land's owner.  Right.



> What is evil is forcing people from their homes that they have paid for and lived in for years because they are unable to pay property taxes,


But in fact, that is not what is proposed under LVT, because if they are unable to pay their property taxes, then they HAVE NOT paid for the land under their homes.  Occupancy of that land enables them to take an ongoing stream of benefits from society that justly requires ongoing repayment.

What is evil is your proposal that government should steal from the productive and give the money to idle, greedy landowners in return for nothing.



> which have often been raised repeatedly whilst they were living in their homes.


Only to reflect the rising value of what they are taking from society.



> Making someone pay a title transfer tax isn't evil, well no more so than any other tax.


It is definitely evil, because it serves the purposes of the greedy, and greed (unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money") is the root of all manner of evil.



> Oh, now we see some rudeness coming out. Something the matter with having your premises questioned?


You have not questioned any of my premises.  You have only lied about what they are.



> But what if they aren't acted upon?


Then the people know whom to kick out of office and throw in jail for corruption.



> Whomever gets to enforce tax collection could selectively decide when and where to do so. I imagine a corrupt tax enforcer could make a lot of money by falsifying records of tax payments.


Please explain how that is more of a threat under LVT than under property tax, income tax, sales tax, etc.

Thought not.



> Who polices the tax collectors?


Hmmm, let me think...  maybe.... THE POLICE?



> Just bringing up uncomfortable possible problems with your land value tax, that's all.


Please explain how government officials ignoring the provisions of a land value tax law and just doing whatever they want is specifically a problem with a land value tax, and not a problem with any other tax.



> Well gee I'm glad this has never happened in human history.


 Why would it happen only as a result of land value taxation? 

<crickets>



> Gee, I'm glad no government has simply decided to kill it's people and take their land. That makes your system so much more acceptable.


Please identify a historical example where as part of its implementation of a land value tax, government decided to just kill its people and take their land.

Or any remotely similar event.

<crickets>



> Yes, I get it. First kill everyone you don't like, take their land, then distribute to who you do like.
> 
> It's happened time and time again.


Please explain how such a scenario has happened, or is more likely, under LVT.



> Tell me Roy, do you support a fully armed citizenry that gets to keep and bear weapons in public?


Certainly not.  Places where citizens have often gone armed in public -- Afghanistan, Somalia, the Wild West, etc. -- are places where government has failed to discharge its principal function of securing people's rights.



> Which is why I am completely upfront about where I'm coming from.


So you admit you are a shill for wealthy, idle, greedy landowning interests?



> I don't oppose all local property taxes but I don't think there should be any Federal tax on land or land ownership.


But that's exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted, and consequently wrote into the Articles of Confederation.  They obviously knew better than you.



> Then lower the tax rate.


I have a better idea: ignore brain-dead proposals from economic ignorami that government should try to recover decades worth of welfare subsidy giveaways to landowners from people who did not receive them.



> And those who resort to insulting their debate opponents have already lost the argument,


Wrong.  Identifying the nature of ignorant, absurd and dishonest claims does not lose an argument.  It is those who have to resort to lying about what their opponents have plainly said who have already lost the argument.  Like you.



> Like I said, lower the tax rate.


Like I said: ignore the idiotic proposals of those who lie to serve privilege, greed and injustice.



> So the State either ends up with the land after the current property owner dies because it's trying to get too much tax,


Non sequitur.



> or the State takes possession of the land from the current owner before they die because they are trying to get too much tax.


Another non sequitur.



> Sounds like the State needs to lower property taxes to me.


Then you are obviously ignorant of the fact that the states with the *highest property tax rates* -- like NH, NJ, TX, NB, WI, CT, etc. -- tend to have better economies, lower crime, fewer social problems, lower unemployment, higher personal incomes, lower welfare utilization, better schools, etc. -- than the states with the _lowest property tax rates_, like AL, AR, CA, HI, DC, LA, etc.



> So the timing of when the government collects the tax is arbitrary.


I just proved it wasn't.



> Yearly, monthly, or, wait for it, upon death of current owner.


Or, wait even longer for it, every 5,000 years....?

The transparent intent of your proposal not to collect property taxes until the landowner has died is that the landowner will get to take the full value of the land from society for his entire life, and never be required to repay any of it.



> Only if the State insists on trying to collect too much in taxes.


Garbage.  Your cretinous proposal simply makes it impractical to recover any significant fraction of what the landowner takes from society.



> Lower the amount that the government wants to take from it's citizens and this won't be as much of a problem.


It is the landowner who is doing the taking, sunshine.  Why can't *that* amount ever be lowered?



> As far as I can tell we're both just making it up as we go.


Wrong.  You are making it up as you go along.  I have studied the matter in depth, and actually know what I am talking about.



> They paid a title transfer tax when they purchased the land.


Which bore no relation to the benefits received since then.



> No, I just don't want people forcibly removed from their paid-for homes


The land a home sits on has _not been paid for_ unless the taxes have been paid in full.  You just want landowners to be privileged to take from society and NEVER pay for what they take.



> because they are unable to pay property taxes,


Then you are opposed to *any* well-designed tax system, because there is no way to implement the beneficiary-pay principle other than by withholding benefits from those who refuse to pay for them.



> and I can't see under a LVT what would prevent a government from arbitrarily raising taxes on those it wishes to punish and lowering them for their cronies.


Can you see under LVT what would prevent a government from arbitrarily kidnapping all the blonde, 12-year-old girls and selling them as sex slaves in Bangladesh?  Well, the same thing would prevent the government from arbitrarily raising taxes on those it wishes to punish and lowering them for their cronies.

_GET IT??_



> Sort of like our current government rigs the tax codes to favor the wealthy and not the working class.


And you will note the role of relentlessly reduced property taxes in that scheme.



> Because they want to own the property?


Why would anyone want to own it badly enough to pay 50 or 60 years of back taxes on it?



> And again, if the State is asking too much in taxes then the simple solution is to lower the tax rate.


ROTFL!  No, the simple solution is to require the *RIGHT PARTY to pay it.
*
If the property tax system required a prospective property buyer to crawl naked up Main Street to City Hall with 50 or 60 years of back property taxes in gold coins jammed up his fundament, and buyers were reluctant to make such payments, then in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," the "simple solution is to lower the tax rate."

The stupidity and dishonesty of your "arguments" is astounding.  But it is not unexpected.



> Yes, you once more resort to insults to disguise your lack of interest in polite debate.


I indeed have no interest in polite debate with deceitful apologists for greed, privilege and injustice who could not come up with a factual, logical, or honest argument to save their souls.



> Hey, I'm not _forcing_ you to waste your time responding you know.


True, but I think it is important for readers to see the invariably fallacious, absurd and dishonest character of all objections to land value taxation.  Thank you for helping me show them that.



> No, my intention is to expose you as a communist land-grabber who wants the power to force anyone off of their property at any time so you can redistribute it more to your liking.


I.e., your intention is baldly to lie about what I have plainly written.  I know.  It's always the same with apologists for landowner privilege.



> Yes, we just don't know how much of our money that government will demand in the future, so we must always be willing to pay more. and more. and more.


The land value tax payment is purely voluntary, like paying for the groceries you take home from the supermarket.  If government asks for more than the landowner is taking from society, he can just yield the land to someone more productive, and better able to take advantage of the opportunity it represents.



> No, my intention is to prevent people from being evicted from the homes they have paid for and live in.


No, you want landowners to be privileged to take from society and not repay what they take.  If the homeowner has not paid the property taxes, then he has *NOT PAID FOR* the land his home is sitting on.



> That and wasting your time, obviously.


Obviously.



> Only if the government wants to charge too much tax.


Bull$#!+.  If government requires poor tenants in run-down apartment buildings to pay the property taxes of rich people who live in mansions on large estates, and the poor are reluctant to pay, it is not because the tax is too high.  It is because the government is asking the wrong parties to pay it.  That is exactly the situation with your cretinous proposal to collect property taxes from property buyers who have as yet received no benefits rather than from the owners who have taken the benefits.



> Mineral rights, water rights, and land usage are separate issues and the vast majority of 'property owners' own only their homes and the land their homes are on.
> 
> It is those people whom, once they've paid off their mortgage, who should be allowed to live on their property until they die without having to worry about being evicted.


Why should they not be required to pay for the land they deprive others of?



> Conflating them with your 'evil idle landowners' is problematic for your system.


It's only a problem for people who refuse to know facts.



> Again, the vast majority of land-owners in the USA own the property their house is on, nothing more.


And LVT would make them much better off than the current system.  In fact, LVT would usually make their TOTAL tax bill much lower, as well as their living costs.

LVT opponents are so stupid, ignorant and dishonest, they claim it is better for people to pay $100/month in property tax, $1000/month in mortgage payments and $1000/month in other taxes, and to lose their homes because they can't afford their mortgage payments, than to pay $1000/month in LVT, $100/month in mortgage payments and *no* other taxes, because if they can't afford the LVT, then it's because "land taxes are too high."  They ignore the fact that people would have $1000/month more disposable income to pay the higher land taxes _with_.



> Once you start tacking on mineral rights, water rights, timber harvesting, farming, ect that's a different set of issues than home ownership.


It's the same principle: pay for what you take from society.



> Unless those resources are brought to market then they do not benefit the land owner.


That is a bald falsehood.  They are an asset he can sell even if they remain unused indefinitely.



> It seems that there are already mechanisms in place to tax those sorts of benefits, but I freely admit I'm not much up on how much taxes people have to pay to operate a mine, an oil well, a timber plantation, or whatnot.


Or anything else about taxes.



> A free-market must have some sort of system to enforce contracts and property rights or it's not a free-market at all, just anarchy.


Somalia has such mechanisms.  Read the URLs kuckfeynes provided, and I repeated.



> Why cannot they be taxed when they bring the fruits of the land to market?


Because that encourages idle hoarding and speculation, and discourages productive use.



> No, I just enjoy watching those who want to take peoples homes from them try and defend their positions.


Please stop lying about what I have plainly written.  The thread is about taxing land, not "homes," and it's not "their land" if they don't pay the taxes on it, because keeping the taxes current is a condition of the government-issued title.

----------


## Roy L

> Incorrect.  Lands owners have to maintain the land to prevent it from losing value.


No, that's just another flat-out lie from you.  Land is what nature provides and it therefore needs no maintenance by definition; and it will furthermore reliably *increase* in value if left entirely alone.  You are just *flat-out LYING*.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> Check your premises-they're still wrong, as are your conclusions(ditto for Roy L).


ROTFL!!  It is YOUR premises that are self-evidently and indisputably false as a matter of objective physical fact, sunshine.  You just claimed land loses value if left alone.  That is objectively false, and you know it.  You simply lied.

"The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive, way for a capitalist to increase his fortune is to put all his monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie

----------


## Roy L

> Doesn't matter because a great many people in these forums are not Libertarian.  Best as I can tell, this is not a Libertarian forum.


Ron Paul is a Republican.  Duh.

----------


## Roy L

> Again, I don't care if granny is living in a condo or a shack or on a 1000 acre estate, if it's paid for and hers


The land is not hers and is not paid for if she has not kept the property taxes current.  Try to get that through your head.



> and she's lives on it and wants to die on it then the State can damn well wait till she's dead before they try and redistribute it.


It is the free market that allocates ("redistributes") land under LVT, not government.  You simply do not want landowners to be subject to free market incentives.

If granny cannot pay for what she is taking from society, then she can damn well move.  Do you also think grannies should be allowed to take home whatever they want from the grocery store without paying for it?



> The property tax I pay on my property isn't corrupt.


It almost certainly is.



> The more local the better and if this is not something you are advocating as happening on a Federal or global level then I am more open to the idea.


LVT is superbly suited to local implementation, but there is no reason not to implement it nationally as well.



> Local governments could very well experiment with variations of this and if it ended up working as good as it's proponents say then the idea would spread.


It has always worked as well as its proponents say, and that is why rich and powerful landowning interests have always done everything in their power to stop it from spreading, and to abolish it where it has been implemented.



> So long as granny came by her home legally and it's paid for then she gets to decide how it is used, regardless of how big the property is.


The land has not been paid for if she has not paid the taxes on it.



> The State can wait, it will be there after granny is dead.


Granny can yield the land to someone better able to use it, and seek accommodation better suited to her needs and means.



> That coupled with open support for an armed citizenry able to keep and bear weapons in public would go a long way to making me more willing to consider a LVT.


Thanks for demonstrating the level of your "logic."



> I'm glad you, at least, don't think I'm evil, dishonest, full of crap, and whatever else I've been called elsewhere in this thread by certain other proponents of georgism.


Oh, he probably does.  He's just too polite to say so.

----------


## Roy L

> Ah, if the appropriate safeguards were in place to ensure that people could not be evicted from their paid for residences (and I mean paid off the mortgage paid for) if they wind up too impoverished to pay taxes then perhaps I am more willing to consider a LVT.


If they haven't paid the taxes, the land is not "paid for."



> As for taxing rents or other income that someone makes as a result of working the land,


Land rent is not obtained by working the land.  It is obtained by not stopping someone else from working it.  Maybe you are not clear on the difference between land rent and vernacular contract rent.



> well if someone is earning money as a result of their owning land


Money obtained by owning land is never earned.



> But the idea of a Federal or Global government deciding what property taxes should be and when they should be paid and woe be it to anyone unable to pay because 'poof' you get kicked out of your home, no, that's not something I'd ever support.


If people could not afford to pay for what they were taking from society, they would just sell their homes and seek accommodation better suited to their needs and means.  There is no arbitrary "poof" involved.



> And I've spent time conversing with georgists in the past who would never ever come out and say they were against this happening, which makes me suspectious that some try to use georgism as a route to communism.


You appear not to know what either of them consists in.

----------


## Travlyr

> No, that's just another flat-out lie from you.  Land is what nature provides and it therefore needs no maintenance by definition; and it will furthermore reliably *increase* in value if left entirely alone.  You are just *flat-out LYING*.
> 
> All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.
> 
> ROTFL!!  It is YOUR premises that are self-evidently and indisputably false as a matter of objective physical fact, sunshine.  You just claimed land loses value if left alone.  That is objectively false, and you know it.  You simply lied.
> 
> "The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive, way for a capitalist to increase his fortune is to put all his monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie


Roy L. your debate tactics are unconvincing. HB is not lying, and he is exactly right in most instances. Land left unattended will very likely grow up with unwanted junk that makes farming more difficult. Cleared farmland is more valuable than land overgrown with weeds, brush, and trees.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy L. your debate tactics are unconvincing.


Only to those who refuse to know facts.



> HB is not lying, and he is exactly right in most instances.


He is most definitely lying, and is indisputably wrong in all instances.



> Land left unattended will very likely grow up with unwanted junk that makes farming more difficult.


But more importantly, its fertility will also recover, making it more valuable.  And in any case, land is what nature provides, so an unnatural condition of land such as cultivation is an improvement, not land.  Improvements DO need maintenance.



> Cleared farmland is more valuable than land overgrown with weeds, brush, and trees.


Clearing is unnatural and thus an improvement to land, not land.

There are thousands of acres of land in New England that prove you and HB wrong.  200 years ago, it had been cleared and was being farmed.  When the USA expanded to the west, far better farmland became available in the Midwest and Great Plains, and much of the farmed land in New England was abandoned to nature.  It grew up with trees, brush, weeds, etc., which you claim makes it less valuable.  But in fact, that land is now MORE valuable than it was 200 years ago, even taking inflation into account.  In many cases, the value of the 200-year-old standing timber makes it *more* valuable than neighboring land that is still being farmed, because the land is so stony, infertile, and unsuitable for modern farming.

----------


## Roy L

Is there an editing option to delete a duplicate post?

----------


## Dr.3D

> Ron Paul is a Republican.  Duh.


LOL, now if only someone would tell the media.

----------


## WilliamC

> OK, so you agree that your proposed property transfer tax imposes tax liabilities unrelated to benefits received, in direct violation of the "beneficiary pay" principle.  Good.  Thank you for agreeing that your proposed system simply secures the landowner's privilege of stealing from society and not repaying any of what he steals.
> 
> OK, so your view is that having repaid a small fraction of the benefits he has taken from society by owning the land since he bought it, he shouldn't have to repay any of the benefits he takes from society henceforward.  Thought so.  That's what I have been telling you.
> 
> A payment totally unrelated to the benefits he will take from society as the land's owner.  Right.
> 
> But in fact, that is not what is proposed under LVT, because if they are unable to pay their property taxes, then they HAVE NOT paid for the land under their homes.  Occupancy of that land enables them to take an ongoing stream of benefits from society that justly requires ongoing repayment.
> 
> What is evil is your proposal that government should steal from the productive and give the money to idle, greedy landowners in return for nothing.
> ...


Wow, you really are full of hate and vitriol and are willing to take lots of time to show it.

Guess what Roy, I already pay property taxes to my local government. Those property taxes are assessed on the value of the land and improvements.

The only difference in your system is you want to raise the amount that is paid to better suit your idea of how much money government should redistribute.

All your insults and ranting doesn't change this, but thanks for taking the time to show how much you hate me for asking you simple questions, and then turn around and blame me for wasting your time.

It's all I need to know.

----------


## WilliamC

> Is there an editing option to delete a duplicate post?


Well there is an ignore list.

Welcome too it.

----------


## Roy L

> Wow, you really are full of hate and vitriol and are willing to take lots of time to show it.


You have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.

How much time would it be appropriate to take to fight the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, starvation, suffering, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR??  How much hate and vitriol would it be appropriate to direct against those who rationalize and justify and excuse and defend and perpetuate that evil?



> The only difference in your system is you want to raise the amount that is paid to better suit your idea of how much money government should redistribute.


Obviously, that is just another flat-out lie from you.  SOME of the differences are:

1. The property tax on improvement value is *not* increased, it is *abolished*.

2. The government recovers, for public purposes and benefit, the *publicly created* land value that is currently just given away to the landowner as a welfare subsidy.

3. Taxes that bear on production -- income tax, sales tax, excise tax, profits tax, etc. -- are *abolished*.

4. The resulting improvements in the economy allow the reduction or abolition of a great deal of government spending that is currently undertaken in a futile attempt to undo the social and economic damage inflicted by current unjust and economically destructive taxes.

5. To *further greatly reduce* the amount of tax money government redistributes in poverty relief programs, pensions, etc. a universal individual land tax exemption analogous to the universal individual income tax exemption restores the equal individual right to liberty, ensuring equal access to opportunity for all.

6. Etc., all of which you must also refuse to know in order to preserve your false and evil beliefs.



> All your insults and ranting doesn't change this,


OTC, all your lies about what I have plainly written and about what LVT is do not change it.



> but thanks for taking the time to show how much you hate me for asking you simple questions, and then turn around and blame me for wasting your time.


You didn't ask simple questions, you repeatedly lied about what LVT is and about what I had plainly written, even after I refuted your lies.



> It's all I need to know.


More accurately, it's all you are *willing* to know.

----------


## MattButler

I'm in agreement with Henry George, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and many others that a single tax on unimproved value of land is absolutely the least offensive of all taxes. 

1) The Constitution says Life, Liberty, and Property.  Life comes before liberty, which comes before property...and this is no accident.  Consider the differences between income, consumption, and capital goods, especially land.  Your right to your wages and income, is it considered a liberty interest or a property interest?  How would the founders think about it?  While it may come down to difference of opinion, common sense suggests the right to own land (the right to exclude others from land) is most definitely a property interest, more so than say wages and income.  Founding fathers like Jefferson recognized that land taxes could play a strong role in shaping social and civic life.   If plantation owners like Jefferson did not think a land tax would destroy their freedoms, neither should you.  If we're going to tax anything, it should be our property interests and not our liberty interests.

2) Land is neither increased nor decreased by taxing it.  Unlike income, capital goods, and consumption (which we should expect less of when we tax it), taxing land does not cause there to be less land.  Land is a perfectly inelastic factor of production.  Therefore a tax on land causes no net decrease in economic activity.  All other taxes create dead-weight losses, meaning our economy necessarily is hurt by them, this would be true even with a national sales tax.

3) Private land owners benefit when their land values increase, even though they themselves have little to do with the increase. It is growth in population and government spending on improvements that causes land values to increase, not the activity of the owner.  To highlight the unfairness, note the case of the miserly slumlord.  He inherited his land with its tenements.  He earned rents from tenants even as people around him improved or constructed new buildings.  His renters all paid sales taxes and income taxes to the government.  The government then built schools, bridges, hospitals, fire departments, police stations, and as the community prospered more people were attracted to it.  The miser figured, "why should I ever invest or improve the slum?  So long as government continues to exist and people move to the city I need do nothing but sit on my hands and watch my investment increase.  What a nice little subsidy I enjoy from the people and the government."  This is true for all land owners, be they residential, commercial, industrial, or rural uses.  

4) Single tax on unimproved land causes the use of land to gravitate to its highest and best uses.  It causes cities to develop efficiently and leaves rural land intact for rural uses such like farming.  Today's sprawling suburbs and diminished supply of quality farm land is a direct consequence of taxing labor and capital and not taxing land in any meaningful way.  So much waste in government is spent building out all this infrastructure, so much waste in providing services to people spread out over hundreds of miles.  A land tax would reverse all of this.  Denser cities means more mobility of labor and capital goods and consumer goods...all leading to a stronger economy.  Cheap and available farmland close to dense cities means farmers have large and accessible markets, so they aren't dependent on large industrial conglomerates to distribute their products.  Farmers will prosper, and so will city dwellers.

5)  Land tax does not put people more at risk of losing their property to the government.  Those who claim failure to pay land taxes would rob them of their property fail to see the obvious point that failure to pay income taxes subjects your land to seizure by the IRS.  The truth is that under ANY system of government your land is subject to seizure, be it for failure to pay taxes or because of judgment liens arising from lawsuits.  The founders were concerned about seizures absent due process.  A land tax is an inherently simpler tax system than any other tax system, even the sales tax.  The simpler the system the less subject it is to political corruption and unfairness.  Due process is thus strengthened, and if and when land is seized by government, it won't turn on how much income was earned and hidden and not paid and what is income and what is not.  

6) Land tax will not decrease land ownership, in fact it will likely increase it.  We have no land tax today, but we have many other taxes and land is very expensive; how ironic is it that so many people are losing their land to their creditors?   Under a land tax regime, we should expect land prices to fall dramatically.  People will not need to go to banks to borrow as much money to own land and the value will be low enough that it should be very easy for people with even modest wages to own land.

7) Renters do not get a "free ride" under a land tax because landlords will pass off as much of the tax as they can to the renter.  For other reasons, many people think a tax on land ownership is akin to socialism.  While appearing to be socialistic or even communistic, its entirely the opposite.  Karl Marx pointed this out to his followers.  He said that if all other taxes were replaced by a single tax on land it would be like capitalism on steroids, it would be the reverse of communism.

8) Empirical evidence suggests land tax regimes prosper.  http://www.progress.org/archive/geono05.htm

----------


## Roy L

> I'm in agreement with Henry George, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and many others that a single tax on unimproved value of land is absolutely the least offensive of all taxes. 
> 
> 1) ...
> 
> 8) Empirical evidence suggests land tax regimes prosper.  http://www.progress.org/archive/geono05.htm


I might as well make all the "arguments" against LVT, and save the apologists for landowner privilege the trouble:

"If there is any tax on your land, you don't really own it."

"Why do you hate America?"

"We already all have equal rights to use land, because anyone can buy land."

"Grannies will all be thrown out into the gutter."

"You are a communist."

"The people who built this country earned the right to own the land they settled, and to pass it on to their kids and grandkids."

"The government will just increase the land tax until no one can pay it, take all the land, and put everyone into labor camps."

"You just envy people who are more successful than you."

"Get off your butt, get a job, and buy some land of your own.  Problem solved!"

"The USSR tried that and 30 million people starved to death."

"Why don't you move to Cuba or North Korea where they agree with your ideas?"

"With LVT, food would cost three times as much."

"Land taxation is unconstitutional."

"Raw land is useless, so nobody can use it until after a homesteader settles on it, clears it, raises crops on it, and makes it useful."

"It's not my fault you aren't smart enough to own any land."

"Only the rich will be able to afford a land tax, so they will end up with all the land."

"Landlords will just pass a land tax on to their tenants."

"Farmers won't be able to afford a land tax, so there won't be any food."

"Companies will just move all their operations to the cheapest land to avoid paying any land tax."

"Land is not a big enough factor in the economy, so a land tax won't raise much revenue.  We aren't all farmers any more."

"That idea was debunked a long time ago."

"Nobody agrees with you."

"Georgists are just crackpots."

"If your idea were any good, somebody would be doing it."

"Property owners already pay property taxes."

"Oh, no, not the Georgists again!"

"Hong Kong is successful in _spite_ of its system of leasing out publicly owned land, not _because_ of it."

"And that goes for China, too."

"LVT is just land socialism."

"Stop going after the property owner!"

"Agrarian reform was fine in Thomas Paine's day, but it's irrelevant now."

"That's just land confiscation, the same thing Mugabe has been doing in Zimbabwe.  How is that workin' out for ya?"

"Americans will never let you steal our land."

"Take it to the conspiracy theories forum."

"I'm against any tax that takes people's homes away from them."

"I am well armed, and I dare you to try taking my land."

"LVT will make land value drop to zero, at which point it will raise no revenue."

"Your hero Karl Marx must be proud of you."

"You do realize the Freemasons are behind that idea, don't you?"

----------


## MattButler

There really are no good arguments against it unless you are an anarchist and you reject government.  Even anarchists though believe in private security.  Private security does not come free, and its reasonable to think private security co's would charge you to protect your land based on something like its value or size.  I think they would charge you based on the value and not the size, because no one is going to seize from you 40 acres of worthless desert land, but they might try to seize an acre of prime commercial property.  It makes no sense then to charge 40X the rate to protect desert land as what you would charge to protect commercial property.

----------


## redbluepill

I forgot who it was, it might have been wizard. But someone asked how we would go about putting the LVT into action. I think this guy breaks it down nicely:

http://www.answersanswers.com/landrent.html

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## helmuth_hubener

> There really are no good arguments against it unless you are an anarchist and you reject government.


 That's me!




> Even anarchists though believe in private security. Private security does not come free, and its reasonable to think private security co's would charge you to protect your land based on something like its value or size.


 Maybe!  The key difference is, that payment would be voluntary.  I could switch to another protection company, decide to make-do with protecting myself, or whatever I wanted.

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## Roy L

> The key difference is, that payment would be voluntary.


That's not a difference: LVT is a voluntary, market-based, value-for-value transaction.  You pay for the amount of public goods and government services  you want, just like paying for the stuff you take home from the supermarket.  It's a package deal, but so what?  So is buying a car.  You can customize it to some extent, but not however you want.



> I could switch to another protection company, decide to make-do with protecting myself, or whatever I wanted.


You're not getting it: when you choose to violate other people's rights by initiating violent, coercive, physical aggression, forcibly depriving them of access to land they would otherwise be at liberty to use, it is those *OTHER people* who will be hiring protection companies -- to protect them from violent, coercive physical aggression initiated by YOU.

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## MattButler

> Maybe!  The key difference is, that payment would be voluntary.  I could switch to another protection company, decide to make-do with protecting myself, or whatever I wanted.


There would be more voluntariness under an LVT than the present scheme.  Today, no matter where you live, be it rural or in the city, you pay tax on income and sales. There is no opportunity for voluntariness.

Under LVT you only pay tax if you assert title, and you don't need to always assert title.  If you homestead in rural areas for example.  If you have a decent business that you can manage from your homestead, you could earn income and live rent free, never paying a tax.  Downside to this is you won't get any government services.  On the other hand once you venture into civilization, you'll get to use the roads.  The landowners would have paid for them.  So that's a free service for you!  

See, you win!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> There would be more voluntariness under an LVT than the present scheme.


 Yeah, but I want total voluntariness.  That is, _actual_ voluntariness.  Your proposed system is not actually voluntary.  I cannot opt out.  No one can opt out.  A voluntary action means I can _volunteer_ to do it, or I can refuse to volunteer.

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## MattButler

> Yeah, but I want total voluntariness.  That is, _actual_ voluntariness.  Your proposed system is not actually voluntary.  I cannot opt out.  No one can opt out.  A voluntary action means I can _volunteer_ to do it, or I can refuse to volunteer.


You're an Anarchist, so no system of Government will please you.  

Anarchist help me understand the problem posed by Robert Nozick.  Nozick's problem is that competing private security agencies would inevitably become a single dominant agency, effectively a government, and you could not opt out.  Sort of the same way commodity money like gold very quickly comes to replace all other competing moneys, so the same thing would happen with various competing private security agencies.  True anarchy is impossible for this reason.  Is Nozick wrong?  Why?

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## Mahkato

> competing private security agencies would inevitably become a single dominant agency


See Chapter 14 (page 68) in Bourbon for Breakfast on why agencies which are the best at everything still can't dominate everything.

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## Roy L

> Yeah, but I want total voluntariness.


But what does that even mean?  If two people both want exclusive use of the same land, one of them has to do without.  So "total voluntariness" is inherently impossible.  The point of LVT is that everyone who is forced to do without gets _just compensation_ for being deprived of the opportunity.



> That is, _actual_ voluntariness.


What are you even talking about?  Do you agree that paying for the groceries you take home from the supermarket is _actually_ voluntary?  How is LVT different from that?



> Your proposed system is not actually voluntary.


Yes, it is.  It just doesn't enable land grabbers to violate others' rights without making just compensation.



> I cannot opt out.


Yes, you can, as long as you don't violate others' rights by depriving them of their liberty to use the land.  In fact, as long as you don't use land of greater value than the exempt amount, you pay no tax.



> No one can opt out.


It's _easy_ to opt out: just don't use any land anyone else wants to use.



> A voluntary action means I can _volunteer_ to do it, or I can refuse to volunteer.


It also means others can volunteer not to exercise their rights to liberty, or they can refuse to relinquish their liberty without just compensation.

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## helmuth_hubener

There are a couple issues the Georgists have to deal with.  First, to summarize the Georgist position: Land was not created by any human, thus it cannot be owned by any human and all landowners are really usurpers and thieves, depriving their poor fellow humans of the land they so ruthlessly claim.

Now, if the Georgists really believe this and if they really believed in justice and morality, it would follow that all land must be held in common forever and ever, Amen.  There can be no private land monopolization.  The Land Value Tax is a fee paid in order to secure permission to* rip people off*!  To steal land from the masses!  If we are seeking justice and morality, we do not base our society on handing out a phony "right" to steal and rip people off ion exchange for money.  Why not have the whole mass of people own the land in common and have the workers' council make all land decisions?  Because the Georgists understand the incentive problem and perhaps they understand some of the other problems also involved in collective ownership.  

So the first point to realize is that Georgism is a philosophy about expedience and utilitarianism.  Absolute rights and justice are sacrificed right off the bat.  You can see that in the 36 pages above.  Here they are ranting and raving about how landowners are thieves and property (in land) is theft and anyone who disagrees is a liar and a cretin, but do they call for an end to this theft?  You know, _I_ criticize theft because I am against it.  Are they?  Ha!  The solution they propose is: "because landowners are all thieves, we have to allow them to keep thieving but have them pay a recurring fee to 'society' for the right to continue their brigandry."  Look, if landowners are thieves, they're scum.  The immoral looting needs to be abolished, not taxed.  One gets the feeling they would call for taxation on the owners of chattel slaves in order to pay back society for their crime and that such a tax would make everything OK.

The second issue is physical.  In Georgism, land is defined as the entirety of the universe.  That is, every ocean, every planet, every star, every bit of stray hydrogen, and the vast expanse of emptiness in the cosmos.  No one can own any of that.  As soon as they improve it, they own the improvement, but they still can never own the "land", that is, the space and matter which nature provided.  

So, if a man homesteads a section of forest, cuts down some trees, and uses them to build a house house there, he now owns the house, but not the land it sits on.  Even if he fundamentally changes the make-up of the land by, e.g. planting a wheat field or digging a big hole, the underlying land can never be owned, only the improvements.  That in and of itself seems fair and consistent.  The man didn't create the land, he just happens to be using it (and thus preventing any of his equally-deserving fellows from using it, by the way) so how could he have any just claim to own it?  The wheat, on the other hand, he very much had a hand in.  The wheat would not exist without him, he created it with his laboring, and so it rightfully can be said to be his absolute property.

The problem becomes apparent when one realizes that not only is the wheat field making use of the matter and space provided for free via the existence of the universe, the wheat itself is making use of that free matter and space as well.  The matter that was originally in the dirt has been percolated up through the wheat stalk to become the kernel.  One cannot simply create matter out of nothing.  As Carl Sagan said: If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.  I think we can all agree, then, that everything in existence, no matter how man-made, has as one of its major components land. That is, everything consists of raw matter gotten from the universe and of space for it to occupy.

Let us consider two different assets: a parking lot, and a chain saw.  Both are considered fully ownable by libertarians, and indeed by most people.  Georgists consider only the chain saw to be fully ownable.  That is because the parking lot has a strong "land" component while the chain saw does not.  Now the parking lot qua parking lot _is_ ownable, the Georgists would be quick to clarify.  The pavement, the painted lines, all of that is an improvement and thus ownable.  The land that it is blanketing, however, is not ownable.  That raw land should be taxed according to whatever its value would have been were it not leveled, tamped, and covered with pavement.

To be consistent, the same reasoning must apply to the chain saw.  The chain saw should be taxed according to whatever value the ore, petroleum, etc. would have had were it not refined, cracked, made into steel, made into plastic, cast, injection-molded, and assembled into a chain saw.  The raw elements composing the chain saw are just as much a part of the universe as the raw elements composing the parking lot.

But Georgists do not apply the same logic to the chain saw as to the parking lot.  Part of this doubtless is because of their placement of expediency above the concepts of justice or consistency.  The land in the case of the parking lot is big, static, and, as they are fond of pointing out, impossible to hide from the tax man.  The land tucked away in the chain saw is small, portable, and can be hidden from the tax man.  Thus, as a practical matter, by "land" the Georgists do not, in fact, mean all the matter and space in the universe.  Rather, they mean that very particular class of land that lays horizontally at the surface of the Earth and upon which men walk.

This inconsistency opens them up to all kinds of hypothetical absurdities and conundrums.  What if a man were to fly to an asteroid and claim to own it?  That claim would be invalid under Georgist thought, since the land of the asteroid is unownable.  What if instead he were to carve a large chunk out of the Earth and launch it into space as an artificial asteroid?  Since it becomes an artificial asteroid only through herculean human effort, it would seem to be fully ownable, for the same reasons the wheat kernel and the chain saw are fully ownable.  Thus, a thousand years down the road, all the inhabitants on Asteroid B are enjoying full alloidial property rights while on asteroid A they must pay land-value tax to humanity for the crime of monopolizing their pieces of the asteroid.  But what is fundamentally different about these two asteroids at this point?  Should the distant, murky past of the asteroids' respective beginnings really affect their property situation so?

What if I were to tunnel a shaft a mile down and at the bottom of it hollow out an enormous cavern.  Would I then be responsible to pay land value tax?  Would not this be essentially the same type of endeavor as the asteroid launch?  One is putting solid mass where there is emptiness in order to create new livable square footage.  The other is creating emptiness where there was solid mass in order to create new livable square footage.

If the artificial asteroid people and the hollow earth people can both escape the LVT via their shenanigans, what of those who drain swamps, manufacture islands, blow up mountains, or heat icy wastes and in so doing make these places habitable or useful when before they were not?  The typical Georgist response to, e.g. the artificial island manufacturer, would be that while he may own the island, he does not own the land under the island and thus must pay tax on the value of the land under his island.  But what about the land over the island?  What about the land _in_ the island which has merely been shuffled around?  Why do we only care about what's underneath?  Is land only land when it is "under" -- when men can stand on it?  To figure out the taxable land do we simply calculate the surface area of the Earth's sphere, despite the fact that much of this is covered in ocean, making it impossible to "stand on" without application of improvements or technology?  

The artificial island builder created the value of the land under his island, value which did not exist until he arrived.  No one was using the land before him.  For all practical purposes, it was not land.  He has thus created new usable land, just as the Earth hollower created new usable land, and just as the asteroid launcher created new usable land.  They have not created new land in an absolute sense if one defines land as the entirety of the universe, but they have changed the nature of the land.  And in doing so, they have created a valuable asset where none existed before.  If the chain saw manufacturer, who does the same thing -- he rearranges the matter given by nature to create a new valuable asset -- if he can own his creation, these real-estate-improvers ought to be able to own their creations as well.  To a lesser extent, the irrigator, the forest clearer, the mountain blaster, and the explorer all create value where there was none before.  Their creations are tied to the horizontal surface of the Earth.  That is a laughably arbitrary reason to deny them the fruits of their labors.

The chain saw monopolizes the scarce matter, or "land", of the universe just as the parking lot does.  The Georgists say that the parking lot owner must pay tax on the scarce matter his creation is monopolizing, but the chain saw owner need pay no tax on the scarce matter his creation is monopolizing.  Why?  Because one collection of matter is arranged in a way that the Georgists recognize as land -- dirt laid out horizontally at the surface of the Earth.

Georgists are guilty of not thinking three-dimensionally.  For them, the world is still flat and horizontal land still holds some sort of almost mystical quality making it unownable.  As technology progresses, very small or nontraditional real-estate, as well as very large manufactured items, blur the line between what is taxable land and what is not.  One path forward to rigorize this school of thought would be to introduce the idea of taxing the underlying land in boats, hammers, and chain saws in the same way as the land underlying skyscrapers, fish ponds, and parking lots.  Another path forward would be to admit that although man did not create the universe (as far as we know!) we will nevertheless allow the entire universe to pass into private ownership, since the alternative is to create some sort of tax on the universe, whose purpose and benefit would be singularly unclear.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> What are you even talking about?  Do you agree that paying for the groceries you take home from the supermarket is _actually_ voluntary?  How is [land] different from that?


  Exactly: it's not!  Land is matter, groceries are matter.  I buy the apple, I own it totally and absolutely forever and do not have to ever pay tax on it (ever!) I simply continue monopolizing it 'til Kingdom come.  I buy the land, the same thing should (obviously) occur.

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## Roy L

> Exactly: it's not!


You changed what I said.  Not very honest.



> Land is matter, groceries are matter.


Land is not produced by human labor, groceries are.



> I buy the apple, I own it totally and absolutely forever and do not have to ever pay tax on it (ever!)


Because you have made just compensation to the apple's rightful owner for depriving him of what he would otherwise have, and you are thus not violating anyone's rights by owning and monopolizing the apple.



> I simply continue monopolizing it 'til Kingdom come.  I buy the land, the same thing should (obviously) occur.


No, because _land_ can never rightly become property in the first place, and you therefore cannot possibly have bought the _land_ from its rightful owner.  You have merely bought a privilege of violating others' rights, like buying a slave.  Monopolizing it indisputably violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.  The only difference between buying land and buying a slave is that when you buy a slave, you buy a privilege of violating ALL of ONE person's rights without making just compensation.  When you buy land, you buy a privilege of violating ONE of ALL people's rights without making just compensation.

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## helmuth_hubener

> You're an Anarchist, so no system of Government will please you.


 Bingo.  You are quite a bit quicker on the uptake than your Georgist cohorts.  Good thing they invited you here.  Welcome, by the way, and feel free to support Ron Paul. 




> Anarchist help me understand the problem posed by Robert Nozick.


 Ah, that would be another thread.  Cool that you're interested in that, though.  I figured you were only interested in promoting the LVT, here because Roy L or redbluepill is on some other Georgist forum or e-mail list with you and posted there requesting "Hey, everyone, look at this thread. Come help me cream these Ron Paul guys with our LVT logic!"  Actually, I still figure that's how you got here, but perhaps since you're intelligent and interested, that chance meeting can now blossom into more!

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## helmuth_hubener

> You changed what I said.  Not very honest.


 When what you say is incredibly boring and repetitive, I will feel free to change it to whatever I want and have a discussion with my improved and intelligent imaginary Roy L instead.




> No, because _land_ can never rightly become property in the first place, and you therefore cannot possibly have [obtained] the _land_ from its rightful owner.


 There is _land_ in the apple.  Men can own improvements on the land (in this case turning soil into an apple), but never the land.  The apple is just rearranged land.  The constituent land must be taxed.

Or not.  Tax all land or tax none of it, either way is consistent at least.  But let's be consistent.

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## WilliamC

> There would be more voluntariness under an LVT than the present scheme.  Today, no matter where you live, be it rural or in the city, you pay tax on income and sales. There is no opportunity for voluntariness.
> 
> Under LVT you only pay tax if you assert title, and you don't need to always assert title.  If you homestead in rural areas for example.  If you have a decent business that you can manage from your homestead, you could earn income and live rent free, never paying a tax.  Downside to this is you won't get any government services.  On the other hand once you venture into civilization, you'll get to use the roads.  The landowners would have paid for them.  So that's a free service for you!  
> 
> See, you win!


Not until as there is an absolute ban on income and sales taxes could I consider a LVT, and then only under certain restrictions.

Right now in the USA property taxes are local (at least mine are paid to the county) and different levels of government have different taxation methods.

Not only would a LVT require amending the Constitution, there remains a great deal of explanation as to how local property/land value tax, implemented and controlled at the county level, would translate into revenue for the State and Federal Governments and elimination of State and Federal taxes.

Of course my main complaint against any new tax is that none can be considered until others are eliminated, otherwise we'll end up with a LVT on top of what ever other taxes the politicians can dream up.

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## redbluepill

> You're an Anarchist, so no system of Government will please you.  
> 
> Anarchist help me understand the problem posed by Robert Nozick.  Nozick's problem is that competing private security agencies would inevitably become a single dominant agency, effectively a government, and you could not opt out.  Sort of the same way commodity money like gold very quickly comes to replace all other competing moneys, so the same thing would happen with various competing private security agencies.  True anarchy is impossible for this reason.  Is Nozick wrong?  Why?


That is one of those things that irks me. They ignore the fact that a landlord IS a government. The landlord collects taxes that they call rent. They also make laws on their land. The land becomes monopolized and guess who becomes the anarcho-capitalist's new ruler? Some landlord or corporation.

http://libertythinkers.com/education...r-land-rights/

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## helmuth_hubener

> They ignore the fact that a landlord IS a government.


 Actually, we don't _ignore_ that, we _disagree_ with that.  I mean, I know it's impossible for anyone to disagree with you without being a reprehensible, cretinous liar, but some of us "ignore" that impossibility and cling to the crazy idea that it's possible to have a rational thought and not be a Georgist.

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## redbluepill

> Bingo.  You are quite a bit quicker on the uptake than your Georgist cohorts.  Good thing they invited you here.  Welcome, by the way, and feel free to support Ron Paul. 
> 
>  Ah, that would be another thread.  Cool that you're interested in that, though.  I figured you were only interested in promoting the LVT, here because Roy L or redbluepill is on some other Georgist forum or e-mail list with you and posted there requesting "Hey, everyone, look at this thread. Come help me cream these Ron Paul guys with our LVT logic!"  Actually, I still figure that's how you got here, but perhaps since you're intelligent and interested, that chance meeting can now blossom into more!


Funny how you draw conclusions. If you look at my history I have been here before this thread was created because I support Paul on 90% of issues. I have no idea who Roy or Matt are but I welcome more Georgist thought to an Austrian polluted forum :-D

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## helmuth_hubener

> Funny how you draw conclusions.


 Sometimes they draw themselves, and I'm just naturally a funny guy!  Obviously they are not here because they are particularly interested in Ron Paul activism.  100% of their posts are on this thread!  No, they joined to promote LVT, and found this thread either by being referred by some other Georgist or through a search engine.  And that's cool!  The more the merrier.

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## WilliamC

> There are a couple issues the Georgists have to deal with. ...


Excellent summary, + rep.

To me it seems that the basis of georgism is that property is always a zero-sum game, and that any increase in property by one individual somehow automatically decreases the property of everyone else because there is only a finite amount.

Land might seem to be finite, but it's really not as improvements in technology allow us to make use of what previously was unusable land.

The ultimate expression of this would come from colonization of other planets, when whoever gets there first automatically controls what happens to the land once they get there, no matter what literally everyone else on Earth might feel.

The immediate  example that come to mind is the water ice at the Lunar poles. This is a finite and limited resource, and assuming we stupid humans don't kill each other eventually some of us will get there and occupy them/use the resources. 

Given the enormous difference in the gravity well between Earth and The Moon it makes the most sense to use the lunar ice to fuel Mars missions, since there is no possible way to terraform the Moon but Mars is as good as we get given our Solar System. Were this resource somehow destroyed or consumed it could literally mean the difference between species survival and extinction.

I've kind of wandered but to me Georgism has no answers to these problems, and the truth is the issue will be decided by whomever gets there first. The idea that future space explorers/colonists will have to pay some sort of land value tax to everyone back on Earth seems rather farfetched.

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## redbluepill

> Actually, we don't _ignore_ that, we _disagree_ with that.  I mean, I know it's impossible for anyone to disagree with you without being a reprehensible, cretinous liar, but some of us "ignore" that impossibility and cling to the crazy idea that it's possible to have a rational thought and not be a Georgist.


So you don't govern the land you own? You dont establish rules and make people pay if they live on your land?

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## WilliamC

> So you don't govern the land you own? You dont establish rules and make people pay if they live on your land?


I happen to be living rent free on someones land even as we speak and they don't govern me or establish rules on my behavior, imagine that.

So no, my 'landlord' in no sense of the word 'governs' his 'land' or me, and any argument based on this premise fails.

----------


## redbluepill

> I happen to be living rent free on someones land even as we speak and they don't govern me or establish rules on my behavior, imagine that.
> 
> So no, my 'landlord' in no sense of the word 'governs' his 'land' or me, and any argument based on this premise fails.


But would you argue that he has that right as long as you are on his land?

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## Roy L

> First, to summarize the Georgist position: Land was not created by any human, thus it cannot be owned by any human and all landowners are really usurpers and thieves, depriving their poor fellow humans of the land they so ruthlessly claim.


Without reading any further, I know your "arguments" will consist exclusively of the same kind of absurd, dishonest garbage I listed in post #355.



> Now, if the Georgists really believe this and if they really believed in justice and morality, it would follow that all land must be held in common forever and ever, Amen.  There can be no private land monopolization.


Except by just compensation for violating others' rights.



> The Land Value Tax is a fee paid in order to secure permission to* rip people off*!


It's just compensation for ripping them off.



> To steal land from the masses!


From every individual who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.



> If we are seeking justice and morality, we do not base our society on handing out a phony "right" to steal and rip people off ion exchange for money.


It's a privilege, not a right, and it is granted in return for just compensation, not "handed out."  Same as paying wages to compensate people for taking the fruits of their labor.  It's not stealing if just compensation is made, it's a voluntary, market-based, value-for-value transaction.



> Why not have the whole mass of people own the land in common and have the workers' council make all land decisions?


Because land cannot rightly be owned by a mass or collective any more than by an individual, and your suggestion is just silly, dishonest garbage, as I predicted.



> Because the Georgists understand the incentive problem


They do indeed -- unlike lying apologists for privilege, greed and injustice who try to rationalize the something-for-nothing parasitism of rent seekers.



> and perhaps they understand some of the other problems also involved in collective ownership.


But more importantly, because geoists are not liars.



> So the first point to realize is that Georgism is a philosophy about expedience and utilitarianism.


Lie.  It's about rights, liberty, and justice.



> Absolute rights and justice are sacrificed right off the bat.


That's just a flat-out lie from you.  It is landowner privilege that sacrifices individual rights and justice right off the bat.



> You can see that in the 36 pages above.


You can see it exposed as a lie in the 36 pages above.



> Here they are ranting and raving about how landowners are thieves and property (in land) is theft and anyone who disagrees is a liar and a cretin, but do they call for an end to this theft?


Yes.



> You know, _I_ criticize theft because I am against it.


No, you rationalize, excuse, defend and justify it because you (probably incorrectly) believe you profit by it.



> The solution they propose is: "because landowners are all thieves, we have to allow them to keep thieving but have them pay a recurring fee to 'society' for the right to continue their brigandry."  Look, if landowners are thieves, they're scum.


Were slave owners thieves?  Were Jefferson, Washington and others of the Founding Fathers who owned slaves scum?  Sometimes, people participate in thievery and evil because they live in a society where it is accepted, or they don't know any better, not because they are evil scum.



> The immoral looting needs to be abolished, not taxed.


LVT abolishes it BY taxing it, as there is no practical way for individual landowners to compensate everyone else individually.



> One gets the feeling they would call for taxation on the owners of chattel slaves in order to pay back society for their crime and that such a tax would make everything OK.


More absurd, dishonest garbage from you.  It was the slaves whose rights were being violated, not society, so the compensation would rightly go only to them, just as wages are paid only to the workers who do the work, not to the government or society generally.  Landowning, by contrast, violates the rights of everyone who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land, so everyone should rightly be compensated.



> The second issue is physical.  In Georgism, land is defined as the entirety of the universe.


Except human beings and the products of their labor.



> That is, every ocean, every planet, every star, every bit of stray hydrogen, and the vast expanse of emptiness in the cosmos.  No one can own any of that.  As soon as they improve it, they own the improvement, but they still can never own the "land", that is, the space and matter which nature provided.


They can own the matter they have removed from nature and made into products.



> So, if a man homesteads a section of forest, cuts down some trees, and uses them to build a house house there, he now owns the house, but not the land it sits on.  Even if he fundamentally changes the make-up of the land by, e.g. planting a wheat field or digging a big hole, the underlying land can never be owned, only the improvements.  That in and of itself seems fair and consistent.  The man didn't create the land, he just happens to be using it (and thus preventing any of his equally-deserving fellows from using it, by the way) so how could he have any just claim to own it?  The wheat, on the other hand, he very much had a hand in.  The wheat would not exist without him, he created it with his laboring, and so it rightfully can be said to be his absolute property.


Congratulations on not lying for a whole paragraph.



> The problem becomes apparent when one realizes that not only is the wheat field making use of the matter and space provided for free via the existence of the universe, the wheat itself is making use of that free matter and space as well.  The matter that was originally in the dirt has been percolated up through the wheat stalk to become the kernel.  One cannot simply create matter out of nothing.  As Carl Sagan said: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”  I think we can all agree, then, that everything in existence, no matter how man-made, has as one of its major components land.


No, anything man-made is by definition not land.  Labor removes matter from nature and transforms it into something artificial.  There is no requirement that a product be created ex nihilo.



> That is, everything consists of raw matter gotten from the universe and of space for it to occupy.


No, land consists of matter, space, etc. that is still where nature provided it, and has therefore NOT been "gotten from" the universe.



> Let us consider two different assets: a parking lot, and a chain saw.  Both are considered fully ownable by libertarians,


Only by feudal libertarians.



> and indeed by most people.


Just as slaves once were considered ownable by most people...



> Georgists consider only the chain saw to be fully ownable.  That is because the parking lot has a strong "land" component while the chain saw does not.  Now the parking lot qua parking lot _is_ ownable, the Georgists would be quick to clarify.  The pavement, the painted lines, all of that is an improvement and thus ownable.  The land that it is blanketing, however, is not ownable.  That raw land should be taxed according to whatever its value would have been were it not leveled, tamped, and covered with pavement.


Again, congratulations on writing a paragraph about geoism without a lie in it.



> To be consistent, the same reasoning must apply to the chain saw.  The chain saw should be taxed according to whatever value the ore, petroleum, etc. would have had were it not refined, cracked, made into steel, made into plastic, cast, injection-molded, and assembled into a chain saw.  The raw elements composing the chain saw are just as much a part of the universe as the raw elements composing the parking lot.


No, they have been removed from nature.  Removal of depletable resources from nature in fact triggers not a land tax but a once-and-for-all "severance" tax, which recognizes the difference between violating others' rights by permanently *depleting* a natural resource and by merely temporarily *occupying* it.



> But Georgists do not apply the same logic to the chain saw as to the parking lot.


Because the land is not depleted, only occupied.



> Part of this doubtless is because of their placement of expediency above the concepts of justice or consistency.


Lie.  It is landowner privilege that cannot consistently be justified.



> The land in the case of the parking lot is big, static, and, as they are fond of pointing out, impossible to hide from the tax man.  The land tucked away in the chain saw is small, portable, and can be hidden from the tax man.


There is no land in the chainsaw.  It is all artificial.



> Thus, as a practical matter, by "land" the Georgists do not, in fact, mean all the matter and space in the universe.


Right.  Geoists always state explicitly that human beings and the products of their labor are *not land*.



> Rather, they mean that very particular class of land that lays horizontally at the surface of the Earth and upon which men walk.


False.  Land is the whole physical universe OTHER THAN human beings and the products of their labor.  It includes mineral resources, natural water sources, broadcast spectrum, the oceans, sunlight, rainfall, wildlife, the sun, moon, planets and stars, and many other things as well as the earth's surface.



> This inconsistency opens them up to all kinds of hypothetical absurdities and conundrums.


There is no inconsistency, and all the absurdity in question is committed by apologists for landowner privilege, as I demonstrated in post #355.



> What if a man were to fly to an asteroid and claim to own it?  That claim would be invalid under Georgist thought, since the land of the asteroid is unownable.  What if instead he were to carve a large chunk out of the Earth and launch it into space as an artificial asteroid?  Since it becomes an artificial asteroid only through herculean human effort, it would seem to be fully ownable, for the same reasons the wheat kernel and the chain saw are fully ownable.


Yes, assuming he paid the severance tax on the mineral resources he depleted.



> Thus, a thousand years down the road, all the inhabitants on Asteroid B are enjoying full alloidial property rights while on asteroid A they must pay land-value tax to humanity


Assuming an appropriate jurisdiction exists to administer possession and use.



> for the crime of monopolizing their pieces of the asteroid.  But what is fundamentally different about these two asteroids at this point?


One is natural, the other artificial.



> Should the distant, murky past of the asteroids' respective beginnings really affect their property situation so?


Depends how murky it is.  Products of labor are eventually discarded or abandoned; they decay and return to nature.  Sometimes they can be salvaged, other times they become indistinguishable from natural material.  If in the course of 1000 years the artificial asteroid was abandoned and was no longer anyone's property, it might be considered to have reverted to nature, and be treated as land again.  Consider shipwrecks.  They are the property of their owners for a time, but then become subject to salvage.  But even the right of salvage expires after some hundreds or thousands of years, and they become historic sites administered by governments as part of the common cultural heritage.



> What if I were to tunnel a shaft a mile down and at the bottom of it hollow out an enormous cavern.  Would I then be responsible to pay land value tax?


Possibly.  The land down there is probably not worth much.



> Would not this be essentially the same type of endeavor as the asteroid launch?  One is putting solid mass where there is emptiness in order to create new livable square footage.  The other is creating emptiness where there was solid mass in order to create new livable square footage.


Both are improvements.  Consider cave paintings.  There is no doubt they are products of labor, but because their origins and chain of title have been lost, they are treated as common resources, not private property.



> If the artificial asteroid people and the hollow earth people can both escape the LVT via their shenanigans,


They can't escape it entirely, as explained above.



> what of those who drain swamps, manufacture islands, blow up mountains, or heat icy wastes and in so doing make these places habitable or useful when before they were not?


They should make just compensation for what they deprive others of.



> The typical Georgist response to, e.g. the artificial island manufacturer, would be that while he may own the island, he does not own the land under the island and thus must pay tax on the value of the land under his island.


Which is typically going to be little or nothing, as it was underwater and NO ONE ELSE WANTED TO USE IT.



> But what about the land over the island?


The earth's atmosphere is also land.



> What about the land _in_ the island which has merely been shuffled around?


<sigh>  Removed from nature and therefore not land.



> Why do we only care about what's underneath?


We don't.  But that is the land part of the island.



> Is land only land when it is "under" -- when men can stand on it?  To figure out the taxable land do we simply calculate the surface area of the Earth's sphere, despite the fact that much of this is covered in ocean, making it impossible to "stand on" without application of improvements or technology?


Stupid, dishonest garbage.



> The artificial island builder created the value of the land under his island, value which did not exist until he arrived.


No.  Its unimproved value has not changed.



> No one was using the land before him.  For all practical purposes, it was not land.


Yes, of course it was.



> He has thus created new usable land, just as the Earth hollower created new usable land, and just as the asteroid launcher created new usable land.


Equivocation fallacy.  None of them has created land in the relevant sense.  They created built space.



> They have not created new land in an absolute sense if one defines land as the entirety of the universe, but they have changed the nature of the land.  And in doing so, they have created a valuable asset where none existed before.  If the chain saw manufacturer, who does the same thing -- he rearranges the matter given by nature to create a new valuable asset -- if he can own his creation, these real-estate-improvers ought to be able to own their creations as well.


They can.



> To a lesser extent, the irrigator, the forest clearer, the mountain blaster, and the explorer all create value where there was none before.


No, they may ADD value where there WAS value before, which is why they choose to do those things in certain places but not others.  And the explorer is not in the same category as the others, as he is not adding value or making any improvements except to his own knowledge.



> Their creations are tied to the horizontal surface of the Earth.


The explorer has not created anything tied to the earth's surface.  You are just trying to sneak him in as an improver of the land in order to construct a fallacious argument later.



> That is a laughably arbitrary reason to deny them the fruits of their labors.


What is laughably arbitrary is your claim that LVT would deny them the fruits of their labor.



> The chain saw monopolizes the scarce matter, or "land", of the universe just as the parking lot does.


No.  The chainsaw contains NO natural opportunity, and its ownership consequently deprives no one of any natural opportunity.  The parking lot does occupy a natural opportunity, and its ownership consequently DOES deprive people of a natural opportunity.  The apologist for landowner privilege will do, say, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.



> The Georgists say that the parking lot owner must pay tax on the scarce matter his creation is monopolizing,


No, on the natural opportunity that others would otherwise be at liberty to use.  Stop lying about what geoists plainly say.



> but the chain saw owner need pay no tax on the scarce matter his creation is monopolizing.  Why?


Because it does not deprive others of their liberty to use what nature provided.



> Because one collection of matter is arranged in a way that the Georgists recognize as land -- dirt laid out horizontally at the surface of the Earth.


False.



> Georgists are guilty of not thinking three-dimensionally.


Lying apologists for landowner privilege are guilty of lying about what geoists plainly say.



> For them, the world is still flat and horizontal land still holds some sort of almost mystical quality making it unownable.


There is nothing mystical about the fact that the earth's surface is not a product of human labor.



> As technology progresses, very small or nontraditional real-estate, as well as very large manufactured items, blur the line between what is taxable land and what is not.


No, they do not, and you have offered no reason to think they do.



> One path forward to rigorize this school of thought would be to introduce the idea of taxing the underlying land in boats, hammers, and chain saws in the same way as the land underlying skyscrapers, fish ponds, and parking lots.


Products do not contain "underlying land."  The resources depleted in the course of their manufacture would be subject to a one-time severance tax at the time of depletion.



> Another path forward would be to admit that although man did not create the universe (as far as we know!) we will nevertheless allow the entire universe to pass into private ownership, since the alternative is to create some sort of tax on the universe, whose purpose and benefit would be singularly unclear.


No, that is just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.  The tax is on depriving others of opportunities they would otherwise have, and its purposes and benefits -- liberty, justice and prosperity -- are very clear.  They are merely purposes and benefits that you purpose to sacrifice on the altar of your greed for unearned wealth.

----------


## Roy L

> When what you say is incredibly boring and repetitive, I will feel free to change it to whatever I want and have a discussion with my improved and intelligent imaginary Roy L instead.


Translation: like all apologists for landowner privilege, you feel free to lie about what geoists have plainly said.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> There is _land_ in the apple.


No, there is not.



> Men can own improvements on the land (in this case turning soil into an apple), but never the land.  The apple is just rearranged land.


The rearrangement is what makes it not land.



> The constituent land must be taxed.


There is no "constituent land" in an apple.  You are just lying.



> Or not.  Tax all land or tax none of it, either way is consistent at least.


You claim Georgists say there is no such thing as matter that is not land.  That is a flat-out lie.



> But let's be consistent.


??  *This*, from *YOU*???  ROTFL!!!

----------


## Roy L

> Not until as there is an absolute ban on income and sales taxes could I consider a LVT, and then only under certain restrictions.


I see.  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," it's OK to maintain unjust and destructive taxes permanently, and never even try to implement a just and beneficial one, because all the unjust and destructive ones can't be abolished and permanently banned at the same moment a better one is introduced.

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...



> Not only would a LVT require amending the Constitution,


It would not.



> there remains a great deal of explanation as to how local property/land value tax, implemented and controlled at the county level, would translate into revenue for the State and Federal Governments and elimination of State and Federal taxes.


Presumably each jurisdiction would continue to implement its own taxes.



> Of course my main complaint against any new tax is that none can be considered until others are eliminated, otherwise we'll end up with a LVT on top of what ever other taxes the politicians can dream up.


Why will you not even consider using LVT to replace unjust taxes gradually?

----------


## Roy L

> Actually, we don't _ignore_ that, we _disagree_ with that.  I mean, I know it's impossible for anyone to disagree with you without being a reprehensible, cretinous liar, but some of us "ignore" that impossibility and cling to the crazy idea that it's possible to have a rational thought and not be a Georgist.


It's possible to have a rational thought and not be a geoist, but not possible to oppose geoism by means of rational thought.

----------


## Roy L

> Excellent summary, + rep.


And already demolished and refuted as silly, dishonest garbage.



> To me it seems that the basis of georgism is that property is always a zero-sum game, and that any increase in property by one individual somehow automatically decreases the property of everyone else because there is only a finite amount.


Excellent summary of stupid, dishonest, anti-justice, anti-liberty, anti-truth, anti-geoist garbage.



> Land might seem to be finite,


Its supply is not only finite but FIXED.



> but it's really not as improvements in technology allow us to make use of what previously was unusable land.


Irrelevant.



> The ultimate expression of this would come from colonization of other planets, when whoever gets there first automatically controls what happens to the land once they get there, no matter what literally everyone else on Earth might feel.


What about when the next group arrives?



> I've kind of wandered but to me Georgism has no answers to these problems, and the truth is the issue will be decided by whomever gets there first.


Who got to North America first?  Did they decide?



> The idea that future space explorers/colonists will have to pay some sort of land value tax to everyone back on Earth seems rather farfetched.


So did abolition of slavery 300 years ago.

----------


## Roy L

> I happen to be living rent free on someones land even as we speak and they don't govern me or establish rules on my behavior, imagine that.


IMO it's more likely that YOU are imagining it.



> So no, my 'landlord' in no sense of the word 'governs' his 'land' or me, and any argument based on this premise fails.


Only to the extent that there is a government governing it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

LOL!  Roy baby, I've been wondering more and more if you're really an anti-georgist guy in the tradition of the fantastic mikehuckabeeforums.com.  If so, I love it, you're doing simply _fab_ulously, darling!  I almost want to make a sock puppet and join in.  I should speak no more of this, for that would ruin the joke.

----------


## MattButler

> See Chapter 14 (page 68) in Bourbon for Breakfast on why agencies which are the best at everything still can't dominate everything.


I read the chapter and its about comparative advantage, and why firms that have comparative advantages for all of their products choose to produce only what they do best.  This does not answer the question posed by Nozick as to how several competing protection agencies in a single market inevitably evolve into a single agency.

----------


## MattButler

> There are a couple issues the Georgists have to deal with.  First, to summarize the Georgist position: Land was not created by any human, thus it cannot be owned by any human and all landowners are really usurpers and thieves, depriving their poor fellow humans of the land they so ruthlessly claim.


You mix a truth with half-truth with complete falsity and you leave out a lot of important stuff.  Its better to define it for what it is: Georgists believe community services and improvements should be funded from ground rents.  I'm not a georgist.  I also believe in taxing (albeit to a lesser extent) pollution and patents.  I also think where appropriate services and improvements should be funded with user fees.  




> Now, if the Georgists really believe this and if they really believed in justice and morality, it would follow that all land must be held in common forever and ever, Amen.  There can be no private land monopolization.  The Land Value Tax is a fee paid in order to secure permission to* rip people off*!  To steal land from the masses!  If we are seeking justice and morality, we do not base our society on handing out a phony "right" to steal and rip people off ion exchange for money.  Why not have the whole mass of people own the land in common and have the workers' council make all land decisions?  Because the Georgists understand the incentive problem and perhaps they understand some of the other problems also involved in collective ownership.


The last sentence is correct about the Georgist position, as I understand it. The rest of that paragraph is too obtuse.  The statement about securing the right to "rip people off"...No friend.  



> So the first point to realize is that Georgism is a philosophy about expedience and utilitarianism.  Absolute rights and justice are sacrificed right off the bat.  You can see that in the 36 pages above.  Here they are ranting and raving about how landowners are thieves and property (in land) is theft and anyone who disagrees is a liar and a cretin, but do they call for an end to this theft?  You know, _I_ criticize theft because I am against it.  Are they?  Ha!  The solution they propose is: "because landowners are all thieves, we have to allow them to keep thieving but have them pay a recurring fee to 'society' for the right to continue their brigandry."  Look, if landowners are thieves, they're scum.  The immoral looting needs to be abolished, not taxed.  One gets the feeling they would call for taxation on the owners of chattel slaves in order to pay back society for their crime and that such a tax would make everything OK.


Georgism incorporates both expedience and utilitarianism, and those are very good principles on which to build a "community." Absolute rights and justice?  C'mon man.  Its not like Georgiest believe in applying expedience and utilitarianism to murder and theft laws.  Its not like they don't believe in justice in the court system when you file a lawsuit.  If you think absolute rights and justice within society depend on society granting you title to land for free you understand neither rights nor justice.  Its only because there is a community that such a thing as Title even exists.  Without community there'd be no title you'd be left to defend your land all by yourself or with whatever private security you can rustle up.  If my security agent is bigger than your's what do you have then?  You got a fight and one that you will lose.  See this is also why competing security agencies is a myth, and why I want you to answer Nozick's problem and point me to an answer you've given somewhere else.  I believe there can only be one security agency, the one with the biggest guns and toughest dudes.  In the end you're gonna pay them protection money and it won't be voluntary either, not if you want to have Title.




> The second issue is physical.  In Georgism, land is defined as the entirety of the universe.  That is, every ocean, every planet, every star, every bit of stray hydrogen, and the vast expanse of emptiness in the cosmos.  No one can own any of that.  As soon as they improve it, they own the improvement, but they still can never own the "land", that is, the space and matter which nature provided.


Georgists are concerned first and foremost with the spaces in which community is possible.  The stars and the expanses of the cosmos are not viable places for community.  People don't inhabit oceans, but if the so-called floating cities ever come to fruition, you can bet that apartment space will be sold based on sq. footage. 




> So, if a man homesteads a section of forest, cuts down some trees, and uses them to build a house house there, he now owns the house, but not the land it sits on.  Even if he fundamentally changes the make-up of the land by, e.g. planting a wheat field or digging a big hole, the underlying land can never be owned, only the improvements.  That in and of itself seems fair and consistent.  The man didn't create the land, he just happens to be using it (and thus preventing any of his equally-deserving fellows from using it, by the way) so how could he have any just claim to own it?  The wheat, on the other hand, he very much had a hand in.  The wheat would not exist without him, he created it with his laboring, and so it rightfully can be said to be his absolute property.
> 
> The problem becomes apparent when one realizes that not only is the wheat field making use of the matter and space provided for free via the existence of the universe, the wheat itself is making use of that free matter and space as well.  The matter that was originally in the dirt has been percolated up through the wheat stalk to become the kernel.  One cannot simply create matter out of nothing.  As Carl Sagan said: If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.  I think we can all agree, then, that everything in existence, no matter how man-made, has as one of its major components land. That is, everything consists of raw matter gotten from the universe and of space for it to occupy.
> 
> Let us consider two different assets: a parking lot, and a chain saw.  Both are considered fully ownable by libertarians, and indeed by most people.  Georgists consider only the chain saw to be fully ownable.  That is because the parking lot has a strong "land" component while the chain saw does not.  Now the parking lot qua parking lot _is_ ownable, the Georgists would be quick to clarify.  The pavement, the painted lines, all of that is an improvement and thus ownable.  The land that it is blanketing, however, is not ownable.  That raw land should be taxed according to whatever its value would have been were it not leveled, tamped, and covered with pavement.
> 
> To be consistent, the same reasoning must apply to the chain saw.  The chain saw should be taxed according to whatever value the ore, petroleum, etc. would have had were it not refined, cracked, made into steel, made into plastic, cast, injection-molded, and assembled into a chain saw.  The raw elements composing the chain saw are just as much a part of the universe as the raw elements composing the parking lot.


This is incorrect.  The land underneath parking lot represents land that could be used for another purpose, a higher purpose.  The chain saw cannot be efficiently disassembled and turned into something better.  More importantly, the chain-saw already takes into account the original tax as applied on land, because each of its components came from material coming out of land somewhere that was taxed according to its value.  




> But Georgists do not apply the same logic to the chain saw as to the parking lot.  Part of this doubtless is because of their placement of expediency above the concepts of justice or consistency.  The land in the case of the parking lot is big, static, and, as they are fond of pointing out, impossible to hide from the tax man.  The land tucked away in the chain saw is small, portable, and can be hidden from the tax man.  Thus, as a practical matter, by "land" the Georgists do not, in fact, mean all the matter and space in the universe.  Rather, they mean that very particular class of land that lays horizontally at the surface of the Earth and upon which men walk.
> 
> This inconsistency opens them up to all kinds of hypothetical absurdities and conundrums.  What if a man were to fly to an asteroid and claim to own it?  That claim would be invalid under Georgist thought, since the land of the asteroid is unownable.  What if instead he were to carve a large chunk out of the Earth and launch it into space as an artificial asteroid?  Since it becomes an artificial asteroid only through herculean human effort, it would seem to be fully ownable, for the same reasons the wheat kernel and the chain saw are fully ownable.  Thus, a thousand years down the road, all the inhabitants on Asteroid B are enjoying full alloidial property rights while on asteroid A they must pay land-value tax to humanity for the crime of monopolizing their pieces of the asteroid.  But what is fundamentally different about these two asteroids at this point?  Should the distant, murky past of the asteroids' respective beginnings really affect their property situation so?
> 
> What if I were to tunnel a shaft a mile down and at the bottom of it hollow out an enormous cavern.  Would I then be responsible to pay land value tax?  Would not this be essentially the same type of endeavor as the asteroid launch?  One is putting solid mass where there is emptiness in order to create new livable square footage.  The other is creating emptiness where there was solid mass in order to create new livable square footage.
> 
> If the artificial asteroid people and the hollow earth people can both escape the LVT via their shenanigans, what of those who drain swamps, manufacture islands, blow up mountains, or heat icy wastes and in so doing make these places habitable or useful when before they were not?  The typical Georgist response to, e.g. the artificial island manufacturer, would be that while he may own the island, he does not own the land under the island and thus must pay tax on the value of the land under his island.  But what about the land over the island?  What about the land _in_ the island which has merely been shuffled around?  Why do we only care about what's underneath?  Is land only land when it is "under" -- when men can stand on it?  To figure out the taxable land do we simply calculate the surface area of the Earth's sphere, despite the fact that much of this is covered in ocean, making it impossible to "stand on" without application of improvements or technology?  
> 
> The artificial island builder created the value of the land under his island, value which did not exist until he arrived.  No one was using the land before him.  For all practical purposes, it was not land.  He has thus created new usable land, just as the Earth hollower created new usable land, and just as the asteroid launcher created new usable land.  They have not created new land in an absolute sense if one defines land as the entirety of the universe, but they have changed the nature of the land.  And in doing so, they have created a valuable asset where none existed before.  If the chain saw manufacturer, who does the same thing -- he rearranges the matter given by nature to create a new valuable asset -- if he can own his creation, these real-estate-improvers ought to be able to own their creations as well.  To a lesser extent, the irrigator, the forest clearer, the mountain blaster, and the explorer all create value where there was none before.  Their creations are tied to the horizontal surface of the Earth.  That is a laughably arbitrary reason to deny them the fruits of their labors.
> ...


You earlier said Georgists think about expediency and utilitarianism...in other words practicality.  I could take time to address each of your questions about asteroids, heating ice beds, and digging holes to the middle of the earth, and I'm confident I could address each one using georgist principles in a non-contradictory way, but in the interest of practicality I think its time for bed.

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## Roy L

> LOL!  Roy baby, I've been wondering more and more if you're really an anti-georgist guy in the tradition of the fantastic mikehuckabeeforums.com.  If so, I love it, you're doing simply _fab_ulously, darling!  I almost want to make a sock puppet and join in.  I should speak no more of this, for that would ruin the joke.


You have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, and you have no answers.  Simple.

It's always the same.

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## helmuth_hubener

I hope you realize, Roy L., that eventually everyone will get tired of posting on this thread.  It will not be because you have conclusively demolished them, it will be simply because you are so obnoxiously rude.  On the freestateproject forums, the token Georgist annoyance there is also persistent, intractable, and repetitive, but in contrast to you he's polite.  See this thread: http://forum.freestateproject.org/in...7639#msg207639  See a whole bunch of the threads: http://forum.freestateproject.org/in...last_post;desc  There, the Georgist discussion will go on and on and on forever, because as one libertarian foe tires, another starry-eyed recruit steps up in the never-ending futile quest to free BillG's mind.

Liberty Forest has a much higher population than the Free State Project forums, so honestly, if you could just control yourself and stay civil, this thread will in fact go to 100 pages just as I predicted and then you can start another thread, and another, and another, and keep your entertainment/hobby going forever!  I'm giving you good advice here.

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## helmuth_hubener

> If you think absolute rights and justice within society depend on society granting you title to land for free you understand neither rights nor justice.


 I made the opposite point, actually: If all land titles are invalid, if no one has the right to monopolize a piece of land, then it is unjust, robbery, an outrage, etc., for this usurpery we call land ownership to be going on.  That is what Roy L. has said over and over, and redbluepill also to a lesser extent.  Coming at it from a natural rights perspective, I see clearly that if we have all this robbery (and Roy L. has even compared it to chattel slavery repeatedly), the just and moral thing to do is to abolish the robbery.  Outlaw the injustice.  Make it forbidden to monopolize land.  That is the solution.  

But instead of abolishing the wrong, you propose instead to tax it.  "Oh, it's fine, Mr. Landowner, keep raping my rights and robbing me of that Manhattan apartment that's my nature-given right, just pay this annual fee for the privilege of doing so."  That's utter garbage, as I see it!  If I've got a right to that Manhattan apartment, I've got a right to it, and paying a fee to strip my right away from me does not make it acceptable!

Now maybe you do not agree with Roy L. that land ownership is robbery.  But if you do, then I really don't understand how you can make a moral case for enshrining robbery in your ideal social system.

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## helmuth_hubener

> But would you argue that he has that right as long as you are on his land?


 You're actually kind of on the right track in positing that owning a plot of land is similar to being a sovereign nation in a free anarcho-capitalist society.  There are some huge differences, though, between the land owner under an-cap and the modern nation-state we all know and love.  Notably, nation-states engage in:

Mass murder (war, FDA, concentration camps)
Mass slavery (income tax, the draft)
Mass robbery (excise taxes, sales taxes, gift taxes, death taxes, marriage taxes,... everything taxes)
Mass imprisonment (self-explanatory)

A sovereign land owner could not engage in any of these things.  He _would_ be free to make the rules for anyone he wished to invite or allow onto his property.  He could thus have drug prohibition, rent/property tax,... any number of measures that would somewhat resemble the laws of some nation-states though on a much smaller scale.  But he would not be free to rob, enslave, or murder.  Also, his domain would be rightfully his.  See, if the politicians in the Maryland swamp actually had purchased the entire North American continent fair and square, I'd have no moral problem with them making rules regarding their land, to an extent, though most of their current behaviors would still be invalid -- you can't lock someone in a cage or kill them just for violating some arbitrary rule while having dinner in your home; rather, you eject them from your property.

Anyway, under an-cap the sovereign dominions would be very, very small, also -- 12 sovereign nations on this suburban cul-de-sac alone! -- enabling easy exit and making nation-state-type oppression impossible.

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## redbluepill

> Under an-cap the sovereign dominions would be very, very small, also -- 12 sovereign nations on this suburban cul-de-sac alone! -- enabling easy exit and making nation-state-type oppression impossible.



So how would you break up the current land monopolies we currently have? Why should a corporation sell their land to individuals when they can just have renters?

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## heavenlyboy34

> You're actually kind of on the right track in positing that owning a plot of land is similar to being a sovereign nation in a free anarcho-capitalist society.  There are some huge differences, though, between the land owner under an-cap and the modern nation-state we all know and love.  Notably, nation-states engage in:
> 
> Mass murder (war, FDA, concentration camps)
> Mass slavery (income tax, the draft)
> Mass robbery (excise taxes, sales taxes, gift taxes, death taxes, marriage taxes,... everything taxes)
> Mass imprisonment (self-explanatory)
> 
> A sovereign land owner could not engage in any of these things.  He _would_ be free to make the rules for anyone he wished to invite or allow onto his property.  He could thus have drug prohibition, rent/property tax,... any number of measures that would somewhat resemble the laws of some nation-states though on a much smaller scale.  But he would not be free to rob, enslave, or murder.  Also, his domain would be rightfully his.  See, if the politicians in the Maryland swamp actually had purchased the entire North American continent fair and square, I'd have no moral problem with them making rules regarding their land, to an extent, though most of their current behaviors would still be invalid -- you can't lock someone in a cage or kill them just for violating some arbitrary rule while having dinner in your home; rather, you eject them from your property.
> 
> Anyway, under an-cap the sovereign dominions would be very, very small, also -- 12 sovereign nations on this suburban cul-de-sac alone! -- enabling easy exit and making nation-state-type oppression impossible.


You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to helmuth_hubener again.

Damn!   IOU a +rep when I get some more ammo.

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## smokemonsc

> So how would you break up the current land monopolies we currently have? Why should a corporation sell their land to individuals when they can just have renters?


What land monopoly?  How can you claim there is a monopoly when there are literally, 10's of not a 100 million land owners (by today's definition) in this country alone?

As for your second question - Why does anyone sell anything?  Because they profit from it in some way.  It could be because they want to free up capital, it could be because they are bankrupt, it could be because they are stupid.

Why do people sell their old homes instead of renting them out when they go to purchase another one?

----------


## redbluepill

> What land monopoly?  How can you claim there is a monopoly when there are literally, 10's of not a 100 million land owners (by today's definition) in this country alone?


 _  At best, a generous interpretation would suggest that about 3% of the population owns 95% of the privately held land in the USA. Fewer than 600 companies control 22% of our private land, a land mass the size of Spain.Those same companies land interests worldwide comprise a total area larger than that of Europe - almost 2 billion acres. (Peter Meyer, "Land Rush - A Survey of America's Land - Who Owns It, Who Controls It, How much is Left" in Harpers Magazine, Jan. 1979).

    A United Nations study of 83 countries showed that less than 5% of rural landowners control three-quarters of the land.

    According to a 1985 government report, 2% of landowners hold 60% of the arable land in Brazil while close to 70% of rural households have little or none. Just 342 farm properties in Brazil cover 183,397 square miles - an area larger than California (Worldwatch, Oct. 1988)

    In Florida, 1% of the people own 77% of the land. Other states where the top 1% own over two-thirds of the land are Maine, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon. (In order to show that there was NO need for land reform in Central America because our land in the USA is even more concentrated in ownership than Central America, Senator Jesse Helms read these facts into the Congressional Record in 1981.)

    Throughout the world, we see these numbers (various sources):
        86% of South Africa is still owned by the white minority population
        60% of El Salvador is owned by the richest 2% of the population
        80% of Pakistan is owned by the richest 3% of the population
        74% of Great Britain is owned by the richest 2% of the population
        84% of Scotland is owned by the richest 7% of the population_ 

http://www.earthrights.net/docs/alaska.html

You were saying?






> As for your second question - Why does anyone sell anything?  Because they profit from it in some way.  It could be because they want to free up capital, it could be because they are bankrupt, it could be because they are stupid.
> 
> Why do people sell their old homes instead of renting them out when they go to purchase another one?


The above data proves that owning the land is much more profitable to these corporations than selling it.

----------


## Roy L

> I made the opposite point, actually: If all land titles are invalid, if no one has the right to monopolize a piece of land, then it is unjust, robbery, an outrage, etc., for this usurpery we call land ownership to be going on.  That is what Roy L. has said over and over, and redbluepill also to a lesser extent.  Coming at it from a natural rights perspective, I see clearly that if we have all this robbery (and Roy L. has even compared it to chattel slavery repeatedly), the just and moral thing to do is to abolish the robbery.  Outlaw the injustice.


That is exactly what we purpose to do: abolish the robbery and end the injustice.



> Make it forbidden to monopolize land.


You are suggesting that government prohibit what government enables, a bald self-contradiction -- and you don't even believe in government in the first place.  Without government, how will this prohibition on land monopoly be implemented?  And if you are going to have a government that can forbid land monopoly, how is it to be funded?  Aye, there's the rub...



> That is the solution.


No, that is an irrational, self-contradictory non sequitur fallacy, as demonstrated above.

Like slavery, landowning is a quick and dirty solution to a genuine problem: ownership of fixed improvements (slavery is a quick and dirty solution to labor shortages consequent on war and the risk attendant on releasing captives).  People have a right to liberty, a right to use land, and a property right in the products of their labor.  The advent of agriculture and fixed improvements implies an irreducible conflict between these rights.  Mature people understand that rights can sometimes conflict, and just solutions are needed to secure and reconcile them.  That's what civil courts are for.  Prohibiting exclusive land use altogether is *not* a solution to the problem at all: it simply violates liberty and/or property rights in a different way (and makes high-productivity land use impossible).



> But instead of abolishing the wrong, you propose instead to tax it.


Taxing it (and restoring the equal individual right to liberty through an equal, universal, individual exemption to the tax) *does* abolish the wrong, as those who are wronged get just compensation: secure, free exclusive tenure on a modest amount of land of their choice.

In similar fashion, people's right to drive on the wrong side of the road is abrogated by traffic laws, but they get compensation by being at liberty to drive much more safely and conveniently on the right side.  No honest adult would claim that this is an intolerable violation of the right to liberty, just as no honest adult would claim that conflicting rights cannot be reconciled through just compensation.



> "Oh, it's fine, Mr. Landowner, keep raping my rights and robbing me of that Manhattan apartment that's my nature-given right,


You are LYING.  AGAIN.  You chide me for being impolite, but then you turn around and repeatedly LIE about what I have plainly written.  If you want to be treated with respect, stop behaving like a despicable, lying sack of $#!+.



> just pay this annual fee for the privilege of doing so."  That's utter garbage, as I see it!


Because you have decided not to see what is in front of your face.



> If I've got a right to that Manhattan apartment, I've got a right to it, and paying a fee to strip my right away from me does not make it acceptable!


Wrong.  Getting just compensation for violation of your rights DOES make it acceptable, same as for any other conflict of rights.  If someone runs into your car, damaging it and thus violating your property rights, you don't start shrieking nonsense about having your rights stripped away.  The offending party simply makes just compensation for the harm done, and you go on your way, like a sensible, civilized adult.  I hope.



> Now maybe you do not agree with Roy L. that land ownership is robbery.  But if you do, then I really don't understand how you can make a moral case for enshrining robbery in your ideal social system.


It's not robbery if you get just compensation.  Duh.  It's not robbery if you pay for what you take home from the grocery store.  Duh.  What's robbery is what *you* are trying to rationalize and justify: violating others' rights and NOT making just compensation.

----------


## Roy L

> What land monopoly?  How can you claim there is a monopoly when there are literally, 10's of not a 100 million land owners (by today's definition) in this country alone?


Land is a canonical example of monopoly because the supply is fixed and each land parcel is unique.  



> Why do people sell their old homes instead of renting them out when they go to purchase another one?


They can't afford to pay two mortgages, don't want the headache of looking after improvements and dealing with tenants, etc.

----------


## Seraphim

Must spread rep around before repping you again. Good post.

Decentralize EVERYTHING.




> You're actually kind of on the right track in positing that owning a plot of land is similar to being a sovereign nation in a free anarcho-capitalist society.  There are some huge differences, though, between the land owner under an-cap and the modern nation-state we all know and love.  Notably, nation-states engage in:
> 
> Mass murder (war, FDA, concentration camps)
> Mass slavery (income tax, the draft)
> Mass robbery (excise taxes, sales taxes, gift taxes, death taxes, marriage taxes,... everything taxes)
> Mass imprisonment (self-explanatory)
> 
> A sovereign land owner could not engage in any of these things.  He _would_ be free to make the rules for anyone he wished to invite or allow onto his property.  He could thus have drug prohibition, rent/property tax,... any number of measures that would somewhat resemble the laws of some nation-states though on a much smaller scale.  But he would not be free to rob, enslave, or murder.  Also, his domain would be rightfully his.  See, if the politicians in the Maryland swamp actually had purchased the entire North American continent fair and square, I'd have no moral problem with them making rules regarding their land, to an extent, though most of their current behaviors would still be invalid -- you can't lock someone in a cage or kill them just for violating some arbitrary rule while having dinner in your home; rather, you eject them from your property.
> 
> Anyway, under an-cap the sovereign dominions would be very, very small, also -- 12 sovereign nations on this suburban cul-de-sac alone! -- enabling easy exit and making nation-state-type oppression impossible.

----------


## Roy L

> You're actually kind of on the right track in positing that owning a plot of land is similar to being a sovereign nation in a free anarcho-capitalist society.  There are some huge differences, though, between the land owner under an-cap and the modern nation-state we all know and love.  Notably, nation-states engage in:
> 
> Mass murder (war, FDA, concentration camps)
> Mass slavery (income tax, the draft)
> Mass robbery (excise taxes, sales taxes, gift taxes, death taxes, marriage taxes,... everything taxes)
> Mass imprisonment (self-explanatory)
> 
> A sovereign land owner could not engage in any of these things.


Of course he could, and did.  The anarcho-capitalist "sovereign landowner" society you describe has already been implemented, many times.  It is called, "feudalism," and its sovereign landowners engaged in EVEN MORE murder, slavery, robbery and imprisonment -- both per capita and per square mile -- than typical modern nation-states do.



> He _would_ be free to make the rules for anyone he wished to invite or allow onto his property.


And to baldly violate the rights of all whom he did not allow onto his territory (not "property" -- there is a difference between forcible animal territoriality and property).



> He could thus have drug prohibition, rent/property tax,... any number of measures that would somewhat resemble the laws of some nation-states though on a much smaller scale.  But he would not be free to rob, enslave, or murder.


Who would stop him?



> Also, his domain would be rightfully his.


Nope.  Flat wrong.  He did not produce it, nor could he possibly have obtained it from anyone who rightfully owned it.  He simply stole it from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it, the same way all land is appropriated as property.



> See, if the politicians in the Maryland swamp actually had purchased the entire North American continent fair and square,


But we have already established that that is impossible.



> I'd have no moral problem with them making rules regarding their land, to an extent, though most of their current behaviors would still be invalid -- you can't lock someone in a cage or kill them just for violating some arbitrary rule while having dinner in your home; rather, you eject them from your property.


You seem to think you are in charge of the sovereign landowners, and can tell them what they can and cannot do.  You aren't, and you can't.  They will just do as they please.



> Anyway, under an-cap the sovereign dominions would be very, very small, also -- 12 sovereign nations on this suburban cul-de-sac alone! -- enabling easy exit and making nation-state-type oppression impossible.


Wrong again.  The history of sovereign-landowner an-cap societies shows they aggregate land quickly.  And the conditions in your suburban cul-de-sac are an artifact of a modern nation-state, duh.

----------


## Roy L

> Must spread rep around before repping you again. Good post.


How many Hubener dittoheads are there on this forum, anyway?  Am I not demolishing him in words of few enough syllables?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You are suggesting that government prohibit what government enables, a bald self-contradiction


 Fine, if you believe that (I don't) then obviously, blatantly, nose-on-your-face clearly, the government should stop enabling land monopolization!  It just couldn't be more obvious.  It is literally impossible for a  conclusion to be more painfully obvious than this.




> Mature people understand that rights can sometimes conflict, and just solutions are needed to secure and reconcile them.


 True rights never, never, never, never, never, ever, never, never, never, never, never-never, super never, never-ever, ever-never, never, never, never, NEVER conflict.

That's kind of, umm, what makes them rights.  If my rights could conflict with your rights, that makes the entire concept of rights meaningless.




> It's not robbery if you get just compensation.


 It is if I didn't want to sell.

----------


## WilliamC

> You were saying?
> 
> The above data proves that owning the land is much more profitable to these corporations than selling it.


Corporations are not individuals and should not have rights as do individuals but that's a topic for another thread.

----------


## smokemonsc

> _  At best, a generous interpretation would suggest that about 3% of the population owns 95% of the privately held land in the USA. Fewer than 600 companies control 22% of our private land, a land mass the size of Spain.Those same companies land interests worldwide comprise a total area larger than that of Europe - almost 2 billion acres. (Peter Meyer, "Land Rush - A Survey of America's Land - Who Owns It, Who Controls It, How much is Left" in Harpers Magazine, Jan. 1979).
> 
>     A United Nations study of 83 countries showed that less than 5% of rural landowners control three-quarters of the land.
> 
>     According to a 1985 government report, 2% of landowners hold 60% of the arable land in Brazil while close to 70% of rural households have little or none. Just 342 farm properties in Brazil cover 183,397 square miles - an area larger than California (Worldwatch, Oct. 1988)
> 
>     In Florida, 1% of the people own 77% of the land. Other states where the top 1% own over two-thirds of the land are Maine, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon. (In order to show that there was NO need for land reform in Central America because our land in the USA is even more concentrated in ownership than Central America, Senator Jesse Helms read these facts into the Congressional Record in 1981.)
> 
>     Throughout the world, we see these numbers (various sources):
> ...


Well, except that it doesn't.  That's not a monopoly at all.  Try again.  If land was more profitable to hold than to sell - then....DUH there'd be no selling of land....except that there is - which means your conclusion is crap.

A monopoly has one owner - there are 10's of millions of land owners in the US.  What about that don't you get?

The largest land owner in the country is the Federal Government.  Did you know that?

----------


## smokemonsc

> *Land is a canonical example of monopoly because the supply is fixed and each land parcel is unique.* 
> 
> They can't afford to pay two mortgages, don't want the headache of looking after improvements and dealing with tenants, etc.


Except that none of that is true and your second statement makes zero sense.  They sell it because it is the most profitable to them.  Monetary is not the only form of profit.

1) A monopoly has one owner.  There are millions, read that....MILLIONS of land owners in the US.  Your statement holds no water.
2) The supply is not fixed - tell that to Dubai
3) I can show you two identical plots anywhere - name a city.

----------


## smokemonsc

> Corporations are not individuals and should not have rights as do individuals but that's a topic for another thread.


Agreed.

----------


## Roy L

> Fine, if you believe that (I don't)


I am aware that you refuse to know all relevant facts, yet you embrace all convenient contradictions.



> then obviously, blatantly, nose-on-your-face clearly, the government should stop enabling land monopolization!


Wrong.  Government's most fundamental function is to secure and reconcile people's rights.  It cannot secure property rights in fixed improvements without enabling land monopolization.  That is why hunter-gatherer societies do not have government or landowning, but agricultural societies have both.



> It just couldn't be more obvious.  It is literally impossible for a  conclusion to be more painfully obvious than this.


It's obviously wrong.  Government by its nature administers possession and use of land, ALWAYS.  That's what government IS -- the sovereign authority over a specific area of land -- and that is why government exists in the first place: to secure property rights, especially of those who make fixed improvements to land.  That in turn requires enabling land monopolization.  It's government's JOB.  To claim government should not do its job is blatant self-contradiction.



> True rights never, never, never, never, never, ever, never, never, never, never, never-never, super never, never-ever, ever-never, never, never, never, NEVER conflict.


That's just puerile nonsense.  I even gave you examples of how they conflict, one of which is the obviously, blatantly, nose-on-your-face clearly conflicting rights of different people to use the same natural resources.  Civil courts exist to reconcile conflicting rights.



> That's kind of, umm, what makes them rights.


No, it isn't.  



> If my rights could conflict with your rights, that makes the entire concept of rights meaningless.


Silliness, as the long disputes over the property rights of slave owners vs the liberty rights of slaves proved.



> It is if I didn't want to sell.


Wrong *again*.  Just as one example, firefighters have a legal and moral right to confiscate private property for use in fighting fires whether the owner wants to sell that property or not.  That is not robbery, except to someone who is practicing refusal to know facts.

----------


## Roy L

> If land was more profitable to hold than to sell - then....DUH there'd be no selling of land....except that there is - which means your conclusion is crap.


Wrong.  People often do things that are not profitable.  They buy lottery tickets.



> A monopoly has one owner - there are 10's of millions of land owners in the US.  What about that don't you get?


A monopoly has one _seller_.  Each unique land parcel has one seller, so each seller is a monopolist, just like a seller of an original artwork.  There is no competition, because the supply of land is fixed.

----------


## Roy L

> Except that none of that is true


It is indisputably true.  The supply of land is fixed, and each parcel is unique.  The land market behaves much as if a single seller owned all the land.



> and your second statement makes zero sense.  They sell it because it is the most profitable to them.  Monetary is not the only form of profit.


Now you are just equivocating.



> 1) A monopoly has one owner.  There are millions, read that....MILLIONS of land owners in the US.  Your statement holds no water.


A monopoly has one seller.  Each unique land parcel has one seller.  My statement is objectively correct.



> 2) The supply is not fixed - tell that to Dubai


The supply is indisputably fixed.  Dubai has simply built on underwater land.



> 3) I can show you two identical plots anywhere - name a city.


No, you cannot.  Try it in NYC.

----------


## smokemonsc

> Wrong.  People often do things that are not profitable.  They buy lottery tickets.
> 
> A monopoly has one _seller_.  Each unique land parcel has one seller, so each seller is a monopolist, just like a seller of an original artwork.  There is no competition, because the supply of land is fixed.


Your points again make no sense.  "People often do things that are not profitable".  This is just plan silly - of course people profit from lottery tickets.  Most do it for fun - why do people gamble at all?  Again - you ignored my previous point that you can measure profit outside of simple monetary terms.

Do parents emotionally profit when they raise children? I would argue most do and all intend to.

Your second statement -So what? Each individual iPad has one seller.  There are many owners of LAND and there are many owners of iPads.  Thus - land is not a monopoly nor are iPads.  Your statements aren't sound.

----------


## smokemonsc

> It is indisputably true.  The supply of land is fixed, and each parcel is unique.  The land market behaves much as if a single seller owned all the land.
> 
> Now you are just equivocating.
> 
> A monopoly has one seller.  Each unique land parcel has one seller.  My statement is objectively correct.
> 
> The supply is indisputably fixed.  Dubai has simply built on underwater land.
> 
> No, you cannot.  Try it in NYC.


No supply of land is not fixed - you didn't refute my point at all!  The land market operates the same as every other market - a function of supply and demand.  Nothing more - to say that land is somehow special is ridiculous.

*A monopoly has one seller of the ENTIRE supply not an individual piece of that supply*- none of your examples are monopolies.

http://www.loopnet.com/New-York/New-York_Land-For-Sale/  Find a vacant lot - subdivide it in half.  You now have two identical lots.  Next please!

----------


## steve005

any tax on land= paying rent and you don't really own it! think about it, what if you grow all you7r own food and built naturally(if they let you) you wouldn't need money for anything, cept to pay rent

----------


## redbluepill

> How many Hubener dittoheads are there on this forum, anyway?  Am I not demolishing him in words of few enough syllables?


Its a popularity show. It doesn't matter how sound and clear of an argument you are making. It doesn't matter how much they avoid crucial questions like "what is property?" They get upvoted you get downvoted.

----------


## redbluepill

> Well, except that it doesn't.  That's not a monopoly at all.  Try again.  If land was more profitable to hold than to sell - then....DUH there'd be no selling of land....except that there is - which means your conclusion is crap.
> 
> A monopoly has one owner - there are 10's of millions of land owners in the US.  What about that don't you get?
> 
> The largest land owner in the country is the Federal Government.  Did you know that?


I dont think you get my point. Those corporations and individuals don't typically control the poorest land. They control the best land. They reaps the benefits from the Earth while the rest are either indebted to them or prevented access. When you control an acre you monopolize that acre. When a corporation controls a thousand acres they monopolize those acres. The more they control the clearer the injustice. Have you read the Robinson Crusoe article? I would like your feedback on it.

Yes, the federal government does control the most land (think its 20-30%). They have no more right to exclude us from it as does a corporation.

----------


## Roy L

> any tax on land= paying rent and you don't really own it!


You don't really own it whether you pay tax on it or not.  You own a government-issued and -enforced privilege of violating others' rights, like a deed to a slave.



> think about it, what if you grow all you7r own food and built naturally(if they let you) you wouldn't need money for anything, cept to pay rent


To compensate the community of those whom you deprive of the liberty they would otherwise enjoy.  Right.

----------


## Roy L

> "People often do things that are not profitable".  This is just plan silly - of course people profit from lottery tickets.


??  And you call MY statement, "plain silly"???

ROTFL!!



> Most do it for fun - why do people gamble at all?


Please go into your nearest casino and see how much fun the patrons appear to be having.



> Again - you ignored my previous point that you can measure profit outside of simple monetary terms.


You are equivocating in an attempt to make your fallacious claims tautological.



> Do parents emotionally profit when they raise children? I would argue most do and all intend to.


That is not what "profit" means.



> Your second statement -So what? Each individual iPad has one seller.  There are many owners of LAND and there are many owners of iPads.  Thus - land is not a monopoly nor are iPads.  Your statements aren't sound.


Wrong.  The iPads are indistinguishable and interchangeable.  Land parcels are not.  Each one is unique, like original artworks.  The fact that there are substitutes, sometimes quite close substitutes, is irrelevant.  There are substitutes for any good in monopoly supply.

----------


## Roy L

> No supply of land is not fixed


It is indisputably fixed.  It cannot be increased by labor, and does not respond to price.



> - you didn't refute my point at all!


Yes, of course I did.



> The land market operates the same as every other market - a function of supply and demand.


Wrong.  An increase in the price of a produced good stimulates increased production of that good.  An increase in the price of land stimulates only more speculation.



> Nothing more - to say that land is somehow special is ridiculous.


No, to say that the supply of land can be increased by labor as the supply of products can is ridiculous.  It is literally absurd.



> *A monopoly has one seller of the ENTIRE supply not an individual piece of that supply*- none of your examples are monopolies.


The supply of a land parcel consists of that parcel and no others.  Unlike typical products, land parcels are unique and have no perfect substitutes, like original artworks, each of which is also a monopoly.



> http://www.loopnet.com/New-York/New-York_Land-For-Sale/  Find a vacant lot - subdivide it in half.  You now have two identical lots.


No, of course you don't.  This is most obvious if you divide it in half such that one half fronts on the street and the other half on the alley behind it.  But it doesn't matter how you divide it, the halves will not be identical.  They will be at different distances from nearby amenities, have different light exposures through the seasons due to nearby tall buildings, have different buried utility lines, etc.

Your claim is refuted.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> It doesn't matter how much they avoid crucial questions like "what is property?"


 Property is, initially, established by claiming things that no one else has already claimed.  No one was claiming it before, so you're not violating anyone's rights, you're not aggressing against anyone, by appropriating  for yourself.  There are limits to how much you can claim, the whole "mixing your labor" in thing probably would help to solidify your claim, also marking the borders if the matter is fairly immobile, or moving the matter into a place you already possess if it's transportable.  

*That's what property is: stuff people claim*.  And then, stuff people buy or get given from those who originally claimed it.

http://mises.org/media/1147/How-We-Become-Owners

----------


## smokemonsc

> ??  And you call MY statement, "plain silly"???
> 
> ROTFL!!
> 
> Please go into your nearest casino and see how much fun the patrons appear to be having.
> 
> You are equivocating in an attempt to make your fallacious claims tautological.
> 
> That is not what "profit" means.
> ...


You clearly don't understand the terms you are using.  How can I have a discussion with you when you don't know the meaning of the word monopoly?  Must I say it again?

A monopoly is when someone has 100% ownership of the *entire supply* of something.  I don't know how much more clear I can make it.  The differences between land lots are irrelevant because the cost of one lot directly affects the cost of another - because they are of the same supply.  You continue to use a bad understanding of what a real monopoly is to justify an economic view that is equally wrong.  You seem to think nobody ever sells land, which is just about the dumbest thing said on these forums.  I'm not going to continue this discussion until you start using the correct definitions of economic terms.

The rest of your post is just retarded.

----------


## smokemonsc

> I dont think you get my point. Those corporations and individuals don't typically control the poorest land. They control the best land. They reaps the benefits from the Earth while the rest are either indebted to them or prevented access. When you control an acre you monopolize that acre. When a corporation controls a thousand acres they monopolize those acres. The more they control the clearer the injustice. Have you read the Robinson Crusoe article? I would like your feedback on it.
> 
> Yes, the federal government does control the most land (think its 20-30%). They have no more right to exclude us from it as does a corporation.


I do understand your point - you think because not all land plots and 100% identical it somehow changes the definition of a monopoly - which it does not!  Again monopoly means one user has 100% ownership of an entire supply.  It does not matter if each unit of that supply is identical or not.  Where talking apples and oranges here.  This thread has been about land in the general sense, the entire land of the country.  I've proven that land ownership in this country is not a monopoly as MILLIONS of land owners exist.  Not 1, not 100, but MILLIONS.  I've also proven that land is not constant - its total supply changes every year.  I used Dubai as an example of man made land, as well as my new example of Volcanoes.  The islands of Hawaii grow by several 1,000 sq ft a year alone.

Even if one person owned all of the land in the world.  They would have to resort to one of two things to maintain it.  They would have to provide some good or service in order to trade for their own needs, or employ guards to defend it - which would then have to be paid by some good or service.  In the end - monopolizing the entire world's land is impossible.  I don't think we need to do anything about it, and I don't think it's a problem.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> [T]hat is why government exists in the first place: to secure property rights, [except for Helmuth's property right to that Manhattan apartment]


 LOL!  We have a low-level world-view incompatibility.  You're BIOS, I'm EFI.  They're just not going to fit together.  Government is a gang of bandits.  Government is nothing but a group of parasites.




> That's just puerile nonsense.  I even gave you examples of how they conflict, ... different people to use the same natural resources.


 If I have a right to control my body, and Dennis Rodman has a right to control my body, then one of those rights simply does not exist.

What is a "right" anyway?  A right is a boundary.  

http://mises.org/store/Boundaries-of-Order-P589.aspx 

A right is a boundary, delineating a property.  Two people cannot both own 100% of the same property.  Of course, you would differ with me there, because you think each person in the whole horde of humanity has a property in the whole blessed universe!  Which is... let us be gentle and say: unworkable!  Your solution is to hold the universe in common _intellectually_, but as a _practical_ matter to legalize stealing and let landowners steal all that common property.  My solution is to let everyone divvy it all up.

My solution is better.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I do understand your point - you think because not all land plots and 100% identical it somehow changes the definition of a monopoly - which it does not!  Again monopoly means one user has 100% ownership of an entire supply.  It does not matter if each unit of that supply is identical or not.


 No unit of anything is identical to any other.  No bit of matter in the universe is identical to any other bit of matter.  "That electron has different sun exposure than that one.  I thus have an electron monopoly!"

----------


## Roy L

> Property is, initially, established by claiming things that no one else has already claimed.


No, that's called "grabbing."  Claiming something obtains no more right to deprive others of it than claiming one is the king makes one the king.  You cannot extinguish others' rights by your bald say-so, sorry.



> No one was claiming it before, so you're not violating anyone's rights,


That's just obviously false.  No one ever claimed the earth's atmosphere.  Do you really think you can make it your property by claiming it is yours?  Do you think trying to implement such a claim would not violate anyone's rights?  Don't be absurd:

A man dying of thirst stumbles into an oasis fed by a natural spring.  He stoops to drink from the pool nature provided when he hears a revolver being cocked behind his ear, and a quiet, menacing, sibilant voice intones, "Uh-uh.  I know what you're thinkin'.  'Will he charge me six years' labor for a sip of water, or only five?'  Well to tell the truth, in all this excitement, I haven't quite totaled up the rent myself.  But bein' as it's 44 miles to the next water hole, which might as well be the other side of the world, and I'd as soon kick your sorry butt CLEAN OFF my land, you've got to ask yourself one question.  'Do I feel thirsty today?'  Well, do ya, _slave_?"

You really claim Dirtowner Harry isn't violating the dying man's rights??  REALLY??

Such claims are just despicably dishonest.



> you're not aggressing against anyone, by appropriating  for yourself.


Bull$#!+.  You are declaring your intention forcibly to violate, by initiating violent, coercive, physical aggression, the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it:

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has "claimed" the pass and has a land title to it. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his "business" really changed? It's all legitimate now, people even look up to him as a successful entrepreneur.  But he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?



> There are limits to how much you can claim,


You can claim all you want.  You just don't obtain any valid property right thereby.



> the whole "mixing your labor" in thing


Which is a physical impossibility, and nothing but an uninformative metaphor.



> probably would help to solidify your claim,


Keeping it just as invalid.



> also marking the borders if the matter is fairly immobile,


More garbage.  No amount of cargo-cult ritual will alter the fact that you purpose to violate others' rights.



> or moving the matter into a place you already possess if it's transportable.


If you move it at all, you have removed the opportunity nature provided.  But locations on the earth's surface cannot be moved.



> *That's what property is: stuff people claim*.


Nope.  That's just loot.



> And then, stuff people buy or get given from those who originally claimed it.


Have no more right to it than the fool who buys the Brooklyn Bridge from a con man.



> http://mises.org/media/1147/How-We-Become-Owners


mises.org?  Isn't that the same outfit that hosts Rothbard's stupid, ignorant, and blindingly dishonest anti-Georgist filth?

ROTFL!  Isn't it remarkable how quickly you abandon even the pretense of respecting productive contribution?  Your "arguments" are nothing but transparent rationalizations for grabbing, greed, parasitism and theft.

Remarkable -- but not unexpected.

----------


## Roy L

> No unit of anything is identical to any other.  No bit of matter in the universe is identical to any other bit of matter.  "That electron has different sun exposure than that one.  I thus have an electron monopoly!"


More of your rationalizations for landowner greed and parasitism.  The difference is that like electrons, products are typically INDISTINGUISHABLE and INTERCHANGEABLE (yes, there are exceptions like original artworks).  Land parcels are not.

----------


## Seraphim

Most of your rationalizations for taxing people's livelihood/homes are based on collectivism and pathetic lesser animal instincts.




> More of your rationalizations for landowner greed and parasitism.  The difference is that like electrons, products are typically INDISTINGUISHABLE and INTERCHANGEABLE (yes, there are exceptions like original artworks).  Land parcels are not.

----------


## WilliamC

> Most of your rationalizations for taxing people's livelihood/homes are based on collectivism and pathetic lesser animal instincts.


Most of the georgist I've debated with have vehmently denied that the idea of private property and the desire of individuals to own and control their own land stems from our animal instincts regarding territory.

They think somehow that humans are devoid of this territorial instinct, when actually it forms the basis of our property rights.

----------


## Roy L

> You clearly don't understand the terms you are using.


No, *you* don't.



> How can I have a discussion with you when you don't know the meaning of the word monopoly?  Must I say it again?


You are incorrect in your view of what constitutes a monopoly.  Land is a CANONICAL EXAMPLE of monopoly in classical economics.  You are merely unaware of that fact because you do not know any economics.



> A monopoly is when someone has 100% ownership of the *entire supply* of something.


Like a land parcel or original artwork.



> I don't know how much more clear I can make it.  The differences between land lots are irrelevant because the cost of one lot directly affects the cost of another - because they are of the same supply.


No, they are not.  They are two different things, like two different artworks.  Their prices may or may not affect prices of other similar things, to the extent that they function as substitutes.  But all goods in monopoly supply have substitutes to varying degrees.  The price of oil will affect the price of natural gas.



> You continue to use a bad understanding of what a real monopoly is to justify an economic view that is equally wrong.


My economic view is objectively correct and indisputable, but the term, "monopoly" is not even necessary to an understanding of the facts.  Just think of land monopolization as a legal entitlement to exclude others from the land.



> You seem to think nobody ever sells land,


I have said no such thing.  It is simply a fabrication on your part.



> which is just about the dumbest thing said on these forums.


<sigh>  Do people sell original artworks?  Does that make them somehow less monopolistic goods?  Does it alter the fixity of their supply?



> I'm not going to continue this discussion until you start using the correct definitions of economic terms.


Please educate yourself:

"The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations



> The rest of your post is just retarded.


You have been demolished, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.

----------


## Roy L

> Most of the georgist I've debated with have vehmently denied that the idea of private property and the desire of individuals to own and control their own land stems from our animal instincts regarding territory.


Human beings, like chimpanzees, gorillas, and most other primates, are social, and have no instinct for individual territories.  The orangutan is solitary, and does exhibit a weak territorial instinct.



> They think somehow that humans are devoid of this territorial instinct, when actually it forms the basis of our property rights.


Garbage.  For 99% of the human species' history, there was no such thing as private landowning.  Land was always held communally or tribally.  The basis of property rights is the producer's right to own the fruits of his labor.

----------


## Roy L

> Most of your rationalizations for taxing people's livelihood/homes


I propose to *abolish* taxation of people's livelihoods (to the extent that they are obtained by commensurate productive contribution, and not government-issued and -enforced privilege) and homes.



> are based on collectivism and pathetic lesser animal instincts.


That is a silly fabrication.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> A man dying of thirst stumbles into an oasis fed by a natural spring.  He stoops to drink from the pool nature provided when he hears a revolver being cocked behind his ear, and a quiet, menacing, sibilant voice intones, "Uh-uh.  I know what you're thinkin'.  'Will he charge me six years' labor for a sip of water, or only five?'  Well to tell the truth, in all this excitement, I haven't quite totaled up the rent myself.  But bein' as it's 44 miles to the next water hole, which might as well be the other side of the world, and I'd as soon kick your sorry butt CLEAN OFF my land, you've got to ask yourself one question.  'Do I feel thirsty today?'  Well, do ya, _slave_?"
> 
> You really claim Dirtowner Harry isn't violating the dying man's rights??  REALLY??


 I would totally love to live in a place where Harry were free to kick people off his land to his heart's content.  That is called "freedom of association".  Rand Paul got in trouble with Maddow for advocating it, but he was right on the money.  Freedom of association totally rocks!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> "The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations


  Because Adam Smith, of course, _is_ economics.  Smith was a total genius.  We should agree with everything he ever said.

If I ever have some water, I'm going to hunt down Adam Smith and sell it to him for you-(should)-know-what.  Oh yeah, Smith was a genius.

----------


## satchelmcqueen

my land is mine. i shouldnt have to pay for it

----------


## Texan4Life

+1

----------


## Roy L

> I would totally love to live in a place where Harry were free to kick people off his land to his heart's content.  That is called "freedom of association".


No, that claim is absurd.  Forcibly depriving people of access to the natural resources they need to live is called "murder."  And you are rationalizing and justifying it.  That is called, "evil."



> Rand Paul got in trouble with Maddow for advocating it, but he was right on the money.  Freedom of association totally rocks!


Will you listen to yourself?  Condemning an innocent human being to agonizing death by dehydration because he declines to be your slave is now, "freedom of association"!

I very strongly suggest that you watch, "Judgment at Nuremberg," and try to figure out what lesson it might hold for you.  For other readers:

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> mises.org?  Isn't that the same outfit that hosts Rothbard's stupid, ignorant, and blindingly dishonest anti-Georgist filth?


 Probably!  Mises hosts everything; it's probably the largest and one of the most popular economics web site in the world.

I love Rothbard!  He's my favorite.  You know, I've read tons of Rothbard articles and books, and yet I don't think I've ever read a single word from him on Georgism.  Guess that kind of tells you something about how significant Georgism is/was, both to Murray Rothbard and to the world generally.

LewRockwell.com -- Traffic Rank in US: 1,464.  Sites Linking In: 8,859
Georgist.com -- Traffic Rank: No Data Found.  Sites Linking In: 7

I could find no larger Georgist website.  Georgism is on the downswing; in the doldrums; experiencing a permanent slump.  Nobody likes it: that proves it's wrong!!

(Kidding!)

----------


## redbluepill

> No supply of land is not fixed


This is not debatable. Land is fixed. Scientific fact.

----------


## steve005

> Land is fixed. Scientific fact.




more land being created all the time. some just rose out of the sea not too long ago look it up

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Forcibly depriving people of access to the natural resources they need to live is called "murder."


 Roy, why add the "natural" part?  How bit this chewy morsel: I've got an expensive medical machine.  Guy comes and wants me to use it on him.  Says if I don't, he'll die.  I say he's gotta pay the million dollar fee, after all, the stupid thing cost me a billion.  Did I just murder him?  Violate his rights?

Better yet: I've got a second kidney, but I keep it instead of giving it away.  I've got a skill called heart-surgery, but I mostly only will use it for those who will pay (or maybe I even retire and thus let _everybody_ die!).  I've got a thousand gold coins, but I won't use them to pay for food for starving people in Africa.  All these acts grossly violate of the rights of someone/anyone/everyone?

There's six to eight billion thirsty people who all want to drink that oasis, Roy.  Somebody's got to keep them all out.  Somebody's got to ration everything.  It's either the market or command-and-control.  I choose the market.

My solution is better.

----------


## redbluepill

> Property is, initially, established by claiming things that no one else has already claimed.


Sorry but I prefer Thomas Paine's definition: "It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property"






> No one was claiming it before, so you're not violating anyone's rights, you're not aggressing against anyone, by appropriating  for yourself.  There are limits to how much you can claim, the whole "mixing your labor" in thing probably would help to solidify your claim, also marking the borders if the matter is fairly immobile, or moving the matter into a place you already possess if it's transportable.


How much labor is required to be mixed in to claim the land as your property? So I can't just purchase the deed to 100 acres and leave it alone? It is 'mine' after all...




> *That's what property is: stuff people claim*.  And then, stuff people buy or get given from those who originally claimed it.
> 
> http://mises.org/media/1147/How-We-Become-Owners


And people used to claim slaves. Just because because the injustice is less obvious to you doesn't mean it isn't there.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Sorry but I prefer Thomas Paine's definition: "It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property"


 Yes, but I don't.  Since you offer no particular reason that your definition is superior, I shall continue with mine.




> How much labor is required to be mixed in to claim the land as your property?


At least as much as required to make it clearly recognizable to others that you're claiming it.  For instance, to claim a rock, you could put it into your pocket.  That would make it pretty clear that it's yours, as the convention is well-established that "things in someone's pocket are not up-for-grabs".  To claim a radio frequency, you could begin broadcasting on it.  If you wanted to claim it for purposes of keeping it clear of transmission, perhaps for some scientific reason, your job of claiming it might be more involved or costly.  Conventions arise.  Order out of chaos.  People respect the conventions and the claims of others, because they want their property to be likewise respected.




> And people used to claim slaves. Just because because the injustice is less obvious to you doesn't mean it isn't there.


Yet you want to continue the injustice forever by having the government enable the monopolization of land.  "Just pay a little fee, sir, for the privilege of *ENSLAVING HUMANITY*!!  There we go, all paid up, here's your receipt and have a nice day."

----------


## redbluepill

> I do understand your point - you think because not all land plots and 100% identical it somehow changes the definition of a monopoly - which it does not!  Again monopoly means one user has 100% ownership of an entire supply.


Then  I will humor you and call it an oligopoly. Same problem. Look at the previous statistics.





> It does not matter if each unit of that supply is identical or not.  Where talking apples and oranges here.  This thread has been about land in the general sense, the entire land of the country.  I've proven that land ownership in this country is not a monopoly as MILLIONS of land owners exist.  Not 1, not 100, but MILLIONS.


What percent of the land do these MILLIONS own? Also curious what percent of that land 'owned' by those millions are actually owned by banks.





> I've also proven that land is not constant - its total supply changes every year.


That is false. Land is fixed. No self-respecting economist would dispute otherwise.







> I used Dubai as an example of man made land, as well as my new example of Volcanoes.  The islands of Hawaii grow by several 1,000 sq ft a year alone.


When we talk about land we are talking about space. So no, volcanoes do not create 'more land', its only the surface that has changed. Dubai is not an example, you are talking about improvements on land.




> Even if one person owned all of the land in the world.  They would have to resort to one of two things to maintain it.  They would have to provide some good or service in order to trade for their own needs, or employ guards to defend it - which would then have to be paid by some good or service.  In the end - monopolizing the entire world's land is impossible.  I don't think we need to do anything about it, and I don't think it's a problem.


Did you read the article or no?

----------


## smokemonsc

> Then  I will humor you and call it an oligopoly. Same problem. Look at the previous statistics.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What percent of the land do these MILLIONS own? Also curious what percent of that land 'owned' by those millions are actually owned by banks.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I find no purpose in continuing this discussion as you are not being intellectually honest.  You refuse to acknowledge that land increases due to natural and man made reasons.  You equate surface area of the Earth to "Land" which I do not - and 'any self respecting economist' understands that land equals dirt, dry mass, usable surfaces upon which to build.  Oceanic area does not constitute the economic term 'land' and you know it.

Good for you in acknowledging that land ownership is not a monopoly.  Maybe soon you'll realize next that your next preposterous claim that no one ever sells land (especially good land) is also 100% - false.

Google - "Manhattan Real Estate for Sale".  According to you - no one sells top quality land.  I'd consider Manhattan top quality.

----------


## Roy L

> my land is mine.


Question begging fallacy.

----------


## Roy L

> more land being created all the time. some just rose out of the sea not too long ago look it up


Learn what "fixed supply" means in economics.

----------


## redbluepill

> mises.org?  Isn't that the same outfit that hosts Rothbard's stupid, ignorant, and blindingly dishonest anti-Georgist filth?


Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I can't really trust something that was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/20332.aspx

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, why add the "natural" part?


Because it identifies the fact that the thirsty man would otherwise have been at liberty to drink.  That is the stubborn, irreducible fact that you will say, do, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing.



> How bit this chewy morsel: I've got an expensive medical machine.  Guy comes and wants me to use it on him.  Says if I don't, he'll die.  I say he's gotta pay the million dollar fee, after all, the stupid thing cost me a billion.  Did I just murder him?  Violate his rights?


Nope.  He would not otherwise have had access to the machine.  You may be a jerk, but you are not a murderer.  When you claim that Dirtowner Harry can *rightfully* use force to deprive the thirsty man of water *he would otherwise be at liberty to drink,* you are advocating flat-out f*cking *murder*, full stop.  That is just EVIL.



> Better yet: I've got a second kidney, but I keep it instead of giving it away.  I've got a skill called heart-surgery, but I mostly only will use it for those who will pay (or maybe I even retire and thus let _everybody_ die!).


Dirtowner Harry isn't "letting" the thirsty man die.  He is *forcibly MURDERING HIM.*  And you know it.  You are claiming the privileged have a right to *MURDER INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS.*  That is EVIL.



> I've got a thousand gold coins, but I won't use them to pay for food for starving people in Africa.  All these acts grossly violate of the rights of someone/anyone/everyone?


No, as I have already proved.



> There's six to eight billion thirsty people who all want to drink that oasis, Roy.


No, there aren't.  You are lying.



> Somebody's got to keep them all out.


No, no one has to keep anyone out.  You are lying.  People have lived for many thousands of years with no one keeping others out of the water sources.



> Somebody's got to ration everything.


No, that's just a lie you are telling because you want the power to ration other people's liberty.



> It's either the market or command-and-control.  I choose the market.


No, *I* choose the market.  *You* choose command and control by privileged, greedy parasites.



> My solution is better.


No, your "solution" is in fact the problem.

----------


## Roy L

> Probably!  Mises hosts everything; it's probably the largest and one of the most popular economics web site in the world.


And one of the least honest.



> I love Rothbard!  He's my favorite.


Funny, he doesn't strike me as being quite irrational, dishonest and evil enough for you on any issue but land rent recovery.  Are you sure you don't prefer the sub-humanly evil, irrational and dishonest Hans-Hermann Hoppe?



> You know, I've read tons of Rothbard articles and books, and yet I don't think I've ever read a single word from him on Georgism.  Guess that kind of tells you something about how significant Georgism is/was, both to Murray Rothbard and to the world generally.


No, it only tells you something about what you choose to read.

----------


## Roy L

> Since you offer no particular reason that your definition is superior, I shall continue with mine.


The reason Paine's is superior is obvious: it does not imply the existence of a privileged landowning class and oppressed landless class.



> At least as much as required to make it clearly recognizable to others that you're claiming it.


Can't be done.  It is physically impossible to mix labor with land.



> For instance, to claim a rock, you could put it into your pocket.


IOW, you would have to remove it from nature.



> That would make it pretty clear that it's yours, as the convention is well-established that "things in someone's pocket are not up-for-grabs".


All things in pockets have been removed from nature -- except baby marsupials, of course.



> To claim a radio frequency, you could begin broadcasting on it.


How could that extinguish anyone else's right to do likewise?



> If you wanted to claim it for purposes of keeping it clear of transmission, perhaps for some scientific reason, your job of claiming it might be more involved or costly.  Conventions arise.  Order out of chaos.  People respect the conventions and the claims of others, because they want their property to be likewise respected.


Especially if they see a way to use their claims to steal from the productive and get away with it.



> Yet you want to continue the injustice forever by having the government enable the monopolization of land.


Once fixed improvements are a significant element in the economy, land is going to be monopolized in any case.  Government, whose job it is to administer possession and use of land, can reverse the injustice that would otherwise be inherent in its monopolization by recovering the publicly created rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it.  We know payment of just compensation reverses an injustice, so it is YOU who want to continue the injustice forever.



> "Just pay a little fee, sir, for the privilege of *ENSLAVING HUMANITY*!!


Nope.  You're lying again.  People can't be enslaved if their rights are secure and they have access to opportunity.  Land rent recovery secures and reconciles the equal rights of all to access and use what nature provided for all, and the universal individual exemption thereto restores the equal individual right to liberty, ensuring that everyone has access to opportunity.

----------


## Roy L

> Because Adam Smith, of course, _is_ economics.  Smith was a total genius.  We should agree with everything he ever said.


I have provided the proof that landowning is a monopoly.  You have been destroyed, you know it, and you have no answers.  As usual.



> If I ever have some water, I'm going to hunt down Adam Smith and sell it to him for you-(should)-know-what.  Oh yeah, Smith was a genius.


Were you under a mistaken impression that you were contributing something of interest?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I can't really trust something that was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation
> 
> http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/20332.aspx


 Some_one_, you mean.  Mises Institute has probably never received any money from the Rockefeller Foundation.

----------


## Roy L

> LOL!  We have a low-level world-view incompatibility.  You're BIOS, I'm EFI.  They're just not going to fit together.


Indeed.  I have respect for fact and logic and total commitment to liberty, justice and truth, while you eagerly sacrifice even the integrity of your mind to preserve your false and evil beliefs.



> Government is a gang of bandits.  Government is nothing but a group of parasites.


Yes, I guess that explains why Switzerland is such a poverty-stricken hell-hole of tyranny, violence, piracy, disease, famine and chaos, while Somalia is peaceful, prosperous and free...



> If I have a right to control my body, and Dennis Rodman has a right to control my body, then one of those rights simply does not exist.


And probably on your planet, that is relevant to the issue.



> What is a "right" anyway?  A right is a boundary.


No, a right is a societal undertaking to constrain its members' actions with respect to one another.



> A right is a boundary, delineating a property.


No, the ludicrous and evil attempt to define all rights as property rights is a transparent attempt to make everyone's rights a function of the amount of property they own.



> Two people cannot both own 100% of the same property.  Of course, you would differ with me there, because you think each person in the whole horde of humanity has a property in the whole blessed universe!


No, you are lying again.  I have stated explicitly that only products of labor can rightly be owned.



> Which is... let us be gentle and say: unworkable!


Which might be why you made it up.



> Your solution is to hold the universe in common _intellectually_, but as a _practical_ matter to legalize stealing and let landowners steal all that common property.


Another blatant lie from you.  It is YOU who seek to rationalize, justify and enable landowner theft and parasitism.



> My solution is to let everyone divvy it all up.


Which they have conveniently already done, by force, and you like the results.



> My solution is better.


If you like poverty, oppression and injustice.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I have provided the proof that landowning is a[n] [Evil] [M]onopoly.


  Uh, by quoting Smith?




> You have been destroyed.


 Uh, because you quoted Smith?




> you know it,


 Well, I do know that you quoted Smith.  So I'll give you that one.




> and you have no answers


 Actually, my answer was to make fun of Smith.  Paradox!  Paradox!  Whatever shall we do?  

Anyway, if we can prove things via argument from authority now, then that changes everything!  Like, the nature of the universe.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> People can't be enslaved if [you hand out land-rent-funded freebies to them]


 Wouldn't this just be giving your slave a stipend?

----------


## Roy L

> I find no purpose in continuing this discussion as you are not being intellectually honest.


As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"



> You refuse to acknowledge that land increases due to natural and man made reasons.


Land CANNOT increase due to "man made reasons."  Land can increase for natural reasons -- the earth itself formed for natural reasons, unless you think God made it -- but that does not alter the fact that its supply is fixed in the economic sense: it cannot be increased by labor, and does not respond to price.



> You equate surface area of the Earth to "Land" which I do not


The earth's surface is one form of land in the economic sense.



> - and 'any self respecting economist' understands that land equals dirt, dry mass, usable surfaces upon which to build.


Please quote an economist who says "land equals dirt, dry mass, usable surfaces upon which to build."



> Oceanic area does not constitute the economic term 'land' and you know it.


Yes, the area of the oceans is considered land in economics.  Land is the entire physical universe other than human beings and the products of their labor.

----------


## Roy L

> Wouldn't this just be giving your slave a stipend?


You have again altered what I wrote and claimed to be quoting me.  You engage in such utter and consistent dishonesty, yet you claim a right to be treated with courtesy.  Sorry, no.

I don't advocate giving people money.  The only "freebies" land rent would fund is security of the equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.  Rights are something people rightly have just by existing, without having to pay government or a landowner for them.  The proposed universal individual land tax exemption is no more a freebie than the universal individual income tax exemption.  You would simply have a right to the liberty to use enough land to live on, for free.  If you want to deprive others of more than that, make just compensation for taking more than your share.  How hard is that to understand?

Now you will contrive some way to avoid understanding it.

----------


## Roy L

> Uh, by quoting Smith?


Yes.



> Uh, because you quoted Smith?


Yes.  He was a great economist, and is a reliable source as to what economists mean by "monopoly."  Unlike, e.g., you and the other propertarian sock puppets.



> Anyway, if we can prove things via argument from authority now, then that changes everything!  Like, the nature of the universe.


Quoting expert sources on their terminology is not an argument from authority, sorry.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The only "freebie..." land rent would fund is security of the equal [except for land monopolization] human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.


  Security.  Yes, that sounds like a "freebie" to me.  Someone has to _pay_ for security.  Previously I think you mentioned roads, education, "etc." (that "etc." is the scariest of all) as things the nation-state should do, right?  Anyway, here's what I'm getting at:

Wrong solution:
[Landowner (enslaver)]...........................--> [Money] -->......................................[non-landowner (slave)]

Actually just solution, assuming Georgism to be true:
[non-landowner (normal human)]..............<<[Justice & Mutual Harmony between them]>>..............[also-non-landowner (normal human)]

That movement of money does not erase the Existential Injustice of enabling land monopolization.  No more than paying a slave a salary erases the injustice there.  The slave just wants to quit.  I just want my nature-given Manhattan apartment.  Neither of us are going to take your hush-money.  The land-owner/slave-holders are violating our rights, they are murdering us by keeping us from drinking their Evita water, and just, just,.... we're not going to take it any more!

Land-slaves of the World, _Unite_!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Yes.  He was a great economist, and is a reliable source as to what economists mean by "monopoly."


 Ouch!!  Stop destroying me!

----------


## redbluepill

> Because Adam Smith, of course, _is_ economics.  Smith was a total genius.  We should agree with everything he ever said.
> 
> If I ever have some water, I'm going to hunt down Adam Smith and sell it to him for you-(should)-know-what.  Oh yeah, Smith was a genius.


Naw, that would be Rothbard.

----------


## redbluepill

> more land being created all the time. some just rose out of the sea not too long ago look it up


*Sigh* If this thread goes to 100 pages it is due to posts like this.^

_The term "Land" refers to the whole material universe, exclusive of people and their products. Not the creation of human labor, yet essential to labor, it is the raw material from which all wealth is fashioned. It includes not only soil and minerals, but water, air, natural vegetation and wildlife, and all natural opportunities -- even those yet to be discovered._

http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Land_includes.htm

----------


## redbluepill

> Yes, but I don't.  Since you offer no particular reason that your definition is superior, I shall continue with mine.


Alright continue with your ignorance.






> At least as much as required to make it clearly recognizable to others that you're claiming it.  For instance, to claim a rock, you could put it into your pocket.  That would make it pretty clear that it's yours, as the convention is well-established that "things in someone's pocket are not up-for-grabs".  To claim a radio frequency, you could begin broadcasting on it.  If you wanted to claim it for purposes of keeping it clear of transmission, perhaps for some scientific reason, your job of claiming it might be more involved or costly.  Conventions arise.  Order out of chaos.  People respect the conventions and the claims of others, because they want their property to be likewise respected.


There are many individuals who purchase land and hold title to it without ever stepping onto the land. Is this just?





> Yet you want to continue the injustice forever by having the government enable the monopolization of land.  "Just pay a little fee, sir, for the privilege of *ENSLAVING HUMANITY*!!  There we go, all paid up, here's your receipt and have a nice day."


Except the LVT ensures such a thing would not happen while your system surely would. Refer to the freakin article!

----------


## redbluepill

> I find no purpose in continuing this discussion as you are not being intellectually honest.


Funny. I see it the other way around.




> You refuse to acknowledge that land increases due to natural and man made reasons.


I refuse to acknowledge it because it simply isn't true.
_
"The term "Land" refers to the whole material universe, exclusive of people and their products. Not the creation of human labor, yet essential to labor, it is the raw material from which all wealth is fashioned. It includes not only soil and minerals, but water, air, natural vegetation and wildlife, and all natural opportunities -- even those yet to be discovered."_ ~ Robert V. Andelson and James M. Dawsey
http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/An...FWTPL_syn.html





> You equate surface area of the Earth to "Land" which I do not - and 'any self respecting economist' understands that land equals dirt, dry mass, usable surfaces upon which to build.  Oceanic area does not constitute the economic term 'land' and you know it.


Quit embarrassing yourself please.

_In economics, land comprises all naturally occurring resources whose supply is inherently fixed. Examples are any and all particular geographical locations, mineral deposits, and even geostationary orbit locations and portions of the electromagnetic spectrum._
http://www.enotes.com/topic/Land_%28economics%29




> Good for you in acknowledging that land ownership is not a monopoly.


I acknowledged no such thing. I said I was 'humoring' you. Land ownership is a monopoly. When you privately control a piece of land you monopolize it because no one else can use it. Ever heard of the game MONOPOLY? What do you control in that game? The land and its resources.




> Maybe soon you'll realize next that your next preposterous claim that no one ever sells land (especially good land) is also 100% - false.


Claiming that I made such a claim is preposterous.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Alright continue with your ignorance.


 Since I am not _unaware_ of your definition, rather I _disagree_ with it, it would be more fitting to invite me to continue with my _disagreement_.




> There are many individuals who purchase land and hold title to it without ever stepping onto the land. Is this just?


 To initially establish ownership of unowned property, never coming into contact with or interacting with the matter or abstraction you wish to claim would be highly problematic.  It likely would be an insurmountable problem, though perhaps some clever person here could come up with a hypothetical wherein such a claim could be valid.  After the property has passed from unowned status into owned status, then yes, absolutely it may be traded or given to another party who may never actually have contact or interaction with it.  This second owner's claim would still be totally legitimate, just as if I bought a Twinkie but never ate it, saving it for Zombie Apocalypse.

----------


## redbluepill

> Some_one_, you mean.  Mises Institute has probably never received any money from the Rockefeller Foundation.


According to the article Mises Institute did, along with Mises himself.

_Many readers may be surprised to learn the extent to which the Graduate Institute
and then Mises himself in the years immediately after he came to United States
were kept afloat financially through generous grants from the Rockefeller Foundation.
In fact, for the first years of Misess life in the United States, before his appointment
as a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York
University (NYU) in 1945, he was almost totally dependent on annual research grants
from the Rockefeller Foundation._
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/t..._6_ebeling.pdf

----------


## Roy L

> Security.  Yes, that sounds like a "freebie" to me.


Security of RIGHTS.  If you believe in human rights (you obviously don't), they are something you get for free.



> Someone has to _pay_ for security.


True.  That's why we need taxes.  And those who benefit the most from that security should pay the most to maintain it:

"The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation, is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists, what is called the equality or inequality of taxation." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations



> Previously I think you mentioned roads, education, "etc." (that "etc." is the scariest of all) as things the nation-state should do, right?


States that do those things are more successful than states that don't, but the exact extent of government spending is for the people to decide democratically.  There is certainly a case to be made for any spending that pays for itself through increased aggregate land rent (i.e., that makes living and working within the state more advantageous than living and working elsewhere).



> Anyway, here's what I'm getting at:
> 
> Wrong solution:
> [Landowner (enslaver)]...........................--> [Money] -->......................................[non-landowner (slave)]


I've already explained why that is not an accurate or honest characterization of LVT.



> Actually just solution, assuming Georgism to be true:
> [non-landowner (normal human)]..............<<[Justice & Mutual Harmony between them]>>..............[also-non-landowner (normal human)]


Yes, well, justice and mutual harmony would be great, but some people (call them "landowners") want forcibly to deprive others of their rights to liberty without making just compensation.  That is not compatible with justice and mutual harmony.



> That movement of money does not erase the Existential Injustice of enabling land monopolization.


Yes, actually, it does when combined with the other measures described, because the landowner obtains no unjust advantage, the landless suffer no unjust disadvantage, and the equal rights of all are restored, secured and reconciled.



> No more than paying a slave a salary erases the injustice there.  The slave just wants to quit.


If the salary is sufficient to erase the slave owner's unjust advantage, and the slave can use it to secure his rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of his labor, as government would be expected to use LVT revenue, then yes, actually, it *does* erase the injustice.



> I just want my nature-given Manhattan apartment.


But of course, you are just lying again.  The apartment was not nature-given, and what you want is to deprive others of their liberty to use what nature DID give, without making just compensation.



> Neither of us are going to take your hush-money.


Incomprehensible.



> The land-owner/slave-holders are violating our rights, they are murdering us by keeping us from drinking their Evita water, and just, just,.... we're not going to take it any more!


<yawn>  Let me know if you ever want to address any actual facts or logic.

----------


## Roy L

> To initially establish ownership of unowned property,


If it is unowned, it is not property.  This is a frequent propertarian self-contradiction.



> After the property has passed from unowned status into owned status,


Same logical contradiction.  It can't be property unless it is already owned.

----------


## redbluepill

> Since I am not _unaware_ of your definition, rather I _disagree_ with it, it would be more fitting to invite me to continue with my _disagreement_.


I said its ignorant because your definition flies in the face of the very people who influenced classical liberal thinking. Point to me one quote from Locke, Smith, Paine, or Jefferson that supports your definition.

Henry George simply took the classical liberal distinction of land from property and made it central to his idea.

----------


## WilliamC

> This is not debatable. Land is fixed. Scientific fact.


Boy you georgists really have a hard time accepting geology don't you?

There is an infinite supply of 'land', we just have to be able to get there and terraform it, that's all.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I said its ignorant because your definition flies in the face of the very people who influenced classical liberal thinking.


 I am comfortable in saying that flying in the face of persons with whom you disagree is not, in fact, what ignorance is. Perhaps you have an alternative definition of ignorance as well.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> According to the article Mises Institute did, along with Mises himself.
> 
> [I]Many readers may be surprised to learn the extent to which *the Graduate Institute*


 The Mises Institute is totally different from the Graduate Institute, and was not founded until many years later, after Mises' death.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No more than paying a slave a salary erases the injustice there. The slave just wants to quit.
> 			
> 		
> 
> If the salary is sufficient to erase the slave owner's unjust advantage, [specifically, at least $35,329.82 annually] then yes, actually, it *does* erase the injustice


 I think maybe I have a "right-and-wrong" gene that you just don't appear to have inherited.

*Pay the Slaves* 
(to the tune of _Heal the World_)

Pay the slaves,
Make this a better place,
For you, and for me, and
The entire human race,
There are
People slaving,
If you care enough about freedom,
Pay them a living wage,
Pay them a living wage!

Pay the slaves,
make it a better place,
.....

----------


## WilliamC

> I think maybe I have a "right-and-wrong" gene that you just don't appear to have inherited


You too huh?

Whether it's willful ignorance or ignorant willfulness I don't know, but there is something lacking.

I like how Robert Heinlein said it: 




> Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

----------


## redbluepill

> Boy you georgists really have a hard time accepting geology don't you?
> 
> There is an infinite supply of 'land', we just have to be able to get there and terraform it, that's all.


Refer to the economic definition of land I just post.

----------


## redbluepill

> The Mises Institute is totally different from the Graduate Institute, and was not founded until many years later, after Mises' death.


My apologies, didnt notice it meant Graduate Institute of International Studies. Still, Mises received funding from that Rockefeller Foundation which doesn't sit too well with me.

----------


## WilliamC

> This is not debatable. Land is fixed. Scientific fact.





> Refer to the economic definition of land I just post.


Learn geology and planetology for scientific facts, not economics.

Free land is everywhere, it's a willingness to cooperate as a species and go get it that's the problem, not lack of taxes.

----------


## redbluepill

> I am comfortable in saying that flying in the face of persons with whom you disagree is not, in fact, what ignorance is. Perhaps you have an alternative definition of ignorance as well.


Not giving an alternative definition. I just believe you were ignorant of property and land as the classical liberals defined them. You choose to create your own definition of land and property. If you prefer me to call it stupidity I could do that. I decided to use a nicer word.

----------


## redbluepill

> Learn geology and planetology for scientific facts, not economics.
> 
> Free land is everywhere, it's a willingness to cooperate as a species and go get it that's the problem, not lack of taxes.


Alright, what is the geological/planetological definition of land?

----------


## WilliamC

> Alright, what is the geological/planetological definition of land?


Well Mars has lots of it, and it is within our technology to go there and start trying to colonize it.

If we didn't spend trillions upon trillions of dollars on weapons that is.

Land is simply resources that can be used with sufficient technology to sustain and propagate life.

Therefore what passes as land changes the better our technology is.

The famous historian Will Durant recognized this fact when he stated

"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice."

----------


## redbluepill

> Well Mars has lots of it, and it is within our technology to go there and start trying to colonize it.
> 
> If we didn't spend trillions upon trillions of dollars on weapons that is.
> 
> Land is simply resources that can be used with sufficient technology to sustain and propagate life.
> 
> Therefore what passes as land changes the better our technology is.
> 
> The famous historian Will Durant recognized this fact when he stated
> ...


We're not going to have a significant population on Mars anytime soon. There are also practically no natural resources essential for human survival there. You have not proven that land is limitless. Please provide a link and scientific definition.

----------


## WilliamC

> We're not going to have a significant population on Mars anytime soon. There are also practically no natural resources essential for human survival there. You have not proven that land is limitless. Please provide a link and scientific definition.


You're just short-sighted, that's all.

"The whole wide world, an endless Universe, yet we keep looking through the eyeglass in reverse."

If we don't expand off this planet we're dead as a species, so any solution that doesn't take this into account is no solution at all.

----------


## redbluepill

> You're just short-sighted, that's all.
> 
> "The whole wide world, an endless Universe, yet we keep looking through the eyeglass in reverse."
> 
> If we don't expand off this planet we're dead as a species, so any solution that doesn't take this into account is no solution at all.


Not short sighted. I'm talking about definitions. You're going off on a tangent about outer space.

----------


## WilliamC

> Not short sighted. I'm talking about definitions. You're going off on a tangent about outer space.


So what, you disagree that land exists on Mars?

The sense that you georgist use the word land is in the sense of resources needed to sustain and propagate life.

I don't need a dictionary or external reference to infer that, I can do it all by myself.

Just because your arguments can't deal with extraterrestrial land doesn't mean that it's not out there waiting for us.

----------


## redbluepill

> So what, you disagree that land exists on Mars?
> 
> The sense that you georgist use the word land is in the sense of resources needed to sustain and propagate life.
> 
> I don't need a dictionary or external reference to infer that, I can do it all by myself.
> 
> Just because your arguments can't deal with extraterrestrial land doesn't mean that it's not out there waiting for us.


We acknowledge extraterrestrial land. It doesn't matter whether we colonize Mars the Moon or Planet X. Resources will continue to be limited here and especially over there. Mars is not going to solve poverty.

----------


## WilliamC

> We acknowledge extraterrestrial land. It doesn't matter whether we colonize Mars the Moon or Planet X. Resources will continue to be limited here and especially over there. Mars is not going to solve poverty.


Ah, there it is.

You want to eliminate poverty.

That's why you push a LVT, because you want everyone to have equal wealth.

Communism, pure and simple.

I don't think eliminating poverty is possible or desirable, since poverty is a relative term to begin with and no matter how much is spent we will never succeed in eliminating it.

Why even Jesus said that the poor would always be with us, and while I don't know about salvation and eternity he was a pretty wise dude for all that.

No, I'd rather work to ensuring that our species survive for millions and millions of years, even if there are still poor people after all that time.

----------


## redbluepill

[QUOTE=WilliamC;3588493]Ah, there it is.




> You want to eliminate poverty.


Oh the humanity!




> That's why you push a LVT, because you want everyone to have equal wealth.


I want everyone to have an opportunity to acquire wealth. Land is the source of wealth. If you have no rights to access the land you have no rights at all.





> Communism, pure and simple.


Yep, communist just like those radical classical liberals like Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, John Locke, the French Physiocrats, Milton Friedman, Frank Chodorov, William F. Buckley... yep pure and simple.




> I don't think eliminating poverty is possible or desirable, since poverty is a relative term to begin with and no matter how much is spent it will never succeed.


Well if I may borrow your words, "You're just short-sighted, that's all."




> No, I'd rather work to ensuring that our species survive for millions and millions of years, even if there are still poor people after all that time.


All for the greater good. Yeah, that's a real libertarian viewpoint.

----------


## WilliamC

> All for the greater good. Yeah, that's a real libertarian viewpoint.


No, my desire for long-term survival of the human race is purely selfish I assure you.

I intend to live forever, if not in my own physical form at least through my progeny.

Don't you?

But it's good to know where you are coming from, wanting everyone to share the wealth equally.

After all, there is no end to the amount of taxes that have to be paid under a LVT, so anyone who tends to acquire too much will simply have it taxed away until they are equal again.

Me, I'm looking to minimize government, preferably to what is capable of being supported by voluntary contributions and user fees.

You want to rule the world so you can end poverty.

No wonder we disagree.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I just believe you were ignorant of property and land as the classical liberals defined them.


 Ah, but I was not.  I tried to make it clear I have been around this merry-go-round before.




> If you prefer me to call it stupidity I could do that. I decided to use a nicer word.


 That would be fantasic!  They're all just empty epithets to throw at me for not agreeing with you, but you might as well choose one that best fits reality.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Refer to the economic definition of land I just post.


 Perhaps you should just use a different term which will more reliably and accurately convey your meaning to the layman.  I propose "raw matter and space".

Then you can explain why the raw matter of the wheat field, or the space it occupies, should be taxed annually while the raw matter of the chainsaw, or the space it occupies, should not.  Is it just a pure practicality/expedience thing for you, personally?  The "land" (in the layman's sense) is big and immovable and easy to tax, while the raw elements in the chainsaw are small and portable and hard to tax, and that's reason enough?

----------


## Roy L

> Boy you georgists really have a hard time accepting geology don't you?


Boy, you anti-liberty, anti-justice, anti-truth apologists for landowner privilege sure have a hard time understanding why geology is irrelevant, don't you?



> There is an infinite supply of 'land', we just have to be able to get there and terraform it, that's all.


The supply of land may be infinite, like the supply of numbers, but it is nevertheless FIXED, and an infinite supply doesn't mean it's OK for people to deprive others of their liberty to use the most useful parts of that supply.  I can probably do without 2450943953434958702394573, just as I can do without the land on Pluto.  Doing without 2 or 6 unless I pay some greedy, idle parasite rent for it, like doing without the land near where I want to live and work unless I pay a greedy, idle parasite rent for it, is a blatant violation of my rights.

----------


## Roy L

> I think maybe I have a "right-and-wrong" gene that you just don't appear to have inherited.


Correct: you express the defective sociopathic allele that renders you unable to tell right from wrong.  Proof: you think it is right baldly to lie about what I have plainly written, altering it out of all recognition while pretending to quote me verbatim, while I am aware that such behavior is universally reviled as dishonest, wrong, and despicable.

----------


## Roy L

> If we don't expand off this planet we're dead as a species, so any solution that doesn't take this into account is no solution at all.


We will almost certainly be transcended as a species long before any significant number of us live away from the earth.

----------


## Roy L

> The sense that you georgist use the word land is in the sense of resources needed to sustain and propagate life.


Wrong.  Land is the whole physical universe other than people and the products of their labor.



> I don't need a dictionary or external reference to infer that, I can do it all by myself.


Yes, you can make $#!+ up and claim geoists have said it all by yourself.  You require no assistance from actual geoists actually saying things.



> Just because your arguments can't deal with extraterrestrial land doesn't mean that it's not out there waiting for us.


Our arguments deal with extraterrestrial land just fine, so you can stop lying.  It is simply irrelevant as it has no market value.

----------


## Roy L

> You want to eliminate poverty.


Whereas you want to force people into poverty and forcibly keep them in poverty for the unearned profit of rich, greedy, privileged parasites.  Right.



> That's why you push a LVT, because you want everyone to have equal wealth.


No, equal rights and equal opportunity.



> Communism, pure and simple.


That's a flat-out lie, pure and simple.



> I don't think eliminating poverty is possible *or desirable*,


Bingo.  You want to force people to be poor, so that you can feel superior to them.



> Why even Jesus said that the poor would always be with us, and while I don't know about salvation and eternity he was a pretty wise dude for all that.


Enough people will be poor without using the violent, forcible, aggressive physical coercion of the state to keep them poor by forcibly depriving them of their liberty.



> No, I'd rather work to ensuring that our species survive for millions and millions of years, even if there are still poor people after all that time.


No, you want government to violate people's rights for you so it is easier for you to enslave them.

----------


## Roy L

> But it's good to know where you are coming from, wanting everyone to share the wealth equally.


Why even bother with such blatant, obvious, stupid lies?



> After all, there is no end to the amount of taxes that have to be paid under a LVT,


That's another flat-out lie.  LVT is one of the few taxes that CANNOT be increased beyond the level of justice.  Any attempt to recover more than the full rent of the land will reduce revenue.



> so anyone who tends to acquire too much will simply have it taxed away until they are equal again.


No, until they are using it as productively as anyone else would.



> Me, I'm looking to minimize government, preferably to what is capable of being supported by voluntary contributions and user fees.


That's LVT.



> You want to rule the world so you can end poverty.


Flat-out lie.



> No wonder we disagree.


You disagree because you blankly refuse to know facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil.

----------


## Roy L

> Perhaps you should just use a different term which will more reliably and accurately convey your meaning to the layman.  I propose "raw matter and space".


"Land" is the traditional term, and a lot of the relevant literature uses it, especially the classical economists like Smith, Ricardo and Mill.  "Natural resources" is a good enough substitute.



> Then you can explain why the raw matter of the wheat field, or the space it occupies, should be taxed annually while the raw matter of the chainsaw, or the space it occupies, should not.


There is no natural resource in a chainsaw.



> Is it just a pure practicality/expedience thing for you, personally?  The "land" (in the layman's sense) is big and immovable and easy to tax, while the raw elements in the chainsaw are small and portable and hard to tax, and that's reason enough?


The natural resources that were extracted and turned into a chainsaw were not worth enough to be worth taxing, even if they were still natural resources, which they are not.

----------


## Roy L

> Quoting Heinlein:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.


Those who oppose recovering the publicly created rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it want people to be controlled by landowners -- among whom they intend to number themselves.  People who are deprived, without just compensation, of the right to access and use what nature provided for all to sustain their own lives are under the absolute control of those who control access to nature, and must either serve them or die.



> Learn geology and planetology for scientific facts, not economics.


Pretending the laws of economics are not facts cannot alter them.



> Free land is everywhere, it's a willingness to cooperate as a species and go get it that's the problem, not lack of taxes.


Nonsense.  Free land is free only because it is so useless that no more than one person _wants_ to use it.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

Hi, everyone.

Sometimes we get caught up in something and don't realize that we are not asking the right questions.

I'm assuming that the reasoning behind this thread has a basis in obtaining some justice where it seems inequality exists.

I can tell you from experience that there are good people, bad peop;le and a lot of indifferent people (some just want to get through this life with as little pain as possible).  But you all know this already.

There are many that preceeded us that have thought carefully about how to create a society that is just.  And it can be argued that some were nut cases, but I disagree, there are just different levels of understanding and different positions in life from which to view things.

I am a homeowner (actually, I'm indebted to a bank with interest for a home).  I built this house with my own hands, 2x4's and nails. and I mean even built the cabinets, designed the trim and molded it, etc..  I still have a few things to finish even after 5 years, but we have been living in it for 4 years now.

If I had could not pay my property taxes (or an LVT) I would not want to sell it and move to a more "affordable" tax bracket home, not even for the common good.  That doesn't mean that I would never sell it to help in some great emergenciy, but that would be my choice.

My Uncle went to a doctor recently, I went so I could drive him home.  He went to get his kidney stones blasted (lithotripsy), something he has to do every year or so.  He told the doctor that he did not want to be put to sleep, and did not want a stint, and that he has been through this many times.  He was put to sleep, a stint place in him and a lousy job was done on the blasting of the stones.  This caused him great suffering over the following 2 weeks, many trips to the emergency room, a tube us his penis so he could take a piss, etc..  All because the doctor would not listen.  And this is not the only story to tell about doctors, so the example about assuming your doctor is a phsycopath is not far off.

But, then, it seems phsycopaths are eveywhere these days.  Some get on forums and try to confuse, some just occupy lofty places where descisions are made about other peoples money, homes, children, education, ...

I left a job about 9 years ago where I was making over 100k/yr + bonuses and stock options.   I got to see, while there 17 years, what kind of people make it to the top.  I made it quite far to the top myself by just doing a good job.  After we were purchased by American Express and relocated, I architected and directed the implementation of the software product that took the company from a $15 stock to $68, and I was well paid for what I did.  But once stock options were intoduced to employees, watch out buddy, cause here they come from every dark place.  I stood up for the company in meetings over and over (company as in the common good of all who worked for the company, it's products and it's customers), but finally I was fed up, AT&T was suing us for breach of contract (promises made by the climbers), politics was filtering down to the cubes on the floor over which cube they could get, years went by...seen enough...disgusted, quit...

When I was younger, a landowner and his wife picked me up in their motor home.  I was hitchhiking/walking from Missouri to California looking for my place in the world.  They picked me up in Oklahoma and dropped me off in Medesto, CA.  I got to sleep in the motor home and they fed me. 

Another landowner, who I worked for as a handyman when I was 26 at the appartments I lived in, found out that I wanted to go to college and offered me free rent and utilities in a trailer on his property if I would mow around his house and move the horses once a week from pasture to pasture.  He also provided me with enough work when I could between and after classes so that I could buy food for my family (wife and a daughter) and pay for my books and lab fees.

The world is in the shape that is in, not because of a lack of good ideas, or for a lack of honest searching and not for a lack of caring.  My son, born to me in my older age, is 14 now and he said once, he belives that most of the forms of government were intended at some point by it's authors to benefit the people but each of them were always subverted just as they are today.

I don't think that mankind will be free until theft is no longer profitable.

----------


## Dr. J

> Hi, everyone.
> 
> Sometimes we get caught up in something and don't realize that we are not asking the right questions.
> 
> I'm assuming that the reasoning behind this thread has a basis in obtaining some justice where it seems inequality exists.
> 
> I can tell you from experience that there are good people, bad peop;le and a lot of indifferent people (some just want to get through this life with as little pain as possible).  But you all know this already.
> 
> There are many that preceeded us that have thought carefully about how to create a society that is just.  And it can be argued that some were nut cases, but I disagree, there are just different levels of understanding and different positions in life from which to view things.
> ...



You do realize the existence of enormous global powers who will settle for nothing less than your serfdom? The condition of this country is directly attributable to the masses of people who mistakenly think it will all just work out. Previous decades of ignorance and complacency may leave future generations without a pot to piss in. Reminiscing over the "good ole' days" will solve nothing; those times aren't coming back any time soon.
End rant.
Go lobby for Ron Paul, he may be our last hope.

----------


## Roy L

> Sometimes we get caught up in something and don't realize that we are not asking the right questions.


How true.  Especially when that something is a tradition of thousands of years' standing and seemingly indispensable to the economy, like slavery or landowning.



> I'm assuming that the reasoning behind this thread has a basis in obtaining some justice where it seems inequality exists.


The inequality is self-evidently not just seeming.



> I am a homeowner (actually, I'm indebted to a bank with interest for a home).


Actually, you are indebted to a bank with interest for the land your home sits on.  With LVT you would probably be paying less tax than you now pay in mortgage interest and principal -- AND YOU *WOULDN'T* BE PAYING THE INCOME TAX, SALES TAX, ETC. THAT YOU NOW PAY IN *ADDITION* TO YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENT.



> I built this house with my own hands, 2x4's and nails. and I mean even built the cabinets, designed the trim and molded it, etc..  I still have a few things to finish even after 5 years, but we have been living in it for 4 years now.
> 
> If I could not pay my property taxes (or an LVT) I would not want to sell it and move to a more "affordable" tax bracket home, not even for the common good.


It's everyone's right not to want to pay their rightful share of the taxes.

If you couldn't pay your mortgage, would you want to sell your house and move to a more affordable one for your mortgage lender's profit?  No, of course not.  But you would understand why you had to do it if you could not repay what they gave you.  So, what is so hard to understand about your obligation to repay what government and the community give you?



> That doesn't mean that I would never sell it to help in some great emergenciy, but that would be my choice.


Would it be your choice to sell if you couldn't meet your mortgage obligations?

Please explain how being unable to repay $1K/month in mortgage principal and interest would somehow make selling your home and moving "your choice," while not being able to repay $1K/month in publicly created land value would make selling your home and moving an intolerable violation of your rights -- especially when the $1K mortgage payment is *in ADDITION to* all your taxes, while the $1K LVT payment is *INSTEAD OF* those taxes.



> But, then, it seems phsycopaths are eveywhere these days.


Especially giving their opinions on Faux News.



> I left a job about 9 years ago where I was making over 100k/yr + bonuses and stock options.   I got to see, while there 17 years, what kind of people make it to the top...  But once stock options were intoduced to employees, watch out buddy, cause here they come from every dark place.


Yep.  The stock options of the takers at the top always vest before the options of the producers at the bottom, and by the time the latter can exercise their options, presto! the stock has tanked to less than their exercise price.  What  mystery, huh?



> When I was younger, a landowner and his wife picked me up in their motor home.  I was hitchhiking/walking from Missouri to California looking for my place in the world.  They picked me up in Oklahoma and dropped me off in Medesto, CA.  I got to sleep in the motor home and they fed me. 
> 
> Another landowner, who I worked for as a handyman when I was 26 at the appartments I lived in, found out that I wanted to go to college and offered me free rent and utilities in a trailer on his property if I would mow around his house and move the horses once a week from pasture to pasture.  He also provided me with enough work when I could between and after classes so that I could buy food for my family (wife and a daughter) and pay for my books and lab fees.


And Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.  Please explain how that made slavery more rightful.



> I don't think that mankind will be free until theft is no longer profitable.


At least LVT removes the profit from land theft.

----------


## WilliamC

> Hi, everyone.


Welcome and + rep for a great entrance to RPF!

----------


## ClydeCoulter

Roy L says LVT is oh so perfect....hmmm

How would LVT be any different than any other tax, in the sense of theft?  I hear talk of all kinds of alternative tax ideas, but once a tax is made into law, anything goes.  Raise the tax rate, change what is taxable under the tax, etc...  What's the saying, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile".

Ownership is not the problem, greed is the problem.  Everyone does not own the land just because they are born.  Noone actually owns any land.  Title just shows that I'm the squatter that is using this land and can defend it at this time.  In the old days, other means of force were used to prevent unwanted entry into a persons space.  That space may change by the season as in the case of a nomadic people.

(OH, and I was not just reminessing above, I was giving life examples, not 'good ole times' stuff, but instead real stuff that happens even today).

And Roy, stop taking sentences out of context.  I said, in an emergency I might sell to help out (not because I couldn't pay the mortgage).  And, Yes, I disagree with lending with interest, it causes inflation, which is a major reason people are poor.

Under the current circumstances, ownership of things is the only way to defend against theft.  Until much more than "whose owns land" is straightened out, I don't trust anyone with the land that sits under my house other than myself.  Otherwise, the land under my house could be taxed away, auctioned to the highest tax payer or what ever.  No, I did not say that foreclosure or a tax lean is better, theft of my house is theft of my house.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

I might as well rag on another aspect to my house building experience.
I put 80,000.00 of my own money into materials to build my house, but just as I was going to purchase stuff, Katrina hit, bam, prices for building materials nearly doubled over night.  Now, is that "supply and demand" kicking in or greed?  So, labor and material costs increased (getting the well and septic put in, etc...).
A house that I put most of the labor into ended up costing so much that I had to take out a constuction loan. (I already owned..was exclusive user of..the property, 11 acres).

----------


## ClydeCoulter

Okay, once more....I'll add a bit more...

Slavery.  Owning slaves, hmmm...  Are we not all slaves?
Is it better to be a wage slave and still not make enough to keep your wife off your back, or be a "slave" of someone who provides all you could ever dream of for just a bit of work.  Now there are slaves, and there are slaves.  Yes, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, but he also wanted all slaves freed.  Why did he own slaves?  Anyone here know?  Did he take them in and give them a great place to be creative on the land he owned, or did he whip them and drive them giving them only bread and water?  Is there one excuse better than some other?  

I disagree with forcefully taking a person and selling them.  But I don't think that all forms of willing servitude are bad.  I was a sort of servant for the man that I mowed his lawn and moved his horses for rent and utilities (they existed for me even when mowing was out of season, and I could use all the utilities I needed).  Yes, this was a voluntary arangement.

The examples given in my intro into this thread were to show that being a landowner/master doesn not necessarily mean greed and heartlessness.  Although there is much greed and hearlessness out there, many to be found in the leaders of large corps and government.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy L says LVT is oh so perfect....hmmm


I have explained why it is better.  Not perfect.



> How would LVT be any different than any other tax, in the sense of theft?


It redresses a theft.



> I hear talk of all kinds of alternative tax ideas, but once a tax is made into law, anything goes.  Raise the tax rate, change what is taxable under the tax, etc...  What's the saying, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile".


So your objection to LVT is that it might not be implemented as proposed??  How illogical is that?  In fact, because it is so simple and transparent, it is much harder to screw with LVT than with other taxes.



> Ownership is not the problem, greed is the problem.


Like owning a slave, owning land is inherently greedy.



> Everyone does not own the land just because they are born.


People have rights just because they are born.  That is kinda the point of rights.



> And Roy, stop taking sentences out of context.  I said, in an emergency I might sell to help out (not because I couldn't pay the mortgage).


Are you saying you don't recognize an obligation to repay your mortgage any more than to repay the land value the community gives you?



> Under the current circumstances, ownership of things is the only way to defend against theft.


Ownership of natural resources IS theft from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them.



> Until much more than "whose owns land" is straightened out, I don't trust anyone with the land that sits under my house other than myself.


But you think everyone else should have to trust *you* with it...?



> Otherwise, the land under my house could be taxed away, auctioned to the highest tax payer or what ever.


Or monopolized by a guy who deprives everyone else of the advantages it confers...



> No, I did not say that foreclosure or a tax lean is better, theft of my house is theft of my house.


And theft of the land is theft of the land.

----------


## Roy L

> Are we not all slaves?


That just removes any meaning from the word.



> Yes, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, but he also wanted all slaves freed.  Why did he own slaves?  Anyone here know?  Did he take them in and give them a great place to be creative on the land he owned, or did he whip them and drive them giving them only bread and water?  Is there one excuse better than some other?


He apparently did not believe they could manage their own lives if freed.



> The examples given in my intro into this thread were to show that being a landowner/master doesn not necessarily mean greed and heartlessness.


But it is the inherent nature of slavery and landowning to enable greed and heartlessness.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> But it is the inherent nature of slavery and landowning to enable greed [eek!] and heartlessness [gasp!].


 Many of us have read Ayn Rand and are basically pro-greed and pro-heartlessness, so you're not going to win many converts by bad-mouthing greed and heartlessness.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> We will almost certainly be transcended as a [evil, landowning] species [presumably by a superior, non-landowning one] long before any significant number of us live away from the earth.


 What a bizarre point of view.  What species would transcend us?  Are dolphins going to suddenly make a leap forward or something like that?  Or do you just mean humanity will modify itself such that you would call it a different species -- I could see that.  **** Aurealis.

----------


## Roy L

> Many of us have read Ayn Rand and are basically pro-greed and pro-heartlessness, so you're not going to win many converts by bad-mouthing greed and heartlessness.


Remarkable.  Greed (unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money") is the root of all manner of evil, so you are essentially admitting you are pro-evil.  As I had already told you.  But don't beat yourself up about it.  I'm sure there are lots worse things a guy can do than serve evil.  If I thought about it, I might even be able to come up with one.

----------


## Roy L

> What a bizarre point of view.  What species would transcend us?


Google "posthumanism."



> Or do you just mean humanity will modify itself such that you would call it a different species -- I could see that.  **** Aurealis.


I'm thinking more in terms of a non-biological successor, as technological evolution is orders of magnitude faster than cultural evolution, which is orders of magnitude faster than biological evolution.  Consider what a mere 20 years of evolution has done in computer viruses.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Remarkable.  Greed (unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money") is the root of all manner of evil, so you are essentially admitting you are pro-evil.  As I had already told you.  But don't beat yourself up about it.  I'm sure there are lots worse things a guy can do than serve evil.  If I thought about it, I might even be able to come up with one.


No.  In this context, "greed" is used interchangeably with "Rational self-interest".

----------


## Roy L

> No.  In this context, "greed" is used interchangeably with "Rational self-interest".


No, that's not what greed is.  Greed is defined as excessive, rapacious desire for more than one needs or deserves.  That is inherent in landowning just as it is in slave owning.  No one needs or deserves the profits of extortion.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> That is inherent in [greedy! blackest evil!] landowning just as it is in [slightly impractical! probably no worse than landowning!] slave owning.


  Neither of which you want to abolish.

----------


## Roy L

> Neither of which you want to abolish.


You cannot address, let alone refute, anything I have said, and so you have no choice but to lie about it.

I have told you this before:

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You cannot address, let alone refute, any [of the impossibly brilliant things] I have said, and so you have no choice but to lie about it.


 Roy L., you do not want to abolish land ownership.  That's as best as I can tell, after 177 posts, all of them in this thread on land tax.  You, of course, are are final authority as to what you do and do not want, so if I am incorrect in saying that you do not want to abolish land ownership, please enlighten us all, rather than blustering about lies and liars without contradicting nor correcting nor even identifying what it is about my statement that was a lie.

Incidentally, I do not lie.  Ever.  Just as a note, for your future reference.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, that's not what greed is.  Greed is defined as excessive, rapacious desire for more than one needs or deserves.  That is inherent in landowning just as it is in slave owning.  No one needs or deserves the profits of extortion.


I know what greed is.  But in this context, it is used interchangeably with "rational self-interest".  There is nothing greedy about land ownership.  Ownership is rational and moral, greed is not.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.


  Natural law holds that man owns himself and that property is an extension of self-ownership.

----------


## redbluepill

> Natural law holds that man owns himself and that property is an extension of self-ownership.


And here you guys go again claiming the natural land is property.

----------


## redbluepill

_Based on founding principles

William Penn, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and many others called for shifts to land value tax to prevent rich aristocrats from grabbing up all the land as they had done in Europe. They recognized that land value tax would enable ordinary people to get land.

The Articles of Confederation, enacted by the signers the Declaration of Independence, called for even the federal government to be funded from land value tax.

When Tom Paine called for a per capita grant to the elderly from a land value tax, just as Saving Communities is calling for today, he wrote, "it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for."_

http://savingcommunities.org/foundersplan/#founding

----------


## Roy L

> Roy L., you do not want to abolish land ownership.  That's as best as I can tell, after 177 posts, all of them in this thread on land tax.


No, you are just lying about what I have plainly written.

In post # 113 I wrote:

_"Owning land is inherently a privilege of violating others' rights to liberty -- a welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner -- and by definition, no such privilege can exist in a free market.
...
Only a corrupt government can possibly privilege anyone to buy or own land, as proved above.
...
Property in land inherently violates people's rights to liberty, so the only way to stop government from applying ever greater violence and force for the benefit of landowners is to require landowners to repay more of what they take from society with government's help. That is what LVT does."_

In post #120 I wrote:

_"The state tilts the playing field by giving landowners their privilege of parasitism. The state can therefore level the playing field by rescinding it."_

In post #121 I wrote:

_"Our remote ancestors got along fine without owning land, and would (rightly) have considered the modern notion of property in land not only counter-intuitive but absurd and evil."_

And many other clear statements in over 100 posts.

In post #503 I said:

_"Ownership of natural resources IS theft from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them."_



> You, of course, are are final authority as to what you do and do not want, so if I am incorrect in saying that you do not want to abolish land ownership, please enlighten us all, rather than blustering about lies and liars without contradicting nor correcting nor even identifying what it is about my statement that was a lie.


You lied when you stated that I did not want to abolish either slavery or landowning.  That was a lie, a false statement uttered with intent to deceive.



> Incidentally, I do not lie.  Ever.  Just as a note, for your future reference.


Of course you lie.  All apologists for landowner privilege lie, without exception.  That is a natural law of the universe.  You are an apologist for landowner privilege, therefore you lie.  QED.  Once you decide to serve greed, privilege and injustice, you do not have a choice in the matter.

In general, the lies apologists for landowner privilege tell fall into three major categories: most common are lies about what land justice advocates have plainly said; second most common are lies about historical facts; and third (but often the most interesting) are the lies they tell about self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.  One of the third type you told was that a chainsaw contains "raw matter."  You *knew* that every molecule of a chainsaw has been refined, processed and shaped by labor, and can by no stretch of terminology be described as "raw matter."  You *KNEW* that.  Of course you did.  You simply decided to lie about it.

----------


## Roy L

> Natural law holds that man owns himself and that property is an extension of self-ownership.


 How could property in what nature provided for all possibly constitute an extension of self-ownership?  Other than an extension to what is plainly NOT self-ownership, that is.

----------


## Roy L

> I know what greed is.


Then you are (surprise!) lying about it.



> But in this context, it is used interchangeably with "rational self-interest".


No, it isn't.  



> There is nothing greedy about land ownership.


Yes, there most certainly is.  The landowner desires to appropriate to himself the value that government, the community and nature provide.  As he neither needs nor deserves that value, that is greedy by definition.



> Ownership is rational and moral, greed is not.


Ownership of what cannot rightly be owned is immoral and greedy, sorry.

----------


## Roy L

> Many of us have read Ayn Rand


You claim to have read Ayn Rand.  Do you remember how Galt's Gulch was financed?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> How could property in what nature provided for all possibly constitute an extension of self-ownership?  Other than an extension to what is plainly NOT self-ownership, that is.


Because it's not for all.  It's for whomever can claim it.  It is an extension of self-ownership.  You clearly don't understand Locke or any other Natural Rights philosophers.  Go do some reading.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Then you are (surprise!) lying about it.


Incorrect.
No, it isn't.  




> Yes, there most certainly is.  The landowner desires to appropriate to himself the value that government, the community and nature provide.  As he neither needs nor deserves that value, that is greedy by definition.


You don't know what the landowner needs or desires (other than food/water/shelter).  Everything else is a subjective value judgement-even and especially your claims about property.




> Ownership of what cannot rightly be owned is immoral and greedy, sorry.


Yes, some things that cannot be owned-like IP-is immoral.  Land, airspace, and other property is perfectly moral and, sorry-a matter of rational self-interest and practicality, not greed.  Until there is a super-abundance of material things and land, your fantasy of abolishing private property will remain a fantasy.  No property-less society has ever lasted a significant amount of time.

----------


## Roy L

> Because it's not for all.


Oh, really?  Whom do you claim has no right to access and use the natural resources required to sustain life?  And in just what, exactly, would a right to life consist in the absence of a right to access and use what nature provides?



> It's for whomever can claim it.


That is not property; it is forcible animal possession.  Possession obtained by nothing but force is just as validly overturned by force.



> It is an extension of self-ownership.


Nonsense.  It just indisputably _isn't_.  Self-ownership is ownership of the self, not the land, the sea, the sky, the moon, the sun, the planets or the stars.



> You clearly don't understand Locke or any other Natural Rights philosophers.  Go do some reading.


I understand them perfectly.  Their arguments are simply not logically defensible.  Every philosopher of any competence who has addressed the problem of property in land has recognized that it is logically and morally defective.  Some have pretended to have found a rationalization for it.  None has in fact succeeded in doing so.  Locke, for example, resorts to a notion of "mixing one's labor with land," a patent physical impossibility and nothing but an uninformative and misleading metaphor.  There are products of labor and land unaltered by labor.  There is no such thing as a "mixture" of land and labor, and never can be.

----------


## PierzStyx

> I've read Progress and Poverty and I think George's reasoning is sound.  It's a tax on rent which, if you understand the Law of Rent, I think is much more fair than some sort of flat sales tax.  A sales tax punishes the consumer more than the producer.
> 
> I take George's idea even further.  I think there should be a flat tax on wealth itself.  This to me, after all I've looked at, seems to me the most fair.  You could tax people on their average daily/monthly/yearly net worth.  This would allow a flat percentage to be taken from everyone equally and wouldn't be a burden on the lower class any more than the upper class and producers.
> 
> The only problem with this is the difficulty in enforcing fairly.  Perhaps we could just start with measuring real property/assets and also on your average daily bank balance.
> 
> I've said this elsewhere on the boards and many disagree saying that you shouldn't get taxed on what you already own, so they think a flat sales tax or import tax or whatever is more fair.  I disagree.



The producer shouldn't be punished at all. And teh consumer is only "punished" insofar as they choose to be, for the most part anyway.

----------


## PierzStyx

> Incidentally, I do not lie.  Ever.  Just as a note, for your future reference.


Unless its to Nazis. And then screw them!

----------


## PierzStyx

> Garbage.  For 99% of the human species' history, there was no such thing as private landowning.  Land was always held communally or tribally.  The basis of property rights is the producer's right to own the fruits of his labor.


Not true at all. Every society has had private ownership of property. The most applicable to us would the the native Americans. Many try to say they didn't. That is just another lie fed to you my a crappy educational system. Indians invaded the lands of other tribes ALL THE TIME and wiped them out to take that land for themselves. Sure the wandering tribes didn't have "land" but its because they were nomadic, NOT because they had some egalitarian system of communal ownership. But they all had personal possessions. But its kinda hard to claim land permanently you don't settle on. And every tribe that didn't travel regularly (i.e. all tribes but the plains tribes) did actually have personal land rights. Your house was yours. The plot of land it was on was yours. Everything in your housing structure was yours. This was even the case with the tribes that lived in larger family dwellings. The land technically was in possession of the family elder(s) who dispersed it amongst the family. It was closer to inheritance laws today than anything else. And this pattern repeats world wide. For 100% percet of human history there has been private land owning it just got into larger and larger plots of land as the ages progressed to the modern era.

----------


## Roy L

> You don't know what the landowner needs or desires (other than food/water/shelter).


Wrong.  I know the inherent character of what he does as landowner.  As labor earns (deserves) its product, and land is not a product of labor, it is impossible that he could deserve ownership of the land.  And as tenants live just fine without owning land, I know that he does not need it.  Landowning is therefore an expression of greed just as surely as raping is an expression of lust.



> Everything else is a subjective value judgement-even and especially your claims about property.


Nope.  The facts are self-evident and indisputable.  There is no basis for claims of property in land other than brute force.  And as already explained, an advantage obtained by force is not property, and is just as validly overturned by force.



> Yes, some things that cannot be owned-like IP-is immoral.


The landowner privatizes what is rightly in the public domain just as the IP holder does.



> Land, airspace, and other property is perfectly moral


And slaves, where slavery is sanctioned by law....?

Sorry, but that is a blatant question begging fallacy.



> and, sorry-a matter of rational self-interest and practicality, not greed.


Bull$#!+.  Hong Kong has not had any private ownership of land for over 160 years, and it has been eminently rational and practical.



> Until there is a super-abundance of material things and land, your fantasy of abolishing private property will remain a fantasy.


You again choose deliberately to lie about what I have plainly written.  I have never proposed abolishing private property.  You know that.  Of course you do.  You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.



> No property-less society has ever lasted a significant amount of time.


<sigh>  You know that I do not propose a property-less society, so you can stop lying.  There was no such thing, not even such a concept, as property in land for 99% of the human species's history.  That seems a more significant amount of time than the few thousand years since some evil genius concocted the notion of claiming what nature provided as his own, and found fools gullible enough to believe him.

----------


## Roy L

> The producer shouldn't be punished at all.


Nor should the consumer.



> And teh consumer is only "punished" insofar as they choose to be, for the most part anyway.


Garbage.  You could with equal "logic" claim the producer is only punished insofar as they choose to be.

Production and consumption are just two sides of the same economic coin.  You can't tax one without taxing the other, except to the extent that production is exported and consumption imported.

----------


## Roy L

> Not true at all. Every society has had private ownership of property.


You are trying to change the subject, because you have no arguments and you know it.

The subject is private property IN LAND, not private property per se.  I have stated this many times.



> The most applicable to us would the the native Americans. Many try to say they didn't. That is just another lie fed to you my a crappy educational system. Indians invaded the lands of other tribes ALL THE TIME and wiped them out to take that land for themselves.


That was forcible animal possession, not property, and it was tribal and communal, not private.



> Sure the wandering tribes didn't have "land" but its because they were nomadic, NOT because they had some egalitarian system of communal ownership.


Wrong again.  Not all were nomadic.  But none had private landowning.



> But they all had personal possessions.


Which were *products of labor.*  Not land.  This is stated clearly in the post to which you purport to be responding.  Try reading it.



> But its kinda hard to claim land permanently you don't settle on.


European colonial powers did so routinely.



> And every tribe that didn't travel regularly (i.e. all tribes but the plains tribes) did actually have personal land rights.


None had private property in land.



> Your house was yours.


A house is not land.  Please try not to be so dishonest.



> The plot of land it was on was yours.


No, that is a flat-out *lie*.  You had temporary *use* of the land while your house was sitting on it.  You had NO CLAIM WHATEVER to the land once you were no longer using it as a place to hold up your house.



> Everything in your housing structure was yours.


Nope.  Only the products of labor.  Try reading the post to which you purport to be responding.



> This was even the case with the tribes that lived in larger family dwellings. The land technically was in possession of the family elder(s) who dispersed it amongst the family.


Flat false.  It was only temporary occupancy and use, not ownership, and was dissolved as soon as the land was vacated.



> It was closer to inheritance laws today than anything else.


Garbage.  There was no ownership interest in the land.  None.  It was simply administration of temporary possession and use.



> And this pattern repeats world wide.


The pattern of no private landowning.  Right.



> For 100% percet of human history there has been private land owning


No, that is a flat-out lie.



> it just got into larger and larger plots of land as the ages progressed to the modern era.


Complete garbage.  You clearly know nothing whatever of land tenure traditions or the origin of property in land.

----------


## redbluepill

> All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.


Its just as Tolstoy said, "People do not argue with the teachings of Henry George, they simply do not know it."

----------


## redbluepill

> Because it's not for all.  It's for whomever can claim it.  It is an extension of self-ownership.  You clearly don't understand Locke or any other Natural Rights philosophers.  Go do some reading.


Some got it right others got it wrong. Locke was so close. He initially states land and all its creatures are common to all man. But his theory that mixing your labor with the earth makes the earth yours is terribly flawed (how much labor is required? Does that "land property" extend only on that which one applies his/her labor?)  You say we do not understand the natural rights philosophers yet I have provided plenty of evidence of many of those philosophers who sympathized with ground rent and who viewed land as unique from capital/property.

Let me ask you this, have you read Progress & Poverty, let alone any article/speech by Henry George? How about Fred Foldvary or Mason Gaffney? I assume not.

----------


## redbluepill

Heavenlyboy, you may be surprised how much you may disagree with John Locke on this issue:




> John Locke, the natural-law philosopher whose thought is reflected in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, wrote, *the things of nature are given in common*11 and *no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land ...*12 Locke recognized the benefits of private ownership of land and the right of individuals to possess land  a right he contended came about when an individual mixed his labor with the land. But Locke, in his famous proviso, stipulated that such private ownership would be held on the condition where there is enough and as good left in common for others.13 Though Locke did not explicitly state how that condition could be met, the payment to a community of the rent, which measures the extra productivity of superior relative to inferior land, would seem to satisfy the condition, since this would keep in common the benefits of holding the better lands. ...
> 
> Natural-law philosophers such as John Locke have reasoned that all human beings have a natural ownership right to their labor and the products of that labor. The fundamental equality of humanity means it is fundamentally wrong for some to take away the labor done by others.31 That notion is almost universally recognized today with respect to slavery, and some folks are beginning to recognize that the current tax systemwhich taxes our earnings and taxes how we invest or spend those earningsalso violates mans natural right to the fruits of his labor.





> John Locke is often misrepresented by royal libertarians, who quote him very selectively. For example, Locke did say that:
> 
>     Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.
> 
> But Locke condemned anyone who took more than he needed as a "spoiler of the commons":
> 
> *...if the fruits rotted, or the venison putrified, before he could spend it, he offended against the common law of nature, and was liable to be punished; he invaded his neighbour's share, for he had no right, farther than his use called for any of them, and they might serve to afford him conveniences of life.*
> 
>     The same measures governed the possession of land too: whatsoever he tilled and reaped, laid up and made use of, before it spoiled, that was his peculiar right; whatsoever he enclosed, and could feed, and make use of, the cattle and product was also his. But if either the grass of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without gathering, and laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession of any other.
> ...


http://wealthandwant.com/themes/Locke.html

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> And here you guys go again claiming the natural land is property.


 Surely you understand that this is the crux of our disagreement!  Yes?

You say: Man didn't create the universe, so it must be held in common for all humanity.

I say: OK, maybe we didn't create it.  Let's privitize it anyway.

If you, Explorer Redbluepill, ramble along into a vast uninhabited wilderness and claim some of it, there's no one there whom you are ripping off.  No one's rights have been violated.  Other people show up later, you're not ripping them off either.  They didn't create the universe!  They have no right to it!  You found it, you claimed it, it's yours.

Perhaps that's the root disagreement from a moral perspective: You think "OK, here's a universe, here's human beings, the human beings didn't create the universe, so we all have a equal right to the whole universe."  I, on the other hand, think "OK, here's this universe, none of us can show any proof we created it, so nobody has a right to any of it."  Then it just becomes a practical matter of splitting it all up in a way that doesn't violate anyone's rights.  That's an easy fix: homesteading.  Just go claim and use stuff no one else is claiming.  Since nobody has a right to any of it, no foul.  In your philosophy, *big* foul, against all humanity no less, because _everybody_ owned, owns, and will always own, whatever stuff you just claimed.

You say everybody has just claim on the empty universe, I say nobody does.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You claim to have read Ayn Rand.


 Actually, I didn't.

*LIAR!

LIAR!

LIAR!*


Just kidding.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Roy L., in post #447, you wrote:
Once fixed improvements are a significant element in the economy, land is going to be monopolized in any case. Government, whose job it is to administer possession and use of land, can reverse the injustice that would otherwise be inherent in its monopolization by recovering the publicly created rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it. We know payment of just compensation reverses an injustice, so it is YOU who want to continue the injustice forever.

#406:
Wrong. Government's most fundamental function is to secure and reconcile people's rights. It cannot secure property rights in fixed improvements without enabling land monopolization. That is why hunter-gatherer societies do not have government or landowning, but agricultural societies have both.

~~~

Georgism, as I understand it, and as you have yourself presented it, does not advocate abolishing land ownership/monopolization/appropriation.  All it does is say "OK, we're going to let you landowners keep owning land, but you have to pay a fee to do it".  You indeed have said many nasty things about land ownership and made it clear you think that to monopolize land is to enslave the non-monopolists.  That stridency and flaming rhetoric just makes it all the more shocking that you do not want to abolish this allegedly horrible injustice.  You instead want to "correct" it by having a Land Value Tax.  Once again:

Wrong solution:
[Landowner (enslaver)]...........................--> [Money] -->......................................[non-landowner (slave)]

Actually just solution, assuming Georgism to be true:
[non-landowner (normal human)]..............<<[Justice & Mutual Harmony between them]>>..............[also-non-landowner (normal human)]

That movement of money in the Wrong Solution does not erase the Existential Injustice of enabling land monopolization.

Thank you for your attention.  *You may now concede that I was 100% correct* in stating that you do not want to abolish land ownership, and thus do not want to abolish the slavery that land ownership is.  You just want to pay off the slaves.

I await your concession.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> One of the third type [of lie] you told was that a chainsaw contains "raw matter."  You *knew* that every molecule of a chainsaw has been refined, processed and shaped by labor, and can by no stretch of terminology be described as "raw matter."  You *KNEW* that.  Of course you did.  You simply decided to lie about it.


 This is actually a pretty important philosophical point.  A chainsaw does, in fact, contain raw matter.  Without raw matter, no chainsaw can you have.  Every molecule most certainly has not been refined, processed, nor shaped by labor.  Many of the molecules are still exactly as nature provided them.  And certainly the space which the chainsaw occupies exists just as nature provided it.

A skyscraper must use raw matter, space, and other resources (in economics, we generally call these natural resources "land").  A chainsaw likewise must use raw matter, space, and other resources (in economics, we generally call these natural resources "land").  If you want to tax all land, you must tax the land of the chainsaw just as you tax the land of the skyscraper.  What's more, for the skyscraper you must tax not only the "land" which is the surface area of the planet which it occupies (as Georgists propose to do) but also the vertical area it occupies, also the raw matter extracted to form its beams and windows, etc., etc.

Redbluepill addressed this by saying he would like a one-time extraction fee for matter removed from nature and made into goods.  You, on the other hand, Roy L., have thus far been silent on this matter, apparently not grasping the dilemma, instead being satisfied with accussing everyone who disagrees with you of lying.  I'm glad redbluepill is back, and perhaps he can add some intelligence to the conversation.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Heavenlyboy, you may be surprised how much you may disagree with John Locke on this issue:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://wealthandwant.com/themes/Locke.html


It's true that Locke was wrong about the "commons".  However, Locke (chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government") clearly explains that his view of "the commons" stems from his belief that God gave the world to man in common-which man later improved upon and privatized.  In no. 34 of chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government", Locke writes "...God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority  so far to appropriate.  And the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, *necessarily introduces private possessions.*"  Locke, like most everyone else, could be contradictory-but to spin him as anti-land ownership or anti-property is just bull$#@!.

----------


## Roy L

> You say: Man didn't create the universe, so it must be held in common for all humanity.


No.  Rather, no one created natural resources, so no one has any more right to them than anyone else.



> I say: OK, maybe we didn't create it.  Let's privitize it anyway.


IOW you don't care if privatizing natural resources violates the rights of the productive for the unearned profit of the privileged.



> If you, Explorer Redbluepill, ramble along into a vast uninhabited wilderness and claim some of it, there's no one there whom you are ripping off.  No one's rights have been violated.


Correct.  And as something that no more than one person wants has no value, such land would not be subject to LVT.



> Other people show up later, you're not ripping them off either.


*Wrong.*  You are forcibly depriving them of the exercise of their rights to liberty.  They would be at liberty to use the land if you did not forcibly stop them by violent, aggressive physical coercion.  This fact is self-evident and indisputable.  You will now attempt to contrive some way of not knowing it.



> They didn't create the universe!  They have no right to it!


They have rights to liberty.  You are merely advocating that they be forcibly deprived of their rights to liberty without just compensation, and consequently, in effect, enslaved.



> You found it, you claimed it, it's yours.


By what right could claiming something make it yours?



> You think "OK, here's a universe, here's human beings, the human beings didn't create the universe, so we all have a equal right to the whole universe."  I, on the other hand, think "OK, here's this universe, none of us can show any proof we created it, so nobody has a right to any of it."


If you believe people have a right to liberty, then they have a right to exercise it in the universe.  Where else?



> Then it just becomes a practical matter of splitting it all up in a way that doesn't violate anyone's rights.  That's an easy fix: homesteading.


Nope.  Wrong.  Homesteading is not a fix at all, as it violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the homesteaded land.

And that's aside from the fact that there is not a square inch of privately owned land, anywhere on earth, whose title can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an initial act of homesteading that violated no one's rights.  So even if you were right that homesteading is a fix, which you are not, it would be irrelevant to all ACTUAL land titles.



> Just go claim and use stuff no one else is claiming.  Since nobody has a right to any of it, no foul.


Everyone has a right to USE *all* of it: the right to liberty.



> In your philosophy, *big* foul, against all humanity no less, because _everybody_ owned, owns, and will always own, whatever stuff you just claimed.


No one owned it; everyone had -- and has -- a right to liberty.

Using natural resources no one else wants to use violates no one's rights.  But as soon as someone else wants to use them, forcibly depriving them of their liberty to do so violates their rights.  This is self-evident and indisputable.  You are simply engaged in trying to contrive a way of not knowing it.



> You say everybody has just claim on the empty universe, I say nobody does.


Do people have a right to liberty?  If they have no just claim to exercise it in the universe, of what, exactly, could such a right be thought to consist?

----------


## Roy L

> Actually, I didn't.


See post #505.  To whom were you referring as "us" that did not include you?



> *LIAR!
> 
> LIAR!
> 
> LIAR!*
> 
> Just kidding.


I see.  You don't "lie," you just "kid."

----------


## redbluepill

> It's true that Locke was wrong about the "commons".  However, Locke (chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government") clearly explains that his view of "the commons" stems from his belief that God gave the world to man in common-which man later improved upon and privatized.  In no. 34 of chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government", Locke writes "...God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority  so far to appropriate.  And the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, *necessarily introduces private possessions.*"  Locke, like most everyone else, could be contradictory-but to spin him as anti-land ownership or anti-property is just bull$#@!.


I never stated that John Locke opposed land ownership or was anti-property. I made that clear in one of the excerpts _Locke recognized the benefits of private ownership of land and the right of individuals to possess land  a right he contended came about when an individual mixed his labor with the land. But Locke, in his famous proviso, stipulated that such private ownership would be held on the condition where there is enough and as good left in common for others._ Locke was on the right path, but the pieces never completely fell into place for him on this topic. But he was in opposition to holding land without making use of it. When you consider this, it is clear Locke believed land was not like other property. If a landowner left his field untended Locke believed this was a crime against the community. I highly doubt he would express the same sentiment if you built a boat and left it unused in a shed.

----------


## redbluepill

> Surely you understand that this is the crux of our disagreement!  Yes?
> 
> You say: Man didn't create the universe, so it must be held in common for all humanity.
> 
> I say: OK, maybe we didn't create it.  Let's privitize it anyway.
> 
> If you, Explorer Redbluepill, ramble along into a vast uninhabited wilderness and claim some of it, there's no one there whom you are ripping off.  No one's rights have been violated.  Other people show up later, you're not ripping them off either.  They didn't create the universe!  They have no right to it!  You found it, you claimed it, it's yours.
> 
> Perhaps that's the root disagreement from a moral perspective: You think "OK, here's a universe, here's human beings, the human beings didn't create the universe, so we all have a equal right to the whole universe."  I, on the other hand, think "OK, here's this universe, none of us can show any proof we created it, so nobody has a right to any of it."  Then it just becomes a practical matter of splitting it all up in a way that doesn't violate anyone's rights.  That's an easy fix: homesteading.  Just go claim and use stuff no one else is claiming.  Since nobody has a right to any of it, no foul.  In your philosophy, *big* foul, against all humanity no less, because _everybody_ owned, owns, and will always own, whatever stuff you just claimed.
> ...


Then nobody has a right to their own life. How could one have a right to life if they have no right to access the source of life? Sigh, I already addressed a very similar analogy several pages back. Here is the link to the article itself: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/h...er/000387.html

----------


## Roy L

> Georgism, as I understand it, and as you have yourself presented it,


I neither call nor consider myself a Georgist.



> does not advocate abolishing land ownership/monopolization/appropriation.


Those are all different things.  What I don't advocate abolishing is most accurately called "exclusive tenure" to land.  You don't have to own something to have an exclusive right to it.



> All it does is say "OK, we're going to let you landowners keep owning land, but you have to pay a fee to do it".


Full recovery of land rent for public purposes renders ownership of land a mere legal form, like marrying to get a green card.  It's not a real marriage, and it's not real ownership.  Real ownership includes a right to benefit from the owned item.  Land rent recovery means the "owner" no longer has a right to any such benefit.



> You indeed have said many nasty things about land ownership and made it clear you think that to monopolize land is to enslave the non-monopolists.  That stridency and flaming rhetoric just makes it all the more shocking that you do not want to abolish this allegedly horrible injustice.  You instead want to "correct" it by having a Land Value Tax.


To correct an injustice is indeed to abolish it.  Leaving its legal form intact is irrelevant to that fact.

Consider marijuana prohibition, which I consider not only an injustice but an atrocity.  Suppose we leave it a criminal offense to possess or sell marijuana, but make the maximum penalty a fine of $1/oz. for those who sell it, converting prohibition, effectively, into a modest tax.  You *know* that leaving the criminal statute in place would not affect the fact that marijuana would then effectively have been legalized.



> Once again:
> 
> Wrong solution:
> [Landowner (enslaver)]...........................--> [Money] -->......................................[non-landowner (slave)]
> 
> Actually just solution, assuming Georgism to be true:
> [non-landowner (normal human)]..............<<[Justice & Mutual Harmony between them]>>..............[also-non-landowner (normal human)]


Once again: payment of sufficient money fully to compensate the injustice, and elimination of the landowner's unjust advantage and the landless's unjust disadvantage, renders the first formula functionally equivalent to the second.  You know this.



> That movement of money in the Wrong Solution does not erase the Existential Injustice of enabling land monopolization.


Yes, it does, just as leaving slave deeds in place but eliminating the legal power of the owner over the slave would erase slavery.  The slave deeds would just no longer have any value, like land titles in a land rent recovery system.



> You may now concede that I was 100% correct in stating that you do not want to abolish land ownership, and thus do not want to abolish the slavery that land ownership is.  You just want to pay off the slaves.


Lie, as proved above.

If slave owners were willing to give up legal power over their slaves, but keep the valueless legal deeds to their slaves, and even swap them around as if they had meaning other than as legal forms, I would consider slavery to have been abolished -- and so would you.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You are just lying about it.



> I await your concession.


Why would I concede when I have again comprehensively and conclusively demolished your claims?

----------


## mczerone

> Correct. And as something that no more than one person wants has no value, such land would not be subject to LVT.


You don't even know what "value" is, so please stop pretending that you have all the answers and listen to what the other posters are saying.

----------


## Roy L

> You don't even know what "value" is,


<yawn>  Value is what a thing would exchange for.



> so please stop pretending that you have all the answers and listen to what the other posters are saying.


I've read what they are saying.  It is uniformly ignorant and dishonest.

----------


## Roy L

> It's true that Locke was wrong about the "commons".


LOL!  He was only wrong when he proved *you* wrong, huh?



> However, Locke (chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government") clearly explains that his view of "the commons" stems from his belief that God gave the world to man in common-which man later improved upon and privatized.  In no. 34 of chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government", Locke writes "...God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority  so far to appropriate..."


IMO invoking God is not much of an argument.  Suicide bombers do as much.  If you are going to cite an argument from Locke, and hope to be taken seriously, it'll have to be a better one than that.

----------


## redbluepill

> Because it's not for all.  It's for whomever can claim it.  It is an extension of self-ownership.  You clearly don't understand Locke *or any other Natural Rights philosophers.*  Go do some reading.


And who are these other natural rights philosophers? If you speak of *Adam Smith* he was actually in favor of ground rent. 

_Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent._ — Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter 2, Article I: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses 

_"Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land, are, therefore, perhaps, the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them."
_ - Adam Smith



As was *Thomas Paine*:

_"Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."_ --Tom Paine, "Agrarian Justice," paragraphs 11 to 15



And *Thomas Jefferson*:

_Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

    Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a commonstock for man to labour and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.
    It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small land holders are the most precious part of a state._ - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, dated October 28, 1785

In 1797, he suggested “a land tax supply the means by which the individual States were to contribute their quotas of revenue to the Federal Government.”



And the* French Physiocrats* (the same ones who coined the term Laissez-Faire):

_"Taxes ... should be laid directly on the net product of landed property, and not on men’s wages, or on produce, where they would increase the cost of collection, operate to the detriment of trade, and destroy every year a portion of the nation’s wealth."_ - François Quesnay




*Albert Jay Nock* was a huge supporter of Henry George!

http://wealthandwant.com/docs/Nock_HGUA.htm




And even *Milton Friedman* was a sympathizer!

_"Land should be taxed as much as possible and improvements as little as possible."_
http://www.answersanswers.com/land_rent_proof.html



And I could bring up several other natural rights thinkers (*David Ricardo* and *Benjamin Franklin* immediately come to mind. So no, you do not hold a monopoly view when it comes to land.

----------


## Roy L

> A chainsaw does, in fact, contain raw matter.


It indisputably does not, and you know it.  You have merely decided to lie about it.



> Without raw matter, no chainsaw can you have.


<yawn>  Without apple trees, no apple pie can you have.  So?  That does not mean apple pies have apple trees in them.



> Every molecule most certainly has not been refined, processed, nor shaped by labor.


It most certainly has.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided you had better lie about it.



> Many of the molecules are still exactly as nature provided them.


Not one is, because they have all, at a minimum, been removed from WHERE nature provided them.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.



> And certainly the space which the chainsaw occupies exists just as nature provided it.


The space it occupies is not part of the chainsaw, as it can be moved away from that space and occupy another.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.



> A skyscraper must use raw matter, space, and other resources (in economics, we generally call these natural resources "land").


A skyscraper occupies and encloses a fixed space which is land, and natural resources must be used up to produce it.  But no constituent particle of a skyscraper consists of natural resources, as all have been removed from where nature provided them.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.



> A chainsaw likewise must use raw matter, space, and other resources (in economics, we generally call these natural resources "land").


Natural resources are used up to produce a chainsaw, but it contains no "raw matter."  Every molecule has been removed from where nature provided it.  The space it occupies is not a part of it, as it can be moved to occupy another space.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.



> If you want to tax all land, you must tax the land of the chainsaw just as you tax the land of the skyscraper.


There is no land in a chainsaw, it occupies no fixed space, and the space it does occupy would be taxed just the same were it occupied by the chainsaw, apple pies, or anything else.



> What's more, for the skyscraper you must tax not only the "land" which is the surface area of the planet which it occupies (as Georgists propose to do) but also the vertical area it occupies, also the raw matter extracted to form its beams and windows, etc., etc.


The natural resources used to make it were presumably taxed when they were depleted.  A right to occupancy of a ground area usually confers a right to occupy the vertical space above it (though not always).



> Redbluepill addressed this by saying he would like a one-time extraction fee for matter removed from nature and made into goods. You, on the other hand, Roy L., have thus far been silent on this matter, apparently not grasping the dilemma, instead being satisfied with accussing everyone who disagrees with you of lying.


In post #379 of this thread, I wrote:

_Removal of depletable resources from nature in fact triggers not a land tax but a once-and-for-all "severance" tax, which recognizes the difference between violating others' rights by permanently depleting a natural resource and by merely temporarily occupying it._

Your multiple-times-overjustified and long overdue apology for lying about what I have plainly written is spurned.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> See post #505.  To whom were you referring as "us" that did not include you?


 Reading comprehension is key to written communication.  You are in danger of failing the reading comprehension test, but let me give you one more try:

1. Many of us in the United States own Playstations.

2. I do not own a Playstation.

3. I own a Playstation.

Does statement 1 contradict statement 2?  By making statement 1, would I be making statement 3?  If I were to make statement 1, would you be correct in claiming that I made statement 3, or would you, rather, be a lying liar lairface?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> In post #379 of this thread, I wrote:
> 
> _Removal of depletable resources from nature in fact triggers not a land tax but a once-and-for-all "severance" tax, which recognizes the difference between violating others' rights by permanently depleting a natural resource and by merely temporarily occupying it._


 Ah, it was you, not redbluepill; I remembered incorrectly.

Of course, the rest of your post is obviously just deliberate and despicable lies.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Then nobody has a right to their own life. How could one have a right to life if they have no right to access the source of life?


 Right, exactly: they don't have a right to live -- not wherever they want.  Not in someone else's house, not in someone else's Universe.  If the creator of the Universe showed up with a moving van and demanded that we all leave, we'd have to get on board and go set up shop somewhere else in the Pluriverse.

This seems unlikely to happen.  Thus, as it is, the Universe is to start with either virgin territory or abandoned property.  Then, humans start living and using/monopolizing/owning parts of the Universe.  Pieces of the Universe thus become property.  I think that's an awesome way to do it.  I see no moral reason to hold the whole Universe in some universal trust fund for All Humanity forever and ever.  Certainly no practical reason -- commons have tragedies.  So I see just no reason at all.

So yes, if all the landowners, aka Universe-owners, aka property-owners of the world colluded to forbid one guy from using any of their property, yes, that guy would be in a bad situation -- he would have to separate himself from their owned matter and locations and go instead to some unowned part of the Universe.  

It seems unlikely that all property-owners would unanimously collude to kick a guy out like that, just as it's unlikely the Universe-creator will show up and kick him out.  That's what your Crusoe and Friday story ultimately boils down to.  It only works if there's no exit.  One guy has to own the whole Universe, or all the owners must act as one.  I'm just not at all afraid of that scenario.  It's not scary to me.  I guess it's scary to you.  You think it's plausible, so you believe we need this whole elaborate LVT system to stop the Big Scary Land Monopoly Monster from taking over everything.  I think it's totally paranoid and ridiculous to fear that.  I think that monopolies, real monopolies, only are sustainable when the gang we call the state sets them up or backs them up.  On the free market, monopolies are no problem.  So, perhaps that fear/lack-of is the crux of our disagreement?  What say you, redbluepill?

----------


## Roy L

> Reading comprehension is key to written communication.  You are in danger of failing the reading comprehension test,


ROTFL!!  My clients pay me well for my expertise in the English language, sunshine, whereas it appears to be your second language....



> but let me give you one more try:
> 
> 1. Many of us in the United States own Playstations.
> 
> 2. I do not own a Playstation.
> 
> 3. I own a Playstation.
> 
> Does statement 1 contradict statement 2?


Probably; but it is an awkward, unnatural and ambiguous construction.



> By making statement 1, would I be making statement 3?


That is a logical implication.



> If I were to make statement 1, would you be correct in claiming that I made statement 3, or would you, rather, be a lying liar lairface?


A lie is a falsehood uttered with intent to deceive.  You need to go back to your ESL class.  Or just try to find a little honesty, somehow.

----------


## Roy L

> Of course, the rest of your post is obviously just deliberate and despicable lies.


That is a falsehood uttered with intent to deceive.  Inevitably.

In fact, you have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted -- as usual -- you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.

----------


## mconder

> Land Value Tax on Wikipedia


Seems to go nicely with Marx's abolition of private property. If I was a Marxist, I'd love it.

----------


## Roy L

> Right, exactly: they don't have a right to live -- not wherever they want.


How did they lose their right to live wherever they want *on the land nature provided*?  Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were at liberty to live wherever they wanted.  How were _our_ rights to do so extinguished?

It is evident that your goal is to sacrifice the right to life on the altar of the Great God Property.



> Not in someone else's house,


You again dishonestly try to change the subject from land to products of labor.  You don't have a right to live on someone else's shoulders, either.  So?  How does that extinguish your right to live wherever you want that isn't a human being or a product of human labor?



> not in someone else's Universe.


That is an example of the absurdity that prepares to compel atrocities.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire



> If the creator of the Universe showed up with a moving van and demanded that we all leave, we'd have to get on board and go set up shop somewhere else in the Pluriverse.


Like all apologists for landowner privilege, you will do, say, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> Thus, as it is, the Universe is to start with either virgin territory or abandoned property.  Then, humans start living and using/monopolizing/owning parts of the Universe.


Humans must of course *use* parts of the universe to exist, same as any other life form.  But forcibly violating others' rights by monopolizing or claiming to own what nature provided for all, by contrast, is NOT something inherent in human existence, but is rather the act of a greedy, evil, thieving parasite.  



> Pieces of the Universe thus become property.


Only when greedy, evil, thieving parasites steal them from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them.  



> I think that's an awesome way to do it.


Yes, well, slavery had its fans, too...



> I see no moral reason to hold the whole Universe in some universal trust fund for All Humanity forever and ever.


Right: you do not believe in equal human rights to life and liberty.  You believe that those who are born too late to get in on the grabbing are rightly made the slaves of those who grabbed first.



> Certainly no practical reason -- commons have tragedies.


Nope.  Wrong.  Commons only have tragedies when greedy, evil, thieving parasites forcibly violate others' rights by taking limited resources from the common without making just compensation to those whom they deprive of them.  It's theft that has tragedies.



> So I see just no reason at all.


Because you REFUSE to see the reasons, and when you can't refuse, you lie about them.



> So yes, if all the landowners, aka Universe-owners, aka property-owners


See?  See how quickly you have to try to change the subject from "land" to "property"?  See how quickly you have to resort to lying that there is no difference between property in land and property in products of labor?  It seems not even to be under your conscious control any more, but almost a form of incontinence.



> of the world colluded to forbid one guy from using any of their property, yes, that guy would be in a bad situation -- he would have to separate himself from their owned matter and locations and go instead to some unowned part of the Universe.


The landless of the world are ALREADY in a bad situation, in the ABSENCE of any such collusion.  Millions of them DIE from being stripped of their liberty to use land EVERY YEAR.  Their remote ancestors had rights to liberty, and thus never had to labor for decades to fill the pockets of idle landowners and/or mortgage lenders just to have a space to exist in and the opportunity to work to sustain their own lives.



> It seems unlikely that all property-owners would unanimously collude to kick a guy out like that, just as it's unlikely the Universe-creator will show up and kick him out.


So?  How could that be relevant?  It is also unlikely that all the electoral officers in a state would collude to keep a black man from casting his vote.  Does that somehow make it not a violation of his rights if ANY of them do it?



> That's what your Crusoe and Friday story ultimately boils down to.  It only works if there's no exit.


No, that's just more stupid garbage from you.  Friday's rights are being violated in any case.  Maybe there is some unowned land Friday can live on -- but Crusoe owns the fresh water supply, so Friday is again enslaved.  Or Crusoe owns the only land where food can be grown, so Friday is again enslaved.  Or maybe there are one or two (or two million) other landowners on the island who are willing to let Friday work to feed himself -- for a price.  It doesn't matter.  Friday *must* use natural resources to live, to survive, and he has been stripped of his right to do so.  He is enslaved in effect, if not in law:

"During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war
broke out, my father owned sixty slaves.  I had not been back to my old Kentucky home
for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old
negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God,
I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.'  The planters, on the other hand,
are contented with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in
us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper now than when we owned the slaves.'
How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents they take more of the labor of
the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled to return him
sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were compelled
by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he could no longer
work. Now their interest and responsibility cease when they have got all the 
work out of him they can."

From a letter by George M. Jackson, St. Louis. Dated August 15, 1885.
Reprinted in Social Problems, by Henry George. 



> One guy has to own the whole Universe, or all the owners must act as one.


No, that is just stupid garbage refuted above.  It doesn't matter if one person owns all of it or many people merely own all the good and useful parts.  The land market *ACTS LIKE* a monopoly because the supply is *fixed*.  Each landowner can't do better than to pocket the full rent of the land, and that is the same if there is one landowner or a billion of them.  Friday has been stripped of his right to liberty and must labor to feed a parasite or die, like the "freed" negro slaves of the American South -- who never got the mule, and for damn sure never got the forty acres.



> I'm just not at all afraid of that scenario.


If you were landless, and living in a country where the government had made no provision for your well-being through minimum wage laws, public education and health care, welfare and pension programs, etc., you might be singing a rather different tune -- if you were not already dead of poverty.



> It's not scary to me.  I guess it's scary to you.


The absurd scenario you concocted is not scary because it is absurd.  The problem is not your absurd scenario but the ACTUAL CONDITIONS that landowner privilege has ALREADY CREATED.  Why do you refuse to know the fact that where government has made no provision to save them from it, landlessness DOES condemn people to a condition effectively indistinguishable from slavery?  Why do you refuse to know the fact that even where government HAS saved the landless from effective enslavement by landowners, the productive must pay taxes to government to fund services and infrastructure, and must then pay landowners full market value for access to the same services and infrastructure their taxes just paid for?  Why do you refuse to know the fact that FREE people would never consent to labor for 30 or 40 years filling the pockets of idle, parasitic landowners and mortgage lenders just to have a space to exist in?



> You think it's plausible, so you believe we need this whole elaborate LVT system to stop the Big Scary Land Monopoly Monster from taking over everything.


No, that is just another stupid, evil lie from you.  The land monopoly monster has ALREADY taken over everything, and the proof is staring you in the face: a people most of whose lives revolve around making their rent or mortgage payments, and most of the rest of whose lives revolve around trying to avoid paying the taxes that government gives to landowners.  You just refuse to see it.



> I think it's totally paranoid and ridiculous to fear that.


Because your collusion scenario is an absurdity that *you made up.*



> I think that monopolies, real monopolies, only are sustainable when the gang we call the state sets them up or backs them up.


That is EXACTLY what the state has done for landowners.



> On the free market, monopolies are no problem.


There can be no free market where a privileged group is subsidized by the forcible violation of everyone else's rights.



> So, perhaps that fear/lack-of is the crux of our disagreement?


Of course evil, greedy, privileged parasites do not fear privilege.  Why would they?  They are always too consumed with greed to notice the peril it constitutes until it is too late.  History is unanimous on that score.  The privileged will always prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than relinquish any material part of their privilege of taking from others and contributing nothing in return.

----------


## redbluepill

> Not in someone else's house,


Houses are capital, not land.




> If the creator of the Universe showed up with a moving van and demanded that we all leave, we'd have to get on board and go set up shop somewhere else in the Pluriverse.


No point in God placing us on this Earth if he doesn’t want us on it in the first place. I have plenty of Biblical quotes to support land as a commons, but I agree with Roy this discussion shouldn’t go down the religious route.




> It seems unlikely that all property-owners would unanimously collude to kick a guy out like that, just as it's unlikely the Universe-creator will show up and kick him out. That's what your Crusoe and Friday story ultimately boils down to. It only works if there's no exit. One guy has to own the whole Universe, or all the owners must act as one. I'm just not at all afraid of that scenario. It's not scary to me. I guess it's scary to you. You think it's plausible, so you believe we need this whole elaborate LVT system to stop the Big Scary Land Monopoly Monster from taking over everything.


The Robinson Crusoe article is an analogy of how land ownership conflicts with self ownership. All individuals must have access to the land in order to exercise their right to sustain their own lives. And if you think there is enough land that this isn’t even an issue then you must not know much about South America’s history and current state. Land-grabbers were practically unfettered throughout the continent and we see the result today: Rampant poverty for many and immense wealth for a few. 
“Other American companies, too, gained control of natural resources and thus monopolized trade. This monopoly of land created an atmosphere where many landless peasants had little choice but to work for American companies.”  http://www.landandfreedom.org/ushistory/us16.htm

So maybe it isn’t scary for you because you have not seen the truly devastating impact land-grabbing can have. Many of the Founding Fathers took several measures to ensure this. But it still has an impact that affects our liberties. Adam Smith stated, "As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed." The payment of land rent to a few at the expense of the many forces artificially higher costs of living and artificially lower wages. Landholding as it is today does have a negative influence on the economy and liberties whether it is on a larger scale like in South America or a ‘smaller’ scale like in North America. Geolibertarian economist Fred Foldvary explains it here: http://www.progress.org/archive/fold239.htm




> I think it's totally paranoid and ridiculous to fear that. I think that monopolies, real monopolies, only are sustainable when the gang we call the state sets them up or backs them up.


And these land monopolies are being sustained by the state.




> On the free market, monopolies are no problem. So, perhaps that fear/lack-of is the crux of our disagreement? What say you, redbluepill?


You cannot have a truly free market while allowing our current system of land ownership. The wealthy know that the land is the source of wealth. Control the source and you control it all, including the people.

But here’s my take on your ideal world: We remove government completely from the picture. If there is any government at all it is funded voluntarily. Corporations are free to do business as they please. This results in bigger/stronger corporations buying out the competition. Within a few decades (maybe several) you have oligarchies controlling almost every aspect of society. They are the land renters. And since there is practically no competition then they can charge high rent for the land you live on and pay you minimally for your labor. I may sound paranoid (hey, what libertarian is not? Haha), but this is not the ‘libertarian’ society I wish to live in. You only replace one master for another. As The Who song goes, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Here’s my take on my ideal world: We remove income tax, capital/improvement tax, and any taxes that hinder entrepreneurship and productivity. Have government funded through a land value tax. Since the LVT (and the removal of all other taxes) encourage landholders to be productive with their land we see landholding and government become decentralized. Within a few decades we see hundreds (if not thousands) of small governments within what was once the United States. We will have more freedom to choose what society best suites our ideals. Libertarianism will finally take hold since poverty would be dramatically reduced (if not eliminated) and big government would become history.

Economist Mason Gaffney said this about land and the free market:

 “Not only can you have both common land and free markets, you can't have one without the other. They go together, like love and marriage. You need market prices to help identify land's taxable surplus, which is the net product of land after deducting the human costs of using it. At the same time, you must support government from land revenues to have a truly free market, because otherwise you will raise taxes from production, trade, and capital formation, interfering with free markets. If you learn this second point, and act on it, you will have a much freer market than any of the OECD nations that now presume to instruct you, and that are campaigning vigorously to make all nations in the world "harmonize" their taxes to conform with their own abysmal systems.” http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Free_Market.html

----------


## Roy L

> Seems to go nicely with Marx's abolition of private property


No, it just distinguishes rightful from wrongful private property, and redresses the current injustice of taxing rightful property to subsidize the owners of wrongful property.  Socialists pretend capital is land to justify stealing capital; capitalists pretend land is capital to justify stealing land.



> If I was a Marxist, I'd love it.


BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.  Wrong.  _Marx himself_ called it "capitalism's last ditch."

It's OK if you feel stupid right now.

----------


## redbluepill

> Seems to go nicely with Marx's abolition of private property. If I was a Marxist, I'd love it.


No, you would not because the LVT is only promoted through a free market. http://www.cooperativeindividualism....e-markets.html

In fact, that was why Karl Marx despised George.

----------


## redbluepill

Even the Henry George Archive under mises.org states, _A prolific author who was a strong defender of free trade and an advocate of the idea of a single tax on land._

http://mises.org/literature.aspx?Id=169&action=author

----------


## rp713

different states have different taxes. here in texas we have a statewide sales tax. i wanna say its 7.25% without looking it up, but it could be 8. why doesnt the federal gov't tax the state gov'ts directly instead of taxing the people in any form?

----------


## Roy L

> different states have different taxes. here in texas we have a statewide sales tax. i wanna say its 7.25% without looking it up, but it could be 8. why doesnt the federal gov't tax the state gov'ts directly instead of taxing the people in any form?


The newborn United States of America tried that under the Articles of Confederation: the states were to collect a land value tax from landowners and remit it to the federal government.  But the big landowners refused to repay what they were being given, and threatened to start and finance a civil war if the states tried to recover it.  So the Articles of Confederation were abolished, and a Constitution written to enable rich, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowners to rob everyone else, and ensure they would never be asked to repay what they stole.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> different states have different taxes. here in texas we have a statewide sales tax. i wanna say its 7.25% without looking it up, but it could be 8. why doesnt the federal gov't tax the state gov'ts directly instead of taxing the people in any form?


Where did the State get its revenue? From taxing the people. Collecting it straight from the people simply eliminates the middle man of the states to have to collect it and forward the money to Washington. It doesn't change who pays the taxes.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> It is evident that your goal is to sacrifice the right to life on the altar of the Great God Property.


 Of course this is just a complete lie.





> You again dishonestly try to change the subject from land to products of labor.  You don't have a right to live on someone else's shoulders, either.  So?  How does that extinguish your right to live wherever you want that isn't a human being or a product of human labor?


 More stupid, evil lies.




> That is an example of the absurdity that prepares to compel atrocities.


 The only thing absurd that I see is the lengths you will go to lie in the face of plain truth.




> Like all apologists for landowner privilege, you will do, say, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.


 You are just so totally blind and brainwashed you are willing to spew whatever lies you think will enable you to continue in your delusions.  This is just another one of those lies you use to shield you from the truth.





> Humans must of course *use* parts of the universe to exist, same as any other life form.  But forcibly violating others' rights by monopolizing or claiming to own what nature provided for all, by contrast, is NOT something inherent in human existence, but is rather the act of a greedy, evil, thieving parasite.


 We see here yet another one of your lies.  Will you never tire of your duplicity?




> Only when greedy, evil, thieving parasites steal them from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them.


 Obviously false, as I have proved conclusively upteen times in this thread.




> Yes, well, slavery had its fans, too...


 Yet another lie about what I have clearly written.  You just refuse to understand plain English!





> Right: you do not believe in equal human rights to life and liberty.  You believe that those who are born too late to get in on the grabbing are rightly made the slaves of those who grabbed first.


  And you lie yet again about what I believe, despite the fact I have clearly explained it many times to you.





> Nope.  Wrong.  Commons only have tragedies when greedy, evil, thieving parasites forcibly violate others' rights by taking limited resources from the common without making just compensation to those whom they deprive of them.  It's theft that has tragedies.


  I am starting to think you are absolutely constitutionally incapable of telling the truth about anything.




> Because you REFUSE to see the reasons, and when you can't refuse, you lie about them.


  Once again, you write a stupid and evil lie.




> See?  See how quickly you have to try to change the subject from "land" to "property"?  See how quickly you have to resort to lying that there is no difference between property in land and property in products of labor?  It seems not even to be under your conscious control any more, but almost a form of incontinence.


  You just keep piling lies upon lies!  Stop while you're ahead... or... OK, too late for that, but at least before further embarrassing yourself.





> The landless of the world are ALREADY in a bad situation, in the ABSENCE of any such collusion.  Millions of them DIE from being stripped of their liberty to use land EVERY YEAR.  Their remote ancestors had rights to liberty, and thus never had to labor for decades to fill the pockets of idle landowners and/or mortgage lenders just to have a space to exist in and the opportunity to work to sustain their own lives.


  You tell one lie, it leads to another,
So you tell two lies, to cover each other.





> So?  How could that be relevant?  It is also unlikely that all the electoral officers in a state would collude to keep a black man from casting his vote.  Does that somehow make it not a violation of his rights if ANY of them do it?


Then you tell three lies, and -- oh, brother!
You're in trouble up to your ears.





> No, that's just more stupid garbage from you.  Friday's rights are being violated in any case.  Maybe there is some unowned land Friday can live on -- but Crusoe owns the fresh water supply, so Friday is again enslaved.  Or Crusoe owns the only land where food can be grown, so Friday is again enslaved.  Or maybe there are one or two (or two million) other landowners on the island who are willing to let Friday work to feed himself -- for a price.  It doesn't matter.  Friday *must* use natural resources to live, to survive, and he has been stripped of his right to do so.


 So you tell four lies, so folks won't suspect you,
Then you tell five lies, to try to protect you,





> He is enslaved in effect, if not in law


Then you tell six lies, and, you collect
A life full of worries and fear.




> No, that is just stupid garbage refuted above.  It doesn't matter if one person owns all of it or many people merely own all the good and useful parts.  The land market *ACTS LIKE* a monopoly because the supply is *fixed*.  Each landowner can't do better than to pocket the full rent of the land, and that is the same if there is one landowner or a billion of them.  Friday has been stripped of his right to liberty and must labor to feed a parasite or die, like the "freed" negro slaves of the American South -- who never got the mule, and for damn sure never got the forty acres.


 More blind and reprehensible lies from our friend Roy L., a seemingly endless source of them.




> If you were landless, and living in a country where the government had made no provision for your well-being through minimum wage laws, public education and health care, welfare and pension programs, etc., you might be singing a rather different tune -- if you were not already dead of poverty.


 A complete and utter lie, from someone unwilling to understand the plain and simple words coming out of my keyboard.




> The absurd scenario you concocted is not scary because it is absurd.  The problem is not your absurd scenario but the ACTUAL CONDITIONS that landowner privilege has ALREADY CREATED.  Why do you refuse to know the fact that where government has made no provision to save them from it, landlessness DOES condemn people to a condition effectively indistinguishable from slavery?  Why do you refuse to know the fact that even where government HAS saved the landless from effective enslavement by landowners, the productive must pay taxes to government to fund services and infrastructure, and must then pay landowners full market value for access to the same services and infrastructure their taxes just paid for?  Why do you refuse to know the fact that FREE people would never consent to labor for 30 or 40 years filling the pockets of idle, parasitic landowners and mortgage lenders just to have a space to exist in?


 I find it amazing you can concentrate and amalgamate such a cacophony of lies in a single paragraph.  Astounding!




> No, that is just another stupid, evil lie from you.  The land monopoly monster has ALREADY taken over everything, and the proof is staring you in the face: a people most of whose lives revolve around making their rent or mortgage payments, and most of the rest of whose lives revolve around trying to avoid paying the taxes that government gives to landowners.  You just refuse to see it.


 On the contrary, this is another sick and pathetic lie from you.  You simply will not open your eyes to the reality hitting you in the face.  You'd rather close your eyes tightly as you sit there and continue to get punched.




> Because your collusion scenario is an absurdity that *you made up.*


 This is a total lie.  Try to follow the conversation for just a second.




> That is EXACTLY what the state has done for landowners.


 False.  Lie.  Seriously, is this the best you've got?




> There can be no free market where a privileged group is subsidized by the forcible violation of everyone else's rights.


 You have been reduced to merely repeating the same lies over and over and over again.  It's quite sad, really.  Are you a grown man?  I hope for your sake not, for to see a grown man in such a impotent and irrational state would be tragic indeed.





> Of course evil, greedy, privileged parasites do not fear privilege.  Why would they?  They are always too consumed with greed to notice the peril it constitutes until it is too late.  History is unanimous on that score.  The privileged will always prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than relinquish any material part of their privilege of taking from others and contributing nothing in return.


 Obviously evil, greedy, grasping taxation advocates do not care about truth or justice.  These looters are too deranged and foaming at the mouth with desire to steal the goods of others to care about anything else.  They will resort to any absurdity, such as inventing an imaginary right of every infant to the entire Universe, in order to jsutify their mad thirst for theft and power, as well as their desparate need to escape full responsibility for their lives.  They need a "safety net" to absolve them from the self-responsibility that so terrifies them.  They are willing to lie and lie and lie until the world runs out of paper, their lungs run out of breath, or the forum runs out of pages.

Your stupidity is epic, your dishonesty as constant as the Polar Star.  I have utterly demolished everything you have ever written and ever thought, yet you continue to insist on being stupid and lying.  Why you are such a stupid liar, we may never know.  It's a mystery and wonder of the modern world.


~~~


Wasn't that productive?  What fun it must be to be Roy L.


~~~


Edit: This post is a parody, of course, in case anyone missed that.  I do not actually think Roy L. is a liar, nor stupid.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> How did they lose their right to live wherever they want *on the land [they didn't do anything to create]*?


 They never had any such right.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The newborn United States of America tried that under the Articles of Confederation: the states were to collect a land value tax from landowners and remit it to the federal government.  But the big landowners refused to repay what they were being given, and threatened to start and finance a civil war if the states tried to recover it.  So the Articles of Confederation were abolished, and a Constitution written to enable rich, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowners to rob everyone else, and ensure they would never be asked to repay what they stole.


Having read the Articles of Confederation, I do not remember a Land Value Tax anywhere in that document.  Could you quote the relevant section of the AoC?  Thank you!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> So maybe it isn’t scary for you because you have not seen the truly devastating impact land-grabbing can have.


 Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me.  While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you.  So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement.  Would you agree?

You believe that in a free land market (according to _my_ definition: private ownership and trading of land), large and powerful monopolies will arise.  I, in contrast, believe no such monopolies will evince.  If you did not believe monopolies would take over, you would be open to agreeing with the (non-geo)libertarians, perhaps?




> But here’s my take on your ideal world: We remove government completely from the picture. If there is any government at all it is funded voluntarily. Corporations are free to do business as they please. This results in bigger/stronger corporations buying out the competition. Within a few decades (maybe several) you have oligarchies controlling almost every aspect of society. They are the land renters. And since there is practically no competition then they can charge high rent for the land you live on and pay you minimally for your labor. I may sound paranoid (hey, what libertarian is not? Haha), but this is not the ‘libertarian’ society I wish to live in. You only replace one master for another. As The Who song goes, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”


 This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.  I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies.  People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them.  They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless.  They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless.  I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs.  Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers.  People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.

So I just don't share the concern about monopolies that you do.





> Here’s my take on my ideal world: We remove income tax, capital/improvement tax, and any taxes that hinder entrepreneurship and productivity. Have government funded through a land value tax. Since the LVT (and the removal of all other taxes) encourage landholders to be productive with their land we see landholding and government become decentralized. Within a few decades we see hundreds (if not thousands) of small governments within what was once the United States. We will have more freedom to choose what society best suites our ideals. Libertarianism will finally take hold since poverty would be dramatically reduced (if not eliminated) and big government would become history.


 You support decentralization!  Secession!  Wonderful.  Your ideal North America, with thousands of independent governments, would be sensational.  Would you go so far as to allow secession on even the neighborhood, family, and finally the individual level?

The nice thing about your plan is that it would "let a thousand flowers bloom", if you will.  If Kalamazooistan decides they want to try _not_ charging any land value tax and be voluntarist instead, they'd be free to try it, and I would be free to move there.  And then we'd fail and the land monopolists would take over and totally dominate and oppress us, but hey, we gave it a shot!  We wouldn't have failed miserably, we'd fail happily, following our crazy Rothbardian dreams.

----------


## therealjjj77

There is an inevitable problem with a property tax or income tax that places a tax on a human's right(s). You have an inherent right to own property as a sovereign and you have an inherent right to exchange your property(i.e. labor or time) for other things such as money.  The power to tax is the power to destroy, or so the Supreme Court has said. Thus, the power to tax a thing, means that government can destroy it. Government ought to be instituted in a way to secure our rights, and not destroy them. 

So how does government go about paying for the cost of securing our rights while not violating them? Simple. First, we need to identify the two threats to our rights:

1. Foreign

2. Domestic

How we pay for each of these is quite simple:

1. Foreign: The citizenry ought to be armed and ready to defend our nation and the compensation for such services rendered off the spoils acquired from the aggressor nation. When we are attacked, we don't just fend off attacks, but we decimate and plunder the aggressor nation recapturing the costs.

2. Domestic: The cost of domestic crime(violation of others rights, i.e. theft, murder, rape) is charged, upon prosecution by a jury, as a tax on a per instance basis to first reclaim the losses of the offended party and second to cover the costs of this domestic system that provides such protection and process. Terms of involuntary servitude until the costs are paid off are of option and in extreme cases of dangerous individuals, exile or execution can relieve society of the threat of recurrent abuses. 

Problem solved, we're protected from without and within. The lower crime is, the smaller government is. However, no legislative fiat can make something a crime that is not a mala in se crime. (No crimes of mala prohibita.)

----------


## redbluepill

> Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me.  While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you.  So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement.  Would you agree?


In a lot of ways we share identical goals. We want decentralization of government and power. We want to be self-sufficient. But yes, it is the land that is central to our disagreement. The way I see it, if you control the land you are the government of that land, whether it be 1 acre or a thousand acres. Think about it, anyone who steps onto that land must have permission from the landlord. Anyone who settles on that land must pay a tax/rent to the owner. You must abide by the landlords rules/laws or you could be kicked out. Sounds like a government doesn't it? If we remove government before we enact land reforms I believe there will be a power vacuum that must be filled. That is why I worry about corporate monopolies. So yes, land monopolization (along with what constitutes a 'government') are the roots of our disagreement.








> This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.


It is a common objection to the free market by the statist Left, but not geolibertarians and other left libertarians. We believe the free market is necessary for true liberty. Many of them, like Kevin Carson, oppose what they call capitalism but support the free market. This may seem like a contradiction but when they say capitalism they mean the very corporatism/state capitalism that nearly all libertarians oppose.





> I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies.  People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them.  They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless.  They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless.  I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs.  Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers.  People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.


There's a saying that goes, "If I had all the land and you had all the money, how much do you think I charge you on your first night's rent?" Control the land, control the people. Yes, the consumer has a tremendous amount of influence over businesses, but that influence is dramatically reduced/eliminated under monopolies.







> You support decentralization!  Secession!  Wonderful.  Your ideal North America, with thousands of independent governments, would be sensational.  Would you go so far as to allow secession on even the neighborhood, family, and finally the individual level?
> 
> The nice thing about your plan is that it would "let a thousand flowers bloom", if you will.  If Kalamazooistan decides they want to try _not_ charging any land value tax and be voluntarist instead, they'd be free to try it, and I would be free to move there.  And then we'd fail and the land monopolists would take over and totally dominate and oppress us, but hey, we gave it a shot!  We wouldn't have failed miserably, we'd fail happily, following our crazy Rothbardian dreams.


I believe when people see the impact of the LVT on communities it will be quickly adopted. Of course it has to start in the smaller communities because that is where the people have a bigger influence. The elites just have too much power in Washington to have such a reform pass.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> In a lot of ways we share identical goals.


 Yes, we agree on many things and probably have the same pro-liberty outlook on life, we have just read different books and thus approach things from the perspective of different traditions.  "You are what you read"!




> There's a saying that goes, "If I had all the land and you had all the money, how much do you think I charge you on your first night's rent?" Control the land, control the people. Yes, the consumer has a tremendous amount of influence over businesses, but that influence is dramatically reduced/eliminated under monopolies.


 Could you not make the same argument for "If you own all the water pipes..." or "If you own all the food" or, to a lesser extent, "If you own all the electricity companies", "If you own all the roads", "If you own all the grocery stores", "If you own all the housing developments", and "If you own all the car companies"?  Food and water are just as essential to life as a place to stand.  Water is not (usually) manufactured and thus is land, OK, but food is, as are the distribution systems for both.  Shelter, electricity, and transportation are also essential to the continued survival of many, though not all, people.  Yet you are not worried about a monopoly in grocery stores, right?  The statist left worries about monopolies in all products, just as you say, but you worry only about land.

Yet, it would be far easier for me to become the only grocer in town than the only landowner in town.  I could then charge whatever outrageous prices I wanted for my food, so the story goes -- even more so if I can become the only grocer in the whole state, forcing you to drive more and more unrealistic distances to have any hope of avoiding my high prices.  I could probably buy every grocery store in Wyoming for only, oh I don't know, 1 billion dollars.  All the land in Wyoming?  I can't even guess.  Maybe ten trillion.

Anyway, I understand that land (as in land-land, layman land, surface area of Earth land) has some qualities different than other goods, and that some of these qualities would seem to lend themselves to monopolization.  However, as I've tried, ever so clumsily, in previous posts to express: there may be some gray area between "land" and "product of labor".  Not conceptually, no, but practically.  As more and more of the Earth becomes more and more dramatically altered to our liking by human intervention, at some point there's not anything left that's pure "land".  Like terraforming, we will have altered and improved every square inch of the planet.  So, when everything is an "improvement", when all soil has been enhanced, or moved from one place to another, or infused with nanobots, what's left that's in a "state of nature"?  Nothing!  Nothing except location, and yet-to-be discovered/made-useful abstractions.  So at that point you're just taxing the square footage of the surface area of Earth.  But if I build a huge blimp, or launch an asteroid as I described earlier, I can get around that, and that doesn't seem fair.  Or can I?  I'm still using up 3-dimensional space in the Universe.  If technology progresses to the point where locations at the surface of the Earth are no longer so vastly more valuable than locations far separated from that surface, then does LVT start to be charged on a more 3-dimensional basis?  If the space my blimp occupies is even more desirable and expensive than space in Manhattan, shouldn't I pay tax on that?

I'm still curious as to whether you'd go so far in decentralization to allow secession right down to the individual level.

----------


## Roy L

> Of course this is just a complete lie.
> 
>  More stupid, evil lies.
> 
>  The only thing absurd that I see is the lengths you will go to lie in the face of plain truth.
> 
>  You are just so totally blind and brainwashed you are willing to spew whatever lies you think will enable you to continue in your delusions.  This is just another one of those lies you use to shield you from the truth.
> 
>  We see here yet another one of your lies.  Will you never tire of your duplicity?
> ...


Content = 0.  You have been demolished, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.



> Obviously evil, greedy, grasping taxation advocates do not care about truth or justice.


LVT advocates are not "taxation advocates," because we propose to _abolish_ other taxes and _reduce total taxation._  This only becomes possible if the tax-funded welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners is reduced.

But thanks for proving you have nothing to say that isn't a lie.



> These looters are too deranged and foaming at the mouth with desire to steal the goods of others to care about anything else.


Taxes go to government, not to the advocates of liberty, justice and truth who support LVT, so that is just another lie from you.  It is landowners who actually ARE stealing the goods of others, as the bandit example proves.



> They will resort to any absurdity, such as inventing an imaginary right of every infant to the entire Universe,


The right to liberty is not defined as "whatever landowners choose to permit others to do."



> in order to jsutify their mad thirst for theft and power, as well as their desparate need to escape full responsibility for their lives.


It is self-evidently and indisputably the landowner who thirsts madly after power and unearned wealth, and lives by the labor of others.



> They need a "safety net" to absolve them from the self-responsibility that so terrifies them.


LVT advocates are perhaps merely willing to know the fact that the poverty-stricken landless millions of Bangladesh, Haiti, the Philippines, Guatemala, Pakistan, etc., etc. did not get that way by not being self-responsible -- they work 60 hours a week and more, from the age of 10 -- but by being stripped of their rights without just compensation in the absence of a safety net.



> They are willing to lie and lie and lie until the world runs out of paper, their lungs run out of breath, or the forum runs out of pages.
> 
> Your stupidity is epic, your dishonesty as constant as the Polar Star.  I have utterly demolished everything you have ever written and ever thought, yet you continue to insist on being stupid and lying.  Why you are such a stupid liar, we may never know.  It's a mystery and wonder of the modern world.


<yawn>



> Wasn't that productive?


No.



> What fun it must be to be Roy L.


When I can suppress the nausea.



> Edit: This post is a parody, of course, in case anyone missed that.  I do not actually think Roy L. is a liar, nor stupid.


Wish I could say the same of you.

----------


## Roy L

> They never had any such right.


Like the children of slaves never had a right to liberty...?

Before land was appropriated by thieves, who would have stopped people from living wherever they wanted?

----------


## Roy L

> Having read the Articles of Confederation, I do not remember a Land Value Tax anywhere in that document.  Could you quote the relevant section of the AoC?  Thank you!


"Article VIII. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the united States in congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States _in proportion to the value of all land within each State_, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the united States in congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint."

Now, first it says "the value of all land," then it says, "as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated," so it's not clear exactly what is meant by "land" or how it would be estimated.  The remainder of the paragraph seems to indicate that the basis of valuation was not yet agreed at the time the Articles were written.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Content = 0.


 That was, of course, the point of the joke.  So much of your posts I see as just noise, Roy L.  Now I generally believe in just ignoring the noise and replying to anything interesting or substantive.  But at some point (after repetition #100 or so of the same vitriolic accusations) your behavior became a running gag.

You demolished Rothbard by placing a "ROTFL" or "<yawn>" after each of his paragraphs.  Now you demolish me even easier, by simply stating it: "You have been demolished".  I only dream that someday, my intellectual weight will become such that I, like Rothbard, will require a ROTFL or two in order to thoroughly refute my points.

I do thank you for looking up the AoC.

----------


## Roy L

> There is an inevitable problem with a property tax or income tax that places a tax on a human's right(s).


You erroneously believe there is a human right to violate others' rights to liberty without making just compensation.



> You have an inherent right to own property


In the products of your labor.  Not in a privilege of violating others' rights.



> as a sovereign


Does Crusoe have a right as a "sovereign" to order Friday to get back in the water?  How can there be a right to violate others' rights?



> and you have an inherent right to exchange your property(i.e. labor or time) for other things such as money.


Are you willing to know the fact that some property, such as slaves and land, has never rightly been property in the first place?



> The power to tax is the power to destroy, or so the Supreme Court has said.


The Supreme Court is evidently unaware that taxing land does not cause erosion.



> Thus, the power to tax a thing, means that government can destroy it.


Taxing a factor in fixed supply CANNOT destroy it: the supply is fixed.



> Government ought to be instituted in a way to secure our rights, and not destroy them.


That is what land value taxation does.  Any other tax inherently violates the rights of producers to provide a welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.



> So how does government go about paying for the cost of securing our rights while not violating them? Simple.


Right: require those who benefit from government and the community to pay in proportion as they benefit.



> First, we need to identify the two threats to our rights:
> 
> 1. Foreign
> 
> 2. Domestic
> 
> How we pay for each of these is quite simple:
> 
> 1. Foreign: The citizenry ought to be armed and ready to defend our nation and the compensation for such services rendered off the spoils acquired from the aggressor nation. When we are attacked, we don't just fend off attacks, but we decimate and plunder the aggressor nation recapturing the costs.


Silliness.



> 2. Domestic: The cost of domestic crime(violation of others rights, i.e. theft, murder, rape) is charged, upon prosecution by a jury, as a tax on a per instance basis to first reclaim the losses of the offended party and second to cover the costs of this domestic system that provides such protection and process. Terms of involuntary servitude until the costs are paid off are of option and in extreme cases of dangerous individuals, exile or execution can relieve society of the threat of recurrent abuses.


You actually think thieves will be deterred by fines.  Remarkable.

----------


## Roy L

> So much of your posts I see as just noise, Roy L.


No, you are aware of the fact that I make substantive factual and logical arguments, and that you cannot refute them.



> You demolished Rothbard by placing a "ROTFL" or "<yawn>" after each of his paragraphs.


That is a flat-out lie, and you know it.  Readers are invited to verify that fact for themselves:
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/.../msg00098.html



> Now you demolish me even easier, by simply stating it: "You have been demolished".


Lie.  I provided fact and logic.

You just lie and lie and lie.  After hilariously claiming you "never lie"!

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

----------


## Roy L

> Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me.


Because you believe you are one of the beneficiaries rather than the victims.  And you may be, if you own a lot of land and don't do much of anything productive.



> While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you.  So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement.  Would you agree?


All landowning is inherently monopolization because supply is fixed and each site is unique.  It makes no difference if there is one landowner or a million, because each landowner can't do better than to pocket the full rent of the land.  That is implied by land's fixity of supply.  It also makes no difference to the fact that a million landowners violate the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land just as surely as one landowner would.



> You believe that in a free land market (according to _my_ definition: private ownership and trading of land), large and powerful monopolies will arise.


No, he is merely, unlike you, willing to know the fact that they _have_.



> I, in contrast, believe no such monopolies will evince.


I.e., you refuse to know the fact that they already have.



> If you did not believe monopolies would take over, you would be open to agreeing with the (non-geo)libertarians, perhaps?


Monopolies as you (mis)understand them have nothing whatever to do with the issue.  Nothing.



> This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.


We are the ones ADVOCATING a free market: a market free of the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.



> I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies.  People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them.  They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless.


All irrelevant.



> They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless.


The landowner has power over the tenant's exercise of his right to liberty.  That is indisputable.



> I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs.


I guess that must be why the customers toil their lives away on the treadmill while the CEOs pocket billions....



> Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers.


Of course, that is an idiotic lie.  Is Crusoe dependent on Friday, when he orders him back into the water?  The landowner controls access to the means of survival.  He is perfectly at liberty to use what nature provides (though only on his own land, of course) to sustain himself.  The tenant, by contrast, must serve a landowner or die.



> People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.


He doesn't need to be "in business."  He has the land.  He has a place he can live on and if by some miracle he chooses to exert a modicum of productive effort rather than live strictly as a parasite on his tenants, he can survive by his own labor.  His tenants cannot.  They must find a landowner to serve, or die.



> So I just don't share the concern about monopolies that you do.


You are just not willing to know facts that we know.



> If Kalamazooistan decides they want to try _not_ charging any land value tax and be voluntarist instead, they'd be free to try it, and I would be free to move there.


You are contradicting yourself.  Only a land rent recovery community _can_ be voluntarist.



> And then we'd fail and the land monopolists would take over and totally dominate and oppress us, but hey, we gave it a shot!  We wouldn't have failed miserably, we'd fail happily, following our crazy Rothbardian dreams.


You appear to be unaware that that is exactly what has happened, over and over again, all over the world, throughout human history.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> All landowning[aka slaveholding] is inherently monopolization because supply is fixed and each site is unique.


 If land, as an economic term, is all raw (not human-changed) matter and space in existence, as I think all agree that it is, then actually much land is homogenous.  The water from Clint Eastwood's spring, for instance, is fairly homogenous to water from anywhere else. So _that_ land (his water) is not, comparatively, unique from all other land.  Heterogeneity is a factor claimed above to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned.  A huge amount, in fact a preponderance of the land in the universe is not heterogenous, but homogenous -- water, oil, dirt, vast empty spaces betwen stars, stray cosmic hydrogen, (relatively speaking -- nothing is perfectly purely homogenous).  Thus, the vast preponderance of land is _not_ inherently monopolized merely by being owned, because each unit of it is _not_ meaningfully unique.

The second factor claimed to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned is that its supply is fixed.  To determine whether this is true, we would have to know whether the amount of raw matter and space in existence is fixed, or not.  Authorities disagree on this matter, and all thinking regarding it is rather speculative.  For example, Steven Hawking's thinking has gone back and forth on the subject over his career -- is the Universe bounded or unbounded, and is it finite or infinite.  Last I read, he thought it is finite yet unbounded.  Also, of course, it may be expanding or collapsing.  In any case, it is very much an unsettled question as to whether our Universe's supply of land is fixed or not.  Also, there reportedly may be who knows how many other Universes, and should we include them also in the total supply of land?

But this may be getting too far afield and outside the realm of the practical.  If we wish to talk about the practical, the near-term, the supply of valuable land as we currently know it, virtually all of which is at or near the surface of the planet Earth, then could we say the supply is fixed?  No, then we can definitely not say that it is fixed, whereas in the absolute theoretical sense on the scale of the Universe(s) we can at least entertain the possibility of its being fixed.  For in a practical sense, the amount of _valuable_ land, the land actually at hand and available for us to _use_, is all the time increasing.  Oil was always there, in an absolute sense, but it did not become valuable land until humans devised a way to make it valuable.  In so doing, we clever humans have created a huge amount of valuable land where none was before.  And we continue to do so with oil exploration, for a pool of oil, be it ever so vast and easy to drill to, is nevertheless completely worthless and might as well not exist until someone expends the labor and capital needed to find it.  Same thing with dykes pushing back the sea, irrigation making the desert blossom, artificial islands, and all these type of examples that I gave in some of my early posts in this thread.  So it is in the practical real-life consideration that any claim to there being a fixed supply of land is the weakest.  For even today, there are vast amounts of the space and matter at or near the surface of the Earth which are unused and non-useful to humans.  As our technology and wealth progresses, we will make a greater and greater precentage of it become useful.  We will also expand the domain of useful land beyond the confines of the surface of Earth.  So in a very real way, we have, and will continue to, constantly increase the amount of natural resources at our disposal.  In other words, to increase the amount of land.  In no way could our land supply, that is, our supply of natural resources, be said to be "fixed" in any sense which will be practical or meaningful in the slightest during our lifetimes, nor for thousands, nay billions, of years to come.

It is only if you want to talk about massive intergalactic colonizations and human populations of googleplex-plex-plexes that land supply _might_ run up against an absolute limit.  Until then, we will just keep creating more and more valuable land.

----------


## Roy L

> If land, as an economic term, is all raw (not human-changed) matter and space in existence, as I think all agree that it is, then actually much land is homogenous.  The water from Clint Eastwood's spring, for instance, is fairly homogenous to water from anywhere else. So _that_ land (his water) is not, comparatively, unique from all other land.


The Pacific Ocean is not much use to the guy dying of thirst.  So you are wrong.  You will continue to be wrong, and to make stupid and fallacious arguments, as long as you oppose liberty, justice and truth: i.e., recovery of the publicly created rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it.



> Heterogeneity is a factor claimed above to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned.


No, only goods that are unique and not interchangeable.



> A huge amount, in fact a preponderance of the land in the universe is not heterogenous, but homogenous -- water, oil, dirt,


All three vary greatly in quality, and in value due to their condition and advantages of location.  You continue to be indisputably wrong, and to make false and stupid claims.



> vast empty spaces betwen stars, stray cosmic hydrogen, (relatively speaking -- nothing is perfectly purely homogenous).


Except the dishonesty of apologists for landowner privilege.  That is always 100% pure.



> Thus, the vast preponderance of land is _not_ inherently monopolized merely by being owned, because each unit of it is _not_ meaningfully unique.


<sigh>  So now, in addition to being indisputably wrong as a matter of objective fact, you try an equivocation fallacy.  How predictable.  The context was land in the layman's sense -- the earth's solid surface -- as established in your exchange with redbluepill, of which this is a continuation.  I remind you of the context YOU ESTABLISHED for the discussion in post #569:

"Anyway, I understand that land (as in land-land, layman land, surface area of Earth land) has some qualities different than other goods, and that some of these qualities would seem to lend themselves to monopolization."

GET IT??



> The second factor claimed to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned is that its supply is fixed.  To determine whether this is true, we would have to know whether the amount of raw matter and space in existence is fixed, or not.


No.  Fixed supply has nothing to do with physical quantities.  It describes an economic condition: supply that cannot be increased by labor and does not respond to price.  The canonical example of fixed supply is the paintings of a dead artist.  The fixity of their supply does not mean the paintings can't be burned.



> Authorities disagree on this matter, and all thinking regarding it is rather speculative.  For example, Steven Hawking's thinking has gone back and forth on the subject over his career -- is the Universe bounded or unbounded, and is it finite or infinite.  Last I read, he thought it is finite yet unbounded.  Also, of course, it may be expanding or collapsing.  In any case, it is very much an unsettled question as to whether our Universe's supply of land is fixed or not.  Also, there reportedly may be who knows how many other Universes, and should we include them also in the total supply of land?


All irrelevant, as proved above.



> If we wish to talk about the practical, the near-term, the supply of valuable land as we currently know it, virtually all of which is at or near the surface of the planet Earth, then could we say the supply is fixed?  No, then we can definitely not say that it is fixed, whereas in the absolute theoretical sense on the scale of the Universe(s) we can at least entertain the possibility of its being fixed.


It is fixed by definition.



> For in a practical sense, the amount of _valuable_ land, the land actually at hand and available for us to _use_, is all the time increasing.


Increased value is not increased supply, as the paintings example would have informed you, had you been willing to be informed.



> Oil was always there, in an absolute sense, but it did not become valuable land until humans devised a way to make it valuable.  In so doing, we clever humans have created a huge amount of valuable land where none was before.


Lie.  It was always there.  It just wasn't valuable.  So we did not create it.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just decided deliberately to lie about it.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> And we continue to do so with oil exploration, for a pool of oil, be it ever so vast and easy to drill to, is nevertheless completely worthless and might as well not exist until someone expends the labor and capital needed to find it.


But it nevertheless does exist, and thus has not been created by labor.



> Same thing with dykes pushing back the sea, irrigation making the desert blossom, artificial islands, and all these type of examples that I gave in some of my early posts in this thread.


All of which were duly refuted, being examples of improvements just as much as a building is an improvement.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just decided deliberately to lie about it.



> So it is in the practical real-life consideration that any claim to there being a fixed supply of land is the weakest.


The supply of land is fixed by definition.  You will nevertheless continue to lie about it.



> For even today, there are vast amounts of the space and matter at or near the surface of the Earth which are unused and non-useful to humans.  As our technology and wealth progresses, we will make a greater and greater precentage of it become useful.


I.e., it will become more and more valuable, augmenting its owners' wealth despite no contribution whatever on their part, just as has been happening for thousands of years.  That is kinda the point.



> We will also expand the domain of useful land beyond the confines of the surface of Earth.  So in a very real way, we have, and will continue to, constantly increase the amount of natural resources at our disposal.


Better access is not creation.  A road gives better access to a site.  It increases the value of the site for the unearned profit of its idle, parasitic owner.  It does not create the site.



> In other words, to increase the amount of land.


That is self-evidently and indisputably a stupid lie.  Stop telling such stupid lies.



> In no way could our land supply, that is, our supply of natural resources, be said to be "fixed" in any sense which will be practical or meaningful in the slightest during our lifetimes, nor for thousands, nay billions, of years to come.


It is fixed by definition.  You will continue to lie about that fact.



> It is only if you want to talk about massive intergalactic colonizations and human populations of googleplex-plex-plexes that land supply _might_ run up against an absolute limit.  Until then, we will just keep creating more and more valuable land.


You know that you are lying.  You know that technological advances and capital investments that make pre-existing land more accessible do not create that land.  You KNOW this.  Of course you do.  You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.

It is an unfortunate fact that the apologist for landowner privilege always chooses to lie.  But then, as there is no way to rationalize evil but by lying, he has no choice.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The Pacific Ocean is not much use to the guy dying of thirst [unless he in on or near the Pacific Ocean and has a desalinizer].


 Another claim that has sometimes been made to counter the alleged homogeniety of most land, aka natural resources, is that these resources are indeed heterogeous due merely to their existence in different locations.  For example, in my explanation above I used water as a natural resource very high on the homogeniety scale.  Water, however, must be transported to where the people are in order to be a good.  Water, then, it is alleged, we must always consider to be monopolized whenever it is owned.  By owning any water, one automatically monopolizes said water, due to the "proved objective fact" that each unit of it is unique and not interchangeable by virtue of its unique location in the Universe.

This position necessarily leads us to recall that, so far as we understand the physical Universe, matter cannot generally occupy the same space at the same time.  No matter will ever possess the same locational characteristics as any other matter, at any given instant in time.  Under the above expansive definition of heterogeniety, then, no good can ever be considered homogenous; all goods everywhere and always are heterogenous.  Logically, not only is water in the Sahara a different good than water in the Amazon (and thus, allegedly, a natural monopoly), but a chainsaw in the Sahara vs. a chainsaw in the Amazon, and also water in one place in the Sahara vs. water 1/2 mile way, or even water 2 feet away.  Although perhaps the water supplies 2 feet away from each other are heterogenous to a lesser degree than those across the planet, degrees do not seem to be relevant to those who make the claim that all land is heterogenous.  This, of course, makes any attempted distinction between homogenous and heterogenous impossible: everything is just heterogenous by deninition.  Grain in one silo is heterogenous to grain in another, chainsaws in one place to chainsaws in another, and thus we come inexorably to the conclusion that all property ownership is inherently a monopolization, and thus any attempted distinction between monopoly and non-monopoly becomes imnpossible as well: all property ownership is a monopoly by definition.

But what is one were to want to talk about not economic land but land in the layman's sense -- dry parts of the surface area of the Earth.  Is _that_ land inherently heterogeous?  As a matter of fact, even that land is homogenous to a remarkable degree until human intervention comes along.  One acre plot in uninhabited  Nebraska is often quite similar to and interchangeable with another.  It is once humans show up and start to congregate, build cities, etc., that the land values become more tremendously disparate. It would be much more difficult to find an acre plot in New York City even roughly equivalent to one in rural Vermont.  What about proximity to other natural resources, such as rivers, mineral deposits, and fertile soil?

Well, I am out of time for now.  To be continued, perhaps.

----------


## Roy L

> Another claim that has sometimes been made to counter the alleged homogeniety of most land, aka natural resources, is that these resources are indeed heterogeous due merely to their existence in different locations.


That is not a "claim."  It is an indisputable fact that proves you are lying.

You are also continuing your dishonest and deceitful attempt to change the context from land SITES -- a context that YOU ESTABLISHED, remember -- to natural resources that might be more substitutable.  That is an attempt to evade the meaning of the real estate maxim, "Location, location, location."  Let me save you some trouble, Helmuth: just talk about air.



> For example, in my explanation above I used water as a natural resource very high on the homogeniety scale.


Which it isn't.  Almost all water is sea water, and although it is chemically similar all over the planet -- and for that reason useless for most human purposes -- it occurs at widely varying temperatures, depths, biological content, etc.  You just refuse to know such facts, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> Water, however, must be transported to where the people are in order to be a good.  Water, then, it is alleged, we must always consider to be monopolized whenever it is owned.


No, a natural SOURCE of water is a monopoly.  Water can also be a product of labor, as all water that has been transported out of its natural location is.  Distilled water, for example, is the same everywhere, and is not a monopoly.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.

You just always have to lie.  _Always._  There is no way to rationalize evil and justify injustice but by lying.



> By owning any water, one automatically monopolizes said water, due to the "proved objective fact" that each unit of it is unique and not interchangeable by virtue of its unique location in the Universe.


You are just lying about what I have plainly written.  Inevitably.  You HAVE to lie.  You have no choice.  And so you lie.  That is why you lie.  Because you lie, and so you lie.



> This position necessarily leads us to recall that, so far as we understand the physical Universe, matter cannot generally occupy the same space at the same time.  No matter will ever possess the same locational characteristics as any other matter, at any given instant in time.  Under the above expansive definition of heterogeniety, then, no good can ever be considered homogenous; all goods everywhere and always are heterogenous.


<yawn>  You are trying to change the subject again.  Monopoly is not defined by "heterogeneity" but by substitutability.  Dirtowner Harry is not a monopolist because his water is so very different from other potable water, but because the next waterhole is 44 miles away, and therefore not a substitute for the man dying of thirst.

You know this.  Of course you do.  You are just deliberately lying about it.



> Logically,


That is a warning that what follows will be an atrocity committed against logic.



> not only is water in the Sahara a different good than water in the Amazon (and thus, allegedly, a natural monopoly),


Every water SOURCE in the Sahara is a natural monopoly, as any inhabitant of the place could inform you, if you were willing to be informed.



> but a chainsaw in the Sahara vs. a chainsaw in the Amazon,


There is indeed a geographical element to most monopolies, as location affects substitution.  The only grocery store in a small town may be considered a monopoly, if the next nearest one is too far away to be a feasible substitute.



> and also water in one place in the Sahara vs. water 1/2 mile way, or even water 2 feet away.


Water 2 feet away may be a substitute, if it is of similar quality.  1/2 mile away, not so much (especially if it is 1/2 mile straight down).

Why always be so dishonest, Helmuth?  As if we both don't know very well why: you have to be dishonest, because there is no honest way to serve evil.  I strongly suggest that you watch, "Judgment at Nuremberg."  It has a lesson that you need to learn, for the sake of your immortal soul.



> Although perhaps the water supplies 2 feet away from each other are heterogenous to a lesser degree than those across the planet, degrees do not seem to be relevant to those who make the claim that all land is heterogenous.


"Heterogenous" is a criterion you made up.  It is a dishonest strawman fallacy.



> This, of course, makes any attempted distinction between homogenous and heterogenous impossible: everything is just heterogenous by deninition.


Congratulations on contriving an excuse not to know the relevant facts.



> Grain in one silo is heterogenous to grain in another, chainsaws in one place to chainsaws in another, and thus we come inexorably to the conclusion that all property ownership is inherently a monopolization, and thus any attempted distinction between monopoly and non-monopoly becomes imnpossible as well: all property ownership is a monopoly by definition.


Completing the aforementioned atrocity against logic...



> But what is one were to want to talk about not economic land but land in the layman's sense -- dry parts of the surface area of the Earth.  Is _that_ land inherently heterogeous?  As a matter of fact, even that land is homogenous to a remarkable degree until human intervention comes along.


No, it is not, as any hunter-gatherer living there could inform you if you were willing to be informed.  Each location has distinct characteristics that make it unique: climate, elevation, soil type, distance to fresh and salt water, prevailing winds, natural vegetation and game animals, slope, drainage, exposure, etc.



> One acre plot in uninhabited  Nebraska is often quite similar to and interchangeable with another.


For most purposes, perhaps.  Every monopoly has substitutes with varying degrees of substitutability.



> It is once humans show up and start to congregate, build cities, etc., that the land values become more tremendously disparate.


So of course, laws should be crafted to enable the increased land value created by the whole community to be appropriated and pocketed by greedy, idle parasites who did nothing to contribute to it...?



> It would be much more difficult to find an acre plot in New York City even roughly equivalent to one in rural Vermont.  What about proximity to other natural resources, such as rivers, mineral deposits, and fertile soil?


They contribute to the uniqueness of each site.  But you will concoct some rationalization for refusing to know the relevant facts, I'm sure.



> To be continued, perhaps.


No doubt.  How utterly tiresome your relentless dishonesty is.

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## Nathaniel1984

All this talk about people 'lying' and such seems ridiculous.  I have family members and friends who are interventionists and socialists in economics, or are interventionists in economics, etc, and when I make points and they have rebuttals, I don't go around saying, "YOU ARE A LIAR!" or "YOU ARE ALWAYS LYING!" I'm sure that's a good way to wake people up to my points, just saying they are liars, malevolent monsters, and are secretly plotting with the MIC, or AIPAC, or the Fed, to cover up the truth and promote lies, and they very well know they are lies!  

A lie in common parlance is generally believed to be a statment that the speakers knows or believes to be untrue, and they still make the statement as if it is true.  If I agreed with the Georgist position, or the LVT position (or which I have yet to finish reading all the works of Henry George from google books to make  a definite pronouncement in my own limited judgment), I would still not go around telling my grandmother she is a liar when she says that my grandfather owned that land, no matter how feeble I may believe her arguments may be.  I wouldn't call my father-confessor a liar because he believes in the income tax as a way of helping the poor (no matter how feeble the argument may be).  This is the same mistake that Marxists, and other leftists, as well as too many libertarians and others make.  When someone doesn't agree with their position, and when we believe their counter-arguments to our arguments are not good and wrong, they says, "You are just lying!"  In the end that just turns more people off than it convinces.  

The majority of people who hold views that I disagree with, are not being intentially disinegous ('lying').  They have just accepted a common view that is mistaken.  If you could find out who invented this view thousands of years ago (assuming it was invented by one person, and not just a natural mistake due to historical circumstances), and then you could find out they were intentionally malevolent, that would be the liar.

Besides, most people I know, are people who believe, you can own land.  And, even though one logically believes that land ownership is technically equivalent to slavery once all the deductions and conclusions are reached, doesn't not put the person who owns that land or believes you can own that land, on an equivalent moral status with some 18th century South Carolina slave master who likes to beat his slaves.  If one disagreed with the concept of land ownership, fair minds would just see that you can see the direct harm caused to the slave by being beaten, by being sold, and families torn apart, because, frankly, it is so in your face an an injustice, but, would still see that the vast majority of educated people who believe in land ownership, are not the same as the slave-whipper.  It is like when anarchists make the logical deduction (in their world view) that all taxation is a form of theft, but, the majority, I think, understand the ages of ingrained societal justifications, and realize that people who support taxation are not liars, but, just misinformed.  Or people I know who are protectionists and make the same mistakes, and the same with other egregious errors.

When you can see the harm so directly (i.e., ante-bellom black slavery) it is alot easier to see the injustice, but, when the harm is very much dispersed (like that which is seen and that which is unseen, as Bastiat said), the injustice of the situation must be drawn out for people to see; and even then, many do not understand, but the key is not to loose patience with people, attack them with vitriol, and bash them over the head with a proverbial club because they do not, or have not yet, agree with your position.  If my good friends in high school, and afterwards, years ago, had taken such a vitriolic and inflammatory approach, I would have immediately discounted all that they had said about taxation, military interventionism, and the rest, and so would the majority.  For example, Ron Paul has won over millions because he hasn't taken such a personalitic attack on many people who are just plainly accepting a conventional view, and even people 4 years ago who didn't support him on military interventionism, the Fed, or the bailout, have, after just a few years of experience seen the light.  Now imagine if he had said to all these people, "All of you out there, are just plain liars who don't agree with me.  Or maybe you are just too stupid to really agree with me.  But, mostly, you are just liars who lying always about your arguments."  I doubt that constitutionalist and freedom movements would have grown to any substantial extent, if that were the rhetoric.

--Fr. Augustine

p.s. forgive me for any grammatical errors.

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## heavenlyboy34

Nathaniel-that is a thoughtful post.    However, to nitpick-I don't believe many (if any) argue that all taxation is theft-only direct taxation.  (the LVT would be a type of direct taxation)

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## heavenlyboy34

> Where did the State get its revenue? From taxing the people. Collecting it straight from the people simply eliminates the middle man of the states to have to collect it and forward the money to Washington. It doesn't change who pays the taxes.


Florida has zero state income tax. Same with Alaska, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Wyoming, Tennessee, and Texas.

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## Nathaniel1984

I understand.  I was just explaining various viewpoints that exist in the broad framework of the 'freedom movement' who can agree on attacking the fed, military interventionism, corporatism, etc (that is, broadly, Constitutionalists, traditionalists conservatives, conventional libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, Georgists, anti-NWO folks, etc).  Some do argue that any coerced payment upon an individual or group of individuals (company) would be unjust and theft, assuming all things in fairness are equal (that is, assuming the party being coerced wasn't stealing and then being made to give back what he unjustly took); not many, but, some.  I was just pointing out that it does no good to ones position to say that those who disagree with you, are necessarily liars, instead of misinformed, or just plain wrong about the point.

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## helmuth_hubener

> Well, I am out of time for now.  To be continued, perhaps.


OK, on we go.  We were discussing whether land in the layman's sense could be considered unique and non-interchangeable -- that is, heterogenous.  While it's not clear how productive this particular discussion is, or what economic conclusion would be drawn from whether "layman's" land is homogenous or heterogenous, we shall complete the discussion nonetheless, since someone is apparently under the impression that it is important, that the heterogeniety of "layman's" land is a keystone or lynchpin of the whole Georgist theory.

So, what about the proximity of the land (dry location on Earth's surface) to other natural resources, such as rivers, mineral deposits, and fertile soil?  This proximity, or lack thereof, is a huge factor affecting the value of the land, as we all know.  To the extent that land is said to be heterogenous, it is almost entirely because of this uneven distribution of other resources.  A piece of land adjacent to navigable water is completely different than one 100 miles away from any navigable water, especially in the ancient world when that was the main way to ship stuff around.  

Let us pretend Earth was instead a uniform sphere, with no topography or bodies of water and vegetation, minerals, and all other resources spread evenly throughout.  Then the only factor creating any meaningful uniqueness between two pieces of land would be due to human intervention -- city-building, road-building, etc.  As given by nature, then, one piece of land on this uniform sphere would be interchangeable with another and non-unique, just as one bushel of wheat is interchangeable for another (Oh, apart from latitude for climate).

Why is this realization about the uniform sphere relevant?  Because land -- the dry site or location on Earth's surface -- is separate and apart from any other resources that may or may not be on, above, below, or near it.  These resources are movable.  A river can be diverted.  Fertile soil can be brought in, or shipped out.  Minerals can be mined.  They are all separate from the land itself, which is just a dry location somewhere on the Earth's surface.  The land itself is basically homogenous -- one dry site is essentially the same as another.  It is the distribution of other resources and factors that is heterogenous.  Land in the layman's sense of dry parts of the surface area of the Earth, is essentially homogenous. Further, as a side-note, we see that the only thing which can drastically affect the value of one piece of this land vs. another is human labor and choices, quite contrary to Georgist assertion.

Thus we see that whether one wishes to speak of land in the economic sense (natural resources) or land in a layman's sense (dry site on Earth's surface), it is largely homogenous -- non-unique and interchangeable.  If uniqueness/non-interchangeability is a requirement for a good to be inherently monopolized whenever it is owned, then land, no matter which way you define it, fails this test. 

As for the other alleged reason to consider natural resources as monopolized whenever they  are owned, that of its supply being fixed, one need merely consider the world in which he lives to decide whether this is an accurate claim in any meaningful sense.   Again, as we all know by now, "land" in economics is short-hand for "natural resources".  In what sense are our natural resources fixed?   Have they remained fixed for the last 25 years?  The last hundred?  Are they, in fact, quickly depleting as they should be if they were fixed, since we voraciously consume them in ever-greater amounts?

No, they are becoming more and more plentiful across-the-board.  Commodity prices in constant dollars have been going inexorably down for as far back as we have statistics.  Not _steadily_ down -- in a given year a commodity might go up or down -- but inexorably; the long term trend is clear and never changes.  More and more natural resources are becoming accessible to us.  The old view of a static pool of natural resources has been proved wrong again and again since the Middle Ages and especially since the Industrial Revolution.  The Malthusian Trap has never reared its ugly head.  The amount of natural resources at our disposal has been absolutely exploding for multiple centuries now, and looks to continue to do so.

What if the claim is made that "the supply of land is fixed _by definition_"?  I would ask: is land still the same thing as natural resources _by definition_? It surely is, if we are to use the venerable definition of land that the profession of economics has long used.  Then if land is the supply of natural resources by definition, and land supply is fixed by definition, what then do we make of the fact that the supply of natural resources is in a super-long-term, apparently permanent, massively explosive growth curve?  Which definition is the essential one?  We may play games and define things away, but at some point economics is meant to tell us something real about the real world, something useful about how humans actually operate.  While the absolute quantity of resources in all existence may, or may not, be fixed, and thus the theoretical supply may, or may not, be fixed, for _practical_ purposes the supply is rapidly increasing, and has been for at least 200 years.   I'm not sure why the amount of resources in all cosmic existence is relevant in the least way to economics, since we have yet to fill even a single galaxy, or to Dyson Sphere even a single star.  I rather think it is not.  That the amount of accessible, usable resources is rapidly increasing seems, on the other hand, incredibly valuable information.  These resources become accessible and usable by, yes: the application of human labor and capital!  The very thing claimed to have no possible effect on the supply of natural resources is precisely what has been increasing the supply of natural resources at an exponential rate for centuries.  Human effort and intelligence has by now given us _at least_ a hundred times (perhaps a thousand times) the quantity of natural resources than were available in Henry George's day.  A hundred years from now, if human liberty is allowed to run untrammeled, our natural resources may increase yet another hundredfold.  To say "natural resources are defined as having a fixed supply, just by definition" is to define your version of "natural resources" right out of practical reality and to remove yourself from any possibility of having anything useful or realistic to say about _actual_ natural resources.  It is to fly in the face of hundreds of years of real-life experience.  It is to make your version of "natural resources" fictional.

Actual supplies of natural resources, with actual relevance to the lives of actual people, have been increasing rapidly.  Human labor has been making those supplies increase.  One can give any arbitrary definition to any set of letters, but if there is no phenomenon in the universe fitting this definition, or if it is self-contradictory, then really what is the point?  One can define "natural resources" (land) as something being fixed in supply, which cannot be affected by labor, as unique and non-interchageable, as inherently monopolized whenever it is owned, and as something we all have a right to by virtue of being humans.  That is what the poster above (Roy L.) does.  What use or meaning or relevance this term and his multifaceted definition hold, I, for one, cannot tell.

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## helmuth_hubener

> The majority of people who hold views that I disagree with, are not being intentially disinegous ('lying').


 That may be so in most cases, but if they disbelieve the LVT, then they are lying.  That's an immutable law of the Universe, and is true without exception.  You can't argue with a Law of the Universe.

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## Nathaniel1984

I assume that's a tongue and cheek remark!

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## heavenlyboy34

> That may be so in most cases, but if they disbelieve the LVT, then they are lying.  That's an immutable law of the Universe, and is true without exception.  You can't argue with a Law of the Universe.


  Extraordinary claims such as yours demand extraordinary evidence.  Present it.

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## helmuth_hubener

> Extraordinary claims such as yours demand extraordinary evidence.  Present it.


 LOL.  Note the winking smiley.  

Perhaps you meant this for Roy.  Well, he can try, I guess.  I'm pretty sure he'll just patiently explain to you that he has _already_ repeatedly proved that it was a law of the universe.  Probably he proved it by quoting a passage from Henry George or Adam Smith.  Or perhaps simply by stating that he proved it.  Or by typing "ROTFL".

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## Roy L

> All this talk about people 'lying' and such seems ridiculous.


It is rather the lies that are ridiculous.



> I have family members and friends who are interventionists and socialists in economics, or are interventionists in economics, etc, and when I make points and they have rebuttals, I don't go around saying, "YOU ARE A LIAR!" or "YOU ARE ALWAYS LYING!" I'm sure that's a good way to wake people up to my points, just saying they are liars, malevolent monsters, and are secretly plotting with the MIC, or AIPAC, or the Fed, to cover up the truth and promote lies, and they very well know they are lies!


They likely ARE lying.  Evil must always be justified on some level, and it cannot be justified other than by lies.



> A lie in common parlance is generally believed to be a statment that the speakers knows or believes to be untrue, and they still make the statement as if it is true.


Another necessary characteristic: the falsehood must be uttered with intent to deceive.



> If I agreed with the Georgist position, or the LVT position (or which I have yet to finish reading all the works of Henry George from google books to make  a definite pronouncement in my own limited judgment), I would still not go around telling my grandmother she is a liar when she says that my grandfather owned that land, no matter how feeble I may believe her arguments may be.


I haven't called anyone a liar for claiming they owned land, for opposing liberty and justice, etc.  I have identified the fact that they were lying when they made *specific false claims that they knew to be false*, with intent to deceive.



> When someone doesn't agree with their position, and when we believe their counter-arguments to our arguments are not good and wrong, they says, "You are just lying!"  In the end that just turns more people off than it convinces.


IMO it is important to inform liars when you know they are lying.  It typically doesn't stop them, but I think I owe it to them to be honest with them.



> The majority of people who hold views that I disagree with, are not being intentially disinegous ('lying').  They have just accepted a common view that is mistaken.


No, it is more than that.  They know their views require justification, however common they might be, and when people try to justify evil views, lying becomes inevitable.



> Besides, most people I know, are people who believe, you can own land.


Do they also believe you can create land?  That is one of the absurd justifications Hubener has been offering for landowner privilege.



> And, even though one logically believes that land ownership is technically equivalent to slavery once all the deductions and conclusions are reached, doesn't not put the person who owns that land or believes you can own that land, on an equivalent moral status with some 18th century South Carolina slave master who likes to beat his slaves.


No, but it does put them on an equivalent moral status with some 18th century South Carolina slave master who believed his deeds of ownership to his slaves gave him a right to violate their rights without making just compensation.



> If one disagreed with the concept of land ownership, fair minds would just see that you can see the direct harm caused to the slave by being beaten, by being sold, and families torn apart, because, frankly, it is so in your face an an injustice, but, would still see that the vast majority of educated people who believe in land ownership, are not the same as the slave-whipper.


Right.  The wrongfulness of slavery is easy to see because all the wrong is done by each master to each slave -- and yet, the people who were doing all those wrongs to slaves did not think it was wrong.  They had clever lies to tell themselves -- and especially to tell abolitionists -- to rationalize and justify it.

The wrongfulness of landowning is harder to see because most landowners do only a tiny bit of wrong -- but they do it to everyone.  It's like the difference between a thief stealing an elderly widow's pension money, and defrauding an insurance company of the same amount of money.  The insurance company's loss is spread out over all its policy holders, employees and shareholders, none of whom notice any loss at all.  It wouldn't matter, except that if a lot of people did it, the losses would become hard to bear.  Does it matter if one person owns an acre of land?  No, of course it doesn't.  We can do without that acre.  But when millions of people own ALL the useful land, it is a very different matter, because then we no longer have a meaningful right to liberty.  It has been stealthily removed, one tiny sliver at a time, until the millions of slivers have added up to the whole pie.



> It is like when anarchists make the logical deduction (in their world view) that all taxation is a form of theft, but, the majority, I think, understand the ages of ingrained societal justifications, and realize that people who support taxation are not liars, but, just misinformed.


It's not their evil beliefs that make them liars, but the lies they must inevitably tell to JUSTIFY their evil beliefs.



> When you can see the harm so directly (i.e., ante-bellom black slavery) it is alot easier to see the injustice, but, when the harm is very much dispersed (like that which is seen and that which is unseen, as Bastiat said), the injustice of the situation must be drawn out for people to see; and even then, many do not understand,


Not understanding is blameless.  *Lying in order to prevent others from understanding,* as apologists for landowner privilege like Hubener do, is despicable and unforgivable.



> but the key is not to loose patience with people, attack them with vitriol, and bash them over the head with a proverbial club because they do not, or have not yet, agree with your position.


How much evil would have been prevented if those who saw it was evil *had* lost patience with the sheeple, had had the courage and integrity to stand up, to speak out, to attack those who advocated evil with vitriol, and to bash them over the head with a proverbial club for their vicious, evil lies?

What I see and you do not is that landowning is the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that has also caused most of the other great evils, such as war and poverty.  The uncompensated violation of people's rights to liberty inherent in landowning inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, enslavement, oppression, starvation, suffering, despair and _death_ on innocent human beings _EVERY YEAR_.  How much patience should I have with those who seek to perpetuate it?  How much vitriol and head bashing do you think would be justified in the struggle to end an ANNUAL HOLOCAUST?  How many more millions must be laid as human sacrifices on the altar of the Great God Property while I tactfully refrain from informing the despicable, lying filth who rationalize and justify the slaughter of the exact nature of their service to evil?



> If my good friends in high school, and afterwards, years ago, had taken such a vitriolic and inflammatory approach, I would have immediately discounted all that they had said about taxation, military interventionism, and the rest, and so would the majority.


The majority close their ears, minds and hearts to any truth that threatens their comfortable beliefs.  I am not speaking to the majority.  I am speaking only to those who are willing to know the truth.



> For example, Ron Paul has won over millions because he hasn't taken such a personalitic attack on many people who are just plainly accepting a conventional view, and even people 4 years ago who didn't support him on military interventionism, the Fed, or the bailout, have, after just a few years of experience seen the light.  Now imagine if he had said to all these people, "All of you out there, are just plain liars who don't agree with me.  Or maybe you are just too stupid to really agree with me.  But, mostly, you are just liars who lying always about your arguments."  I doubt that constitutionalist and freedom movements would have grown to any substantial extent, if that were the rhetoric.


Maybe.  But some years ago, I received a message from a supporter thanking me for telling the truth.  He had opposed my views ferociously in a discussion on the Net, and I had informed him of the facts, including telling him exactly when he was lying.  He became so enraged by my brutal and uncompromising dissection of his claims that he vowed to refute and expose me if it was the last thing he ever did.

So he checked every statement I had made; he researched all the facts of history and economics that I had used in my arguments; he looked up sources to find counter-arguments; and suddenly, like a bolt from the sky, it hit him: I was just right.  Every single statement I had made was objectively, verifiably correct.  Most of it was self-evident and indisputable.  The rest was established facts of economics and history.  Then, fearing what he would find, he went back over our discussion, and re-examined all the statements he had made that I had said were lies.  And he realized that in fact they WERE lies.  He had known full well they were not true when he said them.  In most cases they were absurd claims that no one over the age of nine could possibly believe.  He had simply felt that he _ought_ to say them and _ought_ to believe them, because the alternative was to admit he had no arguments at all on his side, and thus to be compelled to abandon his whole belief system.

If you go over this thread in the same spirit of uncompromising integrity, you will find the exact same thing he did.

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## Roy L

> Extraordinary claims such as yours demand extraordinary evidence.  Present it.


I don't find it especially extraordinary, and there is ample evidence for it in this thread.

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## Roy L

> However, to nitpick-I don't believe many (if any) argue that all taxation is theft-only direct taxation.


Evidence for such an absurd claim?

"Taxation is theft" will get you lots of Google hits.



> (the LVT would be a type of direct taxation)


A direct tax is considered one that is borne by the nominal payer.  LVT is by that definition indeed a direct tax: the landowner cannot, repeat, CANNOT shift it onto anyone else.  That is an *advantage* of direct taxes.

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## Roy L

> We were discussing whether land in the layman's sense could be considered unique and non-interchangeable -- that is, heterogenous.


More accurately, you were frantically trying to contrive some rationalization for refusing to know what "location, location, location" means.



> While it's not clear how productive this particular discussion is, or what economic conclusion would be drawn from whether "layman's" land is homogenous or heterogenous, we shall complete the discussion nonetheless, since someone is apparently under the impression that it is important, that the heterogeniety of "layman's" land is a keystone or lynchpin of the whole Georgist theory.


No, no one is under the impression that it is important; but as you mistakenly believe you can attack it, you have to pretend it is crucial to arguments for LVT.



> So, what about the proximity of the land (dry location on Earth's surface) to other natural resources, such as rivers, mineral deposits, and fertile soil?  This proximity, or lack thereof, is a huge factor affecting the value of the land, as we all know.  To the extent that land is said to be heterogenous, it is almost entirely because of this uneven distribution of other resources.


No.  A plot of land on the East River in NYC is worth quite a bit, but a similar plot just 20 meters out into the river is worth little or nothing.



> Let us pretend Earth was instead a uniform sphere, with no topography or bodies of water and vegetation, minerals, and all other resources spread evenly throughout.  Then the only factor creating any meaningful uniqueness between two pieces of land would be due to human intervention -- city-building, road-building, etc.  As given by nature, then, one piece of land on this uniform sphere would be interchangeable with another and non-unique, just as one bushel of wheat is interchangeable for another (Oh, apart from latitude for climate).
> 
> Why is this realization about the uniform sphere relevant?


It isn't.



> Because land -- the dry site or location on Earth's surface -- is separate and apart from any other resources that may or may not be on, above, below, or near it.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you, stop lying.  A dry site is dry specifically BECAUSE OF the resources it sits on: the elevation, soil type, slope, drainage, etc.



> These resources are movable.


Some may be.  But in fact, they are where they are because nature put them there.



> A river can be diverted.  Fertile soil can be brought in, or shipped out.  Minerals can be mined.  They are all separate from the land itself, which is just a dry location somewhere on the Earth's surface.


No, that is just another stupid, absurd lie from you, stop lying.  Try telling a farmer that the land he is farming does not include any fertile soil, minerals, rainfall, etc. and he will quite rightly laugh in your silly, lying face.



> The land itself is basically homogenous -- one dry site is essentially the same as another.


Everyone reading this knows that is a stupid lie, including you, so stop lying.



> It is the distribution of other resources and factors that is heterogenous.  Land in the layman's sense of dry parts of the surface area of the Earth, is essentially homogenous.


You are repeating your stupid lie in the hopes that some weak-minded ninny (maybe you?) will forget that it is a stupid lie.  That is the Big Lie technique.  Stop lying.



> Further, as a side-note, we see that the only thing which can drastically affect the value of one piece of this land vs. another is human labor and choices, quite contrary to Georgist assertion.


Utter stupidity and dishonesty.  Everyone reading this knows that is absolute, idiotic garbage.  No Georgist has ever, EVER claimed that value is independent of human labor or choices.  Value can only EXIST as a consequence of human choices.

You just lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie.

If you are not just lying, please quote, directly, verbatim and in-context, a Georgist asserting that human labor and choices do not affect -- indeed determine -- land value.

Either that, or admit that you are nothing but a lying sack of $#!+.

Failure to do the former will constitute doing the latter.

And you will not be doing the former.



> Thus we see that whether one wishes to speak of land in the economic sense (natural resources) or land in a layman's sense (dry site on Earth's surface), it is largely homogenous -- non-unique and interchangeable.


<yawn>  You have presented no facts or logic to support such a claim, just bald, absurd lies.



> If uniqueness/non-interchangeability is a requirement for a good to be inherently monopolized whenever it is owned, then land, no matter which way you define it, fails this test.


Or, more accurately, it would if all your lies somehow became true.



> As for the other alleged reason to consider natural resources as monopolized whenever they  are owned, that of its supply being fixed, one need merely consider the world in which he lives to decide whether this is an accurate claim in any meaningful sense.


The sense is economic: fixity of supply means the quantity cannot be increased by labor and does not respond to price.



> Again, as we all know by now, "land" in economics is short-hand for "natural resources".  In what sense are our natural resources fixed?


The economic sense.



> Have they remained fixed for the last 25 years?  The last hundred?


Their supply has always been fixed.



> Are they, in fact, quickly depleting as they should be if they were fixed, since we voraciously consume them in ever-greater amounts?


They are definitely being depleted.



> No, they are becoming more and more plentiful across-the-board.


No, they are not, stop lying.



> Commodity prices in constant dollars have been going inexorably down for as far back as we have statistics.


Commodities are products of labor, not natural resources, stop lying.  Products of labor are in general becoming more plentiful, and their prices are going down.  But products of labor are not natural resources, stop lying.



> More and more natural resources are becoming accessible to us.  The old view of a static pool of natural resources has been proved wrong again and again since the Middle Ages and especially since the Industrial Revolution.


No, it has not.  All that has been proved wrong are claims about how much people can DO with the static pool of natural resources.



> The Malthusian Trap has never reared its ugly head.


It most certainly has, in specific places like Easter Island.  But Henry George demolished Malthusian analysis, so there's no need to belabor it.



> The amount of natural resources at our disposal has been absolutely exploding for multiple centuries now, and looks to continue to do so.


But the earth is no larger, and the depletable resources are indeed being depleted, stop lying.



> What if the claim is made that "the supply of land is fixed _by definition_"?  I would ask: is land still the same thing as natural resources _by definition_? It surely is, if we are to use the venerable definition of land that the profession of economics has long used.  Then if land is the supply of natural resources by definition, and land supply is fixed by definition, what then do we make of the fact that the supply of natural resources is in a super-long-term, apparently permanent, massively explosive growth curve?


You mean, what do we make of your lie that it is?



> Which definition is the essential one?  We may play games and define things away, but at some point economics is meant to tell us something real about the real world, something useful about how humans acually operate.  While the absolute quantity of resources in all existence may, or may not, be fixed, and thus the theoretical supply may, or may not, be fixed, for _practical_ purposes the supply is rapidly increasing, and has been for at least 200 years.


No, it cannot be increased by labor, and does not respond to price.  What you are lying is "increasing supply" is merely increasing value of the fixed supply.  At the margin, formerly worthless resources are now worth something.



> I'm not sure why the amount of resources in all cosmic existence is relevant in the least way to economics, since we have yet to fill even a single galaxy, or to Dyson Sphere even a single star.  I rather think it is not.


You're right: it is not.  But you have to ascribe some sort of silly nonsense to your opponents in order to have something to decry, and I guess it might as well be that.



> That the amount of accessible, usable resources is rapidly increasing seems, on the other hand, incredibly valuable information.


Congratulations: you avoided lying that it was the _amount of RESOURCES_ that was increasing.



> These resources become accessible and usable by, yes: the application of human labor and capital!


Readers are invited to note carefully what is being said here: resources BECOME accessible and usable through application of labor and capital.  But of course, they could not BECOME more accessible and usable if they did not already exist.

Now here comes the ol' switcheroo:



> The very thing claimed to have no possible effect on the supply of natural resources is precisely what has been increasing the supply of natural resources at an exponential rate for centuries.


Presto change-o!  Did you catch it?  "More accessible and useful supply" was in a twinkling changed into, "_increasing_ supply."  The hand is quicker than the eye.

Of course, it's just another flat-out lie.  Labor and capital have not increased the supply of natural resources, they have only made the *fixed* supply more useful and accessible.  You know this, Hubener.  Of course you do.  You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.



> Human effort and intelligence has by now given us _at least_ ten times (perhaps a hundred times) the quantity of natural resources than were available in Henry George's day.


But they were already there in Henry George's day.



> A hundred years from now, if human liberty is allowed to run untrammeled, our natural resources may increase yet another tenfold.


No, their supply will remain fixed.  Our ability to use them will likely increase, unless landowner privilege is allowed to destroy civilization again.



> To say "natural resources are defined as having a fixed supply, just by definition" is to define your version of "natural resources" right out of practical reality


Wrong.  It is to identify a central *FACT* of *economic* reality: the quantity of natural resources cannot be increased by labor and does not respond to price -- and there is consequently no social benefit in government enabling private interests to pocket their value.



> and to remove yourself from any possibility of having anything useful or realistic to say about _actual_ natural resources.


ROTFL!!  I'm not the one trying to tell farmers that land has no fertile soil, bub.  You are.



> It is to fly in the face of hundreds of years of real-life experience.  It is to make your version of "natural resources" fictional.


<yawn>  For fictional views of natural resources, see your own false and absurd claims, above.



> Actual supplies of natural resources, with actual relevance to the lives of actual people, have been increasingly rapidly.


What you claim are "actual" and "relevant" supplies are not what economists mean by "supply."  What you call "relevance" would appear to have much to do with price, which does not affect the supply of things in fixed supply.  So you are just equivocating.



> Human labor has been making those supplies increase.


No, it has not.  It has been making the *pre-existing* supply more useable.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided you had better deliberately lie about it.



> One can give any arbitrary definition to any set of letters, but if there is no phenomenon in the universe fitting this definition, or if it is self-contradictory, then really what is the point?  One can define "natural resources" (land) as something being fixed in supply, which cannot be affected by labor,


INCREASED.  Labor can deplete depletable natural resources, but cannot increase the supply by definition.



> as unique and non-interchageable,


That was land sites and some other resources, not all natural resources.



> as inherently monopolized whenever it is owned,


Again, that is not the case for all natural resources, though it is the case for land sites.



> and as something we all have a right to by virtue of being humans.  That is what the poster above (Roy L.) does.


No, that is just another lie from you.  At no point have I claimed the human right to liberty is part of the definition of land, stop lying.



> What use or meaning or relevance this term and his multifaceted definition hold, I, for one, cannot tell.


Well, as you made up most of those facets, maybe you should ask yourself what meaning or relevance it has, other than to serve your purpose of deceit.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> More accurately, you were frantically trying to contrive some rationalization for refusing to know what "location, location, location" means.


 Actually, I was writing to redbluepill about one topic and you decided to take one sentence from that discussion and hijack it into proving that I had cornered myself about something unrelated which you wished to discuss.




> No.  A plot of land on the East River in NYC is worth quite a bit, but a similar plot just 20 meters out into the river is worth little or nothing.


 This is, as I said, just a factor of the location of other resources relative to the Platonic layman's land.  If a man so chooses, due to, yes, *price*, and using, yes, his _labor_, he can change that situation and make that plot extremely valuable.




> A dry site is dry specifically BECAUSE OF the resources it sits on: the elevation, soil type, slope, drainage, etc.


 Really only one: lack of water on top of it.  And that describes a lack of a proximate resource, not possession of any additional resource.  Dry land we define simply as land which is dry.  Its existence depends not upon any other resource.




> Utter stupidity and dishonesty.  Everyone reading this knows that is absolute, idiotic garbage.  No Georgist has ever, EVER claimed that value is independent of human labor or choices...
> If you are not just lying, please quote, directly, verbatim and in-context, a Georgist asserting that human labor and choices do not affect -- indeed determine -- land value.
> 
> Either that, or admit that you are nothing but a lying sack of $#!+..


 To save time, I will just quote from this latest post from Roy L.: "No, it cannot be increased by labor, and does not respond to price."

OK, one more: "So of course, laws should be crafted to enable the increased land value created by the whole community to be appropriated and pocketed by greedy, idle parasites who did nothing to contribute to it...?"

Value is indeed totally subjective, and if I confused you by phrasing my statement in term of value, I apologize. But I had no reason to believe that you even subscribe to subjective value theory, a theory developed by Austrian Economics, a school which you _have_ given me some reasons to believe you think to be a worthless pile of garbage. Anyway, your position does, indeed seem to be that the owners of the land did nothing to make their land valuable, but rather are mere parasites on a value that happened without any contribution from him.  That is, umm, what you have written -- repeatedly.  (Feel free to call me a liar and explain what you really meant, because this position seems wholly indefensible to me and with no hard feelings I will welcome you to come closer to (what I see as) the truth by disavowing it.)  To the contrary, every landowner in Manhattan, bit by bit over the centuries done his part to increase the value of Manhattan to what it is today, through mental and physical labor, or he has reduced its value somewhat through poor decisions or neglect.  The labor of himself and his fellow landowners overwhelmingly dominates the value of the land today -- not just the improvements, the land -- dwarfing any other factors.






> No, it cannot be increased by labor, and does not respond to price.  What you are lying [about being] "increasing supply" is merely increasing value of the fixed supply.  At the margin, formerly worthless resources are now worth something.


 As a practical matter, it _is_ increased by labor and _does_ respond to price. As I said, one can look at natural _resources_ as being what things in nature man can actually _resort_ to, draw upon, or as some absolute, theoretical supply.  Roy is choosing to define them in the absolute, theoretical way.  I remain unsure as to why this definition is even remotely useful.

Incidently, Mr. L. uses the impractical theoretical definition but then attempt to add bounds to make it appear more practical.  He writes: "But the earth is no larger".  Actually, the Earth is larger.  It's getting gradually larger all the time from meteoroid accretion, etc.  Also, the energy supply which has reached us from the sun is a prime natural resource for us, and this supply is continually increasing.  Our real (i.e. practical) supply of natural resources is in not fixed in the normal sense of the word "fixed".  Roy knows this and so retreated to the position of it being fixed only in the sense of a special definition: "not affected by labor and not responsive to price".  He needs to remember this retreat and not be tempted to accidentally wade into attempts to present the real supply as being really fixed in terms of the real definition of fixed by stating things like "the earth is no larger".

For all practical purposes -- and what other purposes could matter more in economics?! -- our natural resource supply is not fixed.  It is bequethed to us by massive human labor and intelligence.  The amount and quality of this supply is determined strongly by price (if the price of oil goes up, more people explore for it) and ultimately by human decisions and human labor.  I do know the old dead economists who defined natural resources a certain way, and that my way does not line up with their way.  I have made it clear that I understand this, but one poster continues to point it out every time, as if a new revelation.  What I do _not_ understand is any possible use for, or practical benefit to be gotten with, or correct conclusions to be derived from, a definition bearing no relationship to practical reality.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I have yet to finish reading all the works of Henry George from google books to make  a definite pronouncement in my own limited judgment


 By the way, Fr. Augustine, allow me to warmly welcome you to the forum also, and thank you for your post.  Be sure to read Mises and Rothbard in addition to George!  They blow everything else out of the water, in my opinion.

----------


## redbluepill

> The land itself is basically homogenous -- one dry site is essentially the same as another.


No way any economist would back up that claim. Evidence?

----------


## Nathaniel1984

> By the way, Fr. Augustine, allow me to warmly welcome you to the forum also, and thank you for your post.  Be sure to read Mises and Rothbard in addition to George!  They blow everything else out of the water, in my opinion.


I have read "Human Action" twice, once in the 1957 format, and the other in the much later Scholars Edition put out by the Mises Institute; I've read Mises other works such as "The Anti-Capitalist Mentality", "Beauracracy", "Socialism", "Liberalism", and a few others that I can't remember.  I was never able to make it through "Man, Economy, and the State" because it seemed a like a big deductive treatise (and it was), while Mises, as I remember, did the same, but gave numerous illustrative and historical examples throughout his works; so, even if you loose you point in the 100 part deductive chain logic, you still have some understanding when he talks about the French king doing this, or the German princes not doing this, etc.  
A friend a few years ago gave me Professor Hoppe's book, "Democracy: The God That Failed", and I thought it was actually quite good, in the sense that it was a series of essays worked into chapters, and the fact that he quoted Nisbet the sociologist and others to back up his points.  I've read other stuff by the Austrians, and such, so, I have a general grasp on the methodology and teachings.  I was basically taught Keynesianism in school, and defacto throughout my life, along with Marxism, with only brief exposures to Chicago School economics as the 'gateway drug' to other free market schools.
I've just never read much about Henry George except for a few of his free trade materials.  A brother of mine has read "Progress and Poverty" and a few other works, and thought they made some excellent points worth investigating, even if you may disagree with methods of implementation.
I believe there is always something one can learn from other schools, that can provide great insights to how we think.  I remember also reading works by Russell Kirk whom I originally thought would be most disagreeable (that is,when I was a teenager, just because I was told of his disputes with the Austrians), but, I discovered through may of his works, that more often than not, many of these supposed disagreements were due in large part to miscommunications, and different people arguing from different starting points, and going along along different lines of argumentation, that while leading to a similar destination, used phrases and phraseology that seemed to be reprehensible to the other party (that is, when all was taken out of context).  
Anyways, thanks for the welcome, Helmuth!

----------


## Roy L

> If a man so chooses, due to, yes, *price*, and using, yes, his _labor_, he can change that situation and make that plot extremely valuable.


No; he can make improvements, but the *unimproved* value of the land -- which is what LVT taxes, haven't you even figured that out yet? -- will be determined by the economic advantage obtainable by using it.



> Really only one: lack of water on top of it.  And that describes a lack of a proximate resource, not possession of any additional resource.


Nope.  The additional resources are the substrata that lift the surface above the local water table.



> Dry land we define simply as land which is dry.  Its existence depends not upon any other resource.


Wrong *again*.  It depends on the geological resources I identified for you that make it dry.



> To save time, I will just quote from this latest post from Roy L.: "No, it cannot be increased by labor, and does not respond to price."


Thank you for proving again that you are a lying sack of $#!+.  You *know* that "it" referred to land SUPPLY not land VALUE.  Of course you do.  You just decided you had better deliberately lie again.

*All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.*



> OK, one more: "So of course, laws should be crafted to enable the increased land value created by the whole community to be appropriated and pocketed by greedy, idle parasites who did nothing to contribute to it...?"


You again lie that supply is value.  You know very well it isn't.  Of course you do.  You are just lying, as usual.



> Value is indeed totally subjective,


Value certainly is not subjective, and cannot be by definition.  Value in this context -- land value -- is what something would trade for.  As trade requires valuation by at least two agents, value cannot be subjective.



> and if I confused you by phrasing my statement in term of value, I apologize.


No need to apologize.  It takes a lot more than kindergarten-level lies to confuse me.



> But I had no reason to believe that you even subscribe to subjective value theory, a theory developed by Austrian Economics, a school which you _have_ given me some reasons to believe you think to be a worthless pile of garbage.


What are you blithering about?



> Anyway, your position does, indeed seem to be that the owners of the land did nothing to make their land valuable, but rather are mere parasites on a value that happened without any contribution from him.  That is, umm, what you have written -- repeatedly.


And it is certainly true.



> (Feel free to call me a liar and explain what you really meant, because this position seems wholly indefensible to me and with no hard feelings I will welcome you to come closer to (what I see as) the truth by disavowing it.)


<yawn>



> To the contrary, every landowner in Manhattan, bit by bit over the centuries done his part to increase the value of Manhattan to what it is today, through mental and physical labor, or he has reduced its value somewhat through poor decisions or neglect.


No, that is just another flat-out lie from you.  The landowner qua landowner does not perform any mental or physical labor, and his only decision is to buy (or steal) the land.  If SOME of the people who owned land in Manhattan also happened to work at productive jobs, or made decisions to make or maintain improvements thus adding to the value of nearby land, that is entirely separate from their role as landowners.  You might as well claim that slave owners contribute to the development of democratic political institutions on the grounds that many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves.  There is simply no implication to that effect whatsoever.



> The labor of himself and his fellow landowners


Garbage.  The landowner qua landowner performs no labor.  The Duke of Westminster owns quite a bit of land in Manhattan.  What labor has he ever performed there that increased land value?



> overwhelmingly dominates the value of the land today -- not just the improvements, the land -- dwarfing any other factors.


Nope.  Wrong _again_.  To make such an argument, you would need to provide some sort of evidence that landowners _inherently_ make such contributions.  And you can't, because they don't.  Many people who have owned land in Manhattan have never even been there.  Some have been comatose.  Not one of them has ever made any kind of contribution to land value AS A LANDOWNER.  They may have done it as individual persons, in other capacities, such as laborer, entrepreneur, government employee or contractor, etc.  But people who do those things add to land value WHETHER OR NOT they also own land.  So your claim that it is landowners doing those things, and not laborers, etc., is nothing but another stupid lie.



> As a practical matter, it _is_ increased by labor and _does_ respond to price.


As both a practical matter and by definition, it does not.



> As I said, one can look at natural _resources_ as being what things in nature man can actually _resort_ to, draw upon, or as some absolute, theoretical supply.  Roy is choosing to define them in the absolute, theoretical way.  I remain unsure as to why this definition is even remotely useful.


It is especially useful for identifying the dishonest rationalizations of apologists for landowner privilege.



> Incidently, Mr. L. uses the impractical theoretical definition but then attempt to add bounds to make it appear more practical.  He writes: "But the earth is no larger".  Actually, the Earth is larger.  It's getting gradually larger all the time from meteoroid accretion, etc.


<sigh>  Even if that's true, cosmic dust is not created by labor and is not the resources you were claiming had been created by labor.



> Also, the energy supply which has reached us from the sun is a prime natural resource for us, and this supply is continually increasing.


As a result of someone's labor?  Or rising price?

You are now resorting to absurd quibbles in order to evade the fact that you have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished.



> Our real (i.e. practical) supply of natural resources is in not fixed in the normal sense of the word "fixed".


I have already explained what fixity of supply means in economics, and why it is more relevant than whatever nonsense you think you might be talking about.



> Roy knows this and so retreated to the position of it being fixed only in the sense of a special definition: "not affected by labor and not responsive to price".  He needs to remember this retreat and not be tempted to accidentally wade into attempts to present the real supply as being really fixed in terms of the real definition of fixed by stating things like "the earth is no larger".


OK, fine: it's no larger than it would have been without whatever labor or price change you claim has made it larger.



> For all practical purposes -- and what other purposes could matter more in economics?! -- our natural resource supply is not fixed.


ROTFL!!!  Wrong _AGAIN_, sunshine.  The supply of natural resources is fixed for one *supremely* practical purpose in economics: taxation.  No amount of taxation will make the resources nature put here on earth any scarcer.  Taxation *WILL*, by contrast, make _productive economic activity_ scarcer.  That is very much the point.  Society _cannot be made poorer_ by taxing the economic rent of natural resources.  It can be and IS made poorer by taxing income, sales, improvements to land, value added, imports, etc., etc.



> It is bequethed to us by massive human labor and intelligence.


Lie.  It existed just fine before any human being, and you know it.  What on earth could the human labor and intelligence be _applied to_ if the resources did not already exist, hmmmm?

See how easily I prove you are just talking idiotic nonsense?



> The amount and quality of this supply is determined strongly by price (if the price of oil goes up, more people explore for it)


Seeking is not creating.  You know this.  Stop lying.



> and ultimately by human decisions and human labor.


No, human decisions and labor have no effect whatever on the quantity or quality of natural resources, nor does price.  You know this.  Of course you do.  Everyone over the age of six knows it.  You are just lying about it.



> I do know the old dead economists who defined natural resources a certain way, and that my way does not line up with their way.  I have made it clear that I understand this, but one poster continues to point it out every time, as if a new revelation.  What I do _not_ understand is any possible use for, or practical benefit to be gotten with, or correct conclusions to be derived from, a definition bearing no relationship to practical reality.


Taxing land does not make it disappear.  Taxing production or exchange DOES make it disappear.  Are you really unable to grasp the relationship this has to practical reality?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No way any economist would back up that claim. Evidence?


 I find it disappointing you would respond to one sentence of a conversation I'm having with someone else, a conversation which has wandered far afield, rather than the post(s) I have directed specifically to you and which have not yet been replied to.  If you read the entire context I'm confident in you that you will understand with ease the sense in which the properties of some matter and space in the universe which make it fall into the category of "dry (layman's) land" can be abstracted away and separated from any other characterictics like proximity to navigable water, mineral richness, and soil fertility, just as the Georgists abstract away from characteristics such as proximity to city centers and whether there is a skyscraper sitting on top of the land.

----------


## Simple

I love it. We may love to go straight to no taxes, but if you look at Congress, if you look at the Wall Street Occupation, if you poll the common man you can see pretty easily that it is not going to be easy to win people over to a tax free society. Clearly the LVT tax offers a lesser of evils and it would sell politically. The class warfare crowd would eat this up.

I also like the premise that while most libertarians see taxation as theft, the geolibertarian sees land ownership as theft. Owning land deprives others of their liberty thus the land owner owes a debt. The land owner benefits from roads, police, and firefighting so its the land owners who owe a debt. Instead of punishing productivity or commerce, the LVT tax levies tax on the only true source of wealth.

I'll admit it hard to get through all the debate in this thread, but do I have the concept down?

----------


## Roy L

> Clearly the LVT tax offers a lesser of evils and it would sell politically. The class warfare crowd would eat this up.


Actually, the left has historically resisted LVT almost as much as the right.  The reason for this is simple: most leftist leaders (like rightist leaders) are more interested in power than in justice.  They NEED injustice to justify their grasping for power.  By removing the basic injustice in the economy and society, LVT would remove the rationale for leftist leaders to seek power.

Marx himself detested Henry George, and called LVT "capitalism's last ditch."  But buried in Volume 3 of "Capital," Marx actually admits that his economic analysis showed the exploitation of labor associated with rising production due to societal accumulation of capital only benefits landowners, not capital owners.  He then goes on to say in effect that this fact should be ignored, because it would eliminate the rationale for violent seizure of the factories by a communist revolution!



> I also like the premise that while most libertarians see taxation as theft, the geolibertarian sees land ownership as theft.


It's even worse than that: government theft of producers' rightful earnings through sales tax, income tax, etc. pays for the services and infrastructure that make land so much more valuable, and the landowners' theft therefore so much more lucrative.  Government is basically designed to steal from producers and give the money to landowners.



> Owning land deprives others of their liberty thus the land owner owes a debt. The land owner benefits from roads, police, and firefighting so its the land owners who owe a debt.


By George, you've got it!



> Instead of punishing productivity or commerce, the LVT tax levies tax on the only true source of wealth.


It's true that unlike other taxes, LVT does not penalize productivity or commerce.  But the only true *source* of wealth is labor (capital must be produced by labor).  Land is the basic source of UNEARNED wealth, because land is *not* produced by labor, but landowning enables the landowner to take wealth from those who produce it while contributing nothing in return.

----------


## Roy L

> If you read the entire context I'm confident in you that you will understand with ease the sense in which the properties of some matter and space in the universe which make it fall into the category of "dry (layman's) land" can be abstracted away and separated from any other characterictics like proximity to navigable water, mineral richness, and soil fertility,


Certainly.  It's the same sense in which the black keys on a piano can be "abstracted away" from the white ones, the strings, the hammers, the frame, the pedals, etc.  Problem is, you are then no longer talking about a piano but an abstraction, same as if you try to abstract away dryness from land.



> just as the Georgists abstract away from characteristics such as proximity to city centers and whether there is a skyscraper sitting on top of the land.


No, that is just your inevitable resort to lying.  Proximity to city centers is a major factor in unimproved land value, which Georgists most certainly do not "abstract away," while a skyscraper is obviously part of improvement value.

----------


## Roy L

> Really only one: lack of water on top of it.  And that describes a lack of a proximate resource, not possession of any additional resource.  Dry land we define simply as land which is dry.  Its existence depends not upon any other resource.


So the quality of a land parcel not being covered by water is somehow separable -- can somehow be "abstracted away" -- from its other physical properties, the rock and soil under its surface, its proximity to resources, economic activity and opportunity, local infrastructure, amenities, government services, etc. that all contribute to its value; but at the same time...



> every landowner in Manhattan, bit by bit over the centuries done his part to increase the value of Manhattan to what it is today, through mental and physical labor, or he has reduced its value somewhat through poor decisions or neglect.  The labor of himself and his fellow landowners overwhelmingly dominates the value of the land today -- not just the improvements, the land -- dwarfing any other factors.


...the contributions the productive make to land value by their labor, their investments in improvements, etc. is somehow inseparable, even in theory, from their role as landowners -- whether they even owned any land or not?

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...

Are you even going to bother trying to defend your absurd lies any more, Helmuth?  Anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvIoM4oLp0

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> It's true that unlike other taxes, LVT does not penalize productivity or commerce [penalizing instead, existence].  But the only true *source* of wealth is labor (capital must be produced by labor).  Land is the basic source of UNEARNED wealth, because land is *not* produced by labor, but landowning enables the landowner to take wealth from those who produce it while contributing nothing in return.


Mr. L. asserts that, while a man or his assigns may be entitled to the produce of his own labor or anything exchanged for it, he is not entitled to own land, since it is a “gift of nature.”  For one man to appropriate this gift is alleged to be an invasion of a common heritage that all men deserve to use equally.  This is a self-contradictory position, however.  A man cannot produce anything without the co-operation of original nature-given factors, if only as standing room. In order to produce and possess any capital good or consumers’ good, therefore, he must appropriate and use an original nature-given factor.  He cannot form products purely out of his labor alone; he must mix his labor with original nature-given factors.  Therefore, if property in nature-given factors (economic land) is to be denied man, he cannot obtain property in the fruits of his labor.

Furthermore, in the question of land, it is difficult to see what better title there is than the first bringing of this land from a simple unvaluable thing into the sphere of production.  For that is what the first user does.  He takes a factor that was previously unowned and unused, and therefore worthless to anyone, and converts it into a tool for production of capital and consumers’ goods.  It continues to be difficult for me see why the mere fact of being born should automatically confer upon one some aliquot part of the world’s land.  For the first user has mixed his labor with the land, while neither the newborn child nor his ancestors have done anything with the land at all. 

The problem will be clearer if we consider the case of animals. Animals are “economic land,” because they are equivalent to physical land in being original, nature-given factors of production. Yet will anyone deny title to a cow to the man that finds and domesticates her, putting her to use? For this is precisely what occurs in the case of land. Previously valueless “wild” land, like wild animals, is taken and transformed by a man into goods useful for man. The “mixing” of labor gives equivalent title in one case as in the other. 

We must remember, also, what “production” entails. When man “produces,” he does not create matter.  “To bake an apple pie from scratch, one must first create the universe”. He uses given materials and transforms and rearranges them into goods that he desires. In short, he moves matter further toward consumption. His finding of land or animals and putting them to use is also such a transformation.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> ...the contributions the productive make to land value by their labor [apart from their labor as landowners], their investments in improvements, etc. is somehow inseparable, even in theory, from their role as landowners -- whether they even owned any land or not?


 These contributions are quite separable.  Landowners qua landowners increase or decrease the value of their land, and often that of their neighbors, by their intelligence or lack thereof.  Landowners in their role as pure landowners and apart from any role in improvement, maintenence, etc., are the _decision-makers_ for the land.  The landowner decides to what function the land is to be put.  If he makes a good decision, say, to build a housing development in a quiet and convenient location where many people will want to live, the value will increase.  If he makes a poor decision, such as to evict the Rockefeller Center and order it torn down and a swine farm built in its place, the value of his land will decrease.  The value in this second case will still be high, due to the continued good decisions of his neighbors and the vision of would-be purchasers to see that if they were the landowner they could evict the swine farm and allow something sensible to be built there, but it will not be as high as previously.  The landowner's poor decisions have destroyed value in the land.  

Georgists claim that all value in land is given to it as a free gift from society, with the landowner playing no part in it.  To be consistent, then, in the above examples they would have to insist that the landowner, being irrelevant, has not changed the value of his land in the least.

The above discussion is all granting the Georgists their proposition, that land ownership be completely separated from improvement ownership.  One can see a problem very clearly arising in the following question: why would anyone build a skyscraper upon land which he did not absolutely and monopolistically hold all decision-making rights over, that is, which he did not own?  Yet this is the very situation the Georgists propose to foist upon us in order to correct the alleged injustice of land ownership.  Society, supposedly represented and embodied by the state, is to own the land but not the improvements.  Any improver of land would put himself in the precarious positon of having to forever curry the favor of "society", that is, the state, lest they should decide to evict him from their property and bring in another tenant more to their liking.

Furthermore, the state lacks the direct incentive mechanism of the free market which a private landowner has to maximize the value of his land, and thus his profits, by making intelligent decisions as to its disposal.  Thus we can anticipate with certainty the poor, and ever-decreasing, quality of the decisions which will be made as to the deposition of land.

----------


## redbluepill

> I find it disappointing you would respond to one sentence of a conversation I'm having with someone else, a conversation which has wandered far afield, rather than the post(s) I have directed specifically to you and which have not yet been replied to.


The reason I have not responded to that post is because every point you made either me or Roy have already addressed. I quoted and responded to that particular sentence because it was a claim I have not seen yet.




> If you read the entire context I'm confident in you that you will understand with ease the sense in which the properties of some matter and space in the universe which make it fall into the category of "dry (layman's) land" can be abstracted away and separated from any other characterictics like proximity to navigable water, mineral richness, and soil fertility, just as the Georgists abstract away from characteristics such as proximity to city centers and whether there is a skyscraper sitting on top of the land.


I read your full post and to be honest it gets more and more ridiculous the further along I read. I have posted the economic definition of land. Clearly it includes resources, water, air, etc. On top of that land values are based on demand for the land. Therefore, land in some areas are more desirable than others. So no, land is not homogeneous in any sense.

----------


## Roy L

> These contributions are quite separable.


OK.  Thank you for admitting that you were lying when you claimed it was landowners who made them.



> Landowners qua landowners increase or decrease the value of their land,


No, they don't.  This is indisputable.  The landowner may be comatose, and the value of his land will not change one jot.  At most, a landowner may reduce the value of his land by permitting a destructive use like chemical contamination.



> and often that of their neighbors, by their intelligence or lack thereof.


No.  They can increase the value of neighboring land by how they permit their own land to be used, but not the value of their own.



> Landowners in their role as pure landowners and apart from any role in improvement, maintenence, etc., are the _decision-makers_ for the land.


Yes, and a slave owner is the decision maker for his slaves.  That doesn't mean it is the owner doing the work on the plantation, and not the slaves.



> The landowner decides to what function the land is to be put.


But his "contribution" in that regard cannot be positive, only negative.  He can be comatose, and his trustee will just accept the high bid for the land -- and thus the MARKET'S judgment of the most appropriate use for it -- or he can decide to devote it to some inferior use (or no use at all).  He cannot add value by overruling the market's judgment with his input.  He can only subtract it.



> If he makes a good decision, say, to build a housing development in a quiet and convenient location where many people will want to live, the value will increase.


No, it will not.  The unimproved land value will be the same as if the development had not been built.  BY DEFINITION.



> If he makes a poor decision, such as to evict the Rockefeller Center and order it torn down and a swine farm built in its place, the value of his land will decrease.


Nope.  Wrong AGAIN.  The land value is DEFINED AS the value the land would have if all the improvements were removed.



> The value in this second case will still be high, due to the continued good decisions of his neighbors


But mostly due to the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides at that location.



> and the vision of would-be purchasers to see that if they were the landowner they could evict the swine farm and allow something sensible to be built there,


ROTFL!!  It's would-be USERS who have the vision of what the land could be used for, sunshine, not would-be purchasers.  Would-be purchasers have no vision whatever.  They just consult the market of would-be users to find out how much they would be willing to pay in rent.



> but it will not be as high as previously.


Yes, in fact, it will.  BY DEFINITION.



> The landowner's poor decisions have destroyed value in the land.


Landowners can obviously permit destructive land uses such as chemical contamination, etc., and that will reduce the land's value.  But again, that is only a negative contribution.  The _best_ the landowner can do is just step aside and permit the use the market decides is most appropriate -- i.e., do nothing.



> Georgists claim that all value in land is given to it as a free gift from society, with the landowner playing no part in it.


Correct.  The landowner qua landowner contributes nothing whatever to land value.  He just pockets it as a gift from government and the community.



> To be consistent, then, in the above examples they would have to insist that the landowner, being irrelevant, has not changed the value of his land in the least.


Landowners can certainly do worse than just doing nothing and accepting the high bid and the market's judgment.  But they can't do better.  They can't _contribute_ anything in their capacity as landowners.  They can only detract.



> The above discussion is all granting the Georgists their proposition, that land ownership be completely separated from improvement ownership.  One can see a problem very clearly arising in the following question: why would anyone build a skyscraper upon land which he did not absolutely and monopolistically hold all decision-making rights over, that is, which he did not own?


Maybe you should ask the folks who built the Empire State Building on leased land.  Maybe you should ask everyone who has built skyscrapers all over Hong Kong, which are all built on leased land.

Trying to wedge the same simple facts into your head over and over again because you blankly refuse to know them is getting tiresome, Helmuth.



> Yet this is the very situation the Georgists propose to foist upon us in order to correct the alleged injustice of land ownership.


There is nothing alleged about it, as proved by your inability to answer The Question:
_
"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"_



> Society, supposedly represented and embodied by the state, is to own the land but not the improvements.


It ADMINISTERS the land, like a trustee administering trust assets.



> Any improver of land would put himself in the precarious positon of having to forever curry the favor of "society", that is, the state, lest they should decide to evict him from their property and bring in another tenant more to their liking.


No, that's just another stupid, dishonest lie from you.  If the land user pays the rent, and doesn't do anything stupid like violate his land tenure agreement, the land authority will have no motive to evict him: it won't be able to get more rent from anyone else.

Your "objection" to land rent recovery is apparently that some other system will be implemented in its stead.  That is not an honest objection.  It is just stupid, dishonest garbage.



> Furthermore, the state lacks the direct incentive mechanism of the free market which a private landowner has to maximize the value of his land, and thus his profits, by making intelligent decisions as to its disposal.


Wrong AGAIN.  Land rent recovery is the ONLY tax system that aligns the government's own incentives with the market's judgment, and the only land tenure arrangement that aligns society's interests with the landholder's interest.  Contrast that with the indisputable result of private landownership: thousands of vacant lots and abandoned buildings blighting every major city in the USA, as greedy private landowners hold good land out of use for speculative gain.



> Thus we can anticipate with certainty the poor, and ever-decreasing, quality of the decisions which will be made as to the deposition of land.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you.  Land rent recovery just accepts the market's judgment -- unlike private land speculators, who try to outguess the market and thus reduce production and allocative efficiency by holding good land out of use.

----------


## Roy L

> Mr. L. asserts that, while a man or his assigns may be entitled to the produce of his own labor or anything exchanged for it, he is not entitled to own land, since it is a gift of nature.  For one man to appropriate this gift is alleged to be an invasion of a common heritage that all men deserve to use equally.


Strawman fallacy.  All men obviously cannot use it equally.  But all have equal rights to liberty: i.e., to _access_ it.



> This is a self-contradictory position, however.


Because it's a position you made up, not one we have advocated.



> A man cannot produce anything without the co-operation of original nature-given factors, if only as standing room.


Right.  So your view is that people can rightly be deprived of the opportunity to produce the means of their own sustenance without just compensation, and even of the opportunity to exist.



> In order to produce and possess any capital good or consumers good, therefore, he must appropriate and use an original nature-given factor.  He cannot form products purely out of his labor alone; he must mix his labor with original nature-given factors.


I have already informed you that it is physically impossible to "mix labor" with material objects.  That is a metaphor ONLY, and a misleading one.  The laborer _applies_ his labor to nature-given factors, and the result is a product of labor, not "land mixed with labor."



> Therefore, if property in nature-given factors (economic land) is to be denied man, he cannot obtain property in the fruits of his labor.


Non sequitur fallacy.  He obtains rightful property in the fruits of his labor by removing resources from where nature put them, thus making them into products of his labor.  This has self-evidently been the process by which human beings have sustained themselves ever since we grew to our moral state distinct from nature.



> Furthermore, in the question of land, it is difficult to see what better title there is than the first bringing of this land from a simple unvaluable thing into the sphere of production.


No private land titles are in fact based on any such action, which would not confer a morally valid title even if they were.  How could initially using land extinguish others' rights to use it?



> For that is what the first user does.  He takes a factor that was previously unowned and unused, and therefore worthless to anyone,


Wrong _again_.  If it was worthless to everyone, why would he choose to use it rather than some other factor?  



> and converts it into a tool for production of capital and consumers goods.


Wrong _again_.  He performs no such conversion.  The land was ALREADY useful for production, or he would not have chosen to use it -- COULD not have chosen to use it.



> It continues to be difficult for me see why the mere fact of being born should automatically confer upon one some aliquot part of the worlds land.


Because the mere fact of being born confers rights to life and liberty.  I realize you do not believe in the equal human rights to life or liberty, and that is why it is difficult for you to see how those rights cannot exist if one has no right to access and use what nature provided for all.



> For the first user has mixed his labor with the land,


No, that is physically impossible, as I have already informed you.  It is merely a misleading metaphor contrived to elide the fact that all landowning is founded on forcible appropriation.



> while neither the newborn child nor his ancestors have done anything with the land at all.


People have rights without having to earn them or pay for them.



> The problem will be clearer if we consider the case of animals. Animals are economic land, because they are equivalent to physical land in being original, nature-given factors of production.


Wild animals are.  Not domestic ones raised or tamed by labor.



> Yet will anyone deny title to a cow to the man that finds and domesticates her, putting her to use?


It is not putting her to use that makes her property, but removing her from nature by domesticating her.



> For this is precisely what occurs in the case of land.


No, of course it isn't, as land by definition has NOT been removed from nature.



> Previously valueless wild land, like wild animals, is taken


BZZZZZZZZZT.  Equivocation fallacy.  You are lying that "take" in the sense of "physically remove" is the same as "take" in the sense of "forcibly appropriate."

Bet you thought you were going to get away with one _that_ sneaky, didn't you?



> and transformed by a man into goods useful for man.


The goods he has transformed by labor are his property.  Not the place where he made them.



> The mixing of labor gives equivalent title in one case as in the other.


Mixing of labor with land is physically impossible, and therefore cannot confer any sort of title.  You are just trying to pretend that "take" in the sense of "physically remove" is the same as "take" in the sense of "steal."



> We must remember, also, what production entails. When man produces, he does not create matter.


<sigh>  Not this stupid bull$#!+ again...



> To bake an apple pie from scratch, one must first create the universe.


Yep.  That stupid bull$#!+ again.



> He uses given materials and transforms and rearranges them into goods that he desires. In short, he moves matter further toward consumption. His finding of land or animals and putting them to use is also such a transformation.


Nope.  Wrong _AGAIN_.  Finding land (which the original appropriator didn't do) does not transform it.  That is just a lie.  Finding land only improves the state of the finder's own knowledge.  It as no effect whatever on what has been found.  Likewise, putting something to use does not transform it or make it into a product, especially if it is a location.  Consider a wild fruit tree.  You pick the fruit, putting it to use, but you haven't transformed it, and that action certainly gives you no right to charge others for access to next year's crop.

Your "arguments" continue to be dishonest garbage.

----------


## tremendoustie

> Land Value Tax on Wikipedia


I think it's extortion, and therefore immoral. The owner owns the land, not the majority of those who happen to live near him/her.

I also think it'd be a boon for rich folks in mansions on small plots of land (which I'm fine with), and horrible for farmers, loggers, and other poorer folks with larger amounts of undeveloped land (which I'm not fine with).

----------


## Simple

I'm still thinking about this. Does the LVT justify the use of force that would have to be accepted in order to enforce it? While the reasoning seems sound to me, the theory seems to deviate from the idea of voluntary exchange.

----------


## Roy L

> I think it's extortion, and therefore immoral.


Landowning is.  Right.



> The owner owns the land, not the majority of those who happen to live near him/her.


How would he "own" the land, other than by forcible appropriation?  How are others deprived of it but by violent, aggressive, physical coercion that violates the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it?



> I also think it'd be a boon for rich folks in mansions on small plots of land (which I'm fine with),


If they aren't taking more from society, why should they pay more?



> and horrible for farmers, loggers, and other poorer folks with larger amounts of undeveloped land (which I'm not fine with).


LOL!  Poor folks don't own large amounts of land, sunshine.  I guess you need to take some time and figure out who _does own_ the large amounts of undeveloped land the farmers, loggers and other poorer folks are working on...

----------


## Roy L

> Does the LVT justify the use of force that would have to be accepted in order to enforce it?


It doesn't require any more force than the landowner is already using to deprive others of the land.



> While the reasoning seems sound to me, the theory seems to deviate from the idea of voluntary exchange.


What's voluntary about idle, greedy landowners extorting money from producers?

----------


## Simple

So you believe that the government needs to have the ability to bring to bear an equal or greater amount of force than the land owner? I'm guessing this is more based on realism (or a Constitutional Republic) while the idea of a society without force is more Utopian?

----------


## redbluepill

> I think it's extortion, and therefore immoral. *The owner owns the land*, not the majority of those who happen to live near him/her.


By what moral right? One does not create land. One can only create capital. There is no original owner of land.





> I also think it'd be a boon for rich folks in mansions on small plots of land (which I'm fine with), and horrible for farmers, loggers, and other poorer folks with larger amounts of undeveloped land (which I'm not fine with).


Simply not true. Farmers could benefit from an increase in land value tax as long as it is accompanied by a reduction/elimination of taxes on improvement. It is actually urban areas that would be most affected by the LVT.

----------


## redbluepill

> I'm still thinking about this. Does the LVT justify the use of force that would have to be accepted in order to enforce it? While the reasoning seems sound to me, the theory seems to deviate from the idea of voluntary exchange.


I'm sure different Georgists have different perspectives on this. But I believe if one fails to pay his/her ground rent then the government would simply not recognize and enforce his/her privilege to exclude others from the land occupied. I *do not* believe the government should kick somebody off a piece of land.

----------


## redbluepill

> LOL!  Poor folks don't own large amounts of land, sunshine.  I guess you need to take some time and figure out who _does own_ the large amounts of undeveloped land the farmers, loggers and other poorer folks are working on...


Indeed. A large chunk of farmland (at least 44%) is owned by those who do not farm it. They rent it out to the farmers.

http://www.census.gov/apsd/www/statbrief/sb93_10.pdf

----------


## redbluepill

I'm interested in any comments to this particular comment from Murray Rothbard (keep in mind I don't agree with his conclusion that land can actually become property but he does make a good point): 




> But any area of land, which is given by nature, might never have been used and transformed; and therefore, any existing property title to never-used land would have to be considered invalid. For we have seen that title to an unowned resource (such as land) comes properly only from the expenditure of labor to transform that resource into use. Therefore, if any land has never been so transformed, no one can legitimately claim its ownership.
> 
>      Suppose, for example, that Mr. Green legally owns a certain acreage of land, of which the northwest portion has never been transformed from its natural state by Green or by anyone else. Libertarian theory will morally validate his claim for the rest of the land—provided, as the theory requires, that there is no identifiable victim (or that Green had not himself stolen the land.) But libertarian theory must invalidate his claim to ownership of the northwest portion. Now, so long as no “settler” appears who will initially transform the northwest portion, there is no real difficulty; Brown’s claim may be invalid but it is also mere meaningless verbiage. He is not yet a criminal aggressor against anyone else. But should another man appear who does transform the land, and should Green oust him by force from the property (or employ others to do so), then Green becomes at that point a criminal aggressor against land justly owned by another. The same would be true if Green should use violence to prevent another settler from entering upon this never-used land and transforming it into use.


http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ten.asp

This quote would appear to be in direct conflict to many posters on this thread who claim land can be owned by whoever is on it first. No labor required.

----------


## Roy L

> So you believe that the government needs to have the ability to bring to bear an equal or greater amount of force than the land owner? I'm guessing this is more based on realism (or a Constitutional Republic) while the idea of a society without force is more Utopian?


There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force.  That is why there is no way to design a viable society higher than hunter-gatherer level without using force.  The idea of democracy and constitutional government is to bring that force under popular, responsible and predictable control rather than just allowing the land grabber to wield it irresponsibly at his personal whim.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The reason I have not responded to that post is because every point you made either me or Roy have already addressed. I quoted and responded to that particular sentence because it was a claim I have not seen yet.


 Umm, I posted asking whether under your decentralized system we would be free to try non-Georgism in one of the miniature North American city-states.  This question has already been "addressed" and doubtless, as Mr. L. would put it, "refuted"?  I don't understand.  Here's the post I was referring to, the dead end in our somewhat (maybe?) interesting conversation.

~~~



> So maybe it isn’t scary for you because you have not seen the truly devastating impact land-grabbing can have.


 Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me.  While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you.  So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement.  Would you agree?

You believe that in a free land market (according to _my_ definition: private ownership and trading of land), large and powerful monopolies will arise.  I, in contrast, believe no such monopolies will evince.  If you did not believe monopolies would take over, you would be open to agreeing with the (non-geo)libertarians, perhaps?




> But here’s my take on your ideal world: We remove government completely from the picture. If there is any government at all it is funded voluntarily. Corporations are free to do business as they please. This results in bigger/stronger corporations buying out the competition. Within a few decades (maybe several) you have oligarchies controlling almost every aspect of society. They are the land renters. And since there is practically no competition then they can charge high rent for the land you live on and pay you minimally for your labor. I may sound paranoid (hey, what libertarian is not? Haha), but this is not the ‘libertarian’ society I wish to live in. You only replace one master for another. As The Who song goes, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”


 This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.  I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies.  People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them.  They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless.  They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless.  I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs.  Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers.  People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.

So I just don't share the concern about monopolies that you do.





> Here’s my take on my ideal world: We remove income tax, capital/improvement tax, and any taxes that hinder entrepreneurship and productivity. Have government funded through a land value tax. Since the LVT (and the removal of all other taxes) encourage landholders to be productive with their land we see landholding and government become decentralized. Within a few decades we see hundreds (if not thousands) of small governments within what was once the United States. We will have more freedom to choose what society best suites our ideals. Libertarianism will finally take hold since poverty would be dramatically reduced (if not eliminated) and big government would become history.


 You support decentralization!  Secession!  Wonderful.  Your ideal North America, with thousands of independent governments, would be sensational.  Would you go so far as to allow secession on even the neighborhood, family, and finally the individual level?

The nice thing about your plan is that it would "let a thousand flowers bloom", if you will.  If Kalamazooistan decides they want to try _not_ charging any land value tax and be voluntarist instead, they'd be free to try it, and I would be free to move there.  And then we'd fail and the land monopolists would take over and totally dominate and oppress us, but hey, we gave it a shot!  We wouldn't have failed miserably, we'd fail happily, following our crazy Rothbardian dreams.

~~~
So I'd still be interested in your answers to my questions above and your reaction to my thoughts.




> I read your full post and to be honest it gets more and more ridiculous the further along I read. I have posted the economic definition of land. Clearly it includes resources, water, air, etc. On top of that land values are based on demand for the land. Therefore, land in some areas are more desirable than others. So no, land is not homogeneous in any sense.


 Everyone knows the definition of economic land -- congratulations, everyone.  Let's have a party.  Land in the layman's sense, when stripped down to its Platonic essence, can be considered homogenous.  One empty place to stand is equivalent to another.  I merely posted this as an observation and an intellectual exercise, due to a miscombobulation on the part of Mr. L.

The more relevant point is that most economic land is fairly homogenous.  Think about all the junk that economic land subsumes, and you'll see what I mean.  One stray hydrogen atom is much like another, despite their different sun exposures.  For each different possible type of land, and you listed a couple above: water and air, let's add oil, aluminum, neodymium, jackrabbits, and algae, one unit of any of these types is roughly interchangeable with another.

----------


## Roy L

> This question has already been 'refuted'?  I don't understand.


Your claims have been refuted, by me, in post #576.



> Here's the post I was referring to, the dead end in our somewhat interesting conversation.
> 
> ~~~
> 
>  Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me.  While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you.  So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement.  Would you agree?
> 
> You believe that in a free land market (according to _my_ definition: private ownership and trading of land), large and powerful monopolies will arise.  I, in contrast, believe no such monopolies will evince.  If you did not believe monopolies would take over, you would be open to agreeing with the (non-geo)libertarians, perhaps?
> 
>  This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.  I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies.  People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them.  They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless.  They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless.  I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs.  Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers.  People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.
> ...


I demolished all this garbage in post #576, and you had no answers that I did not also subsequently demolish.  You know this.

----------


## redbluepill

> Umm, I posted asking whether under your decentralized system we would be free to try non-Georgism in one of the miniature North American city-states. This question has already been "addressed" and doubtless, as Mr. L. would put it, "refuted"? I don't understand. Here's the post I was referring to, the dead end in our somewhat (maybe?) interesting conversation.


If one secedes on the individual level their privilege to exclude others from the land would not be enforced. It would be to their advantage to not secede.




> Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me. While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you. So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement. Would you agree?
> 
> You believe that in a free land market (according to my definition: private ownership and trading of land), large and powerful monopolies will arise. I, in contrast, believe no such monopolies will evince. If you did not believe monopolies would take over, you would be open to agreeing with the (non-geo)libertarians, perhaps?


Well unfortunately we do not live in a world where land is not fixed. Maybe in that world I would agree.




> This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.


I am for a completely free market. I strongly believe that a true free market would not exist without ground rent.




> I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies. People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them.






> They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless.


When laborers have no other choices but to work under terrible conditions for little pay then yes they are powerless. Thats why they organized in the 19th century.





> They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless.






> I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs. Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers. People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.


This is the same kind of argument statists make about the government. The government is completely dependant on the whims of the voters  the voters wield the ultimate power, not their politicians. Likewise, the bank is totally dependent on the continued business of his customers. People move out of the country, due to mismanagement, high taxes, corruption, whatever, and the government and banks will be reformed.





> Everyone knows the definition of economic land -- congratulations, everyone. Let's have a party.


Obviously a definition is in order since people on this forum clearly make up their own definitions.



> Land in the layman's sense, when stripped down to its Platonic essence, can be considered homogenous.


Except we are not talking about stripped down land.





> The more relevant point is that most economic land is fairly homogenous.


You have a quote from an economist to support this?




> Think about all the junk that economic land subsumes, and you'll see what I mean. One stray hydrogen atom is much like another, despite their different sun exposures. For each different possible type of land, and you listed a couple above: water and air, let's add oil, aluminum, neodymium, jackrabbits, and algae, one unit of any of these types is roughly interchangeable with another.


Now you are just rambling.

----------


## Roy L

> Land in the layman's sense, when stripped down to its Platonic essence, can be considered homogenous.


But only by someone who has chosen to eliminate their contact with reality, sacrificing their own mind to preserve their false and evil beliefs.  You KNOW that your claim is false and absurd.  There is no homogenous "Platonic essence" of land.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
-- Voltaire

The more interesting corollary of Voltaire's penetrating observation is that those who would make you commit atrocities will first try to make you believe absurdities.  Your absurdities are intended to rationalize, justify and enable the atrocities -- the Annual Holocaust of the Landless -- committed in the name of private property in land.  Those who seek to rationalize, justify and enable atrocities are evil.  It's not rocket science.

I again urge you to watch, "Judgment at Nuremberg."  It has a lesson that you desperately need to learn.



> One empty place to stand is equivalent to another.


One absurd claim is equivalent to another.  An empty place to stand in the Sahara Desert is not equivalent to one in Antarctica or on the French Riviera, or on the moon.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided you had better deliberately lie about it, as you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> I merely posted this as an observation and an intellectual exercise, due to a miscombobulation on the part of Mr. L.


No, I demolished you utterly, and you have been spewing absurdities to rationalize evil ever since.



> The more relevant point is that most economic land is fairly homogenous.


You KNOW that is a lie.



> Think about all the junk that economic land subsumes, and you'll see what I mean.


I see that you are lying, you know that you are lying, and you intend to go on lying.



> One stray hydrogen atom is much like another, despite their different sun exposures.  For each different possible type of land, and you listed a couple above: water and air, let's add oil, aluminum, neodymium, jackrabbits, and algae, one unit of any of these types is roughly interchangeable with another.


Nope.  You know very well that is a lie.  You are just lying again.  Any mining geologist can tell you that where a unit of aluminum or neodymium is located, how it is chemically bound, how easy it is to access, remove and process are crucially important to its usefulness and thus its value.  Any petroleum engineer can tell you similar facts about units of oil.  Anyone who has watched tsunami videos can tell you that each unit of water is not roughly interchangeable with another.  The salubriousness of the earth's climate depends on the fact that units of air are not roughly interchangeable, as their effects on weather and climate depend sensitively on their temperature, density, velocity, water content, altitude, etc.  And evolution runs on the fact that units of algae and jackrabbits are also not roughly interchangeable.

*All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.*

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> If one secedes on the individual level their privilege to exclude others from the land would not be enforced. It would be to their advantage to not secede.


But they could enforce it themselves, yes?  The teeming hordes of "society" are probably not going to mount an attack on one's small suburban home, especially if it's surrounded by electrified barbed wire fence, a moat, mines, and sniper towers.  No reason to bother.  They'll just respect your beliefs and your claim and expect you to respect theirs in return.

What about not on the individual level, but a neighborhood level?  How small can a political entity be in your system?  You propose to have thousands in the territory of the formerly united States.  So that means political entities the size of present-day counties.  Can one of these county-sized nations split itself into 20 pieces?  Can one of those new pieces reorganize itself into 200 confederate but sovereign cantons?  If not, why not?  If so, you're getting down to 20 acre plots of sovereignty.

Each of these thousands of political entities would act, of course, as a monopolistic land-owner, if they are to be anything like current-day political entities.  The forces of one state would have no right to enter the boundaries of another.  They could even have border controls to keep out anyone they wished.  They could make whatever rules of conduct they wished pertaining to their land.  So we'd see a variety of justice systems, military systems, taxation systems, etc, in your vision for the future, yes?  It kind of would defeat the purpose of having thousands of independent polities if they're just monolithically uniform, yes?

Again, would you be OK with one of these thousands of political entities, just one, trying Rothbardianism?  Would that be acceptable in your vision?

Also, really, isn't all you are proposing is that we split up North America amongst thousands of landowners?  Wouldn't a political map of N.Am. then just be a property map, showing the boundaries of the deeds and plots?  So then we see the differences between my Utopia and yours are not that vast.  Difference number one is that I want to take the decentralization further, allowing the breakup of polities without limit, down even to the individual level, making all political alliances voluntary, enthroning the _man_ as the supreme unit of society and deposing the mob from that station.  Difference number two is that I want the landowners to be those who actually have a reason to believe they are the legitimate owners, via homesteading theory and then free exchange.  I know you don't believe that this reason constitutes a just claim, because nothing can constitute a just claim over natural resources in your mind, but it's at least a reason which is a whole lot more than the big fat Zip of a reason that the managers of your proposed political entities would have to claim rights over "their" land.




> When laborers have no other choices but to work under terrible conditions for little pay then yes they are powerless. That’s why they organized in the 19th century.


 There are always choices.









> This is the same kind of argument statists make about the government. “The government is completely dependant on the whims of the voters – the voters wield the ultimate power, not their politicians. Likewise, the bank is totally dependent on the continued business of his customers. People move out of the country, due to mismanagement, high taxes, corruption, whatever, and the government and banks will be reformed.”


  It's a similar argument.  I agree 100% with the bit about the banks.  I would agree about the governments if they were actually the just owners of the territories they claim and if they were run under the principles of voluntarism.  As they are today, governments are indeed, ultimately, dependent on the people for their continued existence, but the dependence is not of the same exact sort as the dependence of the landlord and any other businessman on his customers.  The nation-state has layers of protection for itself against its "customers".  It arrogates to itself a monopoly on violence.  It operates outside of market mechanisms.  Etc.  There are market-ish mechanisms that it is still subject to, however.  Its "customers" can still move out of its domain.  But these outfits have much larger contiguous domains than market landowners, and they use their violence monopoly to demand that you get their permission to leave (!), and sometimes they use their violence monopoly to forcibly prevent people from leaving.  A landlord can't do that.  You just pack up and move across the street; problem solved.

So I'm agreeing with you that the argument that the oppressions of the nation-state aren't as horribly bad as they could be given that, after all, we can move, has merit.  We need to make the oppressions less bad by making the argument more true, by making nation-states more like landlords.  Your proposal to drastically reduce the size of their domains is one good step.  That would make it much easier to move.




> Now you are just rambling.


 Thanks!

----------


## Roy L

> But they could enforce it themselves, yes?


Of course.  That's called, "feudalism."



> The teeming hordes of "society" are probably not going to mount an attack on one's small suburban home, especially if it's surrounded by electrified barbed wire fence, a moat, mines, and sniper towers.


Very true.  But that doesn't sound like a very efficient way to protect your stuff, compared to paying taxes.

The Lesson of Feudalism is that in the absence of government, the landowner must devote the full rent of the land to defending his possession of it.  That is why in feudal societies, even kings were poor.



> No reason to bother.  They'll just respect your beliefs and your claim and expect you to respect theirs in return.


Read a little European feudal history to correct _that_ naive misapprehension.



> Can one of these county-sized nations split itself into 20 pieces?  Can one of those new pieces reorganize itself into 200 confederate but sovereign cantons?  If not, why not?


Because military power is a public good with very strong economies of scale.



> The forces of one state would have no right to enter the boundaries of another.


Landowners likewise have no right to deprive people of their rights to liberty without making just compensation.  But they obviously do it anyway.



> They could even have border controls to keep out anyone they wished.


Unless the landowner who wanted in had stronger "border control"...



> They could make whatever rules of conduct they wished pertaining to their land.  So we'd see a variety of justice systems, military systems, taxation systems, etc, in your vision for the future, yes?  It kind of would defeat the purpose of having thousands of independent polities if they're just monolithically uniform, yes?


To see the results of your feudal libertarian society, just look at Saudi Arabia.  Everything that happens there proceeds from the Saud family's ownership of the land.



> Again, would you be OK with one of these thousands of political entities, just one, trying Rothbardianism?  Would that be acceptable in your vision?


Sure, if you are OK with one trying LVT.



> Also, really, isn't all you are proposing is that we split up North America amongst thousands of landowners?  Wouldn't a political map of N.Am. then just be a property map, showing the boundaries of the deeds and plots?


Like feudal Europe, feudal Japan, feudal Russia, feudal China, etc., etc.



> So then we see the differences between my Utopia and yours are not that vast.  Difference number one is that I want to take the decentralization further, allowing the breakup of polities without limit, down even to the individual level, making all political alliances voluntary, enthroning the _man_ as the supreme unit of society and deposing the mob from that station.


What you actually propose is to make the man who owns the land the supreme unit of society.



> Difference number two is that I want the landowners to be those who actually have a reason to believe they are the legitimate owners, via homesteading theory and then free exchange.


No one has any such reason to believe they are rightly the owners.  There is not one square inch of land, anywhere on earth, whose current title of private ownership can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an initial appropriator who did not violate anyone's rights by appropriating the land.  Not one single square inch.



> I know you don't believe that this reason constitutes a just claim, because nothing can constitute a just claim over natural resources in your mind,


Having made just compensation to those whom you deprive of them constitutes a just claim, stop lying about what we have plainly written.



> but it's at least a reason which is a whole lot more than the big fat Zip of a reason that the managers of your proposed political entities would have to claim rights over "their" land.


Wrong AGAIN.  _ONLY_ government can secure the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.  Government therefore has the _only_ just claim to administer possession of land.



> There are always choices.


Of course.  The slave can choose to obey or be whipped to death.  The landless can choose to serve a landowner or die of starvation.  The whipping would be faster, and likely less painful.



> I would agree about the governments if they were actually the just owners of the territories they claim and if they were run under the principles of voluntarism.


They are not the just owners, they just administer what cannot justly be owned.  I have informed you of that fact before.  Likewise, no one can own the earth's atmosphere (though apologists for landowner privilege have sometimes even gone so far as to claim one could), but government administers use of the atmosphere so that people's rights are not infringed by pollution, etc.  In the same way, a rightful government would administer possession and use of land to secure the equal individual rights of all to use it.  The only way to do that is to require those who exclude others from the land to make just compensation for depriving them of it.



> As they are today, governments are indeed, ultimately, dependent on the people for their continued existence, but the dependence is not of the same exact sort as the dependence of the landlord and any other businessman on his customers.


I have already proved to you that landowners are not dependent on tenants or "customers."  They own the land.  They already _have_ access to the resources needed to sustain themselves.  It is the landless who must depend on the landed for permission even to exist.



> The nation-state has layers of protection for itself against its "customers".  It arrogates to itself a monopoly on violence.


As there is no way to allocate exclusive land tenure but by force, the alternative to government's monopoly of violence is the warfare society: feudalism.



> But these outfits have much larger contiguous domains than market landowners, and they use their violence monopoly to demand that you get their permission to leave (!), and sometimes they use their violence monopoly to forcibly prevent people from leaving.  A landlord can't do that.  You just pack up and move across the street; problem solved.


That doesn't solve the problem any more than a slave being sold to a different owner solves his problem.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> That doesn't solve the [horrible!, horrible!] problem any more than a slave being sold to a different owner solves his problem.


 Umm, except the "sale" is beng initiated by the "slave", who gets to choose his new "owner".

Honestly, you're living in a fantasy-land.  Renting is not a horrific, gruesome, inhuman experience.  Every month, you pay the apartment manager, or land-and-house-owner, or whoever, the rent, and you continue living a happy, productive life, completely unharrassed and unoppressed by your landlord.  What's more, you can leave at any time with trivial ease.  This is not the concentration camp scenario you are so desperately convinced that it is.

----------


## Roy L

> Umm, except the "sale" is beng initiated by the "slave", who gets to choose his new "owner".


I'm sure lots of slaves would initiate their own sale if they could.  The slave of landowning is still forced to serve the owner, has no right to liberty, etc. -- and he can only choose from among the owners with open positions that others slaves have not already filled. 

It is not at all unusual for apologists for landowner privilege to claim slavery is not a problem if the slave exercises some liberty in choice of owner.  Having swallowed landowner privilege, slavery is not much of a stretch.



> Renting is not a horrific, gruesome, inhuman experience.


For most slaves, slavery wasn't either.  In fact, it was about on a par with common, everyday landlessness:

_"During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky home for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God, I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.' The planters, on the other hand, are contented with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper now than when we owned the slaves.' How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents they take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were compelled by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he could no longer work. Now their interest and responsibility cease when they have got all the work out of him they can."_

From a letter by George M. Jackson, St. Louis. Dated August 15, 1885. Reprinted in _Social Problems_, by Henry George



> Every month, you pay the apartment manager, or land-and-house-owner, or whoever, the rent, and you continue living a happy, productive life, completely unharrassed and unoppressed by your landlord.


And continue paying for government twice so that he can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.



> What's more, you can leave at any time with trivial ease.


Moving is not trivially easy, stop lying.  And moving does you no good if you are still landless.  Do you think the landless peasant farmers of India who commit suicide in despair couldn't have moved?  Of course they could.  They just know they'd still be landless and therefore enslaved wherever they went.



> This is not the concentration camp scenario you are so desperately convinced that it is.


It isn't _here_, because government taxes the productive for funds to protect them against the full consequences of landowner privilege through welfare, old age pensions, public education and health care, minimum wage and union monopoly laws, laws regulating conditions of labor, tenant protection laws, etc., etc. as I have already informed you and you continue to ignore.  Where property in land is in full force but government does not provide such protections, such as Bangladesh, Guatemala, the Philippines, Haiti, Pakistan, Paraguay, etc., the landless are effectively enslaved, and their condition is barely distinguishable from that of slaves.

You are an apologist for the greatest evil in the history of the world.

----------


## redbluepill

> But they could enforce it themselves, yes? The teeming hordes of "society" are probably not going to mount an attack on one's small suburban home, especially if it's surrounded by electrified barbed wire fence, a moat, mines, and sniper towers. No reason to bother. They'll just respect your beliefs and your claim and expect you to respect theirs in return.


Society would probably leave that guy alone unless ‘his’ land includes a natural spring and there is a water shortage. In that case you can expect violent action against the landlord and I would not blame the people. As individuals we want to survive. I will bet you would not lay down and die just so some landholder can keep his spring all to himself.

But realistically, anyone who is smart would not remove themselves from the community. They can enjoy tax returns from the land values they help create (not to mention the benefits/privileges of being a citizen of the community).

Curious, why did you put society in quotes?






> What about not on the individual level, but a neighborhood level?


Sure. But I strongly believe that any neighborhood that adopts ground rent and eliminates all other taxes will benefit the most economically. This would encourage other communities to do the same.




> How small can a political entity be in your system? You propose to have thousands in the territory of the formerly united States. So that means political entities the size of present-day counties. Can one of these county-sized nations split itself into 20 pieces? Can one of those new pieces reorganize itself into 200 confederate but sovereign cantons? If not, why not? If so, you're getting down to 20 acre plots of sovereignty.


There is nothing anti-geoist about secession imo. There is one system proposed by libertarian economists like Fred Foldvary called geo-anarchism:

Anarchist geoism

In a libertarian or anarchist world, some people might be unaffiliated anarcho-capitalists, contracting with various firms for services. But if we look at markets today, we see instead contractual communities. We see condominiums, homeowner associations, cooperatives, and neighborhood associations. For temporary lodging, folks stay in hotels, and stores get lumped into shopping centers. Historically, human beings have preferred to live and work in communities. Competition induces efficiency, and private communities tend to be financed from the rentals of sites and facilities, since this is the most efficient source of funding. Henry George recognized that site rents are the most efficient way to finance community goods because it is a fee paid for benefits, paying back that value added by those benefits. Private communities today such as hotels and condominiums use geoist financing. Unfortunately, governments do not.
Geoist communities would join together in leagues and associations to provide services that are more efficient on a large scale, such as defense, if needed. The voting and financing would be bottom up. The local communities would elect representatives, and provide finances, and would be able to secede when they felt association was no longer in their interest.

http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html







> Each of these thousands of political entities would act, of course, as a monopolistic land-owner, if they are to be anything like current-day political entities.


Geoism would and should be spread through example. Maybe a few communities start off will it. When other communities see how successful it is they will adopt the policies too.




> The forces of one state would have no right to enter the boundaries of another.


Right.




> They could even have border controls to keep out anyone they wished. They could make whatever rules of conduct they wished pertaining to their land. So we'd see a variety of justice systems, military systems, taxation systems, etc, in your vision for the future, yes? It kind of would defeat the purpose of having thousands of independent polities if they're just monolithically uniform, yes?


Communities could have a geoist policy but still be different on other issues. For example, one community may legalize abortion while another could have it banned. Some communities may have most of the money collected from land values returned to each citizen while other communities would put the money towards education or roads. Just because the tax systems are similar does not mean that all political policies would be the same.






> Again, would you be OK with one of these thousands of political entities, just one, trying Rothbardianism? Would that be acceptable in your vision?


Some may practice that. Doesn’t mean I would necessarily agree with all the policies. Keep in mind, I agree with Rothbard 90% of the time. But most of his conclusions on land were way off. Speaking of, did you read the excerpt from Rothbard I posted? What are your thoughts?





> Also, really, isn't all you are proposing is that we split up North America amongst thousands of landowners? Wouldn't a political map of N.Am. then just be a property map, showing the boundaries of the deeds and plots?


No. I believe 98% of people will still want to be a part of a community.




> So then we see the differences between my Utopia and yours are not that vast.


Never said our ideas of Utopia are very far off. But our different philosophies on property and land are fairly significant. Also, I believe your 'Utopia' could have some terrible unintended consequences without proper reforms.




> Difference number one is that I want to take the decentralization further, allowing the breakup of polities without limit, down even to the individual level, making all political alliances voluntary, enthroning the man as the supreme unit of society and deposing the mob from that station.


Society and community should be as voluntary as possible. And a geolibertarian community would be the most voluntary of them all. Failure to pay ground rent would not get you thrown in jail. The community would simply not recognize your privilege to exclude others from the land. 




> Difference number two is that I want the landowners to be those who actually have a reason to believe they are the legitimate owners, via homesteading theory and then free exchange. I know you don't believe that this reason constitutes a just claim, because nothing can constitute a just claim over natural resources in your mind, but it's at least a reason which is a whole lot more than the big fat Zip of a reason that the managers of your proposed political entities would have to claim rights over "their" land.


Where did I say that political entities have any more right to the land than individuals?

----------


## Nathaniel1984

Redbluepill said:

"Society and community should be as voluntary as possible. And a geolibertarian community would be the most voluntary of them all. Failure to pay ground rent would not get you thrown in jail. The community would simply not recognize your privilege to exclude others from the land." 

Well, that should be the end of the practical discussion.  I'm more concerned about the issues of hermits, anchorites, and other such who live way off and would like to be left alone on .1 acres of land with a hut; or small agrarian communities like Mennonites, and others. 

I agree with you!

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## Roy L

> I'm more concerned about the issues of hermits, anchorites, and other such who live way off and would like to be left alone on .1 acres of land with a hut; or small agrarian communities like Mennonites, and others.


A significant fraction of the population (~20%?) would live on such little or low-value land that they would not exceed the individual exemption amount, and would consequently pay no LVT, just as low-income people don't pay income tax.  They would get free, secure tenure on a cheap bit of land in return for losing their liberty to use the better land.

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## Nathaniel1984

Ok. Well, that doesn't really sound as bad as what I initially thought.  Things get complicated for me when I start dealing with ground rent and how you value this and that, and what is productive versus unproductive.

So, what would be the cut off point on the amount of land? or would it be rather the quality of land?  I mean, would someone who inherited 30 acres of basically unusable or unfarmable moutain forest be exempt? Would someone with 1000 acres of desert (no oil on it, etc) be exempt?  

I think some of the worst aspects of current property tax and land laws are ones that prevent you from even giving up the land if you can't pay for it.  For example, I have basicaly 25 acres of almost unusable and unsailable mountain terrain that I'd gladly give up (except for the 5 acres my house is on), but, the town won't even allow me to just give the land to them. I'm stuck paying 10,000 dollars or more on stuff I can't use (nor can anyone else, which is why they won't buy).  Heck, when we wanted to have the land excavated for possible mineral resources (and thus sell it and get a profit and be rid of it and the taxes) the neighbors and the town blocked us.  One of our neighbors down the road has about 66 acres (again, moutainous partially, and with some possibly arible land on another side) that he's tried to sell, but, isn't allowed to.  

It seems that a lot of property tax laws are bound to make it difficult to get rid of the stuff you don't want, so that they can continuosly bleed you. Heck, we once told the town, "What happens if we just don't pay the tax on the 20 acres we don't want?  Will you just take it and leave the 5 acres we want alone?"  "No," they said, "We'll seize everything and all that's on it."  Thus, a darned if you do and darned if you don't.  

About all we can grow is brocoli since the soil is so rocky and filled with clay.

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## Roy L

> So, what would be the cut off point on the amount of land? or would it be rather the quality of land?  I mean, would someone who inherited 30 acres of basically unusable or unfarmable moutain forest be exempt? Would someone with 1000 acres of desert (no oil on it, etc) be exempt?


The exemption would be by value, and the same for all resident citizens.  The amount would be just enough for a normal person to live on, have access to opportunity, and participate in society.  Tenants would apply their land tax exemptions in lieu of some or all of their rent, and their landlords would then apply their tenants' exemptions to the tax on the land the tenant was using.



> I think some of the worst aspects of current property tax and land laws are ones that prevent you from even giving up the land if you can't pay for it.  For example, I have basicaly 25 acres of almost unusable and unsailable mountain terrain that I'd gladly give up (except for the 5 acres my house is on), but, the town won't even allow me to just give the land to them. I'm stuck paying 10,000 dollars or more on stuff I can't use (nor can anyone else, which is why they won't buy).  Heck, when we wanted to have the land excavated for possible mineral resources (and thus sell it and get a profit and be rid of it and the taxes) the neighbors and the town blocked us.  One of our neighbors down the road has about 66 acres (again, moutainous partially, and with some possibly arible land on another side) that he's tried to sell, but, isn't allowed to.  
> 
> It seems that a lot of property tax laws are bound to make it difficult to get rid of the stuff you don't want, so that they can continuosly bleed you. Heck, we once told the town, "What happens if we just don't pay the tax on the 20 acres we don't want?  Will you just take it and leave the 5 acres we want alone?"  "No," they said, "We'll seize everything and all that's on it."  Thus, a darned if you do and darned if you don't.


There are two solutions to that kind of problem: the tax authority can set the assessment, but would be required to buy the land at the assessed value if the landholder thinks it is too high; or the landholder can set the assessed value, but be required to sell it for that amount if anyone offered it.

I find your situation bizarre.  When both improvements and land are taxed, there can be some perverse incentives for the tax office and local landowning interests who often promote a NIMBY attitude because it increases the value of their land if other people can't build on theirs.  Straight LVT aligns the tax authority's financial incentives with society's interests.

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## MattButler

I love the idea of Land Tax to replace most if not all other taxes.  I think if coupled with federal budget cuts it would generate a huge economic boom the likes have never before been seen in the modern world.  America would become an extremely rich country at all levels and the poor and ignorant would be well taken care.  I'd supplement LVT with taxes on pollution (no credits either), taxes on patents, and user fees where they can be easily enforced and make sense.

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## helmuth_hubener

> Society would probably leave that guy alone unless ‘his’ land includes a natural spring and there is a water shortage. In that case you can expect violent action against the landlord and I would not blame the people. As individuals we want to survive. I will bet you would not lay down and die just so some landholder can keep his spring all to himself.
> 
> But realistically, anyone who is smart would not remove themselves from the community. They can enjoy tax returns from the land values they help create (not to mention the benefits/privileges of being a citizen of the community).
> 
> Curious, why did you put society in quotes?


 Because to me, society is the sum of human interaction, _minus aggression_.  A group stealing someone's land is a mob of barbarians, not a society.

I don't see seceding from your neighbors' chosen defense and justice vendor as removing yourself from the community, any more than choosing a different grocery or gasoline vendor.  Buy a big tank for your back yard and order a truck delivery of 10,000 gallons of gas once a year, instead of buying it from the local station like a normal person.  You're different, but you're still part of the community of whomever you associate and trade with.




> Sure. But I strongly believe that any neighborhood that adopts ground rent and eliminates all other taxes will benefit the most economically. This would encourage other communities to do the same.


 Excellent!!  And I'm all for as many neighborhoods adopting ground rent as wish to.  I think that ultimately the insurance companies from the Rothbardian territories will drive all non-Rothbardian governments out of business by offering insurance against various oppressions and predations, such as asset seizures, arrests, and land value taxation.  But I could be wrong. 




> In a libertarian or anarchist world, some people might be unaffiliated anarcho-capitalists, contracting with various firms for services. But if we look at markets today, we see instead contractual communities. We see condominiums, homeowner associations, cooperatives, and neighborhood associations. For temporary lodging, folks stay in hotels, and stores get lumped into shopping centers. Historically, human beings have preferred to live and work in communities. Competition induces efficiency, and private communities tend to be financed from the rentals of sites and facilities, since this is the most efficient source of funding. Henry George recognized that site rents are the most efficient way to finance community goods because it is a fee paid for benefits, paying back that value added by those benefits. Private communities today such as hotels and condominiums use geoist financing. Unfortunately, governments do not.
> Geoist communities would join together in leagues and associations to provide services that are more efficient on a large scale, such as defense, if needed. The voting and financing would be bottom up. The local communities would elect representatives, and provide finances, and would be able to secede when they felt association was no longer in their interest.


 The key thing in shopping malls, condos, gated communities, etc., is that their rules and their funding is voluntary.  So if that's all you meant by your form of georgism, that people be allowed to coagulate and form contractual communities, we're in total agreement and in fact this writer is confused because having contractual communities is totally Rothbardian (aka anarcho-capitalist).  We're on board with it.  See the book _The Voluntary City_.  Now these contractual communities need not be geographically-based -- see, for example, the novel _The Diamond Age_.  But, they could be.  Some man or men buys up 20 square miles of land and makes it a jurisdiction of "Amish law" or "Greenwich Village law" or "geoist law".  There's stipulations written into the deeds that everyone must pay land value "tax", or must never play loud rock music, or whatever the man thinks will make for a successful and pleasant community.  Then, the land value "tax" is contractual, and thus voluntary, and thus really not a tax and I will love it to pieces!  Voluntary=good, initiation-of-force=bad.




> Geoism would and should be spread through example. Maybe a few communities start off will it. When other communities see how successful it is they will adopt the policies too.


Perfect!  I like your thinking.  That's how I feel about Rothbardianism, too.




> Some may practice that. Doesn’t mean I would necessarily agree with all the policies. Keep in mind, I agree with Rothbard 90% of the time. But most of his conclusions on land were way off. Speaking of, did you read the excerpt from Rothbard I posted? What are your thoughts?


I may disagree with him a bit, based just on these two paragraphs, though he might agree with the objection I'm about to raise.  What about if you want to fence off a nature preserve, keeping it in its pristine natural condition?  According to this, anyone would be free to tramp in and labor it away from you at any time.  I think this would be unjust, and I think Murray might agree.  In the particular example he gave, he is right: if the land is claimed but then ignored, never used, never transformed, and forgotten, it's fair game again at some point.  But I don't agree with some of the implications of using use and transformation as the sole homesteading criteria.  Philosophically, the essential element which brings about ownership is the act of making the claim, and then there is a continuum of certainty in the justice of the claim determined by any factor you can think of: the size of the area claimed, the extent of the transformation the claimant has done, etc.  As a practical matter, using and transforming the land are probably the two biggest things you can do to solidify your claim to the land.  Without that, your claim is much, much, more precarious, although it is possible, as in the case of the nature preserve.  Once you've plowed your farm or built your cabin, your claim is probably set in stone, nobody's going to contest the justice of your ownership (well, except the Georgists/geoists ).

Anyway, there's no apodictically perfect and true way to determine the exact requirements to homestead land.  Do exactly one hour of labor per 10 sq. yards of land, or make transformations increasing the land's value by at least 10%, or... you see?  Conventions will arise.  The market, including the arbitrators, will decide what constitutes a just claim and what doesn't.  "Yes, you filed your claim to this 20 sq. miles and marked the corners with stakes, but that was a year ago and you haven't done anything since; I think it's a bogus claim and call foul", says Smith.  The arbitrator is probably going to side with Smith.  "But it's a nature preserve!!"  Well, how big a nature preserve can you fence off?  As I say, it's not an exact science, but I'm confident a free-market justice system will come up with something reasonable and workable and somewhat fair-seeming.






> Also, really, isn't all you are proposing is that we split up North America amongst thousands of landowners? Wouldn't a political map of N.Am. then just be a property map, showing the boundaries of the deeds and plots?
> 			
> 		
> 
> No. I believe 98% of people will still want to be a part of a community.


What I mean is, isn't your system really not abolishing land ownership at all, but merely giving us thousands of landowners in the form of political entities?  Wouldn't these political entities act as the ultimate owners of their territories, or "plots"?




> Never said our ideas of Utopia are very far off. But our different philosophies on property and land are fairly significant. Also, I believe your 'Utopia' could have some terrible unintended consequences without proper reforms.


Possible!  But it's at least worth a try.




> Society and community should be as voluntary as possible. And a geolibertarian community would be the most voluntary of them all. Failure to pay ground rent would not get you thrown in jail. The community would simply not recognize your privilege to exclude others from the land.


 Most voluntary of them all... assuming that land should not be owned.  I do not share that assumption, thus in my view voluntariness is increased by respecting property rights in land.




> Where did I say that political entities have any more right to the land than individuals?


You didn't.  I was just saying that for all practical purposes, your political entities are landowners.  Yes, they are supposedly acting for *The Public Good* and *The Welfare of All*, with naught but wisdom and selfless love in their hearts, but that is of course a laughable bunk.  They cannot be said to "represent" the people in any real way unless the people give their unanimous consent.  So the managers of the political entity are the ones in control of the territory they control.  Your system has landowners, my system has landowners.  My landowners get their land by homesteading it; your landowners get it by... what?  Elections, wars, and other bogus political means.  So, seizing it, as far as I can tell.

----------


## Roy L

> A group stealing someone's land is a mob of barbarians, not a society.


The someone who presumes to violate others' rights to liberty by forcibly excluding them from land they would otherwise be at liberty to use is a thief, parasite and extortionist, not a producer.



> I think that ultimately the insurance companies from the Rothbardian territories will drive all non-Rothbardian governments out of business by offering insurance against various oppressions and predations, such as asset seizures, arrests, and land value taxation.  But I could be wrong.


You are indisputably wrong that recovering the publicly created rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it is an oppression or predation, as well as that it is less efficient or practical than giving it away to landowners in return for nothing.



> The key thing in shopping malls, condos, gated communities, etc., is that their rules and their funding is voluntary.


Except their exclusion of others from land they would otherwise be at liberty to use.



> Some man or men buys up 20 square miles of land


From whom?  By what right?



> Voluntary=good, initiation-of-force=bad.


Except when the land thief initiates force against all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land....?



> What about if you want to fence off a nature preserve, keeping it in its pristine natural condition?


If you want to deprive others of their liberty, make just compensation.



> According to this, anyone would be free to tramp in and labor it away from you at any time.


Hunter gatherers were always at liberty to tramp in and use whatever land they wished, but never imagined they could do something so absurd as "labor it away" from others.  If they wanted to exclude others, they did it the only way it CAN be done: by initiating force.



> In the particular example he gave, he is right: if the land is claimed but then ignored, never used, never transformed, and forgotten, it's fair game again at some point.


If people have a right to liberty, it's always fair game.



> But I don't agree with some of the implications of using use and transformation as the sole homesteading criteria.  Philosophically, the essential element which brings about ownership is the act of making the claim,


No, that's just baseless nonsense.  You can't just extinguish others' rights by declaring them extinct.



> and then there is a continuum of certainty in the justice of the claim determined by any factor you can think of:


The justice of such claims is self-evidently nonexistent, no continuum about it.



> As a practical matter, using and transforming the land are probably the two biggest things you can do to solidify your claim to the land.


But only because people recognize rightful property in products of labor, including fixed improvements.



> Without that, your claim is much, much, more precarious, although it is possible, as in the case of the nature preserve.


No, it just isn't.



> Once you've plowed your farm or built your cabin, your claim is probably set in stone, nobody's going to contest the justice of your ownership (well, except the Georgists/geoists ).


But in fact, historically, you are just indisputably wrong.  It is only when such claims are supported by government force that anyone respects them at all.  The colonial "homesteaders" moved into land the aboriginals had used and sometimes improved without a second thought that it might be their land (though they did sometimes try to buy it with beads and trinkets in a process the aboriginal users did not comprehend).  The aboriginals in turn often tried to keep using the land after the homesteader had plowed it and built his cabin on it.  The cattlemen ran their herds on land the aboriginals had used and sometimes improved, but the aboriginals often tried to keep using it.  Then the sodbusters came and appropriated the land the cattlemen and aboriginals had been using and improving, and the cattlemen burned their cabins, trampled their plowed fields and tried to run them off.  Etc., until government came and imposed land titles by force.

Your claim that only geoists would presume to question the justice of landownership based on use and improvement is false and absurd.



> Anyway, there's no apodictically perfect and true way to determine the exact requirements to homestead land.


The perfect and true fact is that acquisition of land titles by "homesteading" is nothing but forcible appropriation, like any other method of privatizing land.



> The market, including the arbitrators, will decide what constitutes a just claim and what doesn't.


There can be no such thing as a just claim to violate others' rights without making just compensation.



> As I say, it's not an exact science, but I'm confident a free-market justice system will come up with something reasonable and workable and somewhat fair-seeming.


As landowning inherently violates people's rights to liberty in order to give a welfare subsidy to the landowner, it is impossible to have a free market or a system of justice that includes landowning.



> What I mean is, isn't your system really not abolishing land ownership at all, but merely giving us thousands of landowners in the form of political entities?  Wouldn't these political entities act as the ultimate owners of their territories, or "plots"?


The sovereign authority that administers possession and use of land is government.  But administering possession and use is not the same as owning.



> Most voluntary of them all... assuming that land should not be owned.  I do not share that assumption, thus in my view voluntariness is increased by respecting property rights in land.


But I have already proved to you that that claim is objectively false.  Respecting property rights in land is precisely what makes Saudi Arabia a feudal dictatorship.  "Voluntariness"???  Don't make me laugh.  You already know that Dirtowner Harry is a thief, extortionist and parasite.  You already know that Crusoe seeks to use his property "right" in land to enslave Friday.  You KNOW this.  Of course you do.  You just have to _refuse_ to know it, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> I was just saying that for all practical purposes, your political entities are landowners.


Fallacy of composition.



> Yes, they are supposedly acting for *The Public Good* and *The Welfare of All*, with naught but wisdom and selfless love in their hearts,


They are acting in their own interest in a society that truly respects their rights to liberty, and their actions are consequently led by Smith's invisible hand to benefit each other.



> but that is of course a laughable bunk.


It is your absurd attempts to justify landowner parasitism that are laughable bunk.



> They cannot be said to "represent" the people in any real way unless the people give their unanimous consent.


No, that's just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.  Unanimity is *never* required for collective action to secure people's rights, because there is always someone like you who prefers to violate others' rights.



> So the managers of the political entity are the ones in control of the territory they control.


As long as the rest of the people think that control is being exercised justly.



> Your system has landowners, my system has landowners.


His has land administrators, yours has land thieves.



> My landowners get their land by homesteading it;


No, they don't.  That is just a lie.  Please identify one square inch of land, anywhere on earth, whose title of private ownership can be traced in an unbroken sequence of consensual transactions to the first person who used and improved it without violating anyone else's rights in doing so.  Just one square inch.

Thought not.

All land titles are originally obtained by forcible appropriation.  There is no other way.



> your landowners get it by... what?


Efficiency in securing the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.



> Elections, wars, and other bogus political means.


War is not political, and elections need not be bogus.



> So, seizing it, as far as I can tell.


There is no possible way to allocate exclusive possession of land but by force.  You just want that force to be applied at public expense, to violate people's liberty rights without just compensation, for private gain.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Dearest Mr. L,

You may continue to merely repeat your assertions ad nauseum, pretending that to assert is to prove, and to type ROTFL is to refute.  Quite honestly I could write your replies to me myself, as could most intelligent people, I think.  In fact, if this thread were a Turing test, I think it would be a close call whether you might be just piece of software programmed to generate certain phrases in response to certain key words.  So by all means, continue your mind-numbing replies if you wish.

Or, you could instead make a couple realizations and get serious about defending your position.

Realize first the fundamental ethical difference we have.  You think land should not be owned.  I think that it should.  Repeating over and over and over that land should not be owned is not persuasive.  It's not even persua_sion_, not any method I'm familiar with.  So not only has your method not been successful, it is impossible for it to ever be successful, because you cannot persuade without using persuasion.  Pick a type, any type, but let's use persuasion of some variety, let's use our minds, not just display our intractability via impressive willingness to spend time engaging in numbing repetition.  For example:



> But I have already *proved* to you that that claim is objectively false...You already know that Dirtowner Harry is a thief, extortionist and parasite. You already know that Crusoe seeks to use his property "right" in land to enslave Friday [unless he leaves, which he is free to do in the real world, which is why I invent an imaginary scenario in which it is impossible for him to do so, rather than address the real world]. You KNOW this. Of course you do. You just have to refuse to know it, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.


 I already told you that I really and truly do not know what you claim I know.  Rather, I wholeheartedly know that Harry and Crusoe are decent fellows, heroes even, for being willing to stand up for their property rights against moochers and looters.  Because, you see, I know that natural resources should be privately owned.  I am totally OK with Friday and Thirsty Guy dying because the property owners they're begging from refuse to give them a dime or a pint.  You're not, but I am.  That's a difference in our ethics.  It's not because I "refuse to know" anything!  I could say "you refuse to know that land ownership is right and good".  And that would be meaningless and unpersuasive.  You have not given me a reason to believe that economic land ought not to be owned.  You just repeatedly accuse me of disagreeing with you, and scream that this disagreement is a despicable crime, akin to the Holocaust.  So I will again explain: yes, Mr. L., I do disagree with you.  Thank you for noticing.  Now rather than just add various rhetorical exclamation points to your repeated revelation that "You disagree with me!", how about you attempt to convince us _why_ my point of view is slavery and Nazis and dictatorship and death, whereas yours is sunshine and rainbows and lollipops and love.  Bring out the logic.  Make the deductions.  Otherwise, it comes down to this: 

"But I think land shouldn't be privatey owned."  

"But I think it should be."

And that's it!  That's as far as one can go!

Realize second the fundamental practical issue on which we differ.  You believe being a landowner is not a productive occupation.  I believe it is productive.  I see the landowner as an entreprenuer for his land.  I see decision-making as an extremely important economic function.  You do not, apparently.  When I say that I think that making correct decisions for the disposition of the land is vital and wealth-producing, you just snark about slave owners making decisions.  Prove to me you can address a thought on its own level.  Explain why we should not consider the decisions a land owner makes to be valuable or value-destroying, but we should consider the decisions a capital owner makes to be valuable or value-destroying.

----------


## MattButler

> You believe being a landowner is not a productive occupation.  I believe it is productive.  I see the landowner as an entreprenuer for his land.  I see decision-making as an extremely important economic function.  You do not, apparently.  When I say that I think that making correct decisions for the disposition of the land is vital and wealth-producing, you just snark about slave owners making decisions.  Prove to me you can address a thought on its own level.  Explain why we should not consider the decisions a land owner makes to be valuable or value-destroying, but we should consider the decisions a capital owner makes to be valuable or value-destroying.


While its true owning land and directing its use can be a productive occupation, its also true that taxing land does not interfere with this function but rather enhances it.  I disagree with your assumption that landowners do a good job managing land today, in fact I think many of them do a terrible job and often its done with public subsidies to fire and sewer and roads and whatever.  Look around at the sprawling wastes of suburbs, empty cities with vacant lots, high costs for infrastructure and services, and all of it paid for on the backs of people's wages and purchases.  If landowners really do act as decision makers to manage the use of land, they have failed massively.  Have you ever been to Atlanta?  Ever been to New Jersey?  They are giant parking lots; the people are taxed heavily to pay for all this sprawling waste, and its not cheap to live there either.  Most of America looks like that.  City planners have attempted to reverse this by "Smart Growth" and smart city planning and zoning, but tax on Land is the key.  

By taxing land the landowner is given a choice, either use the land in a way that benefits the community or suffer the consequences of losing the land to someone that can.  It sounds hostile when I put it like that, but what should we think if someone wanted to farm a city block in the middle of Manhattan?  But for zoning restrictions, what is stopping them?  Certainly not a land tax.  You say "Its my land I can do as I want; I'm serving the function of entrepreneur."  We say "Build a damn skyscraper or let someone else, rent is expensive and we need more apartments."  By taxing land it causes the owner to use the land for its highest purpose, which in Manhattan is clearly the construction of tall buildings.  What we have throughout this country is basically people using land in many, many, unproductive ways, because unlike Manhattan the opportunity costs are not so obvious.  By taxing the land the true opportunity costs of land use are revealed.  It becomes crystal clear, very fast, what is the best way to use land.  We think this will make our cities and towns will be much better places to live. 

And IMO empirical evidence bears this out.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> While its true owning land and directing its use can be a productive occupation


 Thank you!  I love it when people see reason.  Or perhaps I just like it when they agree with me.  I kind of like it when they disagree with me in an intellectually stimulating way too, though.  Welcome to the world-famous Ron Paul Forums, by the way.




> its also true that taxing land does not interfere with this function but rather enhances it.


Why?




> I disagree with your assumption that landowners do a good job managing land today


I actually never made that statement.  "Good job" is relative, anyway.  How good?  Humans are fallible.




> in fact I think many of them do a terrible job and often its done with public subsidies to fire and sewer and roads and whatever.


 I don't think I've mentioned explicitly in this thread yet that I completely agree with anyone who wants to end these communist scams (you call "public subsidies").  The cost of a road should be borne, like the cost of anything else, only by those who choose to bear it.  If I want to build a subdivision, it is immoral for the taxpayers to be forced to pay for my roads.  Roads, water distribution, waste collection, fire extinguishing, etc., etc., _everything_ should be done by the private, free, voluntary market.  Government doesn't work.  Government is an amazing load of bunkum.  Government is an unnecessary evil.




> Look around at the sprawling wastes of suburbs, empty cities with vacant lots, high costs for infrastructure and services, and all of it paid for on the backs of people's wages and purchases.


 You're losing me here.




> If landowners really do act as decision makers to manage the use of land, they have failed massively.


Again, it's all relative, and not everyone shares the same values.  Someone must make the choices.  Right now the government makes a lot of the choices and I would argue that problems such as the the ones you describe are the result of government action, not the free market.   


> Have you ever been to Atlanta?


Yes.  


> Ever been to New Jersey?


No.  


> They are giant parking lots


 That did indeed seem to be true of Atlanta, moreso than other large cities I've been to.  Again, this is government's fault.  Obviously!  Who owns the roads?  Government!  If transportation were a private enterprise, pricing would counteract congestion.  Real costs would have to be borne by the users, rather than shunted off to the taxpayers, a distortive process you so rightly decry.  Without the crazy distortions which are created by having communist roads, urban travel by road would be a much more pleasant experience.  Communism doesn't work.  Sitting in traffic jam for an hour on communist road = waiting in line all day (literally!) to buy toilet paper at communist store.  It's the same forces at work.  De-communistize the roads!




> the people are taxed heavily to pay for all this sprawling waste


Yes: let's end that.




> Most of America looks like that.


Umm, have you been to most of America?  I would have to respectfully disagree.  Most of America looks really empty.  


> City planners have attempted to reverse this by "Smart Growth" and smart city planning and zoning, but tax on Land is the key.


City planners are infuriating morons who should be exiled from any decent society.  Just saying... 





> By taxing land the landowner is given a choice, either use the land in a way that benefits the community or suffer the consequences of losing the land to someone that can.


In a free market, if an owner of anything -- land, machinery, money -- does not use his property in a way that benefits others, he misses out on profits.  That's a strong incentive which rewards the competent and beneficial, and punishes the incompetent and non-beneficial.  Those who make profits by "benefiting the community" as you say, become wealthier and wealthier, which means that more and more property comes under their control.  The opposite happens to the non-beneficial owners.  In this way, property gravitates to and concentrates in the hands of the ablest owners.




> It sounds hostile when I put it like that, but what should we think if someone wanted to farm a city block in the middle of Manhattan?


 Go for it!  That's freedom, baby, and I love it.  He's going to pay dearly for his eccentricity, and that's his right.  What, we're going to have "the community" decide what can and can't be done with the land?  What are we, the Borg?  Rugged individualism!  Think different!  Here's to the crazy ones!  Maybe the farm will bizarrely be the most successful venture ever.




> By taxing the land the true opportunity costs of land use are revealed.  It becomes crystal clear, very fast, what is the best way to use land.


 How is that?  Even more crystal clear than a totally free market would make it?

----------


## MattButler

> How is that?  Even more crystal clear than a totally free market would make it?


Yes.  Even more crystal clear than a totally free market anarcho-capitalist society would make it.  This is not to say that a Geoist society is superior or equal to an anarcho-capitalist society in all ways.  However in one particular way, maximizing the economic utility of land, a Geoist system does a better job.  This is especially true within communities.

----------


## Roy L

> You may continue to merely repeat your assertions ad nauseum, pretending that to assert is to prove, and to type ROTFL is to refute.


I identify facts and their logical implications.  Stop lying.



> Quite honestly I could write your replies to me myself, as could most intelligent people, I think.


Correct.  You know very well you are lying, and how.  And most intelligent people _could_ write my responses -- if they were also as knowledgeable, articulate, persistent and honest as I am.



> Realize first the fundamental ethical difference we have.  You think land should not be owned.  I think that it should.


No, our fundamental ethical difference is that I believe in equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor, and you do not.



> Repeating over and over and over that land should not be owned is not persuasive.  It's not even persua_sion_, not any method I'm familiar with.  So not only has your method not been successful, it is impossible for it to ever be successful, because you cannot persuade without using persuasion.


It is your choice whether to find logical demonstrations persuasive or not.  You do not.  I have no power to change your mind on that score, and no interest in using other methods of persuasion.



> I already told you that I really and truly do not know what you claim I know.


You do, because everyone over the age of about six does.



> Rather, I wholeheartedly know that Harry and Crusoe are decent fellows, heroes even, for being willing to stand up for their property rights against moochers and looters.


*They* are the moochers and looters.  Your "heroes'" property "rights" are nothing but a transparent pretext for their extortion rackets.  Your "decent fellows" are the ones initiating forcible, coercive, violent physical aggression to obtain unearned wealth by depriving others of their rights to liberty, like any enslaver.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just have to refuse to know it.



> Because, you see, I know that natural resources should be privately owned.


You have offered no support for such a claim, just your bald ASSERTION, which flies in the face of self-evident fact: the earth's atmosphere, the sun, the oceans, etc. are all natural resources, and it is indisputable that their private ownership would result in tyranny and enslavement far exceeding the worst humanity has ever experienced.  You will now refuse to know that fact.



> I am totally OK with Friday and Thirsty Guy dying


Because your ethical beliefs are false and murderously evil.  Correct.



> because the property owners they're begging from refuse to give them a dime or a pint.


Harry and Crusoe have no logically or morally defensible claim to own the spring or the island; to call them "property owners" is therefore just a question begging fallacy.  Thirsty and Friday are not begging, that is just a flat-out lie.  They are not asking Harry or Crusoe to give them anything; that, too, is just a lie.  They simply purposed to exercise their rights to liberty, and were prevented from doing so by threats of violent, aggressive, forcible physical coercion.



> You're not, but I am.  That's a difference in our ethics.


Of course.  I have told you on numerous occasions that your ethical beliefs are false and evil.  Mine are true and good.  Simple.



> It's not because I "refuse to know" anything!


Yes, it is, quite precisely.  See above.  You refuse even to know the fact that the atmosphere, the sun, the oceans, etc. are not rightly private property.



> I could say "you refuse to know that land ownership is right and good".


That is merely an opinion.  What you refuse to know are facts.



> You have not given me a reason to believe that economic land ought not to be owned.


I have proved it many times: it unilaterally abrogates others' rights to liberty without just compensation.  This is self-evident and indisputable.  You just refuse to know it.



> Now rather than just add various rhetorical exclamation points to your repeated revelation that "You disagree with me!",


Stop lying.  Anyone who has read this thread knows you are lying about what I have plainly written.  Including you.



> how about you attempt to convince us _why_ my point of view is slavery and Nazis and dictatorship and death, whereas yours is sunshine and rainbows and lollipops and love.  Bring out the logic.  Make the deductions.


See above.

In *every* country where private landowning is well established and enforced, but the government does not make significant provision to alleviate its effects on the landless, they exist in crushing poverty, oppression, suffering, enslavement, injustice, stagnation, and despair, from which the only escape is typically a slow and painful death by exhaustion, disease or starvation.  The eradication of their rights to liberty inherent in landowning kills MILLIONS of them EVERY YEAR.

Your murderously, satanically evil "point of view" is directly responsible for this Annual Holocaust of the Landless.



> Realize second the fundamental practical issue on which we differ.  You believe being a landowner is not a productive occupation.  I believe it is productive.


But in fact, it indisputably isn't an occupation at all, as I have already proved to you.  The market decides what the most productive use of the land would be, not the landowner, and the most productive user simply offers the most rent in return for not being stopped from using it.  The landowner could be comatose, and the land would still be used just the same.  His only "contribution" is not exercising his power to stop the productive from using it just as they would if he had never existed:

_"The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent."_  Thomas Carlyle



> I see the landowner as an entreprenuer for his land.


Unlike a landowner, an entrepreneur aids production.  And to prove that the landowner does not, you cannot answer The Question:

"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"

And no one else can answer it, either.



> I see decision-making as an extremely important economic function.


Decision making is only an important economic function when it aids production.  The only decision the landowner makes is whether to deprive the producers of their liberty to use the pre-existing opportunity or not.



> You do not, apparently.  When I say that I think that making correct decisions for the disposition of the land is vital and wealth-producing, you just snark about slave owners making decisions.


The landowner does not and cannot make the correct decision for the disposition of the land, as the market has already done so, and transmitted the information to him in the form of the high bid.



> Prove to me you can address a thought on its own level.


I don't know how to sink to that level.



> Explain why we should not consider the decisions a land owner makes to be valuable or value-destroying, but we should consider the decisions a capital owner makes to be valuable or value-destroying.


The capital owner contributes capital that would not otherwise exist or be applied to production.  The landowner only STOPS producers from using a resource that was already there, ready to use, with no help from him or anyone else, unless they pay his extortion demands.  What would stop the producer from simply using the land, if the landowner had never existed?

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## Roy L

> While its true owning land and directing its use can be a productive occupation,


It is then the "using the land" part of his occupation that is productive, not the owning it part.  Simple question: if the same guy was making the same land use decisions as the land's lessee rather than its owner, would he be any less productive?  The answer is obvious, and proves landowning does not contribute to production.

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## helmuth_hubener

> The capital owner contributes capital that would not otherwise exist or be applied to production.


Really?  By owning capital, he creates the capital.  Interesting theory.




> What would stop the producer from simply using the land, if the landowner had never existed?


 What would stop the producer from simply using the capital, if the capital owner left the scene?  Would his machine tools cease to exist without him?

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## helmuth_hubener

> Yes.  Even more crystal clear than a totally free market anarcho-capitalist society would make it. [In] maximizing the economic utility of land, a Geoist system does a better job.  This is especially true within communities.


 Why is that?  Could you explain it to us?

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## helmuth_hubener

> Simple question: if the same guy was making the same land use decisions as the land's lessee rather than its owner, would he be any less productive?  The answer is obvious, and proves landowning does not contribute to production.


 The owner _chooses_ anyone who may substitute for him in making decisions.  That choice of who to appoint as manager, or who to lease to, is a critical decision and may be good or bad.  The owner is thus still the ultimate risk-bearer and decision-maker.  That is, he is an entreprenuer.

Just so, the owner of a restaurant bears ultimate responsibility for whether his restaurant succeeds or fails, even though he may delegate all or part of the decision-making to a manager.  Just as that restaurant owner creates value in the economy (or doesn't) by making good decisions and selecting others to make good decisions (or not), so the landowner creates (or destroys) value with his good (or bad) decisions.  Appropriating the fruits of his labors is just as wrong and harmful to the economy as approprating the fruits of the restaurateur's.

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## Roy L

> Thank you!  I love it when people see reason.  Or perhaps I just like it when they agree with me.


Bingo.  And proving you wrong is horrible and wicked, and anyway it never happened, ever...



> Why?


Because the landowner will lose money if he does not permit the most appropriate and productive use the market has decided on.



> I don't think I've mentioned explicitly in this thread yet that I completely agree with anyone who wants to end these communist scams (you call "public subsidies").


The only way to do that is by recovering their value from landowners, who get to pocket it.



> The cost of a road should be borne, like the cost of anything else, only by those who choose to bear it.


Sorry, that can't work because people will shirk paying for things they can't be deprived of if they don't pay.  You are comprehensively and immutably ignorant of the economics of public goods.



> If I want to build a subdivision, it is immoral for the taxpayers to be forced to pay for my roads.


It's not immoral if the landowners who get all the benefit are.



> Roads, water distribution, waste collection, fire extinguishing, etc., etc., _everything_ should be done by the private, free, voluntary market.


Sorry, but it is a known fact of economics that the private market *cannot* invest efficient amounts in public goods.  It is merely a fact that is not known to you, because you do not know any economics.



> Government doesn't work.


Except by comparison with no government.



> Private ownership of natural resources is an amazing load of bunkum.  Private ownership of natural resources is an unnecessary evil.


There.  Fixed it for you.



> You're losing me here.


Sales tax, income tax, payroll tax, etc.  Hello?



> Again, it's all relative, and not everyone shares the same values.  Someone must make the choices.


Better producers should do it, rather than parasites.



> Right now the government makes a lot of the choices and I would argue that problems such as the the ones you describe are the result of government action, not the free market.


Right, because a free market would not include massive government welfare subsidy giveaways to landowners.



> Again, this is government's fault.  Obviously!  Who owns the roads?  Government!  If transportation were a private enterprise, pricing would counteract congestion.


And no one would be able to go anywhere.  How many roads have private entrepreneurs built in Somalia?



> Real costs would have to be borne by the users, rather than shunted off to the taxpayers, a distortive process you so rightly decry.


It's only a distortion because the landowners who pocket all the benefit are not asked to pay for what they get.



> Without the crazy distortions which are created by having communist roads, urban travel by road would be a much more pleasant experience.


Silliness.  How's that morning commute in Mogadishu workin' for ya?  


> Communism doesn't work.


Brainless name calling doesn't persuade.



> Sitting in traffic jam for an hour on communist road = waiting in line all day (literally!) to buy toilet paper at communist store.  It's the same forces at work.


Nope.  Toilet paper is a private good.  You just do not know any economics.  None.



> In a free market, if an owner of anything -- land,


There can be no landowning in a free market other than empty, formal landowning, because any other kind is inherently a welfare subsidy to the landowner, and there is no place for welfare subsidies in a free market.



> machinery, money -- does not use his property in a way that benefits others, he misses out on profits.


But if it is land he owns, he also misses out on risk and trouble:

*"The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive, way for a capitalist to increase his fortune is to put all his monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price."* -- Andrew Carnegie



> That's a strong incentive which rewards the competent and beneficial, and punishes the incompetent and non-beneficial.


Land rent goes to the incompetent and non-beneficial landowner just the same as the competent and beneficial one -- but at less risk.



> Those who make profits by "benefiting the community" as you say, become wealthier and wealthier, which means that more and more property comes under their control.


No, because the more they benefit the community, the higher the land rents go and the less property they can afford.

The productive are on a treadmill that powers the landowners' escalator.  The faster the productive run on the treadmill, the faster the treadmill goes, and the faster they have to run just to stay in place.  Meanwhile, the landowners' escalator lifts them upward faster and faster, purely at their leisure, with no contribution required of them whatever.



> The opposite happens to the non-beneficial owners.  In this way, property gravitates to and concentrates in the hands of the ablest owners.


Nope.  Too bad the economic ignorami who make such puerile claims are unable to account for the fact that the Duke of Westminster, one of the richest men in Britain, is the heir of a long line of idlers who did nothing but collect land rent and use it to buy up more land.



> That's freedom, baby, and I love it.


You hate, fear, and oppose _real_ freedom.



> He's going to pay dearly for his eccentricity, and that's his right.


Garbage.  What right has he to deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation?



> What, we're going to have "the community" decide what can and can't be done with the land?


Of course.  The use to which that land is put affects everyone around it.



> What are we, the Borg?


Not so much: the Borg is highly intelligent.



> Rugged individualism!  Think different!  Here's to the crazy ones!  Maybe the farm will bizarrely be the most successful venture ever.


And maybe you will say and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> How is that?  Even more crystal clear than a totally free market would make it?


A totally free market requires abolishing the welfare subsidy to landowning.

----------


## Roy L

> Really?  By owning capital, he creates the capital.  Interesting theory.


By BUYING (or producing) capital, he creates the capital.  Even if he does not produce it himself, his purchase of it *initiates* and *enables* its creation, either directly or indirectly.  His devotion of his purchasing power to its production makes available an aid to further production that would otherwise not have existed or been available to production.



> What would stop the producer from simply using the capital, if the capital owner left the scene?


Nothing.  But unlike the landowner, if the capitalist had never been on the scene in the first place, his gift to the producer would not be there to use.



> Would his machine tools cease to exist without him?


They would never have existed in the first place without him, or someone he paid to make them.

You will now refuse to know these facts.

----------


## Roy L

> The owner _chooses_ anyone who may substitute for him in making decisions.


Holding a power to stop production and not doing so is not the same as being productive, sorry.



> That choice of who to appoint as manager, or who to lease to, is a critical decision and may be good or bad.


And would be made just as well or even better by the market, had the landowner never existed.



> The owner is thus still the ultimate risk-bearer and decision-maker.  That is, he is an entreprenuer.


Like a protection racketeer.  Sorry, but exercising a power to allow or not allow productive activity is not the same as actually engaging in productive activity.



> Just so, the owner of a restaurant bears ultimate responsibility for whether his restaurant succeeds or fails, even though he may delegate all or part of the decision-making to a manager.


Garbage.  The manager is responsible, as proved, repeat, PROVED by the fact that if the restaurant fails, it will be the manager who loses his position, not the owner.



> Just as that restaurant owner creates value in the economy (or doesn't) by making good decisions and selecting others to make good decisions (or not), so the landowner creates (or destroys) value with his good (or bad) decisions.


More stupid garbage from you.  The land's value is already there, like the land, ready to use, with no help at all from the owner or anyone else; and the market will tell him how it can be used most profitably, by means of the high bid from among the prospective users.  The restaurant, by contrast, had to be created by labor, either the owner's labor or the labor of someone he paid to create it, and the market will not tell him how to make it profitable.

Your claims are false, absurd and dishonest.



> Appropriating the fruits of his labors is just as wrong and harmful to the economy


What labors?  The landowner performs no labor.  He just pockets the high bid and (at best) stays out of the producer's way.  And far from being wrong or harmful, recovering publicly created land value for public purposes and benefit is one of the most reliable ways to reduce injustice and supercharge an economy.



> as approprating the fruits of the restaurateur's.


The restaurant owner created something, if only by initiating and enabling its creation through his investment.  The landowner did not.

----------


## Roy L

> Why is that?  Could you explain it to us?


Not to you, because you refuse to know facts of economics.

But for others' benefit: people do not treat opportunity costs like cash costs, because they are risk averse.  The prospect of a possible gain is much less motivating than the threat of a certain loss of the same size.

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## helmuth_hubener

> You just do not know any economics. None.


Thanks!

~~~

Mr. Roy L., could you describe your ideal Georgist or whatever you want to call it (what do you want to call it?  You said you aren't a Georgist.) world?  Please, as thoroughly as possible.  You've done a lot of attacking, but precious little putting forward your solution.  What would your proposed world look like, how would it work?  Thank you!

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## MattButler

> Why is that?  Could you explain it to us?


The Default position is not anarcho-capitalism.  I do not have the burden of proof showing that my system is better than yours in order to dethrone the reigning champion anarcho-capitalism.   Because anarcho-capitalism is not the reigning champ.  Its scarcely possible, and I think Nozick does a good job showing that its impossible.  And I've read Rothbard's response to Nozick and Rothbard loses the argument, he has no argument actually.  So I don't think your system can even exist, for one thing.  Yet even if it were possible, you'd still have the burden proving its better with regard to land use, and it simply isn't.  Your argument thus far is that profit drives land use in an anarchic society.  Well guess what?  Profit drives land use in a Geoist society.  So that argument is awash.

More importantly.

In anarchy, while the landowner may be motivated by profit to act or not act, it is not true that owners always act or act wisely.  You have already admitted that owners are imperfect, and may make stupid decisions.  You say eventually the market sorts it out and leads to the best outcome, but you don't explain why an idiot landlord should ever be parted from his land.  An idiot landowner can hold land indefinitely and pass it to his idiot children and so on and so forth and idiots end up owning the land indefinitely, never to sell it, only to lease it---in many cases for purposes far less good than what it could be used for.  It would take intelligence and drive to use the land for the highest and best purpose, yet there is no reason it should ever be done under a pure anarchy.  Idiots may not know how to manage or use land for its highest and best purpose, but they aren't idiot enough to sell or mortgage their land.  Even if they wanted to, their parents, who were a little less idiotic, set up trusts to prevent it from being sold.  

So as a starting point we recognize there will be some really lazy idiots owning land in your anarchy who need never lose the land, transfer it, or be compelled to use it for much good.  Anarchy also permits this situation to continue indefinitely.

In Geoism, the Tax on land is expensive to bear if you are a poor manager. Its a shot in the arm and kick in the pants.  You may personally think its best to farm a block of land in Manhattan...you as an anarchist may value highly that freedom.  My value is that you own land as steward charged by God to do a good job managing the land, and if you can't do it then someone else should.  So I reject your value that you get to use land any way you see fit, you may do that, but you will pay a heavy price for being ignorant or lazy.  I won't stop you from farming in Manhattan, but you are going to pay so much tax to you will never choose to do this. So that is why I say land tax enhances use of land.  Does not me geoism is superior to anarchy in every way!  Anarchy most definitely maximizes individual freedom.  Geoism also seeks to maximize individual freedom, but it places a limit on this freedom, to wit, you will pay for being lazy or stupid about land.

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## helmuth_hubener

> The Default position is not anarcho-capitalism.  I do not have the burden of proof showing that my system is better than yours in order to dethrone the reigning champion anarcho-capitalism.


 I didn't want you to feel like you had any burden of proof, I just wanted an explanation of why instituting LVT would increase the efficiency of land allocation, not necessarily _compared to_ an-cap or compared to anything in particular, but _at all_.  This explanation you have provided in this post, for which I thank you very much.  Any spark of intelligence is such a breath of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere that is reading Roy L.




> Because anarcho-capitalism is not the reigning champ.  Its scarcely possible, and I think Nozick does a good job showing that its impossible.  And I've read Rothbard's response to Nozick and Rothbard loses the argument, he has no argument actually.  So I don't think your system can even exist, for one thing.


 Rothbard is not the only one to defend an-cap against its detractors.  Nozick is not even a particularly strong detractor.  There are gigabytes and even terabytes by now of books, lectures, articles, and videos on Mises.org explaining why an-cap is the bomb-diggity.  If you want to talk about it, start a thread!  There are certainly a lot of interesting aspects to discuss.  Or at least post a specific statement from Nozick that you want to dare us to refute.

So, OK, on to "why land will be used better if there is a Land Value Tax":




> In Geoism, the Tax on land is expensive to bear if you are a poor manager. Its a shot in the arm and kick in the pants....I won't stop you from farming in Manhattan, but you are going to pay so much tax to you will never choose to do this.


 So, the logic is: add a tax into the expenses of a land owner, and he will use the land more productively.  Why?  Because the very _moderately_ profitable use of the lazy, stupid land-steward, will no longer be profitable with an LVT.  If you're incompetently making 5% profit on the land, but the LVT is 6%, then actually you're making a loss now and will have to either get your act together or sell your monopolization rights to the smart, motivated guy who can make at least 7%.  Without an LVT, you could have gone on indefinitely making 5%, or even 1%, and depriving the economy of that extra potential productivity.

To talk about this, let me first go off on a tangent for a while.

Once upon a time, when in elementary and then middle school, I believed sprawl was bad because, of course, I'd been pumped full of the enviromentalist message.  I lived on the edge of town and over the hill there was a farm.  I used to think "boy, wouldn't it be nice if that farm could stay there forever and we wouldn't have to have sprawl in all its unaesthetic evil."  I thought "couldn't the farm just refuse to sell?  Even if the evil developer is offering him millions of dollars, he could just say no, right?  That's his right.  How come no farmer ever does that?  You'd think that at least every once in a while, you'd have a hold-out who loved his farm so much, been in the family 100 years and all, that he would not sell no matter what".  Then grown-ups explained to me that no, that wouldn't work because of property taxes.  Once the asssessor decides his land is worth millions because the evil subdivisions are springing up all around him, his taxes go up accordingly.  The income produced by his farm is not going to be enough to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in property tax every year, so he will have to sell.  

The taxes, just as you say, Matt, will be a kick in the pants to comply, obey, submit, and go along with the will of the masses to put the land to its "highest use".  The fact that the "highest use" to the individual was to keep growing the best beets in the state, just like his pappy and grandpappy and great-grandpappy before him, that's irrelevant.  The will of the individual does not matter; the will of the mob is what counts.  To let the individual reign supreme would be ever-so wasteful and inefficient.  So the moral of the story is: the mob knows best.  Collective intelligence is always much better than the intelligence of one single man.  Right?  Right?

Let's come back from the tangent.  You see, I oppose any kind of land value tax, for the same exact reason you support it!  Ever since receiving this no-farm-hold-outs explanation, I have been opposed to it.  Pressuring the farmer to sell via taxes does not increase efficiency.  The farmer already has pressure to sell from all the offers he's getting from delelopers to buy it.  That's enough pressure.  In fact, it's exactly the right amount of pressure, the market amount, taking into consideration all the entreprenuers' forecasts and balancing them out.  You just want to give him a double-whammy by adding some ongoing theft to the equation.  That will mess things up.  That will make it less efficient.

Example:

North Dakota is having an oil boom right now.  Everyone is moving in, rent is way up, property prices are way up, people are moving up mobile homes and doing construction like crazy.  Towns are expanding.  The market is responding to demand.  Entreprenuers are looking at the situation and sizing it up, taking into consideration all the factors.  They're thinking things like "OK, I predict this boom will go on for about 7 years, then it will bust and be done"; another guy might think 5 years; another guy might think 20.  Also "I think that Dickinson will be the center of the action, that's where they'll find the most oil"; "I think Williston"; "I think Minot"; "I think 20,000 new people are going to come up"; "I think 100,000"; "I think 50,000".  I know, because I'm one of these entreprenuers -- I just got back from North Dakota day before yesterday.  Now no one really knows for sure what the future holds, but in the free market, all the entreprenuers make their predictions and then put their money where their mind is.  Those with the best minds get the most votes on what to do, because money follows competence in a free market.  We end up with the most optimal solution fallible and non-omiscient humans can come up with.  The towns all expand by the optimal amount; just the right amount of ranches and wheat fields are swallowed up by man camps, trailer parks, and fast food; that's insofar as the optimal amount is knowable.

Now what if you added a hefty land tax to the picture.  As I said, property values have skyrocketed into the stratosphere.  I don't know what your proposed mil rate is, but if it's high, much higher than the land value component of current-day property taxes, it is going to drastically affect the choices of the land-stewards.  And that's you're whole point, isn't it -- that choices will drastically change with an LVT and that will be a good thing.  So let's examine what will happen with an LVT.  All of a sudden a ranch that was paying $10,000 a year gets a bill for $100,000.  Due January 1st.  They've got to sell!  Everybody's got to sell.  The old little diner in town has to sell, because their prime location means they owe a million in taxes.  *All* local establishments that are not wildly profitable enough to still have a positive profit margin in light of ten times higher property value and thus 10X the LVT, all of them will have to sell.  You'll get a lot of new fast food and man camps.  You got that anyway above, without the LVT, but now you'll get a lot more.  All the businesses that were built around the way the local economy used to be, that don't exactly cater to roustabout workers, they will all be annihilated.  Sewing shop, tack and saddle store -- ha!  -- make way for another McDonalds and another bar.

So you see, LVT doesn't encourage efficiency exactly, it encourages uniformity.  It makes the land market *too* "efficient".  With just the single whammy of possible windfall profits by selling, everything balances out as perfectly as possible.  The sewing shop might decide to just keep piddling along, while the tack store does decide to convert into a drive-through liquor.  You would say "That sewing shop's inefficient!"  And short term, you might be right.  They could make ten times more money and thus benefit the community ten times more by converting into the town's twelfth fast food place.  We've got a Hardees, but all the workers are wishing there was a Carl's Jr.  Something like that.

Eventually, however, the oil boom ends.  The mobile homes are hauled back out to Wyoming or wherever the boom is now.  And then the town is left with a whole bunch of empty trailer parks, vacant strip malls, and acres of empty houses selling for pennies on the dollar.  It's a skeleton.  Now that's going to happen anyway in the non-LVT scenario.  I personally may help it to happen.  But it will happen in a much bigger way with a hefty LVT.  Without the LVT, the opinions of the oil-boom-profit entreprenuers has a counter-balance.  Their opinions carry the weight of the single whammy of their money, but there's another whammy on the other side of the teeter-totter: the opinions of the locals who already own the land.  The LVT plunks a second whammy on the one side of the teeter-totter and now there is no balance.  The locals on the other side are slingshotted off the teeter-totter and hurtle across the park.  When the boom ends, all the old local businesses are long gone, they're all destroyed.  Now what?  The correction to a non-boom optimality will be a lot slower in coming than without the LVT.  Wouldn't it have been better to have a little bit more inefficiency for five or ten years in exchange for a lot more efficiency afterwards?  Well, who's to say?  But who is in a better position to say than those with a financial stake in it?  Who's smarter: all the private landowners, or the central planners and land assessors of the government?  I say let all the landowners decide, don't let the socialist land assessment board skew the outcome.  We entreprenuers, speculators, whatever you want to call us, we have enough power without an LVT -- just the right amount of power.  Put in a big LVT and now we can get a lot more land for a lot lower bids, because you're pushing the existing stewards out by charging them taxes they can't afford.  They can't afford it because they're not as "efficient" in their land utilization by your definition.  We are.  We will come in and fill every field and cranny with housing.  Then when comes the bust you will have a whole lot more skeleton and a whole lot less life left than would otherwise be the case.

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## Roy L

> Mr. Roy L., could you describe your ideal Georgist or whatever you want to call it (what do you want to call it?  You said you aren't a Georgist.) world?


Call it geoist if you need a term.  It's just a world where government by and for the people makes a serious effort to secure the equal, natural human rights of all.  Natural rights are correctly understood as the things one would have if others did not forcibly deprive one of them: mainly life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.  The liberty people have a right to is thus correctly understood as the liberty they would have if others did not deprive them of it: the liberty to use the resources of the earth that nature provided for all, and to deal with their fellows by mutual consent.



> You've done a lot of attacking, but precious little putting forward your solution.


This thread is all about the solution: land value taxation (or more generally, recovery of the publicly created rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it) and abolition of all the unjust and harmful taxes that burden production and exchange.  I would only add that restoration of the individual human right to liberty via a uniform, universal individual exemption to the land value tax, ensuring free, secure tenure on enough good land of the individual's choice to live on and participate in society must also be part of the solution.  I have only attacked ignorant and dishonest derogation of this self-evidently just and moral plan.



> What would your proposed world look like, how would it work?


It would look a lot like this world, but with much more liberty, justice and prosperity.

Of course, there are other policies I advocate too, like ending the evil and insane War on Drugs; abolition of union monopolies; opening up publicly funded education to private providers; ending private bank debt money issuance; abolishing patent and copyright monopolies; etc., but they are not very relevant to this thread.  Also, justice in land policy as described above would render unnecessary a great deal of current government spending that is undertaken in futile attempts to repair the social and economic damage inflicted by landowner privilege.  A good government could be quite a bit smaller, and spend its revenue much more productively.

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## helmuth_hubener

Roy, I am just trying to imagine how it would function and do not yet have enough information.  Here's my understanding of what you want:

There would be nation-states, similar to today.These nation-states would not tax anything except for land value.  Period.  No exceptions for emergency taxes for wartime, no taxes on pollution like Matt wants, read my lips: no taxes but LVT.With the LVT revenue, these nation-states would fund roads, electricity generation and distribution, water distribution, sewers, fire extinguishing, and any other things you consider "public goods" (although one defining element of "public goods" is inability to exclude non payers, and one can easily exclude non-payers from all these things, but I digress), as well as pension plans, low-income assistance, orpanages, and many of the other features we have come to regard as normal parts of the modern nation-state.There would be some libertarian reforms to these nation-states.  The state would no longer take on so much.  Some departments, e.g. labor and drugs, would be ended.Other than all that, things would continue basically as they are.  Democracy would continue.  Legislation would continue.  A court system more or less like our current one would continue.  Military spending would continue.  The government would still be in charge of money, though directly, with no private bank.  You are just wanting something like amending the Constitution to ban all taxes but LVT, and then amendments or legislation to enact other beneficial reforms.

This still leaves some questons.  
With land, do people still buy and sell their right to exclude just as they buy and sell their property deed today?  Or can anyone come in and offer to pay "society" more land rent and thus bid it away from the current excluder?  Or something else?Going along with that, exactly how are land values determined?  A central government Land Assessment Board, or a market mechanism, or what?What about laws?  You want to repeal drug laws, but what about all other victimless crimes?  Insider trading?  Environmental regulation?  Minimum wage?  Weapons regulation?  We don't need to go off too much on this, as it's not strictly on topic, I'm just wanting to determine if it's a minarchy or a typical social democracy or what.  Would monarchy be within your realm of acceptability as long as the only tax was on land?Are you actually philosophically opposed to the initiation of force?

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## Roy L

> Any spark of intelligence is such a breath of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere that is reading Roy L.


You feel stifled by me because I won't let you get away with the bull$#!+ that has been your stock in trade your whole adult life.



> Once upon a time, when in elementary and then middle school, I believed sprawl was bad because, of course, I'd been pumped full of the enviromentalist message.


Sprawl is bad because it wastes resources.



> I lived on the edge of town and over the hill there was a farm.  I used to think "boy, wouldn't it be nice if that farm could stay there forever and we wouldn't have to have sprawl in all its unaesthetic evil."  I thought "couldn't the farm just refuse to sell?  Even if the evil developer is offering him millions of dollars, he could just say no, right?  That's his right.  How come no farmer ever does that?  You'd think that at least every once in a while, you'd have a hold-out who loved his farm so much, been in the family 100 years and all, that he would not sell no matter what".


So as a child, you were not thoughtful enough to ask yourself how it could somehow be more profitable for the developer to pay a premium for good farmland, and put roads, water lines, power lines, etc. on it, and then build houses on it, rather than to build the houses on vacant or underutilized lots in town that already had the roads, water, power, etc. in place.

And as an adult, you still aren't thoughtful enough.



> Then grown-ups explained to me that no, that wouldn't work because of property taxes.  Once the asssessor decides his land is worth millions because the evil subdivisions are springing up all around him, his taxes go up accordingly.  The income produced by his farm is not going to be enough to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in property tax every year, so he will have to sell.


Why is it more profitable to build 1000 houses on good farmland rather than 1000 apartments in a few towers in town?

Blank out.  You just refuse to know the fact that LVT encourages the kind of compact, higher-density, in-fill development that eliminates the economic pressure to build on farmland.



> The taxes, just as you say, Matt, will be a kick in the pants to comply, obey, submit,


I.e., to pay attention to what the market is telling him.



> and go along with the will of the masses to put the land to its "highest use".  The fact that the "highest use" to the individual was to keep growing the best beets in the state, just like his pappy and grandpappy and great-grandpappy before him, that's irrelevant.  The will of the individual does not matter; the will of the mob is what counts.  To let the individual reign supreme would be ever-so wasteful and inefficient.


Correct, because as a landowner he would also be reigning over other individuals, depriving them of their liberty to do better than he.



> So the moral of the story is: the mob knows best.  Collective intelligence is always much better than the intelligence of one single man.  Right?


The market is *reliably* more intelligent than one single man.



> You see, I oppose any kind of land value tax, for the same exact reason you support it!  Ever since receiving this no-farm-hold-outs explanation, I have been opposed to it.  Pressuring the farmer to sell via taxes does not increase efficiency.


That depends on the tax.  Pressuring him with the market signal of LVT DOES increase efficiency.



> The farmer already has pressure to sell from all the offers he's getting from delelopers to buy it.  That's enough pressure.  In fact, it's exactly the right amount of pressure, the market amount, taking into consideration all the entreprenuers' forecasts and balancing them out.


No, it is not the right amount, nor the _free_ market amount, because it includes the welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner.  As long as his land is rising in value at a faster rate than the property tax rate, why would he sell?  Why would he EVER sell?



> You just want to give him a double-whammy by adding some ongoing theft to the equation.


It is the landowner who is committing the ongoing theft, sunshine, and don't you forget it.



> That will mess things up.  That will make it less efficient.


Garbage with no basis in fact.



> North Dakota is having an oil boom right now.  Everyone is moving in, rent is way up, property prices are way up, people are moving up mobile homes and doing construction like crazy.  Towns are expanding.  The market is responding to demand.  Entreprenuers are looking at the situation and sizing it up, taking into consideration all the factors.  They're thinking things like "OK, I predict this boom will go on for about 7 years, then it will bust and be done"; another guy might think 5 years; another guy might think 20.  Also "I think that Dickinson will be the center of the action, that's where they'll find the most oil"; "I think Williston"; "I think Minot"; "I think 20,000 new people are going to come up"; "I think 100,000"; "I think 50,000".  I know what they are thinking, because I'm one of these entreprenuers -- I just got back from North Dakota day before yesterday.


Oh.  My.  God.

So in fact, you are a professional landowning parasite; your whole life revolves around stealing publicly created land value and shoveling it into your own pockets.  You are a professional rent seeker.

How utterly inevitable.  At least that explains why everything you write on this subject is stupid, ignorant and dishonest.  I was beginning to wonder how someone so obviously intelligent could keep spewing such nonsense.  Now I know: you need somehow to prevent yourself from knowing that you are a professional practitioner and disciple of the greatest evil in the history of the world.

Good luck.  I pity you.  Being at the mercy of the truth can't be very comfortable.



> Now no one really knows for sure what the future holds, but in the free market,


There is no such thing as a free market in rent seeking.



> all the entreprenuers make their predictions and then put their money where their mind is.  Those with the best minds get the most votes on what to do, because money follows competence in a free market.


Competence in rent seeking.  Not production.



> We end up with the most optimal solution fallible and non-omiscient humans can come up with.


Garbage.  You end up with rampant inefficiency as speculators try to grab publicly created value for themselves.  The point of rent seeking behavior is that it tends to expand to absorb all the rent.



> The towns all expand by the optimal amount; just the right amount of ranches and wheat fields are swallowed up by man camps, trailer parks, and fast food; that's insofar as the optimal amount is knowable.


More stupid garbage with no basis in fact.  You forgot the speculators holding land vacant in the towns, pushing development out into the farmland where it is inefficient and doesn't belong.



> Now what if you added a hefty land tax to the picture.  As I said, property values have skyrocketed into the stratosphere.  I don't know what your proposed mil rate is, but if it's high, much higher than the land value component of current-day property taxes, it is going to drastically affect the choices of the land-stewards.


You misspelled, "greedy, idle parasites."



> And that's you're whole point, isn't it -- that choices will drastically change with an LVT and that will be a good thing.  So let's examine what will happen with an LVT.  All of a sudden a ranch that was paying $10,000 a year gets a bill for $100,000.  Due January 1st.  They've got to sell!  Everybody's got to sell.


Nonsense.  The first to sell are those who weren't using the land anyway.  LVT encourages the most productive use, so the land boom never gets off the ground: builders are fully occupied building on vacant and under-used land in town, and no one is fool enough to offer much above recent market rates for farmland that will not be needed.  The bubble values you are talking about happen NOW, under the CURRENT system, not under LVT.  Everywhere LVT has been tried, the result is the same: compact, efficient development; no land price bubble; no stampede to sell.



> The old little diner in town has to sell, because their prime location means they owe a million in taxes.


Now you are just being silly.  A million in taxes is a million in land rent.  That implies the diner's site would be worth about $20M in the absence of LVT.  REALLY??  With thousands of empty acres all around it?

Give your head a shake.



> *All* local establishments that are not wildly profitable enough to still have a positive profit margin in light of ten times higher property value and thus 10X the LVT, all of them will have to sell.


Stupid nonsense refuted above.  Many will simply take advantage of the opportunity to expand their businesses.  Remember: LVT is limited to what someone is willing and able to pay for the site.  The locals are generally going to have a better idea of how to take full advantage of local conditions.



> You'll get a lot of new fast food and man camps.  You got that anyway above, without the LVT, but now you'll get a lot more.


With LVT, you'll get the right amount.



> All the businesses that were built around the way the local economy used to be, that don't exactly cater to roustabout workers, they will all be annihilated.  Sewing shop, tack and saddle store -- ha!  -- make way for another McDonalds and another bar.


Possibly, if that is what the market wants.



> So you see, LVT doesn't encourage efficiency exactly, it encourages uniformity.


Silliness.



> It makes the land market *too* "efficient".  With just the single whammy of possible windfall profits by selling, everything balances out as perfectly as possible.


Garbage with no basis in fact.



> The sewing shop might decide to just keep piddling along, while the tack store does decide to convert into a drive-through liquor.  You would say "That sewing shop's inefficient!"  And short term, you might be right.  They could make ten times more money and thus benefit the community ten times more by converting into the town's twelfth fast food place.  We've got a Hardees, but all the workers are wishing there was a Carl's Jr.  Something like that.


So?  I told you that you hated and feared real freedom.



> Eventually, however, the oil boom ends.  The mobile homes are hauled back out to Wyoming or wherever the boom is now.  And then the town is left with a whole bunch of empty trailer parks, vacant strip malls, and acres of empty houses selling for pennies on the dollar.  It's a skeleton.  Now that's going to happen anyway in the non-LVT scenario.  I personally may help it to happen.  But it will happen in a much bigger way with a hefty LVT.


We've seen it happen lots of times without LVT.  Where has it ever happened WITH LVT?  Remember, LVT also recovers the value of depletable natural resources like oil, gold, copper, etc., so the mad scramble to grab the resource never happens, and the ghost town never happens.  There is just a measured, gradual, efficient and *rational* exploration, identification and extraction of the resource as it becomes economic to extract it.



> Without the LVT, the opinions of the oil-boom-profit entreprenuers has a counter-balance.


But WITH LVT, their opinions are not animated entirely by a feeding frenzy of rent seeking.



> Their opinions carry the weight of the single whammy of their money, but there's another whammy on the other side of the teeter-totter: the opinions of the locals who already own the land.  The LVT plunks a second whammy on the one side of the teeter-totter and now there is no balance.


Wrong.  LVT removes the parasites' feeding frenzy, replacing it with a requirement to contribute something to production if you want to make money.



> The locals on the other side are slingshotted off the teeter-totter and hurtle across the park.  When the boom ends, all the old local businesses are long gone, they're all destroyed.  Now what?  The correction to a non-boom optimality will be a lot slower in coming than without the LVT.


Wrong AGAIN.  LVT means the correction is smaller, and happens faster.



> Wouldn't it have been better to have a little bit more inefficiency for five or ten years in exchange for a lot more efficiency afterwards?  Well, who's to say?


Not the parasite who wants something for nothing, anyway.



> But who is in a better position to say than those with a financial stake in it: all the private landowners, or the central planners and land assessors of the government?


The market.



> I say let all the landowners decide, don't let the socialist land assessment board skew the outcome.


And I say you are a name-calling apologist for feudalism.



> We entreprenuers, speculators, whatever you want to call us,


"Parasites."



> we have enough power without an LVT -- just the right amount of power.


No, you have too much power.  That's why you always f*ck things up, like the rent-seeking Wall Street parasites who screwed over the entire world in their frantic greed to stuff trillions into their own pockets.



> Put in a big LVT and now we can get a lot more land for a lot lower bids,


But have to pay a lot more tax...



> because you're pushing the existing stewards


"Parasites."



> out by charging them taxes they can't afford.


You can't afford them either, because you are not productive.



> They can't afford it because they're not as "efficient" in their land utilization by your definition.  We are.


No, you're not.  You'd go broke without your welfare subsidy giveaways.



> We will come in and fill every field and cranny with housing.


Nope.  You won't, because you can't make any money by building housing.  You only make money by pocketing welfare subsidies.



> Then when comes the bust you will have a whole lot more skeleton and a whole lot less life left than would otherwise be the case.


Wrong.  That has never happened anywhere LVT has been tried.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> land-stewards.
> 			
> 		
> 
>  You misspelled, "greedy, idle parasites."


If there was an LVT, presumably they would not be greedy, all greed is irradicated of course if we have LVT, they would not be idle, because no one is ever idle if there's LVT, and they would not be parasites, because they would be paying LVT, which somehow magically ("by definition", perhaps, that's been a faithful fall-back for you so far!) would be set at the perfect rate to exactly zero out their parasitic benefit.  They would also not be the absolute owners of the land.  Matt used the term steward.  I went with it.  Seemed fair enough.

Again, in case you missed it again: This is under Matt's system, not mine.  Your quote of me referring to "land-stewards" is where I'm assuming an LVT.

----------


## Roy L

> There would be nation-states, similar to today.


Yes, I think it's a form that has proved its value, though in many cases legacies of colonial borders have made them unjust, and ungovernable under democratic rules.



> These nation-states would not tax anything except for land value.  Period.  No exceptions for emergency taxes for wartime, no taxes on pollution like Matt wants, read my lips: no taxes but LVT.


No, I don't believe in the Single Tax (another reason I don't call or consider myself a Georgist).  I would favor taxes on other forms of privilege (if they can't be abolished), on depletion of natural resources (severance tax), Pigovian taxes to recover the costs imposed on the community by private actions like smoking and drinking, user fees where they are efficient, etc.  



> With the LVT revenue, these nation-states would fund roads, electricity generation and distribution, water distribution, sewers, fire extinguishing, and any other things you consider "public goods" (although one defining element of "public goods" is inability to exclude non payers, and one can easily exclude non-payers from all these things, but I digress),


LVT most appropriately funds goods that are more accessible from certain locations, and thus add to land value.  There is no need to restrict it to public goods in the technical sense.  Some services and infrastructure are natural monopolies, and can't be provided efficiently by the private sector.



> as well as pension plans, low-income assistance, orpanages, and many of the other features we have come to regard as normal parts of the modern nation-state.


Part of the purpose of the individual land tax exemption is to reduce or eliminate the need for pensions and income support.  People have a right to liberty, not to money.  Orphanages and other child-protection programs would still be provided, though probably much less needed once the relentless financial duress imposed by landowning was removed.



> There would be some libertarian reforms to these nation-states.  The state would no longer take on so much.  Some departments, e.g. labor and drugs, would be ended.


Right.



> Other than all that, things would continue basically as they are.  Democracy would continue.  Legislation would continue.  A court system more or less like our current one would continue.  Military spending would continue.  The government would still be in charge of money, though directly, with no private bank.


Banks would be merchant or investment banks engaged in financial intermediation, not creators of demand deposits.  Money would be issued to the Treasury by the Mint, in quantities calculated to keep prices stable or very slowly rising.



> You are just wanting something like amending the Constitution to ban all taxes but LVT, and then amendments or legislation to enact other beneficial reforms.


I don't know about the Constitutional side, and don't support banning all taxes but LVT.  The main thing is to make the legitimate functions of government self-financing by recovering the land value its spending on services and infrastructure creates.



> With land, do people still buy and sell their right to exclude just as they buy and sell their property deed today?


Yes, its value is just dominated by pre-paid rent and/or long-term tenure agreements, rather than the privilege of pocketing future rents.



> Or can anyone come in and offer to pay "society" more land rent and thus bid it away from the current excluder?  Or something else?


I envision a system whereby people can pre-pay rent for up to say, 10 years, or lock in rent indexed to GDP for 50 years, for a modest fee.  The outside bidder's higher offer just increases the measure of market rent.  If he wants the title, he has to buy it from the holder.



> Going along with that, exactly how are land values determined?  A central government Land Assessment Board, or a market mechanism, or what?


Market data, probably using a computer model.  The model and data would all be public, and subject to appeal and amendment.  Anyone would be able to check the assessments for themselves.



> What about laws?  You want to repeal drug laws, but what about all other victimless crimes?


Pretty much.



> Insider trading?


I would prefer full disclosure.



> Environmental regulation?


Some is probably necessary.



> Minimum wage?


Not needed if people have their rights.



> Weapons regulation?  We don't need to go off too much on this, as it's not strictly on topic, I'm just wanting to determine if it's a minarchy or a typical social democracy or what.


Neither.



> Would monarchy be within your realm of acceptability as long as the only tax was on land?


Of course not.



> Are you actually philosophically opposed to the initiation of force?


Yes.

----------


## Roy L

> If there was an LVT, presumably they would not be greedy, all greed is irradicated of course if we have LVT,


They might still be greedy, but they would not be able to rob the productive by owning land.



> they would not be idle, because no one is ever idle if there's LVT,


They might be idle, but they wouldn't be forcing idleness on others.



> and they would not be parasites, because they would be paying LVT, which somehow magically ("by definition", perhaps, that's been a faithful fall-back for you so far!) would be set at the perfect rate to exactly zero out their parasitic benefit.


There is nothing magical about measuring market rent.  What do you think landlords and tenants both do?  And zero tolerance is unscientific nonsense.



> They would also not be the absolute owners of the land.  Matt used the term steward.  I went with it.  Seemed fair enough.
> 
> Again, in case you missed it again: This is under Matt's system, not mine.  Your quote of me referring to "land-stewards" is where I'm assuming an LVT.


Well, you confused me with a contradiction:




> Now what if you added a hefty land tax to the picture. As I said, property values have skyrocketed into the stratosphere.


The second can't happen with the first, so I assumed you didn't know what the first meant.  The lower bound of a "hefty" land tax is more than the expected land value increase.  That eliminates any possibility that property values could "skyrocket" anywhere, or even rise very much.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Thank you, I understand much better now where you're coming from.

In your last post, you wrote:



> The second can't happen with the first...  The lower bound of a "hefty" land tax is more than the expected land value increase.  That eliminates any possibility that property values could "skyrocket" anywhere, or even rise very much.


 This seems to preclude the possibility of massive sudden changes in expectations.  Do you not agree that we live in an uncertain world?  I can already answer for you: you think that LVT is going to smooth out and take care of a lot of that uncertainty.  As you wrote, "Remember, LVT also recovers the value of depletable natural resources like oil, gold, copper, etc., so the mad scramble to grab the resource never happens, and the ghost town never happens. There is just a measured, gradual, efficient and rational exploration, identification and extraction of the resource as it becomes economic to extract it."  So there are no sudden massive oil discoveries if we have an LVT.  LVT solves all of that.  Everything just goes along on a smooth, steady, even, predictable keel.

----------


## Roy L

> This seems to preclude the possibility of massive sudden changes in expectations.


No, it just precludes the economic disruptions and discontinuities associated with massive sudden expectations of grabbing unearned wealth.



> Do you not agree that we live in an uncertain world?  I can already answer for you: you think that LVT is going to smooth out and take care of a lot of that uncertainty.


Yep.  It removes a large element of positive feedback: prices rising in expectation of rising prices, and falling in expectation of falling prices.



> As you wrote, "Remember, LVT also recovers the value of depletable natural resources like oil, gold, copper, etc., so the mad scramble to grab the resource never happens, and the ghost town never happens. There is just a measured, gradual, efficient and rational exploration, identification and extraction of the resource as it becomes economic to extract it."  So there are no sudden massive oil discoveries if we have an LVT.


The massive discoveries would still happen (maybe not quite as early), but the mad rush to grab it first never happens.



> LVT solves all of that.  Everything just goes along on a smooth, steady, even, predictable keel.


Removing positive feedback doesn't make things entirely predictable, but it does remove the violent gyrations.

----------


## MattButler

> I didn't want you to feel like you had any burden of proof, I just wanted an explanation of why instituting LVT would increase the efficiency of land allocation, not necessarily _compared to_ an-cap or compared to anything in particular, but _at all_.  This explanation you have provided in this post, for which I thank you very much.  Any spark of intelligence is such a breath of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere that is reading Roy L.
> 
>  Rothbard is not the only one to defend an-cap against its detractors.  Nozick is not even a particularly strong detractor.  There are gigabytes and even terabytes by now of books, lectures, articles, and videos on Mises.org explaining why an-cap is the bomb-diggity.  If you want to talk about it, start a thread!  There are certainly a lot of interesting aspects to discuss.  Or at least post a specific statement from Nozick that you want to dare us to refute.


Another day another thread.  Our views are already so similar whats the point?  Its an anarchist and a geoist arguing over some minutiae.  I don't want you to think I'm a litmus test poster solely on these forums to advocate geoism.  I have, as a matter of fact, commented on and started several other threads having nothing to do with geoism in my short history here.  I'm a regular poster since 2007 at Ann Coulter Online.  Corresponding with you, let me tell you, THAT is a breath of fresh air!




> So, OK, on to "why land will be used better if there is a Land Value Tax":
> 
> So, the logic is: add a tax into the expenses of a land owner, and he will use the land more productively.  Why?  Because the very _moderately_ profitable use of the lazy, stupid land-steward, will no longer be profitable with an LVT.  If you're incompetently making 5% profit on the land, but the LVT is 6%, then actually you're making a loss now and will have to either get your act together or sell your monopolization rights to the smart, motivated guy who can make at least 7%.  Without an LVT, you could have gone on indefinitely making 5%, or even 1%, and depriving the economy of that extra potential productivity.


That is correct.  However, this line of thinking ignores a critical argument on which Geoism rests.  Let us consider my earlier example of farming in Manhattan.  Farming is obviously not going to work in Manhattan with a LVT.  Some type of high-density commercial or residential use is compelled by the LVT.  Yet LVT does not specify anything beyond this.  LVT merely sets a baseline threshold for what the owner must do.  It might be that in Manhattan all that is required to meet this threshold is a 4-story building with 90% use of available acreage.  If the owner constructs a 50 story high-rise, all of the surplus will accrue to him. 

Consider next an area that the market deems optimal for industrial or warehouse uses.  The LVT may dictate that at a minimum the owner use the space for some type of warehouse building.  If he does that, he can pay the tax.  However if he goes beyond warehouse space, constructs some type of factory with enormous capital investment, he will earn surplus profits far beyond the amount he would otherwise have been taxed.  The principle is that LVT sets a floor for the minimum required use.  Its the owners decision to go beyond that floor, and when he does, he keeps the surplus.  

Consider next a rural area deemed optimal for some type of farm use.  The market dictates that some type of use beyond growing pine trees is required.  Any type of use beyond growing pine will suffice to cover the tax.  If the owner grows grass, he can meet the tax.  With a little more capital investment he can operate a catfish pond, all of the surplus will belong to him.  The same is true if he grows cash crops, or fruit and produce, or he operates a dairy farm.  

So while its true at a general level an LVT creates a "floor" for uses of land, landowners have a definite ability to go beyond that floor and pocket the surplus earned on their capital investment.

Let me tell you something most Geoists disagree with me about, or rather they would disagree if they heard my argument.  I think it will please you to hear something you might not already know!  I do not agree with Geoists who say that the entire tax on land is born solely by the owner.  I believe owners will in fact pass off some amount of the tax to his tenants. The proportions will vary based on the market, but in most cases, tenants will not completely escape the tax.  In theory, the amount passed on to the tenant should enable the landowner to earn the prevailing real interest rate in the market's structure of production.  As I tried to explain in above paragraph, landowners earn and keep all surplus income on capital assets above and beyond the required uses imposed by LVT, but as for the land itself, assuming they are an average entrepreneur, their income and capital gains from pure ownership of the land will equal the prevailing real interest rate found in the rest of the structure of production.  So you see this is different than the view that the owner alone bears the tax and accrues no profits from owning land!  Instead I say he will earn no excess profits above the prevailing market rate of interest in the structure of production.  Owning and managing land is, after all, an essential function in the structure of production.  If you have understand Hayek, you ought to understand me.   




> Once upon a time, when in elementary and then middle school, I believed sprawl was bad because, of course, I'd been pumped full of the enviromentalist message.  I lived on the edge of town and over the hill there was a farm.  I used to think "boy, wouldn't it be nice if that farm could stay there forever and we wouldn't have to have sprawl in all its unaesthetic evil."  I thought "couldn't the farm just refuse to sell?  Even if the evil developer is offering him millions of dollars, he could just say no, right?  That's his right.  How come no farmer ever does that?  You'd think that at least every once in a while, you'd have a hold-out who loved his farm so much, been in the family 100 years and all, that he would not sell no matter what".  Then grown-ups explained to me that no, that wouldn't work because of property taxes.  Once the asssessor decides his land is worth millions because the evil subdivisions are springing up all around him, his taxes go up accordingly.  The income produced by his farm is not going to be enough to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in property tax every year, so he will have to sell.  
> 
> The taxes, just as you say, Matt, will be a kick in the pants to comply, obey, submit, and go along with the will of the masses to put the land to its "highest use".  The fact that the "highest use" to the individual was to keep growing the best beets in the state, just like his pappy and grandpappy and great-grandpappy before him, that's irrelevant.  The will of the individual does not matter; the will of the mob is what counts.  To let the individual reign supreme would be ever-so wasteful and inefficient.  So the moral of the story is: the mob knows best.  Collective intelligence is always much better than the intelligence of one single man.  Right?  Right?


Let me offer the pithy and trite observation that with LVT there probably be a lot less sprawl and lot fewer million dollar subdividisions!  Let me say too that local farming and sustainable local produce and all that stuff which is so en vogue today, the reason it does not work well is because our cities resemble Atlanta or Houston and not Manhattan or San Francisco.  Large, sprawling, suburbanized cities make it hard for your beet farmer on the edges of town to stay in business.  There is no center square or no place that large #’s gather.  He is instead forced to make the rounds selling to grocery store chains, driving around a lot, its very hard.  You should visit Union Sq. in Manhattan.  On most days of the week you will find it teeming with farmers selling out of their stands to huge crowds.  Its called economy of scale.    




> Let's come back from the tangent.  You see, I oppose any kind of land value tax, for the same exact reason you support it!  Ever since receiving this no-farm-hold-outs explanation, I have been opposed to it.  Pressuring the farmer to sell via taxes does not increase efficiency.  The farmer already has pressure to sell from all the offers he's getting from delelopers to buy it.  That's enough pressure.  In fact, it's exactly the right amount of pressure, the market amount, taking into consideration all the entreprenuers' forecasts and balancing them out.  You just want to give him a double-whammy by adding some ongoing theft to the equation.  That will mess things up.  That will make it less efficient.


I think it is wrong of you to call it pressure.  Incentive maybe, yes, but not pressure.  As for calling it theft, I think that is unfair.  This is not an uncompensated taking of land.  If the tax is high and the farmer can’t afford it there is good reason.  We can assume there are a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price for the land.  The owner is lucky to be in such a position!  With the money earned he can double his acreage at a different site and farm even more.  I respect that people have sentimental attachment to land in some cases were born there and inherited.  If that is an argument you make then I can’t rebut it.

Example:




> North Dakota is having an oil boom right now.  Everyone is moving in, rent is way up, property prices are way up, people are moving up mobile homes and doing construction like crazy.  Towns are expanding.  The market is responding to demand.  Entreprenuers are looking at the situation and sizing it up, taking into consideration all the factors.  They're thinking things like "OK, I predict this boom will go on for about 7 years, then it will bust and be done"; another guy might think 5 years; another guy might think 20.  Also "I think that Dickinson will be the center of the action, that's where they'll find the most oil"; "I think Williston"; "I think Minot"; "I think 20,000 new people are going to come up"; "I think 100,000"; "I think 50,000".  I know, because I'm one of these entreprenuers -- I just got back from North Dakota day before yesterday.  Now no one really knows for sure what the future holds, but in the free market, all the entreprenuers make their predictions and then put their money where their mind is.  Those with the best minds get the most votes on what to do, because money follows competence in a free market.  We end up with the most optimal solution fallible and non-omiscient humans can come up with.  The towns all expand by the optimal amount; just the right amount of ranches and wheat fields are swallowed up by man camps, trailer parks, and fast food; that's insofar as the optimal amount is knowable.


I am so happy you mentioned North Dakota.  I heard the NPR story a few weeks back and was blown away.  Apparently we are living on top ofon more oil than is found in all the Middle East and north Africa combined, by a factor of 2X.  Its truly mind-boggling.  Something like 2 trillion barrels?  I understand Canada has even more.  At USA’s present consumption of 20MM barrels a day, this represents over 200 years supply of oil, all of it buried here. Canada has enough oil to power itself for the next 2,000 years.  Like I said, its mind boggling.  Peak oil can be put aside as a credible argument for at least another century.  






> Now what if you added a hefty land tax to the picture.  As I said, property values have skyrocketed into the stratosphere.  I don't know what your proposed mil rate is, but if it's high, much higher than the land value component of current-day property taxes, it is going to drastically affect the choices of the land-stewards.  And that's you're whole point, isn't it -- that choices will drastically change with an LVT and that will be a good thing.  So let's examine what will happen with an LVT.  All of a sudden a ranch that was paying $10,000 a year gets a bill for $100,000.  Due January 1st.  They've got to sell!  Everybody's got to sell.  The old little diner in town has to sell, because their prime location means they owe a million in taxes.  *All* local establishments that are not wildly profitable enough to still have a positive profit margin in light of ten times higher property value and thus 10X the LVT, all of them will have to sell.  You'll get a lot of new fast food and man camps.  You got that anyway above, without the LVT, but now you'll get a lot more.  All the businesses that were built around the way the local economy used to be, that don't exactly cater to roustabout workers, they will all be annihilated.  Sewing shop, tack and saddle store -- ha!  -- make way for another McDonalds and another bar.
> 
> So you see, LVT doesn't encourage efficiency exactly, it encourages uniformity.  It makes the land market *too* "efficient".  With just the single whammy of possible windfall profits by selling, everything balances out as perfectly as possible.  The sewing shop might decide to just keep piddling along, while the tack store does decide to convert into a drive-through liquor.  You would say "That sewing shop's inefficient!"  And short term, you might be right.  They could make ten times more money and thus benefit the community ten times more by converting into the town's twelfth fast food place.  We've got a Hardees, but all the workers are wishing there was a Carl's Jr.  Something like that.
> 
> Eventually, however, the oil boom ends.  The mobile homes are hauled back out to Wyoming or wherever the boom is now.  And then the town is left with a whole bunch of empty trailer parks, vacant strip malls, and acres of empty houses selling for pennies on the dollar.  It's a skeleton.  Now that's going to happen anyway in the non-LVT scenario.  I personally may help it to happen.  But it will happen in a much bigger way with a hefty LVT.  Without the LVT, the opinions of the oil-boom-profit entreprenuers has a counter-balance.  Their opinions carry the weight of the single whammy of their money, but there's another whammy on the other side of the teeter-totter: the opinions of the locals who already own the land.  The LVT plunks a second whammy on the one side of the teeter-totter and now there is no balance.  The locals on the other side are slingshotted off the teeter-totter and hurtle across the park.  When the boom ends, all the old local businesses are long gone, they're all destroyed.  Now what?  The correction to a non-boom optimality will be a lot slower in coming than without the LVT.  Wouldn't it have been better to have a little bit more inefficiency for five or ten years in exchange for a lot more efficiency afterwards?  Well, who's to say?  But who is in a better position to say than those with a financial stake in it?  Who's smarter: all the private landowners, or the central planners and land assessors of the government?  I say let all the landowners decide, don't let the socialist land assessment board skew the outcome.  We entreprenuers, speculators, whatever you want to call us, we have enough power without an LVT -- just the right amount of power.  Put in a big LVT and now we can get a lot more land for a lot lower bids, because you're pushing the existing stewards out by charging them taxes they can't afford.  They can't afford it because they're not as "efficient" in their land utilization by your definition.  We are.  We will come in and fill every field and cranny with housing.  Then when comes the bust you will have a whole lot more skeleton and a whole lot less life left than would otherwise be the case.


Well, as a starting point, let me point out that you are lamenting the fate of Jed Clampet, a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed, yet up from ground came a bubbling crude.  Oil that is.  Texas tea.  It turns out that collectively all the old Jed’s out there are sitting on about $185 trillion dollars of oil reserves.  So pardon me if I don’t feel pity that Jed is forced into selling his coon-skin store and Ma Clampet no longer keeps the sewing store.  They are filthy stinking rich.  Its off to Beverly Hills now.  No assessment board will set the value of their land, all the people clamoring for their oil will.  In case I’ve not been clear, I think its completely appropriate and reasonable that society’s desire to get at 2 trillion barrels of oil trump the quaint wishes of Jed to continue hunting coons and Ma to continue sewing dresses.  Jed is now going to be producing luxury furs with offices in Paris and Hong Kong and Ma is partnering with Ralph Lauren.

As for the teeter-totter.  There are thousands of entrepreneurs just like you, and I believe that between you all you will determine just how rich you intend to make old Jed and Ma Clampet.  I also believe that you will scarcely allow large strip malls and vacant parking lots to cut off your access to the most amazing treasure trove of natural resources ever discovered in human history.  I think between you all the teeter totter will balance just fine.  

Most of the world, and most cities and people, are not sitting on $185 trillion dollars of oil.  When you sit on that kind of treasure, efficiency and uniformity are one in the same.  It is truly all about the oil.  For the rest of us, we are subject to more subtle market forces.  Its not all about uniformity.  There is a place for diversity.  We will have diversity.  Yet in that diversity, we will also have efficiency.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Another day another thread.  Our views are already so similar whats the point?  Its an anarchist and a geoist arguing over some minutiae.  I don't want you to think I'm a litmus test poster solely on these forums to advocate geoism.  I have, as a matter of fact, commented on and started several other threads having nothing to do with geoism in my short history here.  I'm a regular poster since 2007 at Ann Coulter Online.  Corresponding with you, let me tell you, THAT is a breath of fresh air!


 Wow.  I think I'm feeling empathetic pain just contemplating the possibility that someone would do that.




> That is correct.  However, this line of thinking ignores a critical argument on which Geoism rests.... while it's true at a general level an LVT creates a "floor" for uses of land, landowners have a definite ability to go beyond that floor and pocket the surplus earned on their capital investment.


Oh yes, I understand that, definitely.  That _was_ the critical argument you were referring to, right?  Yeah, obviously, just as just because the "floor" is zero without land tax, yet nothing is stopping the man from earning way more than zero, the sky is the limit _with_ a land tax, too.




> Let me tell you something most Geoists disagree with me about, or rather they would disagree if they heard my argument.  I think it will please you to hear something you might not already know!  I do not agree with Geoists who say that the entire tax on land is born solely by the owner.  I believe owners will in fact pass off some amount of the tax to his tenants. The proportions will vary based on the market, but in most cases, tenants will not completely escape the tax.  In theory, the amount passed on to the tenant should enable the landowner to *earn the prevailing real interest rate* in the market's structure of production.


 This is sounding suspiciously Austrian...



> As I tried to explain in above paragraph, landowners earn and keep all surplus income on capital assets above and beyond the required uses imposed by LVT, but as for the land itself, assuming they are an average entrepreneur, their income and capital gains from pure ownership of the land will equal the prevailing real interest rate found in the rest of the structure of production.  So you see this is different than the view that the owner alone bears the tax and accrues no profits from owning land!  Instead I say he will earn no excess profits above the prevailing market rate of interest in the structure of production.  Owning and managing land is, after all, an essential function in the structure of production.  If you understand *Hayek*, you ought to understand me.


  Ha!  Yes, because if nothing else, even if the guy's a bum, he is still delaying consumption by investing his resources in land rather than nights on the town, thus lowering the average time preference of society and enabling the structure of production to either get stretched out or shrink less quickly.  And yes, assuming an evenly rotating economy (no North Dakotas, nor people changing their mind about how big of yards they like, no change in where or how they want to live and moving to or fro for any reason) all land will get that average rate of return we call the interest rate, because investors (if there's no uncertainty I guess we can't call them entrepreneurs) will gravitate towards putting money into land if it's earning a higher rate of return than the average, and thus bidding that rate until it reaches the average, or towards pulling money out if it's earning below-average returns, thus leaving the remaining land investors with less competition, enabling them to charge higher prices and earn a greater rate of return, until it goes up to the average.  Boy, that was a long sentence.  Anyway, you already understand all that, so I guess I just put it out there for anyone reading to partially explain what in the world we're talking about the interest rate for, though after 60 pages of the quality of conversation we've mostly had here, I kind of doubt anyone's still torturing themselves by reading.




> Let me offer the pithy and trite observation that with LVT there probably be a lot less sprawl and lot fewer million dollar subdividisions!


Maybe.  I understand the more-efficient-utilization argument, but I don't see why that should necessarily mean more-densely-packed-cities.  Add a tax and people will stop preferring having a backyard to living in a high-rise apartment?  Please feel free to explain.  I tend to think that an even bigger factor in sprawl is that the government, always picking winners and losers, took the side of sprawl for 50 years and still does to an extent, using it's resources to make it happen through subsidies, zoning, building lots of beltline higways and roads in general, utilities, etc. which no one has to pay for (and so everyone has to pay for), etc., etc.  Ending all that would make a bigger difference in how people distribute themselves than raising land taxes.   


> Let me say too that local farming and sustainable local produce and all that stuff which is so en vogue today, the reason it does not work well is because our cities resemble Atlanta or Houston and not Manhattan or San Francisco.


 I actually really like Houston.  Everything is so remarkably new and shiny and modern, in contrast to, say, Chicago.  Traffic isn't bad either (relatively speaking).  San Francisco was a lot of fun -- to visit; I'm sure I wouldn't like all their laws and taxes if I lived there.  Especially Chinatown.  Lots of amazingly cheap bizarre vegetables and unrefrigerated raw fish in buckets everywhere.  In your face, food safety inspectors!




> Large, sprawling, suburbanized cities make it hard for your beet farmer on the edges of town to stay in business.  There is no center square or no place that large #’s gather.  He is instead forced to make the rounds selling to grocery store chains, driving around a lot, its very hard.  You should visit Union Sq. in Manhattan.  On most days of the week you will find it teeming with farmers selling out of their stands to huge crowds.  Its called economy of scale.


  Yeah that makes sense.  I think all these produce farmers should get their own freeze-drying machines and distribute things that way.  That way you can pick the stuff when it's actually ripe, you don't have to use breeds with superior transportability but inferior taste, there's no time crunch to get it to your customers, you thus don't so badly need the economies of scale you're talking about, and the nutrition is locked in and the cell structure is preserved, even better than the fresh in some cases, which can suffer oxygen damage.




> I think it is wrong of you to call it pressure.  Incentive maybe, yes, but not pressure.  As for calling it theft, I think that is unfair.


I think that land is a legitimate subject of ownership, so it is unavoidable for me to believe taxing it would be theft.  Just so, you would believe that taxing me for using a computer would be theft, I think.  


> This is not an uncompensated taking of land.


I have lower standard of theft than that: involuntary taking is theft, compensated or not.  One man's "need" doesn't cancel another man's right.  I don't agree with so-called eminent domain.  Do you?  


> If the tax is high and the farmer can’t afford it there is good reason.  We can assume there are a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price for the land.  The owner is lucky to be in such a position!  With the money earned he can double his acreage at a different site and farm even more.


 True.  It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.  But neither would it be the worst thing if you had this same set-up for capital goods.  You charge a CVT (capital value tax) on capital goods, determined based on assessors, market prices, and some sophisticated computer model Roy L. has.  Just like LVT.  The owners of injection molds and CNC lathes would then pay an annual tax.  Normally, as long as they were putting them to reasonably good use they'd be able to afford the tax.  If the tax is high and the factory can't afford the tax, there is some reason.    We can assume there are many buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price of the machines.  Perhaps society needs every available unit of a specialized machine the factory has, in order to produce the new iPhone which is in a desperate shortage.  The owner is lucky to be in such a position!  With the money, he can buy even better machines and twice as many, and manufacture to his heart's delight.

But if you believe in an absolute property right in capital goods, such a CVT would still be theft.




> I am so happy you mentioned North Dakota.  I heard the NPR story a few weeks back and was blown away.  Apparently we are living on top ofon more oil than is found in all the Middle East and north Africa combined, by a factor of 2X.  Its truly mind-boggling.  Something like 2 trillion barrels?  I understand Canada has even more.  At USA’s present consumption of 20MM barrels a day, this represents over 200 years supply of oil, all of it buried here. Canada has enough oil to power itself for the next 2,000 years.  Like I said, its mind boggling.  Peak oil can be put aside as a credible argument for at least another century.


  Amen.  Score another point for Julian Simon.  Human ingenuity truly is _The Ultimate Resource_.  We will never run out of any natural resource, as long as we have freedom.




> Well, as a starting point, let me point out that you are lamenting the fate of Jed Clampet, a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed, yet up from ground came a bubbling crude.  Oil that is.  Texas tea.  It turns out that collectively all the old Jed’s out there are sitting on about $185 trillion dollars of oil reserves.  So pardon me if I don’t feel pity that Jed is forced into selling his coon-skin store and Ma Clampet no longer keeps the sewing store.  They are filthy stinking rich.


 In the absence of an LVT, in fact, even such stores would be prospering, because the old clientele is still there, and with a much higher population (with lots of excess spending money) some small percentage of the oil workers may have wives needing sewing needles, and some larger percentage will definitely decide they need a coon-skin cap.  So business will increase.  It's only if the taxes increase even more than the profits do that it must be the end of the road for them.

I personally do tend to think there will not be a bust in ND for quite some time.  But there was a North Dakota oil boom a few decades ago and the locals still remember what happened afterwards when the bust came.  So you never know.  But yeah, it wasn't as big last time.

I'm just saying the future's uncertain.  Thousands of different land owners, all with ultimate veto power, is a leavening and moderating influence.  It means that there is always going to be a little bit of diversity in the approach taken to any given situation.  This means it is more likely humanity will be prepared to deal with whatever unforeseen events may arise.  Plus, I just like hold-outs.  They make me smile.  I like to see someone bucking the norms of the community, doing his own thing, and the community being fine with that.  That makes me feel comfortable that _I_ will be able to do _my_ own thing; if I get some crazy idea I'll not be harrassed for doing it, even if everyone thinks it's harebrained.




> As for the teeter-totter.  There are thousands of entrepreneurs just like you, and I believe that between you all you will determine just how rich you intend to make old Jed and Ma Clampet.  I also believe that you will scarcely allow large strip malls and vacant parking lots to cut off your access to the most amazing treasure trove of natural resources ever discovered in human history.  I think between you all the teeter totter will balance just fine.


 Thank you for your vote of confidence!

----------


## Roy L

> I do not agree with Geoists who say that the entire tax on land is born solely by the owner.  I believe owners will in fact pass off some amount of the tax to his tenants. The proportions will vary based on the market, but in most cases, tenants will not completely escape the tax.


This is a very tricky and counter-intuitive point of economics, and many people do not understand it.  It's not a matter of what geoists say, but rather a law of economics.  The fixity of land's supply means the landowner CANNOT pass on the tax to tenants, because they will just go elsewhere, and he will lose money.  



> In theory, the amount passed on to the tenant should enable the landowner to earn the prevailing real interest rate in the market's structure of production.


No, he has to earn a return by production.



> As I tried to explain in above paragraph, landowners earn and keep all surplus income on capital assets above and beyond the required uses imposed by LVT, but as for the land itself, assuming they are an average entrepreneur, their income and capital gains from pure ownership of the land will equal the prevailing real interest rate found in the rest of the structure of production.


But with full rent recovery, the land is acquired for free, so his return is also zero.



> So you see this is different than the view that the owner alone bears the tax and accrues no profits from owning land!  Instead I say he will earn no excess profits above the prevailing market rate of interest in the structure of production.


I suggest you define exactly what you mean by the landowner passing on the land tax to tenants.



> Owning and managing land is, after all, an essential function in the structure of production.


Owning land is pure parasitism.  "Managing" it is vacuous: nature maintains it in its natural state without assistance, and the market decides the best use for it; then it's just a matter of accepting the high bid.  *Using* it is the part that is essential to production.



> As for calling it theft, I think that is unfair.


It's a flat-out lie.



> This is not an uncompensated taking of land.


Right: that's what the landowner does.



> I respect that people have sentimental attachment to land in some cases were born there and inherited.


And lots of people had sentimental attachments to their slaves.  So?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Roy, in what sense are you opposed to initiation of force?

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, in what sense are you opposed to initiation of force?


In the sense that it is initiation of force to deprive someone of what they would otherwise have that constitutes a violation of their rights.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> In the sense that it is initiation of force to deprive someone of what they would otherwise have that constitutes a violation of their rights.


So not in the sense that it's initiation of force to use force against someone aggressively.  I.e.: nothing to do with the actual definition of the words actually in the phrase.  You are just using the phrase because.... why?  It seems to have nothing to do with your political views nor any of your underlying reasons for holding those views.  Your views appear, correct me if I'm wrong, to be rooted in practicality.  You are likely only using it and making other arguments of morality about slavery, evil, etc., because you think that your readers, unlike you, do base their views on morality.  This is probably the reason that you sound so ridiculous making such arguments: your heart isn't really in it, it's just a tool in the rhetorical arsenal.  It's why you really sincerely can't relate to the idea that injustice can't be corrected by compensating the aggreived.  You never did get it that a slave is a slave because he cannot quit, and even if you pay him a million dollars a year, give him a palace, and only force him to work one hour a week, nothing can make up for or compensate for that hour a week of slavery.  That just doesn't click for you.

So, advocate a land tax.  Advocate a tax on smoking.  But don't try to pretend that such taxes are based on some stretched and contorted version of libertarian ethics.  I mean, you want to tax smoking!  The smoker is not initiating force against anyone by smoking -- you initiate force against him by demanding his money.  The land-owner is not initiating force against anyone by owning land -- you initiate force against him by demanding his money.  This is, to take a page out of your book, "indisputable".  You will of course reply that "no, I already proved to you that it's indiputable that it _is_ initiation of force to own land", but I don't think your heart will really be in it.  You are just spouting the words that you think are the right ones to say so you've memorized them.  In reality, you have come to the conclusion that taxing land would increase the efficiency of the economy and correct many major "market failures" as you see them, and so you advocate it.  Purely utilitarian.  Just as taxing smoking would supposedly increase the total utility of society.  There's obviously no moral justification for that tax, yet you advocate it.  

It's all just about adding and subtracting utils in your mind.  That is why you will never win the moral debate.  An-cap owns the moral side of the debate with a consistent, radical approach to the question: when is it permissible to use violence against other human beings?  Surrender the moral side, and focus on the practical arguments.  Because honestly you haven't laid forth that side of the case in a very solid, unified, and convincing manner yet either, and that is where you probably could shine.

----------


## Roy L

> So not in the sense that it's initiation of force to use force against someone aggressively.


Yes, in just that sense because "aggressively" *means* with invasive or menacing intent, such as intent to invade someone's rights by depriving them of what they would otherwise have.  You know: the way landowners initiate the use of force aggressively, with intent to menace and invade others' rights by depriving them of the liberty they would otherwise have to use the land.

I knew when I saw your question that you intended to lie about my answer, whatever it was.  Thanks for living down to my expectations.



> I.e.: nothing to do with the actual definition of the words actually in the phrase.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you about what I have plainly written.



> You are just using the phrase because.... why?


Because it proves my position is logically consistent, while yours is not.



> It seems to have nothing to do with your political views nor any of your underlying reasons for holding those views.


Lie.



> Your views appear, correct me if I'm wrong, to be rooted in practicality.


You are wrong.  They are practical only in the same sense that all objective truth is practical.  They are rooted in total commitment to liberty, justice and truth.



> You are likely only using it and making other arguments of morality about slavery, evil, etc., because you think that your readers, unlike you, do base their views on morality.


No, I make moral arguments regarding slavery, evil, etc. because they are literally true.



> This is probably the reason that you sound so ridiculous making such arguments: your heart isn't really in it, it's just a tool in the rhetorical arsenal.


<yawn>  Have you watched "Judgment at Nuremberg" yet?  My argument is not rhetoric.  It's the literal truth.

I notice you have long since given up trying to respond to my demolition of your absurd and evil claims with any kind of rational argument.  It's all just ad hominem speculations, derision, name-calling, etc. now.



> It's why you really sincerely can't relate to the idea that injustice can't be corrected by compensating the aggreived.


<yawn> Google "tort law" and start reading.  Then get back to me if you ever want to talk about anything relevant to reality.



> You never did get it that a slave is a slave because he cannot quit, and even if you pay him a million dollars a year, give him a palace, and only force him to work one hour a week, nothing can make up for or compensate for that hour a week of slavery.  That just doesn't click for you.


It doesn't click because it is objectively false.  Offer any ACTUAL slave that deal, and they will grab at it and laugh in your silly, lying face for being so stone *stupid*  and *dishonest* as to claim the money and palace don't compensate for the mere hour a week of compulsory labor.

Your claim is just false and absurd, like all your other claims.

The law makes many provisions for compensation in cases where people's rights are violated by force, and no one but a stupid, lying sack of $#!+ claims it's some sort of intolerable tyranny.  For example, when there is a forest fire, able-bodied people can be compelled to help fight it, and are then paid a set wage for their labor.  Only a stupid, lying sack of $#!+ would claim they are slaves.  When there is an epidemic, the sick can be forcibly quarantined, and no one but a stupid, lying sack of $#!+ would claim they are being abducted.  Etc.



> So, advocate a land tax.  Advocate a tax on smoking.  But don't try to pretend that such taxes are based on some stretched and contorted version of libertarian ethics.


It is feudal libertarian "ethics" like yours that are stretched and contorted.  As I have proved.



> I mean, you want to tax smoking!  The smoker is not initiating force against anyone by smoking


Yes, he is: his second-hand smoke is a toxic invasion of others' rights; smoking causes many fires, which are a public menace, violate people's rights, and are fought at public expense; and smokers litter public spaces with their toxic butts, which can kill a child, pet or wildlife.  It is not practical to obtain compensation from each individual smoker who initiates force against others in these ways, so it is entirely justified to tax cigarettes at the point of sale, and recover the cost from all smokers.  A similar argument can be made for requiring drivers to pay for compulsory public liability insurance.  The fact that most of them will never impose on society the cost of serious injuries in an at-fault auto accident is irrelevant, because those who do usually can't pay for them.



> -- you initiate force against him by demanding his money.


No, it's compensation for the costs he and other smokers impose on society by smoking, which also include emergency medical care for indigent smokers.  See the auto insurance argument.



> The land-owner is not initiating force against anyone by owning land --


That's plainly just a lie.  He forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use the land.  You know this.  Of course you do.  It is self-evident and indisputable.  You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> you initiate force against him by demanding his money.


The rent of land -- the economic advantage obtainable by using it -- is publicly created, and he is forcibly depriving others of that opportunity.  This is indisputable.  Requiring him to compensate the community of those whose rights he forcibly violates by depriving them of it is not initiation of force, so *stop lying*.



> This is, to take a page out of your book, "indisputable".


No, it is not, because I just disproved it.



> You will of course reply that "no, I already proved to you that it's indiputable that it _is_ initiation of force to own land", but I don't think your heart will really be in it.


It is, because I did, and it is.



> You are just spouting the words that you think are the right ones to say so you've memorized them.


I've memorized them because no matter how many times I repeat the proof, lying apologists for landowner privilege, being unable to respond to it, just dismiss and ignore it.



> In reality, you have come to the conclusion that taxing land would increase the efficiency of the economy and correct many major "market failures" as you see them, and so you advocate it.  Purely utilitarian.


In reality, you are just makin' $#!+ up again.  LVT *would* increase economic efficiency, and that is a good enough reason to replace unjust, inefficient and harmful taxes with it.  But that is not the basic reason for it.



> Just as taxing smoking would supposedly increase the total utility of society.


It compensates forcible imposition of costs on others, like taxing land.



> There's obviously no moral justification for that tax, yet you advocate it.


I have stated the moral justification above.



> It's all just about adding and subtracting utils in your mind.


In fact, I don't even think about utility.



> That is why you will never win the moral debate.


I have already won it.



> An-cap owns the moral side of the debate with a consistent, radical approach to the question: when is it permissible to use violence against other human beings?


It's not consistent, as already proved.  It just says, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you are a landowner."  I have already proved that, and you agreed that I had stated that an-cap position accurately.  You even stated explicitly that you *approved* of Dirtowner Harry initiating force to murder Thirsty, and Crusoe initiating force to enslave Friday.  You even stated that the enslaver and murderer were *heroes*.

Your amoral an-cap speculations are just irrelevant to any realistic approach to design of a practical economic order.



> Surrender the moral side, and focus on the practical arguments.


LOL!  I have already won, and you urge me to surrender!



> Because honestly you haven't laid forth that side of the case in a very solid, unified, and convincing manner yet either, and that is where you probably could shine.


Apologists for landowner privilege know they have already lost on the practical economic arguments, that's why they always retreat to, "But you can't steal MY LAND because it's MINE!"  Just as you have done.

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## helmuth_hubener

> It's not consistent, as already proved.  It just says, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you are a landowner."


Wrong, respectfully, because of the word "just".  It also says, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you are a smoker".  Furthermore, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you are an alcohol drinker".  And don't forget the famous, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you drive automobiles". And many more!

You see, an-cap allows all kinds of groups to enslave or murder people by failing to steal their stuff.  If we were serious about not ever allowing enslavement or murder, obviously we would be going around and stealing stuff from people in all walks of life, for a practically unlimited list of activities.

That _is_ obvious... isn't it?

----------


## Roy L

> Wrong, respectfully, because of the word "just".  It also says, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you are a smoker".  Furthermore, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you are an alcohol drinker".  And don't forget the famous, "It's not OK to enslave or murder people, unless you drive automobiles". And many more!


It is difficult to enslave people by smoking, drinking, or driving an automobile (which I suppose distinguishes those activities from landowning), but many, many people have been killed or suffered financial or other losses through others smoking, drinking, and driving, as well as through their landowning.  As an acolyte of an-cap nonsense, you just want those killers and imposers of other losses to be privileged to initiate force against their victims, and not have to pay for the deprivations they impose.



> You see, an-cap allows all kinds of groups to enslave or murder people by failing to steal their stuff.


No, now you are just lying again, because requiring just compensation for violation of rights -- or for placing others unwillingly at risk of such violation -- is not stealing.  An-cap simply does not require such compensation, consequently allowing certain privileged initiators of force (especially landowners, but also smokers, drinkers and drivers) to violate others' rights with impunity.  By failing to require just compensation from those who initiate force in violation of others' rights (failing to "steal their stuff" in your absurd and dishonest parlance), an-cap enables initiation of force against all their victims, depriving the latter of their rights.

And of course, land is not anyone's "stuff" except in the same formal, legal sense that slaves were when slavery was sanctioned by law.  So as all would otherwise be at liberty to use the land, it is in fact LANDOWNERS who are doing the stealing, by initiating force to deprive everyone else of their liberty.



> If we were serious about not ever allowing enslavement or murder,


Which you obviously are not -- quite the contrary, as you have explicitly admitted.



> obviously we would be going around and stealing stuff from people in all walks of life, for a practically unlimited list of activities.


No, it would be limited to the activities that inherently initiate force against others, or put them unwillingly at significant risk of having force initiated against them in violation of their rights.



> That _is_ obvious... isn't it?


No, it's just absurd, dishonest nonsense, like every other rationalization for privilege and injustice that you have offered, or ever will offer.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> put them unwillingly at significant risk


Life=Risk.

----------


## Roy L

> Life=Risk.


Prudence=Managing Risk

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Life=Risk.


...and Roy L. doesn't seem to disagree.  Let's follow the logic of Roy L.'s premises:

Any creation of risk for others is initiation of force.
Any initiation of force should be (not ended, but) taxed.*
All life is risky.  The fact of living creates some degree of risk for others.  Virtually any action we take puts some others into at least some tiny amount of danger, most of these dangers larger than that of burning alive from a cigarette butt, and we have already established _that_ danger to be an initiation of force..

Ergo, all life should be taxed.  We need a tax on life.

Q.E.D.

* (Or, OK, just to avoid the tiresome "I do not! Do not!! Do not!!!"s: all initiation of force should either be ended or taxed.  Presumably Roy L. would be OK with something like murder being actually abolished, rather than taxed, but most 'initiations of force', such as drinking hot coffee, riding a bicycle, or getting up in the morning, are just taxed under his system.  And even those things abolished would of course have some 'reasonable exceptions' for times when the government 'really needs to do it', like enslaving people to put out a fire in a forest it mismanaged, or perhaps murdering people in order to promote freedom and democracy.)

----------


## Roy L

> Let's follow the logic of Roy L.'s premises:


Without reading any further, I know this means that you will be making up false premises and falsely and dishonestly attributing them to me.  I.e., you will be continuing your firmly established pattern of lying about what I have plainly written.



> Any creation of risk for others is initiation of force.


It *risks* initiating force.  Maybe the force will be initiated, maybe not.  The drunk driver may or may not hit someone on the way home, but reasonable people (i.e., not you) understand that he is putting others at heightened and unacceptable risk whether he hits anyone or not.  Your evil and insane an-cap "philosophy" just says people should be free to drive drunk unless they "initiate force" by knocking down pedestrians.  It's that simple.



> Any initiation of force should be (not ended, but) taxed.*


No, that's obviously just a bald lie about what I have plainly written.  Initiation of force to deprive people of what they would otherwise have, as landowners do, is clearly a violation of their rights, which government exists to prevent and/or redress.  Of course violation of rights should be prevented where possible.  The basis of LVT is that once people start making fixed improvements to land, initiation of force and consequent violation of rights cannot be avoided.  If the improver is to enjoy the fruits of his labor, as is his right, others' rights to use the land must be violated by initiation of force.  That violation of their rights must rightly be compensated.



> All life is risky.


True: one is constantly at risk from natural hazards, just as one is at risk of initiation of force by wild animals, disease organisms, etc.  It is risk imposed _by other people_ that prudence requires society to manage.



> The fact of living creates some degree of risk for others.


Aside from the risk to the mother inherent in childbirth, which she voluntarily assumes by engaging in sex, no, it does not.  That is just another lie from you.



> Virtually any action we take puts some others into at least some tiny amount of danger, most of these dangers larger than that of burning alive from a cigarette butt,


No, that's just a lie.  And the risk of "burning alive" is only a small part of the risk the cigarette smoker imposes on others, as already proved.



> and we have already established _that_ danger to be an initiation of force.


It is imposition of a heightened danger of it.



> Ergo, all life should be taxed.  We need a tax on life.


I was confident that you would contrive a stupid lie to attribute to me.  Thanks for not disappointing me.



> * (Or, OK, just to avoid the tiresome "I do not! Do not!! Do not!!!"s: all initiation of force should either be ended or taxed.


If you knew your lie was going to be exposed and refuted, why did you even bother telling it?



> Presumably Roy L. would be OK with something like murder being actually abolished, rather than taxed, but most 'initiations of force', such as drinking hot coffee, riding a bicycle, or getting up in the morning, are just taxed under his system.


No, that is just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.  Drinking hot coffee and getting up in the morning initiate no force and impose no risk on others.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You merely decided that you had better deliberately lie about it.  The risk cyclists pose to pedestrians is real, but depends entirely on where, when, and how they cycle, so it is more appropriately handled by regulation (rules of the road) than taxation.  Some regulation has also been used to reduce the initiation of force on others by smokers and drinkers, but imposition of some risk to others is inherent in such behavior.

Everything you say to try to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil is just stupid, dishonest garbage.



> And even those things abolished would of course have some 'reasonable exceptions' for times when the government 'really needs to do it', like enslaving people to put out a fire in a forest it mismanaged,


Oh, right, I forgot: there were never any fires in forests before government started "mismanaging" them....

Like I said: just more of your stupid, dishonest garbage.



> or perhaps murdering people in order to promote freedom and democracy.)


The number of people governments have murdered to promote freedom and democracy is a tiny fraction of the number landowners have murdered out of pure greed for unearned wealth.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Without reading any further, I know this means that you will be making up false premises and falsely and dishonestly attributing them to me.  I.e., you will be continuing your firmly established pattern of lying about what I have plainly written.


Whee!




> Your evil and insane an-cap "philosophy" just says people should be free to drive drunk unless they "initiate force" by knocking down pedestrians.  It's that simple.


Yep.




> No, that's obviously just a bald lie about what I have plainly written.... That is just another lie from you.... No, that's just a lie.... I was confident that you would contrive a stupid lie to attribute to me.  Thanks for not disappointing me.... If you knew your lie was going to be exposed and refuted, why did you even bother telling it?... No, that is just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.... You merely decided that you had better deliberately lie about it.... Like I said: just more of your stupid, dishonest garbage.  Everything you say...is just stupid, dishonest garbage.


 Pretty heavy stuff, Mr. L.  I'm gonna have to refute you on all that.  Are you ready?  Here it is:

Nu-uh!







> Drinking hot coffee and getting up in the morning initiate no force and impose no risk on others.


 Drinking hot coffee increases my risk that you will spill it on me.  Also, that you will do something to injure me as a result of being on a psychoactive drug.  Getting up in the morning increases my risk that you will discriminate against me, price-gouge me, drive a car past my house (dangerously close!), racially slur me, second-hand-smoke me while waiting in traffic, or fail to give me a share of the profits from your land.  There's an almost unlimited number of ways that a man could initiate Roy-L.-badness upon me (I'm not going to call it force any more, because that's just butchering the English language), the risk of all of which are increased by that man getting up in the morning. If you get up in the morning _and_ drink some hot coffee _and_ smoke a cigarette, all in the same day, you are obviously one of the *privileged* class, mooching off the *injustice* and *evil* of a society which would permit you to commit such atrocities without the proper consequences.  Outrageous, truly outrageous.  The proper consequence, of course, is: give Joe Biden more money.  That's usually a safe guess for the proper consequence for anything in a nation-state.  That makes everything all better.

So I guess we have a choice.  Choice 1: we all get run over by drunk drivers and then, while lying in the streets, burned alive by cigarette butts and nationwide forest fires.  That's what I want.

Or, Choice #B: We give our money to Joe Biden, who saves us from evil, prudently manages our risks, and ends all the injustice of the world.  This is what Roy L. wants.

Well, to each his own!

----------


## Roy L

> Yep.


And to experiment with poison gas, biological warfare agents, etc. within city limits until such time as someone is actually harmed and can prove it in (a presumably privately owned and operated) court...?

As I said: your an-cap "philosophy" is just evil and insane -- i.e., clinically sociopathic.  And cretinous.



> Pretty heavy stuff, Mr. L.  I'm gonna have to refute you on all that.


No, of course you won't.  You have yet to refute anything I have said, and you won't be starting now.



> Drinking hot coffee increases my risk that you will spill it on me.


No, it doesn't, unless we are in the same place.  So you lied.  *Again*.  And if we are in the same place, and I am there legitimately with my hot coffee, then you have already voluntarily accepted the risk that I might spill it on you, just by going to a place where people are allowed to drink hot coffee.  Furthermore, if I do spill hot coffee on you and you suffer some harm, there are remedies available.  The harm done by smokers is often not remediable in practice because it's either so large they can't afford to compensate it, or the culprits can't be identified, or the damage is too diffuse and indirect.



> Also, that you will do something to injure me as a result of being on a psychoactive drug.


Wrong *again*.  Coffee consumption is not associated with injury to others -- unlike alcohol and cigarette consumption -- so you are just lying.  Again.  Inevitably.  In fact, coffee drinkers are more alert, and thus less likely to harm you through inattention.



> Getting up in the morning increases my risk that you will discriminate against me, price-gouge me, drive a car past my house (dangerously close!), racially slur me, second-hand-smoke me while waiting in traffic, or fail to give me a share of the profits from your land.


<yawn>  No, that's nothing but more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.  As usual.  Except for the second-hand smoke, those "risks" are not even examples of initiation of force or violation of rights (forcible deprivations of what you would otherwise have), so you are just makin' $#!+ up again.

Oh, and you also tried to deceive your readers again about what LVT is.  It is not "a share of the profits from land."  It is the same whether there is any activity on the land or not, and thus any profits or not.  So you just flat-out tried to *DECEIVE* people.  *Again*.  As usual.



> There's an almost unlimited number of ways that a man could initiate Roy-L.-badness upon me (I'm not going to call it force any more, because that's just butchering the English language),


*ROTFL!!!*  *You* are the one who just *MADE UP* all those examples of "Roy-L-badness," sunshine, and *pretended* that I would consider them risks of initiation of force or violation of rights.  *Not me.* *YOU*.  So *YOU* are the one who just *BUTCHERED* the English language as well as all standards of logic and honesty.  *Not me.  YOU.*



> the risk of all of which are increased by that man getting up in the morning.


But which aren't the violation of rights or initiation of force we were talking about (except that you were only pretending to talk about them), nor heightened risk of same.



> If you get up in the morning _and_ drink some hot coffee _and_ smoke a cigarette, all in the same day, you are obviously one of the *privileged* class, mooching off the *injustice* and *evil* of a society which would permit you to commit such atrocities without the proper consequences.  Outrageous, truly outrageous.  The proper consequence, of course, is: give Joe Biden more money.  That's usually a safe guess for the proper consequence for anything in a nation-state.  That makes everything all better.


That is just more stupid, dishonest garbage.



> So I guess we have a choice.  Choice 1: we all get run over by drunk drivers and then, while lying in the streets, burned alive by cigarette butts and nationwide forest fires.  That's what I want.


Or something similarly sociopathic.  Right.



> Or, Choice #B: We give our money to Joe Biden, who saves us from evil, prudently manages our risks, and ends all the injustice of the world.  This is what Roy L. wants.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you, as you know.

Sorry, but prolonged exposure to evil makes me physically ill, so I might not be able to refute any more of your dishonest rationalizations of evil today.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> And if we are in the same place, and I am there legitimately with my hot coffee, then you have already voluntarily accepted the risk that I might spill it on you, just by going to a place where people are allowed to drink hot coffee.


 Uh oh, uh oh, we are getting dangerously close to a truth here.  _Voluntarily_ gone there?  _Voluntarily_ accepted a risk?  Can that be done?  Could one voluntarily live in a place with smoking and coffee-drinking and land-owning?

I better turn off my brain before I think about that too hard.  LVT Rules!  LVT Solves Everything!  LVT FTW!

----------


## Roy L

> Uh oh, uh oh, we are getting dangerously close to a truth here.


Time for you to steer us in the opposite direction, then.



> _Voluntarily_ gone there?  _Voluntarily_ accepted a risk?  Can that be done?  Could one voluntarily live in a place with smoking and coffee-drinking and land-owning?


Of course.  Just as one could voluntarily live in a place with child prostitution, slavery, and extermination camps.  The point, of course, which you are struggling desperately to divert your readers' attention from, is that drinking coffee does not even put anyone else *at risk* (you forgot to specify HOT coffee in a public place) of initiation of force, so there is no reason to concern ourselves with it as a potential initiation of force or violation of rights. Drinking *hot* coffee in a public place imposes a tiny *risk* on others, which we ignore because being, unlike you, rational and sensible beings, we understand that it does not add significantly to the risk inherent in being in a public place WITHOUT anyone drinking hot coffee.  Smoking imposes a much larger *risk* of initiation of force, which we sensibly and prudently (i.e., we but not you) concern ourselves with, while landowning is not a mere risk but a massive and *certain* initiation of force and violation of rights that effectively enslaves the landless, as proved by their condition in every country with established private landowning where government does not make significant provision to rescue them from its devastatingly unjust and vicious effects.



> I better turn off my brain before I think about that too hard.


You turned off your brain before you first responded in this thread, and you have not turned it on since.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

To review the situation:

Libertarians believe in private property based on homesteading.

Georgists believe that "the Universe belongs to all of us" (_We are the world, we are the children..._) and thus homesteading is invalid.  Logically, this would mean that nothing can be rightfully privately owned, ever, since everything was at some point part of the Universe -- and still is!  Homesteading is the only just way for pieces of the Universe to become private property.  Toss that out, and you toss out private property.

Our friend Mr. L. believes that quasi-private quasi-property should be continued despite his moral opposition to it.  Individuals should continue being permitted to rob the masses of humanity of their birthright by wickedly monopolizing resources.  Instead of individuals claiming property via homesteading, though, he thinks propertizing should occur by paying off a nation-state, either a one-time lump sum (for resources you're going to move) or an ongoing perpetual tax (for resources you're going to leave in-place).  This is because the nation-state is good, the nation-state is holy, and thus has the right and the duty to rule over all the resources in its geographical monopoly -- in the name of the public good, of course.  Well, credulity is nothing if not resilient.  

Public Choice economists might ask some difficult questions, like: if landowners inevitably get all the money and all the power, how is the solution to that to set up a massively powerful institution?  Can we really realistically expect the rich and powerful to _not_ utterly control the nation-state?  Are we confused as to what it means to be rich and powerful?  Is powerful really defined as power_less_?  Is the nation-state somehow magically going to be most gravely concerned about the interests of the landless beggar on the street while blithely dismissive of the interests of the land mogul who just spent a billion dollars sending a thousand lobbyists to the nation-state's political capital?

Georgists also claim that taxing land value will force a landowner to be more efficient.  By increasing his operating expenses, he is forced to make a higher profit just to break even.  But, if true, could not that argument be used against any businessman?  Does not taxing the factory owner X% force him to use _that_ valuable resource in such a way to give at least a X% dividend to The Glorious Collective?  Does not taxing even the factory _worker_ by X% force him to use his body and mind -- also valuable social resources -- in a more productive manner, just to "break even" (feed himself)?  All taxation is an incentive to efficiency, then, by this argument.  It all cuts off the inefficient -- those unable to meet or exceed the minimum threshold set by the tax -- and gives their resources instead to those more enterprising and profitable souls able to survive and even thrive while carrying the weight of the nation-state.

To summarize:
No homesteading doesn't just mean no land ownership, it means no property ownership, period.
Giving power to the nation-state to smash rich land-owners will backfire, as those rich land-owners can capture the apparatus meant to smash them with trivial ease.
Taxing people to make them more efficient is like cutting off everyone's outer ears to force them to have better listening skills.

----------


## Roy L

> To review the situation:


I.e., baldly to lie about what I have plainly written:



> Libertarians believe in private property based on homesteading.


I.e., "libertarians" are actually advocating feudalism, and the initiation of force to murder or enslave all who come after the initial grabbers of the resources nature provided.  Helmuth has already explicitly admitted this, and has stated that landowners who murder and/or enslave anyone who attempts to exercise their natural liberty to use what nature provided should be regarded as heroes.

But in fact, feudal "libertarians" like Helmuth do not even believe in private property based on homesteading at all, because they support initiation of force to secure and perpetuate *current* land titles, *none* of which can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an initial "homesteader" who did not violate anyone else's rights by appropriating the land.  It is too late for private property to be based on homesteading even if homesteading could produce a valid property right, which it cannot, and feudal "libertarians" are perfectly well aware of that fact.  Their real agenda is to push for reversion to a feudal form of society in which all who are lazy and foolish enough to be born after the initial feeding frenzy of forcible appropriation are fair game to be murdered or enslaved by the landed aristocracy.



> Georgists believe that "the Universe belongs to all of us"


No, that's just, inevitably, another stupid lie from you.  The universe self-evidently and indisputably belongs to no one.  It self-evidently and indisputably started out belonging to no one, and nothing has happened in the interim that could possibly have made it belong to anyone, or to everyone.  It is also self-evident and indisputable that appropriation of any portion of it as private property, by "homesteading" or any other method, purposes to initiate force against anyone who would exercise their natural liberty to use it.



> (_We are the world, we are the children..._)


Beneath contempt.



> and thus homesteading is invalid.


No, homesteading is invalid because it is an undertaking to initiate force against others who attempt to exercise their rights to liberty.  No silly songs are involved.  No assumptions of collective property in the universe are involved.  Those are just fabrications -- i.e., flat-out lies -- on your part.  It is just a fact of objective physical reality that people are at liberty to use what nature provided, and that initiation of force to stop them from doing so, as appropriation of land through "homesteading" purposes to do, deprives them of their natural liberty, violating their rights.  The evasion of that fact is the goal of all your stupid lies.



> Logically, this would mean that nothing can be rightfully privately owned, ever, since everything was at some point part of the Universe -- and still is!


Maybe if your strawman had any meaning, which it doesn't, and if anyone but you was assuming it as a premise, which they aren't.



> Homesteading is the only just way for pieces of the Universe to become private property.


No, that's just indisputably false.  The only just way for pieces of the universe to become private property is self-evidently through a process that does not violate anyone's rights without providing just compensation.  I.e., through production, never appropriation through initiation of force.  It is also indisputable that private property in products of labor was an established and recognized institution for many thousands of years before appropriation of land as property through homesteading was ever conceived.



> Toss that out, and you toss out private property.


No, that's just indisputably false, as proved above.  Private property in products of labor does not violate anyone's rights to liberty, because they would not otherwise have been at liberty to use it: it did not exist without the producer producing it.  Private property in what nature provided (i.e., land), by contrast, DOES inherently violate others' rights to liberty, because they WOULD otherwise be at liberty to use it: it DID exist without the "owner" producing it, or indeed doing anything at all, including existing, and they would be at liberty to use it if the "owner" did not presume to violate their rights to liberty by initiating force against them.

Helmuth will say and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.



> Our friend Mr. L. believes that quasi-private quasi-property should be continued despite his moral opposition to it.


Another bald lie about what I have plainly written.  Inevitably.  I have repeatedly identified the fact that rightful property is founded on an act of production, never on forcible appropriation, because only thus can property rights not violate others' rights.



> Individuals should continue being permitted to rob the masses of humanity of their birthright by wickedly monopolizing resources.


Monopolization of resources is going to happen anyway.  It is inherent in people's exercise of their right to liberty to use resources, and becomes a significant issue once fixed improvements to land are a significant factor in the economy.  Whether it is wicked robbery or not depends entirely on whether it is justly compensated or not.  You oppose just compensation because you favor an unjust and evil natural resource allocation system that *is* wicked robbery.  I, by contrast, advocate just compensation because I favor a natural resource allocation system that secures natural justice and the equal human rights to life, liberty and property in the products of one's labor.



> Instead of individuals claiming property via homesteading,


I.e., initiating force against others to steal natural resources from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them...



> though, he thinks propertizing should occur by paying off a nation-state, either a one-time lump sum (for resources you're going to move) or an ongoing perpetual tax (for resources you're going to leave in-place).


No, that's just another stupid lie from you about what I have plainly written.  The just compensation to those whose rights you violate by extinguishing or temporarily occupying a natural opportunity does not create any property right in that opportunity.  It merely ensures that your property in what you produce by extinguishing or occupying that opportunity is just.  Furthermore, nation states are just the currently dominant model for securing individual rights against initiation of force by feudal warlords (i.e., landowners) who seek to murder and enslave others by forcibly depriving them of their liberty rights to use what nature provided for all.  I would have no objection to any other effective model for securing the equal individual rights of all and administering the just and rightful compensation due to those whose rights landholders violate by initiating force against them.



> This is because the nation-state is good, the nation-state is holy, and thus has the right and the duty to rule over all the resources in its geographical monopoly -- in the name of the public good, of course.  Well, credulity is nothing if not resilient.


You are just spewing silly "meeza hatesa gubmint!" garbage again.  The nation state simply works.  There is nothing credulous about the observation that the nation state has proved more successful than any other model in securing people's individual rights and administering possession and use of natural resources in the public interest.  Certainly the feudalism you advocate never did.



> Public Choice economists might ask some difficult questions,


Would they be willing to listen to clear and irrefutable answers?



> like: if landowners inevitably get all the money and all the power, how is the solution to that to set up a massively powerful institution?


Landowners only inevitably get all the money and all the power in the absence of a countervailing institution massive and powerful enough to secure the people's rights against initiation of force by landowners intent on murdering or enslaving anyone who tries to exercise their rights to liberty.  



> Can we really realistically expect the rich and powerful to _not_ utterly control the nation-state?


In a just nation state that did not initiate force to implement a policy of massive welfare subsidy giveaways to greedy, privileged parasites like landowners, the rich and powerful might get that way through productive contribution, personal merit, and a record of public service.



> Are we confused as to what it means to be rich and powerful?


_You_ probably are, as you are evidently operating on the assumption that because landowners get rich and powerful through unjust privilege, and despite not contributing anything, that's the only way anyone can get rich and powerful.



> Is powerful really defined as power_less_?


Probably by you.



> Is the nation-state somehow magically going to be most gravely concerned about the interests of the landless beggar on the street while blithely dismissive of the interests of the land mogul who just spent a billion dollars sending a thousand lobbyists to the nation-state's political capital?


In a just nation state, land moguls don't have that kind of money, because only the productive do.



> Georgists also claim that taxing land value will force a landowner to be more efficient.


Lie.  It doesn't force anyone to do anything, other than to relinquish land they refuse justly to compensate others for forcibly depriving them of.  It just encourages the unproductive and inefficient landholder to yield the land to someone productive and efficient enough to pay the tax.



> By increasing his operating expenses, he is forced to make a higher profit just to break even.


Nope.  That's just another flat-out lie.  First, the landowner qua landowner just owns the land.  He doesn't have any "operating expenses."  He just pockets the rent in return for doing nothing.  Secondly, the land tax is exactly the same whether there is any operation or not, so it is indisputably not an operating expense.  And thirdly, the land tax is no more than the high bidder is paying the private landowner for use of the land anyway, so there is no increase in the user's operating expenses whatsoever.  The land rent just goes to the government and community that make the land valuable, rather than to the landowner who does not.



> But, if true, could not that argument be used against any businessman?


It's not true.  It's absurd, fallacious and dishonest anti-economic nonsense.



> Does not taxing the factory owner X% force him to use _that_ valuable resource in such a way to give at least a X% dividend to The Glorious Collective?


Nope.  Wrong AGAIN.  The land is already there, with no help from the landowner or anyone else.  Even deliberately destroying its productive potential to reduce the tax gets the landowner nowhere (even assuming he could dodge the resulting severance tax), as he must still pay for depriving others of the land's diminished potential, and no longer has its original potential to utilize.

The factory, by contrast, is *not* already there.  It must be provided by an investor, who will simply choose not to provide it (or if it is already there, to abandon or destroy it) if it is to be taxed more than he is willing or able to pay.  The landowner by contrast cannot choose not to provide the land, because he doesn't provide it anyway.  Its supply is fixed.  All he can choose to do is use the land productively enough to pay the tax, yield it to someone who will, or lose money.



> Does not taxing even the factory _worker_ by X% force him to use his body and mind -- also valuable social resources --


A person's body and mind are not "social resources" because they are inherently not something anyone else could possibly use.  By contrast, land IS something that others would otherwise be perfectly at liberty to use.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You merely decided deliberately to lie about it.



> in a more productive manner, just to "break even" (feed himself)?


It is true that people tend to be much more attached to their lives, health and comfort than investors are to factories (i.e., the supply of people is very inelastic), so taxing them according to an estimate of their productive potential *could* make them work harder -- but would more likely make them try to hide their productive potential.  Land, by contrast, can't hide, and its productive potential is publicly observable.  



> All taxation is an incentive to efficiency, then, by this argument.


I.e., by your absurd, fallacious, dishonest and brain-dead anti-economic "argument."



> It all cuts off the inefficient -- those unable to meet or exceed the minimum threshold set by the tax --


Land rent is set by the market, stop lying.  It's exactly the same amount the user would pay a private landowner, stop lying.  The universal individual land tax exemption restores the right to liberty the landowner violates, stop lying.



> and gives their resources


"Their" resources??  That is a blatant question begging fallacy.



> instead to those more enterprising and profitable souls able to survive and even thrive while carrying the weight of the nation-state.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  All land rent that is not recovered by the community for public purposes and benefit is pocketed by the landowner for himself, and it is thus the weight of the parasitic _landowner_ that the productive are forced to carry, not the weight of the nation state.  The services and infrastructure that the nation state provides, by contrast, are not a weight to carry.  They are what give the land the economic advantage that makes it worth paying rent for, that _help_ the land user carry the weight of his labor and capital investments.  Land rent is a voluntary, market-based, user-pay transaction.  The only difference with land value taxation is that the exact same amount is paid to the community that creates the land's value, rather than being given away to greedy, idle landowners in return for nothing.

I have explained this to you before.  Under the current system, as well as any feudal system such as you advocate, the productive must pay taxes to government (or private an-cap protection rackets) to fund services and infrastructure, and must then pay land rent to landowners for access to the same services and infrastructure their taxes just paid for.  The productive must pay for government TWICE so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.  Under land value taxation, by contrast, the producer just pays government directly for access to services and infrastructure, cutting out the something-for-nothing payment to the landowner.  *LVT cuts the weight of government in half* -- the exact opposite of your false, stupid and dishonest claim.



> To summarize:
> No homesteading doesn't just mean no land ownership, it means no property ownership, period.


Demolished above.  It does not matter how many times you repeat that stupid and dishonest claim.  Hong Kong proves you wrong.



> Giving power to the nation-state to smash rich land-owners


The nation state already has that power.  It just uses it to subsidize rich landowners at the expense of the productive.



> will backfire, as those rich land-owners can capture the apparatus meant to smash them with trivial ease.


Wrong.  They won't be rich any more.  If rich landowners could capture the apparatus of the nation state with trivial ease, how did Mao manage to exterminate millions of them?



> Taxing people to make them more efficient is like cutting off everyone's outer ears to force them to have better listening skills.


Garbage.  The people are ALREADY being taxed, by landowners.  LVT adds NOTHING to what the productive pay for land.  It just relieves them of the burden of paying for government *twice* so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.

Readers are invited to verify for themselves that all Helmuth's "arguments" have been refuted, most of them proved absurd and dishonest as well as fallacious, and all his substantive claims about LVT proved to be fabrications.

----------


## whippoorwill

Tax = Theft. If you take what is not yours its stealing. So, why would you think its ok for the Government to do it?

----------


## Roy L

> Tax = Theft.


Not if it is a tax that recovers publicly created value for public purposes and benefit, it isn't.  And that is exactly what land value taxation does.



> If you take what is not yours its stealing.


It is landowners who have taken and continue to take what is not rightfully theirs.  Read the thread.  This fact has been proved over and over again.  Land value is CREATED BY government and the community, and therefore rightly BELONGS TO government and the community.  The landowner, OTOH, is just a thief:

_The Bandit

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?_



> So, why would you think its ok for the Government to do it?


Government's job is to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.  It is impossible for government to do that unless it requires just compensation for the violation of individual rights inherent in private ownership of land.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Tax = Theft. If you take what is not yours its stealing. So, why would you think its ok for the Government to do it?


In Roy L's imaginary utopian world, theft is not theft if the government does it.

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## Roy L

> In Roy L's imaginary utopian world, theft is not theft if the government does it.


Inevitably, you decided deliberately to lie about what I have plainly written.

*All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.*

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## Roy L

It seems Helmuth, having been utterly demolished and humiliated dozens of times, has decided to let prudence get the better part of valor and abandon the field.  Is there no one else?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvIoM4oLp0

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I.e., "libertarians" are actually advocating feudalism


You know, you throw this word "feudalism" around as a swear word, in much the same way as people in the mainstream generally use the word "fascism".  It appears to be a device wherein, like any swear word, you give yourself permission to simply turn off your brain and express your visceral hatred of whatever you're swearing at.  Let's look at feudalism as a real thing, and not merely a swear word.  Was it a bad system?  It was, of course, the system under which the European Miracle arose -- the first time in history wherein men achieved sustained per-capita economic growth over a long period of time.  That had never happened before, at least we have no clear record of it ever having happened.  In all of recorded history, the bulk of humanity had struggled along at a baseline level remaining roughly the same century to century, millennium to millennium; a level not much above subsistence.  Then, Western Christendom in the middle ages burst on the scene with its unique feudal system.  It was a decentralized system -- unlike the Russian feudalism where the czar picked the lords, the lords in the West were an independent class and thus played a countervailing role against the power of whatever prince, duke, king, or other ruler was over them.  This created a system of real "checks and balances" -- as opposed to the phony ones which some laughably pretend exist between the branches of the current U.S.A. central government.  The strong institutional church provided yet another check and balance on the power of the princes -- the Pope had an incentive to make sure the prince did not raise taxes too high, since this would harm his own ability to collect offerings, so, the Pope required the princes to ask for his permission before raising taxes.  This feudal system allowed liberty to flourish as never before, and because of that a prosperity arose and flourished such as had never existed before on the face of the Earth.

So give feudalism some respect.  It made the modern world.  It's not a perfect system, but without it we'd be digging in the dirt, barely eking out enough to eat, just as the man in 500 A.D. was doing, just as the man in 1000 B.C. was doing, just as the man in 5000 B.C. was doing, and just as the man in 5000 A.D. would still be doing.  Political hegemony is a stable system -- it can (and did) go on indefinitely, for millennia.  But western-style feudalism, and its explosively successful -- unprecedented! -- wealth generation, turned the world upside-down and made it what it is today.

http://mises.org/media/1263/The-European-Miracle




> , and the initiation of force to murder or enslave all who come after the initial grabbers of the resources nature provided.


 If there is no one present to initiate force against, they cannot be initiating force.  If a man claims a location, and no one is yet present in that location -- and that is what homesteading means -- then he absolutely cannot be initiating force against anyone when he makes that claim.  There's no one there!  He cannot be molesting anyone, for there is no one around to molest.

I think that you would, of necessity, to remain a rational being, agree with the above.  Where you say the "initiation" of force comes in is when, years later, more people come to the area and this conversation ensues:

"Hey, it's getting crowded, it's not fair you own that large location just because you got there first, we want to take it from you.  Nature gave it to us, as well as you, after all."  

"I claimed this location as my own.  No one objected to my claim.  I consider it legitimate.  I have made many improvements to the original state of nature at this location -- improvements which would be very difficult or impossible to relocate to a different location.  Please, respect my property as I respect yours."

"Ha!  Meet my gun barrel, you puke-faced slaver.  We won't stand for your feudalistic lies."

The homesteader, by taking exception to the mob's claim on that location, is thus, Mr. L. claims, initiating, or starting, an act of force against the mob.  One wonders if the definitions of defense and aggression have gotten a little tangled.  The homesteader didn't start anything.  It is logically impossible to pretzel any way in which he could be said to have "initiated" the force.  The homesteader was already there.  The homesteader just wants to _defend_ what he sees as his property.  No one else has any claim on it, even under Mr. L.'s philofolly, since he has now stated he does not hold that the Universe is owned by everyone, but rather by no one.  That means that instead of everyone having a claim to the Universe, as I had incorrectly assumed he believed, no one has any claim whatsoever.  Thus, no one in the mob has any legal or moral standing to challenge the homesteader.




> Helmuth has already explicitly admitted this, and has stated that landowners who murder and/or enslave anyone who attempts to exercise their natural liberty to use what nature provided should be regarded as heroes.


 Defensive killing is not murder, and building a fence (or otherwise excluding vagrants from your backyard) bears no resemblance to slavery.  You're off in La-La Land, no offense!  You're doing intellectual somersaults all in the service of the entitlement complex.  Seriously: all of this is just an elaborate justification for the entitlement complex.  A vagrant wanders by my house and says to himself "It ain't right that he got that land while I got nothin'.  I've got as much right to that land as him, haven't I?  I oughta have a fair share of that land."  I shake my head and say: "No sir, I'm sorry: it is, you don't, and you oughtn't.".  Mr. L., though, his eyes light up and he gets very excited and tells the vagrant: "Yes!  Yes!  You've jolly well got it!  You're absolutely right; you are actually being actively robbed in a very real sense by not getting a fair share of that land.  Let me invite you to dinner and I'll explain further, and together, comrade, we can launch a glorious Georgist Revolution."




> But in fact, feudal "libertarians" like Helmuth...


  Feudal!  Evil!  If I swear at Helmuth enough, it will make his wrongness clear to everyone!




> do not even believe in private property based on homesteading at all, because they support initiation of force to secure and perpetuate *current* land titles, *none* of which can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an initial "homesteader" who did not violate anyone else's rights by appropriating the land.


To the contrary: we believe only in just titles, based on homesteading.  If a title can be shown to be illegitimate, based on initial aggression, then it should be declared invalid and the victims or their heirs regain their rightful property which was stolen from them.  Aboriginal peoples robbed of their land through broken treaties, for instance, would have standing to bring claim against the holders of the robbed land.  Descendants of slaves would have partial claim to the plantations of the slaveholders, for another instance.




> It is too late for private property to be based on homesteading even if homesteading could produce a valid property right, which it cannot, and feudal "libertarians" are perfectly well aware of that fact.


I am not aware of it.  It seems not too late at all.  The vast majority of the Universe remains unclaimed and open for homesteading.  Even the majority of the locations of Earth (including oceans, Antarctica, northern Canada, many other currently-desolate places, aerial and underground locations, etc., etc.) are still available for homesteading, once a libertarian framework makes such homesteading possible.




> Their real agenda is to push for reversion to a feudal form of society in which all who are lazy and foolish enough to be born after the initial feeding frenzy of forcible appropriation are fair game to be murdered or enslaved by the landed aristocracy.


 Wow, Georgism really is still rooted in the world of 18th and 19th century England.  Yes, England had primogeniture laws prohibiting the sale or division of the estates of the landed aristocracy.  There, the land-owners really were like barons ruling over the serfs who were legally prevented from owning their own land.  That system broke in the American colonies, smashed against the reality of vast, open territory stretching endlessly to the west.  America does not have any landed aristocracy.  Families get land, families lose land, everything is ever and always in flux and everyone has a free and equal opportunity to buy their own land.  Ted Turner famously owns vast tracts of land in America.  John C. Malone, who no one's even heard of, owns even more.  Who here thinks that 50 years from now the grandsons of Turner or Malone will still be the largest landowners in America?  I sure don't.  Fortunes come and fortunes go -- that's the great thing about America.  Freedom is a meritocracy.  Shirttails to shirttails in 3 generations.  There is no reason to fear this boogeyman of a big, scary, monolithic "landed aristocracy" in America.  There is no such thing, and there is reason to believe there never will be any such thing.  There is no primogeniture in America.




> The universe self-evidently and indisputably belongs to no one.


 Right, O.K., no one then.  No one has any claim upon any of the resources of the Universe whatsoever.  Got it.  


> It self-evidently and indisputably started out belonging to no one, and nothing has happened in the interim that could possibly have made it belong to anyone, or to everyone.


  Well, other than homesteading.  That's a pretty good way of getting part of it to belong to you.  But OK, according to your misosophy, no one owns, ever owns, nor can ever own, any part of the Universe.  It was created unowned, it is still unowned, and it will remain unowned forever and ever.  Amen.  Got it.




> It is also self-evident and indisputable that appropriation of any portion of it as private property, by "homesteading" or any other method, purposes to initiate force against anyone who would exercise their natural liberty to use it.


  Natural liberty to use it?  In other words: a right to use it?  A just claim upon the resources of the Universe?  No, I'm sorry, no one has that.  Any such claim is merely nonsense.  The Universe belongs to no one, not everyone, remember?  No one has any right to use any portion of the Universe.  It doesn't "belong" to them, you inform us.  They have no "claim" on it, you educate us.  They cannot justly "own" it, you enlighten us.  Now you want to tell us they have a "natural liberty" to it?  Sorry, that's a contradiction.  Either mob-member X can claim the bounty of the Universe or he can't.  You have told us that he can't.  So he has no grievance with any person or factor preventing him from making that bogus claim.

You see how the Universe belonging to no one prevents your defense of the entitlement mentality.  If the Universe doesn't belong to the vagrant, he really has no entitlement to use it.  




> _(We are the world, we are the children...)_
> 
> 
>  Beneath contempt.


 _You're so hi-ey-i-yigh, high above me, you're so lovely..._




> No, homesteading is invalid because it is an undertaking to initiate force against others who attempt to exercise their rights to liberty.


  Right to what?  Liberty to what?  To use portions of the Universe?  But they have no such right nor liberty.  You said.




> No silly songs are involved.


  That's too bad. :^(  




> No assumptions of collective property in the universe are involved.  Those are just fabrications -- i.e., flat-out lies -- on your part.  It is just a fact of objective physical reality that *people are at liberty to use what nature provided*, and that initiation of force to stop them from doing so, as appropriation of land through "homesteading" purposes to do, deprives them of their natural liberty, violating their rights.  The evasion of that fact is the goal of all your stupid lies.


 Well now wait, if all peoples of the world have a right to _use_ the Universe, what does that _"use"_ involve?  Does it involve making decisions about it?  Yes.  Does it involve exercising exclusivity over it (only one person can drink that cup of water)?  Yes.  This is sounding suspiciously like ownership.  In fact, it is ownership.  If you _use_ a gallon of water to put in your stomach, you have claimed ownership over that gallon of water.  No one else can use it now.  They may have had every right to use it, but they didn't.  You didn't let them.  You took it.  Now what?  Who is in the right?  Mr. L.'s misosophy has no coherent answer.  

Other than, to be consistent with his answer to the problem of a man who claims a location, he would say that the mob ought to punch him in the gut until he vomits up the water for them to all get their "fair share".




> Maybe if your strawman had any meaning, which it doesn't, and if anyone but you was assuming it as a premise, which they aren't.


Not a strawman, I figured you thought the Universe was owned by everyone, since this is what it means for everyone to have a just claim on the use of the Universe.  Instead, you think no one has such a claim.  Yet you also think everyone has such a claim.  Yet you most emphatically hold that no one has such a claim, and are outraged I would think otherwise.  Yet you most definitely propound the self-evident truth that everyone has such a claim, and roil in fury that I might disagree.

In short: blank-out.





> No, that's just indisputably false.


 How come it keeps getting disputed? 




> The only just way for pieces of the universe to become private property is self-evidently through a process that does not violate anyone's rights without providing just compensation.  I.e., through production, never appropriation through initiation of force.


 Here we come to the only interesting part of your post, on which I wanted to pontificate and elaborate (very briefly).  The rest, I just figured I'd reply line-by-line like you always do, just to be different.  I am at a disadvantage, of course, because I am concerned about quality and so I do things such as actually read the entire post before responding, which it is as clear as day that you do not do, and then actually think about it, and then attempt substantive communication.  As you typed your "replies" to all my lines above, you had no idea how this post would end.  And to your style of "argumentation", it's irrelevant.  Completely and totally irrelevant.  It will just be another horrific lie, no doubt.  Big pictures are irrelevant.  Small pictures too, for that matter.  All that's relevant is that every single sentence I type is a lie, and your job is merely to tag and identify them as such.  This style of pure rhetorical debate lets you produce massively voluminous quantities of text extremely rapidly, since you don't have to craft any kind of overall structure or argumentative logic into your posts.

Anyway, on this matter of production bestowing just ownership: what is production?  Production is mere transformation, taking matter, space, and perhaps other abstractions, and forming them into something different and presumably more to your liking.  When one produces a chainsaw, he transforms ores, oils, and fibers, into this finely-tuned tree-massacre machine.  So how is it different to take and transform an empty prairie into a parking lot?  One takes a location, transforms the matter there to be more smoothly perpendicular to the direction of gravitation, tamps it down to make it harder and better able to support weight, and perhaps adds in matter from other locations to create phenomenon like pavement, paint, and lighting.  Both the chainsaw and the parking lot are produced from the raw resources of the Universe.  Those raw resources have been transformed into something greater, or at least different, than their original form.  The chainsaw, you say, has been produced, while the land on which the parking lot sits has not.  But Mr. L.: it has!  That land has been transformed, just as assuredly as the raw resources in the chainsaw.  If one can appropriate for one's self some pieces of the raw Universe by building a chainsaw with them, one can just as justly appropriate some pieces of it by building a parking lot with them.  The raw ores were there all along.  The surface of the Earth was there all along.  Fine.  But you changed it.  You produced something with it.  Matter is matter.  Location is location.  If you accept that the chainsaw owner can have absolute ownership over the matter composing the chainsaw, and the three-dimensional space which it monopolizes, you should at least be able to understand why I think it possible for the parking lot owner to have absolute ownership over the matter composing the parking lot and the location which it occupies.

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## helmuth_hubener

I remembered one other thing I wanted to respond to: the land already being there, while the factory, allegedly, isn't.

But it is.  It's already there.  It's already been built.  The factory's existence is a fact of life.  It's a done deal.  The same efficiency argument applies to it as to the land: it's there anyway, so let's tax whoever owns it to force them into increased efficiency.  Taxing the factory doesn't make the factory disappear, any more than taxing land makes _it_ disappear.  It just gets run more efficiently.  In fact, remember, if the factory were to be abandoned, it eventually would become philosophically land.  In Will Smith's "I Am Legend" New York,  (leaving aside the property rights of the zombies) all the skyscrapers, the cars, the gasoline, the canned food... these are all "land" for him.  They are all just provided to him by nature as far as from an ethical or economic point of view.  So why wait for it to be abandoned?  Tax it now!

Now taxing factory owners does provide a disincentive going forward to build *more* factories, but so does taxing the Universe provide a disincentive going forward to open up more parts and resources of the Universe to productive use.  And while land and factories may be metaphysically unable to disappear, yet you tax them too much and even the existing land and factories will be abandoned, and crumble or go fallow.  They will cease to exist _in the economy_.  This goes back to what I keep saying: the amount of land in the economy can increase or decrease, and does all the time.  It's not fixed at all!

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## MattButler

> The factory's existence is a fact of life.  It's a done deal.  The same efficiency argument applies to it as to the land: it's there anyway, so let's tax whoever owns it to force them into increased efficiency.  Taxing the factory doesn't make the factory disappear, any more than taxing land makes _it_ disappear.  It just gets run more efficiently.


I think this is apples and oranges.  Taxing the factory might make it disappear...move to China maybe.  Hasn't this happened, a lot actually?  More important, an LVT does in fact efficiently order and regulate factories.  Consider this example.  There is assessed a 20% LVT on all land.  Land rich in coal or minerals has a higher value than desert land.  This is because coal and mineral rich land contains the resources by which man builds factories.  So right off the bat we know that the rights to some land is more expensive than for others, because of the underlying demand for the resources, and this is reflected in market prices of the land.  Secondly, some factories are more valuable than others.  This value of various planned factories then drives entrepreneurs planning them to compete with each other for the rights to the resources to build their factories.   Once these hypothetical factories are built and running, it is competition in the marketplace for the operating factors of production, again resources like ore and minerals, etc., that will in part determine ongoing profitability, and that cost is driven by the overall market demand for those resources, which, needless to say, is ultimately imputed to land values.  So it turns out not only does LVT efficiently allocate resources to which factories get built, it also allocates resources efficiently to those which wish to remain in operation.  A capital tax thus is needless and becomes a double tax in fact.

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## helmuth_hubener

> I think this is apples and oranges.  Taxing the factory might make it disappear...move to China maybe.  Hasn't this happened, a lot actually?  More important, an LVT does in fact efficiently order and regulate factories.  Consider this example.  There is assessed a 20% LVT on all land.  Land rich in coal or minerals has a higher value than desert land.  This is because coal and mineral rich land contains the resources by which man builds factories.  So right off the bat we know that the rights to some land is more expensive than for others, because of the underlying demand for the resources, and this is reflected in market prices of the land.  Secondly, some factories are more valuable than others.  This value of various planned factories then drives entrepreneurs planning them to compete with each other for the rights to the resources to build their factories.   Once these hypothetical factories are built and running, it is competition in the marketplace for the operating factors of production, again resources like ore and minerals, etc., that will in part determine ongoing profitability, and that cost is driven by the overall market demand for those resources, which, needless to say, is ultimately imputed to land values.  So it turns out not only does LVT efficiently allocate resources to which factories get built, it also allocates resources efficiently to those which wish to remain in operation.  A capital tax thus is needless and becomes a double tax in fact.


 Let me first translate for all the thread's loyal readers what I see to be your point:  Factories actually _are_ taxed with an LVT.  Both the resources used to build and also to maintain and operate them -- concrete and metal and whatever -- are taxed, back when they're in the ground.  

That's the big point, and then the grand finale is: "So it turns out not only does LVT *efficiently allocate resources* to which factories get built, it also *allocates resources efficiently* to those which wish to remain in operation."  Umm, no, let's be precise: it turns out that an LVT *taxes* resources. Well bully for the LVT.  That's not a great selling point for me.  It's not that hard to set up a system that taxes raw materials -- you just start stealing from people based on their ownership of raw materials.  Most saliently: it remains utterly beyond me why one would equate being taxed with being efficiently allocated.  Thing X is taxed... that means Thing X is efficiently allocated?  What?  Because you taxed it?  It's just totally ludicris.

The only reason why you think you can get away with it, why you think you can lay a burden on landowners without getting any blowback, that sole reason comes to one word: *Fixed*.  You think you've got them under your thumb.  You think there's nothing landowners can do about the tax.  There's this fixed quantity of land, and it can never ever desert you, and so even if one landowner says "rats to you" and quits, another one inevitably will come to take his place.  Because the supply of resources is fixed.  Someone's going to own all of it; if not one guy, then another.  'Cause it's fixed.  "By Definition"!!!  And that's that.

The point of my last post is that it's not fixed.  

The factory's not fixed.  Just as you said, if you tax it bad enough, it will be abandoned.  The whole factory building could even be hauled away,  I suppose, to greener pastures in non-taxing jurisdictions.

The land's not fixed either.  Set your LVT high enough, and no landowner will be able to make a profit on it.  The land will be abandoned.  Top soil could even be scraped off and hauled away, I suppose, though this is even more unlikely and unfeasible with land than with the factory.  In any case, even though it's more difficult for land to be transported, it's not impossible at all for it to disappear... from the economy.

*Taxation is a parasitic activity.  You understand this, I think, when it comes to everything but land.*  Tax factories, or income, or whatever, and you're sucking blood out of your host.  Do it overmuch and you'll end up with an empty ruined shell.  Do it even a little and you're still sucking the health and vitality out of your host.  Making the economy that much worse.  What I'm trying to explain is that it's the same for land.  Land is not a magic special category.  The same principle is at work.  Tax natural resources enough and eventually no one will be able use them profitably.  You'll have fallow fields, ignored oil deposits, and unfished oceans as far as the eye can see.  Tax them even a little and you're still draining that much life out of the economy, and that much life, satisfaction, and enjoyment out of the lives of the the individuals who would have otherwise benefited from the money going now instead to the political class.

Land is not fixed.  Land can be taxed out of economic existence, just like a factory can be.

So then, you may say, the task of the LVT planner is merely to determine the right amount of tax wherein you take all the landowner's "excess profits" -- for Roy L., 100%; for you, 100% minus the average rate of return.  Good luck with that.  Omniwise bureaucracies have always proven so easy to create.  At least _you_ realize that if there's no rate of return then no one will invest their money in landowning.  So you understand that _that_ is too high.  But even 90% minus avg. rate of return will remove lots of marginal resources from play.  And even 10% or 1% is still draining the economy and distorting the market, and thus hurting people.  

There's just no LVT that in any way increases efficiency.  A 1% income tax wreaks havok on an economy.  A 1% LVT wreaks havok on the economy.  There's no end to the distortions, unintended consequences, blowback, lost productivity, and wasted wealth caused by either one.

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## Roy L

Well, well, I see Helmuth has returned for another discipline session.  Time to bend him over and humiliate him again, as he obviously loves it...



> You know, you throw this word "feudalism" around as a swear word, in much the same way as people in the mainstream generally use the word "fascism".


No, I am using it in its exact economic and historical meaning: an agrarian economy characterized by weak or absent government and allocation of possession and use of land by hereditary contracts of personal service and fealty of the land user to the landowner.  It is quite common for feudal libertarians to try to claim various virtues for feudalism, as they know that is what they actually advocate.  All such claims are of course false, absurd, ahistorical and dishonest.



> It appears to be a device wherein, like any swear word, you give yourself permission to simply turn off your brain and express your visceral hatred of whatever you're swearing at.


<yawn>



> Let's look at feudalism as a real thing, and not merely a swear word.


Without reading any further, I know that you will be lying about what feudalism is as a real thing.



> Was it a bad system?  It was, of course, the system under which the European Miracle arose -- the first time in history wherein men achieved sustained per-capita economic growth over a long period of time.


No, of course it wasn't.  That's just another stupid lie from you.  Feudalism was the system under which Europe stagnated economically (and in pretty much every other way) for nearly a thousand years, the system under which even kings were poor.  Its record elsewhere -- India, China, Japan, Russia, Latin America, etc. -- was no better.  



> That had never happened before, at least we have no clear record of it ever having happened.


Bull$#!+.  It indisputably happened in ancient Egypt, Athens and Rome (all of which recovered substantial publicly created land rents for public purposes and benefit), as well as in ancient China (where farmland was periodically redistributed to give everyone more equal opportunity to use it) and Heian-era Japan.



> In all of recorded history, the bulk of humanity had struggled along at a baseline level remaining roughly the same century to century, millennium to millennium; a level not much above subsistence.


But that first changed not under feudalism, but under governments that recovered substantial publicly created land rent for public benefit and/or ensured rough equality of opportunity to use the good land -- Confucius eulogized such arrangements as characterizing the Golden Age of Chinese prosperity and equality -- but returns to feudalism consequent on growing landowner privilege returned those societies to bare subsistence economies ruled by landowner greed.  Historians and archaeologists have proved this fact in many ways, such as by comparing potsherds from different eras.  Roman pottery was of high quality and is very abundant in Roman archaeological sites; such quantities could only have been produced for mass use by quite affluent populations.  By contrast, potsherds from post-Roman feudal-era sites are few and of low quality, showing the population was much poorer than in Roman times.  The same is true of the quality and quantity of all manner of goods that have survived at such sites.

Ancient Rome produced enormous amounts of exquisite marble statuary, much of it copies of Greek originals.  In feudal times, that marble statuary was BURNED to produce cement to build fortifications and cathedrals.  The fact that it was considered more economical to burn marble statues than to mine limestone for cement is eloquent proof of the stagnant, poverty-stricken and totally de-industrialized feudal economy of post-Roman Western Europe.  In fact, the transition from Western Roman government to feudalism in the fifth and sixth centuries caused such extreme economic disintegration and impoverishment that it was accompanied by a population decline of about 1/4.  



> Then, Western Christendom in the middle ages burst on the scene with its unique feudal system.


More bull$#!+.  Feudalism was not unique to western Christendom, it had arisen before in lots of places whenever landowners became more powerful than government, including China, Japan and India.



> It was a decentralized system -- unlike the Russian feudalism where the czar picked the lords, the lords in the West were an independent class and thus played a countervailing role against the power of whatever prince, duke, king, or other ruler was over them.  This created a system of real "checks and balances" -- as opposed to the phony ones which some laughably pretend exist between the branches of the current U.S.A. central government.


That is absurd, ahistorical revisionism.



> The strong institutional church provided yet another check and balance on the power of the princes -- the Pope had an incentive to make sure the prince did not raise taxes too high, since this would harm his own ability to collect offerings, so, the Pope required the princes to ask for his permission before raising taxes.  This feudal system allowed liberty to flourish as never before, and because of that a prosperity arose and flourished such as had never existed before on the face of the Earth.


That is an absurd fabrication with no basis in fact.  European feudalism was a period of unrelieved tyranny, poverty and stagnation leavened only by frequent warfare and slaughter.  Whatever liberty existed was confined to the freemen who had land use rights on common lands, and thus could not be enslaved by the big feudal landowners.



> So give feudalism some respect.  It made the modern world.


That is an idiotic lie.  The modern world awaited post-feudal institutions that began to emerge around the time the Crusades were ending: democratic governance of towns free of the yoke of feudalism in Italy, around the Baltic Sea (Hanseatic League) and in the Low Countries; a reformed Protestant church that was not run as a vast landed feudal estate, etc.  In England, it was not the power of feudal lords that forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, but rather the fact that the feudal lords were themselves powerless to enslave free Englishmen who had the right to use land held in common, a right they did not lose until the feudal lords got together and passed enclosure laws in the 16th and 17th centuries.  It was precisely the prevalence of non-feudal village commons that made Englishmen freer than the feudal serfs of continental Europe.



> It's not a perfect system, but without it we'd be digging in the dirt, barely eking out enough to eat, just as the man in 500 A.D. was doing, just as the man in 1000 B.C. was doing,


Note how you have to pretend the whole period of high classical civilization in both Europe and Asia beginning in the 6th century BCE never happened.



> just as the man in 5000 B.C. was doing, and just as the man in 5000 A.D. would still be doing.


No, that's just another idiotic fabrication from you.  



> Political hegemony is a stable system -- it can (and did) go on indefinitely, for millennia.


Nope.  Never happened.  You are just spewing idiotic lie after idiotic lie.



> But western-style feudalism, and its explosively successful -- unprecedented! -- wealth generation, turned the world upside-down and made it what it is today.


Your claims are the diametric opposite of the truth.  There was never any wealth generation at all under feudalism, let alone explosive or unprecedented wealth generation, because all surplus production had to be devoted to military purposes, whether defensive of offensive.  Your claimed feudal prosperity simply never happened, and this fact is common knowledge attested by all archeological and historical data.  Feudal libertarians just try to give feudalism a positive spin by lying about it.



> http://mises.org/media/1263/The-European-Miracle


Which, inevitably, does not support your claims.  



> If there is no one present to initiate force against, they cannot be initiating force.


Garbage.  If you set a trap to kill passersby, it initiates force because it will kill someone who shows up later.  That is more or less what the land grabber does.



> If a man claims a location, and no one is yet present in that location -- and that is what homesteading means --


No, of course it doesn't.  That does not describe actual historical homesteading at all, so you are just makin' $#!+ up again.  ACTUAL homesteading has almost always involved either appropriating land that others (hunter-gatherers or nomadic herders) were using at low intensity and gradually dispossessing them as more and more land is stolen from them, or the pre-emptive forcible dispossession, enslavement and/or slaughter of the whole population of aboriginal inhabitants to remove them from the land so homesteaders can steal it in "peace."  Is there a single reliably attested historical case of a homesteader appropriating land where no one else was yet present in that location?  If there is, I have never seen it.  Certainly the homesteaders of the American West were not examples of such "innocent" appropriation.  The aboriginal population had already been there for millennia, and was simply forcibly dispossessed.



> then he absolutely cannot be initiating force against anyone when he makes that claim.  There's no one there!  He cannot be molesting anyone, for there is no one around to molest.


Even if someone were to homestead land in that fashion, when no one else was or had been around (an event never recorded in the history of the world, AFAIK), he would still be initiating force in much the same sense as the person who fashions a trap to kill passersby when no one is yet around.  "There's no one there!" you exclaim, all innocence.  Maybe not.  But when they do show up, the trap is set to kill them.



> I think that you would, of necessity, to remain a rational being,


_This_, from *YOU*???  ROTFL!!!

This, from the soi-disant "rational being" who claimed land is essentially homogenous?

This, from the soi-disant "rational being" who claimed natural resources have been bequeathed to us by "massive human labor and intelligence"?

This, from the soi-disant "rational being" who claimed a chainsaw contains "raw matter"?

ROTFL!



> agree with the above.  Where you say the "initiation" of force comes in is when, years later, more people come to the area and this conversation ensues:
> 
> "Hey, it's getting crowded, it's not fair you own that large location just because you got there first, we want to take it from you.  Nature gave it to us, as well as you, after all."


No, you are just lying again.  The newcomers do not propose to take the land, simply to use it, or be justly compensated for being deprived of their liberty to do so.



> "I claimed this location as my own.


"I stole it fair and square!"  What on earth do you imagine claiming to own something nature provided accomplishes?  How could it extinguish others' rights to liberty?  



> No one objected to my claim.


"No one objected when we claimed this continent for the King of Spain."

"No one objected when I set my man-killer trap.  Your tough luck if you thought you had a right to life."



> I consider it legitimate.


Just as slave owners consider their ownership of their slaves legitimate -- and might even, as landowners do, get a government to agree with them.



> I have made many improvements to the original state of nature at this location -- improvements which would be very difficult or impossible to relocate to a different location.  Please, respect my property as I respect yours."


"Oh, we are very willing to respect your _property_ -- your _rightful_ property.  You rightfully own what you have produced, no doubt about it.  But you did not produce the land, so how can you claim you own it?  If you want to exclude us from it so that you may enjoy the fixed improvements you have made to it, and wish to compensate us justly for the consequent loss of our liberty rather than simply initiating force against us, we are certainly willing to deal with you by mutual consent."



> "Ha!  Meet my gun barrel, you puke-faced slaver.  We won't stand for your feudalistic lies."


It is the landholder who ALWAYS purposes to initiate force against the new arrivals, stop lying.  Google "range war" and start reading.



> The homesteader, by taking exception to the mob's claim on that location, is thus, Mr. L. claims, initiating, or starting, an act of force against the mob.


He is indeed.  They just want to exercise their liberty to use what nature provided.  He wants to stop them from doing so by force.



> One wonders if the definitions of defense and aggression have gotten a little tangled.


They certainly have: in your head.



> The homesteader didn't start anything.


He certainly did, the first time he presumed forcibly to exclude others from the opportunities nature provided.



> It is logically impossible to pretzel any way in which he could be said to have "initiated" the force.


Lie.  He indisputably initiated it: when others sought merely to exercise their rights to liberty, he pulled a gun.



> The homesteader was already there.


No, sunshine: the LAND was already there.  The homesteader simply purposes forcibly to deprive others of their liberty to use it.  Please explain how his being there extinguishes others' rights to use the land that was there before he was.



> The homesteader just wants to _defend_ what he sees as his property.


What he "sees" as his property and what _is_ rightly his property are two entirely different things.



> No one else has any claim on it, even under Mr. L.'s philofolly, since he has now stated he does not hold that the Universe is owned by everyone, but rather by no one.


It is self-evidently and indisputably owned by no one.  And everyone has exactly the same "claim on" it: their natural liberty to use it.  But there is probably a stupid, evil, lying sack of $#!+ somewhere who claims that because no one has any claim to own the ocean, no one would have any right to use it if someone DID claim to own it.  That is essentially the "argument" you are offering regarding the homesteading of land: the absence of ownership becoming somehow proof of ownership.



> That means that instead of everyone having a claim to the Universe,


Another bait and switch lie.  The claim everyone has to the universe is precisely their natural liberty to live in, access, and use it, which precludes any claim to _own_ it.



> as I had incorrectly assumed he believed, no one has any claim whatsoever.


Lie.  Everyone has the same claim to it: their natural liberty to use it.



> Thus, no one in the mob has any legal or moral standing to challenge the homesteader.


Lie, as proved above.  Everyone who would otherwise have been at liberty to use the land has moral standing to challenge the homesteader's theft of it, just as they would to challenge a greed-maddened homesteader's claim to own the earth's atmosphere and charge them rent for air to breathe.  You just refuse to know the fact that people have a rightful claim to atmospheric air to breathe, and that this is not a claim to own the earth's atmosphere.



> Defensive killing is not murder,


But killing people to stop them from exercising their liberty to use what nature provided for all is not defensive killing.  It is murder.  You are rationalizing, justifying and excusing that murder.  That is evil.



> and building a fence (or otherwise excluding vagrants


Prospective productive users are not "vagrants."  That's just more stupid and dishonest name calling on your part.



> from your backyard) bears no resemblance to slavery.


Wrong, as already proved:

"During the war I served in a Kentucky
regiment in the Federal army. When the war
broke out, my father owned sixty slaves.
I had not been back to my old Kentucky
home for years until a short time ago, when
I was met by one of my father's old
negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you
say you set us free; but before God,
I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.'
The planters, on the other hand, are contented
with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in
us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper
now than when we owned the slaves.' How do
they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents
they take more of the labor of the negro than they
could under slavery, for then they were compelled
to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical
attendance to keep him well, and were
compelled by conscience and public opinion, as
well as by law, to keep him when he
could no longer work. Now their interest and
responsibility cease when they have
got all the work out of him they can."

From a letter by George M. Jackson, St. Louis.
Dated August 15, 1885.



> You're doing intellectual somersaults all in the service of the entitlement complex.


In that everyone is entitled to equal rights, yes, I am arguing for an entitlement.  You, OTOH, are denying that people are entitled to equal rights.

It is the landowner who is legally entitled to pocket other people's taxes, not the landless, and you are doing intellectual somersaults in the service of that entitlement complex.



> If I swear at Helmuth enough, it will make his wrongness clear to everyone!


No, I simply identify your dishonesty, and the fact that you are serving the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that makes slavery look like cheating on exams.



> To the contrary: we believe only in just titles, based on homesteading.


Lie.  I have already proved that you believe in stealing -- and slavery and murder -- and that the "just" titles you claim are based on homesteading are in fact based on forcible appropriation: i.e., stealing.  Furthermore, it is impossible for you to believe only in just titles, as there is no way to convert an unjust current title to a just title.  It is too late for homesteading.  The land is already occupied.



> If a title can be shown to be illegitimate, based on initial aggression,


I have proved that all land titles are illegitimate and based on initial aggression, and you have not come up with a single counterexample.  In fact, you have not even tried, because you know very well that no such rightful title exists, or ever could exist.  No one EVER bothers to homestead land that no one else has ever occupied or used, because such land is useless.  Homesteaders only want useful land, and others -- if only hunter-gatherers or nomadic herders -- have always been there and used the land first.  ALWAYS.



> then it should be declared invalid and the victims or their heirs regain their rightful property which was stolen from them.


No one could ever have had "rightful property" in a privilege of violating others' rights without making just compensation; and even if they could, there is no way to identify who the victims were or who their rightful heirs might be.  You know this.  You simply purpose to accept current land titles as valid, and your idiotic and proved-false homesteading justification for them be damned.



> Aboriginal peoples robbed of their land through broken treaties, for instance, would have standing to bring claim against the holders of the robbed land.


All such treaties, broken or otherwise, were made under duress, and were thus invalid from the outset.  Do you really purpose to return all land to the descendants of its aboriginal inhabitants?  Of course not.  It's impossible, and you know that very well.  You are just lying to rationalize landowner privilege.



> Descendants of slaves would have partial claim to the plantations of the slaveholders, for another instance.


Idiocy.  You KNOW there is no practical way to untangle such claims (going back how many thousands of years, hmmm?  We are all the descendants of slaves, one way or another), so you are just offering a pro forma "reparation" with no practical effect to rationalize greed and injustice.



> I am not aware of it.


Yes, of course you are.



> It seems not too late at all.


You know very well it is too late.  All the good land has already been stolen, most of it multiple times.



> The vast majority of the Universe remains unclaimed and open for homesteading.


And totally useless for any such purpose.



> Even the majority of the locations of Earth (including oceans, Antarctica, northern Canada, many other currently-desolate places, aerial and underground locations, etc., etc.) are still available for homesteading, once a libertarian framework makes such homesteading possible.


It's not lack of a "libertarian framework" that makes such homesteading impossible -- there is a fine libertarian framework governing the oceans outside territorial waters -- but the utter uselessness of the locations.



> Yes, England had primogeniture laws prohibiting the sale or division of the estates of the landed aristocracy.  There, the land-owners really were like barons ruling over the serfs who were legally prevented from owning their own land.


And that system arose from the kind of feudal libertarian system you advocate.



> That system broke in the American colonies, smashed against the reality of vast, open territory stretching endlessly to the west.


"Open" territory already occupied and inhabited by no one we need trouble ourselves to consider at this late date....



> America does not have any landed aristocracy.


Yes, it most certainly does, and it is getting worse.



> Families get land, families lose land, everything is ever and always in flux and everyone has a free and equal opportunity to buy their own land.


Disgraceful.  Having a "free and equal opportunity to buy" your right to liberty from its owner is not the same as actually having a right to liberty.



> Ted Turner famously owns vast tracts of land in America.  John C. Malone, who no one's even heard of, owns even more.  Who here thinks that 50 years from now the grandsons of Turner or Malone will still be the largest landowners in America?  I sure don't.


It is land _value_ that matters, not acreage.  You apparently aren't even aware of what the American landed aristocracy _is_.  It is corporate-owned land -- by far the majority of land by value -- and those corporations being owned mainly by old monied families.  Whether the grandsons of Turner or Malone still own their vast acreages 50 years from now is totally irrelevant: the great majority of land by value will still be owned by the same rich landowning families who own it today.  They understand their privilege, even if you refuse to.



> Fortunes come and fortunes go -- that's the great thing about America.


Nope.  The DuPont heirs, as just one example, now number nearly 2000, with average net worth of over $100M.



> Freedom is a meritocracy.


Which might be relevant, if we had freedom.



> Shirttails to shirttails in 3 generations.


That is becoming rarer and rarer.  It takes a really stupid rich kid to squander a fortune these days.  You practically have to give the stuff away.



> There is no reason to fear this boogeyman of a big, scary, monolithic "landed aristocracy" in America.  There is no such thing, and there is reason to believe there never will be any such thing.  There is no primogeniture in America.


It's happening right in front of your eyes, and you can't -- rather, you _won't_ -- see it.  What do you think has happened in the housing bubble and crash?  Ordinary people have been turned into permanent debt slaves, and their tiny little scraps of land repossessed by the landed aristocracy that also owns the banks.  "Homeownership" is alleged still to be widely distributed, but that has less and less to do with owning land: a growing fraction of those owner-occupied homes are condos with little claim on the land under them or trailers in trailer parks sitting on pads owned by the landed aristocracy. 



> Right, O.K., no one then.  No one has any claim upon any of the resources of the Universe whatsoever.  Got it.


Another bait and switch from you.  No one can rightly claim to *OWN* them.  Everyone has a rightful claim to *use* them: their right to liberty.



> Well, other than homesteading.  That's a pretty good way of getting part of it to belong to you.


But only the things you produce, which can never include the location, as that must already have been there for you to produce anything on it.



> But OK, according to your misosophy, no one owns, ever owns, nor can ever own, any part of the Universe.


You again choose deliberately to lie about what I have plainly written.  You have done nothing but heap disgrace upon yourself by your dishonesty.



> Natural liberty to use it?  In other words: a right to use it?


Natural liberty is a physical fact.  A right to exercise it is a societal construct.



> A just claim upon the resources of the Universe?


No, upon one's fellow human beings not to initiate force to deprive one of the liberty to use those resources.



> No, I'm sorry, no one has that.  Any such claim is merely nonsense.  The Universe belongs to no one, not everyone, remember?


I remember: like the oceans or the earth's atmosphere, which indisputably belong to no one, yet which everyone indisputably has a right to use.  I also remember that you always have to lie about what I have plainly written.



> No one has any right to use any portion of the Universe.  It doesn't "belong" to them, you inform us.


But in fact, only evil, lying, propertarian sacks of $#!+ _ever_ claim that people have no right to use anything unless it belongs to them.  People self-evidently and indisputably have rights to use things in nature -- the oceans, the atmosphere, the sun, the land -- that don't belong to them.  That has been the case for millions of years, since long before anyone thought anything belonged to them but their own bodies and perhaps a few bits of wood, stone and hide.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely realized that it proves your whole belief system is false and evil, and so you chose deliberately to lie about it.  And so you lied about it, just as if you were an evil, lying, propertarian sack of $#!+.  In fact, I am having some difficulty telling the difference between you and an evil, lying, propertarian sack of $#!+.



> They have no "claim" on it, you educate us.


You again lie about what I have plainly written.  They have no claim to _own_ it unless they have produced it or traded for another's product.  They certainly have a claim to access and use anything nature provided: their rights to liberty.



> They cannot justly "own" it, you enlighten us.  Now you want to tell us they have a "natural liberty" to it?  Sorry, that's a contradiction.


No, of course it isn't, stop lying.  It self-evidently and indisputably is not a contradiction, because no one can own the earth's atmosphere, but everyone self-evidently and indisputably has the natural liberty to use it.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You simply chose deliberately to lie about it, just as you have chosen deliberately to lie about everything else.



> Either mob-member X can claim the bounty of the Universe or he can't.  You have told us that he can't.  So he has no grievance with any person or factor preventing him from making that bogus claim.


Huh??  ROTFL!!   It is precisely the mob-member *landowner* who makes that bogus claim!  And all whose rights to liberty that bogus claim would extinguish most certainly have a grievance with the greedy, thieving parasite who seeks to enforce it by initiating violence against others who only want to exercise their rights to liberty.



> You see how the Universe belonging to no one prevents your defense of the entitlement mentality.


No, I don't, and neither do you, so you can stop lying.  That you presume to call equal human rights to life and liberty an "entitlement mentality" speaks volumes -- and all of them are about your dishonesty and servitude to evil.  



> If the Universe doesn't belong to the vagrant, he really has no entitlement to use it.


Already proved a lie, not to mention a self-evidently vicious and evil repudiation of the right to life.



> Right to what?  Liberty to what?  To use portions of the Universe?  But they have no such right nor liberty.  You said.


Lie.



> That's too bad. :^(


Too bad you always have to lie about what I have plainly written.



> Well now wait, if all peoples of the world have a right to _use_ the Universe, what does that _"use"_ involve?  Does it involve making decisions about it?  Yes.  Does it involve exercising exclusivity over it (only one person can drink that cup of water)?  Yes.  This is sounding suspiciously like ownership.  In fact, it is ownership.


No; in fact, you are just lying.  Again.  Inevitably.  Making decisions about how one -- _not others_ -- will use the universe, and exercising exclusivity that does _not_ forcibly deprive _others_ of their liberty to use it is self-evidently and indisputably NOT ownership.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You merely decided you had better deliberately lie about it.



> If you _use_ a gallon of water to put in your stomach, you have claimed ownership over that gallon of water.  No one else can use it now.  They may have had every right to use it, but they didn't.  You didn't let them.


Lie.  I didn't _stop_ them from using it.



> You took it.  Now what?  Who is in the right?  Mr. L.'s misosophy has no coherent answer.


Lie.  Inevitably.  Everyone is in the right as long as they don't initiate force to deprive others of what they would otherwise have without making just compensation, as landowners do.  If that gallon of water was from a natural source that others are also at liberty to use, and there is plenty to go around, then I have deprived them of nothing, because they have suffered no deprivation.  OTOH, if the water was scarce, as good land is, and others wanted to use it but now can't because I took it, then I owe them just compensation for depriving them of it, just as the landowner owes just compensation to all whose rights he violates by initiating force against them to deprive them of the liberty they would otherwise have to use the land.



> Other than, to be consistent with his answer to the problem of a man who claims a location, he would say that the mob ought to punch him in the gut until he vomits up the water for them to all get their "fair share".


Another stupid lie, as always.



> Not a strawman, I figured you thought the Universe was owned by everyone, since this is what it means for everyone to have a just claim on the use of the Universe.


No, it self-evidently isn't, stop lying.  Everyone has a just claim to use of the atmosphere, the sun, etc., but do not own them.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You simply decided deliberately to lie about it.  Again.  Inevitably.



> Instead, you think no one has such a claim.  Yet you also think everyone has such a claim.


Lie.  A claim to atmospheric air to breathe, which everyone has, is not a claim to own the atmosphere, which no one has.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You are just deliberately lying about it.



> Yet you most emphatically hold that no one has such a claim, and are outraged I would think otherwise.  Yet you most definitely propound the self-evident truth that everyone has such a claim, and roil in fury that I might disagree


<yawn>  You just lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie.  Everyone has a right to breathe atmospheric air.  The atmosphere nevertheless does not belong to anyone, nor to everyone.  It belongs to no one.  You know this.  That proves you are lying again.  You are _LYING_.



> In short: blank-out.


In short: you have no answers, you know I have proved your beliefs are false and evil, so you choose deliberately to lie about what I have plainly written.



> How come it keeps getting disputed?


Because evil, lying sacks of $#!+ have to deny self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality in order to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil.  Hence your claims that land is essentially homogenous, that natural resources are produced by labor, that chainsaws contain raw matter, that "vagrants" have no right to exist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.



> I am at a disadvantage, of course, because I am concerned about quality


No, your only concern is to tell whatever lies will allow you to convince yourself that you are not serving evil.



> and so I do things such as actually read the entire post before responding, which it is as clear as day that you do not do, and then actually think about it, and then attempt substantive communication.


You have never attempted substantive communication, because you know I will demolish you.  All you ever do is lie about the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality and about what I have plainly written.



> As you typed your "replies" to all my lines above, you had no idea how this post would end.


Yes, of course I did.  I knew it would end just as it began and proceeded: with lies.



> All that's relevant is that every single sentence I type is a lie, and your job is merely to tag and identify them as such.


Pretty much.  I rarely respond to anything that is not provably fallacious, absurd and/or dishonest, but I do refute those claims quite relentlessly.  The fact that this seems to include almost every sentence you write is a clue.



> This style of pure rhetorical debate lets you produce massively voluminous quantities of text extremely rapidly, since you don't have to craft any kind of overall structure or argumentative logic into your posts.


What would be the point?  You have proved you won't address anything I say, but simply lie about it.



> Anyway, on this matter of production bestowing just ownership: what is production?  Production is mere transformation, taking matter, space, and perhaps other abstractions,


Matter and space are not abstractions, duh.



> and forming them into something different and presumably more to your liking.  When one produces a chainsaw, he transforms ores, oils, and fibers, into this finely-tuned tree-massacre machine.  So how is it different to take and transform an empty prairie into a parking lot?


One does not "take" the prairie out of nature as one does the ores, fibers, etc.  One simply occupies it.  The natural opportunity is still sitting there, under the cars.  You are just initiating force against others to stop them from using it.  The ores, etc., on the other hand, are gone.  You do not have to initiate force against anyone to stop  them from using the natural ore you used, because it no longer exists.  The prairie, the space the parking lot occupies, still does.

You will say and believe *anything whatever* in order to avoid knowing that fact.



> One takes a location, transforms the matter there to be flatter, more smoothly perpendicular to the direction of gravitation, perhaps adds in matter from other locations to create phenomenon like pavement, paint, and lighting.  Both the chainsaw and the parking lot are produced from the raw resources of the Universe.  Those raw resources have been transformed into something greater, or at least different, than their original form.  The chainsaw, you say, has been produced, while the land on which the parking lot sits has not.  But Mr. L.: it has!


No, it self-evidently and indisputably has not.  The parking lot has simply been put on top of the land.  This is self-evident and indisputable.  You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.  You even explicitly stated it yourself: "the land on which the parking lot sits."



> That land has been transformed, just as assuredly as the raw resources in the chainsaw.


No, it self-evidently and indisputably has not.  It is still sitting untouched under the parking lot, and if left alone long enough, the parking lot will again become natural land.  The resources used to make the chainsaw, by contrast, have been removed from nature and NO LONGER EXIST.  They will NEVER return to their natural state.



> If one can appropriate for one's self some pieces of the raw Universe by building a chainsaw with them, one can just as justly appropriate some pieces of it by building a parking lot with them.


Notice how you had to say, "with" them, and not "on" them?  You have just tacitly admitted that the resources used to make the pavement, paint lines, lighting, etc. of the parking lot are what one can justly appropriate, not the land you put them on.



> The raw ores were there all along.  The surface of the Earth was there all along.  Fine.  But you changed it.


The earth's surface is *still* there, while the ore is not.  You know this.



> If you accept that the chainsaw owner can have absolute ownership over the matter composing the chainsaw, and the three-dimensional space which it monopolizes,


He doesn't own the three-dimensional space it monopolizes, because he will lose all claim to it when the chainsaw is moved and monopolizes a different three-dimensional space.  You want to own the land under the parking lot even after the parking lot is gone.



> you should at least be able to understand why I think it possible for the parking lot owner to have absolute ownership over the matter composing the parking lot and the location which it occupies.


Of course I understand why: you want unearned wealth.  Simple.

----------


## Roy L

> I remembered one other thing I wanted to respond to: the land already being there, while the factory, allegedly, isn't.


It indisputably isn't.  It has to be built.  The land doesn't.



> But it is.  It's already there.  It's already been built.  The factory's existence is a fact of life.  It's a done deal.


Ayn Rand called that fallacy, "context dropping."



> The same efficiency argument applies to it as to the land: it's there anyway, so let's tax whoever owns it to force them into increased efficiency.


Wrong.  the supply is not fixed.



> Taxing the factory doesn't make the factory disappear, any more than taxing land makes _it_ disappear.


No, you are EXQUISITELY wrong.  Early in the 19th century, Muhammad Ali, ruler of Egypt, decided to levy a tax on date palms -- trees that were ALREADY THERE.  The result was that people CUT DOWN their date palms, and a chronic shortage of dates, and high date prices, set in.  The same would happen with marginal factories subjected to taxation.  Their owners would just burn them down rather than take a guaranteed loss.

You COULD NOT BE more wrong.



> It just gets run more efficiently.  In fact, remember, if the factory were to be abandoned,


Which, if taxed, it might well be.



> it eventually would become philosophically land.  In Will Smith's "I Am Legend" New York,  (leaving aside the property rights of the zombies) all the skyscrapers, the cars, the gasoline, the canned food... these are all "land" for him.  They are all just provided to him by nature as far as from an ethical or economic point of view.


True: there is no source of additional supply.



> So why wait for it to be abandoned?  Tax it now!


Because there IS a source of additional supply, which won't supply factories that just turn into tax liabilities.



> Now taxing factory owners does provide a disincentive going forward to build *more* factories,


It also provides a disincentive to have an existing factory.



> but so does taxing the Universe provide a disincentive going forward to open up more parts and resources of the Universe to productive use.


No, it simply makes the incentive to do so accurate, rather than subsidizing feeding frenzies of wasteful rent seeking behavior.  The incredible waste of gold rushes, land rushes, oil rushes etc. would not happen.  Those who wanted to extract or exclude others from the resources would simply bid for tenure rights to do so in an efficient and orderly market allocation process.



> And while land and factories may be metaphysically unable to disappear,


Factories, like date palms, are very able to disappear.



> yet you tax them too much and even the existing land and factories will be abandoned, and crumble or go fallow. They will cease to exist _in the economy_.


It is true that taxing land at a more than infinite ad valorem rate will cause its value to become negative, leading to abandonment, and this has actually been done a few times in history.  But it is pretty easy to avoid taxing things at a more than infinite rate.



> This goes back to what I keep saying: the amount of land in the economy can increase or decrease, and does all the time.


No.  The quantity of land in the economic sense does not increase or decrease except by natural processes.  If by "in the economy" you mean the land that is in use, or is bought and sold, or is owned, that "amount of land" is irrelevant.



> It's not fixed at all!


Land's supply is fixed by definition.  Learn it, or continue to talk nonsense on this subject permanently.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> If by "in the economy" you mean the land that is in use, or is bought and sold, or is owned, that "amount of land" is irrelevant.


 ORLY?  And why is that?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> http://mises.org/media/1263/The-European-Miracle
> 
> 
> Which, inevitably, does not support your claims.


Hmm, did you actually even follow the link?  

Does not support my claims.  Man.  How come that I posted it?  My head hurt.

----------


## Roy L

> Hmm, did you actually even follow the link?


Yes, and I listened to the whole thing.



> Does not support my claims.


That is correct.  The lecture said nothing whatever about feudalism being the cause of the European Miracle.  Nothing.



> Man.  How come that I posted it?


Because the only way to rationalize evil is by lying.  You choose to rationalize evil, so you choose to lie.  Simple.



> My head hurt.


It's your butt that hurts, because I just spanked it again.

----------


## Roy L

> ORLY?  And why is that?


Because that is not what economists mean by "supply," and it has absolutely no effect on how LVT affects the economy.

----------


## Roy L

> Let me first translate for all the thread's loyal readers what I see to be your point:  Factories actually _are_ taxed with an LVT.


Let me first translate for all the thread's loyal readers: that is a lie.



> Both the resources used to build and also to maintain and operate them -- concrete and metal and whatever -- are taxed, back when they're in the ground.


They are taxed both in the ground and when they are depleted, but that is not a tax on factories, because it does not increase the cost of building, owning or operating factories.  All it does is redirect the resource rent paid by the factory owner from the resource owner to the government.



> That's the big point, and then the grand finale is: "So it turns out not only does LVT *efficiently allocate resources* to which factories get built, it also *allocates resources efficiently* to those which wish to remain in operation."  Umm, no, let's be precise: it turns out that an LVT *taxes* resources.


True: which enables the MARKET efficiently to allocate them.



> Well bully for the LVT.  That's not a great selling point for me.


Of course not, because you want to use resource ownership privileges to steal from producers.



> It's not that hard to set up a system that taxes raw materials -- you just start stealing from people based on their ownership of raw materials.


I.e., recovering what THEY are stealing from everyone else.  Right.



> Most saliently: it remains utterly beyond me why one would equate being taxed with being efficiently allocated.  Thing X is taxed... that means Thing X is efficiently allocated?  What?  Because you taxed it?  It's just totally ludicris.


It is an effect of fixed supply.  Taxing away the economic rent ensures the most productive user gets to use the resource.



> The only reason why you think you can get away with it, why you think you can lay a burden on landowners


It is landowners who lay a burden on the productive.



> without getting any blowback, that sole reason comes to one word: *Fixed*.  You think you've got them under your thumb.


I know that absent LVT, they have us under theirs.



> You think there's nothing landowners can do about the tax.  There's this fixed quantity of land, and it can never ever desert you, and so even if one landowner says "rats to you" and quits,


He is welcome to "quit" doing nothing and contributing nothing.



> another one inevitably will come to take his place.


No, I'm actually hoping they won't, and LVT makes that more likely.



> Because the supply of resources is fixed.  Someone's going to own all of it; if not one guy, then another.


Why would we need anyone to own it?



> 'Cause it's fixed.  "By Definition"!!!  And that's that.


That is indeed that.



> The point of my last post is that it's not fixed.


A point on which you are objectively and provably wrong.



> The factory's not fixed.  Just as you said, if you tax it bad enough, it will be abandoned.  The whole factory building could even be hauled away,  I suppose, to greener pastures in non-taxing jurisdictions.


That is indeed possible.  But land cannot be moved.



> The land's not fixed either.


Yes, it most certainly and indisputably is.



> Set your LVT high enough, and no landowner will be able to make a profit on it.


That is *precisely* the idea.



> The land will be abandoned.


Nope.  Only if the ad valorem tax rate is more than infinite, making its value negative.  Is rented land abandoned because the rent is too high?  Of course, sometimes, if the landowner is too greedy.  But land offered at the *market* rent, which LVT charges, is *never* abandoned, because the market rent is BY DEFINITION an amount that someone is willing to pay.  LVT just means that they pay it to the government for access to the services and infrastructure it provides, instead of to a private landowner for doing nothing.



> Top soil could even be scraped off and hauled away, I suppose, though this is even more unlikely and unfeasible with land than with the factory.


It's absurd.  Depleting the resource would trigger a severance tax.



> In any case, even though it's more difficult for land to be transported,


It is IMPOSSIBLE.  Once you transport it, it isn't land anymore.



> it's not impossible at all for it to disappear... from the economy.


It could only disappear from the economy if the government tried to charge more than the market rent, and the government has no motive to do so, as that would just reduce its revenue.



> Taxation is a parasitic activity.


No, it is not, because taxes pay for the services and infrastructure that make land more valuable.  It is therefore LANDOWNING that is the parasitic "activity."  The landowner qua landowner just pockets a portion of what producers produce, and contributes absolutely nothing in return.



> You understand this, I think, when it comes to everything but land.


And other rent seeking privileges.



> Tax factories, or income, or whatever, and you're sucking blood out of your host.  Do it overmuch and you'll end up with an empty ruined shell.  Do it even a little and you're still sucking the health and vitality out of your host.  Making the economy that much worse.  What I'm trying to explain is that it's the same for land.


And what I have *proved* to you, over and over again, is that it is not.



> Land is not a magic special category.


The fixity of land's supply is a fact of objective physical reality.  There is nothing magical about it.



> The same principle is at work.


I have repeatedly proved to you that it is not.



> Tax natural resources enough and eventually no one will be able use them profitably.  You'll have fallow fields, ignored oil deposits, and unfished oceans as far as the eye can see.


But that can ONLY happen if the tax exceeds the market rent, by government imposing a more than infinite ad valorem rate.  And there is no motive for it to impose such a tax as it would only reduce revenue.



> Tax them even a little and you're still draining that much life out of the economy,


Garbage.  Taxing them up to their full market rent drains nothing from the economy, and in fact allows taxes that DO drain the economy to be reduced.  It simply redirects revenue from the parasitic landowner to the productive provider of desired services and infrastructure.



> and that much life, satisfaction, and enjoyment out of the lives of the the individuals who would have otherwise benefited from the money


I.e., landowning parasites.



> going now instead to the political class.


Lie.  The "political class" does not just pocket tax revenue.  They must spend it in ways that the public considers to their benefit at least enough to get them re-elected.  You know this.



> Land is not fixed.


The supply of land is indisputably fixed.



> Land can be taxed out of economic existence, just like a factory can be.


But not out of actual existence, and not out of "economic existence" by LVT unless the ad valorem rate is more than infinite.



> So then, you may say, the task of the LVT planner is merely to determine the right amount of tax wherein you take all the landowner's "excess profits"


The market determines land rent.



> -- for Roy L., 100%;


Lie.  It is for public purposes and benefit as determined by the voting public, stop LYING.



> for you, 100% minus the average rate of return.


Why would we want parasites to obtain any "return" in return for contributing nothing?



> Good luck with that.  Omniwise bureaucracies have always proven so easy to create.


Especially to administer unjust and destructive taxes that, unlike LVT, burden production and exchange.



> At least _you_ realize that if there's no rate of return then no one will invest their money in landowning.  So you understand that _that_ is too high.


No, it's not.  Landowning is pure parasitism.  There is no reason to pay people to own land.  We don't need landowners, and would be better off without them.



> But even 90% minus avg. rate of return will remove lots of marginal resources from play.


Nope.  It can't, even at 100%.  Any resource rent not recovered by taxation would simply be pocketed by the owner anyway.  It makes no difference to the producer if he pays government for services and infrastructure or pays a parasite for doing nothing -- except that if he pays government and not the parasite, he won't have to pay OTHER taxes.



> And even 10% or 1% is still draining the economy and distorting the market, and thus hurting people.


That is pure economic ignorance.  Even a tax of 100% on resource rents will not and cannot distort the market or drain the economy.  It simply relieves the producer of the burden of supporting parasitic landowners as well as government.  The only "people" it hurts are landowners.



> There's just no LVT that in any way increases efficiency.


Wrong.  It increases efficiency in many ways, not least by relieving producers of the burden of supporting parasitic landowners.



> A 1% income tax wreaks havok on an economy.


No, it clearly doesn't.



> A 1% LVT wreaks havok on the economy.


Only by comparison with a much larger LVT.



> There's no end to the distortions, unintended consequences, blowback, lost productivity, and wasted wealth caused by either one.


That is pure economic ignorance with no basis in fact.  Economists do not agree on much, but they do agree on that.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener
> 
> It's not that hard to set up a system that taxes raw materials -- you just start stealing from people based on their ownership of raw materials.
> 
> 
> I.e., recovering what THEY are stealing from everyone else.  Right.


Excuse the interjection, Roy, I just wanted to clarify something if you don't mind.  

Are you saying that the land, as a resource, belongs to everyone collectively, such that taking something from the land without payment of a tax would constitute a theft?  If so, is that true of all resources taken from the land? Like agriculture, for example. That is a very real form of mining, since plants extract minerals that exist in finite amounts from the soil.  So take the case of a family owned farm, for example; one that produces corn, with no outside labor involved, a large portion of the crops of which are sold at market for a profit. Is it your position that the wealth extracted from the ground to create that corn is being stolen from everyone else, and that an LVT would be a mechanism for recovering some of that stolen wealth?

----------


## Roy L

> Are you saying that the land, as a resource, belongs to everyone collectively, such that taking something from the land without payment of a tax would constitute a theft?


I'm saying it belongs to no one, but all have a natural liberty right to use it.  Depriving people of that right without making just compensation is stealing.



> If so, is that true of all resources taken from the land? Like agriculture, for example. That is a very real form of mining, since plants extract minerals that exist in finite amounts from the soil.


That depends on the farming method.  Some really strip out soil nutrients, others actually make the soil more fertile.



> So take the case of a family owned farm, for example; one that produces corn, with no outside labor involved, a large portion of the crops of which are sold at market for a profit. Is it your position that the wealth extracted from the ground to create that corn is being stolen from everyone else, and that an LVT would be a mechanism for recovering some of that stolen wealth?


Depleting a resource triggers a "severance" tax rather than LVT, which is just the rental value of the site.  Two things are being stolen from others: the opportunity to use the site, and the value of any resources depleted.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I'm saying it belongs to no one, but all have a natural liberty right to use it.  Depriving people of that right without making just compensation is stealing.


On the assumption that you are referring to this as a matter of principle and not political boundaries, how far out does that extend?  If only two villages existed on Earth, are the villagers in western China depriving the villagers in central America of anything by using or depleting resources from their respective lands, such that one village has a rightful tax claim on the other, even separated by thousands of miles?  What if the villagers are closer - say, on opposite sides of the Andes, but still separated by hundreds of miles? 

Or, bringing it closer to home and removing ownership - if I pan gold from a public stream in an area that is uninhabited or controlled by anyone, not claiming ownership of any kind, but depleting a resource therefrom, have I, a) interfered with anybody else's "natural liberty right" to do likewise, and/or b) deprived anybody of any kind of 'just compensation' for what I have panned?  In other words, was anything "stolen" for which a compensation to some collective could be justified? 

I'm having difficulty grasping how a depleted resource on one part of the Earth creates an obligation for remuneration to someone on another part of the Earth (regardless of distance - whether they are next door or in the next continent), because that could extend, literally and absolutely, to virtually everything that you possess, since it was extracted at some point from the Earth.  Who gets payment for that, and how its it equitably "redistributed"? 

In the case where land is marked or fenced with boundaries where usage is restricted, and trespassing becomes an issue, is this a case where literally everyone is deprived of a "natural liberty right" - or does it involve only who would want to exercise a conflicting claim for the same space in time?  I would think that if I built a bridge charged a toll, only those needing to cross the bridge could be injured.  Then the question comes, was that particular land the only option available? (e.g., the only wellspring for miles, and you control the water). I could see that a "affected by the public interest". 

If nobody "owns" the land, even collectively, then how is a collective able to claim injury?  It would seem to me that the only parties who could claim injury by deprivation of a natural liberty right or loss of a depleted resource, would be those who actually want to engage in usage of the same land, but were denied.   If I traveled to Antarctica and mined gold from a place where no other human even wanted to go, is the another human being on Earth, let alone all humans on Earth, that could claim that I deprive them of anything, or that I owe them anything whatsoever?  

The final question I have comes from the tax itself - whether "severance" or LVT - who is presuming authority and the jurisdiction to collect, and on whose behalf (i.e., how is that money "redistributed") I can't conceive of it being, in most cases, any more than one abstraction used as rationale to pay for yet another abstraction.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> That is correct.  The lecture said nothing whatever about feudalism being the cause of the European Miracle.  Nothing.


Sometimes, in the course of our lives, there come times when we must use our brains in more than superficial ways.

"Middle Ages", mein spanker.  What was going on in the Middle Ages?

This is not even a close call.  Not only does this lecture "support" my claims, my claims were _totally plagiarized from the lecture_!  Almost word for word in some cases!  The lecture is the one making the claims at which you're screaming "liar, liar", and I'm just parroting those claims!  See 10:00-11:57.  When was it that Rome fell again, remind me?  And what system was it that Europe had after the fall of Rome?  Did it start with an "F"?  See also 14:48-14:56 (Middle Ages), 15:50-17:00 (feudalism, feudalism, feudalism), 27:30-29:05 (Middle Ages were not the Dark Ages), 32:00-32:58 (representative bodies back then were elected solely and only by the taxpaying property owners -- i.e. _landowners_ -- making them, of course, pure evil), and on and on.  The whole lecture is fantastic, in fact the whole lecture series is outstandingly erudite and illuminating.

Your best move at this point, the the way, is to claim that "Oh, I was listening to the wrong lecture, I must have somehow clicked something wrong".

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> It indisputably isn't.  It has to be built.


It was already built.  It's already there.




> No, you are EXQUISITELY wrong.  Early in the 19th century, Muhammad Ali, ruler of Egypt, decided to levy a tax on date palms -- trees that were ALREADY THERE.  The result was that people CUT DOWN their date palms, and a chronic shortage of dates, and high date prices, set in.  The same would happen with marginal factories subjected to taxation.  Their owners would just burn them down rather than take a guaranteed loss.
> 
> You COULD NOT BE more wrong.


If you would do silly things like read entire posts before replying, you would have already realized that I agree with you completely and we could save ourselves from pointless text.




> Land's supply is fixed by definition.  Learn it, or continue to talk nonsense on this subject permanently.


Land's supply is not fixed by definition.  Learn it, or continue to talk nonsense on this subject permanently.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Another angle:

Private property rights are the great problem solver in the world.  For avoiding and resolving conflicts, for efficiently allocating resources, for enabling division of labor, for enabling wealth accumulation, for respecting individual variation, for making strong loving families possible, for enabling human dignity, for enabling humans to even survive at all as opposed to starving wretchedly, for all these triumphs and more, private property is one of the most sublime creations of the human mind.

When private property is allowed to be the operating principle over the realm of any resource or aspect of existence, triumph after triumph ensues.  Peace and harmony prevail.  Order and civilization in ever-increasing beauty and complexity is built.  Men reach and achieve ever-loftier aspirations and ever-more-astonishing wealth -- wealth of all types, not mammon only.

The LVT people seem to understand the salutatory effect of private property when applied to all aspects of existence... except for land.  That is, except for the raw resources of the Universe.  Yet the raw resources of the Universe are all that we have to work with!  Everything that we have and everything that we know is either a raw resource of the universe, or a rearrangement of those resources to make them un-raw.  The resources are, then, in that sense, the bedrock for everything else, the whole human edifice.  To grant private property in the entire structure built upon that foundation, but to deny it in the foundation, is to build a house upon the sand.

We must apply the principle of private property to everything possible.  Doing so creates boundaries of action, those boundaries create order, and order creates a noble, indeed a _human_, existence.  To leave anything outside the domain of private property which we could conceivably incorporate into that domain, is to leave an outpost for barbarism and chaos.

----------


## jascott

Considering that the name of this site is "ronpaulforums," what's his opinion on this subject? The main views here are that LVT is bad (and perhaps all other taxes are bad too) and shouldn't be implemented, that LVT is good (and perhaps most or all other taxes are bad), and that LVT is bad but less bad than other taxes and LVT should be implemented (probably in exchange for repealing at least sales and income taxes).
Does anybody here have personal contact with Dr. Paul? Or at least live in a city which he's going to visit soon during his presidential campaign, and can meet him in person, and ask the question? If he agrees that LVT is good, or at least agrees that LVT is the least bad tax, then since tax reform is currently one of the most prominent issues in the Republican primary race, perhaps he should propose LVT to replace all other taxes, to compete against the other candidates' tax proposals.
If Dr. Paul doesn't support LVT, then which taxes _does_ he support? Or if he supports no taxes whatsoever, does he want the government to be funded through donations? Or renting out radio spectrum and BLM land? Or what? How much annual revenue does he expect?

----------


## jascott

> Land is not a big enough factor in the economy, so a land tax won't raise much revenue. We aren't all farmers any more.


American government spending (including federal, state, and local) is now $6 trillion annually. Eliminate interest payments on the federal debt, and eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, and unemployment payments, and it's still $4 trillion. Eliminate the DOD too, and you're down to $3.3 trillion.
But http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/.../msg00176.html points out that land rent today is only 5% of GNP. So land rent is only $730 billion. If this is a very inaccurate estimate, do you have a more accurate one? Or even if it's accurate, do you say that after LVT replaces all other major taxes, the LVT will take in much more than $730 billion? Or if you would supplement LVT with other major taxes, then which ones, and how much revenue do you expect from them? Or would you run a perpetual deficit, as we do now? Or do you say that spending should be cut down from the current $6 trillion to $730 billion, and if so, then what percentage would you allocate to federal spending, and can you give a rough idea of what your federal budget would look like? If land is indeed a big enough factor in the economy, then the claim to the contrary should be the easiest of all anti-LVT arguments to refute, by simply giving some numbers.

----------


## Roy L

> On the assumption that you are referring to this as a matter of principle and not political boundaries, how far out does that extend?


It's a matter of principle, but that principle can only be implemented within political boundaries.



> If only two villages existed on Earth, are the villagers in western China depriving the villagers in central America of anything by using or depleting resources from their respective lands, such that one village has a rightful tax claim on the other, even separated by thousands of miles?  What if the villagers are closer - say, on opposite sides of the Andes, but still separated by hundreds of miles?


There's a couple of simple tests:

1. Who actually suffers deprivation as a result of someone excluding others from resources?  They are the ones who should rightly be compensated.

2. What is the extent of the taxing authority's authority?  It is not responsible for securing and reconciling the equal rights of people outside its boundaries, only inside.



> Or, bringing it closer to home and removing ownership - if I pan gold from a public stream in an area that is uninhabited or controlled by anyone, not claiming ownership of any kind, but depleting a resource therefrom, have I, a) interfered with anybody else's "natural liberty right" to do likewise, and/or b) deprived anybody of any kind of 'just compensation' for what I have panned?  In other words, was anything "stolen" for which a compensation to some collective could be justified?


No, because you are not depriving anyone of anything they would otherwise have.  There was no competition for access to the opportunity, so it had no value for you to repay.



> I'm having difficulty grasping how a depleted resource on one part of the Earth creates an obligation for remuneration to someone on another part of the Earth (regardless of distance - whether they are next door or in the next continent), because that could extend, literally and absolutely, to virtually everything that you possess, since it was extracted at some point from the Earth.


No.  Extraction from the earth removes the resource from nature, a one-time process that triggers a one-time tax at the time of extraction.  The problematical thing about resource extraction/depletion is that the people who are most interested in doing it are very prepared to do it almost anywhere, and depriving them of access even in foreign countries violates their rights.  At the same time, as a practical matter, resources are under the control of local sovereign governments, which have no responsibility to secure and reconcile the rights of anyone but their own citizens.



> Who gets payment for that, and how its it equitably "redistributed"?


I don't generally advocate remuneration of individuals for resource depletion, but rather restoration of their rights to liberty through a uniform, universal individual land tax exemption.  Aside from an allowance for that, IMO LVT revenue should all be spent for public purposes and benefit according to the democratically expressed will of the people.  If that includes a citizens' dividend, so be it.  But unlike the liberty right the exemption represents, there is no individual right to collect publicly created rent.



> In the case where land is marked or fenced with boundaries where usage is restricted, and trespassing becomes an issue, is this a case where literally everyone is deprived of a "natural liberty right" - or does it involve only who would want to exercise a conflicting claim for the same space in time?


It's an issue for all those who could have used the land.



> I would think that if I built a bridge charged a toll, only those needing to cross the bridge could be injured.


No one is injured by your building a bridge and charging tolls in any case.



> Then the question comes, was that particular land the only option available? (e.g., the only wellspring for miles, and you control the water). I could see that a "affected by the public interest".


Not sure what your point is, here.



> If nobody "owns" the land, even collectively, then how is a collective able to claim injury?


Each individual member of the community who could have used the land is injured by being deprived of the exercise of his liberty.  But only government is competent to secure and reconcile everyone's equal rights to liberty.



> It would seem to me that the only parties who could claim injury by deprivation of a natural liberty right or loss of a depleted resource, would be those who actually want to engage in usage of the same land, but were denied.


No, because the denial of those who want to use it puts them in competition for other sites with those who don't want to use it.



> If I traveled to Antarctica and mined gold from a place where no other human even wanted to go, is the another human being on Earth, let alone all humans on Earth, that could claim that I deprive them of anything, or that I owe them anything whatsoever?


No, it doesn't sound like it, but details could change that.



> The final question I have comes from the tax itself - whether "severance" or LVT - who is presuming authority and the jurisdiction to collect, and on whose behalf (i.e., how is that money "redistributed") I can't conceive of it being, in most cases, any more than one abstraction used as rationale to pay for yet another abstraction.


It's government's job to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.

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## jascott

> I would only add that restoration of the individual human right to liberty via a uniform, universal individual exemption to the land value tax, ensuring free, secure tenure on enough good land of the individual's choice to live on and participate in society must also be part of the solution.


Would you agree that the most practical way to accomplish this would be simply to pay a citizen's dividend, i.e. give each citizen a fixed (or revenue indexed) amount of money each year, paid for out of LVT revenue, and assess the LVT on all land without any exemptions? Then each citizen can choose to live on land whose annual LVT is the same as the citizen's dividend, in which case he's effectively exempt from taxation for his land, or he can choose to live on really cheap land, and be compensated by the difference between the citizen's dividend and the low LVT assessed for his land, or he can choose to live on expensive land, whose LVT is only partially covered by the citizen's dividend and he must pay the remainder out of his own pocket. Suppose America were to switch to this system today; can you give a rough estimate of an appropriate citizen's dividend? $100? $1,000? Would you pay per citizen, or only per adult citizen?
Or did you have in mind some other mechanism which would be even more practical than this?

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## jascott

Geoists say that the most practical way for exclusive landusers to compensate everybody else is via tax money paid to a government. If there's more than enough LVT revenue to pay the government's expenses, do you lower the LVT rate so that revenue equals expenses, or do you maintain a high rate (e.g. 90% or 100% of assessed rental value), and distribute the excess as a citizen's dividend? It seems the geoist argument would require the latter choice, but in that case, if 55% of the citizens vote to spend all available revenue on the maximum possible military defensive capability, but the other 45% believe that Christ's command to "turn the other cheek" means literally that they must choose to suffer death rather than defend themselves, and they therefore object to spending any money on the military at all and would rather have the excess revenue distributed to them so that they can donate it to charities which build water purification plants in Africa, then doesn't this mean that the 55% is stealing from the 45%? Wouldn't the right thing to do be to distribute all of the LVT revenue to the citizens, then the 55% can donate their money to the military? It's true that the 45% will then receive defense for free because it isn't practical for the military to defend just the 55%, but this is the type of systemic imperfection which geoists themselves already accept; for example, the 55% could invest their own money to build an upscale shopping center, which increases the surrounding land rental values, which increases LVT revenue, which is distributed to all citizens equally (or used to pay for government services which benefit all citizens equally), not just to the 55% who paid to create the new value. Or I, as a private citizen, can openly carry a firearm while eating at a restaurant, and thereby prevent thieves from deciding to hold up the restaurant and its patrons, but the restaurant and patrons obviously don't owe me any money for this service.

Or, since science fiction sometimes becomes reality, let's consider a particular sci-fi future: man has been improved by genetic engineering. All of unimproved mankind has died out. Every man is now at least as virtuous as any man who had ever lived before. There's no murder, or theft, or any other crime, because nobody tries or even wants to do such things. Therefore there's no need for militaries, or police, or prisons. When there are disagreements about ownership and obligations, people hire other citizens at random to be arbiters, and losers cheerfully pay for winners' and arbiters' time. Roads are obsolete, because helicopters and blimps have replaced cars, buses, and trucks. Electric grids and natural gas distribution pipes are obsolete, because everybody has a small nuclear reactor buried in his back yard. Water and sewer pipes are obsolete, because everybody has a well and a septic tank. Government expenditures are zero; there's nothing to do. In this case, do we eliminate the LVT, or do we keep it at 90% or 100% and distribute all of the revenue as a citizen's dividend?

Can I prepay my geoist taxes/rent? Is there a limit to how far in advance I can prepay? Can I prepay for the entire duration of the government's existence? Let's say 500 years; that's a very optimistic estimate for any government. Then, surely I can sublease the land which I've lawfully rented, and can sell or give away the privilege of exclusive use which my rent money paid for. In this case, how is prepayment of the tax any different from outright purchase of the land? In either case, after the invasion or revolution which destroys the government, the privileges of exclusive land use which the government granted, like the titles of land ownership which other destroyed or evicted governments have granted in the past, are unlikely to be honored, especially when asserted by people who supported the incumbent government during the war.
If I'm not allowed to prepay, then what's the justification for the government refusing to accept from me today the money which I'll owe next year? It would make more sense for the government to accept the money, and earn interest on it, then use the principal next year for next year's operational expenses, and consider the interest to be a donation from me.
Or look at it another way: if an annual tax is better than an hourly tax due to lessened payment processing overhead, then isn't a semimillennial tax even better? This also has the advantage of pacifying the anti-geoists, because they can then pretend that they own their land in practice after they've paid their taxes. People who can't afford to pay the semimillennial tax upfront have the option of annual installment payments, which the anti-geoists can pretend are mortgage payments.
To avoid the controversy regarding land for which title of private ownership has already been granted, let's just talk about government-owned land (or for the geoists, land for which no privilege of exclusive private use has been granted yet) which the government is considering selling or renting out (or granting exclusive privilege for). On what basis would either the geoists or anti-geoists object to semimillennial lease/tax periods?

How should LVT be implemented in America? Presumably all other major taxes are eliminated. Do we keep the current structure of federal, state, and local governments, with each plot of land thus still in 2 or 3 jurisdictions simultaneously, and part of the tax money for that land is sent to each government? Does the federal government decide what portion to take, and the leftovers are for the state and local governments, or vice versa?

Let's say that in the current system, I own a huge amount of land. I rent it all out to the highest bidders, and pocket 100% of the rent money. Tens of millions of dollars per year. I have no reason to sell any of the land, or change my profitable policy of renting it out to the highest bidders. Then, the nation institutes a 90% LVT, and abolishes all other taxes. What changes? The landless no longer directly bear the cost of government, and I only get to pocket 10% of the rent money, so I now make less profit, only millions of dollars per year. But I still have no reason to sell any of the land, or change my profitable policy of renting it out to the highest bidders. Other mega-landlords are in the same situation as I am, and don't change their behavior either. How is the LVT going to increase efficiency of land use, or cause any change in the ways that various plots of land are used?

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## jascott

> There really are no good arguments against it unless you are an anarchist and you reject government. Even anarchists though believe in private security. Private security does not come free, and its reasonable to think private security co's would charge you to protect your land based on something like its value or size. I think they would charge you based on the value and not the size, because no one is going to seize from you 40 acres of worthless desert land, but they might try to seize an acre of prime commercial property.


An LVT doesn't align the tax with what a private security company would charge to defend the land, because defending the land necessarily involves defending what's on it, too; nobody can trespass in my buildings unless he also trespasses on my land (or land which I'm paying for exclusive access to). Under an LVT, I'd only have to pay less than a hundred thousand dollars per year for the government to keep trespassers off my $1 million plot of land and therefore also out of my $1 billion factory, but under a system of private security, a competitive security company would have to charge several million dollars per year just to break even, if effective security is to be provided. Under an LVT, either the government will fail to provide the promised services, i.e. it'll fail to keep trespassers off my land, or it'll provide me with a lot more value in security services than I've paid for.

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## jascott

> Removal of depletable resources from nature in fact triggers not a land tax but a once-and-for-all "severance" tax, which recognizes the difference between violating others' rights by permanently *depleting* a natural resource and by merely temporarily *occupying* it.





> Geoists always state explicitly that human beings and the products of their labor are *not land*.





> Land is the whole physical universe OTHER THAN human beings and the products of their labor. It includes mineral resources, natural water sources, broadcast spectrum, the oceans, sunlight, rainfall, wildlife, the sun, moon, planets and stars, and many other things as well as the earth's surface.


What you and others call "land" would be much more appropriately called "natural resources" (which in your reply to helmuth_hubener you said would be a suitable term), one of which is space, and another one of which is land, where "land" variously means certain matter (part of the crust of the Earth) which occupies a particular space, or the space itself. "Land" is not a suitable term for natural resources in general, even if classical economists use it that way. Using the ordinary meanings of words eases understanding for laymen, and in this case there's no need for a domain-specific generalization of the term "land" because there's already an ordinary phrase with the intended general meaning. Sunlight is a natural resource; sunlight is not land.

If I understand the geoist argument correctly, you're allowing outright ownership (following payment of a severance tax, and thereafter no ongoing tax) of _all_ matter, including the dirt and rock which comprises the surface of the crust of the Earth, and I can launch some of it into outer space as a private rocket ship after I pay the severance tax, but you're disallowing outright ownership only of _space_, including the space of the crust of the Earth, including the space of the hole from which I dug the material for my rocket ship. Nearly all of the matter of the Earth is currently unowned, because nobody has paid the severance tax on it yet, and the matter which is available for sale (which isn't all of it) is available on a first-come-first-served basis. At any given time, the space which is most valuable, and therefore on which the most tax/rent is charged, depends on Earth's current position and orientation. The space extending from a few yards below (not clearly defined because until recently people couldn't dig very deeply) the rocky surface of the Earth (whether dry surface, or under water), up into the air perhaps 50 yards or whatever (not clearly defined because until recently people couldn't build tall things or fly), is land. Land is the most valuable space.

You also wrote that the LVT for the land on which an artificial island is located, "is typically going to be little or nothing, as it was underwater and NO ONE ELSE WANTED TO USE IT" (emphasis yours). But you wrote that in past tense: "wanted". Does the government-assessed rental value of land, and therefore the LVT levied by the government, change over time, according to the demand for usage of that land, or does the assessed rental value not change? What about 50 years from now, when the artificial island hosts a thriving metropolis; is the LVT still going to be little or nothing, even though the island's creator is earning huge rental income for use of space on the island? If you apply the LVT to the land occuped by artificial islands the same as to natural islands, and tax away all of the rental value including the portion of the rental value which exists due to the existence of the artificial island (or even just tax away 90% of the rental value, so that the creator is unable to earn a worthwhile return on his investment in his lifetime), and the creator happens to have no incentive for creating islands other than the prospect of future rental value, then doesn't this mean that your LVT prevents the production of wealth (artificial islands) which otherwise would be produced?
On the other hand, if the assessed rental value doesn't change, then you're contradicting Henry George, who said that one of the purposes of the LVT is to prevent land speculation, in which somebody buys rural land at low value, holds it during development around it, then sells it as prime real estate. Of course, the answer to the question of whether the assessed rental value changes can't justly depend on the situation (buying cheap natural dry land and waiting for development around it, or investing to build an artificial island on wet land); either assessed rental value of _all_ land is subject to change over time, or _no_ assessed value is subject to change. And George's position was that it must be subject to change. You've said you aren't a Georgist, but is he right about this issue?
Not only the creation of artificial islands, but also the draining of swamps, and even the building of houses (because their presence increases the value of the land on which they're located), are disincentivized by changing LVT. For any given plot of land, the disincentive can only be prevented by permanently setting the assessed rental value, so that the LVT doesn't increase as improvements on or in the vicinity of the plot are made.

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## jascott

I've made several posts questioning the geoist position; now I'll question the anti-geoist position.
Roy L brought up a good point about owning the atmosphere. Nobody, geoist or anti-geoist, would honor anybody's claim to exclusively own it. Everybody is free to breathe it, use it to burn stuff, or compress it into scuba tanks. But suppose I pump enough air into my giant array of compressed-air energy storage tanks to reduce atmospheric pressure below what people can survive without supplemental oxygen (the technical difficulty in compressing this much air isn't relevant here). The geoists have a simple answer: they have equal right to the air, so I have to pay a tax on this natural resource which I'm hoarding, and I can't afford to compress enough to cause problems, although it does seem that this would require some sort of world government for me to pay the tax to, or a world-wide treaty for governments to receive tax payments proportional to their citizen populations.
But what do the anti-geoists say; what's their justification for interfering with my compression enterprise, if unclaimed natural resources are free for the taking? They can bolt pressure domes over their own land and thereby enclose air, making that air their own property and no longer free for the taking, thus isolating their land from atmospheric pressure drops, but they have no right to prevent me from draining the unenclosed atmosphere, or to require me to pay them for the privilege. It also makes no difference whether I then simply keep my air, or rent out tanks full of it, or sell it, or destroy it by fixing the nitrogen and using the oxygen to burn stuff, or just graciously release it for free back into the open atmosphere. Oil under the ocean floor is another such natural resource, and the same arguments apply. Surely they also apply to other natural resources as well, including oil under dry land, and land itself.

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## jascott

> if one fails to pay his/her ground rent then the government would simply not recognize and enforce his/her privilege to exclude others from the land occupied. I *do not* believe the government should kick somebody off a piece of land.


The government would not only refuse to enforce the privilege, but also refuse to recognize the privilege? In that case, does the government consider the land to be unallocated (i.e. no privilege of exclusive use has been granted to anybody)? If I pay the ground rent which you failed to pay, and I find you and your family working in the field, and I evict you all at gunpoint, then should the government recognize and enforce my privilege (which I lawfully paid for) to exclude you from the land?

If government is going to recognize your privilege even though you fail to pay the tax, then what's your incentive to ever pay the tax, except during the intermittent times when you happen to need the government's assistance in defending your land against my attempts to invade it and evict you?

Suppose that neither you nor I pay the tax, and the government therefore refuses to enforce or recognize any privilege of exclusive use. In this case, the government recognizes _everybody's_ right to nonexclusive use. Does the government enforce this right? If you live on the land and plant crops in the field, but I use the field for dirtbike practice and damage the crops, does the government defend me against your attempts to unlawfully evict me from public land? Or arrest me for damaging your private property (your crops), even though you don't pay the government anything? Or does the government just ignore us and the land, and leave us to work out our own problems? In the latter case, does the government continue to ignore us even if one of us is killed during our gunfights, if we aren't bothering anybody else?

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## jascott

> How small can a political entity be in your system?  You propose to have thousands in the territory of the formerly united States.  So that means political entities the size of present-day counties.  Can one of these county-sized nations split itself into 20 pieces?  Can one of those new pieces reorganize itself into 200 confederate but sovereign cantons?  If not, why not?  If so, you're getting down to 20 acre plots of sovereignty.
> 
> Each of these thousands of political entities would act, of course, as a monopolistic land-owner, if they are to be anything like current-day political entities.  The forces of one state would have no right to enter the boundaries of another.  They could even have border controls to keep out anyone they wished.  They could make whatever rules of conduct they wished pertaining to their land.


Ok, there's a cult living on the neighboring ranch, which is a sovereign state. They sacrifice their newborns to Satan. Their rules allow this. Who has the right to stop them? Will you ally with me, or ally with the cult, or remain neutral, if I try to invade the ranch in order to rescue the newborns?
If you would ally with me in the above case, but ally with the cult (or at least consider selling your defense services to them) in the case that their only "crime" is that they dance the macarena on Sunday and I find it offensive, then what's your criterion for distinguishing between the two crimes? Your personal whim? The majority vote of the populations of the surrounding sovereign states?

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## jascott

> Repeating over and over and over that land should not be owned is not persuasive.  It's not even persua_sion_, not any method I'm familiar with.  So not only has your method not been successful, it is impossible for it to ever be successful


Repetition is a method of persuasion, and it can be very successful. Ask a psychologist whether this is true, and he'll confirm it.




> "But I think land shouldn't be privatey owned."
> "But I think it should be."
> And that's it! That's as far as one can go!


We can go further. By "should", do you just mean that it's practical? And/or that somebody who tries to prevent it (or tax it) is doing something wrong? In the latter case, is this just your personal opinion? Any basis for it? Or do you mean that he's doing something evil, and in that case, is it evil because you, or a majority of Americans, or a majority of human beings, say so? Would it be no longer evil if the majority changes its vote? Anyway on what basis do you say that evil is determined by majority vote, or by whatever other authority you choose? Or do you say that the fact that somebody who tries to prevent or tax private land ownership is doing something evil can be concluded on the basis of what God said? In that case, what did God say, and how do you know this, and how do you even know that God exists? 
Perhaps the argument will get to the point of "God exists" and "No, he doesn't", at which point it merges with that ancient argument, and good luck resolving it. Or maybe you both agree that God exists, or that he doesn't, in which case maybe you'll progress to what specifically God said, or whether it takes a simple majority or 2/3 vote to determine evil, or whatever. But you can certainly progress beyond "land shouldn't be privately owned" and "yes, it should be."

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## jascott

> A man dying of thirst stumbles into an oasis fed by a natural spring. He stoops to drink from the pool nature provided when he hears a revolver being cocked behind his ear.





> You really claim Dirtowner Harry isn't violating the dying man's rights?


A man dying of thirst stumbles across an unlocked jeep loaded with an abundance of bottles of water. He reaches in to drink from a bottle when he hears a revolver being cocked behind his ear. "You have two choices," says Harry. "Die of thirst, or die by gunshot. And BTW if you choose the latter, I'll sue your heirs for the cost of the bullet." Dan, the dying man, chooses to do the honorable thing: refrain from trying to steal the water, and instead die of thirst, and save his heirs the cost of the bullet.
You really claim Bottleowner Harry isn't violating Dan's rights?

If you admit that Bottleowner Harry _is_ violating Dan's rights, even though Harry obviously does own the water, then of course Dirtowner Harry is also violating Dan's rights, _regardless_ of whether Harry owns the water. In this case, isn't it clear that the conclusion that Harry is violating Dan's rights must be drawn from some other premise than that Harry doesn't own the water? Although your conclusion is true (i.e. Harry is violating Dan's rights), your argument is invalid (i.e. Harry doesn't own the oasis, therefore Harry is violating Dan's rights). Even if it's true that Harry doesn't own the oasis, and even if it's true that any claim of ownership of the oasis would be illegitimate, that has nothing to do with Harry's violation of Dan's rights.

If you deny that Bottleowner Harry is violating Dan's rights, then you must also claim that God doesn't exist, or at least that God didn't command that man is his brother's keeper (which certainly includes "give him a drink of water to save his life if you have an abundance"), or at least that man's laws, giving Harry unconditional ownership of (and therefore the right to keep) his bottled water, override God's laws, which require Harry to give water to Dan.
If you acknowledge that God exists, then do you claim that he doesn't authorize man to own land (or at least to own land without paying LVT to a central government)? Or if he does authorize it, then does the basis for your denial of man's authority to own land lie outside the chain of authority stemming from God? In the latter case, are you really claiming that, although God exists, not all authority stems from him?

The logical conclusions for the theistic geoist seem to be that God doesn't authorize man to own land, and doesn't authorize Bottleowner Harry to withhold his water from Dan. The logical conclusions for the theistic anti-geoist are that God does authorize man to own land, but doesn't authorize either Dirtowner or Bottleowner Harry to withhold his water from Dan. However, if Harry does withhold his water, God doesn't authorize man to punish Harry; in this case, God reserves that authority. To the athesists, I just ask: where does authority come from? Majority vote? Does all authority stem from one root, or are there multiple roots?

My point is that the stated disagreements of the participants in this thread might stem from disagreements about more fundamental, unstated premises.

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## MattButler

> Let me first translate for all the thread's loyal readers what I see to be your point:  Factories actually _are_ taxed with an LVT.  Both the resources used to build and also to maintain and operate them -- concrete and metal and whatever -- are taxed, back when they're in the ground.  
> 
> That's the big point, and then the grand finale is: "So it turns out not only does LVT *efficiently allocate resources* to which factories get built, it also *allocates resources efficiently* to those which wish to remain in operation."  Umm, no, let's be precise: it turns out that an LVT *taxes* resources.


LVT does not tax resources.  Competition in the marketplace for ownership rights to land, which may be driven by the resources within land, sets the market price for land.  The land owner is then assessed a tax on the land.  What he chooses to do with the resources is left to his own discretion, with one caveat, he must earn enough income to pay the LVT, or else someone more capable will end up owning the land.     




> Well bully for the LVT.  That's not a great selling point for me.  It's not that hard to set up a system that taxes raw materials -- you just start stealing from people based on their ownership of raw materials.


It may not be that hard to tax resources, but relatively it is harder than an LVT.  You must determine what resources will be taxed.  You must determine whether to tax known proven reserves of resources, theoretical reserves of resources, projected and normal extractions of resources, or actual extractions of resources.  You must determine whether to account for loss of resources during extraction process.  You must determine whether you will tax all resources at the same rate. You must appoint or license experts to monitor all of this to ensure its done according to statute.  Administering an LVT on the other hand is simple in comparison.  What is the marketplace willing to pay for ownership of the land?  That value determines the LVT.  Because it is transparent and easily administrated, in theory there should be less corruption and cheating and tax dodging, in other words fairness.





> The land's not fixed either.  Set your LVT high enough, and no landowner will be able to make a profit on it.  The land will be abandoned.  Top soil could even be scraped off and hauled away, I suppose, though this is even more unlikely and unfeasible with land than with the factory.  In any case, even though it's more difficult for land to be transported, it's not impossible at all for it to disappear... from the economy.


Well part of the point of LVT is we don't think anyone should profit from land ownership, at least not profit extraordinarily.  As to setting the LVT so high that it will be abandoned, I think you're ignoring the market function.  At some point the land becomes so cheap that buyers are attracted to owning it.  If in fact no one wants to "own it", then it becomes available for use to anyone that chooses to use it.   As to removing land (the dirt) completely, in other words carving our a massive hole in the ground, a theoretical argument, that may be possible.  However if the dirt is that valuable, than the land value is likely to be very high, and the tax will reflect this.  Furthermore, and you ought to know this being in the resource extraction business, there are basic common laws regulating use of property that could regulate you removing all the ground.  To wit, if you remove all the dirt and ground so that your neighbor's land loses lateral support and collapses, then you have violated your neighbor's common law property rights.




> [B]Taxation is a parasitic activity.


That may be true, but LVT in a Geoist society is the least parasitic and least bad of all taxes, and many economists, ranging from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman agree.  Ludwig von Mises, while never endorsing an LVT, recognized some of the distinctions of land ownership from other capital, and over the course of several editions of Human Action continuously refined his position; in other words it at least presented an issue to Mises that could not be easily dismissed.  Your criticism that taxes can be so high as to drive out all economic activity is valid, but that is true with any system of government.  That is not a criticism of LVT, rather it is a criticism of social welfare programs and excessive government spending.  To the extent that government spends money for public purposes that benefit general welfare, an LVT closely mirrors what is achieved with simple user fees.  To the extent government engages in specific welfare, social welfare and the like, then an LVT does not achieve true fairness, because such spending is patently unfair anyway.   If we ever have a Geoist society, in my opinion, the idea of one man one vote is up for discussion.  Maybe the right to vote should only accrue to landowners in such a society.

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## helmuth_hubener

> Nobody, geoist or anti-geoist, would honor anybody's claim to exclusively own it.


*I would.*  Everything that can be owned, should be owned.

The owner of an orchard also owns the "air rights" to clean healthy air above his land (assuming it was clean and healthy when he bought the place).  If a new factory comes in and starts polluting the air and all his trees are dying, he can bring a tort, and force the factory to cease aggressing against his property, the air around his trees.

Lowering everyone's air pressure is obviously just an even bigger tort.

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## helmuth_hubener

> LVT does not tax resources.


Of course it does.  That was your whole point.  It just doesn't tax them _directly_ under your particular brand of LVT.  I should have written "Both the resources used to build and also to maintain and operate them -- concrete and metal and whatever -- are taxed, back when they're in the ground, _because the value of those resources is a component of the land's value_."  But I didn't realize there'd be any confusion.

Most of your post resulted from that confusion, so there's no need to respond to it, I think.  We're on the same page.




> Well part of the point of LVT is we don't think anyone should profit from land ownership, at least not profit extraordinarily.


 But is it not also undesirable for rich people of all and sundry types to "profit extraordinarily", according to the masses?  Why are the masses wrong, except for about... wait, do I say natural resources or land to you?  In what sense are you using "land"?  Because in economic terminology, of course, the "resources" we were discussing earlier -- ore, concrete, etc. -- are land.  You've muddied the waters a bit here; clear them up again so we can proceed.




> As to setting the LVT so high that it will be abandoned, I think you're ignoring the market function.  At some point the land becomes so cheap that buyers are attracted to owning it.


Except for that they're not, because they can't afford the LVT.  


> If in fact no one wants to "own it", then it becomes available for use to anyone that chooses to use it.


  Yes, and housing vagrants is probably not a very efficient or high-value use, is it?   


> As to removing land (the dirt) completely, in other words carving our a massive hole in the ground, a theoretical argument, that may be possible.  However if the dirt is that valuable, than the land value is likely to be very high, and the tax will reflect this.  Furthermore, and you ought to know this being in the resource extraction business, there are basic common laws regulating use of property that could regulate you removing all the ground.  To wit, if you remove all the dirt and ground so that your neighbor's land loses lateral support and collapses, then you have violated your neighbor's common law property rights.


 You're focusing on irrelevant details.  I wrote that post in a parallel structure for a reason, to make it clear the parallels between factories and land.  There's no philosophic difference between the matter and space we call "factory" and the matter and space we call (layman's) "land" that makes one ownable and one not.  They both consist of matter, which has been rearranged to an extent by man.  They both occupy three-dimensional space.  The matter in both can, in theory, be moved.  They both should be ownable.




> That may be true, but LVT in a Geoist society is the least parasitic and least bad of all taxes, and many economists, ranging from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman agree.


How does one measure such a thing?  Is there a badness meter we can use to empirically prove or disprove your theory?  Some would say a low general tariff is the least bad.  Others would say a poll tax.

Others, like myself, would say that the most important thing to realize about taxes, all taxes, is that they are nothing but an institutionalized crime -- extortion -- and must all be abolished.




> Ludwig von Mises, while never endorsing an LVT, recognized some of the distinctions of land ownership from other capital, and over the course of several editions of Human Action continuously refined his position; in other words it at least presented an issue to Mises that could not be easily dismissed.


 Murray Rothbard, while never endorsing an LVT, thought LVT was a horrible idea and was incompatible with a free society.




> Your criticism that taxes can be so high as to drive out all economic activity is valid, but that is true with any system of government.  That is not a criticism of LVT, rather it is a criticism of social welfare programs and excessive government spending.


True.  It's nevertheless useful to remember or realize that the same factors that apply to other kinds of taxation apply to LVT.  The two I mentioned were: "you can only squeeze your host for so much or else he dies", and "all taxation is a drain on the economy".  By its nature, taxation transfers wealth from the economic class, society, to the political class, the state.  That is what LVT does.  Are you OK with that?  Do you think it's OK for that group of parasites we call the state to rob society?




> To the extent that government spends money for public purposes that benefit general welfare, an LVT closely mirrors what is achieved with simple user fees.


  Then why not just use user fees?  


> To the extent government engages in specific welfare, social welfare and the like, then an LVT does not achieve true fairness, because such spending is patently unfair anyway.   If we ever have a Geoist society, in my opinion, the idea of one man one vote is up for discussion.  Maybe the right to vote should only accrue to landowners in such a society.


  So then the landowners are paying for it all -- all these beneficial things -- and they are the ones deciding what to spend, managing the process, and keeping oversight on things.  I see the advantage to this, I see what you're saying, and it's the right idea.  But why not take it all the way?  Why set up a crazy monopolistic system with use of aggressive force as a primary mode of operation?  Why not just have landowners _voluntarily_ pay in order to obtain these various benefits for the general welfare?

Voluntary is good.  Aggression is bad.

----------


## Roy L

> Sometimes, in the course of our lives, there come times when we must use our brains in more than superficial ways.


When were you thinking of starting?



> "Middle Ages", mein spanker.  What was going on in the Middle Ages?


Oh, quite a lot of things:

The fragmentation and decay of the culminating political order, legal system  and culture of the ancient world, involving:

Loss of enormous intellectual capital, including art, science, literature, philosophy and technology, under an anarcho-capitalist feudal order that could never invest efficient amounts in education and so left it up to:

An international religious institution exercising considerable authority over putatively sovereign but actually weak secular powers that engaged in nearly constant warfare that made it difficult to counter:

A profound threat to that religious order from a rival, openly militaristic religious empire to the south and east, followed by another profound threat from militarized nomadic peoples in East Asia.

So basically a long period of poverty, ignorance and stagnation under feudalism, followed by:

Re-establishment of monarchic nation-state government alongside democratic city-state government, and a consequent economic and cultural revival stimulated by:

The Black Death, which by reducing population, dramatically reduced land rents and increased wages, leading to the re-establishment of an economically secure productive class for the first time in nearly 1000 years.



> This is not even a close call.


Correct.  There is no support whatever in that lecture for your claims of feudalism's economic virtues.  None.



> Not only does this lecture "support" my claims, my claims were _totally plagiarized from the lecture_!  Almost word for word in some cases![


Yet somehow, you have not identified any actual support for your claim.



> The lecture is the one making the claims at which you're screaming "liar, liar", and I'm just parroting those claims!  See 10:00-11:57.  When was it that Rome fell again, remind me?  And what system was it that Europe had after the fall of Rome?  Did it start with an "F"?


Relevance to your claim?

Thought not.



> See also 14:48-14:56 (Middle Ages), 15:50-17:00 (feudalism, feudalism, feudalism),


As I said: no support for your claim that feudalism caused an economic miracle.  Not too surprising, as it never had before, either.



> 27:30-29:05 (Middle Ages were not the Dark Ages),


Already refuted.  And the "Middle Ages" the lecture refers to were hardly the Dark Ages because the real an-cap feudal period of the Dark Ages was much earlier, in the fifth to ninth centuries.



> 32:00-32:58 (representative bodies back then were elected solely and only by the taxpaying property owners -- i.e. _landowners_ -- making them, of course, pure evil),


AT LEAST THEY WERE PAYING MOST OF THE TAXES, which unquestionably caused all the beneficial economic effects you have so hilariously claimed for feudalism.



> and on and on.


None of which supports your claim that feudalism produced some sort of economic miracle.



> The whole lecture is fantastic, in fact the whole lecture series is outstandingly erudite and illuminating.


That lecture, where it is true at all, does not support your claim.

----------


## Roy L

> It was already built.  It's already there.


No, you are just trying to pretend that because some factories already exist, and land already exists, the supply of land is no more fixed than the supply of factories.  That is fallacious and idiotic.



> Land's supply is not fixed by definition.


Already refuted many times.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> That lecture, where it is true at all, does not support your claim.


The lecture is _making_ the claim.  _Explicitly_.  The lecture is saying "feudalism made the modern world".  By saying that that is not what the lecture is saying, you are bizarrely mistaken.

You should instead furiously explain to us where Ralph Raico is wrong, where he is lying, and where he is evil.  You should tell us what a worthless human being he is.  You should not pretend that he is a human being with any virtues whatsoever who is _not_ arguing that feudalism had a lot of good points.  He clearly _is_ arguing that feudalism had a lot of good points.  Just concede that point.

----------


## Steven Douglas

The biggest problem I have with LVT is the same problem I have with property taxes in general: assuming the principle of LVT itself was unanimously accepted and adopted as valid by virtually everyone (setting aside the wills of tyrants, tyrannous oligarchies and tyrannous majorities), it takes an extremely presumptuous mindset to even come up with any formula that makes any sense whatsoever - not to mention that in both cases (LVT and property tax) there is a presumption regarding the very purpose of land (as it relates to individual survival only) - that land should only be occupied if its inhabitants continue to produce _for others_ not living on that land.  That, to me, is disgustingly presumptuous. 

Life itself can be said to be a "rental" - for absolutely all life forms - in that you must constantly exert energy to convert matter and energy just to live. Failure to do this will result in death (forced eviction from the body), which means that survival itself is already a naturally imposed "rental tax" - _on all life_. Those born into gilded cages of whatever size notwithstanding (i.e., the basic means for survival is inherited), add to that a completely artificial tax, one that declares, in essence, that you must not only convert the matter and energy required for your own survival, but even more of the same for the survival of unnamed others as 'restitution' for what they _might have been_ deprived of.  My first thought, beyond characterizing this as a classic parasitic relationship (mutually beneficial or otherwise), is, "Why?"  

It has even been proposed that there exists a "natural liberty right" to occupy the same space and time as another person.  Not the same Earth, or space within the same political boundary. The same space in the same time.  That is not only a physical impossibility, but one that presumes that there was no other space available to occupy - and thus, a concept that I could never recognize as anyone's individual right; and, by extension, certainly not the right of any collective.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No, you are just trying to pretend that because some factories already exist, and land already exists, the supply of land is no more fixed than the supply of factories.  That is fallacious and idiotic.


You should perhaps refrain from telling me what I think if you will not take the effort to understand my thought processes.  A factory being already built has no effect on the fixity or non-fixity of land.  It merely means the factory is already there.  Not a major point, not one, I think, from which any conclusions whatsoever can be drawn, but it is one on which you contradicted me.  I said a built factory is already there.  You said it is not.  I said again that it is.  You again say "no".  Your position is inexplicable.  A factory which has already been built has, umm, already been built.  Part of the nature of already being built is something we call "being there".  Existing.  An existing factory exists.  That's all I'm trying to say.  Can you admit that you were wrong when you wrote that an existing factory was not already there?




> Already refuted many times.


Already _asserted_ many times.  You have your definition, I have mine; you have your economists, I have mine.  Whose are better?  That would be mine.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> It has even been proposed that there exists a "natural liberty right" to occupy the same space and time as another person.


Really?  Who has proposed that?

----------


## Roy L

> Private property rights are the great problem solver in the world.


Only private property in products of labor solves any problems.  Private property in privilege just creates problems.



> For avoiding and resolving conflicts,


You might get an argument from Spartacus on that one, not to mention the victims, both rich and poor, of every revolution against propertied, plutocratic privilege.



> for efficiently allocating resources,


The refutation of that claim can be found on every long-vacant privately owned lot in every major city.



> for enabling division of labor,


I.e., for forcing the productive to labor for the unearned profit of unproductive owners of privileges like land titles, who consequently need not labor at all.



> for enabling wealth accumulation,


By unproductive privilege owners at the expense of producers....



> for respecting individual variation,


By setting Gunther the dog immovably above 99.999% of humanity:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...rich-list.html



> for making strong loving families possible,


By destroying the families of the landless working poor by relentless financial duress, you mean...



> for enabling human dignity,


But only for the privileged...  The soul-destroyed landless poor of Haiti, Pakistan, the Philippines, etc. don't have a lot of dignity.



> for enabling humans to even survive at all as opposed to starving wretchedly,


Millions of the landless poor starve wretchedly every year because of your evil propertarian creed -- an annual Holocaust of the landless.



> for all these triumphs and more, private property is one of the most sublime creations of the human mind.


But private property in anything but products of private labor is an abomination, and the greatest evil in the history of the world.



> When private property is allowed to be the operating principle over the realm of any resource or aspect of existence, triumph after triumph ensues.


For the privileged at the expense of the productive.



> Peace and harmony prevail.


Until the victims of propertied privilege can bear oppression and injustice no longer, and take up arms to oppose it.



> Order and civilization in ever-increasing beauty and complexity is built.


To be destroyed by the relentless increase of inequality and injustice that property in anything but products of labor inevitably brings.



> Men reach and achieve ever-loftier aspirations and ever-more-astonishing wealth -- wealth of all types, not mammon only.


Except that what you describe has happened perhaps most extravagantly in Hong Kong -- where there has been no private property in land for over 160 years.



> The LVT people seem to understand the salutatory effect of private property when applied to all aspects of existence... except for land.


No, it is rightly applied only to products of labor, not to people or natural resources.  Those are the three constituent classes of the physical universe, and property only rightly applies to one of them, because only property in that one does not violate others' rights.



> That is, except for the raw resources of the Universe.  Yet the raw resources of the Universe are all that we have to work with!


That is exactly correct: they are all we ALL have to work with.  So to deprive anyone of them without just compensation is flat-out murder.  You seek to rationalize and justify that murder.



> Everything that we have and everything that we know is either a raw resource of the universe, or a rearrangement of those resources to make them un-raw.  The resources are, then, in that sense, the bedrock for everything else, the whole human edifice.  To grant private property in the entire structure built upon that foundation, but to deny it in the foundation, is to build a house upon the sand.


No.  Rather, to make the foundation the property of some, so that they are legally entitled to take everything others contribute to the whole edifice, is to build a slave labor camp, and equip it with a sacrificial altar on which to lay the millions of annual human sacrifices that your Great God Property demands.



> We must apply the principle of private property to everything possible.


Only if we wish to be completely stupid and evil.  Your vicious propertarian creed holds that even government should be private property and serve only its owners, not the people.  It holds that even the earth, the oceans, the air we breathe should be private property, so that even the right to life is reduced to a commodity we must rent from our greedy, idle, privileged, evil propertied masters.



> Doing so creates boundaries of action, those boundaries create order, and order creates a noble, indeed a _human_, existence.


No.  Securing the equal human rights of all to life, liberty and peaceful enjoyment of the fruits of our labor creates boundaries of action, order, and a noble, human existence.



> To leave anything outside the domain of private property which we could conceivably incorporate into that domain, is to leave an outpost for barbarism and chaos.


That is nothing but despicable, evil bull$#!+.  Greed (unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money") is the root of all evil.  The propertarian religion enshrines greed -- evil -- as its only virtue, and takes theft and predation on one's fellows as its sacraments.

----------


## Roy L

> American government spending (including federal, state, and local) is now $6 trillion annually. Eliminate interest payments on the federal debt, and eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, and unemployment payments, and it's still $4 trillion. Eliminate the DOD too, and you're down to $3.3 trillion.
> But http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/.../msg00176.html points out that land rent today is only 5% of GNP.


No, it only reports a false CLAIM that land rent is only 5% of GDP.  Unfortunately, that claim is in the same category as the Fed report in 1993 that the aggregate value of all corporate-owned land in the USA was NEGATIVE.



> So land rent is only $730 billion. If this is a very inaccurate estimate, do you have a more accurate one?


The $730G figure is easily disproved.  It works out to only about $200/month per American.  People pay more land rent than that just for their dwellings.



> Or even if it's accurate, do you say that after LVT replaces all other major taxes, the LVT will take in much more than $730 billion?


It's known that other taxes tend to be shifted onto land because its supply is fixed, so abolishing them will tend to make use of land more economically advantageous -- i.e., it will increase land rents and thus potential LVT revenue.



> Or if you would supplement LVT with other major taxes, then which ones, and how much revenue do you expect from them?


The first line of taxation should always be privilege.  So in addition to land titles, we could and probably should tax mineral extraction rights, broadcast spectrum allocations, patents and copyrights, private banks' debt money creation (or replace private bank debt money with fiat money spent into circulation, with the seigniorage used as government revenue), and corporate limited liability.



> Or would you run a perpetual deficit, as we do now?


Government debt is an outrageous fraud scheme whereby working people have to give their money in taxes to government to spend, and don't get it back; but when rich people give their money to government to spend by lending it, they get it all back PLUS INTEREST.  AND, most of the government spending benefits the rich far more than working people.



> Or do you say that spending should be cut down from the current $6 trillion to $730 billion, and if so, then what percentage would you allocate to federal spending, and can you give a rough idea of what your federal budget would look like?


Much current government spending is undertaken in a foredoomed attempt to undo the damage unjust and harmful taxes do.  LVT would render that spending unnecessary.  The federal government should be half its current size, or less.



> If land is indeed a big enough factor in the economy, then the claim to the contrary should be the easiest of all anti-LVT arguments to refute, by simply giving some numbers.


Go to a real estate website for any large market.  realtor.com will do.  Compare the typical asking prices of SFD houses and SFD building lots.  That will tell you approximately how much of average housing cost goes just for land rent.  Dr Michael Hudson has estimated land rent is 20% of GDP, and that is probably in the ballpark.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No.  Securing the equal human rights of all to life, liberty and peaceful enjoyment of the fruits of our labor creates boundaries of action, order, and a noble, human existence.


 Aggregating all natural resources as the common heritage of all mankind tears down all boundaries for natural resources.  It makes them all an enormous collective blob, free to be used by anyone and everyone, and the utter unworkability of such a system necessitates a single predatory monopolistic institution called the State be called upon to wisely preside over the management and distribution of all natural resources as Gods upon Mount Olympus.  Or to wantonly burn, destroy, and dole it out to cronies.  Whichever works.  Whichever it feels like.  Thou shalt not question it.  Cause it's, like, the State, yo!  The State PWNS you all, peons, so get down on yo' knees and thank it that you alive today at all.

Of course, Roy, that's not fair of me.  The State would never pillage and burn.  It's proved itself over the centuries to be a totally awesome and responsible system of governance.  You've said it.  It must be true.  And if any heathen are expressing doubt, you invoke the word "Somalia" to them and that clinches it, as far as I'm concerned.  I think we can all agree that complete confidence is in order as the correct attitude toward the State.  The managers of the State will assume their Mt. Olympus role, they will rule in wisdom and equity, just as they have always done, just as they will always do.  Any doubting heathens should be burned at the stake.

----------


## MattButler

> Except for that they're not, because they can't afford the LVT.


C'mon Helmuth.  You know better than this.  If everyone is selling land and no one wants to own it then its value is ZERO and there is no tax to be paid.  The market is not going to allow that situation.  Buyers will be attracted and despite the LVT, no matter how high you set it, at some level there is a market clearing price.

----------


## jascott

> *I would* (honor somebody's claim to exclusively own the atmosphere).


Surely you don't really mean that? Ok, I claim to exclusively own the atmosphere. Stop breathing it! If you don't honor my claim, then why not? What do I have to do to get you to honor my claim?




> Lowering everyone's air pressure is obviously just an even bigger tort.


If you fail to build a fence around your land, and your dog runs onto my land, then you've violated my rights, not vice versa. And if my motion-detector-triggered shotguns kill your dog on my property, then I still haven't violated your rights.
If you fail to build a pressure dome over your land, and your air drifts onto my land, then you've violated my rights, not vice versa. I'm not stealing air from you, or spewing pollutant gases into your air; I'm compressing my own air on my own land, and you're dumping your air onto my land without my permission.
Why isn't this a valid analysis?

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## Steven Douglas

> Ok, I claim to exclusively own the atmosphere. Stop breathing it! If you don't honor my claim, then why not? What do I have to do to get you to honor my claim?


I own all snow. I want to go after ski lodges and such to collect, but I'm afraid somebody will sue me for all the avalanches caused by my snow. Haven't figured a way around that one yet, so I'm just biding my time for now.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Aggregating all natural resources as the common heritage of all mankind tears down all boundaries for natural resources.  It makes them all an enormous collective blob, free to be used by anyone and everyone, and the utter unworkability of such a system necessitates a single predatory monopolistic institution called the State be called upon to wisely preside over the management and distribution of all natural resources as Gods upon Mount Olympus.  Or to wantonly burn, destroy, and dole it out to cronies.  Whichever works.  Whichever it feels like.  Thou shalt not question it.  Cause it's, like, the State, yo!  The State PWNS you all, peons, so get down on yo' knees and thank it that you alive today at all.
> 
> Of course, Roy, that's not fair of me.  The State would never pillage and burn.  It's proved itself over the centuries to be a totally awesome and responsible system of governance.  You've said it.  It must be true.  And if any heathen are expressing doubt, you invoke the word "Somalia" to them and that clinches it, as far as I'm concerned.  I think we can all agree that complete confidence is in order as the correct attitude toward the State.  The managers of the State will assume their Mt. Olympus role, they will rule in wisdom and equity, just as they have always done, just as they will always do.  Any doubting heathens should be burned at the stake.


Thread winner!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Inevitably, you decided deliberately to lie about what I have plainly written.
> 
> *All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.*


Incorrect.  You simply justify theft by deeming it okay when the state does it.  You have it entirely backwards.  You have not described a natural law at all-just a figment of your imagination.  You are just an apologist for the Statists' lies.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> If you don't honor my claim, then why not?


 You haven't homesteaded it.  There's a lot of factors involved: existing occupants and users, sheer size of the claim, lack of any significant labor or improvement applied to the atmosphere by yourself, much less enough to justify such a large claim, and the lack of even any serious attempt to demarcate your claim (put up some equivalent of fence posts, perhaps "no trespassing" balloons, make an official notice to a respected land-claiming board, etc.).




> What do I have to do to get you to honor my claim?


 You would have to homestead it.  The atmosphere in your apartment, or in and around your house, you have homesteaded the "air rights" there, or someone before you did.  I respect that ownership.  That is why I would not blow tear gas into that part of the atmosphere.  Unless you did something to deserve it. 




> If you fail to build a fence around your land, and your dog runs onto my land, then you've violated my rights, not vice versa. And if my motion-detector-triggered shotguns kill your dog on my property, then I still haven't violated your rights.... Why isn't this a valid analysis?


 It depends -- are your laws open range or closed range?  Actually, it doesn't even depend on that, instead the important consideration is: are your _conventions_ (unofficial, bottom-up law) open range or closed range?

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academ.../Less_Law.html

In my mind, libertarianism doesn't have an absolute, a priori answer to whether you're aggressing by not fencing the cow/dog in, or he's aggressing by not fencing the cow/dog out.  Were you aggressing by being nude on your front porch last night, assaulting your neighbor's eyes, or was he aggressing by having his porch light on, bouncing his uninvited protons off your body by which he saw you in the first place?

Conventions arise.  People respect each other by honoring norms and boundaries established by the conventions.

And I'm pretty sure that having access to whatever air pressure existed on your property when you bought it is a well-established convention.  My pollution example parallels your pressure example perfectly.  The same principle applies.

----------


## idiom

"Land hoarders" lol.

----------


## MattButler

> If you fail to build a fence around your land, and your dog runs onto my land, then you've violated my rights, not vice versa. And if my motion-detector-triggered shotguns kill your dog on my property, then I still haven't violated your rights.


Yeah you have.  And if a child should somehow run onto your land and get blasted by that shotgun you are most certainly going to prison for a long time.  Your "Title" (snicker) to land does not give you unbridled permission to do anything you want on the land to people on the land.  Besides being sent to prison for murder, you are also going to have potentially large tort claims brought against you for knowingly creating a foreseeable risk and proximately causing damages.  Your pie in the sky theories about an unbridled right to murder or set booby traps for children or dogs that come on to your land will never be tolerated and have never been tolerated under any tradition of common law known by us.  Libertarianism is based on the non-aggression principle, which you clearly violate under these circumstances.

----------


## MattButler

> Aggregating all natural resources as the common heritage of all mankind tears down all boundaries for natural resources.  It makes them all an enormous collective blob, free to be used by anyone and everyone, and the utter unworkability of such a system...


The LVT position is that there is competition in the marketplace for ownership of land and control of resources and a single tax is to be assessed on the value of land to fund the general welfare of communities.  Period.  Your screed shows you've either understood nothing or now been reduced to intentionally distorting the other side's position.  The principle of LVT has been applied in many places throughout history.  Have you ever been to Fairhope Alabama?  Or Arden Delaware?  Pittsburgh, at various times, has applied the principle of LVT.  So did the borough of Manhattan, perhaps most prominently during the 1920's.  If we want to go really far back, Europe during most of the middle ages, renaissance, and even into the industrial era operated under a kind of LVT.  So we have an abundance of empirical evidence on our side, and it does not create a "collective blob" thats utterly unworkable.  That's nonsense.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The LVT position is that there is competition in the marketplace for ownership of land and control of resources and a single tax is to be assessed on the value of land to fund the general welfare of communities.  Period.  Your screed shows you've either understood nothing or now been reduced to intentionally distorting the other side's position.  The principle of LVT has been applied in many places throughout history.  Have you ever been to Fairhope Alabama?  Or Arden Delaware?  Pittsburgh, at various times, has applied the principle of LVT.  So did the borough of Manhattan, perhaps most prominently during the 1920's.  If we want to go really far back, Europe during most of the middle ages, renaissance, and even into the industrial era operated under a kind of LVT.  So we have an abundance of empirical evidence on our side, and it does not create a "collective blob" thats utterly unworkable.  That's nonsense.


Perhaps you should read entire sentences before responding to them.

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## Roy L

> Would you agree that the most practical way to accomplish this would be simply to pay a citizen's dividend, i.e. give each citizen a fixed (or revenue indexed) amount of money each year, paid for out of LVT revenue, and assess the LVT on all land without any exemptions?


It might be slightly simpler than extending an exemption but IMO would give greater motive and opportunity for fraud, and would not be as effective in reducing poverty and associated social problems as some people would just squander a dividend, and would then be a burden on society.  At least with the exemption they would have a place to live.  People have a right to liberty.  They don't have a right to free money.



> Then each citizen can choose to live on land whose annual LVT is the same as the citizen's dividend, in which case he's effectively exempt from taxation for his land, or he can choose to live on really cheap land, and be compensated by the difference between the citizen's dividend and the low LVT assessed for his land, or he can choose to live on expensive land, whose LVT is only partially covered by the citizen's dividend and he must pay the remainder out of his own pocket.


Right.  The two systems are effectively equivalent except for the people who choose to live on land cheaper than the exemption amount.  People who don't want to use the good land aren't being deprived of it, and therefore needn't be compensated for not having the liberty to use it.



> Suppose America were to switch to this system today; can you give a rough estimate of an appropriate citizen's dividend? $100? $1,000? Would you pay per citizen, or only per adult citizen?


About $100/month land tax exemption per resident citizen.



> Or did you have in mind some other mechanism which would be even more practical than this?


IMO an exemption would be more practical, because although it is a little more work to administer, it is less subject to fraud, and produces better results.

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## MattButler

> Perhaps you should read entire sentences before responding to them.


  The rest of your sentence says  "...[T]he utter unworkability of such a system necessitates a single predatory monopolistic institution called the State be called upon to wisely preside over the management and distribution of all natural resources as Gods upon Mount Olympus."

The statement is demonstrably untrue.  I have already demonstrated that its untrue, several times.  Let me demonstrate once more.  LVT merely taxes some portion of the market value of land.  It is capitalists and entrepreneurs who determine the value of land and its capitalists and entrepreneurs who determine the allocation of resources from owning that land.  Not the gods on mt. olympus.  Not the predatory monopolistic state.  We don't have bureacrats running around telling people what to do.  None of that.  The market sets the price of land and owners of land determine what they'll damn well fit do with the land.  If you can't pay the tax that is assessed on the land, perhaps someone more able than you to realize the HBU value should own the land.  Good.  Its as it should be.  "God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it..." Genesis 1:28.  The highest law of God commands a care-taking function for man on this earth.  You are not forgiven for any and all uses of the earth you may claim based on your prior ownership right.  The LVT puts this command of God into action.

----------


## Roy L

> Perhaps you should read entire sentences before responding to them.


Perhaps you should refrain from posting absurd lies you can't defend.

----------


## jascott

> You haven't homesteaded it.  There's a lot of factors involved: existing occupants and users, sheer size of the claim, lack of any significant labor or improvement applied to the atmosphere by yourself, much less enough to justify such a large claim, and the lack of even any serious attempt to demarcate your claim (put up some equivalent of fence posts, perhaps "no trespassing" balloons, make an official notice to a respected land-claiming board, etc.).


It certainly appears you're saying that, after all, you wouldn't recognize anybody's claim to exclusively own the atmosphere. The obstacles which you've presented can't be overcome.




> It depends -- are your laws open range or closed range?  Actually, it doesn't even depend on that, instead the important consideration is: are your _conventions_ (unofficial, bottom-up law) open range or closed range?
> 
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academ.../Less_Law.html
> 
> In my mind, libertarianism doesn't have an absolute, a priori answer to whether you're aggressing by not fencing the cow/dog in, or he's aggressing by not fencing the cow/dog out.  Were you aggressing by being nude on your front porch last night, assaulting your neighbor's eyes, or was he aggressing by having his porch light on, bouncing his uninvited protons off your body by which he saw you in the first place?
> 
> Conventions arise.  People respect each other by honoring norms and boundaries established by the conventions.


What happens when the unofficial, bottom-up law is broken, or when we don't even agree on what it is? What's the official law? If libertarianism doesn't have an answer, then where does the answer come from? Majority vote? In that case, if the question of whether I have the right to shoot your dog on my land will be determined by majority vote, then why not also determine by majority vote whether I have the right to work without paying income taxes, or the right to exclusively own/use land without paying LVT, or even the right to breathe, rather than dogmatically assert that I do or don't have such rights regardless of what the majority says?
This goes back to the question I asked earlier, in posts #710 and #711, which nobody replied to: what's the root of authority?

----------


## jascott

> Your "Title" (snicker) to land does not give you unbridled permission to do anything you want on the land to people on the land.


I agree (except for the snicker). I was presenting the argument as what I considered to be the logical consequence of absolute land ownership rights.

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## Roy L

> If there's more than enough LVT revenue to pay the government's expenses, do you lower the LVT rate so that revenue equals expenses, or do you maintain a high rate (e.g. 90% or 100% of assessed rental value), and distribute the excess as a citizen's dividend?


Or, better, an increased individual exemption for all resident citizens.



> It seems the geoist argument would require the latter choice, but in that case, if 55% of the citizens vote to spend all available revenue on the maximum possible military defensive capability, but the other 45% believe that Christ's command to "turn the other cheek" means literally that they must choose to suffer death rather than defend themselves, and they therefore object to spending any money on the military at all and would rather have the excess revenue distributed to them so that they can donate it to charities which build water purification plants in Africa, then doesn't this mean that the 55% is stealing from the 45%?


No, because the 45% would not have had that money in the absence of a government to recover it.



> Wouldn't the right thing to do be to distribute all of the LVT revenue to the citizens, then the 55% can donate their money to the military?


No, because the private market can't invest efficient amounts in public goods.



> It's true that the 45% will then receive defense for free because it isn't practical for the military to defend just the 55%, but this is the type of systemic imperfection which geoists themselves already accept; for example, the 55% could invest their own money to build an upscale shopping center, which increases the surrounding land rental values, which increases LVT revenue, which is distributed to all citizens equally (or used to pay for government services which benefit all citizens equally), not just to the 55% who paid to create the new value.


Government services do not benefit all citizens equally.  They benefit landowners exclusively.  That is the point, and provides another reason to provide everyone with an exemption rather than a dividend.



> Or I, as a private citizen, can openly carry a firearm while eating at a restaurant, and thereby prevent thieves from deciding to hold up the restaurant and its patrons, but the restaurant and patrons obviously don't owe me any money for this service.


Of course: you are a volunteer.



> Or, since science fiction sometimes becomes reality, let's consider a particular sci-fi future: man has been improved by genetic engineering. All of unimproved mankind has died out. Every man is now at least as virtuous as any man who had ever lived before. There's no murder, or theft, or any other crime, because nobody tries or even wants to do such things. Therefore there's no need for militaries, or police, or prisons. When there are disagreements about ownership and obligations, people hire other citizens at random to be arbiters, and losers cheerfully pay for winners' and arbiters' time. Roads are obsolete, because helicopters and blimps have replaced cars, buses, and trucks. Electric grids and natural gas distribution pipes are obsolete, because everybody has a small nuclear reactor buried in his back yard. Water and sewer pipes are obsolete, because everybody has a well and a septic tank. Government expenditures are zero; there's nothing to do. In this case, do we eliminate the LVT, or do we keep it at 90% or 100% and distribute all of the revenue as a citizen's dividend?


I suggest we'd have to wait and see what conditions are like on the ground.  As land rent is publicly created, it is rightly recovered for public purposes and benefit, whatever they might be.



> Can I prepay my geoist taxes/rent? Is there a limit to how far in advance I can prepay?


IMO there would be low-cost options for pre-payment for several years and a guarantee of GDP-indexed payments for many years, as a way to reduce risk for those proposing to make substantial investments in improvements.



> Can I prepay for the entire duration of the government's existence?


No.



> Let's say 500 years; that's a very optimistic estimate for any government.


Pre-payment would probably be limited to about 5 years, GDP-indexing to about 50 years.



> Then, surely I can sublease the land which I've lawfully rented, and can sell or give away the privilege of exclusive use which my rent money paid for.


Subject to the above time limits, yes.  Governments that presume to sell off the rights of future generations in return for current consideration are IMO thieves.



> In this case, how is prepayment of the tax any different from outright purchase of the land?


The time is quite limited, like a prepaid lease.



> If I'm not allowed to prepay, then what's the justification for the government refusing to accept from me today the money which I'll owe next year?


We don't know how much you will owe next year, and that uncertainty increases exponentially.



> It would make more sense for the government to accept the money, and earn interest on it, then use the principal next year for next year's operational expenses, and consider the interest to be a donation from me.


The persistence of land and increasing land rent are much more reliable than any interest payment.



> Or look at it another way: if an annual tax is better than an hourly tax due to lessened payment processing overhead, then isn't a semimillennial tax even better?


There is an optimal compromise between processing overhead and the uncertainty associated with long-term arrangements, as the history of 99-year leases proves.  For most purposes, a year is a good compromise.



> This also has the advantage of pacifying the anti-geoists, because they can then pretend that they own their land in practice after they've paid their taxes.


Anti-geoists do not want to pay what they owe at all.  Period.  They want to take from society and not have to repay what they take -- not later, and not now, either.



> People who can't afford to pay the semimillennial tax upfront have the option of annual installment payments, which the anti-geoists can pretend are mortgage payments.


Anti-geoists are capable of pretending many things.  Such as that they are making rational arguments.



> To avoid the controversy regarding land for which title of private ownership has already been granted, let's just talk about government-owned land (or for the geoists, land for which no privilege of exclusive private use has been granted yet) which the government is considering selling or renting out (or granting exclusive privilege for). On what basis would either the geoists or anti-geoists object to semimillennial lease/tax periods?


They would invalidly violate the rights of future generations in return for current consideration.  Only the future generations have a right to make such decisions regarding their rights.



> How should LVT be implemented in America? Presumably all other major taxes are eliminated. Do we keep the current structure of federal, state, and local governments, with each plot of land thus still in 2 or 3 jurisdictions simultaneously, and part of the tax money for that land is sent to each government? Does the federal government decide what portion to take, and the leftovers are for the state and local governments, or vice versa?


LVT is best suited to local government, as land cannot be moved to another jurisdiction to avoid the tax, and land value is highly dependent on the quality and spending of local government.  State governments could use LVT too, but a national government is more appropriately funded by the value of national-level programs such as issuance of currency, broadcast spectrum allocations, administration of use of coastal waters (including oil drilling), navigation and air traffic, patents and copyrights (if they are not abolished), etc. 



> Let's say that in the current system, I own a huge amount of land. I rent it all out to the highest bidders, and pocket 100% of the rent money. Tens of millions of dollars per year. I have no reason to sell any of the land, or change my profitable policy of renting it out to the highest bidders. Then, the nation institutes a 90% LVT, and abolishes all other taxes. What changes? The landless no longer directly bear the cost of government, and I only get to pocket 10% of the rent money, so I now make less profit, only millions of dollars per year. But I still have no reason to sell any of the land, or change my profitable policy of renting it out to the highest bidders. Other mega-landlords are in the same situation as I am, and don't change their behavior either. How is the LVT going to increase efficiency of land use, or cause any change in the ways that various plots of land are used?


You assume all land is now being used by the high bidders.  That is obviously false, as the thousands of vacant and under-used lots in every major American city prove.  Also, being relieved of the burden of taxation means the most productive will be able to bid more for use of the land.

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## Roy L

> What you and others call "land" would be much more appropriately called "natural resources" (which in your reply to helmuth_hubener you said would be a suitable term),


It's traditional in economics to call it land, and a lot of the classical sources use that term, so it might be confusing to change it.



> If I understand the geoist argument correctly, you're allowing outright ownership (following payment of a severance tax, and thereafter no ongoing tax) of _all_ matter, including the dirt and rock which comprises the surface of the crust of the Earth, and I can launch some of it into outer space as a private rocket ship after I pay the severance tax, but you're disallowing outright ownership only of _space_, including the space of the crust of the Earth, including the space of the hole from which I dug the material for my rocket ship.


No, what can be owned is the matter that has been removed from nature by labor, and is thus a product, not a natural resource.  The severance tax is for that conversion, which permanently eliminates the natural opportunity.



> Nearly all of the matter of the Earth is currently unowned, because nobody has paid the severance tax on it yet,


No, it's unowned because it is still where nature put it.



> and the matter which is available for sale (which isn't all of it) is available on a first-come-first-served basis.


No, only the matter no more than one person is willing to pay to extract is available on a first-come-first-served basis.  Everything more valuable than that goes to the high bidder, subject to severance tax.



> You also wrote that the LVT for the land on which an artificial island is located, "is typically going to be little or nothing, as it was underwater and NO ONE ELSE WANTED TO USE IT" (emphasis yours). But you wrote that in past tense: "wanted". Does the government-assessed rental value of land, and therefore the LVT levied by the government, change over time, according to the demand for usage of that land, or does the assessed rental value not change?


It definitely changes, but only as the unimproved value changes.



> What about 50 years from now, when the artificial island hosts a thriving metropolis; is the LVT still going to be little or nothing, even though the island's creator is earning huge rental income for use of space on the island?


Yes.  However, there are certain kinds of improvements that do not need maintenance, and become "part of the land."  In such cases, it might be simpler for the land tax authority to reimburse the improver for them, and then charge for them as if they were land.



> If you apply the LVT to the land occuped by artificial islands the same as to natural islands, and tax away all of the rental value including the portion of the rental value which exists due to the existence of the artificial island (or even just tax away 90% of the rental value, so that the creator is unable to earn a worthwhile return on his investment in his lifetime), and the creator happens to have no incentive for creating islands other than the prospect of future rental value, then doesn't this mean that your LVT prevents the production of wealth (artificial islands) which otherwise would be produced?
> On the other hand, if the assessed rental value doesn't change, then you're contradicting Henry George, who said that one of the purposes of the LVT is to prevent land speculation, in which somebody buys rural land at low value, holds it during development around it, then sells it as prime real estate.


The assessed value changes because the UNIMPROVED value of the land changes: i.e., the value the location would have if the artificial island were removed.  Whatever advantages the location has that stimulate production of the artificial island will probably increase over time.



> Of course, the answer to the question of whether the assessed rental value changes can't justly depend on the situation (buying cheap natural dry land and waiting for development around it, or investing to build an artificial island on wet land); either assessed rental value of _all_ land is subject to change over time, or _no_ assessed value is subject to change. And George's position was that it must be subject to change. You've said you aren't a Georgist, but is he right about this issue?


Yes, because the assessed value is still the UNIMPROVED value.



> Not only the creation of artificial islands, but also the draining of swamps, and even the building of houses (because their presence increases the value of the land on which they're located), are disincentivized by changing LVT. For any given plot of land, the disincentive can only be prevented by permanently setting the assessed rental value, so that the LVT doesn't increase as improvements on or in the vicinity of the plot are made.


The assessment changes as improvements are made in the vicinity, but not as they are made on that land, because it is the UNIMPROVED value that is being assessed.

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## helmuth_hubener

> The rest of your sentence says  "...[T]he utter unworkability of such a system necessitates a single predatory monopolistic institution called the State be called upon to wisely preside over the management and distribution of all natural resources as Gods upon Mount Olympus."
> 
> The statement is demonstrably untrue.  I have already demonstrated that its untrue, several times.  Let me demonstrate once more.  LVT merely taxes some portion of the market value of land.  It is capitalists and entrepreneurs who determine the value of land and its capitalists and entrepreneurs who determine the allocation of resources from owning that land.  Not the gods on mt. olympus.  Not the predatory monopolistic state.  We don't have bureacrats running around telling people what to do.  None of that.  The market sets the price of land and owners of land determine what they'll damn well fit do with the land.


 Who determines the tax?  Yeah, right, the market.  Who determines what the market determined?  Who determined to even determine the tax that way?  Who collects the tax?  To whom is it paid?

Oh yeah, I guess this is all just a free market capitalist extravaganza.  No State involved in a land value tax at all.

Except for... the whole entire thing.

Resources to which the collective has claim, that is, which are collectively owned, are a disaster.  So, Roy (and maybe you?) say we need to have the the state to step in with rules and legislation and an L.V.T. and everything is solved.

Why not instead allow it to all be divvied up, as humans tend to naturally do when they're intelligent?  What is the advantage to keeping it, theoretically, collectively owned, and have the State, in practical reality, have ultimate ownership (they collect the rent and have veto power)?

You know, Richard Cantillon started his book looking at this question of "what would happen if the whole country was owned by one landlord?" as well as a lot of other stuff about land.  He founded modern economics.  We should bring Cantillon into the discussion.  He had some good things to say.

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## Roy L

> The government would not only refuse to enforce the privilege, but also refuse to recognize the privilege? In that case, does the government consider the land to be unallocated (i.e. no privilege of exclusive use has been granted to anybody)? If I pay the ground rent which you failed to pay, and I find you and your family working in the field, and I evict you all at gunpoint, then should the government recognize and enforce my privilege (which I lawfully paid for) to exclude you from the land?
> 
> If government is going to recognize your privilege even though you fail to pay the tax, then what's your incentive to ever pay the tax, except during the intermittent times when you happen to need the government's assistance in defending your land against my attempts to invade it and evict you?
> 
> Suppose that neither you nor I pay the tax, and the government therefore refuses to enforce or recognize any privilege of exclusive use. In this case, the government recognizes _everybody's_ right to nonexclusive use. Does the government enforce this right? If you live on the land and plant crops in the field, but I use the field for dirtbike practice and damage the crops, does the government defend me against your attempts to unlawfully evict me from public land? Or arrest me for damaging your private property (your crops), even though you don't pay the government anything? Or does the government just ignore us and the land, and leave us to work out our own problems? In the latter case, does the government continue to ignore us even if one of us is killed during our gunfights, if we aren't bothering anybody else?


You make good points in this post, jascott.  IMO Matt's view that non-payers would not be evicted if someone were willing and able to pay for exclusive use of the site is highly problematical.  There is no way to allocate exclusive possession and use of land but by force, and that, according to George Washington, is what government is.  It is pointless to evade that fact.

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## helmuth_hubener

> No, because the private market can't invest efficient amounts in public goods.


 Is it still your position that roads are a public good?  Or are you willing to admit you were wrong when you wrote that?  Maybe you "misspoke" like our lovable buddy Herman Cain so often does.  Would you be willing to admit even that maybe you misspoke (miswrote)?

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## helmuth_hubener

I just thought I'd point out my fascinating position (it's total lie, of course, but still fascinating) that when you transform matter in some way, you have "removed it from nature" as the Georgist contingent phrases it.  Changing its location would be one transformation, one that passes muster under Roy L.'s Catechism.  But changing it without moving its location, as for instance tamping down the earth for a parking lot, that is a transformation, too.  The tamped earth is no longer in its original natural state.  It took quite a bit of capital and knowledge and labor to get to a point where you're steamrolling over dirt.  

Let's go further and say you make a traditional capital product, one that the LVT Pope would normally recognize as duly baptized into holy propertization.  Like a chainsaw.  But you make it without ever moving the resources from their original location.  What would be an example where that would be actually possible?  How about a statue carved in place right at the deposit of marble or whatever, such as, aha!: Mt. Rushmore or Crazy Horse?

My guess is that the Papal verdict that will issue shall be that the lando---r (cursed be his name, cursed be his name) may own the statue itself forever and ever, although if his LVT is ever overdue, he will need to move it to some other location.

If I have, indeed, correctly anticipated His Holiness's reasoning -- presumptuous of me I know, I shall smite myself for it and say ten Hail Henry's -- then it is appearing to turn out that the "land" which is being taxed under the One True Faith boils down to be locations on the Earth's surface.  It is all about space, not about matter.  You can own matter, any matter, so long as you shuffle it around.  Just move it somehow.  You're good to go then.  Your title then has been blessed by the Pope and is true and faithful.  But one can never, never, never own locations at the surface of the Earth.  Those be sacred.  They shall not be sullied by the profane hands of aspiring lando---rs.  Their pride and loftiness shall be thrust down just as Lucifer's.

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## MattButler

> You make good points in this post, jascott.  IMO Matt's view that non-payers would not be evicted if someone were willing and able to pay for exclusive use of the site is highly problematical.


Hey hold on there good buddy.  I may have written something haphazardly that led you to believe that, but that is not my view. Willingness and ability to pay the market clearing price determines right to exclusive possession.  And in such case mere users and homesteaders can be removed by the State.  Let me say as practical matter, perhaps in many areas of the country, there would be no privately owned land and no great competition to own land.  You would have a space for people to go that wanted no taxes and no State interference or basic services.  They could live very freely.  They would be isolated and there would be no real police protections for them out there.  No roads and such.  However, lets assume they had a small farm crop, and a citizen from an LVT community then came in and maliciously destroyed the crops, just to spite them.  What happens then?  Where does this anarchist individualist go?  May he sue the guy in tort for damages?  Should he be entitled to a hearing in the offenders own court of law?  I might argue Yes.  Despite the fact he pays no taxes to that community, does not even live there or in any way support that community, it might make sense to do this.  Reason is that the community does not want its citizens doing such things.  They risk alienating and infuriating the outsiders living in those places, who might then target citizens of the community.  By providing a forum to redress such grievances, the Court then seeks to discourage bad behavior by its own against outsiders. 

I think some people have this idea that all the land is being rented from the State.  I don't see it like this.  I take position that land is trading on the market of exchange and changing prices and so forth and prices and values are fairly transparent to the market.  The tax assessor's role is merely to determine that value and collect tax from the lawful owner.  I take position that it should be done once a year, no exceptions.  However several owners throughout the year may be apportioned their share of the tax for that year. 

Why do you think multi-year leases, such as a 5 year lease, would be necessary?

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## Roy L

> A man dying of thirst stumbles across an unlocked jeep loaded with an abundance of bottles of water. He reaches in to drink from a bottle when he hears a revolver being cocked behind his ear. "You have two choices," says Harry. "Die of thirst, or die by gunshot. And BTW if you choose the latter, I'll sue your heirs for the cost of the bullet." Dan, the dying man, chooses to do the honorable thing: refrain from trying to steal the water, and instead die of thirst, and save his heirs the cost of the bullet.
> You really claim Bottleowner Harry isn't violating Dan's rights?


I do.  Such behavior is very nasty, and there are probably laws against it in most places ("refusal of aid in an emergency" or some such), but Harry hasn't violated Thirsty's rights.  It's a bit like animal cruelty: such behavior is so nasty that we have laws against it even though it doesn't violate anyone's rights.  There was the recent case in China where a toddler was struck by two vehicles and passersby ignored her.  Did the passersby violate her rights?  I don't think so.  But their behavior was likely illegal, certainly disgraceful, and probably caused her death.  It just didn't violate her rights.



> If you deny that Bottleowner Harry is violating Dan's rights, then you must also claim that God doesn't exist, or at least that God didn't command that man is his brother's keeper (which certainly includes "give him a drink of water to save his life if you have an abundance"), or at least that man's laws, giving Harry unconditional ownership of (and therefore the right to keep) his bottled water, override God's laws, which require Harry to give water to Dan.


IMO man's laws, which depending on the jurisdiction probably require Harry to give Thirsty a drink, are more compassionate than nature's law, which gives Harry property in the water and no responsibility for Thirsty's predicament.



> If you acknowledge that God exists, then do you claim that he doesn't authorize man to own land (or at least to own land without paying LVT to a central government)? Or if he does authorize it, then does the basis for your denial of man's authority to own land lie outside the chain of authority stemming from God? In the latter case, are you really claiming that, although God exists, not all authority stems from him?


I doubt that it is fruitful to talk about God's role in this issue.



> To the athesists, I just ask: where does authority come from?


The facts.



> Majority vote?


That's just the way democratic institutions are controlled.



> Does all authority stem from one root, or are there multiple roots?


Depends what you mean by "authority."



> My point is that the stated disagreements of the participants in this thread might stem from disagreements about more fundamental, unstated premises.


Possibly.  I have demonstrated that Helmuth does not believe in the equal individual human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor, while I do.

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## Roy L

> *I would.*


And if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale, cheap.



> Everything that can be owned, should be owned.


Like the alphabet?  It would be trivial to make it into private property, sell it off to those who could afford to bid billions per letter, and then require those who use each letter to pay a royalty to its owners.  If you think that making the alphabet into private property would yield any kind of benefit to anyone but greedy, evil rent seekers, you are a fool.



> The owner of an orchard also owns the "air rights" to clean healthy air above his land (assuming it was clean and healthy when he bought the place).


But only by legal convention, a convention that could easily be altered to enable private appropriation of the atmosphere -- which you claim SHOULD be made into private property.



> If a new factory comes in and starts polluting the air and all his trees are dying, he can bring a tort, and force the factory to cease aggressing against his property, the air around his trees.


A tort?  Wouldn't that require a government that recognizes his right to use the earth's atmosphere even though he doesn't own it?



> Lowering everyone's air pressure is obviously just an even bigger tort.


But only against landowners, I assume...?

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## helmuth_hubener

> A tort?  Wouldn't that require a government that recognizes his right to use the earth's atmosphere even though he doesn't own it?


He does own it.  An air right is a property.  Just like a water right or a mineral right.

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## Roy L

> Of course it does.


No, it doesn't.  It only taxes _deprivation_ of resources imposed on others by initiation of force.



> I should have written "Both the resources used to build and also to maintain and operate them -- concrete and metal and whatever -- are taxed, back when they're in the ground, _because the value of those resources is a component of the land's value_."  But I didn't realize there'd be any confusion.


The confusion is yours.  As already explained, only the _rent_ of a resource is taxed, so LVT does not increase its cost.  Any rent not recovered by taxation will just be pocketed by the resource owner, and any resource that yields no rent can be used without paying any tax.  So in either event, LVT CANNOT increase the producer's cost.



> But is it not also undesirable for rich people of all and sundry types to "profit extraordinarily", according to the masses?  Why are the masses wrong, except for about... wait, do I say natural resources or land to you?  In what sense are you using "land"?


Answer MY arguments, not the arguments you claim I am making on behalf of the masses.



> Because in economic terminology, of course, the "resources" we were discussing earlier -- ore, concrete, etc. -- are land.


Concrete is a product of labor and therefore not land.  You know this.



> Except for that they're not, because they can't afford the LVT.


Yes, of course they can, because LVT can't exceed the market rent, and by definition the market rent is a price someone is willing to pay.



> Yes, and housing vagrants is probably not a very efficient or high-value use, is it?


It is if no one else wants to use the land enough to be willing to pay anything to use it.



> You're focusing on irrelevant details.


You're talking silly nonsense.



> I wrote that post in a parallel structure for a reason, to make it clear the parallels between factories and land.


And you failed.



> There's no philosophic difference between the matter and space we call "factory" and the matter and space we call (layman's) "land" that makes one ownable and one not.


Yes, of course there is: the fact that owning land violates others' rights, while owning a factory does not.



> They both consist of matter, which has been rearranged to an extent by man.


By definition, land has not been rearranged by man.



> They both occupy three-dimensional space.  The matter in both can, in theory, be moved.  They both should be ownable.


The matter in the land _HASN'T_ been moved, and is therefore _not_ rightly ownable.



> How does one measure such a thing?


By the degree to which it follows the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of sound tax design: "ability to pay" and "beneficiary pay."



> Is there a badness meter we can use to empirically prove or disprove your theory?


You could also refer to Smith's "Canons of Taxation," if you were interested in understanding anything about taxation.



> Some would say a low general tariff is the least bad.  Others would say a poll tax.


And they would be objectively wrong.



> Others, like myself, would say that the most important thing to realize about taxes, all taxes, is that they are nothing but an institutionalized crime -- extortion -- and must all be abolished.


It is _landowning_ that is an institutionalized crime -- extortion -- and must be abolished, as already proved:

_The Bandit

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?
_



> Murray Rothbard, while never endorsing an LVT, thought LVT was a horrible idea and was incompatible with a free society.


I have demolished Rothbard's anti-LVT "arguments" utterly.



> True.  It's nevertheless useful to remember or realize that the same factors that apply to other kinds of taxation apply to LVT.


No, they do not.  Unlike other taxes, a tax on the rent of a factor in fixed supply cannot, repeat, CANNOT have any excess burden -- i.e., it cannot make society poorer, only those who pay it (and others will be equivalently richer).  That is a fact of economics that has been known for 200 years.  It is merely a fact of economics that is not known to _you_, because you do not know any economics.



> The two I mentioned were: "you can only squeeze your host for so much or else he dies",


The full rent of land can be recovered by taxation, and economic activity -- production and exchange -- will not be impaired one iota.  It is only if government attempts to take MORE than the full rent, via a more than infinite ad valorem LVT rate, that harmful effects are possible; and government has no motive to impose a more than infinite rate, as that would only reduce revenue.



> and "all taxation is a drain on the economy".  By its nature, taxation transfers wealth from the economic class, society, to the political class, the state.  That is what LVT does.


It is the landowner who is the drain on the economy.  He is a pure parasite.  Government, by contrast, is a producer that provides services and infrastructure for which people are willing to pay -- willing to pay even landowners, who do not provide those services and infrastructure.



> Are you OK with that?  Do you think it's OK for that group of parasites we call the state to rob society?


It is _landowners_ who are parasites and rob society.  Land value is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes.



> Then why not just use user fees?


In most cases they are not efficient, as they discourage low-marginal-cost, high-marginal-benefit use.



> So then the landowners are paying for it all -- all these beneficial things -- and they are the ones deciding what to spend, managing the process, and keeping oversight on things.  I see the advantage to this, I see what you're saying, and it's the right idea.  But why not take it all the way?  Why set up a crazy monopolistic system with use of aggressive force as a primary mode of operation?


There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force.  It is impossible.



> Why not just have landowners _voluntarily_ pay in order to obtain these various benefits for the general welfare?


Once upon a time, all the taxes were paid by landowners, and only landowners could vote.  Problem is, the first thing those landowners voted for was to make someone else pay the taxes.



> Voluntary is good.  Aggression is bad.


How is initiating force to deprive someone of their liberty "voluntary"?  How is it not aggression?

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## Roy L

> He does own it.  An air right is a property.  Just like a water right or a mineral right.


He does not own the earth's atmosphere, stop lying.  What he owns is a bundle of rights defined by law, which includes use of the air that happens to be over his land.

----------


## Roy L

> The lecture is _making_ the claim.  _Explicitly_.  The lecture is saying "feudalism made the modern world".


It is saying no such thing.



> By saying that that is not what the lecture is saying, you are bizarrely mistaken.


Then let's see the quote where it says feudalism created an economic miracle.  I certainly didn't hear any such thing, and it is wildly implausible on economic grounds.



> You should instead furiously explain to us where Ralph Raico is wrong, where he is lying, and where he is evil.  You should tell us what a worthless human being he is.  You should not pretend that he is a human being with any virtues whatsoever who is _not_ arguing that feudalism had a lot of good points.  He clearly _is_ arguing that feudalism had a lot of good points.  Just concede that point.


<yawn>  Where does he say feudalism caused an economic miracle, unprecedented wealth production, blah, blah, blah?  Where?  He points out that the church, being international and recognized as higher than secular authority, acted as a check on the excesses of feudal rulers, which is certainly true.  He points out that democratic governance of independent towns and cities not covered by feudal regimes played a central role in the emergence of a more productive post-feudal economy, which is certainly true.  But for the most part, he is not even talking about feudalism, but about the emergence of post-feudal institutions.  If there were any actual quote in that lecture that supported your claims, you would have provided it by now.

----------


## Roy L

> I said a built factory is already there.  You said it is not.  I said again that it is.  You again say "no".  Your position is inexplicable.  A factory which has already been built has, umm, already been built.  Part of the nature of already being built is something we call "being there".  Existing.  An existing factory exists.  That's all I'm trying to say.  Can you admit that you were wrong when you wrote that an existing factory was not already there?


In that case, what you are offering is just an equivocation fallacy.  When I said the land is "already there," I meant that it was there before the owner, and was not contributed by the owner or anyone else.  You just want to use a different -- and completely irrelevant and uninformative -- sense of "already there" in order to remove my sense from the discussion.  Anything that is taxed is "already there" in your idiotic and deceitful sense of the term.  Income?  Not taxed unless it's "already there."  Sales?  Only taxable when they are "already there."  Capital gain?  Has to be "already there."

See how easily I prove your "arguments" are ridiculous and dishonest? 



> Already _asserted_ many times.  You have your definition, I have mine;


And yours is a fabrication designed to evade the facts.



> you have your economists, I have mine.


Please provide a quote from an economist who claims the supply of land is not fixed.



> Whose are better?  That would be mine.


If the goal is to evade the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality, that is.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The confusion is yours.  As already explained, only the _rent_ of a resource is taxed, so LVT does not increase its cost.  Any rent not recovered by taxation will just be pocketed by the resource owner, and any resource that yields no rent can be used without paying any tax.  So in either event, LVT CANNOT increase the producer's cost.


Well that's a lot of fine mumbo-jumbo, but it is not what Matt was saying.  It contradicts what Matt was saying.  His point was that the resources which built and maintain the factory have already been taxed by the LVT, so taxing the factory qua factory would then be a double-taxation.




> Answer MY arguments, not the arguments you claim I am making on behalf of the masses.


This wasn't your argument, it wasn't your post, and I did not claim you were making any argument on behalf of any known masses.  To the contrary, I would claim that you are _not_.




> Concrete is a product of labor and therefore not land.  You know this.


The stuff that makes concrete is land.  That's what I meant.




> Yes, of course they can, because LVT can't exceed the market rent, and by definition the market rent is a price someone is willing to pay.


Well, it _could_.  The State can set it at whatever it wants.  That's the great thing about being a State.  Of course it would be irrational for the State to do that.  The State does irrational things on occasion.

On frequent occasions.




> Yes, of course there is: the fact that owning land violates others' rights, while owning a factory does not.


I could just say that owning the factory violates humanity's rights.  I could make up some bogus reasons why this is the case -- wealth redistributionists do this all the time.  These reasons would be just as valid as your reasons that owning land violates others' rights: not at all.




> By definition, land has not been rearranged by man.


True.  I was saying that the land, by being rearranged -- e.g. tamped down -- has become non-land.  It's been delandified.




> The matter in the land _HASN'T_ been moved, and is therefore _not_ rightly ownable.


See my post 744.  The evidence is mounting that your definition of "land" is purely locational.




> You could also refer to Smith's "Canons of Taxation," if you were interested in understanding anything about taxation.


Smith was a moron.  Smith was wrong about almost everything.  To read anything more by Smith would be self-torture.  The guy was a fruitcake.





> It is _landowning_ that is an institutionalized crime -- extortion -- and must be abolished, as already proved:
> 
> _The Bandit_


 And, you proceed to prove it, such as you know how.  There is a key difference in the bandit, the tax collector, and the land-owner.  The landowner can be avoided by the merchants if they just buy up their own land and build a different road.  The bandit, by contrast, will just move to whatever road is being used.  The tax collector will also just move, or maybe just make it illegal to travel by any road but that one.  Only the landowner respects the property rights of the traveling merchants.  He does not force them to pass through his land.




> I have demolished Rothbard's anti-LVT "arguments" utterly.


You have not even read all of them.




> No, they do not.  Unlike other taxes, a tax on the rent of a factor in fixed supply cannot, repeat, CANNOT have any excess burden -- i.e., it cannot make society poorer, only those who pay it (and others will be equivalently richer).  That is a fact of economics that has been known for 200 years.  It is merely a fact of economics that is not known to _you_, because you do not know any economics.


Yes. they. do.  Yes. it. can.  Smith. was a. moron.




> It is the landowner who is the drain on the economy.  He is a pure parasite.  Government, by contrast, is a producer that provides services and infrastructure for which people are willing to pay -- willing to pay even landowners, who do not provide those services and infrastructure.


 Let me just repeat the same things over and over and over and maybe everyone's minds will be so numbed they'll agree with me via either induced vegetation or psychotic break.




> It is _landowners_ who are parasites and rob society.  Land value is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes.


 Society != the State.




> There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force.  It is impossible.


 Defensive force is OK.  Aggressive force is not.  Force of any kind is only needed if someone like yourself is trying to aggress and take land which is not his.  Then defensive force should indeed be used to repel him/you.




> Once upon a time, all the taxes were paid by landowners, and only landowners could vote.  Problem is, the first thing those landowners voted for was to make someone else pay the taxes.


 Like my iPod's stuck on replay, replay, replay, replay....

This is, of course, historically inaccurate.




> How is initiating force to deprive someone of their liberty "voluntary"?  How is it not aggression?


 It is.  But they don't have liberty to use everything in the Universe.  So when I deprive them of that make-believe liberty, I'm still good; still on the up-and-up.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Then let's see the quote where it says feudalism created an economic miracle.  I certainly didn't hear any such thing...If there were any actual quote in that lecture that supported your claims, you would have provided it by now.


Well you also claimed he never even used the word "feudalism".

I gave you the time markers.  One of them has your answer.  I'm not your transcriptionist.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You just want to use a different -- and completely irrelevant and uninformative -- sense of "already there"


It actually was pretty relevant.  It also happens to be "the sense" in which "already there" actually means "already there".  So, it's got that going for it.

----------


## SpiritOf1776_J4

The best tax is not a sales tax, but imposts and duties.  They are like sales taxes, but they are indirect since they aren't levied on specific people or purchases, nor inside the States themselves but imports.

This is how most of our taxes were raised before the income tax.  It's enough to pay for all of government.  It has the added advantages that most of the cost of a well running limited federal government is probably going to be defense, so it also ties taxes directly to what is causing the cost of government.  There is a lot of traditional arguments and historical basis for this - lost since the progressives took over and have been trying to establish taxes as a way to get rid of property...

Beyond that, I'd like to get rid of taxes altogether, and go to a truly voluntary system.

----------


## Roy L

> Incorrect.


No, I am quite correct.



> You simply justify theft by deeming it okay when the state does it.


No, that is simply another lie from you.  It is the landowner who is guilty of theft, as already proved, and it is YOU who attempt to justify that theft.  LVT REDRESSES that theft.  You are essentially saying that if a man steals a car, and the police recover it and return it to its rightful owner, then it is the state that is stealing, not the thief.  That is a stupid lie.



> You have it entirely backwards.


I have proved my statements are objectively correct.



> You have not described a natural law at all-just a figment of your imagination.


This whole thread demonstrates the validity of the law.  Every single poster who has tried to justify landowner privilege has lied.  Every single one.



> You are just an apologist for the Statists' lies.


I am not the one who claimed land is produced by labor.  I am not the one who claimed feudalism produced an economic miracle.  I am not the one who claimed that taking money and contributing nothing in return is productive labor.  Lying apologists for landowner privilege are.

----------


## Roy L

> It actually was pretty relevant.  It also happens to be "the sense" in which "already there" actually means "already there".


No, it is only one of them, stop lying.



> So, it's got that going for it.


It is a way for you to evade the relevant facts, so it's got that going for it.

----------


## Roy L

> The best tax is not a sales tax, but imposts and duties.  They are like sales taxes, but they are indirect since they aren't levied on specific people or purchases, nor inside the States themselves but imports.
> 
> This is how most of our taxes were raised before the income tax.


No, it isn't.  Most US taxes before income tax were levied on land and real property.



> It's enough to pay for all of government.


It was never enough, even when government was much smaller, and it impedes economic activity.



> It has the added advantages that most of the cost of a well running limited federal government is probably going to be defense, so it also ties taxes directly to what is causing the cost of government.


???  Nope.



> There is a lot of traditional arguments and historical basis for this - lost since the progressives took over and have been trying to establish taxes as a way to get rid of property...


Progressives want to get rid of privilege.  You just refuse to know the difference between property and privilege.

----------


## Roy L

> Well you also claimed he never even used the word "feudalism".


Post the quote, or admit you are a lying sack of $#!+.



> I gave you the time markers.  One of them has your answer.  I'm not your transcriptionist.


ROTFL!!!  You have been caught in another lie.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Post the quote, or admit you are a lying sack of $#!+.


"That is correct. The lecture said nothing whatever about feudalism being the cause of the European Miracle. Nothing."




> ROTFL!!!  You have been caught in another lie.


 My lie was to post a link.  And then I made another lie: claiming that the lecture talked about feudalism favorably as being on of the factors in the European Miracle.  And then I lied by posting some time ranges where he talked about feudalism and its virtues and its role in the Miracle.  And then I lied by not wanting to transcribe these sections for you.

I am happy to continue quibbling about this point, because I want as many people to listen to this lecture as possible.

http://mises.org/media/1263/The-European-Miracle

Once again, if you want to disagree with Ralph Raico, fine.  I would say you really have absolutely no choice but to disagree with Ralph Raico -- vehemently.  Unless you want to actually change your mind on something in light of new facts.  Which would be unprecedented and very surprising.

So disagree, by all means.  Tell us all about where the lecture is not true at all, which has got to be a lot of it -- the vast majority of it.  Tell us how Raico is a demon from the fiery pits of Mordor.  But this claim that Raico does not agree with me is just bizarre.  It's kooky.  I don't understand why you'd even make the claim.  It gives you no advantage in the debate.  And it's clearly contrary to reality.  Raico agrees with my historical summary of feudalism.  _My_ summary was nothing but a summary of _his_ summary.  Admit that you were wrong, please.  I'm sure you will, because you're classy that way.  Thank you!

----------


## Roy L

> The biggest problem I have with LVT is the same problem I have with property taxes in general: assuming the principle of LVT itself was unanimously accepted and adopted as valid by virtually everyone (setting aside the wills of tyrants, tyrannous oligarchies and tyrannous majorities), it takes an extremely presumptuous mindset to even come up with any formula that makes any sense whatsoever


What is so hard to understand about, "repay what you take?"



> - not to mention that in both cases (LVT and property tax) there is a presumption regarding the very purpose of land (as it relates to individual survival only) - that land should only be occupied if its inhabitants continue to produce _for others_ not living on that land.


That is something you made up.  It is no part of LVT.



> Life itself can be said to be a "rental" - for absolutely all life forms - in that you must constantly exert energy to convert matter and energy just to live. Failure to do this will result in death (forced eviction from the body), which means that survival itself is already a naturally imposed "rental tax" - _on all life_.


This is an attempt to change the subject by misusing words.



> Those born into gilded cages of whatever size notwithstanding (i.e., the basic means for survival is inherited), add to that a completely artificial tax, one that declares, in essence, that you must not only convert the matter and energy required for your own survival, but even more of the same for the survival of unnamed others as 'restitution' for what they _might have been_ deprived of.


They are unquestionably deprived of it, as value requires that at least two people be willing to pay for it.



> My first thought, beyond characterizing this as a classic parasitic relationship (mutually beneficial or otherwise),


The landowner is the parasite, as already proved.



> is, "Why?"


It is the only way to obtain liberty, justice and prosperity for all.



> It has even been proposed that there exists a "natural liberty right" to occupy the same space and time as another person.


Not by anyone here.

----------


## Roy L

> Aggregating all natural resources as the common heritage of all mankind tears down all boundaries for natural resources.


Meaningless garbage.



> It makes them all an enormous collective blob,


More meaningless garbage.



> free to be used by anyone and everyone,


That is self-evidently and indisputably their natural condition.



> and the utter unworkability of such a system


It worked for millions of years.



> necessitates a single predatory


The landowner is the predator who *kills millions of innocent people EVERY YEAR*.



> monopolistic institution called the State be called upon to wisely preside over the management and distribution of all natural resources as Gods upon Mount Olympus.


Stupid lie.  There is no way to allocate exclusive use of natural resources but by initiating force.  Democratic control of that force is the only way to prevent it from being exercised as tyranny.



> Or to wantonly burn, destroy, and dole it out to cronies.


Stupid lie.



> Whichever works.  Whichever it feels like.  Thou shalt not question it.  Cause it's, like, the State, yo!  The State PWNS you all, peons, so get down on yo' knees and thank it that you alive today at all.


Meaningless "meeza hatesa gubmint" shrieking and gibbering.



> Of course, Roy, that's not fair of me.


Nor honest nor rational.



> The State would never pillage and burn.  It's proved itself over the centuries to be a totally awesome and responsible system of governance.


Oh, no doubt it's the most horrible thing ever -- except for the alternative.



> You've said it.  It must be true.  And if any heathen are expressing doubt, you invoke the word "Somalia" to them and that clinches it, as far as I'm concerned.


There are other historical examples.  Somalia is just a current textbook example.



> I think we can all agree that complete confidence is in order as the correct attitude toward the State.  The managers of the State will assume their Mt. Olympus role, they will rule in wisdom and equity, just as they have always done, just as they will always do.  Any doubting heathens should be burned at the stake.


Stupid, "meeza hatesa gubmint" gibbering.

----------


## Roy L

> Thread winner!


Not surprisingly, you have chosen a spew of stupid, meaningless, dishonest garbage as your "thread winner."

Despicable.

----------


## Roy L

> "Land hoarders" lol.


Were you under the mistaken impression that you were saying something meaningful?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Not surprisingly, you have chosen a spew of stupid, meaningless, dishonest garbage as your "thread winner."
> 
> Despicable.


Not surprisingly, you claim it to be "a spew of stupid, meaningless, dishonest garbage" when in fact it is not.    Feel free to continue trolling.  You make me laugh.

----------


## Roy L

> "That is correct. The lecture said nothing whatever about feudalism being the cause of the European Miracle. Nothing."


Thank you for posting the conclusive proof that you are a lying sack of $#!+ who lied about what his source said, and then lied about what I said to cover up his lie about what his source said.

In post #754 you lied:

"Well you also claimed he never even used the word "feudalism"."

That was a flat-out LIE.  YOU *LIED*.

Always lying is what makes someone a lying sack of $#!+.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> My lie was to post a link.


Your lie was to claim that it supported your lie that feudalism created a European economic miracle of wealth production and prosperity.



> And then I made another lie: claiming that the lecture talked about feudalism favorably as being on of the factors in the European Miracle.


Correct, as you have proved you cannot support that claim.



> And then I lied by posting some time ranges where he talked about feudalism and its virtues and its role in the Miracle.


So now you admit that feudalism was merely the historical precursor to modern times, and not the cause.  Good.



> And then I lied by not wanting to transcribe these sections for you.


You lied because you claimed he said things he did not say.



> Once again, if you want to disagree with Ralph Raico, fine.  I would say you really have absolutely no choice but to disagree with Ralph Raico -- vehemently.


Raico didn't claim feudalism caused unprecedented prosperity and wealth creation.  You did.



> Unless you want to actually change your mind on something in light of new facts.  Which would be unprecedented and very surprising.


Look who's talking!



> But this claim that Raico does not agree with me is just bizarre.  It's kooky.


See above.  You deliberately lied about what I said, and I have proved it.  You also lied about what Raico said, and you continue to do so.



> I don't understand why you'd even make the claim.  It gives you no advantage in the debate.  And it's clearly contrary to reality.  Raico agrees with my historical summary of feudalism.


Lie.



> _My_ summary was nothing but a summary of _his_ summary.


Lie.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Originally posted by *Roy L*:
> It is the landowner who is the drain on the economy. He is a pure parasite. Government, by contrast, is a producer that provides services and infrastructure for which people are willing to pay -- willing to pay even landowners, who do not provide those services and infrastructure. 
> 
> It is landowners who are parasites and rob society.


LoL

----------


## Roy L

> You haven't homesteaded it.


Of course he has.  He homesteaded it according to his definition, just as you (falsely) claim people obtained rightful current titles to land by someone homesteading it in the past according to your definition.



> There's a lot of factors involved: existing occupants and users,


Please identify ANY private land title that you can prove is based on homesteading where there were no existing occupants or users.  ANY land title, ANYWHERE in the world.

Thought not.



> sheer size of the claim,


Most current land titles are based on absurdly large claims that could not possibly have been homesteaded in any meaningful sense.



> lack of any significant labor or improvement applied to the atmosphere by yourself,


Most current land titles are based on claims with similarly tenuous contributions of labor or improvements.



> much less enough to justify such a large claim, and the lack of even any serious attempt to demarcate your claim (put up some equivalent of fence posts, perhaps "no trespassing" balloons, make an official notice to a respected land-claiming board, etc.).


???  "An official notice to a respected land-claiming board"???  No!  No!!1!  It's the spawn of Satan, the State!  Run for your lives!



> You would have to homestead it.


And you get to define what counts as homesteading...?  How... convenient.



> Conventions arise.  People respect each other by honoring norms and boundaries established by the conventions.


Like slavery?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Thank you for posting the conclusive proof that you are a lying sack of $#!+ who lied about what his source said, and then lied about what I said to cover up his lie about what his source said.


 Ha, ha! :^D   And you don't even explain why it is you're saying that I lied.  Ahh, well: experiment successful.

The fact is, I misremembered.  I made an honest mistake.  I admit that I was wrong.  I take full responsibility for my actions.  My guilt does not even depend on what the definition of "is" is.  I was even good enough to post the quote that my misremembrance came from, which was sort of close, just to see what you would say.  And you were kind enough to oblige with a berserker rant ala Charlie Sheen-drill sergeant crossbreed.  I shall go to my LVT altar and say 10 Hail Henrys immediately.  Do you have the power to forgive me, Your Holiness?  




> Raico didn't claim feudalism caused unprecedented prosperity and wealth creation.  You did.


 Has anyone else listened to this lecture who can confirm I'm not going crazy or been dropped into an alternate Universe?  Raico claimed the exact same thing I did, to wit: the decentralization and balances on power achieved under Western feudalism were a major factor (there were other factors, too), probably _the_ major factor, which made the West what it became.  Any difference whatsoever between what I said and what he said would be due to imperfection in my paraphrasing.  

Listen and see for yourself: http://mises.org/media/1263/The-European-Miracle

Anyway, enough of that.

----------


## Roy L

> Who determines the tax?  Yeah, right, the market.  Who determines what the market determined?


Professionals hired for their skill at doing so.



> Who determined to even determine the tax that way?


All the good, wise and honest people.



> Who collects the tax?  To whom is it paid?


Government.



> Oh yeah, I guess this is all just a free market capitalist extravaganza.


It is not capitalist, as capitalism is inherently incompatible with a free market.  Capitalism requires private ownership of land, which is inherently a welfare subsidy to landowners.  There is no place for subsidies in a free market.



> No State involved in a land value tax at all.  Except for... the whole entire thing.


The state is involved.  No one denies it.  It's just that adults do not wet themselves whenever anyone mentions government or the state.



> Resources to which the collective has claim, that is, which are collectively owned, are a disaster.


Natural resources are not collectively owned under LVT, that is just a lie that you repeat no matter how many times it is proved a lie.  The rights to life and liberty -- i.e., to use what nature provided to sustain one's life -- are individual rights, not collective ones.  But only a collective institution -- government -- can possibly secure and reconcile those rights once fixed improvements to land become significant.  There is no other possible way.



> So, Roy (and maybe you?) say we need to have the the state to step in with rules and legislation and an L.V.T. and everything is solved.


More accurately, without it nothing can be solved.



> Why not instead allow it to all be divvied up, as humans tend to naturally do when they're intelligent?


Because whenever humans are intelligent, they understand that the rights of generations unborn cannot rightly be divvied up among those currently alive.



> What is the advantage to keeping it, theoretically, collectively owned, and have the State, in practical reality, have ultimate ownership (they collect the rent and have veto power)?


It permits achievement of liberty, justice, and thus a general prosperity.



> You know, Richard Cantillon started his book looking at this question of "what would happen if the whole country was owned by one landlord?" as well as a lot of other stuff about land.  He founded modern economics.  We should bring Cantillon into the discussion.  He had some good things to say.


Well, he WAS a highly successful economic parasite who made a large fortune through insider connections, land privilege and money issuance, without making any productive contribution.

----------


## Roy L

> Is it still your position that roads are a public good?  Or are you willing to admit you were wrong when you wrote that?


Roads have many characteristics of public goods, and certainly it is not possible for private interests to invest efficient amounts in them.  Which might be why they never have, in the whole history of the world.

----------


## jascott

> The assessment changes as improvements are made in the vicinity, but not as they are made on that land, because it is the UNIMPROVED value that is being assessed.


Now I'm thoroughly confused. Suppose there's a large area of unused, unimproved wilderness, far from any town. The scenery all around is nice. For exclusive use of two adjacent plots of land in the wilderness, each one square mile in size, I bid $1/year each. There are no other bids, and the government accepts my offer ($2/year is better than nothing). Next year, or whenever the next value reassessment is done, there are still no improvements anywhere in the wilderness, and the LVT remains at $1/year for each of my plots. Then, I build a town on plot #1. I rent out all of the buildings, and people come and pay a lot to rent them because there's now a town there with other nice people living there and everyday services are available, the scenery is nice, there are good nearby wilderness recreation opportunities, and the helicopter taxi service to the nearest cities is affordable (so we can ignore the complications of roads for this situation). There are still no improvements anywhere on plot #2, or anywhere else in the wilderness.
What happens next year, or whenever the next value reassessment is done? Improvements have been made in the vicinity of plot #2, so you say the assessed value of plot #2 should change. The LVT on it should now be a lot more than $1/year. But you say that the assessment for a plot of land does not change as improvements are made on it, so the assessment for plot #1 doesn't change, and the LVT on it remains at $1/year.
This is irrational. Did I misunderstand your argument?

----------


## Roy L

> I just thought I'd point out my fascinating position (it's total lie, of course, but still fascinating) that when you transform matter in some way, you have "removed it from nature" as the Georgist contingent phrases it.


Because it's true.



> Changing its location would be one transformation, one that passes muster under Roy L.'s Catechism.  But changing it without moving its location, as for instance tamping down the earth for a parking lot, that is a transformation, too.  The tamped earth is no longer in its original natural state.  It took quite a bit of capital and knowledge and labor to get to a point where you're steamrolling over dirt.


Tamping soil, plowing furrows, etc. produces a thin layer of improvement on a base of undisturbed land.



> Let's go further and say you make a traditional capital product, one that the LVT Pope would normally recognize as duly baptized into holy propertization.  Like a chainsaw.  But you make it without ever moving the resources from their original location.


That is self-evidently impossible.  You have again merely proved that there is no rational objection to LVT, so you must always resort to dishonesty and  absurdity.  ALWAYS.



> What would be an example where that would be actually possible?  How about a statue carved in place right at the deposit of marble or whatever, such as, aha!: Mt. Rushmore or Crazy Horse?


There would be a severance tax on the value of the depleted resource, plus the LVT on the value of the location the statue occupies.



> My guess is that the Papal verdict that will issue shall be that the lando---r (cursed be his name, cursed be his name) may own the statue itself forever and ever, although if his LVT is ever overdue, he will need to move it to some other location.


Or sell it to the more productive user who gets to use the site.  Right.



> If I have, indeed, correctly anticipated His Holiness's reasoning -- then it is appearing to turn out that the "land" which is being taxed under the One True Faith boils down to be locations on the Earth's surface.  It is all about space, not about matter.


Wrong.  Inevitably.  It is about the whole physical universe other than people and the products of their labor.  You are just trying to find ways to avoid knowing that fact.



> You can own matter, any matter, so long as you shuffle it around.  Just move it somehow.  You're good to go then.  Your title then has been blessed by the Pope and is true and faithful.


Objective fact, which you have to ignore.



> But one can never, never, never own locations at the surface of the Earth.  Those be sacred.  They shall not be sullied by the profane hands of aspiring lando---rs.  Their pride and loftiness shall be thrust down just as Lucifer's.


<yawn>  Locations can't be removed from nature.  Obviously.  So whenever anyone initiates force to exclude others from one, he is inherently violating their rights to liberty.  This is self-evident and indisputable.  All your nonsense is just you trying to avoid knowing that fact.

----------


## Roy L

> Why do you think multi-year leases, such as a 5 year lease, would be necessary?


Investors are risk averse, so total revenue would be increased by providing some certainty of costs for limited times.  Remember, one component of rent -- the economic advantage to the land user -- is security of tenure.  Tenure secure enough to support long-term investment is more valuable than insecure tenure subject to unpredictable economic changes.

----------


## jascott

> Depends what you mean by "authority."


One of the various definitions in the dictionary is that "authority" is synonymous with "power", but I reject that definition. Other definitions are closer to "right". For the sake of argument, let's say "authority" is synonymous with "right", in the sense of "individual human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor" as you put it.
I presume you agree that a right is different from power; it's possible to have the right to something without the power of it, e.g. the right to liberty without the power of liberty because somebody kidnaps you, and it's possible to have the power of something without the right to it, e.g. the power to kidnap somebody without the right to do it.
Currently, a lot of people agree that you have the right to property in the fruits of your labor. But let's suppose that some charismatic communist leader convinces everybody in the world, except you, to join The Collective. You're the sole holdout. They don't tolerate holdouts, so they simply vote that you don't have the right to property in the fruits of your labor. Do you still have that right, even though you've lost the majority vote? If so, then why? The answer of the theists (including the author and other signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence), of course, is "God said so" (with the next questions being how they know that, how they know that God even exists, etc). But as an atheist, you must have a different reason. "It's a self-evident fact" also doesn't work in this case, because it would be self-evident only to you; everybody else has joined The Collective. BTW please don't say that deep down, they know the truth, but they merely decided deliberately to lie about it; that may be true, but it doesn't answer the question.

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## Roy L

> Well that's a lot of fine mumbo-jumbo,


Translation: facts of objective reality that prove you wrong.



> but it is not what Matt was saying.  It contradicts what Matt was saying.  His point was that the resources which built and maintain the factory have already been taxed by the LVT, so taxing the factory qua factory would then be a double-taxation.


I don't recall Matt saying resources would be taxed except insofar as they yield unearned, publicly created rent to their owners, but if he did, he was wrong.  If someone can build a factory with resources no one else wants enough to be willing to pay for access to, he can build it without paying any tax, and own and operate it without paying any tax.



> The stuff that makes concrete is land.


No, what makes concrete is labor.  There is no land in concrete any more than in a chainsaw.



> That's what I meant.


No, you were obviously just lying.  Again.



> Well, it _could_.


No, it can't, because land value approaches zero as the rate approaches infinity and the tax amount approaches the market rent.  Because of that fact, LVT CANNOT be made excessive.  It can't be made to extract more from the landowner than he rightly owes for what he takes from society.  The only way to make the land tax amount greater than the market rent is to stop taxing land value and tax by something else -- in which case the state risks forcing abandonment of the land and declining revenue.



> The State can set it at whatever it wants.  That's the great thing about being a State.  Of course it would be irrational for the State to do that.  The State does irrational things on occasion.


It's more than irrational: it's not LVT.  So your "objection" to LVT is that it might not be LVT.

And you call the state irrational....



> I could just say that owning the factory violates humanity's rights.


But you would be lying.  But I repeat myself.



> I could make up some bogus reasons why this is the case -- wealth redistributionists do this all the time.  These reasons would be just as valid as your reasons that owning land violates others' rights: not at all.


No, that's plainly a lie, as already proved.  It is self-evident and indisputable that others would be at liberty to use the land if the landowner did not initiate force against them.  He therefore forcibly deprives them of liberty they would otherwise have.  By contrast, they would *not* otherwise be at liberty to use the factory, because it was not already there.  The owner or a previous owner had to create it.  The landowner did not create the land, and neither did any previous owner.  All your bull$#!+ cannot make that fact disappear.



> True.  I was saying that the land, by being rearranged -- e.g. tamped down -- has become non-land.  It's been delandified.


Only the rearranged soil has been removed from nature, not the land under it.



> The evidence is mounting that your definition of "land" is purely locational.


The evidence has long been conclusive that you have nothing to offer but lies, strawmen, name calling, lies, equivocations, fallacies, lies, absurdities and lies.



> Smith was a moron.  Smith was wrong about almost everything.  To read anything more by Smith would be self-torture.  The guy was a fruitcake.


LOL!  So says the guy who has claimed, "natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence," "feudalism created an economic miracle of prosperity," "a chainsaw contains raw matter," "a million dollars a year doesn't make up for even an hour a week of compulsory labor," and too many other idiotic howlers to mention.

It is not Smith who was a moron, sunshine.  It is not Smith who was wrong about almost everything.  It is not Smith whom it would be self-torture to read even one more word by.  It is not Smith who is a fruitcake.

It's you.



> And, you proceed to prove it, such as you know how.  There is a key difference in the bandit, the tax collector, and the land-owner.


No, there is not.  They are all parasites.  And you know it.



> The landowner can be avoided by the merchants if they just buy up their own land and build a different road.


I.e., by shouldering a greater cost than the rent the bandit charges in his officially approved landowner incarnation.  But that was always an option, even when he was a bandit.  That is why he didn't take so much that they would be scared off.  Remember?  I explained that specifically.  That is always the way with land rent and other forms of rent-seeking banditry: it is determined by the economic advantage the user obtains.  So in fact the option of avoiding the landowner is only a theoretical one, just like the option of avoiding the bandit by taking a costlier route: it's not economically feasible.  Contrary to your claim, the bandit will *not* pursue the caravans to a different route, because it's not worth it, any more than it is worth it for him as landowner to buy the land along another route the caravans won't take.  He already adjusts his take so that the merchants keep using his route.  That is how landowning and banditry work.



> The bandit, by contrast, will just move to whatever road is being used.


There is no other road, because the competing routes are not worth taking.  That is already known, because the bandit adjusts his take to make his route the most attractive, just like the landowner doesn't try to take more than the market rent, which is DEFINED BY the competing alternatives.



> The tax collector will also just move, or maybe just make it illegal to travel by any road but that one.


The toll collector won't move because the caravans won't move.  The toll is set at an amount low enough to keep them coming.



> Only the landowner respects the property rights of the traveling merchants.


No, that's just a flat-out lie.  He robs them of their property just as surely as the bandit does.  It makes absolutely no difference to them that he has a piece of paper legally entitling him to take the loot (except that if they are gullible, brainwashed fools, they might actually imagine it does entitle him to take it).



> He does not force them to pass through his land.


ROTFL!!!

Neither does the bandit, sunshine.  Neither does the bandit.  Just like the landowner, he simply appropriates the value government, the community and nature provide.



> You have not even read all of them.


Yes, I have.



> Yes. they. do.


No, they do not.



> Yes. it. can.


No, it cannot.



> Smith. was a. moron.


Speaking of morons (and economic ignorami), the Law of Rent was discovered by Ricardo, not Smith.  And like Smith, Ricardo was orders of magnitude more intelligent and economically literate than you.



> Society != the State.


But no one has a better claim to act on society's behalf:

"... to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."



> Defensive force is OK.  Aggressive force is not.


Initiating force to deprive people of their liberty is aggressive.  That is exactly what the landowner does.



> Force of any kind is only needed if someone like yourself is trying to aggress and take land which is not his.


It is the landowner who commits aggression, and takes land that is not his.  Your cargo-cult chanting of incantations ("presenting an official claim to a recognized land office, blah, blah, blah...") certainly can't make it his.



> Then defensive force should indeed be used to repel him/you.


Initiation of force to deprive people of the exercise of their rights to liberty is not defensive.



> This is, of course, historically inaccurate.


It is very accurate.  In fact, it is exactly what happened when the Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution.



> It is.  But they don't have liberty to use everything in the Universe.


Everything nature provided, they most certainly do.  What would stop them, other than a vicious, evil, greedy parasite like you initiating force against them?



> So when I deprive them of that make-believe liberty, I'm still good; still on the up-and-up.


No, you are a despicable, evil, greedy, thieving, murdering, vicious parasite.

----------


## Roy L

> LoL


heavenlybody will be along momentarily to crown that the thread winner...

----------


## Roy L

> Now I'm thoroughly confused. Suppose there's a large area of unused, unimproved wilderness, far from any town. The scenery all around is nice. For exclusive use of two adjacent plots of land in the wilderness, each one square mile in size, I bid $1/year each. There are no other bids, and the government accepts my offer ($2/year is better than nothing). Next year, or whenever the next value reassessment is done, there are still no improvements anywhere in the wilderness, and the LVT remains at $1/year for each of my plots. Then, I build a town on plot #1. I rent out all of the buildings, and people come and pay a lot to rent them because there's now a town there with other nice people living there and everyday services are available, the scenery is nice, there are good nearby wilderness recreation opportunities, and the helicopter taxi service to the nearest cities is affordable (so we can ignore the complications of roads for this situation). There are still no improvements anywhere on plot #2, or anywhere else in the wilderness.
> What happens next year, or whenever the next value reassessment is done? Improvements have been made in the vicinity of plot #2, so you say the assessed value of plot #2 should change. The LVT on it should now be a lot more than $1/year. But you say that the assessment for a plot of land does not change as improvements are made on it, so the assessment for plot #1 doesn't change, and the LVT on it remains at $1/year.
> This is irrational.


Yes, building a town on one plot and nothing on an equivalent adjacent plot is irrational.



> Did I misunderstand your argument?


No, that's correct.

----------


## Roy L

> For the sake of argument, let's say "authority" is synonymous with "right", in the sense of "individual human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor" as you put it.


So you speak of moral authority.  OK.



> Currently, a lot of people agree that you have the right to property in the fruits of your labor. But let's suppose that some charismatic communist leader convinces everybody in the world, except you, to join The Collective. You're the sole holdout. They don't tolerate holdouts, so they simply vote that you don't have the right to property in the fruits of your labor. Do you still have that right, even though you've lost the majority vote? If so, then why?


Rights are of three types: legal rights, which are of no interest because they can be changed by fiat; practical rights, which are the rights one actually enjoys in society; and natural rights, which would be our practical rights in a society of wise and good people with a wise and good government.  In your scenario, my legal and practical property rights would be gone, but my natural property right would remain.



> But as an atheist, you must have a different reason. "It's a self-evident fact" also doesn't work in this case, because it would be self-evident only to you; everybody else has joined The Collective. BTW please don't say that deep down, they know the truth, but they merely decided deliberately to lie about it; that may be true, but it doesn't answer the question.


It is not self-evident, but natural rights are indeed based on fact and logic, not popular opinion, legal opinion, divine revelation or the mode of production.  Rights are in principle empirically discoverable: they are the constraints on individual action that foster the healthiest and most prosperous society -- i.e., the society that will out-compete all others in the arena of evolution.

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## jascott

> Rights are in principle empirically discoverable: they are the constraints on individual action that foster the healthiest and most prosperous society -- i.e., the society that will out-compete all others in the arena of evolution.


Suppose that communism, with no individual legal right to property in the fruit of one's labor, actually resulted in healthier people, more material prosperity, and greater evolutionary competitive advantage than a free market with individual legal right to such property does; in that case, would you say that individuals don't have the natural right to such property?

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## jascott

> No, that's correct.


Ok, let's change the scenario slightly. Instead of bidding for two plots of land, I only bid for one plot, and its size is ten miles square. The LVT is something trivial, maybe even still just $1/year. Then I build the town in the center of the land. I collect and pocket all the rent. I even sublease unimproved land within my plot, and pocket the rent money, which will be a lot, due to the proximity to the town. The LVT never goes above my initial token bid, because none of the wilderness outside my plot of land is ever improved, because the only people who want to develop anything in this area want to be within my town, or at least within a mile or two of it (which is still on my plot of land). My town is the magnet; without it, nobody wanted to build in this wilderness.
Now it's true that I had to make an initial investment to build the town, so it's reasonable that the created value belongs to me. But that was just seed money; now I'm pocketing rent money which is due to land values caused by the work of other people, including their improvement of unimproved land which I'm subleasing to them. Other than my token LVT payments, haven't I effectively become the parasitic landlord and land speculator which your system is supposed to prevent?

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## jascott

> He robs them of their property just as surely as the bandit does. It makes absolutely no difference to them that he has a piece of paper legally entitling him to take the loot


Consider a mountain pass which is occasionally used by caravans, within a single country (to avoid international complications). There are no man-made improvements. Nobody has requested privilege of exclusive use, so nobody pays LVT for it. Caravans pass for free, though they would be willing to pay a large amount of money if necessary.
Now, I offer the government $1/year for exclusive privilege. Of course, assuming the government accepts my bid, it'll open an auction, and grant privilege to the highest bidder. But how does the government decide whether to do the auction, or to reject my bid and leave the land open to public use for free? Does some bureaucrat or judge make the decision? Or is all public land (or at least all public unimproved land, so man-made roads are excluded) unconditionally up for auction?
Assuming the auction proceeds, the land will be bid up nearly to the price which the bidders expect the caravans are willing to pay for passage, i.e. so the annual LVT will be slightly under the annual caravan payments, with the difference going to pay for toll collection costs, and some profit for bothering with the whole enterprise. This could be done with any unimproved public land anywhere, which any entrepreneuring wannabe-landlord thinks anybody would be willing to pay to access.

What do you do about this? Do you allow me, as the winning bidder, to be a perpetual leech, profiting by fleecing the caravans? Suppose I don't publish the price for passage, and before telling approaching caravans what the price is, I require their signature on a nondisclosure agreement. I also announce that I'll refuse passage to anybody who has ever publicly announced, or revealed directly or indirectly to the government, what he would be willing to pay for passage, and prior to passage I require a signed oath that no such disclosure has ever been made (he could merely decide deliberately to lie about it, but let's be optimistic and assume he won't). I set the price to maximize my profits. Some approaching caravans will turn back rather than pay, after learning what my price is, but I earn money from the rest. Now the government knows only how much I initially guessed the mountain pass is worth, but doesn't know how much I've experimentally determined it to actually be worth. Since the government doesn't tax my sales or income, it can't learn the value of the pass that way either. The next time the government reassesses the value, how does it do it? It doesn't have the necessary information. Yet if it leaves the assessed value unchanged, then I get to remain a permanent parasite. If the assessor decides that my business model is parasitic, and raises the assessed value extremely high so that the LVT will be far beyond what I could possibly be earning, so that I'll be forced to relinquish my exclusive privilege and go out of business, then that causes a chilling effect throughout the economy; how will even legitimate business owners, especially ones who publicly speak against the assessor's judgment, know that they'll be safe from the assessor's wrath?

Suppose that the assessor somehow gets the valuation exactly right, so that my profit is exactly zero. Even in this case, I would still choose to keep the privilege, even though I'm earning no money from it, because I'm causing an increase in government revenue, and it doesn't cost me anything. Since there's no need for government services at the mountain pass, the increased revenue is spent on improved government services elsewhere, including the town where I live. Thus, I'm benefiting for free at the expense of the caravans, who would be able to use the pass for free if I weren't interfering.

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## Steven Douglas

> It is the landowner who is guilty of theft, as already proved...


I saw a lot of passionate assertions, and the rationale for those assertions, but I must have missed the part where "guilt" and "theft" were actually proved. 

One thing I have noticed, Roy, in reading through your responses throughout this entire thread, is that you are answering in earnest, quite honestly - albeit using your own set of definitions for nearly every word, every concept, every term employed. 

Here is but one example:

"...whenever humans are intelligent, they understand that the rights of generations unborn cannot rightly be divvied up among those currently alive."

From that I can get a rough idea of your definition of the word intelligent (and its implied opposite by contrast, based on a specific understanding, as outlined by you). 

I can only understand and interpret your definitions, the intending meanings of which seem to be unique to you (i.e., "free market", "good", "honest", "wise", "theft", etc.,) only by weighing them as circular references within the contexts in which you have used them.  Likewise, when you "refute" what someone else is saying, you are weighing their words, not by their definitions or intended meanings, but by those same definitions which seem to be unique to you.  

As such, your responses seem more like edicts than arguments; not "normative" (stating the way you believe things should/ought to be), but positive assertions, as you argue from your own premises, as if your understanding of things is the way things actually are (and they really are, albeit in your own mind, as you have decided and declared), all deviations from which are the abnormalities, the lies, etc.,. 

I don't know how we "get there from here", or how any of these discussions can have any meaning whatsoever, without at least a common definition of terms - without circular references of any kind.

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## helmuth_hubener

By the way, Matt, I wish that when you popped in you would reply to the actually interesting posts, instead of nitpicking about boring stuff.

This post in particular was a reply to you, and I am still waiting for a response to it:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3698271

Particularly this part:




> I think it is wrong of you to call it pressure. Incentive maybe, yes, but not pressure. As for calling it theft, I think that is unfair.


I think that land is a legitimate subject of ownership, so it is unavoidable for me to believe taxing it would be theft. Just so, you would believe that taxing me for using a computer would be theft, I think.



> This is not an uncompensated taking of land.


I have lower standard of theft than that: involuntary taking is theft, compensated or not. One man's "need" doesn't cancel another man's right. I don't agree with so-called eminent domain. Do you?



> If the tax is high and the farmer cant afford it there is good reason. We can assume there are a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price for the land. The owner is lucky to be in such a position! With the money earned he can double his acreage at a different site and farm even more.


True. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. *But neither would it be the worst thing if you had this same set-up for capital goods. You charge a CVT (capital value tax) on capital goods, determined based on assessors, market prices, and some sophisticated computer model Roy L. has. Just like LVT. The owners of injection molds and CNC lathes would then pay an annual tax. Normally, as long as they were putting them to reasonably good use they'd be able to afford the tax. If the tax is high and the factory can't afford the tax, there is some reason. We can assume there are many buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price of the machines. Perhaps society needs every available unit of a specialized machine the factory has, in order to produce the new iPhone which is in a desperate shortage. The owner is lucky to be in such a position! With the money, he can buy even better machines and twice as many, and manufacture to his heart's delight.

But if you believe in an absolute property right in capital goods, such a CVT would still be theft.*

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> LoL


+10000  lololololololol!!!!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> If the tax is high and the farmer can’t afford it there is good reason. We can assume there are a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price for the land. The owner is lucky to be in such a position! With the money earned he can double his acreage at a different site and farm even more.


Regardless of the size of the tax, without such a tax "a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price" - that would have been the same position the farmer was in anyway. And if he's not selling, despite this long, wonderful line of buyers willing to pay more (a position someone standing on the outside might insist he should feel lucky about!), there must also be good reason for that as well -- a reason that isn't even speculated, let alone regarded as somehow important.  

A similar problem shows up here:




> We can assume there are many buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price of the machines. Perhaps society needs every available unit of a specialized machine the factory has, in order to produce the new iPhone which is in a desperate shortage.


This is a good example, actually, because when Apple releases any of its iPhones, nobody really knows the answer to the real-world demand - including Apple or any other megacorp with its geniuses making market projections - until the consumers actual vote. With their pocketbooks only. Individually. That is the only way we can know, which also makes the concept of "aggregate demand", and all projections based on such, worse than a very bad joke. 

And I also agree: LVT or CVT, when levied on individuals, it's all a form of theft. Where I differ in principle, and agree completely with Roy, is on how it could apply to collectives only (as a matter of privilege and not right). An LVT or CVT on corporations and other strictly commercial collectives - that's a check and balance and potentially huge advantage for individuals, should any collective be taxed out of existence.  Which they can be. I wouldn't consider that theft at all. All collectives should consider themselves lucky and privileged to be in the position to operate alongside individuals, who exist and produce as a matter of absolute right.

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## helmuth_hubener

> Regardless of the size of the tax, without such a tax "a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price" - that would have been the same position the farmer was in anyway. And if he's not selling, despite this long, wonderful line of buyers willing to pay more (a position someone standing on the outside might insist he should feel lucky about!), there must also be good reason for that as well -- a reason that isn't even speculated, let alone regarded as somehow important.


On the practical end, it's the double-whammy I was talking about in post #650.  As you say, Steven, they already have incentive to sell, because they could make a lot of money doing so.  Giving them further incentive to sell by taxing them just throws things out of balance.

On the moral end, yes, you've got it here too, Steven: he doesn't want to sell.  That should be the end of the argument.  For whatever reason, it does not matter: he does not want to sell.  We need to respect other people's wishes when it comes to their property.  That desire not to sell is part of the market.  By thwarting it, we thwart the market, and we then no longer have a free market.




> This is a good example, actually, because when Apple releases any of its iPhones, nobody really knows the answer to the real-world demand - including Apple or any other megacorp with its geniuses making market projections - until the consumers actual vote. With their pocketbooks only. Individually. That is the only way we can know, which also makes the concept of "aggregate demand", and all projections based on such, worse than a very bad joke.


 Right.  The factory owner's dissenting opinion is also part of the market.  He may think iPhones are a passing fad and he'd rather keep making Beanie Baby accessories because he's convinced they're going to make a comeback and make him a fortune to dwarf what he could get by selling out to Apple.  The CVT says, "Nope, give it.  Society knows what's best.  Our assessors know what's best.  And what's best ain't you, pal.  It ain't you."  The LVT says the same thing, but with natural resources.




> And I also agree: LVT or CVT, when levied on individuals, it's all a form of theft. Where I differ in principle, and agree completely with Roy, is on how it could apply to collectives only (as a matter of privilege and not right). An LVT or CVT on corporations and other strictly commercial collectives - that's a check and balance and potentially huge advantage for individuals, should any collective be taxed out of existence.  Which they can be. I wouldn't consider that theft at all. All collectives should consider themselves lucky and privileged to be in the position to operate alongside individuals, who exist and produce as a matter of absolute right.


 OK, what if I form a partnership with another man (no, not that kind!)?  Is that a collective?  I guess it is, but my question is: do you think it's alright to tax this partnership which our contract has formed?  We are still two individuals, after all.  What about if we make a three-person partnership, 33% ownership each.  Is it OK to tax it then?  What if we have a one-million-person partnership?  You see what I'm saying?

So if corporations were just very large partnerships with ownership shares publicly traded, would you be OK with joining me in saying that to tax such a collection of individuals would be to rob them?

----------


## No Free Beer

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


How do you propose to support your local schools, police officers, fire fighters?

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## Steven Douglas

> OK, what if I form a partnership with another man (no, not that kind!)?  Is that a collective?  I guess it is, but my question is: do you think it's alright to tax this partnership which our contract has formed?  We are still two individuals, after all.  What about if we make a three-person partnership, 33% ownership each.  Is it OK to tax it then?  What if we have a one-million-person partnership?  You see what I'm saying?
> 
> So if corporations were just very large partnerships with ownership shares publicly traded, would you be OK with joining me in saying that to tax such a collection of individuals would be to rob them?


The real difference is whether or not a veil is involved, and whether individual liability is transparent. A collective of individuals, like a limited partnership, each with a name on the line, all retain their rights as individuals, regardless of their pooled resources.  However, any collective that is owned and controlled by individuals, but viewed as a single artificial "person" in eyes of the law (i.e., a corporation with a corporate veil), with liability that is not tied to the personal liability of the owners/shareholders, is the "collective" I'm referring to.  With a corporation, only criminal activity could cause a piercing of the veil (i.e., personal accountability and liability kicks in, with everyone's personal assets on the line) - otherwise, corporations operate as a fictitious "person" (immortal, no less) in the eyes of the law. So they exist as a matter of privilege, and not right.

However, as a matter of principle, there is NO collective - even a collective of two - which I believe should receive any kind of _artificial_ advantage from the law.  A perfect example of that is a marriage, and laws that give tax or any other artificial advantages to married people that two single individuals cannot enjoy alone. Collectives already have natural advantages over individuals. I don't deny them that. That is the power of association as a matter of right.  However, no collective of more than one person should ever enjoy an ARTIFICIAL advantage that is not automatically enjoyed by any one person. 

While I do not believe that collectives comprised of individuals (real persons facing real risks and individual consequences) should ever be penalized for pooling resources, neither should they be given artificial preference over individuals.  Corporations, on the other hand, and other collectives which "shield" their owners, are fair game, as they do not/should not, exist as a matter of right, but privilege only.

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## helmuth_hubener

> How do you propose to support your local schools, police officers, fire fighters?


The same way I support my local casinos, bars, and jewelry stores: I _don't_.  Or my local grocery, hardware store, and thrift store: I give them money (some of them, sometimes).  So I either would or would not give these things money, depending on my own preferences and judgement, relying upon my own reason, and not upon another man's gun (Ayn Rand would be proud).  Local schools would get no support from me... though they might get money, in a way: I might be willing to pay to buy them just to blow them up, rip them down, and sow salt on the ruins.  Police likewise would not get my support, not initially.  Fire fighters _might_.

These things can be supported voluntarily, by anyone who wishes to support them, in the same way as any other human enterprise.  There is no reason to believe that funding them by stealing from landowners is a superior method, that it will improve the results in any way.

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## helmuth_hubener

> The real difference is whether or not a veil is involved, and whether individual liability is transparent. A collective of individuals, like a limited partnership, each with a name on the line, all retain their rights as individuals, regardless of their pooled resources.  However, any collective that is owned and controlled by individuals, but viewed as a single artificial "person" in eyes of the law (i.e., a corporation with a corporate veil), with liability that is not tied to the personal liability of the owners/shareholders, is the "collective" I'm referring to.  With a corporation, only criminal activity could cause a piercing of the veil (i.e., personal accountability and liability kicks in, with everyone's personal assets on the line) - otherwise, corporations operate as a fictitious "person" (immortal, no less) in the eyes of the law. So they exist as a matter of privilege, and not right.
> 
> However, as a matter of principle, there is NO collective - even a collective of two - which I believe should receive any kind of _artificial_ advantage from the law.  A perfect example of that is a marriage, and laws that give tax or any other artificial advantages to married people that two single individuals cannot enjoy alone. Collectives already have natural advantages over individuals. I don't deny them that. That is the power of association as a matter of right.  However, no collective of more than one person should ever enjoy an ARTIFICIAL advantage that is not automatically enjoyed by any one person. 
> 
> While I do not believe that collectives comprised of individuals (real persons facing real risks and individual consequences) should ever be penalized for pooling resources, neither should they be given artificial preference over individuals.  Corporations, on the other hand, and other collectives which "shield" their owners, are fair game, as they do not/should not, exist as a matter of right, but privilege only.


 We're definitely on the same page.  So the ultimate solution would be to abolish the limited liability and the artificial personhood, not to tax it, right?  In the mean time, OK, tax it, but in the end getting rid of the injustice would be the right thing to do, I would think, given these assumptions.  Yes?

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## Roy L

> Suppose that communism, with no individual legal right to property in the fruit of one's labor, actually resulted in healthier people, more material prosperity, and greater evolutionary competitive advantage than a free market with individual legal right to such property does; in that case, would you say that individuals don't have the natural right to such property?


Yes.  Rights arise from human nature.  If human beings were as you describe, as ants are, then like ants we would not have individual rights.  It doesn't matter if an individual ant disagrees: evolution removes his opinion.

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## Roy L

> Ok, let's change the scenario slightly. Instead of bidding for two plots of land, I only bid for one plot, and its size is ten miles square. The LVT is something trivial, maybe even still just $1/year. Then I build the town in the center of the land. I collect and pocket all the rent. I even sublease unimproved land within my plot, and pocket the rent money, which will be a lot, due to the proximity to the town. The LVT never goes above my initial token bid, because none of the wilderness outside my plot of land is ever improved, because the only people who want to develop anything in this area want to be within my town, or at least within a mile or two of it (which is still on my plot of land). My town is the magnet; without it, nobody wanted to build in this wilderness.
> Now it's true that I had to make an initial investment to build the town, so it's reasonable that the created value belongs to me. But that was just seed money; now I'm pocketing rent money which is due to land values caused by the work of other people, including their improvement of unimproved land which I'm subleasing to them. Other than my token LVT payments, haven't I effectively become the parasitic landlord and land speculator which your system is supposed to prevent?


This is the issue of appropriate size of plots.  Normally that will depend on expected use, local infrastructure such as road grids, etc.  The initial ten mile square was pretty big, but let's go with it.  Once the land use is so drastically changed, that's not the appropriate plot size any more, and the land use authority will start to look at subdivision to allow more flexible use.

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## Steven Douglas

> We're definitely on the same page.  So the ultimate solution would be to abolish the limited liability and the artificial personhood, not to tax it, right?  In the mean time, OK, tax it, but in the end getting rid of the injustice would be the right thing to do, I would think, given these assumptions.  Yes?


Yes, I'll answer that with a response I gave in a thread on Mises.org. I was asked:




> “I agree with the idea of competing currencies and deplore fractional reserve banking. You mention not having taxes on commodities when used as money. I believe the taxes you speak of are “capital gains” taxes, is that right? I’m curious as to your rationale for not just abolishing capital gains taxes all together. Any thoughts on that?”


My answer, which might surprise you: 

Yes, I am in favor of capital gains taxes. On corporations. Acting as a matter of privilege. That provides a needed check and balance on the power of the individual vs. the economic power of fictitious “persons” like corporations, ALL of whom I consider foreigners – guests in our land. That goes for ANY law that we both might otherwise find repugnant when applied to individuals who act as a matter of right, wherein personal risk and liability is transparent.

Labor unions vs. Corporations? Minimum wage against corporations? Bash it out, baby. Even if it destroys them. Make Roy L. the Senator in charge of them even, and whatever he imagines or concocts and passes, so let it be written, so let it be done.  Just don’t EVER mistake a real person for a corporation – that includes not treating partnerships as fictitious, where real persons have merely pooled resources and are bound by mutual consent, but otherwise face liabilities and risks as individuals who are acting as a matter of right.

That’s one of the problems with conflating real and fictitious persons. It gets us arguing on THEIR BEHALF. That should never, ever have been, and is one of the original, heinous, even treasonous, crimes in this country.

There should be nothing “free market” about corporations, except as they serve, not threaten, our interests as individuals. Allowing the law to allow these fictitious persons to hold up individuals as human shields (i.e., you hurt us, we’ll hurt their jobs) looks like an act of terrorism to me. It should never be at issue under the law, nor should their existence ever be considered “necessary” to the trumping of individual rights. Free and natural persons should always enjoy fundamental, natural advantages (e.g., can NOT be taxed out of existence) over corporations and other fictitious persons, which are nothing more than shielded individuals, legally “veiled” shareholders that manipulate markets by collective proxy. You said it right – they really are, and always were, the original welfare queens.

Imminent Domain, LVT, CVT, minimum wage laws, labor union laws, and anything else you can think of - lay it on the backs of every fictitious person in the country that acts as a matter of privilege - and when they "ship the jobs overseas" - good.  The individuals that remain here never faced the same constraints, and would be free and happy to fill the void.   And if the labor unions that put too much weight on them long for their return - let it be a lesson to them, not to be too hard on "our foreign guests" (I view all corporations as foreign guests, regardless of ownership).

And with that one broad line drawn - that enormous check and balance in place - you even have a revenue source that can be tapped...if you're careful, and don't chase them away.  But we are not "all in it together", and corporations are not "people", and do not have "rights", but privileges only.

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## No Free Beer

> The same way I support my local casinos, bars, and jewelry stores: I _don't_.  Or my local grocery, hardware store, and thrift store: I give them money (some of them, sometimes).  So I either would or would not give these things money, depending on my own preferences and judgement, relying upon my own reason, and not upon another man's gun (Ayn Rand would be proud).  Local schools would get no support from me... though they might get money, in a way: I might be willing to pay to buy them just to blow them up, rip them down, and sow salt on the ruins.  Police likewise would not get my support, not initially.  Fire fighters _might_.
> 
> 
> These things can be supported voluntarily, by anyone who wishes to support them, in the same way as any other human enterprise.  There is no reason to believe that funding them by stealing from landowners is a superior method, that it will improve the results in any way.




I must disagree with you. This is why I am not a libertarian.

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## Steven Douglas

> I must disagree with you. This is why I am not a libertarian.


Read my response above re: corporations vs. individuals - all revenue coming from 'fictitious' persons acting as a matter of privilege in this country. Would that make any difference in your mind?  

Remember, everything you listed existed and was funded prior to the establishment of personal income taxes in this country. That is not the only source of revenue possible - even if every single individual "opted out".

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## jascott

I have a question primarily for helmuth_hubener, but also for Roy L.

Suppose a man and woman colonize Mars. They're the first people there. They claim joint ownership of the entire planet. They carve giant "No trespassing" signs in the dirt at the poles and several places around the equator, visible from space, to stake their claim. All robots which people had sent there before have long since failed and been abandoned. The man and woman make a contract for how to manage their joint ownership of the planet. The contract says that all decisions regarding the jointly owned land are made democratically, by majority vote of all parties to the contract (hereafter called "citizens of Mars"), with ties broken by coin toss, except that no land may ever be sold or given away (and this rule may only be changed by unanimous vote), only leased for terms of 50 Earth-years, with 1/50 of the lease price due annually, payable to a democratically elected treasurer. The contract says that all citizens jointly own all the land, and that each citizen forfeits joint ownership when he dies, and while he lives allows his joint ownership to be diluted by the granting of citizenship to new people, and agrees to be subject to the jurisdiction of a government, the formation of which is mandated by the contract, and to be imprisoned if he commits the crime of murder, assault, theft, vandalism, or trespass, and to be judged in the government's courts.

The rent money pays for services provided by the government, including domestic police protection, and military defense against invasion by governments from Earth, and any surplus is distributed as a citizen's dividend. Government decisions are made democratically. The contract also says that all adult native-born Martian people have the option to become citizens, and immigrants and visitors are authorized to land on Mars only if they agree to become citizens or at least agree to be subject to the government's jurisdiction for the duration of their stay. All people, regardless of being citizens or not, have the right to rent land from the planetary landlord (which is the group of citizens), and sublease it as they want, if they agree to be subject to the government's jurisdiction. The terms of the contract also say that all citizens agree to allow the government to assert power over all criminals, even the ones who claim that the government has no jurisdiction over them (who can only be native-born Martians who refuse to become citizens, and foreigners who land on Mars without authorization).

All leases are done by auction, and re-auction is done one month prior to the expiration of a lease term. Before re-auction for a new term, the current lessee declares which buildings and other improvements, and which natural resources, are part of the land, and therefore already owned by or given for free to the planetary landlord and included in the new auction; everything else currently on the land, and everything which the lessee has already mined and removed from the land, is the lessee's private property. If he loses the new auction, then he may not remove or modify anything which is part of the land, and before the expiration of his current term (one month after the auction) he must remove everything which is not part of the land (and if he fails to remove it, then he not only forfeits it to the landlord, but also must pay the full 50-year land rent for the new lessee; this provides incentive to not declare mobility for things which he can't actually move). Plots of land may be auctioned only in sizes ranging from one acre to one square mile, square in shape except where overlapping preexisting plots, with the vertical dimension up to a quarter mile into the sky above the surface, and arbitrarily deep toward the center of the planet, as decided by the first bidder. If a lessee hasn't subleased his land, then he may terminate his lease from the planetary landlord at will (and forfeit to the landlord everything on the land), which subjects the land to re-auction one month later. He may also declare early termination for a date not less than two months in the future, and the re-auction will be held one month prior to the declared termination date; this makes it possible for a lessee to quickly split off parts of land which he no longer wants, or to combine adjacent parcels (to ensure all-or-nothing lease renewal), at the cost of having improvements on the land effectively incorporated into the rental value of the land early due to the early re-auction, while still allowing other bidders time to evaluate properties (but only by external observation) prior to upcoming auctions.

This seems to solve all of the moral and practical problems of geoism (including the problem of needing a bureaucrat to officially assess land values) while retaining its benefits, though the system is significantly different from what Roy proposes.

Note that neither morality nor practicality require the landlord to pay lessees for immobile improvements which they make and then declare to be part of the land and therefore property of the landlord, because prospective lessees know in advance that they'll have to donate such improvements, so in the preceding auction they'll reduce their bids to compensate. This does mean that people will only invest in improvements on which they can earn a full return within 50 years, but in practice this isn't a big limitation because it's most of a human lifetime, and human history has already shown that people generally only make investments on which they anticipate full return in significantly less than 50 years.

Now suppose that some generations pass, and Mars becomes terraformed, well-developed, and covered by people living under this system, most of whom chose to become citizens, some due to a sense of the system's righteousness, and some just to receive the citizen's dividend. My question to both of you is: at this point, what's evil or impractical about this system? Whose natural rights are violated? To Roy, how is your system more moral or practical?
To Helmuth, what substantial improvement (in morality or practicality) would be made by the landlord selling land rather than leasing it?

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## MattButler

I can't answer for Roy L.  

In my system, we do not rent land from the govt or lease it.  There's none of this going to the govt. every year and applying for a leasehold.  No.  We own the land and we trade it.  The Govt. always taxes land based on the price at which it last changed hands, there are no govt. appraisers of the land value pining about to raise your LVT.  If you want to own someone's land than you go to the owner and propose to buy it.  If a prospective buyer wants the land and the owner refuses to sell except at a significant premium, there is a judicial mechanism available to force a sale.  The buyer must post to bond equal to the next years anticipated higher tax amount.  He must be willing to pay more above the current level than just a bare scintilla, otherwise the judicial mechanism would become subject to abuse.  Of course the owner can offer to pay the higher tax and then keep the land, but that is the only way he can keep it once the judicial proceeding is initiated.  Buyer pays all proceeding fees and court costs.

If land falls in value should we allow the owner to pay less tax even if he does not sell it or engage in transaction?  Yes.  The owner may initiate a judicial proceeding, and upon proper showing that the value has in fact fallen, he may be taxed at the lower rate.  

So there is two ways land may be assessed a higher value (either free exchange or judicial procedure).  And two ways it may be assessed lower (either free exchange or judicial procedure.)  

No administrators.  No assessors.  We need a filing office to keep track of when land changes hands and at what price and who owns it.  Everything else follows.

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## Roy L

> Consider a mountain pass which is occasionally used by caravans, within a single country (to avoid international complications). There are no man-made improvements. Nobody has requested privilege of exclusive use, so nobody pays LVT for it. Caravans pass for free, though they would be willing to pay a large amount of money if necessary.
> Now, I offer the government $1/year for exclusive privilege. Of course, assuming the government accepts my bid, it'll open an auction, and grant privilege to the highest bidder. But how does the government decide whether to do the auction, or to reject my bid and leave the land open to public use for free? Does some bureaucrat or judge make the decision? Or is all public land (or at least all public unimproved land, so man-made roads are excluded) unconditionally up for auction?


Presumably the land authority that runs the LVT system and is generally in charge of administering possession and use of land, as all governments do, has some procedure for deciding when exclusive tenure is in the public interest.  Normally that would be if a more productive use than the current open use requires exclusive tenure.  Unless there were some reason to think exclusive tenure in the pass would serve the public interest, it would be kept open, like navigable waterways, etc.  Using the pass simply as a source of revenue is also possible, of course, but lack of open access to the pass might well reduce the rents of land the caravans pass through by even more than the rent of the pass.



> What do you do about this? Do you allow me, as the winning bidder, to be a perpetual leech, profiting by fleecing the caravans?


The open market bidding should ensure that as you are functioning solely as a landowner -- not producing anything or providing any service of value -- you end up with no profit.  You are essentially just functioning as a tax collector, collecting revenue from the caravans and remitting it to the government in LVT, less your collection costs.

The scenario you describe has a close parallel in some actual historical privileges.  Some European monarchs (notoriously in France's ancien regime) issued toll privileges for public roads to their friends and supporters at court.  The toll takers didn't do anything to build the roads (some of which were Roman, and nearly 2000 years old) and often did as little as possible to maintain them (that was done mainly by corvee labor in lieu of taxes).  One of Turgot's reforms was to abolish as many of these toll taking privileges as he could.  This naturally earned the enmity of the privilege holders, who agitated against him at court and eventually got him dismissed.  One wonders if those evil, greedy, privileged parasites spared any thought for Turgot 20 years later, as they were led up the steps to the guillotine...



> Suppose I don't publish the price for passage, and before telling approaching caravans what the price is, I require their signature on a nondisclosure agreement. I also announce that I'll refuse passage to anybody who has ever publicly announced, or revealed directly or indirectly to the government, what he would be willing to pay for passage, and prior to passage I require a signed oath that no such disclosure has ever been made (he could merely decide deliberately to lie about it, but let's be optimistic and assume he won't). I set the price to maximize my profits. Some approaching caravans will turn back rather than pay, after learning what my price is, but I earn money from the rest.


I doubt that such a system could recover as much rent as just charging the market rent openly.  Merchants aren't stupid.  They know that if you are preventing people from knowing how much you charge, there is only one possible reason: it is too much.



> Now the government knows only how much I initially guessed the mountain pass is worth, but doesn't know how much I've experimentally determined it to actually be worth. Since the government doesn't tax my sales or income, it can't learn the value of the pass that way either. The next time the government reassesses the value, how does it do it? It doesn't have the necessary information.


It can ask the merchants who don't use the pass how much they are spending to circumvent your odd little racket.  Remember, rent is determined by reference to the alternatives.



> Yet if it leaves the assessed value unchanged, then I get to remain a permanent parasite. If the assessor decides that my business model is parasitic, and raises the assessed value extremely high so that the LVT will be far beyond what I could possibly be earning, so that I'll be forced to relinquish my exclusive privilege and go out of business, then that causes a chilling effect throughout the economy; how will even legitimate business owners, especially ones who publicly speak against the assessor's judgment, know that they'll be safe from the assessor's wrath?


The assessor's job is just to measure the market rent, not to set a rent.  If he doesn't have enough information to measure it, he will have to find a way to get more information.  There are always ways.



> Suppose that the assessor somehow gets the valuation exactly right, so that my profit is exactly zero. Even in this case, I would still choose to keep the privilege, even though I'm earning no money from it, because I'm causing an increase in government revenue, and it doesn't cost me anything. Since there's no need for government services at the mountain pass, the increased revenue is spent on improved government services elsewhere, including the town where I live. Thus, I'm benefiting for free at the expense of the caravans, who would be able to use the pass for free if I weren't interfering.


All true.  That's where government and ultimately voters have to exercise some judgment.  Does charging tolls through the pass make the economy as a whole more prosperous or not?  This is a complicated question and may be very difficult to resolve.  But if questions were all easy, you wouldn't need me, would you?

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## helmuth_hubener

> My answer, which might surprise you: 
> 
> [C]orporations are not "people", and do not have "rights", but privileges only.


I don't know why that would surprise me.  It certainly didn't!  It's just a restatement of what you said before, that these fictitious persons called corporations, which are invented by the state out of whole cloth and then given special privileges, that they don't have any rights (they are not, after all, actual persons).

But that actually doesn't answer my question, which is whether the arguably non-libertarian aspects of corporationhood -- limited liability and fictional personhood --  should be abolished.  That would turn them into legitimate organizations, created by contractual arrangements among individuals, not by state fiat.  Then those individuals would not be fair game for robbery any more, am I right?

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## helmuth_hubener

> I must disagree with you. This is why I am not a libertarian.


 Hey, that's cool!  What fun would life be if we couldn't disagree?  Unanimity is highly suspect.

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## Steven Douglas

> I don't know why that would surprise me.  It certainly didn't!  It's just a restatement of what you said before, that these fictitious persons called corporations, which are invented by the state out of whole cloth and then given special privileges, that they don't have any rights (they are not, after all, actual persons).


No, I meant the part about capital gains, minimum wage, etc., but only as applied to corporations.




> But that actually doesn't answer my question, which is whether the arguably non-libertarian aspects of corporationhood -- limited liability and fictional personhood --  should be abolished.  That would turn them into legitimate organizations, created by contractual arrangements among individuals, not by state fiat.  Then those individuals would not be fair game for robbery any more, am I right?


No, the other way around - all those things should remain in place, with a distinction that such entities, like corporations, exist only as a matter of privilege, not right, with an entirely separate set of laws (statutes, penal codes, etc.,) that apply ONLY to them. The Interstate Commerce clause is the ONLY way that all three branches of our government have been able to rope us into laws that never should have applied to free and natural persons in the first place - and it is all because of the conflation of the term "person".  It's actually one of the reasons even the Constitutionality of the Fed has been adjudicated the way it has been in the past - because fiat money CAN apply to fictitious persons.  The way they get around the Constitutionality is by making ALL OF US fictitious persons in the eyes of the law - all no longer subject to Constitutional and Common Law, but to Admiralty Law (statutes, penal codes, administrative tax court, etc.), much of which is administered _by the Executive branch_, NOT the judicial. 

When a free and natural citizen challenges a particular statute, the judicial branch adjudicates this (or the executive under administrative law) and upholds the law itself, because _it really can apply to "some persons"_.  So the wrong challenge is issued, the wrong question is put before the court, because the question that should be before the court is not one of the law itself, but of _jurisdiction_.  If you issue a jurisdictional challenge, stating that you are a free and natural person to whom a particular law does not apply, the courts can point to your implied consent of the law, and subjugation thereto, based on documents you have signed (driver license, business license, marriage license, birth certificate, etc.,) - all of which are interpreted as evidence of of your willingness to be place yourself under the jurisdiction of admiralty law, and not common law.  In other words, you are, in the eyes of the law, the same as a corporation -- by default.   

This is little different than early decisions that caused all deposits to be considered title transfers and not bailments - again, by default.  

The solution, therefore, is one simple law, preferably a Constitutional Amendment, that draws a clear distinction between fictitious persons and free and natural citizens - and a presumption of free and natural status for ALL free and natural persons, absent an EXPLICIT waiver of rights under the law, with completely informed, and express, consent.  One ramification of this: it would not be possible to issue any but a voluntary tax on individuals - because the entire tax code is "administered" by the Executive branch - with oversight by the judicial in the case of appeals.

There is much more to it than that, but as it is now, we are all treated as corporations - that is the default presumption which has been our Libertarian undoing for some time now.  We were all sold into admiralty law without our knowledge or consent.

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## helmuth_hubener

Mr. Douglas,

I have read through some of your posts on Mises.org, and I will just say that you are one of the most intelligent and respectable people I have ever heard propound these kinds of legal theories.

And believe me, I have heard many of them.

I've even fell in with this crowd: http://dev.republicoftheunitedstates...ublic/history/ , because one of my pro-freedom friends was a part of it.  So I'm now an official Grand Juror for the Republic, I guess, although after that first meeting I haven't got any further calls or e-mails from them; I think this is because I did not express, umm, total agreement with the leader's theory (held to by them all) that alien lizards are ruling the world and every President since Truman has been cloned, in a science fiction sense -- a full grown person with the same memories and personality as the original person pops out of the machine.

I am quite serious.

_They_ were quite serious, as they explained all this to me at their Most High Grand Official Meeting of the Republic, at Perkins.

So anyway, I must admit that I am not as interested in these legalistic theories as I could be.  Perhaps Congress really hasn't legally reconvened since Abraham Lincoln and so we're all living under martial law.  Perhaps there's a secret Constitution "for" the united States as opposed to the one "OF" THE UNITED STATES.  Perhaps there's a shadow United States where all the state names are capitalized.  Perhaps if I could just get the judge to take down that darn gold-fringed flag, I'd be scot-free.  Perhaps lizards really do rule the world.  Perhaps my former neighbor is right about David Wynn Miller being able to solve all our legal problems and make us Sovereign Citizens.  OK, actually, there's no perhaps about that last one; David Wynn Miller (oh dear, I should probably be capitalizing his name) is hilariously ludicris.  More hilarious than Roy L. by about 10 times.  But the rest of them, well let's just say all of them are a lot more plausible than David Wynn Miller.

Even the LVT is more plausible than that.

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## helmuth_hubener

> LOL! So says the guy who has claimed, "natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence," "feudalism created an economic miracle of prosperity," "a chainsaw contains raw matter," "a million dollars a year doesn't make up for even an hour a week of compulsory labor," and too many other idiotic howlers to mention.


 And here's the thing: I'm totally proud of all those stands!  Perhaps I should briefly explain them again?

"natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence" --  Natural resources have to be discovered.  Their usefulness has to be discovered.  They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual.  Robinson Crusoe can take a bunch of vines and make a net to catch fish, but only if he knows about nets or can invent the concept himself, otherwise the vines are of no value.  If he never took the time to look around and find the vines, likewise then they are of no value.  They might as well not be there.  Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.

"feudalism created an economic miracle of prosperity" -- Yes, the decentralization of power of all the tiny little polities and all the tiny little fiefdoms within those polities, all within an overarching religious and cultural mileu, created opportunities for liberty to flourish.  The small size of the polities and religious, language, and cultural similarities throughout Western Europe enabled easy exit to other polities, which was a check on excessive power.  Also, all three levels -- fiefdoms, polities, and Church -- were in tension and so acted as checks on each other, and most importantly on the power of the polities.

"a chainsaw contains raw matter" -- This is so self-evident, I have never really known what to say about your rejection of this idea.  Everything material is made of matter.  A chainsaw is material.  A chainsaw thus contains matter.  One can see, touch, disassemble, lick, and otherwise experience a chainsaw sensorily in order to confirm this theory for oneself.  All this matter was once "raw".  It all came from nature, or the Universe.  That is the only source we have for matter.  If you come up with another source, let me know.  Thus a chainsaw, and all material goods, are built from what the economists call "land".  Land, labor, capital -- you combine them together and make goods.  Every economic good requires at least some land as a component.  The case would seem to be pretty air tight.  One takes raw matter, and makes a chainsaw.  Raw matter is what composes the chainsaw.

Now where we differed is that you said the whole chainsaw has been removed from nature.  None of it is in its natural state anymore.  But that's not true.  It all just depends on how far from its natural state you must make it to qualify for your Holy delandifying absolution.  The atoms are still intact.  None of them have been split.  They're still in their natural state.  Their location has been changed.  But is that really enough change?  What if I were to place a large heater on the ground somewhere that would heat up the Earth for miles around.  Dirt would be melting in the immediate viscinity.  Matter even hundreds of miles deep would be heated a few degrees.  Physics tells us that the temperature will rise for the matter even all the way down to the earth's core.  By changing the matter's nature in this way, have I removed it from nature and made it a product of my labor?  I doubt that Roy L. would say so.

More and more evidence is mounting that the only thing that is permanently land in his world view is location.  All you have to do to get to own something is shuffle it around a bit.  Move that huge boulder 10 feet to the right and BAM! it's mine.  So this leads to the conclusion that evil viscious parasites should be able to own absolutely anything and everything in the Universe, except for those types of property that are by their nature very difficult to move like parking lots and farms.  So Georgism boils down to really nothing but size-ism: prejudice in favor of those who want to own small, mobile property, and against those who want to own large, immobile property.

"a million dollars a year doesn't make up for even an hour a week of compulsory labor" -- Of the four, this is the stand I am the most proud of.  You know, earlier Peewee Herman taught us about the principle of "I know you are but what am I?", although not as comprehensively and tenaciously as Roy L. has, I will admit that.  But he also taught another important principle, that of: "The bike's not for sale, Francis".  Some things are simply not for sale.  At any price.  No matter what.  My liberty is one of those things.  Injustice cannot be made to be just by merely giving payouts or bribes to the victims.  Your misosophy says that rape can be made morally acceptable by merely agreeing to pay the victims a million dollars each time you do it.  No problem there.  Just roam the streets raping whoever you want and as long as you compensate them, justice has been served and you're good to go.  My philosophy says otherwise.  I guess you just have to choose which one seems better to you.  As for me, I will stand with absolute moral principles.  You can stand for the rich serial rapist.  To each his own.

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## Steven Douglas

Helmuth, 

The appreciation is mutual.  I think every theory and ideological cake that is baked on our planet will be iced, decorated, and even co-opted at times by its decidedly nuttier fringes. Billions of lenses out there to see through. The irony of so many differing fantasy versions of reality, I think, is that reality itself is often no less fantastic, and no less perceived as the nuttiest of fringes (given enough time or differing perspective).  

Our little "Honest Abe" Lincoln, for example, was a war mongering, currency debauching, nationalist ideologue, and it is no wonder that he was not a proponent of so-called "states rights", given his lack of a principled stance on _individual rights, including slavery_ (as he stated so plainly). That unprincipled scoundrel plundered with self-impunity the basic fundamental principles that others held sacred, and upon which the Republic was founded - and based solely on his own marginal utility for each, which could be traded, sold or abolished in his impatient willfulness and determination to "keep the union together at all costs".  That plunged this country into a bloody civil war that never, ever needed to be fought, and for which not a single shot ever needed to be fired. What he did really did end America as originally designed. All that was left was for the vacuum of plundered principles to be filled by self-interest, as the nation's corpse was taken over and reanimated from there. It is also no wonder to me that Obama holds him up as a role model, including his very Linconesque vision of "keep the union together _at all costs_", which he takes to unprecedented levels.   

Reality changes while the primary labels we cling to remain the same. From the United States lens, a liberal is now a leftist, Lincoln was a savior of the union and a freer of slaves, a debauched currency is still called "a dollar"; debt is money; an intensely capitalist, oligarchy-led China is still called "communist", while a very collectivist, socialized, corporatized, protectionist, equally oligarchy-controlled U.S., with all its statutory layers of fear-based micro-control of individual lives is still called "the land of the free and the home of the brave".  It's all in the labeling. Our Tommy Boys learned that they really can take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed.  That's what we wanted, after all, and they have time.  

Anton Chekhov once wrote, "When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured." So if you want something, anything, to be unfixable/incurable - whether it be a computer virus, or an entire economy, dismiss the root cause of its dysfunction as normal, and focus instead on complex and ill-defined terms of multiple symptoms and infinite remedies. For example, define inflation as "rising costs" rather than dilution of the money supply, and the root cause will be just one consideration.  We don't even have a single word for "watering down the money supply" so "inflation" is conflated in a way that gets us all nicely pointing fingers and scapegoating in all directions, as we muddle about and fight over the causes for "rising costs".  

While many look at concepts like society, government, economy, etc., as the all-important proxy behemoths, just itching to be programmed at the macro-design and macro-control level, most of us are not on that level, and never will be. And what does it matter? We are not a Constitutional Congress, let alone economic power-brokers, convening to decide how things ought to be, and looking for ratification.  Even what I wrote in my last post is little more than a case of "that was then, this is now". _If that_.  I fully accept that. I don't point it out to imply that we must reverse course and attempt to return to what might have been. That is gone forever, and exists only as a lesson for a very different present, and possibly different future.

It doesn't matter whether what we say is true or not, historically accurate or not. We may end up changing nothing at all, save a better grounding and a clearer vision for ourselves, as we attempt to see things as they actually are. In the end, that may only affect our individual choices, and that brings me to why we are here in the first place (or at least why I am here). 

I believe in the power of seeds, life, individual cells and their scalability. The seed of a single vine can dislodge a stone roof over time, but who cares, when that is not the seed's objective.  For it to lift a roof _it had to live_, and that's the most important part.  The core of all government is seeded by individuals, and thus, the most fundamental of ALL government is within each of us.  I hold that individual government is far more powerful, more sacred even, than any large scale collective-controlling machination that was ever devised by humans, who are constantly trying to out-clever themselves, and even their own stated principles, as they out-maneuver the "other".  They all look silly to me. Clownish - even the ones that succeed.  So before I ask what I can do for my country, or what use it is to me, or even what I think it ought to be, I first want to understand what it actually is now...without a single sentiment used to describe it, and with every _a priori_ assumption fodder for examination.

In the words of Gandhi (in the movie) "I want to document, coldly, rationally, what is being done here." 

From a strategy standpoint, we can only grow or change from where we really are - not where we think we are, or should have been, or ought to be by now.  Just...core reality. Get clear bearings. What is it now. 

I want to take that further.  I don't want to waste time debating and battling the usual leaves and branches of things that are described with circular references, while the basic premises go unchallenged. That is, for me, a waste of time.  I want to distill it all down to the seeds.  Even Austrian economics, for all its relative simplicity or complexity, is something I value _as but one operating system_ (regardless of different versions).  Our current economy is now running on an entirely different operating system, with a different set of governing assumptions. Nothing more or less. What do I care about the accuracy or intricacy of millions of iterations of formulae that so-called positivists use to "describe" what happens to an operating system in a computer and hardware that must be fueled by a debauched currency before it could even work!  At the very least, describe it accurately, and in positive terms that are clear, concise, and irrefutable.  From there alone we can have a clear view from which to navigate - if but our own individual ships, if that is all we can do.

----------


## Roy L

> Suppose a man and woman colonize Mars. They're the first people there. They claim joint ownership of the entire planet. They carve giant "No trespassing" signs in the dirt at the poles and several places around the equator, visible from space, to stake their claim.


OK, so this is different from "homesteading" only in that actual homesteaders are never actually the first people there.  The absence of any validity to the ownership claim is the same.

<long description elided>



> This seems to solve all of the moral and practical problems of geoism (including the problem of needing a bureaucrat to officially assess land values) while retaining its benefits, though the system is significantly different from what Roy proposes.


It does not retain the benefits of full land rent recovery because the landowner gets to pocket some publicly created value, while the improver is deprived of the full right to own his improvements.



> My question to both of you is: at this point, what's evil or impractical about this system?


It deprives people of their liberty to go to Mars and use its resources without making just compensation for the loss.  Offering them the option of "citizenship" doesn't make up for the privileged position the landowners (starting with the first couple) enjoy.  The system privileges landowners to pocket both publicly created land rent and some privately created improvement value.



> Whose natural rights are violated?


Everyone's.



> To Roy, how is your system more moral or practical?


It's more moral in securing the equality of human rights, and more practical in stimulating more productive use of land.

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## Roy L

> I saw a lot of passionate assertions, and the rationale for those assertions, but I must have missed the part where "guilt" and "theft" were actually proved.


How is the landowner different from the bandit?  What does he contribute in return for the loot he exacts from the caravans?  



> One thing I have noticed, Roy, in reading through your responses throughout this entire thread, is that you are answering in earnest, quite honestly - albeit using your own set of definitions for nearly every word, every concept, every term employed.


My definitions are standard and supported by dictionaries; however, I do use some technical terms, and my understanding of the concepts -- especially rights -- is deeper than you are probably accustomed to.  This may help you understand our relative positions:

http://www.henrygeorge.org/catsup.htm

I see the cat.  You do not.  The cat, moreover, is objectively there.  IMO you, Helmuth, and the others here who try to rationalize landowner privilege are probably able to see it, but have simply decided not to, as the preservation of your false and evil beliefs is more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth.



> Here is but one example:
> 
> "...whenever humans are intelligent, they understand that the rights of generations unborn cannot rightly be divvied up among those currently alive."
> 
> From that I can get a rough idea of your definition of the word intelligent (and its implied opposite by contrast, based on a specific understanding, as outlined by you).


I don't understand how that is an example of using idiosyncratic definitions.  What part of that sentence are you having trouble understanding?  It seems plain enough to me.  It is a direct refutation of Helmuth's false and evil claim that private property in land is somehow required by human intelligence -- a claim he already knew was refuted by the example of Hong Kong.



> I can only understand and interpret your definitions, the intending meanings of which seem to be unique to you (i.e., "free market", "good", "honest", "wise", "theft", etc.,) only by weighing them as circular references within the contexts in which you have used them.  Likewise, when you "refute" what someone else is saying, you are weighing their words, not by their definitions or intended meanings, but by those same definitions which seem to be unique to you.


Please give examples.  I find it is the apologists for landowner privilege who use words in ways that are blatantly incorrect -- i.e., who just tell flat-out lies -- such as claiming that land is a product of labor, or that there is raw matter in a chainsaw, or that Crusoe pointing a gun at Friday and giving him the choice of lifelong slavery or getting back in the water is somehow a voluntary, free market transaction with no initiation of force involved.



> As such, your responses seem more like edicts than arguments; not "normative" (stating the way you believe things should/ought to be), but positive assertions, as you argue from your own premises, as if your understanding of things is the way things actually are (and they really are, albeit in your own mind, as you have decided and declared), all deviations from which are the abnormalities, the lies, etc.,.


In fact, you are correct.  I do identify the facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications.  In most cases, these facts are self-evident and indisputable (e.g., land is not a product of human labor).  Anyone who denies such facts is self-evidently just lying.  In other cases, they may be established facts of economics (taxing a factor in fixed supply creates no distortion and imposes no excess burden) or history (feudalism was a system characterized by oppression, poverty, ignorance, injustice, stagnation, treachery and warfare, not liberty, prosperity and progress) that require a certain level of education to know and a minimal level of honesty not to deny.  



> I don't know how we "get there from here", or how any of these discussions can have any meaning whatsoever, without at least a common definition of terms - without circular references of any kind.


It is the apologists for privilege and injustice who rely on question begging and circular reasoning, as you have seen with Helmuth.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> My definitions are standard and supported by dictionaries; however, I do use some technical terms, and my understanding of the concepts -- especially rights -- is deeper than you are probably accustomed to.


Well, I never claimed to be deep, and I'm certainly open to widening my understanding.   Here's a montage of snippets from your last post, just to illustrate my lack of understanding of your definitions:

_"....the preservation of your false and evil beliefs..."_

Sounds pretty subjective to me. 

_"...more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth..."_ 

All undefined, of course, based on your private definition of each term.

_"...Helmuth's false and evil claim..."_ 

Once again, the use of "evil" - entirely subjective

_"...flat-out lies -- such as claiming that [improvements to] land is a product of labor, or that there is raw matter in a chainsaw..."_

Note that I added "[improvements to]" just to clarify your paraphrase to reflect more accurately the essence of what was actually stated. I did not see a single reference to a claim that raw land by itself was a product of anyone's labor. I don't think you were "lying" - unless, of course, you knew that is what they meant, but deliberately left that part out.  Land itself is not a product of labor. However, improvements to land certainly can be, and is, a product of capital and/or labor.  And raw matter is not in a chainsaw?  I did not understand that.  A chainsaw _is_ matter, so that leaves me not knowing your definition of "raw", let alone understanding your point.  

_"...I do identify the facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications..."_

I don't know about your identification of the facts of physical reality, but _"their inescapable logical implications"_ are products of your conclusions and your beliefs.  They are not inescapable unless someone is locked into your mind and your reasoning with no way out. I don't see that as being the case.  

"...these facts are self-evident and indisputable (e.g., [improvement of] land is not a product of human labor)."  

Again, did you mean to leave out "improvement of", or can you give me a direct quote of someone who claims that raw, unimproved land is a product of human labor?

"...established facts of economics (taxing a factor in fixed supply creates no distortion and imposes no excess burden)..."

That seems self-contradictory to me.  Forget the _"creates no distortion"_ part, which is unclear, and may be technically correct if you mean only "can be accounted for".  It is the _"imposes no excess burden"_ claim that I found bizarre, unless "excess" is the operative word (in which case it is entirely subjective, based on your definition of "excess").  

However, regardless whether a tax is justified or not, any tax imposes a "burden"...unless, once again, you are employing some special definition of the word burden, like "how you personally feel about the weight of the tax", or how you have justified that tax based on how it is offset in your own mind by something else.  

"...apologists for privilege and injustice..."  

Two extremely subjective terms, your definitions of which are entirely unclear - but which appear to be synonymous in the context in which you use them.

----------


## Roy L

> Here's a montage of snippets from your last post, just to illustrate my lack of understanding of your definitions:
> 
> _"....the preservation of your false and evil beliefs..."_
> 
> Sounds pretty subjective to me.


No.  Falsity is an objective fact, and evil is a matter of understanding, not opinion: deliberate violation of others' rights without just compensation.  An evil belief is one that encourages evil action by those who hold it.



> _"...more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth..."_ 
> 
> All undefined, of course, based on your private definition of each term.


Nonsense.  I am using the dictionary definitions.



> _"...Helmuth's false and evil claim..."_ 
> 
> Once again, the use of "evil" - entirely subjective


No, it is not.  There is disagreement about it, as about many things, but it is in principle a discoverable empirical fact.  Does it involve deliberate violation of others' rights without just compensation?  Then it is evil.



> _"...flat-out lies -- such as claiming that [improvements to] land is a product of labor, or that there is raw matter in a chainsaw..."_
> 
> Note that I added "[improvements to]" just to clarify your paraphrase to reflect more accurately the essence of what was actually stated.


No, that is just a flat-out lie on *your* part.  You are *LYING*.  You *KNOW* there is nothing controversial about improvements being products of labor, and you *know* I did not say that is a lie.  You *KNOW* this.  Of course you do.  You simply decided deliberately to lie about it.  The essence of what was stated was that land is a product of labor, and Helmuth has repeated that claim, and stated that he is proud of it, in post #805.  It was a stupid lie when he said it, it is still a stupid lie when he rationalizes it, and it is a stupid lie to claim its meaning is other than what it plainly is.

You will note that on a number of occasions, I have identified the fact that all apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.  You have decided to rationalize landowner privilege, and you consequently now have no choice but to lie.  You just lied about what I wrote, and you lied about what Helmuth wrote.



> I did not see a single reference to a claim that raw land by itself was a product of anyone's labor.


See post #805.



> I don't think you were "lying" -


Of course you don't.  You know very well I was telling the truth, just as Helmuth does.



> unless, of course, you knew that is what they meant, but deliberately left that part out.


I know that when Helmuth said, "natural resources" he meant "natural resources," and not "improvements," "chainsaws," or "dry martinis."



> Land itself is not a product of labor.


Congratulations on finding the courage not to lie about that.  There may be hope for you yet.



> However, improvements to land certainly can be, and is, a product of capital and/or labor.


Improvements are always products of labor, which may or may not employ capital.



> And raw matter is not in a chainsaw?  I did not understand that.  A chainsaw _is_ matter, so that leaves me not knowing your definition of "raw", let alone understanding your point.


"Raw" means what it says: natural and unprocessed.



> _"...I do identify the facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications..."_
> 
> I don't know about your identification of the facts of physical reality, but _"their inescapable logical implications"_ are products of your conclusions and your beliefs.


No, they are products of factual premises and logical analysis.



> They are not inescapable unless someone is locked into your mind and your reasoning with no way out. I don't see that as being the case.


They are inescapable to anyone who respects objective fact and logical reasoning.



> "...these facts are self-evident and indisputable (e.g., [improvement of] land is not a product of human labor)."  
> 
> Again, did you mean to leave out "improvement of", or can you give me a direct quote of someone who claims that raw, unimproved land is a product of human labor?


See post #805.  And it is certainly not the first time Helmuth has made such blatantly false claims.



> "...established facts of economics (taxing a factor in fixed supply creates no distortion and imposes no excess burden)..."
> 
> That seems self-contradictory to me.


It is a fact of economics that has been known for 200 years, and is not disputed by any competent economist.  It is merely a fact that is not known to *you* because you do not know any economics.



> Forget the _"creates no distortion"_ part, which is unclear, and may be technically correct if you mean only "can be accounted for".


It means that people's production and consumption decisions are unaffected.



> It is the _"imposes no excess burden"_ claim that I found bizarre, unless "excess" is the operative word (in which case it is entirely subjective, based on your definition of "excess").


The "excess burden" of a tax is the amount of its cost to the economy in excess of the amount of net revenue it raises.



> However, regardless whether a tax is justified or not, any tax imposes a "burden"...unless, once again, you are employing some special definition of the word burden, like "how you personally feel about the weight of the tax", or how you have justified that tax based on how it is offset in your own mind by something else.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_burden_of_taxation

From the wikipedia article:

"In fact almost any tax measure will distort the economy from the path or process that would have prevailed in its absence (*land value taxes are a notable exception*)."



> "...apologists for privilege and injustice..."  
> 
> Two extremely subjective terms, your definitions of which are entirely unclear - but which appear to be synonymous in the context in which you use them.


No.  Privilege (from the Latin for "private law") is a legal entitlement to benefit from the uncompensated violation of others' rights.  Injustice is rewards not commensurate with contributions made and penalties not commensurate with deprivations imposed on others.

----------


## jascott

> It deprives people of their liberty to go to Mars and use its resources without making just compensation for the loss. Offering them the option of "citizenship" doesn't make up for the privileged position the landowners (starting with the first couple) enjoy.


I don't understand why you say this. Under your system, people would be free to go to Mars and use its resources, but they would have to compensate other Martians to the extent that their use of the resources deprives those other Martians, and this compensation would be specifically in the form of LVT paid to a government which uses the tax money to provide public services, and the tax would be negligible (or maybe even zero) for land which there's no competition to use. My system does exactly the same thing! The major difference is that I offer secure tenure only for 50 years, while you offer secure tenure for eternity.

And what are the privileges which the landowners enjoy in my system? Remember, all the land is jointly owned by all of the citizens (which are all the people who have signed the founding contract, which is effectively the Constitution of the Government of Mars), administration of the land is done exclusively by the government, and everybody is free to be a citizen (and thus a joint owner of all the land) in exchange for simply acknowledging the legitimacy of the government and its authority over the land. For all practical purposes, the land is only "owned" in my system in the same sense in which it's "owned" by the government in your system. A "privileged" class which consists of everybody isn't a problem, and the only people who aren't in that class are the ones who voluntarily exclude themselves by denying the legitimacy of the government.




> The system privileges landowners to pocket both publicly created land rent


If by "landowners" you mean the planetary landlord, remember that everybody, except those who deny the legitimacy of the government, is a member of the class which constitutes that landlord. All of the land rent is spent on government services, the same as in your system, with any surplus rent distributed as a citizen's dividend, which you've said is a reasonable thing to do with the surplus. If by "landowners" you mean people who have rented parcels of land for 50-year terms from the planetary landlord and then subleased it, the same pocketing of some of the rent would occur in your system too; the only difference is that you prefer to officially revalue the land somewhat more frequently than every 50 years.




> and some privately created improvement value.


You already agree that justice is satisfactorily served by compensating people for their infringed rights, such as providing government services to people in exchange for excluding them from use of certain parcels of land. In my system, people who improve land are compensated for the loss of private ownership of those improvements by the reduced pre-improvement rental value of the land, and they themselves decide what the just compensation is, by bidding less for the land than they would if their future improvements would remain perpetually their own. How is that unfair?
If that still doesn't satisfy you, then think of it another way: during the auction, people aren't just bidding money; they're bidding money _plus improvements_. Money is paid to the government every year, and improvements are paid to the government every 50 years.

My system has another benefit: by auctioning rental privilege and offering secure tenure only for 50 years, my system more effectively accomplishes the geoist goal of preventing perpetual concentration of control over land than does the traditional geoist mechanism of eternal security. After all, under the traditional geoist system, if the government is taxing a landlord no more than what he can recover by renting his land out to the highest bidder, then he can still acquire and keep an arbitrarily large amount of land without losing money on the enterprise, so if many other people are foolish enough to sell to him, then he and his descendants can hold the land forever, and discriminate against particular members of the landless class at their whim, or discriminate against particular uses of the land, by rejecting their high bids to rent parcels of land, and pay only a relatively minor monetary price (the difference between the high and next-highest bids) for the privilege to sporadically discriminate like this. In contrast, under my system, such a landowning dynasty would be economically unfeasible, because the dynasty would have to defend each parcel of land in an auction every 50 years, which makes it impossible to break even by renting it for the purpose of subleasing it, because the high bidder by definition pays more than anybody else was willing to pay; if nobody else was willing to pay that much to rent directly from the planetary landlord, then nobody will pay that much to sublease the land either.
Ironically, eternal security of tenure in the last vestige of the concept of land ownership, and the traditional geoist system fails to abolish it.




> It's more moral in securing the equality of human rights,


What do you say would be the right way to establish a legitimate government for the Martian colony?




> and more practical in stimulating more productive use of land.


Do you say this just because my system officially revalues each parcel of land only once every 50 years (which requires bidders to predict value that far in advance), whereas your system revalues it more frequently, or is there some other reason?

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## Steven Douglas

> Congratulations on finding the courage not to lie about that.  There may be hope for you yet.


Well, at least there's hope for someone, that should be encouraging.  And with that one brass ring tenuously plucked, I'll step off this merry-go-round of ad hominem pronouncements which are not disputed by anyone that you deem intelligent, let alone any economist that you deem competent.

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## helmuth_hubener

> I have a question primarily for helmuth_hubener, but also for Roy L.
> 
> Suppose a man and woman colonize Mars. They're the first people there. They claim joint ownership of the entire planet....
> To Helmuth, what substantial improvement (in morality or practicality) would be made by the landlord selling land rather than leasing it?


First of all, they have not, to my mind, established a claim over the entire planet just by carving "No Trespassing" signs.  I think it would be very difficult to established this claim.  Of course, in Roy L.'s system, all I have to do is nudge Mars into a little different orbit with a well-placed nuclear blast on nearby asteroid which causes it to collide with Mars.  Whee!  It's all mine!

Under my system, the ownership is ultimately established by the claim, but there are all sorts of mitigating factors to what kind of claim will be recognized.  For practical purposes, it is really not any different than the traditional Lockean system wherein applying labor to natural resources makes them products of your labor and thus your legitimate property, with a few small exceptions in edge cases, which you understand if you've read the rest of my posts in this thread.

But let's just add the information to your scenario that the man and woman were trillionaires and they terraformed the entire planet while everyone else, other than their employees, was back on Earth twiddling their thumbs.  Then I think we could say they have legitimately established ownership over the whole planet.  And what a breathtaking achievement!  This couple should be hailed through all the ages!  They gave us again what God gave us at first -- they have created a second Earth.

And then they just keep the whole thing and refuse to sell it, only leasing it.  So your question for me is whether I see any moral or practical problem with that.  

Morally, no.  They made a planet.  What an outlandish thing to do.  They are certainly justified in getting an outlandish reward.  They could even refuse to lease it and just be Adam and Eve, keeping the whole thing for themselves and their progeny.  Or they could blow it up, ala Francisco d'Anconia.  It's theirs.  They can do whatever they want with it.

Practically, there's a big problem.  One single firm controlling the whole economy faces the same problem as a socialist government: the calculation problem discovered by Mises.  The larger a firm becomes, the more they run up against the calculation problem.  Let's say you're a grocery store with vertical integration.  You own all your supply chain -- your own trucking system, your own food packaging and processing plants, everything, going all the way back to the farms, which you also own.  How do you know how much to pay your farmers?  You kind of have to peek over the fence at your competitors, or else long-term you might (nay, you _will_) get way off, just as the Soviets had to peek over the fence at market economies to know what prices to set all their stuff at.

So if one firm owns all the resources and space of an entire planet, this is a big calculation problem.  They can look over the fence at Earth, but Earth is very, very different and it doesn't help them a whole lot.  Everyone's bidding at the auctions, yes, but there's only one supply.  This firm has total horizontal integration over a fundamental part of the economy.

Peter Klein has done good work in this area of the theory of the firm.

http://blog.mises.org/12799/on-chapt...eins-new-book/

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## helmuth_hubener

> Well, at least there's hope for someone, that should be encouraging.  And with that one brass ring tenuously plucked, I'll step off this merry-go-round of ad hominem pronouncements which are not disputed by anyone that you deem intelligent, let alone any economist that you deem competent.


 Sorry!   At least he moderated himself somewhat with you, not being sure, I guess, initially, whether you were a totally reprehensible sub-human lie generator.  Now that that's been established.... 

I was not trying to use ad hominem on you, by the way, I hope you don't think that.  I just see some of these legalistic things as kind of pointless and detached from reality.  I do agree with you on Lincoln, and I can see where your proposed Constitutional amendment would be a good thing.  I would just repeal the whole commerce clause and replace it with "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade, and by that we mean they shall not make any law respecting production and trade at all."  I still recommend you read the Wikipedia page on David Wynn Miller for a good hardy laugh.

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## Steven Douglas

> I was not trying to use ad hominem on you, by the way, I hope you don't think that.


Nope, never even crossed my mind. Aside from the fact that you are just a pawn for the Bilderburgers (and don't lie, evil minion, or attempt to deny it), you have been logical, concise, inquisitive, respectful, considerate, polite, and not the slightest bit condescending.  All the stuff of good discourse and mutual inquiry into ideas.  I enjoy reading your posts, and following your ideas. I have already learned from you, and look forward to whatever else you have to say.

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## Roy L

> Well, at least there's hope for someone, that should be encouraging.  And with that one brass ring tenuously plucked, I'll step off this merry-go-round of ad hominem pronouncements which are not disputed by anyone that you deem intelligent, let alone any economist that you deem competent.


You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.

As I hypothesized, you are able to see the cat, but refuse to do so.  Simple.

You *CHOOSE not to know* facts that you have already realized prove your beliefs are false and evil.

You and Helmuth may now return to your mutual snog-fest.

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## Roy L

> At least he moderated himself somewhat with you, not being sure, I guess, initially, whether you were a totally reprehensible sub-human lie generator.  Now that that's been established....


If you will recall, Helmuth, I extended you the same courtesy until you started lying about what I had plainly written -- which didn't take long.  Your first response to me (post #148) was to claim I was a looter when I had already proved it is landowners who are the looters.  The remainder of that post was a spew of sneers, derision, fallacies and dismissals lacking any factual or logical merit.



> I still recommend you read the Wikipedia page on David Wynn Miller for a good hardy laugh.


Thanks for the chuckle.  Now you know how I feel about *your* absurdities -- except that his aren't to rationalize and justify the greatest evil in the history of the world.

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## Steven Douglas

> You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.


Orkay! You are the king of your own private feast now, bon apetit!

----------


## jascott

> First of all, they have not, to my mind, established a claim over the entire planet just by carving "No Trespassing" signs. I think it would be very difficult to established this claim. Of course, in Roy L.'s system, all I have to do is nudge Mars into a little different orbit with a well-placed nuclear blast on nearby asteroid which causes it to collide with Mars. Whee! It's all mine!


Well, in defense of Roy's system, he wouldn't let you have the planet just like that. You'd first have to pay a severance tax on it in order to own it, assuming the government (I'm not sure which government this would be) even authorized the whole planet to be taken as private property in the first place, which presumably it wouldn't (some stuff, including a planet's core, is kept as public property and not available to be taken as private property or for exclusive use at any price).
If you're not going to let me have the planet just for carving "No trespassing" signs on it, then it's reasonable for Roy to refuse to let you have it just for slamming an asteroid into it.




> Practically, there's a big problem. One single firm controlling the whole economy faces the same problem as a socialist government: the calculation problem discovered by Mises.


I don't understand why you think Mises's economic calculation problem applies to my system. I don't have one firm controlling the whole economy; I just have one firm owning the entire planet (except for stuff which people declare to be mobile, except in the case that they fail to move the declared stuff when they lose auctions), and unconditionally renting out each piece of the planet to the highest bidder. I don't have any bureaucrats setting prices or allocating stuff; land prices are determined exclusively by bids in the free market, and allocation is determined exclusively by the winning bidders. My firm doesn't even produce anything, besides defensive services. The calculation problem doesn't apply here.




> Everyone's bidding at the auctions, yes, but there's only one supply. This firm has total horizontal integration over a fundamental part of the economy.


Let's divide Mars into hemispheres, or even divide it steradially into a thousand pieces, with each piece independently owned and governed, but each piece independently using the same quasi-geoist system which I originally proposed for a unified planet. Now, the rent money goes just to the local government, and each citizen gets a dividend only from his local government; no planet-wide landlord or government exists. All of the governments have treaties for no tariffs, no restrictions on the movement of goods or people (except that people must acknowledge a government's legitimacy before entering its territory), and no restrictions on anybody in any place bidding on and renting parcels of land at any other place on the planet. How does that solve the problem which you claim my unified planet has?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Yes, I have [read all of Rothbard's arguments against Georgism].


Would you recognize one, you think, if you were to read one?

----------


## Roy L

> Would you recognize one, you think, if you were to read one?


Maybe.  Most of them are chestnuts other apologists for landowner privilege had tried before, or have tried since, so it's not easy to keep all the authorships straight in my memory.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Translation: facts of objective reality that prove you wrong.


Oh!  Could you list them?




> I don't recall Matt saying resources would be taxed except insofar as they yield unearned, publicly created rent to their owners, but if he did, he was wrong.


 And, you don't even care enough to look back and check what he said.  You don't really care what he said -- and he's your "good buddy"!  You cannot even be bothered to take the effort to comprehend his sentences correctly.  What does that say about how much you care about comprehending anyone else on the thread?




> If someone can build a factory with resources no one else wants enough to be willing to pay for access to, he can build it without paying any tax, and own and operate it without paying any tax.


In theory.  Generally that will not happen.  Generally, the resources will have been LVTed somehow.




> The stuff that makes concrete is land.
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, what makes concrete is labor.  There is no land in concrete any more than in a chainsaw.


 So concrete is just pure labor.  Got it.




> No, you were obviously just lying.  Again.


Oh.  Could you explain how?




> No, it can't, because land value approaches zero as the rate approaches infinity and the tax amount approaches the market rent.  Because of that fact, LVT CANNOT be made excessive.  It can't be made to extract more from the landowner than he rightly owes for what he takes from society.  The only way to make the land tax amount greater than the market rent is to stop taxing land value and tax by something else -- in which case the state risks forcing abandonment of the land and declining revenue.


 Except for by "infinity" you mean "100%".  Those are two different rates.  A rate of infinity, of course, means that in order to occupy the space one must pay the state an infinite amount of wealth each lease period -- which is impossible unless you allow an installment plan .  Even then I think it's impossible.  Finite land value X times infinity equals infinity.

So you mean 100%, and taxing over 100% of the value does indeed create the risk of land being abandoned.  It would indeed decrease the state's revenue.  The state does sometimes do things which are irrational, even for a parasite, because they kill the host.  Why?  What can I say: they have a high time preference.




> It's more than irrational: it's not LVT.  So your "objection" to LVT is that it might not be LVT.


Any tax based on land value is a land value tax.  If the tax charges 10% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax.  If the tax charges 100% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax.  If the tax charges 1,000% of the value of the land, that is a land value tax.




> And you call the state irrational....


I call the state a group of people.  All people might do things from time to time which are not in their best long-term interests.




> But you would be lying.  But I repeat myself.


 That's true.




> No, that's plainly a lie, as already proved.  It is self-evident and indisputable that others would be at liberty to use the land if the landowner did not initiate force against them.  He therefore forcibly deprives them of liberty they would otherwise have.  By contrast, they would *not* otherwise be at liberty to use the factory, because it was not already there.  The owner or a previous owner had to create it.  The landowner did not create the land, and neither did any previous owner.  All your bull$#!+ cannot make that fact disappear.


By drinking water, I deprive others of their inalienable right to drink the same water.  I am a sinner.  Life is a sin.  Let's all suicide, since that's the only way to avoid depriving others of their inalienable rights.




> Only the rearranged soil has been removed from nature, not the land under it.


OK, so if I can prove that the soil down to 100 feet underground has been rearranged by the tamping, I then own that cube of soil.  People can still tunnel under me, provided they go deep enough that it doesn't affect my cube, but that particular cube of matter is now mine, I may monopolize it freely, after paying a severance tax.  Is that correct?




> The evidence has long been conclusive that you have nothing to offer but lies, strawmen, name calling, lies, equivocations, fallacies, lies, absurdities and lies.


I see only occasional evidence that you actually know what those terms mean, along with occasional evidence that you in fact do not.




> LOL!  So says the guy who has claimed, "natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence," "feudalism created an economic miracle of prosperity," "a chainsaw contains raw matter," "a million dollars a year doesn't make up for even an hour a week of compulsory labor," and too many other idiotic howlers to mention.


 I am shocked!  Shocked!  Who would say such things?  




> It is not Smith who was a moron, sunshine.  It is not Smith who was wrong about almost everything.  It is not Smith whom it would be self-torture to read even one more word by.  It is not Smith who is a fruitcake.


Well that's a relief.  I thought he was for a second there.  But now you've proven me wrong.  Point taken.




> the bandit


You know, all your little scenarios have one thing in common: one supplier.  Only one.  Robinson Crusoe?  There's just one island, and no hope of getting to another one.  The Bandit?  He's staked out the one and only possible road; as you said: "There is no other road".  Dirtowner Harry?  He's got the only water, with no hope of getting to some other water source.  So all these scenarios really only work if there's a total monopoly, no alternatives no competition.

So I guess you're arguing against the problems that could be created if we didn't have competition in natural resource ownership.  Indeed, I agree that if we were living in a world where instead of just going down the block to a different landlord, the whole country was owned by one landlord, there could be potential for abuse.  Of course, the whole country being one big land monopoly, all owned by one owner -- the state -- is exactly what you propose.  And what if the state decided it didn't like redheads and wasn't going to let them drink any of the water without paying a 100,000% tax on the value of that water?  Obviously it could do that, and they would have to pay.  There's no alternative sources.

Another thing all your stories have in common: the victim is hapless.  They have either had extreme misfortune or extreme stupidity.  Either way, they have failed to prepare for and deal with the world around them in an effective manner.  What is the bozo doing out in the desert with no water when he knows none of the oasis owners are going to let him drink?  He didn't know?  Well he should have known!  It's his job to know!  If he can't take reality by the reins even to the minimal extent of making sure he will be able to supply himself with water, he is not fit to survive.  This caravan should have planned ahead and secured all the land for their route.  Honestly, all these "victims" are pathetic and I have very little sympathy for them.




> It is very accurate.  In fact, it is exactly what happened when the Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution.


No.  Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress had no real taxing power.  None.  It's questionable whether the central government could even be considered a government in the normal sense, given that they had no taxing power.  Essentially all the states made donations.  If they didn't, there was nothing Congress was authorized to do.  Send letters begging them to reconsider, maybe.  But really, nothing.




> But they don't have liberty to use everything in the Universe.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Everything nature provided, they most certainly do.  What would stop them, other than a vicious, evil, greedy parasite like you initiating force against them?


Their own laziness, prodigality, stupidity, sickliness, or profligacy.  Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use.  Nature is not a vending machine.




> No, you are a despicable, evil, greedy, thieving, murdering, vicious parasite.


 Thanks!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Maybe.  Most of them are chestnuts other apologists for landowner privilege had tried before, or have tried since, so it's not easy to keep all the authorships straight in my memory.


I ask because I have hidden somewhere in this thread one somewhat lengthy post which I copied _almost_ exactly from Rothbard (I'm sure if he were still alive he would have been converted away from believing in copyrights by now, so no harm, no foul).  I did it just to see if you could tell the difference between him and me; apparently you couldn't.  Big prize for the first one to guess which post!  (The big prize is to know that you're awesome).

The stuff that you "refuted" on your email list or whatever which you repeatedly linked to is not, it turns out, all he ever wrote on the subject.

----------


## Roy L

> I ask because I have hidden somewhere in this thread one somewhat lengthy post which I copied _almost_ exactly from Rothbard (I'm sure if he were still alive he would have been converted away from believing in copyrights by now, so no harm, no foul).  I did it just to see if you could tell the difference between him and me; apparently you couldn't.


??  And...?  What is that supposed to prove?  That you are somehow clever?  Apologists for landowner privilege copy fallacious, absurd and dishonest crap from each other all the time.  It doesn't matter how many times or how conclusively it has been refuted, they'll just make the same self-evidently stupid claims over and over again, just as you have in this thread.



> Big prize for the first one to guess which post!  (The big prize is to know that you're awesome).


Sure, some of your posts have had a vaguely familiar ring.  ISTR there was one where you basically just chanted, "Property rights, right or wrong," more or less as a non sequitur, and that kinda reminded me of Rothbard.  I of course demolished it.  Was that the one?



> The stuff that you "refuted" on your email list or whatever which you repeatedly linked to is not, it turns out, all he ever wrote on the subject.


So?  The absurdity and dishonesty of his anti-LVT "arguments" did not change.  Whichever post it was where you reiterated Rothbard's stupid and dishonest garbage, you will see that I demolished it as easily as I have demolished all _your_ stupid and dishonest garbage.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Sure, some of your posts have had a vaguely familiar ring.  ISTR there was one where you basically just chanted, "Property rights, right or wrong," more or less as a non sequitur, and that kinda reminded me of Rothbard.  I of course demolished it.  Was that the one?


I don't know which one you're talking about!  Wouldn't that describe all my posts here?

----------


## SpiritOf1776_J4

> No, it isn't.  Most US taxes before income tax were levied on land and real property.


Federal taxes have never really been levied on land.  Land isn't even under jurisdiction of the Federal Government, but States - and property tax is a bad new idea like income taxes (but usually implemented on the State level), but that's a different post.

You don't know history very well.  What I said is just as true as when I said it the first time.  Tariffs and other indirect taxes were the preferred method of taxing for our founders and Adam Smith, and were almost the exclusive method of revenuing generation for a long time.  During that time, there was an economic boom the like of which the world has never seen.

Progessives want income taxes and property taxes because they don't like the idea of property - as in Life, Liberty, and Property.  Futhermore, direct taxes are harder for the federal government to levy under the US Constitution.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/14/tax...w-changes.html

Why tariffs and duties were more common for most of our history - because they are indirect taxes and easier to pass under the Constitution.  I posted this article, but I had a better article several weeks ago on the amount of revenue generated by various taxes, and yes, the largest % during our boom period was collected from tariffs.

Tariffs and duties are by their nature a function of the Federal Government.  Only the Federal Government can collect them, and they don't interfere within States when they collected.  Futhermore, as other countries sometimes try to manipulate their trade goods, as well as go to war with us, they are natural parts of the defense mechanism as well, and pay to defend ourselves against those countries as well - ie the nastier you are, the more military we need, so the more we need to raise taxes.

Futhermore, although mis-used in definition now, excise taxes are also suppose to be a type of indirect duty, but specifically on luxary goods as opposed to all goods. They aren't sales taxes on goods, or luxury goods.

----------


## SpiritOf1776_J4

1792	$4.4	95.0%	
1795	$5.6	91.6%	
1800	$9.1	83.7%	
1805	$12.9	95.4%	
1810	$8.6	91.5%	
1815	$7.3	46.4%	
1820	$15.0	83.9%	
1825	$20.1	97.9%	
1830	$21.9	88.2%	
1835	$19.4	54.1%	
1840	$12.5	64.2%	
1845	$27.5	91.9%	
1850	$39.7	91.0%	
1855	$53.0	81.2%	
1860	$53.2	94.9%	

With the Civil War, the first attempt to introduce an income tax, as well as fiat money, occurs.

----------


## jascott

> Has anyone else listened to this lecture who can confirm I'm not going crazy or been dropped into an alternate Universe?  Raico claimed the exact same thing I did, to wit: the decentralization and balances on power achieved under Western feudalism were a major factor (there were other factors, too), probably _the_ major factor, which made the West what it became.  Any difference whatsoever between what I said and what he said would be due to imperfection in my paraphrasing.
> 
> Listen and see for yourself: http://mises.org/media/1263/The-European-Miracle
> 
> Anyway, enough of that.


Raico talks about how states have historically acted like the Mafia and engaged in predatory taxation, and says the Roman Empire killed itself via excessive taxation and regulation, then says (at lecture time 12:50-16:28),



> What does the decentralization of Europe have to do with this? It created the indispensable condition for what we're calling "The European Miracle". And that is the possibility of exit.
> (Inaudible) by these scholars.
> To take an example, supposing you're a successful businessman in Antwerp or Amsterdam, and this did not happen historically because the rulers of these areas engaged in what was from the state's point of view rational behavior, that is, relatively light taxation and a relatively light hand, and respect for private property. But supposing that you were oppressed by the state, that the state was confiscating or heavily taxing your assets, you could exit within the whole cultural area of Christian Europe. You didn't have to go to a totally different civilization. You could go across the North Sea to England. You could go down the Rhine River to Cologne. And this held generally. Among the Italian city-states it certainly held. Since it was very easy to go from one to another depending on how the state was treating you there. Now this did not hold in every case but it was a constant factor, and the possibility of exit created limitations to what the state could do to its productive citizens.
> Now, this story goes back many centuries. It goes back into the Middle Ages.
> By the way, this historical interpretation I'm giving you has also been the basis of works of other scholars. Peter Bauer, for instance, the great, uh, Peter Bauer, who died a few months ago, in his work on economic development, the economic development of Europe, economic development of the Third World, simply assumes this basic interpretation of why Europe grew rich. Paul Kennedy of Yale in that book on the rise and decline of the great empires assumes as his basis this interpretation. Or William McNeal of Chicago in his other synthetic works on European history assumes this as a correct interpretation.
> And Peter Bauer said in one of his essays this economic development goes back at least 7-8 centuries, which means into the heart of the Middle Ages. So we have to examine something about the Middle Ages to explain why Europe was different.
> And in fact it is in the Middle Ages that what we call "Europe", not the geographical continent, but Europe the civilization, came into existence. Here, there are a number of important factors. Feudalism, that is, the European version of feudalism, played a role.


At 19:08-19:24 he says,



> Perhaps more crucial than anything else in the whole distinctive development of Europe was the existence of a powerful international church whose interests were not synonymous, or often really compatible, with the interests of the state.


He then clarifies that he's talking about the period from the first centuries of the church through the Middle Ages, excluding the Reformation onward.

So, the church prevents the rise of a European mega-state, the lack of a mega-state gives rise to many small states, which enables people to exit confiscatory and high-tax states and go to better ones, and this ability to exit forces states to tax and regulate lightly and respect private property, which makes Europe grow rich.
But notice that when you exit, you can't take your land with you. You arrive in the new state landless. Does your ability to prosper in the new state, and in general the ability of Europe as a whole to prosper, depend on your ability to buy land, and your prosperity will suffer if you can only rent land? Raico didn't say that.
I don't know of any history which would support the claim that you need to be able to buy land. Peter Schiff recommends renting instead of buying, and he does quite well by just renting. And if you're going to rent land, why do you care whom you rent it from? Why do you care if a government rather than a private person owns it?

In feudalism, as a serf, you don't own the land. You pay for the privilege to use the land. In exchange, you receive defensive services from the rent collector.
In one view of Georgism, you don't own the land. You pay for the privilege to use the land. In exchange, you receive defensive services from the rent collector.
Remind me again, what are we all arguing about? Oh right, we're arguing about how big the fief should be, and whether the serfs get to elect the lord.

EDIT: on second thought, Schiff's advice isn't relevant to my argument, because he doesn't specifically advise that you should still only rent the land even if you're going to build on it.

----------


## Roy L

> Federal taxes have never really been levied on land.


But state and local governments have, and for most of the history of the USA they were doing most of the government spending.



> Land isn't even under jurisdiction of the Federal Government,


Federal and territorial land is, and for long periods in the early history of the USA, a large part of federal government revenue was from land sales.



> but States - and property tax is a bad new idea like income taxes (but usually implemented on the State level), but that's a different post.


Land taxes are among the most ancient taxes known, and have proved to be a very good idea.



> You don't know history very well.


Wrong.  I know it quite well.  More, I understand its economic underpinnings, which are far more important than dates and legal details.



> What I said is just as true as when I said it the first time.  Tariffs and other indirect taxes were the preferred method of taxing for our founders and Adam Smith, and were almost the exclusive method of revenuing generation for a long time.


Wrong _again_.  Adam SMith favored taxation of land rent, and the American Founders wrote the Articles of Confederation, which made a land tax the sole source of federal revenue.  The Constitution was written because powerful landed interests refused to repay what they were stealing from the community, and threatened to start and finance a civil war if the federal government tried to collect it.



> During that time, there was an economic boom the like of which the world has never seen.


Wrong AGAIN.  Japan boomed faster during the Meiji period by funding the great majority of its government spending with a land value tax. Moreover, the early USA boomed largely on population growth, while Meiji Japan boomed on increasing productivity.



> Progessives want income taxes and property taxes because they don't like the idea of property - as in Life, Liberty, and Property.


Garbage.  I oppose both income tax and property tax.



> I posted this article, but I had a better article several weeks ago on the amount of revenue generated by various taxes, and yes, the largest % during our boom period was collected from tariffs.


But the federal government was spending far less than state and local governments, so that is not very relevant to the economic effects of taxes.

----------


## Roy L

> My system does exactly the same thing! The major difference is that I offer secure tenure only for 50 years, while you offer secure tenure for eternity.


But the rent is often updated in my system, while it becomes very outdated in yours.



> A "privileged" class which consists of everybody isn't a problem, and the only people who aren't in that class are the ones who voluntarily exclude themselves by denying the legitimacy of the government.


The privileged in your system lease land early, then benefit from the added land value later arrivals create.



> If by "landowners" you mean people who have rented parcels of land for 50-year terms from the planetary landlord and then subleased it, the same pocketing of some of the rent would occur in your system too; the only difference is that you prefer to officially revalue the land somewhat more frequently than every 50 years.


50 years is a long time.  In most cases land rent will rise by about an order of magnitude in that time.  If population grows rapidly, as it might on a frontier, rent could rise much more rapidly.



> If that still doesn't satisfy you, then think of it another way: during the auction, people aren't just bidding money; they're bidding money _plus improvements_. Money is paid to the government every year, and improvements are paid to the government every 50 years.


Clearly such barter is not as efficient as continuous market pricing.



> My system has another benefit: by auctioning rental privilege and offering secure tenure only for 50 years, my system more effectively accomplishes the geoist goal of preventing perpetual concentration of control over land than does the traditional geoist mechanism of eternal security. After all, under the traditional geoist system, if the government is taxing a landlord no more than what he can recover by renting his land out to the highest bidder, then he can still acquire and keep an arbitrarily large amount of land without losing money on the enterprise, so if many other people are foolish enough to sell to him, then he and his descendants can hold the land forever, and discriminate against particular members of the landless class at their whim, or discriminate against particular uses of the land, by rejecting their high bids to rent parcels of land, and pay only a relatively minor monetary price (the difference between the high and next-highest bids) for the privilege to sporadically discriminate like this.


But they can't make any significant profit by holding land under my system, while they can under yours.  If they can't, it's just a very expensive way to indulge a propensity to discriminate.



> In contrast, under my system, such a landowning dynasty would be economically unfeasible, because the dynasty would have to defend each parcel of land in an auction every 50 years, which makes it impossible to break even by renting it for the purpose of subleasing it, because the high bidder by definition pays more than anybody else was willing to pay; if nobody else was willing to pay that much to rent directly from the planetary landlord, then nobody will pay that much to sublease the land either.


It's more economically unfeasible under my system, because the rent recovery is more accurate.



> What do you say would be the right way to establish a legitimate government for the Martian colony?


Assuming it is not _founded_ by a government, I'd say a democratic government exercising authority over the local area it controls.  A lot would depend on circumstances, the level of technology involved, etc.



> Do you say this just because my system officially revalues each parcel of land only once every 50 years (which requires bidders to predict value that far in advance), whereas your system revalues it more frequently, or is there some other reason?


Strictly in terms of the practical differences, IMO that's the most important one.

----------


## SpiritOf1776_J4

> Garbage.


And repeated about ten plus times.

I posted my links.  I don't enjoy talking to you, I posted them for others.  Just posting a bunch of noise on this group isn't going to keep the information getting out.  The conservative tax protest movement has been going on a long time, and the information I posted is pretty well known.

To repeat:

Tariffs have been the traditional method of taxes for the federal government, and is perferred as they are indirect taxes on both people and are outside the States.

Land taxes are bad, and have always been bad, but that is another message.

----------


## Roy L

> And repeated about ten plus times.


I simply proved you wrong.  Deal with it.



> I posted my links.


I explained why they were irrelevant.



> I don't enjoy talking to you,


You don't enjoy being caught.



> To repeat:


And you complain about me repeating things?



> Tariffs have been the traditional method of taxes for the federal government, and is perferred as they are indirect taxes on both people and are outside the States.


They are preferred because they shift the burden of taxation off the privileged landowning elite who actually pocket the value government spending creates and onto the productive working people who don't. 



> Land taxes are bad, and have always been bad, but that is another message.


Land taxes are good, have usually succeeded brilliantly, and I have demolished all claims to the contrary.

----------


## Travlyr

> Land taxes are good, have usually succeeded brilliantly, and I have demolished all claims to the contrary.


lolz ... If that is a fact, then why do you have one red bar?

----------


## Roy L

> lolz ... If that is a fact, then why do you have one red bar?


Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.

----------


## Travlyr

> Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.


Perhaps you could try persuasion without insults. I know that I quit reading your posts a long time ago because your arguments were more about tearing down your opponent than the substance of discussion.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.


Yeah, that's the ticket, Don Quixote Roy - keep slaying those windmills evil lying giants. 

I heard you say bang, and very clearly, so they are quite obviously dead.

----------


## Roy L

> And here's the thing: I'm totally proud of all those stands!


No doubt.



> Perhaps I should briefly explain them again?


Why, so I can demolish them again?



> "natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence" --  Natural resources have to be discovered.


Wrong.  They are there, and useful, without being discovered.  Even plants use natural resources without discovering them.  And even when resources are discovered, that does not create or improve the resources.  It only improves the discoverer's knowledge, better fitting him to use the *pre-existing* resources.  You know this.  How could better fitting himself to use resources, without altering them in any way, somehow extinguish others' rights to discover and use them?



> Their usefulness has to be discovered.


Again, that is an improvement to the discoverer's knowledge, not the resource.  It's self-improvement, not land or resource improvement.  You know this.



> They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual.


Sometimes.  And such rearrangement is improvement.  It is production of products by labor, the result of which is not land, and thus cannot earn rightful ownership of any land.



> Robinson Crusoe can take a bunch of vines and make a net to catch fish, but only if he knows about nets or can invent the concept himself, otherwise the vines are of no value.  If he never took the time to look around and find the vines, likewise then they are of no value.  They might as well not be there.


But they *are* there, ready for anyone else to use, whether he does anything with them or not.  To deny this is self-evidently a lie.



> Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.


Wrong AGAIN.  Wild animals use nature just fine without any human intelligence and labor, so you are just indisputably wrong.



> "feudalism created an economic miracle of prosperity" -- Yes, the decentralization of power of all the tiny little polities and all the tiny little fiefdoms within those polities, all within an overarching religious and cultural mileu, created opportunities for liberty to flourish.


Thank you for agreeing that you *LIED* when you claimed that *FEUDALISM,* *specifically,* created a miracle of material *PROSPERITY*.



> The small size of the polities and religious, language, and cultural similarities throughout Western Europe enabled easy exit to other polities, which was a check on excessive power.


But had nothing to do with feudalism, and did not create any economic miracle, contrary to your LIE.



> Also, all three levels -- fiefdoms, polities, and Church -- were in tension and so acted as checks on each other, and most importantly on the power of the polities.


Which produced no prosperity and in fact, by any objective measure, led to lower production and a lower standard of living than had obtained hundreds of years earlier under Roman government, which at least kept the peace.



> "a chainsaw contains raw matter" -- This is so self-evident, I have never really known what to say about your rejection of this idea.


It is self-evidently a lie.  



> Everything material is made of matter.  A chainsaw is material. A chainsaw thus contains matter.  One can see, touch, disassemble, lick, and otherwise experience a chainsaw sensorily in order to confirm this theory for oneself.


So your lie is that the word, "raw" is not there.



> All this matter was once "raw".


But when incorporated into the chainsaw, is indisputably no longer raw.  Thank you for agreeing that you LIED.  AGAIN.



> It all came from nature, or the Universe.


But is no longer in nature, and therefore no longer raw.  Thank you for agreeing that you lied.



> That is the only source we have for matter.  If you come up with another source, let me know.


"Raw."  Remember?



> Thus a chainsaw, and all material goods, are built from what the economists call "land".


Ex-land.  Stop lying.



> Land, labor, capital -- you combine them together and make goods.


Wrong *again*.  Labor USES land and capital to make goods.  The goods contain no land or labor.



> Every economic good requires at least some land as a component.


Nope.  Wrong *AGAIN*.  Production requires land as a location, but that is not a component of the good.  And material goods require use of material resources, but once removed from nature they are no longer raw matter.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided that you had better deliberately lie about it.



> The case would seem to be pretty air tight.


The case is airtight that you are lying.



> One takes raw matter, and makes a chainsaw.


Which, being a chainsaw, is no longer raw matter, and contains no raw matter.



> Raw matter is what composes the chainsaw.


That is a flat-out lie.



> Now where we differed is that you said the whole chainsaw has been removed from nature.  None of it is in its natural state anymore.  But that's not true.


It is self-evidently and indisputably true, and you are just lying.



> It all just depends on how far from its natural state you must make it to qualify for your Holy delandifying absolution.


No, it depends on how committed you are to lying in the service of greed, privilege, injustice and evil.  



> The atoms are still intact.  None of them have been split.  They're still in their natural state.  Their location has been changed.  But is that really enough change?


Yes.



> What if I were to place a large heater on the ground somewhere that would heat up the Earth for miles around.  Dirt would be melting in the immediate viscinity.  Matter even hundreds of miles deep would be heated a few degrees.


Not for millions of years.



> Physics tells us that the temperature will rise for the matter even all the way down to the earth's core.  By changing the matter's nature in this way, have I removed it from nature and made it a product of my labor?


A mere temperature change is temporary, and does not remove the matter from nature.  Melting it, of course, does.



> More and more evidence is mounting that the only thing that is permanently land in his world view is location.


Locations on the earth's surface are certainly one of the few really permanent resources, but they are not the only permanent resources.  Broadcast spectrum is also permanent.  The sun and the earth's atmosphere are permanent so far as we know.  Maybe a few other things.



> All you have to do to get to own something is shuffle it around a bit.  Move that huge boulder 10 feet to the right and BAM! it's mine.


Assuming you pay any severance tax owing.



> So this leads to the conclusion that evil viscious parasites should be able to own absolutely anything and everything in the Universe, except for those types of property that are by their nature very difficult to move like parking lots and farms.


Self-contradiction: if it is property, it is already owned.



> So Georgism boils down to really nothing but size-ism: prejudice in favor of those who want to own small, mobile property, and against those who want to own large, immobile property.


As you know, that is just another stupid lie on your part.  An oil tanker is much larger than a SFD building lot, but the former is rightly property while the latter is not, because the former was earned by labor, while the latter was not and could never possibly be.



> "a million dollars a year doesn't make up for even an hour a week of compulsory labor" -- Of the four, this is the stand I am the most proud of.


Being perhaps the most absurd and dishonest of the four.



> But he also taught another important principle, that of: "The bike's not for sale, Francis".  Some things are simply not for sale.  At any price.  No matter what.  My liberty is one of those things.


Wrong *AGAIN*.  You have *already* sold your liberty, your birthright, for a pot of message: your absurd Austrian-school rationalizations for the liberty-extinguishing injustice inherent in forcible appropriation of natural resources as private property.



> Injustice cannot be made to be just by merely giving payouts or bribes to the victims.


But at least it is more just than NOT making any compensation for forcibly violating your victims' rights to liberty.



> Your misosophy says that rape can be made morally acceptable by merely agreeing to pay the victims a million dollars each time you do it.


Lie.  Rape is not required to secure anyone's rights.  Exclusive tenure to land IS required to secure producers' rights to their fixed improvements, even though that inherently violates others' rights to liberty.  It is to reconcile this inherent conflict of rights that compensation from the privileged to their victims is required.  Your "solution" is simply to tell the victims, "Tough $#!+ about your liberty.  I have removed it by force; and when you are consequently enslaved, you will take it and like it.  Now shut up and get back on the treadmill."



> No problem there.  Just roam the streets raping whoever you want and as long as you compensate them, justice has been served and you're good to go.


Lie, as proved above.



> My philosophy says otherwise.


Right: your "philosophy" applauds and worships the greedy, idle, privileged, parasitic, murdering, enslaving landowner as a hero.



> I guess you just have to choose which one seems better to you.


Oh, I have, believe me.



> As for me, I will stand with absolute moral principles.


Right: absolute servitude to greed, privilege, parasitism and injustice, no matter how many lies it takes, and no matter how many millions of human sacrifices it lays each year on the altar of your Great God Property.



> You can stand for the rich serial rapist.  To each his own.


Inevitably, a bald lie about what I have plainly written.

Disgraceful.

----------


## pcosmar

> Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.


It couldn't be because YOU are promoting Theft.

no ,, that wouldn't be it.
Taxes are Theft.  Period.

----------


## Roy L

> Perhaps you could try persuasion without insults.


Identifying the fact that someone is lying to serve privilege, greed, injustice and evil is always going to sound like an insult, sorry.  But there is no other appropriate response.  I firmly believe that most of the great evils of history could have been averted if just a few people had had the courage, at the critical moments, to stand up and say, "What you propose to do is evil, and your attempts to rationalize it are nothing but absurd lies."



> I know that I quit reading your posts a long time ago because your arguments were more about tearing down your opponent than the substance of discussion.


There is no substance to a discussion where one side is doing nothing but lie about indisputable facts of objective physical reality and what the opposing side has plainly said.

----------


## Roy L

> It couldn't be because YOU are promoting Theft.


No, you're right, it couldn't, because I am not.



> no ,, that wouldn't be it.


Right.



> Taxes are Theft.  Period.


That is a lie.  Period.  It is private appropriation of publicly created value that is self-evidently and indisputably theft.  You know this, because I have proved it:

_The Bandit

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?_

----------


## Sola_Fide

Property taxes are completely unbiblical.  God declares that He owns the earth, therefore no government can lay its claim on it or tax it.

God also declares the institution of property many times.  The injunctions against theft and murder are explicit declarations of private property.

RoyL's entire foundation is flawed. It rejects God's moral law, and therefore it is evil from the beginning.

----------


## Roy L

> Property taxes are completely unbiblical.


Because private property in land is itself completely unbiblical.  Land was never considered private property until Roman law created the privilege for the noble landowning senatorial families.



> God declares that He owns the earth, therefore no government can lay its claim on it or tax it.


But private thieves can, forcibly depriving God's children of His gift to all of them...?

"The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." Leviticus 25:23



> God also declares the institution of property many times.  The injunctions against theft and murder are explicit declarations of private property.


See above.  God has specifically told you that *land* is _not_ to be private property, _ever_.  Why are you defying His explicit Word?



> RoyL's entire foundation is flawed. It rejects God's moral law, and therefore it is evil from the beginning.


Apostasy!!  God's moral law is stated above, in His own divinely inspired Words: *The land is God's, and can never rightly be appropriated as any man's private property.*  Period.

Now smarten up, or your immortal Soul is going to Burn Eternally in the Pit that is Bottomless.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

----------


## jascott

> The privileged in your system lease land early, then benefit from the added land value later arrivals create.


The same thing happens in your system, just on a shorter timescale (months instead of years).




> 50 years is a long time. In most cases land rent will rise by about an order of magnitude in that time. If population grows rapidly, as it might on a frontier, rent could rise much more rapidly.


Bids for 50-year leases will be increased in anticipation of the increased future value of the land, just the same as stock prices for unprofitable companies are bid up in anticipation of future profits.

In fact, my system helps to jumpstart development of frontiers, while yours doesn't. In my system, if somebody over bids, and it turns out value isn't increasing as much as he anticipated, then he can abandon the land and be freed from the burden of paying for it any longer, at which point it's re-auctioned (but until then, the government received extra revenue due to his overoptimistic bid), but if value increases more than he anticipated (and more than everybody else anticipated too, since everybody else bid less than the winner did), then he makes a profit for the duration of his tenure. Why is this good? Because the possibility of profit causes him to bid early for land which in your system would remain unclaimed until it was actually needed, and his early rental provides government revenue which would otherwise be lacking, and the government can use this early revenue to provide defense, roads, and other infrastructure in the frontier earlier than it could in your system.
The speculator intentionally pays more than the current value of the land during the first years of his tenure, in exchange for the right to pay less than the current value during the last years. In effect, he's making a loan to the government, enabling it to jumpstart development.
This is a win-win situation. The only losers are speculators who overbid, and pay excess rent until they realize their folly. Later arrivals who sublease the land from early arrivals pay the current market rate, the same as they would in your system; the difference is that with my system, by the time they arrive, more infrastructure is already in place. The 50-year tenure limits the repayment period of the effective loan, so that future generations aren't burdened with the debts of their ancestors.

By the way, is eternal security of tenure an essential feature of your system? Or is it possible that some sort of geoist system could still be moral without providing eternal security?




> I'd say a democratic government exercising authority over the local area it controls.


Ok, your colony sets up such a government. Then, outside that area of authority and control, but not very far outside, the cult which I mentioned in this thread in post #709 arrives and sets up camp. What are you going to do about it? Nothing?
If nothing, then consider later, as your colony expands, and eventually envelopes the cult's land. Do you annex that land, and start charging LVT, or do you exempt it from your government's authority and control? Do you still do nothing about the ongoing practice of human sacrifice?

You might consider this a matter of international relations and outside the scope of this thread on LVT, but it's actually at the heart of the matter. The authority of a government to levy taxes depends on the legitimacy of the government itself, which depends on the control which it does or doesn't exercise over land and people, including people who are committing murder nearby, and including the land of nearby sovereign states where the citizens tell foreigners to bug off, and including people who invade soveriegn states in order to try to stop the commission of murder. You can't answer the question of where a government is authorized to levy taxes without first addressing these issues. So what do you do about the murderous cult living in the sovereign state which is surrounded by your colony? On what basis does your government have authority over Helmuth's land, when he says it doesn't? By setting up only a local government, you've already implicitly acknowledged that there are places where it doesn't have authority. And if the answer depends on who historically has had control, so that a government can't legitimately exercise control over land which it didn't historically control, then doesn't that also mean that a government can't legitimately levy an LVT on land on which it historically didn't?

----------


## Steven Douglas

OK, Roy, greedy for another brass ring, I guess it's time to jump back onto the Carousel. 




> That is a lie.  Period.  It is private appropriation of publicly created value that is self-evidently and indisputably theft.  You know this, because I have proved it:
> 
> _The Bandit
> 
> Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.
> 
> A thief, right?
> 
> Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?
> ...



Let us take that to its natural conclusion, Roy. 

Let us suppose that this bandit, or "thief", is but one thief operating along that pass, and that _only such thieves_ inhabit this pass. He gets together with all the other thieves and forms a government called The Peephole (the legitimacy of which all the surrounding governments acknowledge).  Let's sweeten the pot, and say that this newly organized cartel of thieves continues to charge for usage of the land, as before. However, as part of its Constitution, the new government is steadfast in its refusal to sell or issue land titles to anyone, but only charges an LVT to those who use the land, effectively requiring them to pay back The Peephole for what was theirs as a matter of right.  Is this government called The Peephole no longer thieves, now that all these conditions are all in place?  

I am just trying to figure out what, in your mind, distinguishes government versus a collective of organized thieves versus a single thief?

----------


## jascott

> Property taxes are completely unbiblical. God declares that He owns the earth, therefore no government can lay its claim on it or tax it.


If you're Christian, then remember: you aren't your own; you were bought for a price.
And if even you yourself aren't your own, then surely land isn't your own either (which accords with what you wrote: God owns the Earth); in both cases, you're merely a steward. The next question is: is your stewardship exclusive and unconditional, or joint with the authorities whom God has set up on Earth, and conditional on your payment of taxes to them? In the latter case, which form of taxes are the authorities authorized to collect?

----------


## pcosmar

> "The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." Leviticus 25:23


And this is what happens when the ignorant take scripture completely out of context.

----------


## pcosmar

> I am just trying to figure out what, in your mind, distinguishes government versus a collective of organized thieves versus a single thief?


He is trying to justify thugery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Because private property in land is itself completely unbiblical.  Land was never considered private property until Roman law created the privilege for the noble landowning senatorial families.
> 
> But private thieves can, forcibly depriving God's children of His gift to all of them...?
> 
> "The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." Leviticus 25:23
> 
> See above.  God has specifically told you that *land* is _not_ to be private property, _ever_.  Why are you defying His explicit Word?
> 
> Apostasy!!  God's moral law is stated above, in His own divinely inspired Words: *The land is God's, and can never rightly be appropriated as any man's private property.*  Period.
> ...


Genesis 1:26-And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

Take some bible classes, sir.  You don't understand it well enough to argue about it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Property taxes are completely unbiblical.  God declares that He owns the earth, therefore no government can lay its claim on it or tax it.
> 
> God also declares the institution of property many times.  The injunctions against theft and murder are explicit declarations of private property.
> 
> RoyL's entire foundation is flawed. It rejects God's moral law, and therefore it is evil from the beginning.


+rep

----------


## Roy L

> Let us suppose that this bandit, or "thief", is but one thief operating along that pass, and that _only such thieves_ inhabit this pass. He gets together with all the other thieves and forms a government called The Peephole (the legitimacy of which all the surrounding governments acknowledge).  Let's sweeten the pot, and say that this newly organized cartel of thieves continues to charge for usage of the land, as before. However, as part of its Constitution, the new government is steadfast in its refusal to sell or issue land titles to anyone, but only charges an LVT to those who use the land, effectively requiring them to pay back The Peephole for what was theirs as a matter of right.  Is this government called The Peephole no longer thieves, now that all these conditions are all in place?


They're still thieves, because like any other landowner, they aren't creating any value in return for the value they take.  And unlike most actual *governments*, they are not providing any services or infrastructure that make the land more valuable than it already was as a natural pass through the mountains.

There is actually a close real-world parallel to your bandit government in the pass: the Somali pirates who infest the Bab-al-Mandeb strait between Africa and Yemen.  They obviously have a working "government" of sorts, and while they don't limit themselves to charging the market rent for use of the strait, they operate a quite similar racket.



> I am just trying to figure out what, in your mind, distinguishes government versus a collective of organized thieves versus a single thief?


Governments can have various degrees of legitimacy, and thus of commitment to their legitimate function of securing and reconciling the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.  Some are indeed little better (a few are even worse) than thieves.  The term "kleptocracy," coined in the 1970s, I believe, to describe many corrupt and undemocratic governments in Third World countries that operated mainly on aid stolen from wealthy donor countries, is apposite.  Oil sheikdoms, as another example, have feudal governments whose major function is to extract resource rents from international oil consumers for the personal use of the landowners.  As effectively private landowners, these "governments" are very much the same as the bandit collective "government" in the pass that you described.

I don't deny that some governments have actually been worse than anarcho-capitalist feudalism under private landowners.  While private landowners' greed has often exterminated large fractions of their subject populations by poverty and starvation, this result has generally been unintended.  Governments like those of Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, the Romans (starting but not ending with Carthage), Ran Min, the Muslim conquerors of India, and too many others to mention have exterminated substantial fractions of whole nations -- and even entire populations -- as a matter of deliberate policy.

But AFAIK no democratic government has ever done that.

----------


## Roy L

> And this is what happens when the ignorant take scripture completely out of context.


And this is what happens when sanctimonious hypocrites choose to ignore what scripture plainly says *in* context.

----------


## Roy L

> He is trying to justify thugery.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee


You are lying.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

----------


## Roy L

> I don't know which one you're talking about!


I think you do, and I even went back through the thread and found it: #699.



> Wouldn't that describe all my posts here?


No.

So was it #699?  And if it wasn't, which one was it, and from which of Rothbard's brainless and dishonest anti-LVT rants did you lift it?

----------


## Roy L

> 1792	$4.4	95.0%	
> 1795	$5.6	91.6%	
> 1800	$9.1	83.7%	
> 1805	$12.9	95.4%	
> 1810	$8.6	91.5%	
> 1815	$7.3	46.4%	
> 1820	$15.0	83.9%	
> 1825	$20.1	97.9%	
> 1830	$21.9	88.2%	
> ...


Where are these numbers from, and what are they supposed to mean?

----------


## pcosmar

> And this is what happens when sanctimonious hypocrites choose to ignore what scripture plainly says *in* context.


GO Away.
The scripture was written specifically to the Hebrew, and regarding Hebrew Law.  And the book of Leviticus was specifically to the Priests. (The tribe of Levy)

Private Property was recognized then and throughout the Bible and by the peoples of other lands.

So you can quit with your useless drivel. Grow up and educate yourself.

----------


## low preference guy

Is Roy Fire11's smart brother?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Is Roy Fire11's smart brother?


lolz

----------


## pcosmar

> Is Roy Fire11's smart brother?


I wouldn't go that far.

----------


## SL89



----------


## Roy L

> Oh!  Could you list them?


I have been.



> And, you don't even care enough to look back and check what he said.  You don't really care what he said -- and he's your "good buddy"!


I don't recall saying he is my good buddy, but you are correct: I don't really care what he said, because his views aren't mine and I have no intention of defending them.



> You cannot even be bothered to take the effort to comprehend his sentences correctly.


I have had no trouble comprehending his sentences.  I just haven't committed them to memory.



> What does that say about how much you care about comprehending anyone else on the thread?


I comprehend _you_ well enough, compadre.  And that is your problem.



> In theory.  Generally that will not happen.  Generally, the resources will have been LVTed somehow.


Which only means that instead of going to an idle private owner in return for nothing, that portion of the rent will have gone to government, offsetting harmful and unfair taxes.



> So concrete is just pure labor.  Got it.


It's a product of labor.  It is not land.



> Except for by "infinity" you mean "100%".  Those are two different rates.


No, they refer to two different things: the ad valorem tax rate and the fraction of land rent recovered.



> A rate of infinity, of course, means that in order to occupy the space one must pay the state an infinite amount of wealth each lease period -- which is impossible unless you allow an installment plan .  Even then I think it's impossible.  Finite land value X times infinity equals infinity.


Not if the land value X is 0.  But obviously it is not possible to apply an infinite tax rate, as it is impossible to calculate.  The point is that however high the ad valorem rate, as long as it is applied to land value it can't exceed the land rent.  LVT is therefore inherently limited to the just recovery of publicly created value.



> So you mean 100%, and taxing over 100% of the value does indeed create the risk of land being abandoned.


No, because exchange value just declines to less than the rent.  You can tax it at 1000% or 1M%, and the land's value just gets smaller and smaller while the tax amount asymptotically approaches the rent.  Remember the Net Present Value Equation:

V = r / (t + d - g)

Where V is the land value, r is the rent, t is the tax rate expressed as a fraction, D is the discount rate, and g is the rent growth rate.  You will note that no matter how high you make t, V x t can't exceed r.



> It would indeed decrease the state's revenue.


Only if the tax amount were more than the rent, which the Net Present Value Equation says can't happen with real numbers.



> Any tax based on land value is a land value tax.


No, to be a land value tax in the relevant sense for the purposes of this thread, the tax AMOUNT must be more or less PROPORTIONAL TO the land's value.  No other mathematical or other relation is valid as a land value tax.



> If the tax charges 10% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax.  If the tax charges 100% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax.  If the tax charges 1,000% of the value of the land, that is a land value tax.


Right.  But even if the tax charges 1000% of the value of the land, that just means the land's value will be so small that the tax *amount* will still be less than the rent.  That's what you haven't figured out yet.



> I call the state a group of people.  All people might do things from time to time which are not in their best long-term interests.


Especially apologists for privilege and injustice, who don't realize they are dooming their society.



> By drinking water, I deprive others of their inalienable right to drink the same water.


And if water were scarce, and they were consequently suffering a deprivation, that would be a problem.  You just refuse to know the fact that my breathing this air does not violate your rights, but depriving you of the air you would otherwise be at liberty to breathe where you are WOULD violate your rights.



> Let's all suicide, since that's the only way to avoid depriving others of their inalienable rights.


A "deprivation" that imposes no deprivation is no deprivation.



> OK, so if I can prove that the soil down to 100 feet underground has been rearranged by the tamping, I then own that cube of soil.  People can still tunnel under me, provided they go deep enough that it doesn't affect my cube, but that particular cube of matter is now mine, I may monopolize it freely, after paying a severance tax.  Is that correct?


In principle, yes.  In practice, such a trivial "improvement" might be disregarded as vexatious.  De minima non curiat lex.



> You know, all your little scenarios have one thing in common: one supplier.  Only one.


No, there's no supplier at all, as the land was already there, supplied in full, with no help from the landowner or anyone else.  That is why it doesn't matter how many parasites there are claiming to own how many different resources.



> Robinson Crusoe?  There's just one island, and no hope of getting to another one.


Would it make any difference if there was another island 100m away, with an equally greedy parasite claiming to own it?  Would it matter if two parasites each owned half of the island, or two million each owned a two millionth?  Friday still has no choice but to serve one of them or get back in the water.



> The Bandit?  He's staked out the one and only possible road; as you said: "There is no other road".


It doesn't matter if there is another pass, as long as his is the best route for some of the caravans, and they are consequently willing to be robbed to use it.



> Dirtowner Harry?  He's got the only water, with no hope of getting to some other water source.


Is Thirsty any better off if there are other spring owners all just as greedy as Harry?



> So all these scenarios really only work if there's a total monopoly, no alternatives no competition.


No, the absence of alternatives just makes the issue clearer.  Adding other parasites just means the victim might be able to get a better deal, like adding competing protection rackets means a business owner might be able to play them off against each other to get a better deal.  But he's still going to end up paying a parasite for doing nothing.



> So I guess you're arguing against the problems that could be created if we didn't have competition in natural resource ownership.


Natural resource ownership is inherently a monopoly.



> Indeed, I agree that if we were living in a world where instead of just going down the block to a different landlord, the whole country was owned by one landlord, there could be potential for abuse.


There *is* abuse, because it doesn't matter how many landlords there are: none of them can do better than by charging the full market rent, which is exactly the same as if there were only one landlord.



> Of course, the whole country being one big land monopoly, all owned by one owner -- the state -- is exactly what you propose.


Land is inherently a monopoly.



> And what if the state decided it didn't like redheads and wasn't going to let them drink any of the water without paying a 100,000% tax on the value of that water?  Obviously it could do that, and they would have to pay.  There's no alternative sources.


"What if the state decided to cut off everyone's feet as payment of their land tax?  You see?  LVT would put everyone in a wheelchair!!""



> Another thing all your stories have in common: the victim is hapless.  They have either had extreme misfortune or extreme stupidity.  Either way, they have failed to prepare for and deal with the world around them in an effective manner.


Yeah, like all those stupid slaves trying to run away instead of buckling down and getting to work!  Why couldn't they just prepare for their lack of liberty and deal with the world around them in an effective manner?



> What is the bozo doing out in the desert with no water when he knows none of the oasis owners are going to let him drink?


"Oasis owners"??  How could anyone become an "oasis owner"?

Oh, no, wait a minute, I get it: you mean he should have been prepared to encounter greedy, violent, thieving parasites, and made sure he was well armed and able to deal with them -- preferably terminally, and at a safe distance.  Well, maybe you are right.



> He didn't know?  Well he should have known!  It's his job to know!  If he can't take reality by the reins even to the minimal extent of making sure he will be able to supply himself with water, he is not fit to survive.


Oh, he was fully prepared to supply himself with water from natural sources, same as people have been doing for millions of years.  He just wasn't prepared to be threatened by a greedy, violent, thieving parasite when he was in the process of supplying himself with water.



> This caravan should have planned ahead and secured all the land for their route.


That is an idiotic claim.  They are productive merchants providing value for money, not greedy, thieving, parasitic landowners.  They do have _some_ pride.



> Honestly, all these "victims" are pathetic and I have very little sympathy for them.


Classic "blame the victim" bull$#!+.



> No.  Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress had no real taxing power.


That does not alter the fact that the American Founders prescribed a land value tax as the sole source of federal government revenue.



> Their own laziness, prodigality, stupidity, sickliness, or profligacy.


Nope.  That's a lie.  If any of those things were going to stop them, you wouldn't need to initiate force against them, or have the state do so on your behalf, to extort wealth from them when, in their industry, diligence, wisdom, health and thrift, they purposed to put the land nature provided to productive use.



> Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use.


Nonsense.  Stupid, lazy landowners have often obtained natural resources without exercising any intelligence or doing any labor:

"The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive, way for a capitalist to increase his fortune is to put all his monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie



> Nature is not a vending machine.


The difference between nature and a vending machine is that nature doesn't demand any money for her bounty.  It's landowners who demand that others pay them for what government, the community and nature provide.

----------


## Roy L

> GO Away.


<yawn>  You start thumping your Bible at me, sunshine, and I'm going to rub your nose in it.



> The scripture was written specifically to the Hebrew, and regarding Hebrew Law.  And the book of Leviticus was specifically to the Priests. (The tribe of Levy)


All of which just means you aren't interested in honoring what it plainly says.



> Private Property was recognized then and throughout the Bible and by the peoples of other lands.


But not private property in *land*, as the divine prescription of the jubilee to re-equalize land use opportunity proves.  Or are you also ignorant of that part of your Bible?



> So you can quit with your useless drivel. Grow up and educate yourself.


Ooooh, touched a nerve there, did I?  I'd suggest you stop typing and start thinking, Brother pcosmar.  It's _your_ immortal Soul that's at stake, not mine.

----------


## Roy L

> Genesis 1:26-And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.


Property in land not mentioned.  As already stated.



> Take some bible classes, sir.  You don't understand it well enough to argue about it.


<yawn>  Homesteading Eden didn't seem to get Adam and Eve a very solid title, did it...?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Property in land not mentioned.  As already stated.
> 
> <yawn>  Homesteading Eden didn't seem to get Adam and Eve a very solid title, did it...?


What part of "*and the whole earth,* and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth." do you not understand?

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Because private property in land is itself completely unbiblical.  Land was never considered private property until Roman law created the privilege for the noble landowning senatorial families.
> 
> But private thieves can, forcibly depriving God's children of His gift to all of them...?
> 
> "The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." Leviticus 25:23
> 
> See above.  God has specifically told you that *land* is _not_ to be private property, _ever_.  Why are you defying His explicit Word?
> 
> Apostasy!!  God's moral law is stated above, in His own divinely inspired Words: *The land is God's, and can never rightly be appropriated as any man's private property.*  Period.
> ...





I only reply for the benefit of others because obviously RoyL is a troll.  But let's look deeper into the Jubilee laws to see if RoyL can establish his communism.


1.  The first thing (the most important thing) is that Jesus annulled the jubilee laws in Luke 4:18-21:




> He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 
> 
> 18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, 
> because he has anointed me 
> to proclaim good news to the poor. 
> He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners 
> and recovery of sight for the blind, 
> to set the oppressed free, 
> 19 to proclaim the year of the Lords favor.
> ...



2. Secondly, even when the jubilee laws applied, the laws were only to return real estate that was owned by the tribes of Joshua.  The Jubilee year was only to restore ORIGINAL ownership back to them, as Gary North explains:




> The Jubilee Year was a Mosaic law that was tied to the land. It applied to real estate that was owned by families of the conquering tribes under Joshua. The property belonged to those families permanently. The Jubilee Year was to restore original ownership. "In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession" (Lev. 25:13).
> 
> _It applied only to rural land, not to cities._ 
> 
> And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it. And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubile. But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubile. (Lev. 25:29- 31).
> _
> It also applied to the Levites, who had no inheritance in unwalled rural land._ 
> 
> Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubile: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession. (Lev. 25:33-34)



So even though the jubilee laws were fulfilled by Jesus, RoyL even gets the concept of the Jubilee wrong, as most communists do.  Although most communists in history have found it easier to just burn the Bibles and outlaw Christianity rather than to try to bend it to their anti-Christian beliefs.  The jubilee laws were simply to preserve a family's already-existing property rights and inheritence from a conquest of land under Joshua.  


3.  Jesus affirmed the principle of property.  One example was the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20.  Jesus defended the right of the landowner to do with what he owned whatever he wanted to do.



There are so many more examples that I am missing....The Bible from Genesis on, affirms property ownership.  God gave ownership and dominion of the earth specifically *to Adam*, not mankind in general.  It was a specific transfer of title from one to another.   

Here is an article that explains some of these concepts:
*Biblical Principles of Law:  Dominion and Property* http://www.lonang.com/curriculum/2/s23.htm

----------


## Sola_Fide

Here is a quote from Udo Middleman that I think would help RoyL:




> "True communion and true community are based upon property rights.  For unless a person owns something he can share, there can be no community."



Makes sense, doesn't it Roy?

----------


## Roy L

> What part of "*and the whole earth,* and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth." do you not understand?


The part where "dominion" turned into "ownership."

What part of "the earth is mine" don't you understand?

----------


## Roy L

> Here is a quote from Udo Middleman that I think would help RoyL:
> 
> "True communion and true community are based upon property rights. For unless a person owns something he can share, there can be no community."


Looks like a bald non sequitur to me.  And how did owning "something" turn into a requirement that _land_ be appropriated as private property?



> Makes sense, doesn't it Roy?


Not noticeably.

----------


## Roy L

> I only reply for the benefit of others because obviously RoyL is a troll.  But let's look deeper into the Jubilee laws to see if RoyL can establish his communism.


Stop lying about what I have plainly written.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> 1.  The first thing (the most important thing) is that Jesus annulled the jubilee laws in Luke 4:18-21:


Ah, no.  He said the law was fulfilled.  He didn't say it no longer applied.



> 2. Secondly, even when the jubilee laws applied, the laws were only to return real estate that was owned by the tribes of Joshua.  The Jubilee year was only to restore ORIGINAL ownership back to them, as Gary North explains:


That's one interpretation.  A more honest one is that it was to restore the more equal access to land given by the original distribution.



> So even though the jubilee laws were fulfilled by Jesus, RoyL even gets the concept of the Jubilee wrong, as most communists do.


You again prove that you cannot tell the truth, and must always deliberately lie about what I have plainly written.



> The jubilee laws were simply to preserve a family's already-existing property rights and inheritence from a conquest of land under Joshua.


IOW, it was not property at all, as they could not sell it.  It was a tenure right.  Two different things.



> 3.  Jesus affirmed the principle of property.


So do I: the rightful property in products of labor that does not violate others' rights to life and liberty.



> One example was the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20.  Jesus defended the right of the landowner to do with what he owned whatever he wanted to do.


No, that's just a fabrication on your part.  Jesus defended the landowner's right to spend his MONEY however he wanted.



> The Bible from Genesis on, affirms property ownership.


So do I, so you can stop the despicable "communism" lies.



> God gave ownership and dominion of the earth specifically *to Adam*, not mankind in general.  It was a specific transfer of title from one to another.


Garbage.  There is no mention of anything being transferred that could honestly be described as a "title."

----------


## Sola_Fide

Okay RoyL    All you've done is reply to my points by saying "you're wrong" and called me a "liar". Fine.  This is where I end the conversation.  At this point, there is no debate...it's just you name-calling and not giving substantive rebuttals.

I'll just leave this here.  Maybe you'll listen to it, maybe you wont.  But it is John Robbins who was a Christian free market economist explaining the concept of property from Scripture:

http://www.trinitylectures.org/MP3/P...hn_Robbins.mp3

----------


## Sola_Fide

> So do I: the rightful property in products of labor that does not violate others' rights to life and liberty.


God gave Adam eden before he did any work.  Property was a gift of God, it was not a product of labor.  If you would have read the article I posted, you would have understood this.




> No, that's just a fabrication on your part.  Jesus defended the* landowner's* right to spend his MONEY however he wanted.


The "who" RoyL?  Who?  Who?  *Whose* right did Jesus defend?  Whose?  LoL


Goodbye Roy

----------


## Sola_Fide

> The part where "dominion" turned into "ownership."
> 
> What part of "the earth is mine" don't you understand?


Dominion means occupation and ownership.  More precisely, it means stewardship, which is temporal ownership.  You don't even know what you're talking about.






One very clear example in Scripture that God institutes land ownership is the prohibition of land theft.  God forbids people to move the boundary stones of their property.  It is theft:




> Deuteronomy 19:14
> 
> You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark, which the ancestors have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess.






> Proverbs 22:28 
> 
> Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your forefathers.


 



> Deuteronomy 27:17 
> 
> "Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor's boundary stone." Then all the people shall say, "Amen!"







> Job 24:2 
> 
> Men move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen.




Roy, the Scriptures are clear.  If you are advocating moving (or eliminating) your neighbor's boundary stone, you are engaging in theft.  Actually you are engaging in coveting, because you are desiring something that is your neighbor's.  This is because people actually own land.

----------


## pcosmar

> <yawn>  You start thumping your Bible at me, sunshine, and I'm going to rub your nose in it.


I didn't start. You were the one using the Bible as a reference. Incorrectly.
I only attempted to correct your error.

Go ahead,, keep flaunting your ignorance.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> [The cartel of thieves that formed a government are] still thieves, because like any other landowner, they aren't creating any value in return for the value they take.


OK, so one distinction between government and a cartel of thieves, as you see it, are the uses for the money they take as "value in return".  So if the same organized thieves use part of the funds to improve their own roads, establish their own concessions and created other infrastructure and services that make it easier for people traveling through the pass, that would take them off the hook, as no longer thieves? Assuming, of course, that no ownership titles were given to others, but were retained only by "the state" (the same gang of thieves that organized, gained acknowledgment and recognition of sovereignty by surrounding countries). 

Like you said, "As effectively private landowners, these "governments" are very much the same as the bandit collective "government" in the pass that you described."

You mentioned that each government has "degrees of legitimacy" based on their _"commitment to their legitimate function of securing and reconciling the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor"_, but how that actually translates to a reliable "rule of law", one that is not based on subjective or prejudicial interpretations is still very unclear to me.  

For example, in all cases, whether a democracy, a sheikdom, or a totalitarian dictatorship, a government could, in theory, satisfy all of your requirements of "improvements and a return of value for value taken".  Furthermore, in all cases, title will be held by a "sovereign owner", noting that even in a democracy, the "sovereign owner" is, by strict definition, "the majority" - whomever that might be, even if it is mislabeled (falsely, evilly, wickedly, yada yada) as "The People".  That, to me, is "private ownership" by any other label. The only difference, in the case of a democracy, for example, is that title transfer can occur by political, rather than economic means.  

In all cases, where is the reliable rule of law, given that everyone might describe terms like "legitimacy", "equal", "rights", "liberty", "property", etc., quite differently? In short, and I am asking in earnest - since you give preference to and seem to be more trusting of democratic governments, what mechanism could be in place to prevent "the tyranny of the majority"?

----------


## eduardo89

I suggest we quit feeding the troll. I'm pretty sure he'd be more happy living with Chavez than under a Ron Paul presidency. 

He's already called my family a gang of evil, thieving, entitled parasites because we own land in Mexico. He admires a despotic, corrupt socialist ex-President and has no respect for property laws. What the hell is he doing here?

----------


## Roy L

> At this point, there is no debate...it's just you name-calling and not giving substantive rebuttals.


*You* are the one who started out by calling me a communist, sunshine, remember?  That was name calling; it was a lie; and it was a stupid and disgraceful one.

I have provided substantive rebuttals to your scriptural "arguments" (actually appeal to authority fallacies), even though scripture is not the subject of this thread.

Deal with it.

----------


## Roy L

> I didn't start.


Nor did I.  The first attempt to turn this into a religious debate was AquaBuddha2010's in post #841.  I was simply refuting his absurd claims.



> You were the one using the Bible as a reference. Incorrectly.


No.  I quoted the Bible accurately to refute AquaBuddha2010.  



> I only attempted to correct your error.


I am the one who corrects errors here, not you.



> Go ahead,, keep flaunting your ignorance.


As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"

----------


## Sola_Fide

> *You* are the one who started out by calling me a communist, sunshine, remember?  That was name calling; it was a lie; and it was a stupid and disgraceful one.
> 
> I have provided substantive rebuttals to your scriptural "arguments" (actually appeal to authority fallacies), even though scripture is not the subject of this thread.
> 
> Deal with it.


Ahhhhh...I see.  So now that you know the Scripture supports land ownership, you are just going to call my arguments "appeals to authority" and on that basis they are wrong.

Fine with me.  The Scripture is my final authority, so I have no problem with your accusation.  But understand that what you are doing is revealing your bias more than arguing against me.

I will gladly appeal to God's Word as the source of my worldview.  Your accusation is fine with me.

----------


## Roy L

> Dominion means occupation and ownership.


No, it does not.  It means control.



> More precisely, it means stewardship, which is temporal ownership.


No, it doesn't, and it isn't.



> You don't even know what you're talking about.


At least I use English words correctly.



> One very clear example in Scripture that God institutes land ownership is the prohibition of land theft.


Garbage.  The prohibition is on unilaterally violating a tenure right.



> God forbids people to move the boundary stones of their property.  It is theft:


Wrong.  Boundary stones were used to mark field boundaries on common land, too.  There is absolutely no implication that the land consequently had to be private property.



> Roy, the Scriptures are clear.  If you are advocating moving (or eliminating) your neighbor's boundary stone, you are engaging in theft.


Of a tenure right.  Appropriation of land as private property is theft from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.



> Actually you are engaging in coveting, because you are desiring something that is your neighbor's.  This is because people actually own land.


Wrong.  Boundary stones were also routinely used to demarcate fields and pastures on land held in common.  A land tenure right is not property in the land.  You are making claims that are not supported by scripture.

----------


## Roy L

> God gave Adam eden before he did any work.  Property was a gift of God, it was not a product of labor.


It was explicitly stated to be a product of _God's_ labor, and therefore rightly in His power to give.



> If you would have read the article I posted, you would have understood this.


The article is an attempt to rationalize property in land by reference to ambiguous and dubiously translated passages in the Bible.  It fails.



> The "who" RoyL?  Who?  Who?  *Whose* right did Jesus defend?  Whose?  LoL


<yawn>  Landowner is a legal, not a moral designation.  The Bible also makes frequent mention of slave owners.  Does that make slavery rightful?

----------


## pcosmar

> I am the one who corrects errors here, not you.


You are a real funny Troll.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> No, it does not.  It means control.
> 
> No, it doesn't, and it isn't.
> 
> At least I use English words correctly.
> 
> Garbage.  The prohibition is on unilaterally violating a tenure right.
> 
> Wrong.  Boundary stones were used to mark field boundaries on common land, too.  There is absolutely no implication that the land consequently had to be private property.
> ...



Roy, this may be news to you, but the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, not English.  The Hebrew word for dominion is "radah", which literally means "to rule over with authority".

The Scripture says God has given man this temporal rule:




> Psalm 8:4-6
> 
> "What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you visit him? For you have made him (man) a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him (man) to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet:"


The earth is under man's temporal ownership.  Temporal, because the eternal and final owner of land is the Creator.  But He has titled man with this temporal ownership by "putting all things under" man's feet.

You should listen to the mp3's and read the article I posted.  You aren't afraid of reading an alternative view of things, are you?

----------


## Sola_Fide

> It was explicitly stated to be a product of _God's_ labor, and therefore rightly in His power to give.


Thank you. If you are saying that land ownership is in God's power to give, then you have just refuted yourself.





> <yawn>  Landowner is a legal, not a moral designation.  The Bible also makes frequent mention of slave owners.  Does that make slavery rightful?


EXACTLY. Which is why it is so ridiculous that you appeal to the jubilee laws in Leviticus 25, because the same chapter deals with slavery laws.  If the jubilee laws are still in effect, are slavery laws still in effect?

No, Jesus annulled them in Luke 4.  Even going back Genesis, God gave man dominion over the earth, not over other men.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> In my system, we do not rent land from the govt or lease it.  There's none of this going to the govt. every year and applying for a leasehold.  No.  We own the land and we trade it.  The Govt. always taxes land based on the price at which it last changed hands, there are no govt. appraisers of the land value pining about to raise your LVT.  If you want to own someone's land than you go to the owner and propose to buy it.  If a prospective buyer wants the land and the owner refuses to sell except at a significant premium, there is a judicial mechanism available to force a sale.  The buyer must post to bond equal to the next years anticipated higher tax amount.  He must be willing to pay more above the current level than just a bare scintilla, otherwise the judicial mechanism would become subject to abuse.  Of course the owner can offer to pay the higher tax and then keep the land, but that is the only way he can keep it once the judicial proceeding is initiated.  Buyer pays all proceeding fees and court costs.
> 
> If land falls in value should we allow the owner to pay less tax even if he does not sell it or engage in transaction?  Yes.  The owner may initiate a judicial proceeding, and upon proper showing that the value has in fact fallen, he may be taxed at the lower rate.  
> 
> So there is two ways land may be assessed a higher value (either free exchange or judicial procedure).  And two ways it may be assessed lower (either free exchange or judicial procedure.)  
> 
> No administrators.  No assessors.  We need a filing office to keep track of when land changes hands and at what price and who owns it.  Everything else follows.


*Your system sounds like nothing but a simple property tax, plus the ability to force land sales* by bribing the government (paying outrageously high property tax). 

Hold the horses here, Helmuth, you say!  It's a land tax, not a property tax!  Ahh, but the market is far ahead of you.  Your land tax is determined solely by tracking land transactions, no gov't assessment.  How often does land get sold without the improvements being sold along with it?  Not often.  It happens more often in urban areas where the lot and the building can be more easily separated, but even there such a land-only sale is generally rare.  So when I sell my house and its lot for $40,000, how does the gov't know how much the lot is worth?  It doesn't!  It knows it's worth less than $40,000, at least to the person to whom I sold it, but other than that it knows nothing.

Perhaps you realize this is a property tax including improvements and are fine with that.  But I assume you are not, otherwise in what sense are you geoist, right?

So what's the solution?  Forcing buyers and sellers to separate the land component from the improvement component would be the best solution I can think of, if I were forced to administer your system and try to make it work.  So there would be two separate title transfers, one for the lot, and one for the house.

But would this be likely to give the gov't all the information it needs?  Not hardly!  In states where the sales tax or license plate tax on cars is determined by what the amount says on the bill of sale, what do people do?  They agree to sell the car for $50.  And the buyer gives the seller a $1950 "gift" in gratitude.  So if the lot sale is getting taxed, but the improvement sale isn't, want to guess how much the lot is going to sell for?

Furthermore, there's a thing called an "open title".  The seller gets the deed signed away and notarized, but doesn't fill in the buyer.  This title may then change hands ten times before years later some strange buyer decides they hate themselves and want to pay the state for the privilege of having a new, crisp title with their name printed on it.  This same thing could happen under your property tax system.  Why report the sale if it just will result in higher taxes for the buyer?  Everyone keeps their mouth shut, and everybody wins -- except for the state, or if you believe the mythology "the people", who of course are not getting their cut.

America was built on smuggling, and we are experienced tax-dodgers.  If a heavy land tax is _the_ big tax supporting the state apparatus, you'd better believe that it's going to be dodged.  Your system, as explained so far, would make it trivially easy to dodge.  Not only will most sales just not be reported at all, of the ones that _are_ reported many will under-report the total, and those that for some reason must report the real total will all drastically under-value the land and over-value of the improvements.  Why wouldn't they?  Roy's system of assessors and miraculous computer programs is much more realistic as far as making it difficult to dodge and being able to clamp down on dodgers (dodgers without pull at the assessment bureau, that is).

----------


## Roy L

> OK, so one distinction between government and a cartel of thieves, as you see it, are the uses for the money they take as "value in return".  So if the same organized thieves use part of the funds to improve their own roads, establish their own concessions and created other infrastructure and services that make it easier for people traveling through the pass, that would take them off the hook, as no longer thieves?


They would be acting more like a government, though they might not have any legitimate (i.e., popular) authority to do so.  I certainly don't support rights of secession for indefinitely small groups claiming indefinitely small territories, for reasons this hypothetical makes pretty clear: the merchants would otherwise be at liberty to use the pass.  By what right do the bandits stop them?  If the bandits were acting like a legitimate government, and otherwise securing and reconciling the merchants' rights under democratic institutions, *then* they would no longer be thieves.



> Assuming, of course, that no ownership titles were given to others, but were retained only by "the state" (the same gang of thieves that organized, gained acknowledgment and recognition of sovereignty by surrounding countries).


Recognition by surrounding countries can confer legitimacy under international law, but that's not the same as the genuine legitimacy conferred by fulfilling the legitimate functions of government under democratic control.



> You mentioned that each government has "degrees of legitimacy" based on their _"commitment to their legitimate function of securing and reconciling the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor"_, but how that actually translates to a reliable "rule of law", one that is not based on subjective or prejudicial interpretations is still very unclear to me.


It's one of the eternal questions.



> For example, in all cases, whether a democracy, a sheikdom, or a totalitarian dictatorship, a government could, in theory, satisfy all of your requirements of "improvements and a return of value for value taken".  Furthermore, in all cases, title will be held by a "sovereign owner", noting that even in a democracy, the "sovereign owner" is, by strict definition, "the majority" - whomever that might be, even if it is mislabeled (falsely, evilly, wickedly, yada yada) as "The People".  That, to me, is "private ownership" by any other label.


But in fact, the effective public ownership you describe is self-evidently and indisputably not private ownership.



> The only difference, in the case of a democracy, for example, is that title transfer can occur by political, rather than economic means.


Title transfer to land by "economic means" is a sham, because the title is always based on force, not production or voluntary exchange.



> In all cases, where is the reliable rule of law, given that everyone might describe terms like "legitimacy", "equal", "rights", "liberty", "property", etc., quite differently?


"Reliable"?  You are asking quite a lot of institutions designed and operated by imperfect human beings.  The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.  That's your reliability.



> In short, and I am asking in earnest - since you give preference to and seem to be more trusting of democratic governments, what mechanism could be in place to prevent "the tyranny of the majority"?


Various safeguards can be used, but there is ultimately nothing but the quality of the people's discretion.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> So was it #699?  And if it wasn't, which one was it, and from which of Rothbard's brainless and dishonest anti-LVT rants did you lift it?


No, not #699, but thank you.  I am honored.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener
> 
> 
> Except for by "infinity" you mean "100%". Those are two different rates.  A rate of infinity, of course, means that in order to occupy the space one must pay the state an infinite amount of wealth each lease period -- which is impossible unless you allow an installment plan . Even then I think it's impossible. Finite land value X times infinity equals infinity. So you mean 100%, and taxing over 100% of the value does indeed create the risk of land being abandoned.
> 
> 
> You're confusing two different things: the ad valorem tax rate and the fraction of land rent recovered. The point is that however high the ad valorem rate, as long as it is applied to land value it can't exceed the land rent, because the higher the tax goes, the lower the land's value goes.  You can tax it at 1000% or 1M%, and the land's value just gets smaller and smaller while the tax amount asymptotically approaches the rent.  LVT is therefore inherently limited to the just recovery of publicly created value.
> 
>  Remember the Net Present Value Equation:
> ...


 Yes, I realized this was probably what you meant after I typed my reply.  Indeed, you are correct: the higher the tax rate, the lower the land's value, assuming rent doesn't increase and also holding all else equal.

But the equation only is accurate for a static situation.  If something changes, things take time to re-equilibriate.  If the gov't raises the land value tax rate one day, the land values on the market will not instantaneously reflect that.  So you could thus increase the tax so that the land-manager owes more than he can get for rent, suddenly giving his land a negative value and driving him to abandon it.

On the other hand, how does your system get the land value numbers it bases its rates on?  From an army of assessors, computers, and record keepers, armed with a killer algorithm.  If the algorithm instantly and automatically adjusts the land value whenever the tax rate increases, this problem is solved.  Doubtless this is exactly what your system would do.  So that solves that.

On the other hand, that will be kind of annoying for the politicians when they need some extra money that they are mathematically prevented from doing so by an algorithm which makes it impossible.  I'm sure, though, they will never be tempted to change the algorithm a bit, even temporarily, because, well, I'm sure that's just stipulated by your system.  A system in which it's possible for politicians to tamper with algorithms is a system which is no longer Roy L.'s.  Understood and granted.




> You're right, if water were scarce, and they were consequently suffering a deprivation, that would be a problem.  You would then have to stop drinking so much water and share.  If they were in immediate mortal danger, about to die from lack of water, and you had just drank more than you needed to survive, the just thing to do would be to punch you in the gut until you vomited up the excess water for your fellows to share.


Thank you!  That answers my question I had been having of where we should draw the line of deprivation.  Obviously there are degrees of deprivation -- I might deprive a distant someone of some almost imperceptible increase in his standard of living by excluding him from my vacant field, to which he has a 1/7Billionth share, or I might deprive a more nearby someone in a much more measurable and real way by not letting him camp in a cardboard box on the same vacant field.  The line of justice, I perceive, is immediate mortal danger.  If there is this mortal danger, I must not monopolize natural resources which could alleviate the danger, just as we learned from Harry and his oasis.  I must surrender the monopoly immediately.  But otherwise, it is good enough to pay the severance tax or LVT and go on monopolizing and appropriating Earth's resources fro myself with perfect justice.  Would you agree?

----------


## Roy L

> The earth is under man's temporal ownership.  Temporal, because the eternal and final owner of land is the Creator.  But He has titled man with this temporal ownership by "putting all things under" man's feet.


No, that's just a fabrication on your part.  Dominion is not ownership.  At no point in the Bible is any mention made of God granting man a title of ownership to the earth.



> You aren't afraid of reading an alternative view of things, are you?


Lots of people claim I have to waste my time reading or listening to their silly garbage.  If you had an argument, you would have made it.

----------


## Roy L

> No, not #699, but thank you.  I am honored.


Then which one was it?  Come on.  Prove it wasn't #699.

----------


## Roy L

> Thank you. If you are saying that land ownership is in God's power to give, then you have just refuted yourself.


Non sequitur fallacy.



> EXACTLY. Which is why it is so ridiculous that you appeal to the jubilee laws in Leviticus 25, because the same chapter deals with slavery laws.  If the jubilee laws are still in effect, are slavery laws still in effect?


I quoted Leviticus 25 to show that your claim that property taxation is "unbiblical" was unfounded.



> No, Jesus annulled them in Luke 4.  Even going back Genesis, God gave man dominion over the earth, not over other men.


And that meant man, not just those who happen to be landowners.

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, I realized this was probably what you meant after I typed my reply.  Indeed, you are correct: the higher the tax rate, the lower the land's value, assuming rent doesn't increase and also holding all else equal.


Couldn't resist changing what I wrote and claiming I wrote it, could you?

Disgraceful.



> But the equation only is accurate for a static situation.


No, it is accurate for constant tax, discount and growth rates.  But it is really just a simplified form of an infinite series of individual terms.



> If something changes, things take time to re-equilibriate.  If the gov't raises the land value tax rate one day, the land values on the market will not instantaneously reflect that.  So you could thus increase the tax so that the land-manager owes more than he can get for rent, suddenly giving his land a negative value and driving him to abandon it.


The equation assumes a constant tax rate.  If you raise or lower the rates quickly enough, market prices will lag.  But then you are just creating a time lag problem in information flow, so you are not taxing genuine *current* land value but some value from the past.



> On the other hand, how does your system get the land value numbers it bases its rates on?


Transaction prices.



> From an army of assessors, computers, and record keepers, armed with a killer algorithm.


No army of assessors is needed, just the market price and private appraisal data.



> If the algorithm instantly and automatically adjusts the land value whenever the tax rate increases, this problem is solved.  Doubtless this is exactly what your system would do.  So that solves that.


Yes, the algorithm would be designed to measure land rent based on transaction prices, as well as value.



> On the other hand, that will be kind of annoying for the politicians when they need some extra money that they are mathematically prevented from doing so by an algorithm which makes it impossible.  I'm sure, though, they will never be tempted to change the algorithm a bit, even temporarily, because, well, I'm sure that's just stipulated by your system.  A system in which it's possible for politicians to tamper with algorithms is a system which is no longer Roy L.'s.  Understood and granted.


There are other privileges politicians can tax if they need more dough.  



> That answers my question I had been having of where we should draw the line of deprivation.


You again drastically altered my statements and pretended you were quoting me.

Despicable.



> Obviously there are degrees of deprivation -- I might deprive a distant someone of some almost imperceptible increase in his standard of living by excluding him from my vacant field, to which he has a 1/7Billionth share,


He has no such share, only a right to liberty, stop lying about what I have plainly written.



> or I might deprive a more nearby someone in a much more measurable and real way by not letting him camp in a cardboard box on the same vacant field.  The line of justice, I perceive, is immediate mortal danger.


It's true that immediate peril in an emergency imposes additional constraints.  But that is not the line of justice, nor the defining characteristic of deprivation.



> If there is this mortal danger, I must not monopolize natural resources which could alleviate the danger, just as we learned from Harry and his oasis.  I must surrender the monopoly immediately.  But otherwise, it is good enough to pay the severance tax or LVT and go on monopolizing and appropriating Earth's resources fro myself with perfect justice.  Would you agree?


Sure.  All we are saaaaaying, is "Repay what you take."  We certainly wouldn't want to violate anyone's property rights.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Sure.  Monopolize all you want, as long as no one's in immediate danger of dying because of it.


"Sure"?  Really?  Because earlier you said "It's true that immediate peril in an emergency imposes additional constraints.  But that is not the line of Roy-style justice, nor the defining characteristic of deprivation."  So is immediate mortal peril the line or isn't it?  Exactly how immediate must it be?  Can I monopolize freely as long as I pay my penance _unless_ someone is in immediate mortal peril, or are there other unlesses?  If so, what are they?

Also, you've never actually set forth any element of your system that would solve your Dirtowner Harry-type situations.  In your system, such as you've described it to us so far, Harry would still be at perfect liberty to let the thirsty guy die, so long as his LVT was all paid up and current.  You've presented it as evil, but not proposed to end the evil.

So are you now adding an element to your system that there shall be a law passed that people can be forced to give up their exclusivity of land/natural resources if some vagrant comes along and claims that his life depends on your giving up the natural resources?  What about if someone just writes me a letter making such a claim?  What if no victim contacts me at all, but I nevertheless know there are millions of starving Africans, or, to avoid the question of jurisdictions, millions of starving Oklahomans?  And I have resources, "given" to me by nature (nature's so kind and generous) that could help them.  Morally, am I obligated to share part of my nature-given loot with them?  And if so, practically, what laws are you going to pass to make sure that such sharing happens?

----------


## Roy L

> "Sure"?  Really?  Because earlier you said "It's true that immediate peril in an emergency imposes additional constraints.  But that is not the line of Roy-style justice, nor the defining characteristic of deprivation."  So is immediate mortal peril the line or isn't it?


No.  The ethics of emergencies are quite different from objective considerations of justice.



> Exactly how immediate must it be?


That depends on the nature of the peril.  Pulling an incapacitated person to safety from a roadway or train tracks has to be done quickly to be effective, while sheltering earthquake victims from inclement weather overnight can usually be put off for an hour or so until you have made some preparations.



> Can I monopolize freely as long as I pay my penance _unless_ someone is in immediate mortal peril, or are there other unlesses?  If so, what are they?


Other than normal adherence to community standards (designated land use laws, etc.) I can't think of any offhand.



> Also, you've never actually set forth any element of your system that would solve your Dirtowner Harry-type situations.  In your system, such as you've described it to us so far, Harry would still be at perfect liberty to let the thirsty guy die, so long as his LVT was all paid up and current.


Not at all.  We have established that Harry can have no property right in the resource, and paying LVT only gets him a tenure right.  Tenure rights come with responsibilities, among which is observance of community standards of appropriate behavior in emergencies.



> So are you now adding an element to your system that there shall be a law passed that people can be forced to give up their exclusivity of land/natural resources if some vagrant comes along and claims that his life depends on your giving up the natural resources?


You again prove that you have nothing to offer but stupid and dishonest strawman fallacies.  At least this time you didn't actually pretend to be quoting me, so I guess that's progress.



> What about if someone just writes me a letter making such a claim?  What if no victim contacts me at all, but I nevertheless know there are millions of starving Africans, or, to avoid the question of jurisdictions, millions of starving Oklahomans?


If you hold resources in Oklahoma that would save lives, community standards of behavior would require you not to deprive the starving of them in an emergency.  People who are not sociopaths recognize a duty of care in such circumstances.  Lying apologists for landowner privilege, however, often ARE sociopaths, so I don't expect you to understand that.



> And I have resources, "given" to me by nature (nature's so kind and generous) that could help them.  Morally, am I obligated to share part of my nature-given loot with them?  And if so, practically, what laws are you going to pass to make sure that such sharing happens?


I suspect OK already has laws on the books prescribing, e.g., a power of peace officers to commandeer private property for use in emergencies, with compensation to be made later.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No.  The ethics of emergencies are quite different from objective considerations of justice.


All "considerations of justice" are inherently subjective. Nothing wrong with that, but that is the way it is.

----------


## Roy L

> All "considerations of justice" are inherently subjective.


No.  Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and penalties commensurate with deprivations.  That's how we know that appropriation of land as private property is objectively unjust.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No.  Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and penalties commensurate with deprivations.  That's how we know that appropriation of land as private property is objectively unjust.


Since "commensurate with",  "contributions", "penalties" and "deprivations" are all subjective (i.e., not universal, and would be decided differently from person to person declaring what these terms mean, or ought to mean), so, therefore, is the "justice" these terms are intended to define.  I didn't say it's wrong, but it is not objective - even if you begin the sentence, arguing from the premise, "Objectively, ..."

----------


## Roy L

> Since "commensurate with",  "contributions", "penalties" and "deprivations" are all subjective (i.e., not universal, and would be decided differently from person to person declaring what these terms mean, or ought to mean), so, therefore, is the "justice" these terms are intended to define.


No, they are all objective, and defined by good dictionaries.  Moreover, the value of contributions and deprivations is not subjective either.  It is determined in the market.

You can't make facts disappear by calling them opinions, sorry.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, they are all objective, and defined by good dictionaries.  Moreover, the value of contributions and deprivations is not subjective either.  It is determined in the market.
> 
> You can't make facts disappear by calling them opinions, sorry.


I think you are mistaking "defined by good dictionaries" as somehow synonymous with "objective".  Satisfactory, delicious, disgusting, stinky, tepid, good, evil, etc., are all defined by good dictionaries, but that does not make a single one of them objective.

And before anything can be "determined by the market", someone must first "decide" how that process "ought" (normative, subjective) to take place.

----------


## Roy L

> Ahhhhh...I see.  So now that you know the Scripture supports land ownership,


You are lying about what I plainly wrote, as well as about what scripture plainly says.  And you call *my* views "unbiblical"!



> you are just going to call my arguments "appeals to authority" and on that basis they are wrong.


They are certainly fallacious.



> The Scripture is my final authority,


When interpreted so as to conform with your mammon-worshiping opinions....



> so I have no problem with your accusation.  But understand that what you are doing is revealing your bias more than arguing against me.


I'm not "arguing against" you.  I'm pointing out the absurdity of your claims.



> I will gladly appeal to God's Word as the source of my worldview.


After it has been suitably spun, of course...

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Roy, this may be news to you, but the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, not English.  The Hebrew word for dominion is "radah", which literally means "to rule over with authority".
> 
> The Scripture says God has given man this temporal rule:
> 
> 
> 
> The earth is under man's temporal ownership.  Temporal, because the eternal and final owner of land is the Creator.  But He has titled man with this temporal ownership by "putting all things under" man's feet.
> 
> You should listen to the mp3's and read the article I posted.  You aren't afraid of reading an alternative view of things, are you?


THANK YOU!!  IOU a +rep, good sir.

----------


## Roy L

> I think you are mistaking "defined by good dictionaries" as somehow synonymous with "objective".


No, you are mistaking errors of fact for differences of equally valid opinion.  Opinions can be simply false.  Like yours.



> Satisfactory, delicious, disgusting, stinky, tepid, good, evil, etc., are all defined by good dictionaries, but that does not make a single one of them objective.


You are equivocating.  A disagreement over what particular examples satisfy a dictionary definition is not a disagreement over what that definition objectively says.



> And before anything can be "determined by the market", someone must first "decide" how that process "ought" (normative, subjective) to take place.


Nonsense.  The market is what it is.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You are equivocating.  A disagreement over what particular examples satisfy a dictionary definition is not a disagreement over what that definition objectively says.


Well, let's take just one definition and actually examine it, shall we? And rather than deal with broad, sweeping generalities, wherein you merely assert that _"...they are all objective, and defined by good dictionaries..."_, or, _"The market is what it is,"_ as if that actually made a point, let alone meant anything at all, how about you actually argue your point instead? Specifically, I mean. 

For example, deprivation, from the root deprive, meaning (Webster) "...to withhold something from..."

Well, I can agree that to "own" land is to "withhold" it from everyone else, just as to eat a cookie is to deprive everyone (forever) of that same cookie.  So yes, if I have title to land, I have deprived _everyone else_ of that land.  In that sense, a "deprivation", in the strictest sense of the word, has occurred.  

I am trying to get to the more explicable roots of your position. You seem to believe that everybody holds an equal "natural liberty right" to all land at all times, regardless of who occupies or holds title to any land at any given time. Is that correct? In other words, someone's title to land does not, in your mind, bring an end to _literally everyone's_ simultaneous right to a claim on that same land - even if it means remuneration for not owning it themselves. 

So that I can understand further, let's put this in terms of an auction, just to explore the differences as a matter of principle. 100 farmers are bidding on the same object; the only backhoe in existence.  One man, who is not a farmer, prevails in the auction, as he outbids everyone (far beyond even their collective ability to bid) and takes possession/ownership of the backhoe.  The point at which he prevailed in the auction is the point at which the right of ownership is assigned to him only, _to the permanent exclusion of all others_.  Everyone else is deprived of their ability to own the backhoe, but they also retain their funds. 

Before going on, is that man the rightful owner, to the exclusion of all others, even to the point where he owes none of them anything - forever? 

Now, going further, the man who now owns the backhoe never needed it for himself. He only bought it so that he could rent it out to all the farmers who wanted to buy it. He won't sell it, but he will rent it out, at a premium. He does this for many years, as does his son who later inherits it (just go with it). Furthermore, he only maintains the backhoe to original working condition. No improvements are ever made; just minor repairs as needed.  And, for the sake of discussion, let us stipulate that NO other backhoes are available for sale anywhere. His is the only one, and while the farmers do have other trenching options available to them, they really do consider it worth renting. 

I'm trying to distinguish between land and private property that is not fixed. Under your system, have the farmers not been deprived what you call a "natural liberty right" which must be repaid by the owner of the backhoe?  If so, why, and if not, why not?  What is the principle difference between, say, a backhoe and a tiny plot of land that is owned with a storage shed; one that is rented out but never sold?


Also - I'm genuinely making an attempt to understand your position. Saying "False. Like yours", calling people liars, evil, not courageous, etc., is all that ad hominem really necessary?

----------


## jascott

> Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and penalties commensurate with deprivations.  That's how we know that appropriation of land as private property is objectively unjust.


Two investors roll dice to decide which stocks to buy. One gets rich; the other goes broke.
Two businessmen make equivalent entrepreneurial contributions at the same time. One gets rich, and the other goes broke, by pure blind luck.
In both of those examples, rewards are not commensurate with contributions. Are those injustices? If so, do we correct the injustice by taking from the rich man and giving to the poor? I don't think anybody in this thread would say that.
Think of another example: you enjoy relatively inexpensive oil. Consider one of your descendants, born 200 years from now, and all of the economically extractable oil has already long since been extracted and burned. It was his bad luck to be born after the oil was gone (assuming nothing better has replaced it).
Or, a man is intensely attracted to the beauty of a landscape which everybody else values only as farmland, and he would be willing to pay ten times the market rate (or ten times the levied LVT in a geoist system) for a plot of land to build a house there, but his bad luck is that a farmer already has eternal security of tenure there and would rather keep farming it.
Randomness plays a very large role in our lives, and has nothing to do with our contributions and deprivations. Will you qualify your statement, and say, "Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and good luck, and penalties commensurate with deprivations and bad luck"? But in that case, remember that the argument of the anti-geoists is that it's simply your bad luck that you were born after all the land was already claimed as private property.

----------


## Roy L

> For example, deprivation, from the root deprive, meaning (Webster) "...to withhold something from..."
> 
> Well, I can agree that to "own" land is to "withhold" it from everyone else, just as to eat a cookie is to deprive everyone (forever) of that same cookie.  So yes, if I have title to land, I have deprived _everyone else_ of that land.  In that sense, a "deprivation", in the strictest sense of the word, has occurred.  
> 
> I am trying to get to the more explicable roots of your position. You seem to believe that everybody holds an equal "natural liberty right" to all land at all times, regardless of who occupies or holds title to any land at any given time. Is that correct? In other words, someone's title to land does not, in your mind, bring an end to _literally everyone's_ simultaneous right to a claim on that same land


A right to liberty is not a claim to the land or a share of the land.  How many times do I have to repeat this?  It is the physical liberty -- the physical ability under one's own direct will, unconstrained by others -- to use the land.  You need to get all that stupid propertarian bull$#!+ out of your head.  Rights are not all just various ways of owning property.  The fact that people have a right to get married is a liberty right, not a property right.  It does not give them a "claim on" anyone else to be their spouse.



> - even if it means remuneration for not owning it themselves.


Dishonest garbage.  Compensation is due the excluded for being deprived of their liberty, not "for not owning it themselves."



> So that I can understand further, let's put this in terms of an auction, just to explore the differences as a matter of principle. 100 farmers are bidding on the same object; the only backhoe in existence.


Where did it come from?  Why is it the only one?

It is obvious that you are trying to pretend to talk about a product of labor, while also pretending that product of labor is in fixed supply, like land.

*Stop pretending!  Stop LYING!*



> One man, who is not a farmer, prevails in the auction, as he outbids everyone (far beyond even their collective ability to bid) and takes possession/ownership of the backhoe.  The point at which he prevailed in the auction is the point at which the right of ownership is assigned to him only, _to the permanent exclusion of all others_.  Everyone else is deprived of their ability to own the backhoe, but they also retain their funds.


Unlike those being deprived of their liberty to use land, the farmers are not being deprived of anything they would otherwise have had.  The liberty to use the backhoe was not something they were born with, because someone had to produce it.



> Before going on, is that man the rightful owner, to the exclusion of all others, even to the point where he owes none of them anything - forever?


Assuming the backhoe was not stolen from its producer or a rightful owner who paid its producer to produce it, etc., yes.



> Now, going further, the man who now owns the backhoe never needed it for himself. He only bought it so that he could rent it out to all the farmers who wanted to buy it. He won't sell it, but he will rent it out, at a premium. He does this for many years, as does his son who later inherits it (just go with it). Furthermore, he only maintains the backhoe to original working condition. No improvements are ever made; just minor repairs as needed.  And, for the sake of discussion, let us stipulate that NO other backhoes are available for sale anywhere. His is the only one, and while the farmers do have other trenching options available to them, they really do consider it worth renting. 
> 
> I'm trying to distinguish between land and private property that is not fixed.


No, you are trying to contrive a rationalization for embracing Marx's error of conflating capital and land, the same error apologists for capitalism make.  You are pretending that a backhoe is land, and that land is a product of labor, like a backhoe.  That is the same mistake socialists like Marx and capitalists like Rothbard make; though they make it for opposite purposes, both purposes are deceitful and evil.



> Under your system, have the farmers not been deprived what you call a "natural liberty right" which must be repaid by the owner of the backhoe?  If so, why, and if not, why not?


The backhoe is not natural.  It was not already there with no help from anyone.  The land was.  I can identify that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality for you from now till kingdom come, but I have no power to make you willing to know it.  That must be your decision.



> What is the principle difference between, say, a backhoe and a tiny plot of land that is owned with a storage shed; one that is rented out but never sold?


The land was already there, available to use, with no help from its "owner" or anyone else.  The backhoe was not.  You will apparently say and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.



> Also - I'm genuinely making an attempt to understand your position. Saying "False. Like yours", calling people liars, evil, not courageous, etc., is all that ad hominem really necessary?


Yes, I believe it is.  I have advised Helmuth several times to watch, "Judgment at Nuremberg," as it very clearly illustrates the process by which apparently decent people try to rationalize and justify even the most horrific evil.  I advise you to watch it, too.

Private property in land and natural resources is the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that impoverishes all humanity, condemns billions of people to perpetual, grinding, undeserved poverty, and inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, starvation, suffering, despair and death on innocent humanity EVERY YEAR.  You are trying to rationalize and justify that evil.  Stop it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> A right to liberty is not a claim to the land or a share of the land.  How many times do I have to repeat this?  It is the physical liberty -- the physical ability under one's own direct will, unconstrained by others -- to use the land.  You need to get all that stupid propertarian bull$#!+ out of your head.  Rights are not all just various ways of owning property.  The fact that people have a right to get married is a liberty right, not a property right.  It does not give them a "claim on" anyone else to be their spouse.
> 
> Dishonest garbage.  Compensation is due the excluded for being deprived of their liberty, not "for not owning it themselves."
> 
> Where did it come from?  Why is it the only one?
> 
> It is obvious that you are trying to pretend to talk about a product of labor, while also pretending that product of labor is in fixed supply, like land.
> 
> *Stop pretending!  Stop LYING!*
> ...


Another load of rubbish.  Compare the rate of poverty, typical lifespan, and standard of living between societies that acknowledge private property in land to those that don't.  You will then realize your folly.

----------


## Roy L

> Two investors roll dice to decide which stocks to buy. One gets rich; the other goes broke.
> Two businessmen make equivalent entrepreneurial contributions at the same time. One gets rich, and the other goes broke, by pure blind luck.


Or whose patent application the post office delivered first...



> In both of those examples, rewards are not commensurate with contributions. Are those injustices? If so, do we correct the injustice by taking from the rich man and giving to the poor?


No, because they are injustices both the beneficiaries and victims explicitly volunteered for.  More broadly, we know chance events make life inherently unjust, but that's not something we can usefully do anything about.  People initiating force to impose injustice on others for their own unearned profit -- i.e., greed and its result, evil -- is something we CAN usefully do something about.  



> Think of another example: you enjoy relatively inexpensive oil. Consider one of your descendants, born 200 years from now, and all of the economically extractable oil has already long since been extracted and burned. It was his bad luck to be born after the oil was gone (assuming nothing better has replaced it).


Like our bad luck of being born in a time when all the cheap whale oil has already been extracted...?

The date of one's birth cannot be an injustice.  The institutional environment one is born into, however, can.  If there is no oil left, that is not a deprivation of liberty, nor is it an injustice.  It is just a fact of reality, and cannot be altered.  By contrast, if the oil nature provided is still there but is owned by rich, greedy, privileged parasites who charge others for access to what nature provided, and do not compensate them justly for initiating force to remove their liberty, that IS a deprivation of liberty and an injustice.  The injustice is not being born in a time when the oil is all gone.  The injustice is being born in a world where the oil is still there, but others already own your right to use it.



> Or, a man is intensely attracted to the beauty of a landscape which everybody else values only as farmland, and he would be willing to pay ten times the market rate (or ten times the levied LVT in a geoist system) for a plot of land to build a house there, but his bad luck is that a farmer already has eternal security of tenure there and would rather keep farming it.


His bid will make it hard for the farmer to keep it all.



> Randomness plays a very large role in our lives, and has nothing to do with our contributions and deprivations. Will you qualify your statement, and say, "Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and good luck, and penalties commensurate with deprivations and bad luck"?


No.  Luck results in injustice, period, but that is part of nature we can't do anything about, so we accept it.  Some even seek it out, deliberately leaving their outcomes to chance.

You are trying to claim something quite different: that if one person smokes and does not get lung cancer, while another who lives a similar lifestyle but does not smoke _does_ get lung cancer, that is an injustice of the same type as the injustice of a non-smoker who lives downwind of a factory that emits airborne carcinogens getting lung cancer.



> But in that case, remember that the argument of the anti-geoists is that it's simply your bad luck that you were born after all the land was already claimed as private property.


ROTFL!!  As you surely know, such "arguments" are just fatuous and dishonest.  By that "logic," a child born into slavery is not a victim of his parents' enslavers but merely of "bad luck."  But it is not "bad luck" that the child of slaves is born a slave.  It is the unjust institution of slavery that has _made_ him a slave.  To pretend otherwise is outrageous and evil.  One could with equal "logic" claim that if government issued literal licenses to steal, those born after all the licenses were issued would be the victims not of thieves, but of "bad luck" in the dates of their birth!

The fault lies not in our stars, jascott, but in the evil institutions that rob and enslave us for the unearned profit of rich, greedy, privileged, evil parasites.

----------


## BattleFlag1776

> The fault lies not in our stars, but in the evil institutions that rob and enslave us for the unearned profit of rich, greedy, privileged, evil parasites.


I've been reading your posts with some interest and I think that the above quote sums up your overall position quite well.  If you agree, then please answer me this:  What do you advocate be done to counter these institutions?

----------


## Roy L

> Another load of rubbish.  Compare the rate of poverty, typical lifespan, and standard of living between societies that acknowledge private property in land to those that don't.  You will then realize your folly.


<yawn>  No, that is just another load of stupid, evil garbage from you.  I note that private property in land is the established rule in some of the most desperately poor countries in the world, like Haiti, Guatemala, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Paraguay, Pakistan and Burma, which proves YOUR folly.  I note also that historical examples of countries crushed into poverty by private landowning are numerous and obvious: pre-revolutionary China, Raj India, pre-revolutionary France and Russia, Ireland, Mexico, etc.  By contrast, Hong Kong, one of the richest countries in the world and routinely deemed the freest economically, has had *no* private landowning for over 160 years.  And China, which has enjoyed double-digit economic growth and massive increases in standard of living and life expectancy in the 30 years since it began using a Hong Kong-style land lease system also has *no* private landowning.

You are destroyed.

----------


## Roy L

> I've been reading your posts with some interest and I think that the above quote sums up your overall position quite well.  If you agree, then please answer me this:  What do you advocate be done to counter these institutions?


Abolish gratuitous privileges like private banks' debt money issuance, intellectual property monopolies, corporate personhood and limited liability, union monopolies, subsidies and bailouts to business, etc., and tax away the value of privileges that can't be abolished, like land titles, broadcast spectrum allocations, etc.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> A right to liberty is not a claim to the land or a share of the land.  How many times do I have to repeat this?  It is the physical liberty -- the physical ability under one's own direct will, unconstrained by others -- to use the land.  You need to get all that stupid propertarian bull$#!+ out of your head.


Don't get your stupid anti-propertarian mind in a knee-jerk fizzle.  Unscrew yourself, Roy, we're just having a conversation.  I'm trying to understand, not misstate, your position. Don't be an evil, self-centric blithering moron and pretend that you don't know that your ideas are an unusual way of looking at things.  (this ad hominem stuff that you feel is so necessary is kinda fun, kinda catchy) 




> Dishonest garbage.  Compensation is due the excluded for being deprived of their liberty, not "for not owning it themselves."


Hey, righteously indignant liar with an evil cherry on top, it was only a statement intended for clarification, not a "lie".  It was like a police artist drawing a sketch and asking, "Is this it?", to which you respond, "No, that looks like an elephant. The one who hit me over the head and gave me a noogie and a wedgie looked way more like a man to me."  My "sketch" did not not reflect your position, and was clarified. See how simple that is? Not a "lie" - you utterly evil buggering bearer of false witness you (snicker snicker).




> It is obvious that you are trying to pretend to talk about a product of labor, while also pretending that product of labor is in fixed supply, like land.
> 
> *Stop pretending!  Stop LYING!*


Nah, that wasn't it at all. Stop pretending and lying yourself about my position, which you don't bother clarifying, and that you won't bother to understand. I am at least trying to understand your position - which is good! While you are busy jumping to your own false, evil, self-deceitful conclusions about my position, without ONCE asking for clarification - which is really quite a nasty load of evilness on your part.  

The distinction I was trying to make had nothing to do with labor, or conflating capital with land, and everything to do with portable versus fixed, but I understand your position on that now (because I was righteously thoughtful and considerate and smart enough to ask).  




> Unlike those being deprived of their liberty to use land, the farmers are not being deprived of anything they would otherwise have had.  The liberty to use the backhoe was not something they were born with, because someone had to produce it.


OK, and another piece of the puzzle that is Roy's mind falls into place.  You won't directly argue your position, Roy, except by dismissive and vague generalities (e.g., "The market is what it is", whatever that means), but I can ascertain your position anyway, by stating it as I think I see it, and watching you go off, half-cocked blitzo, like Rainman's brother who sees a book out of place and rushes over - "UH OH! V-E-R-N!" - to correct it.  Are you autistic, btw? If so, I'll lay off the ad hominem retorts to your ad hominem nonsense, and let you have a corner on all the pointless and meaningless derision.




> The backhoe is not natural.  It was not already there with no help from anyone.  The land was.  I can identify that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality for you from now till kingdom come, but I have no power to make you willing to know it.  That must be your decision.


OK, just clarifying. And I do see the difference - as you meant it - now that you clarified.   

So, just to further clarify - "resources" that are extracted from the land which are made both useful _and_ portable (since nearly all solid matter starts out as "land", including the backhoe, and, for that matter, each of us),  no longer qualifies as land.  And, so long as it was not stolen from its producer or a rightful owner who paid its producer to produce it, etc., a rightful ownership in perpetuity can be established...of materials taken from the land...shaped into something useful...and 'movable'. 

So far so good?

----------


## Roy L

> (this ad hominem stuff that you feel is so necessary is kinda fun, kinda catchy)


Enjoy.  I think it helps to identify evil for what it is, and IMO most of the greatest evils in the history of the world could have been prevented from the outset if someone had had the courage to identify them as such, loudly and publicly, when they were first proposed.

Also, I find it relieves some of the stress of being constantly exposed to evil, so it doesn't make me ill as quickly.



> While you are busy jumping to your own false, evil, self-deceitful conclusions about my position, without ONCE asking for clarification - which is really quite a nasty load of evilness on your part.


If you are truly trying to understand, then I am truly sorry for coming down so hard on you.  But please try to understand: I have been doing this for a long time, and I have seen all the dishonest crap many, many times before.  I recognize the patterns.



> The distinction I was trying to make had nothing to do with labor, or conflating capital with land, and everything to do with portable versus fixed, but I understand your position on that now (because I was righteously thoughtful and considerate and smart enough to ask).


Maybe you didn't read the whole thread, but I think I had made it clear that products of labor are rightly property, and the problem of land arises because products of labor can be permanently affixed to the land: i.e., not portable.  The problem, therefore, is to reconcile the liberty rights of those who want to use the land with the property rights of those who make fixed improvements to it.  Landowning was a quick and dirty solution to that problem; but as with slavery, we have better solutions now, and like slavery, landowning has consequently BECOME the problem.



> So, just to further clarify - "resources" that are extracted from the land which are made both useful _and_ portable (since nearly all solid matter starts out as "land", including the backhoe, and, for that matter, each of us),  no longer qualifies as land.


They are not land once they have been removed from nature and made into products/property.  It doesn't matter if they are portable or not, which is why fixed improvements are at the core of the land problem.



> And, so long as it was not stolen from its producer or a rightful owner who paid its producer to produce it, etc., a rightful ownership in perpetuity can be established...of materials taken from the land...shaped into something useful...and 'movable'.


Or not movable.



> So far so good?


Close.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> <yawn>  No, that is just another load of stupid, evil garbage from you.  I note that private property in land is the established rule in some of the most desperately poor countries in the world, like Haiti, Guatemala, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Paraguay, Pakistan and Burma, which proves YOUR folly.  I note also that historical examples of countries crushed into poverty by private landowning are numerous and obvious: pre-revolutionary China, Raj India, pre-revolutionary France and Russia, Ireland, Mexico, etc.  By contrast, Hong Kong, one of the richest countries in the world and routinely deemed the freest economically, has had *no* private landowning for over 160 years.  And China, which has enjoyed double-digit economic growth and massive increases in standard of living and life expectancy in the 30 years since it began using a Hong Kong-style land lease system also has *no* private landowning.
> 
> You are destroyed.


You're dead wrong about China.  Private property came to be there in 2007.*China approves law that protects private property*Hong Kong has had private land ownership for a long time.  You can buy some here.  You're just pulling a bunch of false facts out of thin air.  On top of that, you ignore that macroeconomic situation-that is, a long period of the first world exporting labor to the third world.  They produced and sold to the debt-laden, fascistic West while the West wasted money on numerous useless things like toys and useless college degrees and speculation.  You are destroyed, not I.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Roy, the idea that nothing is as it seems, or that reality can be quite different from what is commonly taught (e.g., "Lincoln freed the slaves"), is not new to me.  I consider myself extremely open-minded, and only tend to clamp up when valid concerns are not addressed (e.g., how is any Ponzi scheme defensible by otherwise seemingly intelligent people?).  

Furthermore, Ron Paul supporters, of all people, should know firsthand the frustration of having a minority point of view, even in light of simple knowledge that is daily obfuscated, the historical facts of which, at the very least, are readily and commonly available to anyone who is really interested in knowing.  But you can't talk "sound money" to someone who has absolutely no concept of what money even is - but think they do, because they can pull paper out of their pocket and show it plainly to you. 

I personally believe that fractional reserve lending is EVIL - criminal in ways that I believe are highly explicable.  But I am also aware that many Ron Paul supporters, and even Miseans, do not see it as a major concern.  OK, I accept that as the uphill battle that it really is, and recognize that I have to hone my ability to make a more persuasive case against, rather than content myself that "I am right and they are wrong".  That accomplishes very little and gets me nowhere (that I want to be anyway). 

Your idea of property ownership as an evil concept, and not from a Marxian standpoint either, is something very new to me. BUT...it is not the first time I have run the concept of land ownership through my mind, as a concept on the theoretical chopping block, albeit for my own reasons, for what I see as contradictions in applied principles.

So yes, if you can make a case, and not just by declaring it evil and being satisfied to declare everyone else a pack of lying and deceitful peddlers of evil, given only that they see it otherwise, or have a differing view - I do want to hear it, I do want to understand it, and will fight to understand, even as I appreciate whatever patience is extended in the process.  I can be convinced, and am willing to set aside every preconceived notion I have - assuming I can spot it as such - if but to play it all out as a thought experiment in my mind, and weigh it against other principles which I hold in the process (very few of which qualify as Truly Sacred Cows). 

Having said that, I do have more questions - a lot more, in fact, but sleep calls.

----------


## Sola_Fide

RoyL, 

This is the passage I quoted:




> Deuteronomy 27:17-19 NASB
> 
> *'Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary mark.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'*
> 
> 'Cursed is he who misleads a blind  person on the road.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.' 
> 
> 'Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'



In response to this, you said:




> Wrong. Boundary stones were used to mark field boundaries on common land, too. There is absolutely no implication that the land consequently had to be private property.


And...




> Wrong. Boundary stones were also routinely used to demarcate fields and pastures on land held in common. A land tenure right is not property in the land. You are making claims that are not supported by scripture.



That was your response.  You said these are common lands with no implication that they are privately owned.  Now let's look at the passage again:





> Deuteronomy 27:17-19 NASB
> 
> *'Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary mark.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'*
> 
> 'Cursed is he who misleads a blind  person  on the road.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.' 
> 
> 'Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'



Like I said in another thread, the communists and others who deny private ownership always stumble over the text.  There is no getting around it.  

You cannot move YOUR NEIGHBOR'S boundary mark.  Why? Because your neighbor owns his land and owns his boundaries.  And because your neighbor owns his land, he can lawfully give it as an inheritance or sell it to who he wants....just as God gave Adam property.

You are in direct opposition to Scripture.  Your position is based on theft and covetousness.  It is evil and wrong.  Moving boundaries is theft:




> Job 24:2
> 
> Men move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen.

----------


## Sola_Fide

I post this for the sake of other people reading this thread.  It is a couple excerpts from a paper that John Robbins wrote several years ago.  It has great little nuggets of truth about property ownership:

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=99

He begins by saying:




> The first thing the Christian must do is to realize that his property is his.



Then explains why government charity is contradictory:




> This is an axiom of giving: *One cannot legally or morally give away that which one does not own. Giving is the voluntary transfer of a property title by one party to another, without receiving title to other property in return. (That is why government charity is a contradiction in terms: Government forces taxpayers to fund the welfare programs. There is no voluntary transfer of property titles.)*  If one receives title to property in return, one has traded; one has not donated. (If one takes property from the person who possesses title to it without his consent, one is stealing.) When a person shops at Wal-mart, he gives title to X number of dollars to the store (by signing a credit card agreement, by writing a check, or by actually handing over cash), and Wal-mart gives title (in the form of a receipt) to certain property to him. But when he gives a gift, he gives title to property to the recipient, without receiving title to property in return. All of this (and all of society) assumes a framework of law and justice, without which it is impossible to speak of property titles, giving, trading, and stealing.



He then talks about the legal title of property that God gave to Adam:




> God is indeed the creator and owner of everything. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. And God has indeed entrusted his property to men. In fact, God has entrusted his property to *specific* human beings who morally and legally own that property, to the exclusion of all other human beings.  *In the beginning God entrusted the Garden, indeed, the whole Earth (excepting one tree), to Adam. That is the legal meaning of Genesis 1:26-30. Those verses are a conveyance of trust from God to Adam.* True, Adam lost the privilege of living in the lush Garden that God had prepared, for Adam stole fruit from God’s tree. He did not respect God's property. *But Adam did not lose his ownership of the Earth. That legal title passed from him to his children, as Adam determined.*



He concludes this part by refuting all forms of collectivism: 




> *"Trust" in this context is a legal concept, and as trustees of God, property owners enjoy the right and responsibility of using their property as they, and not other human beings, see fit.*  That also is the legal meaning of Genesis 1:26-30 and Acts 2. To own something means that one controls it. Peter put it this way: "Was it not in your own control?" *The collectivist (Communist, Fascist, Environmentalist, Liberal) notion that a person holds property in trust for others - for society, for the state, for the race, for the people, for Mother Nature, or for the poor - has no support in Scripture. A property owner owns his property. A property owner is in fact, in law, and in ethics a property owner*.

----------


## Roy L

> You're dead wrong about China.


No, I am of course indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact.



> Private property came to be there in 2007.*China approves law that protects private property*


But not private property in *land*.  From *YOUR OWN SOURCE*:

"China's urban middle class has fueled a real estate boom, *even though all land is owned by the state and purchasers trade only the right to use property on the land for up to 70 years*."

You are again *destroyed*.



> Hong Kong has had private land ownership for a long time.


No, that is just another flat-out *lie* from you.



> You can buy some here.


No, that is just a *lie*.  You are *lying*.  None of the properties listed includes title to the land.  NONE.  They are selling *IMPROVEMENTS* and *LEASEHOLD TENURES* on land, not property titles to the land.



> You're just pulling a bunch of false facts out of thin air.


No, _I am objectively correct,_ and you are flat-out *LYING* about what *YOUR OWN SOURCES* plainly state.

*STOP LYING.*



> On top of that, you ignore that macroeconomic situation-that is, a long period of the first world exporting labor to the third world.  They produced and sold to the debt-laden, fascistic West while the West wasted money on numerous useless things like toys and useless college degrees and speculation.


Ignoratio elenchi.



> You are destroyed, not I.


No, _I_ HAVE *DESTROYED* _YOU_.

YOU ARE *DESTROYED*.  

*DESTROYED*, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

----------


## Roy L

> I personally believe that fractional reserve lending is EVIL - criminal in ways that I believe are highly explicable.


I'm not sure you actually understand how banks create money by lending.  It's not by maintaining fractional reserves.  It's by *creating* demand deposits out of loan assets obtained by creating those very same demand deposits.  Not one person in 1000 understands this process.  Even Ron Paul doesn't seem to, and he at least wants to talk about the right things.



> OK, I accept that as the uphill battle that it really is, and recognize that I have to hone my ability to make a more persuasive case against, rather than content myself that "I am right and they are wrong".  That accomplishes very little and gets me nowhere (that I want to be anyway).


At least it's better than being wrong and serving evil.



> Your idea of property ownership as an evil concept, and not from a Marxian standpoint either, is something very new to me.


<sigh>  Please try not to misstate my position.  *I have no objection to ownership of property in products of labor.*  Clear?  It is property in *NATURAL RESOURCES* that I have proved cannot be justified.

*DO NOT SAY, "PROPERTY" WHEN YOU MEAN, "LAND."*



> So yes, if you can make a case, and not just by declaring it evil and being satisfied to declare everyone else a pack of lying and deceitful peddlers of evil, given only that they see it otherwise, or have a differing view - I do want to hear it, I do want to understand it, and will fight to understand, even as I appreciate whatever patience is extended in the process.


I have already proved it: appropriation of land as private property inherently violates the liberty rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.  It deprives them of something they would otherwise have, which is the fundamental form of all rights violations.  Property in products of labor does not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have, because they would not otherwise have been at liberty to use the products: they didn't exist, and wouldn't have existed but for the labor of those who made them and possibly the investment of those who bought them.

----------


## Roy L

> You said these are common lands with no implication that they are privately owned.  Now let's look at the passage again:


Still no implication that the land is privately owned.



> Like I said in another thread, the communists and others who deny private ownership always stumble over the text.  There is no getting around it.


I am not a communist, and I did not stumble over the text.



> You cannot move YOUR NEIGHBOR'S boundary mark.  Why?


Because it demarcates the extent of his tenure, depriving him of what he would otherwise have.



> Because your neighbor owns his land and owns his boundaries.


No, that is a fabrication on your part.  The quoted passage says no such thing.



> And because your neighbor owns his land,


Another fabrication.



> he can lawfully give it as an inheritance or sell it to who he wants....


Fabrication.



> just as God gave Adam property.


Lie.  "The land shall not be sold forever."  Remember?  And if God gave the earth into Adam's hands as property, on what basis do you claim it became the property of some of Adam's descendants, but not of others?  



> You are in direct opposition to Scripture.


No, you are blasphemously misstating what scripture plainly says to try to justify your mammon worship.



> Your position is based on theft and covetousness.


No, you are lying about God's Word to rationalize and justify stealing, parasitism, injustice, and the _murder_ of the poor and disadvantaged of whose welfare the Lord was always solicitous.



> It is evil and wrong.


It is evil and wrong to make false claims about God's Word to justify mammon worship.



> Moving boundaries is theft:


But of a tenure right, not a property right.

----------


## Cabal

> Taxation = theft


This.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> *DESTROYED*, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?


Wishful thinking. *DO YOU UNDERSTAND?*

----------


## Roy L

> This.


<sigh>  *Land value taxation* is *NOT* theft, for reasons amply proved in this thread.  It is LACK of land value taxation that is theft, because land value is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes.  *Read the freakin' thread.*

----------


## Roy L

> Wishful thinking.


Yes, but only on your part.  I proved you lied.  I proved you objectively wrong on every substantive claim you have made.  I proved that contrary to your claim, there is no private landowning in Hong Kong or China.

DO_ YOU_ UNDERSTAND
THAT YOU HAVE BEEN
OBJECTIVELY DESTROYED?

----------


## Cabal

> <sigh>  *Land value taxation* is *NOT* theft, for reasons amply proved in this thread.  It is LACK of land value taxation that is theft, because land value is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes.  *Read the freakin' thread.*


Does the tax require the initiation of violence to collect on?
Yes? Then it is theft.
No? Then it is not a tax.

The thread is 92 pages long, I'm not going to read 92 pages of a thread when the issue can be broken down very basically on the truth that taxation is theft, and there is no justification for theft.

Society is not a a human being, and thus does not act. Society is an artificial term used to describe a collection of individuals. Individuals act, individuals have rights, society does not.

If property is acquired through voluntary exchange, this is moral. Nothing is being stolen from some artificial entity known as society. Thus, this property is rightfully owned. To claim a right to taxation of that rightfully owned property on behalf of the artificial concept of society is fallacious.

Also, using big bold letters is not beneficial to an exchange.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yes, but only on your part.  I proved you lied.  I proved you objectively wrong on every substantive claim you have made.  I proved that contrary to your claim, there is no private landowning in Hong Kong or China.
> 
> DO_ YOU_ UNDERSTAND
> THAT YOU HAVE BEEN
> OBJECTIVELY DESTROYED?


No, because I haven't.  I even gave you links. http://search.knightfrank.com/proper...sale/hong-kong
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/wo...pagewanted=all

Feel free to continue living in your fantasy land, though.

----------


## eduardo89

> No, because I haven't.  I even gave you links. http://search.knightfrank.com/proper...sale/hong-kong
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/wo...pagewanted=all
> 
> Feel free to continue living in your fantasy land, though.


Oh Knight Frank, great company. I rented from them when I lived in London.

----------


## Roy L

> No, because I haven't.


You most certainly have.  I have destroyed you conclusively, comprehensively, and for all time.



> I even gave you links. http://search.knightfrank.com/proper...sale/hong-kong
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/wo...pagewanted=all


ROTFL!!  As already proved, _your links prove that I am right and you are wrong._



> Feel free to continue living in your fantasy land, though.


LOL!  ANYONE with ANY knowledge of Hong Kong and China can tell you: there is no private ownership of land there.  Period.  That you would even pretend to argue otherwise speaks volumes for your ignorance and/or dishonesty.

----------


## Roy L

> Does the tax require the initiation of violence to collect on?  Yes?


No.  The landowner *already initiated* violence or threats thereof to deprive others of their liberty to use the land, or got government to do it for him.  There was no other way he could possibly have done it.  LVT simply recovers, for public purposes and benefit, the *publicly created* value that the thieving landowner stole.  The only theft involved is by the landowner, who is a thief and a parasite.  



> No? Then it is not a tax.


Thank you for agreeing that I am objectively right and you are objectively wrong.



> The thread is 92 pages long, I'm not going to read 92 pages of a thread when the issue can be broken down very basically on the truth that taxation is theft, and there is no justification for theft.


Garbage.  The 92 pages should have told you that your jejune comprehension of the issue was at the kindergarten level.  If you had read even a little bit of the thread, you would have seen the proof that LVT is not theft because it is the landowner who must initiate force.  The land tax authority simply redresses the theft the landowner commits.



> Society is not a a human being, and thus does not act.


False and absurd.  Societies act all the time.  In particular, societies institute governments to secure and reconcile the individual rights of their members.  



> Society is an artificial term used to describe a collection of individuals. Individuals act, individuals have rights, society does not.


More stupid garbage from you.  Individuals act in a social context.  It is only *through* society that individual rights can be expressed and recognized.  No society --> no individual rights.



> If property is acquired through voluntary exchange, this is moral.


As land can never initially be acquired through voluntary exchange, any exchange of land is trafficking in stolen goods.



> Nothing is being stolen from some artificial entity known as society.


It is being stolen from each member of society.  They just can't redress the theft on an individual basis, so society rightfully does it for them through its agent, government.



> Thus, this property is rightfully owned.


No, I have already proved it cannot possibly be rightfully owned, as it cannot initially have been appropriated except by initiation of force -- a fact that every land title in the world has in common.



> To claim a right to taxation of that rightfully owned property on behalf of the artificial concept of society is fallacious.


No, to claim that goods appropriated by force are rightfully owned is not only fallacious, it is a flat-out lie.



> Also, using big bold letters is not beneficial to an exchange.


Some people have trouble paying attention.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No.  The landowner *already initiated* violence or threats thereof to deprive others of their liberty to use the land, or got government to do it for him.


That made no sense to me, please help me to understand using the following example.  And please be aware that this is coming from someone who believes that a natural, inalienable _right to homestead_ exists for all people on Earth, so the following example would only apply to land that is occupied and/or otherwise directly worked by its inhabitants - natural persons only - and especially as a matter of survival. 

I'm a homesteader traveling with a group of fellow travelers possessed of a wide variety of skills, in the foothills of the Sierras in 1850.  We go slightly off the beaten trail, only to discover a nice secluded area with an abundance of natural resources on which we can all survive.  We like it so much that we decide to forget the gold rush entirely and settle there.  We live like this, in our log cabin community, unmolested (and for that matter undetected), for an entire generation.  We are never attacked, and never once are forced to defend ourselves (against other humans).  No government papers are ever filed, and no government is ever directly involved in our affairs. 

Because we have worked so hard to establish and build up our community, we have zero intention of ever moving.  The only way we will move from this land is if someone initiated sufficient force against us - furthermore, it is against our very "Gandhi-esque" religion to exercise force or initiate violence, or threats of violence, against others.  So while this makes us (if but in our minds only) "owners" of the lands we occupy, in that we will never, EVER submit voluntarily to a tax of any kind, nor will we leave the land we occupy willingly, we are admittedly vulnerable to removal by unilateral initiation of violence and/or actual use of force by others.   

But we are not facing any of this. Not yet. It's just "a territory" at this point - most people are not even aware that we exist, and no taxes have been suggested, let alone levied. Nobody in the settlement has any dispute with anyone else regarding ownership or use of land, let alone any conception that others may be depriving them of any liberty or right by simply existing and occupying a nearby plot of parceled off land. 

1) Where is the violence or threats of force on our parts?   

2) At this point has anyone outside our little settlement been "deprived" of a liberty, and if so, who, how, how far does that extend, and how is that determined?  

3) Have WE been deprived of OUR liberty to use land that is occupied by others outside our settlement? If so, who has deprived us, how far does that extend, and how exactly is that determined? In addition to whatever compensation we owe, how can we be compensated in return? 

4) Are those within the settlement depriving _each other_ of their liberty to use the land that others' respective homes are now on?  If so, what if you presented this idea to them and they unanimously disagreed? If they don't feel deprived in any way, would their 'voluntary waiver' of what you consider a liberty right to use lands that are occupied by others count for anything?

5) I trade places with one of my neighbors - straight across trade - his cabin located near the creek is more useful to me as a grain miller, where I can erect a paddle wheel, and my cabin and farm house located by a large meadow are more useful to him as a grain farmer.  Based on this exchange, have we "trafficked in stolen goods"?

So here is my difficulty: I am now occupying and claiming an unqualified right to use what amounts to a "parcel" of land (practical boundary delineations only: a house, a yard, a farmhouse, a fence to keep livestock in, and other fences to keep animals out of farmed lands).  Nothing else. No "claims" to lands which do not serve a useful purpose, or are otherwise not actually worked or improved upon.  At this point, theoretically, could someone - _anyone_ - enter THIS community, without staking any land claim ("usage" or otherwise) on any of the surrounding (and abundantly available at this point) land, or making any improvements of his own, and approach each of us, saying, in effect, "I have an equal right to use each piece of land that you have all parceled off for yourselves. This constitutes a deprivation to me, as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me."? 

If one man cannot do this (or can he, assuming he is the only other one around?), can two? Three? Can just one do this, but only so long as he is acting on behalf of a government?  If so, is "government" the key, without which no one or more people could justify such a claim (not to "ownership", but to a right to receive compensation for land that is "occupied", or otherwise "in use" by others, but is no longer available for him to use)?

----------


## Cabal

Right, this was clearly a waste of time.

----------


## Roy L

> Right, this was clearly a waste of time.


Chanting a jejune mantra like, "taxation = theft" is most certainly a waste of time, which it is designed to be.  Its purpose is to prevent any thought about which taxes might be better than others, and why.

----------


## Roy L

> And please be aware that this is coming from someone who believes that a natural, inalienable _right to homestead_ exists for all people on Earth, so the following example would only apply to land that is occupied and/or otherwise directly worked by its inhabitants - natural persons only - and especially as a matter of survival.


I was talking about real landowners, not fairy story landowners.



> I'm a homesteader traveling with a group of fellow travelers possessed of a wide variety of skills, in the foothills of the Sierras in 1850.  We go slightly off the beaten trail, only to discover a nice secluded area with an abundance of natural resources on which we can all survive.  We like it so much that we decide to forget the gold rush entirely and settle there.  We live like this, in our log cabin community, unmolested (and for that matter undetected), for an entire generation.  We are never attacked, and never once are forced to defend ourselves (against other humans).  No government papers are ever filed, and no government is ever directly involved in our affairs.


In fact, of course, the area was in seasonal use by aboriginal people whom you dispossessed.  You did no such thing, you say?  Perhaps not directly.  But experience taught the people who were there before you to abandon their claims to use of the land once you stole it, because their rights would be ignored, and your theft of the land would be enforced by the US Army.



> Because we have worked so hard to establish and build up our community, we have zero intention of ever moving.  The only way we will move from this land is if someone initiated sufficient force against us - furthermore, it is against our very "Gandhi-esque" religion to exercise force or initiate violence, or threats of violence, against others.


Sure, you count on government to initiate force *for* you, like almost all landowners.  What else would prevent the aboriginal people who used the land before from using it again?



> So while this makes us (if but in our minds only) "owners" of the lands we occupy, in that we will never, EVER submit voluntarily to a tax of any kind, nor will we leave our land willingly, we are admittedly vulnerable to removal by unilateral initiation of violence and/or actual use of force by others.


The land is not "your" land, and you have already dispossessed the aboriginal users by taking advantage of the reputation for highly effective violence people of your general type had already established in their minds.



> But we are not facing any of this. Not yet. It's just "a territory" at this point - most people are not even aware that we exist, and no taxes have been suggested, let alone levied. Nobody in the settlement has any dispute with anyone else regarding ownership or use of land,


Yeah.  Right.  Anywhere people are appropriating land, it takes about 15 minutes for disputes over it to arise.



> let alone any conception that others are depriving them of any liberty or right by simply existing and occupying nearby land.


Garbage.  Why are you -- a "homesteader" and your variously skilled companions -- in the Sierras in the first place, if not to get some good land without having to pay a landowner for it?  You might not think of it in terms of violation of your rights, but you know damn well why you left your homes for the wilderness.



> 1) Where is the violence or threats of force on our parts?


What stops the aboriginal seasonal users from coming back at their usual time of year and using the land?



> 2) At this point has anyone outside our little settlement been "deprived" of a liberty, and if so, who, how, how far does that extend, and how is that determined?


Anyone who wants to use that land and can't because you have appropriated it has been deprived of their liberty: mainly the aboriginal population that you pretend not to know existed because once you showed up, they avoided you (and you had probably killed most of the wild game animals they were counting on).



> 3) Have WE been deprived of OUR liberty to use land that is occupied by others outside our settlement? If so, who has deprived us, how far does that extend, and how exactly is that determined?


WHY ARE YOU THERE IN THE SIERRA FOOTHILLS, "HOMESTEADER," INSTEAD OF STAYING NEAR YOUR PREVIOUS HOME?



> 4) Are those within the settlement depriving _each other_ of their liberty to use the land that others' respective homes are now on?


That is self-evident and indisputable.



> If so, what if you presented this idea to them and they unanimously disagreed?


I would ask them the same kinds of questions I have been asking you, to see if they developed any willingness to know facts.



> If they don't feel deprived in any way, would their 'voluntary waiver' of what you consider a liberty right to use lands that are occupied by others count for anything?


Sure: evidence of their gullibility.



> 5) I trade places with one of my neighbors - straight across trade - his cabin located near the creek is more useful to me as a grain miller, where I can erect a paddle wheel, and my cabin and farm house located by a large meadow are more useful to him as a grain farmer.  Based on this exchange, have we "trafficked in stolen goods"?


Yes, of course.



> So here is my difficulty: I am now occupying and claiming an unqualified right to use what amounts to a "parcel" of land (delineated by a house, a yard, a farmhouse, a fence to keep livestock in, and other fences to keep animals out of farmed lands).  Nothing else. No "claims" to lands which are not actually worked.  At this point, theoretically, could someone - _anyone_ - enter THIS community without staking any land claim ("usage" or otherwise) on any of the surrounding (and abundantly available) land, or making any improvements of his own, and approach each of us, saying, in effect, "I have an equal right to use each piece of land that you have all parceled off for yourselves. This constitutes a deprivation to me, as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me."?


Of course.  And he'd be right.  But if good land is so abundantly available, each occupied site is worth very little, so the just compensation is very little.



> If one man cannot do this (or can he, assuming he is the only other one around?), can two? Three? Can just one do this, but only so long as he is acting on behalf of a government?  If so, is "government" the key, without which no one or more people could justify such a claim (not to "ownership", but to a right to receive compensation for land that is "occupied", or otherwise "in use" by others, but is no longer available for him to use)?


Government is just the means by which people's rights can be secured and reconciled.  Without it, you would just ignore your violation of his rights and his claim to compensation.

----------


## eduardo89

Roy honestly just strikes me as an anti-white, anti-rich, jealous, sad communist, tax loving troll. 

Roy, do you own a home? If so, I think you should give back the stolen property you occupy back to some Indians.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> In fact, of course, the area was in seasonal use by aboriginal people whom you dispossessed.


Ah, the "aboriginal" people.  Is that the ticket? Or is "seasonal use" grounds for an exemption (i.e., nothing is ever owed for temporary usage of land)?  And who did their ancestors dispossess upon their arrival across the Bering Straits?  Each other? 

Forget my settlement for a moment, then. I'll respond to that later.  

What if approached an aboriginal settlement, and declared to them, "As a fellow human being, I have an equal right to use each piece of land that all of you now occupy, including all that land that you are now farming using that nifty "Three Sisters" planting method that I've heard so much about. This constitutes a deprivation to me as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me as my natural liberty right."? 

According to your theory, I would be in the right, and that tribe _would owe me something_, regardless of the amount.  Even if neighboring land really is abundantly available, and their "just compensation" to me would be very little, it would be required nonetheless. Otherwise, they are nothing more than thieves who could rightfully be removed from the land if they did not comply. Would I have to form a government to do that? Get a neighboring tribe to do it for me, given their natural liberty rights have been violated as well?  

Or are you suggesting that aboriginals are a special class of people with a different set of rules, for whom "The Laws of Dispossession" do not apply as a matter of principle?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Roy honestly just strikes me as an anti-white, anti-rich, jealous, sad communist, tax loving troll. 
> 
> Roy, do you own a home? If so, I think you should give back the stolen property you occupy back to some Indians.


+rep  Don't feed the troll, y'all.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy honestly just strikes me as an anti-white, anti-rich, jealous, sad communist, tax loving troll.


Which might have something to do with the fact that you cannot refute a single sentence I have written.  Your absurd accusations are amply refuted by my posts.



> Roy, do you own a home?


<yawn>  I know how that one plays out: if I don't, I'm just jealous of those who do; if I do, I am a hypocrite.  The sad thing is, you probably think yourself quite clever to have contrived such a sophomoric trap.



> If so, I think you should give back the stolen property you occupy back to some Indians.


They have no more right to it than anyone else -- and NO LESS.

----------


## Roy L

> Ah, the "aboriginal" people.  Is that the ticket? Or is "seasonal use" grounds for an exemption (i.e., nothing is ever owed for temporary usage of land)?


EXCLUSIVE use is what requires compensation, as that is when others are forcibly EXCLUDED.  That is why your group could settle on the land at all: the aboriginals' use of the land was not exclusive, so they didn't keep you off it.  Yours is, so you do keep them off it, whether you admit it or not.



> And who did their ancestors dispossess upon their arrival across the Bering Straits?  Each other?


Undoubtedly.



> What if approached an aboriginal settlement, and declared to them, "As a fellow human being, I have an equal right to use each piece of land that all of you now occupy, including all that land that you are now farming using that nifty "Three Sisters" planting method that I've heard so much about. This constitutes a deprivation to me as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me as my natural liberty right."?


The evidence is that the aboriginal population was at first entirely willing to share the land with newcomers.  They later learned that sharing was not going to be one of the options.



> According to your theory, I would be in the right, and that tribe _would owe me something_, regardless of the amount.


If they excluded you from the better land, yes.



> Even if neighboring land really is abundantly available, and their "just compensation" to me would be very little, it would be required nonetheless. Otherwise, they are nothing more than thieves who could rightfully be removed from the land if they did not comply. Would I have to form a government to do that?


Probably.  Securing and reconciling people's rights is government's function.



> Get a neighboring tribe to do it for me, given their natural liberty rights have been violated as well?


That could get violent, as the violation has gone both ways. 



> Or are you suggesting that aboriginals are a special class of people with a different set of rules, for whom "The Laws of Dispossession" do not apply as a matter of principle?


No.  But the land use of hunter-gatherers and nomadic herders is generally not exclusive.  They may compete and even fight for territory, but that is for tribal -- i.e., communal -- tenure, not private property.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Well, I am not convinced, Roy, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to you.  I know that you passionately and earnestly believe in what you are talking about, to the point of considering it all so self-evident that only a liar wouldn't see it. In other words, they see it your way, and secretly agree that you are right, but just won't admit it.  I know that is not the case with me, because for as obvious and self-evident that you believe it all is, I do not share your view, and for me personally I did not find your arguments compelling, nor did I feel that you made a coherent case as a matter of principle, as opposed to a dogmatic axiom.

I am trying to put myself in a situation where I could honestly convince myself, in any way, that _nobody_ has the right to exclude me from what I consider my right to travel through, use or otherwise occupy any land, including that which others are exclusively occupying without some form of compensation to me. 

I am having particular difficulty seeing land used by others who might be hundreds of miles away from me, in an area I would likely never even visit, let alone use, as somehow constituting a "deprivation" _to me specifically_. I cannot even conceive of this unless I draw a boundary around an entire country, and then draw up a deed, wherein I and everyone else are named as collective owners with equal travel and usage rights.  

Hence, this CAN be put in strictly "propertarian" terms, to use your word, because you are claiming, in effect, rights of ownership by some other name;  that the whole of a given country is collectively *owned* by all of its inhabitants, en masse, all at once, all of whom are effectively the collective landlords to any who make exclusive use of any part of it.  

What you object to is NOT ownership of land, but rather _individual_ ownership which excludes collective ownership.  Call it by any other name, that is the net effect, and therefore what it is. As such, it is not as new or novel a concept as I thought, now that you have explained it.  If I had to characterize it to others I would say that it was kind of "Communist Libertarian" in it inception - one that could easily have been inspired by song "Signs" by The Five Man Electrical Band:




> *SIGNS*
> So I jumped on the fence and I yelled at the house, "Hey! What gives you the right?!"
> "To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in,
> If God was here he'd tell you to your face, "Man, you're some kinda sinner!"


So the collective deed to the country, one that is inherited by everyone as an inalienable birthright, might read:




> *The Communist Libertarian Manifesto Deed* 
> 
> Every square inch of this country belongs to you and everyone else, with an equal, non-exclusive perpetual claim to the whole and every part therein at all times, for the purposes of individual travel and a right of common shared usage. As such: 
> 
> You have an absolute right to travel anywhere in this country that you please, and to make use of any land therein that you find.Regardless of your location or usage of land, anyone who occupies or makes use of any land, to the exclusion of anyone else, without just compensation to _all joint owners_, as outlined separately, shall be guilty of both theft and the violation of everyone's individual liberty and collectively shared right of usage. This is without regard to whether anyone else might have intended to travel to, occupy or otherwise use any portion of the land in question. If it is exclusively used or occupied by anyone else, a payment shall be assessed and due to the collective owners of the land.


Does that sound about right?

----------


## jascott

> His bid will make it hard for the farmer to keep it all.


How so? His bid will tempt the farmer to sell, but the farmer is free to refuse to sell. His bid doesn't cause the levied LVT to increase, or cause any other hardship for the farmer. His bid has no effect whatsoever if the farmer refuses to sell.

BTW I hope my post #843 wasn't overlooked in the noise.

And setting aside my sci-fi scenario of the colonization of Mars, consider the real scenario of the colonization of the Americas, which you're discussing with Steven. How do you say the situation should have been originally handled when the colonists arrived? Was there already an existing government(s) with the authority to manage exclusive allocation of land and collect LVT? Was this government headquartered in Europe? Did justice require the granting of citizenship to the native Americans? How should the government have handled natives who refused citizenship and refused to respect the grants of exclusive land tenure? Or were the native tribes the legitimate governments, and no colonists should have ever claimed exclusive tenure on any of the land if the legitimate governments refused to grant such tenure?

----------


## Sola_Fide

> More stupid garbage from you.  Individuals act in a social context.  It is only *through* society that individual rights can be expressed and recognized.  No society --> no individual rights.


Wrong.  God titled Adam  (a specific person) with dominion when he was the only man to exist.  Property is prior to society.  The individual is prior to any collective.  Your worldview is completely backwards because it is not Biblical.





> As land can never initially be acquired through voluntary exchange, any exchange of land is trafficking in stolen goods.


Wrong again.  God voluntarily gave Adam the inheritance of what He initially owned.  The first act of a property title conveyance was completely voluntary.  And as Adam gave his sons inheritance, the subsequent conveyances were voluntary.  


Property and inheritance rights are entirely Scriptural.  God blessed people with property and inheritance rights:




> Ezekiel 47:13-14, 21-23 NASB
> 
> Thus says the Lord GOD, "This  shall be  the boundary by which you shall divide the land for an inheritance among the twelve tribes of Israel; Joseph  shall have  two portions. *You shall divide it for an inheritance, each one equally with the other; for I swore to give it to your forefathers, and this land shall fall to you as an inheritance.*


Even aliens in the land were afforded with property and inheritance rights:




> "So you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. *You shall divide it by lot for an inheritance among yourselves and among the aliens who stay in your midst, who bring forth sons in your midst. And they shall be to you as the native-born among the sons of Israel; they shall be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And in the tribe with which the alien stays, there you shall give  him  his inheritance," declares the Lord GOD.*



I have to thank you RoyL.  This thread and your objections to property have caused me to dive into the Scriptures and discover how rich the legacy of property really is in God's Word.  Thanks again.


What a blessing property is!




> Psalm 37:29 NASB
> 
> The righteous will inherit the land 
> And dwell in it forever.

----------


## Roy L

> Well, I am not convinced, Roy, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to you.  I know that you passionately and earnestly believe in what you are talking about, to the point of considering it all so self-evident that only a liar wouldn't see it. In other words, they see it your way, and secretly agree that you are right, but just won't admit it.  I know that is not the case with me, because for as obvious and self-evident that you believe it all is, I do not share your view, and for me personally I did not find your arguments compelling, nor did I feel that you made a coherent case as a matter of principle, as opposed to a dogmatic axiom.


No, it _is_ the case with you; you are actually fully aware that I have proved I am right and you are wrong.  That is why you cannot refute anything I have said.  I have seen the same pattern repeated many times: you have been proved wrong; you know you have been proved wrong; but you decline, merely on that account, to reconsider your proved-wrong beliefs.

You can't admit I am right because that would be to admit that you have been and are serving evil.  Very few people are able to come to grips with the knowledge that they have been and are doing evil.  They will say, believe, and do ANYTHING WHATEVER to avoid knowing that fact.  It is the most terrifying possibility in the universe, because it means that they have betrayed everything they should have guarded with their lives -- even their own humanity.  



> I am having particular difficulty seeing land used by others who might be hundreds of miles away from me, in an area I would likely never even visit, let alone use, as somehow constituting a "deprivation" _to me specifically_.


It might not be.  You are only suffering a deprivation wrt the land and resources you would otherwise have been interested in using if their owners did not initiate force to stop you.  That's one reason I advocate LVT mainly for local (or at most state) governments, with national government funded by other means.  I think I have explained this before.



> I cannot even conceive of this unless I draw a boundary around an entire country, and then draw up a deed, wherein I and everyone else are named as collective owners with equal travel and usage rights.


The relevant right is the individual right to liberty, not some fancied collective right to property.  However, it is indisputable that some national government expenditures add to land value, and to that extent constitute a welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.  Justice self-evidently requires that welfare subsidy giveaway be redressed by either taxing away its value to pay for the expenditures that create it, or eliminating those expenditures, or if they are deemed necessary, downloading them onto junior governments that can recover the value they create through LVT.  FWIW, IMO the US federal government does many things that would be better done by state or local governments, including an enormous amount of spending undertaken in a futile attempt to undo the social and economic harm inflicted by not using LVT.



> Hence, this CAN be put in strictly "propertarian" terms, to use your word, because you are claiming, in effect, rights of ownership by some other name;  that the whole of a given country is collectively *owned* by all of its inhabitants, en masse, all at once, all of whom are effectively the collective landlords to any who make exclusive use of any part of it.


Nope.  Wrong.  I have explicitly stated that land use rights are liberty rights, not property rights.  Propertarianism -- the religion that worships at, and lays human sacrifices on, the altar of the Great God Property -- is a cult of human sacrifice.  Adherents of the cult simply recast everything outside the cult's catechism in terms that are familiar to the cult.



> What you object to is NOT ownership of land, but rather _individual_ ownership which excludes collective ownership.


No, you are just lying about what I have plainly written, so that you can recast the facts and logic that prove your cult is false and evil into terms that fit into its catechism, and thus do not threaten belief in it.  Collectives have no more right to deprive the individual of his liberty without just compensation than individuals do.  Only by undertaking to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all does a community or society collectively, through government, obtain legitimate authority to administer possession and use of the land it occupies.



> Call it by any other name, that is the net effect, and therefore what it is. As such, it is not as new or novel a concept as I thought, now that you have explained it.


No, you have simply altered what I have said to make it fit into the catechism of your propertarian religious cult.



> If I had to characterize it to others I would say that it was kind of "Communist Libertarian" in it inception - one that could easily have been inspired by song "Signs" by The Five Man Electrical Band:


That is silliness.



> So the collective deed to the country, one that is inherited by everyone as an inalienable birthright, might read:
> Does that sound about right?


No, it sounds more like some stupid garbage you fabricated out of whole cloth and attributed to me in order to avoid thinking about facts that are not compatible with your propertarian religious cult.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, it _is_ the case with you; you are actually fully aware that I have proved I am right and you are wrong.  That is why you cannot refute anything I have said.  I have seen the same pattern repeated many times: you have been proved wrong; you know you have been proved wrong; but you decline, merely on that account, to reconsider your proved-wrong beliefs.


Roy, statements like that are compelling evidence that you are operating strictly from within your own private bubble and calling it reality and truth. Not only can you declare, axiomatically and with utter certainty, what is "self-evident" and "just" in the absolute regarding land and liberty and rights, including declarations as to what has been "proved" (both right and wrong as you declare it), but you also claim with equal certainty and authority _what is going on in other people's minds_.  

I don't buy that you're clairvoyant, Roy. Oddly enough, however, your self-perceived potent omniscience, as implied by both your attitude and words, seems honest to me.  I believe that you really do believe that you have not only proved all points beyond any shadow of doubting, but that you also know exactly what is in the minds of others.  




> You can't admit I am right because that would be to admit that you have been and are serving evil.  Very few people are able to come to grips with the knowledge that they have been and are doing evil.  They will say, believe, and do ANYTHING WHATEVER to avoid knowing that fact.  It is the most terrifying possibility in the universe, because it means that they have betrayed everything they should have guarded with their lives -- even their own humanity.


Take that wisdom to heart, then. Self-projection is one of the easiest traps in the world to fall into. Self-awareness, on the other hand is one of the toughest things in the world to come to grips with. Is it possible that you are serving evil? Is it possible that you will "...say, believe, and do ANYTHING WHATEVER to avoid..." even the exploration of such a possibility? 




> Nope.  Wrong.  I have explicitly stated that land use rights are liberty rights, not property rights.  Propertarianism -- the religion that worships at, and lays human sacrifices on, the altar of the Great God Property -- is a cult of human sacrifice.  Adherents of the cult simply recast everything outside the cult's catechism in terms that are familiar to the cult.


Well, call me simple, then, because if I disappear into a forest, and dig an underground fortress _for the sole purpose of excluding you_ and anybody else who is possessed with nasty, truly evil tentacles of collectivist expectations, and I occupy and use land that nobody else even wants to visit, let alone is interested in, let alone knows I am using, there isn't a chance in even your own private hell, Roy, that you can demonstrate that I have deprived anyone of their "liberty".    

Truth is, Roy, you believe in land ownership far more than I do.  In the collectivist absolute.  That's your dirty little secret.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Hong Kong...Hong Kong-style. You are destroyed.





> Hong Kong...Hong Kong





> Hong Kong





> Hong Kong





> Hong Kong proves you wrong.





> Hong Kong





> Hong Kong.  'Nuff said.





> Hong Kong





> Hong Kong.





> Hong Kong.





> Hong Kong.  I have destroyed you conclusively, comprehensively, and for all time.





> Hong Kong. UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DESTROYED





> Hong Kong. That answers that question.





> *Hong Kong!!1!!1!11*


Let the peasants rejoice, for the time has come to at last talk about Hong Kong!  Yey!  Party Time!

In the social sciences, we must deal with a limitation which researchers do not encounter in the physical sciences.  Namely: in the social sciences, we cannot use a purely empirical methodology.  In the social sciences there is no way to design and run controlled double-blind experiments to test out our theories.  For one thing, no large populations are going to submit to having their lives wrecked for decades in order to prove that XYZ does wreck lives.  Even if one could get such submission, there are insurmountable obstacles to correct experimental design, due to no two populations being identical, no two homelands of said populations being identical, etc., etc., etc.  Thus I have no way to isolate a single variable.  I also have no way to establish any kind of control group, since researchers will disagree as to what the "default" human society should be.  I also have no way to double-blind the experiment, since obviously the people cannot be kept from awareness of what policies they are living under.  And finally, I have reason to believe that empiricism is not even the correct methodology to use in the social sciences, due to the nature of human beings as volitional creatures -- as subjects that act, rather than objects that are acted upon.

Despite all these caveats and disclaimers, I shall nevertheless dive into addressing Hong Kong as an alleged empirical proof of the benefits of a Land Value Tax.  Hong Kong is claimed to be a shining example of the success of the theories of Henry George and his LVT disciples.  The empirical evidence has been suggested roughly as follows:

1) Hong Kong has a high LVT and no land-owning.
2) Haiti (or  Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma...) has no LVT and does have land-owning.
3) Just look at the results.  LVT and lack of land ownership are vindicated as leading to wealthiness.

Are there any problems with this methodology?  Yes.  Are there any problems with this data?  Yes.  Are there any problems with this conclusion?  Yes.

*Method:* The core problems with empirical methodology in the social sciences have been touched upon above.  But even setting those aside, the specific methodology of this experiment cries out for examination.  Could pairing up Hong Kong vs. Haiti even _conceivably_ give us a slam dunk case as to the efficacy of LVT?  Is LVT/lack-of-LVT really going to be named by anyone as the defining difference between these two countries?  Is that going to come to anyone's mind other than Mr. L.'s as the answer to "what's the difference between Hong Kong and Haiti"?  Will it even be in anyone's top ten of differences?  Highly doubtful, outside of those poor souls obsessed with this particular hobbyhorse.

*Data:* Furthermore, in what meaningful way can Haiti be said to have more land-ownership than Hong Kong?  In Hong Kong, if I have a lease with few if any restrictions, as is the case with most leases issued many years ago (the more recent the lease, the more restrictions tend to be written into it), and if it will not expire for another 935 years, is that not pretty close to ownership?  The Hong Kong government will leave me alone and not seize my land.  My effective property rights to the land will be respected. I can sell it, trade it, rent it, or gift it, and I am the one in charge of deciding what to do with that land -- the government, for the most part, will not interfere.  For all practical purposes, I am the owner of the land, at least as much so as a typical owner in the USA, and more than many owners, say, in New London, Connecticut.  In Haiti, on the other hand, can we say that land-owners are secure in the knowledge that they will be left unmolested by the state to use the land however they choose?  That they have effective property rights to the land which will be respected?  I would say no.

[P]easant land transactions reflect skepticism of notaries, land surveyors, and
virtually all agents of the state including the judiciary.

Arrangements among peasant farmers tend to be self-regulatory. Peasants
rarely update title to inherited land. Ownership rights are regulated by
community ties rather than by the law. Owners of informally divided inheritance
plots often have deeds to refer to that are many generations old. Farmers avoid
registering their lands because of the costs involved from notary fees, survey
costs, taxes, and other charges. For peasants, avoiding surveys also diminishes
the risk of land loss due to the high cost of surveying and revising current plot
lines to conform to old master deeds. Formal title is not necessarily more secure
than informal arrangements. Formal title is more expensive and less flexible than
the informal system.

Peasant farmers in Haiti do not enjoy land tenure security. Insecurity stems from
confusing land laws and weak institutions of enforcement. Most peasant land
holdings are not covered by updated title because of the high transaction costs.
Those with updated title cannot adequately defend their rights in a court of law
due to political instability. (Smucker 2000)

According to a Habitat for Humanity official, only 5 percent of Haiti's land has documentation of proprietorship, and land is often forcibly redistributed. (source)

So, in practical reality, Hong Kong effectively does offer secure land ownership to potential buyers, whereas Haiti, while it may have land ownership on paper, effectively does not.  The political situations in the Philippines, Bangladesh, etc. are likewise not exactly paragons of respect for private property rights, not in land nor anything else.  I would say that on a continuum between no land ownership and absolutely secure land ownership, Hong Kong one of the closest in the world to the latter, whereas Haiti is within spitting distance of the former.  If I "owned" land in Haiti, I would have no comfort whatsoever that my land might not be seized at any moment by any number of statist groups claiming to be in charge there.  If I owned land in Hong Kong, I could sleep peacefully knowing that chances were good that no one is going to seize my land for at least 935 years (or however long my lease) and that even at the end of that time, 99.9% odds I can simply renew the lease with no hassle.  Which ownership is the more ownery?  Hong Kong's situation offers a lot more of those qualities of owneryness which vile land parasites look for in a jurisdiction, even if it's not officially called "owning".

So much for land ownership.  The second data set is LVT rate.  Point of information: Hong Kong has no LVT.  This would seem to be an important fact for those claiming that Hong Kong proves and vindicates all they've ever said about LVT, but it is nevertheless one which seems to have escaped their attention or in any case which they pass over.  Hong Kong has no LVT; it does have a property tax.  Hong Kong's property tax is 16%, or 17% profit tax for land-owning corporations (yes, I'm simplifying).  What portion of that tax is on the value of the pure land?  Not much -- Hong Kong is highly urban and the value of improvements and buildings far outweighs the value of the land.  So I don't know what the haul of Hong Kong's "virtual LVT" would be if we were to separate it out, but it is not all that much, relatively.  So does Hong Kong even have a high virtual LVT?  Higher than average?  That remains to be proven.  I myself have skepticism, as the pro-LVT side has shown to be warranted.

Does Haiti have a low or non-existent LVT?  Haiti's property tax rate is 15%.  Now I'm sure there's a tax code a mile long in both places complicating the situation, but on the face of it, 15% is not dramatically lower than 16-17%.  In fact, another site, doingbusiness.org, says that Haiti's property tax rate is 15%, while Hong Kong's is 5%.  So maybe, in fact, Hong Kong's virtual LVT is much lower than Haiti's, for a typical businessman vile land parasite.

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/ex.../paying-taxes/
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/ex.../paying-taxes/

So as far as the data goes, reality is almost backwards from the claims we've heard: Hong Kong has a stronger land ownership regime than Haiti in every meaningful sense, and the tax rates on land in both are either similar, or Hong Kong's is much lower.

*Conclusion:*  Because comparing Hong Kong to Haiti is not an acceptable method for proving LVT's benefits, and because the data presented is very, very wrong, the conclusion that was based on this method and this data cannot be supported by this experiment.  If the "researchers" such as Mr. L. wish to substantiate their claims as to LVT's beneficial effects, an entirely new experiment will be needed.

*~~~A New Comparison~~~*
Knowing the, umm, level of academic rigor to which the researchers have held themselves thus far in their careers, I have taken it upon myself to ponder such an experiment.  My hypothesis is that Hong Kong has some of the lowest tax rates and freest economies in the world, and that any tax on land or lack thereof is but one minor factor in the whole kaleidoscope of economic policies.  They would be even more wealthy were there no property tax -- including no tax on land, which is a component of property as presently taxed.

To test this hypothesis, let's look at two nations with very high degrees of economic freedom, respect for property rights, low taxes, etc., but one which taxes land and one which does not.  This way, we come closer to somewhat sort of isolating that single variable -- land value taxation -- that we want to look at.  Even though the quality of isolation is inevitably still low, it at least is better than when we compare Hong Kong and Haiti, a comparison where obviously the one minor factor of Hong Kong having similar or lower property tax rates than Haiti is making a much smaller difference than the cumulative effect of the million other ways in which Haiti's economy is horribly unfree and Hong Kong's outstandingly free.

So, I take Hong Kong vs. Dubai.  Both very free, economically speaking, according to the libertarian standard, UAE being ≈ the 14th freest country, and Hong Kong being the 1st. (source)  Hong Kong has a property tax; Dubai does not.  If my hypothesis is correct, Dubai is that much better off by having no property tax, though that benefit can be offset by additional other taxes or state interventions.  If the pro-LVTers are correct, Dubai is dramatically worse off by not having a property tax and their economy should be doing much more poorly than that of Hong Kong which at least has some property tax.

In examining the facts and figures, I find that Dubai has a much higher rate of GDP growth than Hong Kong -- a much, much higher rate.  From 2000-2010, GDP of Hong Kong increased 133%, while GDP of Dubai increased 503-542% (I found varying figures for 2010 Dubai GDP).  It's not even close.  No mitigating factors can begin to mitigate this difference.

Pro-LVTers may claim that Dubai's prosperity is still due to LVT principles, for though there is no tax on land, the government does control oil reserves, another form of economic "land".  However, the share of Dubai's economy coming from oil and natural gas extraction has plunged to vitually zip at the same time that the rest of its economy has soared.  So that argument will fall as flat as Dubai's oil revenues.




> It's been a few thousand years since some evil genius concocted the notion of claiming what nature provided as his own, and found fools gullible enough to believe him.


 Again, looking purely at empirical data, would it be too extreme to claim that  humanity is better off today than at that time thousands of years ago when, you claim (based on no data) that humanity had not yet started homesteading nature?  I venture that it would not be.  Thus, the period of human history with land ownership clearly has a better economic track record than the period which you claim (based on no data) was without.  It's not even close.  I mean, Dubai being quintuple as good at Hong Kong at generating wealth was not even close.  This, where land-owning humanity has generated millions upon millions of times the wealth as (supposedly) non-land-owning humanity, this is at a level where all blowing-out-of-water wiping-the-floor-with idioms fail.

*In conclusion, empirical data supports land-owning as an economically successful practice.*

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> EXCLUSIVE use is what requires compensation, as that is when others are forcibly EXCLUDED.  The Indians later learned that sharing was not going to be one of the options.


*All use is exclusive.*  You can switch back and forth who's excluding who.  You can make fine divisions to split up the exclusivity among parties.  But you cannot use matter nor space without excluding others from it.  Sharing, thus, is never an option in the sense you want it to be.  Sharing in that sense doesn't exist.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> What you object to is NOT ownership of land, but rather _individual_ ownership which excludes collective ownership.  Call it by any other name, that is the net effect, and therefore what it is.





> Truth is, Roy, you believe in land ownership far more than I do.  In the collectivist absolute.  That's your dirty little secret.


Nail-head, Steven Douglas.  Steven Douglas, nail-head.  Oh, I see you've already met.

*Use and control is what ownership is.* 

If every thirsty bum on Earth (and off) has a "right to liberty" which amounts to a right to drink some water, that means every thirsty bum owns that water.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Did anybody see the Stossel segment about property on Fox tonight?  It was awesome...talked about private property in China, about our history of property, about forests and parks, and about how the denial of property in Indian tribes have decimated their entire culture.

It would be cool to put it in this thread when the tube comes out!

----------


## WilliamC

Methinks RoyL has been at this a long time...

http://groups.google.com/groups/prof...kNl777ndlMynFm

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Methinks RoyL has been at this a long time...
> 
> http://groups.google.com/groups/prof...kNl777ndlMynFm


Oh, I read through a conversation (I use that word loosely) he participated in back in 2001.  He is a phenomenon unto himself.

----------


## mport1

Taxation is theft, period.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> He is a phenomenon unto himself.


My Ad Hominem Interpretation:

I personally think Roy has extreme issues with fences, barriers and closed doors of all kinds. Always from the outside looking in.  Like an inverted form of claustrophobia. Claustrophobia, for those who suffer from it, sets in as a panic attack when one's personal liberty is cut off at the source (i.e., you cannot physically move or escape).  Roy has an intense aversion to open space restrictions, even at a distance, which he really does perceive as "liberty deprivations".  In his case, even though he is free to move about, or make use of other available resources, just knowing that some "options are cut off" nearby gives him a "closed out" feeling, one that really is tantamount in his mind to a deprivation - the private party that everyone was entitled to attend.  

Whereas a claustrophobe fears that s/he cannot get out, Roy fears that he cannot get in, and is therefore deprived of opportunities every time that occurs.  It can also be a "closed in" feeling, if he sees a proliferation of exclusionary barriers multiplying to the point where they cut off his ability to find space and opportunity for himself (and, by extension, everyone else).  As such, it would be an expanded form of claustrophobia, only on crack.  His feeling that LVT should be handled at more local levels may be more of an indicator of how far his "personal bubble" extends.  Either way, it translates into a projected explanation for why there is poverty and suffering in the world, and a rationale for how that can be handled.

Oh, and when Roy writes "self-evident", he means it literally.  Not evident in itself, but rather evident...to self. Him. But even then, he does not see that as "him". He really does think you are "lying" because he is wholly incapable of realizing that we are not operating from a collective mindset which sees everything through only one lens (but just won't admit it).  For Roy it is not a question, in his mind, of seeing anything "his way", since he really does, truly and honestly, think that everyone sees everything from collectively shared mindset. If that was true, then we all really are liars, and he is the only one telling the truth. Why? Because however he sees it is how, he assumes, we all see it.  

The moment Roy "proves" something to his own satisfaction, that "proof", in his mind, is collectively shared _to everyone's satisfaction_. All that is left is for everyone to admit it, or accept that they are "liars" who have been "destroyed".

Oh, and this interpretation?  Absolute silliness and baseless nonsense, given that it is not how "the collective we" (read=Roy) see things.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Methinks RoyL has been at this a long time...
> 
> http://groups.google.com/groups/prof...kNl777ndlMynFm



LoL...RoyL has years of experience in the art of "internet debate", which probably accounts for why uses terms like "PWND" and "DESTROYED" in his posts.

----------


## eduardo89

> LoL...RoyL has years of experience in the art of "internet debate", which probably accounts for why uses terms like "PWND" and "DESTROYED" in his posts.


Has Roy even posted in another thread on this forum?

Actually on one, where he insulted my family, called us evil, thieving, greedy rich parasites.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Has Roy even posted in another thread on this forum?
> 
> Actually on one, where he insulted my family, called us evil, thieving, greedy rich parasites.


If your family ever threw a party, and Roy was not invited or given compensation so that he could throw a party of his own, how else could your family be rightly characterized, except as evil, thieving, greedy rich parasites?  If you throw a party, it is self-evident you should send out invitations to those who are invited, and envelopes of just compensation to those who are not. 

Come on, Eduardo, use Our brain.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Has Roy even posted in another thread on this forum?
> 
> Actually on one, where he insulted my family, called us evil, thieving, greedy rich parasites.


How dare your family deny my liberty by owning their land!  Such parasites who are stealing from "society"!

----------


## truelies

There is a twist on the LVT tax first set forth by Robert Heinlein.

1) YOU set the valuation on your Property and the Property is then taxed at whatever rate is uniformly enforced in your area. 

2) If ever someone should make a serious money on the table offer to purchase your Property for a higher value you have two choices-

A) Sell

B) Immediately pay tax at the higher level for the previous three years and continue to pay at the higher level for the next three years.

----------


## eduardo89

> If your family ever threw a party, and Roy was not invited or given compensation so that he could throw a party of his own, how else could your family be rightly characterized, except as evil, thieving, greedy rich parasites?  If you throw a party, it is self-evident you should send out invitations to those who are invited, and envelopes of just compensation to those who are not. 
> 
> Come on, Eduardo, use Our brain.


We did invite Roy, but he never RSVP'd!




> How dare your family deny my liberty by owning their land!  Such parasites who are stealing from "society"!


My family and I just sent Roy a check in the mail as compensation for trampling over his liberty to use our land. Sorry Roy, how could we be so inconsiderate. From now on we'll make sure individuals society and especially aboriginals get to use our land at will.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> There is a twist on the LVT tax first set forth by Robert Heinlein.
> 
> 1) YOU set the valuation on your Property and the Property is then taxed at whatever rate is uniformly enforced in your area. 
> 
> 2) If ever someone should make a serious money on the table offer to purchase your Property for a higher value you have two choices-
> 
> A) Sell
> 
> B) Immediately pay tax at the higher level for the previous three years and continue to pay at the higher level for the next three years.


This is similar to the twist Matt Butler proposes on this thread.  I'm not sure how self-assessment solves any of the problems created by a property tax / land tax, other than the need for gov't assessors.  But then it creates some problems of its own, which I went into in this post.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> There is a twist on the LVT tax first set forth by Robert Heinlein.
> 
> 1) YOU set the valuation on your Property and the Property is then taxed at whatever rate is uniformly enforced in your area. 
> 
> 2) If ever someone should make a serious money on the table offer to purchase your Property for a higher value you have two choices-
> 
> A) Sell
> 
> B) Immediately pay tax at the higher level for the previous three years and continue to pay at the higher level for the next three years.


Cool - so I, as a developer, can go into an entire city block area that I want to develop - make an "offer" which is much less than I would be willing to pay, but for an amount that I know is far more than the existing parties can afford to pay.  So they are forced to either sell or go bankrupt, and I swoop in and take over at the higher price (but cheap cheap to me)...

...until, of course, an bigger developer sees how well I am doing, and shows up and pulls that same crap on me! 



Note that the poorer one will always lose. If they bluff, I can call their bluff and sell at a rate I know they can't afford.  The only one with any poot is someone who really does have the financial war chest to back them up.

Another angle:  I, as a big developer, want that juicy city block to myself.  So I go to the "current evil occupiers" and let them know my plan in advance.  We could avoid a big eviction bruhaha, and they could make a little sumpn' sumpn' on the side, if they will simply agree to accept an amount "somewhat lower" than what I think would bankrupt them if they had to pay it.  Same Mission Accomplished, but now I get in at an even lower LVT.  Of course, if they refuse, I'll just tender the offer as before - check and mate.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> C'mon Helmuth.  You know better than this.  If everyone is selling land and no one wants to own it then its value is ZERO and there is no tax to be paid.  The market is not going to allow that situation.  Buyers will be attracted and despite the LVT, no matter how high you set it, at some level there is a market clearing price.


Eventually, but the market will not instantaneously and fully react to a change in the LVT rate.  Under Roy's system, this matters, since assessment and market price matters.  Under your system, you say:

_"If land falls in value should we allow the owner to pay less tax even if he does not sell it or engage in transaction? Yes. The owner may initiate a judicial proceeding, and upon proper showing that the value has in fact fallen, he may be taxed at the lower rate."_

So LVT is increased by 100%.  A landowner previously paying $50,000 a year now must pay $100,000.  He can't afford that, or it doesn't make economic sense to do it -- he was just barely making ends meet before (that _is_ the idea of your LVT, make sure the landowner just barely clears the natural interest rate) and so now he'd be bleeding vast quantities of money.

Your solution is that everyone must now initiate legal proceedings to get the official value of their land reduced.  So now there's 10 million land-value-reduction cases pending in the New York City judicial system.  This seems ridiculous to me.  Please tell me that in your system it will somehow be impossible for the LVT rate to ever change, or extremely difficult for it to change, and certainly there will never be sudden large changes.  Because otherwise, I'm sorry but it looks unworkable in the extreme.  

At least Roy has a magical computer program to take care of it all for him.  Perhaps you should look into licensing it from him.

----------


## Roy L

> The same thing happens in your system, just on a shorter timescale (months instead of years).


It's months instead of _decades_; but as the divergence is exponential in time, your system creates a substantial rent seeking opportunity, while mine does not.



> Bids for 50-year leases will be increased in anticipation of the increased future value of the land, just the same as stock prices for unprofitable companies are bid up in anticipation of future profits.


But they won't and can't be increased _enough_, for one simple reason: the total presently available purchasing power is insufficient to pay for greatly increased future advantages.



> In fact, my system helps to jumpstart development of frontiers, while yours doesn't.


True: your system creates an inefficient distortion that will result in great waste of resources, though not as much as under the current system with its resource boom towns that turn to ghost towns.



> In my system, if somebody over bids, and it turns out value isn't increasing as much as he anticipated, then he can abandon the land and be freed from the burden of paying for it any longer, at which point it's re-auctioned (but until then, the government received extra revenue due to his overoptimistic bid), but if value increases more than he anticipated (and more than everybody else anticipated too, since everybody else bid less than the winner did), then he makes a profit for the duration of his tenure. Why is this good? Because the possibility of profit causes him to bid early for land which in your system would remain unclaimed until it was actually needed, and his early rental provides government revenue which would otherwise be lacking, and the government can use this early revenue to provide defense, roads, and other infrastructure in the frontier earlier than it could in your system.


Whether it's actually economically justified or not.



> The speculator intentionally pays more than the current value of the land during the first years of his tenure, in exchange for the right to pay less than the current value during the last years. In effect, he's making a loan to the government, enabling it to jumpstart development.


But as I've already pointed out, governments selling the rights of future generations for present consideration is essentially a criminal enterprise.



> This is a win-win situation. The only losers are speculators who overbid, and pay excess rent until they realize their folly. Later arrivals who sublease the land from early arrivals pay the current market rate, the same as they would in your system; the difference is that with my system, by the time they arrive, more infrastructure is already in place. The 50-year tenure limits the repayment period of the effective loan, so that future generations aren't burdened with the debts of their ancestors.


No, society will be the loser as speculation and rent seeking waste resources.  Future generations ARE burdened with "debts" incurred up to 50 years before.



> By the way, is eternal security of tenure an essential feature of your system? Or is it possible that some sort of geoist system could still be moral without providing eternal security?


I don't consider secure tenure to be necessarily "eternal."  Changed circumstances might require application of eminent domain to enable provision of needed infrastructure, etc.



> Ok, your colony sets up such a government. Then, outside that area of authority and control, but not very far outside, the cult which I mentioned in this thread in post #709 arrives and sets up camp. What are you going to do about it? Nothing?


Probably.  People who sacrifice their own young are a self-solving problem.  There are good reasons why sovereign governments have traditionally not attempted to intervene when other sovereign governments violate the rights of their own citizens: it's usually quite dangerous, and is a clear example when the slippery slope argument has real weight.  Aside from offering asylum to refugees and awaiting a causus belli, doing nothing is probably the prudent course.



> If nothing, then consider later, as your colony expands, and eventually envelopes the cult's land. Do you annex that land, and start charging LVT, or do you exempt it from your government's authority and control? Do you still do nothing about the ongoing practice of human sacrifice?


Once the cult's land is enveloped, it's easier to apply economic sanctions without interfering with other societies.



> You might consider this a matter of international relations and outside the scope of this thread on LVT, but it's actually at the heart of the matter. The authority of a government to levy taxes depends on the legitimacy of the government itself, which depends on the control which it does or doesn't exercise over land and people, including people who are committing murder nearby, and including the land of nearby sovereign states where the citizens tell foreigners to bug off, and including people who invade soveriegn states in order to try to stop the commission of murder.


I think you are confusing authority and legitimacy.  Governments' _authority_ to levy taxes is purely a matter of having the sovereign power to do so.  Legitimacy depends on its discharging the rightful functions of government under democratic control.



> You can't answer the question of where a government is authorized to levy taxes without first addressing these issues. So what do you do about the murderous cult living in the sovereign state which is surrounded by your colony? On what basis does your government have authority over Helmuth's land, when he says it doesn't?


There is always a degree of tension along national borders, as governments on both sides are depriving those across the border of access to nearby land and resources.  Enclaves such as you describe are especially problematical, as people all around them are denied convenient access to land and resources in the _same_ country, just the other side of the enclave.  Sovereignty is therefore often an inappropriate way to deal with enclaves.



> By setting up only a local government, you've already implicitly acknowledged that there are places where it doesn't have authority.


That is obvious.



> And if the answer depends on who historically has had control, so that a government can't legitimately exercise control over land which it didn't historically control, then doesn't that also mean that a government can't legitimately levy an LVT on land on which it historically didn't?


Doesn't matter.  The antecedent is false.

----------


## Roy L

> Wrong.  God titled Adam  (a specific person) with dominion when he was the only man to exist.


Dominion is control, not property.  You are seeking to rationalize your mammon worship by misconstruing scripture.  Baby Jesus cries when you pervert holy scripture to justify worship of the false god mammon.



> Property is prior to society.


Absurd.



> The individual is prior to any collective.  Your worldview is completely backwards because it is not Biblical.


I am not the one trying to use scripture to justify mammon worship.  You are.



> Wrong again.  God voluntarily gave Adam the inheritance of what He initially owned.


The inheritance was a tenure right, not a property right, as the flood proved.



> The first act of a property title conveyance was completely voluntary.


There was no title of property involved.  You are just lying about the word of God.



> And as Adam gave his sons inheritance, the subsequent conveyances were voluntary.


False, as proved by the flood.  All those conveyances were overturned by the real owner of the property.



> Property and inheritance rights are entirely Scriptural.





> God blessed people with property and inheritance rights:
> Even aliens in the land were afforded with property and inheritance rights:


It says inheritance.  It does not say property.  That is something you made up.



> What a blessing property is!


Blatant mammon worship.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Yeah, the meek shall inherit [tenure of] the Earth. Or something to that effect.  (It's very important to add parts in sometimes, or it won't make sense.)

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Dominion is control, not property.  You are seeking to rationalize your mammon worship by misconstruing scripture.  Baby Jesus cries when you pervert holy scripture to justify worship of the false god mammon.


Ah.  Now we see where your heart really is.  "Baby Jesus cries..."?  Shameful.





> I am not the one trying to use scripture to justify mammon worship.  You are.


Owning your property is no more mammon worship than owning the shirt you are wearing.  Ownership in and of itself is not mammon worship, in fact our possessions should be realized as blessings from God, to be exercised with godly stewardship.   As in the verses I cited with Job, God blessed him with property.  It is a blessing from God.  God blessed Adam with property.  But it can become mammon worship for sure, if it is not realized as a gift of God.  





> The inheritance was a tenure right, not a property right, as the flood proved.
> 
> False, as proved by the flood.  All those conveyances were overturned by the real owner of the property.


Now that I showed you that the jubilee laws do not apply anymore, now you are going to "the flood" to attempt to say man's temporal ownership of the earth was revoked.  But what do we see in Genesis 9 immediately after the flood waters receeded?  We see God reintroducing the dominion mandate to Noah and his sons:




> Genesis 9:1-6
> 
> *And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth*. And the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.


The title conveyance that was originally to Adam was simply reapplied to Noah.






> There was no title of property involved.  You are just lying about the word of God.


Uh.  Okay.  I'm "lying"?  Well, I guess we will let everyone else see who is the liar in this conversation.  Actually, I don't use those emotionally charged terms, because they are the first indicators that you have lost the debate.  I would much rather argue the case for or against and give people the benefit of the doubt that they are sincere about their positions.





> It says inheritance.  It does not say property.  That is something you made up.


Okay, let's do some critical thinking here.  What is being labeled as an inheritance in this passage?  You tell me:




> Ezekiel 47:13-14 NASB
> 
> Thus says the Lord GOD, "This shall be the boundary by which you shall divide the* land* for an *inheritance* among the twelve tribes of Israel; Joseph shall have two portions. You shall divide* it* for an* inheritance*, each one equally with the other; for I swore to give it to your forefathers, and this* land* shall fall to you as an* inheritance*.


It is the land that is an inheritance.  And when you inherit something, you own it.  Case closed.  





> Dominion is control, not property.


I already corrected you on this twice.  I gave you links and Hebrew definitions.  Until you address the links and the Hebrew usage of radah, your mere assertions are meaningless to the argument...almost immature in a way.  

The Hebrew word for inheritance is *nachalah*.   It can be interchanged with the words* possession* and *property*.


Strong's Hebrew:




> Original Word: נַחֲלָה
> Transliteration: nachalah
> Phonetic Spelling: (nakh-al-aw')
> Short Definition: inheritance, possession, property




RoyL, you have nothing for me man.  I have the firm foundation of the Scriptures to lean on.  You may be able to convince some of these other people, but what I see from you is not that you are arguing against me, but you are arguing against the Lord...and that's never a good position to be in.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I have proved I am right and you are wrong.  ...proved wrong; ...proved wrong; ...proved-wrong.


Come on, Roy, I'm rooting for you!  There's a whole lot of new material crying out to be proved wrong now.  You gotta come through for me!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Come on, Roy, I'm rooting for you!  There's a whole lot of new material crying out to be proved wrong now.  You gotta come through for me!


Give it up, Helmuth, we have already been thoroughly and repeatedly destroyed.  You heard him yell, "Bang Bang! I double-dog justly and self-evidently killed you, so stop lying!"

How many times does Roy have to do that before you finally realize that you really are dead, and just lie down on the living room carpet and take it like a man? And don't pretend to be deaf or blind, either. We both clearly saw him point his cardboard version of the Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time at you, and declare it.  If that isn't a triple-quadruple-dog proof of his justly declared declarations, I don't know what is, so stop pretending (big key there with that projected choice of words) and *stop lying*.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> If you're not going to let me have the planet just for carving "No trespassing" signs on it, then it's reasonable for Roy to refuse to let you have it just for slamming an asteroid into it.


 Well it's all a matter of degrees.  In my system, if you slam enough asteroids/comets into it to make an atmosphere, then you've probably successfully homesteaded it.  I suppose the No Trespassing signs could work if they're just very temporary, during the time you're still in the process of making the atmosphere (partly for the trespasser's own safety!), but eventually you're going to have to do something huge to "back up" those signs, so to speak -- to back up such an enormous claim with enormous action.





> I don't understand why you think Mises's economic calculation problem applies to my system. I don't have one firm controlling the whole economy; I just have one firm owning the entire planet


 Umm, read that sentence again.  Is it possible to do so without bursting out laughing?

Anyway, I could be wrong.  After all, this is a horizontal integration, not a vertical one, so it's not as easy to see the problem.  Mises and Klein and other Austrians I've heard or read all use the example of vertical integration causing calculation problems.  So I'm going out on my own limb here.  Maybe that's what they call making a unique contribution to the body of thought.  Maybe I'm a real economist after all.  Anyway, I don't think I'm wrong (yet) and I'll explain why.

Vertical, it's easy to see the problem: how do you know how much to pay to each layer up and down the vertical structure?  Horizontal, just turn the whole thing 90 degrees.  The layers are now pieces side-by-side.  Your stack of blocks is now a row of blocks.  Now you don't know how much to pay (or charge for) the different pieces side-to-side.

But you can come back and say that the auction system figures that out.  Well, that's fine and good, but are there other decisions to be made when you're owning land which are more subtle or complicated or something?  I mean, it's not just the price that's the problem.  In the vertical integration, not only do you not know how much to pay each layer, or whether it's profitable or not, you don't know which of various choices to make on each layer: should I ship my merchandise on my internal trucking network, or my personal railway?  I mean, you can make all these decisions if you have intelligence, and usually quite well, otherwise every single one of us would be independent contractors and you'd never have any firms coalescing at all.  But as a firm grows, it loses market signals the bigger it gets and the more operations are taken in house.

What kind of decisions are there to be made for Adam and Eve as they lease Mars to the waves of colonizers?  I don't know!  But I'll bet there are some!  Owning all the land is kind of like owning all the shoe manufacturers.  Owning all the shoe manufacturers would be a horizontal integration, not a vertical one, and yet it would clearly create a risk of inefficiency, because how do you know what kind of shoes to make in the absence of competition to alert you to customer desires you've missed every once in a while?

So perhaps Adam and Eve will be somehow failing to satisfy the colonists' wants in some way.  If so, perhaps Venus or the asteroids or Planet X will start outcompeting them.  It will be kind of hard for them to know what to do about it, though, because these other orbs are such a completely different product.  The situation is much like if the shoe manufacturer gets so off track that people start buying more socks instead, or pills to make their feet grow thick soles.

In any case, I am not opposed to them trying this horizontal integration -- have at it, you crazy kids!  You created a planet, after all!  I'd no more deny them that than I'd want the govt goons breaking up Apple or Standard Oil.  I just think that it will not be maximally efficient, and eventually their grandkids are going to be selling off pieces of it outright, trying different things, lazy grandkids will sell their pieces to the more ambitious grandkids, and all in all you'll get some competition and variety and smaller land holdings, all in an attempt to make more money and stop losing business to Ceres and Io.




> My firm doesn't even produce anything, besides defensive services. The calculation problem doesn't apply here.


 I explained why I think the calculation problem would apply, even if it's not providing defensive services, but merely leasing all the surface area and charging for extraction.  I reply to this because I see no reason for A&E to provide defensive services.  I mean, if they're really good at it, too, maybe they could make some money on it, but it would be a separate business, having nothing to do with their land management operation.  I see little if any "synergy" potential in a merger of security services and land management.  But, again, let them try if they want!  If Apple wants to go into the orchard business -- have at it!





> Let's divide Mars into hemispheres, or even divide it steradially into a thousand pieces, with each piece independently owned and governed, but each piece independently using the same quasi-geoist system which I originally proposed for a unified planet. Now, the rent money goes just to the local government, and each citizen gets a dividend only from his local government; no planet-wide landlord or government exists. All of the governments have treaties for no tariffs, no restrictions on the movement of goods or people (except that people must acknowledge a government's legitimacy before entering its territory), and no restrictions on anybody in any place bidding on and renting parcels of land at any other place on the planet. How does that solve the problem which you claim my unified planet has?


It provides competition that you can watch.  You can peek over at what they're doing, cheat off their paper, so to speak.  You don't have to come up with every single good land management idea yourself, you can sometimes adopt those of others.  The customers are able to more effectively signal the market as to what's working and what's not than they could if they have to go to a whole different planet to send their signal.  If the wedge Enoch is managing is going swimmingly, Noah can likely be able to make some good guesses as to why and modify his own management accordingly.  Etc.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, statements like that are compelling evidence that you are operating strictly from within your own private bubble and calling it reality and truth. Not only can you declare, axiomatically and with utter certainty, what is "self-evident" and "just" in the absolute regarding land and liberty and rights, including declarations as to what has been "proved" (both right and wrong as you declare it), but you also claim with equal certainty and authority _what is going on in other people's minds_.  
> 
> I don't buy that you're clairvoyant, Roy. Oddly enough, however, your self-perceived potent omniscience, as implied by both your attitude and words, seems honest to me.  I believe that you really do believe that you have not only proved all points beyond any shadow of doubting, but that you also know exactly what is in the minds of others.


When someone starts whistling, "Yankee Doodle," it doesn't take clairvoyance -- or even much intelligence -- to know that the rest of the tune is also in his head, and likely to be produced in due course.



> Is it possible that you are serving evil? Is it possible that you will "...say, believe, and do ANYTHING WHATEVER to avoid..." even the exploration of such a possibility?


No, it isn't, because greed -- unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money" -- is indeed the root of all evil.  Greed is excessive, rapacious desire for more than one needs or deserves.  It is greed that impels people to commit evil.  As the landowner does not need and has done nothing to deserve the publicly created rent of the land he owns, his desire to pocket it rather than repay it to the community from which he takes it is greed.  The government-issued and -enforced private landowning privilege that enables him to pocket the rent rather than repay it via LVT or some similar arrangement is simply evil implemented as public policy.  As I oppose that evil -- the greatest evil in he history of the world -- there is no possibility whatever that I am serving evil.  Do you really think it is some sort of _accident_ that the landowner has for thousands of years been an archetype of greed, privilege, rapacity, parasitism, depredation, inhumanity and wickedness?



> Well, call me simple, then, because if I disappear into a forest, and dig an underground fortress _for the sole purpose of excluding you_ and anybody else who is possessed with nasty, truly evil tentacles of collectivist expectations, and I occupy and use land that nobody else even wants to visit, let alone is interested in, let alone knows I am using, there isn't a chance in even your own private hell, Roy, that you can demonstrate that I have deprived anyone of their "liberty".


Indeed, it's clear you haven't: no one else wants to use the land, so they suffer no deprivation.  And as the land consequently has no market value, you would owe no LVT on it.  Simple. 



> Truth is, Roy, you believe in land ownership far more than I do.  In the collectivist absolute.  That's your dirty little secret.


Obviously, that's just a stupid, evil, dirty little lie from you.  How sad.  You were doing so well, too....

----------


## Steven Douglas

> As the landowner does not need and has done nothing to deserve the publicly created rent of the land he owns, his desire to pocket it rather than repay it to the community from which he takes it is greed.  The government-issued and -enforced private landowning privilege that enables him to pocket the rent rather than repay it via LVT or some similar arrangement is simply evil implemented as public policy.


"publicly created rent of the land he owns" - now there's a big cannon just loaded with presumptions and a slew of begged questions. 

Incidentally stow the "rent" and anti-landlord arguments with me. For the sake of our discussion only, my SOLE concern is for the rights of individuals and families who occupy and use land strictly for their own survival, not those who simply have titles to land which they do not occupy, but only sell, lease or otherwise charge rents to others.  

Somehow - and this is logical in your mind - an original homestead is endowed with "publicly created" value, even though no "rent" is charged to anyone, and nobody occupies the dwelling save the original dweller who improved the land.  This results in value that the homesteader _owes to others_ by way of circular logic that argues from your initial premise - that everybody has a natural liberty right to occupy and/or use _the same land_. To me that is a tax to reward _those who simply covet_.  

*PUBLICLY CREATED VALUE*

I'm a pretty amicable, social guy in real life. I tend to make friends quite easily, and mostly because I show genuine interest in others, especially one-on-one. I have learned over the years that this is a fairly rare thing.  Most people are more guarded, for whatever their reasons, which I don't judge. Since the value of any supply that is in demand increases with its scarcity, this Showing Of Genuine Interest quality can result in popularity whether or not it is desired.  And popularity, while neither good nor bad in itself, can have definite drawbacks.  For example, my private personal attention to individuals sometimes results in the drawing of an unwanted crowd in larger social situations. Not a crowd for the sake of a crowd, where I am just a member thereof - I actually like that - but rather a crowd of too many individuals who desire my personal focused attention at the same time.  For me personally, that can be very _taxing_.  

While the actual 'value' of my attention might appear to have 'public' appeal, and strictly by virtue of the number of people who desire that attention simultaneously, that can produce the illusion that it was "publicly created".  That would be false. It was not created for "the public", nor does "the public", nor any individual member thereof, have any "right" to it - any more than I have a right to anyone else's attention.   

An improved piece of land can have the same dynamic associated with it.  A lone homesteader can go into what is an otherwise unoccupied and barren land, one that NOBODY WANTS, and can make aesthetically pleasing improvements - for himself only.  Not to draw a crowd. Not to entice anyone or "rent" the property out to others.  In fact, there is no "public" motive whatsoever to it.  It is just land for him to live on, occupy and enjoy for himself, and possibly even a family if he has one. It may be a Rembrandt, but it wasn't for sale, and was never intended for public consumption. Artists have that right.  

Another man sees the lone beautiful house in the middle of nowhere, and considers it Good. He does not COVET that man's house - which of course would be EVIL. No, this man doesn't want to take possession or control of what someone else has created (NOT the land - only the "privately created value", or improvements). No, this man is not an Evil Coveter of other people's works. He is actually a Good Man. He only admires the example of what has been accomplished. He wants to be near it, and to be associated with that kind of energy that he admires. So he does likewise. He builds a house of his own and makes improvements to his own land - _right next to the original house._ 

Now, the man who built the original house may not 'like' the fact that a new neighbor has gotten so close to him, any more than he wants to be seated next to a crowded table in an otherwise empty restaurant. He also wouldn't choose a urinal next to one man in a bathroom that has thirty empty urinals.  Personal bubbles and all that. Why shoulder to shoulder? Why next door? Was there no other place to live?  

But...he is also not an Evil Man, so he holds his peace.  After a little thought, _he makes room_ in his mind. He fully recognizes that the world is not only his, and must be shared; that even if he preferred to live in isolation, he would never attempt to deny others their _equal right to a place of their own in the world_.   

Well, social gravity being what it is, and complex social beings being what humans are, two beautiful cottages in the middle of nowhere attract enough attention that it soon becomes ten thousand houses in the middle of what is now somewhere.  Gravity. Strange attractors. Accretion. Planetary formation.  

Now enter His Honor Roy L., the new Mayor of the new town.  He goes to the man who built and still lives in the original house - the one that was once in the middle of nowhere - and declares to this man that his house now has _Publicly Created Value_ for which he must now pay RENT to the public. Why? Because many of them now COVET _his location_...the one that nobody wanted before...a location that he alone improved with no intention to sell...a location not unlike many other locations which still exist as unimproved and otherwise undesired land.  But now, because "the public" values this land, he must pay RENT to that public. He must compensate them for their covetousness. Or else he must leave.  

An LVT on Homesteaders is nothing more than Payola To Those Who Covet, as this kind of "Publicly Created Value" is another word for COVETOUSNESS. 

*Thou shalt not covet.*

----------


## jascott

> Yeah, the meek shall inherit [tenure of] the Earth. Or something to that effect.  (It's very important to add parts in sometimes, or it won't make sense.)


The alternate sarcasm would be, "the meek shall inherit the Earth, and shall keep ownership even if they become no longer meek." Is that what you think it means? Or if the Earth can justly be taken away from those who are no longer meek, doesn't that mean that they don't own it?
Unless I'm mistaken, Roy is an atheist. But for the sake of those of us who believe in God, Roy appears to be willing to make his argument from the premise that God exists. With that premise, from the Judeo-Christian perspective, God owns everything. We all agree that I "own" my shirt, and the fruit of my labor, and myself, but what this really means is that God has delegated stewardship of these things to me. I don't actually own myself.
What are the conditions of the delegation? God told Noah that a person didn't receive unconditional delegation of stewardship even of himself; if he committed murder, then he forfeited stewardship of himself, and other people had the right and responsibility to kill him. Of course, if not even stewardship of self is unconditional, then neither is stewardship of anything else.
So, what about stewardship of land? Despite the distracting arguments over the definition of the word "property", everybody here, including Roy, agrees that God does grant stewardship of land to people, including in particular the right to exclusively use it. However, Roy says that one of the conditions of the grant of stewardship is that an exclusive user pay LVT to the authorities whom God has established to rule over the land. The anti-geoists say that there's no such condition.
My question for the anti-geoists is this: at whose expense are the authorities established by God supposed to rule? The apostle Paul said that such authorities do exist, and were established by God, and we're supposed to pay taxes to them. If not LVT, then what form of taxes did God authorize them to levy, and will those taxes supply enough revenue to fund all of the legitimate federal, state, and local functions?

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## Steven Douglas

jascott, I'm actually just playing with the scriptural references since they're getting bounced around in this thread.  I have my own personal beliefs, but consider them irrelevant to the discussion.  As such I try not to argue matters of policy except as they might equate to equally secular principles - or persuasions most, and only on the broadest of principles that can actually be felt or observed (i.e., coveting).  What Paul, Isaiah, Noah or anyone else said as matters of "God's view" brings it purely into a realm of religious bearings - and there will never be agreement, even among people who supposedly share the same "core" beliefs.  In truth, religion and religious beliefs, especially Christianity, are as fractionated and diverse as they could possibly get.  As such, I can quote "thou shalt not kill", but if I'm arguing from a political framework, I have to recognize that it needs to be rooted in reason and logic that atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and anyone else can respond and and relate to, and not circular references that are forever moot. 

Having said all that, I think that the best that most individuals are going to get out of interpreting scriptures is an impetus, or rationale, for maintaining or pursuing a position that many probably arrived at quite apart from scripture anyway.  In other words, whether scripture supports your position in truth or not remains to be seen in eternity, but it is often the case on Earth where scripture is individually tailored to fit the man, and not the man who tailors himself to fit the scripture.

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## Roy L

> Let the peasants rejoice, for the time has come to at last talk about Hong Kong!  Yey!  Party Time!


Readers will note that you have deleted all context from my references to Hong Kong in order to be able to lie freely about what I plainly said.  Up to now, I have proved that all your criticisms of LVT and the arguments for it, and your attempts to rationalize private landowning, have been fallacious, absurd, and dishonest.  That will not be changing.  In fact, I predict that you will now be lying, absurdly, that Hong Kong has private landowning, which it does not as a matter of objective fact.



> For one thing, no large populations are going to submit to having their lives wrecked for decades in order to prove that XYZ does wreck lives.


"History is philosophy teaching by examples." -- Thucydides.



> Despite all these caveats and disclaimers, I shall nevertheless dive into addressing Hong Kong as an alleged empirical proof of the benefits of a Land Value Tax.  Hong Kong is claimed to be a shining example of the success of the theories of Henry George and his LVT disciples.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  Hong Kong is a shining example of the success of _no private landowning,_ not of LVT.  HK does not use LVT, because LVT is a remedy specifically designed to redress the injustice of _private landowning_.  HK uses leasing of public land to recover publicly created land rent, as ancient Rome and Athens did in their periods of greatest efflorescence.  It does not have LVT.



> The empirical evidence has been suggested roughly as follows:
> 
> 1) Hong Kong has a high LVT and no land-owning.


No, that is nonsensical.  HK has *NO* LVT *BECAUSE* it has no private landowning.  LVT *can only apply to* privately owned land.  If land is not privately owned, it will be leased, not taxed.



> 2) Haiti (or  Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma...) has no LVT and does have land-owning.


Or at least any land-based taxes they may have are not levied on unimproved land value, and recover only derisory amounts of publicly created land rent.



> 3) Just look at the results.  LVT and lack of land ownership are vindicated as leading to wealthiness.


More accurately, lack of private landowning does not prevent wealthiness, and private landowning does not support it (except for the landowners), contrary to the claims of anti-LVT liars. 



> Are there any problems with this methodology?  Yes.  Are there any problems with this data?  Yes.  Are there any problems with this conclusion?  Yes.


Are there any problems with this strawman fallacy?  Ooooooh, yes.



> *Method:*Could pairing up Hong Kong vs. Haiti even _conceivably_ give us a slam dunk case as to the efficacy of LVT?  Is LVT/lack-of-LVT really going to be named by anyone as the defining difference between these two countries?  Is that going to come to anyone's mind other than Mr. L.'s as the answer to "what's the difference between Hong Kong and Haiti"?  Will it even be in anyone's top ten of differences?  Highly doubtful, outside of those poor souls obsessed with this particular hobbyhorse.


You *always* have to lie about what I have plainly written.  *ALWAYS*.  I did not propose any experimental method, data or conclusions such as you describe, as it is self-evidently unscientific.  I identified the facts about Hong Kong and the poor countries listed to refute a specific false and idiotic claim: that the economic benefits of private landowning could be established simply by comparing countries that have it with countries that don't.  I proved that comparison establishes instead that freedom and prosperity are readily achievable without private landowning, while tyranny, poverty and stagnation are entirely consistent with private landowning.



> *Data:* Furthermore, in what meaningful way can Haiti be said to have more land-ownership than Hong Kong?


In the sense that Haiti has private landowning, and Hong Kong doesn't.



> In Hong Kong, if I have a lease with few if any restrictions, as is the case with most leases issued many years ago (the more recent the lease, the more restrictions tend to be written into it), and if it will not expire for another 935 years, is that not pretty close to ownership?


It would be if such leases existed, but they don't.  There were nominal 999-year leases until 1898, but under the agreement under which sovereignty reverted to China in 1997, these and most other leases that were extended 50 years (to 2047) will be subject to unilateral revision by the Chinese government in that year.  



> The Hong Kong government will leave me alone and not seize my land.


No, if you don't pay the lease or ground rent, or if the land is deemed necessary for public use, or if you defy land use regulations, the HK government will seize "your" land.



> My effective property rights to the land will be respected.


You only have a tenure right, not a property right.



> I can sell it, trade it, rent it, or gift it, and I am the one in charge of deciding what to do with that land -- the government, for the most part, will not interfere.  For all practical purposes, I am the owner of the land,


No, because anyone you try to sell it to knows their tenure will be at the Chinese government's pleasure after 2047.



> at least as much so as a typical owner in the USA, and more than many owners, say, in New London, Connecticut.


Leased Hong Kong land is also subject to eminent domain, although the HK government does not invoke it to force sales to private interests.



> In Haiti, on the other hand, can we say that land-owners are secure in the knowledge that they will be left unmolested by the state to use the land however they choose?  That they have effective property rights to the land which will be respected?  I would say no.


And you would be wrong.  While Haiti has a small and weak government that doesn't do much of anything but serve the rich, greedy, privileged landowning elite (the kind of government lying anarcho-capitalist ninnies say is best!), that is one thing it _does_ do:

_"In March, Haitian landowners and police authorities began kicking displaced Haitians out of their makeshift cities at the behest of the owners of the land on which the camps sat."_

http://www.swp.ie/international/hait...sts-swoop/3583


_"VIDEO: Haiti to Evict Squatters  Private Landowners Want Homeless Gone"_

http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/201...homeless-gone/

_
"Wealthy landowners vow the "new Haiti" will become yet another vast slum unless the government rebuilds on their terms."_

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n6668155.shtml

What was that, Helmuth?  "No private landowning in Haiti"?  Yet somehow, "wealthy landowners" are telling Haiti's government what to do.  Wealthy landowners who somehow got wealthy without owning any land....

Your constant lying to rationalize privilege, injustice and evil is grotesquely sickening.

And the Haitian government isn't the only one subservient to Haiti's private landowning elite:

_"The international community, which dominates the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission  didnt want to pressure Haitis landowners to accept what would be done in any other country, including the United States: taking available land, with compensation, for the necessary shelter."_

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds...the-great-fear



> According to a Habitat for Humanity official, only 5 percent of Haiti's land has documentation of proprietorship,


But it's the most useful 5%.  Most of Haiti is rocky hillside people can't survive on.

And if having only a low percent of the land area under documented private ownership was the criterion of whether a country has private landowning or not, *Canada* would not have private landowning:
_"Just 9.7% of the land of Canada is privately held. The majority of the land, 90.3%, is Crown Land, otherwise known as Public Land. Of this, 50% is Crown land administered by the Provincial governments and 40.3% is Crown land administered by the federal government."_

http://www.whoownstheworld.com/canada/

But that is a claim that would clearly be about as stupid, absurd and dishonest as your claim that Haiti doesn't have private landowning.



> and land is often forcibly redistributed. (source)


From squatters to landowners.

In reality, despite the current weakness of its government, Haiti has a long history of private landowning and increasing concentration of landownership that has led to its current desperate poverty:

_"The [1971 census] also documented that 60 percent of farmers owned their land, although some lacked official title to it. Twenty-eight percent of all farmers rented and sharecropped land. Only a small percentage of farms belonged to cooperatives. The 1950 census, by contrast, had found that 85 percent of farmers owned their land."_ 

http://wn.com/Agriculture_in_Haiti



> So, in practical reality, Hong Kong effectively does offer secure land ownership to potential buyers,


No, that's a flat-out lie, as proved above.



> whereas Haiti, while it may have land ownership on paper, effectively does not.


No, that's just another flat-out lie, as proved above.



> The political situations in the Philippines, Bangladesh, etc. are likewise not exactly paragons of respect for private property rights, not in land nor anything else.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  Private property in land is much more strongly enforced in those countries than in Haiti (which you cherry-picked only because it has such a weak government and is still in post-earthquake chaos), and is indisputably the basis of their highly unequal social and economic structures and consequent poverty and stagnation.



> I would say that on a continuum between no land ownership and absolutely secure land ownership, Hong Kong one of the closest in the world to the latter,


No, that is just an absurd lie.  There is no private landowning whatever in Hong Kong.  What people have in HK is not ownership of land but leases with a limited transferable tenure right.



> whereas Haiti is within spitting distance of the former.


Refuted above.



> If I "owned" land in Haiti, I would have no comfort whatsoever that my land might not be seized at any moment by any number of statist groups claiming to be in charge there.


But such discomfort is in no way justified by the facts.  Land titles in Haiti are not threatened by "statist groups" claiming to be in charge.  That is just another silly fabrication on your part.  They are threatened by *OTHER PRIVATE LANDOWNERS* who may have *documented claims to ownership* at least as good as yours.



> If I owned land in Hong Kong, I could sleep peacefully knowing that chances were good that no one is going to seize my land for at least 935 years (or however long my lease)


False.  The continuations of lease terms granted in 1997 are all up for unilateral review by China in 2047.  Your "935 year lease" is a fairy tale, and one  that never applied to more than a microscopic fraction of the land in any case.



> and that even at the end of that time, 99.9% odds I can simply renew the lease with no hassle.


False.  Lease renewal terms will be up to the Chinese government.



> Which ownership is the more ownery?  Hong Kong's situation offers a lot more of those qualities of owneryness which vile land parasites look for in a jurisdiction, even if it's not officially called "owning".


It's true that HK's bigger and stronger government, and the positive economic climate created by land rent recovery through leasing, makes it far more attractive for real estate investors even though they do not own the land, and have to pay far more tax on it than Haitian landowners do.



> Point of information: Hong Kong has no LVT.


Because it has no private landowning.  Duh.  If your goal was something other than deceit, this would not even be worth mentioning.



> This would seem to be an important fact for those claiming that Hong Kong proves and vindicates all they've ever said about LVT,


Nobody claimed that, so you are just lying again.  What it does prove is that claims of the necessity of private landowning to prosperity made by apologists for landowner privilege are also just stupid lies.



> but it is nevertheless one which seems to have escaped their attention or in any case which they pass over.


Hong Kong only proves that private landowning is not needed for growth, freedom or prosperity.  Secure lease tenure on public land is quite sufficient.



> Hong Kong has no LVT; it does have a property tax.  Hong Kong's property tax is 16%, or 17% profit tax for land-owning corporations (yes, I'm simplifying).  What portion of that tax is on the value of the pure land?  Not much -- Hong Kong is highly urban and the value of improvements and buildings far outweighs the value of the land.


No, that's false.  Land is worth more than improvements because the mathematics of exponential land appreciation and building depreciation guarantee that for most of the lifetime of improvements, the land is worth far more.



> So I don't know what the haul of Hong Kong's "virtual LVT" would be if we were to separate it out, but it is not all that much, relatively.  So does Hong Kong even have a high virtual LVT?  Higher than average?  That remains to be proven.


<yawn>

_"Between 1970 and 1996, land revenue (land premiums, annual rent, rates and property tax) accounted for, on average, 33% of annual government budgets. If profits tax from development companies and taxes on mortgage portfolio profits are included, up to 45% of the governments annual revenue was based on land."_

http://www.hkjournal.org/archive/2011_spring/3.htm



> I myself have skepticism, as the pro-LVT side has shown to be warranted.


That is an outrageous lie.  I have consistently told the truth.  The anti-LVT side, by contrast, has CONSTANTLY LIED.



> Does Haiti have a low or non-existent LVT?  Haiti's property tax rate is 15%.


Of what?  Some decades-old amount of pre-inflation money?



> Now I'm sure there's a tax code a mile long in both places complicating the situation, but on the face of it, 15% is not dramatically lower than 16-17%.  In fact, another site, doingbusiness.org, says that Haiti's property tax rate is 15%, while Hong Kong's is 5%.  So maybe, in fact, Hong Kong's virtual LVT is much lower than Haiti's, for a typical businessman vile land parasite.


As proved above, HK gets a third of its revenue from land, far higher than any sovereign country.  Haiti's property tax, by contrast, raises so little revenue it is more accurately considered a cartoon of a property tax.  All the yak about rates and assessments doesn't mean a thing.  Where the rubber meets the road is fraction of total revenue obtained, and fraction of total land rent thereby recovered.



> http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/ex.../paying-taxes/


HONG KONG'S "PROPERTY TAX" DOESN'T INCLUDE LAND LEASE OR GROUND RENT PAYMENTS, DUH.



> http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/ex.../paying-taxes/


And in Haiti, as YOUR OWN SOURCE proves, the "property tax" accounts for just *1/80* of a typical firm's total tax burden!



> So as far as the data goes, reality is almost backwards from the claims we've heard:


No, that's a flat-out lie, as proved above.



> Hong Kong has a stronger land ownership regime than Haiti in every meaningful sense,


Lie.  There is no private landowning whatever in HK.  It is LEASEHOLD TENURE that is more secure in HK, because its larger and stronger government is more able to secure people's rights than Haiti's near-anarcho-capitalist regime that simply works for the highest bidder.  



> and the tax rates on land in both are either similar, or Hong Kong's is much lower.


No, that's just pure deceitfulness, as proved above.  HK gets a large fraction of its total government revenue from land, and recovers a large fraction of total land rent.  Haiti does neither.



> *Conclusion:*  Because comparing Hong Kong to Haiti is not an acceptable method for proving LVT's benefits,


Agreed, because neither of them use LVT.  Which proves how absurd and dishonest your garbage is, as usual.



> and because the data presented is very, very wrong,


No, the data are correct; you just edited, cherry-picked and lied about them.



> the conclusion that was based on this method and this data cannot be supported by this experiment


Because all three were fabrications by you.



> Knowing the, umm, level of academic rigor to which the researchers have held themselves thus far in their careers,


Referring to yourself, there...



> I have taken it upon myself to ponder such an experiment.  My hypothesis is that Hong Kong has some of the lowest tax rates


Because it recovers a lot of publicly created land rent through leasing and ground rents.



> To test this hypothesis, let's look at two nations with very high degrees of economic freedom, respect for property rights, low taxes, etc., but one which taxes land and one which does not.  This way, we come closer to somewhat sort of isolating that single variable -- land value taxation -- that we want to look at.  Even though the quality of isolation is inevitably still low, it at least is better than when we compare Hong Kong and Haiti, a comparison where obviously the one minor factor of Hong Kong having similar or lower property tax rates than Haiti


Disproved above.



> is making a much smaller difference than the cumulative effect of the million other ways in which Haiti's economy is horribly unfree and Hong Kong's outstandingly free.
> 
> So, I take Hong Kong vs. Dubai.


Oh.  My.  God.

Are you serious?  This is just too funny.



> Both very free, economically speaking, according to the libertarian standard, UAE being ≈ the 14th freest country, and Hong Kong being the 1st. (source)  Hong Kong has a property tax; Dubai does not.  If my hypothesis is correct, Dubai is that much better off by having no property tax, though that benefit can be offset by additional other taxes or state interventions.  If the pro-LVTers are correct, Dubai is dramatically worse off by not having a property tax and their economy should be doing much more poorly than that of Hong Kong which at least has some property tax.


Ah, no, actually, because it is not "having a property tax" that matters.  It is recovery of the land rent that government spending creates to fund that spending.  Property taxation is just one (not very good) way of doing that.

But as you seem intent on sleep-walking off the rhetorical cliff where you have chosen to make your last stand, I think I will just let you:



> In examining the facts and figures, I find that Dubai has a much higher rate of GDP growth than Hong Kong -- a much, much higher rate.  From 2000-2010, GDP of Hong Kong increased 133%, while GDP of Dubai increased 503-542% (I found varying figures for 2010 Dubai GDP).  It's not even close.  No mitigating factors can begin to mitigate this difference.


Well, there are a few, actually.  Like the fact that just 55 years ago, Dubai got its _first concrete building_, quite a change from the palm-frond huts the few hundred pirates, brigands and ruffians that inhabited the place had lived in up to then.



> Pro-LVTers may claim that Dubai's prosperity is still due to LVT principles, for though there is no tax on land, the government does control oil reserves, another form of economic "land".  However, the share of Dubai's economy coming from oil and natural gas extraction has plunged to vitually zip at the same time that the rest of its economy has soared.  So that argument will fall as flat as Dubai's oil revenues.


Yes, well, it would... except for the inconvenient (for you) fact that the government -- i.e., Sheik Mohammed al-Maktoum and his family -- also happens to own ALMOST ALL THE LAND IN DUBAI.  Most is owned either directly by him and his family or by their development companies.  Except for a microscopic fraction, all the land other development firms are using for all the fantastic real estate projects is all LEASED from the al-Maktoum family on terms generally ranging from 50 to 99 years.  LVT is the method of recovering publicly created land rent to fund government expenditures when the land is mostly privately owned.  When it is government owned, as in Hong Kong and Dubai, the rent can be recovered either by leasing or by government ownership of real estate developments like public housing.  Both HK and Dubai use both methods.  Dubai's explosive growth has been built on massive infrastructure and education investments *PAID FOR OUT OF LAND RENTS.*

_So do you see how completely you have destroyed and humiliated yourself?  DUBAI'S GOVERNMENT RUNS ON RECOVERED LAND RENTS EVEN MORE THAN HONG KONG'S!!_

It's over, Helmuth.  Nothing you can possibly say matters any more.  You have proven yourself a complete ignoramus and have made yourself a laughing stock.  The (let's be charitable) "argument" that you triumphantly offered to show how LVT was inferior to private landowning in fact proved me absolutely and irrefutably right, and you absolutely and irrefutably wrong.  You have refuted and demolished yourself, comprehensively and conclusively.



> Again, looking purely at empirical data, would it be too extreme to claim that  humanity is better off today than at that time thousands of years ago when, you claim (based on no data) that humanity had not yet started homesteading nature?


Lie.  All anthropological data show consistently that pre-agricultural societies don't recognize private landowning unless they have imported the concept from more technologically advanced societies.



> I venture that it would not be.  Thus, the period of human history with land ownership clearly has a better economic track record than the period which you claim (based on no data)


Lie.



> was without.  It's not even close.


It's also a blatant post hoc fallacy.  Landowning arises with agriculture and fixed settlements, which is obviously more economically productive than hunter-gatherer ar nomadic herding economies.  But it was the more productive economic regime that produced landowning, not the other way around.



> I mean, Dubai being quintuple as good at Hong Kong at generating wealth was not even close.


LOL!  You need a refresher in arithmetic as well as basic logic and facts about Dubai.



> This, where land-owning humanity has generated millions upon millions of times the wealth as (supposedly) non-land-owning humanity,


Idiocy.  You could with equal "logic" claim that as children's brains grow far faster before they are weaned than after, they should never graduate to solid food.

Landowning, like slavery, was a quick and dirty solution to a real problem that arose with the advance to settled agriculture; it did not *cause* the advance to settled agriculture, let alone any later technological advance.  And as with slavery, we now have better solutions.



> this is at a level where all blowing-out-of-water wiping-the-floor-with idioms fail.


ROTFL!!  Those idioms already failed when you blew _yourself_ out of the water, above, sunshine.



> *In conclusion, empirical data supports land-owning as an economically successful practice.*


Of course it has been economically successful.  So was slavery.  Very.  But we now know there are better solutions.

----------


## Roy L

> *All use is exclusive.*


Garbage.  Hunter-gatherers and nomadic herders use land non-exclusively all the time.



> You can switch back and forth who's excluding who.  You can make fine divisions to split up the exclusivity among parties.


More relevantly, you can use land without imposing any deprivation on others, who also remain at liberty to use it.  That is what hunter-gatherers and nomadic herders do.



> But you cannot use matter nor space without excluding others from it.  Sharing, thus, is never an option in the sense you want it to be.


No, sharing is only never an option in the idiotic and absurd sense that *you* want to *substitute* for the sense that all reasonable, informed and honest people (i.e., doesn't include you) always use.



> Sharing in that sense doesn't exist.


No, it is only sharing in YOUR idiotic and absurd sense that doesn't exist.

----------


## Roy L

> *Use and control is what ownership is.*


No, it is not.  The owner of a rented car neither uses nor controls it.



> If every thirsty bum on Earth (and off) has a "right to liberty" which amounts to a right to drink some water, that means every thirsty bum owns that water.


No, that's just more stupid garbage from you.

----------


## Roy L

> *Use and control is what ownership is.*


No, it is not.  The owner of a rented car neither uses nor controls it.



> If every thirsty bum on Earth (and off) has a "right to liberty" which amounts to a right to drink some water, that means every thirsty bum owns that water.


No, that's just more stupid garbage from you.

----------


## eduardo89

> No, it is not.  The owner of a rented car neither uses nor controls it.


Renting a car is momentary use of it, not control. You can't repaint a rented car, you can't tune the engine, you can't sell it...

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You only have a tenure right, not a property right.  There is no private landowning whatever in Hong Kong.  What people have in HK is not ownership of land but leases with a limited transferable tenure right.


I already explained all that in my post.  Then I said that in order to consider _Hong Kong!!11!1_ scientifically, let us look at the reality and not merely the words and labels which are flung about by the political system.  You, on the other hand, accept labels completely and without further examination (when they suit you), with no concern for the reality.  

Leasing, owning, what does it matter what they call it?  One wonders whether the US could fix everything and make Mr. L. happy, as he's happy with _Hong Kong!!11!1_, by merely changing its terminology.  All property owners are now leasors.  The governments now own all the surface area.  Property tax is repealed and lease rent is instituted.  The leasors can only keep their tenure right if they pay their lease rent.  All better now?  The words have changed, though nothing else has, and now we are suddenly much closer to Mr. L.'s utopia.  All the government must do now is change the property tax, whoops I mean lease rent, to be based upon the value of the land only and not of the improvements and we'd be in hog heaven.  Of course, not even _Hong Kong!!11!1_ has done that and Mr. L. has no complaints nor criticism for that Georgist paradise, so we need not be in any hurry.  Just change the words and we'll be 90% there to the land of Shang-ri-la with universal sharing and free spring water for all!  Hand holding, baby, not land holding.  Leasing and peacing, not leeching and preaching.

_Change the words, make this a better place,
For you and for me and the entire human race..._

You didn't have any refutation whatsoever for my assessment of Haiti as not having a very high regard for property rights.  It very clearly doesn't.  A title there is clearly much more tentative, much more iffy, than a title, whoops I'm sorry an exclusive lease, in _Hong Kong!!1!1!11_.  Even worse, while I as a foreign investor might be able to come in and get a clear official title, for most of the population that is not feasible, so they instead pass down land for generations unofficially and informally.  That would be not so bad if the legal system had a strong respect for these unofficial claims in a common law / homesteading kind of way, but it doesn't, so the reality for the vast bulk of the population is that whatever degree of land ownership they have is a fragile and tenuous thing indeed.

I didn't choose Haiti because it had a hurricane, I chose it because it began with H.  Choose whatever countries you like and make your case.

I'm glad that you knew _Hong Kong!!11!1_ had no LVT, or at least that you claim to have known, though you certainly gave us no indication of that knowledge.  That's the danger, you see, of never presenting your side of things in a positive and solid way, but merely "refuting" the other guy's side.  Any details we have about your views, their practical implementation, your particular deviations from Georgism, etc., we have only because I dragged them out of you like pulling teeth.  You're much happier to just tag posts with "liar!" as a street gang tags picnic pavillions with "word up".


As far as Dubai goes, you demolish that by pointing out (with no specific figures nor sources; that is, as always, with no data) that the elite own most of the land.  Which, I think, is likely true.  It seems plausible based on my own knowledge, despite your giving no one any reason to believe you.  This appears to be one of those cases where Roy Reality has an intersection point with Regular Reality.  But is that (the elite owning most of the land) not exactly what you say is the evil of my system and the grace of yours?  Is not the elite owning everything what I want, and what you want to end as a great evil?

The fact is, land is untaxed in Dubai.  No land rent is recovered.  Land is taxed in _Hong Kong!!11!1_.  Land rent is recovered.  You would look at that "indisputable fact" and predict that Dubai would be a poor and horrible place, especially compared to _Hong Kong!!11!1_.  Everyone should be eking out a bare subsistence, virtual slaves and peasants to the land-owning elite.  Dubai is your worst dystopia come alive.  No land rent is recovered, elites own most of the land, and everyone is free to speculate and leave Evil Vacant Lots laying around to their heart's content.  In George's Inferno, this would be the innermost circle.

In contrast, I would look at the situation and see that the levels of respect for freedom and property are high in both places.  I would expect and predict the economies of both places to be growing and the people's well-being to be increasing.

My prediction fits the reality better.  Dubai is doing well, and even better than _Hong Kong!!11!1_.




> It's also a blatant post hoc fallacy.  Landowning arises with agriculture and fixed settlements, which is obviously more economically productive than hunter-gatherer ar nomadic herding economies.  But it was the more productive economic regime that produced landowning, not the other way around.


 So in other words, the last thousand years have been wealthy and successful in _spite_ of land-owning, not _because_ of it.  Is that about it?  Now where have I read something like that before...?




> Of course it has been economically successful.  So was slavery.


 Wow.  So you just completely conceded the practical side of the point.  You openly concede the empirical data does not seem to support your theory.  Rather it supports the theory that land-owning, to quote Roy L., "has been economically successful".  Splendid quote!  We agree completely at last.  And so you fall back upon the moral side of the point ("slavery was successful too, but immoral, just like land-owning") which is now all you have left.

Normally, no one ever openly concedes anything in these discussions except for me.  So this concession is pretty unprecedented and pretty surprising.  Thank you for your new-found candor.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Garbage.  Hunter-gatherers and nomadic herders use land non-exclusively all the time.


 They just switch back and forth who is being exclusive, as I said.  In this case, between themselves, when they're there, and no one, as they move on and leave it empty.  Whenever they are using either matter or space, they are using it exclusively.  Think about it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No, it is not.  The owner of a rented car neither uses nor controls it.


He does both.  Obviously.  Think about it for two seconds.

----------


## Roy L

> Did anybody see the Stossel segment about property on Fox tonight?


They don't call it Faux News for nothing....



> It was awesome...talked about private property in China, about our history of property, about forests and parks, and about how the denial of property in Indian tribes have decimated their entire culture.


Oh, right, it wasn't being forcibly dispossessed of their liberty and imprisoned on land they couldn't survive on that decimated them.  It wasn't alcohol, massacres, or even pandemics of Old World diseases.  It was "denial of property."  The same "denial of property" that they and their cultures thrived on for thousands of years...

Help me, Jebus....

----------


## Roy L

> He does both.  Obviously.  Think about it for two seconds.


I have, and he does neither.

----------


## Roy L

> Yeah, the meek shall inherit [tenure of] the Earth. Or something to that effect.  (It's very important to add parts in sometimes, or it won't make sense.)


<yawn>  Feudalism was characterized by INHERITED tenure rights and associated obligations.  The inheritance was NOT PROPERTY.

----------


## Roy L

> Landowning is theft, period.


There.  Fixed it for you.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> If every thirsty bum on Earth (and off) has a "right to liberty" which amounts to a right to drink some water, that means every thirsty bum owns that water.
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, that's just more stupid garbage from you.


In other words, I have said something which not only can you not refute, not only can you not interface with the statement in an intelligent way, not only all that, which has been true for almost all your posts throughout this discussion, in this case you do not even have a talking point to regurgitate for it.  If I were you, I'd just keep repeating this statement over and over, thinking that its uncontested repetition proves me right somehow; the righter the more it is repeated.  Unfortunately you _are_ you, and so we'd just have 20 posts where I repeat my statement and you repeat your Total Destruction of my statement by typing "No, that's just more stupid garbage from you."  That would pretty definitely decrease the total number of Utils in the Universe.  So I'll skip that.

----------


## Roy L

> Come on, Roy, I'm rooting for you!  There's a whole lot of new material crying out to be proved wrong now.  You gotta come through for me!


I have, of course.

How many more times, and in how many more different ways, must I prove you wrong before you will become willing to consider the possibility that you actually ARE wrong?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I have, and he does neither.


He uses it to make money.  He controls it because he makes the ultimate decisions for it.

Come on!

A restaurant owner also neither uses nor controls his restaurant's food.  His chefs use it to make their dishes, and control it by doing whatever they want with it -- shaping it, combining it, altering it, heating it, moving it about.  His customers use it to fill their bellies, and control it by choosing what dishes to order.  But the owner's out of the loop.  He's just sitting at home having no involvement whatsoever.  Right?

Wrong!  He uses the food to make money.  And he controls it because he makes the ultimate decisions for it.

Ownership means use and control.  If you can disprove that, have at.  If you have an alternative definition, bring it on out.  Until then,

----------


## Roy L

> "publicly created rent of the land he owns" - now there's a big cannon just loaded with presumptions and a slew of begged questions.


Google "economic rent" and start reading.



> Incidentally stow the "rent" and anti-landlord arguments with me. For the sake of our discussion only, my SOLE concern is for the rights of individuals and families who occupy and use land strictly for their own survival, not those who simply have titles to land which they do not occupy, but only sell, lease or otherwise charge rents to others.


And $#!+ on the people who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.  Check.



> Somehow - and this is logical in your mind - an original homestead is endowed with "publicly created" value, even though no "rent" is charged to anyone, and nobody occupies the dwelling save the original dweller who improved the land.  This results in value that the homesteader _owes to others_ by way of circular logic that argues from your initial premise - that everybody has a natural liberty right to occupy and/or use _the same land_.


There is nothing circular about it.  They would otherwise be at liberty to use the land, and the advantages created by government and the community would still be there if the owner and all his works vanished.



> To me that is a tax to reward _those who simply covet_.


<yawn>  But that is objectively false.  Wanting your liberty back, or just compensation for its removal, is not "coveting."



> *PUBLICLY CREATED VALUE*
> 
> While the actual 'value' of my attention might appear to have 'public' appeal, and strictly by virtue of the number of people who desire that attention simultaneously, that can produce the illusion that it was "publicly created".  That would be false. It was not created for "the public", nor does "the public", nor any individual member thereof, have any "right" to it - any more than I have a right to anyone else's attention.   
> 
> An improved piece of land can have the same dynamic associated with it.


No, it can't.



> A lone homesteader can go into what is an otherwise unoccupied and barren land, one that NOBODY WANTS, and can make aesthetically pleasing improvements - for himself only.  Not to draw a crowd. Not to entice anyone or "rent" the property out to others.  In fact, there is no "public" motive whatsoever to it.  It is just land for him to live on, occupy and enjoy for himself, and possibly even a family if he has one. It may be a Rembrandt, but it wasn't for sale, and was never intended for public consumption. Artists have that right.  
> 
> Another man sees the lone beautiful house in the middle of nowhere, and considers it Good. He does not COVET that man's house - which of course would be EVIL. No, this man doesn't want to take possession or control of what someone else has created (NOT the land - only the "privately created value", or improvements). No, this man is not an Evil Coveter of other people's works. He is actually a Good Man. He only admires the example of what has been accomplished. He wants to be near it, and to be associated with that kind of energy that he admires. So he does likewise. He builds a house of his own and makes improvements to his own land - _right next to the original house._ 
> 
> Now, the man who built the original house may not 'like' the fact that a new neighbor has gotten so close to him, any more than he wants to be seated next to a crowded table in an otherwise empty restaurant. He also wouldn't choose a urinal next to one man in a bathroom that has thirty empty urinals.  Personal bubbles and all that. Why shoulder to shoulder? Why next door? Was there no other place to live?  
> 
> But...he is also not an Evil Man, so he holds his peace.  After a little thought, _he makes room_ in his mind. He fully recognizes that the world is not only his, and must be shared; that even if he preferred to live in isolation, he would never attempt to deny others their _equal right to a place of their own in the world_.   
> 
> Well, social gravity being what it is, and complex social beings being what humans are, two beautiful cottages in the middle of nowhere attract enough attention that it soon becomes ten thousand houses in the middle of what is now somewhere.  Gravity. Strange attractors. Accretion. Planetary formation.  
> ...


They "covet" it because there is now a community there, regardless of anything he does or did.



> the one that nobody wanted before...a location that he alone improved with no intention to sell...a location not unlike many other locations which still exist as unimproved and otherwise undesired land.  But now, because "the public" values this land, he must pay RENT to that public. He must compensate them for their covetousness.


It is not compensation for "covetousness," that is just a lie from you.  It is compensation for depriving them of the advantages government, the community and nature provide at that location.



> An LVT on Homesteaders is nothing more than Payola To Those Who Covet, as this kind of "Publicly Created Value" is another word for COVETOUSNESS.


Garbage.  Wanting your liberty back, or just compensation for its removal, is not "covetousness."



> *Thou shalt not covet.*


Accusing those who oppose injustice of envy for its beneficiaries is one of the most evil acts any human being can commit, because it seeks to undermine all opposition to evil.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Give us our liberty*!!!








*your land

----------


## eduardo89

I don't get it Roy, why exactly are you here? You only post in this thread, nothing of which has to do with getting Ron Paul elected, you obviously don't even believe in one of the most important priciples of the liberty movement, namely the right property (yes that includes owning land) and all you do is insult people who don't buy into your ridiculous notion that land owning is theft. So I repeat, why are you here? This thread has gone on for 99 pages...aren't you bored of owning us and destroying our nonsensical, immoral apologies for evil, greedy land owning parasites?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Google "economic rent" and start reading.
> 
> And $#!+ on the people who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.  Check.


"otherwise at liberty" is your argument in a nutshell, and the genesis of your false dichotomy - your biggest lie - that everyone has a liberty right to occupy the same space as everyone else, given they "would otherwise be at liberty to use"...meaning, "If they did not exist I would have access to their space, wherever it is."

You believe in a _right based on a non-existent reality_. My right to "otherwise be at liberty to occupy your space" can only end if you cease to exist, because the moment you move, that space becomes exclusively occupied as well. So everyone's "right to otherwise be at liberty" is immediately transferred to any new space you might occupy. No rest for the weary - wherever you go, that space has some measurable value to me, however negligible, that you are _taking from me_ - so pay up, *space occupation thief*.  

When I forcibly remove you out of your spot for non-payment, you will owe me for occupying the new spot I put you in, because my claim to a natural liberty right extends to that space as well. Which makes you an automatic debtor or a thief wherever you go - _by virtue of your very existence_.  I would follow you to the ends of the earth and tax you to death, but what I really want is for you to pay rent for a spot that I consider collectively owned.  

And yes - you ARE the ultimate propertarian.  Stop lying about that.  It is a flagrant tautology regardless how you phrase it. 

Gypsies, nomads, vagabonds and other wandering souls would be excepted, I assume, because they are always on the move. Wouldn't it be just peachy keen to you - wouldn't that delight your sensibilities if that's all we were on Earth? 

Oh, and you did make an exception for me - if I lived underground - provided nobody knows about it, of course, or moved in next door to me.  Somehow association was key.  It is only if I occupy space _in plain view of others_ that I would owe anything. That's why it is a simple matter of coveting. _Don't lie._  And it is also a tax on free association. You cannot cluster together and circle your wagons for any length of time without some idiot calling it a "deprivation", and holding out his nasty, covetous tentacle demanding payment for something he did not improve, and for which he has _no right_ - not even a half-baked "natural liberty right".  

This is the ABSOLUTE INSANITY of the world we live in now - multiple claims on the same physical wealth - which you have extended to space itself.  That's your lie, your insanity, Roy.  

My right to live and to exist requires space that is exclusive to me. It does not become a privilege-by-proxy because someone figured out how to swallow a BIG FAT LIE in the form of a goofy-stupid false dichotomy which says, in effect, "You have a right to live, but not an exclusive right to your own personal, non-moving space." 

Since occupation of space can never be _anything but exclusive_, your very existence becomes a matter of "_privilege of exclusive space occupation_" (there is no other kind) which can then be taxed. And since the power to tax involves the power to destroy - your very life, which depends upon exclusive space occupation, is subject to being taxed out of existence. 

It's funny, because I don't see this right extending to corporations, governments, or other collectives, the existence of which really are both fictitious and highly qualified, and without anything approaching a "right".  I don't see property ownership as an untrammeled right, as a matter of survival, to anyone but free and natural persons - and even there I could see it qualified. For example, I don't see amassing enough wealth to claim title to half a country as anyone's individual right.  That is a form of sovereignty that extends past one's right to survive, and really does affect the public interest - as it relates to INDIVIDUAL survival - not some abstract collective which I don't believe in.

----------


## Fox McCloud

Roy, might I make a suggestion? Regardless of my position on whether I agree with you or not....your condescending, sarcastic, and snarky remarks are major turn-offs to your larger point(s), regardless of how valid (or not) they are. Because of this, might I recommend not being so insulting?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> For the sake of our discussion only, my SOLE concern is for the rights of individuals and families who occupy and use land strictly for their own survival
> 			
> 		
> 
> And $#!+ on the people who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.  Check.


We've talked about this a few times already, but this statement of yours just makes the insanity of your position so stark.  Those who are using some surface area of the Earth to farm and try to have something to eat, or some branches in a tree to put their treehouse to try to stay warm and dry, those folks are actually mistreating and abusing others in an extremely rude and evil manner by virtue of their doing that.  Who are they abusing?  Those who would, if they offered it for sale, be willing to buy it.  

Now when I would be willing to buy something, it's not because I disapprove of the person who has it now continuing to have it.  If it were not for sale, I would not feel deprived or slighted in any way, much less like I was having sewage dumped up me by vindictive evil-doers whose black hearts just couldn't see the Self-Evident Truth that I have just as much right as them to their land.  I don't know anyone who would.  It's just not rational.  It's just not civilized.  The other guy's tree house isn't hurting me.  The other guy isn't being rude to me by having the tree house.  I don't accept that he is "monopolizing" the tree in any correct nor historical sense of the word monopoly.  I don't accept that I have a right to his tree.  It's just sociopathic to think you are entitled to other men's stuff.  Such an attitude prevents you from functioning in society.  Perhaps that's why you spend your life posting on the internet about your excuses for your pathology.

Just because someone would be willing to buy it if it _were_ for sale, doesn't mean he has any desire to buy it if it's _not_ for sale.  That is your fallacy (another one).  He probably is positively _unwilling_ to buy it if it's not for sale!  Most people are decent and respectful like that.  So your whole idea that a violation of rights is occurring because people would probably buy it if it _were_ for sale, and thus the guy is picking their pocket by not selling it, and besides that even if it were for sale the only correct sale price is zero and anything more than that is picking Humanity's pocket too, this whole idea is based on an inaccuracy.  Most people don't feel that people owe it to them to transfer their stuff them-ward, "nature-given" or not (and as I've said, everything is ultimately nature-given).  Those who do are sociopaths.




> They "covet" it because there is now a community there, regardless of anything he does or did.


Again, actually normal people don't covet it at all, community or not.  They have no interest in taking it unless and until the current owner is willing to sell it.  So in a way, actually the community being there hasn't given the land any value at all.  It's totally valueless, except to its owner and those he permits to use it, and except to sociopaths, until and unless the owner is willing to sell it.




> Accusing those who oppose injustice of envy for its beneficiaries is one of the most evil acts any human being can commit, because it seeks to undermine all opposition to evil.


Steven, you just committed one of the greatest evils possible.  Rape, move over.  Murder, eyh.  Torture?  Fogetaboutit.  If we're going to have crimes, this is one of the grand-daddies.  It's even up there above drinking hot coffee in public.  Maybe even above smoking in public.  Under Roy's Beneficent Utopia, making the post you just made is going to get you fried in the electric chair.  Roy will trace your IP address and hunt you down like the foul, sick evil-doer that you are.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Roy, might I make a suggestion? Regardless of my position on whether I agree with you or not....your condescending, sarcastic, and snarky remarks are major turn-offs to your larger point(s), regardless of how valid (or not) they are. Because of this, might I recommend being so insulting?


Ha, ha, ha... you need to read the whole thread!  Well, OK, no that's not true.  I shouldn't wish that on anyone.  I don't know what to recommend.  But rest assured that I have told him this before.  Your advice has been duly filed... in the circular file.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

*100!*




> Oh, and you did make an exception for me - if I lived underground - provided nobody knows about it, of course, or moved in next door to me.  Somehow association was key.  It is only if I occupy space _in plain view of others_ that I would owe anything. That's why it is a simple matter of coveting. _Don't lie._  And it is also a tax on free association. You cannot cluster together and circle your wagons for any length of time without some idiot calling it a "deprivation", and holding out his nasty, covetous tentacle demanding payment for something he did not improve, and for which he has _no right_ - not even a half-baked "natural liberty right".


 Yes, I think you see what I just started seeing.  So you're not violating anyone's rights if no one knows about your cave, because then no one wants it.  But is it the knowledge that creates the violation, or the wanting?  What if a whole bunch of people know about it, but no one wants it?  Still no rights violation -- they don't want it, its value is still zero to them Roy would say.  What if the reason they don't want it is because they know you don't want to sell and they respect that?

Blank-out.  

The rights-violation argument only works if your people are bent on seizing each other's land.  If they really don't want to, their rights are not being violated because the value they're being deprived of is zero, or even negative.  It's zero if they're indifferent to the idea of seizure, it's negative if they are actually opposed to seizure, for then they'd consider it to be a positive dis-value for them to seize others' land.  Then it would be a violation of their rights and liberty to force them to seize or tax the land of others.  It would deprive them of that value they would otherwise be free to enjoy -- self-respect and honor.  And as we all know from Roy, depriving people of value which they would otherwise naturally be free to enjoy is really, really evil.  The biggest evil of all, even above making Steven Douglas-like posts on the internet.  Zap!  Electric chair for you Roy for advocating such a thing.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The biggest evil of all, even above making Steven Douglas-like posts on the internet.


I don't think it gets more evil than making Steven Douglas-like posts on the internet. Stop lying!

Yeah, it all boils down individual desires, which are then collectivized as a value determinant.  One problem though: 

You have a community of 101 people, and you have exclusive use of a piece of land.  50 Covetous people step forward and say that they DEARLY want that land, and consider themselves completely and utterly deprived of their natural liberty right to occupy and use that piece that you occupy.  The remaining 50 step forward and eschew any desire whatsoever for the land, saying that they would consider it Evil to want to dispossess someone of their exclusive "privilege" of usage and control.  By your theory that should nullify everything, as positive and negative forces cancel one another out.  

In Roy's world, the 50 who weren't interested in the land become non-existent. Their input does not count as negative, but rather nullified. That leaves the 50 remaining as comprising 100% of the "legitimate" say.   

Isn't that great?  And if 99 have no beef, Roy is still there as the lone dissenter - and 100% of the votes that count. 

Then there is the question of "legitimacy" (Roy seems really big on democracy).  We could always just put the matter to a popular vote.  In that case, 50 votes are in favor of an LVT on you, and 51 are not, as you become the "legitimate" tie-breaker.  But not in Roy's mind. The government is only legitimate when it follows what he views as non-evil, "self-evidently just", blah blah... He has his own criteria for legitimacy, thus bringing you full circle to the fundamental reality of Roy's mind. If all people on Earth voted 99.9999% against an LVT, and 99.9999% in favor of property ownership, he would still consider it evil. Of course, he'll argue that such an hypothetical vote is just silly, as it isn't even possible (and of course it isn't), but that's irrelevant to the point that he wouldn't accept it as a matter of principle even if it was.

----------


## Steven Douglas

I have to repeat this - if Roy had excluded individuals - homesteads specifically - I'd be right on board. It is actually the only reason why I became interested in this thread, as I could argue all of his fondest points way better than him, I think.   I do not believe in property "rights", or rights of ownership of land for any but homesteaders. Individuals, as a matter of right.  Not for governments, corporations, foreigners, fictitious collectives of any kind, and not as a commodity to be speculated on or traded in bulk or mass quantities.  They really can all be driven out on a rail, as far as I am concerned, abolished (in the form of government) or taxed completely out of existence if they don't serve the public interest.  But not sovereign individuals one to another - that truly is evil.  

The only problems for me are where to VERY CAUTIOUSLY draw the line with individuals.  If I see a Warren Buffet buying up an entire state, that bastard's got some 'splainin to do.  If I see a farmer taking on a thousand acres, my only question is whether it's being farmed, or just farmed out.  But if he's biting off what he can really chew, I don't have a problem with that.  House flippers, land speculators, commercial developers, etc., can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. Then it really is a question of whether it serves a public interest or not.   They are acting as a matter of privilege in such cases, and I don't have a problem with slapping them into their places - especially if it affects the ability of the middle, working, and poorer classes to own land of their own.

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## helmuth_hubener

Steven,

Do you truly want to give property rights to homesteaders?  Absolute, full, non-mealy-mouthed or wishy-washy rights?  Because if you do:

The property right includes the right to sell.
He may sell it to whomever he wishes.
In selling it, he sells the entire property right, and the new owner has the same property right as the original homesteader had.
One man or company of men may buy up tract after tract after tract from original homesteaders, freely selling them their land.
Thus a non-homesteader ends up with miles upon miles of land.  His right to this land is as absolute as any homesteader's.  He may even decide to hold some of it out of production due to anticipation of some new trend or development on the horizon.  The "idleness" of the land does not automatically and immediately forfeit his right to the land, though eventually after several years (or whatever the custom is) the vacant lot becomes the abandoned lot and is available for homestead again.

I won't complicate and confuse the issue by going into governments, corporations, nor foreigners, but just stick to non-homesteading individuals.  If the original homesteaders had a property right in the land, that property right was transferable, else it was not a full and absolute property right at all.

Over time, the tendency will be for land to accumulate to a degree in the hands of those best suited to own it.  Just as Steve Jobs was good at making decisions about smart phones, and thus got a large portion of the smart phone market, so a Steve Jobs-equivalent in landownership will be able to get a disproportionate share of the land market.

I said we should bring in Cantillon, so here he is:

Even if the prince distribute the land equally among all the
inhabitants it will ultimately be divided among a small number.
One man will have several children and cannot leave to each of
them a portion of land equal to his own; another will die without
children, and will leave his portion to some one who has land
already rather than to one who has none; a third will be lazy,
prodigal, or sickly, and be obliged to sell his portion to
another who is frugal and industrious, who will continually add
to his estate by new purchases and will employ upon it the labour
of those who having no land of their own are compelled to offer
him their labour in order to live.

     At the first settlement of Rome each citizen had two
journaux of land allotted to him. Yet there was soon after as
great an inequality in the estates as that which we see today in
all the countries of Europe. The land was divided among a few
owners.

I see nothing wrong with this and everything right.  Now in the USA people do like to own their own tiny plot of land.  I think that is a healthy and charming habit, worth maintaining, and one that quite likely will continue.  But there will certainly be land moguls, too, in a free market.  That will be splendid.  Roy will hate it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

And so the time comes at last to part, as I have said everything I wanted to say.  I have tried to focus on the important issues and ignore irrelevancies (such as Roy attempting  to prove something pro-LVT with Atlas Shrugged, which clearly either he has not read or he has forgotten that in Galt's Gulch the land was owned privately and absolutely and was bought by the money of Midas Mulligan, who got it from giving loans to successful businessmen.  Or Matt Butler conflating the shale in the Rockies with the sweet crude in North Dakota and so getting the quantity incredibly wrong.).  I have not always been too strict about that, we have had some fun along the way, but at least I think I have, finally, addressed every interesting or potentially persuasive (if it had been anyone but Roy saying it) point that Mr. Roy gave me or that I could invent.  I left the Bible stuff to AquaBuddha, who did very creditably.  There's all kinds of references in the Bible supporting the idea that land is meant to be private property.  The Bible as a whole is a very pro-property book.  Of course, the Bible is true, so it being pro-property should be no surprise.

Anyway, I've tried to address this idea of LVT/landowning-as-theft from every different angle and approach possible.  I saved one pro-LVT argument for last, since it appeared to be, in Mr. L.'s own opinion, his strongest, most devastating, most unanswerable argument.  Since we have reached 100 pages at last, it is time to address the Pan-Ultimate LVT Argument.  Here it is:

*The Question:*

*"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"*

In the end, however, it turns out that this is not going to be very difficult to address after all.  It's a bit of a let-down, an anti-climax.  Production is aided by the land owner (or harmed by him) because of the good decisions (or bad ones) that he makes regarding the disposition and management of the land.  Allowing the market to reward his good decisions and punish his bad ones ensures that there will be a tendency for production to be aided by the landowner instead of harmed.  Every other sector of the market functions the same way.  Competition and consumer preference means that behavior not aiding production to satisfy humans' wants will be punished, while behavior which does will be rewarded.

Mr. L. will say "But the landowner doesn't do any labor, thus he's a parasite".  Well that's just the Calvinist Smith talking.  Everything was all about labor to Smith -- the pain of labor was good and righteous and that is what gave economic products value.  But bzzt, wrong, in fact the subjective preferences and values of humans is what gives goods value.  The labor theory of value is so shot full of holes and absurdities it's impossible for me to shoot any new ones in it.  So anyway, it's wrong.  Labor is irrelevant to value.  If I can satisfy millions of consumers by doing no labor whatsoever, then of course I should get paid tremendously for it.  I deserve it!  The end goal is millions of satisfied humans, not some kind of ascetic labor for the sake of labor.  And the landowner, if he makes decisions regarding his land which satisfy his fellow humans, then obviously he's contributed to the satisfaction of his fellow humans.  He's created value, or "aided production" as Mr. L. phrases it.

But the landowner can get rich even just by leaving the land idle and that's inefficient and horrible, says Mr. L.  Well, who says leaving it idle is inefficient?  In many cases, that is the most efficient thing to do.  Putting improvements on the land might actually lower the value of the land for someone coming along later.  Let's say you build a gas station on some land.  OK, now a couple years later it turns out that would've been a great place for an apartment complex.  The apartments are a much better, more efficient use of he land, according to market preferences.  Now the gas station will need to be torn down -- it's a dis-improvement, an annoyance, and a large cost.  A speculator wise enough to hold it out of use and off the market for a couple more years could have saved everyone a lot of money.  That is, he could have created value.

Land owners perform a very important entrepreneurial function: they allocate and make ultimate decisions regarding scarce land.  This is not a parasitic function. This is a critically important function.  They may delegate many or all of the decision-making to managers.  Fine.  So too may the shop owner or restaurant owner delegate many or all of his decisions to managers.  But the owner in all cases still plays a vital role.  He must find and hire the best managers.  He must make sure the managers are doing a good job, making him lots of money.  And he is always and unavoidably the ultimate manager, the manager of managers, the one with the money on the line and who determines the direction and future of the restaurant or shop or land.  He must correctly anticipate consumer desires.  In landowning, that means anticipating city growth trends, adopting new and innovative ways of utilizing land if they will allow better satisfaction of consumer desires, rejecting them if they will not, making connections and putting together projects (roads, electrical, water, making it all fit together, on a free market landowners would do all this, not the state; there's no reason to put the state in charge of roads, electrical, water, or any of those kinds of things, it will be the job of clever landowners working together to make everything fit together into urban [or rural, or suburban] spaces people will love), keeping land undeveloped when it will be most efficient to do so, developing it when that will be more efficient, and deciding what will be the best and most profitable type of development for which to use the land.  And much more!  Landowners have a busy, busy job, a lot to do.

A big landowner may not be down in the trenches doing lots of manual labor improving his properties.  Instead his labor is making decisions.  Well, just so the big CEO's job is largely decision-making.  Decision-making is important.  It is productive.  It is, in fact, indispensable and probably the most productive thing one can do!

That is why production is aided by the landowner getting paid.  By the way, the other side of this is that he can sustain losses, too.  Under Mr. L.'s Platonic ideal, he can't make any profit, but neither can he incur any loss.  That's bad.  Via the fantastic and quasi-miraculous mechanism of profit and loss, markets reward the value-producing, punish the value-destroying, and thus get more and more of the productive and less and less of the destructive.  Without that incentive mechanism, there is no reason for any landowner (land-tenant under Mr. L.'s ideal) to take any risks, to go to any huge mental effort regarding his land, to do anything to try to increase the value of his land.  That increase will go to the nation-state; he won't see a dime.  Also the best landowners will not be able to progressively control more and more land while the worst lose more and more to their superiors outcompeting them.  There is still an incentive mechanism in the ability to make profit or loss on the _improvements_, Mr. L. will belaboringly remind us, but there will not be any such mechanism on the land itself.  The loss of that mechanism will cause the land allocation to become, eventually, crummy.

I wish there were more to say regarding this The Question.  But it's really quite simple: land managers have control over an important part of the economy: land.  That being so, they perform an important economic role.  That role may be performed either well or poorly.  The way to encourage superior performance is to allow these land managers to be subject to market forces and incentives, driving them towards ever-greater efficiency and productivity in satisfying customer wants.  That is, to let them be landowners and not landtenants, and thus receive the full rewards of their wisdom or bear the full costs of their folly.

I shall not truly depart, I think, but will continue popping in to see if anything interesting is happening.  I will perhaps make a table of contents linking to my most substantive posts of the thread for easy reference.  But for now, I really have nothing more to say.  I think that I have made a somewhat good case for landownership, and that I have unraveled and disposed of the case against it at least to an extent.

This was the best Georgism thread ever.  I'd like to thank Roy L. for being my muse.  And now in conclusion, Roy, I'd like to shock you by announcing that you are right!  I have been lying all along.  All the things you said were lies really were lies.  All the things you said were just stupid or absurd really were idiotic and nonsensical.  I didn't think it was possible, but you convinced me.  Your style of argument is abrasive, it is hard-hitting, but as you say, realizing you're on the side of evil is hard, and so it calls for hard medicine.  You never compromised the truth and so finally I was forced to truly and deeply reexamine my beliefs.  Thank you for helping me to see my mistakes and how messed up my world-view was.  Please, don't ever change your arguing method.  It is the most effective one.  Keep up the good fight for Land Justice!

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## Steven Douglas

Agreed with just about everything you wrote, with one exception:  Non-homesteaders, like the land moguls you mentioned, operate as a matter of qualified licensed privilege, and not right.  The homesteader, on the other hand, operates ALWAYS as a matter of right.  He may buy and sell at will, to and from whomever he likes - meaning ZERO government interference whenever a homesteader is involved, and a decided advantage to all homesteaders as a matter of right. Even to the law erring always on the side of the homesteader.  The non-homesteader, on the other hand, can actually be evaluated, regulated, taxed, etc., and treated as the corporations once were, once upon a time, when they actually had to demonstrate that they performed a public service by their existence, and weren't simply granted fictitious immortality and personhood with rights for the filing of some papers.  It is not so much to control them as it is to give every natural advantage to the homesteader, the individual, and to ensure that NO artificial advantage is given over any individual.  In other words, the only entity that need not fear the natural person is another natural person. Everyone else can quake for all I care. 

In principle, I stand behind whatever makes the market MOST free _to individuals in their human pursuits_ - all of the rest operate as incidental, secondary, and qualified where necessary.  That, to me, is the essence of the now bastardized "Eminent Domain" doctrine (the spirit of which Roy would love, because it pushes people off of land) as it should have been applied to individuals - and not just to make room for a new highway; a developer or land mogul now can convince city planners that a shopping mall would be great for the city - and poof goes the rights of the individual, who is forced to accept whatever the "incorporated" city declares is the market value - prior to that value going through the roof after John Q. Gotscrewed is pushed aside.  In that case, I see John Q. Gotscrewed as having a bona fide case against the city and/or developer for all of the lost value - because his land that he didn't want to sell was the object of speculation.  That really is a loss to him (in the case of Eminent Domain only - a forced sale - not just a developer simply buying land and later profiting from it).

----------


## helmuth_hubener

But pretty soon in any given place the easiest and most obvious classes of resources, such as surface area of the Earth, have been homesteaded.  So the only ones who actually get absolute (read: actual) property rights are the first generation.  Anyone to whom they sell the land, or give it as inheritance, will have no right to the land, only privilege, is that right?  Or am I misunderstanding your use of the word "homesteader"?

----------


## Roy L

> I already explained all that in my post.


And I refuted it.



> You, on the other hand, accept labels completely and without further examination (when they suit you), with no concern for the reality.


Lie.



> All property owners are now leasors.  The governments now own all the surface area.  Property tax is repealed and lease rent is instituted.  The leasors can only keep their tenure right if they pay their lease rent.  All better now?


If the rate is a lot higher, and only on land value, yes.



> Of course, not even _Hong Kong!!11!1_ has done that and Mr. L. has no complaints nor criticism for that Georgist paradise,


Lie.



> You didn't have any refutation whatsoever for my assessment of Haiti as not having a very high regard for property rights.  It very clearly doesn't.  A title there is clearly much more tentative, much more iffy, than a title, whoops I'm sorry an exclusive lease, in _Hong Kong!!1!1!11_.


Nevertheless, landowners who got rich by owning land run the place.



> As far as Dubai goes, you demolish that by pointing out (with no specific figures nor sources; that is, as always, with no data) that the elite own most of the land.


No, you are lying again.  It is very specifically the GOVERNMENT -- absolute ruler Sheik Mohammed al-Maktoum and his family and businesses -- not any private landowning elite, that owns almost all the land (well over 90% of it by value).  I invite all readers to check this fact for themselves.  Until recently, no foreigner was even allowed to own land in Dubai at all, and even the locals almost all leased the land from al-Maktoum or his companies.



> Which, I think, is likely true.  It seems plausible based on my own knowledge, despite your giving no one any reason to believe you.


I have given the best possible reason to believe me: always being honest and factually correct.



> This appears to be one of those cases where Roy Reality has an intersection point with Regular Reality.  But is that (the elite owning most of the land) not exactly what you say is the evil of my system and the grace of yours?  Is not the elite owning everything what I want, and what you want to end as a great evil?


You are deliberately trying to deceive your readers on the crucial fact about this particular landowning elite: it is not an elite of private landowners, it is THE GOVERNMENT.



> The fact is, land is untaxed in Dubai.


The fact is, it doesn't have to be, because the government owns it.



> No land rent is recovered.


That is a bald lie.  Everyone who leases land from the al-Maktoum interests is paying land rent to the government.



> Land is taxed in _Hong Kong!!11!1_.  Land rent is recovered.  You would look at that "indisputable fact" and predict that Dubai would be a poor and horrible place, especially compared to _Hong Kong!!11!1_.


Nope.  Unlike you, Sheik al-Maktoum and I are willing to know the fact that the land rent he spends on services and infrastructure, as Dubai's government, comes back to him in ever-increasing land rents.



> Dubai is your worst dystopia come alive.  No land rent is recovered,


Lie, as already proved.



> elites own most of the land,


The GOVERNMENT owns almost all of it.



> My prediction fits the reality better.  Dubai is doing well, and even better than _Hong Kong!!11!1_.


Because Dubai's government recovers more land rent than Hong Kong's.



> So you just completely conceded the practical side of the point.  You openly concede the empirical data does not seem to support your theory.


Lie.  Private landowning works better than primitive land allocation systems like tribal tenure, but it is far inferior to full land rent recovery instead of taxation of production.



> Rather it supports the theory that land-owning, to quote Roy L., "has been economically successful".  Splendid quote!


It has been successful compared to primitive land allocation systems that ignore the market, but is still far inferior to full land rent recovery.



> And so you fall back upon the moral side of the point ("slavery was successful too, but immoral, just like land-owning") which is now all you have left.


It is an important point, as millions are murdered every year by landowner privilege, a heavier toll than slavery ever exacted.



> Normally, no one ever openly concedes anything in these discussions except for me.


Lie.  I have PROVED YOU WRONG hundreds of times, and IIRC you have only conceded once.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> But pretty soon in any given place the easiest and most obvious classes of resources, such as surface area of the Earth, have been homesteaded.  So the only ones who actually get absolute (read: actual) property rights are the first generation.  Anyone to whom they sell the land, or give it as inheritance, will have no right to the land, only privilege, is that right?  Or am I misunderstanding your use of the word "homesteader"?


Yes, you are misunderstanding my intent - my fault, based on my misuse of the word homesteader.  

By homestead I don't mean land originally developed, or granted as a matter of an act of legislation, which in turn has some special legal status associated with it.  That would not work, for the reasons you already stated.  I mean any "primary declared land" that is owned by any free and natural individual. 

In common law it would be something like "fee simple" freehold ownership (although give me the magic wand and it would be more like outright allodial title).  Either way it would transfer with each individual as a matter of right.  The defining legal characteristics of all land, then, would be based on the nature of the owner, not the land itself, and whether or not it was a primary residence, and therefore subject to homestead/fee simple/freehold/allodial/etc., protection. 

So, for example, if I as an individual sold a piece of "fee simple" land to a corporation, it could no longer be fee simple, since that corporation would act as a matter of privilege only, and would be under a completely different jurisdiction and governing set of laws with respect to that same land (i.e., that land could be taxed based on their legal status).  However, if I turned around and bought a piece of land _from_ a corporation that was previously taxed based on prior corporate ownership, that piece of land would automatically become "fee simple", and governed under a different set of laws, _based on my superior legal status_ as an individual. As such, it would not be subject to taxation, or other statutory or regulatory controls associated with corporations and others.

In my version, the "absolute" right of fee simple freehold ownership lives and dies as the inalienable right of the owner, who has a unqualified right to a single fee-simple homestead exemption, which follows him throughout his life. The land itself, as a store of wealth, may still be passed on by inheritance, just as now, but it would only be subject to 'homestead' protection if it was declared the "primary land" of the heir to that land.  If the heir already had a piece of property that was exempted, s/he could sell or gift it to another individual who had made a claim.   

One free and natural person = a single inalienable right (not entitlement) to own and declare one freehold as homestead exemption.

----------


## Roy L

> Those who are using some surface area of the Earth to farm and try to have something to eat, or some branches in a tree to put their treehouse to try to stay warm and dry, those folks are actually mistreating and abusing others in an extremely rude and evil manner by virtue of their doing that.  Who are they abusing?  Those who would, if they offered it for sale, be willing to buy it.


No, those who, if their liberty were not being violated, would be at liberty to use it.



> that I have just as much right as them to their land.


"Their" land?  Blatant question begging.



> I don't know anyone who would.  It's just not rational.  It's just not civilized.  The other guy's tree house isn't hurting me.  The other guy isn't being rude to me by having the tree house.  I don't accept that he is "monopolizing" the tree in any correct nor historical sense of the word monopoly.  I don't accept that I have a right to his tree.


More blatant question begging.



> It's just sociopathic to think you are entitled to other men's stuff.


Is that what Friday is, when he is reluctant to get back in the water because Crusoe has "homesteaded" the island?  A sociopath? 

I'd say the one who advocates and applauds his murder by Crusoe is the sociopath.



> So your whole idea that a violation of rights is occurring because people would probably buy it if it _were_ for sale,


That's not my idea.  You know this.  You are just lying.



> Most people don't feel that people owe it to them to transfer their stuff them-ward, "nature-given" or not (and as I've said, everything is ultimately nature-given).


Which, as I've said, is an absurd lie.



> Those who do are sociopaths.


Those who rationalize and justify an annual Holocaust are sociopaths.



> So in a way, actually the community being there hasn't given the land any value at all.


You know that the land would have no value in the community's absence.  Of course you do.  You are just lying about it.  As usual.



> It's totally valueless, except to its owner and those he permits to use it, and except to sociopaths, until and unless the owner is willing to sell it.


Lie.  It's value would be just the same if he died.  You know this.



> Roy will trace your IP address and hunt you down like the foul, sick evil-doer that you are.


I am not the one who tracked down another poster's contributions to other forums and posted a link to them here.

Oh, and you never did say which post you lifted from Rothbard.  It *was* #699 as I said, wasn't it?  You even lied about that.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Lies!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, those who, if their liberty were not being violated, would be at liberty to use it.


Roy walked through miles and miles of forest, day after day, alone in the woods and the wilds, subsisting mostly on pine nuts and wild berries. Roy was accustomed to being alone, but that did not mean that he was not lonely. Roy was truly a sad, lonely, lonely soul.  

Late one afternoon, while rooting for grubs in a felled and rotting tree, Roy spied a column of smoke rising from a small clearing off in the distance.  Roy followed this until it he was close enough to see that he had indeed stumbled onto a small settlement.  

_Ah! I knew it!_ Roy thought to himself. _My natural liberty rights were being violated all along! Were it not for their violations of my natural liberty rights, I would be at liberty to use the very land they are on now. Well, they don't owe me much, because there is other available land around, but they do owe me, by Dog. Perpetually even._ 

And with that, Roy took a deep, fortifying breath, and set out toward the settlement, to sort out all the willing payers from the evil would be thieves who were oppressing him.

As Roy addressed the several families of settlers as they sat around the fire, a kindly old woman ladled a nice hot bowl of soup for Roy from the large cast iron cauldron that was suspended over the fire. 

Roy thanked the old woman, and patiently explained the deprivation he was now suffering because of the natural liberty rights these settlers had deprived him of, given that he would have been at liberty to use this land if were it not for them.  Everyone listened intently, politely - wide eyed even, and with rapt interest.  Roy felt that he was making progress, and breathed an inner sigh. At last, he felt that he might be witnessing the seeds of a possible dawn of a non-oppressive utopia.

When Roy had finally finished saying his peace, there was silence in the camp.  Finally, one of the settler children, a young boy of about 13 years of age with an inquisitive look on his face, approached Roy. In the boy's hand was a long piece of cloth, and in the bottom of that cloth a rock, which the boy brought full circle, with one deft move, into the center of Roy's forehead. This caused Roy to fall backward, unconscious, into the cauldron. 

Poor Roy had stumbled onto a rare discovery - the unknown surviving descendants of the Donner Party, who lived by an entirely set of deprivation-based rules of their own.  When the freshly provisioned camp broke for higher ground the next day, they decided to deed the land to Roy, including the hole they had dug for his bones, free of charge.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Except when you work for a business you are agreeing to forfeit any ownership of what you create and get reimbursed through wages, benefits, etc. But we cannot trace back the creation of natural land to any single person or company. Therefore, land is different from capital and therefore must be treated differently.*
> 
> Not all men are created equal? So I assume you disagree with the Declaration of Independence*?


What I meant is that all men are different (and start their lives in different situations in terms of wealth, etc).  Notice I also said that all men have equal rights.  RBP claimed that "_others around you to have equal access to land. When you have a few people grabbing up all the land then you have a problem._" which is obviously false.

----------


## Roy L

> In other words, I have said something which not only can you not refute, not only can you not interface with the statement in an intelligent way,


One cannot interface with it in an intelligent way because it is stupid, meaningless garbage.  Which water is "that" water?  "Owns" it how?  Your statement was just a cretinous spew of meaningless, dishonest garbage.



> not only all that, which has been true for almost all your posts throughout this discussion,


Lie.



> in this case you do not even have a talking point to regurgitate for it.


There is nothing to talk about.  Your statement was merely an attempt to deny a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality -- that people are naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided -- by spewing meaningless, dishonest garbage at it.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, might I make a suggestion? Regardless of my position on whether I agree with you or not....your condescending, sarcastic, and snarky remarks are major turn-offs to your larger point(s), regardless of how valid (or not) they are. Because of this, might I recommend not being so insulting?


Sorry, but I am not able to pretend that the fallacious, absurd and dishonest rationalizations for evil offered by those who serve evil merit any respect.  Any objective reading of the "arguments" being made against LVT here will show that they are not only invariably fallacious but patently absurd and relentlessly dishonest.  jascott is the only one who has not told stupid lies.

----------


## moostraks

> ...
> _Ah! I knew it!_ Roy thought to himself. _My natural liberty rights were being violated all along! Were it not for their violations of my natural liberty rights, I would be at liberty to use the very land they are on now. Well, they don't owe me much, because there is other available land around, but they do owe me, by Dog. Perpetually even._ 
> 
> And with that, Roy took a deep, fortifying breath, and set out toward the settlement, to sort out all the willing payers from the evil would be thieves who were oppressing him...
> 
> Poor Roy had stumbled onto a rare discovery - the unknown surviving descendants of the Donner Party, who lived by an entirely set of deprivation-based rules of their own.  When the freshly provisioned camp broke for higher ground the next day, they decided to deed the land to Roy, including the hole they had dug for his bones, free of charge.

----------


## Edu

> Well, judging from history, technically, those who have the ability to defend the land from being taken from them own it.


This is correct. Put up a fence and let everyone around you know it's yours by marking it and then defend it.

Things have gotten so twisted.

There is no such thing as a direct tax in this country. << READ THAT AGAIN TILL YOU GET IT!!

If you think congress has the power to directly tax any SOVEREIGN American, you are lacking in your education.

If you do not understand that each American is a sovereign, you need to read something about it. Like the Declaration of Independence, sheesh.

You cut away from the King, you are now free, you are now sovereign yourself. << WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT TO COMPREHEND?

If some government can DIRECTLY tax you, then you are BELOW THAT GOVERNMENT. You better check the label on your underwear!

And whoever thinks you need a national retail tax to run the government needs to look up how the government ran the first 100 years WITH A BUDGET SURPLUS!!

This is basic stuff that you should have leaned in high school.

----------


## Roy L

> I don't get it Roy, why exactly are you here?


To fight evil.



> You only post in this thread,


I have posted in others as well; but only a few interest me, and most haven't gone on very long.  IMO the threads devoted to current electoral politics are pointless.



> nothing of which has to do with getting Ron Paul elected,


I am certain that Ron Paul cannot be elected president.  The system is just too corrupt, too much the private property of the corrupt propertied class.  But Ron Paul and people who support Ron Paul are at least willing to talk about the real issues: the inherently corrupt monetary and banking systems; corporate subsidies, welfare and bailouts; the evil and insane "War on Drugs"; unjustifiable foreign military adventures; the unjust and economically destructive income tax system; etc.



> you obviously don't even believe in one of the most important priciples of the liberty movement, namely the right property (yes that includes owning land)


No, it does not.  Every great thinker on liberty has recognized the fact that property in land lacks justification.  redbluepill provided a number of quotations to that effect.



> and all you do is insult people who don't buy into your ridiculous notion that land owning is theft.


No, I demolish their fallacious, absurd and dishonest "arguments."  You know this.



> So I repeat, why are you here? This thread has gone on for 99 pages...aren't you bored of owning us and destroying our nonsensical, immoral apologies for evil, greedy land owning parasites?


I am wearied, beyond the rich resources of the English language to express, of the relentless dishonesty of apologists for privilege, injustice and evil.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy walked through miles and miles of forest, day after day, alone in the woods and the wilds, subsisting mostly on pine nuts and wild berries. Roy was accustomed to being alone, but that did not mean that he was not lonely. Roy was truly a sad, lonely, lonely soul.  
> 
> Late one afternoon, while rooting for grubs in a felled and rotting tree, Roy spied a column of smoke rising from a small clearing off in the distance.  Roy followed this until it he was close enough to see that he had indeed stumbled onto a small settlement.  
> 
> _Ah! I knew it!_ Roy thought to himself. _My natural liberty rights were being violated all along! Were it not for their violations of my natural liberty rights, I would be at liberty to use the very land they are on now. Well, they don't owe me much, because there is other available land around, but they do owe me, by Dog. Perpetually even._ 
> 
> And with that, Roy took a deep, fortifying breath, and set out toward the settlement, to sort out all the willing payers from the evil would be thieves who were oppressing him.
> 
> As Roy addressed the several families of settlers as they sat around the fire, a kindly old woman ladled a nice hot bowl of soup for Roy from the large cast iron cauldron that was suspended over the fire. 
> ...


Were you under an erroneous impression that you were making a meaningful contribution to anything?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> This is correct. Put up a fence and let everyone around you know it's yours by marking it and then defend it.
> 
> Things have gotten so twisted.
> *
> There is no such thing as a direct tax in this country.* << READ THAT AGAIN TILL YOU GET IT!!
> 
> If you think congress has the power to directly tax any SOVEREIGN American, you are lacking in your education.
> 
> *If you do not understand that each American is a sovereign, you need to read something about it. Like the Declaration of Independence, sheesh.*
> ...


If you really believe this, you haven't been paying attention.  "Sovereign citizens" ceased to exist long ago.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Lies!  All of you are liars!  Lies!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Your statement was merely an attempt to deny a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality -- that people are naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided -- by spewing meaningless, dishonest garbage at it.


Let's examine that specifically, and break it down for clarification. Correct me please, or clarify as needed (specifically, please, not just dismissively, as  "meaningless" or "dishonest" or "spewing garbage")

ROY:  "A self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality -- *that people are naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided.*

I agree with that on its face. _Naturally At Liberty_, taken at face value only, simply implies _that you are physically capable_ of walking up and making physical use of all that nature has provided.  

Let's extend that:

I am also _naturally at liberty_ to stab someone, attempt to rob a bank, give to a beggar, start a fight, have title to land that I have purchased, or even to propose an LVT tax regime on all land.  I am also "naturally at liberty" to plant and harvest my own garden, or sneak into my neighbors yard to harvest his for myself.  I am "naturally at liberty" to do all these things, Roy - not because I "may" (license, permission) do these things, and not because it is necessarily my right, but simple _because I can_.  That is what "naturally at liberty" means, having nothing whatsoever to do with right or wrong, good or bad, legitimacy or illegitimacy.  So you are correct. It is truly 'self-evident'.  On the other hand, I am *"artificially at liberty"* to do only those things which are lawful.  

When you use the phrase "naturally at liberty", however, you don't mean simply that one "can", or even that "they otherwise physically could". For you it has an extended meaning - one which you also believe is "self-evident" - as what you have termed a _Natural Liberty Right_.   That is where "a natural physical capacity" is _selectively conflated_ to imply a "natural liberty right".  So let's break that down.

*NATURAL* - Adj. _Existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind._

Correct? 

*LIBERTY* - Noun.   

The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life.An instance of this; a right or privilege, esp. a statutory one.

And we could go to Webster:

the quality or state of being freethe power to do as one pleasesfreedom from physical restraintfreedom from arbitrary or despotic controlthe positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privilegesthe power of choice

So it is clear that liberty is power, freedom or enjoyment in some form.  Now you have to choose which definition you mean, Roy (even if from another source - you can provide that). And that choice will determine whether the phrase "Natural Liberty Right", as you intend it, is a self-evident truth or a self-contradictory oxymoron.  

Now, Natural Liberty Right begins with the word "natural", which implies that the following word, liberty, is also natural in origin. Because if you choose a definition that is artificial, then the term "Natural Liberty" is immediately rendered as a meaningless, self-contradictory oxymoron: a _Natural Artificial_. So I assume that your are talking about a "natural" capacity, power, or ability, and not an artificial privilege or grant?  

*RIGHT* - Noun

a just claim or title, whether legal, prescriptive, or moral: You have a right to say what you please.that which is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles, etc.: women's rights; Freedom of speech is a right of all Americans.adherence or obedience to moral and legal principles and authority.that which is morally, legally, or ethically proper: to know right from wrong.a moral, ethical, or legal principle considered as an underlying cause of truth, justice, morality, or ethics. 

The word RIGHT is where you get into trouble, Roy.  All rights are artificial. Likewise, all morality.  There is no such thing as a "natural right".  Even if you looked at the animal kingdom as being a realm where absolutely everything is done as a matter of a "natural liberty right", you would have to conclude that murder, rape, theft, slavery, cannibalism, are all "natural liberty rights". In which case land ownership, which you consider theft, is actually a "natural liberty right" - just as theft is. And even murder.  The only way to make it otherwise is to actually MAKE it otherwise.  So rights can be declared, acknowledged, rationalized, enforced, etc., and I have no problem with that - but there is nothing "natural" about them. 

There is no property of nature that equates to a "right", and no property of nature that shows intrinsic morality.  All human rights are manufactured. OR else they are not, in which case there is as much of a "natural liberty right" to land ownership as there is an LVT.

*Natural* (objective reality) *Liberty* (objective reality) *Right* (subjective, artificial)

This does not make the statement necessarily untrue.  You could, by declaration or edict, MAKE a natural physical capacity into an artificial right.  

What you cannot do is declare that: *NATURAL + NATURAL + ARTIFICIAL = NATURAL*

In other words, a NATURAL LIBERTY is not "self-evidently" a RIGHT.  It must be made so, and by making it so, it is no longer natural, nor is it self-evident as such.  

Care to clarify?  At the very least, please define (specifically) what you mean by the following terms. 

NaturalLibertyRight

That alone would be extremely informative. And don't say that they are also "self-evident", because there are multiple definitions.  I can choose definitions that will cause your rationale to fall on its face. You can in turn say that's not the definition you meant, and we can back and forth until your finally clarify what, exactly, you meant by each word - and not a self-made, and therefore meaningless, definition of three words taken on the whole.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, it does not.  Every great thinker on liberty has recognized the fact that property in land lacks justification.  redbluepill provided a number of quotations to that effect.


>>incorrect.  (btw, I looked through the thread, and I don't see redbluepill's post that you refer to.)  Aristotle, Rothbard, and numerous other great thinkers on liberty defended private ownership of land.  Those that don't argue for private land ownership generally only make niche contributions to the philosophy of liberty.  Why haven't you read William Bradford's account of the failure of commonly owned property in colonial America(Plymouth colony)?  Where has the abolishment of private land ownership ever made for a stable and wealthy society?



> No, I demolish their fallacious, absurd and dishonest "arguments."  You know this.


>>No, you just state and restate fallacious arguments and outright lies.




> I am wearied, beyond the rich resources of the English language to express, of the relentless dishonesty of apologists for privilege, injustice and evil.


>>You keep claiming that private land ownership is "evil", "unjust", etc., but cannot logically prove it.

----------


## Roy L

> "otherwise at liberty" is your argument in a nutshell, and the genesis of your false dichotomy - your biggest lie - that everyone has a liberty right to occupy the same space as everyone else,


Not only is that not my argument, I don't even know what you imagine it could mean.



> given they "would otherwise be at liberty to use"...meaning, "If they did not exist I would have access to their space, wherever it is."


No, if they did not initiate force to deprive me of my liberty, I would be at liberty to use the space nature provided.



> You believe in a _right based on a non-existent reality_.


Nope.  The reality is self-evident and indisputable.  You just can't dispute it, so you have to claim my argument is something other than I have plainly stated it is.



> My right to "otherwise be at liberty to occupy your space" can only end if you cease to exist, because the moment you move, that space becomes exclusively occupied as well.


That is just stupid, irrelevant, dishonest garbage.  No one is talking about the space a person's body occupies, and you know it.  You merely realize that you have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, so you are trying to change the subject.



> So everyone's "right to otherwise be at liberty" is immediately transferred to any new space you might occupy. No rest for the weary - wherever you go, that space has some measurable value to me, however negligible,


It has *no* *market* value, and you know it very well.



> that you are _taking from me_ - so pay up, *space occupation thief*.


I have already refuted that stupid, dishonest garbage.  Everyone's body occupies space, so the (yes, literally negligible) obligations all cancel anyway.



> When I forcibly remove you out of your spot for non-payment, you will owe me for occupying the new spot I put you in, because my claim to a natural liberty right extends to that space as well. Which makes you an automatic debtor or a thief wherever you go - _by virtue of your very existence_.  I would follow you to the ends of the earth and tax you to death, but what I really want is for you to pay rent for a spot that I consider collectively owned.


You are aware of the fact that that is stupid, dishonest garbage with no relation to what I have plainly written. 



> And yes - you ARE the ultimate propertarian.  Stop lying about that.  It is a flagrant tautology regardless how you phrase it.


I haven't phrased your stupid, dishonest garbage at all.  You have.



> Gypsies, nomads, vagabonds and other wandering souls would be excepted, I assume, because they are always on the move. Wouldn't it be just peachy keen to you - wouldn't that delight your sensibilities if that's all we were on Earth?


Beneath refutation.



> Oh, and you did make an exception for me - if I lived underground - provided nobody knows about it, of course, or moved in next door to me.


No, stop lying.  You can use the land of your choice for free, with secure tenure, up to the universal individual exemption value.  *Only when you forcibly deprive others of more than your equal share of the good land* do you have to pay anything at all to compensate others for what you take from them.



> Somehow association was key.


Only in what you are no doubt pleased to call your, "mind."



> It is only if I occupy space _in plain view of others_ that I would owe anything.


That is a bald fabrication on your part.  You cannot refute anything I have said, so you make up some sort of stupid, dishonest garbage and attribute it to me.  That's just lying.



> That's why it is a simple matter of coveting. _Don't lie._


I haven't, and won't.  You, by contrast, are lying your silly head off about what I have plainly written.



> And it is also a tax on free association


<yawn>  Lie.



> You cannot cluster together and circle your wagons for any length of time without some idiot calling it a "deprivation", and holding out his nasty, covetous tentacle demanding payment for something he did not improve,


Lie.  No market value --> no deprivation.  No value above the exempt amount --> no payment.

You just lie and lie and lie.  You have no choice.  I already told you that.



> and for which he has _no right_ - not even a half-baked "natural liberty right".


What stops him from just using the land, except your initiation of force? 



> This is the ABSOLUTE INSANITY of the world we live in now - multiple claims on the same physical wealth - which you have extended to space itself.  That's your lie, your insanity, Roy.


No, Stephen, it is only your lie about what I have plainly written, and you know it. 



> My right to live and to exist requires space that is exclusive to me.


And landowning eliminates that right.  Right.



> It does not become a privilege-by-proxy because someone figured out how to swallow a BIG FAT LIE in the form of a goofy-stupid false dichotomy which says, in effect, "You have a right to live, but not an exclusive right to your own personal, non-moving space."


That someone would be you, not me.  The universal individual land tax exemption *I* advocate restores the individual rights to life and liberty that private landowning removed: you get secure tenure on enough land to live on, without paying government OR a parasitic private landowner.



> Since occupation of space can never be _anything but exclusive_, your very existence becomes a matter of "_privilege of exclusive space occupation_" (there is no other kind) which can then be taxed.


Or rather, it might, if that were not stupid, dishonest garbage unrelated to anything I have said.  You have no arguments to offer against anything I have said, so you just make $#!+ up and attribute it to me instead of actually quoting me.  To be fair, that is slightly less dishonest than Helmuth, who makes stupid $#!+ up and actually *claims* to be quoting me.



> And since the power to tax involves the power to destroy - your very life, which depends upon exclusive space occupation, is subject to being taxed out of existence.


That is an outrageous fabrication.  I have stated that LVT restores the equal individual rights to life and liberty by extending a uniform, universal individual exemption for enough good land to live on.  It is the landowner's privilege of depriving others of their liberty to use the land without making just compensation that *really* "taxes" millions of innocent human lives out of existence *EVERY YEAR.*

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> That is an outrageous fabrication.  I have stated that LVT restores the equal individual rights to life and liberty by extending a uniform, universal individual exemption for enough good land to live on.  It is the landowner's privilege of depriving others of their liberty to use the land without making just compensation that *really* "taxes" millions of innocent human lives out of existence *EVERY YEAR.*


What is "enough good land to live on"?  10 square meters?  10 acres?  How do you plan to achieve this considering the drastically different types of land that exist? (we have everything from arid desert to frozen wilderness in North America alone)  Everything you idealize is arbitrary and impractical in the real world.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> *You can use the land of your choice for free, with secure tenure, up to the universal individual exemption value*.  Only when you forcibly deprive others of more than your equal share of the good land do you have to pay anything at all to compensate others for what you take from them.


 (emphasis changed)

WTF? 

Stop the train then, because suddenly I'm all ears. 

A "universal individual exemption" - with secure tenure? What does that mean, "secure tenure" based on a "universal individual exemption". How would that differ, in effect, from a "fee-simple" or similar title to land that was based only on such an exemption? 

What do you mean by "universal individual exemption", "secure tenure", and specifically how would that play out in terms of taxes, regulatory controls, transfers (e.g., I want to move from Baltimore to Chicago) - and what circumstance could theoretically cause government to forcibly evict, or otherwise move someone with a "universal individual exemption"?

----------


## Roy L

> >>incorrect.  (btw, I looked through the thread, and I don't see redbluepill's post that you refer to.)


See posts #43 and #57 by redbluepill, and #23 by erowe1.



> Aristotle, Rothbard, and numerous other great thinkers on liberty defended private ownership of land.


Aristotle was a great thinker, but not on liberty.  He defended slavery.  Rothbard, like a number of other thinkers on liberty, defended private property in land, but recognized that unlike property in products of labor, it needed more ingenious and less intuitive defending.



> Those that don't argue for private land ownership generally only make niche contributions to the philosophy of liberty.


Flat false.  David Friedman, for example, has explicitly conceded that there is no satisfactory justification for appropriation of land as private property.  Robert Nozick and Albert Jay Nock have also admitted that property in land is at best a convenient fiction, not a right.



> Why haven't you read William Bradford's account of the failure of commonly owned property in colonial America(Plymouth colony)?


Because like socialists and capitalists, he could not tell the difference between land and products of labor.



> Where has the abolishment of private land ownership ever made for a stable and wealthy society?


Hong Kong.

----------


## Roy L

> What is "enough good land to live on"?


I think the mode land value used per person is a reasonable estimate.



> 10 square meters?  10 acres?  How do you plan to achieve this considering the drastically different types of land that exist? (we have everything from arid desert to frozen wilderness in North America alone)


By exempting VALUE not AREA.



> Everything you idealize is arbitrary and impractical in the real world.


It has always worked, to the extent that it has been tried.  ALWAYS.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> What is "enough good land to live on"?  10 square meters?  10 acres?  How do you plan to achieve this considering the drastically different types of land that exist? (we have everything from arid desert to frozen wilderness in North America alone)  Everything you idealize is arbitrary and impractical in the real world.


^^ This also.  

Is someone other than the individual with the exemption in charge of deciding what "good enough land to live on" means?  Because once upon a time in America, the Projects were considered "good enough land to live on".  So if this is based on bureaucratic trust OF ANY KIND, by any bureaucratically changeable formula, the entire idea has all the hallmarks of a nasty, rotten, individual-abusive stinker to begin with.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Also, Roy, I don't know why you keep holding up Hong Kong as an example. I've spent a LOT of time in Hong Kong. I renew my Chinese visa there and conduct business there all the time. It just happens to be THE most expensive place to live in the world, whether "buying" (the LVT version) or renting by natural extension (given that even an LVT "purchase" can be sublet, or rented out).

----------


## Roy L

> Then there is the question of "legitimacy" (Roy seems really big on democracy).  We could always just put the matter to a popular vote.  In that case, 50 votes are in favor of an LVT on you, and 51 are not, as you become the "legitimate" tie-breaker.  But not in Roy's mind. The government is only legitimate when it follows what he views as non-evil, "self-evidently just", blah blah... He has his own criteria for legitimacy, thus bringing you full circle to the fundamental reality of Roy's mind. If all people on Earth voted 99.9999% against an LVT, and 99.9999% in favor of property ownership, he would still consider it evil. Of course, he'll argue that such an hypothetical vote is just silly, as it isn't even possible (and of course it isn't), but that's irrelevant to the point that he wouldn't accept it as a matter of principle even if it was.


There are two components to political legitimacy: valid function (securing and reconciling the equal rights of all) and democratic oversight.  Neither is enough on its own, but democratic oversight is particularly tenuous.  The great majority of people are of average or below average intellect, so they can easily be swayed to support tyranny.  Policy can be determined by majority vote.  Truth cannot.  Accepting that the law is what it is is not the same as accepting that it is right.

----------


## Roy L

> Is someone other than the individual with the exemption in charge of deciding what "good enough land to live on" means?


It is an equal amount of land by value for all, to be chosen in the market much as people currently choose their dwelling locations.  Those who preferred to be tenants would simply transfer their exemptions to their landlords for as long as they were living in the rented accommodation.



> Because once upon a time in America, the Projects were considered "good enough land to live on".


Housing projects were generally built on fairly valuable land.  If left to the market, the housing built there would have been quite acceptable.



> So if this is based on bureaucratic trust OF ANY KIND, by any bureaucratically changeable formula, the entire idea has all the hallmarks of a nasty, rotten, individual-abusive stinker to begin with.


I have suggested the mode (most frequent) land value used per person is a good enough number, and it's a statistic not subject to bureaucratic revision.  I don't think the precise amount of the exemption matters very much, as long as it is equal for all.  Anywhere around 10%-20% of per capita rent would probably work well enough, depending on local conditions.

----------


## Roy L

> Also, Roy, I don't know why you keep holding up Hong Kong as an example.


Many silly apologists for landowner privilege claim private landowning is necessary to liberty and/or prosperity.  Hong Kong proves it isn't.  In fact, quite the contrary.  Hong Kong, with no private landowning, is consistently ranked the freest country in the world, and has been one of the most prosperous for several decades, even without any natural resources to speak of.



> I've spent a LOT of time in Hong Kong. I renew my Chinese visa there and conduct business there all the time. It just happens to be THE most expensive place to live in the world, whether "buying" (the LVT version) or renting by natural extension (given that even an LVT "purchase" can be sublet, or rented out).


No, HK may be the most expensive place to* buy a house*, but millions of ordinary working people manage to live there quite well and at modest cost, most of them in publicly owned housing.  The HK government has unfortunately been following a policy of artificially restricting supply to increase its land revenue, shoveling vast unearned wealth into landholders' pockets, rather than just increasing the fraction of rent it recovers and thus reducing the welfare subsidy to landholders.

----------


## Roy L

> A "universal individual exemption" - with secure tenure? What does that mean, "secure tenure" based on a "universal individual exemption". How would that differ, in effect, from a "fee-simple" or similar title to land that was based only on such an exemption?


You would choose where you wanted to live in the market, much as people do now, but you wouldn't have to pay a purchase price for the land to a parasitic private landowner, and as long as you didn't use more than the exempt amount of desirable land, you wouldn't have to pay any land tax to government, either.  The tax would only be levied on the amount of land value you excluded others from over and above the exemption amount.



> What do you mean by "universal individual exemption", "secure tenure", and specifically how would that play out in terms of taxes, regulatory controls, transfers (e.g., I want to move from Baltimore to Chicago) - and what circumstance could theoretically cause government to forcibly evict, or otherwise move someone with a "universal individual exemption"?


The universal individual land tax exemption would be the amount of land value considered necessary for a normal person to avail himself of the opportunities and advantages government, the community and nature provide -- i.e., to participate in society as a productive citizen.  It would be analogous to the universal individual income tax exemption, except that it would be the exact same amount for every resident citizen.  No adjustments for married couples, singles, children, etc.  Families living in the same dwelling (i.e., on the same taxable land parcel) would pool their exemptions.  I envision LVT as being primarily local, so the exemption amounts would likely be different in Chicago and Baltimore.  Your tenure would be somewhat more secure than with a private landlord, as if the land rent increased, you would still have the option of just paying it.  If you used more than the exempt amount of land and didn't pay the tax, you would likely be dispossessed in favor of someone able to use the land more productively and more willing to pay for the advantages of which he deprived others.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> It has always worked, to the extent that it has been tried.  ALWAYS.


Yes, until the feeders outnumber the producers.  Then it all collapses like a clumsy house of cards.  In the long term, it always fails.  You need to start thinking one or more generations ahead.  You will then outgrow your blissfully ignorant loathing of land ownership.

----------


## eduardo89

What happens to a familys land exemption when a child grows up and moves out? Would they be forced to tear down the portions of their home not included in the exempted land if they couldn't afford the tax?

----------


## Roy L

> I have to repeat this - if Roy had excluded individuals - homesteads specifically - I'd be right on board.


Do you mean "homesteads" to denote initial appropriations, as private property, of land others had previously been at liberty to use without appropriating?  Or to denote resident-owned dwellings?  The latter are generally the subject of "homestead exemptions" from property taxes, while the former are frequent subjects for Helmuth's lies.



> I do not believe in property "rights", or rights of ownership of land for any but homesteaders. Individuals, as a matter of right.  Not for governments, corporations, foreigners, fictitious collectives of any kind, and not as a commodity to be speculated on or traded in bulk or mass quantities.  They really can all be driven out on a rail, as far as I am concerned, abolished (in the form of government) or taxed completely out of existence if they don't serve the public interest.  But not sovereign individuals one to another - that truly is evil.  
> 
> The only problems for me are where to VERY CAUTIOUSLY draw the line with individuals.  If I see a Warren Buffet buying up an entire state, that bastard's got some 'splainin to do.  If I see a farmer taking on a thousand acres, my only question is whether it's being farmed, or just farmed out.  But if he's biting off what he can really chew, I don't have a problem with that.  House flippers, land speculators, commercial developers, etc., can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. Then it really is a question of whether it serves a public interest or not.   They are acting as a matter of privilege in such cases, and I don't have a problem with slapping them into their places - especially if it affects the ability of the middle, working, and poorer classes to own land of their own.


Stephen, please consider the possibility that you actually want the results that LVT (with a uniform, universal individual exemption) would achieve, but just do not know enough economics to understand how LVT would achieve them.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Stephen, please consider the possibility that you actually want the results that LVT (with a uniform, universal individual exemption) would achieve, but just do not know enough economics to understand how LVT would achieve them.


Again, you (and Steven) are making this stuff up arbitrarily.  Who cares if Buffet buys a bunch of property?  He also has to bear the burden of opportunity cost, maintenance, etc.

----------


## Roy L

> What happens to a familys land exemption when a child grows up and moves out? Would they be forced to tear down the portions of their home not included in the exempted land if they couldn't afford the tax?


As improvements have no effect on their LVT liability, that would be a singularly stupid and futile response.  So no wonder you thought of it so quickly.

If they couldn't afford the tax after deducting their lower pooled exemptions, they'd seek accommodation in a location better suited to their needs and means (hurray for the market!), or find some way to use the land more productively (they might know someone else who would like to live there, or a neighbor might want to use some of their vacant land for parking their RV, gardening, etc.).  Lots of people are willing to pay for a room to sleep in, or room and board, and their exemptions would come with them.  The homeowners might even put in a basement suite and become small-time landlords.

----------


## Roy L

> Again, you (and Steven) are making this stuff up arbitrarily.


Garbage.



> Who cares if Buffet buys a bunch of property?


Everyone who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.



> He also has to bear the burden of opportunity cost, maintenance, etc.


So does the purchaser of a slave -- except that land, by definition, needs no maintenance.

----------


## eduardo89

> Everyone who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.


If they want to use the land Buffet bought, why don't try offer to buy or rent it from him?

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, until the feeders outnumber the producers.


ROTFL!!  It is *landowners* who are the "feeders," sunshine.  The landowner qua landowner is a pure parasite.  That is why Hong Kong is so brilliantly successful: it doesn't feed the parasites as much.  It is also why you cannot answer The Question:

*"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"*



> Then it all collapses like a clumsy house of cards.


False.  What usually happens is that people forget why private landowning doesn't work, and let it gain control.  That is always fatal.



> In the long term, it always fails.


It is landowner privilege that always fails in the long term.  The historical record is very clear on that.  Landowner privilege has destroyed many great civilizations.



> You need to start thinking one or more generations ahead.


There has been no private landowning in Hong Kong for over 160 years.  It shows no sign whatever of collapsing like a clumsy house of cards.  By contrast, landowner privilege and the associated land speculation very nearly collapsed the whole world's economy just three years ago.

*HELLO???*



> You will then outgrow your blissfully ignorant loathing of land ownership.


IMO you will never outgrow your blissfully ignorant servitude to greed, privilege, injustice and evil.  The historical record is also very clear on that: the privileged prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than to relinquish even the smallest material part of their unjust advantages.  The servants of privilege defend it even when it is destroying their society right in front of them.

----------


## Roy L

> If they want to use the land Buffet bought, why don't try offer to buy or rent it from him?


"Why, if you want your liberty, Uncle Tom, why don't you offer to buy or rent it from me?"

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> ROTFL!!  It is *landowners* who are the "feeders," sunshine.  The landowner qua landowner is a pure parasite.  That is why Hong Kong is so brilliantly successful: it doesn't feed the parasites as much.  It is also why you cannot answer The Question:
> 
> *"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"*


Land is not "owned" by the government in Hong Kong.  It is leased to owners by the government.  This is not significantly different than the system that exists here.  Production is aided by land ownership because the owner has incentive to care for it and be productive.  Google William Bradford.




> False.  What usually happens is that people forget why private landowning doesn't work, and let it gain control.  That is always fatal.
> 
> It is landowner privilege that always fails in the long term.  The historical record is very clear on that.  Landowner privilege has destroyed many great civilizations.
> 
> There has been no private landowning in Hong Kong for over 160 years.  It shows no sign whatever of collapsing like a clumsy house of cards.  By contrast, landowner privilege and the associated land speculation very nearly collapsed the whole world's economy just three years ago.


Still wrong.  Private land ownership always works.  Google "Tragedy Of The Commons".  Also consider the failure of collectivization of property/land in the Soviet Union.  Did you know that smog and air pollution in Hong Kong is causing a brain drain and talent diaspora? The root cause seems to be soot created from mainland factories who are not held liable for their negative externalties (1).  Were the property privately owned, this problem wouldn't exist.




> *HELLO???*
> 
> IMO you will never outgrow your blissfully ignorant servitude to greed, privilege, injustice and evil.  The historical record is also very clear on that: the privileged prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than to relinquish even the smallest material part of their unjust advantages.  The servants of privilege defend it even when it is destroying their society right in front of them.


You keep claiming history proves the "evils" and "failure" of land ownership, but it doesn't.

----------


## Roy L

> ROY:  "A self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality -- *that people are naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided.*
> 
> I agree with that on its face. _Naturally At Liberty_, taken at face value only, simply implies _that you are physically capable_ of walking up and making physical use of all that nature has provided.


Right.  Capable of doing so WITHOUT ANY HELP FROM OTHERS, and free to do so unless someone else initiates force to stop you, thus depriving you of what you would otherwise have.



> I am also _naturally at liberty_ to stab someone, attempt to rob a bank,


No, you can't do those without someone else supplying the victims.



> give to a beggar, start a fight,


No, you need other people to help you do those things.



> have title to land that I have purchased,


"Having title" is irrelevant unless you purpose to initiate force to stop others from using that land.  So again, there is no natural liberty to own land.  A person alone is naturally at liberty to *use* land, but it takes others' recognition of his title for him to own it.



> or even to propose an LVT tax regime on all land.


That does not require others, but makes no sense for a man alone.



> I am also "naturally at liberty" to plant and harvest my own garden,


Congratulations!  You got one right!



> or sneak into my neighbors yard to harvest his for myself.


Nope.  You can't do it alone.  For you deprive your neighbor of products of his labor that he would otherwise have, he has to supply the products.



> I am "naturally at liberty" to do all these things, Roy - not because I "may" (license, permission) do these things, and not because it is necessarily my right, but simple _because I can_.


Nope.  YOU CAN'T DO THEM WITHOUT OTHERS' ASSISTANCE.



> That is what "naturally at liberty" means, having nothing whatsoever to do with right or wrong, good or bad, legitimacy or illegitimacy.  So you are correct. It is truly 'self-evident'.


I thought it was, but I guess not....



> On the other hand, I am *"artificially at liberty"* to do only those things which are lawful.


Appeal to law is question begging in a discussion of public policy.  Law is supposed to secure and reconcile people's rights.  It does not define those rights.



> When you use the phrase "naturally at liberty", however, you don't mean simply that one "can", or even that "they otherwise physically could".


Right.  I mean they can do it without any help from others.



> For you it has an extended meaning - one which you also believe is "self-evident" - as what you have termed a _Natural Liberty Right_.   That is where "a natural physical capacity" is _selectively conflated_ to imply a "natural liberty right".


No, unlike the *fact* of liberty, the *right* to liberty is not self-evident.



> *NATURAL* - Adj. _Existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind._
> 
> Correct?


Yes.  But one must be careful here, as while humankind is itself a product of nature (evolution), what we do is not.  It's a bit subtle.



> *LIBERTY* - Noun.   
> 
> The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life.An instance of this; a right or privilege, esp. a statutory one.


No, the natural right to liberty is more basic than that.



> And we could go to Webster:
> [*]the quality or state of being free[*]the power to do as one pleases [*]freedom from physical restraint


This is probably closest, but is not clear that physical restraint imposed by nature -- one can't fly by flapping one's arms -- is not a violation of liberty.  We mean freedom from physical restraint BY OTHER PEOPLE.



> [*]freedom from arbitrary or despotic control [*]the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges [*]the power of choice


What we were talking about was freedom from initiation of force by others.  This is a technical sense of the term that probably won't be found in ordinary dictionaries.



> So it is clear that liberty is power, freedom or enjoyment in some form.  Now you have to choose which definition you mean, Roy (even if from another source - you can provide that). And that choice will determine whether the phrase "Natural Liberty Right", as you intend it, is a self-evident truth or a self-contradictory oxymoron.


It's neither.  It's a contingent fact. 



> Now, Natural Liberty Right begins with the word "natural", which implies that the following word, liberty, is also natural in origin. Because if you choose a definition that is artificial, then the term "Natural Liberty" is immediately rendered as a meaningless, self-contradictory oxymoron: a _Natural Artificial_. So I assume that your are talking about a "natural" capacity, power, or ability, and not an artificial privilege or grant?


This gets tricky.  There are legal rights (uninteresting and irrelevant here), societal rights (constraints that societies impose by consensus on their members' actions towards each other, which laws normally try to formalize as public policy), and natural rights, the societal rights we would have if people were all wise and honest, and knew all they had to know to understand rights.



> *RIGHT* - Noun
> 
> a just claim or title, whether legal, prescriptive, or moral: You have a right to say what you please.that which is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles, etc.: women's rights; Freedom of speech is a right of all Americans.adherence or obedience to moral and legal principles and authority.that which is morally, legally, or ethically proper: to know right from wrong.a moral, ethical, or legal principle considered as an underlying cause of truth, justice, morality, or ethics. 
> 
> The word RIGHT is where you get into trouble, Roy.  All rights are artificial.


Legal and societal rights are artificial.  Natural rights arise from the facts of human nature, which are products of evolution, not human artifice (leave aside that our human ancestors influenced each other's evolution in various ways -- it wasn't deliberate).



> Likewise, all morality.  There is no such thing as a "natural right".


I have defined natural rights above.  We do not know for certain what they are, but they are facts of nature, not products of human artifice.



> Even if you looked at the animal kingdom as being a realm where absolutely everything is done as a matter of a "natural liberty right", you would have to conclude that murder, rape, theft, slavery, cannibalism, are all "natural liberty rights".


Social animals could be said to have rights among themselves, corresponding to their instinctive behavior restraints, but that is not like conscious human rights.



> In which case land ownership, which you consider theft, is actually a "natural liberty right" - just as theft is.  And even murder.  The only way to make it otherwise is to actually MAKE it otherwise.  So rights can be declared, acknowledged, rationalized, enforced, etc., and I have no problem with that - but there is nothing "natural" about them.


There is no natural liberty to do things that require others to provide victims.



> There is no property of nature that equates to a "right", and no property of nature that shows intrinsic morality.  All human rights are manufactured.


I disagree with this view, as explained above.  Natural rights are properties of human nature.  They are essentially facts we don't know yet.



> OR else they are not, in which case there is as much of a "natural liberty right" to land ownership as there is an LVT.


Neither landowning nor LVT is natural.



> *Natural* (objective reality) *Liberty* (objective reality) *Right* (subjective, artificial) 
> 
> What you cannot do is declare that: *NATURAL + NATURAL + ARTIFICIAL = NATURAL*


I have explained the sense in which natural rights are not artificial: they are products of human nature, not human artifice.



> In other words, a NATURAL LIBERTY is not "self-evidently" a RIGHT.


I agree.  Rights are not self-evident.



> Care to clarify?  At the very least, please define (specifically) what you mean by the following terms. 
> [*]Natural


Not a product of human artifice.



> [*]Liberty


Not constrained by others' initiation of force.



> [*]Right


Societal constraint on its members' behavior with respect to each other.

----------


## Roy L

> Land is not "owned" by the government in Hong Kong.


It is indisputably owned by the government, and you are just flat-out lying.

STOP LYING!



> It is leased to owners by the government.


That is an absurd self-contradiction.  All that is happening here is that you have realized Hong Kong proves you wrong, so you have no choice but to lie about it.  And so you are lying about it.  Simple.



> This is not significantly different than the system that exists here.


It is *utterly* different.  You are either deeply ignorant of Hong Kong, or lying.



> Production is aided by land ownership because the owner has incentive to care for it and be productive.


No, he does not.  He has no incentive whatever to do anything but pocket the rent from the high bidder:

"The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive, way for a capitalist to increase his fortune is to put all his monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie



> Google William Bradford.


Google, "ignoratio elenchi."  I've already explained to you why Bradford's claims are irrelevant.



> Still wrong.  Private land ownership always works.


No, it always creates inefficiency, parasitism, injustice and economic instability.  You saw how landowning "works" three years ago, when it almost destroyed the world economy.  



> Google "Tragedy Of The Commons".


*ROTFL!!  Garrett Hardin, the author of "Tragedy of the Commons,"  advocated land value taxation!*  You are destroyed.



> Also consider the failure of collectivization of property/land in the Soviet Union.


I have.  You haven't.  The Soviet Union collectivized products of labor as well as land, so that's like claiming wine is poisonous because some people have had poison mixed into their wine.  In fact, the Soviet Union was largely fed by the produce of "private plots": but the difference between collective farms and private plots was not in who owned the land (it was all state owned) but in who owned the *crops*.

You are again destroyed.



> Did you know that smog and air pollution in Hong Kong is causing a brain drain and talent diaspora? The root cause seems to be soot created from mainland factories who are not held liable for their negative externalties (1).  Were the property privately owned, this problem wouldn't exist.


Such claims are just profoundly stupid.  Pollution is even worse in India, where the land IS privately owned.



> You keep claiming history proves the "evils" and "failure" of land ownership, but it doesn't.


Of course it does.  Private landowner privilege destroyed ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom; it destroyed Athens; it destroyed the Western Roman Empire; it destroyed China at least three times; it destroyed Vietnam; it destroyed Russia; it destroyed France's ancien regime; it destroyed Mexico; the list goes on and on.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
> 
> ROY: "A self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality -- that people are naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided.
> 
> I agree with that on its face. Naturally At Liberty, taken at face value only, simply implies that you are physically capable of walking up and making physical use of all that nature has provided.
> 
> 
> Right. Capable of doing so WITHOUT ANY HELP FROM OTHERS, and free to do so unless someone else initiates force to stop you, thus depriving you of what you would otherwise have.


Well, that last was a boatload of begged questions, but I can't move forward on the rest until this one is examined, especially in light of this statement:   

*"...one must be careful here, as while humankind is itself a product of nature (evolution), what we do is not. It's a bit subtle."*

A bit subtle? A bit subtle can mean vague, obscure, dependent on one's perspective, not well thought out, or it can even be the stuff of lies. 

I don't buy into the idea that whatever happens with all life on Earth, including human thought and action, was not a product of nature.  That is self-evident to me, with no ambiguity in my mind, or need to "be careful". I would not buy into a any anthro-flattery that suggested otherwise, or tried to exempt us from what we are.  I accept that we are more evolved, more capable of reason, and powers of negotiation, and a host of other capacities that are not enjoyed by any other forms of life - but I still include these as yet another product of nature. 

Part of "all that nature provided" _is humans_ - that to me is as self-evident as the so-called "self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality -- that people are naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided." 

Where the wheels fall off: 

"Right. Capable of doing so WITHOUT ANY HELP FROM OTHERS, and free to do so unless someone else initiates force to stop you, thus depriving you of what you would otherwise have."

So you'll have to explain that one. A criminal is "naturally at liberty", which to me means _only_ that he has "the natural physical capacity" to commit a crime against someone.  But you appear to have a different definition, or at least a different stated intent which is not clear, for what "naturally at liberty" means.  Somehow, in your mind, to be "naturally at liberty" precludes other human involvement. The reason is unstated, but somehow this is also a "self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality."  That is a case you have not made.  

Also, you stated that you had "defined natural rights, above" (several re-readings and I still could not find the definition you alluded to), but in the very next sentence you say that "We do not know for certain what [natural rights] are...".  And yet somehow, despite not knowing with any certainty what natural rights are, you claim that these are "self-evident" "facts of nature"? I have yet to see you articulate what, exactly, makes it "self-evident" and "indisputable".

----------


## eduardo89

> "Why, if you want your liberty, Uncle Tom, why don't you offer to buy or rent it from me?"


Garbage.

Liberty is not the same as land. No one can own your liberty. You can't compare buying or renting land from someone to buying or renting your freedom of speech or life. 

Don't be ridiculous.

----------


## Roy L

> Liberty is not the same as land.


But owning land unilaterally removes others' liberty just as owning a slave does.  The only difference between owning land and owning a slave is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's liberty, while when you own land, you remove one of all people's liberties.



> No one can own your liberty.


Wrong.  Every landowner owns part of your liberty.  If you are a slave, one person owns all your liberty.  That makes it easier to understand that slavery means someone else owns your liberty, but it is just as true for landowning.



> You can't compare buying or renting land from someone to buying or renting your freedom of speech or life.


I just did, and I have proved the similarity is very close.



> Don't be ridiculous.


We have been through this before.  If Crusoe owns the island, he can give Friday the choice of being his slave, or getting back in the water.  He owns Friday's liberty.  Every landowner is privileged to charge others a fee for exercising their liberty.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Garbage.
> 
> Liberty is not the same as land. No one can own your liberty. You can't compare buying or renting land from someone to buying or renting your freedom of speech or life. 
> 
> Don't be ridiculous.


There you go using logic.  Roy L will not have that!!!11!

----------


## Roy L

> I don't buy into the idea that whatever happens with all life on Earth, including human thought and action, was not a product of nature.  That is self-evident to me, with no ambiguity in my mind, or need to "be careful". I would not buy into a any anthro-flattery that suggested otherwise, or tried to exempt us from what we are.  I accept that we are more evolved, more capable of reason, and powers of negotiation, and a host of other capacities that are not enjoyed by any other forms of life - but I still include these as yet another product of nature.


In the absolute sense, that is true.  But if that's all you are willing to say, then everything is natural and nothing is artificial.  Which is obviously question begging.

The reason we make a distinction between natural and artificial is that we control what we do.  We can change it (not getting into free will vs determinism).  Nature is a given (its supply is fixed).  What we do with it is not.



> Part of "all that nature provided" _is humans_ - that to me is as self-evident as the so-called "self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality -- that people are naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided."


We are something nature provided, but what we do is by definition not.  That's what the distinction between natural and artificial MEANS.  And being in society, apart from nature, is part of what it means to be human.  Every human being who is not a sociopath is aware that  fellow members of his society are not to be treated the way they treat animals that are a gift from nature.  One's fellows are not to be hunted, captured, killed and eaten, because that way lies extinction.



> Where the wheels fall off: 
> 
> "Right. Capable of doing so WITHOUT ANY HELP FROM OTHERS, and free to do so unless someone else initiates force to stop you, thus depriving you of what you would otherwise have."
> 
> So you'll have to explain that one. A criminal is "naturally at liberty", which to me means _only_ that he has "the natural physical capacity" to commit a crime against someone.  But you appear to have a different definition, or at least a different stated intent which is not clear, for what "naturally at liberty" means.  Somehow, in your mind, to be "naturally at liberty" precludes other human involvement. The reason is unstated, but somehow this is also a "self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality."  That is a case you have not made.


It is self-evident that if you need someone else's help or even just their presence to do something, it is not something you are naturally at liberty to do.  Nature is not enough.  You need human (i.e., artificial) help. 



> Also, you stated that you had "defined natural rights, above" (several re-readings and I still could not find the definition you alluded to),


"...natural rights, the societal rights we would have if people were all wise and honest, and knew all they had to know to understand rights."



> but in the very next sentence you say that "We do not know for certain what [natural rights] are...".  And yet somehow, despite not knowing with any certainty what natural rights are, you claim that these are "self-evident" "facts of nature"?


I have stated repeatedly that rights are not self-evident.  The FACT of natural liberty is self-evident.  The RIGHT to liberty is not.  We can define the character of natural rights without knowing exactly what they are.  Consider prime numbers.  We know what they are in terms of their definition, but we don't know if any given number is prime until we factor it.  In the same way, we know WHAT natural rights are without knowing WHICH they are.

----------


## Roy L

> There you go using logic.


No, he is merely refusing to know facts that prove him wrong.  That is the antithesis of using logic.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> In the absolute sense, that is true.  But if that's all you are willing to say, then everything is natural and nothing is artificial.  Which is obviously question begging.


In this case, I don't mind the begged questions. You can ask, and I will entertain them.  

Strictly speaking, it is not that "nothing is artificial", but rather that _everything_ is natural (produced by or existing in nature), _including_ that which is artificial. Like specie to phylum.  

Artificial, from the root "artifice" is merely a causal distinction, based on action, or evidence of demonstrated action. Humans are natural, which makes "artificial" nothing but a descriptive subset of _the fruits of the natural as it relates to humans_.  It is all natural in the broadest sense of the word, just as all actions and behavior in the animal kingdom can be said to be an artifice of that particular member.  When we see a wasp nest, a bird nest or beaver dam, we classify these as "natural" only because they are not "human" caused. However, _these are the artifices_ of wasps, birds, and beavers. They are every bit as artificial, strictly speaking, as a straw hut (an inverted nest) or fired clay pot is an artifice of humans.   




> The reason we make a distinction between natural and artificial is that we control what we do.


Artificial has more ramifications than mere control. It is also a question of our capacity for reason, preference, adaptation, etc., and to make deterministic choices regarding our own survival. From an omniscient secular point of view, we are nothing more than _the most clever of all rat-types_ to evolve on the planet, given the variety of our possible food requirements, the range of climates we can exist in, and our practically infinite capacity for creativity in devising means for survival.  




> We can change it (not getting into free will vs determinism).  Nature is a given (its supply is fixed).  What we do with it is not.


The land area of the Earth is both vast and fixed (on human space and timescales).  The supply of minerals and potential food supplies on Earth are not infinite, but _they are anything but fixed_, based largely on our ability to adapt and synthesize both, in addition to a limited but never-ending (in a human time frame) stream of sunlight.  That makes food an ongoing cycle of life and death, as the progeny of human ancestors continue to feed on the progeny of corn, cows and chicken ancestors, even as the maggot and other progeny of flies, worms and microbe ancestors continue to feed on us all.  There is absolutely _nothing_ fixed about any of it.     




> And being in society, apart from nature, is part of what it means to be human.


There is no such thing as "apart from nature".  There is no escape from nature for humans, who, like all other biological classes on Earth, must control, partake of and be a part of nature to survive. However, let's touch on _"being in society is part of what it means to be a human"_.  This is true, but not true in the absolute, and not comprehensive at all.   

Society, as an abstract, just happens to be far more complex for humans than for other animals, based on our highly evolved adaptability as a species (meaning, at the root, _inherent and seeded within each person_), and the potential for entire societies exist within every seeded/fertile man/woman pair. As such, there is no single "society" that can describe or even govern all humans, although many are presumptuous enough to make and project their attempts - there are far too many variables involved, the largest (and arguably the most important) of which _are the individuals themselves_. Not "the people" - "the persons"  - that herd of cats that pointy-headed control freaks like to refer to, and want to define, manipulate and control, in the aggregate.  

The entire animal kingdom, with no exceptions, has a territorial component.  Human territoriality manifests and varies widely, depending on circumstances, climate, resource scarcity, individual preferences and the like. We are by no means homogeneous in this respect. We have massive clusters of humans living in hive-like conditions with hive-like behavior (and mentalities) in the more densely populated areas. They are NOT autonomous by any means, but are utterly and massively dependent on outside sources they must control for basic survival needs. Is that "society"?  No, it is but _one type of human society_, but not the only trick up the human DNA sleeve for survival.  There are eggs-in-one-basket risks to humans on the whole when they densely cluster together like that, just as there are risks to individuals when they separate themselves from the larger numbers of "huddled masses" and live in more sparsely populated areas.    

Because so many humans live in hive-like conditions, there are many who cannot conceive of society except from their own limited hive mentality - which they tend to project onto the rest of humanity (e.g., "We are all in it together." - the mantra of the hive).  




> Every human being who is not a sociopath is aware that  fellow members of his society are not to be treated the way they treat animals that are a gift from nature.  One's fellows are not to be hunted, captured, killed and eaten, because that way lies extinction.


You are reasoning this through as moral constraints on a normative level (e.g., "One's fellows are not to be..."), but it is nonetheless incorrect.  We hunt, capture, kill and eat cows every day, and they are far from extinct, _because we farm them_.   Humans, and human labor, are cultivated and farmed every day - and the propensity to encourage that is especially prevalent and facilitated by the more centralized hive-based humans, who tend to view and refer to the hive as if it were a living, breathing entity in itself (e.g. "the economy"), and the humans therein as individual, albeit potentially useful, body cells - or human "resources".  

One huge lie often employed, or inferred as somehow applicable to all: that everyone's existence depends upon the success and healthiness, not on individuals, but _on the hive_. That one lie is at the root of communism, socialism and fascism, all of which negate the value of the individual and the FACT that individuals have full, brand new societies seeded within them.  The entire forest can burn to sterile dust - it can DIE - but let a couple of seeds escape, and you have the potential for a brand new forest.  So much for the value of that once grand and "necessary" former entity, except as a temporary facilitator of individuals, and a producer of individual seeds - some of which actually do stand a chance of surviving.    

Slavery was the hunting, capturing, and cannibalization of the quality and choice of individual lives. Slavery did not cause an extinction, but rather a breeding proliferation based on its value to those who benefited therefrom. What is more, we don't have to physically hunt, capture, or kill or eat anyone to survive or derive benefit from other humans, in ways that can effectively enslave _without anyone's knowledge or consent_.  We are highly evolved, doncha know. We can creatively effect and avail ourselves of laws that force humans to hunt, capture, kill and otherwise provide for others in the name of "society" or "the people". 

Humans have some fairly universal rules for individual behavior (don't murder, don't steal, etc.,), and yet many have also managed to fool themselves into believing that "society", whatever that means, is under a different set of rules than the individuals who make it up.  That is one of the most evil lies ever invented or swallowed by humans.  




> It is self-evident that if you need someone else's help or even just their presence to do something, it is not something you are naturally at liberty to do.  Nature is not enough.  You need human (i.e., artificial) help.


That is absolute nonsense. "Naturally at liberty" is a quality that is inherent, to whatever degree, in each individual, just as it is in each animal.  Multiple gorillas, chimpanzees or tigers in the same cage are NATURALLY AT LIBERTY to leave one another alone, steal food from one another, or even to kill one another. That is self-evident, regardless whether or not they actually do steal or kill, and regardless whether it involves another member of the same species.  Likewise, inmates in a prison population are NATURALLY AT LIBERTY to kill one another, and even enslave one another - _and often do_.  

It is somehow "self-evident" to you (as "the FACT of liberty") that one is _"no longer naturally at liberty"_ if it involved other humans.  How that is true? I have no idea, and you have not explained it.  

Oh, and not "with their help" - a man who knocks you unconscious and takes your belongings doesn't require "help". Your belongings may "help" him, but it wasn't "with your help" - he merely helped himself to what was yours.  Likewise a slave does not "supply" their body, their life, their labor to those who take it by force - that really is self-evident.  A person is "naturally at liberty" to kill a dog or a human, but this is only self-evident because it was in that person's demonstrated capacity to do so, and nothing more. And, like you said, "naturally at liberty" has nothing to with rights. It is only a matter of physical capacity and opportunity only. I fail to see, therefore, how some magical _"no longer naturally at liberty"_ clause in the universe kicks in the moment a "special" animal called a human being is involved.  




> "...natural rights, the societal rights we would have if people were all wise and honest, and knew all they had to know to understand rights."


That's another boatload of begged questions, but also using completely circular reasoning, as we begin with the assumption that Roy L. is wise and honest, and understands rights - while those who differ from his views, his vision and understanding, are "unwise", "dishonest", and "do not understand rights".

----------


## Roy L

> I have tried to focus on the important issues and ignore irrelevancies (such as Roy attempting  to prove something pro-LVT with Atlas Shrugged, which clearly either he has not read or he has forgotten that in Galt's Gulch the land was owned privately and absolutely and was bought by the money of Midas Mulligan, who got it from giving loans to successful businessmen.


Mulligan was not only the owner but the *government* of "Galt's Gulch."  He -- i.e., the *government* -- owned the land and used the land rent to pay for services and infrastructure.  Like Sheik Mohammed in Dubai.

So Hong Kong proves me right and you wrong; Dubai proves me right and you wrong; and Galt's Gulch proves me right and you wrong.



> *The Question:*
> 
> *"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"*
> Production is aided by the land owner (or harmed by him) because of the good decisions (or bad ones) that he makes regarding the disposition and management of the land.


Wrong.  Production CANNOT be aided by the landowner's decisions, as the most productive user would otherwise be at liberty to use the land: if everyone had equal rights to use the land, as under LVT, whoever was willing to pay the rest the most to stay off would get to use it.  So the landowner can *ONLY harm* production by excluding the most productive user in favor of someone else.



> Allowing the market to reward his good decisions and punish his bad ones ensures that there will be a tendency for production to be aided by the landowner instead of harmed.


Nope.  Wrong _again_.  The market will indeed maximally reward him for doing nothing but accept the highest bid rather than devote the land to some other, less productive purpose; but that just means he is being paid off not to harm production, like any other protection racketeer.  Protection racketeers do not aid production by accepting payment of their extortion demands, sorry.


> Every other sector of the market functions the same way.


No, it does not, because in other sectors supply is not FIXED.  When producers pay for capital or labor, they are paying for the CREATION of those factors.  When they pay for land, by contrast, they are only paying the landowner to stay out of the way.



> Competition and consumer preference means that behavior not aiding production to satisfy humans' wants will be punished, while behavior which does will be rewarded.


We have already established that the landowner's behavior is equivalent to the protection racketeer's, or the bandit's in the pass.  He does not aid production merely by accepting money for staying out of the way, as production would proceed equally well if he had never existed.



> Mr. L. will say "But the landowner doesn't do any labor, thus he's a parasite".


Wrong AGAIN.  He's a parasite because he demands a share of production without contributing *anything* to production.  He doesn't contribute labor, because the market identifies the most productive use and the most productive user _for_ him; he doesn't contribute capital, because land isn't capital; and he doesn't contribute the land, because it was already there, ready to use, with no help from him or anyone else.  His "decision" not to be an @$$hole by reducing or blocking production on the land nature provided is not a contribution to production any more than a protection racketeer's decision not to burn down one of his victims' businesses is a contribution to production.



> Well that's just the Calvinist Smith talking.


No, it's just *you* talking.



> Everything was all about labor to Smith -- the pain of labor was good and righteous and that is what gave economic products value.  But bzzt, wrong, in fact the subjective preferences and values of humans is what gives goods value.  The labor theory of value is so shot full of holes and absurdities it's impossible for me to shoot any new ones in it.  So anyway, it's wrong.


Which might be why I have never advocated it.  You are simply lying about what I have plainly written.



> Labor is irrelevant to value.  If I can satisfy millions of consumers by doing no labor whatsoever, then of course I should get paid tremendously for it.  I deserve it!


If the "no labor" you "do" to satisfy millions of consumers is simply refraining from robbing them, then no, you DO NOT deserve it.



> The end goal is millions of satisfied humans, not some kind of ascetic labor for the sake of labor.


Stop trying to change the subject.  There are THREE factors of production, and the landowner does not contribute any of them.



> And the landowner, if he makes decisions regarding his land which satisfy his fellow humans, then obviously he's contributed to the satisfaction of his fellow humans.


No, that is one of the most evil lies ever told.  Someone who has power over others' lives does NOT contribute to the satisfaction of his fellow humans if his decision is merely a decision not to exercise his power to kill them all, because they would be just as satisfied if he had never existed.  Likewise, human satisfaction would be just as great if the landowner had never existed.



> He's created value, or "aided production" as Mr. L. phrases it.


Lie.  How is the value created any greater than if he had never existed, and the most productive user had merely paid his high bid to the community of those whom he deprived of the land, hmmmmm?

Blank out.



> But the landowner can get rich even just by leaving the land idle and that's inefficient and horrible, says Mr. L.  Well, who says leaving it idle is inefficient?


Everyone who could otherwise have used it productively to SATISFY HUMAN DESIRES.



> In many cases, that is the most efficient thing to do.


No, that is just an outrageous, grotesque, absurd, despicable lie.



> Putting improvements on the land might actually lower the value of the land for someone coming along later.


But would enable productive use in the meantime.



> Let's say you build a gas station on some land.  OK, now a couple years later it turns out that would've been a great place for an apartment complex.


That sort of thing only ever happens because of (almost always corrupt) zoning changes, not because of market changes.  No one (other than a chronic liar) denies that land speculators make money from government corruption when they hold good land out of use awaiting zoning changes.



> The apartments are a much better, more efficient use of he land, according to market preferences.


Just as they were before the speculator got the zoning changed.



> Now the gas station will need to be torn down -- it's a dis-improvement, an annoyance, and a large cost.


True: the corrupt zoning decisions that land speculators -- i.e., landOWNERS -- pay for do impose large costs on society.  But LVT removes the financial motive for such corruption.  Remove the landowner, and the *mechanism* of the corruption disappears.



> A speculator wise enough to hold it out of use and off the market for a couple more years could have saved everyone a lot of money.  That is, he could have created value.


Lie.  The gas station has been creating value in the meantime, and land speculators never, repeat, NEVER make money by successfully anticipating that the most productive use will soon be so different that land would more productively be held out of use.  What they do is get the most productive PERMITTED use changed, in order to pocket the resulting publicly created value increase.  



> Land owners perform a very important entrepreneurial function: they allocate and make ultimate decisions regarding scarce land.


Nope.  The market decides the most productive use of the land.  The landowner can only choose to contribute zero, accept the high bid, and allow it, or to make a negative contribution by not allowing it.  By your "logic," protection racketeers also perform a very important entrepreneurial function: they allocate and make ultimate decisions regarding scarce security.  And just as the protection racketeer is the one MAKING security scarce by sending his goons around to lean on his victims, the landowner/speculator is the one MAKING land scarce, by holding it out of use -- which you so stupidly, absurdly and dishonestly claim could somehow be "creating value"!



> This is not a parasitic function.


It is entirely and indisputably parasitic on the part of the landowner, as it would be performed just fine by the market in his absence.



> This is a critically important function.


Sure.  It's just a function that the landowner does not in fact perform.



> They may delegate many or all of the decision-making to managers.  Fine.  So too may the shop owner or restaurant owner delegate many or all of his decisions to managers.


The shop or restaurant owner has CONTRIBUTED CAPITAL in addition to making decisions.  The landowner HAS NOT contributed any land.



> But the owner in all cases still plays a vital role.


No, that is a _LIE_.  *WHAT WOULD STOP THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PROSPECTIVE USER FROM USING THE LAND IF THE LANDOWNER HAD NEVER EXISTED, HMMMMMMMMMM???*

We have already established that without landowners, everyone would have equal rights to use the land, so simple self-interest in a free market would ensure that all the less productive users would simply accept the most productive user's bid.  And that, in essence, is how LVT works.

Your "arguments" for the landowner's productive contribution are all just absurd, dishonest garbage.



> He must find and hire the best managers.  He must make sure the managers are doing a good job, making him lots of money.


Ooohh, riiight, it takes exceptional skill and diligence to find someone capable of figuring out which bid is the highest and depositing it in the bank every month...



> And he is always and unavoidably the ultimate manager, the manager of managers, the one with the money on the line and who determines the direction and future of the restaurant or shop or land.


You keep forgetting: the protection racketeer is *also* a manager of managers -- in fact, he is a manager of *owners*! -- he also has money on the line, and he also determines the direction and future of the shop or restaurant or land.  How, then, exactly, is the landowner making any more of a contribution to production than the protection racketeer?

Blank out.



> He must correctly anticipate consumer desires.


Lie.  The land *user* does that, not the land*owner*.



> In landowning, that means anticipating city growth trends, adopting new and innovative ways of utilizing land if they will allow better satisfaction of consumer desires, rejecting them if they will not, making connections and putting together projects (roads, electrical, water, making it all fit together, on a free market landowners would do all this, not the state;


More lies.  Land USERS do those things, not landOWNERS.  The landowner is simply paid not to get in the user's way, like the protection racketeer.  That's all.



> there's no reason to put the state in charge of roads, electrical, water, or any of those kinds of things,


In fact there are very good reasons.  You just refuse to know them.



> it will be the job of clever landowners working together to make everything fit together into urban [or rural, or suburban] spaces people will love), keeping land undeveloped when it will be most efficient to do so, developing it when that will be more efficient, and deciding what will be the best and most profitable type of development for which to use the land.


???  ROTFL!!  I.e., all the things that "clever" landowners working together have never managed to do in the whole history of the world...

What clever landowners ACTUALLY do, of course, is try to prevent productive use of _each other's_ land, to increase the unearned income they can extract from their _own_ land.



> And much more!  Landowners have a busy, busy job, a lot to do.


Lie:

"The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent."  Thomas Carlyle



> A big landowner may not be down in the trenches doing lots of manual labor improving his properties.  Instead his labor is making decisions.


I.e., deciding how much he will steal from producers, and how much he will prevent others from producing.



> Well, just so the big CEO's job is largely decision-making.


I don't think you want to go there, sunshine, as CEOs have also been very busy lately deciding how much to steal...



> Decision-making is important.


Of course, just ask the landowner or protection racketeer!  It's very important to decide that only the people who can pay the most for your "services" will get access to the opportunities you control!



> It is productive.


Unless you are a landowner or other rent-seeking parasite, and therefore only deciding by how much you will reduce production.



> It is, in fact, indispensable and probably the most productive thing one can do!


Like the contributions of that Hero of Production, the protection racketeer, who also devotes enormous, intensive labor to making decisions!

*HOW ARE THE LANDOWNER'S DECISIONS ANY MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN THE PROTECTION RACKETEER'S??*



> That is why production is aided by the landowner getting paid.


Lie, as proved above.  Production would be just the same, or even greater, if the landowner had never existed.  In the whole history of the world, production has NEVER been aided by the landowner getting paid.  Only when, like Sheik Mohammed of Dubai, the landowner decides to be something *more* than be an idle, parasitic landowner, and invest his unearned income in capital improvements that actually DO aid production, is any contribution made.  But that is only a landowner choosing to become an investor in productive capital.  Qua landowner, he has still contributed nothing whatever.



> By the way, the other side of this is that he can sustain losses, too.  Under Mr. L.'s Platonic ideal, he can't make any profit, but neither can he incur any loss.  That's bad.


Wrong _AGAIN_.  Under LVT, if the landowner does not permit the most productive use, he incurs a loss: he can't pay the land tax without dipping into his other assets, because only the most productive user can afford to pay HIM the full land rent.  That is very much the point.  You just pretend it doesn't exist.



> Via the fantastic and quasi-miraculous mechanism of profit and loss, markets reward the value-producing, punish the value-destroying, and thus get more and more of the productive and less and less of the destructive.


Except when the market is not free, and rent seekers like landowners are empowered to take value without producing any, and to destroy value without incurring commensurate losses.  But that can't happen under LVT, as the worthless and parasitic landowner simply disappears, his non-contributory extortion demands dispensed with.



> Without that incentive mechanism, there is no reason for any landowner (land-tenant under Mr. L.'s ideal) to take any risks, to go to any huge mental effort regarding his land, to do anything to try to increase the value of his land.


Landowners don't do that anyway, except as predators and corrupters of government who contrive to prevent production on each others' land in order to increase the value of their own (all the well-funded NIMBY groups are backed by rich, greedy landowners).  But the net effect of that is of course to reduce total production and increase prices, harming everyone.



> That increase will go to the nation-state; he won't see a dime.


Which is good, because he didn't earn a dime.  It is government and the community that create land value, not landowners.  You simply want the landowner to be given millions of dimes for doing nothing, as a welfare subsidy giveaway.



> Also the best landowners will not be able to progressively control more and more land while the worst lose more and more to their superiors outcompeting them.


As happens in landowning utopias like Mexico, Paraguay, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Pakistan, etc., where a handful of wealthy families own most of the land, and the results are plain to see -- except that you *refuse* to see  them.



> There is still an incentive mechanism in the ability to make profit or loss on the _improvements_, Mr. L. will belaboringly remind us, but there will not be any such mechanism on the land itself.  The loss of that mechanism will cause the land allocation to become, eventually, crummy.


Nope.  That's just brainless nonsense with no basis in fact.  The landowner does not affect the land's value, government and the community do.

----------


## Roy L

> Strictly speaking, it is not that "nothing is artificial", but rather that _everything_ is natural (produced by or existing in nature), _including_ that which is artificial. Like specie to phylum.


So your "argument" consists of a claim that what is artificial is in fact natural.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

The more interesting corollary of Voltaire's penetrating observation is that those who would make you commit atrocities must first make you believe absurdities.  Your absurdity above is intended to enable commission of the atrocity I call the Annual Holocaust of the Landless.



> Artificial, from the root "artifice" is merely a causal distinction, based on action, or evidence of demonstrated action. Humans are natural, which makes "artificial" nothing but a descriptive subset of _the fruits of the natural as it relates to humans_.  It is all natural in the broadest sense of the word, just as all actions and behavior in the animal kingdom can be said to be an artifice of that particular member.  When we see a wasp nest, a bird nest or beaver dam, we classify these as "natural" only because they are not "human" caused. However, _these are the artifices_ of wasps, birds, and beavers. They are every bit as artificial, strictly speaking, as a straw hut (an inverted nest) or fired clay pot is an artifice of humans.


That is stupid, dishonest garbage beneath refutation.



> The land area of the Earth is both vast and fixed (on human space and timescales).  The supply of minerals and potential food supplies on Earth are not infinite, but _they are anything but fixed_, based largely on our ability to adapt and synthesize both, in addition to a limited but never-ending (in a human time frame) stream of sunlight.  That makes food an ongoing cycle of life and death, as the progeny of human ancestors continue to feed on the progeny of corn, cows and chicken ancestors, even as the maggot and other progeny of flies, worms and microbe ancestors continue to feed on us all.  There is absolutely _nothing_ fixed about any of it.


What nature provides is fixed in supply, in the economic sense, as by definition it cannot be increased by labor and does not respond to price.



> There is no such thing as "apart from nature".


You are just redefining terms to erase the central facts.



> The entire animal kingdom, with no exceptions, is territorial.


A false, brainless and absurd claim, as well as an irrelevant one.



> You are reasoning this through on a normative level, but it is nonetheless incorrect.


No, it is objectively correct.



> We hunt, capture, kill and eat cows every day, and they are far from extinct, _because we farm them_.


And on your planet, that might even be relevant....

Nahh.



> The biggest lie employed, or inferred as somehow applicable to all: that everyone's existence depends upon the success and healthiness, not on individuals, but on the hive.


<sigh>  But of course, no one claims that.  Obviously, a given individual can sometimes gain personal success by being a traitor, and betraying one's own society.

But it is indisputable that the success of human GENES is closely related to the health and success of the societies in which they occur.  For almost all of human history and especially prehistory, the death of one's society through defeat in war or some other calamity was a far greater blow to one's genetic survival than one's own individual death, because it meant the death or reproductive failure of so many close relatives.



> Slavery was the hunting, capturing, and cannibalization of the quality and choice of individual lives - it did not cause an extinction, but rather a breeding proliferation based on its value to those who benefited therefrom.


But it was done *between* societies, not *within* societies.



> What is more, we don't have to physically hunt, capture, or kill or eat anyone to survive or derive benefit from other humans, in ways that can effectively enslave _without their knowledge or consent_.  We are highly evolved, doncha know. We can creatively effect and avail ourselves of laws that cause humans to hunt, capture, kill and otherwise provide for others in the name of "society" or "the people".


But do so most frequently in the name of landowning.



> Humans have some fairly universal rules for individual behavior (don't kill, don't steal, etc.,), and yet many have also managed to fool themselves into believing that "society", whatever that means, is under a different set of rules than the individuals who make it up.  That is one of the most evil lies ever invented or swallowed by humans.


But compared to the lie that nature can rightly be private property, it is a bedtime story.



> That is absolute nonsense.


It is objective fact.



> "Naturally at liberty" is a quality inherent, to whatever degree, in each individual, just as it is in each animal.  Multiple gorillas, chimpanzees or tigers in the same cage are NATURALLY AT LIBERTY to leave one another alone, steal food from one another, or even to kill one another.


Being naturally at liberty would not include being in a cage.  You are spewing absurdities in an effort not to know facts that prove you wrong.



> That is self-evident, regardless whether or not they actually do kill, and regardless whether it involve another member of their species.  Likewise, inmates in a prison population are NATURALLY AT LIBERTY to kill one another, and even enslave one another - _and often do_.


No, one cannot be naturally at liberty to do something that requires another's help.  What if they don't help you?



> It is somehow "self-evident" to you (as "the FACT of liberty") that one is _"no longer naturally at liberty"_ if it involved other humans.  How that is true? I have no idea, and you have not explained it.


Yes, I have.  One is not naturally at liberty to do things that require others' assistance, because they might not agree.  



> Oh, and not "with their help" - a man who knocks you unconscious and takes your belongings doesn't require "help".


Yes, he does.  You have to help him by being there and having belongings.  If you don't, he can't do it.



> Your belongings may "help" him, but it wasn't "with your help" - he merely helped himself to what was yours.


Which he could not have done if you had not provided it.



> Likewise a slave does not "supply" their body, their life, their labor to those who take it by force - that really is self-evident.


If he is not there -- and to be there, he must sustain his own life -- he can't be enslaved.  THAT is self-evident.



> A person is "naturally at liberty" to kill a dog or a human, but this is only self-evident because it was in that person's demonstrated capacity to do so, and nothing more.


I have already explained to you that we use different terms for "naturally at liberty" and "physically able" because we mean different things by those two terms.  Try to find a willingness to know that fact.



> And, like you said, "naturally at liberty" has nothing to with rights. It is only a matter of physical capacity and opportunity only. I fail to see, therefore, how some magical _"no longer naturally at liberty"_ clause in the universe kicks in the moment a "special" animal called a human being is involved.


That's what we MEAN by "natural" and "not natural." 



> That's another boatload of begged questions, but also using completely circular reasoning, as we begin with the assumption that Roy L. is wise and honest, and understands rights - while those who differ from his views, his vision and understanding, are "unwise", "dishonest", and "do not understand rights".


Well, this thread is certainly proof enough of THAT.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
> 
> That's another boatload of begged questions, but also using completely circular reasoning, as we begin with the assumption that Roy L. is wise and honest, and understands rights - while those who differ from his views, his vision and understanding, are "unwise", "dishonest", and "do not understand rights".
> 
> 
> Well, this thread is certainly proof enough of THAT.


Well, at least we agree on that much!  

And we also agree that "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

I don't think we're in any danger of that here, do you? 




> That is stupid, dishonest garbage beneath refutation. You are just redefining terms to erase the central facts. A false, brainless and absurd claim, as well as an irrelevant one. And on your planet, that might even be relevant....But compared to the lie that nature can rightly be private property, it is a bedtime story. It is objective fact.  You are spewing absurdities in an effort not to know facts that prove you wrong. Try to find a willingness to know that fact.


Those aren't responses, Roy. You turtled.  

No matter how tightly you close your eyes, nobody really disappears, and everyone can still see you.

----------


## redbluepill

nvm

----------


## Roy L

> And we also agree that "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire
> 
> I don't think we're in any danger of that here, do you?


Depends what you mean by "here."  I have identified the fact that you are concocting absurdities to provide rationalizations for an annual Holocaust.  I think that qualifies as an atrocity.



> Those aren't responses, Roy.


They most certainly are.  They identify the objective nature of your "arguments."



> You turtled.


Lie.  I refuted every substantive claim you made, and identified the absurd and/or dishonest ones that weren't worth refuting.  YOU are the one who has turtled, ignoring every single factual refutation of your claims.

----------


## Steven Douglas

I don't remember who said it, and I am too lazy to look it up, but there is a saying that says, in essence, "...anyone who is forced to change their opinion is still of that same opinion." 

Clear and successful communication is incumbent on both the sender and the receiver. You don't seem to be concerned about all the "faulty" receivers that you encounter. It is sufficient for you to know that you are an intact and functioning transmitter, and that they are defective; that you have communicated everything clearly, and that the problems of reception are inherent to all of them. Thus, they lie, they are not wise, they are not honest, and they "do not understand all they need to know". 




I can say that what you are championing has definite appeal to many, though not necessarily for the reasons you espouse, but rather for the politico-economic power redistribution opportunities it provides. I wish you luck, not on the success of your ideas, which I think are absurd, but on your ability to someday communicate them clearly - as others see clearly, and not just to your personal satisfaction.

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## Sola_Fide

This thread, like a horrible car accident, is so hard to look away from...even though you know its best to turn away



Lies!

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## WilliamC



----------


## eduardo89

> This thread, like a horrible car accident, is so hard to look away from...even though you know its best to turn away
> 
> 
> 
> Lies!


Garbage. You clearly are just apologizing for evil greedy landlords, you know you're wrong and that Roy has destroyed all your arguments with his infallible logic.

----------


## Steven Douglas

It's been fun for me. I like seeing how other people think, even if it is nothing more than a big crash in the making - or the aftermath of a crash that has already happened.

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## Sola_Fide

> It's been fun for me. I like seeing how other people think, even if it is nothing more than a big crash in the making - or the aftermath of a crash that has already happened.


I like to do that too Steven.  Seeing how other people think and testing your worldview in the arena of ideas is one of the pleasures in life.

----------


## Roy L

> I don't remember who said it, and I am too lazy to look it up, but there is a saying that says, in essence, "...anyone who is forced to change their opinion is still of that same opinion."


How many more times, and in how many more different ways, would I have to prove you wrong before you would become willing to consider the possibility that you actually ARE wrong?  



> Clear and successful communication is incumbent on both the sender and the receiver. You don't seem to be concerned about all the "faulty" receivers that you encounter.


I am very concerned about them, not least for the fates of their immortal souls.  But there is nothing that can be done on the transmitter's side to fix a faulty receiver.



> It is sufficient for you to know that you are an intact and functioning transmitter, and that they are defective; that you have communicated everything clearly, and that the problems of reception are inherent to all of them. Thus, they lie, they are not wise, they are not honest, and they "do not understand all they need to know".


Dishonesty, foolishness and ignorance are not the only reasons apologists for landowner privilege refuse to know the facts that prove LVT is not only the best possible tax but absolutely necessary to genuine liberty and justice.  There are also cowardice, indolence, pride, gluttony, avarice and lust.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> This thread, like a horrible car accident, is so hard to look away from...even though you know its best to turn away
> 
> 
> 
> Lies!


yep, this ^^

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Garbage. You clearly are just apologizing for evil greedy landlords, you know you're wrong and that Roy has destroyed all your arguments with his infallible logic.


lolz!! +rep

----------


## Steven Douglas

> How many...times...would I have to prove you wrong before you would become willing to consider the possibility that you actually ARE wrong?


One.

----------


## Roy L

> One.


No, that is a *lie*, Steven.  I have proved you wrong dozens of times, you know it, and you still *refuse to consider* the possibility that you actually ARE wrong.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, that is a *lie*, Steven.  I have proved you wrong dozens of times, you know it, and you still *refuse to consider* the possibility that you actually ARE wrong.


I've followed this thread a while, and you haven't proved him wrong.  Sorry.

----------


## Roy L

> I've followed this thread a while, and you haven't proved him wrong.  Sorry.


Of course I have.  Repeatedly.  Don't be ridiculous.

Just as one example, in post #1020 Steven claimed Hong Kong is the most expensive place in the world to live.  He was wrong and I proved him wrong.  He has also made many false claims about what I have plainly written, which I have also proved wrong.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Just as one example, in post #1020 Steven claimed Hong Kong is the most expensive place in the world to live.  He was wrong and I proved him wrong.  He has also made many false claims about what I have plainly written, which I have also proved wrong.


I didn't cede that, Roy; I just didn't pursue it, since you seemed _so incredibly clueless_ to the fact that your rebuttal was such a strong argument _against LVT_. You hold Hong Kong as a model exemplar on one hand, and yet yourself _proved_ that it was prone to manipulation and abuse, to wit:  (emphasis added)




> No, HK may be the most expensive place to* buy a house*, but millions of ordinary working people manage to live there quite well and at modest cost, most of them in publicly owned housing.  The HK government has unfortunately been following *a policy of artificially restricting supply to increase its land revenue*, shoveling vast unearned wealth into landholders' pockets, rather than just increasing the fraction of rent it recovers and thus reducing the welfare subsidy to landholders.


And you were completely dishonest there as well, talking to someone who knows firsthand what the cost of living is like in Hong Kong. The "most expensive place to *buy a house*" (your words), does in fact translate, at the very least, to one of the most expensive places on Earth to live. 

You have obviously not lived in Hong Kong, Roy, where the cost of living, including rents, is anything but "modest", even with publicly owned housing - unless you are referring to a Kowloon-style stacked crackerbox firetrap.  Then yeah, I guess $200 a month for an 18-square-foot partitioned slum space that you can barely lie down in, and which really does put your life in danger, might qualify as "modest".  

You didn't destroy my claim, Roy, so much as you destroyed your own position, using Hong Kong as a prime example of how LVT somehow works well, even though, "unfortunately", as you said, it does not in fact work well at all, given that it is *"shoveling vast unearned wealth into landholders' pockets"*. So I guess "owning" land isn't the only way that can happen? 

Yeah, the LVT really works well -- when it works, I guess -- if the government that controls it would only follow a better policy? But of course, your version of that system would be the ideal, and would follow a better policy (as long as you are the one controlling it) because you are wise and honest, and know all that we need to know to make it so.  Well, Hail And Long Live The Beneficent King Roy L., but the rest of the world just isn't there yet.  Until it is, I think I'll pass on support for a system that gives government that kind of discretionary control, so prone to manipulation and abuses. I already have history as a guide to know where that leads.  

Governments are run by self-interested individuals, Roy.  Any public system, including one that doles out land use rights to the highest bidder, but is still run by individuals, needs equally powerful checks and balances by the individuals it governs - at the individual level.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I didn't cede that, Roy; I just didn't pursue it, since you seemed _so incredibly clueless_ to the fact that your rebuttal was such a strong argument _against LVT_. You hold Hong Kong as a model example on one hand, and yet yourself _proved_ that it was prone to manipulation and abuse, to wit:  (emphasis added)
> 
> 
> 
> And you were completely dishonest there as well, talking to someone who knows firsthand what the cost of living is like in Hong Kong. The "most expensive place to *buy a house*" (your words), does in fact translate, at the very least, to one of the most expensive places on Earth to live. 
> 
> You have obviously not lived in Hong Kong, Roy, where the cost of living, including rents, is anything but "modest", even with publicly owned housing - unless, in fact, you are referring to a Kowloon-style stacked crackerbox firetrap.  Then yeah, I guess $200 a month for an 18-square-foot partitioned slum space that you can barely lie down in might qualify as "modest".  
> 
> You didn't destroy my claim, Roy, so much as you destroyed your own position, using Hong Kong as a prime example of how LVT somehow works well, even though, "unfortunately", as you said, it does not in fact work well at all, given that it is *"shoveling vast unearned wealth into landholders' pockets"*. 
> ...


Bravissimo! +rep

----------


## Roy L

> I didn't cede that, Roy;


I don't care if you ceded it or not.  You were objectively wrong, and I proved you wrong.  Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...iate_employees

Mercer ranked HK ninth, but it didn't break the Economist's top ten, nor ECA's top *20*.



> I just didn't pursue it, since you seemed _so incredibly clueless_ to the fact that your rebuttal was such a strong argument _against LVT_.


Idiocy.  HK doesn't even use LVT, because the land is all publicly owned.



> You hold Hong Kong as a model exemplar on one hand,


That's a lie.  HK simply proves that private ownership of land is not necessary to liberty or prosperity, and that public ownership of land is fully compatible with having the world's freest economy as well as one of the most prosperous.  I have never said or implied that it is a model or exemplar.  That is just a lie on your part.



> and yet yourself _proved_ that it was prone to manipulation and abuse, to wit: (emphasis added)


Oh, stop lying.  HK doesn't even use LVT.  It's true that the government of HK has become more corrupt since 1997, and is giving more money away to landholders.  Far from holding it up as a model, I STATED that it was erring in trying to get revenue by pushing land prices higher rather than just recovering more of the rent.



> And you were completely dishonest there as well,


No, that's just another flat-out lie from you.



> talking to someone who knows firsthand what the cost of living is like in Hong Kong.


So what?  And how many other expensive cities?  A "comparison group" consisting of one example is not evidence.  Give your head a shake.  I have provided a reference.  All you did was misstate what your reference had plainly said.



> The "most expensive place to *buy a house*" (your words), does in fact translate, at the very least, to one of the most expensive places on Earth to live. 
> 
> You have obviously not lived in Hong Kong, Roy,


I've lived in _Tokyo_, sunshine, which is #1 in two of the three listings cited above, and #2 in the third.  You lose.



> where the cost of living, including rents, is anything but "modest", even with publicly owned housing


Wrong AGAIN, as YOUR OWN SOURCE proves:
_
Of Hong Kongs 2.34 million households, 30.8 per cent live in cheap, public rental housing, according to official figures. Another 16.2 per cent are in subsidised flats and 52.4 per cent are in private housing._



> - unless you are referring to a Kowloon-style stacked crackerbox firetrap.  Then yeah, I guess $200 a month for an 18-square-foot partitioned slum space that you can barely lie down in, and which really does put your life in danger, might qualify as "modest".


Thanks for proving your dishonesty again.  HK cubicles AREN'T publicly owned housing, they are privately owned by developers, as YOUR OWN SOURCE makes perfectly clear:

_"I no longer want to live in cubicles, especially those with hawker stalls below. I hope to move to a public housing estate," he told AFP outside a community centre set up to help survivors of the fire.
...
But many cubicle dwellers blame the government for leaving people with no option but to live in death traps, and for prioritising property developers' profits over the need for affordable housing._



> You didn't destroy my claim, Roy, so much as you destroyed your own position,


I destroyed you then, and I have destroyed you again.



> using Hong Kong as a prime example of how LVT somehow works well,


Lie.  I have stated repeatedly that *HK doesn't use LVT* because the land is all publicly owned.



> even though, "unfortunately", as you said, it does not in fact work well at all, given that it is *"shoveling vast unearned wealth into landholders' pockets"*. So I guess "owning" land isn't the only way that can happen?


I didn't say it was.  There are lots of other ways rich, greedy takers steal wealth from the productive legally.  Landowning is just the biggest, oldest and one of the easiest.



> Yeah, the LVT really works well -- when it works, I guess -- if the government that controls it would only follow a better policy?


Governments' reluctance actually to use LVT because it does not allow shoveling of unearned wealth into the pockets of the greedy, privileged rich is not an argument that it doesn't work when it IS used.  It always works to the EXTENT that it is used.



> But of course, your version of that system would be the ideal, and would follow a better policy (as long as you are the one controlling it)


Another stupid lie from you.  Who controls it is irrelevant.  Whether a given implementation of LVT works or not depends only on WHETHER IT IS IN FACT LVT.



> because you are wise and honest, and know all that we need to know to make it so.


Compared to you I am, anyway.



> Well, Hail And Long Live The Beneficent King Roy L., but the rest of the world just isn't there yet.  Until it is, I think I'll pass on support for a system that gives government that kind of discretionary control, so prone to manipulation and abuses.


LVT doesn't give the government discretionary control prone to manipulation and abuse.  The complicated and increasingly corrupt HK system of leasing out public land does.



> I already have history as a guide to know where that leads.


Oh?  Where?  



> Governments are run by self-interested individuals, Roy.


To a large extent, that is true.  And so are corporations, only more so.



> Any public system, including one that doles out land use rights to the highest bidder, but is still run by individuals, needs equally powerful checks and balances by the individuals it governs - at the individual level.


Of course democratic oversight is crucial.  HK is unfortunately not a democracy.

----------


## Roy L

> +rep


We already know you always +rep stupid, dishonest anti-LVT garbage.  You don't have to tell us every time you do it.

----------


## eduardo89

> We already know you always +rep stupid, dishonest anti-LVT garbage.  You don't have to tell us every time you do it.


-Rep

Does this then mean that your post is intelligent and honest?

----------


## Roy L

> Does this then mean that your post is intelligent and honest?


And informed.  Yes.

----------


## eduardo89

> And informed.  Yes.


Garbage!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> That's a lie.  HK simply proves that private ownership of land is not necessary to liberty or prosperity...


It proved nothing of the conflated sort. Prosperity can happen under LITERALLY ANY regime. Whether it does or not is a matter of historical record, not theory or conjecture, as that is all we have to go on. 

Liberty is based on how you define it.  And your definition is one I reject as so loopy screwy that it defies all logic, since it is based on the strange concept, not of actual liberty, but of "otherwise at liberty".  Nice pile of logically and physically impossible stink there. 




> I've lived in _Tokyo_, sunshine...


I love it when you refer to people as sunshine. Sport. Champ. Boss. Big Fella.  




> YOUR OWN SOURCE proves:
> _
> Of Hong Kong’s 2.34 million households, 30.8 per cent live in cheap, public rental housing, according to official figures. Another 16.2 per cent are in subsidised flats and 52.4 per cent are in private housing._


That wasn't "my" source. That was the article quoting the HK GOVERNMENT source. You know, using their own price indexes, like that wonderful CPI of ours that translates piss on our collective heads into fresh rain from above. Tsk, tsk, how you could be so reprehensibly dishonest, Roy?  




> Governments' reluctance actually to use LVT because it does not allow shoveling of unearned wealth into the pockets of the greedy, privileged rich is not an argument that it doesn't work when it IS used.  It always works to the EXTENT that it is used.


So claim the proponents of any regime, including those run by despots. Communism and fascism would have worked swimmingly well if it hadn't been for those damned individuals and their individual wants, needs, preferences and conflicting motives.  Even corporatism would be the cat's meow if wasn't for that damned corporate greed, not to mention those meddling kids and their damned dog.  Why, if they only enacted different policies, we'd all be in heaven on Earth!




> Who controls it is irrelevant.


It is, in fact, the ONLY thing that is relevant. _Ever._ Especially in the long term. 




> LVT doesn't give the government discretionary control prone to manipulation and abuse.


Yeah, because those "market" numbers, including the percentages used to determine an LVT rate - all those would naturally create themselves. What's more, they would be like universal constants. The market will change, but not those LVT formulae and rates! That's at least one thing we could count on, by gosh and by golly.  And the stuff all those LVT taxes pay for - well, that's just a matter of government operating within a budget.  No problem there - governments do that already!  Plus, if those who run government think that more is needed, they won't be able to mess with the rates themselves - they will just encourage the market as a way of increasing revenue.  

Sounds doable! Failsafe even! Especially since...




> Of course democratic oversight is crucial.


"Democratic Oversight" - you made a funny, right there, Roy!

----------


## Roy L

> It proved nothing of the conflated sort.


It most certainly and indisputably did, so you can stop lying.  It proved it absolutely and incontrovertibly.  You merely deny and refuse to know that fact, as you have realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> Prosperity can happen under LITERALLY ANY regime.


No, of course it can't.  Such claims are just stupid and laughable.  Prosperity can only happen, and has only ever happened, when people have been generally at liberty to produce and to keep what they produce.  That's the only way production can be great enough to make goods cheap relative to labor.



> Whether it does or not is a matter of historical record, not theory or conjecture, as that is all we have to go on.


Anti-scientific garbage.  There are consistent relationships between historically prosperous societies and their economic policy environments.



> Liberty is based on how you define it.


No, it is not.  Liberty is a fact of reality.  Only evil liars claim that definitions can change reality.



> And your definition is one I reject as so loopy screwy that it defies all logic, since it is based on the strange concept, not of actual liberty, but of "otherwise at liberty".


No, of course it isn't.  That's just another lie from you.

So you now have exactly two choices, Steven: you will either quote that definition, directly, verbatim, and in context, or you will admit that you are a lying sack of $#!+; failure to do the first will constitute doing the second.  And you will not be doing the first.



> Nice pile of logically and physically impossible stink there.


You are smelling your own logically and physically impossible stench, Steven.  Apologias for landowner privilege are always redolent with the reeking stench of stupid, evil lies.  



> That wasn't "my" source.


Ah, yes, actually, it was.



> That was the article quoting the HK GOVERNMENT source.


The article WAS your source.  Remember?



> You know, using their own price indexes, like that wonderful CPI of ours that translates piss on our collective heads into fresh rain from above.


Garbage.  It was a simple statistic, and you have not provided any credible reasons to doubt it, nor will you ever be doing so.



> Tsk, tsk, how you could be so reprehensibly dishonest, Roy?


Disgraceful.  You have offered no evidence for any such claim but your own fabrications, and you *know* that you have never met anyone more honest than me.  You KNOW it.



> So claim the proponents of any regime, including those run by despots.


No, they don't, and you can't make my statement false by falsely claiming that others have made it when it was false, sorry.



> Communism and fascism would have worked swimmingly well if it hadn't been for those damned individuals and their individual wants, needs, preferences and conflicting motives.


Let me know if you ever think of anything relevant to say.



> Even corporatism would be the cat's meow if wasn't for that damned corporate greed, not to mention those meddling kids and their damned dog.  Why, if they only enacted different policies, we'd all be in heaven on Earth!


True: some policies, such as LVT, make it harder for corrupt individuals to corrupt the system.  With exactly the right policies corruption would effectively be impossible.



> It is, in fact, the ONLY thing that is relevant. _Ever._ Especially in the long term.


No, such claims are just false and absurd, as well as dishonest.  History shows that people respond to incentives, including those in charge.



> Yeah, because those "market" numbers, including the percentages used to determine an LVT rate - all those would naturally create themselves.


The market establishes prices.  That's what it does.  I don't know what you mean by "the percentages used to create an LVT rate," and I doubt that you know, either.



> What's more, they would be like universal constants. The market will change, but not those LVT formulae and rates! That's at least one thing we could count on, by gosh and by golly.


More stupid strawman garbage.



> And the stuff all those LVT taxes pay for - well, that's just a matter of government operating within a budget.  No problem there - governments do that already!


No, they don't, because THE CURRENT SYSTEM FORCES THEM NOT TO.  Lack of LVT FORCES governments to give large, growing, and unsustainable welfare subsidy giveaways to landowners.  Without LVT or some similar arrangement to recover the increased land rent their spending creates, they HAVE NO CHOICE, by economic law.



> Plus, if those who run government think that more is needed, they won't be able to mess with the rates themselves - they will just encourage the market as a way of increasing revenue.


Wrong AGAIN.  They will have the automatic feedback of the market: if they waste money, it won't come back to them in increased land rent.  If they spend wisely, in ways that make the land they govern more advantageous to use, they will get more to spend next year, much as a productive, successful company that spends money efficiently gets more money to spend because its customers are willing to fork over more for what it provides.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It proved it absolutely and incontrovertibly.


Well, you didn't use the word incontrovertibly before. That one took all my wiggle room away. 

Well played, Roy.

----------


## jascott

I saw at least a couple Christians in this thread. Hopefully you're still here. I haven't gotten an answer yet to my most burning question.
I assume you agree that the apostle Paul said that God has established authorities on Earth, and we're required to pay taxes to them, which implies that they're authorized to levy the taxes.
My question is, which forms of taxes did God authorize them to levy? And if God never answered this directly, then how are we supposed to determine which forms of taxes are allowed?
My question is not about our requirement to submit to corrupt governments, or under what conditions we're authorized to resist or disobey. My question is about what the authorities are allowed to do. Which taxes can they levy without displeasing God?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

They can't.  Stealing displeases God, as well as all other decent people.  I know it displeases me.  I can only imagine what kind of self-control it takes for God to keep from frying all these sleamos.

Who are the "authorities" Paul is discussing?  Are political rulers in possession of any legitimate authority whatsoever?  Or is he referring to ecclesiastical authorities to whom tithes should be paid?  Open question.

----------


## Roy L

> They can't.  Stealing displeases God, as well as all other decent people.


So as LVT is not stealing but the just recovery of *publicly created value* for public purposes and benefit, it's the only tax that would not displease God.



> I know it displeases me.


No, you *love* stealing publicly created land value, and you advocate and encourage stealing by other landowners.  In fact, you also advocate enslavement and murder by landowners.  There appears to be no form of greed, rapacity, viciousness, initiation of force, or violent, aggressive, physical coercion that you do not advocate landowners can rightly engage in, probably including droit du seigneur.  



> I can only imagine what kind of self-control it takes for God to keep from frying all these sleamos.


One can perhaps best understand God's tolerance of landowning as maintenance of a reliable and very thoroughly time-tested temptation to sin.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> So as LVT is not stealing but the just recovery of *publicly created value* for public purposes and benefit, it's the only tax that would not displease God.
> 
> No, you *love* stealing publicly created land value, and you advocate and encourage stealing by other landowners.  In fact, you also advocate enslavement and murder by landowners.  There appears to be no form of greed, rapacity, viciousness, initiation of force, or violent, aggressive, physical coercion that you do not advocate landowners can rightly engage in, probably including droit du seigneur.  
> 
> One can perhaps best understand God's tolerance of landowning as maintenance of a reliable and very thoroughly time-tested temptation to sin.


Roy, the stealing I was talking about was landownership.  You convinced me, don't you remember?

----------


## Steven Douglas

If I wanted to know how to deal with this as a Christian, I would consult with the original Christian only, to see if the question might be settled there, and not have to resort to anything else. As such, it is interesting to note how Jesus handled the question, both publicly and privately. 

Privately, Jesus spoke plainly about a principle. Publicly, Jesus answered with begged questions. Emphasis and colors mine:




> Mark 12:14-17
> 
> *King James Version (KJV)*
> 
>  14 And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?
> 
>  15 Shall we give, or shall we not give? _But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them,_ Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it.
> 
>  16 And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's.
> ...


Did that settle the question? Did Jesus answer them plainly? Those who marveled at him evidently thought so. Many could go away from this little hypocritical "tempting exchange" believing that Jesus himself had in fact told everyone to give to Caesar.  But that is _not what Jesus said_.  He left completely open the question of what was God's and what was Caesar's. He didn't say, "Caesar's likeness is on this coin - which makes it Caesar's".   He only asked whose inscription lay thereon, before giving the split question.   

Anyone truly versed in "the law" (ecclesiastical law, which was what the questioners referred to) should know immediately:

*



			
				Deuteronomy 10:14 - Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.
			
		

*Basically, God owns EVERYTHING.

If Jesus had said, "Render to Peter the things that are Peter's, and to Paul the things that are Paul's," that would definitely leave open the question of which things were Peter's and which things were Paul's.  However, _between God and ANYONE else_, including Caesar, there is no wondering which is the rightful owner of all things.  

In other words, Jesus tempted them back. (i.e., "You decide for yourself which things are whose.")

There is a second example, one wherein Jesus was not tempted (openly, publicly and politically baited by a loaded question).  It was Peter this time, who had answered directly on behalf of his Master, and committed him to payment, by simply answering, "Yes", when asked.  This time Jesus spoke far more plainly. In this case Jesus laid out the principle privately to one of his disciples, and in much clearer language, with no room for ambiguity. 




> *Matthew 17:24-27*
> 
> 24 And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute?
> 25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?
> 26 Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, *Then are the children free.*
> 27 Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.


Principles:  
Strangers are taxed - _foreigners._  The children are free.Giving payment to avoid giving offense is lawful.

Pretty simple and clear to me - As a Christian, I don't need to know what Paul or anyone else had to say about it afterward, except using the above as a standard.

In other words, I fully recognize that I, an American, was made a foreigner in my own country, just as the Jews were foreigners in theirs. So I pay taxes. But I don't call it anything but what it is.  If I was not a foreigner in my own country, I would not pay taxes. Foreigners would.

----------


## Roy L

> In other words, I fully recognize that I, an American, was made a foreigner in my own country, just as the Jews were foreigners in theirs. So I pay taxes. But I don't call it anything but what it is.  If I was not a foreigner in my own country, I would not pay taxes. Foreigners would.


Steven, you seem to have given some considerable thought to this, but I have to say I have no idea what you think you are saying.  How were you "made a foreigner in your own country"?

----------


## eduardo89

> Steven, you seem to have given some considerable thought to this, but I have to say I have no idea what you think you are saying.  How were you "made a foreigner in your own country"?


Oh oh I know tha answer!! Evil, greedy landowners!!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Steven, you seem to have given some considerable thought to this, but I have to say I have no idea what you think you are saying.  How were you "made a foreigner in your own country"?


Among myriad other things, Constitutional sovereignty of individuals is no longer recognized in this country; I am taxed with taxes that are compulsory; I am licensed, regulated, statutorily, administratively governed, and otherwise treated as a corporate person acting under privilege - all under color of Constitutional law, by liberal invocation of both the Commerce and the Necessary and Proper clauses. 

That and much more makes me the equivalent of a foreigner in my own country.

----------


## Roy L

> Among myriad other things, Constitutional sovereignty of individuals is no longer recognized in this country; I am taxed with taxes that are compulsory; I am licensed, regulated, statutorily, administratively governed, and otherwise treated as a corporate person acting under privilege - all under color of Constitutional law, by liberal invocation of both the Commerce and the Necessary and Proper clauses. 
> 
> That and much more makes me the equivalent of a foreigner in my own country.


Most of all, having no right even to exist on the land nature provided for all is what makes us foreigners in our own country.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Here's a pretty good lecture on land:
http://mises.org/media/1754/Property-Land-Contract

To sum it up, he says: OK, so we've got a right to not be aggressed against (this is the 7th lecture in a series and he established this previously), but how do we make it so that applies to property?  How is it that if you subjugate this external physical object to your will, you're actually subjugating _me_ to your will and thus aggressing against me?  The answer is that if I take and claim the object and make it a part of my ongoing projects, then it's philosophically an extension of myself.  If I have an artificial arm, I can consider it a part of me, or at least a part of my ongoing projects, that is, of my life and what I'm trying to accomplish with it, and even though it's not naturally a part of my body, it's still aggression to yank it off of me, just as it would be to do so to my natural arm.

He makes the same point I've made that everything ultimately comes from nature.  All the particles in your body, for instance, were not originally there (in fact, there's complete particle-turnover an average of once a month).  So they had to be homesteaded from nature, by you or someone else, in order to become a part of that collection of matter that you have total rights and control over, which we call your body.  So if that process is valid for the particles we incorporate into our bodies, and also for the particles we incorporate into our projects as clothing, artificial arms, voice auto-tuners, chainsaws, etc.,  it's not clear why it should be invalid for the Earth-surface-area we incorporate into our projects.

He then goes through various different points that various philosophers have raised objecting to land being property, including Henry George, of course.  It's a decent lecture.

If you listen to it, in the end you will reach the inevitable conclusion that LVT is the right choice for mankind.

----------


## jascott

> Who are the "authorities" Paul is discussing?  Are political rulers in possession of any legitimate authority whatsoever?  Or is he referring to ecclesiastical authorities to whom tithes should be paid?  Open question.


"Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God. Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment. For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the same, for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesnt bear the sword in vain; for he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil. Therefore you need to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this reason you also pay taxes, for they are servants of Gods service, attending continually on this very thing. Give therefore to everyone what you owe: taxes to whom taxes are due; customs to whom customs; respect to whom respect; honor to whom honor."
Romans 13:1-7.

Paul is unquestionably talking about submitting to (and paying taxes to) the government, not the church.




> They can't.


Paul is clearly saying, specifically, that there's a legitimate government (it serves God), it uses force against evildoers (and not against those who do good, which means this is one way to determine whether a government is legitimate or is just a power which has no authority from God), and we're required to pay taxes to it. Since we're required to pay taxes, of course it's authorized to levy those taxes.
My question was, which forms of taxes is a legitimate government authorized to levy?

But since you're disputing my original assumption, now I have to ask, are you claiming that there's no legitimate government, or that there is a legitimate government, but it isn't authorized to levy any taxes?

----------


## jascott

> He didn't say, "Caesar's likeness is on this coin - which makes it Caesar's". He only asked whose inscription lay thereon


Then why did he point out (by asking a question which he obviously already knew the answer to) that Caesar's inscription was on the coin? If the correct answer was that we're not required to pay taxes, then why not instead ask whose pocket the coin was in, or who labored to earn the coin?
The question he was asked was about whether we're required to pay taxes, and Jesus made the answer indisputably obvious by reframing the question as a question about the ownership of the coin.




> Did that settle the question? Did Jesus answer them plainly? Those who marveled at him evidently thought so. Many could go away from this little hypocritical "tempting exchange" believing that Jesus himself had in fact told everyone to give to Caesar.  But that is _not what Jesus said_.


Jesus didn't come here to deceive. Yes, he sometimes spoke in parables, knowing that his audience wouldn't understand (but they would know that they didn't understand). But he never gave answers to fool people into believing that they understood when in fact they misunderstood.




> God owns EVERYTHING.


I already said exactly the same thing to you, in post #967. You even replied to my post.
I also pointed out in that post that ownership, in the sense of anybody besides God owning anything, is actually stewardship. Saying that somebody owns something isn't a denial that God is actually the owner, and the "owner" being discussed is actually a steward. We dispense with that verbosity because we already understand that God owns everything. There's nothing blasphemous about saying that Caesar "owns" the coins which bear his inscription.
God delegated to us stewardship of our bodies. He can take them back. We can subdelegate them, which we partially do when we sell our labor. We can take them back (by quitting our jobs). God delegated to Caesar stewardship of some coins. Caesar subdelegated them to us. He can take them back.
If you don't want to pay taxes, then stop using Caesar's coins (and maybe also get off Caesar's land, which is a major theme of this thread).




> I, an American, was made a foreigner in my own country, just as the Jews were foreigners in theirs.


If you're a foreigner, then who are the natives?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Then why did he point out (by asking a question which he obviously already knew the answer to) that Caesar's inscription was on the coin? If the correct answer was that we're not required to pay taxes, then why not instead ask whose pocket the coin was in, or who labored to earn the coin?
> The question he was asked was about whether we're required to pay taxes, and Jesus made the answer indisputably obvious by reframing the question as a question about the ownership of the coin.


First, I won't get into a long debate about this, because religious "debates" look mostly silly to me, as I am fairly certain neither of us are about to change our opinions.  I think the best we can do is offer our own interpretations, stand on our own positions while allowing others the same right, and let it go at that.  

The Pharisees were testing Jesus within the confines of the temple, looking for a way to entrap him into offending someone (multiple factions in the same place). Asking someone to produce a penny revealed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, because they could not produce such a coin without _proving to everyone there_, all of whom were fully aware of Jewish law, that they were handling a "graven image", and especially on holy ground - something that was forbidden by Jewish law.  




> Jesus didn't come here to deceive. Yes, he sometimes spoke in parables, knowing that his audience wouldn't understand (but they would know that they didn't understand). But he never gave answers to fool people into believing that they understood when in fact they misunderstood.


Oh, they understood Jesus' answer, alright, just as Jesus understood the motives behind the questions. It was not "an innocent question", asked merely to establish Jesus' position on a matter. That much was made abundantly clear in the context in which it was given.   




> I already said exactly the same thing to you, in post #967. You even replied to my post.
> I also pointed out in that post that ownership, in the sense of anybody besides God owning anything, is actually stewardship. Saying that somebody owns something isn't a denial that God is actually the owner, and the "owner" being discussed is actually a steward. We dispense with that verbosity because we already understand that God owns everything. There's nothing blasphemous about saying that Caesar "owns" the coins which bear his inscription.
> God delegated to us stewardship of our bodies. He can take them back. We can subdelegate them, which we partially do when we sell our labor. We can take them back (by quitting our jobs). God delegated to Caesar stewardship of some coins. Caesar subdelegated them to us. He can take them back.
> If you don't want to pay taxes, then stop using Caesar's coins (and maybe also get off Caesar's land, which is a major theme of this thread).


I don't necessarily have a problem with that. However, part of our 'verbosity', as you put it, comes with our use of the words steward and stewardship, which literally means "manager", as opposed to "owner".  That's wonderful, and I wholeheartedly agree. However, that does nothing whatsoever to resolve the question at hand as relates conflicting claims of "managership title".   In EITHER case, *a title* is involved.  

"Hi there, we are the new stewards/managers of the farm you and your family are living on. God sent us. Get out - you have to go find another job, we'll take it from here."

...and then we fight over whether that is what God intended or not - until the actual owner finally steps in and resolves the matter with finality - like in the parable of the unjust steward. 

I don't view stewardship as "non-ownership", but rather "acting ownership", as in temporal control, whether it be our bodies, a resource, or the Earth itself.  You are _acting as the owner, in the name of the owner, in the absence of the owner._ In other words, you have "Power of Attorney". It does not mean that there is no title, no ownership - only that there is a chain of ownership.  In secular terms, if you are a company, God is the parent company. God's ownership is Eternal and all-comprehensive, whereas all other ownership is temporal and fleeting. Whether it be called a "right of stewardship" or "right of temporal ownership", it is only when God is considered as a party of interest that the conflict instantly goes away. 




> If you're a foreigner, then who are the natives?


According to our government, Native Americans are members of _sovereign nations_ - to the extent that they are sovereign...when on their lands.  According to me, they are fellow foreigners who were cheated in their own way. I acknowledge their sovereignty - AS THEY VIEWED IT. Individually. (think Dances With Wolves, "It is true that no man can tell another what to do.")   Not racially or tribally. Viewing them as collectives - races and tribes - that is, ironically, where they LOST their sovereignty and became segregated to this day.  

My final point and position on this - and this is only my position on this matter, having nothing to do with what is commonly viewed or acknowledged by anyone:

The seeds of all society and all government are contained within each individual. _It is within you._ Government can only derive its own sovereignty from individual sovereignty that has been collectivized.  It is not a case where something was created from nothing, or where the sum is greater than the total of the individual parts - where we alone have no sovereignty and no legitimate authority (sole despotic dominion over ourselves). If the quality of our sovereignty is zero, multiplying that by zero should still get zero. I don't see it that way at all.  At our very core we all sovereign. We can create a legitimate, sovereign authority only by extension of what already existed - by cooperating and combining our sovereign interests in protection - _from fellow sovereigns_ (foreign and domestic - REGARDLESS of their numbers).  

Nor do I accept that my individual sovereignty was "given over" to ANY collective that presumes to exercise sovereignty "on my behalf".  If I cannot take back what was presumed to be given over, then I never had it to begin with. 

In this light I view each and every real person, as well as the land they inhabit, as a separate Kingdom on Earth.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Dear Mr. Scott:




> Who are the "authorities" Paul is discussing?
> 			
> 		
> 
> Paul is unquestionably talking about submitting to (and paying taxes to) the government, not the church.


Oh really?  That clear and unquestionable, huh?  

So "ejxousiva" is a word defined solely and only as "the government", is that your position?

Here's an alternative position:

Definition

power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases
leave or permission
physical and mental power
the ability or strength with which one is endued, which he either possesses or exercises
the power of authority (influence) and of right (privilege)
the power of rule or government (the power of him whose will and commands must be submitted to by others and obeyed)
universally
authority over mankind 
specifically
the power of judicial decisions
of authority to manage domestic affairs 
metonymically
a thing subject to authority or rule 4c
jurisdiction
one who possesses authority 4c
a ruler, a human magistrate 4c
the leading and more powerful among created beings superior to man, spiritual potentates
a sign of the husband's authority over his wife
the veil with which propriety required a women to cover herself 
the sign of regal authority, a crown

 King James Word Usage - Total: 103
power 69, authority 29, right 2, liberty 1, jurisdiction 1, strength 1

The same word is used earlier in Romans in asking the question "Hath not the potter power over the clay".  It also is used throughout the New Testament to refer to:
the power of the devil (quite frequently)
the power and authority of Christ
Paul's own authority and that of the other Church leaders
power over devils, to cure diseases, tread on serpents and scorpions, etc.
the authority of property-owners over property (land-owners, specifically)
the authority of the chief priests
the power of the various plagues, horses, and beasts in John's Revelation.




> Paul is clearly saying, specifically, that there's a legitimate government (it serves God), it uses force against evildoers (and not against those who do good, which means this is one way to determine whether a government is legitimate or is just a power which has no authority from God), and we're required to pay taxes to it. Since we're required to pay taxes, of course it's authorized to levy those taxes.


 Paul is "clearly" saying that _if_ one's translation makes Paul say it and makes him say it clearly; that much is true.  And if one does not believe James Kallas' and others' argument that Rom. 13:1-7 is a later insertion into the text, not from Paul at all.  And if one makes a whole lot of assumptions about modern nation-states, assumptions not shared by Paul and the early Christians since, for one thing, such institutions did not exist and had not yet existed at that time in history.  Small details like these do throw some doubt on the "clearly".




> But since you're disputing my original assumption, now I have to ask, are you claiming that there's no legitimate government, or that there is a legitimate government, but it isn't authorized to levy any taxes?


Depends what you mean by government.  It is legitimate for men to choose to govern and to be governed, and to set up institutions to better take care of the governance, as long as these relationships and institutions are voluntary.

Taxation is fairly universally defined as taking someone else's property involuntarily.  It is a theft; specifically it is extortion under threat of theft or kidnapping.  So that is an action which is illegitimate, yes.  How can a man be authorized to steal from men who have not wronged him?  Such an authority cannot possibly exist, unless one does not accept the wrongness of stealing and the rightness of property.

For further exegesis on Romans 13:1-7, I would refer you to this article:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/green-p/green-p11.1.html

Make it a good day!

----------


## Steven Douglas

I'm not a Pauline Christian - I don't follow that Pharisee/son of a Pharisee by the strictest sect (he never renounced that), so whatever he had to say, whether or not he actually said it, is meaningless to me. Saul/Paul referred to himself as an apostle at least nine times, but the others never referred to him as anything but "beloved brother".  For all I know, Paul and "his fruits by which he was known" were the tares in the parable of the wheat and the tares.  It doesn't matter to me either way - nothing I believe hinges on anything he said or did.

----------


## Roy L

> Here's a pretty good lecture on land:
> http://mises.org/media/1754/Property-Land-Contract


"Pretty good," that is, compared to the usual feudal libertarian garbage about land, like Rothbard's embarrassingly uninformed, ill-considered, absurd and dishonest anti-LVT screed.  Personally, I find Long's voice really annoying: a kind of wheedling, supercilious, Wormtongue-like voice.



> To sum it up, he says: OK, so we've got a right to not be aggressed against (this is the 7th lecture in a series and he established this previously), but how do we make it so that applies to property?


Easy: rightful property is something you would have as long as others did not initiate force against you to deprive you of it, while they would not have it except by initiating force to deprive you of it.



> How is it that if you subjugate this external physical object to your will, you're actually subjugating _me_ to your will and thus aggressing against me?


Because by initiating force against me to stop me from exercising my natural liberty to use that external physical object, you are depriving me of something I would otherwise have.  That is what makes it aggression.



> The answer is that if I take and claim the object and make it a part of my ongoing projects, then it's philosophically an extension of myself.


But in actual fact, of course, it isn't.  It's just something you've stolen from others by initiating aggressive, violent, coercive force against them like any other evil, greedy, thieving parasite.  We already established that by the case of the bandit robbing the caravans in the pass.



> If I have an artificial arm, I can consider it a part of me, or at least a part of my ongoing projects, that is, of my life and what I'm trying to accomplish with it, and even though it's not naturally a part of my body, it's still aggression to yank it off of me, just as it would be to do so to my natural arm.


Wrong.  An artificial arm is not part of you as your own arm is.  The only claim you have to your artificial arm is not that it is "part of your ongoing projects," but that you either made it yourself or paid someone else to make it (or paid someone else who did, etc.), and thus own it without initiating force or depriving anyone else of anything they would otherwise have.  If you did not make or buy it consensually, but forcibly took it from someone who had, then it would not be your property at all, however much it might have become "part of your ongoing projects."



> He makes the same point I've made that everything ultimately comes from nature.


Which is not a point at all, but merely an attempt to evade the fact that what comes from nature without any human help is not a product of human labor, while what it MEANS for something to be a product of human labor is that it only "comes from nature" with human assistance.



> All the particles in your body, for instance, were not originally there (in fact, there's complete particle-turnover an average of once a month).  So they had to be homesteaded from nature, by you or someone else, in order to become a part of that collection of matter that you have total rights and control over, which we call your body.


Amusingly, Long purports to establish property rights in food by observing that if others could rightly take the food you produce, they could starve you to death.  He studiously averts his attention from the fact that if others could rightly appropriate as their private property the land you have to use to produce your food, they could likewise starve you to death.

Ooops.



> So if that process is valid for the particles we incorporate into our bodies, and also for the particles we incorporate into our projects as clothing, artificial arms, voice auto-tuners, chainsaws, etc.,  it's not clear why it should be invalid for the Earth-surface-area we incorporate into our projects.


OTC, it's _absolutely_ clear: we own the things we rightfully own not because they are part of our "projects," but because they are our PRODUCTS, and would not have existed but for our efforts or the efforts of those we have engaged to produce them.  By definition, that can never include the earth's surface area nor any other natural resource, as they already existed without being produced by anyone.  It is only the fact that owning products of labor does not initiate force to deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have that makes them ownable as property, because that is the only way to own things without violating others' rights.



> He then goes through various different points that various philosophers have raised objecting to land being property, including Henry George, of course.  It's a decent lecture.


The mention of Henry George comes about halfway through, and the objection Long offers to the fact that land value is publicly created and therefore not rightly appropriable by the land's private owner is bald sophistry.  He claims that the presence of the community makes his labor as a philosophy professor more valuable just as it makes his land more valuable, but that is equivocation.  The *market* in the community that judges his labor to have a certain value is not the creator of that value; he is, just as the market's judgment that a Mercedes is worth more than a Fiat did not create the former's higher value, the good folks at Mercedes did.  In order for his labor to have that high a market value, *HE* HAS TO PERFORM IT UP TO THAT STANDARD.  HE is the one who must create his labor's value by giving the desired quality of service.  His land, by contrast, gets its value from the community without his lifting a finger.



> If you listen to it, in the end you will reach the inevitable conclusion that LVT is the right choice for mankind.


Funny, I didn't get that from it.

You might want to ponder the fact that although Long is a respected libertarian theorist and a philosophy professor at Auburn University, I just demolished his whole belief system in a few minutes.

----------


## eduardo89

Why does your view that you have a liberty to use all property end at land? Do you have a right to wear my clothes? If I say you can't wear my clothes, isn't that infringing on your liberty? How about your liberty to sleep in my bed? Or to your liberty to drive my car?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Why does your view that you have a liberty to use all property end at land? Do you have a right to wear my clothes? If I say you can't wear my clothes, isn't that infringing on your liberty? How about your liberty to sleep in my bed? Or to your liberty to drive my car?


RoyL declares land ownership to be theft, therefore it is.

----------


## eduardo89

> RoyL declares land ownership to be theft, therefore it is.


What about car ownership? Or pet ownership?

Am I denying him the liberty to take my dog out for a walk, and should pay the government a PVT (Pet Value Tax) to make up for it?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> What about car ownership? Or pet ownership?
> 
> Am I denying him the liberty to take my dog out for a walk, and should pay the government a PVT (Pet Value Tax) to make up for it?


That's been pointed out 3 times that I know of in this thread.  Still no coherent answer from Roy L.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Because by initiating force against me to stop me from exercising my natural liberty to use that external physical object, you are depriving me of something I would otherwise have.  That is what makes it aggression.


"something I would otherwise have" (access to) is a key to Roy's meme.  

If you barricaded a parcel of land with a force field or an impenetrable wall, and then padded it on the outside so that it wouldn't hurt Roy's body if he slammed angrily against it, it would still constitute an "initiation of force against him" (the force that keeps him out - none of his active initiation of collectivized force to make his way in counts), one that deprived him of [what he firmly believes is his natural liberty right] to "something he otherwise" woulda/coulda had.  

It's Anti-propertarian Libertarian Socialism, nothing more.

Good luck, Ireland, hope you manage to dodge that bullet.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> "something I would otherwise have" (access to) is a key to Roy's meme.  
> 
> If you barricaded a parcel of land with a force field or an impenetrable wall, and then padded it on the outside so that it wouldn't hurt Roy's body if he slammed angrily against it, it would still constitute an "initiation of force against him" (the force that keeps him out - none of his active initiation of collectivized force to make his way in counts), one that deprived him of [what he firmly believes is his natural liberty right] to "something he otherwise" woulda/coulda had.  
> 
> It's Anti-propertarian Libertarian Socialism, nothing more.
> 
> Good luck, Ireland, hope you manage to dodge that bullet.


Exactly.  It's as if he read all of Locke's treatises but only considers the sentence "God gave the world to men in common" the only "valid" one.  lolz

----------


## eduardo89

> That's been pointed out 3 times that I know of in this thread.  Still no coherent answer from Roy L.


Well now it's been pointed out 4 times for those who don't have time to read over 100 pages of utter garbage.

----------


## Roy L

> Why does your view that you have a liberty to use all property end at land?


You are again lying, repeat, LYING about what I have plainly written.  You always have to lie, because there is no way to rationalize evil and justify injustice but by lying, and so you lie.

All apologists for privilege and injustice lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> Do you have a right to wear my clothes? If I say you can't wear my clothes, isn't that infringing on your liberty? How about your liberty to sleep in my bed? Or to your liberty to drive my car?


<sigh>  I have stated very clearly, many times in this thread, that PRODUCTS OF LABOR ARE RIGHTLY PROPERTY BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT SOMETHING OTHERS WOULD OTHERWISE BE AT LIBERTY TO USE.  They have to be provided BY PRODUCERS.  Natural resources not only ARE not provided by any person, they CANNOT be, by definition.

You will now again ignore all facts, and again *lie* about what I have plainly written.

----------


## Roy L

> RoyL declares land ownership to be theft, therefore it is.


You are lying.  I have *proved* it is.  Remember? 

_THE BANDIT

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?_

----------


## Roy L

> That's been pointed out 3 times that I know of in this thread.  Still no coherent answer from Roy L.


You are *lying*.  I have stated the relevant facts DOZENS OF TIMES IN THIS THREAD.  All that nature provides, I am naturally at liberty to use.  I don't need anyone else's help, and they can only stop me by initiating force to deprive me of my liberty.  Products of labor, by contrast, I am NOT naturally at liberty to use, as someone else had to produce them.

How many times do I have to repeat these facts before you will stop lying about them?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You are lying.  I have *proved* it is.  Remember? 
> 
> _THE BANDIT
> 
> Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.
> 
> A thief, right?
> 
> Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?
> ...


Problem is, you haven't proved it.  That's just a bunch of hot air.  It's already been pointed out that land ownership existed before governments did.  I also demonstrated that experiments in abolishment of land ownership failed consistently. Then there's the natural rights philosophers who've demolished your arguments for a few hundred years.  Yet you ignore it because it's an inconvenient truth.

----------


## Roy L

> Well now it's been pointed out 4 times for those who don't have time to read over 100 pages of utter garbage.


The utter garbage is all from apologists for greed, privilege and injustice.  You have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, and you cannot refute a single sentence I have written.  Simple.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You are *lying*.  I have stated the relevant facts DOZENS OF TIMES IN THIS THREAD.  All that nature provides, I am naturally at liberty to use.  I don't need anyone else's help, and they can only stop me by initiating force to deprive me of my liberty.  Products of labor, by contrast, I am NOT naturally at liberty to use, as someone else had to produce them.
> 
> How many times do I have to repeat these facts before you will stop lying about them?


You stated false facts.  I wasn't and am still not impressed.

----------


## eduardo89

> You are again lying, repeat, LYING about what I have plainly written.  You always have to lie, because there is no way to rationalize evil and justify injustice but by lying, and so you lie.
> 
> All apologists for privilege and injustice lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.
> 
> <sigh>  I have stated very clearly, many times in this thread, that PRODUCTS OF LABOR ARE RIGHTLY PROPERTY BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT SOMETHING OTHERS WOULD OTHERWISE BE AT LIBERTY TO USE.  They have to be provided BY PRODUCERS.  Natural resources not only ARE not provided by any person, they CANNOT be, by definition.
> 
> You will now again ignore all facts, and again *lie* about what I have plainly written.


What did I lie about? How is asking a question a lie?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> The utter garbage is all from apologists for greed, privilege and injustice.  You have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, and you cannot refute a single sentence I have written.  Simple.


No matter how many times you write this, it still won't become true, wishful thinker.

----------


## eduardo89

> The utter garbage is all from apologists for greed, privilege and injustice.  You have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, and you cannot refute a single sentence I have written.  Simple.


I'm not bothering to refute any of your bull$#@! arguments. Anyone with half an understanding of liberty will see all the nonsense you spout are nothing but the rantings of a deranged lunatic. Everything you say is garbage from apologists for envy, laziness and a sense of entitlement to others' property. Your own arguments and demeanor comprehensively and conclusively prove how utterly stupid your defense for an LVT and stance against private property are.

----------


## Roy L

> Problem is, you haven't proved it.


Yes, I most certainly have.  How is the proud and respected landowner contributing any more in return for the rent than the lowly, despised bandit did in return for the loot, hmmmmmmmm?

<crickets>



> That's just hyperbole.


No, it is self-evident and indisputable fact.



> It's already been pointed out that land ownership existed before governments did.


No, that has been claimed, but is in fact false.  There has never been land ownership without government, and never can be.  Forcible animal possession is not ownership.



> I also demonstrated that experiments in abolishment of land ownership failed consistently.


No, you most certainly did not.  You only demonstrated your willingness to lie that experiments in abolition of property in products of labor were experiments in abolition of property in what is not and cannot be a product of labor.  Hong Kong proves that freedom and prosperity are entirely consistent with a total absence of private landowning.



> Yet you ignore it because it's an inconvenient truth.


No, you are lying.  I did not ignore it.  I proved that what you claimed was lack of property in land was in fact lack of property in products of labor.  Our ancestors lived for millions of years without property in land, and did just fine.  Hong Kong *proves* that private property in products of labor is the key to freedom and prosperity, not private property in land.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I'm not bothering to refute any of your bull$#@! arguments. Anyone with half an understanding of liberty will see all the nonsense you spout are nothing but the rantings of a deranged lunatic. Everything you say is garbage from apologists for envy, laziness and a sense of entitlement to others' property. Your own arguments and demeanor comprehensively and conclusively prove how utterly stupid your defense for an LVT and stance against private property are.


+a bunch.  Roy L should try telling a bear that it is stealing by its owning property. (wild animals are territorial and will attack invaders)

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yes, I most certainly have.  How is the proud and respected landowner contributing any more in return for the rent than the lowly, despised bandit did in return for the loot, hmmmmmmmm?


The onus is on you to prove your claim because you are making the positive assertion ("land ownership is theft").  You still haven't done it.

----------


## Roy L

> I'm not bothering to refute any of your bull$#@! arguments.


Of course not.  You can't, and you know it.



> Anyone with half an understanding of liberty will see all the nonsense you spout are nothing but the rantings of a deranged lunatic. Everything you say is garbage from apologists for envy, laziness and a sense of entitlement to others' property. Your own arguments and demeanor comprehensively and conclusively prove how utterly stupid your defense for an LVT and stance against private property are.


Content = 0... other than your constantly repeated LIE that my stance is "against private property."

----------


## Roy L

> The onus is on you to prove your claim because you are making the positive assertion.  You still haven't done it.


Yes, of course I have.  Claiming that I have not cannot change that fact.

*HOW IS THE LANDOWNER CONTRIBUTING ANY MORE IN RETURN FOR THE RENT THAN THE BANDIT DID IN RETURN FOR THE LOOT?*

Your inability to answer that question is conclusive proof that the landowner is indeed a thief.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> other than your constantly repeated LIE that my stance is "against private property."


That is your stance, except you limit it specifically to land.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yes, of course I have.  Claiming that I have not cannot change that fact.
> 
> *HOW IS THE LANDOWNER CONTRIBUTING ANY MORE IN RETURN FOR THE RENT THAN THE BANDIT DID IN RETURN FOR THE LOOT?*
> 
> Your inability to answer that question is conclusive proof that the landowner is indeed a thief.



WHY IS THE LANDOWNER OBLIGED TO CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING?  Your claim that a landowner is obliged to provide is conclusive proof that you are wrong-from your presuppositions on up.  You also fail to realize that land ownership is a liability, not a pure asset.  Acquiring liabilities can NEVER logically be considered theft.

----------


## Roy L

> +a bunch.  Roy L should try telling a bear that it is stealing by its owning property. (wild animals are territorial and will attack invaders)


<yawn>  Forcible animal possession is not property.  Animals have to defend their own possessions of territory, food, etc.  Property means *society* will defend the owner's possessions *for* him.

----------


## Roy L

> WHY IS THE LANDOWNER OBLIGED TO CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING?




*Because he is taking wealth from the merchant caravans by force, just as the bandit was.*

Taking wealth by force without contributing anything in return is precisely what makes him a thief.  Hello?



> Your claim that a landowner is obliged to provide is conclusive proof that you are wrong-from your presuppositions on up.


He is most certainly obliged to provide if he is going to be anything other than a thief.  That is the point.

----------


## Roy L

> That is your stance, except you limit it specifically to land.


Thanks for agreeing that you lied about what I have plainly written.

----------


## Jtorsella

> Yes, of course I have.  Claiming that I have not cannot change that fact.
> 
> *HOW IS THE LANDOWNER CONTRIBUTING ANY MORE IN RETURN FOR THE RENT THAN THE BANDIT DID IN RETURN FOR THE LOOT?*
> 
> Your inability to answer that question is conclusive proof that the landowner is indeed a thief.


Land is in an unclaimed state naturally. Men are not infringing upon anyone's rights when they claim unowned land. Men are infringing rights when they steal owned property. If the landowner is a thief, who is he stealing from? Furthermore, why are you on this forum if your position is anathema to any of RP's beliefs?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Land is in an unclaimed state naturally. Men are not infringing upon anyone's rights when they claim unowned land. Men are infringing rights when they steal owned property. *If the landowner is a thief, who is he stealing from*? Furthermore, why are you on this forum if your position is anathema to any of RP's beliefs?


He doesn't even know.  He's just turning natural law philosophy on its head to troll the forums.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Land is in an unclaimed state naturally. Men are not infringing upon anyone's rights when they claim unowned land. Men are infringing rights when they steal owned property. If the landowner is a thief, who is he stealing from?


Isn't it self-truthishly evident? Landownership encourages coveting, and not sharing with those who covet is therefore a form of collectivized deprivation. A landowner steals from everyone else "who would otherwise be at liberty" to use his toilet for some other purpose.  Naturally.  Alternative punch bowls don't grow on trees, you know. 

The more people who covet your particular toilet, the more you'll need to pay to keep sitting on it. Not to worry, though, as the market will dictate a covetousness tax in a way that is legitimate and self-evidently just.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Isn't it self-truthishly evident? Landownership encourages coveting, and not sharing with those who covet is therefore a form of collectivized deprivation. A landowner steals from everyone else "who would otherwise be at liberty" to use his toilet for some other purpose.  Naturally.  Alternative punch bowls don't grow on trees, you know. 
> 
> The more people who covet your particular toilet, the more you'll need to pay to keep sitting on it. Not to worry, though, as the market will dictate a covetousness tax in a way that is legitimate and self-evidently just.


lolz

----------


## Roy L

> "something I would otherwise have" (access to) is a key to Roy's meme.


Because that's what defines a violation of rights.



> If you barricaded a parcel of land with a force field or an impenetrable wall, and then padded it on the outside so that it wouldn't hurt Roy's body if he slammed angrily against it, it would still constitute an "initiation of force against him" (the force that keeps him out - none of his active initiation of collectivized force to make his way in counts), one that deprived him of [what he firmly believes is his natural liberty right] to "something he otherwise" woulda/coulda had.


And that is indisputably correct.  It is the same kind -- though a lesser degree -- of the violation of my right to liberty as if the wall was around me instead of around the land.  Enough of those walls around enough land, and it IS a wall around me.  That is very much the point.



> It's Anti-propertarian Libertarian Socialism, nothing more.


Nothing to do with socialism, stop lying.

----------


## Roy L

> Land is in an unclaimed state naturally. Men are not infringing upon anyone's rights when they claim unowned land.


Sure, just as it would not infringe anyone's rights if I merely _claimed_ to own the sun.  It's when men initiate force to prevent others from using the land that they infringe their rights, just as it would infringe others' rights if I tried to stop them from using "my" sun.



> Men are infringing rights when they steal owned property.


Men are infringing rights when they claim to own other men's rights to liberty.



> If the landowner is a thief, who is he stealing from?


From all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.  Read the story of the bandit and try to find a willingness to know the facts it identifies.



> Furthermore, why are you on this forum if your position is anathema to any of RP's beliefs?


I don't think LVT IS anathema to Ron Paul's beliefs, he just doesn't know how to implement his principles consistently.  I do.  LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to make taxation fair and economically benign.

----------


## Roy L

> He doesn't even know.


Lie.  I have stated it repeatedly.



> He's just turning natural law philosophy on its head to troll the forums.


Funny how I can defend everything I have said, and you can't.

----------


## Roy L

> Exactly.  It's as if he read all of Locke's treatises but only considers the sentence "God gave the world to men in common" the only "valid" one.  lolz


I don't consider it valid.  Basing rights on religion is sure to fail.

----------


## Roy L

> You stated false facts.


You have yet to identify one, nor will you ever be identifying one.



> I wasn't and am still not impressed.


I have demolished you and you have no answers.  Simple.

----------


## Roy L

> What did I lie about? How is asking a question a lie?


In post #1088, you embedded the following lie in a question:

"your view that you have a liberty to use all property"

Claiming that my view is that I have liberty to use all property is a flat-out LIE about what I have plainly written.  Embedding that lie in a question does not make it any less a lie.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You have yet to identify one, nor will you ever be identifying one.
> 
> I have demolished you and you have no answers.  Simple.


Yep, you triple-dog demolished him. Dib hocks dice, tick a locket, no take backs, tap-tap no erases.

----------


## Roy L

> The onus is on you to prove your claim because you are making the positive assertion ("land ownership is theft").  You still haven't done it.


Yes, I have, by showing that landowners are no different in substance from literal bandits.

----------


## Roy L

> Isn't it self-truthishly evident? Landownership encourages coveting, and not sharing with those who covet is therefore a form of collectivized deprivation. A landowner steals from everyone else "who would otherwise be at liberty" to use his toilet for some other purpose.  Naturally.  Alternative punch bowls don't grow on trees, you know. 
> 
> The more people who covet your particular toilet, the more you'll need to pay to keep sitting on it. Not to worry, though, as the market will dictate a covetousness tax in a way that is legitimate and self-evidently just.


Toilets.  How very appropriate.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Toilets.  How very appropriate.


Pay toilets. Stick 'em up.

----------


## eduardo89

> Sure, just as it would not infringe anyone's rights if I merely _claimed_ to own the sun.  It's when men initiate force to prevent others from using the land that they infringe their rights, just as it would infringe others' rights if I tried to stop them from using "my" sun.


Why wouldn't someone be able to claim the sun? If they were able to go to the sun, plant their flag and homestead the sun there is no reason why it would not be theirs.

----------


## eduardo89

Roy, the earth is not yours to begin with so no one is stealing from you by owning land.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Roy, the earth is not yours to begin with so no one is stealing from you by owning land.


Roy is a magic man. An X-Man in his own right, with invisible tentacles which make it possible for him to be "otherwise at liberty" to use each and every property occupied exclusively by anyone else wherever he goes.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, the earth is not yours to begin with so no one is stealing from you by owning land.


<yawn>  The earth's atmosphere isn't mine either, but if someone claimed they owned it and started charging me money for air to breathe, they would indeed be stealing from me, just as every landowner steals from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You have yet to identify one, nor will you ever be identifying one.


The previous posts full of "facts" you posted were those I referred to



> I have demolished you and you have no answers.  Simple.


You've demolished nothing and have repeatedly ignored my answers.  You don't want serious debate.  You just want to throw proverbial $#@! on the wall and everyone to call it art.

----------


## Roy L

> Why wouldn't someone be able to claim the sun? If they were able to go to the sun, plant their flag and homestead the sun there is no reason why it would not be theirs.


Even aside from the absurdity of such vaunting, presumptuous greed, there is an excellent reason why it would not be theirs: they have no right to deprive others of their liberty to use and benefit by it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> "Pretty good," that is, compared to the usual feudal libertarian garbage about land, like Rothbard's embarrassingly uninformed, ill-considered, absurd and dishonest anti-LVT screed.


  Wait, does he have one of those?  I've never heard it!  I want to hear it!  No, you must be talking about some paper he wrote, yes?  Or perhaps the short selection you refuted via ROFLs and <yawn>s?




> Personally, I find Long's voice really annoying: a kind of wheedling, supercilious, Wormtongue-like voice.


 Umm, do you live in a trash can outside Gordon and Maria's apartment building?  Or atop a mountain near Whoville, perhaps?  Put on a happy face, Roy!  Focus on the positive things in life!  I mean, you convinced me to stop supporting evil; that's positive, right?




> Easy: rightful property is something you would have as long as others did not initiate force against you to deprive you of it, while they would not have it except by initiating force to deprive you of it.


 Well the question is how it's initiating force at all to deprive you of something.  In order to directly initiate force against me you must somehow subjugate my body to your will by introducing physical factors to my body not of my own choosing, by punching my body, for example, or by poisoning me.  Whatever is going on with all the rest of the outside world, how is it possible that the goings-on even _could_ be aggressions against me, so long as no one is committing violence against my body?  Well it isn't possible until you have property rights theory.  The only way to initiate force against me is to actually use violence (force) against me -- that is, my body -- and to be the one starting (initiating) the trouble, not defending yourself against me.  Other than that, it's none of my business what's going on with the rest of the Universe; I have no rights over the rest of the Universe, only over myself.

*In the good non-landownership way of thought, my rights (and everyone else's) are extended over the rest of the external Universe automatically and irrevocably, by virtue of my being a human being and having the capability to access the various parts of the Universe if I were to encounter them in Nature free from the interference of any other greedy humans*.  Is that a fair re-phrasing of your view?  I know you don't like the word "own", and you've never been able to explain what you think ownership is and how it is absolutely not the same thing as the combination of controlship and usership.  Though you _have_ repeatedly _insisted_ they are not the same.  You just haven't _explained_ it.  So I still wonder of what your definition of ownership consists.  But anyway, my understanding is that everyone naturally has a liberty to access and use whatever parts of the Universe he could access and use were the greedy guys not preventing him.  This liberty is immutable, caused by his nature as a human and the nature of the Universe, and so ought to be respected.

*In the evil land-ownership way of thought, my rights are not extended over the rest of the external Universe automatically.  I get rights to parts of the external Universe only as I homestead them, if they are not already homesteaded by someone else.  Those parts of the Universe which have already been homesteaded, I simply have no right to, though I can obtain the right by purchase or gift.*  This, of course, leads to the death of millions each year and is the most monstrous idea ever to curse the Earth.  But it does have a certain logical consistency, do you agree?  I mean, the use and control of the Universe's space and natural resources must be divvied up somehow, and homesteading seems a just and internally consistent way of doing so, if you start from the premise that everyone does _not_ have a right to access all the resources of the Universe that happen to be available to him locally.




> Because by initiating force against me to stop me from exercising my natural liberty to use that external physical object, you are depriving me of something I would otherwise have.  That is what makes it aggression.


  Right, of course, but to know that we must _assume_ that that "natural liberty" to use everything in the Universe is a valid right, immutable and thus not overridden by any homesteading claims of other humans.  If one assumes X, then X is, of course, true.  But it shan't be very convincing to use that as an argument on those who see no reason to assume X.




> But in actual fact, of course, it isn't.  It's just something you've stolen from others by initiating aggressive, violent, coercive force against them like any other evil, greedy, thieving parasite.  We already established that by the case of the bandit robbing the caravans in the pass.


 Right, obviously, that's long been established now, not only by the bandit story but also by the quote from Joe Jones the ex-slave.  Anyone not on board by now is just a willfully evil parasite and we need to feed them to Herman Cain's electric fence alligators.




> Wrong.  An artificial arm is not part of you as your own arm is.  The only claim you have to your artificial arm is not that it is "part of your ongoing projects," but that you either made it yourself or paid someone else to make it (or paid someone else who did, etc.), and thus own it without initiating force or depriving anyone else of anything they would otherwise have.


 I wonder what if I didn't?  What if I didn't make it, nor pay for it. I found it, a relic from a long-lost advanced civilization.  Is it then not mine?  The evil libertarians/propertarians would say that so long as you did not steal it from anyone else, it can be rightfully yours.  Of course, right-thinking land-communists say that too, but we understand that if you took it from nature, that is stealing, because everyone has a natural liberty to nature.  We understand that because we assume it.  It is self-evidently the correct assumption.

Anyway, I wonder what are the implications of our correct assumption in this case of the abandoned product of labor.  I must pay an extraction tax, perhaps?




> If you did not make or buy it consensually, but forcibly took it from someone who had, then it would not be your property at all, however much it might have become "part of your ongoing projects."


 Right, and if you _forcibly_ took it out of nature, _forcibly_ depriving all of us who would have otherwise been free to use and control (but not own!) it, then you commit a _forcible_ act, and so that act is wrong.  In fact, "wrong", that's such an understatement it makes me sick -- it's literally an act of genocide, and one which has destroyed and enslaved and slaughtered the vast bulk of humanity.




> Which is not a point at all, but merely an attempt to evade the fact that what comes from nature without any human help is not a product of human labor, while what it MEANS for something to be a product of human labor is that it only "comes from nature" with human assistance.


 Right, the evasion is despicable.  And as you've explained, whenever I transform something with my labor, including land even, I own what I transformed.  Of course, if I move the "something" I must pay the extraction tax as penalty for depriving everyone else of using it.  And of course I can never transform the space which the "something" occupies, so I can never own that space.  But I can own land, as you've explained to the dense land-apologists, if you mean the thin layer of soil and etc. which I transform to make a farm (or a parking lot or whatever), I just can never, ever own the space which it occupies, because that space was there all along and everyone was naturally free to use and control (but not own!) it until I seized it away from them.  Am I starting to get it?




> Amusingly, Long purports to establish property rights in food by observing that if others could rightly take the food you produce, they could starve you to death.  He studiously averts his attention from the fact that if others could rightly appropriate as their private property the land you have to use to produce your food, they could likewise starve you to death.


 Right, this is incredibly amusing!  If everyone doesn't have the natural liberty to use and control (but not own!) everything in nature he runs across, and to be compensated by anyone removing any of that nature from its naturally accessible state, then all he has is a right to starve to death, as those in land-owning societies prove by very frequently _doing just that_.




> OTC, it's _absolutely_ clear: we own the things we rightfully own not because they are part of our "projects," but because they are our PRODUCTS, and would not have existed but for our efforts or the efforts of those we have engaged to produce them.  By definition, that can never include the earth's surface area nor any other natural resource, as they already existed without being produced by anyone.


 Right, you are absolutely right, of course.  We want to have private property in almost everything, contrary to those trying to slander us as anti-property.  We just don't accept the ridiculous idea of allowing private property in those things which are the _genesis_ of all the other property.  The beginning must not be privately owned.  After that, though, all the products of labor which come about should be owned.  The building blocks must remain unowned, but the structure they build must be owned.  That's self-evident.




> It is only the fact that owning products of labor does not initiate force to deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have that makes them ownable as property, because that is the only way to own things without violating others' rights.


 Right, exactly.  Well, we should remember to stipulate: as long as one pays the severance tax on the raw materials if the product of labor is portable (like a chainsaw), or the LVT if the product of labor is not portable (like a parking lot).  As long as those conditions are met, and any other just and proper taxes are paid, and any other reasonable restrictions and limitations democracy enacts are complied with, _then_ owning products of labor does not violate other's rights.  Otherwise, it does.  One can never own the building blocks, only the tower.  And even the tower is subject to the wishes of society, for the good of all.




> The mention of Henry George comes about halfway through, and the objection Long offers to the fact that land value is publicly created and therefore not rightly appropriable by the land's private owner is bald sophistry.  He claims that the presence of the community makes his labor as a philosophy professor more valuable just as it makes his land more valuable, but that is equivocation.  The *market* in the community that judges his labor to have a certain value is not the creator of that value; he is, just as the market's judgment that a Mercedes is worth more than a Fiat did not create the former's higher value, the good folks at Mercedes did.  In order for his labor to have that high a market value, *HE* HAS TO PERFORM IT UP TO THAT STANDARD.  HE is the one who must create his labor's value by giving the desired quality of service.  His land, by contrast, gets its value from the community without his lifting a finger.


 But of course he is right that society gives his professorial services value.  If he were out in the middle of the Sahara preaching to the dunes, his lectures would have little to no value.  It is a perfectly valid reason to dismiss that specific argument for a non-landownership society.  If that were the only argument, we'd be sunk.  Luckily you and I know there are many, many, MANY other reasons to reject a murderous landownership regime.  In the above paragraph, you bring up one of them: that professorial services are a product of labor, while land is not.  But that's a different argument.  That's the argument that land should not be owned because it's not a product of labor.  The original argument that Mr. Long was addressing was that land should not be owned because without society it would have no value.  He addressed it and made a fair point.  His professorial services also would have no value without society.  Since that's not a conclusive argument to disallow private property in his professorial services, it cannot be a conclusive argument to disallow private property in land.  It can be a contributing persuasive element, it can be another point to bring up to people, I'm not saying you shouldn't bring it up, but ultimately we cannot decide to disallow private appropriation merely because without society a Thing X would have no value, because almost all Thing Xs would have no value without society, not land only.




> Funny, I didn't get that from it.


 Well, Mr. Long probably did not intend that conclusion, but it is nevertheless inevitable.  One cannot hide from the truth!  All the facts of the case add up to one thing: LVT would be just, natural, and consistent with liberty.  It's the only possible way to deal with land that _is_.




> You might want to ponder the fact that although Long is a respected libertarian theorist and a philosophy professor at Auburn University, I just demolished his whole belief system in a few minutes.


 You are a libertarian of sorts also, you've implied, right?  So I guess this just means you are a much better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long!  Am I right?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yes, I have, by showing that landowners are no different in substance from literal bandits.


You didn't prove that.  Repetition of an assertion does not make it true.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy is a magic man. An X-Man in his own right, with invisible tentacles which make it possible for him to be "otherwise at liberty" to use each and every property occupied exclusively by anyone else wherever he goes.


Thank you for again proving that you have no choice but to lie about what I have plainly written.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Even aside from the absurdity of such vaunting, presumptuous greed, there is an excellent reason why it would not be theirs: they have no right to deprive others of their liberty to use and benefit by it.


Tell me, do you practice what you preach?  Do you allow others to use your land as they wish (assuming you own land)?  If not, why not?  Surely you could solve the supposed problem you believe exists by simply buying up vast tracts of land and turning it into your utopia!  Put your money where your mouth is, Roy L!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I don't consider it valid.  Basing rights on religion is sure to fail.


All theories of rights are based on religion and other moral presuppositions.  Secularism and atheism are religions too, as is Statism.  This is why I told you to check your presuppositions several pages ago.  If you had done so, you would realize your arguments are incorrect and illogical.

----------


## Roy L

> The previous posts full of "facts" you posted were those I referred to


<yawn>  And I have proved them.



> You've demolished nothing and have repeatedly ignored my answers.


Lie.  I have demolished you utterly.  AFAIK the last "argument" I didn't answer was Aquabuddha's last post on scriptural interpretation, which IMO would have been futile, as interpretations of scripture have occupied scholars for thousands of years with not much to show for it.



> You don't want serious debate.


You are lying again.  I have debated seriously with jascott as he is honest, and with Steven until he started lying.  What I don't want is to give an erroneous impression that the absurd lies and fallacious, dishonest nonsense offered by apologists for greed, privilege and injustice constitute "serious debate."

----------


## Roy L

> All theories of rights are based on religion and other moral presuppositions.


Mine is not.



> Secularism and atheism are religions too, as is Statism.


No, that is just stupid, dishonest, self-contradictory garbage.  Calling atheism a religion is like calling not collecting stamps a hobby.



> This is why I told you to check your presuppositions several pages ago.  If you had done so, you would realize your arguments are incorrect and illogical.


I have checked my presuppositions, and find them all sound and indisputable.  You, by contrast, have not checked yours, and can't even identify mine.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Roy, the earth is not yours to begin with so no one is stealing from you by owning land.


 Silence, you fiend from the infernal pit!  Your sick lies slaughter millions of people every year.  How do you sleep at night?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Roy is a magic man. An X-Man in his own right, with invisible tentacles which make it possible for him to be "otherwise at liberty" to use each and every property occupied exclusively by anyone else wherever he goes.


 What makes this possible is not magic, but the plain and undeniable fact that he would, indeed, be at liberty to use and control (but not own!) each and every one of these natural resources (not properties, Steven -- that was a lie) if it were not for greedy, grasping monopolists grabbing up said resources and preventing him from doing so.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You didn't prove that.  Repetition of an assertion does not make it true.


 It does if the assertion is _true_!  How hard is this to understand?

A landowner takes people's money for doing nothing.
A bandit takes people's money for doing nothing.
A landowner is an evil parasite.
A bandit is an evil parasite.
A landowner has no right to charge people.
A bandit has no right to charge people.
Thus, landowner is just a fancy word for bandit.

It's an airtight case!

----------


## Roy L

> Tell me, do you practice what you preach?  Do you allow others to use your land as they wish (assuming you own land)?


I have been a landlord in the past (I don't own any land now, as I think it is still a bad time to own, especially in my local area), and no, I did not allow others to use my land as they wished, because that's not how this system works.  



> If not, why not?


For the same reason I think the people who go to Africa and buy up slaves in order to free them are fools: they are just creating a more lucrative market for the slavers.  If I had let people use my land as they wished, I would just be relieving some of the pressure to change the system.



> Surely you could solve the supposed problem you believe exists by simply buying up vast tracts of land and turning it into your utopia!  Put your money where your mouth is, Roy L!


That's been tried, and while it has worked well as far as it goes, subsequent events -- crooked lawyers, court challenges, speculators trying to take advantage, senior government meddling, etc. -- have invariably corrupted the system.  The more corruption, the worse the system has worked, and the more excuse there has been to corrupt it further.  So I am convinced that education must come first.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> <yawn>  And I have proved them.


No, you haven't



> Lie.  I have demolished you utterly.  AFAIK the last "argument" I didn't answer was Aquabuddha's last post on scriptural interpretation, which IMO would have been futile, as interpretations of scripture have occupied scholars for thousands of years with not much to show for it.


Repeating this still doesn't make it true, but you can keep trying if you like.




> You are lying again.  I have debated seriously with jascott as he is honest, and with Steven until he started lying.  What I don't want is to give an erroneous impression that the absurd lies and fallacious, dishonest nonsense offered by apologists for greed, privilege and injustice constitute "serious debate."


I didn't lie.  You're just disagreeing to be disagreeable.  I haven't seen anything truly honest from you in this entire debate.  Just groundless assertions rooted in flimsy, shallow philosophy.  You keep making positive claims and failing to prove them.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I have been a landlord in the past (I don't own any land now, as I think it is still a bad time to own, especially in my local area), and no, I did not allow others to use my land as they wished, because that's not how this system works.  
> 
> For the same reason I think the people who go to Africa and buy up slaves in order to free them are fools: they are just creating a more lucrative market for the slavers.  If I had let people use my land as they wished, I would just be relieving some of the pressure to change the system.
> That's been tried, and while it has worked well as far as it goes, subsequent events -- crooked lawyers, court challenges, speculators trying to take advantage, senior government meddling, etc. -- have invariably corrupted the system.  The more corruption, the worse the system has worked, and the more excuse there has been to corrupt it further.  So I am convinced that education must come first.


So, all you have is a thought experiment.  You found that it doesn't work in reality, but continue to believe it correct.  Not something I would be willing to bet my livelihood on.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I didn't lie.


 How dare you!  How *DARE* you, sir!?!  How dare you claim to not be lying when you self-evidently _are_?  The gall!  The audacity!  The _lyyiinng_!

_You_ do not determine when you are lying; that is determined by reality.  That reality will continue to be decided and pointed out by the LVT Crusaders.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Calling atheism a religion is like calling not collecting stamps a hobby.


Burning stamps might be considered a hobby. Not collecting stamps sounds more like agnosticism to me.

----------


## Roy L

> You didn't prove that.


Yes, of course I did.



> Repetition of an assertion does not make it true.


<yawn>  Refusal to know facts does not make them disappear.

----------


## eduardo89

> <yawn>  Refusal to know facts does not make them disappear.


right back at ya buddy!

----------


## Roy L

> So, all you have is a thought experiment.


No, privately buying up land and then recovering its rent has been tried, and it doesn't solve the problem posed by the broader legal environment that imposes unfair taxes and offers rewards to idle rent seeking.



> You found that it doesn't work in reality, but continue to believe it correct.  Not something I would be willing to bet my livelihood on.


No, you have become confused and lost your way.  Read back through the thread.  You asked me -- quite stupidly and dishonestly, of course -- if I had tried buying up vast tracts of land and privately administering it according to LVT principles.  Not being a billionaire, I haven't, but similar experiments have been tried in places like Fairhope, AL and Arden, DE, and while they have produced highly livable communities, it has not been possible to escape or even greatly to mitigate the influence of senior governments and the corrupt environment of landowner privilege.

----------


## Roy L

> I didn't lie.


You most certainly did.  You lied when you claimed I had not proved landowning is theft, and you lied when you claimed secularism, atheism and statism are religions.



> You're just disagreeing to be disagreeable.  I haven't seen anything truly honest from you in this entire debate. Just groundless assertions rooted in flimsy, shallow philosophy.  You keep making positive claims and failing to prove them.


Four more lies.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, privately buying up land and then recovering its rent...doesn't solve the problem posed by the broader legal environment that imposes unfair taxes and offers rewards to idle rent seeking.


Spoken as if that was really ever was the intent or purpose. 

Eeesh, compulsory collectivist mentalities of every stripe give me the absolute heeby-jeebies.  Is there no cure for this mental illness - this nasty, rotten cancer in all its well-and-ill-intending, but all-enslaving forms? 

Where is the red button? I want to push the red button.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Spoken as if that was really ever was the intent or purpose. 
> 
> Eeesh, compulsory collectivist mentalities of every stripe give me the absolute heeby-jeebies.  Is there no cure for this mental illness - this nasty, rotten cancer in all its well-and-ill-intending, but all-enslaving forms? 
> 
> Where is the red button? I want to push the red button.


Probably best you and I bail out of this thread.  I suspect Roy L is either a lost cause or a hilarious troll.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I suspect Roy L is either a lost cause or a hilarious troll.


Both, I think. I'm here for the entertainment now, he's the gift that just keeps on giving!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Both, I think. *I'm here for the entertainment now, he's the gift that just keeps on giving!*


Good idea!

----------


## Roy L

> Wait, does he have one of those?  I've never heard it!  I want to hear it!  No, you must be talking about some paper he wrote, yes?  Or perhaps the short selection you refuted via ROFLs and <yawn>s?


Stop lying.  While much of it was ridiculous and a waste of time, I refuted it with fact and logic.  Anyone reading this can verify for themselves the fact that you are just flat-out lying again:

http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/.../msg00098.html



> Well the question is how it's initiating force at all to deprive you of something.


How else are you going to do that against my will?



> In order to directly initiate force against me you must somehow subjugate my body to your will by introducing physical factors to my body not of my own choosing, by punching my body, for example, or by poisoning me.  Whatever is going on with all the rest of the outside world, how is it possible that the goings-on even _could_ be aggressions against me, so long as no one is committing violence against my body?  Well it isn't possible until you have property rights theory.


Flat wrong.  Threats are also an initiation of force, such as Crusoe pointing his musket at Friday and ordering him back into the water.  He need never touch or injure Friday to have initiated force against him.



> The only way to initiate force against me is to actually use violence (force) against me -- that is, my body -- and to be the one starting (initiating) the trouble, not defending yourself against me.


Wrong.  A threat of violence is also an initiation of force.  All credible rights theorists are agreed on this fact.  You just refuse to know it because you have realized it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> Other than that, it's none of my business what's going on with the rest of the Universe; I have no rights over the rest of the Universe, only over myself.


Garbage.  Your right to liberty is *nothing other than* society's recognition that others cannot rightly deprive you of your natural liberty with respect to the rest of the universe.



> *In the good non-landownership way of thought, my rights (and everyone else's) are extended over the rest of the external Universe automatically and irrevocably, by virtue of my being a human being and having the capability to access the various parts of the Universe if I were to encounter them in Nature free from the interference of any other greedy humans*.  Is that a fair re-phrasing of your view?


Close enough.



> I know you don't like the word "own", and you've never been able to explain what you think ownership is and how it is absolutely not the same thing as the combination of controlship and usership.


Ownership of property is generally considered to consist of a bundle of four basic rights to:
- control
- benefit by
- exclude others from
- dispose of

A tenant, for example, has rights to control, benefit by and exclude, but not to dispose of.  A trustee can control, exclude others and dispose of, but cannot benefit by.



> But anyway, my understanding is that everyone naturally has a liberty to access and use whatever parts of the Universe he could access and use were the greedy guys not preventing him.  This liberty is immutable, caused by his nature as a human and the nature of the Universe, and so ought to be respected.


No, it ought to be respected because that is how human beings and their societies best thrive and succeed.



> *In the evil land-ownership way of thought, my rights are not extended over the rest of the external Universe automatically.  I get rights to parts of the external Universe only as I homestead them, if they are not already homesteaded by someone else.  Those parts of the Universe which have already been homesteaded, I simply have no right to, though I can obtain the right by purchase or gift.*


You haven't explained how chanting your cargo cult incantations can extinguish others' liberty.  You merely *assume* that it does.



> This, of course, leads to the death of millions each year and is the most monstrous idea ever to curse the Earth.  But it does have a certain logical consistency, do you agree?  I mean, the use and control of the Universe's space and natural resources must be divvied up somehow, and homesteading seems a just and internally consistent way of doing so, if you start from the premise that everyone does _not_ have a right to access all the resources of the Universe that happen to be available to him locally.


Right.  If you assume there are no universal human rights to life or liberty, the propertarian stance is logically consistent and defensible.



> Right, of course, but to know that we must _assume_ that that "natural liberty" to use everything in the Universe is a valid right, immutable and thus not overridden by any homesteading claims of other humans.


No, there are no such assumptions.  It is simply a PHYSICAL FACT that people ARE at liberty to use all that nature provides unless someone else initiates force to stop them.  The question begging is all on the propertarian side, which needs to find a justification for initiating force to deprive others of their liberty, and can't.



> I wonder what if I didn't?  What if I didn't make it, nor pay for it. I found it, a relic from a long-lost advanced civilization.  Is it then not mine?  The evil libertarians/propertarians would say that so long as you did not steal it from anyone else, it can be rightfully yours.


There are rules governing salvage; but at some point, maybe after 100 years or so, products of labor become part of our common heritage, like artifacts at an archaeological dig.  All civilized people understand that such items are not simply up for grabs, because of the threat such looting poses to their scientific, historical and cultural value.

Anyway, if you have seen many science fiction movies, you'll know that picking up and using an artificial arm left by a long-lost advanced civilization is probably a REALLY BAD IDEA.



> Of course, right-thinking land-communists say that too, but we understand that if you took it from nature, that is stealing, because everyone has a natural liberty to nature.  We understand that because we assume it.  It is self-evidently the correct assumption.


No, there is no assumption involved.  Unlike the premises of Propertarianism, the religion whose acolytes worship at -- and lay human sacrifices on -- the altar of the Great God Property, liberty and justice are based on self-evident and indisputable facts.  It is not an assumption that everyone is naturally at liberty to use what nature provided.  It is a *fact*.



> Anyway, I wonder what are the implications of our correct assumption in this case of the abandoned product of labor.  I must pay an extraction tax, perhaps?


Probably not, but it depends on the circumstances.  In some cases salvage rights are pretty clear.  But if the time since abandonment is too short, the original owner might still have some rights.  If it is too long, the item might be considered a cultural legacy owned in common by all.



> Right, the evasion is despicable.


Yes, and loathsome and disgraceful.



> And as you've explained, whenever I transform something with my labor, including land even, I own what I transformed.


Land in the relevant sense has by definition not been transformed by labor.



> Of course, if I move the "something" I must pay the extraction tax as penalty for depriving everyone else of using it.  And of course I can never transform the space which the "something" occupies, so I can never own that space.  But I can own land, as you've explained to the dense land-apologists, if you mean the thin layer of soil and etc. which I transform to make a farm (or a parking lot or whatever), I just can never, ever own the space which it occupies, because that space was there all along and everyone was naturally free to use and control (but not own!) it until I seized it away from them.  Am I starting to get it?


Apparently you have progressed to the point of being able to paraphrase my position without always baldly lying about it.  But the "land" you can rightly own -- the plowed furrows, steamrolled soil, etc. -- is not land in the relevant sense.



> Right, this is incredibly amusing!  If everyone doesn't have the natural liberty to use and control (but not own!) everything in nature he runs across, and to be compensated by anyone removing any of that nature from its naturally accessible state, then all he has is a right to starve to death, as those in land-owning societies prove by very frequently _doing just that_.


Unless government intercedes on their behalf.  Right.



> Right, you are absolutely right, of course.  We want to have private property in almost everything, contrary to those trying to slander us as anti-property.  We just don't accept the ridiculous idea of allowing private property in those things which are the _genesis_ of all the other property.  The beginning must not be privately owned.  After that, though, all the products of labor which come about should be owned.  The building blocks must remain unowned, but the structure they build must be owned.  That's self-evident.


Right, just as one rightly owns the fish one pulls from the ocean but not the ocean, or the sun-dried tomatoes on the drying rack but not the sun that dried them.  We can't rightly own the *origins* of what we produce, because that would initiate aggressive, violent, coercive force to deprive others of their rights to access the same opportunities.  Deprive people of natural opportunities, and you deprive them of the means to sustain themselves.



> Right, exactly.  Well, we should remember to stipulate: as long as one pays the severance tax on the raw materials if the product of labor is portable (like a chainsaw), or the LVT if the product of labor is not portable (like a parking lot).  As long as those conditions are met, and any other just and proper taxes are paid, and any other reasonable restrictions and limitations democracy enacts are complied with, _then_ owning products of labor does not violate other's rights. Otherwise, it does.


No.  It's not owning products per se that could violate people's rights, but the deprivations forcibly imposed on others in the course of their production or use.



> One can never own the building blocks, only the tower.


Bad analogy, as building blocks are also products of labor.  A more accurate (and honest) analogy would be that one can own the fish one caught, but not the ocean.



> And even the tower is subject to the wishes of society, for the good of all.


<sigh>



> But of course he is right that society gives his professorial services value.


No, he is not.  That is pure sophistry.  Society -- the market -- only values his services because of the quality HE gives them through his labor.  If he just got up in front of a class and read Aristotle to them (let alone if he just sat at his desk and surfed the Internet on his iPad, leaving his students to their own devices ;^), he would soon find himself out of a paycheck.

The market only MEASURES value, it does not CREATE value.  It is not the fact that many people in society desire a fine car that makes a Mercedes valuable, but the efforts of the folks at Mercedes who have PRODUCED a fine car.  This is proved by the fact that the very same society somehow did NOT give a Lada much value.  All the desire in the world does not create any value in the absence of the labor and investment that actually produces that desirable car.



> If he were out in the middle of the Sahara preaching to the dunes, his lectures would have little to no value.


Ignoratio elenchi.  By that "logic," the ocean gives a ship its value, not the shipyard that built it, because it would also be worthless if it were sitting in the middle of the Sahara.



> It is a perfectly valid reason to dismiss that specific argument for a non-landownership society.  If that were the only argument, we'd be sunk.


Wrong.  Long's "argument" is absurd sophistry logically equivalent to claiming that the officials at the Olympics with their timers and tape measures create the winning performances, not the athletes.



> The original argument that Mr. Long was addressing was that land should not be owned because without society it would have no value.


No, the argument was that its *value* could not rightly be appropriated by the landowner because it comes from society, not the landowner.



> He addressed it and made a fair point.  His professorial services also would have no value without society.


More of the same idiotic sophistry.  Nothing has any value without a market.  But the market only measures value, it does not create value.



> Since that's not a conclusive argument to disallow private property in his professorial services, it cannot be a conclusive argument to disallow private property in land.


It's also not the argument George made.  The argument he made -- and it is indisputably correct -- is that what MAKES a location valuable to society (the market) is government spending on services and infrastructure that are accessible at that location, and the opportunities and amenities the community provides at that location, as well as the physical qualities nature provides there, and NOT ANYTHING THE LANDOWNER DOES.



> It can be a contributing persuasive element, it can be another point to bring up to people, I'm not saying you shouldn't bring it up, but ultimately we cannot decide to disallow private appropriation merely because without society a Thing X would have no value, because almost all Thing Xs would have no value without society, not land only.


Let me try to make this as simple as possible, so that the nature of your evasions will be apparent to all:

Society creates the land's value but not Long's labor's value because his labor's value would disappear, *society's "contribution" notwithstanding,* if he did not expend the effort to perform it at the required standard.  His land's value, by contrast, would be just the same if he had never existed.

The land's value is completely independent of Long.  His labor's value, OTOH, is completely dependent on him.  That is why he creates the value of his labor, but society creates the value of the land.

So, which part of that fact do you refuse to know?



> Well, Mr. Long probably did not intend that conclusion, but it is nevertheless inevitable.  One cannot hide from the truth!  All the facts of the case add up to one thing: LVT would be just, natural, and consistent with liberty.  It's the only possible way to deal with land that _is_.


True.  Or at least, the only way compatible with an economy above the nomadic herding level.



> You are a libertarian of sorts also, you've implied, right?  So I guess this just means you are a much better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long!  Am I right?


Yes.  I was a better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long when I was still a teenager.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yes.  I was a better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long when I was still a teenager.


LMAO!!!!   Pride goeth before the fall.

----------


## Roy L

> Spoken as if that was really ever was the intent or purpose.


Thank you for admitting that you have simply been fabricating intents and purposes for LVT and dishonestly attributing them to me without evidence.

The intent and purpose of LVT is to achieve far greater liberty, prosperity and justice than can possibly be achieved without it.  Any other intent and purpose is something you have made up.



> Eeesh, compulsory collectivist mentalities of every stripe give me the absolute heeby-jeebies.  Is there no cure for this mental illness - this nasty, rotten cancer in all its well-and-ill-intending, but all-enslaving forms?


<yawn>  The right to use land, which landowning unilaterally abrogates, is an INDIVIDUAL right.  It is to restore and reconcile that INDIVIDUAL right of all human beings that LVT is necessary.  And as to all-enslaving cancers, maybe you should try to find a willingness to know the fact that that describes landowner privilege in many poor countries, but has no relation to anything in Hong Kong.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Well the question is how it's initiating force at all to deprive you of something. 
> 			
> 		
> 
> How else are you going to do that against my will?


Ooh! I may know the answer to this one! No armed guards, violence, or threats of violence of any kind.  We just build barricades strong enough to keep Roy L. and his land use coveting ilk out. Permanently.  Bomb proof even.  Completely exclusive. 

The deprivations Roy and his motley crew will suffer will still be there, of course, but the only threat of force or violence will be on their parts alone.  

Unless, that is, we can call a barricade a "threat" or "initiated force" against anyone who tries to batter their way in? Kind of like, "He hit his face with my fist!"

Yes, Roy, putting the land in a giant "safe" of sorts, with nobody needed to guard it, would definitely be a 'force' that would promise, not threaten, to deprive you of its contents - which you could ONLY get to by initiating force, or threats of your own.

Take down the sign that says *PRIVATE PROPERTY - KEEP OUT*, along with the one that says *TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT* - and just let the barricade speak for itself.  

The idea of depriving someone of what they think is their "natural liberty right to otherwise use" is getting more and more delicious to me.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Ooh! I may know the answer to this one! No armed guards, violence, or threats of violence of any kind.  We just build barricades strong enough to keep Roy L. and his land use coveting ilk out. Permanently.  Bomb proof even.  Completely exclusive. 
> 
> The deprivations Roy and his motley crew will suffer will still be there, of course, but the only threat of force or violence will be on their parts alone.  
> 
> Unless, that is, we can call a barricade a "threat" or "initiated force" against anyone who tries to batter their way in? Kind of like, "He hit his face with my fist!"
> 
> Yes, Roy, putting the land in a giant "safe" of sorts, with nobody needed to guard it, would definitely be a 'force' that would promise, not threaten, to deprive you of its contents - which you could ONLY get to by initiating force, or threats of your own.
> 
> Take down the sign that says *PRIVATE PROPERTY - KEEP OUT*, along with the one that says *TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT* - and just let the barricade speak for itself.  
> ...


+1  I will use Roy's "habitating plot" as a machine gun range/burial spot for radioactive and medical waste.  He won't mind

----------


## Steven Douglas

> +1  I will use Roy's "habitating plot" as a machine gun range/burial spot for radioactive and medical waste.  He won't mind


He should be happy, it will lower his LVT requirement should that ever get in place.  All you have to do in hard times is completely trash the value of the land you rent from Roy's collectivized ownership association.

----------


## Simple

Look people, we have a country full of overprices houses that won't sell and we have an Obama Administration that wants to become LandLord in Chief. A LVT would make owning excess land a tax liability which would drive prices down. Prices come down and the housing market gets cleared. Holding property for potential future gains would become less profitable, and buying land to develop will become more profitable. 

No taxes is best, but LVT comes next on the scale followed by taxation of consumption, and taxation of productivity on the far end of the scale.

So if people aren't ready to move from a socialistic nanny state to a free society, a LVT could be highly instrumental in transitioning away from the destructive economic practices we employ presently.

----------


## eduardo89

> Look people, we have a country full of overprices houses that won't sell and we have an Obama Administration that wants to become LandLord in Chief. A LVT would make owning excess land a tax liability which would drive prices down. Prices come down and the housing market gets cleared. Holding property for potential future gains would become less profitable, and buying land to develop will become more profitable. 
> 
> No taxes is best, but LVT comes next on the scale followed by taxation of consumption, and taxation of productivity on the far end of the scale.
> 
> So if people aren't ready to move from a socialistic nanny state to a free society, a LVT could be highly instrumental in transitioning away from the destructive economic practices we employ presently.


Wouldn't an easier, more liberty-friendly (ie not punishing people for exercising their right to property) be to return to sound money, have the market set interest rates and allow the inevitable correction to take place on its own?

----------


## eduardo89

Roy, I was wondering if you could answer two questions for me:

1) how many lies have been told in this thread?

2) who would an LVT be paid to and how does that compensate me as an individual for my "loss of liberty"?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Look people, we have a country full of overprices houses that won't sell and we have an Obama Administration that wants to become LandLord in Chief.* A LVT would make owning excess land a tax liability which would drive prices down.* Prices come down and the housing market gets cleared. Holding property for potential future gains would become less profitable, and buying land to develop will become more profitable. 
> 
> No taxes is best, but LVT comes next on the scale followed by taxation of consumption, and taxation of productivity on the far end of the scale.
> 
> So if people aren't ready to move from a socialistic nanny state to a free society, a LVT could be highly instrumental in transitioning away from the destructive economic practices we employ presently.


Owning land is already a liability.  The LVT won't lower the price of the land.  Factors determining the market price for land include-location, demographics, natural resources, and nearby businesses and schools (or lack thereof).

----------


## Roy L

> He should be happy, it will lower his LVT requirement should that ever get in place.  All you have to do in hard times is completely trash the value of the land you rent from Roy's collectivized ownership association.


Wrong, inevitably.  The severance tax requires you to pay for any value decrease you inflict on the land, whether it's resource extraction, depletion of fertility, toxic contamination, or whatever.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, I was wondering if you could answer two questions for me:
> 
> 1) how many lies have been told in this thread?


It's certainly in the hundreds, probably thousands.



> 2) who would an LVT be paid to and how does that compensate me as an individual for my "loss of liberty"?


It would be paid to the government that secures the user's exclusive tenure.  Your compensation is the uniform, universal individual exemption: you get free, secure, exclusive use of enough land of your choice to live on, including access to the services and infrastructure the LVT revenue pays for.

----------


## Roy L

> Look people, we have a country full of overprices houses that won't sell and we have an Obama Administration that wants to become LandLord in Chief.


Huh?



> A LVT would make owning excess land a tax liability which would drive prices down. Prices come down and the housing market gets cleared. Holding property for potential future gains would become less profitable, and buying land to develop will become more profitable.


I.e., actually developing it would be the source of profit, not just owning it when the zoning density was increased.  Right.  LVT would make housing far more affordable.



> No taxes is best, but LVT comes next on the scale followed by taxation of consumption, and taxation of productivity on the far end of the scale.


Production and consumption are just two sides of the same economic coin.  You can't tax one without taxing the other, except to the extent that production is exported and consumption imported.



> So if people aren't ready to move from a socialistic nanny state to a free society, a LVT could be highly instrumental in transitioning away from the destructive economic practices we employ presently.


Bingo.  By restoring the individual right to liberty, LVT removes the need for a lot of nanny-state spending that all goes to landowners anyway.

----------


## Roy L

> Owning land is already a liability.


Wrong.  As long as the long-term appreciation rate is greater than the annual tax rate, Owning land is a source of unearned income:

"The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie



> The LVT won't lower the price of the land.


It will certainly and indisputably lower the price of the land.  Once the tax amount exceeded the expected appreciation amount, land prices would crash as speculators left the market, leaving only users bidding for the land.



> Factors determining the market price for land include-location, demographics, natural resources, and nearby businesses and schools (or lack thereof).


And taxes.  Land value (V) is just capitalized future after-tax land rents:

V = r / (d + t - g)

Land rent is the economic advantage obtainable by using the land, which arises from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides at a given location.  You will note the absence from that list of anything the landowner provides.

----------


## Roy L

> Wouldn't an easier, more liberty-friendly (ie not punishing people for exercising their right to property)


There can be no right to property that inherently violates others' rights to liberty.



> be to return to sound money, have the market set interest rates and allow the inevitable correction to take place on its own?


Sound money reduces but doesn't stop land bubbles.

----------


## eduardo89

> There can be no right to property that inherently violates others' rights to liberty.


Garbage. Stop lying. 




> Sound money reduces but doesn't stop land bubbles.


Sound money prevents the government from propping up bubbles.

----------


## Roy L

> Ooh! I may know the answer to this one! No armed guards, violence, or threats of violence of any kind.  We just build barricades strong enough to keep Roy L. and his land use coveting ilk out. Permanently.  Bomb proof even.  Completely exclusive. 
> 
> The deprivations Roy and his motley crew will suffer will still be there, of course, but the only threat of force or violence will be on their parts alone.  
> 
> Unless, that is, we can call a barricade a "threat" or "initiated force" against anyone who tries to batter their way in? Kind of like, "He hit his face with my fist!"
> 
> Yes, Roy, putting the land in a giant "safe" of sorts, with nobody needed to guard it, would definitely be a 'force' that would promise, not threaten, to deprive you of its contents - which you could ONLY get to by initiating force, or threats of your own.
> 
> Take down the sign that says *PRIVATE PROPERTY - KEEP OUT*, along with the one that says *TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT* - and just let the barricade speak for itself.  
> ...


Yes, I have already told you that: worship of your Great God Property requires you to lay human sacrifices on his altar.  You probably don't realize it, but you have just explained how your evil, malicious, psychopathic belief in private landowner privilege has made you eager to spend more on walls to deprive others of their liberty than it would cost to compensate them for depriving them of it.  This proves that your real intent is not to defend any sort of human right or justice, but simply to rob, starve, enslave and murder innocent human beings that you consider to be worthless filth undeserving of any rights solely because they do not own land.

You cackle with glee at the prospect of starving people to death by spending more to wall them out of natural opportunities than it would cost you to compensate them for just not exercising their liberty to access those opportunities.  How, exactly, are you able to prevent yourself from knowing the fact that that is just naked, smirking evil?

----------


## Roy L

> Garbage. Stop lying.


A property "right" that removes others' rights to liberty is slavery.  The only difference between owning a slave and owning land is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's rights, while when you own land, you remove one of all people's rights.  Own all the people or own all the land, either way you have removed everyone's rights.



> Sound money prevents the government from propping up bubbles.


But it doesn't stop private interests from blowing them.

----------


## eduardo89

> A property "right" that removes others' rights to liberty is slavery.  The only difference between owning a slave and owning land is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's rights, while when you own land, you remove one of all people's rights.  Own all the people or own all the land, either way you have removed everyone's rights.


Lies. All lies. My neighbor owning his land, having paid for it and improving it does not make me a slave. Stop spewing garbage.

----------


## Seraphim

Considering the sum of all human life could comfortably live within the confines of the State of Texas, I'm quite sure that the notion of me fencing up a 100 yard by 100 yard piece of land does not stop you from being free. You actually believe that garbage? Additionally, are you saying that a family has no right to protect it's space? You speak as though somehow my creating a safe(r) environment is evil "CUZ WHAT IF I WANNA WALK THROUGH THAT SPACE". Are you that ideological blinded or are you making a concious effort to be unreasonable?




> Yes, I have already told you that: worship of your Great God Property requires you to lay human sacrifices on his altar.  You probably don't realize it, but you have just explained how your evil, malicious, psychopathic belief in private landowner privilege has made you eager to spend more on walls to deprive others of their liberty than it would cost to compensate them for depriving them of it.  This proves that your real intent is not to defend any sort of human right or justice, but simply to rob, starve, enslave and murder innocent human beings that you consider to be worthless filth undeserving of any rights solely because they do not own land.
> 
> You cackle with glee at the prospect of starving people to death by spending more to wall them out of natural opportunities than it would cost you to compensate them for just not exercising their liberty to access those opportunities.  How, exactly, are you able to prevent yourself from knowing the fact that that is just naked, smirking evil?

----------


## Roy L

> Lies. All lies. My neighbor owning his land, having paid for it and improving it


Owning the land doesn't involve improving it, stop lying.



> does not make me a slave. Stop spewing garbage.


Your neighbor owning an immigrant from Africa doesn't make you a slave, either.  But when all the land is owned, you either serve a landowner or you starve to death; likewise, when all the people are owned you either serve an owner or are whipped to death.  The whipping is at least quicker.

----------


## Roy L

> Considering the sum of all human life could comfortably live within the confines of the State of Texas,


Live on what?



> I'm quite sure that the notion of me fencing up a 100 yard by 100 yard piece of land does not stop you from being free.


Of course not, just as you owning an immigrant from Africa doesn't stop me from being free.



> You actually believe that garbage?


It is a fact that as more and more land is privately owned the people progressively lose their liberty, just as surely as if more and more people are owned.

How do you prevent yourself from knowing the fact that when people must labor for decades in the service of idle landowners and mortgage lenders just to secure a space to live in, they are not free?



> Additionally, are you saying that a family has no right to protect it's space?


ROTFL!  America's Founders figured that one out: the Hanover family indeed had no right to protect "its space," when that space was obtained by nothing other than forcible appropriation.



> You speak as though somehow my creating a safe(r) environment is evil "CUZ WHAT IF I WANNA WALK THROUGH THAT SPACE". Are you that ideological blinded or are you making a concious effort to be unreasonable?


What happens to your liberty when ALL the space is owned by others, hmmmmm?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Lies. All lies. My neighbor owning his land, having paid for it and improving it does not make me a slave. Stop spewing garbage.


Pssh!  Typical apologist for the landowner!  Don't you see?!  Roy L says you are a slave, therefore you are!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> What happens to your liberty when ALL the space is owned by others, hmmmmm?


It is secured.  The lack of conflict over who can use a place that comes from a society that recognizes land ownership promotes order.  The puritans' experiment in "landless" society failed for this reason.  The "takers" will quickly outstrip the "makers", plunging society into despair.  Refer back to my post about William Bradford.

----------


## eduardo89

> Pssh!  Typical apologist for the landowner!  Don't you see?!  Roy L says you are a slave, therefore you are!


Roy is a slave to lies and garbage.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> And taxes.  Land value (V) is just capitalized future after-tax land rents:
> 
> V = r / (d + t - g)


What exactly are each of those variables, and is that your own personal formula?

----------


## eduardo89

> What exactly are each of those variables, and is that your own personal formula?


I think the g stand for garbage.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Owning the land doesn't involve improving it, stop lying.


Cannot or does not? Are you claiming that land cannot be improved by a landowner?

----------


## Seraphim

Yay for State Feudalism. Hip-hip HOORAY.

----------


## Roy L

> It is secured.


Lie.  It is self-evidently removed.



> The lack of conflict over who can use a place that comes from a society that recognizes land ownership promotes order.


Right: it promotes an order in which the landless have no rights, and must serve a landowner or die.  This is evident and undeniable in every country where long-established private landowning is not mitigated by government intercession on behalf of the landless: Pakistan, the Philippines, Paraguay, Bangladesh, Guatemala, etc., etc.

I have already pointed out to you many times that Hong Kong proves you wrong.  You just refuse to know that fact.



> The puritans' experiment in "landless" society failed for this reason.


No, it did not.  It failed because it collectivized the *products of private labor*.  Many successful societies have not recognized private landowning, including not only Hong Kong but the Celtic communities that used the "village common" system for thousands of years.  They succeeded where the puritans failed because they recognized private property in products of labor.  The history of the Soviet Union also proves me right and you wrong: all the land was collectively owned, but the small "private" plots where individual farmers were allowed to KEEP THEIR *CROPS* or sell them were several times as productive as the collective farms where production was pooled and the same wage paid to everyone.  The Soviet Union was starving until it permitted that limited private property in products of labor.  But after that reform, private farming on public land was MORE PRODUCTIVE than private farming had been on *privately owned* land under the Czars.



> The "takers" will quickly outstrip the "makers",


That is exactly what happens when landowner privilege allows landowners to take from the makers and contribute nothing in return.



> plunging society into despair.  Refer back to my post about William Bradford.


I already told you why Bradford has nothing relevant to say: he was unable to tell the difference between natural resources and products of labor, just like Marxists and capitalists.  He at least had the excuse of living in a time when next to nothing was known of such basic facts of economics.  What's your excuse?

----------


## Roy L

> Cannot or does not? Are you claiming that land cannot be improved by a landowner?


<yawn>  Does not.  Landowning does not *involve* improving the land any more than it involves playing the piano.  I am not saying that a landowner cannot play the piano, just as I am not saying that a landowner cannot improve the land.  But owning land does not involve playing the piano.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just have to refuse to know it.

----------


## Roy L

> Yay for State Feudalism. Hip-hip HOORAY.


Were you under an erroneous impression that you were saying something relevant?

----------


## Roy L

> What exactly are each of those variables, and is that your own personal formula?


V is value, r is rent, d is discount rate, t is tax rate, and g is rent growth rate.  It is a more general form of the Net Present Value Equation that accounts for the fact that rent increases over time.  The NPV equation is in turn a simplified form of an infinite series of terms, each discounted to the present.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Were you under an erroneous impression that you were saying something relevant?


No more or less relevant than what you have to say.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I already told you why Bradford has nothing relevant to say: he was unable to tell the difference between natural resources and products of labor, just like Marxists and capitalists.  He at least had the excuse of living in a time when next to nothing was known of such basic facts of economics.  What's your excuse?


I don't need an excuse.  I'm right, and history proves it over and over again.  What's your excuse for being ignorant of history?

Bradford is totally relevant.  What happened in his time was a living laboratory for your utopian ideal.  It failed then, and it will fail anytime it is tried in any significantly complex society.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Roy is a slave to lies and garbage.


He's also entertaining in his ability to twist logic into Gordian knots.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> V is value, r is rent, d is discount rate, t is tax rate, and g is rent growth rate.  It is a more general form of the Net Present Value Equation that accounts for the fact that rent increases over time.  The NPV equation is in turn a simplified form of an infinite series of terms, each discounted to the present.


And that "general form" of the equation you mentioned - is that your generalized form - your personal invention? And who determines "Rent"?

V = r / (d + t - g)

Value = Rent / (discount rate plus the tax rate minus the growth rate)  -- There is not a single constant in that equation.  Hence, "Value" is not determined by "the market", but is 100% determined by whomever is in power. Whatever they want they can get by changing any of the variables over which they alone have control.  Looks like run-of-the-mill and quite deliberate wealth redistribution to me.

Also you wrote, "Owning the land doesn't involve improving it..."

And I asked, "Cannot or does not? Are you claiming that land cannot be improved by a landowner?" 

What is the answer to that question?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Well the question is how it's initiating force at all to deprive you of something. 
> 			
> 		
> 
> How else are you going to do that against my will?


Well, first let me say that you are absolutely right of course, but the point is: *how far*, or _to what_, does your will rightfully extend?  I cannot deprive you of a certain car which I claim to own if you want to use it without violating your will.  Your will is that you use the car.  Your will is being violated.  But the question is: is the car a legitimate subject for your will?  If so, why?  If not, why not?  And of course you have the correct answers and have voiced them many times before, so please don't think I'm saying you don't.



> Flat wrong.  Threats are also an initiation of force, such as Crusoe pointing his musket at Friday and ordering him back into the water.  He need never touch or injure Friday to have initiated force against him.


 Right.  Extending "initiation of force" to cover "threats of said" is also a theoretical extention, and a correct one.  But technically, a threat to initiate force is not an actual initiation of force.  An actual initiation of force happens when force is actually initiated.  We simply philosophically ponder and reason and decide that to threaten to initiate force is in many ways equivalent to actually initiating the force; it is a substitute that aggressors use to accomplish the same thing as actual force without having to go to the trouble of exerting the force.

In the same way, force against objects is not actually force against you, but we philosophically extend "you" to include "parts of the external Universe which you have transformed (or gotten honestly from those who transformed them)" and thus they are under the legitimate domain of your will, and not under the purview of anyone else's will.




> Wrong.  A threat of violence is also an initiation of force.  All credible rights theorists are agreed on this fact.  You just refuse to know it because you have realized it proves your beliefs are false and evil.


 Huh?  I agree with you totally, Roy.  And I agree that threats of violence are akin to actual violence and thus are aggression.  Perhaps we had a misunderstanding?   I don't refuse to know this at all, because far from proving my beliefs evil, it _is_ my belief.




> Garbage.  Your right to liberty is *nothing other than* society's recognition that others cannot rightly deprive you of your natural liberty with respect to the rest of the universe.
> 
> Close enough.
> 
> Ownership of property is generally considered to consist of a bundle of four basic rights to:
> - control
> - benefit by
> - exclude others from
> - dispose of
> ...


 All of this goes to show that:
First, and most importantly, you are totally right and the land-apologists are totally evil.
Second, the main difference between the evil baby-killing feudalists and the good pro-human anti-land-owning crusaders is that the good guys accept the self-evident truth that everyone's will should be presumed to rightfully extend over the use and control (but not ownership!) of the entire Universe.  Or, to be precise, any part of the Universe which he can naturally access, and for which he has a desire to do so.  The blood-soaked land-pigs just can't get this through their heads!  They think that one's will should extend to those resources which one homesteads.  They just don't see that homesteading is mass-murder by a different name.  Poor benighted fools.




> No, he is not.  That is pure sophistry.  Society -- the market -- only values his services because of the quality HE gives them through his labor.  If he just got up in front of a class and read Aristotle to them (let alone if he just sat at his desk and surfed the Internet on his iPad, leaving his students to their own devices ;^), he would soon find himself out of a paycheck.
> 
> The market only MEASURES value, it does not CREATE value.  It is not the fact that many people in society desire a fine car that makes a Mercedes valuable, but the efforts of the folks at Mercedes who have PRODUCED a fine car.  This is proved by the fact that the very same society somehow did NOT give a Lada much value.  All the desire in the world does not create any value in the absence of the labor and investment that actually produces that desirable car.
> 
> Ignoratio elenchi.  By that "logic," the ocean gives a ship its value, not the shipyard that built it, because it would also be worthless if it were sitting in the middle of the Sahara.
> 
> Wrong.  Long's "argument" is absurd sophistry logically equivalent to claiming that the officials at the Olympics with their timers and tape measures create the winning performances, not the athletes.
> 
> No, the argument was that its *value* could not rightly be appropriated by the landowner because it comes from society, not the landowner.
> ...


 Please, Roy, please: I don't refuse to know any of it!  You are completely and utterly right, and everyone knows that.  I think this is just another misunderstanding.  For Mr. Long's professorial "services" (lies from a hack, more like, right?), society is a necessary but not sufficient condition for them to have value (other than personal value to himself).  For land, society is a necessary and sufficient condition, so long as the society includes a government that does improvements such as roads, water lines, etc., because the people who think it's just pure population that gives land its value are misguided heretics, though they otherwise be Georgists like us.  Anyway, the point is: both services and land depend upon society for their value.  So they are identical in that respect.  But services also depend, obviously, on the actual service being rendered by the server.  Land, in contrast, doesn't depend on the landowner at all but is just a given and immutable fact of nature, which humans can do nothing about.  So just as I said, the argument that land should not be owned because humans can do no labor to change nor improve it, that argument is still valid, but the argument that land should not be owned because society gives it value, that argument doesn't work.




> True.  Or at least, the only way compatible with an economy above the nomadic herding level.


 Ha, ha, ha, so true!  Economies stuck in the superstition of land-ownership will never be able to advance beyond that of nomadic herders.



> Yes.  I was a better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long when I was still a teenager.


 Booyah!  Take that, Long, you hack!

----------


## Roy L

> I don't need an excuse.  I'm right, and history proves it over and over again.


No, history proves over and over again that I am right and you are wrong.  I already proved that to you in post #1186, which you have not answered and cannot answer.  I proved it to you by the example of the Soviet Union, where private property in products of labor but *not land* under the commissars resulted in HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY than private property in both land and products of labor under the Czars.  I could also prove it to you by the examples of ancient Egypt and Rome, both of which were destroyed by private landowning.

To make a historical case that lack of private property in land has some deleterious effect, you need to look at historical examples where land was not privately owned, but products of labor were.  You have not done that, nor will you ever be doing that, because all the historical examples, such as Hong Kong, prove me right and you wrong.



> What's your excuse for being ignorant of history?


I knew more history than you when I was still a teenager.



> Bradford is totally relevant.


Nope.  See above.  Like you and the Marxists, he made no distinction between natural resources and products of labor.



> What happened in his time was a living laboratory for your utopian ideal.  It failed then, and it will fail anytime it is tried in any significantly complex society.


Nope, that's just another lie from you.  What Bradford describes is the effect of  collectivization of *products of labor*.  But that is not what I advocate.  Something close to what I advocate has ben tried in Hong Kong, and has succeeded brilliantly.

You will, however, continue to lie about that.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I could also prove it to you by the examples of ancient Egypt and Rome, both of which were destroyed by private landowning.


That should be interesting.  You say that you can prove that, then by all means, prove it.  Please make that case. Of all I know that really did contribute to the downfall of both ancient Egypt and ancient Rome (and ancient Greece before them for that matter), I don't remember a single mainstream reference to private land ownership as any kind of primary causal factor. Not that they weren't all lying, mind you, or propertarian apologist historians who weren't as enlightened as Roy L., -- I just have yet to hear anyone make the case that private ownership of land was a primary factor of their respective downfalls. 

Prove it, Roy.

----------


## Steven Douglas

One last thing, Roy: You haven't been drinking this particular brand of Kool-Aid, have you? 

"Sacred Economics": Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, by Charles Eisenstein?




> *Chapter 4. The Trouble with Property*
> 
> *The realization that property is theft* usually incites a rage and desire for vengeance against the thieves. Matters are not so simple. The owners of wealth play a role that is created and necessitated by the great invisible stories of our civilization that compel us to turn the world into property and money whether we are aware of doing so or not.


Are you a Sacred Economist, Roy?

Say it aint' so. Say it aint' so!

----------


## Roy L

> And that "general form" of the equation you mentioned - is that your generalized form - your personal invention?


No.



> And who determines "Rent"?


The market *measures* rent, but it is "determined" by whoever affects the economic advantage obtainable by using the land.  That is mostly government, but many people in the community also affect rent by the opportunities and amenities their activities provide.



> V = r / (d + t - g)
> 
> Value = Rent / (discount rate plus the tax rate minus the growth rate)  -- There is not a single constant in that equation.


??  Of course not.  Expecting one is a confession of economic ignorance.



> Hence, "Value" is not determined by "the market", but is 100% determined by whomever is in power.


Right: the market only MEASURES the welfare subsidy giveaway being given to the landowner by "whoever is in power."  That is very much the point.  The market judges the effect of what "whoever is in power" does, and that goes for land value as for any other value.  The market value of illegal drugs, for example, is governed mainly by the effectiveness of the prohibition "whoever is in power" maintains against them.  All the independent variables in the equation affect value, and the market is simple a reflection of the rules in place.  The rent, for example, is the market's judgment of the economic advantage obtainable by using the land.  But that is affected by zoning by "whoever is in power," the roads built and maintained by "whoever is in power," the government services provided by "whoever is in power," etc.  



> Whatever they want they can get by changing any of the variables over which they alone have control.


The only variable "those in power" control directly is the tax rate, and while they could reduce the value of land to zero by removing the welfare subsidy giveaway to the owner (land value is identically equal to the minimum value of the welfare subsidy giveaway the landowner expects to take from society and *not repay* in taxes), the only way they could push it above the zero-tax value is by making the tax rate negative.



> Looks like run-of-the-mill and quite deliberate wealth redistribution to me.


Oh, absolutely.  The equation just shows how much wealth is being redistributed from the productive to idle landowners.



> Also you wrote, "Owning the land doesn't involve improving it..."
> 
> And I asked, "Cannot or does not? Are you claiming that land cannot be improved by a landowner?" 
> 
> What is the answer to that question?


I already answered you, so you can stop dishonestly pretending I didn't: it DOES not involve improving the land, any more than it involves playing the piano.  Can a landowner play the piano?  He might.  Some do, no doubt.  But playing the piano is not part of landowning any more than improving the land is.

----------


## Roy L

> One last thing, Roy: You haven't been drinking this particular brand of Kool-Aid, have you? 
> 
> "Sacred Economics": Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, by Charles Eisenstein?
> 
> 
> 
> Are you a Sacred Economist, Roy?
> 
> Say it aint' so. Say it aint' so!


Never heard of it.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Can a landowner play the piano?  He might.  Some do, no doubt.  But playing the piano is not part of landowning any more than improving the land is.


That was a very strange answer.  You are right, playing the piano is not part of _landowning_. However, playing the piano *can* very much be part of _piano ownership_, just as improving land can be very much a part of land ownership.  

You say, "it does not involve", when in reality, "it does not _necessarily_ involve", but "can, _and does in many cases_, very much involve" (playing the piano, or improving the land).

"involve" is your lying weasel word.  You want the word "involve" to be synonymous with "require", as a means of exclusion and negation of a claim on value, without saying "require" - which has a more confined meaning, and can be logically argued. 

For example, we could say, "Owning a car does not _involve_ driving it." That is not necessarily true, unless we are really saying is that car ownership _does not require_ that someone drive it.  Now that would be true.  And so what? In either case an investment was made, money was spent, and most cars, as a rule, are bought for the purpose of driving them. Thus, it can be said that _most car ownership_ "involves" driving the cars, most of which are bought for that purpose alone. As a rule.  The fact that I can buy a car and put it in storage, or else rent it out to others without driving it myself, is both incidental _and an exception to the rule_ - even aside from the fact that renting cars out comes with a set of laws and regulations that don't apply to other car owners. Which I have no problem with, as it is affected by the public interest. 

You want to take the case of landowners who do not improve land and extrapolate that to mean that "landownership does not involve improvements" - something that is extremely poorly worded, and I could easily disagree with and prove wrong. However, what you really mean is "landownership does not require improvements", to which I would agree. And so what? That does not in anyway negate the value of improvements that are made, _as a rule_, by those who do in fact make them, as their land ownership involves land improvements -- nor does the fact that "land ownership does not require improvements" erode in any way the natural claim someone has on the value of improvements to a piece of land once they are made.

----------


## Roy L

> Of all I know that really did contribute to the downfall of both ancient Egypt and ancient Rome (and ancient Greece before them for that matter),


The high age of Greece was between Egypt and Rome, and much closer to Rome in time.



> I don't remember a single mainstream reference to private land ownership as any kind of primary causal factor. Not that they weren't all lying, mind you, or propertarian apologist historians who weren't as enlightened as Roy L.,


They were not as enlightened, as few knew  any economics, and those that did usually only knew the propertarian propaganda. 



> -- I just have yet to hear anyone make the case that private ownership of land was a primary factor of their respective downfalls. 
> 
> Prove it, Roy.


In ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom, which achieved the greatest height of civilization, prosperity and cultural productivity far exceeding any other on earth at the time, the primary tax was effectively a land value tax, but one levied only on agricultural land: a share not of the harvest, but of the EXPECTED harvest given the land's estimated and historical fertility.  However, temple lands were exempt from this tax, being, effectively, the private domain of the priests.

Over the course of many centuries, this tax exemption for temple lands drove all the good land into the hands of the priests, as it was worth more to them than to the people farming it.  The priestly class became fantastically rich through their increased landowning (though like all landowners qua landowners, they did nothing productive, but just charged the users rent), and that is how the extraordinary legacy of monumental Egyptian temple architecture was funded: by land rents retained for the priests' "religious" use.

At the same time, this meant that that land rent, the natural and best source of funding for government, was no longer being paid in taxes.  Other taxes (but unlike the land tax, unjust and economically harmful ones) were imposed to make up for the revenue that the land tax formerly provided: taxes on trade, on consumer goods like salt and cooking oil, on capital goods like farm implements and artisans' tools, on luxury goods, on slaves and freeing of slaves, etc.  Unlike the land tax, these taxes required large and growing armies of tax collectors to enforce them, and gradually undermined both the economy and national security: the state had to support so many tax collectors, there was little money left to fund the army or necessary services and infrastructure.  The resulting long-term economic decay meant that periodic failures of the Nile floods, which were bearable when the productive did not have so much of the fruits of their labor taken by taxes, became catastrophes of Biblical proportions, leading to the collapse of the Old Kingdom in civil wars.

The story in Rome was similar, but the land tax exemption was for the noble senatorial families rather than priests or temples.  Over the centuries, this drove all the good land into the hands of the nobles, until by the fourth century CE, more than 90% of all the land in the Empire was owned by just 2000 individuals.  The only saving grace was that by far the biggest landowner was the emperor himself (who had owned all of Egypt as his personal property since Augustus's time), who consequently was able to devote a large chunk of land rent to maintaining the army and providing government services and infrastructure.  But as in Egypt, the declining share of land rent paid in taxes meant that many other taxes had to be increased -- unfair and economically destructive ones -- and moreover on many occasions even these were considered inadequate, and inflation was resorted to by debasing the coinage.  All of this was very harmful to the economy, and impoverished the government to the point that the army could not be paid, the legions deserted en masse to take up employment in the private armies of big landowners, and the barbarians from the east over-ran empty fortifications -- fortifications that land taxes had built in better times.

----------


## Roy L

> That was a very strange answer.


No, it merely identified indisputable facts of objective physical reality that you refuse to know, as you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> You are right, playing the piano is not part of _landowning_. However, playing the piano *can* very much be part of _piano ownership_, just as improving land can be very much a part of land ownership.


No, of course it can't.  You are just lying again.  Those who want to play the piano may certainly find it convenient to own rather than rent one, just as those who want to improve land may find it convenient to own it rather than pay a greedy, evil, privileged, parasitic landowner rent for the use of it; but that in no way means that playing the piano is PART OF owning it, any more than improving land is PART OF owning it.



> You say, "it does not involve", when in reality, "it does not _necessarily_ involve", but "can, _and does in many cases_, very much involve" (playing the piano, or improving the land).


No, it does not.  They are simply two different things that the same person will often find it convenient to do.



> "involve" is your lying weasel word.


No, that is just another evil, stupid, dishonest lie from you.  You are lying about an ordinary English word in order to avoid knowing the facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> You want the word "involve" to be synonymous with "require", as a means of exclusion and negation of a claim on value, without saying "require" - which has a more confined meaning, and can be logically argued.


I really don't care if you say, "involve" or "require."  Either way, owning land does not imply improving it.

Some things might be logically argued.  I still eagerly await the time when you logically argue one of them.



> For example, we could say, "Owning a car does not _involve_ driving it." That is not necessarily true,


Yes, in fact, it *is* necessarily true.



> unless we are really saying is that car ownership _does not require_ that someone drive it.  Now that would be true.  And so what?


So when you claim the landowner improves the land, you are lying.



> In either case an investment was made, money was spent, and most cars, as a rule, are bought for the purpose of driving them.


Like most slaves....?



> Thus, it can be said that _most car ownership_ "involves" driving the cars, most of which are bought for that purpose alone. As a rule.  The fact that I can buy a car and put it in storage, or else rent it out to others without driving it myself, is both incidental _and an exception to the rule_


It proves that owning a car does not mean driving it.



> You want to take the case of landowners who do not improve land and extrapolate that to mean that "landownership does not involve improvements" - something that is extremely poorly worded,


You misspelled, "indisputably accurate."



> and I could easily disagree with and prove wrong.


No; although you disagree with it, you cannot possibly prove it wrong, as it is objectively correct.



> However, what you really mean is "landownership does not require improvements", to which I would agree. And so what? That does not in anyway negate the value of improvements that are made, _as a rule_, by those who do in fact make them, as their land ownership involves land improvements -- nor does the fact that "land ownership does not require improvements" erode in any way the natural claim someone has on the value of improvements to a piece of land once they are made.


I have always said that the value of fixed improvements rightly belongs to those who make them, whether they happen to own the land or not.  It is UNimproved land value that is created by society rather than the landowner, and is therefore rightly recovered for the purposes and benefit of the society that creates it.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Roy, for the sake of discussion, let's stipulate to everything you wrote about ancient Egypt and Rome as being the causes of their downfall (even though debased coinage, something that can be done irrespective of land ownership, was also mentioned as a cause). 

What you argued against were two cases of "ownership by the few at the expense of the many", and the net effect of oligarchical class control of land in both cases.  No problem there, I would argue against that as well.  If a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet and friends had enough wealth to buy 99% of existing lands, they could both kiss my ass. I wouldn't support that at all, any more than I would allow a foreign government to buy domestic land and exert the same financial control over them. 

In the case of Egypt, the priests were, in essence, the government, given that government, by extension, did the bidding of the priests.  I don't separate those two, or make any differentiation between ostensibly 'separated' proxies.  I know that in my country, when asked for proof of insurance, I am answering to the Insurance Industry faction of my government.  They can state it anyway they want, I don't pretend that it is otherwise. In the case of Egypt, _priests=government_.  

In the case of Rome, land ownership was even more directly tied to government, given senatorial (and senatorially connected) ownership of lands by an elite few (very important). That is very similar to what is happening in China now - if you are a member of the decidedly limited ruling power elite minority that makes up the Communist Party (a very tiny percentage of Chinese are actual Party members), you (or your family and connections by extension) are insanely wealthy, having first access to both land and moneys used for economic improvements. If you are a party member, you are in a position to decide winners and losers. 

You referred to the emperor's ownership in Rome as a "saving grace", due to army maintenance and infrastructure improvements from rent taxes collected.  We don't know how many infrastructure improvements were made by other land owners, but let's pretend they made none whatsoever, but simply sat on their collective asses and collected rents, while The Good Emperor only strived to collect rents so that improvements could be made to a Well Defended And Improved Infrastructure. By implication this argues that a saving grace of land ownership is rental, but only so long as it is owned by government, and only so long as it results in army maintenance and infrastructure improvements.  

Now at this point, I would normally argue that class ownership of land, currency debauchery and parasitic army maintenance were all decisive primary factors in the downfall of Rome. Two of those happen routinely in regimes which have no land ownership rights, but that's beside the point of this post. 

The conclusion that I come away with has nothing to do with land ownership, but rather concentrated land ownership into the hands of a few (but somehow not "the one", and definitely never "the many", for some unspoken reason).  In both cases, Egypt or Rome could have simply decreed that renters were now owners, with the express prohibition of owners as rent-seekers (i.e., only occupiers can own). That would have done away entirely with the problem of rent-seeking elitists of all kinds. The only remaining problem would be taxation - which was already in the power of either government to begin with.  Merely asserting that *"land rent [is] the natural and best source of funding for government"* is not a proof at all. It is, rather, what you are arguing, and hopefully not circularly from that premise -- which may or may or may not be true, but _has most definitely not been argued, let alone established_.   

All regimes, regardless of land or property ownership laws, are subject to currency debauchery as a means of hidden taxation - which ultimately results in the downfall of the currency, and a consequent regime change (of the regime, or within that regime).  Likewise, all regimes, regardless of land ownership or property rights, can be laden with the burden of excessive armies or other parasitic entities, whether beneficial or not (welfare/warfare).  That also has nothing to do with land ownership.  

ln all cases, I see an argument against concentration of rent-seeking land ownership - the greatest concentration of which is "one" owner: namely, _a rent-seeking government_ as the owner. To me, that is the worst possible scenario, to wit: (and this is my opinion only, albeit it one I think is shared by many)

Governments are, by their very nature, hungry, dishonest, thieving, cheating hippos; power and money gluttons who get no pass from me. Not one of them. They are all, by nature, untrustworthy, as they are all run by individuals, all of whom have individual interests to look after, and must be presumed IN ALL CASES as willing to resort to using government to their own ends.  I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them.  Giving a government sole "ownership" of lands as a method of taxation does not preclude other taxation methods (which are guaranteed to come), nor is it a check on other heaped burdens, including excessive armies, welfare programs, selective and wasteful infrastructure - nor, for that matter, is there any check against currency debasement as a _taxation of last resort_, once the limits of normal taxation - regardless how it is assessed or collected - have been reached.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> So when you claim the landowner improves the land, you are lying.


Pants on fire, liar.  You weaseled again and changed the wording.  Stop moving the goalposts, Roy. That was very slippery, very evil and dishonest of you, as I never claimed such a thing. 

Merely owning land is not a "land improvement" in itself. If that is what you meant you should have worded it that way in the beginning.  Very simple: Land ownership in itself does not constitute an improvement on the land.  We could have argued it from there -- but you played fast, loose and slippery with your terms. 

Either that, or your command of English is so piss-poor that you really could not word it any better than what you did - which might explain why so many people here have difficulty following what appears to be an absence of coherency and logic?    

What you rewrote is very different from saying that "land ownership can involve land improvement".   Playgrounds can "involve" playing children. Organizations can "involve" members. Involve means to include, or contain as a part. However, it can also be more restrictive than that, as "a necessary result".  But the word "involved" was not even necessary. Thus, you weaseled.  Very evil.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It is UNimproved land value that is created by society rather than the landowner, and is therefore rightly recovered for the purposes and benefit of the society that creates it.


That's where you are full of crap, because you don't account for those who actually DO NOT WANT THEIR LAND VALUED BY OTHERS.  It does not account for the rights of those who would not otherwise sell or move AT ANY PRICE. 

That is where coveting comes into play, Roy, and goes back to an original scenario that you just couldn't argue against.  It is possible to be popular without wanting that popularity. It is possible, BY COVETING, to give value to something that you do not want valued *by others.* 

Einstein wrote his theories, and owed NOTHING to the world for them.  However, under your regime, if Einstein wanted to live in isolation, his spot on Earth could become "valued" by others who would want to be near him - despite his desire to be alone - and under your regime, the rent he must pay to the world, simply for having an otherwise unwanted popularity, would ultimately increase, wherever he went. 

That is but ONE case (which completely falsifies your so-called "proof") of mere ownership increasing value - _even though that value was not possible without, and came strictly from, others._  Roy L. or Joe blow could occupy that same land and EVERYONE would leave you alone - especially if you had a repulsive personality.  But let an Einstein or other figure who eschews popularity move in, and suddenly the value increases.  He now has to pay an "unwanted popularity" tax.  On something he did not want valued. 

Now take that to my other example - I improve a piece of property, but NOT the land itself.  I don't do that to increase its value to OTHERS - only to myself.  But it is attractive to others, who want to build around it, and be associated with it.  Suddenly I am taxed on value based on improvements that I have made, which incidentally was attractive to others. 

It really is a Coveting Tax.  

It is no wonder to me why the few uber-wealthy friends of mine are considered "Upper Class Out Of Sight".  You can't see their enormous homes from ANY public road.  They are completely and deliberately hidden from view - they know what the Roy's of the world would want to do if they caught sight of their homes. They know the effect it would have on all the covetous people in the world who fantasize about what they "would otherwise be at liberty" to do if it wasn't for that damned exclusive usage thing called "land ownership".

----------


## Roy L

> That's where you are full of crap,


Oh, enough of your constant, stupid, evil garbage.  Prolonged exposure to evil makes me physically ill.



> because you don't account for those who actually DO NOT WANT THEIR LAND VALUED BY OTHERS.


I don't account for those who actually DO NOT WANT THEIR SLAVES TO HAVE ANY RIGHTS, either.  So?  I don't account for them because they are just evil, greedy, thieving, parasitic filth, like the evil, greedy, thieving, parasitic landowners whose fundaments you tongue so assiduously.  You are just begging the question again by ASSUMING that it could rightly be "their land" and that they can rightly violate others' rights without making just compensation.  In fact, they can't.  When you violate someone else's rights, you don't get to say how much you have harmed them, sorry.  The compensation you owe is determined by the market value of what you have deprived them of, whether you "want" that valuation "by others" to apply or not.



> It does not account for the rights of those who would not otherwise sell or move AT ANY PRICE.


It also does not account for the "rights" of those who would not sell or relinquish their slaves AT ANY PRICE.  So?  Landowners or slave owners, those people HAVE no right to deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation. 



> That is where coveting comes into play, Roy,


Right: you covet the wealth that others produce, and you demand a legal privilege to steal it from them and contribute nothing in return, just like any other greedy, evil, thieving parasite.



> and goes back to an original scenario that you just couldn't argue against.


You have not identified any such scenario, nor will you ever be doing so.



> It is possible to be popular without wanting that popularity.


Too bad you couldn't think of anything relevant to say.



> It is possible, BY COVETING, to give value to something that you do not want valued *by others.*


That you don't want it valued by others is your tough $#!+.  Your coveting of others' rightful property does not give you moral authority to remove their rights to liberty in order to steal it from them.



> Einstein wrote his theories, and owed NOTHING to the world for them.


Every human being who has ever lived has owed for their heritage, and the only way for them to repay that debt is by their posterity.



> However, under your regime, if Einstein wanted to live in isolation, his spot on Earth could become "valued" by others who would want to be near him - despite his desire to be alone - and under your regime, the rent he must pay to the world, simply for having an otherwise unwanted popularity, would ultimately increase, wherever he went.


And he could easily pay it by using the fact that his presence makes land more valuable.  So?



> That is but ONE case (which completely falsifies your so-called "proof")


LOL!  What a stupid, dishonest thing to say, after I have proved you wrong on every substantive claim you have made.



> of mere ownership increasing value


Obviously false.  It is not ownership that increases the value, but his USE of the land -- his presence -- which I have always said could affect the value of nearby land.  He could own other land he is not using and it would not become more valuable.  He could also rent the land he is using, not own it, and it would become more valuable.  Your "arguments" are all just laughable, anti-logical garbage.



> - _even though that value was not possible without, and came strictly from, others._


All value requires at least two people, duh.



> Roy L. or Joe blow could occupy that same land and EVERYONE would leave you alone - especially if you had a repulsive personality.  But let an Einstein or other figure who eschews popularity move in, and suddenly the value increases.  He now has to pay an "unwanted popularity" tax.  On something he did not want valued.


As above: so what?  If he is going to deprive others of their liberty, violating their rights, he has to make just compensation whether he wants to or not.



> Now take that to my other example - I improve a piece of property, but NOT the land itself.  I don't do that to increase its value to OTHERS - only to myself.  But it is attractive to others, who want to build around it, and be associated with it.  Suddenly I am taxed on value based on improvements that I have made, which incidentally was attractive to others.


Only to the extent that THEY have ALSO made contributions -- improvements, etc. -- that make YOUR land more valuable.  If not, then the unimproved value of your land hasn't changed.  Your claim that "they only did that because of my improvements" is irrelevant: THEY did it.



> It really is a Coveting Tax.


That really is just a stupid, evil lie. 



> It is no wonder to me why the few uber-wealthy friends of mine


Oooh, that's certainly a surprise....

Not.



> are considered "Upper Class Out Of Sight".  You can't see their enormous homes from ANY public road.  They are completely and deliberately hidden from view - they know what the Roy's of the world would want to do if they caught sight of their homes. They know the effect it would have on all the covetous people in the world who fantasize about what they "would otherwise be at liberty" to do if it wasn't for that damned exclusive usage thing called "land ownership".


"Why, we gotta keep the nigra down, coz they's jest a-thinkin' 'bout what they'd do if they was free.  They's jest envyin' their betters, and a-covetin' every white female they see.  We gotta keep 'em fettered, cause they're so goldang resentful o' bein' fettered!"

----------


## Steven Douglas

> All value requires at least two people, duh.


That is a moronic statement, Roy, false on its face.  

If I was the only human in existence I would value my own life, the earth beneath my feet, and all the resources that sustain me.  One man - no others needed for value to exist.




> Your coveting of others' rightful property does not give you moral authority to ... steal it from them.


FINALLY. That is correct, Roy. It is immoral to covet, immoral to steal.  Stop advocating theft Roy. Don't be so evil.  I, a proud propertarian, will own land, and resist all of the evil, immoral violence and force that attempts to steal land from me - land that I own - by all the rent-seeking, claim-jumping, land-thieving and coveting parasite collectivist cowards of the world who have no right to it. 

Stealing under color of law is still theft, Roy. Your hands are not clean.

----------


## Roy L

> That is a moronic statement, Roy, false on its face.


It is self-evidently and indisputably true, by definition.



> If I was the only human in existence I would value my own life, the earth beneath my feet, and all the resources that sustain me.  One man - no others needed for value to exist.


Wrong AGAIN.  That is an equivocation fallacy, because that is not the kind of value we mean when we speak of a land value tax.  We mean ONLY market value, and a market requires at least two participants.  All talk of all other senses of the word, "value" (including the Austrian School's absurd and incoherent "subjective theory of value") is ignoratio elenchi.



> FINALLY. That is correct, Roy. It is immoral to covet, immoral to steal.  Stop advocating theft Roy.


Theft is taking others' rightful property by force, without contributing any commensurate value in return.  That is what YOU advocate, because it is most precisely what the landowner does, as already proved.  But it is *not* what anyone can legally do in the system I advocate.  Land value taxation does not take anyone's rightful property by force, because it is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction.  It is simply the payment of market rent to the party that creates the value the rent is payment for.

So you now have exactly two choices, Steven.  You can provide a direct, verbatim, in-context quote where I advocated theft, or you can admit that you are just an evil, lying sack of $#!+.  Failure to do the first will constitute doing the second.  And you will not be doing the first.

*You* are the one advocating, rationalizing and justifying not only theft, but enslavement, murder, and an annual Holocaust, Steven, not me.  *YOU*.



> Don't be so evil.


It is self-evidently and indisputably those who try to justify theft, enslavement and wholesale murder who serve evil, and are evil.



> I, a proud propertarian, will own slaves, and resist all of the evil, immoral violence and force that attempts to steal slaves from me - slaves that I own..."


There.  Fixed it for you.

You cannot rightly own others' rights to liberty, Steven.  You just want to rob, enslave and murder others, and pretend it is not you doing it but your victims doing it to themselves.  CLASSIC blame the victim.



> - by all the rent-seeking,


ROTFL!!  The landowner is the rent seeker BY DEFINITION.



> claim-jumping,


You are lying again, Steven.  The landowner is the claim jumper, because a claim jumper is one who seeks to eradicate another's right to use the land and substitute an exclusive tenure of his own.



> land-thieving and coveting parasite


You have precisely described the landowner.



> collectivist cowards


It is the evil, greedy, cowardly landowner who demands that the collective enforce his privilege for him, as he knows he would rightly be ignored or brushed aside by free individuals if he did not have the collective serving his interests.



> of the world who have no right to it.


How were the people of the world's rights to liberty erased, Steven, hmmm?  How?  By you chanting some magic words over the land you stole from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it?  Inquiring minds want to know.



> Stealing under color of law is still theft, Roy.


Right back atcha, Steven.  That is *exactly* what the landowner does, as proved by the case of the bandit in the pass, and by your inability to answer The Question:
*
"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"*



> Your hands are not clean.


ROTFL!!  I am not the one rationalizing and justifying an annual Holocaust, sunshine.  You are.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Wrong AGAIN.  That is an equivocation fallacy, because that is not the kind of value we mean when we speak of a land value tax.  We mean ONLY market value.


Again, a moronic response.  Even market value is not established until a trade between two or more parties _is actually transacted_. Market value is not established by a BID *or* ASK price, any more than _life itself_ is established by the existence of OVA or SPERM alone.  In the absence of either, there is ZERO possibility of establishing market value, but even if both BID and ASK exist, the actual value is not established until the BID AND ASK equal one another, and a trade is FREELY CONSUMMATED.  Anything less is RAPE.  And even then, that only establishes market value for that transaction, and for those particular parties of interest.    

Averages and appraisals are meaningless, and do not establish market value. Especially third party appraisals.  Until a _willing_ buyer and a _willing_ seller actually trade, there is NO MARKET VALUE. If I take something OFF THE MARKET, there is no price tag on it. There is no market value for something that is not "on the market".  You want to dictate market value, so that would-be BID prices (regardless how they are derived) equal what you think is/ought to be market value, Roy, irrespective of whether an ASK even exists.  You honestly think that a simple _willingness to pay_ unilaterally establishes, or "fixes", market value.  It does not.  

It does not matter what you are willing to pay for something that is not for sale. And Roy - unilaterally forcing a sale to establish an equally unilaterally dictated value as somehow legitimate market value is THEFT.  Dirty, evil, greasy, nasty, stinky, immoral THEFT.  The kind of evil that should make you feel very, very dirty - very ashamed. 

So screw your warped, unilaterally distorted notion of value, moonshine. When I own something, including land, I reserve the right to take it off the market.  That makes whatever "value" that you and your collectivist would-be goon squad unilaterally fixed, in the odd inner workings of your market-manipulative minds, completely irrelevant. 

When I invest time, effort and energy into MY land, I don't care if that equates to value in the minds of evil, covetous collectivist cowards with government-ish rent-seeking tentacles who want to decide unilaterally what a thing they do not own is worth to the point of forcing me to pay rent for something I already own. That is not yours to decide. 




> Theft is taking others' rightful property by force, without contributing any commensurate value in return.


BINGO. 

That includes land. You don't have an "_otherwise at liberty_" right *to anything*, Roy - including land.  That's your collectivist coveting rent-seeking fantasy.  Go get your own land, Roy (or not), and stop trying to claim government ownership of all land in da name o' da peephole. It is cowardly, and it is theft. 





> "How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"


What do I care? I am not defending rent-seekers, Roy. I'm lashing out at them, _starting with you, the ultimate parasitic rent-seeker_.  See how that works?  Have at them. Go ahead and steal their land, and rationalize it any way you want. Call it by whatever terms give you a self-righteous warm fuzzy, as you turn around and do the same thing while calling it something else. _My land_, on the other hand, is _not on the market, not for sale, has no market value, and is not for rent_. It belongs to me alone, and I do not pay rent to others for what I claim is mine alone. _Exclusively._ 

Your specific question of "how production is aided" is meaningless to me - none of my business, really.  Or yours. Mind your own business, Roy.  Go own some land and work it for yourself. You might learn very quickly that while it occupies your full time, you will not be "otherwise at liberty" for anything else...including being a covetous busy-body in other people's matters.

----------


## bolil

Hands down the best match I've read to date.  Well played by both of you gentlemen.

----------


## Roy L

> Even market value is not established until a trade between two or more parties _is actually transacted_.


Wrong AGAIN.  A transaction establishes PRICE, not VALUE.  Value is what an item WOULD trade for, not what it DID last trade for.  By your moronic notion of value, things have no value until they are traded, and things that last traded decades or centuries ago still have the value they had then, clearly a false and cretinous idea.



> Market value is not established by a BID *or* ASK price, any more than _life itself_ is established by the existence of OVA or SPERM alone.


Value is what an item would trade for.  That is what value in the relevant sense -- the basis that land would be taxed on -- *means*.



> In the absence of either, there is ZERO possibility of establishing market value,


More cretinous garbage.  Real estate appraisers measure value every day in the absence of a transaction.  You are just objectively wrong, as usual.



> but even if both BID and ASK exist, the actual value is not established until the BID AND ASK equal one another, and a trade is FREELY CONSUMMATED.


Wrong.  The amount an item traded at is its PRICE, not its VALUE.  If two relatives trade a valuable item like a car or house for $1, that is its price, not its value.



> Anything less is RAPE.


Stupid, raving garbage.



> And even then, that only establishes market value for that transaction, and for those particular parties of interest.


Wrong.  Market value does not depend on just two participants.  What a transaction establishes for that transaction and those two parties is PRICE, not VALUE.  You simply are refusing to talk about value, because you know you are wrong.



> Averages and appraisals are meaningless,


That's clearly just more stupid, anti-factual garbage from you, as every person who pays for an appraisal clearly proves: THEY do not find it meaningless in the least.



> and do not establish market value. Especially third party appraisals.


Wrong AGAIN.  A third party appraisal is exactly what both sides find MOST meaningful, which is why they get them done, *and usually base their bid and ask prices on them.*



> Until a _willing_ buyer and a _willing_ seller actually trade, there is NO MARKET VALUE.


No, that is just clearly stupid, absurd garbage.  A bid or ask price declined indisputably sets a floor or ceiling on value. 

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

The more interesting corollary of Voltaire's penetrating observation is that those who would make you commit atrocities will first try to make you believe absurdities.  The purpose of your *absurd* claim above is to justify the atrocities committed in the name of landowner privilege.



> If I take something OFF THE MARKET, there is no price tag on it.


ROTFL!!  You cannot eliminate something's value merely by refusing to entertain offers for it, sorry.  You are just spewing more absurd garbage.



> There is no market value for something that is not "on the market".


Yes, in fact, there is, as any competent appraiser could inform you, if you were willing to be informed, which you are not.



> You want to dictate market value,


Lie.  *You* want to pretend market value does not exist.



> so that would-be BID prices (regardless how they are derived) equal what you think is/ought to be market value, Roy, irrespective of whether an ASK even exists.


A bid declined self-evidently and indisputably sets a floor on value.  You merely refuse to know that fact, as you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> You honestly think that a simple _willingness to pay_ unilaterally establishes, or "fixes", market value.  It does not.


It indisputably sets a floor on market value.  Market value of an item that hasn't traded indisputably lies between the highest bid and lowest ask prices.



> It does not matter what you are willing to pay for something that is not for sale.


Yes, it does, because if that something is something I would otherwise be at liberty to use, like land, then what I am willing to pay is the value of what the landowner has forcibly stolen from me.



> And Roy - unilaterally forcing a sale to establish an equally unilaterally dictated value as somehow legitimate market value is THEFT.


No, Steven, that's just a *lie*.  A dirty, evil, greasy, nasty, stinky, immoral *LIE*.  A mechanic's lien forced sale, for example, assuming it is carried out fairly and openly in the market, establishes the item's value even though the owner did not want it to happen.



> The kind of evil that should make you feel very, very dirty - very ashamed.


I feel very, very dirty every time I read your filthy, evil rationalizations for robbery, enslavement and murder in the name of greed, and your grotesquely dishonest attempts to justify the Annual Holocaust of the Landless.



> So screw your warped, unilaterally distorted notion of value, moonshine.


It is the accepted economic definition, so you can stop lying.  By contrast, YOUR warped and unilaterally distorted notion that an item's value disappears if it is taken off the market is not supported by any credible dictionary anywhere, and is simply a dishonest misuse of the English language.



> When I own something, including land, I reserve the right to take it off the market.


You can't rightly own land, sorry, and you can't eliminate something's value by taking it off the market, sorry.



> That makes whatever "value" that you and your collectivist would-be goon squad unilaterally fixed, in the odd inner workings of your market-manipulative minds, completely irrelevant.


You can't eliminate the value of my liberty by refusing to restore it at any price, sorry.



> When I invest time, effort and energy into MY land, I don't care if that equates to value in the minds of evil, covetous collectivist cowards


It is *cowardly landowners like you* who are indisputably *cowards*, Steven: you need armed government agents to help you rob, enslave and murder your victims; you are too cowardly to pick up a gun and do it yourself, because you know that without government on your side, your victims would also be at liberty to pick up guns, and to defend themselves and their rights to liberty.



> with government-ish rent-seeking tentacles


It is the landowner who relies on government to sanction and enforce his rent seeking, and to shovel taxpayers' money into his pockets.  That is just a fact.



> who want to decide unilaterally what a thing they do not own is worth


The determination of market value is not a unilateral process as it requires both bidders and sellers, so you can stop lying.  Or rather, it seems you *can't* stop lying.  You just always have to lie.  ALWAYS.



> to the point of forcing me to pay rent for something I already own.


Whether you care or not is irrelevant to the fact that you cannot rightly own a privilege of violating others' rights without making just compensation.



> That is not yours to decide.


The market decides value.



> That includes land.


No, it can't possibly include land, as that unilaterally violates others' rights to liberty.  We have already established that by the examples of Dirtowner Harry and Thirsty, Robinson Crusoe and Friday, and the bandit in the pass.



> You don't have an "_otherwise at liberty_" right *to anything*, Roy - including land.


Of course I do.  That is what having a right to liberty MEANS, as we have already established.  You just want to ignore and violate my rights in order to rob, enslave and murder me and all the other productive people whose rightful property you covet.



> That's your collectivist coveting rent-seeking fantasy.


It is indisputably the landowner who engages in rent seeking.



> Go get your own land, Roy (or not),


"Go get your own right to liberty, Uncle Tom (or not), by paying me, its rightful owner, for it."



> and stop trying to claim government ownership of all land in da name o' da peephole.


It is government's legitimate FUNCTION to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all.



> It is cowardly, and it is theft.


It is the landowner who is the ultimate coward and thief.



> What do I care?


You clearly do *not* care that the landowner is privileged to steal a portion of production without making any contribution to production.



> I am not defending rent-seekers, Roy.


That is most precisely and exclusively what you are doing.



> I'm lashing out at them,


You are in fact eagerly tonguing their fundaments.



> _starting with you, the ultimate parasitic rent-seeker_.


A grotesque lie, and the exact, diametric opposite of the truth.



> See how that works?  Have at them. Go ahead and steal their land, and rationalize it any way you want. Call it by whatever terms give you a self-righteous warm fuzzy, as you turn around and do the same thing while calling it something else.


Gibberish with no relation to fact.



> _My land_, on the other hand, is not on the market, not for sale, *has no market value,*


That is indisputably an absurd lie.  Thank you for proving that I have been completely right and you completely wrong -- and IN the wrong -- all along.



> and is not for rent. It belongs to me alone, and I do not pay rent to others for what I claim is mine alone. _Exclusively._


<yawn>  Yes, of course you do.  Try not paying your property taxes and see how long "your" land remains yours alone, exclusively.



> Your specific question of "how production is aided" is meaningless to me - none of my business, really.


I am aware that you just blankly refuse to know facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> Or yours. Mind your own business, Roy.


Liberty, justice and the truth are everyone's business.  You just make it your business to oppose them.



> Go own some land and work it for yourself. You might learn very quickly that while it occupies your full time, you will not be "otherwise at liberty" for anything else...including being a covetous busy-body in other people's matters.


"Mah nigras ain't none o' yo' dam' bidnis, boy.  You jes' run along now, and don't you be a covetous busybody in other people's matters.  Save up some money and get some slaves o' yo' own, and work 'em fo' yoself.  You maht learn ver' quickly that makin' yo' investment pay is a full-time job."

The fact that a slave owner must devote effort to making his slaves work does not mean it is he rather than they who are productive, Steven.  Try to find a willingness to know that fact.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Wrong AGAIN.  A transaction establishes PRICE, not VALUE.


You poor bone-for-brain.  A transaction - an actual free trade - is the point at which PRICE and VALUE _become synonymous_.  Not before, and not after. Only then, and only when the buyer and seller come to a mutual agreement.   




> Value is what an item WOULD trade for, not what it DID last trade for.


*No. It is NEITHER.* The former cannot be known in advance, while the latter cannot dictate the future.  

Value, and only as determined between actual parties of interest - is what an item DOES [freely] trade for. Not WOULD. We have no way of knowing what it WOULD trade for until an actual agreement is reached, and ONLY in that moment, and ONLY between those parties of interest.  Furthermore, the market value immediately changes back to an unknown the very moment that transaction is complete.  It is not based on past value _nor does it describe or determine future value_. 




> By your moronic notion of value, things have no value until they are traded...


You did not deduce that, nor did I imply it.  I used _precisely those words_. And that is not a moronic notion; it is reality, and exactly correct. An item has personal value to the owner, but no market value until it actually trades. 




> ...and things that last traded decades or centuries ago still have the value they had then, clearly a false and cretinous idea.


No, that was not my claim, but it is where your moronic lack of _elementary understanding of value_ kicks in.  

Past value does not dictate future value, any more than future value can be divined or conflated into the present. The value established by a single trade involves only that transaction, and only between those particular parties of interest. Past transactions were under different conditions, with different parties of interest, with NO EQUIVALENCE, and no indication of future value, as would be mutually determined by future parties of interest.  




> Value is what an item would trade for.


Only if it actually traded. There is no way to know that value until it actually does trade, to wit:

My house can "appraise" for $1,000,000, but that does not mean that is what it is worth, let alone _"what it would trade for"_, because I am FREE to say "screw the appraisers, they don't set value". They can only estimate what a value MIGHT BE (not WOULD be).  

If my house was appraised at $1, that will guarantee that it WOULD trade for that amount.  But that does not establish the value, any more than estimators and appraisers can tell me what my house WOULD sell for -- _because they are not me, and not in a rightful position to make such decisions_.  Likewise, there are houses all around that have been appraised and are on the market at those estimated values (used as asking prices) but are NOT selling - so obviously that is NOT their actual value, nor does it accurately describe what it "would" sell for. 

Furthermore, to even estimate or appraise requires _a recent history of actual local transactions_.  See that, Roy? Actual transactions, real trades used to create guesstimates -- guesses of what an item MIGHT trade for. Not WOULD. 

I can ASK $2,000,000 for my house that appraised for half that amount, and hold off selling until a willing buyer comes along - or take it completely _off the market_ until the houses around me start selling for similar amounts (actual transactions - not appraisals which are based on such).  _Which may never happen._ 

Sellers can, in turn, OFFER/BID $500,000, or half the appraisal amount. _They are also free_ to decide what they are willing to pay. They can refuse to buy until I lower my selling price.  _Which also may never happen._ 

So what? Nobody is compelled to buy or sell in either case, and the actual *real value* -- the true "market value" in that moment, for that house -- *will not be known* until a buyer and seller finally agree on a price and consummate that agreement with an actual trade. THAT is the moment when price and value become ONE -  _but only for that transaction, and ONLY for those parties of interest_, when BID and ASK equal one another. 

The new owner may (and certainly will) establish her own asking price (_should she want to sell - and she may not, as is her right_), just as new prospective buyers can establish what they are willing to pay.  But neither represent the real market value, nor is there any way of knowing what it WOULD sell for until two come together and consummate by mutual agreement. 


You're kinda trippin' over your book larnin' there, Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> Well, first let me say that you are absolutely right of course, but the point is: *how far*, or _to what_, does your will rightfully extend?


My will extends only to my own body.  My RIGHTS extend to everything I am naturally at liberty to do.



> I cannot deprive you of a certain car which I claim to own if you want to use it without violating your will.


You can't deprive me of it in any case, because I don't have it and would not have it without you (or an equivalent owner) to provide it.



> Your will is that you use the car.  Your will is being violated.  But the question is: is the car a legitimate subject for your will?  If so, why?  If not, why not?


Because it is not my body and not something I have or would have had.

You have gone off on the wrong track here, Helmuth.  The question of my will only governs when you must initiate force to violate my rights.  It doesn't govern what my rights are.



> And of course you have the correct answers and have voiced them many times before, so please don't think I'm saying you don't.


Right.  Please try to remember that.



> First, and most importantly, you are totally right and the land-apologists are totally evil.


I'm glad we got that cleared up.



> Second, the main difference between the evil baby-killing feudalists and the good pro-human anti-land-owning crusaders is that the good guys accept the self-evident truth that everyone's will should be presumed to rightfully extend over the use and control (but not ownership!) of the entire Universe.


No, that's just absurd.  One's will only controls one's own body.  It is the right to liberty that extends to all one is naturally at liberty to do in the entire universe.



> Or, to be precise, any part of the Universe which he can naturally access, and for which he has a desire to do so.  The blood-soaked land-pigs just can't get this through their heads!  They think that one's will should extend to those resources which one homesteads.  They just don't see that homesteading is mass-murder by a different name.  Poor benighted fools.


Right.  We already saw the proof of that in the examples of Dirtowner Harry and Thirsty, Robinson Crusoe and Friday, and the bandit in the pass.  Even if there were any land in the world that had been homesteaded innocently, without violating the rights of others (which there isn't), there is no mechanism by which "homesteading" can rightly extinguish others' rights to life and liberty and thus enable the Annual Holocaust of the Landless.



> For Mr. Long's professorial "services" (lies from a hack, more like, right?), society is a necessary but not sufficient condition for them to have value (other than personal value to himself).  For land, society is a necessary and sufficient condition, so long as the society includes a government that does improvements such as roads, water lines, etc., because the people who think it's just pure population that gives land its value are misguided heretics, though they otherwise be Georgists like us.


It's obvious that pure population cannot give land value.  Wherever did you get such a loony idea?

However, land often has value in the absence of a good government that provides desired services (other than secure land tenure) and infrastructure, because the community, simply by the normal activities of its members, provides opportunities and amenities that make certain locations more economically advantageous than others.



> Anyway, the point is: both services and land depend upon society for their value.  So they are identical in that respect.


Nonsense.  By that cretinous "logic," all value comes from calcium, because without calcium, people could not exist.  It's just a stupid and grotesquely dishonest attempt to evade the fact that land's value is publicly created by government and the community, while labor's value is privately created by the laborer who performs it.  If the value of labor and its products were created by society rather than their producers, taxation of earned income to recover that publicly created value would be rightful.  Is that *really* what you want to argue, Helmuth?  *REALLY???*



> But services also depend, obviously, on the actual service being rendered by the server.  Land, in contrast, doesn't depend on the landowner at all but is just a given and immutable fact of nature, which humans can do nothing about.


No, human activities are obviously necessary for land to have value, as they are what make one place more economically advantageous than another.  No humans --> no land value.  Land value arises not only from the physical qualities nature provides, but the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides at each location.  It just doesn't arise from anything the landowner provides.



> So just as I said, the argument that land should not be owned because humans can do no labor to change nor improve it, that argument is still valid,


No, it's nonsense.  Changing and improving land by their labor is how humans remove it from nature and turn it into products of labor.  You know that.



> but the argument that land should not be owned because society gives it value, that argument doesn't work.


Yes, it does.  Society doesn't create the value of labor services or products, it simply recognizes it.  Society DOES create the value of land, by the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides.  You are just trying to evade that fact, and in the process are embracing the Marxist notion that as all value is collectively created by society, it is rightful to recover it for society's purposes and benefit by taxing earned income just as much as unearned income.

----------


## Seraphim

To be honest, this thread should be locked as it's essentially 122 pages of Merry Go Round nonsense. It's all be said about 10 times.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, it's nonsense.  Changing and improving land by their labor is how humans remove it from nature and turn it into products of labor.  You know that.


Ah, now you're arguing for the Labor Theory of Value!  You do realize that this is one of the rationales those evil landowners use, don't you?  Ricardo and Smith would be proud of you.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Ah, now you're arguing for the Labor Theory of Value!  You do realize that this is one of the rationales those evil landowners use, don't you?  Ricardo and Smith would be proud of you.


Spoil sport. You would shut down a perfectly good ride for over-usage?  Oh, the free market humanity! ::: sniff :::

----------


## Roy L

> Ah, now you're arguing for the Labor Theory of Value!


No, I'm not, as I have proved many times, so you can stop lying.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: you can't stop lying.  Not for anything.  Not ever.



> You do realize that this is one of the rationales those evil landowners use, don't you?


No.  And even if you were right, which you are not, you would be wrong.



> Ricardo and Smith would be proud of you.


I guess they might be.  They'd certainly be ashamed of you.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, I'm not, as I have proved many times, so you can stop lying.
> 
> Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: you can't stop lying.  Not for anything.  Not ever.
> 
> No.  And even if you were right, which you are not, you would be wrong.
> 
> I guess they might be.  They'd certainly be ashamed of you.


So this isn't an advocation of the LTOV?: 


> No, it's nonsense. Changing and improving land by their labor is how humans remove it from nature and turn it into products of labor. You know that.


Come now, Roy.  Quit fooling yourself.  Unless you want to keep amusing me with your failures of reason and logic, of course.   Me, lying?  Not even close.  But, keep dreaming big, wishful thinker.  It's impressive that you can write such long posts and still not communicate anything rational.

You yourself said this



> In ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom, which achieved the greatest height of civilization, prosperity and cultural productivity far exceeding any other on earth at the time, the primary tax was effectively a land value tax, *but one levied only on agricultural land:* a share not of the harvest, but of the EXPECTED harvest given the land's estimated and historical fertility. However, temple lands were exempt from this tax, being, effectively, the private domain of the priests.


This isn't a good argument for an LVT, as it only applies to one type of land.  And farmland provides for a number of people, unlike other types of land.  Are you aiming to have a debate with yourself, Roy?   You certainly are amusing!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> To be honest, this thread should be locked as it's essentially 122 pages of Merry Go Round nonsense. It's all be said about 10 times.


We're just having fun with the troll Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> So this isn't an advocation of the LTOV?:


No.  It self-evidently and indisputably is not.  You are just continuing your normal procedure of always lying about what I have plainly written.  In this case you have actually quoted it, so readers can verify for themselves that you are lying about what I plainly wrote.



> Come now, Roy.  Quit fooling yourself.


<yawn>  Sorry, you can't fool me with transparent lies.



> Unless you want to keep amusing me with your failures of reason and logic, of course.


I have refutred you and you have no answers.



> Me, lying?  Not even close.


I have proved that you have lied and lied and lied.  Readers can verify that fact for themselves.



> This isn't a good argument for an LVT, as it only applies to one type of land.


It also didn't apply to temple lands, so I agree it was not perfect; but agricultural land did at that time account for almost all of the economy, and therefore almost all of land value.



> And farmland provides for a number of people, unlike other types of land.


Wrong.  Most land use other than single-family residential provides for a number of people.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No.  It self-evidently and indisputably is not.  You are just continuing your normal procedure of always lying about what I have plainly written.  In this case you have actually quoted it, so readers can verify for themselves that you are lying about what I plainly wrote.
> 
> <yawn>  Sorry, you can't fool me with transparent lies.
> 
> I have refutred you and you have no answers.
> 
> I have proved that you have lied and lied and lied.  Readers can verify that fact for themselves.
> 
> It also didn't apply to temple lands, so I agree it was not perfect; but agricultural land did at that time account for almost all of the economy, and therefore almost all of land value.
> ...

----------


## heavenlyboy34

Is Roy L related to Conza?  Their "debate" styles is suspiciously similar.

----------


## Roy L

> You poor bone-for-brain.


You pathetic economic know-nothing.



> A transaction - an actual free trade - is the point at which PRICE and VALUE _become synonymous_.


Wrong.  A transaction can be at any price and need not reflect value, as I already proved to you and you ignored.



> Not before, and not after.


Not ever, except by coincidence.



> Only then, and only when the buyer and seller come to a mutual agreement.


<yawn>  Wrong again.  You have merely realized that you cannot argue against land value taxation, so you are just refusing to know what value is.



> *No. It is NEITHER.*


Get a better dictionary.



> The former cannot be known in advance,


You again confuse value with price.



> while the latter cannot dictate the future.


Irrelevant babbling.  What an item can fetch in trade has nothing to do with "dictating the future."



> Value, and only as determined between actual parties of interest - is what an item DOES [freely] trade for.


Nope.  Wrong.  That's PRICE.  How many times do I have to tell you?



> Not WOULD.


Yes, WOULD or CAN, not DOES.



> We have no way of knowing what it WOULD trade for until an actual agreement is reached, and ONLY in that moment, and ONLY between those parties of interest.


No, that's just more stupid garbage from you, garbage that appraisers prove wrong every day.  Your stupid, dishonest claims amount to a claim that appraisers don't provide any service, and the people who hire them are just throwing their money away.  That claim is FALSE, it is STUPID, it is DISHONEST, and *YOU KNOW IT IS FALSE, STUPID AND DISHONEST.*  Stop making STUPID and DISHONEST claims that _YOU KNOW_ ARE FALSE.



> Furthermore, the market value immediately changes back to an unknown the very moment that transaction is complete.


No, that is just more of the same stupid, absurd and dishonest garbage from you.  Whatever stupid, dishonest $#!+ you think you are talking about, THAT IS NOT THE PROPOSED TAX BASE OF A LAND VALUE TAX, SO IT IS IRRELEVANT IN ANY CASE.



> It is not based on past value _nor does it describe or determine future value_.


Gibberish.



> You did not deduce that, nor did I imply it.


You most certainly did.



> I used _precisely those words_. And that is not a moronic notion; it is reality, and exactly correct.


No, it is moronic and absurd.



> An item has personal value to the owner,


No, what you call, "personal value" is not value but *utility*.  You call price, "value," and you call utility, "value," because you have to refuse to talk about VALUE.



> but no market value until it actually trades.


No, that claim is false, stupid, absurd and dishonest, and YOU KNOW IT.  How do people decide what to bid or ask for something that has no value?  Your claims are just incoherent, cretinous, and self-contradictory.



> No, that was not my claim, but it is where your moronic lack of _elementary understanding of value_ kicks in.


Quote me a dictionary definition that supports your claim that value is price.

Thought not.

Here's one that supports my view that it is what an item would trade for in the market:

"value, n. ...2. monetary or material worth, as in commerce or trade: _This piece of land has greatly increased in value._ 3. the worth of something in terms of the amount of other things for which it can be exchanged or in terms of some medium of exchange." -- Webster's New Universal Unabridged



> Past value does not dictate future value, any more than future value can be divined or conflated into the present. The value established by a single trade involves only that transaction, and only between those particular parties of interest. Past transactions were under different conditions, with different parties of interest, with NO EQUIVALENCE, and no indication of future value, as would be mutually determined by future parties of interest.


You again just refuse to know that value is not price, because you have to refuse to talk about land value.



> Only if it actually traded.


False and stupid.



> There is no way to know that value until it actually does trade, to wit:


I repeat: if an item has no value until it trades, on what basis do buyer and seller decide how much to bid and ask for it?  Your claims are just cretinous, self-refuting nonsense.



> My house can "appraise" for $1,000,000, but that does not mean that is what it is worth, let alone _"what it would trade for"_, because I am FREE to say "screw the appraisers, they don't set value". They can only estimate what a value MIGHT BE (not WOULD be).


Oh, stop spewing such stupid, dishonest crap.  What your house would trade for is what it would trade for if you made an honest effort to get the most you could for it in the open market, not what you would give it away for just to spite the appraiser.  Give your head a shake.



> If my house was appraised at $1, that will guarantee that it WOULD trade for that amount.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  An appraisal is an ESTIMATE of value that might be competently performed or not, based on information that might accurately reflect market conditions or not.  It is not value.



> But that does not establish the value, any more than estimators and appraisers can tell me what my house WOULD sell for -- _because they are not me, and not in a rightful position to make such decisions_.


OTC, they most certainly _are_ in a rightful position to make such decisions, being, unlike you, informed, intelligent and honest.



> Likewise, there are houses all around that have been appraised and are on the market at those estimated values (used as asking prices) but are NOT selling - so obviously that is NOT their actual value, nor does it accurately describe what it "would" sell for.


Right.



> Furthermore, to even estimate or appraise requires _a recent history of actual local transactions_.


Wrong *AGAIN*.  While that makes it easier, no, it is NOT required.  A record of offers declined and asking prices not obtained provides enough information for an estimate.  It won't likely be as accurate, but it can still be done.

You just refuse to know all facts about value.



> See that, Roy?


I see you made a fool of yourself again.  So?  Is that supposed to surprise me?  I assure you it does not.



> Actual transactions, real trades used to create guesstimates -- guesses of what an item MIGHT trade for. Not WOULD.


Yes, would or can.  Not does or might.



> I can ASK $2,000,000 for my house that appraised for half that amount, and hold off selling until a willing buyer comes along - or take it completely _off the market_ until the houses around me start selling for similar amounts (actual transactions - not appraisals which are based on such).  _Which may never happen._


<yawn>  But if it did, you would no doubt shriek that you rightfully earned the additional million.....



> Sellers can, in turn, OFFER/BID $500,000, or half the appraisal amount. _They are also free_ to decide what they are willing to pay. They can refuse to buy until I lower my selling price.  _Which also may never happen._


Irrelevant.  That is simply not what value means.



> So what? Nobody is compelled to buy or sell in either case, and the actual *real value* -- the true "market value" in that moment, for that house -- *will not be known* until a buyer and seller finally agree on a price and consummate that agreement with an actual trade. THAT is the moment when price and value become ONE -  _but only for that transaction, and ONLY for those parties of interest_, when BID and ASK equal one another.


You again claim price is value in order to avoid talking about value.



> The new owner may (and certainly will) establish her own asking price (_should she want to sell - and she may not, as is her right_), just as new prospective buyers can establish what they are willing to pay.  But neither represent the real market value, nor is there any way of knowing what it WOULD sell for until two come together and consummate by mutual agreement.


Self-refuting garbage, as proved above.



> You're kinda trippin' over your book larnin' there, Roy.


No, YOU are trippin' over my book larnin', which is particularly sad as the book in question is the English dictionary.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Quote me a dictionary definition that supports your claim that value is price.


Let's use your definition, shall we? The one you committed to, which you think "supports [your] view that it is what an item *would* trade for in the market:"

Note the emphasis in "your" view as contrasted by the emphasis added to "the definition":




> value, n. ...2. monetary or material worth, as in commerce or trade: _This piece of land has greatly increased in value._ 3. the worth of something in terms of the amount of other things for which it *can* be exchanged or in terms of some medium of exchange." -- Webster's New Universal Unabridged


See, moonshine? The operative word is "can". Not "would". Since I am not willing to sell at any price, then there is _nothing of worth_ that "*can*" be exchanged for it.  Especially given that "worth" is also subjective, and everything you are willing to offer is _worthless_ to me.  Really. Your filthy lucre is no good here, Mr. Potter, and no, I won't shake hands with you or your thieving, oppressive, evil, new-age, neocommunist, _otherwise-at-liberty-to-tread-on-everyone_ posse. 




> I repeat: if an item has no value until it trades, on what basis do *buyer and seller decide how much to bid and ask for it*? (emphasis added)


_Kazzactly!_ A buyer _and_ a seller.  A mommy _and_ a daddy, go figure! The _two_ willing partners that it takes to tango.  If there is only a single, evil, covetous, would-be compulsory buyer who would force me to move or sell if he could get a government to back him with violence - but no willing seller - then there is only a bid, with NO ASK, let alone acceptance of any bid.  There is no buyer and seller in such a case _deciding anything_.  Only one person bidding, no person asking, with no "market value" for something that is _not on the market_.  

Some things are not for sale at any price, and not because of economic utility. Sometimes it is as simple as sentimental VALUE -- family value -- which does not translate to price OR "market value".  




> What your house would trade for is what it would trade for *if* you made an honest effort to get the most you could for it in the open market...


That's a pretty big if right there, Roy. One that presumes it was for sale in the first place. Which it is not. Which is why it has no "market value". 

*Thanks for playing!* 

*BANG.* You lost Roy. Your argument was thoroughly, self-evidently and indisputably destroyed. Obliterated, as you know only too well but are too evil to admit -- covetous thieving liar and would-be enslaver and nomad gypsy-maker of humanity that you are.  

tsk tsk...trying to own all land so that you can charge government rent. Shame on you. Shame, shame shame, you worse than evil thing you. 

Now get off my lawn, moonshine, before I use violent force and put rock salt in your covetous would-be land-stealing butt with my scattergun. My great granddad is buried under there, which makes it sacred ground that you are fouling.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Are you thieving parasites still attempting to match wits with warrior for the common man himself?  Shame!

Tenants unite!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Are you thieving parasites still attempting to match wits with warrior for the common man himself?  Shame!


Oh, he was much bigger than that.  Roy was Omnipresent Collect-o-Communist Libertarianish Man. Unlike mere mortals, Omnipresent Man's rights extended to everything he was naturally at liberty to do, or _would otherwise be at liberty to do_, _all at once_! This fascinating inhuman quality gave him an omnipresence that made him larger than life, larger even than Chuck Norris, David Hasselhoff and the Most Interesting Man on Earth combined. But that quality was also his undoing. 

I say Roy _was_ Omnipresent Man because he is no longer. I have since destroyed Roy and his lies, both self-evidently and indisputably. All that remains are the denialist rantings of a mad but harmless ghost with delusions of coherence.

----------


## Roy L

> Let's use your definition, shall we? The one you committed to, which you think "supports [your] view that it is what an item *would* trade for in the market:"
> 
> Note the emphasis in "your" view as contrasted by the emphasis added to "the definition":
> 
> See, moonshine? The operative word is "can". Not "would".


Huh??  What's the difference?  The amount an item "can" be traded for is precisely the amount it "would" trade for if the owner got as much for it in the open market as he "could."

It is NOT the amount it DID trade for, nor the amount the owner decides he wants for it.



> Since I am not willing to sell at any price,


That is self-evidently a lie.  You KNOW you are lying.  You KNOW it.  And everyone else reading this knows it, too.



> then there is _nothing of worth_ that "*can*" be exchanged for it.


No, that's just another absurd lie from you.  The amount an item "can be exchanged for" is not the amount the current owner decides he wants for it, but the amount the high bidder would be willing to pay for it.  By your idiotic and grotesquely dishonest misinterpretation of the English language, if you owned a one-ounce gold coin, and decided that you would only trade it if someone offered you $1, then its value would be $1 -- despite the fact that the buyer could then turn around and sell it for $1700.

Such claims are self-evidently and indisputably absurd and dishonest.



> Especially given that "worth" is also subjective,


Garbage.  You are simply refusing to know the fact that there is such a thing as market value, and claim that price is value, and utility is value, but refuse to know that *value* is value.  You have sacrificed your own mind, your ability rightly to apprehend reality, on the altar of your Great God Property.



> and everything you are willing to offer is _worthless_ to me.  Really.


No, _not_ really.  You are self-evidently just telling stupid lies.  Again.  As usual.



> Your filthy lucre is no good here, Mr. Potter, and no, I won't shake hands with you or your thieving, oppressive, evil, new-age, neocommunist, _otherwise-at-liberty-to-tread-on-everyone_ posse.


Despicable and disgraceful lying.

Is it really the merchants in the pass who are "treading on" the bandit who robs them, Steven?  REALLY?

Is it really Thirsty in the desert "treading on" Dirtowner Harry by taking a drink from the spring nature provided?  REALLY?

Is it really Friday who is "treading on" Crusoe, when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and tells him he can either be a slave for the rest of his life or get back in the water?  REALLY?

_REALLY????_

You KNOW you are lying, Steven.  You KNOW it.



> _Kazzactly!_ A buyer _and_ a seller.


Who (you claim) have no way of deciding how much to bid or ask, so they ask an appraiser -- who (you claim) doesn't provide any service, but just fabricates some meaningless numbers out of whole cloth.

What stupid, evil, nauseating, despicable lies you tell.



> If there is only a single, evil, covetous, would-be compulsory buyer who would force me to move or sell if he could get a government to back him with violence - but no willing seller - then there is only a bid, with NO ASK, let alone acceptance of any bid.


Which bid sets a floor on value.



> There is no buyer and seller in such a case _deciding anything_.


Then how do _prospective_ buyers and sellers ever begin to communicate?



> Only one person bidding, no person asking, with no "market value" for something that is _not on the market_.


Lie.  The highest declined bid sets a floor on market value.  If no one else would bid higher, that IS the market value.



> Some things are not for sale at any price, and not because of economic utility. Sometimes it is as simple as sentimental VALUE -- family value --


That IS utility, but thanks for proving your comprehensive ignorance of economics -- AGAIN.



> which does not translate to price OR "market value".


Irrelevant.  Market value just IS what an item would -- or "can" -- be traded for if it is sold on the open market.



> That's a pretty big if right there, Roy.


No, it isn't.  That's what it MEANS.  You just have to refuse to talk about it, so you pretend to think it means something else.



> One that presumes it was for sale in the first place.


No, it self-evidently does not.  That's what "if" means.



> Which it is not. Which is why it has no "market value".


Everyone reading this knows that is a lie, including you.



> *Thanks for playing!*


Says the mouse to the cat -- which he can't see:

http://www.henrygeorge.org/catsup.htm



> *BANG.* You lost Roy.


ROTFL!!  I demolished and humiliated you.



> Your argument was thoroughly, self-evidently and indisputably destroyed.


LOL!  You are making a fool of yourself.  But no worries: I am here to help you.



> Obliterated, as you know only too well but are too evil to admit -- covetous thieving liar and would-be enslaver and nomad gypsy-maker of humanity that you are.


<yawn>  I am not the one trying to rationalize and justify the annual murders of millions of innocent people, Steven.  You are.



> tsk tsk...trying to own all land so that you can charge government rent.


Self-contradictory gibberish.



> Shame on you. Shame, shame shame, you worse than evil thing you.


<yawn>  Speaking of shame, the total amount of privately appropriated land rent in the world is probably around $10T/yr, of which you might be pocketing a billionth ($10K).  Total annual deaths due to poverty, most of which are caused by removal of the landless's right to liberty for the unearned profit of landowners, are about 18M.  Call it 15M deaths per year to shovel money into landowners' pockets.  So that's OK: it only takes about .015 deaths per year to keep you in unearned income.  Get together with a few dozen other landowners at New Years and drink a toast to the innocent human being, probably a child, whom you murdered for money this year.



> Now get off my lawn, moonshine, before I use violent force and put rock salt in your covetous would-be land-stealing butt with my scattergun. My great granddad is buried under there, which makes it sacred ground that you are fouling.


Of course you want to murder innocent people.  That's inherent in rationalizing and justifying landowner privilege.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The amount an item "can be exchanged for" is not the amount the current owner decides he wants for it, but the amount the high bidder would be willing to pay for it.


No, you can stay down on the floor with your floor value. That is not market value, but a bid only -- an unwelcome, unsolicited bid for a piece of land that is not for sale.  My land cannot, could not, would not be exchanged for that because _it is not on the market_, and not for sale at any price.  

The poor are _always_ the renter classes, Roy, with the lowest not able to afford to be even that.  If they don't pay their rents, they are homeless. They never have the option of rent-free ownership, Roy.  Why? The government decides what land can and cannot be owned, and used land sales and land leases to raise revenues - not protect the rights of individuals.  Sick, evil government, Roy. The poor are NEVER freed from the burden of rents, and especially under your sick, pernicious evil, public land plan, where rats can chase one another off and burden one another with higher rents by merely placing a new "floor value" on their living space that increases their rents.  We have a version of that already.  

I want to turn all of the poor into owners with _rent-free_ ownership rights. I want to protect and free everyone from all evil rent-seeking bastards, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, you and your ilk included.  Your solution is not to free the poor from rent, but only to turn ALL owners into renters, so that their conditions more closely match that of the poor. The vindictive miserable who want to spread their misery more evenly, or "justly" or "fairly".  In all LVT regimes, including your beloved Hong Kong, rents are charged. _When they should not be._ People should not be charged to be able to simply live in a space of their own on Earth. A rent on domestic occupied land is a tax on life itself. 

Under your sick plan, the poor still won't be helped, because you didn't solve their original problem of being able to live their lives _rent free_ - unmolested by outside influences, free to live and improve their own land, free of outside charges, and free of the worry that someday their land might be valued by others who will try to take it from them, as their RENT burden is increased. No, you only want to change ownership to an entity that continues to charge rents, you sick, evil, murderous rent-seeking demon. 




> "...most of which are caused by removal of the landless's right to liberty for the unearned profit of landowners...


The problem for the "landless" is self-evident. It is not a lack of liberty, but a lack of LAND -- _property rights. Freedom from rent._ 

You are destroyed, Roy.  I even said the words "self-evidently and indisputably", so why are you not staying down - on that floor...with your worthless "floor value"?

----------


## Roy L

> No, you can stay down on the floor with your floor value.


You continue to tongue the fundaments of the idlest, greediest, most despicable parasites on earth.  How loathsome.



> That is not market value, but a bid only


Market value *IS* the high *bid* that can be obtained for an item, as I already *proved* to you.  You just have to refuse to know there is any such thing as value.



> -- an unwelcome, unsolicited bid for a piece of land that is not for sale.


IOW, its market value.  Right.



> My land cannot, could not, would not be exchanged for that because _it is not on the market_, and not for sale at any price.


And on your planet, that might even be relevant to its market value.  But on this planet, it isn't.

"Your" land CAN and WOULD trade for that amount, Steven, whether you like it or not.  If you have a legal judgment against you that you cannot pay, "your" land CAN and WOULD be seized and sold for that amount, sorry.  If you are hit by a bus and your heirs decide to sell it, it CAN and WOULD be sold for that amount, whether you like it or not, sorry.  And that is what its market value MEANS.



> The poor are _always_ the renter classes, Roy, with the lowest not able to afford to be even that.  If they don't pay their rents, they are homeless. They never have the option of rent-free ownership, Roy.  Why? The government decides what land can and cannot be owned, and used land sales and land leases to raise revenues - not protect the rights of individuals.  Sick, evil government, Roy.


I agree that government unilaterally removed the rights of the landless -- who are now consequently poor -- for the unearned profit of landowners.  Explain for me again why that theft and enslavement was right, and should be continued, and the rights of the landless poor never restored.



> The poor are NEVER freed from the burden of rents, and especially under your sick, pernicious evil, public land plan,


I realize that this constant, vicious lying of yours is an attempt to be infinitely evil in order to make me physically ill again.  And it will probably work.



> where rats can chase one another off and burden one another with higher rents by merely placing a new "floor value" on their living space that increases their rents.


The only way they can do that is by PAYING those higher rents to the community -- including to the very people they are "chasing off."  Hello?



> We have a version of that already.


Inevitably, you are lying.  



> I want to turn all of the poor into owners with _rent-free_ ownership rights.


No, you are just lying again.  As an apologist for landowner privilege, you have no choice but to want to rob, enslave, starve, torture and murder the poor, as private landowner privilege has always done and must always inevitably do by immutable economic law.  I am the one who proposes equal, universal, free, secure land tenure rights for all resident citizens.  Not you, Steven.  Me.



> I want to protect and free everyone from all evil rent-seeking bastards, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, you and your ilk included.


No, Steven, you are lying.  You are yourself a greedy rent seeker, as you have admitted, and everything you have said in this thread has been to rationalize and justify the rent seeking of greedy, idle, privileged, parasitic landowners.  



> Your solution is not to free the poor from rent,


That is a LIE, Steven.  You are LYING.  My solution, as I have stated to you explicitly, is to provide free, secure tenure on enough land to live on for every resident citizen, and to recover the additional publicly created land value from those who want forcibly to exclude others from more of the good land than their own equal share.



> but only to turn ALL owners into renters,


There are no rightful landowners.  Only land thieves.



> so that their conditions more closely match that of the poor.


Their "condition" as possessors of human rights should indeed be exactly the same as that of the poor.  You want to continue to remove the fundamental human rights of the working poor -- their rights to life and liberty -- and sign their rights over to the idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowning rich.



> The vindictive miserable who want to spread their misery more evenly, or "justly" or "fairly".


That is effectively a claim that no matter how unjustly people are being robbed of the rightful fruits of their labor, there can never be any such thing as a righteous and honest objection to that robbery and violation of their rights, only a vindictive desire by the victims for the thieves to be reduced to a similar condition.

Uttering such claims is deeply, deeply evil.  It is among the most evil things any human being can do.



> In all LVT regimes, including your beloved Hong Kong, rents are charged.


HK is not an LVT regime, and my position is that rent should NOT be charged on use of land up to the uniform, universal exempt amount.  You know this, as I have stated it to you explicitly.



> _When they should not be._


You _know_ I have stated explicitly that no rent should be charged for secure, exclusive use of good land up to the equal, universal exempt amount sufficient to live on.



> People should not be charged to be able to simply live in a space of their own on Earth.


Correct.  But you _demand_ that they be charged for it, and _murdered_ if they don't pay up.



> A rent on domestic occupied land is a tax on life itself.


Not when it is paid for occupying more -- much more -- than your share, thus unjustly depriving others of their liberty to access and benefit by what government, the community and nature provide.  It doesn't matter if Crusoe is "domestically occupying" the whole island.  Friday has RIGHTS to life and liberty, and Crusoe must therefore either yield an equal portion of the island to Friday for his own domestic occupation, or make just compensation for forcibly depriving him of it.



> Under your sick plan, the poor still won't be helped, because you didn't solve their original problem of being able to live their lives _rent free_ - unmolested by outside influences, free to live and improve their own land, free of outside charges, and free of the worry that someday their land might be valued by others who will try to take it from them, as their RENT burden is increased.


No, that's just a flat-out LIE from you, as proved above.



> No, you only want to change ownership to an entity that continues to charge rents, you sick, evil, murderous rent-seeking demon.


You are succeeding: your relentless, evil lying is making me ill.



> The problem for the "landless" is self-evident. It is not a lack of liberty, but a lack of LAND -- _property rights. Freedom from rent._


Garbage.  Their lack of "land" is precisely lack of the liberty to _use_ land.  They don't need to own land or have property rights in it, as Hong Kong proves so very conclusively.  They need the liberty to USE land, as our remote ancestors were at liberty to do for millions of years WITHOUT owning it.  Private landowning removes their rights to do so.  There can be no freedom from rent while land is privately owned.



> You are destroyed, Roy.


You are making a fool of yourself, Steven.



> I even said the words "self-evidently and indisputably", so why are you not staying down - on that floor...with your worthless "floor value"?


<yawn>  Disgraceful.

----------


## eduardo89



----------


## Steven Douglas

> Market value *IS* the high *bid* that can be obtained for an item, as I already *proved* to you.


You made a baseless assertion, Roy, which proved nothing. 




> "Your" land CAN and WOULD trade for that amount, Steven, whether you like it or not.  If you have a legal judgment against you that you cannot pay, "your" land CAN and WOULD be seized and sold for that amount, sorry.  If you are hit by a bus and your heirs decide to sell it, it CAN and WOULD be sold for that amount, whether you like it or not, sorry.  And that is what its market value MEANS.


See? No landowner rights. Only "privilege", which I do not support. The land that you live on is subject to seizure and the occupants subject to eviction _under this regime and yours._  Even tax and bankruptcy courts shield someone from being stripped of their bare essentials. Nobody can seize your only source of transportation, or liquidate the tools you need to survive, or food from your cupboards. That's all generally protected. But not land. In a perfect world, you can get a judgment against you, with a lien on part of your income, but your primary land upon which you must live to earn a living would be protected.  Because it is _an inalienable right, not a privilege_. 




> I agree that government unilaterally removed the rights of the landless -- who are now consequently poor -- for the unearned profit of landowners.  Explain for me again why that theft and enslavement was right, and should be continued, and the rights of the landless poor never restored.


What do you care? You are not in favor of even allowing the poor to own land (as a matter of right, not privilege - _completely rent free._) 

The "rights of the landless" are remedied by _a right to land_. Not some goofy-stupid "liberty right" machination that promises "exemptions" and lower rents to the poor for sub-standard land usage. 




> where rats can chase one another off and burden one another with higher rents by merely placing a new "floor value" on their living space that increases their rents. 
> 			
> 		
> 
> The only way they can do that is by PAYING those higher rents to the community -- including to the very people they are "chasing off."  Hello?


Yes, and in so PAYING they can EVICT poor people who cannot afford to compete with that BID. Thanks for the oppression, Roy! You just picked the richer, by however much, as the winner in every case. The poor are left with only a "naturally liberty right" to pay, or else VACATE and find poorer conditions that they can afford.  




> As an apologist for landowner privilege...


Proponent of landowner rights, Roy. Not privilege. Rights. Inalienable rights to each and every living individual. 

You are the apologist for privilege, Roy, where NOBODY occupies land as a matter of right.  There is always a richer bidder out there who is artificially empowered to raise a floor - to outbid you on your "occupational privilege", who has a "naturally liberty right" to EVICT YOU if you cannot compete. 

That is you, Roy. I am the ONLY one who proposes equal, universal, *free*, secure land tenure *rights* for all resident citizens.  FREE OF CHARGE. Free of rent-by-any-other-name.  Not you, Roy. Me only.

The poor could only live rent free, and have an actual, perpetual RIGHT of occupancy under my proposal. Not yours.  That SHOULD make you ill. 




> My solution, as I have stated to you explicitly, is to provide free, secure tenure on enough land to live on for every resident citizen, and to recover the additional publicly created land value from those who want forcibly to exclude others from more of the good land than their own equal share.


Baloney. Your solution falls apart the moment "additional publicly created land value" comes into play, and deliberately EXCLUDES occupancy by the poor of any "good land".  

There are no rightful rent-seekers, public or private. Only land thieves. That includes you. 




> You want to continue to remove the fundamental human rights of the working poor -- their rights to life and liberty -- and sign their rights over to the idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowning rich.


No, I want to take away the only thing that separates the poor from landowners, public and private. I want to make them landowners with RIGHTS to that ownership.  That is the ONLY way to protect them from EVER having to "sign their rights over" to idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowning rich - public or private. 




> HK is not an LVT regime, and my position is that rent should NOT be charged on use of land up to the uniform, universal exempt amount.


Screw your "exempt amount".  If it is suddenly found that an otherwise poor land occupier is on property that suddenly became valued to the point where it exceeds your "exempt amount", she can be forced to pay more, or else EVICTED. Furthermore, it opens the door to a scenario where the "exempt" amount becomes nothing more than a discount on rents paid, as none actually cover land enough to live on. 

Screw your artificial exemptions.  An absolute right of ownership, and not occupancy privilege, would be the ultimate exemption, and protection from the value-seeking, rent-seeking covetous masses, both public and private.  She should be able to tell all of you to kiss her ass, and take your rent-seeking tentacles elsewhere.    




> You _know_ I have stated explicitly that no rent should be charged for secure, exclusive use of good land up to the equal, universal exempt amount sufficient to live on.


Yes, and you also put government in a position to decide what "good land" and "sufficient to live on" means.  You still have your eminent domain genie out of the bottle.  You want exemptions from privilege/usage license. I want a right that is not subject to privilege or license. Big difference, as mine actually acknowledges and protects a Right of Ownership.  




> Not when it is paid for occupying more -- much more -- than your share, thus unjustly depriving others of their liberty to access and benefit by what government, the community and nature provide.  It doesn't matter if Crusoe is "domestically occupying" the whole island.  Friday has RIGHTS to life and liberty, and Crusoe must therefore either yield an equal portion of the island to Friday for his own domestic occupation, or make just compensation for forcibly depriving him of it.


I have NEVER claimed that Crusoe OR Caesar had a right of massive ownership.   You rail against Crusoe but argued the benefits of an emperor's ownership. Not me. I say NEITHER.  I specifically stated that if Warren Buffet or Bill Gates wanted to go buy up a whole state, that government should step in and force a breakup and sale.  NOT because he is denying any strange "naturally liberty right" to anyone who would "otherwise be at liberty" to occupy or use land, but because it precludes landownership by everyone who has a Right to Own land of their own.

So no, Roy, I don't care whether it is Warren Buffet or the Bureau of Land Management - if either are in a position to block land ownership by massive sequestration of any kind, I am against it. 




> There can be no freedom from rent while land is privately owned.


Oh yes there is. _To the landowners._ They are free.  Turn all renters into landowners, and you have _freedom from rent_.  Why would anyone want to rent from ANYONE else if they have property of their own?  Why would anyone give two figs about some mindless "Rent Exemption", when an actual inalienable right of ownership to individuals renders that completely unnecessary?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> We're just having fun with the troll Roy.


 You know what the (latest) truly hilarious thing is?  Roy L. and Steven Douglas could actually come to an agreement very very easily... their positions are really within a hair's breadth of each other.  All it would take would be the tiniest bit of diplomacy, forbearance, and creative conflict-resolution by Roy.  Their positions are completely reconcilable.  Roy wants an citizen's exemption below a minimum total value of land, and really that's all Steven wants, too.  They'd both be happy to LVT the land barons, foreigners, and big corporations.

So while Roy is busy screaming about the outrageous and physically-sickening evil of an agreeable and intelligent man who, for all practical purposes, *completely agrees with him*, he is at the same time now quite chummy with... *me*!  All I had to do is preface every paragraph with a reverie to his rightness and greatness, and then continue making the same sort of arguments I have been making all along (a bit more subtlely, of course).  Voila!  All of a sudden I am an Ally and a Saint in Roy's Pantheon.

Really, all Roy wants is to be told over and over that he's right.  He ultimately seems like a very sad and bitter person, and in thinking about that, this is actually pretty sad to me.  I don't see any need for him to be so sad.  Even if he advocates LVT, that's no reason to be so sad.  So I, for one, will keep cheering him up by being his Convert to the Truth and telling him he is right.

Roy, my friend, you are the rightest of the right!  Keep lightin' it up with the LVT Truth!  Right On!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You know what the (latest) truly hilarious thing is?  Roy L. and Steven Douglas could actually come to an agreement very very easily... their positions are really within a hair's bredth of each other.  All it would take would be the tiniest bit of diplomacy, forbearance, and creative conflict-resolution by Roy.  Their positions are completely reconcilable.  Roy wants an citizen's exemption below a minimum total value of land, and really that's all Steven wants, too.  They'd both be happy to LVT the land barons, foreigners, and big corporations.


It's true! 

Roy wants an occupancy privilege exemption that is tied to land value, I want an actual right of ownership tied to nothing but the land area, as a matter of right, regardless of value.  That means Citizen homeowners can always trade up, but can never be traded down, squeezed, forced out, or required to compete with anyone of lesser status, or part of the land commerce rat race. 

And you're also right - land barons, foreigners and big corporations can be taxed or otherwise LVT'ed out of existence for all I care. That's what Congress is there for, as far as I'm concerned, and whatever voids are left by those actions can be filled easily enough.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

By the way, everyone in this thread: it is December 16th, Tea Party Day, and I would like to ask if you all could please make a donation.  Yes, you too Roy.  I speak for everyone when I say we will all forgive everything and +rep you if you will donate $100 to Ron Paul. 

_FOR LIBERTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

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## Roy L

> You know what the (latest) truly hilarious thing is?  Roy L. and Steven Douglas could actually come to an agreement very very easily... their positions are really within a hair's breadth of each other.  All it would take would be the tiniest bit of diplomacy, forbearance, and creative conflict-resolution by Roy.  Their positions are completely reconcilable.  Roy wants an citizen's exemption below a minimum total value of land, and really that's all Steven wants, too.


We'll see if Steven agrees with you.  I don't see it.



> So while Roy is busy screaming about the outrageous and physically-sickening evil of an agreeable and intelligent man who, for all practical purposes, *completely agrees with him*, he is at the same time now quite chummy with... *me*!  All I had to do is preface every paragraph with a reverie to his rightness and greatness, and then continue making the same sort of arguments I have been making all along (a bit more subtlely, of course).  Voila!  All of a sudden I am an Ally and a Saint in Roy's Pantheon.


Oh, don't lie.  I demolished you.  You just didn't make as many absurd and dishonest claims as usual.



> I don't see any need for him to be so sad.  Even if he advocates LVT, that's no reason to be so sad.


15 million annual murders and the needless impoverishment of all humanity for thousands of years would be some of the reasons.  Some people can ignore continual and frequently repeated Holocausts.  I can't.



> Roy, my friend, you are the rightest of the right!  Keep lightin' it up with the LVT Truth!  Right On!


"Of all man's burdens, this is the bitterest: to have much knowledge, and no power." -- Herodotus

The weight and bitterness of that burden is my constant companion.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy wants an occupancy privilege exemption that is tied to land value,


The liberty to use land, and thus the compensation for abstaining from its exercise, is a right, not a privilege.



> I want an actual right of ownership tied to nothing but the land area, as a matter of right, regardless of value.


How on earth do you imagine that could possibly work?  What would people do when they wanted to move?  I don't think you have thought this through very thoroughly.



> That means Citizen homeowners can always trade up, but can never be traded down, squeezed, forced out, or required to compete with anyone of lesser status, or part of the land commerce rat race.


Competition is part of liberty and the free market.  Having a right to liberty means being free to compete, and that includes with people who might not want to compete.  If I understand your proposal accurately, it would function a bit like the old village commons, but each person or family would have permanent ownership of a small plot of land instead of a permanent right to use shares of a much bigger plot.  The problem is that such a system has no mechanism for moving the resource into more productive hands, and consequently results in inefficiency, lower productivity, and general poverty.  My system assures the less productive access to opportunity, but does not enable them to deprive the more productive of opportunity.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The liberty to use land, and thus the compensation for abstaining from its exercise, is a right, not a privilege.


According to American Jurisprudence, "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Loan Association v Topeka, 87 US 655, 663 (1875).  Taxes are of privileges, so if it can be taxed, it is not a right, but a privilege.  




> How on earth do you imagine that could possibly work?  What would people do when they wanted to move?  I don't think you have thought this through very thoroughly.


I have thought it out, actually.  It goes to the heart of value floors (BIDS) governing the privileged (under your plan, at least, where a highest bidder can take over occupancy by the use of government force) and value ceilings (ASKS) governing those with rights.  

When a free and natural Citizen landowner wants to move, they are _the only ones_ entitled, as a matter of right, to decide whether or not they are even willing to sell, and the only ones who have final say over the price they would be willing to accept.  Their inalienable rights are not tied into any notions of "economy-wide" productivity or anything else. They really can be a big fly in the ointment if they want. That's their right - one that foreigners, land barons, Walmart, Microsoft, et al simply do not enjoy. If crazy old coot Granny says she's not selling her shack or moving to make way for a skyscraper, _that is the end of it._ Build around her. Beg her. Plead with her. Offer her a fortune. After exhausting all means of enticement to sell, if she says no, that really is the end of it. _Too bad._ Adapt and plow around her - without interfering with her rights.    

Not true of privileged entities (under your plan, which I wouldn't have a problem with if it ONLY applied to privileged entities) which would be required to keep pace with the BIDS only, and for making LVT payments as a requirement in order to continue to own land, but only on legislated conditions, and only as a matter of _taxed privilege_.  




> Competition is part of liberty and the free market. Having a right to liberty means being free to compete, and that includes with people who might not want to compete.


Oh yeah? I firmly agree with your first sentence, but your second sentence, if I understood it correctly, did not describe a free market at all, but rather a compulsory market.  

Those who actually place their goods and services on the free market do not have a right to "freedom from competition".  If that is what you meant, then I wholeheartedly agree, because I am anti-protectionist to the core.  However, under a free market, you are as free to place things on the market as you are to remove them from the market. Spending and/or saving, goods and/or services.  The demand side of the market, generally speaking (e.g., assuming I have no monopoly) is not _entitled_ to a supply side, or vice versa. 

The goods in your house or stockpiled in your garage are not part of the "free market" if you are not selling them. As such, they are not "on the market". They have no competition, just as they are no competition.  

A "free market" is not a compulsory market. The existence of goods does not make a market. The existence of "goods for sale" does. 




> If I understand your proposal accurately, it would function a bit like the old village commons, but each person or family would have permanent ownership of a small plot of land instead of a permanent right to use shares of a much bigger plot.  The problem is that such a system has no mechanism for moving the resource into more productive hands, and consequently results in inefficiency, lower productivity, and general poverty.


Oh, there is a mechanism, because they can always decide to sell - it's just not fool-proof or guaranteed mechanism. Nor should it be in the case of actual rights.  I can ask someone to be quiet, and not to voice their opinion in the moment as a courtesy, and they might do just that.  Failing that, however, their right to free speech completely trumps my expectation of silence (yelling fire in a crowded theater notwithstanding).  

Such is the rightful clash of the privileged versus those with actual rights, and why it is EVIL to conflate the two, as we must always err on the side of those with rights.  

Big "Productive" Conglomerate (don't call them "more productive hands", as they may not produce anything with their own hands) wants to erect a nice skyscraper.  Ooh, so wonderful, so good for their interests, "the economy", and for government.  Not so good for little old Granny.  Or is it?  Under my proposal, Granny gets a windfall that no privileged entity could ever claim.  Under your proposal, Granny loses -- because Big Conglomerate has just priced her out of her own home by raising the "value floor" so high above her head that her "universal exemption value" right will not even begin to cover her ability to stay.  

The natural dynamic of your proposal is a sweeping of the poor to the outside.  It would result in naturally flattened pyramids, the most wealthy of whom are always at the center, or "top" - always having access to _the very best lands_.  And that will always have an outward push, because if you outbid me on my land, I can turn around and outbid someone just below me and push them out of theirs. And so on, as the flattened pyramid pushes everyone _outward_. 

Your universal exemption will not amount to much at all for the rich (which they will have a right to, and may use as well), because they can afford much, MUCH more than that. They can literally behave like Big Productive Conglomerate, and kick Granny to the curb without a second thought under your proposal.  Now Granny is "free" to use that exemption ELSEWHERE.  

That is why I am not concerned (where rights of individuals are concerned) about assuring that the "less productive" have "access" to the outskirts they would *most certainly* be swept aside to.  Granny's boat is one that should rise with the productive tides - not be swept away and aside by a relatively "_more productive to society_" (but destructive to her individual "society") tsunami.  _Especially_ on the ironic possibility that Granny might well have worked for, gave value to, retired from, and helped make successful _the very firm that is now outbidding her for her own land._ 

Roy, when you say "more productive" think *RICH*. When you say "less productive" think *POOR*.  Thus: 




> My system assures the less productive POOR access to opportunity OUTSKIRTS, but does not enable them to deprive the more productive RICH of opportunity BETTER LAND.
> 
> As a tautology your statement reads:
> 
> _"My system assures the poor access to the lesser valued outskirts, but does not enable them to deprive the rich of better land."_


And it sure would. How does that sit with you, Roy?  Sticks in my craw, personally.  Welcome to the doctrine of unintended consequences - assuming they were unintended. 




> We'll see if Steven agrees with you.  I don't see it.


Reread what Helmuth wrote. He didn't say I agreed with him. He said I agreed, at least in principle (although that word was not used) _with you_.  And, largely, it's true. 

You see "landless" people and clearly recognize that as a _Terrible Problem_. On that we fully agree, given that landless people are automatically subject to paying rent; a "shelter tax" in order to survive, given that shelter, which requires land, is a basic need of ALL HUMANS.

I don't see the problem with rents as a matter of degree.  It is not a question in my mind of *Affordable Rent = Good*, while *Unaffordable Rent = Bad*.  I see all rent charged to individuals as bad, so long as there is perfectly good, unused, unowned land which they have been blocked from acquiring for themselves. That, to me, is the original crime of government - which originally saw land strictly as a means of raising revenue - no different in principle than your system. 

You see lack of ownership by the landless and conclude that land ownership is the problem, rather than the lack thereof by the poor.  

Homeless people are not homeless because other people have homes. Homeless people are homeless because _they themselves don't have homes_. That is the problem (pretty damned elementary to me).  Likewise "landless" people (renters _and_ homeless people) are not landless _because_ other people own land, but rather because they do not have land of their own. Making the landless fee-simple or allodial landowners would remove their need to pay rents of any kind. Perpetually. No more exposure to parasitic rent-seekers and takeover barons, public or private, because they live and occupy their land as a matter of right, not privilege.  

Your solution is not to make the landless _"no longer landless"_.  Instead you want _everyone to be landless_ -- to revoke all landownership rights, effectively transferring all land title to government, while turning everyone into renters.  You want to give all individuals a "value exemption" that can be applied toward "good land", but that necessarily means that the "very best land" is still reserved for highest bidders. To me that is a load of crap, because it threatens individuals who end up in the middle of an area that suddenly increases in value to the point where their "universal exemption" no longer covers the LVT costs of the land they have long occupied. Thus, they are forced to pay the difference or else vacate and move to land of lesser value.  That _automatically favors the rich over the poor_, since you have effectively made it impossible for the poor to remain on their land if they are _unfortunate enough_ to live in area that suddenly takes on increased market value. 

That is no solution, Roy.  It is evil to push real people out of their homes in favor of a highest bidder. As such, I think that your "value exemption" solution is weak as hell and prone to massive abuses. It is ultimately _not protective_ of the poor to middle classes, which, under your proposal, will always be pushed to the outside; naturally, given that they are, for whatever their reasons, less productive poor.

----------


## Roy L

> Pants on fire, liar.  You weaseled again and changed the wording.  Stop moving the goalposts, Roy. That was very slippery, very evil and dishonest of you, as I never claimed such a thing.


Sorry, you're right, it was eduardo.  I assumed it was you because you answered my response to him.



> Thus, you weaseled.  Very evil.


I can be accused of many things, but weaseling is not one of them.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, for the sake of discussion, let's stipulate to everything you wrote about ancient Egypt and Rome as being the causes of their downfall (even though debased coinage, something that can be done irrespective of land ownership, was also mentioned as a cause).


Debasement of the coinage was resorted to because all the good land had become tax-exempt.  As long as it is not done quickly, it is no worse than a lot of other unfair and economically destructive ways of obtaining revenue, especially the ones often used in ancient times, like tax farming.



> What you argued against were two cases of "ownership by the few at the expense of the many", and the net effect of oligarchical class control of land in both cases.


Without LVT, landowning is *always* by the few at the expense of the many, and always produces oligarchical class control of land.



> No problem there, I would argue against that as well.  If a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet and friends had enough wealth to buy 99% of existing lands, they could both kiss my ass. I wouldn't support that at all, any more than I would allow a foreign government to buy domestic land and exert the same financial control over them.


But without LVT, land HAS to move into the hands of the rich.  Landowner privilege is a positive feedback loop.  That's why the Duke of Westminster, whose ancestors started out with 500 acres in what is now the west end of London, now owns thousands of acres worth billions of dollars all over the world, despite none of his ancestors ever having done anything productive.



> In the case of Egypt, the priests were, in essence, the government, given that government, by extension, did the bidding of the priests.


No, they were not, and it didn't.  It simply granted them the privilege of owning land tax-free.  The forces of economic law, operating over many centuries, did the rest.  The priests had no taxing power, and did not perform any government functions such as providing services, infrastructure, or military and police protection.  They were simply, in effect, private corporate landowners.



> In the case of Egypt, _priests=government_.


No, that's just baldly false, as proved above.



> In the case of Rome, land ownership was even more directly tied to government, given senatorial (and senatorially connected) ownership of lands by an elite few (very important).


The tax-exempt landowning senatorial families had a much greater influence in government, but did not have to PAY FOR government (very important).



> That is very similar to what is happening in China now - if you are a member of the decidedly limited ruling power elite minority that makes up the Communist Party (a very tiny percentage of Chinese are actual Party members), you (or your family and connections by extension) are insanely wealthy, having first access to both land and moneys used for economic improvements. If you are a party member, you are in a position to decide winners and losers.


There are similarities but also some big differences.  In China, the party privileged take wealth by exercising control over land they don't own.  In Rome, the nobility bought up land and then pocketed the rent from either tenants or their own slave-based agricultural enterprises.



> You referred to the emperor's ownership in Rome as a "saving grace", due to army maintenance and infrastructure improvements from rent taxes collected.  We don't know how many infrastructure improvements were made by other land owners, but let's pretend they made none whatsoever, but simply sat on their collective asses and collected rents, while The Good Emperor only strived to collect rents so that improvements could be made to a Well Defended And Improved Infrastructure. By implication this argues that a saving grace of land ownership is rental, but only so long as it is owned by government, and only so long as it results in army maintenance and infrastructure improvements.


Not quite.  The only saving grace of landowning is if the publicly created rent is recovered to pay for the public expenditures that create it instead of being given away to landowners in return for nothing.  That is exactly what LVT does.



> Now at this point, I would normally argue that class ownership of land, currency debauchery and parasitic army maintenance were all decisive primary factors in the downfall of Rome.


Huh?  Lack of maintenance of the army -- and diversion of military spending to the uncoordinated private armies of major landowners -- is what allowed Rome to be destroyed by barbarian invasions.



> The conclusion that I come away with has nothing to do with land ownership, but rather concentrated land ownership into the hands of a few (but somehow not "the one", and definitely never "the many", for some unspoken reason).


The reason is obvious: it all depends on what the rent is used for, which normally depends on who gets it.



> In both cases, Egypt or Rome could have simply decreed that renters were now owners, with the express prohibition of owners as rent-seekers (i.e., only occupiers can own). That would have done away entirely with the problem of rent-seeking elitists of all kinds. The only remaining problem would be taxation - which was already in the power of either government to begin with.  Merely asserting that *"land rent [is] the natural and best source of funding for government"* is not a proof at all. It is, rather, what you are arguing, and hopefully not circularly from that premise -- which may or may or may not be true, but _has most definitely not been argued, let alone established_.


Yes, it HAS been established, because all the benefit of government spending on services and infrastructure goes to landowners, as the Henry George Theorem shows.  Recovering that publicly created value rather than stealing privately created value is self-evidently the natural and best source of funding for government.  It is the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to make government pay for itself.



> All regimes, regardless of land or property ownership laws, are subject to currency debauchery as a means of hidden taxation - which ultimately results in the downfall of the currency, and a consequent regime change (of the regime, or within that regime).


Currency debasement is often done by private interests -- like our modern banks that issue debt money -- and is thus not a tax, as government does not get the revenue.  In ancient China, counterfeiting was rampant -- at times the majority of currency in circulation was counterfeit -- and this was also theft by private interests, not a source of revenue for government.



> Likewise, all regimes, regardless of land ownership or property rights, can be laden with the burden of excessive armies or other parasitic entities, whether beneficial or not (welfare/warfare).  That also has nothing to do with land ownership.


Wrong.  The landowner qua landowner is inherently and by definition a parasite to the extent that he pockets publicly created value.



> ln all cases, I see an argument against concentration of rent-seeking land ownership - the greatest concentration of which is "one" owner: namely, _a rent-seeking government_ as the owner.


Nope.  It doesn't matter who owns the land.  It only matters what the rent is used for: paying for the services and infrastructure that create it, or subsidizing parasitic landowning at the expense of the productive who must consequently pay the taxes.



> To me, that is the worst possible scenario, to wit: (and this is my opinion only, albeit it one I think is shared by many)


The truth is not decided by voting.



> Governments are, by their very nature, hungry, dishonest, thieving, cheating hippos; power and money gluttons


Like private interests.  But at least you get to vote on your government.



> who get no pass from me.Not one of them. They are all, by nature, untrustworthy, as they are all run by individuals, all of whom have individual interests to look after, and must be presumed IN ALL CASES as willing to resort to using government to their own ends.  I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them.


That is why it is SO IMPORTANT to align government's financial interests with the public interest, as LVT does.



> Giving a government sole "ownership" of lands as a method of taxation does not preclude other taxation methods (which are guaranteed to come), nor is it a check on other heaped burdens, including excessive armies, welfare programs, selective and wasteful infrastructure -


But at least with LVT, the landowners who pocket all the benefit of welfare and infrastructure spending are the ones who must pay for it, and they therefore HAVE NO INCENTIVE TO LOBBY FOR IT.



> nor, for that matter, is there any check against currency debasement as a _taxation of last resort_, once the limits of normal taxation - regardless how it is assessed or collected - have been reached.


I agree that LVT does not solve the money problem, cure cancer, or eliminate stupid reality TV shows.  But it does align government's financial incentives with the public interest in a way that is inherently transparent and difficult to corrupt: land can't move, and it can't hide.

----------


## Steven Douglas

I have responses to the Egypt/Rome scenario, but I'm going to table those for now. I'm more interested in your response to my latest post, which brings everything full circle and ties in with all of that.

----------


## Roy L

> You made a baseless assertion, Roy, which proved nothing.


Lie.  I cited a dictionary definition that proved I was right.  You, by contrast, have done nothing but spew absurd garbage in your efforts to avoid knowing there is any such thing as value.



> See? No landowner rights.


Correct.  There can be no such thing as a right to violate others' rights without making just compensation.  Landowning is inherently and by definition a privilege, and can never be a right.



> Only "privilege", which I do not support.


Yes, you do.  If you support landowning without just compensation to the victims, you support privilege.  It's that simple.



> The land that you live on is subject to seizure and the occupants subject to eviction _under this regime and yours._


*And yours.*  So?  The alternative is an even more egregious privilege of immunity from legal remedies.



> Even tax and bankruptcy courts shield someone from being stripped of their bare essentials.


They don't shield them from being stripped of their land titles or their dwellings.



> Nobody can seize your only source of transportation, or liquidate the tools you need to survive, or food from your cupboards.


Yes, in fact, they can.



> That's all generally protected.


Evidence for this claim?  Many people have lost their only car, machinery or equipment they use to make a living, and yes, even food (as long as it has significant liquidation value, and its seizure isn't simply to inflict suffering) to legal judgments.  Of course, you claim to hold an absurd and indefensible view that these things are seized even though none of them have any value, but we all know that's just a stupid lie on your part.



> But not land. In a perfect world, you can get a judgment against you, with a lien on part of your income, but your primary land upon which you must live to earn a living would be protected.  Because it is _an inalienable right, not a privilege_.


Wrong.  You need to use land to exist, which makes use of land part of the right to life and inherently eliminates any possibility that land can rightly be owned.  But you don't need any *particular* piece of land, and if you are depriving others of their liberty to use good land and can't make just compensation, you have no right to do that to them.  You *know* there is no such thing as "your primary land upon which you must live to earn a living."  There are lots of places you can live and still earn a living.  You just have to -- and have a right to -- live SOMEWHERE you can earn a living.



> What do you care?


I care about liberty, justice, truth, and the welfare of humankind.  I realize these concerns are foreign to you.



> You are not in favor of even allowing the poor to own land (as a matter of right, not privilege - _completely rent free._)


Yes, in fact, I am, as long as by "own" you mean something very similar to the current fee simple title but with full rent repayment, and not an allodial title immune to all legal process.  In fact, under my system it would be trivially easy for the poor to own land, even some fairly good land, and I anticipate a great many of them would choose to do so, though not all.



> The "rights of the landless" are remedied by _a right to land_.


That is exactly what LVT with a flat, universal individual exemption provides.



> Not some goofy-stupid "liberty right" machination


I believe in an equal, universal, individual right to liberty.  Apologists for landowner privilege, like you, do not.  Simple.



> that promises "exemptions" and lower rents to the poor for sub-standard land usage.


And...?  They would get FREE, SECURE tenure on enough good land to live on.  In what sense would it be any more "sub-standard" than the poor's access to transportation, food, medical care, education, or anything else people generally pay for?  In fact, far from being "sub-standard," it would give them much better access to good land than to those other things.  Your system, by contrast, promises the poor no access to good land at all, just decades of debt slavery.



> Yes, and in so PAYING they can EVICT poor people who cannot afford to compete with that BID. Thanks for the oppression, Roy!


ROTFL!!  "Oppression"??  Give your head a shake.  That's how free markets work, Steven: the high bidder gets the goods.  The poor who can't pay for premium locations will simply choose accommodation better suited to their needs and means.  Are you saying PRIVATE landlords should never be able to EVICT anyone if others are willing to pay a higher rent...?

Thought not.



> You just picked the richer, by however much, as the winner in every case.


No, that's just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.  Unlike under the current system *and your system*, with my system the rich would have *no motive* to hoard good land they weren't actually using -- indeed they would pay through the nose to do so -- and the poor would consequently have ready access to lots of far better land than they do now.



> The poor are left with only a "naturally liberty right" to pay, or else VACATE and find poorer conditions that they can afford.


You *know* that that is a lie, Steven, as under the system I propose, ALL would get FREE, SECURE tenure on enough good land OF THEIR CHOICE to live on.  In many cases, that would be high-density residential in excellent locations.



> Proponent of landowner rights, Roy. Not privilege. Rights.


Nope.  That's impossible, as already proved.  A right of property in land will ALWAYS BE IMPOSSIBLE because it contradicts the human rights to life and liberty.  



> Inalienable rights to each and every living individual.


What, allodial titles??  ROTFL!  You do realize that allodial titles CAN'T BE TRANSFERRED, don't you?



> You are the apologist for privilege, Roy,


You are a lying sack of $#!+, Steven.



> where NOBODY occupies land as a matter of right.


No, the right to occupy land is obtained by justly compensating those whom you deprive of it, because OCCUPYING land without making that compensation necessarily means initiating aggression -- violent, coercive physical force -- to deprive others of their liberty to use it.  And there can be no such right.  We already established that by the examples of Dirtowner Harry and Thirsty, Crusoe and Friday, and the bandit in the pass.



> There is always a richer bidder out there who is artificially empowered to raise a floor - to outbid you on your "occupational privilege", who has a "naturally liberty right" to EVICT YOU if you cannot compete.


"Artificially empowered"?  How would it be any more artificial than whatever mechanism you propose for securing the land "owner's" tenure?



> I am the ONLY one who proposes equal, universal, *free*, secure land tenure *rights* for all resident citizens.  FREE OF CHARGE. Free of rent-by-any-other-name.  Not you, Roy. Me only.


BBWAHAHAHHAAAAA!!!  No, that's just another cretinous lie from you, Steven.  The uniform, universal individual LVT exemption I propose is PRECISELY a mechanism that ensures* equal, universal, free, secure land tenure rights for all resident citizens.*

But you *are* the only one who advocates *your* absurd allodial titles scheme, because the idea is so blatantly idiotic and indefensible.



> The poor could only live rent free, and have an actual, perpetual RIGHT of occupancy under my proposal. Not yours.  That SHOULD make you ill.


What makes me ill is refusal to know self-evident facts in order to preserve false and evil beliefs.  Mortals cannot have _perpetual_ rights as a matter of indisputable fact.  Under my proposal but NOT YOURS, the poor would have an actual, secure right of FREE tenure on enough advantageous land of their choice to live on.



> Baloney. Your solution falls apart the moment "additional publicly created land value" comes into play, and deliberately EXCLUDES occupancy by the poor of any "good land".


Flat false.  Under my proposal, if the poor wanted to live on good land but pay no rent, they would simply choose to live on a small enough plot of high-value land (such as in a high-density development) as not to exceed their exemptions.



> There are no rightful rent-seekers, public or private. Only land thieves.


All landowning is rent seeking and land theft.



> That includes you.


Everyone reading this knows that is a lie, and that includes you.



> No, I want to take away the only thing that separates the poor from landowners, public and private.


The latter's privilege of stealing from the former?  Me, too.



> I want to make them landowners with RIGHTS to that ownership.


Oh?  How do you imagine you are going to do that?  All the good land is already taken.  How do you imagine you are going to get the poor to live on a few acres of mountainside in Nevada?



> That is the ONLY way to protect them from EVER having to "sign their rights over" to idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowning rich - public or private.


Garbage.  There is no such thing as a "public landowning rich," you know that is an oxymoron.  And your moronic scheme certainly will not protect the poor from ever having to sign their rights over to rich private landowners.  They will need access to opportunity, and under your scheme will have to sign their rights over to the idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic PRIVATE landowning rich to get it.



> Screw your "exempt amount".


Ooooh, cogent.



> If it is suddenly found that an otherwise poor land occupier is on property that suddenly became valued to the point where it exceeds your "exempt amount", she can be forced to pay more, or else EVICTED.


Thus moving the more valuable resource into more productive hands, while the less productive still have secure, FREE access to opportunities better suited to their needs and means.  Sounds good to me.



> Furthermore, it opens the door to a scenario where the "exempt" amount becomes nothing more than a discount on rents paid, as none actually cover land enough to live on.


Can't happen: the Law of Rent forbids it.



> Screw your artificial exemptions.


LOL!  If anything is artificial it is landowner privilege, which has never occurred in nature, and never will.



> An absolute right of ownership, and not occupancy privilege, would be the ultimate exemption, and protection from the value-seeking, rent-seeking covetous masses, both public and private.


There is nothing covetous about recovering publicly created value for public purposes and benefit, Steven, so stop lying.  The truly covetous are those who seek to pocket value others have created -- especially by their taxes -- while contributing no commensurate value in return.  You know: landowners.



> She should be able to tell all of you to kiss her ass, and take your rent-seeking tentacles elsewhere.


No, that simply results in grotesque obscenities like this:

http://www.cloquetchurch.com/files/g...Loneliness.jpg



> Yes, and you also put government in a position to decide what "good land" and "sufficient to live on" means.


Nope.  The market decides.  All your "arguments" consist of lying about my position, or about facts of objective reality.



> You still have your eminent domain genie out of the bottle.


<yawn>  Every rational and mature person knows eminent domain is necessary to provide the infrastructure required for a prosperous economy.



> You want exemptions from privilege/usage license.


No, the universal individual LVT exemption restores the right to liberty by requiring just compensation for its violation.



> I want a right that is not subject to privilege or license.


But that "right" can never be a right to own land.



> Big difference, as mine actually acknowledges and protects a Right of Ownership.


Which in the case of land, doesn't and can't exist.



> I have NEVER claimed that Crusoe OR Caesar had a right of massive ownership.


How would your system not enable massive ownership?



> You rail against Crusoe but argued the benefits of an emperor's ownership.


Only to the extent that _he was the government_, and thus spent the money on public services, useful infrastructure, and national defense.  There are other cases, such as oil sheikdoms, where the landowner is just blowing the money on his own consumption and maintenance of a police and military force strong enough to keep him in power as the landowner.  That is essentially feudalism, which is more like private landowning and therefore indefensible.



> Not me. I say NEITHER.  I specifically stated that if Warren Buffet or Bill Gates wanted to go buy up a whole state, that government should step in and force a breakup and sale.


By some sort of arbitrary bureaucrat's decision.  So you DON'T actually support the landowning "right" you claim you do.  Thought not.



> NOT because he is denying any strange "naturally liberty right" to anyone who would "otherwise be at liberty" to occupy or use land,


Despite the fact that he self-evidently and indisputably IS.



> but because it precludes landownership by everyone who has a Right to Own land of their own.


Self-contradiction.  There can be no ownership without a right to dispose, and the right to dispose requires alienation.  The system you claim to propose is logically impossible.



> So no, Roy, I don't care whether it is Warren Buffet or the Bureau of Land Management - if either are in a position to block land ownership by massive sequestration of any kind, I am against it.


What you are against is plain logic.  Your claimed system is self-contradictory, which is why you can't describe it in specific detail.



> Oh yes there is. _To the landowners._ They are free.


Wrong.  They are only "free" on the little patch of ground they claim to own.



> Turn all renters into landowners, and you have _freedom from rent_.


That is PRECISELY what LVT with the universal individual exemption does, but only for those who CHOOSE to own rather than rent.



> Why would anyone want to rent from ANYONE else if they have property of their own?


There are many reasons: they want to be mobile or use a different location temporarily; the location they own doesn't suit them; they want to use better improvements than they can afford to buy; etc.  Regardless of the reason, it is not up to you to second-guess their choices.



> Why would anyone give two figs about some mindless "Rent Exemption", when an actual inalienable right of ownership to individuals renders that completely unnecessary?


Because logical contradictions are insupportable.

----------


## Steven Douglas

No, Roy, I'll respond to that as well, but I meant this one:





> The liberty to use land, and thus the compensation for abstaining from its exercise, is a right, not a privilege.


According to American Jurisprudence, "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Loan Association v Topeka, 87 US 655, 663 (1875).  Taxes are of privileges, so if it can be taxed, it is not a right, but a privilege.  




> How on earth do you imagine that could possibly work?  What would people do when they wanted to move?  I don't think you have thought this through very thoroughly.


I have thought it out, actually.  It goes to the heart of value floors (BIDS) governing the privileged (under your plan, at least, where a highest bidder can take over occupancy by the use of government force) and value ceilings (ASKS) governing those with rights.  

When a free and natural Citizen landowner wants to move, they are _the only ones_ entitled, as a matter of right, to decide whether or not they are even willing to sell, and the only ones who have final say over the price they would be willing to accept.  Their inalienable rights are not tied into any notions of "economy-wide" productivity or anything else. They really can be a big fly in the ointment if they want. That's their right - one that foreigners, land barons, Walmart, Microsoft, et al simply do not enjoy. If crazy old coot Granny says she's not selling her shack or moving to make way for a skyscraper, _that is the end of it._ Build around her. Beg her. Plead with her. Offer her a fortune. After exhausting all means of enticement to sell, if she says no, that really is the end of it. _Too bad._ Adapt and plow around her - without interfering with her rights.    

Not true of privileged entities (under your plan, which I wouldn't have a problem with if it ONLY applied to privileged entities) which would be required to keep pace with the BIDS only, and for making LVT payments as a requirement in order to continue to own land, but only on legislated conditions, and only as a matter of _taxed privilege_.  




> Competition is part of liberty and the free market. Having a right to liberty means being free to compete, and that includes with people who might not want to compete.


Oh yeah? I firmly agree with your first sentence, but your second sentence, if I understood it correctly, did not describe a free market at all, but rather a compulsory market.  

Those who actually place their goods and services on the free market do not have a right to "freedom from competition".  If that is what you meant, then I wholeheartedly agree, because I am anti-protectionist to the core.  However, under a free market, you are as free to place things on the market as you are to remove them from the market. Spending and/or saving, goods and/or services.  The demand side of the market, generally speaking (e.g., assuming I have no monopoly) is not _entitled_ to a supply side, or vice versa. 

The goods in your house or stockpiled in your garage are not part of the "free market" if you are not selling them. As such, they are not "on the market". They have no competition, just as they are no competition.  

A "free market" is not a compulsory market. The existence of goods does not make a market. The existence of "goods for sale" does. 




> If I understand your proposal accurately, it would function a bit like the old village commons, but each person or family would have permanent ownership of a small plot of land instead of a permanent right to use shares of a much bigger plot.  The problem is that such a system has no mechanism for moving the resource into more productive hands, and consequently results in inefficiency, lower productivity, and general poverty.


Oh, there is a mechanism, because they can always decide to sell - it's just not fool-proof or guaranteed mechanism. Nor should it be in the case of actual rights.  I can ask someone to be quiet, and not to voice their opinion in the moment as a courtesy, and they might do just that.  Failing that, however, their right to free speech completely trumps my expectation of silence (yelling fire in a crowded theater notwithstanding).  

Such is the rightful clash of the privileged versus those with actual rights, and why it is EVIL to conflate the two, as we must always err on the side of those with rights.  

Big "Productive" Conglomerate (don't call them "more productive hands", as they may not produce anything with their own hands) wants to erect a nice skyscraper.  Ooh, so wonderful, so good for their interests, "the economy", and for government.  Not so good for little old Granny.  Or is it?  Under my proposal, Granny gets a windfall that no privileged entity could ever claim.  Under your proposal, Granny loses -- because Big Conglomerate has just priced her out of her own home by raising the "value floor" so high above her head that her "universal exemption value" right will not even begin to cover her ability to stay.  

The natural dynamic of your proposal is a sweeping of the poor to the outside.  It would result in naturally flattened pyramids, the most wealthy of whom are always at the center, or "top" - always having access to _the very best lands_.  And that will always have an outward push, because if you outbid me on my land, I can turn around and outbid someone just below me and push them out of theirs. And so on, as the flattened pyramid pushes everyone _outward_. 

Your universal exemption will not amount to much at all for the rich (which they will have a right to, and may use as well), because they can afford much, MUCH more than that. They can literally behave like Big Productive Conglomerate, and kick Granny to the curb without a second thought under your proposal.  Now Granny is "free" to use that exemption ELSEWHERE.  

That is why I am not concerned (where rights of individuals are concerned) about assuring that the "less productive" have "access" to the outskirts they would *most certainly* be swept aside to.  Granny's boat is one that should rise with the productive tides - not be swept away and aside by a relatively "_more productive to society_" (but destructive to her individual "society") tsunami.  _Especially_ on the ironic possibility that Granny might well have worked for, gave value to, retired from, and helped make successful _the very firm that is now outbidding her for her own land._ 

Roy, when you say "more productive" think *RICH*. When you say "less productive" think *POOR*.  Thus: 




> My system assures the less productive POOR access to opportunity OUTSKIRTS, but does not enable them to deprive the more productive RICH of opportunity BETTER LAND.
> 
> As a tautology your statement reads:
> 
> _"My system assures the poor access to the lesser valued outskirts, but does not enable them to deprive the rich of better land."_


And it sure would. How does that sit with you, Roy?  Sticks in my craw, personally.  Welcome to the doctrine of unintended consequences - assuming they were unintended. 




> We'll see if Steven agrees with you.  I don't see it.


Reread what Helmuth wrote. He didn't say I agreed with him. He said I agreed, at least in principle (although that word was not used) _with you_.  And, largely, it's true. 

You see "landless" people and clearly recognize that as a _Terrible Problem_. On that we fully agree, given that landless people are automatically subject to paying rent; a "shelter tax" in order to survive, given that shelter, which requires land, is a basic need of ALL HUMANS.

I don't see the problem with rents as a matter of degree.  It is not a question in my mind of *Affordable Rent = Good*, while *Unaffordable Rent = Bad*.  I see all rent charged to individuals as bad, so long as there is perfectly good, unused, unowned land which they have been blocked from acquiring for themselves. That, to me, is the original crime of government - which originally saw land strictly as a means of raising revenue - no different in principle than your system. 

You see lack of ownership by the landless and conclude that land ownership is the problem, rather than the lack thereof by the poor.  

Homeless people are not homeless because other people have homes. Homeless people are homeless because _they themselves don't have homes_. That is the problem (pretty damned elementary to me).  Likewise "landless" people (renters _and_ homeless people) are not landless _because_ other people own land, but rather because they do not have land of their own. Making the landless fee-simple or allodial landowners would remove their need to pay rents of any kind. Perpetually. No more exposure to parasitic rent-seekers and takeover barons, public or private, because they live and occupy their land as a matter of right, not privilege.  

Your solution is not to make the landless _"no longer landless"_.  Instead you want _everyone to be landless_ -- to revoke all landownership rights, effectively transferring all land title to government, while turning everyone into renters.  You want to give all individuals a "value exemption" that can be applied toward "good land", but that necessarily means that the "very best land" is still reserved for highest bidders. To me that is a load of crap, because it threatens individuals who end up in the middle of an area that suddenly increases in value to the point where their "universal exemption" no longer covers the LVT costs of the land they have long occupied. Thus, they are forced to pay the difference or else vacate and move to land of lesser value.  That _automatically favors the rich over the poor_, since you have effectively made it impossible for the poor to remain on their land if they are _unfortunate enough_ to live in area that suddenly takes on increased market value. 

That is no solution, Roy.  It is evil to push real people out of their homes in favor of a richer bidder. As such, I think that your "value exemption" solution is weak as hell and prone to massive abuses. It is ultimately _not protective_ of the poor to middle classes, which, under your proposal, will always be pushed to the outside; naturally, given that they are, for whatever their reasons, less productive poor.

----------


## Roy L

> According to American Jurisprudence, "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Loan Association v Topeka, 87 US 655, 663 (1875).


Yes, well, American Jurisprudence also tells us corporations are people.  Let me know when you see taxation of land causing erosion.



> Taxes are of privileges, so if it can be taxed, it is not a right, but a privilege.


Nominally.



> I have thought it out, actually.


No, you haven't, and won't.



> It goes to the heart of value floors (BIDS) governing the privileged (under your plan, at least, where a highest bidder can take over occupancy by the use of government force) and value ceilings (ASKS) governing those with rights.


And on your planet, that might even mean something.



> When a free and natural Citizen landowner wants to move, they are _the only ones_ entitled, as a matter of right, to decide whether or not they are even willing to sell, and the only ones who have final say over the price they would be willing to accept.


You first need to explain how they ever obtained a "right" to deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation.  And you can't.



> Their inalienable rights are not tied into any notions of "economy-wide" productivity or anything else.


The right to liberty is inalienable, not some fabricated "right" to property in land.  That means they have no right to deprive others of the land.



> They really can be a big fly in the ointment if they want. That's their right -


No, it is not.



> one that foreigners, land barons, Walmart, Microsoft, et al simply do not enjoy.


Right, because no one enjoys it, because there can never be any such right.



> If crazy old coot Granny says she's not selling her shack or moving to make way for a skyscraper, _that is the end of it._


No, it most certainly is not.  She has NO F*CKING RIGHT to hold the entire community to ransom on her personal whim.  None.  Your opinion that she does is indefensible, and therefore counts for nothing.



> Build around her. Beg her. Plead with her.


*F*CK* HER.  If she tries to violate others' rights to liberty without making just compensation, pick her up and move her bodily out of the way.  She has no more right to stop that skyscraper than to stop cars on the freeway.



> Offer her a fortune.


*No.*  She hasn't earned it, doesn't deserve it, has no right to it, and won't be getting it.  Sorry.



> After exhausting all means of enticement to sell, if she says no, that really is the end of it.


No, the end of it is, she goes.  End of story.



> _Too bad._


Yep.  For her.  Lesson: don't be a dog in the manger.



> Adapt and plow around her - without interfering with her rights.


*She* is the one who is violating others' rights, which SHE HAS NO RIGHT to do.



> I firmly agree with your first sentence, but your second sentence, if I understood it correctly, did not describe a free market at all, but rather a compulsory market.


Nonsense.  Those who do not want to participate in the market are free not to do so.  They just aren't free to deprive others of what government, the community and nature provide, and not make just compensation.



> However, under a free market, you are as free to place things on the market as you are to remove them from the market.


But that only applies to YOUR THINGS, which land can never be.  You are free not to participate in the land market, but you have no right to withhold land from it.



> The demand side of the market, generally speaking (e.g., assuming I have no monopoly) is not _entitled_ to a supply side, or vice versa.


Everyone *IS* entitled to the supply side of the *land* market.  That is very much the point.



> The goods in your house or stockpiled in your garage are not part of the "free market" if you are not selling them. As such, they are not "on the market". They have no competition, just as they are no competition.


Because taking them off the market does not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have.  Taking land off the market does.  Your whole argument fails to that fact.



> A "free market" is not a compulsory market. The existence of goods does not make a market. The existence of "goods for sale" does.


The existence of LAND that more than one person wants to use DOES make a market, because no one has a right to make land _not_ for sale but the community that administers its possession and use.



> Oh, there is a mechanism, because they can always decide to sell - it's just not fool-proof or guaranteed mechanism.


If they can sell it, the right is not inalienable, and they will lose it.

So how will their children have any right to land?  Where will the land they have a right to come from when it has all been sold to the rich and privileged?

You have NOT thought this through, Steven.



> Nor should it be in the case of actual rights.


You aren't talking about actual rights.



> Such is the rightful clash of the privileged versus those with actual rights, and why it is EVIL to conflate the two, as we must always err on the side of those with rights.


I.e., not landowners. 



> Big "Productive" Conglomerate (don't call them "more productive hands", as they may not produce anything with their own hands)


I shall continue to call them more productive hands, as they put the land to more productive use.



> wants to erect a nice skyscraper.  Ooh, so wonderful, so good for their interests, "the economy", and for government.  Not so good for little old Granny.


Tough $#!+ for little old Granny.  She has the same human rights as anyone else.  No more.



> Or is it?  Under my proposal, Granny gets a windfall that no privileged entity could ever claim.


And which she has no right to, and is given to her at the expense of the productive.  Right.



> Under your proposal, Granny loses -- because Big Conglomerate has just priced her out of her own home by raising the "value floor" so high above her head that her "universal exemption value" right will not even begin to cover her ability to stay.


So she seeks accommodation better suited to her needs and means.  So what?  People do it all the time.  If we had LVT, she'd do it sooner because there'd be no unearned wealth to hold out for, and people would have access to a lot better accommodation for less money, and business would have access to better premises and locations for less money.  The only thing Granny "loses" is a prospect of privilege she should never have expected in the first place.



> The natural dynamic of your proposal is a sweeping of the poor to the outside.


Nope.  Wrong.  They'd just live at higher densities in the good locations than more affluent people.  The natural dynamic of my proposal is to give them MUCH BETTER ACCESS to opportunity, permanently, than your proposal could ever hope to do.



> It would result in naturally flattened pyramids, the most wealthy of whom are always at the center, or "top" - always having access to _the very best lands_.  And that will always have an outward push, because if you outbid me on my land, I can turn around and outbid someone just below me and push them out of theirs. And so on, as the flattened pyramid pushes everyone _outward_.


Obviously wrong, as Hong Kong proves.  The affluent typically want and are willing to pay for their space and privacy, and tend to live where they can get it: on the outskirts.  Hong Kong has lots of poor people living in high density housing in good locations.  There is no real difference in quality of location between the rich and poor in HK, just in density.



> Your universal exemption will not amount to much at all for the rich (which they will have a right to, and may use as well), because they can afford much, MUCH more than that. They can literally behave like Big Productive Conglomerate, and kick Granny to the curb without a second thought under your proposal.  Now Granny is "free" to use that exemption ELSEWHERE.


Yep.  And your point would be...?  The rich would no doubt congregate together much as they do now, and would just lose money -- a LOT of money -- if they went around bidding poor people out of location after location with no economic rationale for it.



> That is why I am not concerned (where rights of individuals are concerned) about assuring that the "less productive" have "access" to the outskirts they would *most certainly* be swept aside to.


Disproved above.  It is YOUR proposal that would gradually sweep the poor aside, depriving them of access to good locations and the opportunities they represent.  There is no way around it.  Property in land MUST have that effect.



> Granny's boat is one that should rise with the productive tides - not be swept away and aside by a relatively "_more productive to society_" (but destructive to her individual "society") tsunami.  _Especially_ on the ironic possibility that Granny might well have worked for, gave value to, retired from, and helped make successful _the very firm that is now outbidding her for her own land._


<yawn>  Irrelevant sentimental crap.  Grannies have no right to condemn children to poverty by their selfishness, sorry.  If you ask me to choose between a child having a better chance at life and Granny not being inconvenienced at the end of her life, I will pick the child every time.  And I frankly don't understand the mentality of people who think it is better to spend public money making the elderly's final years a little longer or more comfortable than to provide better health care and education for poor children.



> Roy, when you say "more productive" think *RICH*.


No, sorry Steven, I prefer to think accurately, and "more productive" doesn't *mean* "RICH."



> When you say "less productive" think *POOR*.


I will continue not to acquiesce in such errors.  There is little relationship between wealth and productivity.  The top 1% in wealth are generally rather unproductive if they are not actively destructive, while the existence of the term, "working poor" suffices to show the poor are not necessarily less productive.



> Thus:


A fabrication on your part, as proved above.



> And it sure would. How does that sit with you, Roy?  Sticks in my craw, personally.


I won't presume to second-guess the market.  All the evidence points to it being fairer than your personal opinions.



> Welcome to the doctrine of unintended consequences - assuming they were unintended.


They are intended.  You just don't know enough economics to figure out what they are.



> Reread what Helmuth wrote.


My reading comprehension is quite adequate, thank you very much.



> He didn't say I agreed with him.


I didn't say he did.



> He said I agreed, at least in principle (although that word was not used) _with you_.  And, largely, it's true.


That's what I was talking about**: I doubted you agreed with him that you agree with me.



> I don't see the problem with rents as a matter of degree.


Right: it's a problem of who gets them and what they do with them.



> It is not a question in my mind of *Affordable Rent = Good*, while *Unaffordable Rent = Bad*.


Market rent is always, by definition, affordable to those who bid it.  As I have said, the problem is not so much PAYING rent but who GETS the rent -- though the right to liberty does require rent-free access to enough land to live on.



> I see all rent charged to individuals as bad,


Rent is not bad.  It is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction.



> so long as there is perfectly good, unused, unowned land which they have been blocked from acquiring for themselves.


It is precisely ownership of that land that blocks them from "acquiring" it.



> That, to me, is the original crime of government - which originally saw land strictly as a means of raising revenue - no different in principle than your system.


But there is no crime there.  The government was to defend the land and the exclusive tenure of those who held it, making it more advantageous to use.  Why should not those who got the benefit of government activities have paid for them?



> You see lack of ownership by the landless and conclude that land ownership is the problem, rather than the lack thereof by the poor.


It is not the poor's lack of land that causes land bubbles and crashes.  It is the landowner's self-evidently unjust privilege of pocketing arbitrarily large amounts of publicly created value indefinitely into the future.



> Homeless people are not homeless because other people have homes. Homeless people are homeless because _they themselves don't have homes_. That is the problem (pretty damned elementary to me).


True, because my having a home does not affect your ability to have a home.



> Likewise "landless" people (renters _and_ homeless people) are not landless _because_ other people own land, but rather because they do not have land of their own.


Wrong.  Unlike homes, the supply of land is FIXED.  What one person owns, another cannot own.  Unlike homes, land is zero-sum.  People are landless PRECISELY BECAUSE others DO own the land.



> Making the landless fee-simple or allodial landowners would remove their need to pay rents of any kind. Perpetually. No more exposure to parasitic rent-seekers and takeover barons, public or private, because they live and occupy their land as a matter of right, not privilege.


How?  How do they get the land in the first place?  How are they to keep it when they are offered more for it than they can produce on it?  Your proposal simply cannot work.



> Your solution is not to make the landless _"no longer landless"_.  Instead you want _everyone to be landless_ -- to revoke all landownership rights, effectively transferring all land title to government, while turning everyone into renters.


All who exclude others from land they would otherwise be at liberty to use owe them just compensation.  That is just a fact.



> You want to give all individuals a "value exemption" that can be applied toward "good land", but that necessarily means that the "very best land" is still reserved for highest bidders.


Who will often be bidding so high because they can make money providing high-density accommodation for those who can't afford to bid so much for land.



> To me that is a load of crap, because it threatens individuals who end up in the middle of an area that suddenly increases in value to the point where their "universal exemption" no longer covers the LVT costs of the land they have long occupied.


So what?  Private landlords evict people who have long occupied their dwellings all the time.  You going to forbid them to do so?  Good luck with that.  The free market only "threatens" people who want to stagnate and stop the world from progressing.  Sorry, but those people have no right to block the rest of us.



> Thus, they are forced to pay the difference or else vacate and move to land of lesser value.  That _automatically favors the rich over the poor_,


No, the more productive over the less productive.  They are not the same.  Loads of rich people are elderly, retired, and not productive at all.  Loads of productive people are young, hardworking, and not rich at all.  LVT in a free market favors the latter over the former.  You are just objectively wrong.



> since you have effectively made it impossible for the poor to remain on their land if they are _unfortunate enough_ to live in area that suddenly takes on increased market value.


Resources moving into more productive hands means higher production, a wealthier society, is a BENEFIT of the market, and is an INTENDED RESULT of LVT.



> That is no solution, Roy.


Yes, it is.



> It is evil to push real people out of their homes in favor of a highest bidder.


No, it isn't.  The market does it all the time, and it is GOOD.



> As such, I think that your "value exemption" solution is weak as hell and prone to massive abuses.


But in fact, you are objectively wrong about that.



> It is ultimately _not protective_ of the poor to middle classes, which, under your proposal, will always be pushed to the outside; naturally, given that they are, for whatever their reasons, less productive poor.


Wrong again, as proved above.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Thank you, Roy.  Now I know that you're a lying, state-worshiping, wealth-worshiping shill for fascism, and privilege for wealth, which you conflate as being synonymous with productivity.  By your reckoning, banks and insurance companies are among the most "productive hands" in the world.  

When it comes to land, you don't give two $#@!s about individual liberties, or individual rights _of any kind_. You have co-opted all of these as being neatly collectivized, owned by "society", or "the state" - as if they were the same, and as if that also meant individuals.  

You see private landlords evicting people who have long occupied their dwellings, and don't have any problem with this at all.  You are not opposed to rents, nor are you even in favor of giving people a mechanism that would allow them to free themselves from paying rent.  You only want to change landlords to one that is public, which you think would be more benevolent. You want to change the dynamic so that government executes all evictions _at the behest of the rich_ (who may or may not be productive), and only because government -- _the state_ -- stands to gain from it.  

I would actually do quite well under your plan, Roy.  Not the poor, or any of the laboring productive hands, which you would marginalize and squeeze into little boxes, while allowing me to lay out a red carpet for myself, with enormous "low density", higher value land area.  Not as a matter of right, but privilege -- like I can already do now.  That's the privilege of wealth, Roy. It works much better than rights. Thank you.  




> Resources moving into more productive hands means higher production, *a wealthier society*, is a BENEFIT of the market, and is an INTENDED RESULT of LVT.


Not a wealthier "society", Roy.  _A wealthier state_. 

I know you can't wrap your collectivist head around this, but society and the state are not the same thing; they never were, and never will be, regardless of the political regime, even if it pretended (as ours pretends now) to be "democratic".  And what you propose is neither communism nor is it socialism, as some have charged. It is _fascism_.  *You are a fascist, Roy.*  You would reward whomever does best _for the good for the state_, which is not the people, and not the rights of productive individuals, including their putative "natural liberty right" to land use. 

The smallest part of the LVT you propose only indirectly goes back to "productive hands", Roy. Hell, the banks, insurance companies and our current government combined can and DO make all of those claims now -- that every good thing that was siphoned away from them was ostensibly spent on something that benefited them: land sequestered by the BLM, warfare, welfare, infrastructure, you name it.  Politicians can boldly claim that this was all done in the interests of those who are either a) most productive, or b) suffer the most. With the middle class left in limbo, forced to be either one or the other, naturally and by design.

Even moneys used to "build infrastructure" results in something much better for me, as an owner of firms, than it ever could be for the actual productive hands who work for me. Only a TINY portion of that so-called "publicly created value" goes back to those who are actually _most productive_, who you claim need to be compensated for their deprivation, as they are dispossessed of land they cannot afford to occupy or even work under your system. The rest - _the real wealth_ - goes to the state, and to _whomever has the best political and economic ties with the state_. (which I seriously doubt would be you)   

That is _A Very Good Deal_ for me, Roy.  I can employ a thousand "productive hands", as a small part of my LVT goes to pay for cheap, high density, vertically-stacked cracker boxes on the outskirts. Like Hong Kong.  And _they will still have to pay rent_, given that their exemption won't be any guarantee that they can actually live anywhere rent free. 

Meanwhile, I can keep a giant spacious penthouse with a gorgeous view of the Hong Kong bays for myself.  Why? Because my employees - _the people that I also rent, who actually are productive, in my name and on my behalf_ - aren't nearly as productive as your system presumes that _I am._ I don't have to compensate them for anything you think I have stolen from them - _I can compensate the state instead_, because the individual people themselves are presumed to be the least contributors of all that "publicly created value". The only evidence they can possibly have that they "contributed more" is wealth itself. Hard specie. Show us the money.  Most will never be able to do that, and barring that, we can safely assume that they contributed very little to all the "publicly created value".  

Thank you, Roy, and good luck getting to where I would be under this wonderful system of yours, because I don't think you would be "productive" enough OR politically connected enough, _even under your own system_, to enjoy a piece of what I would have _as a matter of privilege_.   

Your system is nothing more than a symbiosis of commerce pyramids and a fascist state, in a way that feeds both. It siphons actual productivity from people while claiming to act in their interests, all under color of protecting their collectivized "natural liberty rights".  

What you designed is a state-owned plantation system, Roy.  Sharecropping elevated to the level of the state.  The state leases the plantation lands, while a separate class of plantation owners compete for those leases, even as the slaves are given "adequate" living space at very high density, and very little cost.  

Welcome to Roy's Plantation. 

As for the poor and working classes -- let them eat infrastructure.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Thank you, Roy.  Now I know that you're a lying, state-worshiping, wealth-worshiping shill for fascism, and privilege for wealth, which you conflate as being synonymous with productivity.  By your reckoning, banks and insurance companies are among the most "productive hands" in the world.  
> 
> When it comes to land, you don't give two $#@!s about individual liberties, or individual rights _of any kind_. You have co-opted all of these as being neatly collectivized, owned by "society", or "the state" - as if they were the same, and as if that also meant individuals.  
> 
> You see private landlords evicting people who have long occupied their dwellings, and don't have any problem with this at all.  You are not opposed to rents, nor are you even in favor of giving people a mechanism that would allow them to free themselves from paying rent.  You only want to change landlords to one that is public, which you think would be more benevolent. You want to change the dynamic so that government executes all evictions _at the behest of the rich_ (who may or may not be productive), and only because government -- _the state_ -- stands to gain from it.  
> 
> I would actually do quite well under your plan, Roy.  Not the poor, or any of the laboring productive hands, which you would marginalize and squeeze into little boxes, while allowing me to lay out a red carpet for myself, with enormous "low density", higher value land area.  Not as a matter of right, but privilege -- like I can already do now.  That's the privilege of wealth, Roy. It works much better than rights. Thank you.  
> 
> 
> ...


Well said.  The interesting thing about Roy is that he's taken what Rothbard called "the least evil tax" and turned it into this monstrous, fascist, collectivist web of perpetual class warfare in the utopian dream of "fairness".

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Well said.  The interesting thing about Roy is that he's taken what Rothbard called "the least evil tax" and turned it into this monstrous, fascist, collectivist web of perpetual class warfare in the utopian dream of "fairness".


Under Roy's plan, I win and Roy loses, because I really am productive, and he's too socially retarded to be politically connected. I would have more than "my fair share" of plantation land to develop, which I could definitely bid on, as well as a steady, continuous "productive human resource" supply, all of whom will have been put in their rightful "less productive" places (obviously, given that they don't have wealth or firm ownership titles), just waiting in cracker box shacks on the outskirts of town to do my "bidding". That's what I'm paying the state for - to put them there. In vertically stacked Human Resource Warehouses. 

As for all that precious infrastructure - well, we would all "share" in that, of course. That goes without saying.  Why, they are as much a part of "society" as I am! What more could they ask for?  I am footing the bills, after all.

----------


## Roy L

> The interesting thing about Roy is that he's taken what Rothbard called "the least evil tax" and turned it into this monstrous, fascist, collectivist web of perpetual class warfare in the utopian dream of "fairness".


No, that's just more absurd rationalization of privilege and injustice.  "Class warfare" against whom?  Landowners?  How can there be warfare, let alone perpetual warfare, against a class that would effectively cease to exist?

It is remarkable, but not unexpected, that those who want economic institutions to remain unjust, and to be made even more unjust, are so eager to dismiss any call for economic justice as a "utopian dream."

----------


## Roy L

> Under Roy's plan, I win and Roy loses, because I really am productive,


A landowner's protestations of productivity are generally inversely proportional to his actual contributions to production.



> and he's too socially retarded to be politically connected.


Translation: I decline to help the evil pretend to themselves that they are not evil.



> I would have more than "my fair share" of plantation land to develop, which I could definitely bid on,


But you are not actually productive enough (you don't know any economics, for one thing) to be the successful bidder.



> as well as a steady, continuous "productive human resource" supply, all of whom will have been put in their rightful "less productive" places (obviously, given that they don't have wealth or firm ownership titles), just waiting in cracker box shacks on the outskirts of town to do my "bidding".


More stupid, dishonest garbage lacking any basis in fact, logic or economics.



> That's what I'm paying the state for - to put them there.


No, you are paying the state for the economic advantages you are being given.



> In vertically stacked Human Resource Warehouses.


Let me know if you ever find a willingness to address anything I have actually said.



> As for all that precious infrastructure - well, we would all "share" in that, of course. That goes without saying.


And those who got to pockets its value would be paying for it.



> Why, they are as much a part of "society" as I am! What more could they ask for?  I am footing the bills, after all.


Paying for what you take from others instead of getting it as a welfare subsidy giveaway.  Right.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I would have more than "my fair share" of plantation land to develop, which I could definitely bid on,
> 			
> 		
> 
> But you are not actually productive enough (you don't know any economics, for one thing) to be the successful bidder.


Is that really what you think, Roy? That to be a successful entrepreneur one must "know economics"?  Are you that daft, that disconnected from reality?

Do you have any idea how many very successful _simpletons_ there are in the economy, who only follow basic principles, and didn't get that way from owning any land, and who don't know the first thing about economic theory? Try MOST, Roy.  

And since you are the idiot savant of economics: Have you ever heard of an economic term called "division of labor"?  Ever hear the old joke about two guys out on safari who spy a tiger stalking them? One guy immediately sits down and starts frantically lacing up his running shoes. The other says, "What are you doing, you can't outrun a tiger!", to which the other responds, "I don't need to. _I just need to outrun you_."  

I am an entrepreneur, Roy, and have been nearly all my adult life.  I didn't become successful from "knowing economics". I got that way from _knowing my specific markets_, and how to best fill the needs of my _targeted markets_ better than my competitors - _the only ones I had to outrun._  I didn't have to outrun everyone else. There was never any other competition, thanks to that wonderful economic principle called "division of labor".  Rappers, shoemakers, automakers, brokers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, you name it -- none of those were ever my competition.  

And economists? How in the hell could any of them compete, when they don't have the slightest clue about my markets? I am an expert in my chosen fields, Roy. If they tried, I'd run circles around them. And you, if you tried. I know my markets, and how to serve them, much in the way a successful entertainer knows his or her audience.  For one of my particular audiences, I needed to know basic physics, fluid dynamics, electronics, semiconductor process control, and a few specific systems.  In addition, I needed basic marketing skills, and a general knowledge of business and accounting (which I could hire anyway, dime a dozen). _But not "economics"_. And that was long before I learned anything about macroeconomics - whether Keynesian-spawned mainstream theory in their myriad forms, Austrian, Roy L. 101, or anything else. 

Moreover, do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was created by mere land ownership?  Home ownership aside, I have never owned any of the real estate on which any of my commercial enterprises were founded and became successful.  I have always leased everything in business, including two businesses in China. Land, cars, you name it -- _like most businesses_ -- renting, providing employment opportunities and paying taxes, all while being productive and profitable, is nothing new to me.  

Not you, Roy. That's an enormous difference between us. You honestly believe that a regime change would actually help you -- that knowledge of macroeconomic theory is somehow required to be a vital part of the economy it attempts to describe, predict, and even manipulate.  Roy, you could erase what little knowledge I have of macroeconomic theory, and I would still be successful. I could do it in my sleep..._under just about any regime_. 

So, back to your tiny, cramped, high density living space on the outskirts of town, you not-so-productive serf.  I have a partnership with a fascist government now. I know what they want, and what they're willing to offer me in return.  I have some "publicly created value" to profit from now, and some infrastructure to pay for that will help me, not you, to profit even more.  So away with you - away from real productivity like mine, that actually contributes to this wonderful new fascist economy you so dreamed about.  I am _far more deserving_ of more space than you, more resources, and usage of better lands than you ever will be.  I can afford it, not you; you are the least contributor. So take your superior knowledge of economic theory with you, as there are real businesses to be run.    

Here's your lesson, Roy:

F*CK YOU, Granny (and you are Granny, btw).  If you try to violate my rights to superior liberty without making just compensation, your wonderful fascist Godfather regime which serves our mutual interests (mine and theirs, not yours, since I am the goose that lays its golden eggs) will favor me as it picks you up and _moves you bodily out of the way_. You have no more right to the top of my skyscraper than to stop cars on the freeway. You have earned no fortune, so you don't deserve it, you have no right to it, and won't be getting it. Sorry. Not under the current regime, or the future one you fantasize about. 

Lesson: don't be an _economic theory_ dog in the manger.




> Paying for what you take from others instead of getting it as a welfare subsidy giveaway. Right.


No, I would be paying others, not you, for what you think I'm taking from you.  I was never the landlord in any of my businesses, so no welfare subsidies for me in any case.  And my new landlord is now the state, which means no more income tax - just an LVT based on what I bid. And your part in that equation, little undeserving serf, is a tiny pittance. You are the least of my costs. Or theirs. Like a slave, they will determine what you require for sustenance and living space, and that's what you will get. At a modest cost to you of course. You can't just go around stealing from others. You have a price to pay as well; your exemption only covers so much.  Most of the money the state gets from me, however, beyond that which greases politically favored interests first, will be spent on infrastructure that serves my interests far more than it ever will yours. That's the beauty of your plan, Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> Thank you, Roy.  Now I know that you're a lying, state-worshiping, wealth-worshiping shill for fascism, and privilege for wealth, which you conflate as being synonymous with productivity.


ROTFL!!  Thank you, Steven.  Now I know that you just say any stupid lie that comes into your head, and don't even attempt to support it with fact or logic.  You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, and you have no answers, so you just make some more $#!+ up.  Simple.



> By your reckoning, banks and insurance companies are among the most "productive hands" in the world.


<yawn>  But somehow, inevitably, you can't quote anything I have actually said that states or implies any such thing.



> When it comes to land, you don't give two $#@!s about individual liberties, or individual rights _of any kind_. You have co-opted all of these as being neatly collectivized, owned by "society", or "the state" - as if they were the same, and as if that also meant individuals.


Another spew of stupid accusations unaccompanied by any supporting quotations, evidence or logic.  What a surprise.



> You see private landlords evicting people who have long occupied their dwellings, and don't have any problem with this at all.


True; the problem* I* have is that private landlords get to charge their tenants for what government, the community and nature provide, and to KEEP THAT MONEY (which has been stolen from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land), whether they evict any long-term tenants or not.



> You are not opposed to rents,


Of course not.  Rent is a natural market phenomenon and necessary to efficient allocation.  I just oppose giving it away to landowners in return for nothing.



> nor are you even in favor of giving people a mechanism that would allow them to free themselves from paying rent.


You are lying again, Steven.  I have described and advocated precisely such a mechanism, and one that, unlike yours, also ensures everyone has the opportunity to enjoy free, secure tenure on enough good land of their choice to live on.



> You only want to change landlords to one that is public, which you think would be more benevolent.


It would _inherently_ be more benevolent, as land's value is publicly created.  The public landlord is therefore inherently a productive market participant, while the private landlord is inherently a thief.



> You want to change the dynamic so that government executes all evictions _at the behest of the rich_ (who may or may not be productive), and only because government -- _the state_ -- stands to gain from it.


<sigh>  Nothing but more stupid lies.  

1. There is no doubt that private landlords would still evict deadbeat tenants.  Strike One.

2. The few "evictions" (what a foul, despicable bit of propaganda) government would carry out would NOT be "at the behest of the rich," but of market participants willing and able to use the land more productively AND (unlike the deadbeat occupants) justly to compensate those whom they deprived of it.  Strike Two.

3. As more efficient and productive land use increases total wealth in society to the benefit of all, it is *the people* who benefit from movement of natural resources into more productive hands, not government or the state.

That's Strike Three, Steven.  You're out.



> I would actually do quite well under your plan, Roy.


Almost everyone would, except the top few percent of landowners and the mortgage lenders, realtors, etc. who are parasites on the parasites.



> Not the poor, or any of the laboring productive hands, which you would marginalize and squeeze into little boxes,


No, that's just an idiotic lie from you, Steven.  LVT MUST make more and better improvements available for all, as that is the only way landholders could avoid losing money.  Stop lying.



> while allowing me to lay out a red carpet for myself, with enormous "low density", higher value land area.


If you want to spend your money on occupying land for your personal pleasure, fine: you'll at least be paying just compensation to those whom you deprive of it.  But don't imagine that you will be able, as you are under the current system and would be under your system, to pocket great sums of publicly created land value in return for nothing.



> Not as a matter of right, but privilege -- like I can already do now.


Lie.  When you do it now, you make money.  Try it under LVT and you will lose your shirt.



> That's the privilege of wealth, Roy.


I know you are an apologist for greed, privilege, wealth and parasitism, Steven.



> It works much better than rights. Thank you.


It only works NOW because your victims have been *stripped* of their rights.  Try it under LVT, and you will just bankrupt yourself for society's benefit.  Thank you.



> Not a wealthier "society", Roy.  _A wealthier state_.


No, that's just another stupid, evil lie from you, Steven, much like all your other stupid, evil lies.  LVT enriches society both by stimulating more productive and efficient use of land and by removing the burden of unjust and economically destructive taxes.  That is why it has ALWAYS produced rapid economic growth and increased prosperity for all.  ALWAYS.



> I know you can't wrap your collectivist head around this, but society and the state are not the same thing; they never were, and never will be, regardless of the political regime, even if it pretended (as ours pretends now) to be "democratic".


No one said they were the same, Steven.  Why can't you ever address anything I have _actually said_?



> And what you propose is neither communism nor is it socialism, as some have charged. It is _fascism_.  *You are a fascist, Roy.*


LOL!  You are just sad now, Steven.  You are disgracing yourself with asinine name calling.  Get a good dictionary, look up "fascism," and then try not to kill yourself for being so dishonest and evil.



> You would reward whomever does best _for the good for the state_, which is not the people, and not the rights of productive individuals, including their putative "natural liberty right" to land use.


Garbage.  LVT rewards the productive, and removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to greedy landowning parasites like you, Steven.  Why not just admit that is the only reason you oppose it?

And people's natural liberty right to use land is not "putative."  It is a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  It is merely a fact that you have to refuse to know, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> The smallest part of the LVT you propose only indirectly goes back to "productive hands", Roy.


No, that's just more stupid lying from you, Steven.  It mostly goes to those who provide desired public services and infrastructure, who are by definition productive.



> Hell, the banks, insurance companies and our current government combined can and DO make all of those claims now -- that every good thing that was siphoned away from them was ostensibly spent on something that benefited them: land sequestered by the BLM, warfare, welfare, infrastructure, you name it.  Politicians can boldly claim that this was all done in the interests of those who are either a) most productive, or b) suffer the most. With the middle class left in limbo, forced to be either one or the other, naturally and by design.


Incomprehensible gibberish.  There is nothing disputable about the value of land: people are willing to pay for it.



> Even moneys used to "build infrastructure" results in something much better for me, as an owner of firms, than it ever could be for the actual productive hands who work for me.


<sigh>  The moneys used to build infrastructure don't help you as an owner of "firms," only as an owner of *land*.  As "an owner of firms," you must pay *landowners* full market value for access to any infrastructure government provides.  LVT recovers that value to pay for the spending that creates it.  That is the point.  The productive hands therefore benefit most of all because they can buy the goods and services they want for lower prices in labor terms, and no longer have to pay taxes for being productive.



> Only a TINY portion of that so-called "publicly created value" goes back to those who are actually _most productive_, who you claim need to be compensated for their deprivation, as they are dispossessed of land they cannot afford to occupy or even work under your system.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you, Steven.  I have never said it was the most productive who needed compensation.  That's just you makin' $#!+ up again.  The most productive obviously NEED it less than the poor and unproductive.  The most productive have the exact same human rights as anyone else, and merit -- and under LVT would get -- the exact same compensation as anyone else.

It is precisely the most productive who CAN afford to occupy and use the good land under LVT: they are the only ones who can use the land and pay the LVT without losing money.  And as they *are* using the land, they *ARE* getting its publicly created value, *AND THEY ARE PAYING FOR IT.*



> The rest - _the real wealth_ - goes to the state, and to _whomever has the best political and economic ties with the state_. (which I seriously doubt would be you)


No, that's just more stupid garbage with no basis in fact.  If the state doesn't spend the LVT revenue on desired services and infrastructure that make the land under its authority more desirable and advantageous to use, it won't be getting as much revenue next year.  LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE tax system that aligns the state's financial interests with the people's interests.



> That is _A Very Good Deal_ for me, Roy.


LOL!  Yeah, sure it is, Steven.  That's probably why you oppose it with such maniacal ferocity and despicable dishonesty....



> I can employ a thousand "productive hands", as a small part of my LVT goes to pay for cheap, high density, vertically-stacked cracker boxes on the outskirts.


ROTFL!  You're just makin' $#!+ up again, Steven.  That's not what LVT revenue is used for, and land on the outskirts can't justify high-density development anyway.  You are merely proving yourself an economic ignoramus with nothing sensible to say.  Again.



> Like Hong Kong.


Again proving your ignorance, stupidity and/or dishonesty (pick any two).  The cheap, high-density cracker boxes in HK are built and owned by *private developers*, not government.



> And _they will still have to pay rent_, given that their exemption won't be any guarantee that they can actually live anywhere rent free.


Yes, in fact, it will.  It's effectively a statistical certainty, like not throwing snake eyes a hundred times in a row.



> Meanwhile, I can keep a giant spacious penthouse with a gorgeous view of the Hong Kong bays for myself.  Why? Because my employees - _the people that I also rent, who actually are productive, in my name and on my behalf_ - aren't nearly as productive as your system presumes that _I am._


Then you'll lose money.



> I don't have to compensate them for anything you think I have stolen from them - _I can compensate the state instead_,


Which compensates *them* through their individual exemptions, which YOU help pay for.



> because the individual people themselves are presumed to be the least contributors of all that "publicly created value". The only evidence they can possibly have that they "contributed more" is wealth itself. Hard specie. Show us the money.  Most will never be able to do that, and barring that, we can safely assume that they contributed very little to all the "publicly created value".


There's no way of knowing or even estimating how much any given individual contributes to land value.   



> Thank you, Roy, and good luck getting to where I would be under this wonderful system of yours, because I don't think you would be "productive" enough OR politically connected enough, _even under your own system_, to enjoy a piece of what I would have _as a matter of privilege_.


If you are privileged under LVT, at least it won't be in your capacity as a landowner.  Actually, given your proven tenuous grasp of economics, I doubt you would be able to maintain a position of wealth or privilege for very long under LVT, which is no doubt why you oppose it so fanatically.



> Your system is nothing more than a symbiosis of commerce pyramids and a fascist state, in a way that feeds both.


If that meant anything, which it doesn't, it would be wrong.  You are just spewing propaganda words with no relation to reality.



> It siphons actual productivity from people while claiming to act in their interests, all under color of protecting their collectivized "natural liberty rights".


How?  Blank out.



> What you designed is a state-owned plantation system, Roy.  Sharecropping elevated to the level of the state.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you, Steven.  Why do you always feel you need to tell stupid lies like that?



> The state leases the plantation lands, while a separate class of plantation owners compete for those leases, even as the slaves are given "adequate" living space at very high density, and very little cost.


The "slaves" have their rights to liberty under the proposed LVT system, unlike under the current system or your system, and therefore cannot be compelled to labor for others' profit.  That makes them not slaves.



> Welcome to Roy's Plantation. 
> 
> As for the poor and working classes -- let them eat infrastructure.


Garbage beneath refutation.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Go back, Roy. You missed the part where none of my businesses, or my success, has been founded on being a commercial landowner of any kind.  I have always paid both rents and taxes, Roy.  That's your whole ridiculous premise - that somehow most commerce is based on land ownership. 

I have never been the evil, parasitic _commercial_ landowner/landlord in any case.  If you robbed me of my home, it wouldn't affect my business in any way, and that is not atypical or out of the norm for business, Roy.  As I expand, I can move, constantly trading across, always to a new landlord.  I don't care if the landowner is private or public.  My _leased_ properties - land, equipment and vehicles - are constantly rolled over according to need. _But someone else has always held the title. I only use them._  

You lost, Roy. Plain and simple. Your arguments were completely destroyed, as they don't apply to me, just as they don't apply to most businesses, for which commercial land ownership _was never at issue_. 

So, big deal - you combine taxes and rents into a single LVT. So what? What changed for me?  Nothing that I can see. I would do quite well. I never needed to own commercial land to make a profit, so how would I lose my shirt?  Furthermore, what changed for you? PERSONALLY. Nothing that I can see. You are "otherwise at liberty" to compete with me.  Just as you are now.  Good luck with that.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> 2. The few "evictions" (what a foul, despicable bit of propaganda) government would carry out would NOT be "at the behest of the rich," but of market participants willing and able to use the land more productively AND (unlike the deadbeat occupants) justly to compensate those whom they deprived of it.


Yeah. Market participant willing and able to use the land more productively.  Me. The "rich".  Not you, the economic theory dog in the manger.  I would outbid you, and the government would remove you "at my behest" -- aka "the behest of the rich". 

No strike. Pop fly, easy out. 




> LVT MUST make more and better improvements available for all, as that is the only way landholders could avoid losing money.  Stop lying.


Commercially I was never a landholder who did not pay rent to somebody as part of my costs.  




> If you want to spend your money on occupying land for your personal pleasure, fine: you'll at least be paying just compensation to those whom you deprive of it.  But don't imagine that you will be able, as you are under the current system and would be under your system, to pocket great sums of publicly created land value in return for nothing.


Never owned commercial land, Roy. I always compensated someone for my land use. So I don't have to "imagine" that I would be able. That's my reality now, for which I am more than able, without owning any commercial land.   




> Lie.  When you do it now, you make money.  Try it under LVT and you will lose your shirt.


I don't do it now. It's not how I make money, so how would I lose my shirt? 




> It only works NOW because your victims have been *stripped* of their rights.  Try it under LVT, and you will just bankrupt yourself for society's benefit.  Thank you.


I don't own commercial land, and I am nowhere near being bankrupt.  




> LVT enriches society both by stimulating more productive and efficient use of land and by removing the burden of unjust and economically destructive taxes.


Thank you. Destructive taxes that I have always paid are now included as just rent, which I have always paid, only now it goes to the government.  




> LVT rewards the productive, and removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to greedy landowning parasites like you, Steven.  Why not just admit that is the only reason you oppose it?


Perhaps because I don't own any commercial land, and never depended on such a "welfare subsidy", as you put it, for my businesses to make a profit?  I don't charge rents to anyone, Roy. That's your game, not mine. 




> The smallest part of the LVT you propose only indirectly goes back to "productive hands", Roy.
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, that's just more stupid lying from you, Steven. It mostly goes to those who provide desired public services and infrastructure, who are by definition productive.


Right. Me. It mostly goes to those, like me - the non-landowning entrepreneur, who is richer than you, and self-evidently (by virtue of my wealth only) "more productive" - who provides desired public services and [pays for] infrastructure. 

Gracias. 




> <sigh>  The moneys used to build infrastructure don't help you as an owner of "firms," only as an owner of *land*.  As "an owner of firms," you must pay *landowners* full market value for access to any infrastructure government provides.


Now you're just being stupid. I have to pay both the landowner for use of the land and developed real estate, and I also have to pay government taxes for the infrastructure that government provides. All your LVT does is change the landlord from private to public and combines the two. Which I have always paid separately anyway. 




> I have never said it was the most productive who needed compensation.


No, that's true. You only stated that they (which really means me, given my wealth) would/should benefit most.  Need has nothing to do with it.  It is my reward for being wealthier more productive. 




> That's just you makin' $#!+ up again.  The most productive obviously NEED it less than the poor and unproductive.  The most productive have the exact same human rights as anyone else, and merit -- and under LVT would get -- the exact same compensation as anyone else.


Of course they would. You and Granny with your exemptions, and me with my exemption + my wealth superior productivity -- pretty much everyone. 




> It is precisely the most productive who CAN afford to occupy and use the good land under LVT: they are the only ones who can use the land and pay the LVT without losing money.  And as they *are* using the land, they *ARE* getting its publicly created value, *AND THEY ARE PAYING FOR IT.*


Yes, just like the non-land-owning entrepreneurs do now.  Only now our rent/taxes are combined as a single LVT, as the owner of the land changes hands, and my new landlord becomes government. So now that we've cut out the parasitic commercial landowners completely, my government no longer needs to impose a destructive income tax. Its new revenue base is one that once inured only to the benefit of my former landlords.  

I guess my government won't need as much revenue now, huh?  So, was my burden lifted, or merely shifted from my shoulders to my back? 




> If the state doesn't spend the LVT revenue on desired services and infrastructure that make the land under its authority more desirable and advantageous to use, it won't be getting as much revenue next year.  LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE tax system that aligns the state's financial interests with the people's interests.


Replace "people's interests" with "primary commercial interests", and you will almost have it right.  Remember? The LVT is based on COMMERCIAL RENTS.  NOT "people's interests".   The state's financial interests are specifically focused on, depend upon, whomever pays the most rent -- NOT to those whose rents are _subsidized_...er...reimbursed for your deprivation.   You, as an exemption holder, are the payee. The _drain side_ of the equation.  I, as a _superior LVT payer_, on the other hand - am one of those geese that lays golden eggs so that you can be subsidized/reimbursed. Therefore, whatever is in MY interests will be attended to, first and foremost.  You're nothing more than an incidental trickle-down in the equation, Roy.  As a laborer with an exemption, you don't pay an LVT, remember? Under your system, the State's financial interests will be aligned with ME.  You're an insignificant, even minor, shareholder.

----------


## Roy L

> Is that really what you think, Roy? That to be a successful entrepreneur one must "know economics"?


No, which is a major reason I didn't say it.  You made it up.  It's just a fabrication on your part, like everything else you claim I have said.

What I *said* was that as you don't know any economics, you would be unlikely to be the successful *bidder* for the most valuable plots of *land* under a system of *LVT*.



> Do you have any idea how many very successful _simpletons_ there are in the economy, who only follow basic principles, and didn't get that way from owning any land, and who don't know the first thing about economic theory? Try MOST, Roy.


Not if by "very successful" you mean, "rich."



> Moreover, do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was created by mere land ownership?


<sigh>  I have stated explicitly that NO wealth is EVER created by landownership.



> Home ownership aside, I have never owned any of the real estate on which any of my commercial enterprises were founded and became successful.


Then why do you want to continue paying for government twice?



> You honestly believe that a regime change would actually help you --


LVT would help almost everyone but the biggest and least productive landowners.  If you really are super productive as you claim, and not just another landowning parasite trying to justify his protection racket, then LVT would help you more than me.



> that knowledge of macroeconomic theory is somehow required to be a vital part of the economy it attempts to describe, predict, and even manipulate.


<sigh>  One can be a vital part of the economy without knowing economics.  But one is unlikely to be _the successful bidder for the most valuable land parcels in an LVT system_ without knowing economics.



> So, back to your tiny, cramped, high density living space on the outskirts of town, you not-so-productive serf.


<yawn>  Stupid ad hominem garbage beneath refutation.



> I have a partnership with a fascist government now.


I don't doubt it.  Sounds right up your alley.



> I know what they want, and what they're willing to offer me in return.  I have some "publicly created value" to profit from now, and some infrastructure to pay for that will help me, not you, to profit even more.


It will help landowners profit.



> So away with you - away from real productivity like mine, that actually contributes to this wonderful new fascist economy you so dreamed about.  I am _far more deserving_ of more space than you, more resources, and usage of better lands than you ever will be.  I can afford it, not you; you are the least contributor. So take your superior knowledge of economic theory with you, as there are real businesses to be run.


<yawn>  If I can advance the arrival of liberty and justice by a single day, I will have contributed a thousand times more to society and the economy than you could ever hope to contribute.



> Here's your lesson, Roy:
> 
> F*CK YOU, Granny (and you are Granny, btw).


Silliness.



> If you try to violate my rights to superior liberty without making just compensation, your wonderful fascist Godfather regime which serves our mutual interests (mine and theirs, not yours, since I am the goose that lays its golden eggs) will favor me as it picks you up and _moves you bodily out of the way_. You have no more right to the top of my skyscraper than to stop cars on the freeway. You have earned no fortune, so you don't deserve it, you have no right to it, and won't be getting it. Sorry. Not under the current regime, or the future one you fantasize about.


Does braying how superior you are make you feel better about serving evil?



> No, I would be paying others, not you, for what you think I'm taking from you.  I was never the landlord in any of my businesses, so no welfare subsidies for me in any case.


So, explain for me again why you prefer to pay for government twice, instead of only once.



> And my new landlord is now the state, which means no more income tax - just an LVT based on what I bid. And your part in that equation, little undeserving serf, is a tiny pittance. You are the least of my costs. Or theirs. Like a slave, they will determine what you require for sustenance and living space, and that's what you will get. At a modest cost to you of course.


Do you feel better now?



> You can't just go around stealing from others.


I don't want to.  Landowners do.



> You have a price to pay as well; your exemption only covers so much.  Most of the money the state gets from me, however, beyond that which greases politically favored interests first, will be spent on infrastructure that serves my interests far more than it ever will yours. That's the beauty of your plan, Roy.


Infrastructure only serves *landowners'* interests, because they are privileged to charge you full market value for access to it.  *THAT'S* the beauty of my plan.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> What I *said* was that as you don't know any economics, you would be unlikely to be the successful *bidder* for the most valuable plots of *land* under a system of *LVT*.


Give an example.  Bids are based on a capacity and willingness to pay. No complexity of economic understanding required there. Or am I missing something (that you can articulate using specifics)?




> Moreover, do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was created by mere land ownership?
> 			
> 		
> 
> <sigh> I have stated explicitly that NO wealth is EVER created by landownership.


<mocking sigh> Let me rephrase that, given your slippery semantic evasiveness.  Do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was *acquired* through mere land ownership?




> Infrastructure only serves landowners' interests, because they are privileged to charge you full market value for access to it. THAT'S the beauty of my plan.


On that you couldn't be more wrong. Infrastructure serves the "interests" of _whomever uses that infrastructure to their advantage_, or derives benefit - not just payments - therefrom. The fact that landowners can recoup the costs of infrastructure they created at a profit is incidental.  When I lease property from anyone - government in China or a private developer in the States, the infrastructure serves MY interests as well.  Or else I wouldn't be willing to bid on it, or pay for it. 

Get your head out of your butt, Roy. 




> Home ownership aside, I have never owned any of the real estate on which any of my commercial enterprises were founded and became successful.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Then why do you want to continue paying for government twice?


I don't want to pay anyone twice for anything. Actual land ownership for my own use and benefit is something I want to have the option of acquiring for myself, fee simple, so that I never have to pay _anyone_, public or private. Remember, I don't buy into your "everyone has an otherwise at liberty right to access and usage of all land" philosophical nonsense.  

I see all people as sovereigns, Roy. Real sovereign governance of themselves and with sole despotic dominion over the land that makes up their own kingdoms.  If they take too much for themselves, or deny that same sovereignty to others, the other sovereigns can step in and put them in their place. But sovereignty itself, including occupied lands and borders, is inalienable -- just like with countries.   

I don't want the option of owning land outright (residential or commercial), as a matter of right, so that I can rent it out to others - that's a different category of ownership altogether, which I am not defending or promoting.  Just my own usage.  

That is one of the reasons I LOVE, and imagine you would HATE, what may well happen in North Dakota in June 2012.  If their voter initiative is successful, they will be the first state in the union to constitutionally _abolish all property taxes._ Talk about historic.  No more local taxation layered and hidden below the already heavy layers of state and federal taxes, with general obligations (GO) making unilateral claims that effectively encumber private property (thus turning owners into renters subject to eviction for non-payment of locally imposed rents). All taxes would be required to come from the State government revenue only, and not tied to land value and worthless but expensive public appraisers.  If successful, it will be the only state where property is actually owned, fee simple, and not "rented" from local governments.  

Oh, happy day if that happens, Roy. Talk about a major blow to LVT.

----------


## Roy L

> Go back, Roy. You missed the part where none of my businesses, or my success, has been founded on being a commercial landowner of any kind.


OK, so you got all your money by owning residential land.  So?



> I have always paid both rents and taxes, Roy.  That's your whole ridiculous premise - that somehow most commerce is based on land ownership.


You again prove you have no choice but to lie about what I have plainly written.  It is most great _accumulations of private wealth_ that are based on landownership, not most commerce.



> I have never been the evil, parasitic _commercial_ landowner/landlord in any case.  If you robbed me of my home, it wouldn't affect my business in any way, and that is not atypical or out of the norm for business, Roy.


You've never had business loans secured by your residential landholdings?  That *is* atypical.



> As I expand, I can move, constantly trading across, always to a new landlord.  I don't care if the landowner is private or public.


Then you haven't thought the matter through.  If the landowner is public, your rent payment reduces taxes.  Hello?



> You lost, Roy. Plain and simple.


LOL!  I have owned you.  Plain and simple.



> Your arguments were completely destroyed, as they don't apply to me,


Wrong.  Unlike you, I do not use ad hominem fallacies.  You and your case are absolutely irrelevant to my arguments.



> just as they don't apply to most businesses, for which commercial land ownership _was never at issue_.


Landownership is always at issue, and ownership of the land under its premises is the single best predictor of whether a business's owner will get rich from it or not.



> So, big deal - you combine taxes and rents into a single LVT.


No, I SUBSTITUTE rent for taxes, cutting out the something-for-nothing payment to the landowner.



> So what? What changed for me?


Instead of paying for government twice, you only pay once.  Your total cost of rent and taxes has been cut in half.



> Nothing that I can see.


You can't see the cat because you refuse to look at it:

http://www.henrygeorge.org/catsup.htm



> I never needed to own commercial land to make a profit, so how would I lose my shirt?


If you tried to be the landholder rather than a user, you'd likely pay more land tax than you took in in rent.



> Furthermore, what changed for you? PERSONALLY.


I'd only have to pay for government once instead of twice.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> OK, so you got all your money by owning residential land.  So?


::: BUZZZZ ::: Thanks for playing!

No, one piece of residential land, paid for only, and never rented out to anyone. You know...like what was typical of home ownership prior to the housing bubble and subsequent crash.  My so-called "exemption" to live rent free would have come from my ownership, not from some artificial exemption, whereby people "return to me" something I never considered stolen from me in the first place. I would have had a natural exemption to live rent free were it not for that little pesky "rent" called property taxes. 

0.00000% of all the money that I have ever acquired came from land ownership of any kind, and ZERO business loans secured by my residential landholding (not holdings), which didn't happen until long after I was successful.  And that is not as atypical as you think.  Furthermore, had I used my residential land as collateral, that would be no different than borrowing against my own savings, since that is what paid for the land to begin with - meaning I would be self-funded regardless how you viewed it (all speculative "bubble value" equity nonsense notwithstanding).  Otherwise, land would just be a store, not a source, of wealth for me. As it is now. 

Try again, Roy.  




> Then you haven't thought the matter through. If the landowner is public, your rent payment reduces taxes. Hello?


Hello? Reality check to Roy:  All it does is give one more revenue channel to my already hungry, hungry hippo of a government, which has nothing better to do with its time than dream up ways to spend other people's wealth and productivity.  So no, I would not in any way pretend that a rent payment, even if that was all it was initially, would somehow permanently reduce taxes, let alone replace them.  Why would it, once my government realizes that it could have both, and given that government will always try to take more than what the market can bear?  It could have my cake and eat it too, Roy. That what governments do.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> OK, so you got all your money by owning residential land.  So?
> 
> You again prove you have no choice but to lie about what I have plainly written.  It is most great _accumulations of private wealth_ that are based on landownership, not most commerce.
> 
> You've never had business loans secured by your residential landholdings?  That *is* atypical.
> 
> Then you haven't thought the matter through.  If the landowner is public, your rent payment reduces taxes.  Hello?
> 
> LOL!  I have owned you.  Plain and simple.
> ...


If the government you advocate is so great, people would donate to it using the IRS' "patriotic donation" program.  No need for LVT.  People would not only pay once, but multiple times in order to continue getting more of what they want.

----------


## Roy L

> If the government you advocate is so great, people would donate to it using the IRS' "patriotic donation" program. No need for LVT.


No, they would not.  Such claims are just stupid.  You could with equal "logic" claim, "If public education were so great, parents would donate to it without having to be taxed to support it," or, "If public fire protection were so great, people would support it by donations instead of having to be taxed to fund it."



> People would not only pay once, but multiple times in order to continue getting more of what they want.


OK, so we can add public goods to the roster of economic topics on which you are comprehensively ignorant.

People *ALREADY PAY full market value* to *landowners* for every benefit they get from government.  They *aren't willing to pay* any more.  That is why government has to tax them to pay for services and infrastructure.  As they are already paying landowners all they are willing to pay for those benefits, they AREN'T willing to pay any more by donation.  I don't know any clearer, simpler way to explain that to you.

----------


## Roy L

> Yeah. Market participant willing and able to use the land more productively.  Me. The "rich".  Not you, the economic theory dog in the manger.  I would outbid you, and the government would remove you "at my behest" -- aka "the behest of the rich".


No, that's just more asinine, "I'm richer than you so I'm better than you" braying on your part.  You would not outbid me, because you aren't even in the market for the same kind of land I am interested in using.  And those whom you do outbid, for the kind of land you want to use, also have other land they can use.  You couldn't outbid more than a handful of competitors without losing your shirt, because you are not a real estate developer.



> Commercially I was never a landholder who did not pay rent to somebody as part of my costs.


Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that has been robbing you blind your whole life for the unearned profit of lazy, greedy parasites, and continues to do so?  Why?



> Never owned commercial land, Roy. I always compensated someone for my land use. So I don't have to "imagine" that I would be able. That's my reality now, for which I am more than able, without owning any commercial land.


Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that has been robbing you blind your whole life for the unearned profit of lazy, greedy parasites, and continues to do so?  Why?



> I don't do it now. It's not how I make money, so how would I lose my shirt?


You'd lose your shirt if you *tried* to do it under LVT.



> Thank you. Destructive taxes that I have always paid are now included as just rent, which I have always paid, only now it goes to the government.


But the landowner *doesn't* get to tax you.  Right.  



> Perhaps because I don't own any commercial land, and never depended on such a "welfare subsidy", as you put it, for my businesses to make a profit?  I don't charge rents to anyone, Roy.


Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that has been robbing you blind your whole life for the unearned profit of lazy, greedy parasites, and continues to do so?  Why?



> Right. Me. It mostly goes to those, like me - the non-landowning entrepreneur, who is richer than you,


<yawn>



> and self-evidently (by virtue of my wealth only) "more productive"


Non sequitur.



> - who provides desired public services and [pays for] infrastructure.


Huh?  You're a government employee or contractor providing services and infrastructure?  How else would you get LVT revenue?



> Now you're just being stupid.


No, I am proving that you are an economic ignoramus.  You just don't know enough economics to realize what a fool you are making of yourself.



> I have to pay both the landowner for use of the land and developed real estate, and I also have to pay government taxes for the infrastructure that government provides. All your LVT does is change the landlord from private to public and combines the two. Which I have always paid separately anyway.


WRONG.  It does *not* combine the two.  It *ELIMINATES THE PRIVATE LANDOWNER.*  Instead of paying for government twice, once in taxes and once for land, you only pay once, for land.  The taxes go.



> Yes, just like the non-land-owning entrepreneurs do now.  Only now our rent/taxes are combined as a single LVT, as the owner of the land changes hands, and my new landlord becomes government. So now that we've cut out the parasitic commercial landowners completely, my government no longer needs to impose a destructive income tax. Its new revenue base is one that once inured only to the benefit of my former landlords.


By George, he's got it!



> I guess my government won't need as much revenue now, huh?


Right.  Many of the expenses it incurs in a futile effort to undo the harm caused by landowner privilege will no longer be needed.



> So, was my burden lifted, or merely shifted from my shoulders to my back?


To the extent that you are a producer rather than a landowner, it was lifted.



> Replace "people's interests" with "primary commercial interests", and you will almost have it right.  Remember? The LVT is based on COMMERCIAL RENTS.  NOT "people's interests".


But people are only willing to pay rent for advantages and benefits they *desire*.



> The state's financial interests are specifically focused on, depend upon, whomever pays the most rent -- NOT to those whose rents are _subsidized_...er...reimbursed for your deprivation.   You, as an exemption holder, are the payee. The _drain side_ of the equation.  I, as a _superior LVT payer_, on the other hand - am one of those geese that lays golden eggs so that you can be subsidized/reimbursed. Therefore, whatever is in MY interests will be attended to, first and foremost.  You're nothing more than an incidental trickle-down in the equation, Roy.  As a laborer with an exemption, you don't pay an LVT, remember? Under your system, the State's financial interests will be aligned with ME.  You're an insignificant, even minor, shareholder.


Leaving aside the baseless ad hominem assumptiions about me, that's pretty much correct.

----------


## Roy L

> Give an example.  Bids are based on a capacity and willingness to pay. No complexity of economic understanding required there. Or am I missing something (that you can articulate using specifics)?


Consider a large parcel of land zoned for high-density development in a major city.  Only someone with the capital and the skills to build and operate a successful, appropriate high-density structure or structures would be able and willing to pay the LVT on it.  Anyone else would just lose money.



> <mocking sigh> Let me rephrase that, given your slippery semantic evasiveness.  Do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was *acquired* through mere land ownership?


Most substantial accumulations of wealth have been obtained primarily by pocketing publicly created land value rather than by any commensurate contribution to production, yes.  The greater the accumulation of wealth, the more likely that it was primarily acquired by owning land titles or other privileges.



> On that you couldn't be more wrong.


Nope.  I am definitely right.



> Infrastructure serves the "interests" of _whomever uses that infrastructure to their advantage_, or derives benefit - not just payments - therefrom.


Nope.  They don't get any benefit at all, because they have to pay landowners full market value for any such benefit.  They don't get any NET benefit, only landowners do.



> The fact that landowners can recoup the costs of infrastructure they created at a profit is incidental.


ROTFL!!  *You couldn't be more wrong.*  Landowners don't create any infrastructure, and the rent they pocket is* by definition* not a recouping of any production cost.



> When I lease property from anyone - government in China or a private developer in the States, the infrastructure serves MY interests as well.  Or else I wouldn't be willing to bid on it, or pay for it.


Of course it is useful to you, that is why you are willing to pay for it.  But you don't get any net *benefit* from it, *because* you must pay the landowner full market value for access to it.



> Get your head out of your butt, Roy.


I am the one schooling you in economics, Steven, and I'll thank you to remember that.



> I don't want to pay anyone twice for anything.


Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that *forces* you to do so?



> Actual land ownership for my own use and benefit is something I want to have the option of acquiring for myself, fee simple, so that I never have to pay _anyone_, public or private.


Yes, and some people want to have the option of owning slaves.  Some people want to have the option of murdering those who are inconvenient to their plans.  Sorry, it's just your tough $#!+ if you "want to have the option" of violating others' rights and not making just compensation.  You can't.  Deal with it.



> Remember, I don't buy into your "everyone has an otherwise at liberty right to access and usage of all land" philosophical nonsense.


It is a physical fact, not "philosophical nonsense."  You are of course at liberty to refuse to know facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.  But you are not at liberty to alter them.



> I see all people as sovereigns, Roy.


And some people see little fairies in their gardens.  So?



> Real sovereign governance of themselves and with sole despotic dominion over the land that makes up their own kingdoms.


How did they acquire a right to sole despotic dominion over others' rights to liberty, Steven?  *How?* 



> If they take too much for themselves, or deny that same sovereignty to others, the other sovereigns can step in and put them in their place. But sovereignty itself, including occupied lands and borders, is inalienable -- just like with countries.


Such claims are of course self-contradictory and indefensible. 



> I don't want the option of owning land outright (residential or commercial), as a matter of right, so that I can rent it out to others - that's a different category of ownership altogether, which I am not defending or promoting.  Just my own usage.


"I don't want the option of owning slaves outright (field or house), as a matter of right, so that I can rent them out to others - that's a different category of ownership altogether, which I am not defending or promoting.  Just my own usage."



> That is one of the reasons I LOVE, and imagine you would HATE, what may well happen in North Dakota in June 2012.  If their voter initiative is successful, they will be the first state in the union to constitutionally _abolish all property taxes._ Talk about historic.


Yes, "historic" like Napoleon invading Russia.  I find it frightening that people can so completely blind themselves to the dreadful lesson of Proposition 13 in California.  



> No more local taxation layered and hidden below the already heavy layers of state and federal taxes, with general obligations (GO) making unilateral claims that effectively encumber private property (thus turning owners into renters subject to eviction for non-payment of locally imposed rents). All taxes would be required to come from the State government revenue only, and not tied to land value and worthless but expensive public appraisers.  If successful, it will be the only state where property is actually owned, fee simple, and not "rented" from local governments.  
> 
> Oh, happy day if that happens, Roy. Talk about a major blow to LVT.


Be careful what you wish for, Steven.  The more low-property-tax horror stories like Prop 13 pile up, the closer the day when LVT is enacted.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Nope.  They don't get any benefit at all, because they have to pay landowners full market value for any such benefit.  They don't get any NET benefit, only landowners do.


More to follow, but just a quick snippet, to address your stranger-than-strange definition of "benefit", as somehow equating with "free", or "profit" (NET or otherwise), or precluding payment of any kind.  Under your definition of benefit, as deduced from the context of your usage, from your argument:




> *STEVEN:* "I derive benefit from food I consume in a restaurant"
> 
> *ROY:* Nope.  [You] don't get any benefit at all, because [you] have to pay [the restaurant owners] full market value for any such benefit.  [You] don't get any NET benefit, only [restaurant owners] do.


Thus, I don't derive any NET "benefit" from restaurant food because I had to pay the restaurant owners full market value for the food I ate.  Do you see how positively loopy and mentally retarded that sounds, Roy? 

I benefit from things that I pay for all the time, Roy, just as I can derive benefit from things (like air) that I would never pay anyone for. _So do you. _ Get your definitions straight, you're clearly off the deep end here.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Consider a large parcel of land zoned for high-density development in a major city.  Only someone with the capital and the skills to build and operate a successful, appropriate high-density structure or structures would be able and willing to pay the LVT on it.  Anyone else would just lose money.


Yep, out of my league. And yours.  There's another class of land that is within my league. And out of yours. 




> Most substantial accumulations of wealth have been obtained primarily by pocketing publicly created land value rather than by any commensurate contribution to production, yes.  The greater the accumulation of wealth, the more likely that it was primarily acquired by owning land titles or other privileges.


You're talking old money banking interests, like Rockefeller and Morgan, not the average hyper-wealthy on the NYSE, or like Microsoft, Walmart, Geiko, AT&T et al. 




> I am the one schooling you in economics, Steven, and I'll thank you to remember that.


Keep schooling me in your whacky definitions, Roy. At the very least, my adaptation means you will be able to communicate with at least one normal person. That's a service to you, and I'll thank you to remember that. 




> Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that *forces* you to [pay twice for anything]?


I'm not. I'm trying to abolish it, since in some cases, once was too much. 




> How did they acquire a right to sole despotic dominion over others' rights to liberty, Steven?  *How?*


They don't. Individual land owners who aren't collecting rents, or gathering up more land than they themselves can put to good use, but are only minding their own business -- they aren't depriving _anyone_ of any pretend "otherwise at liberty" right to anything, Roy.  That's your covetous, self-contradictory and indefensible fantasy rationale, not mine.  It's your biggest lie, the one you deep-throated long ago to the point where it can't be anything but true in your mind. But it's a lie nonetheless.  When I use my land, I am not "otherwise at liberty" to use other lands _unless_ I first give up using the land I'm on.  And even if I am capable of working two or three pieces of land at once, there are limits to my abilities.   You don't see that, Roy. You see all options as being equally plausible at all times, such that everyone is "otherwise at liberty" to use everything, and everybody owes and has a claim on everybody as a result. 

Screw your implausible "otherwise naturally at liberty" nonsense, Roy. That's Whack Land.  Go fantasize about it from a straitjacket somewhere, and don't forget the football helmet. 




> "I don't want the option of owning slaves outright (field or house)"


Oh, yes you do. You just don't want to call it that. Every time you send out your productivity and wealth enslaving tentacles to anyone who is taking value from land you numbed-skullingly claim you are "otherwise at liberty to use", and claim "publicly created value" on behalf of all the covetous, lazy, parasitic troglodytes who weren't productive at all, and contributed nothing, you are claiming the "option of owning slaves outright".  "Government, the public and nature" did not "provide" your would-be slaves with anything. Only nature did.  You were the least but most presumptuous contributor, and deserve to be swept aside.  Go get your own land.  Go be a parasite on the land, like all other life on Earth, and stop being a cannibal, you human parasite.  




> Yes, "historic" like Napoleon invading Russia.  I find it frightening that people can so completely blind themselves to the dreadful lesson of Proposition 13 in California.  
> 
> Be careful what you wish for, Steven.  The more low-property-tax horror stories like Prop 13 pile up, the closer the day when LVT is enacted.


I never said anything about Prop 13, nor would I consider it a lesson in anything but how insane the California legislature is at getting around that nasty thing called "democracy", and the will of _"something other than a corrupt, elitist oligarchy"_, regardless of its ideology.  I know next door neighbors in California with properties of almost equal value. One pays $600 every six months based on the original loan, while the other, right next door, pays almost $8,000 every six months - based on newer appraisals and newer loans.  So much for Prop 13, let alone a bankrupt California which should be anything but. 

Legislatively, California really is the land of absolutely corrupted fruits and nuts, with levels of complete insanity that may never be cured.  California is no model for anything but insanity, and may well be ripe for nice, juicy LVT as yet another one of its failed collectivist, rent-seeking experiments. Would not surprise me at all.  

I talked about North Dakota, Roy, not California, and not "limits" on property taxes, but property taxes that are actually abolished altogether.  That's a universe of difference, one I would not be careful at all to ask for.  See the camel's nose in the tent (134 changes in the ND property tax code since 1978), and you CUT THE CAMEL'S NOSE *OFF*.  You beat that camel's ass, and make it cry.  You even kill it if you have to, and replace it with a more OBEDIENT camel.  No more encroachments. No more Roys sniffing around with their insane machinations.

----------


## Roy L

> I would have had a natural exemption to live rent free were it not for that little pesky "rent" called property taxes.


No, your "natural" exemption wouldn't have kept anyone else from using the land.



> Try again, Roy.


If all that is so, WHY ARE YOU RATIONALIZING, JUSTIFYING AND DEFENDING A SYSTEM THAT HAS ROBBED YOU BLIND YOUR WHOLE LIFE, AND CONTINUES TO DO SO??



> Reality check to Roy:  All it does is give one more revenue channel to my already hungry, hungry hippo of a government,


No, it replaces unjust and harmful revenue channels with a just and beneficial one.  Try to find a willingness to address the subject instead of just lying about what it is.



> which has nothing better to do with its time than dream up ways to spend other people's wealth and productivity.


*Real* reality check to Steven: that is just juvenile "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense.  Every mature adult is aware that in the absence of government, life is poor, nasty, brutish and short.  See Somalia.  It is remarkable how few of the shrieking know-nothings who rail against government have any desire whatever to go live in a place where there isn't one.  The truth is, like all the other "meeza hatesa gubmint" fools, you want and need government to hold your hand and wipe your bottom for you, you just don't want to pay for it.  So you squawl like little babies because mean ol' Mommy Gubmint holds your hand so tightly crossing the street.

You make me sick.



> So no, I would not in any way pretend that a rent payment, even if that was all it was initially, would somehow permanently reduce taxes, let alone replace them.


That just means you refuse to address the subject.  LVT *replaces* other, unjust and harmful, taxes.  That's what it IS.  You just have to refuse to talk or even think about that, so you pretend, repeat, PRETEND that it would be in _addition_ to other taxes.  But that pretense is as stupid, irrelevant, fallacious and dishonest as pretending that our current taxes are all being levied in _addition_ to LVT.



> Why would it, once my government realizes that it could have both,


If it could have both, why doesn't it have LVT now, hmmmmm?

Give your head a shake, and tell us what flavor of jellybeans fall out.



> and given that government will always try to take more than what the market can bear?


It doesn't, as the lack of LVT proves.  You are just spewing stupid, juvenile "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense.



> It could have my cake and eat it too, Roy.


But even if it could, Steven, which it can't, that is irrelevant to the subject, as proved above.  So you can either present some evidence that our current taxes are being levied in _addition_ to LVT, or admit that you are just telling stupid, "meeza hatesa gubmint" lies.  And you will not be presenting any evidence that our current taxes are being levied in addition to LVT, will you, Steven?  



> That what governments do.


No, that is just more of your stupid and juvenile "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense.

----------


## Roy L

> More to follow, but just a quick snippet, to address your stranger-than-strange definition of "benefit", as somehow equating with "free", or "profit" (NET or otherwise), or precluding payment of any kind.


You again lie about what I plainly wrote.



> Under your definition of benefit, as deduced from the context of your usage, from your argument:
> 
> Thus, I don't derive any NET "benefit" from restaurant food because I had to pay the restaurant owners full market value for the food I ate.  Do you see how positively loopy and mentally retarded that sounds, Roy?


There is no monopoly rent in restaurant food, because of competition.  But land rent is the return to land AFTER the effect of competition.  Because the supply of land is fixed, the landowner is able to charge a monopolistic price for everything government provides, leaving no consumer surplus.



> I benefit from things that I pay for all the time, Roy,


Because competition enables you to obtain a consumer surplus.  Absent competition, the vendor could charge you all you were willing to pay, leaving you no better off.



> just as I can derive benefit from things (like air) that I would never pay anyone for. _So do you. _ Get your definitions straight, you're clearly off the deep end here.


No, I just understand the economics of land rent.  The fixity of land's supply means the monopoly price can't be competed down.  It is counter-intuitive, but has been demonstrated mathematically in the Henry George Theorem.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> *Real* reality check to Steven: that is just juvenile "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense.  Every mature adult is aware that in the absence of government, life is poor, nasty, brutish and short.  See Somalia.


Don't need to see Somalia. I don't hate government, Roy. I am not an anarchist - at least not in the contemporary, non-economic, sense of the word.  




> It is remarkable how few of the shrieking know-nothings who rail against government have any desire whatever to go live in a place where there isn't one.


Oh, I do want government, Roy, albeit a particular kind (like you and most others want theirs), if only to fill the void that the likes of you would try to fill in its absence.  




> The truth is, like all the other "meeza hatesa gubmint" fools, you want and need government to hold your hand and wipe your bottom for you, you just don't want to pay for it.  So you squawl like little babies because mean ol' Mommy Gubmint holds your hand so tightly crossing the street.


Mistaking me for a progressive, Roy, or have you just bought into a progressives' lie as you give government credit where none was ever due?

I am not the sniveling, sobbing, snot-sleeved brat who wants a gubmint to make all da' bad landowners stop depriving me of some imagined "naturally otherwise at liberty" deprivation.  I am not haunted by that imaginary boogey-man, Roy, you are. I see people minding their own business and occupying land to the exclusion of others, including you and me, and don't feel that _either of us_ are deprived in any way. Not in MOST cases.  I would want to certify you for thinking otherwise, but I strongly support your right to be insane, so long as you don't try to inflict that insanity on others, or try to mess with those who really are minding their own business.   

When other kids are playing with toys that I don't get to play with, or sitting on a plot of sand in the box that I don't get to sit in, I don't sulk, pout or cry, let alone wail that someone else is "using up all my fun" that I would be "otherwise at liberty" to have if they weren't there using it all up.  Why, that would be positively, sickeningly childish of me, Roy. Swat my little ass and slap some sense into me if that ever happens. Especially since I still see a lot of unused sand, and un-played with toys.  Poor little deprived Roy, though, he can't see unused sand. He only sees the occupied sand, and he's absolutely beside himself, angry at each and every sand-squatting child and their abuse and deprivation of his Otherwise Coulda Privilege. Bwahhh!  Why, this is Publicly Created Fun, after all! And even though Roy is no fun at all, he knows that he is one of the Public, by gosh and gee-golly! The other kids are all in spots that he would have _otherwise been at liberty_ to squat down and play in himself, and NOT ONE OF THOSE EVIL SQUATTING SAND SPOT THIEVES WILL ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR DEBT FOR WHAT THEY STOLE FROM HIM! 

Including me, as even I made him sick. Again.

Now, if I catch a bully blocking access to the sandbox, or trying to shake kids down for their lunch or milk money to have any spot to sit in, by all means, call me over and I'll be happy to help kick his ass and make him stop - because that would be just wrong.  And if I see you trying to play sandbox monitor, looking to collect lunch and milk money for redistribution to sandbox losers over The Most Fun Spots, based on all the Publicly Created Fun they're being deprived of...well, the other kids and I are just going to have to bite our lips. Because that obviously means that you are Very Special.      




> That just means you refuse to address the subject.  LVT *replaces* other, unjust and harmful, taxes.


I am no defender of any taxes _on individuals_, Roy.  We both at least agree that the others are harmful and destructive, if but to individuals with rights.  That is not at issue for me, or between us.  Replacing them with something else means nothing to me, regardless of your "personal" intent.  




> That's what it IS.  You just have to refuse to talk or even think about that, so you pretend, repeat, PRETEND that it would be in _addition_ to other taxes.  But that pretense is as stupid, irrelevant, fallacious and dishonest as pretending that our current taxes are all being levied in _addition_ to LVT.
> 
> If it could have both, why doesn't it have LVT now, hmmmmm?


What, you don't think one agency might consider the power of unlimited deficit spending, along with the power to tax for that spending, enough?  Even they are smarter than that, Roy. Now you give your own head a shake, and tell me what flavor jellybeans fall out, because it's pretty simple. They already deliberately taxed the State and non-Fed banks completely out of existence. Throwing a bone to local government, over which they have no control, helps to point taxing fingers away from the federal government, because it is "just another tax" ("Not by us! Don't look at us!").  Likewise with state taxes, which the Fed would never dream of co-opting, even if it could.  Best to leave it as multi-layered as possible, with plenty of blame to spread around. 

That's why North Dakota's plan is so beautiful, Roy, as it takes that multi-layered, multi-finger-pointing mechanism away from the state.  Want to tax? Do it. But do it evenly, universally, and all at once, without singling out landowners, encumbering private lands, and turning them all into renters in the process. Tax away, with no hidden or added layers, then suffer the political consequences when you alone abuse that power.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Let me go over a couple of reasons why I could never, _in the absolute_, be in favor of an LVT.  

*MONOPOLY*

It is very difficult for any private enterprise to corner markets on land, or otherwise obtain a monopoly on landownership, which monopolies could serve to manipulate  values and rents received.  Even if this was a problem, antitrust laws could severely limit, if not prohibit, such attempts or practices, no differently than government could encourage such practices with protectionist laws that gave rise to the Robber Barons.  

Under an LVT, however, there is never a question on the monopolistic nature of land, since an LVT establishes a de facto monopoly to government up front. Government, and not the people themselves, regardless how government rationalizes their structure as being "of or by the people" -- becomes the sole *owner* of all lands.  That We The People become the new landlords of all commerce, and the beneficiaries of all "publicly created rent value", might sound appealing on the surface - until you examine the actual dynamics involved, and attempt to reconcile the fundamental premises with the proposed solution.  

*EVER-INCREASING VALUE INCENTIVE*

Under an LVT regime, the government is now operating under the same sets of market principles as rent-seeking landowners. An LVT gives powerful incentive for government to INCREASE property values ("publicly created value"), and therefore revenues, by whatever means are available. It looks as if government is a passive mediator of commerce -- the rent auctioneer which allows free competition for bids on the lands that major commerce wants to occupy. 

A closer examination shows that the government is anything but passive, whether such a thing is implied, explicitly claimed or not. In fact, a much closer examination shows that the "exemption" received by individuals is based on anything but free market fundamentals. 




> Here is are excerpted examples of LVT proponents in Ontario, as implementation is discussed:
> 
> George is actually the Henry George Rule, a little known but extremely powerful principle for running local governments. The principle is that local governments should try to maximize the property values. The value of a piece of property depends on the community and what the community does. The local government is doing its job when it makes the largest possible contribution to property values.
> 
> There is one tricky point that you have to get clear to really understand George. The relevant value of land is price plus the value of all the future taxes. Why should taxes be counted as part of the value of the land? The cost of using a piece of land has two parts - the price of the land PLUS the tax bill. When there is a free market for land, sales only happen when the benefits are at least equal to the price plus the taxes. 
> 
> *Never OK a project unless it increases the value of the land and future taxes by more than it costs.*
> 
> That is all there is to the Henry George Rule.
> ...


An LVT government regime will work to increase value of lands in order to increase revenues.  To this end, there are *fundamentals to value* that must be considered (and will be by government under any LVT). 

*SCARCITY*

One of the MOST powerful fundamentals governing value is _scarcity_ - natural or artificial - it is a governing principle of value which applies every bit as much to land as it does to hard and soft commodities. 

An owner of five extremely rare limited addition works of art can increase the value of her collection by publicly destroying four of the works (thus "taking them permanently off the market and out of circulation"). In some cases such a move can make the value of the surviving single piece worth many times _more than the combined value of the previous five_. Likewise, the amount of available land on Earth is FIXED, but that does not mean that it cannot be MORE FIXED.  One very powerful way to increase the value of local lands, and thus the resultant LVT revenues, is to impose a legislatively artificial increase _in the scarcity of land_.  Take all other land out of circulation, and you have increased the value of the "artificially available" remaining lands. 

In other words, we are immediately faced with a situation whereby it is in government's interests _to keep land artificially scarce_.  So it is no wonder to me that nobody can call Roy L.'s attention to the fact that there is so much other unused land available.  He wails and cries and moans as if it has all be gobbled up by rent-seeking parasites (ignore the fact that MOST land in America is occupied by landowners who are using a fraction of the land still available, and are _not seeking rents_ of any kind).  

*SCARCITY DETERMINED BY ZONING LAWS AND LAND THAT IS NOT IN USE*

One of the fundamental tenets of Georgist/Geolibertarian ideology is that a prohibition, or exclusion of the usage of lands from those who _"would all be otherwise all be at liberty to use what nature has provided"_ must be *compensated by land users to all those who are deprived*. _Any exclusion_ of people from opportunities for what nature has provided, without public compensation, is seen by Georgist ideologues as an _evil, heinous and ultimately impoverishing_. However, flagrant violations of this very tenet become fully conscionable, as an exception, so long as government is the perpetrator, given that government, unlike private landowners, is presumed to provide all the infrastructure that is so crucial to "publicly created value".  

Hence, LVT as "justly compensated through individual exemptions" only applies to land that people have been excluded from using _which is now in use by others_.  It is NOT a compensation for land that is NOT USED, but from which everyone is also excluded from using -- _by government_.  This land has no "publicly created value", because it has been _taken off the market_. Out of circulation, it exists only as a "reserve".  

According the Georgist ideology, nature has provided *ALL LAND* which we *ALL* are otherwise at liberty to use. That necessarily _includes land which is "held in reserve" by government_. This presents a wonderfully dubious and nasty Catch-22 for Roy's preferred economic plan for government. The reason: I can rightly claim that I am being deprived of the value and usage of lands that I am being excluded from, _but which are not in use, but held in reserve_. The government can then conveniently make the counterclaim that I am _already being compensated_ by the resulting _increased value_ of land that is already in use.  How morbidly convenient that my "lack of use" of land "contributes" to value. It does NOTHING to increase my ability to use otherwise unused lands.  The mere acceptance of an "exemption" is evidence that I have waived that as a right, or option. 

That one government controlled chicken and egg scenario would keep me denouncing LVT until doomsday, as a government/commerce elitist partnership and exploitation scheme.  

My personal interest would have NOTHING to do with Roy's wonderfully condensed "publicly created value" slopping trough - from a government-limited land pool made available. My interest would have EVERYTHING to do with value that I _would otherwise receive_ by ignoring his idiotic fantasy city in a bubble, going off on my own, and claiming my right of usage of land that is not in use by anyone -- and fully *competing* with existing interests.  The broader Georgist ideology is fully accepting of this, as all it means is that I would be required to pay an LVT on that land. The narrower governmental mechanisms, however, are another story altogether - with incentives of their own.  It is no different than Keynesians and their "non-normative" theories versus the the Treasury and the Fed, with their HIGHLY normative applications.  

My use of "other unused" land could also be interpreted as a different kind of "deprivation" - to everyone even - given that it could result in a _devaluation of existing lands in use_.  Can't have that, now can we?  Falling prices? Falling Revenues? How can that be "good for the economy"?   Naturally, I might even have to compensate for those losses, because the notion of "value stability" could be in place.  So we are not looking at fair and equal libertarian access to land use, but only the VALUE=REVENUE side of the equation.   But that is irrelevant, as it is not an option anyway, given that only government decides which lands are available for use, and how, when and why. 

The premise that we are all "naturally at liberty" to use all lands is not answered by the obvious solution as a matter of principle. Otherwise the aim would be to maximize the availability and usage of "all that nature provides".  Instead, the publicly created "value" of lands is the only locus and the focus, as maximizing LAND VALUE=REVENUES becomes the primary thrust of a government that is dependent on LVT for its revenues. 

*SUMMARY*

I see an enormous difference between the philosophical tenets behind Henry George's ideology, which talks about rights and liberties to land use for everyone, and his "theorem"*, along with proposed normative solutions, which uses these underlying ideological tenets as a rationale for land use rents as a means of government revenue.  In other words, it is more of a mechanism to compensate people for their perceived land-use deprivations through money, but does not address the original ideological objection -- that they are being deprived of land use _by an entity that has excluded or prohibited them from its use_.  

Magic solution: "just compensation": payola for your loss of liberty.   

* It not a theorem, in the sense of something mathematically proved, except as a very loose correlation which George believed existed, _only under certain ideal conditions_, that aggregate spending by government will be equal to aggregate rent based on land value (land rent). between taxes and rents).

----------


## eduardo89

This is still going on? I thought Roy won already?

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## Steven Douglas

He did. I actually destroyed him a lot, but he ignored my declarations of victory and substituted them with even more powerful and numerous declarations of his own. 

Now we're just voices of protest howling from the grave (talk about final exclusive use and ownership without any ongoing compensation).

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## eduardo89

> He did. I actually destroyed him a lot, but he ignored my declarations of victory and substituted them with even more powerful and numerous declarations of his own. 
> 
> Now we're just voices of protest howling from the grave (talk about final exclusive use and ownership without any ongoing compensation).


I'm sure roy thinks your descendants should pay an LVT on your grave, even if you're dead you'd be denying him the liberty of using your grave site if he wanted t!

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## heavenlyboy34

> No, I just understand the economics of land rent.  The fixity of land's supply means the monopoly price can't be competed down.  It is counter-intuitive, but has been demonstrated mathematically in the Henry George Theorem.


So your solution to the "rent seeker problem" is to create a huge rent seeker called the State (which is far more violent and tyrannical that the private "rent seeker")?  The fixity of land's supply also allows us to create natural boundaries of order (land parcels and tracts) thus minimizing conflict, you know.

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## helmuth_hubener

> This is still going on? I thought Roy won already?


 Roy has certainly declared his own victory far more often than everyone else combined.  He has also declared his mental superiority, to not only those in the thread but to humanity in general, far more often than everyone else combined.  He has also declared his own moral rectitude, and the corollary irredeemable evil of all others, far more often than everyone else combined.

So yes, this means of course that he is definitely the most winsome of us all, he is definitely the brainiest of us all, and he is definitely the holiest of us all.  We all ought to bow down next to our computer desks and worship at his potential virtual presence any time we enter this thread.  Roy, you are totally right about everything!  Props to you!

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## Steven Douglas

> The fixity of land's supply also allows us to create natural boundaries of order (land parcels and tracts) thus minimizing conflict, you know.


The actual "fixity" of land's supply is natural on the whole, but COMPLETELY artificial on the government level.  It would be just as artificial, if not more, under an LVT as it is under our current regime. They don't give a spider's fart about rights to land use - only values extracted from rents.  Their proposed dystopian solutions speak much louder than their utopian pretend ideals used as a rationale.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> So your solution to the "rent seeker problem" is to create a huge rent seeker called the State (which is far more violent and tyrannical that the private "rent seeker")?  The fixity of land's supply also allows us to create natural boundaries of order (land parcels and tracts) thus minimizing conflict, you know.


 There is no fixity of supply in any meaningful sense.  There is no need to concede that point.  It is land's existence in time and space that allows the creation of boundaries.  But there is an infinite amount of land out there, and the supply of _usable_ (i.e. _actual_, or perhaps we could say _meaningful_) land is rapidly increasing.

Roy L. is the Smartest Man On Earth(TM), and right about _Everything_!!!

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## heavenlyboy34

Query-could cyberspace, websites, etc be deemed "real property"/"land" in an LVT regime?  Why or why not?  People do, after all, seek "rent" for websites (domain names and so forth).  We even treat websites like "places" in colloquial language.

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## helmuth_hubener

> Query-could cyberspace, websites, etc be deemed "real property"/"land" in an LVT regime?  Why or why not?  People do, after all, seek "rent" for websites (domain names and so forth).


 The important thing to realize from a practical point of view is that under Roy's version of LVT regime, nothing could _stop_ them from being LVTed, other than the force of Roy's personality.  A hegemonic state will, of course, do whatever its managers please.  "Land" is whatever we say it is, mundane.  Says so here in Section XXVI, paragraph 3, of the LVT Act of 2012.  Submit and obey.

oops, almost forgot: Roy is right -- we need LVT!  Stop the massacre!  Millions are dying from lack of LVT!  Give the State all the power!

"Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry, yearning for L.V.T."

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## Roy L

> You're talking old money banking interests, like Rockefeller and Morgan, not the average hyper-wealthy on the NYSE, or like Microsoft, Walmart, Geiko, AT&T et al.


No, Steven.  You again prove your ignorance:

*Forbes has kindly provided brief interviews with 21 "self-made" (ahem)
billionaires from the 2007 Forbes 400 list of the richest people in
the USA:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/18/sec...secretsqa.html

Almost all the wealth of really wealthy people is not earned by actual
productive contributions, but is obtained by making oneself the beneficiary
of unjust privileges. These privileges are mainly private ownership of
land and other natural resources such as minerals and broadcast
spectrum, IP monopoly privileges, the privilege of creating bank
deposits ex nihilo, and of course, the "business" of manipulating and
dealing in these privileges.

I've included the source of these billionaires' fortunes after their names,
and added some explanation. Notice how many specify "real estate."

1 Tim Blixseth: timberland, real estate
-- i.e., pure landowner privilege
Notice Blixseth's slightly too revealing response to Q 15:
Say you have $100,000 to invest: What do you do with it?
A: "Raw, undeveloped land out in front of the path of development."

2 Eli Broad: "investments" -- i.e., dealing in privileges

3 John Catsimatidis: oil, real estate, supermarkets
-- i.e., ownership of natural resources

4 Ken Fisher: money management -- dealing in privileges

5 B. Tom Golisano: Paychex -- Well! Actual productive work!

6 Harold Hamm: Continental Resources -- ownership of natural resources

7 Michael Heisley: manufacturing -- Productive work again!

8 Kenneth Hendricks: building supplies
-- Another one! Three producers out of eight so far!

9 Joseph Jamail, Jr.: lawsuits
-- hmmmm... transferring money from defendants to plaintiffs is not
productive

10 Ted Lerner: real estate -- ahhh, back to privilege...

11 Ronald Perelman: leveraged buyouts
-- "How to Destroy Productive Capacity for Fun and Profit"

12 Jorge Perez: condos -- i.e., landowning
Slightly too revealing answer to Q 10: When was the last evening that
hadn't been scheduled in advance? What did you do?
A: "Just today, one of the wealthiest families in Mexico came to Miami
and wanted to see me to see if we could develop their extensive land
holdings. Had a very productive and enjoyable three-hour lunch."

13 Richard Rainwater: real estate, energy, insurance
-- mainly natural resource ownership

14 Phil Ruffin: casinos, real estate
-- gambling monopoly privilege and landowner privilege

15 O. Bruton Smith: Speedway Motorsports -- oops! Actual production!

16 James Sorenson: medical devices, real estate
-- patent privileges and landowner privilege

17 A Alfred Taubman: real estate -- landowner privilege

18 Kenny Trout: Excel Communications -- MLM scam, not productive

19 Donald Trump: real estate
-- landowner privilege (especially property tax abatements)

20 Sanford Weill: Citigroup -- bank seignorage privilege

21 Mort Zuckerman: real estate, media
-- landownership and copyright privileges


Well, there you have it, folks. Just four of the 21 "self-made"
billionaires (out of the 400 on Forbes's list!) actually made the bulk
of their money through actual productive contributions. The rest were
all rent collectors or scammers of one stripe or another. The
productivity ratio is certainly worse in the full list of 400, many of
whom inherited or obtained their wealth by even less savory means.* 



> I'm not. I'm trying to abolish it, since in some cases, once was too much.


Nope.  Everything you have said here has been to sustain and preserve it, and now with your cretinous support for abolition of property taxes in North Dakota, even to intensify it.  There is only *one possible way* for the productive to avoid paying both taxes to government to fund desired services and infrastructure and land rent to landowners for access to the services and infrastructure their taxes just paid for: recovery of publicly created land value to fund public expenditures, of which LVT is the relevant form.  If you oppose LVT, you are helping to maintain the double payment for government system as a matter of immutable economic law.  No matter how much you may protest or even believe that you are not supporting that system, that is the* actual effect* of opposing LVT: that you must pay for government twice.  Nothing can ever change that, Steven.  You just have to somehow find a willingness to know that fact.



> They don't.


They don't have a right, true.  But they do exercise despotic dominion over others' right.  That is just a fact of objective physical reality.



> Individual land owners who aren't collecting rents, or gathering up more land than they themselves can put to good use, but are only minding their own business -- they aren't depriving _anyone_ of any pretend "otherwise at liberty" right to anything, Roy.


No, that's just self-evidently and indisputably another stupid, vicious, evil lie from you, Steven.  Others would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.  That is just an indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  You just have to refuse to know that fact, because you are trying to rationalize and justify the annual murders of millions of innocent human beings.  Nothing you say can ever change that.  You are guilty of supporting and sustaining the greatest evil in the history of the world, which inflicts *two Holocausts per year* on innocent human beings.  That is just pure evil.



> That's your covetous,


One of the most evil things that has ever existed, or can ever exist, is the foul, filthy, viciously evil creature that accuses those who oppose injustice of envy for its beneficiaries.  That accusation is the pure, distilled essence of naked, smirking evil.



> self-contradictory and indefensible fantasy rationale, not mine.


No, that's just more stupid, vicious, evil lies from you, Steven.  You have never been able to identify a single self-contradiction in anything I have said, and you never will.



> It's your biggest lie,


It is not a lie, Steven, and you know it, so stop lying.  It is a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  There is nothing you can ever say or do that can ever change that fact.



> the one you deep-throated long ago to the point where it can't be anything but true in your mind. But it's a lie nonetheless.


No, Steven.  You are LYING, and you KNOW you are lying.  All people are naturally at liberty to use all land.  If the landowner did not initiate forcible, coercive, violent physical aggression against others, or have government doing it for him, all people would STILL be at liberty to use all land, just as our hunter-gatherer ancestors were.  That is just an indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  You just have to refuse to know it, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> When I use my land, I am not "otherwise at liberty" to use other lands _unless_ I first give up using the land I'm on.


No, that's just another stupid, evil lie from you, Steven.  There is no way to rationalize and justify landowner privilege other than by telling stupid, evil lies, so you always have to tell stupid, evil lies.  ALWAYS.

It is self-evident and indisputable that when you use "your" land to live on, you are still otherwise at liberty to use other land for other purposes, such as for growing crops, grazing livestock, mining gold, harvesting timber, trapping fur animals, or any number of other purposes.  You just decided that you had better deliberately lie about that, and so you lied about it.

Furthermore, when you use "your" land, it is not YOUR liberty to use that land that you are depriving others of.  It's THEIR liberty to do so, liberty they would otherwise be at liberty to exercise.  Hello?  Did you really imagine that your pathetic, puerile attempt to change the subject from removal of the *landless's* liberty to exercise of the *landowner's* liberty was relevant?  *REALLY???*

BWAHAHAHHAHAAAA!!



> And even if I am capable of working two or three pieces of land at once, there are limits to my abilities.   You don't see that, Roy.


*ROTFL!!*  Oh, I see it all right, Steven.  I see that it is astoundingly stupid and irrelevant, and it is the only "argument" you have.  Does it really matter to Friday that Crusoe might be capable of using two or three other islands as well as the one he is on, when Crusoe points his musket at him and orders him to get back in the water?  *REALLY??*



> You see all options as being equally plausible at all times,


No, that is just a stupid strawman, and an irrelevancy.



> such that everyone is "otherwise at liberty" to use everything, and everybody owes and has a claim on everybody as a result.


Oh, stop lying.  Compensation is only owed for DEPRIVATIONS forcibly imposed on others.  It is only the landowner's thieving that incurs an obligation to those he robs of their liberty.



> Screw your implausible "otherwise naturally at liberty" nonsense, Roy. That's Whack Land.


It is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality, and you know it.



> Oh, yes you do. You just don't want to call it that.


No, Steven, you just always have to lie about what I have plainly written.  ALWAYS.



> Every time you send out your productivity and wealth enslaving tentacles to anyone who is taking value from land you numbed-skullingly claim you are "otherwise at liberty to use",


It is indisputable that I would otherwise be at liberty to use it, and so would everyone else.  All your stupid, evil lies can never change that fact, Steven.



> and claim "publicly created value"


The unimproved value of land is *indisputably* publicly created.  You simply realize that you have to lie about that, and so you lie about it.  You ALWAYS have to lie, Steven.  ALWAYS.  Once you decide to rationalize and justify the greatest evil in the history of the world, you have no choice but to lie.



> on behalf of all the covetous, lazy, parasitic troglodytes who weren't productive at all, and contributed nothing,


You have just perfectly described the landowner:

"The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent." -- Thomas Carlyle

"The most comfortable, but also *the most unproductive*, way for a capitalist to increase his fortune is to put all his monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie

So, Steven, you now have exactly two choices: you will either provide evidence that those who do not own land never do any productive work and contribute nothing, or you will admit that you are nothing but a vicious, evil, lying sack of $#!+.  Failure to do the former will constitute doing the latter.  And you will not be doing the former.



> you are claiming the "option of owning slaves outright".


No, that is self-evidently just another stupid, evil lie from you, Steven.  It is the *landowner* who compels others to labor for his unearned profit, as his slaves.  I only require him to make just compensation for what he forcibly takes from society.  He need not labor at all.  If he just leaves others alone, I will leave him alone.  It is YOU who demands he have a privilege of extorting labor from landless slaves.



> "Government, the public and nature" did not "provide" your would-be slaves with anything. Only nature did.


No, that is just another stupid, evil lie from you, Steven.  Government provided the landowner with access to all the services and infrastructure it provides, and the community provided him with access to all the opportunities and amenities it provides, at his location.  *Stop lying, Steven.*



> You were the least but most presumptuous contributor, and deserve to be swept aside.


Speaking of being presumptuous, on what basis do you make such idiotic and disgraceful claims?



> Go get your own land.


"Go get your own slaves."



> Go be a parasite on the land, like all other life on Earth,


There is no such thing as a parasite on the land.  You are just trying to evade the fact that the landowner is a parasite on the productive.  But I will not let you evade it.



> and stop being a cannibal, you human parasite.


It is the landowner who is the cannibal and parasite, and you know it, as proved by your inability to answer The Question:

*"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"*

You cannot answer The Question.  You will never be able to answer it.  And neither will anyone else, ever.

The funniest part is, you lie and lie and lie to rationalize and justify the landowner's extortion racket, while claiming to *be* the producer who is paying his extortion demands!



> I never said anything about Prop 13,


I know you didn't.  You have to evade the fact that reducing property taxes has destroyed California.  DESTROYED it.



> nor would I consider it a lesson in anything but how insane the California legislature is at getting around that nasty thing called "democracy", and the will of _"something other than a corrupt, elitist oligarchy"_, regardless of its ideology.


How is Prop 13 not democracy in action?



> I know next door neighbors in California with properties of almost equal value. One pays $600 every six months based on the original loan, while the other, right next door, pays almost $8,000 every six months - based on newer appraisals and newer loans.  So much for Prop 13, let alone a bankrupt California which should be anything but.


The injustice you observe is the direct result of opposition to property taxes.  What you don't understand is that the greater injustice of the two is the $600 payment.



> California is no model for anything but insanity, and may well be ripe for nice, juicy LVT as yet another one of its failed collectivist, rent-seeking experiments. Would not surprise me at all.


It would ASTOUND me.  CA is doomed.  Prop 13 killed it.  But LVT would save it.



> I talked about North Dakota, Roy, not California, and not "limits" on property taxes, but property taxes that are actually abolished altogether.  That's a universe of difference, one I would not be careful at all to ask for.


If North Dakota abolishes property taxes, the only thing that could prevent it from being destroyed even faster than Prop 13 destroyed CA would be oil and gas royalties -- which are of course just another form of resource rent recovery.

----------


## Roy L

> The important thing to realize from a practical point of view is that under Roy's version of LVT regime, nothing could _stop_ them from being LVTed, other than the force of Roy's personality.


That is of course, and inevitably, a stupid lie with no basis in fact.



> A hegemonic state will, of course, do whatever its managers please.


Puerile "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense.



> "Land" is whatever we say it is, mundane.


Stupid, irrelevant garbage.



> Says so here in Section XXVI, paragraph 3, of the LVT Act of 2012.


Idiotic fabrication.



> Submit and obey.


Cretinous bloviation.



> Roy is right -- we need LVT!


Pure, absolute and eternal truth.



> Stop the massacre!  Millions are dying from lack of LVT!


Horrifying but true.



> Give the State all the power!


Stupid, irrelevant garbage.



> "Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry, yearning for L.V.T."


You must somehow prevent yourself from knowing the fact that most immigrants to the USA have come to escape the inevitable harmful economic and social effects of inadequately taxed private landowning in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

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## Roy L

> Query-could cyberspace, websites, etc be deemed "real property"/"land" in an LVT regime?  Why or why not?  People do, after all, seek "rent" for websites (domain names and so forth).  We even treat websites like "places" in colloquial language.


Did nature provide it?  Is its value publicly created, especially by government spending?

You didn't think very hard, did you?

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## Steven Douglas

> All people are naturally at liberty to use all land.


Cool beans. Almost sounds like _"all land"_ would actually available for use under your Georgist fantasy regime. It would not be, of course. Not EVER.  That is but one of your dirty little LIES.  And what little land remains, out of _"all land"_ -- that's nothing but an oppressive web of artificial valuation spawned from bogus counter-party claims, as everybody has a "natural liberty right" to every piece of _artificially available_ land only. 

Here you go, Roy. Here is what I picture when you talk about _"all land"_, as if that's what you really, truly meant:




Yeah. "All" that nice fat land that "all people" are _naturally at liberty to use_.  Why, just look at a map of the entire country, and you'll see how vast it is. And that really is what you are _"naturally at liberty to use"_. But that doesn't give you an actual right to use it.  The Georgist ideology says that you are - in theory at least - but no LVT implementation would ever allow for it. 

The actual land must be confined, of course, since condensing all available land would artificially drive up its value, which would increase revenues even as it _squeezes everyone_. Oh, we would be "compensated" alright - but not justly compensated. Never justly, since _no exemption_ that is provided by controlled access to LIMITED LANDS could ever begin to compensate for a denial of real access to ALL LANDS.

Yep, 'tis the season, but not for fruitcake. Very few people like fruitcake, Roy.  Bon apetit. You can eat your LVT fruitcake here, or elsewhere, but mostly, you will be dining alone.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Did nature provide it?  Is its value publicly created, especially by government spending?
> 
> You didn't think very hard, did you?


Nature created 1's and 0's, yes.  Nature invented silicon, light, glass, electricity, etc. Man just organized these materials into specific patters.  Just like man organizes wild tracts into parcels and so forth.  Space is space, whether virtual or literal.  My bits of data on a hard drive prevent your bits of data occupying the same space.  I thought through this harder than you did (which isn't too hard).

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## Steven Douglas

> "How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"


ANSWER: Firstly, production doesn't need to be "aided" by anything. It is a false question, with some equally false governing assumptions.  

Screw your conflation of _"government, the community and nature"_ as some kind of joint "providers".  That's mushy-fuzzy talk, and a borrowing of prestige and value that is not weighted properly, let alone deserved. I'm glad for what nature provided, grateful for a community for its division of labor so that we can freely trade and share in the fruits of each others' efforts - and I want a government PROVIDED BY THE COMMUNITY - for the sole purpose of defending all of this from all enemies, foreign and domestic. We can even HIRE IT to create some infrastructure - which the community will pay for (aka "provide to ourselves"), as it always has, no credit to "government" needed.

From my lens and not yours, government is, and always should be, the LEAST and most humble contributor, "the community" is comprised of _sovereign individuals_ with both land and property rights of their own - so you can kiss all their asses. And landowners own their lands outright, fee simple, no property taxes or rents involved, with no obligations or rights to land belonging to other sovereigns, any more than British Columbia has any rightful claim on Washington State.   

And Henry George's theorem - I might be able to earn some extra cash by printing that, along with his face, onto some toilet paper, because I think some of my fellow sovereigns just might get a kick out of it, and might be willing to part with a pinch of gold or silver dust for a roll or two.

----------


## Roy L

> ANSWER: Firstly, production doesn't need to be "aided" by anything.


No, that's indisputably just another stupid lie from you, Steven.  It is self-evidently absurd.  It is an idiotic, cretinous lie, and you know it.  It can only be by *aiding* production that anyone ever earns a *share* of production.  It is only *aiding* production that can ever possibly make one *productive*, as you so implausibly claim to be.  You know this, Steven.  You KNOW it.



> It is a false question, with some equally false governing assumptions.


No, Steven, that is just another stupid lie from you.  There is no false question, no false governing assumptions, and you are just lying again.



> Screw your conflation of _"government, the community and nature"_ as some kind of joint "providers".


You have no facts, no logic, no arguments of any kind to offer, so all you can do is howl in protest and run in circles, biting your hindquarters.  It is *indisputable* that the unimproved value of land arises *solely* from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides at each land site.



> That's mushy-fuzzy talk,


No, that is just another stupid lie from you, and you know it.  It in fact clearly and precisely identifies a concrete and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.



> and a borrowing of prestige and value that is not weighted properly, let alone deserved.


Gibberish.



> From my lens and not yours, government is, and always should be, the LEAST and most humble contributor,


But of course, as you know, that is just another stupid lie from you.  Without government-provided transportation infrastructure such as the road network, most land would be almost worthless, as there would be no convenient way to get to it.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely realized that you have to lie about it and refuse to know it, as it proves that your beliefs are false and evil.  Similarly, without government police officers, courts, etc. to keep the peace, land would be worthless because there would be no way to make a significant profit by using it: any surplus would have to be spent on defense, as under feudalism.



> "the community" is comprised of _sovereign individuals_ with both land and property rights of their own - so you can kiss all their asses.


Thank you for proving that you have no facts, logic or arguments to offer.



> And landowners own their lands outright, fee simple, no property taxes or rents involved,


That is self-evidently and indisputably a lie.  Rents are inherent in the market, and fee simple titles are not outright ownership, and are subject to property taxes.  You just always have to lie.



> with no obligations or rights to land belonging to other sovereigns, any more than British Columbia has any rightful claim on Washington State.


We have already established that there is no way land can possibly rightfully come to "belong" to anyone.



> And Henry George's theorem - I might be able to earn some extra cash by printing that, along with his face, onto some toilet paper, because I think some of my fellow sovereigns just might get a kick out of it, and might be willing to part with a pinch of gold or silver dust for a roll or two.


You heap disgrace upon yourself, just like every other apologist for landowner privilege who has ever lived, or will ever live.

----------


## Roy L

> There is no fixity of supply in any meaningful sense.


The supply of land is fixed in the *only* meaningful sense: the economic sense.  "Supply" is an economic term.



> There is no need to concede that point.


Right.  It is also quite possible to evade it, dismiss it, ignore it, and lie about it.  It just isn't possible to refute it.



> It is land's existence in time and space that allows the creation of boundaries.  But there is an infinite amount of land out there, and the supply of _usable_ (i.e. _actual_, or perhaps we could say _meaningful_) land is rapidly increasing.


Ah, that must explain why the price is increasing so fast...

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: it doesn't.  Such a mystery.

To you, that is.



> Roy L. is the Smartest Man On Earth(TM), and right about _Everything_!!!


You heap disgrace upon yourself.

----------


## Roy L

> Nature created 1's and 0's, yes.


That is of course false and stupid.



> Nature invented silicon, light, glass, electricity, etc. Man just organized these materials into specific patters.


Patterns nature DID NOT invent.



> Just like man organizes wild tracts into parcels and so forth.


No, that's just a stupid lie from you.  Man does not organize wild tracts of land into parcels.  He DIVIDES wild tracts of land into parcels for the purpose of gaining unearned wealth by violating his fellows' rights to use them.



> Space is space, whether virtual or literal.


And land is land, and products of labor are not, no matter how many times you lie that they are.



> My bits of data on a hard drive prevent your bits of data occupying the same space.


None of which nature provided, none of which get their value from government or the community.



> I thought through this harder than you did (which isn't too hard).


No, of course you didn't.  You just spewed some stupid garbage without thinking at all, other than the mental effort required to concoct the stupidest possible lies.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, that's *indisputably* just another *stupid lie* from you, Steven.  It is *self-evidently absurd*.  It is an *idiotic, cretinous lie*, and you know it.  You know this, Steven.  You KNOW it. No, Steven, that is just *another stupid lie* from you.  There is no false question, no false governing assumptions, and you are just *lying* again. You have *no facts, no logic, no arguments of any kind* to offer, so all you can do is howl in protest and run in circles, biting your hindquarters. No, that is just *another stupid lie* from you, and you know it.  It in fact *clearly and precisely* identifies *a concrete and indisputable fact* of objective physical reality. *Gibberish*. But of course, as you know, that is just *another stupid lie* from you.   You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely realized that *you have to lie* about it and *refuse to know* it, as it proves that *your beliefs are false and evil*.  Thank you for proving that you have *no facts, logic or arguments* to offer. That is *self-evidently and indisputably a lie*.  You just *always have to lie*. You heap *disgrace* upon yourself, just like every other apologist for landowner privilege who has ever lived, or will ever live.


Wow! hehehe

That's where you remain forever trapped, Roy.  You are incapable of responding except from your own George-centric premises - the center of your only known universe.  Everything else is so much stupidity, absurdity, idiotically cretinous lies, with no facts, no logic, no arguments of any kind..._to you._ 

I think pretty much everyone else understood exactly my arguments, my logic, the truths behind them, just as I understood theirs (and yours) without a requirement for agreement or disagreement on anyone's part.  We are still capable of rational discussion.  But how do you respond? By dismissing everyone and every thing not aligned with your religiously ideological fervor as being "like every other apologist for landowner privilege who has ever lived, or will ever live."

If you offer a gift of moral pronouncements, but your intended recipient doesn't accept, to whom then does the gift belong?

Stew in it, Roy. You can keep all the deadweight loss of your artificial land scarcity tax to yourself.

----------


## redbluepill

> You can keep all the deadweight loss of your artificial land scarcity tax to yourself.


What do you mean by this? One of the notable advantages of the LVT is that there is practically no deadweight loss to it!

_Standard economic theory suggests that a land value tax would be extremely efficient – unlike other taxes, it does not reduce economic productivity. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman agreed that Henry George's land value tax is potentially beneficial for society since, unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to "deadweight loss"). A replacement of other more distortionary taxes with a land value tax would thus improve economic welfare._ 
*Foldvary, Fred E. "Geo-Rent: A Plea to Public Economists". Econ Journal Watch (April 2005)*

_In fact almost any tax measure will distort the economy from the path or process that would have prevailed in its absence (land value taxes are a notable exception)._
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_burden_of_taxation*

----------


## eduardo89

LOL! Is Roy's rep bar red?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> LOL! Is Roy's rep bar red?


yep.

----------


## teacherone

what is this whacked out thread?

127 pages of schizoid mental masturbation?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> That is of course false and stupid.


No it isn't.  1's and 0's are abstract concepts that exist (and always existed) in nature.  Humans simply gave them names.  The Romans used numbers like I and II (they had no concept of zero, but the same principle applies).  When I type a 0 or 1 here, it's just a symbol-part of a larger mathematical theorem.  Likewise, if people like yourself hadn't wasted your time trying to rationalize this theory that "land ownership is theft" and so forth, you could have gotten offline and found a way to prove this.




> No, of course you didn't. You just spewed some stupid garbage without thinking at all, other than the mental effort required to concoct the stupidest possible lies.


Incorrect.  But even if it were correct, my "garbage" is rational.  Your garbage is a desperate attempt to "disprove" what we know works in the real world.  You can only come up with a few examples in history in which your LVT scheme works.  The vast majority of societies don't accept it because it's impractical in _typical_ complex societies.  




> And land is land, and products of labor are not, no matter how many times you lie that they are.


And all space is space.  What lie?  I never denied that land doesn't exist-it's also scarce.  You're really grasping at straws.  The rest of what you wrote is just variations on these nonsense themes, so I won't waste time addressing them.

----------


## eduardo89

> what is this whacked out thread?
> 
> 127 pages of schizoid mental masturbation?


More like 127 pages of RoyL destroying our every pathetic defense for parasitic landowners who deny him the liberty to use their land.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> What do you mean by this? One of the notable advantages of the LVT is that there is practically no deadweight loss to it!
> 
> _Standard economic theory suggests that a land value tax would be extremely efficient – unlike other taxes, it does not reduce economic productivity. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman agreed that Henry George's land value tax is potentially beneficial for society since, unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to "deadweight loss"). A replacement of other more distortionary taxes with a land value tax would thus improve economic welfare._ 
> *Foldvary, Fred E. "Geo-Rent: A Plea to Public Economists". Econ Journal Watch (April 2005)*
> 
> _In fact almost any tax measure will distort the economy from the path or process that would have prevailed in its absence (land value taxes are a notable exception)._
> *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_burden_of_taxation*


It has already been recognized in this thread that LVT is the "least bad" tax.  But that doesn't make it good.  It's incorrect to claim that "..._land value tax is potentially beneficial for society since, unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to "deadweight loss")_"

Taking money out of the economy via taxation (or inflation) is a burden on economic activity.  Money taken via the LVT could have gone to charities, production, housing, etc.  The rational solution is to voluntarily donate to whatever organization is in one's rational self interest.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> More like 127 pages of RoyL destroying our every pathetic defense for parasitic landowners who deny him the liberty to use their land.


lolz

----------


## heavenlyboy34

Roy, et. al.-instead of trying to pick others' pockets, why don't you just increase the amount of land via man-made islands and archipelagoes? This way, you can colonize Oceania and not worry about LVT-ing everyone else.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> What do you mean by this? One of the notable advantages of the LVT is that there is practically no deadweight loss to it!
> 
> _Standard economic theory suggests that a land value tax would be extremely efficient – unlike other taxes, it does not reduce economic productivity. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman agreed that Henry George's land value tax is potentially beneficial for society since, unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to "deadweight loss"). A replacement of other more distortionary taxes with a land value tax would thus improve economic welfare._ 
> *Foldvary, Fred E. "Geo-Rent: A Plea to Public Economists". Econ Journal Watch (April 2005)*
> 
> _In fact almost any tax measure will distort the economy from the path or process that would have prevailed in its absence (land value taxes are a notable exception)._
> *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_burden_of_taxation*


See my previous post re: artificial scarcity. 




> Causes of deadweight loss can include *monopoly pricing (in the case of artificial scarcity)*, externalities, taxes or subsidies, and *binding price ceilings or floors*. The term deadweight loss may also be referred to as the "excess burden" of monopoly or taxation.


In a nutshell, LVT gives incentive for government to drive up land value to maximize revenues. A primary mechanism for doing just that is to keep land artificially scarce (i.e., "exclude it from all use by others"), which of course runs contrary to, and in direct conflict with, the Georgist tenet that everyone is at liberty to use all lands.  LVT proponents take this further by adding "without just compensation" -- _whatever that means._

Open up "all lands" could be the reverse of destroying four rare works of art so that the value of the surviving work is worth more than the previous individual works combined.  By adding more works of the same now-not-so-rare art, you can actually diminish the overall rate of return as a siphon on productivity - since less scarcity of everything exerts downward pressure on both value and prices of everything - including land value. This runs counter to real productivity, as the focus for government will always be on maximizing value of existing lands, by withholding resources required that contribute to real productivity that benefits more than just infrastructure or a "land value exemption" for individuals through an LVT -- like real costs of goods and services to individuals. LVT is factored into all of that by firms, and those costs are ALWAYS passed to the consumer. 

New lands and resources under an LVT are only added when it can be demonstrated that it a) it does not subtract from the value of existing land (read=competition that drives both prices and value down) and b) will contribute to a NET increase of overall LVT.  So you experience a crunch in artificial scarcity until it can be proved, _not that real competing productivity would increase_, but rather that it will result in productivity that also results in a equal or growing _rate of LVT return to government_. So the deadweight loss comes from all the land that is withheld (but never accounted for), as all productivity is reckoned strictly from a narrow lens of "artificially available lands".  

In other words, it is "value fixing" through "scarcity fixing" at its finest. That's why it has such appeal for "Geoists", and far left-leaning environmentalists, as it keeps humans artificially blocked from using "all that nature has provided".  LVT implementation relies heavily on artificial scarcity, and therefore competing bids, to be effective as a value driver.  If "all lands" really were available for use, government would have to (and WOULD) devise other methods of artificial valuation to compensate for the lack of scarcity and dearth of competing bids - because initially it is conceivable that very few are actually "competing" with each other for land, while competing heavily with one another for goods and services (good for everybody), given the abundance of land that really does exist, and could satisfy all demands.

----------


## eduardo89

> Roy, et. al.-instead of trying to pick others' pockets, why don't you just increase the amount of land via man-made islands and archipelagoes? This way, you can colonize Oceania and not worry about LVT-ing everyone else.


Always been a dream of mine to own/create an island in international waters.

----------


## Roy L

> Cool beans. Almost sounds like _"all land"_ would actually available for use under your Georgist fantasy regime. It would not be, of course. Not EVER.


So?  Any land made unavailable through being set aside for infrastructure, parks, etc. would just increase the value of the compensation everyone received for not being able to use it.  We know people's rights to liberty can't all be secured all the time.  That's why we have a court system: to reconcile conflicts of people's rights and implement just remedies for their violation, especially *compensation*.



> That is but one of your dirty little LIES.


You only heap disgrace upon yourself by telling such lies, Steven.  I never said all land would be available for use under LVT.  That's just another dirty, filthy, evil, vicious lie from you.  I said people would be COMPENSATED for the loss of their liberty to use the land that was made unavailable.

YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO TELL DIRTY, FILTHY, EVIL, VICIOUS LIES, STEVEN.  *ALWAYS.*



> And what little land remains, out of _"all land"_ -- that's nothing but an oppressive web of artificial valuation spawned from bogus counter-party claims, as everybody has a "natural liberty right" to every piece of _artificially available_ land only.


If that meant anything, which AFAICT it doesn't, it would be a lie.

The *natural* liberty right people have is to use all land.  That right is violated by anyone's exclusive use of land, including the community's.  As the only competent defender of individual rights, government requires just compensation from those who violate others' rights.



> Here you go, Roy. Here is what I picture when you talk about _"all land"_, as if that's what you really, truly meant:


Thanks for posting something stupid and dishonest again.



> Yeah. "All" that nice fat land that "all people" are _naturally at liberty to use_.  Why, just look at a map of the entire country, and you'll see how vast it is. And that really is what you are _"naturally at liberty to use"_. But that doesn't give you an actual right to use it.


Yes, actually, it does.



> The Georgist ideology says that you are - in theory at least - but no LVT implementation would ever allow for it.


??  That is indeed the POINT of LVT: to reconcile the exclusive use of land required for secure property rights in fixed improvements with the equal, universal right to liberty by requiring exclusive users to make just compensation to those whose rights to liberty they violate.



> The actual land must be confined, of course, since condensing all available land would artificially drive up its value,


Land cannot be "confined" or "condensed."  You are talking gibberish.



> which would increase revenues even as it _squeezes everyone_.


Exclusive use *inherently* squeezes everyone.  LVT just requires market compensation for the squeeze.



> Oh, we would be "compensated" alright - but not justly compensated. Never justly, since _no exemption_ that is provided by controlled access to LIMITED LANDS could ever begin to compensate for a denial of real access to ALL LANDS.


Wrong AGAIN.  The controlled access to limited lands is in fact* far better* than real access to all lands, because the real access is *not exclusive*, and provides no access to the services and infrastructure government provides or the opportunities and amenities the community provides.  It is only the real access the hunter-gatherer has to all lands, and thus permits only a hunter-gatherer level of existence, not a civilized existence.



> Yep, 'tis the season, but not for fruitcake. Very few people like fruitcake, Roy.  Bon apetit. You can eat your LVT fruitcake here, or elsewhere, but mostly, you will be dining alone.


I have proved you objectively wrong on every substantive claim you have made, Steven.  Every single one.  Deal with it.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, et. al.-instead of trying to pick others' pockets,


It is the landowner who picks others' pockets, as already proved many times.



> why don't you just increase the amount of land via man-made islands and archipelagoes? This way, you can colonize Oceania and not worry about LVT-ing everyone else.


That's not land in the relevant sense, so you're just trying an equivocation fallacy.  You know this.

----------


## Roy L

> LOL! Is Roy's rep bar red?


Of course.  Every time I correctly identify a lie, the liar screams in outrage to the mods.  I've often been banned from forums for telling the truth.

----------


## Roy L

> what is this whacked out thread?


It consists of me and a few other virtuous defenders of liberty, justice and truth being fallaciously and dishonestly attacked by several lying apologists for greed, privilege and injustice.



> 127 pages of schizoid mental masturbation?


If you can refute anything I have said -- which of course you can't -- be my guest.

----------


## eduardo89

> Of course.  Every time I correctly identify a lie, the liar screams in outrage to the mods. * I've often been banned from forums for telling the truth.*


You sure it wasn't for trolling and insulting other forum members?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> So?  Any land made unavailable through being set aside for infrastructure, parks, etc.


Nice try. Nice lie, Roy, you dishonest curmudgeon you. You know fully well that I am referring to ALL LANDS - exclusive of infrastructure, parks, etc., and all of the "intra-between" lands in your artificially limited fantasy land scenario.  




> The controlled access to limited lands is in fact far better than real access to all lands, because the real access is not exclusive, and provides no access to the services and infrastructure government provides or the opportunities and amenities the community provides.


Dirty...little...liar. Listen to yourself.  It could and _would_ increase productivity. Not as hunter gatherers, but actual individuals and commerce going into presently blocked lands, even paying ALL COSTS _for their own infrastructure_ (see? no cost or reliance on you for your little infrastructure monopoly).  I have drilled wells, installed transformers and generators, and laid roads of my own, Roy.  I know how that works.  Even under an LVT regime, all of this _increased productivity_ could, and would, COMPETE with your LVT scheme.  You want access to be "artificially exclusive" based on an equally artificial scarcity - otherwise, how does government and LVT work with that little monkey wrench thrown into your economy manipulative machinations? And, of course, LVT from maximized value of lands is the primary aim, not a "natural liberty right by all people to use all lands".

If everyone had land of their own to use, such that there were no competing bids, given everyone already has exclusive use of all they needed, conceivably *there would be no LVT.*  We could all agree to bid a dollar for our own use.  That would set the floor and the ceiling for the underlying land.  

But that wouldn't serve your primary aim, now would it?  Better to have a game of musical chairs where the number of chairs was artificially limited from the outset, and kept that way to keep LVT values artificially high.  Let's play a game of "Let's you and them fight"...over what you made artificially scarce.




> Yeah. "All" that nice fat land that "all people" are naturally at liberty to use. Why, just look at a map of the entire country, and you'll see how vast it is. And that really is what you are "naturally at liberty to use". But that doesn't give you an actual right to use it.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Yes, actually, it does.


Yeah, you are like the ideological Keynes, who would be HORRIFIED to see how his idealized emergency methadone solution turned into a full scale heroine trafficking operation.   

No, Roy, forget how YOU would do anything at all, since you will never, ever be in charge of anything LVT, and look instead to what would actually happen.  How government actually does use and abuse power, not how you think it should use its power. Two different beasts entirely.  Otherwise, I would be in favor of many forms of government, based on their claims.  I gave you a link to one such "LVT-implementing" proponent in Ontario. Not exactly an ideological approach to freeing people to all for their "natural liberty" to use all lands.

----------


## Roy L

> See my previous post re: artificial scarcity.


Already demolished.



> In a nutshell, LVT gives incentive for government to drive up land value to maximize revenues.


CORRECT.  And the way government maximizes revenue under LVT is to maximize the AGGREGATE value of all the land in its jurisdiction by making use of that land as ECONOMICALLY ADVANTAGEOUS AS POSSIBLE.  That is why unlike ANY OTHER TAX SYSTEM, LVT aligns government's financial interests with the public interest.



> A primary mechanism for doing just that is to keep land artificially scarce (i.e., "exclude it from all use by others"), which of course runs contrary to, and in direct conflict with, the Georgist tenet that everyone is at liberty to use all lands.


Wrong.  Making land artificially scarce is the way *landowners* drive up the value of *THEIR OWN* land at the expense of driving DOWN the value of OTHER landowners' land.  Such artificial scarcities reduce total production AND aggregate land value.  A government using LVT therefore has NO MOTIVE to make land artificially scarce.  Only private landowners do.



> LVT proponents take this further by adding "without just compensation" -- _whatever that means._


It means what it says: without just compensation for being deprived of their liberty.



> Open up "all lands" could be the reverse of destroying four rare works of art so that the value of the surviving work is worth more than the previous individual works combined.


That doesn't happen.  The value lost exceeds the value gained.



> By adding more works of the same now-not-so-rare art, you can actually diminish the overall rate of return as a siphon on productivity - since less scarcity of everything exerts downward pressure on both value and prices of everything - including land value.


Wrong.  Less scarcity of everything makes land value *rise*, because it increases the economic advantage obtainable on the good land.



> This runs counter to real productivity, as the focus for government will always be on maximizing value of existing lands, by withholding resources required that contribute to real productivity that benefits more than just infrastructure or a "land value exemption" for individuals through an LVT -- like real costs of goods and services to individuals.


Nope.  You are invalidly extrapolating from the behavior of private landowners who each appropriate the rent from a small fraction of the land to the behavior of a government that recovers the rent from ALL the land.  Unlike the private landowners, the government *can't profit* by making land scarce because it would just be removing part of its *own* revenue source, not OTHERS' revenue sources.



> LVT is factored into all of that by firms, and those costs are ALWAYS passed to the consumer.


That is just your economic ignorance showing again.  Like any other tax on the rent of a factor in fixed supply, LVT *cannot* be passed on to consumers or anyone else.  Economists do not agree on much, but they do agree on that.



> New lands and resources under an LVT are only added


They can't be "added."  Their supply is FIXED.  Perhaps you mean, "brought into productive use"?



> when it can be demonstrated that it a) it does not subtract from the value of existing productivity (read=competition that drives both prices and value down) and b) will contribute to a NET increase of overall LVT.


Nope.  That's just a flat-out lie.  With LVT, all land is available for use by anyone unless already paid for by an exclusive user or set aside for community use as parks, the location of infrastructure, etc.  There would likely be debate about when and whether to take land out of park use for exclusive private use, but that's part of democracy.  IMO a major reason people are currently very reluctant to allow private use of parkland is that under the current system, it is virtually impossible to turn private land into parkland once it is released to private owners.  Under LVT, it would be easy to buy up appropriate parcels of private land that would be more useful as parkland and convert it to public park use.



> So you experience a crunch in artificial scarcity until it can be proved, not that real competing productivity would increase, but rather that it will result in productivity that results in a equal or growing rate of LVT return to government.


Flat false.  Only land designated as public parks would be held out of use, and it would be up to the land administration office to estimate whether a proposed exclusive private use of parkland would be more advantageous in the aggregate -- i.e., produce higher total LVT revenue -- than its preservation as public parkland.  As parks tend substantially to increase the desirability of nearby privately held land, this calculation would have to be done by economists very well versed in land value analysis, using sophisticated computer models.



> So the deadweight loss comes from all the land that is withheld (but never accounted for), as all productivity is reckoned strictly from a narrow lens of "artificially available lands".


False, as proved above.  Land held out of use as parks would be accounted for through its effect on the value of nearby land.  People are not perfect or omniscient, so this accounting would not always be precisely correct, but at least government's financial incentives would be aligned with the public interest, unlike under the current system.



> In other words, it is "value fixing" through "scarcity fixing" at its finest.


Stupid garbage disproved above.



> That's why it has such appeal for "Geoists", and far left-leaning environmentalists, as it keeps humans artificially blocked from using "all that nature has provided".


No, that is just more stupid garbage from you.  It has been proved that parks increase the value of nearby land.  People WANT to live near parks.  HOW MUCH and WHICH land should be devoted to parks is an open question, but LVT would make it FAR easier for governments to devote appropriate amounts and types of land to parks than our current system.  Curitiba, in Brazil, has devoted a great deal of land to parks, and despite the country's poverty it is considered one of the most livable cities in the world.



> LVT implementation relies heavily on artificial scarcity,


Lie.  Scarcity of good land is market-driven, and is based on the operation of the Law of Rent.  LVT makes land LESS scarce by removing the speculator's motive to hold good land out of use.



> and therefore competing bids, to be effective as a value driver.


The Law of Rent drives land value.



> If "all lands" really were available for use, government would have to (and WOULD) devise other methods of artificial valuation to compensate for the lack of scarcity and dearth of competing bids - because initially it is conceivable that very few are actually "competing" with each other for land,


Wrong AGAIN.  People are going to be competing for the good sites based on their rent (differential advantage relative to marginal land).  This is kindergarten-level economics, so it is not surprising that you are ignorant of it.




> while competing heavily with one another for goods and services (good for everybody), given the abundance of land that really does exist, and could satisfy all demands.


No, that's just more economic ignorance from you.  The "abundance of land that really does exist" is irrelevant, because the demand is for the ADVANTAGEOUS land, not just *any* land.  All the land on the moon, Mars, etc. is worthless.  Land value is determined by the DIFFERENCE IN ADVANTAGE between good land and marginal land -- and all but a microscopic fraction of the land is worse than marginal, and therefore will not be in demand by anyone, at any price.

----------


## Roy L

> You sure it wasn't for trolling and insulting other forum members?


Yes.  It was purely for telling the truth.  It will probably happen here, too.

----------


## Roy L

> It has already been recognized in this thread that LVT is the "least bad" tax.  But that doesn't make it good.


Yes, of course it does, as taxes are necessary and any other tax is worse.



> It's incorrect to claim that "..._land value tax is potentially beneficial for society since, unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to "deadweight loss")_"


No, it is provably and objectively correct.



> Taking money out of the economy via taxation (or inflation) is a burden on economic activity.


Taxation does not take money out of the economy.  It simply devotes it to different purposes.  Reduction of the money supply takes money out of the economy.



> Money taken via the LVT could have gone to charities, production, housing, etc.


And instead goes to services and infrastructure that often benefit society even more.



> The rational solution is to voluntarily donate to whatever organization is in one's rational self interest.


No, that is just your ignorance of economics talking.  Neither voluntary donations nor market exchange can possibly support efficient levels of investment in public goods.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Taxation does not take money out of the economy.  It simply devotes it to different purposes.  Reduction of the money supply takes money out of the economy.


Of course.  Pay no attention to warfare, welfare and infrastructure destruction and creation overseas, with debt-money added to the money supply, even as goods and services are taken out of the US, but just "devoted to different purposes". You will realize that it all stayed "within the economy", but only when you get a broader view of what "the economy" actually means. 

Earth to Roy, come in Roy...

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yes, of course it does, as taxes are necessary and any other tax is worse.


Yes, but that doesn't make LVT good or necessary.  America did fine without direct taxes for a good long time.  It could still do so if people like you would just donate to the treasury instead of waxing endlessly about this and that.




> No, it is provably and objectively correct.


Nope.  All taxes are a burden on economic activity. 



> Taxation does not take money out of the economy.  It simply devotes it to different purposes.  Reduction of the money supply takes money out of the economy.


Come, now.  "Reallocation" is just newspeak for taking money out of the economy.  You have to take money out to reallocate it.




> No, that is just your ignorance of economics talking.  Neither voluntary donations nor market exchange can possibly support efficient levels of investment in public goods.


False.  You are the ignorant one here.  The IRS already has a program for "patriotic donations".  If you really believe what you say, you ought to be promoting that program instead of demanding an LVT.  If people think it's in their self interest to fund "public goods", they'll do it, just as they fund NPR.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Yes.  It was purely for telling the truth.  It will probably happen here, too.


Hopefully sooner rather than later.

----------


## eduardo89

> Yes.  It was purely for telling the truth.  It will probably happen here, too.


Sure it was. If I recall correctly you've already gotten one warning (and post deleted) on RPF for a direct attack on me and my family. Or do you forget that?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Sure it was. If I recall correctly you've already gotten one warning (and post deleted) on RPF for a direct attack on me and my family. Or do you forget that?


Sounds like Roy just assumes his infractions and -reps are for whatever he wants them to be instead of bothering to read the comments.

----------


## eduardo89

> Sounds like Roy just assumes his infractions and -reps are for whatever he wants them to be instead of bothering to read the comments.


That got me thinking, I wonder if Roy could get up to two red rep bars before he gets banned!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> what is this whacked out thread?
> 
> 127 pages of schizoid mental masturbation?


Roy is a very hungry troll.

----------


## Roy L

> If I recall correctly you've already gotten one warning (and post deleted) on RPF for a direct attack on me and my family. Or do you forget that?


I didn't forget.  It simply wasn't an attack on you or your family.  That was just a fabrication on your part.  If a member of RPF is from a family of Nazis, it is not an attack on him or his family to point out that Nazis are evil, vicious, subhuman filth.  It's just telling the truth.  Similarly, the fact that your family owned a large amount of land in Mexico does not and cannot change the fact that landowning is parasitism, and identifying that fact is not an attack on you or your family.  It's just telling the truth.  Hell, we are all the descendants of slave owners.  It is not an attack on anyone to point out the fact that their ancestors participated in a massive evil.

----------


## eduardo89

> I didn't forget.  It simply wasn't an attack on you or your family.  That was just a fabrication on your part.  If a member of RPF is from a family of Nazis, it is not an attack on him or his family to point out that Nazis are evil, vicious, subhuman filth.  It's just telling the truth.  Similarly, the fact that your family owned a large amount of land in Mexico does not and cannot change the fact that landowning is parasitism, and identifying that fact is not an attack on you or your family.  It's just telling the truth.  Hell, we are all the descendants of slave owners.  It is not an attack on anyone to point out the fact that their ancestors participated in a massive evil.


That's now what you said. You weren't talking about landowning, you made a direct attack saying "your family is" and using words such as greedy, evil, parasitic, entitled, etc. that is a direct attack, especially because you know nothing about my family, our past, our circumstances, how we gained land or anything else. And it's not just a fabrication on my part, you were given an infraction and your post was deleted by a mod.

----------


## Roy L

> Of course.  Pay no attention to warfare, welfare and infrastructure destruction and creation overseas, with debt-money added to the money supply, even as goods and services are taken out of the US, but just "devoted to different purposes". You will realize that it all stayed "within the economy", but only when you get a broader view of what "the economy" actually means.


<sigh>  You mention some government activities that can take WEALTH out of the economy -- a more important example of which, btw, is taxes on production and exchange, of which LVT is not an example -- but that is different from taking MONEY out of the economy.  If government takes tax money and burns it, that takes money out of the economy, but not wealth.  If government takes tax money and pays people to break windows, that takes wealth out of the economy, but not money.

Capisci?

----------


## eduardo89

Let me end this thread: All taxation is theft. Theft is morally wrong. Taxes are therefore morally wrong. 

/thread

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> <sigh>  You mention some government activities that can take WEALTH out of the economy -- a more important example of which, btw, is taxes on production and exchange, of which LVT is not an example -- but that is different from taking MONEY out of the economy.  If government takes tax money and burns it, that takes money out of the economy, but not wealth.  If government takes tax money and pays people to break windows, that takes wealth out of the economy, but not money.
> 
> Capisci?

----------


## Roy L

> That's now what you said. You weren't talking about landowning, you made a direct attack saying "your family is" and using words such as greedy, evil, parasitic, entitled, etc.


Quote?  Of course not.

Eduardo, you brought your family into the discussion, not me, by effectively claiming that *because* your family had owned a lot of land in Mexico, landowning *could not possibly* be parasitism or a vehicle of choice for the greedy, privileged, evil, etc.  The fact that your family owned a lot of land in Mexico is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to whether landowning is an example of greed, privilege, evil and parasitism -- which I have proved it is.  



> that is a direct attack, especially because you know nothing about my family, our past, our circumstances, how we gained land or anything else.


Nonsense.  Your family's past, circumstances, how they gained land, etc. is no more relevant to whether landowning is greedy, evil, privileged parasitism than a slave owning family's past, circumstances, how they gained slaves, etc. is relevant to whether slave owning is greedy, evil, privileged parasitism.



> And it's not just a fabrication on my part, you were given an infraction and your post was deleted by a mod.


Mods' decisions cannot alter facts.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Mods' decisions cannot alter facts.


Neither can Roy L's claims.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> <sigh>  You mention some government activities that can take WEALTH out of the economy -- a more important example of which, btw, is taxes on production and exchange, of which LVT is not an example -- but that is different from taking MONEY out of the economy.  If government takes tax money and burns it, that takes money out of the economy, but not wealth.  If government takes tax money and pays people to break windows, that takes wealth out of the economy, but not money.
> 
> Capisci?


Well, you are the one I was told to thank for schooling me in economics, Roy.  So school me on this: you don't capisci that outright subsidies to foreign governments count as both wealth and money?  Or did I miss something? I didn't go to economics school, I was sick that day.

Also, you're right! It's not an LVT example.  What if ::: gasp ::: an LVT wasn't thought to be enough to do all the wonderful things we do now.  Do you think government might...oh, I don't know, want to explore the possibility of ... wait for it ... _additional revenue streams?_  You know, so that we could _"get more things done"_?

I hear tell Hong Kong has a 15% income tax on people making over around $16K (120,000 HKD) per year.  You don't suppose that could happen here if we adopted an LVT, do you?  You know, on the idea that businesses can't do everything, and that the people themselves might want to start shouldering 'their fair share' as well?  I don't know, just a thought, wondering if that is possible, or if the Henry George Theorem made such a thing impossible. 

Are there any examples of different tiers, levels and classes of taxes, even in a country where a single tax might have once been considered more than sufficient?

----------


## eduardo89

> Quote?  Of course not.
> 
> Eduardo, you brought your family into the discussion, not me, by effectively claiming that *because* your family had owned a lot of land in Mexico, landowning *could not possibly* be parasitism or a vehicle of choice for the greedy, privileged, evil, etc.  The fact that your family owned a lot of land in Mexico is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to whether landowning is an example of greed, privilege, evil and parasitism -- which I have proved it is.  
> 
> Nonsense.  Your family's past, circumstances, how they gained land, etc. is no more relevant to whether landowning is greedy, evil, privileged parasitism than a slave owning family's past, circumstances, how they gained slaves, etc. is relevant to whether slave owning is greedy, evil, privileged parasitism.
> 
> Mods' decisions cannot alter facts.


I never claimed that because my family owned land that it could not possibly be parasitic. You're just flat out lying. You were praising a socialist, neopotistic, authoritarian ex-president of Mexico. A man who had no respect for property rights, liberty or the rule of law, who personally invited Leon Trotsky to live in Mexico...and you said he as a good president. You know absolutely nothing about what you talk about and it's so blatantly obvious to anyone who reads even a single sentence of any of your posts. What I said in that thread was that he was a despot, who stole from hundreds of thousands of people, including my family. 

And you have not proven even one bit that owning land is anything comparable to owning slaves. The fact that not a single person here remotely agrees with you is testament to the idiocy of your premise.

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, but that doesn't make LVT good or necessary.


Yes, it DOES make it good, though obviously not "necessary."



> America did fine without direct taxes for a good long time.


That's flatly false.  There has never been a time when direct taxes were not a substantial source of public revenue in the USA at the sate and local levels.  For almost all of its history, the USA has obtained more public revenue from land than almost any other country, and it still does.



> It could still do so if people like you would just donate to the treasury instead of waxing endlessly about this and that.


Laughable.



> Nope.  All taxes are a burden on economic activity.


Nope.  That's just pure economic ignorance on your part.  Google, "excess burden of taxation" and start reading.  A tax on economic rent CANNOT burden economic activity because economic activity does not affect the tax liability.



> "Reallocation" is just newspeak for taking money out of the economy.  You have to take money out to reallocate it.


HUH??  Flat wrong.  Reallocating it indisputably *doesn't* take it out.  Hello?  If I reallocate a chair from the living room to the basement, it doesn't take the chair out of the house.  If government taxes people and spends the money on transfers like SS, it doesn't remove any money from the economy.  It's just different people spending the same money.



> False.  You are the ignorant one here.


ROTFL!!  I have read millions of words on economic theory and history, and millions more on the theory and history of taxation.  Can you say the same?  The answer is unfortunately all too obvious.  I know incomparably more about those subjects than anyone else posting in this thread, I promise you.



> The IRS already has a program for "patriotic donations".


That you would consider that program relevant to the issue of funding public goods is merely the measure of your economic ignorance.



> If you really believe what you say, you ought to be promoting that program instead of demanding an LVT.  If people think it's in their self interest to fund "public goods", they'll do it, just as they fund NPR.


Nope.  That's just anti-economic nonsense.  It's not like nobody ever thought about this stuff before, you know.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> ROTFL!!  I have read millions of words on economic theory and history, and millions more on the theory and history of taxation.  Can you say the same?  The answer is unfortunately all too obvious.


No, but since you learned nothing of value, you wasted your time.   You should demand a refund from your professors. (that's an appeal to authority, btw.  You should take some logic classes, too)

----------


## Roy L

> I never claimed that because my family owned land that it could not possibly be parasitic. You're just flat out lying.


In post #10 of that thread, you said, "My family lost thousands of acres because of him, we were never compensated and it was never given back."  The clear implication is that your family *should* have been compensated or got the land back, which could only be because it was *NOT* parasitic.



> You were praising a socialist, neopotistic, authoritarian ex-president of Mexico.


No, I identified the fact that *despite* his nepotism, socialism and authoritarianism, his program of *land reform* -- abolishing the feudal hacienda system by which YOU ADMITTED your family benefited -- was an economic success story. 



> A man who had no respect for property rights, liberty or the rule of law, who personally invited Leon Trotsky to live in Mexico...and you said he as a good president.


Well, he was better than his predecessors and successors, anyway, as the record shows.



> You know absolutely nothing about what you talk about and it's so blatantly obvious to anyone who reads even a single sentence of any of your posts.


Rubbish.  Unlike you, I provided a quote and a reference to support my statements.



> What I said in that thread was that he was a despot, who stole from hundreds of thousands of people, including my family.


But as we have already established by the example of the bandit in the pass, those hundreds of thousands of people were THEMSELVES stealing from all who would otherwise have been at liberty to use the land.



> And you have not proven even one bit that owning land is anything comparable to owning slaves.


Yes, of course I have.  And here is more proof:

"During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war
broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky
home for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old
negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God,
I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.' The planters, on the other hand, are contented
with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper
now than when we owned the slaves.' How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents
they take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled
to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were
compelled by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he
could no longer work. Now their interest and responsibility cease when they have
got all the work out of him they can."

From a letter by George M. Jackson, St. Louis. Dated August 15, 1885.
Reprinted in Social Problems, by Henry George. 



> The fact that not a single person here remotely agrees with you is testament to the idiocy of your premise.


redbluepill and a few others have indicated they DO broadly agree with me (not about everything, of course).  But facts are not determined by voting.

----------


## Roy L

> No, but since you learned nothing of value, you wasted your time.


<yawn>



> You should demand a refund from your professors.


I agree good books are more informative than bad professors.



> (that's an appeal to authority, btw.


No, it is not.



> You should take some logic classes, too)


ROTFL!!  As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"

I *have* taken logic classes, sunshine.  A lot more than you (if you have ever taken one at all, which I doubt), and it was at the senior level at an internationally respected university.  That's one reason I am always able to demolish you.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> "During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war
> broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky
> home for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old
> negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God,
> I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.' The planters, on the other hand, are contented
> with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper
> now than when we owned the slaves.' How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents
> they take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled
> to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were
> ...


He was actually in the war and believed it was just about slavery?  Not a reliable source, sir.  We know from numerous historical documents from both sides of the war that this isn't true.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, it is not.


Yes, it is.  (you appealed to your own authority rather than using logic, a variation on the appeal to authority fallacy)




> ROTFL!!  As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"
> I *have* taken logic classes, sunshine.  A lot more than you, and at the senior level at an internationally respected university.  That's one reason I am always able to demolish you.


1) you should demand a refund from whoever maleducated you in logic (you apparently don't realize that the education system routinely produces functional illiterates, even at the college level-rending degrees worthless in proving knowledge or intelligence) 2) You've never demolished me.  Claiming it over and over will never make it true.  Hit the logic books again, sir.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> "How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. 
> We get labor cheaper now than when we owned
> the slaves.' How do they get it cheaper? Why, in
> the shape of rents they take more of the labor of
> the negro than they could under slavery, for then
> they were compelled to return him sufficient food,
> clothing and medical attendance to keep him well,
> and were compelled by conscience and public opinion,
> as well as by law, to keep him when he could no longer
> ...


Eerie, idnit? 

::: sniff :::  I just love True Testimonials, don't you? Why, so plausible, too. Not difficult at all to imagine post-war southern plantation owners, standing around slapping themselves in the forehead for fighting a civil war, which of course was within their power to stop, and which they all knew was all about slavery - even though the northern slaves weren't freed, and in some places not until long after the war was over - had they only known how much better it would be for them afterward.

----------


## Roy L

> He was actually in the war and believed it was just about slavery?


No, that's just another fabrication on your part.  We have no idea what he thought the war was about.  He was merely reporting the fact, repeat, FACT that the "freed" slaves were actually WORSE OFF having to pay private landowners for the opportunity to exercise their liberty to use land than they had been as ACTUAL SLAVES.



> Not a reliable source, sir.


More reliable than any source you have ever given, sir.



> We know from numerous historical documents from both sides of the war that this isn't true.


And on your planet, that might not even be a red herring attempt to change the subject.

----------


## Roy L

> 


You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, you know it, and you have no answers.  So you post something stupid and irrelevant.  Simple.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> He was merely reporting the fact, repeat, FACT that the "freed" slaves were actually WORSE OFF having to pay private landowners for the opportunity to exercise their liberty to use land than they had been as ACTUAL SLAVES.


Do you even know what a fact is, Roy?  He wasn't reporting a fact. He was reporting hearsay of hearsay which _alleged_ that a SINGLE former slave _claimed, as a matter of personal opinion_ that he was better off being a slave because of rent! 

Too bad home ownership wasn't within his grasp. He would have been freed from nasty rents, and could have pissed off Henry George and a future Roy L. at the same time.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Oh, and just in case you didn't see it: 




> <sigh>  You mention some government activities that can take WEALTH out of the economy -- a more important example of which, btw, is taxes on production and exchange, of which LVT is not an example -- but that is different from taking MONEY out of the economy.  If government takes tax money and burns it, that takes money out of the economy, but not wealth.  If government takes tax money and pays people to break windows, that takes wealth out of the economy, but not money.
> 
> Capisci?


Well, you are the one I was told to thank for schooling me in economics, Roy.  So school me on this: you don't capisci that outright subsidies to foreign governments count as both wealth and money?  Or did I miss something? I didn't go to economics school, I was sick that day.

Also, you're right! It's not an LVT example.  What if ::: gasp ::: an LVT wasn't thought to be enough to do all the wonderful things we do now.  Do you think government might...oh, I don't know, want to explore the possibility of ... wait for it ... _additional revenue streams?_  You know, so that we could _"get more things done"_?

I hear tell Hong Kong has a 15% income tax on people making over around $16K (120,000 HKD) per year.  You don't suppose that could happen here if we adopted an LVT, do you?  You know, on the idea that businesses can't do everything, and that the people themselves might want to start shouldering 'their fair share' as well?  I don't know, just a thought, wondering if that is possible, or if the Henry George Theorem made such a thing impossible. 

Are there any examples of different tiers, levels and classes of taxes, even in a country where a single tax might have once been considered more than sufficient?

School me, Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, it is.


No, you are just proving that you are either ignorant of logic or lying (my money is on both).  You claimed I was the ignorant one here.  Identifying the proof that I know more of the subject than you is not an appeal to authority fallacy because it is not adduced in support of any argument, but merely to refute YOUR false claim ABOUT ME.  



> (you appealed to your own authority rather than using logic, a variation on the appeal to authority fallacy)


No, that just proves you are ignorant of logic.  When you changed the subject by claiming I was ignorant, all evidence that I am not ignorant becomes valid to refute your claim.  It is NOT an appeal to authority to demonstrate that someone who is claimed not to be an authority actually is one.  You just don't know enough logic to understand how fallacious everything you say is.



> 1) you should demand a refund from whoever maleducated you in logic (you apparently don't realize that the education system routinely produces functional illiterates, even at the college level-rending degrees worthless in proving knowledge or intelligence)


I am quite well educated in logic which is why I am always able to demolish you.



> 2) You've never demolished me.


I have, you know it, and I have done it again in this post, proving that you can't even accurately identify an appeal to authority fallacy.



> Claiming it over and over will never make it true.


Denying it over and over again can never make it false.



> Hit the logic books again, sir.


<yawn>  I just proved you don't even know how to identify an appeal to authority fallacy.  I would tell *you* to hit the logic books again, sir, but it is painfully obvious that you have never cracked one.  Or, in all likelihood, seen one.  Ever.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, you are just proving that you are either ignorant of logic or lying (my money is on both).  You claimed I was the ignorant one here.  Identifying the proof that I know more of the subject than you is not an appeal to authority fallacy because it is not adduced in support of any argument, but merely to refute YOUR false claim ABOUT ME.  
> 
> No, that just proves you are ignorant of logic.  When you changed the subject by claiming I was ignorant, all evidence that I am not ignorant becomes valid to refute your claim.  It is NOT an appeal to authority to demonstrate that someone who is claimed not to be an authority actually is one.  You just don't know enough logic to understand how fallacious everything you say is.
> 
> I am quite well educated in logic which is why I am always able to demolish you.
> 
> I have, you know it, and I have done it again in this post, proving that you can't even accurately identify an appeal to authority fallacy.
> 
> Denying it over and over again can never make it false.
> ...


Your whole argument hinges on claiming that I alleged you used the appeal to authority.  I didn't.  I called it a variation on the ATA fallacy.  Hit the books, Roy.  You keep on failing.  All that fancy schoolin' you got gave you plenty in the way of theory, but nothing valuable in practice.  As I said before, whoever taught you this nonsense you keep spouting owes you a refund for mal-educating you.  Go get it-unless you want to continue amusing me by falling on your face.

----------


## Jtorsella

I didn't read this entire thread, but whoever doesn't believe in property rights has no understanding of positive versus negative rights. Property is a negative right; To respect this right, I only mustn't interfere with it. Other rights like medicare or welfare are positive rights, meaning I must provide a service to respect them. In a perfect world, property laws would be unnecessary as everyone would respect each others' negative rights. This doesn't happen, though, and government must protect each of our negative rights from infringement by force. A person who opposes property rights can use the same argument to oppose laws against murder. Government MUST, as its single duty, protect our negative rights, property being among them.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I didn't read this entire thread, but whoever doesn't believe in property rights has no understanding of positive versus negative rights. Property is a negative right; To respect this right, I only mustn't interfere with it. Other rights like medicare or welfare are positive rights, meaning I must provide a service to respect them. In a perfect world, property laws would be unnecessary as everyone would respect each others' negative rights. This doesn't happen, though, and government must protect each of our negative rights from infringement by force. A person who opposes property rights can use the same argument to oppose laws against murder. Government MUST, as its single duty, protect our negative rights, property being among them.


Excellent point.

----------


## Roy L

> Do you even know what a fact is, Roy?  He wasn't reporting a fact.


Yes, he was.  It was merely a fact that you refuse to know, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false, vicious, and evil.



> He was reporting hearsay of hearsay


That's a bald falsehood.



> which _alleged_ that a SINGLE former slave _claimed, as a matter of personal opinion_ that he was better off being a slave because of rent!


Wrong AGAIN.  Black poverty even more oppressive than slavery was a commonly reported phenomenon in the South after the Civil War.  That was just one report that happened to put two and two together.  And contrary to your fabrication, it was not the former slave who put two and two together and identified rent as the culprit but his owner's son.



> Too bad home ownership wasn't within his grasp.


Yeah, and too bad he couldn't have owned some folks.  That would certainly have improved his situation....



> He would have been freed from nasty rents,


At the expense of paying all the future rent in advance, and of forcing others to pay rent for what government, the community and nature provide...



> and could have pissed off Henry George and a future Roy L. at the same time.


Have you watched, "Judgment at Nuremberg" yet, Steven?  It has a lesson for you about how people acquiesce in -- and even aid and abet -- monstrous evil by refusing to know what they know.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Have you watched, "Judgment at Nuremberg" yet, Steven?  It has a lesson for you about how people acquiesce in -- and even aid and abet -- monstrous evil by refusing to know what they know.


You ought to reflect on that.

----------


## Roy L

> I didn't read this entire thread,


That at least explains why you don't know what you are talking about.



> but whoever doesn't believe in property rights


There is no one here who doesn't believe in property rights.  See?  Shoulda read the entire thread.



> has no understanding of positive versus negative rights.


I predict that you will now demonstrate that YOU have no understanding of positive versus negative rights.



> Property is a negative right;


Property in *land* is *NOT* a negative right, as it compels the landless to labor in the service of landowners or die.  It is in fact not a right at all (other than legally, as property in slaves was once a right), because it inherently violates the natural rights to life and liberty -- which ARE genuine negative rights -- of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.

Casting property in land as a negative right leads to absurdity: suppose someone had a property deed to the earth's atmosphere.  The propertarian may claim this is a "negative right" because all it requires from others is inaction: i.e., not breathing.  But such claims are clearly absurd, outrageous and dishonest.  A property "right" in the earth's atmosphere self-evidently enslaves the entire population of the earth.  To claim this is somehow a "negative right" is just despicably dishonest.

From the above it should be easy enough to see that property in land, like property in the earth's atmosphere, cannot correctly be considered a negative right because though it requires only "inaction" of others that requirement of inaction is itself a removal of their rights.



> To respect this right, I only mustn't interfere with it.


Wrong.  Property in *land* inherently interferes with others' negative rights to life and liberty, and therefore cannot itself be a negative right.  See above.



> Other rights like medicare or welfare are positive rights, meaning I must provide a service to respect them.


Wrong.  Positive rights are just rights that oblige *someone* to do *something*, as the positive legal right of property in land requires others to go elsewhere and live other than as they wish.

See?  I told you you would prove you don't understand positive and negative rights.



> In a perfect world, property laws would be unnecessary as everyone would respect each others' negative rights.


LOL!  And you'd own the atmosphere, which everyone would pay you rent for using...?  Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that....



> This doesn't happen, though, and government must protect each of our negative rights from infringement by force.


But government unfortunately pretends not to understand that it is the landowner who is infringing rights by force, just as in centuries past it pretended not to know it was the slave owner infringing rights by force.



> A person who opposes property rights can use the same argument to oppose laws against murder. Government MUST, as its single duty, protect our negative rights,


Government has other duties than that.



> property being among them.


But only property in products of labor, not property in land.

----------


## Steven Douglas

#1332, Roy.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> it compels the landless to labor in the service of landowners or die.


Nonsense.  There are plenty of landless people who get by.  Some live in their cars, RVs, etc.  Some live in parks and such as vagabonds, and so forth.  Not everyone needs land to be happy.  The world doesn't "owe" anyone anything, including land.  If anything, the landless will be better off in an emergency because they know firsthand how to live without owning land.  They also don't have the liability that land ownership necessarily entails.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Property in *land* is *NOT* a negative right, as it compels the landless to labor in the service of landowners or die.


Roy is like a pit bull on a ragged chew toy with that one. He lacks the capacity - truly has no space in his brain - to see that there really is enough land to go around for everyone. Whether that is true or not makes no difference whatsoever to Roy. You could completely outlaw and abolish _all land speculation and rental practices, public or private_, and Roy would still see private land ownership, in his truly limited mindset, as somehow forcing others to labor on behalf of fellow landowners (even if, hypothetically, _everyone_ was a landowner, and nobody ever paid rents of any kind).  

In Roy's mind, the mere fact of land ownership means that you are depriving others of what they otherwise had the natural liberty to use - which he sees as an objectively self-evident and undeniable fact of nature, which he wants declared as a right, as in _"all people have an equal liberty claim to all land usage at all times"_ - based on the philosophy and writings of King Henry George. 

Roy conflates government, community and nature as a single unit, which he say "provides" both land and its value.

Roy is not in favor of making it possible to eliminate rent, or rent-seeking (as this, of course, would defeat his favorite taxing scheme). He favors an exemption for individuals, but for land value determined and controlled by government only.  For as positively evil as rent-seeking is in his mind when private landownership is concerned, he emphatically supports rent-seeking as the exclusive power of government. Then, in his mind, it is not parasitic, given his erroneous view that government "provides" infrastructure (as opposed to those who actually do pay for it, and establish government for that purpose, among others.) 

Like so many well-intending but completely misguided would-be social engineers before him, Roy honestly believes that what is evil of individuals (as HE sees it) cannot be evil for government, so long as it aligns with his ideology, his intentions, his plans. That is where government becomes special, and subject to exceptions.  Everything else, of course, would be tyranny and evil.

----------


## smokemonsc

> Roy is like a pit bull on a ragged chew toy with that one. He lacks the capacity - truly has no space in his brain - to see that there really is enough land to go around for everyone. Whether that is true or not makes no difference whatsoever to Roy. You could completely outlaw and abolish _all land speculation and rental practices, public or private_, and Roy would still see private land ownership, in his truly limited mindset, as somehow forcing others to labor on behalf of fellow landowners (even if, hypothetically, _everyone_ was a landowner, and nobody ever paid rents of any kind).  
> 
> In Roy's mind, the mere fact of land ownership means that you are depriving others of what they otherwise had the natural liberty to use - which he sees as an objectively self-evident and undeniable fact of nature, which he wants declared as a right, as in _"all people have an equal liberty claim to all land usage at all times"_ - based on the philosophy and writings of King Henry George. 
> 
> Roy conflates government, community and nature as a single unit, which he say "provides" both land and its value.
> 
> Roy is not in favor of making it possible to eliminate rent, or rent-seeking (as this, of course, would defeat his favorite taxing scheme). He favors an exemption for individuals, but for land value determined and controlled by government only.  For as positively evil as rent-seeking is in his mind when private landownership is concerned, he emphatically supports rent-seeking as the exclusive power of government. Then, in his mind, it is not parasitic, given his erroneous view that government "provides" infrastructure (as opposed to those who actually do pay for it, and establish government for that purpose, among others.) 
> 
> Like so many well-intending but completely misguided would-be social engineers before him, Roy honestly believes that what is evil of individuals (as HE sees it) cannot be evil for government, so long as it aligns with his ideology, his intentions, his plans. That is where government becomes special, and subject to exceptions.  Everything else, of course, would be tyranny and evil.


I think you summed up his point of view quite well.  And may I also add that as I've been reading through this mountain of a thread, you've done an excellent job in explaining your view.  So well in fact, that even though I most likely shared your beliefs you've helped flesh out my own worldview in to a much more complex and thoughtful one!

Thank you again.

-Smoke

----------


## Steven Douglas

Cheers, Smoke!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Roy is like a pit bull on a ragged chew toy with that one. He lacks the capacity - truly has no space in his brain - to see that there really is enough land to go around for everyone. Whether that is true or not makes no difference whatsoever to Roy. You could completely outlaw and abolish _all land speculation and rental practices, public or private_, and Roy would still see private land ownership, in his truly limited mindset, as somehow forcing others to labor on behalf of fellow landowners (even if, hypothetically, _everyone_ was a landowner, and nobody ever paid rents of any kind).  
> 
> In Roy's mind, the mere fact of land ownership means that you are depriving others of what they otherwise had the natural liberty to use - which he sees as an objectively self-evident and undeniable fact of nature, which he wants declared as a right, as in _"all people have an equal liberty claim to all land usage at all times"_ - based on the philosophy and writings of King Henry George. 
> 
> Roy conflates government, community and nature as a single unit, which he say "provides" both land and its value.
> 
> Roy is not in favor of making it possible to eliminate rent, or rent-seeking (as this, of course, would defeat his favorite taxing scheme). He favors an exemption for individuals, but for land value determined and controlled by government only.  For as positively evil as rent-seeking is in his mind when private landownership is concerned, he emphatically supports rent-seeking as the exclusive power of government. Then, in his mind, it is not parasitic, given his erroneous view that government "provides" infrastructure (as opposed to those who actually do pay for it, and establish government for that purpose, among others.) 
> 
> Like so many well-intending but completely misguided would-be social engineers before him, Roy honestly believes that what is evil of individuals (as HE sees it) cannot be evil for government, so long as it aligns with his ideology, his intentions, his plans. That is where government becomes special, and subject to exceptions.  Everything else, of course, would be tyranny and evil.


+rep

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, you know it, and you have no answers.  So you post something stupid and irrelevant.  Simple.


Not true.  It's just that you are impervious to reason and refuse to listen to my answers.  The above pictures illustrate that.  As the old cliche goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

----------


## mczerone

> But government unfortunately pretends not to understand that it is the landowner who is infringing rights by force, just as in centuries past it pretended not to know it was the slave owner infringing rights by force.


But if we just put you in charge of a single, world-wide land govt, everything will be just peachy, right? Because you don't pretend not to understand anything...

----------


## redbluepill

> It has already been recognized in this thread that LVT is the "least bad" tax.


Maybe by you but not everyone. Some of them have been saying that it is the worst tax (and I bet some of them are for the Fair Tax or flat income tax).





> but that doesn't make it good. It's incorrect to claim that "...land value tax is potentially beneficial for society since, unlike other taxes, it would not impose an excess burden on economic activity (leading to "deadweight loss")"
> 
> Taking money out of the economy via taxation (or inflation) is a burden on economic activity. Money taken via the LVT could have gone to charities, production, housing, etc. The rational solution is to voluntarily donate to whatever organization is in one's rational self interest.


The LVT is the only productive tax. It would return to other individuals what rightfully belongs to them (the land value outside of the owners own improvements). They would then put the money back into the economy themselves. Also, the LVT would encourage landlords to be productive with their land and not let it sit idle. This itself would help circulate more money in the economy.

Why is it some of the poorest countries in history had the biggest gaps between rich and poor? The wealthy were the ones who were granted large tracts of land by the government which forced the less privileged to work under them. Just look at the history of Mexico and Southern United States for examples.

----------


## redbluepill

> But if we just put you in charge of a single, world-wide land govt, everything will be just peachy, right? Because you don't pretend not to understand anything...


Nearly all georgists are for decentralized government if not a complete elimination of the state.

----------


## WilliamC

> Roy is like a pit bull on a ragged chew toy with that one. He lacks the capacity - truly has no space in his brain - to see that there really is enough land to go around for everyone. Whether that is true or not makes no difference whatsoever to Roy. You could completely outlaw and abolish _all land speculation and rental practices, public or private_, and Roy would still see private land ownership, in his truly limited mindset, as somehow forcing others to labor on behalf of fellow landowners (even if, hypothetically, _everyone_ was a landowner, and nobody ever paid rents of any kind).  
> 
> In Roy's mind, the mere fact of land ownership means that you are depriving others of what they otherwise had the natural liberty to use - which he sees as an objectively self-evident and undeniable fact of nature, which he wants declared as a right, as in _"all people have an equal liberty claim to all land usage at all times"_ - based on the philosophy and writings of King Henry George. 
> 
> Roy conflates government, community and nature as a single unit, which he say "provides" both land and its value.
> 
> Roy is not in favor of making it possible to eliminate rent, or rent-seeking (as this, of course, would defeat his favorite taxing scheme). He favors an exemption for individuals, but for land value determined and controlled by government only.  For as positively evil as rent-seeking is in his mind when private landownership is concerned, he emphatically supports rent-seeking as the exclusive power of government. Then, in his mind, it is not parasitic, given his erroneous view that government "provides" infrastructure (as opposed to those who actually do pay for it, and establish government for that purpose, among others.) 
> 
> Like so many well-intending but completely misguided would-be social engineers before him, Roy honestly believes that what is evil of individuals (as HE sees it) cannot be evil for government, so long as it aligns with his ideology, his intentions, his plans. That is where government becomes special, and subject to exceptions.  Everything else, of course, would be tyranny and evil.


Dude, you are spending far to much time and mental effort on this, but I also have appreciated your refutations 

Personally I gave up on memebots back in the '90's when I first encountered them on usenet, but hey, I remember what it was like.

I hope you are being sufficiently entertained 'cause I doubt you are being paid for your psychoanalysis.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> The LVT is the only productive tax. It would return to other individuals what rightfully belongs to them (the land value outside of the owner’s own improvements). They would then put the money back into the economy themselves. Also, the LVT would encourage landlords to be productive with their land and not let it sit idle. This itself would help circulate more money in the economy.
> 
> Why is it some of the poorest countries in history had the biggest gaps between rich and poor? The wealthy were the ones who were granted large tracts of land by the government which forced the less privileged to work under them. Just look at the history of Mexico and Southern United States for examples.


Incorrect.  The only productive tax is tariffs and other fees on imported goods.  What makes you think the tax would go back into the economy in an efficient, "fair" way?  The tendency is for tax money to be used for welfare (for corporations even moreso than individuals) and warfare.  Why is it important that landowners not let their land "sit idle"?  One of the reasons people buy land is so they can enjoy it and be relatively idle as well as improve their living standards.  

The reason some countries have such huge gaps between rich and poor is because the government enables theft from the poor and usually destroys the middle class entirely.  Mexico, for example, is cleptocratic. (Eduardo can tell you all about this)  If the government weren't destroying and stealing wealth, more people would have it.  As bad as things are in this country, "poor" people still have luxuries that truly poor people in 3rd world countries could never dream of.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Nearly all georgists are for decentralized government if not a complete elimination of the state.


How does one expect to eliminate the state and collect an LVT at the same time?

----------


## redbluepill

> See my previous post re: artificial scarcity. 
> 
> 
> 
> In a nutshell, LVT gives incentive for government to drive up land value to maximize revenues. A primary mechanism for doing just that is to keep land artificially scarce (i.e., "exclude it from all use by others"), which of course runs contrary to, and in direct conflict with, the Georgist tenet that everyone is at liberty to use all lands.  LVT proponents take this further by adding "without just compensation" -- _whatever that means._
> 
> Open up "all lands" could be the reverse of destroying four rare works of art so that the value of the surviving work is worth more than the previous individual works combined.  By adding more works of the same now-not-so-rare art, you can actually diminish the overall rate of return as a siphon on productivity - since less scarcity of everything exerts downward pressure on both value and prices of everything - including land value. This runs counter to real productivity, as the focus for government will always be on maximizing value of existing lands, by withholding resources required that contribute to real productivity that benefits more than just infrastructure or a "land value exemption" for individuals through an LVT -- like real costs of goods and services to individuals. LVT is factored into all of that by firms, and those costs are ALWAYS passed to the consumer. 
> 
> New lands and resources under an LVT are only added when it can be demonstrated that it a) it does not subtract from the value of existing land (read=competition that drives both prices and value down) and b) will contribute to a NET increase of overall LVT.  So you experience a crunch in artificial scarcity until it can be proved, _not that real competing productivity would increase_, but rather that it will result in productivity that also results in a equal or growing _rate of LVT return to government_. So the deadweight loss comes from all the land that is withheld (but never accounted for), as all productivity is reckoned strictly from a narrow lens of "artificially available lands".  
> ...



Under a true Georgist system the government would not dictate what the tax will be because the tax would be determined by the market. Realtors assess the value of land all the time (and can determine the value created by the landholder so this is not factored into the tax). If the government kept land out of the hands of the people you would not have a true geolibertarian society. All of your scare tactics can be applied to any condition and any society.

Its not just the current government that keeps its citizens from accessing what nature provides. Want to know who else does this? Look up the names Ted Turner and John Malone

----------


## redbluepill

> How does one expect to eliminate the state and collect an LVT at the same time?


In a stateless society people would continue to form contracts and communities. Under a geoanarchist society a part of the contract could include a ground rent aka LVT.

_Anarchist geoism

In a libertarian or anarchist world, some people might be unaffiliated anarcho-capitalists, contracting with various firms for services. But if we look at markets today, we see instead contractual communities. We see condominiums, homeowner associations, cooperatives, and neighborhood associations. For temporary lodging, folks stay in hotels, and stores get lumped into shopping centers. Historically, human beings have preferred to live and work in communities. Competition induces efficiency, and private communities tend to be financed from the rentals of sites and facilities, since this is the most efficient source of funding. Henry George recognized that site rents are the most efficient way to finance community goods because it is a fee paid for benefits, paying back that value added by those benefits. Private communities today such as hotels and condominiums use geoist financing. Unfortunately, governments do not.

Geoist communities would join together in leagues and associations to provide services that are more efficient on a large scale, such as defense, if needed. The voting and financing would be bottom up. The local communities would elect representatives, and provide finances, and would be able to secede when they felt association was no longer in their interest._

http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Dude, you are spending far to much time and mental effort on this, but I also have appreciated your refutations 
> 
> Personally I gave up on memebots back in the '90's when I first encountered them on usenet, but hey, I remember what it was like.
> 
> I hope you are being sufficiently entertained 'cause I doubt you are being paid for your psychoanalysis.


I'm actually doing it for myself, more than anything else. I am entertained, but it also helps me to hone my own thoughts, and challenge my own assumptions - something preaching to choirs can't do nearly as well. 

One of the few things I agreed with JFK on was the principle of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

----------


## Roy L

> So school me on this: you don't capisci that outright subsidies to foreign governments count as both wealth and money?


Depending on the form of subsidy, it might or might not take wealth or money out of the domestic economy.  For example, the US government has printed up large quantities of US currency for use in Iraq, including by the local government.  This is newly printed money, so it is not *money* taken from the domestic economy.  No *wealth* is taken from the domestic economy either, except to the extent that the money finds its way back to the USA and is used to purchase items for export.  The effect is to reduce the international value of US currency and currency-denominated assets, but that does not necessarily remove either money or wealth from the domestic economy.  Devaluation can indeed stimulate export industries.



> Or did I miss something?


AFAICT you missed everything.



> Also, you're right! It's not an LVT example.  What if ::: gasp ::: an LVT wasn't thought to be enough to do all the wonderful things we do now.


It's probably not.  But many things we do now to offset the harm caused by landowner privilege would no longer be needed.



> Do you think government might...oh, I don't know, want to explore the possibility of ... wait for it ... _additional revenue streams?_  You know, so that we could _"get more things done"_?


That's up to voters, just as prohibitions of robbery, rape and murder might not be enough for some voters, and they'd want to prohibit alcohol or marijuana consumption.

But everyone who is not as STUPID AS A BAG OF HAMMERS or as DISHONEST AS A LYING SACK OF $#!+ understands that the possibility people might want to prohibit marijuana or alcohol is not an argument against prohibition of robbery, rape and murder.  There are, it is true, people who are so dishonest they refuse to know that fact.



> I hear tell Hong Kong has a 15% income tax on people making over around $16K (120,000 HKD) per year.  You don't suppose that could happen here if we adopted an LVT, do you?


It might.  It has happened in HK even though HK doesn't have an LVT.  It could also happen that Chinese could be adopted as an official language here if we adopted an LVT.  Or the Padres could win the series.

Naaaahhhh...



> You know, on the idea that businesses can't do everything, and that the people themselves might want to start shouldering 'their fair share' as well?  I don't know, just a thought, wondering if that is possible, or if the Henry George Theorem made such a thing impossible.


Sometimes I am able to prophesy what people will do with great confidence -- such as that apologists for landowner privilege will tell stupid lies -- but other times, not so much.  I am much more able to predict the results of government actions than what those actions will be.



> Are there any examples of different tiers, levels and classes of taxes, even in a country where a single tax might have once been considered more than sufficient?


Well, Kiaochow used a single tax on land value very successfully for over a decade in the early 20th C.  It used no other taxes, and grew explosively.  Then it was taken from Germany by the Japanese (who were then our allies) in WW I, and the single tax on land replaced with a Japanese-style colonial tax system.  So, you never know.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Under a true Georgist system the government would not dictate what the tax will be because the tax would be determined by the market.


Yes, and under a purely Keynesian system, "liquidity" and "elasticity" would only be used in cases of emergencies, to help ease the economy in the case of monetary deflation, to help keep an economy from going into a deflationary depression. 

I don't look at just the ideals or intentions of any system.  I also look at the ever-present players, public and private, who would operate under its regime, and who have already proved ready, willing and able to exploit.  So my only concern, even if I thought it was workable, effectual or desirable in the ideal (which I certainly do not in this case), is how easy it is to get around or otherwise exploit - publicly AND/OR privately.  Despite all the stated ideals, this one has nothing but massive exploitation and the potential for tyranny and oppression written all over it. 

It took a hundred years of monetary policies that were VERY difficult to get around and exploit before the founders of the Federal Reserve system to finally overcome the few principles that were in place, which seeded the corruption and debasement of the money supply that took another hundred years to finally trash the world's economy.   Georgist ideology doesn't even require a hundred years to exploit (again, publicly or privately).  It can already go hand-in-hand, side-by-side with any taxing system.  And whatever governments do now to exploit property "assessed" values -- that already fits like a glove into a Georgist LVT system, regardless of how well-intended are the "more pure" proponents' visions and best intentions. 

GUBMINT: "Slurp, gulp, thanks for your LVT system, Georgist pointy-heads. We get what you were trying to do, but that probably won't be enough, to be honest. We have a lot to accomplish, a lot more to envision, imagine, and to get done _fer da gud o' da peephole_ - so we'll take it from here and make it REALLY work! Kudos for your great addition, BTW." ::: pat pat pat :::

----------


## WilliamC

> I'm actually doing it for myself, more than anything else. I am entertained, but it also helps me to hone my own thoughts, and challenge my own assumptions - something preaching to choirs can't do nearly as well. 
> 
> One of the few things I agreed with JFK on was the principle of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.


"In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.” 

Ben Franklin

----------


## Roy L

> Incorrect.


No, it is quite correct; you are just comprehensively ignorant of economics, and everything you have said on the subject in this thread has been objectively and provably false.



> The only productive tax is tariffs and other fees on imported goods.


No, that's objectively and provably false.  Such taxes impoverish society by reducing efficiency and increasing costs.  This has been known since Adam Smith's time, if not before.



> What makes you think the tax would go back into the economy in an efficient, "fair" way?


LVT is only guaranteed to be fair and efficient in how it OBTAINS revenue.  It says little about how the revenue will be spent, other than that government's financial incentive will be to spend it in ways that make the land within its jurisdiction more advantageous to occupy and use.  But governments do not always respond to financial incentives.



> The tendency is for tax money to be used for welfare (for corporations even moreso than individuals) and warfare.


Warfare is a major government expense in the USA, but not in most other advanced countries.  Welfare for US corporations, especially in banking, finance, insurance, real estate and agriculture, has been orders of magnitude greater than welfare for individuals.



> Why is it important that landowners not let their land "sit idle"?


It violates others' rights and increases costs across the economy.



> One of the reasons people buy land is so they can enjoy it and be relatively idle as well as improve their living standards.


Using land for one's own enjoyment as a residence, etc. is not holding it idle.  If you want to pay the full rent that others would pay to use it more productively, fine, it's your money.  Lots of people would willingly pay a bit to have a little more land to enjoy.  But speculators hold land idle without ever using, enjoying, or even visiting it.  They should be required to compensate the community for depriving others of the opportunity to use it, not rewarded with huge capital gains when it is rezoned.



> The reason some countries have such huge gaps between rich and poor is because the government enables theft from the poor and usually destroys the middle class entirely.


And the main way they do that is through privilege, especially landowner privilege.



> Mexico, for example, is cleptocratic. (Eduardo can tell you all about this)  If the government weren't destroying and stealing wealth, more people would have it.


The government of Mexico has also created an environment of landowner privilege whereby a few dozen extremely wealthy families own most of the land by value.



> As bad as things are in this country, "poor" people still have luxuries that truly poor people in 3rd world countries could never dream of.


Because unlike ours, their governments don't intercede on their behalf to protect them against the effects of the removal of their liberty in the service of landowner privilege.

----------


## Roy L

> Nonsense.


Fact.



> There are plenty of landless people who get by.


Only because government intercedes on their behalf.



> Some live in their cars, RVs, etc.


They have to park somewhere.  Luckily, government lets them use public land.  Without it, they would have to serve a landowner or die.



> Some live in parks and such as vagabonds, and so forth.  Not everyone needs land to be happy.


Everyone needs land to exist.



> The world doesn't "owe" anyone anything, including land.


*Government* owes everyone security in their equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the products of their labor.  That is government's basic function and only valid reason to exist.  Enabling landowner privilege violates that sacred trust.



> If anything, the landless will be better off in an emergency because they know firsthand how to live without owning land.


"Slaves are actually better off, because they know how to work in an emergency."



> They also don't have the liability that land ownership necessarily entails.


Idiocy.  The only liability landowning entails is the tax liability, such as it is.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy is like a pit bull on a ragged chew toy with that one. He lacks the capacity - truly has no space in his brain - to see that there really is enough land to go around for everyone.


No, stop lying, Steven.  I have stated that there is enough land for everyone; those who own it just won't let others use it unless they pay rent for exercising their rights to liberty.



> Whether that is true or not makes no difference whatsoever to Roy.


Whereas Steven chooses deliberately to lie.



> You could completely outlaw and abolish _all land speculation and rental practices, public or private_, and Roy would still see private land ownership, in his truly limited mindset, as somehow forcing others to labor on behalf of fellow landowners (even if, hypothetically, _everyone_ was a landowner, and nobody ever paid rents of any kind).


Sure: say one person owns all the land on earth, the rest of us all own land on Mars.  The landowners who have no way to get to their Martian land, or to survive on it if they could, must serve the guy who owns all the land on earth, or die.  They don't pay any rent.  They just work for him all day as his slaves in return for food enough to live.

Steven always has to refuse to know this indisputable fact: if you don't own enough good land to live on, and government (or private charity) does not intercede on your behalf, you must either serve a landowner or die.  Steven must refuse to know that fact, because he has already realized that it proves his beliefs are false and evil.



> In Roy's mind, the mere fact of land ownership means that you are depriving others of what they otherwise had the natural liberty to use


And also in objective physical reality.



> - which he sees as an objectively self-evident and undeniable fact of nature,


Which it indisputably is.



> which he wants declared as a right,


_Recognized_.  Not "declared."



> as in _"all people have an equal liberty claim to all land usage at all times"_


You either believe people have equal rights to liberty or you don't.  You don't.  Simple.



> - based on the philosophy and writings of King Henry George.


It has nothing to do with Henry George, which is why I neither call nor consider myself a Georgist.  I didn't even know who Henry George was until someone on Usenet called me "a modern day Henry George."



> Roy conflates government, community and nature as a single unit,


No, that is another lie Steven is telling.  I am careful to distinguish them and the different things they provide to the land user.  Steven is just telling lie after lie after lie.  Stop lying, Steven.



> which he say "provides" both land and its value.


By definition, nature provides the land and the physical qualities that may make it more or less valuable depending on how people want to use it (soil that may make land more advantageous for agriculture may make it less advantageous for building a skyscraper; but either way, nature is the one providing it).  Government provides services and infrastructure that make the land more advantageous to use, the community provides opportunities and amenities that make it more advantageous to use.  The landowner qua landowner does not provide anything to the user except pockets hungry for rent.



> Roy is not in favor of making it possible to eliminate rent,


Steven is to be congratulated at this point, as he has actually posted part of a sentence that is not a lie.  Rent is a natural phenomenon of the market, and necessary to efficient allocation.  That is why land nationalization on the socialist/communist model is wrong-headed and cannot work.



> or rent-seeking (as this, of course, would defeat his favorite taxing scheme).


No, recovery of publicly created rents for public purposes and benefit is not rent seeking.  Rent seeking is when PRIVATE interests try to pocket publicly created rents.



> He favors an exemption for individuals, but for land value determined and controlled by government only.


No, Steven just continues to lie, as usual.  The exemption is for land *RENT*, not *value*.  Land *rent* is determined by the market, though it is of course strongly influenced by government activities.  Land *value*, specifically, is strongly influenced by taxes.



> For as positively evil as rent-seeking is in his mind when private landownership is concerned, he emphatically supports rent-seeking as the exclusive power of government.


See above.  Steven just refuses to know the fact that recovery of *publicly created* rent for public purposes and benefit is just, while *private appropriation* of *publicly created* rent for *private* purposes and benefit is unjust, because he has already realized that that fact proves his beliefs are false and evil.



> Then, in his mind, it is not parasitic, given his erroneous view that government "provides" infrastructure (as opposed to those who actually do pay for it, and establish government for that purpose, among others.)


Steven is now trying for a new world record in dishonesty, and just might achieve it.  He knows that it is accurate, correct and honest to say that GM provides cars even though it is employees who actually do the work and shareholders who established the company for that purpose.  He just decided deliberately to lie again, and claim that we can't accurately use the word, "government" to describe the provider of benefits that people and communities avail themselves of by means of that institution.  It's a stupid and puerile lie, so it fits in very well with every other "argument" he has offered.



> Like so many well-intending but completely misguided would-be social engineers before him, Roy honestly believes that what is evil of individuals (as HE sees it) cannot be evil for government, so long as it aligns with his ideology, his intentions, his plans.


No, with the facts of objective physical reality, which I merely identify.



> That is where government becomes special, and subject to exceptions.  Everything else, of course, would be tyranny and evil.


Government has a particular job to do, which only it can do.  Mature and honest people are willing to know that fact.  Childish, lying, $#!+-for-brains "meeza hatesa gubmint" propertarians are not.  Simple.

----------


## redbluepill

> Incorrect.  The only productive tax is tariffs and other fees on imported goods.


Tariffs are far from productive. Only certain corporations benefit from tariffs (and the politicians who profit from them). Other companies and consumers pay the price for the tariffs that benefit a few.




> What makes you think the tax would go back into the economy in an efficient, "fair" way? The tendency is for tax money to be used for welfare (for corporations even moreso than individuals) and warfare.


Geolibertarians call for a decentralization of government to complement a Georgist system. Decentralized governments are less likely to use tax dollars for corporate welfare or warfare.




> Why is it important that landowners not let their land "sit idle"?  One of the reasons people buy land is so they can enjoy it and be relatively idle as well as improve their living standards.


Because there is something wrong when someone can hoard large tracts of the best land while others are crammed into hovels. 




> The reason some countries have such huge gaps between rich and poor is because the government enables theft from the poor and usually destroys the middle class entirely.  Mexico, for example, is cleptocratic. (Eduardo can tell you all about this)  If the government weren't destroying and stealing wealth, more people would have it.  As bad as things are in this country, "poor" people still have luxuries that truly poor people in 3rd world countries could never dream of.


The government allowed for the theft of land already occupied by the natives. Up until the early 20th century nearly all the land was owned by only around 800 something landlords. Those landlords could essentially force the peasants to work on their ranches for very little pay.  That was a huge contributor to the wealth gap and I believe it is the biggest contributor to poverty around the world.

Curious, how would you deal with this kind of situation in a poor country? Because it seems like a lot of so-called libertarians would allow the landlords to continue to own all the excess land despite the fact it was granted to them by the government. These are the vulgar libertarians Karl Carson warns about. Those who are apologists for the current situation despite the fact it is and was nothing like a free market.

And yes, its not nearly as bad in the US because you didnt have the land grabs you see in Central and South America. However, the land grabs were worse in the South (due to their plantation economy) which is major contributor to the wealth gap in that region.

----------


## redbluepill

> Yes, and under a purely Keynesian system, "liquidity" and "elasticity" would only be used in cases of emergencies, to help ease the economy in the case of monetary deflation, to help keep an economy from going into a deflationary depression. 
> 
> I don't look at just the ideals or intentions of any system.  I also look at the ever-present players, public and private, who would operate under its regime, and who have already proved ready, willing and able to exploit.  So my only concern, even if I thought it was workable, effectual or desirable in the ideal (which I certainly do not in this case), is how easy it is to get around or otherwise exploit - publicly AND/OR privately.  Despite all the stated ideals, this one has nothing but massive exploitation and the potential for tyranny and oppression written all over it. 
> 
> It took a hundred years of monetary policies that were VERY difficult to get around and exploit before the founders of the Federal Reserve system to finally overcome the few principles that were in place, which seeded the corruption and debasement of the money supply that took another hundred years to finally trash the world's economy.   Georgist ideology doesn't even require a hundred years to exploit (again, publicly or privately).  It can already go hand-in-hand, side-by-side with any taxing system.  And whatever governments do now to exploit property "assessed" values -- that already fits like a glove into a Georgist LVT system, regardless of how well-intended are the "more pure" proponents' visions and best intentions. 
> 
> GUBMINT: "Slurp, gulp, thanks for your LVT system, Georgist pointy-heads. We get what you were trying to do, but that probably won't be enough, to be honest. We have a lot to accomplish, a lot more to envision, imagine, and to get done _fer da gud o' da peephole_ - so we'll take it from here and make it REALLY work! Kudos for your great addition, BTW." ::: pat pat pat :::


Why do you think I'm a libertarian? Any system can be corrupted and controlled to benefit the elitists. Break up the the US into hundreds of city states so everyone can pick the society that best suits their world view. I will choose the one that best suits mine.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, stop lying, Steven.  I have stated that there is enough land for everyone; those who own it just won't let others use it unless they pay rent for exercising their rights to liberty.


Not quite, liar. 

MOST landowners do not charge and are not interested in any rents, at any price.  You are just excluded, that's all.  It is my home, my land (let's assume it is more land than any LVT exemption would ever allow).  It is not for rent, there is no "unless they pay", since payment is not being offered as an option, so _bugger off_.  

Furthermore, we already established that an "otherwise naturally at liberty" capacity does not establish, and is not the same as, "rights to liberty" -- not unless we first adopted the Georgist philosophy and declared "legally recognized" it a defensible right. So you might consider leaving that cart from that horse until we actually hitched it thereto. Very slippery of you, Roy, presuming rights that have not been declared recognized or acknowledged, but only presumed.




> Sure: say one person owns all the land on earth, the rest of us all own land on Mars.  The landowners who have no way to get to their Martian land, or to survive on it if they could, must serve the guy who owns all the land on earth, or die.  They don't pay any rent.  They just work for him all day as his slaves in return for food enough to live.


Wow, I see your point.  One ENTITY owning all land and charging rents really would create a slave market, wouldn't it!  I see the light, Roy. Even if a slave owner promised a massive return of great benefits and blessings to all the slaves (like, oh, say, free lodging, as opposed to free food, for all slaves), it would still be slavery. Clear so far! Yes, that would be despicably terrible if any such entity tried any such thing.  I say draw and quarter such bastards for even thinking along those lines.  

Well. I guess the only way to prevent one entity from pulling such a dastardly monopolistic rent-seeking stunt would be to make it so that as many people could own land of their own as possible. Any artificial barriers to individual landownership could be declared criminal. That should do the trick, yeah?




> Steven always has to refuse to know this indisputable fact: if you don't own enough good land to live on, and government (or private charity) does not intercede on your behalf, you must either serve a landowner or die.


No, Roy, on this we are in FULL agreement.  

Now read carefully, Roy, because without regard to agreement or disagreement between us, this is what forever separates us:

We both agree that there is a fundamental difference between landowners and renters. We also agree that government should intercede (or stop interceding, depending current laws and/or on your POV) in a way that allows, or even causes, an elimination of these differences. 

Your idea of eliminating the difference is for "meeza wuvs gubmint" to assume all ownership, and to eliminate private ownership altogether. You want the shoe transferred onto the other foot, where you believe it forever remains. Then, by tapping into what you see as "publicly created value" of those who occupy and use land exclusively, you can pay for "living" exemptions for individuals.  

My idea of eliminating the difference between landowners and renters is to unblock all artificial barriers to ownership _by everyone_ - thus making it possible, and at least eliminating artificial barriers, for everyone to be entirely free of rents - not just for shelter, but _for their labor pursuits as well_.  

And I also expect that to result in an unequal distribution of valuable lands.  I don't have a problem with that.  I'm not a "meeza needs gubmint to redistribute land value" kind of dork.  If you're sitting on the best mining claim - the only shaft that is producing real big nuggets from a motherlode, and everyone around you is coming up with sludge and powder, my first thought isn't to be a collectivized *claim jumper.* That would be theft, Roy.  No "naturally otherwise at liberty" observation would equate to a right to equal access, AKA - a rationale FOR THEFT.  No, if you found and claimed it first, then screw me and everyone else's coveting asses.

Now, if you wanted to stake a claim on an entire mountain or valley as your own, to enhance your chances at being "lucky", by preventing others from even looking, I would naturally tell you to screw yourself, and involve government in the removal of such an artificial and unrealistic barrier.  But if you truly have the best claim that is of a size that you can actually work?  Well, good for you, Roy, and tough $#@! for everyone else.   

I will never buy into the notion of publicly "created" value, because not all the "public" was involved in that creation. Even with public roads, the fact that we must offer a right of passage on publicly created roads is NOT because it is "publicly created value".  It is ONLY because rights of ingress and egress - actual physical liberty to cross boundaries and get from point A to B, which rights existed prior to the creation of that road.  The road itself, and improvements thereof, could have been PRIVATELY funded and created, and it would make no difference.  The land itself, on the other hand - the millions of point A's and B's - that isn't "publicly created value", for which I would be willing to acknowledge the public as having any rightful claim.  

You want it to be otherwise. You want an exclusive mining claim to be rented only - because you want everyone to have a "natural liberty right to access ALL that nature provides".  And I'm all for a giant smack-down of that kind of nasty everybody-owns-everything thinking.  

Neither the latecomers and newcomers to the community, nor the government that was HIRED by the community to create common roads, city lights, police and fire departments, can take credit for, or have any kind of actual claim on, value taken from the land itself (with few exceptions, like water rights and such).  And barring your "otherwise naturally at liberty to use all that nature provided" _observation_ (which you want *"recognized"* as an actual right) there is no "publicly created value" to tap into. 

I don't "recognize" what I see as your serious distortion of reality as being real enough to be legally "declared".




> You either believe people have equal rights to liberty or you don't.  You don't.  Simple.


Nice generalization.  I do believe that people have the right to ingress and egress - to get freely from point A to point B unmolested.  Oh...wait...that's not what you meant by "liberty", is it?  You meant "at liberty", as in a "positive claim" to access ALL POINTS that you would "*otherwise* be at liberty" to access.  

No, I don't believe in that particular kind of "liberty" at all as a right that I would want the law to "recognize". Sounds positively, despicably monstrous to me.




> It has nothing to do with Henry George, which is why I neither call nor consider myself a Georgist.  I didn't even know who Henry George was until someone on Usenet called me "a modern day Henry George."


I don't care what you call it, or where you got it from.  If you independently discovered the Coanda Effect, I would still refer to it as the Coanda Effect. 




> By definition, nature provides the land and the physical qualities that may make it more or less valuable depending on how people want to use it (soil that may make land more advantageous for agriculture may make it less advantageous for building a skyscraper; but either way, nature is the one providing it).


Yes, 'tis correct. And also correct that land is not, generally speaking, *fungible*. 




> Government provides services and infrastructure that make the land more advantageous to use...


Yes, just as construction workers "provide" services and "infrastructure" that make my land more advantageous to use.  That would be correct as well.  And when I pay them, they go away. Then comes the landscaper, gardener, the pesticide guy, and the security guy that installs the alarms.  Each of them are paid, some one time, some ongoing - but that's that.  They "provide" goods and services, as part of contracts, which are always paid for.  Not ONE of these entities has a rightful claim on anything but the contract THEY COMPETED FOR and the moneys they received as a result of FULFILLING those contracts.  After that, our business is concluded, and I can hire and fire each and every one of them at will.  

*NEXT...*




> ...the community provides opportunities and amenities that make it more advantageous to use.


What can be called a defining characteristic of "community" cannot be converted to a claim of ownership, entitlement or control by any single entity. That nebulous thing called "the community" is not government, but individuals, society, and commerce, and is comprised of me and other private entities and interests, most of whom/which are neither public nor are they *"affected by the public interest"* (legal term, just in case you didn't know).  That is without regard to our free and separate associations, or even the associations we might have in common. 

Nobody owns me (an integral part of the community), nor can they credit themselves for ANY part which I freely take (or abstain from taking) in "the community".  Nor, can it be said, that "the community" is some kind of homogeneous blob that is fully interconnected. Everyone has their own market, their own interests, their own "division of labor".  




> Steven is to be congratulated at this point, as he has actually posted part of a sentence that is not a lie.  Rent is a natural phenomenon of the market, and necessary to efficient allocation.


Not quite. As we know from the examples of landowners and government itself, RENT is _not an universal phenomenon_. We can debate whether it is "natural" or not (or even whether "the market" is natural), but rent itself is not universal.   




> That is why land nationalization on the socialist/communist model is wrong-headed and cannot work.


It is actually why land nationalization using ANY model is wrong-headed and cannot work.  George and Marx's antagonism to one another is just as meaningless to me as the arguments of the progressive left and conservative right, as who should be in control of, and benefit most from, *a collectivized money pool*. The answer: NEITHER OF YOU THIEVING BASTARDS. DO NOT COLLECTIVIZE IT IN THE NAME OF ANYTHING.  *A pox on both their houses* for even thinking in those terms, and a pox on the house of both George and Marx for their maniacal and market enslaving and manipulative collectivization thoughts as well.

----------


## redbluepill

> "In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it. 
> 
> Ben Franklin


Kind of ridiculous you guys would declare libertarians who support the LVT to be your 'enemies' when we probably agree with you guys on 95% of other issues. You don't see this type of animosity towards those who support the National Sales Tax, flat tax, tariffs, etc.

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## Steven Douglas

> Kind of ridiculous you guys would declare libertarians who support the LVT to be your 'enemies' when we probably agree with you guys on 95% of other issues. You don't see this type of animosity towards those who support the National Sales Tax, flat tax, tariffs, etc.


You do know that the term "enemies" is figurative, don't you, and that the animosity is toward the issue more than the person?  And note also that nobody is calling for banning or censorship over this.  Try that on a far left or right site. 

In reality, we would only be true "enemies" if we actually went to war over the issue.  Of course, come to think of it, I don't think that either of us would be opposed to actually going to war over it. I know Roy wouldn't. He implied as much early on in the thread.  I know I definitely wouldn't.   

All that to say, we can pull up our big girl panties and disagree as vehemently and as passionately as we want to. It's all part of public debate and discourse. If it got truly ugly, the mods could intervene at any time, it's what they're there for.

----------


## Roy L

> Kind of ridiculous you guys would declare libertarians who support the LVT to be your 'enemies' when we probably agree with you guys on 95% of other issues. You don't see this type of animosity towards those who support the National Sales Tax, flat tax, tariffs, etc.


Of course not.  You have to be ultra-defensive when you are serving the greatest evil in the history of the world.  You can't permit yourself to know any facts, so you have to attack anyone who identifies facts as viciously and dishonestly as possible.  That's why feudal "libertarians" -- actually propertarians, worshippers of the Great God Property -- always attack geoists with a howling, maniacal ferocity that makes their typical treatment of fascists, communists or even monarchists look like fawning deference.

----------


## Roy L

> I think you summed up his point of view quite well.


Yes, you think that because everything he said about my point of view was a flat-out lie.  The lies about what I have plainly written have to be big enough, stupid enough, and dishonest enough to rationalize an annual Holocaust before you will approve and agree with them.  You need to see clear evidence that there is an excuse -- it doesn't matter how absurd -- for you to force billions of people into permanent poverty and murder 15 million of them a year, for money.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Of course not.  You have to be ultra-defensive when you are serving the greatest evil in the history of the world.


 The greatest evil in the history of the world is The State.  Humanity never saw such ultra-violent crime as the State commits before the moment that States arose.  The State even gives itself the authority to prevent people from owning land, you know.  It can also throw people off of land at will, unlike landowners.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

To paraphrase one of the commonly recurringly repeated exchanges in this thread:

Evil Parasite: "Beating up people is not an effective way of dealing with others."

Roy L.: "Actually, beating people up has proven itself historically to be a very effective way of dealing with people.  Mature adults realize this.  This is just more 'meeza hate beating up people' puerile nonsense."

Evil Parasite: Silence (while thinking "Is it even worth it to reply to this guy?  Nah.")

Roy L.: "How's that not-beating-people-up thing going for ya in Somalia?  Point, set, match.  Thou Hast Been Utterly Destroyed."

Evil Parasite: "Uh huh."

----------


## Roy L

> The greatest evil in the history of the world is The State.


Laughable, childish mewling.  The contrast of Slovenia with Somalia proves you wrong.  Why can't you ever remember that?



> Humanity never saw such ultra-violent crime as the State commits before the moment that States arose.


Of course it did.  The ultra-violent crime was just committed piecemeal, one torture-murder at a time, and was not recorded because before the state arose, no one ever learned to write.  And if the state had not arisen, no one would ever have learned to write. 



> The State even gives itself the authority to prevent people from owning land, you know.


Nope; no one can possibly own land in the first place without the state's help.  Never happened, never can.



> It can also throw people off of land at will, unlike landowners.


You know that landowners demand a privilege of depriving others of their liberty -- "throwing them off of land" -- at will.  Of course you do.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Laughable, childish mewling.  The contrast of Slovenia with Somalia proves you wrong.  Why can't you ever remember that?
> 
> Of course it did.  The ultra-violent crime was just committed piecemeal, one torture-murder at a time, and was not recorded because before the state arose, no one ever learned to write.  And if the state had not arisen, no one would ever have learned to write. 
> 
> Nope; no one can possibly own land in the first place without the state's help.  Never happened, never can.
> 
> You know that landowners demand a privilege of depriving others of their liberty -- "throwing them off of land" -- at will.  Of course you do.


WRONG!!!!  Somalia has never invaded another country/land and murdered thousands of people.  Your desperation is getting the better of you.  No Stateless society has the means to commit mass atrocities.  More than 90 MILLION people were killed by various State forces during WWII alone.  The entire population of Somalia is only ~9 million.  You are either just joking or INCREDIBLY ignorant.  Get yourself a copy of "Democracy: The God That Failed", by Hans Herman-Hoppe.

There was no such means for this kind of mass murder before the rise of States.  Bringing up the subject of state sponsored land ownership is just a red herring, but it isn't true anyway.

All that book-learnin' you did fails you again.  I suggest again that you demand a refund from whomever mal-educated you so.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You know that landowners demand a privilege of depriving others of their liberty -- "throwing them off of land" -- at will.  Of course you do.


It is a recognized and fully defensible *right of ownership* in this country, not a privilege, Roy.  That means that a landowner throwing someone off their land would be closer to "depriving others of their confinement" than anything as they get tossed out into the open, because, once again, people _don't have_ a "liberty right" to trespass on what the law recognizes as privately owned land.  That "meeza gubmint" thing - which you mistakenly think we all hate, but really don't - protects us from that. And you. For now, anyway, and with every bit as much force as you would like exercised by the same "gubmint" to see it all work in reverse.

So until We Da You-know-who decide to enact your kooky landownership rights abolishment scheme, we are, by definition, a "propertarian" regime.  And your blah blah that compares it to Somalia, and equates landownership to slavery while blaming it for all the bloodshed, poverty, and other ills in the world, all sounds like tinfoil hat wearing gooberness to most people - including your relentless followup screeds about it only being because of agreeing with lying, evil apologists and such.  But we see your NYAH! and raise you two NYAH's!

Go ahead and propose your geoist anti-propertarian nonsense until your face turns blue, but don't expect anyone to engage in Georgist-centered language with you, as you argue from your own premises, as if they were already recognized and manifested.  Until the day we "recognize" what your fuzzy mind thinks _ought to be_ obvious to everyone, the reality is that we now "recognize" (to the degree that we do) a thing called "property rights".  _Not privileges._ Rights. And since you don't have a recognized "liberty right" claim of access to all land, let alone _all that nature provided_, regardless of your moral-ish reasoning, you are not being deprived of anything but a personal normative on your part - not a "right", just one of Roy's "oughta be's" - which I am more than happy to deprive you of. So, on the contrary, Roy, only the one being thrown off the land is treading on recognized rights, as they have no legally "recognized" rights to trespass, steal, or otherwise deprive others of what the law, not Roy, recognizes is exclusively theirs -- _as a matter of right._  

Capisci?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> It is a recognized and fully defensible *right of ownership*, not a privilege, Roy.  That means that a landowner throwing someone off their land would be closer to "depriving others of their confinement" than anything, because, once again, people _don't have_ the "liberty right" to trespass on what the law recognizes as privately owned land.  That "meeza gubmint" thing - which you mistakenly think we all hate, but really don't - protects us from you. For now, anyway.
> 
> So until We Da The-know-who decide to enact your kooky landownership rights abolishment scheme, we are, by definition, a "propertarian" regime.  And your blah blah that compares it to somalia, and equates it to slavery while blaming it for all the bloodshed, poverty, and other ills in the world, all sounds like tinfoil hat gooberness to most people - including your relentless screeds about it only being because of lying, evil apologists and such.  But we see your NYAH! and raise you two NYAH's!
> 
> Go ahead and propose your geoist anti-propertarian nonsense until your face turns blue, but don't expect anyone to engage in Georgist-centered language with you, as you argue from your own premises, as if they were already recognized and manifested.  Until the day we "recognize" what your fuzzy mind thinks _ought to be_ obvious to everyone, the reality is that we now "recognize" (to the degree that we do) a thing called "property rights".  _Not privileges._ Rights. And since you don't have a recognized "liberty right" claim of access to all land, let alone _all that nature provided_, regardless of your moral-ish reasoning, you are not being deprived of anything but a personal normative on your part - not a "right", just one of Roy's "oughta be's" - which I am more than happy to deprive him of. So, on the contrary, Roy, it is only the one being thrown off the land that is treading on recognized rights, as they have no legally "recognized" rights to trespass steal, or otherwise deprive others of what the law recognizes is theirs -- _as a matter of right._  
> 
> Capisci?


*You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Steven Douglas again. * Well done.  Roy, as usual, confuses "is" and "ought".

----------


## redbluepill

> You do know that the term "enemies" is figurative, don't you, and that the animosity is toward the issue more than the person?  And note also that nobody is calling for banning or censorship over this.  Try that on a far left or right site. 
> 
> In reality, we would only be true "enemies" if we actually went to war over the issue.  Of course, come to think of it, I don't think that either of us would be opposed to actually going to war over it. I know Roy wouldn't. He implied as much early on in the thread.  I know I definitely wouldn't.   
> 
> All that to say, we can pull up our big girl panties and disagree as vehemently and as passionately as we want to. It's all part of public debate and discourse. If it got truly ugly, the mods could intervene at any time, it's what they're there for.


My point is that I highly doubt you speak this passionately against the sales tax or income tax. National Sales Tax threads never get this heated. And no, don't blame Roy when he has to hold his own against continuous attacks from numerous posters who dont do their own research.

----------


## Roy L

> It is a recognized and fully defensible *right of ownership* in this country, not a privilege, Roy.


It's not defensible, as we have seen proved in this thread, and it is indisputably a privilege because it is a legal entitlement to profit by the uncompensated violation of others' rights, as also proved in this thread.



> That means that a landowner throwing someone off their land would be closer to "depriving others of their confinement" than anything as they get tossed out into the open,


The "open" that is owned by other landowners....?

That's clearly just another stupid lie from you, Steven.



> because, once again, people _don't have_ a "liberty right" to trespass on what the law recognizes as privately owned land.


Wrong AGAIN.  That is nothing but question begging.  The law is merely an attempt to formalize and codify rights, it does not and cannot *confer* rights.  Slavery proved that.  Why can't you ever remember that, Steven?  Why can't you ever remember that as all your "arguments" would equally have justified slavery, they are known in advance to be fallacious, with no further refutation necessary?



> That "meeza gubmint" thing - which you mistakenly think we all hate, but really don't - protects us from that.


Oh, I know you don't really hate government, Steven.  You rely on government to enforce your privileges for you, and to violate others' rights for your profit.  You just hate PAYING for the profits government shovels into your pockets, and demand that your victims be forced to pay for them instead, so you can get something for nothing, like a greedy little piggy.



> And you. For now, anyway, and with every bit as much force as you would like exercised by the same "gubmint" to see it all work in reverse.


Wrong *again*.  Government has to exercise a lot more force to enforce your privileges for you than it would need to exercise to establish liberty and justice.



> So until We Da You-know-who decide to enact your kooky landownership rights abolishment scheme, we are, by definition, a "propertarian" regime.


And getting more and more so, true.  You are going to see where that leads, Steven.  But you are not going to be honest enough with yourself to know how it got there.



> And your blah blah that compares it to Somalia,


I never claimed propertarian tyranny was similar to anarcho-capitalism, stop lying.



> and equates landownership to slavery while blaming it for all the bloodshed, poverty, and other ills in the world,


Not all, just most.



> all sounds like tinfoil hat wearing gooberness to most people - including your relentless followup screeds about it only being because of agreeing with lying, evil apologists and such.  But we see your NYAH! and raise you two NYAH's!


Content = 0.



> Go ahead and propose your geoist anti-propertarian nonsense until your face turns blue, but don't expect anyone to engage in Georgist-centered language with you, as you argue from your own premises, as if they were already recognized and manifested.


I simply identify indisputable facts and their inescapable logical implications.



> Until the day we "recognize" what your fuzzy mind thinks _ought to be_ obvious to everyone, the reality is that we now "recognize" (to the degree that we do) a thing called "property rights".  _Not privileges._ Rights.


<yawn>  As the "arguments" adduced to rationalize property "rights" in land are the same as those used to rationalize slavery, we already know that they are not rights at all, but merely unjust privileges.



> And since you don't have a recognized "liberty right" claim of access to all land, let alone _all that nature provided_, regardless of your moral-ish reasoning, you are not being deprived of anything but a personal normative on your part


That "argument" would also justify slavery, and is therefore known in advance to be fallacious.



> - not a "right", just one of Roy's "oughta be's" - which I am more than happy to deprive you of.


I am aware that you desire to violate others' rights without making just compensation.



> So, on the contrary, Roy, only the one being thrown off the land is treading on recognized rights, as they have no legally "recognized" rights to trespass, steal, or otherwise deprive others of what the law, not Roy, recognizes is exclusively theirs -- _as a matter of right._


Law does not define rights.  Slavery proved that.  Why can't you ever remember that, Steven?

----------


## Roy L

> WRONG!!!!  Somalia has never invaded another country/land and murdered thousands of people.


??  Somalia's murders are mostly _of_ Somalis _by_ Somalis, of course -- though hundreds of foreigners have been murdered by Somali pirates.



> Your desperation is getting the better of you.  No Stateless society has the means to commit mass atrocities.


That's what I said.  The atrocities of stateless societies are of necessity piecemeal, not mass.  That doesn't mean they are fewer.



> More than 90 MILLION people were killed by various State forces during WWII alone.


Yes, and the reason there were ever 90 million people there to kill in the first place -- and billions NOT to be killed, whom you conveniently ignore -- was that states *prevented 9 BILLION* _piecemeal_ murders.



> The entire population of Somalia is only ~9 million.  You are either just joking or INCREDIBLY ignorant.


<sigh>  You could with equal "logic" point to the vast amount of wealth states take from producers by taxation and shriek, "Private thieves only take a tiny fraction of that amount!" -- conveniently ignoring the fact that without the state to keep the peace and PREVENT private theft from producers, 99% of that wealth -- including almost all the wealth producers get to KEEP -- would never and could never have existed in the first place.  The superficiality of your "thinking" is breathtaking.



> Get yourself a copy of "Democracy: The God That Failed", by Hans Herman-Hoppe.


ROTFL!!!  Hans-Hermann Hoppe (get the spelling right, dude) is one of the stupidest, most dishonest, irrational and evil lying sacks of $#!+ who ever lived.  Virtually every sentence he writes is a lie.  He is the original high priest of the propertarian religion, who demands that millions of human sacrifices be laid on the altar of his Great God Property EVERY YEAR.  Anyone who would cite that foul, vile, despicable, disgusting, loathsome, anti-rational, anti-scientific, anti-economic, anti-human, anti-truth, anti-liberty, anti-justice, lying sack of rotten pig $#!+ is simply confessing that they are totally and infinitely evil.



> There was no such means for this kind of mass murder before the rise of States.


True: there could never have been that many people in the first place, as the poverty and sky-high murder rate typical of stateless societies would have kept the population down -- as Somalia's population would be if it were not getting so much aid from societies WITH states.  You just have to ignore that fact.



> Bringing up the subject of state sponsored land ownership is just a red herring, but it isn't true anyway.


It is indisputably true.  No state --> no landowning.



> All that book-learnin' you did fails you again.  I suggest again that you demand a refund from whomever mal-educated you so.


*This*, from a creature so ignorant, irrational, miseducated and dishonest that he cites the execrable _Hans-Hermann Hoppe_???!?!?!

*ROTFL!!!!!*

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> My point is that I highly doubt you speak this passionately against the sales tax or income tax. National Sales Tax threads never get this heated. And no, don't blame Roy when he has to hold his own against continuous attacks from numerous posters who dont do their own research.


 Ha, ha!  No, by all means, don't blame Roy.  Roy is a paragon of Rightness and Brilliance which we all should emulate, when we're not shielding our eyes.

By the way, Redblue, there was a conversation you and I were having which you dropped.  That conversation was somewhat interesting.

----------


## Roy L

> To paraphrase one of the commonly recurringly repeated exchanges in this thread:
> 
> Evil Parasite: "Beating up people is not an effective way of dealing with others."
> 
> Roy L.: "Actually, beating people up has proven itself historically to be a very effective way of dealing with people.  Mature adults realize this.  This is just more 'meeza hate beating up people' puerile nonsense."
> 
> Evil Parasite: Silence (while thinking "Is it even worth it to reply to this guy?  Nah.")


Right, because the Evil Parasite needs to evade the fact that beating people up is a method of dealing with others that is *so effective*, we have to take extraordinary measures -- including beating up the people that are most keen to rely on beating up others -- to stop it from being overused, and ending with all of us constantly getting beaten up.

The destroyer has such an enormous cost advantage over the producer that no significant wealth production can take place unless the destroyers are prevented from using that cost advantage to extort all the wealth from the producers.  That is why states exist.  Learn it, or remain ignorant and irrelevant permanently.



> Roy L.: "How's that not-beating-people-up thing going for ya in Somalia?  Point, set, match.  Thou Hast Been Utterly Destroyed."
> 
> Evil Parasite: "Uh huh."


Yep.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Why do you think I'm a libertarian? Any system can be corrupted and controlled to benefit the elitists. Break up the the US into hundreds of city states so everyone can pick the society that best suits their world view. I will choose the one that best suits mine.


 Microsecession FTW!  However, it doesn't seem like RoyL would have this.  Landowners everywhere and on every continent would need to fear RoyL's regime's wrath if he ever got his way.

----------


## Roy L

> My point is that I highly doubt you speak this passionately against the sales tax or income tax. National Sales Tax threads never get this heated.


True, and it's the same on the other side, too: communists and socialists never attack capitalists or propertarians half so viciously and dishonestly as they attack geoists.  The servants of injustice know their real enemies are not the servants of opposing injustices.



> And no, don't blame Roy when he has to hold his own against continuous attacks from numerous posters who dont do their own research.


Lack of research is the least of it.  Refusal to think, refusal to know self-evident and indisputable facts, the relentless lies and dishonesty: those are the real core of opposition to LVT.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> It is indisputably true.  No state --> no landowning.


 The (left) anarchists, of course, felt that no state meant no property.  Since private property is the root of all human conflict and most human ills, it must be abolished, and since the state is the institution which enables property ownership to occur, just abolish the state and all is well.

Marx was more sophisticated and pointed out that property is engrained in the bourgeois culture and would continue even in the absence of a state.  The idea of, and long-standing respect for, private property would have to be aggressively stamped out (and who better to do the stamping than the state?).  Just abolish the state and you don't solve the problem -- everyone would still respect private property.

Likewise with the specific type of property ever and always on your mind: property in natural resources (aka "land").  Even without a state, people can, have, and do establish and respect property rights in a multitudinous array of natural resources.  That can be established by case study after case study.  Historical and contemporary fact shows land ownership arising without any state.  Take that as you will, but it's definitely fact.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> *This*, from a creature so ignorant, irrational, miseducated and dishonest that he cites the execrable _Hans-Hermann Hoppe_???!?!?!
> 
> *ROTFL!!!!!*


"execrable"?    Your maleducated gaffes and grasping at straws are more amusing every day.   Hoppe has pounded the arguments of Statists into dust.  You have brought up nothing in your pro-state/anti-(land)property arguments that Hoppe hasn't refuted.  Hoppe began his career as a Marxist and knows both sides of the land-ownership debate.

You need to read The Economics and Ethics Of Private Property. (and comprehend it, which is your weak area in researching the pro-landownership side of the debate)

----------


## Roy L

> Microsecession FTW!  However, it doesn't seem like RoyL would have this.  Landowners everywhere and on every continent would need to fear RoyL's regime's wrath if he ever got his way.


I have no moral problem with secession.  I just don't think it can work on a scale smaller than city-states.  And even for them, in most cases the nation state is too strong a competitor.

----------


## Roy L

> "execrable"?    Your maleducated gaffes and grasping at straws are more amusing every day.


You have never refuted anything I have said, nor will you ever be doing so.



> Hoppe has pounded the arguments of Statists into dust.


No, Hoppe has merely made a fool of himself and cruelly exposed his own intellectual, scholastic, and moral deficiencies.



> You have brought up nothing in your pro-state/anti-(land)property arguments that Hoppe hasn't refuted.


LOL!  Hoppe hasn't refuted anything.  He just spews stupid lies, much as the propertarian ninnies have done here.  If you think he has any sort of argument I have not refuted yet, quote it here.

----------


## Roy L

> Even without a state, people can, have, and do establish and respect property rights in a multitudinous array of natural resources.


Nope.  Never happened.  They'll have property in slaves before they'll have property in natural resources.



> That can be established by case study after case study.


Nope.  There has been no such case study, and never will be.



> Historical and contemporary fact shows land ownership arising without any state.


Nope.  Never happened except among people who already had that institution as part of their culture, like settlers from landowning societies forcibly appropriating land from non-landowning societies.  Landowning has often been *transplanted from* states; but it does not arise naturally without states.



> Take that as you will, but it's definitely fact.


Nope.  It's a fabrication.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It's not defensible, as we have seen proved in this thread, and it is indisputably a privilege because it is a legal entitlement to profit by the uncompensated violation of others' rights, as also proved in this thread.


Yeah, yeah, back full circle to arguing from your geoist premises, with Roy as the lone arbiter of what is proved, indisputability established, or thoroughly refuted. 

So let it be written by Roy, so let it be conclusively proved.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You have never refuted anything I have said, nor will you ever be doing so.
> 
> No, Hoppe has merely made a fool of himself and cruelly exposed his own intellectual, scholastic, and moral deficiencies.
> 
> LOL!  Hoppe hasn't refuted anything.  He just spews stupid lies, much as the propertarian ninnies have done here.  If you think he has any sort of argument I have not refuted yet, quote it here.


  You claim to know Hoppe's arguments, but can't cite any "errors" in the aforementioned book-one of the most famous tomes on the subject?  Your blatant lack of opposition research again indicates that your schooling was a waste of time.

----------


## redbluepill

> Ha, ha!  No, by all means, don't blame Roy.  Roy is a paragon of Rightness and Brilliance which we all should emulate, when we're not shielding our eyes.


Despite all the name-calling and bickering that is taking place on both sides Roy has brought up many great points while everyone else beats around the bush. You guys are proving yourselves to be apologists for the status quo.





> By the way, Redblue, there was a conversation you and I were having which you dropped.  That conversation was somewhat interesting.


I don't monitor this forum let alone this thread every single day. If there is something I miss then repost it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Despite all the name-calling and bickering that is taking place on both sides Roy has brought up many great points while everyone else beats around the bush. You guys are proving yourselves to be apologists for the status quo.


I haven't stated anything "status quo".  I am vigorously against the status quo.  If anything, Roy advocates the Statists' status quo.

I answer Roy's points routinely, but, like Conza, he pretends they aren't valid because he doesn't like them. (see post 1372 for just one example)  Roy acts like a childish troll, and I treat him accordingly.

----------


## redbluepill

> Microsecession FTW!  However, it doesn't seem like RoyL would have this.  Landowners everywhere and on every continent would need to fear RoyL's regime's wrath if he ever got his way.


Well I don't speak for Roy, only myself. But when it comes to geoists/Georgists they are almost always small government types.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Well I don't speak for Roy, only myself. But when it comes to geoists/Georgists they are almost always small government types.


I haven't noticed this.  How does one go about eliminating land ownership without a huge State apparatus to make sure no evil-doer claims land?  I've googled-fu'ed this and haven't found a good answer.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I don't monitor this forum let alone this thread every single day. If there is something I miss then repost it.


 Oh, nor should you!  Here see where we left off:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3693178

----------


## redbluepill

> I haven't stated anything "status quo".  I am vigorously against the status quo.


No one has acknowledged that landownership as we have it now has historically caused problems worldwide and is a major source of poverty. To acknowledge such a thing doesn't make you a statist. In fact, it makes you quite the opposite. I see that government has helped generate these very problems through conquest, privilege, and violence. But if it happened 200 years ago it doesn't really matter today does it?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Well I don't speak for Roy, only myself. But when it comes to geoists/Georgists they are almost always small government types.


 The geoist participants in this thread who were more reasonable and capable of discussion were small government types.  That is: yourself and Matt Butler.  The participant incapable of conversation is not a small government type.  I found it an interesting illustration.  The quasi-minarchist Austrian geoist and the micro-secessionist geoist are both rational; the basically-conventional statist geoist is a lunatic.  Illustrated: the closer to libertarianism (anarcho-capitalism) one is, the more likely to be rationally grounded.  

You all share one particular deviation: your advocacy for an LVT, which is your "geoism".  Otherwise your politics are very very different.  Those over-all differences affect your outlooks far more than your single minor commonality.

----------


## redbluepill

> I haven't noticed this.  How does one go about eliminating land ownership without a huge State apparatus to make sure no evil-doer claims land?  I've googled-fu'ed this and haven't found a good answer.


Since I have to leave I will address this later but I posted something a few pages back I believe. I will get back to yours too helmuth.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No one has acknowledged that landownership as we have it now has historically caused problems worldwide


 History, even when working from the same historical facts, can be interpreted widely differently depending on one's economics, political philosophy, and other preconceived notions.




> and is a major source of poverty.


 And no one has presented any convincing evidence of this.  Roy L. has asserted it about a billion times.  But I still have utterly no reason to believe that millions upon millions of people die each year due to landownership.  This repeated claim by Roy thus continues to appear ludicrous to everyone but himself, you, and Matt Butler, and perhaps Henry George Himself, looking down from the spirit world.  If you are privy to proof of your claims of which the rest of us remain ignorant, perhaps you should de-ignorize us.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No one has acknowledged that landownership as we have it now has historically caused problems worldwide and is a major source of poverty. To acknowledge such a thing doesn't make you a statist. In fact, it makes you quite the opposite. I see that government has helped generate these very problems through conquest, privilege, and violence. But if it happened 200 years ago it doesn't really matter today does it?


I have acknowledged that state ownership when alongside private ownership (quasi-private/fascist) has historically caused problems (at least, that's what I meant to say).  Indeed, in the monarchical system in which the monarch was the final sole proprietor (although individuals had private parcels), we didn't see "total war".  (I elaborated on this a page or several back).  It is a known fact that geoism (in all but name) was practiced by early American settlers (which I also touched on a bunch of pages ago).  That is how private property in land came to be in the New World.  The practicalities and benefits far outweighed the downsides.  

Note also that I've willfully acknowledged that the LVT is the least bad tax.  But until the State is demolished, it is more than likely new taxes will be added.  If Roy means that he is proposing a dismantling of the State, I agree with him.  I don't get that from his posts, though.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> If Roy means that he is proposing a dismantling of the State, I agree with him.  I don't get that from his posts, though.


 He has explicitly explained that he does not propose that.  He wants to essentially maintain the "normal" trimmings of the social democratic states we are all used to.  He does want to legalize drugs.  I guess that makes him a libertarian... in the Bill Maher sense.

----------


## Roy L

> How does one go about eliminating land ownership without a huge State apparatus to make sure no evil-doer claims land?


It is only the state that enables landowning in the first place.

----------


## Roy L

> If anything, Roy advocates the Statists' status quo.


That's an absurd lie, as any honest reader of this thread knows.



> I answer Roy's points routinely,


Answering doesn't equate to responding, let alone refuting.



> but, like Conza, he pretends they aren't valid because he doesn't like them. (see post 1372 for just one example)


Refuted in post #1377.



> Roy acts like a childish troll, and I treat him accordingly.


No, I just don't let lies go unidentified, and you call it childish and trolling because you are one of the purveyors of those lies.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It is only the state that enables landowning in the first place.


Nice try. 

That is only true if you consider each and every individual as a state. Go back far enough, and it should be self-evident that, from the beginning, squatting, remaining in one place, and defending a parcel of land or a territory (in the animal sense of territory), treating it as a possession to the exclusion of others, is all that was _ever_ required to enable landowning.  The only "state" required is an individual who behaves as a sovereign, and is capable of defending his claim of ownership.  Get enough such sovereign-behaving people together, and they can form a larger state. But the larger "state" _always_ came later. People did not arise from states - unless, and again of course, you correctly recognize that all individuals are essentially sovereign states - regardless of whether or not that sovereignty is recognized, acknowledged or respected.

----------


## Roy L

> You claim to know Hoppe's arguments,


Lie.  I make no claim to be a Hoppe scholar.  I've just seen enough of his stupid garbage to know it is the kind of stupid garbage that only a practiced and constant purveyor of stupid garbage could produce.



> but can't cite any "errors" in the aforementioned book-one of the most famous tomes on the subject?


Oh, please.  The following is from Chapter 13 of "the Economics and Ethics of Private Property":

"First, it must be noted that the question of what is just or unjust
or for that matter the even more general question of what is a valid
proposition and what is notonly arises insofar as I am, and others
are, capable of propositional exchanges, i.e., of argumentation."

That is a bald falsehood.  Infants as young as three months have been shown to be averse to unjust acts, and infants as young as eight months have been shown to favor the punishment of those who commit unjust acts.  Such young children are of course incapable of argumentation.

"The question does not arise vis-à-vis a stone or fish because they are incapable
of engaging in such exchanges and of producing validity claiming propositions."

And that is a blatant non sequitur.  Hoppe's works are packed with that sort of garbage.



> Your blatant lack of opposition research again indicates that your schooling was a waste of time.


Responding to economic ignorami who think Hans-Hermann Hoppe has anything of interest to say is how I have wasted my time.

----------


## Roy L

> That is only true if you consider each and every individual as a state.


Wrong.



> Go back far enough, and it should be self-evident that, from the beginning, squatting, remaining in one place, and defending a parcel of land or a territory (in the animal sense of territory), treating it as a possession to the exclusion of others, is all that was _ever_ required to enable landowning.


Nope.  Forcible animal possession is not property.  For landowning to exist, the property status of the land must remain intact EVEN AFTER THE CLAIMANT LEAVES.



> The only "state" required is an individual who behaves as a sovereign, and is capable of defending his claim of ownership.


No.  Ownership requires recognition by others in the owner's absence.  There is no such thing as a claim of ownership until that recognition can be expected.



> Get enough such sovereign-behaving people together, and they can form a larger state.


That's not how states arose.



> But the larger "state" _always_ came later.


Nope.  There is ample historical evidence that states arose before private landowning.  Landowning always awaited a settled agricultural economy with significant fixed improvements.  Nomadic herding societies have actually had states with no landowning.



> People did not arise from states - unless, and again of course, you correctly recognize that all individuals are essentially sovereign states -


That is not correct.  It is false and absurd.



> regardless of whether or not that sovereignty is recognized, acknowledged or respected.


Such garbage goes well with "Corporations are people, my friend."

----------


## Roy L

> And no one has presented any convincing evidence of this.


That is an outrageous lie.  Henry George's most famous work, "Progress and Poverty," is ALL ABOUT how economic law -- the Law of Rent -- inexorably converts private landowner privilege into poverty and death.  Have you read it?  Of course not.



> Roy L. has asserted it about a billion times.


No, perhaps 100 in this thread, and I have provided the evidence, such as the letter showing that the condition of "freed" slaves in the American South had not improved one whit in 20 years because the former slave owners still owned all the good land.  You just found excuses to dismiss, ignore and ridicule that evidence.



> But I still have utterly no reason to believe that millions upon millions of people die each year due to landownership.


Lie.  Almost all those who die of poverty-related causes -- estimated at 18 million per year -- are poor primarily because they are landless: they have been stripped of their rights to liberty by the institution of private landowning without just compensation, and must consequently labor for the unearned profit of landowners before they can devote any of the fruits of their labor to their own welfare.  I have posted this before:

_How AID goes WRONG
A Cautionary Tale
A Quaker enterprise in the Ganges Delta

The much travelled author Karl Eskelund describes the effort made by a band of young American and English Quakers in trying to assist some of the Indian population, millions of whom live at starvation level.

The young idealists took up their task in 1946 at the village district of Pifa, which lies in the Ganges Delta. They were fully aware that their work would test their patience, for in India you can get no results 'at five minutes past twelve.' But after having outlined their plans to the peasants, the fishermen and the landowners - which met with general approval - they organised a co-operative enterprise for cultivating the land and marketing the produce. They set up day schools for the children, evening schools for adults, clinics et cetera.

After overcoming the initial difficulties, they saw signs of progress. Inspiration grew. Health conditions improved. Everyone took a greater interest in their work and their earnings increased. New ideas took shape - there was advance along the whole line - an advance, slow but sure.

Only the Landowners Grew Fatter

Five years after the experiment began, Karl Eskelund visited Pifa and, with one of the Quakers as his guide, went through the village to see how it was faring. The Quaker had lost more than two stone and was as thin and spare as the natives. But what was worse, he had lost heart because the experiment had proved a failure. The day school still existed, but only one-quarter of the children attended it. The evening school had closed. The clinic was hardly used. Agriculture, fishing and trade were back to the old methods. Eskelund asked for an explanation of this fiasco. The young Quaker offered quite a number of reasons, none of which Eskelund could accept. Finally, he got to the root of the matter. This is what he says:

    "In the first year after beginning the experiment, both peasants and fishermen earned more than ever before. What was the result? The large landowners at once raised their rents and the smaller landowners followed suit. The peasants had to pay more for permission to cultivate the land. The fishermen had to pay more for permission to cast their nets on the flooded fields. In that way, practically the whole of the increased earnings passed into the landowners' pockets."

    "The people of Pifa were unhappy at this. Nevertheless, next year they worked hard. Crops were plentiful, there was a rich catch of fish; good prices were paid for produce. At once, the landowners raised their rents still higher."

    "The people then began to lose heart. What was the use if, for all their efforts, they got no benefit? Only the landowners waxed fatter. The peasants and fishermen did not become any thinner - they could not - otherwise they would die."

    "Indians are ignorant, but they are not stupid. They can put two and two together. They had found themselves momentarily enriched by the new methods but, in the end, all the extra money went to the landowners. If one of the new ideas would not work, what faith could they put in any other novelties? Perhaps, after all, the old methods were the best." 

This is the story as far as it goes. It would be difficult to find an example that more simply and clearly demonstrates the truth of what Henry George had taught. It is that, as long as the private right to the rent of land obtains, so long will every advance, crystallising in land rent, be gathered by the owner of land; while he who works, he who produces, must toil the day long without gaining more for his labour than is enough to avoid death from hunger.

This story reveals the problem in all its simplicity; cleared of all that in civilised society makes it more difficult to see the importance of land.

The need to remould the whole system

The young Quaker would not lay any blame on the landowners. There could be no objection against the landowners trying to gain as much as possible, and after all, there was nothing unlawful in owning land. The young Quaker admitted the immorality of the circumstances, but argued that it could be mended only by "remaking the law and remoulding the whole system."

Eskelund himself sees clearly the part the land question plays, and proposed the subdivision of land (by creating small-holdings). Yet he is not sure that subdivision will solve the problem. For he writes:

    "Meanwhile, there is evidence that you don't get rid of landownership in that manner. Landownership is like the weed that always resprouts."

Conclusion

The story of Pifa reveals the evils of the private ownership of the rent of land. The comments of the Quaker and the author both go to prove the weakness of dealing with effects.

The author is honest enough to acknowledge that small-holding schemes are no remedy, and the Quaker, although unconsciously, tells the truth that things cannot be changed without "remaking the law and remoulding the whole system."

For the truth is that we cannot reach a solution of the social problem without "remoulding the whole system", without recognising the joint property right of the people to natural resources. This truth applies in our own country and the world over. We can offer all manner of foreign aid to underdeveloped countries, but so long as we fail to solve the land problem, all this will be in vain._ 



> This repeated claim by Roy thus continues to appear ludicrous to everyone but himself, you, and Matt Butler, and perhaps Henry George Himself, looking down from the spirit world.


It is blatantly obvious to anyone willing to know facts, which apologists for landowner privilege never are.



> If you are privy to proof of your claims of which the rest of us remain ignorant, perhaps you should de-ignorize us.


I have.  Repeatedly.  You just dismiss, ignore, refuse to know, ridicule, and lie about all facts that are presented.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Nope.  Forcible animal possession is not property.  For landowning to exist, the property status of the land must remain intact EVEN AFTER THE CLAIMANT LEAVES.


Wrong on both counts. 

*Big Lone Bear* goes out to catch fish, and comes back to his cave, only to find another bear has challenged his ownership status. Other Bear chased out, prior claim of ownership defended.  Or, *Big Lone Bear* comes back to find that *Bigger Meaner She Bear* and her cub have stolen his spot. She is willing to kill him for it, so he moves away.  New ownership established by theft. 

*Man With Big Rifle* builds a shack, goes out hunting (fully _expecting_ that his claim of ownership will be recognized), and comes back only to find that *Roy With Big Ideas* has uncrossed his legs and gingerly helped himself to all that nature and missing Man With Big Rifle have provided. * Man With Big Rifle* returns with his kill, along with *Different Ideas*, as he defends his _prior claim of exclusive ownership_ by sticking rifle barrel up Roy's Very Loose Butt. Prior Claim of Ownership defended and intact,  threat to ownership eliminated.  

Later, *Roy With Friends With Even Bigger Ideas And Community Rifles* comes across the shack of *Man With Big Rifle*, and steal his shack while he is gone and pluck a banjo string in celebration. They decide they are willing to pay each other more than what Man With Rifle is willing to pay them in extortion fee rents to all of them, including themselves, as they all swap units of equal value. New ownership established by theft, but so as not to not call it that, they give *Man With Insufficiently Big Rifle* an exemption for a neighboring spot with a ratty little tent, which they appraise and all agree as being of equivalent value to the shack itself, paid for out of their collective rent pool.

----------


## Roy L

> Wrong on both counts.


No, don't be ridiculous.  I am of course indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact.



> *Big Lone Bear* goes out to catch fish, and comes back to his cave, only to find another bear has challenged his ownership status.


Wrong on all counts.  It's not his cave, and his status is not that of an owner, only an occupier.  There is no such thing as ownership among animals, only forcible animal possession.  You know this, but are lying about it.



> Other Bear chased out, prior claim of ownership defended.  Or, *Big Lone Bear* comes back to find that *Bigger Meaner She Bear* and her cub have stolen his spot. She is willing to kill him for it, so he moves away.  New ownership established by theft.


Thank you for proving yourself wrong.  New ownership can NEVER be established by theft, because theft by definition violates the right of ownership.  Theft can only overturn *possession* that was never *ownership* in the first place.



> *Man With Big Rifle* builds a shack, goes out hunting (fully _expecting_ that his claim of ownership will be recognized),


His claim of ownership of what, the shack?  That would certainly be a reasonable thing to expect, as unlike property rights in land, property rights in products of labor are moral, justifiable, and actually exist.



> and comes back only to find that *Roy With Big Ideas* has uncrossed his legs and gingerly helped himself to all that nature and missing Man With Big Rifle have provided.


Steven With No Idea continues makin' $#!+ up, as usual.



> * Man With Big Rifle* returns with his kill, along with *Different Ideas*, as he defends his _prior claim of exclusive ownership_ by sticking rifle barrel up Roy's Very Loose Butt. Prior Claim of Ownership defended and intact,  threat to ownership eliminated.


No ownership of anything but the shack was ever at issue, as neither party could ever possibly make a rightful claim to own the land, as neither of them produced it and its ownership would inherently violate the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.



> Later, *Roy With Friends With Even Bigger Ideas And Community Rifles* comes across the shack of *Man With Big Rifle*, and steal his shack while he is gone and pluck a banjo string in celebration.


Steven With No Idea Except Always To Lie About What Roy Has Plainly Written again lives up to his name, and lies about what Roy has plainly written.  The shack is a product of labor, and I have not proposed stealing products of labor.  You are simply lying again.

With utterly despicable dishonesty, you have repeatedly called me a liar, Steven.  But it is YOU have relentlessly and consistently resorted to lying.  Not me.  YOU.

And you know it.



> They decide they are willing to pay each other more than what Man With Rifle is willing to pay them in extortion fee rents to all of them, including themselves, as they all swap units of equal value. New ownership established by theft,


Self-contradiction, as proved above.



> but so as not to not call it that, they give *Man With Insufficiently Big Rifle* an exemption for a neighboring spot with a ratty little tent, which they appraise and all agree as being of equivalent value to the shack itself, paid for out of their collective rent pool.


Beneath refutation.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It's not his cave, and his status is not that of an owner, only an occupier.  There is no such thing as ownership among animals, only forcible animal possession.


Yes, the bear is the possessor and exclusive controller, or owner, by virtue of _forcible animal possession_, which is the very essence and core of ALL ownership, Roy - even when it is delegated to others in a "save my spot for me, k?" kind of way.  I know you would like to appeal to a strictly legal definition, as that would necessarily allow you to argue from your own narrowed premise, by invoking the state (and you can scroll to the bottom for why not even a legal definition will help you) -- but we are arguing ownership in a much broader and far more universal sense, as I am about to school you. 

*own*
v. owned, own·ing, owns
v.tr.

a. To have or possess as property 
b. To have control over 




Two dung beetles fight over a rolling ball of rhino dung.  The winner a) possesses as property, and b) has control over, and is therefore c) the owner of -  that ball of dung.  By sheer forcible animal possession. No state involvement, no moralizing to it. 




> New ownership can NEVER be established by theft, because theft by definition violates the right of ownership.


Incorrect.  Of course it can be. Ownership can be established by theft, murder, duplicity, act of God, or any number of other causal mechanisms. Don't confuse "rightful owner/ownership" or "title" (e.g., "state or third party recognized right of ownership" and/or "moral right of ownership"), with the essence of what ownership is - universally and as a matter of self-evident fact, apart from any kind of third party recognition or normative presumption.  

Even if you confuse "legal right of ownership" with whatever you feel is a "moral right of ownership", recognize that both are always based on normatives (oughts), which may or may not conflict with _a fact of ownership_.  

Consider the following concepts: 

a) factual ownership by virtue of possession and control, 
b) right of ownership, title, or third-party recognition, without regard to possession and/or control, and 
c) moral right of ownership, regardless of possession and control, or legal entitlement (third party recognition)

These are three entirely different animals, any and all three of which can exist in any combination.  

Thieves, both public and private, individually and collectively, can, and do indeed establish "ownership" (long term possession and control) of both things and land, which includes whatever was gained in the commission of a crime (read=by violating someone's rights).  A state may have mechanisms, right or wrong, to resolve conflicting claims of ownership, but that does not mean that a state is required to establish _a fact_ of ownership (forcible animal possession). Furthermore, a state can recognize a fact of ownership through ownership title, or evidence of a right of ownership, where no *moral* right of ownership exists, to wit:




> Theft can only overturn *possession* that was never *ownership* in the first place.


That is where your argument falls to pieces, Roy - in an area where we both happen to agree on the normatives, while acknowledging the historical facts, or positives: 

Slave owners, in both our opinions, had ZERO moral right of ownership (forcible animal possession) of human beings.  We both would agree that taking human beings against their will is a  form of THEFT -- a deprivation of what you and I might call a human's "inalienable" rights. I think we are in 100% agreement on at least that much.   

However, _only the most daft would ever deny that slave owners ever owned slaves in the past_.  On the contrary, they most definitely established both a) ownership  (possession and control) and b) title, or a "right of ownership" -- regardless of our c) contemporary normative feelings or moralizing on the matter.  

Thus, your assertion that "New ownership can NEVER be established by theft" is FALSE IN THE ABSOLUTE (unless, again, you are simply moralizing).  History shows otherwise.  Ownership can indeed be established, first as a "fact of ownership" (someone is actually enslaved, regardless of whether it is considered legal or not), then, possibly recognized as a "legal right of ownership" (in the past, at least), despite completely divided opinions, even then, on whether there was a moral right (abolitionists versus "other moralists") to such ownership.  But the fact of the ownership itself - even as a product of theft - is a matter of historical record, and truly indisputable.

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, the bear is the possessor and exclusive controller, or owner, by virtue of _forcible animal possession_, which is the very essence and core of ALL ownership, Roy


No, of course it isn't, Stupen, because if that were true, thieves would instantly become the owners of whatever they stole.  Your claim is absurd and self-contradictory.



> - even when it is delegated to others in a "save my spot for me, k?" kind of way.


Stupid garbage with no basis in fact.



> I know you would like to appeal to a strictly legal definition,


Stop lying about what I have plainly written, Stevid.



> as that would necessarily allow you to argue from your own narrowed premise, by invoking the state (and you can scroll to the bottom for why not even a legal definition will help you) -- but we are arguing ownership in a much broader and far more universal sense, as I am about to school you.


ROTFL!!  I have been schooling you since you first posted in this thread, Stuvid, and that is not going to change now.



> *own*
> v. owned, own·ing, owns
> v.tr.


<yawn>  Source?



> a. To have or possess as property


Which proves you wrong.  Your source is drawing the distinction between having or possessing *as property* and having or possessing but *NOT* as property.  *YOUR OWN SOURCE* proves you wrong.

You have now been schooled, Stepid.  Again.



> b. To have control over


Wrong.  A thief has control over what he has stolen, but doesn't own it.  Either your source is wrong, or you are quoting it incorrectly or incompletely.



> Two dung beetles fight over a rolling ball of rhino dung.  The winner a) possesses as property, and b) has control over, and is therefore c) the owner of -  that ball of dung.  By sheer forcible animal possession. No state involvement, no moralizing to it.


Nope.  Forcible animal possession is not property.  That is why human beings have a concept of theft, while animals do not.



> Incorrect.


Why are you always telling lies, Stupin?  I am of course correct by definition, and as a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.



> Of course it can be.


Nope.  Never.  *By definition.*



> Ownership can be established by theft, murder, duplicity, act of God, or any number of other causal mechanisms.


Nope.  The fact that it must be socially recognized is what makes ownership ownership, and not mere forcible animal possession.

Or should I just take you at your cretinous word, and observe that if government simply expropriates all privately owned land by force, ownership would pass to the government, the erstwhile "owners'" rights to it would cease to exist, and they would have no grounds for complaint?



> Don't confuse "rightful owner/ownership" or "title" (e.g., "state recognized ownership" and/or "moral right of ownership"), with the essence of what ownership is - universally and as a matter of self-evident fact, apart from any kind of third party recognition or normative presumption.


The self-evident fact is that theft does not alter ownership BY DEFINITION.



> Even if you confuse "legal right of ownership" with whatever you feel is a "moral right of ownership", recognize that both are always based on normatives (oughts), which may or may not conflict with _a fact of ownership_.


More stupid garbage from you.  The only *fact* of ownership other than a legal fact -- which I have already proved is irrelevant to this discussion -- is its societal recognition.



> The concepts of a) factual ownership by virtue of possession and control,


That is not factual ownership, as already proved, because theft effects a transfer of possession and control but not of ownership.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You are just lying about it because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> b) title, or a third-party recognition of a right of ownership, without regard to possession and control, and c) moral right of ownership, are three entirely different animals, any and all three of which can exist in any combination.


Nope.  The three cases of ownership are the legal, societal, and moral cases.  There is no form of ownership based on possession and control, as proved above.



> Thieves, both public and private, can, and do indeed establish "ownership" (long term possession and control) of both things and land, which includes whatever was gained in the commission of a crime (read=by violating someone's rights).


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.



> A state may have mechanisms, right or wrong, to resolve conflicting claims of ownership, but that does not mean that a state is required to establish _a fact_ of ownership (forcible animal possession).


Forcible animal possession is not ownership, as already proved.



> Furthermore, a state can recognize a fact of ownership through ownership title, or evidence of a right of ownership, where no *moral* right of ownership exists,


True, but irrelevant to your claim.



> to wit:
> 
> That is where your argument falls to pieces, Roy


Don't be stupid.  My argument is unassailable, while yours is self-contradictory garbage.



> - in an area where we both happen to agree on the normatives, while acknowledging the historical facts, or positives: 
> 
> Slave owners, in both our opinions, had ZERO moral right of ownership (forcible animal possession) of human beings.  We both would agree that taking human beings against their will is a  form of THEFT -- a deprivation of what you and I might call a human's "inalienable" rights. I think we are in 100% agreement on at least that much.


Nope.  *You* believe that forcible possession and control confers ownership.



> However, _only the most daft would ever deny that slave owners ever owned slaves in the past_.  On the contrary, they most definitely established both ownership  (possession and control) and title, or a "right of ownership" -- regardless of our contemporary normative feelings or moralizing on the matter.


Ownership of slaves was never a matter of forcible possession and control, but always of societal recognition of title.



> Thus, your assertion that "New ownership can NEVER be established by theft" is FALSE IN THE ABSOLUTE (unless, again, you are simply moralizing).  History shows otherwise.


Nope.  History shows that ownership is never established by anything other than societal recognition of title, whether formal or not.



> Ownership can indeed be established, first as a "fact of ownership" (someone is actually enslaved, regardless of whether it is considered legal or not),


Nope.  Enslavement requires a societal recognition and enforcement of the slave's status.  That is why slaves cannot free themselves by just leaving their owners' possession and control.  They have to leave the SOCIETY that considers them property.



> then, possibly recognized as a "legal right of ownership" (in the past, at least), despite completely divided opinions, even then, on whether there was a moral right (abolitionists versus "other moralists") to such ownership.


No, opinions were not completely divided.  There was broad societal agreement that slaves were owned, even if a (usually small) minority disagreed.  Legal recognition of property in slaves has ALWAYS been based on societal agreement.



> But the fact of the ownership itself - even as a product of theft - is a matter of historical record, and truly indisputable.


Nope.  Flat false, as proved, repeat, PROVED above.

----------


## eduardo89

> No, of course it isn't, Stupen, because if that were true, thieves would instantly become the owners of whatever they stole.  Your claim is absurd and self-contradictory.
> 
> You have now been schooled, Stepid.  Again.


Roy has realized that he can't win so now he resorts to personal insults of Stephen's name. 

It's the first obvious sign that even he realizes that his arguments are so baseless.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Roy has realized that he can't win so now he resorts to personal insults of Stephen's name. 
> 
> It's the first obvious sign that even he realizes that his arguments are so baseless.


This^^

----------


## Zippyjuan

WOw- over 1400 replies on this thread so far! Who is winning?

----------


## eduardo89

> WOw- over 1400 replies on this thread so far! Who is winning?


Roy. Obviously.

----------


## Roy L

> WOw- over 1400 replies on this thread so far! Who is winning?


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2f7-...eature=related

----------


## Steven Douglas

Roy recognizes ownership only in terms of third party (state/societal) recognition, and even enforcement, which he believes are required for "ownership" to exist. He sees only one legal definition of ownership, while ignoring the very object of that definition, as having any bearing whatsoever on what it actually means, _by common root definition_, to actually "own" something.  




> *own*
> v. owned, own·ing, owns
> v.tr.
> 1.
> a. *To have or possess as property:* owns a chain of restaurants.
> b. *To have control over:* For a time, enemy planes owned the skies.





> transitive verb
> 1
> a : *to have or hold as property : possess* 
> b : *to have power or mastery over* <wanted to own his own life>





> ownership
> verb (used with object)
> 3. *to have or hold as one's own; possess:* They own several homes.





> ownership
> 1: the state, relation, or fact of being an owner


So while the common and well understood root definitions of "own" and "ownership" are quite clear, in Roy's mind these are irrelevant, since he is arguing ownership only as it relates to its legal definition, and only how that relates to state and societal recognition - as if that was the only definition, and therefore rule.  In other words, ownership is not possible without there first being a "right" of ownership, which is in turn always based on societal recognition. 

Thus, the lack of state or societal involvement is why a dung beetle, cannot be considered an "owner" of a piece of dung, but only a "possessor" or "controller" -- even though these are the precise definitions of "own" and "owner"! 




> Or should I just take you at your cretinous word, and observe that if government simply expropriates all privately owned land by force, ownership would pass to the government, the erstwhile "owners'" rights to it would cease to exist, and they would have no grounds for complaint?


Very slippery of Roy here.  Roy is left with a logical conundrum, because now that he is trapped within a narrow legal definition ownership, there is the inconvenient fact that in the past, slavery, or "right of ownership of people" was indeed "recognized" by society (and by a large majority, no less).  But did that constitute a "theft"? 

If government expropriated all privately owned land by force, ownership _by definition_ WOULD pass to the government.  The erstwhile private ownership "legal rights" would indeed cease to exist, but not necessarily their claims to the those rights, or grounds THEY FELT they had for reclaiming them - which is to say their "moral" rights, as each individual saw and held them, which would exist separately. (e.g., do Irish, Native Americans and Nepalese feel they have still have claims on what they consider their own lands, their own sovereignty?) 

Furthermore, if abolitionists had in fact proposed a transfer of title, or "right of possession and control" of slaves _to the state_, whereby the state took over control of slaves, and became the beneficiary of slave labor, that would indeed have entailed a "transfer of ownership".  However, this was never the abolitionists' aim. For them it was not question of whether title, or right of ownership (possession and control) of people should be publicly or privately retained. For them it was that such a right should not exist at all _for any entity, public or private, individually or collectively_. Thus, slaves were simply set free, as all rights of ownership were eventually and completely abolished.  

That is actually where Roy's version of LVT falls apart.  He wants "legal control" of lands to evolve to the state without calling it "ownership" - logical impossibility. 

Despite the above, one mechanism that was available for ending slavery was for the state, or the people themselves, to simply buy slaves - which would have entailed a transfer of legal ownership, publicly and/or privately, without any challenge to the moral legitimacy of ownership or any title transfers - and then simply set them free.  In fact, Lincoln could have done this with his precious Greenbacks, at a far lesser cost of lives and wealth lost as a result of the Civil War, and possibly avoided war altogether.  Future "new" ownership could have been normatively prohibited without attacking the value of present ownership extant, which had been tolerated and recognized to date.  




> The only *fact* of ownership other than a legal fact -- which I have already proved is irrelevant to this discussion -- is its societal recognition.


Here, once again, Roy wants everything trapped into circular reasoning, as he attempts to confine the arguments to only one narrow legal definition of "ownership", or "right of" possession and control" (rather than mere possession and control, which is all that is required to "own"). This makes his preferred (and only) definition based on societal recognition, as the sole basis of ownership. Thus, it is not possible, in Roy's mind, for anyone on Earth to have had "ownership" of ANYTHING - EVER - without the prior existence of a state.  Indeed, once the words "owner" or "ownership" are invoked, Roy will instantly pounce on it as meaningless outside the bounds of his preferred (legal) definition, to wit:




> That is not factual ownership, as already proved, because theft effects a transfer of possession and control but not of ownership.


...possession and control. aka "own", according to standard dictionary definitions.

With this convenient but fallacious play on semantics, it is not until a "state" develops that "ownership" can even come into being - as "factual ownership" (which Roy sees as synonymous with "legal right of ownership" only) can ONLY be established by a combination of state enforcement and societal recognition -- _by Roy's preferred definition_. Thus, anyone who might have exercised mere "possession and control" of anything in the past - animal, vegetable or mineral - were possessors, controllers and/or occupiers only.  Never "owners", without state enforcement and societal recognition.  




> There is no form of ownership based on possession and control, as proved above.


Thoroughly refuted, and proved otherwise. 




> Forcible animal possession is not ownership, as already proved.


Also thoroughly refuted and proved otherwise. 




> *You* believe that forcible possession and control confers ownership.


Correct. It certainly does, by definition.  What it does not necessarily confer is a "right of ownership", legally or morally speaking - those are abstract normative constructs that relate to ultimate "rights" of possession and control - not possession and control itself, which is ownership, otherwise defined as: 

*"The state, relation, or fact of having, or having possession or control over, or power or mastery over..."* (combining definitions of own, owns, owner, and ownership)




> Ownership of slaves was never a matter of forcible possession and control, but always of societal recognition of title.


Ah, then the slaves were free to walk away, but didn't know it. Silly slaves, they could have ignored the meaningless "societal recognition of title" and simply walked away - since "ownership" of them was never a matter of forcible possession and control. 




> Nope.  Enslavement requires a societal recognition and enforcement of the slave's status.  That is why slaves cannot free themselves by just leaving their owners' possession and control.  They have to leave the SOCIETY that considers them property.


Ah, you finally got it. The "enforcement" part, so critical and at the core of ALL ownership, which is always based on "forcible animal control", even when delegated to others in a "save my spot for me, k?" kind of way. 

I know you can't face the fact that your arguments have been thoroughly destroyed, Roy, but others can see it plainly enough. Is that because they're all lying evil apologists?  Perhaps. I doubt it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak9juZMO0A4 

Sorry, Roy L. Achilles. Limp away.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy has realized that he can't win so now he resorts to personal insults of Stephen's name. 
> 
> It's the first obvious sign that even he realizes that his arguments are so baseless.


Typical non sequitur.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy recognizes ownership only in terms of third party (state/societal) recognition, and even enforcement, which he believes are required for "ownership" to exist. He sees only one legal definition of ownership, while ignoring the very object of that definition, as having any bearing whatsoever on what it actually means, _by common root definition_, to actually "own" something.


Gibberish.



> So while the common and well understood root definitions of "own" and "ownership" are quite clear,


But not to Steven, who believes that theft transfers ownership.



> in Roy's mind these are irrelevant, since he is arguing ownership only as it relates to its legal definition,


Lie.



> and only how that relates to state and societal recognition - as if that was the only definition, and therefore rule.


It is the RELEVANT definition, the one that does not set up an equivocation fallacy.



> In other words, ownership is not possible without there first being a "right" of ownership, which is in turn always based on societal recognition.


Or the logic of natural right.



> Thus, the lack of state or societal involvement is why a dung beetle, cannot be considered an "owner" of a piece of dung, but only a "possessor" or "controller" -- even though these are the precise definitions of "own" and "owner"!


No, they are not.



> Very slippery of Roy here.


No, just logically correct and indisputable.



> Roy is left with a logical conundrum, because now that he is trapped within a narrow legal definition ownership,


I specifically stated that the legal definition was irrelevant to this discussion.



> there is the inconvenient fact that in the past, slavery, or "right of ownership of people" was indeed "recognized" by society (and by a large majority, no less).  But did that constitute a "theft"?


It constituted *ownership*.  Try to keep your eye on the ball.



> If government expropriated all privately owned land by force, ownership _by definition_ WOULD pass to the government.  The erstwhile private ownership "legal rights" would indeed cease to exist, but not necessarily their claims to the those rights, or grounds THEY FELT they had for reclaiming them - which is to say their "moral" rights, as each individual saw and held them, which would exist separately. (e.g., do Irish, Native Americans and Nepalese feel they have still have claims on what they consider their own lands, their own sovereignty?)


Wrong.  By your "logic" they HAVE no moral right, as ownership is defined solely by possession and control.



> Furthermore, if abolitionists had in fact proposed a transfer of title, or "right of possession and control" of slaves _to the state_, whereby the state took over control of slaves, and became the beneficiary of slave labor, that would indeed have entailed a "transfer of ownership".  However, this was never the abolitionists' aim. For them it was not question of whether title, or right of ownership (possession and control) of people should be publicly or privately retained. For them it was that such a right should not exist at all _for any entity, public or private, individually or collectively_. Thus, slaves were simply set free, as all rights of ownership were eventually and completely abolished.  
> 
> That is actually where Roy's version of LVT falls apart.  He wants "legal control" of lands to evolve to the state without calling it "ownership" - logical impossibility.


No, that's false.  States indisputably ALREADY HAVE legal control of land without owning it.  They just exercise that control to provide a welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners rather than to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all their citizens.

Ownership is a bundle of four rights: control, benefit, exclusion, and disposition.  The state is only rightly a trustee administering possession and use of land, not its owner, as it cannot rightly dispose of land by, e.g., selling it.  That would violate the rights of all the future generations who would otherwise be at liberty to use it, contradicting the state's raison d'etre.



> Despite the above, one mechanism that was available for ending slavery was for the state, or the people themselves, to simply buy slaves - which would have entailed a transfer of legal ownership, publicly and/or privately, without any challenge to the moral legitimacy of ownership or any title transfers - and then simply set them free.  In fact, Lincoln could have done this with his precious Greenbacks, at a far lesser cost of lives and wealth lost as a result of the Civil War, and possibly avoided war altogether.


Funny how apologists for privilege and injustice think the responsibility for avoiding the Civil War rested with those who sought to end a massive atrocity, and not with those who were committing it.



> Future "new" ownership could have been normatively prohibited without attacking the value of present ownership extant, which had been tolerated and recognized to date.


I long ago ceased to be surprised when propertarian apologists for landowner privilege propose that slavery would more rightly have been ended by someone paying slave owners market value for their slaves' rights to liberty than by simply voiding all deeds of slave ownership.  I am still appalled and disgusted, but no longer surprised.  By that "logic," government should not simply void taxi medallions -- privileges that *IT CREATED* for the unearned profit of medallion holders, remember -- but *pay* all the medallion holders market value for them, as compensation for declining to continue giving them that subsidy!



> Here, once again, Roy wants everything trapped into circular reasoning, as he attempts to confine the arguments to only one narrow legal definition of "ownership", or "right of" possession and control" (rather than mere possession and control, which is all that is required to "own").


Lie, as already proved: theft transfers possession and control.  It does not transfer ownership.  Steven is proved wrong.



> This makes his preferred (and only) definition based on societal recognition, as the sole basis of ownership. Thus, it is not possible, in Roy's mind, for anyone on Earth to have had "ownership" of ANYTHING - EVER - without the prior existence of a state.


Bait and switch, Steven, very dishonest.  Society existed before states, and the state is not society.  You just dishonestly substituted "state" for "societal."



> Indeed, once the words "owner" or "ownership" are invoked, Roy will instantly pounce on it as meaningless outside the bounds of his preferred (legal) definition, to wit:
> ...possession and control. aka "own", according to standard dictionary definitions.


You still haven't provided a source for your definitions, and even if you had you would be equivocating.  Why can't you ever remember that theft does not transfer ownership, and that fact *PROVES* YOU WRONG?



> With this convenient but fallacious play on semantics,


It is indisputable fact and logic, not semantics.  It is not a matter of semantics that theft does not effect a transfer of ownership.  It is a fact of objective reality.  And it proves you wrong.



> it is not until a "state" develops that "ownership" can even come into being


Lie.  States arise largely to defend ownership of products of labor.



> - as "factual ownership" (which Roy sees as synonymous with "legal right of ownership" only)


Lie.



> can ONLY be established by a combination of state enforcement and societal recognition -- _by Roy's preferred definition_.


State enforcement is the formal codification of societal recognition.  The latter has priority.



> Thus, anyone who might have exercised mere "possession and control" of anything in the past - animal, vegetable or mineral - were possessors, controllers and/or occupiers only.  Never "owners", without state enforcement and societal recognition.


You again lie about what I have plainly written.



> Thoroughly refuted, and proved otherwise. 
> Also thoroughly refuted and proved otherwise.


<yawn>  No.



> Correct. It certainly does, by definition.


Refuted above.  Theft does not effect a transfer of ownership, and that *fact* indisputably proves you wrong.



> What it does not necessarily confer is a "right of ownership", legally or morally speaking - those are abstract normative constructs that relate to ultimate "rights" of possession and control - not possession and control itself, which is ownership, otherwise defined as:


Self-contradictory gibberish.



> *"The state, relation, or fact of having, or having possession or control over, or power or mastery over..."* (combining definitions of own, owns, owner, and ownership)


Equivocation fallacy.

AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T GIVEN A SOURCE.



> Ah, then the slaves were free to walk away, but didn't know it.


They would have been, if your definition of ownership were correct.



> Silly slaves, they could have ignored the meaningless "societal recognition of title"


HUH??  _I_ am the one who understands that societal recognition is key to ownership, remember?  _YOU_ are the one who claims it is meaningless.



> and simply walked away - since "ownership" of them was never a matter of forcible possession and control.


Right.  Their capture and transportation was a matter of forcible possession and control, but once they were under deeds of ownership, the fetters came off and they were PHYSICALLY pretty much at liberty.  They just couldn't get away, because law enforcement was on their owners' side.



> Ah, you finally got it.


But you didn't.



> The "enforcement" part, so critical and at the core of ALL ownership, which is always based on "forcible animal control", even when delegated to others in a "save my spot for me, k?" kind of way.


Nope.  It clearly isn't, as theft transfers forcible animal possession, but not ownership.  That fact proves you wrong.



> I know you can't face the fact that your arguments have been thoroughly destroyed, Roy, but others can see it plainly enough.


Silliness.



> Is that because they're all lying evil apologists?  Perhaps. I doubt it.


I don't, any more than I doubt that slave owners thought the abolitionists' arguments had been thoroughly destroyed.  Those slave owners were in *fact* lying, evil apologists for the privilege and injustice of slavery, just as those who contrive fallacious, absurd, dishonest and STUPID arguments against LVT are in fact lying, evil apologists for landowner privilege.  The main difference is that slave owners were actually benefiting from slavery, while almost all of those who rationalize landowner privilege are themselves being harmed by it, almost certainly including you.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Roy, merely stating things like "gibberish, lie, logically incorrect, indisputable, etc.," -- those don't actually count as arguments or refutations. 




> I specifically stated that the legal definition was irrelevant to this discussion.


But you didn't state why. I not only state that they are relevant, I present arguments as to why - as it goes to the heart of "ownership" as distinguished from the expanded normative concept of "rights of ownership". 




> You still haven't provided a source for your definitions, and even if you had you would be equivocating.


Go back and read the post again, Roy. The one that destroyed your arguments.  Every definition had a link to its source. Just click on each word.  And I am willing and able to provide more - MUCH MORE - upon request. 

Merely asserting that I am equivocating is absolutely meaningless without an actual argument, or explanation, Roy. You have to actually argue WHY you believe it is an equivocation, or else it is completely meaningless.  Make your arguments, Roy. Don't expect anyone to read your mind. It is difficult enough to decipher your meaning, even when you actually make the attempt, but it is virtually impossible otherwise. 




> Why can't you ever remember that theft does not transfer ownership, and that fact *PROVES* YOU WRONG?


No, as I clearly wrote, using _common [sourced] definitions_, theft transfers "possession and control", and therefore ultimate ownership, should that theft never be resolved (i.e., society or the state cannot effect recovery via a forcible animal control and possession based on moral or legal claims to the contrary).  

Theft is a forcible animal transfer of possession and control from one entity to another which conflicts with a legal or moral right, or "claim", on possession and control. What a theft does not _necessarily_ confer or transfer is a "right of ownership", legally or morally speaking (although sometimes it does, as will be shown below). 

A legal or moral "right of ownership" is different from mere possession and control.  It is an abstract normative construct that relates to the _ultimate_ "moral or legal claim" to possession and control, regardless of immediate possession and control by anyone else. That is why I can own a backhoe, but allow you to borrow or rent it from me for a fee, and still retain _legal ownership_ of it. Although you possess and control it for a time, my title, or "legal claim to possession and control", along with our contract, is what assures me that your mere possession and control does not confer "legal ownership", since I have the ultimate legal right to forcibly possess and control it (e.g., you keep it longer than we agreed, or fail to make payment).  




> Wrong.  By your "logic" they HAVE no moral right, as ownership is defined solely by possession and control.


Here is where your lack of logic kicks in, as you fail to distinguish and understand entirely different concepts related to the same thing.  There are three concepts here: 

*A fact of ownership* - absent any legal right to the contrary, it is _defined_ as mere possession and control*A legal right of ownership* - state recognition of an ultimate right of (claim on) possession and control (regardless of actual possession and control)*A moral right of ownership* - an internal (sometimes societal) sense of entitlement or claim to an ultimate right of possession and control. A moral right of ownership can be based on mere possession and control and/or a legal right of possession and control.

Each of these are separate concepts. None are necessarily inclusive or mutually exclusive of the others. Any combination can exist together.  I can have ownership, or possession and control, without a legal or a moral right. I can have a legal right of possession and control, but no moral right, and no ability to have possession or control.  I can have a moral right of possession and control without possession and control or a legal right to such. 

*A moral right of ownership* is a normative claim -- an internal claim of entitlement to ultimate possession and control, without regard to whether there is a legal claim, or whether possession and control actually exists, or can even be realized.  




> *EXAMPLE: The Silver Rush at MF Global* 
> The trustee overseeing the liquidation of the failed brokerage has proposed dumping all remaining customer assets—gold, silver, cash, options, futures and commodities—into a single pool that would pay customers only 72% of the value of their holdings. In other words, while traders already may have paid the full price for delivery of specific bars of gold or silver—and hold "warehouse receipts" to prove it—they'll have to forfeit 28% of the value. 
> 
> That has investors fuming. "Warehouse receipts, like gold bars, are our property, 100%," contends John Roe, a partner in BTR Trading, a Chicago futures-trading firm. He personally lost several hundred thousand dollars in investments via MF Global; his clients lost even more. "We are a unique class, and instead, the trustee is doing a radical redistribution of property," he says.
> 
> Roe and others point out that, unlike other MF Global customers, who held paper assets, those with warehouse receipts have claims on assets that still exist and can be readily identified.


In the above example, even though the trustees may indeed have the _power_ to effectively override a legal title of ownership (a proven prior existing *legal right of possession and control*), exercising this power will do _nothing_ to override the completely separate *moral right of ownership* upon which that legal title can be proved and was based - nor will that moral right of ownership have anything to do with whether actual possession and control is ultimately achieved by those who actually do have _both a legal and a moral right_. 

The trustees who do take possession and control of allocated assets may indeed exercise *the power*, regardless of legal authority, to effect a transfer of ownership (forcible animal possession and control) by virtue of THEFT -_ without a moral OR a legal right._ 




> States indisputably ALREADY HAVE legal control of land without owning it.


OR THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES - in the case of the US Constitution. 

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

_Disputably._ There are enumerated federal powers, and prohibition limits on state powers, or so-called "legal control", which extend even to land. And even in the absence of a state, and state recognition, people exercised power and control - ownership, whether later recognized by the state or not - or even "society" - over lands.   




> This makes his preferred (and only) definition based on societal recognition, as the sole basis of ownership. Thus, it is not possible, in Roy's mind, for anyone on Earth to have had "ownership" of ANYTHING - EVER - without the prior existence of a state.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Bait and switch, Steven, very dishonest.  Society existed before states, and the state is not society.  You just dishonestly substituted "state" for "societal."


You are the one who stated that *"...societal recognition is key to ownership"* and that *"State enforcement is the formal codification of societal recognition."* Substitute state for society and it makes no difference, as I am the one who proved, by common (sourced) definition, _that ownership does not require EITHER_.  The essence of ownership in its most fundamental form REQUIRES NO RECOGNITION OR ENFORCEMENT - only possession and control - the "rights of" which only pertain thereto as "claims" on the same.

A lone man walking in a desert finds an oasis with a wellspring and fills his canteen with water.  That man possesses, controls, and therefore "owns" that water. That is fundamental ownership, having NOTHING whatsoever to do with society, states, rights, claims, recognition, morals, privileges, or anything else. That state, or fact of ownership, exists without regard to a single other human being, and would exist even if he was the only human being on the face of the Earth.   And he could just as easily "disown", or "dispossess" himself of that same water by pouring it out into the sand. 

Likewise, that same man could steal a canteen full of water from a fellow desert traveler while he slept, and would thereby become the new owner. Not the "rightful owner", as right has nothing to do with it.  Just the new owner. As quickly as the theft occurred and was successful, ownership - by theft alone - would transfer. 




> States arise largely to defend ownership of products of labor.


Now that really is some blithering gibberish (and note that I don't just assert such a thing, as that would also be gibberish - I also state why).  States arise largely for any number of reasons - often to defend ownership of "the state", which is to say possession and control of everything desired by those who establish the state.  See that, Roy? States can be brutal dictatorships or anything else, which arise largely to defend their own interests. Furthermore, states that arise to defend ownership of anything at all can MUTATE into entities which do nothing but defend the interests of the state (i.e., those who benefit most from the state) alone.  




> Theft does not effect a transfer of ownership, and that *fact* indisputably proves you wrong.


Tell that to MF Global and the trustees.  Tell that to Congress, who transferred ownership (absolute mastery and unlimited control) of the public currency to the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve.  Tell that to Roosevelt, who allowed, facilitated, and later even committed theft on untold wealth from American citizens, while allowing the title, or right of ownership of what was once their gold to transfer to the Treasury, Fed banks, foreigners, and foreign interests, all of whom retained their right to own gold -- which he fully acknowledged.  Tell it to the Irish, the Native Americans and the Nepalese.  There is no equivocation there. These are all examples of what many consider THEFTS which indeed effected a transfer of ownership. 

Now go back to my sources and refute them. Or, ask for more sources and I will provide them.

Definitions are the long way of saying a word.  Everywhere you see "ownership" substitute "possession and control" (or whatever, using your own sourced definition).  Thus a "right of ownership" is a tautology for "right of possession and control".   You can expand this tautology with an expansion of the word "right":   



> *Legal Rights*
> Rights are perfect and imperfect. When the things which we have a right to possess or the actions we have a right to do, are or may be fixed and determinate, the right is a perfect one; but when the thing or the actions are vague and indeterminate, the right is an imperfect one. If a man demand his property, which is withheld from him, the right that supports his demand is a perfect one; because the thing demanded is, or may be fixed and determinate.


Thus, in the case of a title, a right of ownership, as a [very relevant] legal definition, is a "perfect right of possession and control". Not "possession and control" but the *"perfect right of"* possession and control (aka *"claim to"* possession and control).

----------


## Steven Douglas

Primary definitions only:

*own·er·ship* - _noun_
the state or fact of being an ownerlegal right of possession; lawful title (to something); proprietorship
*own·er* - _noun_
possessor
*own* - _transitive verb_
to possessto hold as personal propertyto have

*SOURCE:* Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

*own·er·ship* - _noun_
the state or fact of being an owner.legal right of possession; proprietorship.
*own·er* - _noun_
a person who ownspossessorproprietor
*own* - _verb (used with object)_
to have or hold as one's ownpossess

*SOURCE:* Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2011.

----------


## redbluepill

> Because to me, society is the sum of human interaction, minus aggression. A group stealing someone's land is a mob of barbarians, not a society.


If someone is using a piece of land and a mob comes along and forces that individual off of that land then I agree its barbaric. But that is exactly what many of the large landholders have done throughout the world for centuries. Where the landgrabbing has been the most disproportionate you see the greatest gaps in wealth. This is why that article I posted several pages back on Robinson Crusoe and Friday is important. It illustrates what has gone on.
We can end poverty. Not through welfare, government housing, etc. But by ensuring land (which was never created by anyone nor can be rightfully declared property) is not possessed by a small minority of the population.





> I don't see seceding from your neighbors' chosen defense and justice vendor as removing yourself from the community, any more than choosing a different grocery or gasoline vendor. Buy a big tank for your back yard and order a truck delivery of 10,000 gallons of gas once a year, instead of buying it from the local station like a normal person. You're different, but you're still part of the community of whomever you associate and trade with.


I have no problem with a voluntaryist society. 




> Excellent!! And I'm all for as many neighborhoods adopting ground rent as wish to. I think that ultimately the insurance companies from the Rothbardian territories will drive all non-Rothbardian governments out of business by offering insurance against various oppressions and predations, such as asset seizures, arrests, and land value taxation. But I could be wrong.


Well Roy and I have presented evidence of societies that have successfully used a geoist or geoist-like system. Do you have examples of Rothbardian systems?






> The key thing in shopping malls, condos, gated communities, etc., is that their rules and their funding is voluntary. So if that's all you meant by your form of georgism, that people be allowed to coagulate and form contractual communities, we're in total agreement and in fact this writer is confused because having contractual communities is totally Rothbardian (aka anarcho-capitalist). We're on board with it. See the book The Voluntary City. Now these contractual communities need not be geographically-based -- see, for example, the novel The Diamond Age. But, they could be. Some man or men buys up 20 square miles of land and makes it a jurisdiction of "Amish law" or "Greenwich Village law" or "geoist law". There's stipulations written into the deeds that everyone must pay land value "tax", or must never play loud rock music, or whatever the man thinks will make for a successful and pleasant community. Then, the land value "tax" is contractual, and thus voluntary, and thus really not a tax and I will love it to pieces! Voluntary=good, initiation-of-force=bad.


Ever heard of Arden, Delaware? It is a Georgist community where land is not owned and it cannot be sold. Instead it is leased. Whatever land you occupy you are free to improve it however you wish. Residents pay only a land value tax for that community. Its been around  since 1900 and, as far as I know, is still successful.




> What about if you want to fence off a nature preserve, keeping it in its pristine natural condition?


Some geoist communities may vary on this but a landholder would still pay LVT whether its a nature preserve, golf course, airport, or whatever. I would imagine many geoists would promote tax credits for nature preserves. 




> According to this, anyone would be free to tramp in and labor it away from you at any time. I think this would be unjust, and I think Murray might agree.


Well Rothbard believes there are two invalid types of land titles: feudalism (his quotes not mine) and land-engrossing. In order to be a legitimate holder of land you must be a transformer or heir to the transformer. But I see flaws in his transformer argument. For example, if I settle on a piece of land and build a garden I can legitimately claim the garden as my own since I am the source of its creation. But what about the land? Does the garden entitle me to an acre of land? 2? 3? Maybe ten square miles of land? It is completely arbitrary. So while I applaud Rothbard for recognizing a land monopoly problem, especially in the poorest nations, he does not give a satisfactory explanation on how land becomes property from a philosophical view.




> In the particular example he gave, he is right: if the land is claimed but then ignored, never used, never transformed, and forgotten, it's fair game again at some point. But I don't agree with some of the implications of using use and transformation as the sole homesteading criteria. Philosophically, the essential element which brings about ownership is the act of making the claim, and then there is a continuum of certainty in the justice of the claim determined by any factor you can think of: the size of the area claimed, the extent of the transformation the claimant has done, etc. As a practical matter, using and transforming the land are probably the two biggest things you can do to solidify your claim to the land. Without that, your claim is much, much, more precarious, although it is possible, as in the case of the nature preserve. Once you've plowed your farm or built your cabin, your claim is probably set in stone, nobody's going to contest the justice of your ownership (well, except the Georgists/geoists  ).


And as I mentioned above, how much transformation must take place? How much land can be claimed if I morally can claim it? Could I climb to the top of a mountain peak and declare everything I see as mine? Could I dig a hole or plant a tree and claim hundreds of surrounding miles as mine? (Of course, were talking as if this land is not already claimed). Its all completely arbitrary. 

Libertarianism is not about being arbitrary. Everything is concrete. Rights. (True) property. Etc. Georgism is clear. Land is not property. It is the source of property.That is why I believe geolibertarianism makes so much sense.




> Anyway, there's no apodictically perfect and true way to determine the exact requirements to homestead land. Do exactly one hour of labor per 10 sq. yards of land, or make transformations increasing the land's value by at least 10%, or... you see? Conventions will arise. The market, including the arbitrators, will decide what constitutes a just claim and what doesn't.


But of course you have no problem with government stepping in for you to enforce your privilege. ;-)




> "Yes, you filed your claim to this 20 sq. miles and marked the corners with stakes, but that was a year ago and you haven't done anything since; I think it's a bogus claim and call foul", says Smith. The arbitrator is probably going to side with Smith. "But it's a nature preserve!!" Well, how big a nature preserve can you fence off? As I say, it's not an exact science, but I'm confident a free-market justice system will come up with something reasonable and workable and somewhat fair-seeming.


And if that free market justice system decides that the landlord holds too much land then who is morally right; the landlord or the judge?





> What I mean is, isn't your system really not abolishing land ownership at all, but merely giving us thousands of landowners in the form of political entities? Wouldn't these political entities act as the ultimate owners of their territories, or "plots"?


Whoever works the land and pays the tax is the owner or possessor as I prefer to call it. Government has no claim to it. It acts only to give back to the other citizens what they create (the land value).





> Most voluntary of them all... assuming that land should not be owned. I do not share that assumption, thus in my view voluntariness is increased by respecting property rights in land.


It wasnt very voluntary in South America where anyone who didnt own a ranch was essentially forced to work for the landlord. In US history class you learn the conditions of the ex-slaves did not necessarily improve. According to the Constitution they were free, but they had no other choice but to work for their former masters under similar work conditions.




> You didn't. I was just saying that for all practical purposes, your political entities are landowners.Yes, they are supposedly acting for The Public Good and The Welfare of All, with naught but wisdom and selfless love in their hearts, but that is of course a laughable bunk.


It is laughable bunk which is why a true geolibertarian society would not give government the power to take land. It just denies them the power to enforce privilege. That seems pretty dang libertarian to me.




> They cannot be said to "represent" the people in any real way unless the people give their unanimous consent. So the managers of the political entity are the ones in control of the territory they control. Your system has landowners, my system has landowners. My landowners get their land by homesteading it; your landowners get it by... what? Elections, wars, and other bogus political means. So, seizing it, as far as I can tell.


Very misleading statements here. Lots of private land was taken through force, and it remains private through force. In South America natives were forced off their land so ranchers could use it. In the US homesteading was successful because the government and private entities forced Native Americans off of the land. This is what you have defended. There is no force in my proposal.

----------


## redbluepill

> And no one has presented any convincing evidence of this.  Roy L. has asserted it about a billion times.  But I still have utterly no reason to believe that millions upon millions of people die each year due to landownership.  This repeated claim by Roy thus continues to appear ludicrous to everyone but himself, you, and Matt Butler, and perhaps Henry George Himself, looking down from the spirit world.  If you are privy to proof of your claims of which the rest of us remain ignorant, perhaps you should de-ignorize us.


Murray Rothbard himself addressed the impact of land monopoly in The Ethics of Liberty.




> Land monopoly is far more widespread in the modern world than most peopleespecially most Americansbelieve. In the undeveloped world, especially in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, *feudal landholding is a crucial social and economic problem*with or without quasi-serf impositions on the persons of the peasantry.





> The root cause of poverty is private ownership of the natural resource essential to life  land. Private property in land has been long established. In giving all men equal rights of access to land it is not necessary to confiscate land, undo titles or nationalise land. It is simply a matter of collecting the land value rental thereby returning to the community the value created by the community. This can be achieved through Land Value Taxation.


~Michael Hawes, a School of Economic Science economist
http://www.c4ej.com/resources/the-causes-of-poverty
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/eleven.asp

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Very misleading statements here. Lots of private land was taken through force, and it remains private through force. In South America natives were forced off their land so ranchers could use it. In the US homesteading was successful because the government and private entities forced Native Americans off of the land. This is what you have defended. There is no force in my proposal.


 But am I not correct in my proposal that governments, in your improved micro-secessionist world, would essentially be land-owners?  You proposed that under anarcho-capitalism, each land owner is essentially a sovereign nation, and I agreed with you that that's true in a lot of ways -- actually _everyone_ is a sovereign, whatever the nature of his possessions and whether they include land or not.  Now I propose that likewise, under a system of micro-nations, the political rulers (if any) of each micro-nation are for all practical purposes the ultimate landowners of the territory which the micro-nation covers.

Since you didn't directly reply to this point, I assume you agree that it is basically correct.  Governments = landowners.  Your system does not really abolish landownership, it makes the political rulers the new landowners.

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## Steven Douglas

> Governments = landowners.  Your system does not really abolish landownership, it makes the political rulers the new landowners.


No, don't be silly. Different words would be used. That would make everything indisputably and self-evidently different.  Duh.




That's surface tension at work. A bowl of water and pepper flakes floating on top represents real non-land-based productivity and wealth concentrations.  The drop of soap represents an LVT tax regime trying to plop into the collectivized land pool, as it attempts to cash in on all the Great Gobs of Lumpy Land Revenue Fun.

----------


## Inny Binny

Well I read the first 13 pages of the thread but it's just way too long to read so I'll probably just be repeating what a thousand people have said already.

I think Georgists have correctly identified the problem. Land is unique in that it is really difficult to say that it can be 'owned'. It isn't much more than a set of coordinates, and to say someone can own a territory while absent is authoritarian and no different to the state. The only other thing I can think of that is similar would be radio spectrum - essentially a gap to be filled.

Their solution to the problem is rather odd however. Why on earth is a tax necessary? It'd probably have some negative consequences too - imagine a poor squatter who is currently growing some food in a piece of land she is using. She only has enough food to use for herself, and is not making an income. How can she stay anywhere if she can't afford to be anywhere?

Declaring that all land is collectively owned and thus those that use it owe something to everyone else is rather ludicrous. In order for that to be true, everyone would need to be using every square inch of the world at once. Rather than saying that _everyone_ owns _all_ land, it makes much more sense to say that _no-one_ owns _any_ land. Then the solution is simple - the current user is the current owner, and when that person leaves, they abandon their right to use the land.

Of course, an absolute interpretation of the use equals ownership model would result in unsavoury situations, where mobs of people stand outside the most valued areas, waiting for the current occupier to leave the residence. So rather the model that I'd prefer would be tradable rights to first use. Say someone packs up his large farm to go on holiday for a year. He can't have the right to bar people from his previous residency, they must have the right to pitch tents and so on. But neither would it be fair for him to lose his entire livelihood just because he decided to go on holiday. So he should have the right to use the land first. All this would be subject to abandonment of course; if he instead interloped off somewhere for a decade, it would be hardly fair for him to close down shop of everybody who has settled in.

That's my thoughts anyway.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I think Georgists have correctly identified the problem. Land is unique in that it is really difficult to say that it can be 'owned'. It isn't much more than a set of coordinates, and to say someone can own a territory while absent is authoritarian and no different to the state. The only other thing I can think of that is similar would be radio spectrum - essentially a gap to be filled.


 Why would it be authoritarian?  Some people have long-term plans and complex plans, and are not necessarily present at nor using all their property every day, but there is no authoritarianism in them retaining ownership, keeping it away from other people, as part of their master plan, perhaps not to take place until 30 years in the future, or even 1,000 years in the future.  That doesn't seem authoritarian to me.

Also, "land" is not unique -- _everything_ consists of raw material, occupies a set of coordinates, and otherwise relies on characteristics and resources of existence.




> Declaring that all land is collectively owned and thus those that use it owe something to everyone else is rather ludicrous.


 That is indeed one of the core points of contention which has been repeated over and over, but you put it nicely.  Of course, the LVTers don't see it as ludicrous.  And there's nothing that will change that -- people don't really ever change their minds.




> In order for that to be true, everyone would need to be using every square inch of the world at once. Rather than saying that _everyone_ owns _all_ land, it makes much more sense to say that _no-one_ owns _any_ land. Then the solution is simple - the current user is the current owner, and when that person leaves, they abandon their right to use the land.
> 
> Of course, an absolute interpretation of the use equals ownership model would result in unsavoury situations, where mobs of people stand outside the most valued areas, waiting for the current occupier to leave the residence. So rather the model that I'd prefer would be tradable rights to first use. Say someone packs up his large farm to go on holiday for a year. He can't have the right to bar people from his previous residency, they must have the right to pitch tents and so on. But neither would it be fair for him to lose his entire livelihood just because he decided to go on holiday. So he should have the right to use the land first. All this would be subject to abandonment of course; if he instead interloped off somewhere for a decade, it would be hardly fair for him to close down shop of everybody who has settled in.


 That's one possible solution, I guess, albeit to a problem that I don't see as existent.

----------


## MattButler

> I think Georgists have correctly identified the problem. Land is unique in that it is really difficult to say that it can be 'owned'. It isn't much more than a set of coordinates, and to say someone can own a territory while absent is authoritarian and no different to the state. The only other thing I can think of that is similar would be radio spectrum - essentially a gap to be filled.
> 
> Their solution to the problem is rather odd however. Why on earth is a tax necessary? It'd probably have some negative consequences too - imagine a poor squatter who is currently growing some food in a piece of land she is using. She only has enough food to use for herself, and is not making an income. How can she stay anywhere if she can't afford to be anywhere?


Under a proper LVT scheme there will be a great deal of land available that is essentially free.  People won't desire to own it, or they'll not desire it enough to make the land worth all that much.  In any case there should be plenty enough land available for people to homestead.  LVT will be a god send for small farmers, especially those who want to not only profit from farming but also use farming to enhance and improve their local ecology.  Country people and rural people have the most to gain from this.  Where do you see the worst material poverty?  Rural populations in poor states where there are a few great private landowning interests in control.  Visit the Alabama Black Belt.  

LVT is a socially minded scheme and will remove a great many inequities.  Small farmers and rural people and especially the rural poor will benefit enormously.  Virtually everyone benefits from LVT.

----------


## Roy L

> Well I read the first 13 pages of the thread but it's just way too long to read so I'll probably just be repeating what a thousand people have said already.


The thread is worth reading as a typical development of its type.  The invariable fallaciousness, absurdity and dishonesty of all objections to LVT is very thoroughly demonstrated.



> I think Georgists have correctly identified the problem. Land is unique in that it is really difficult to say that it can be 'owned'.


Right: it is impossible to justify the uncompensated forcible removal of people's liberty to use it.



> It isn't much more than a set of coordinates,


Land is everything that nature provides, other than people and the products of their labor.  _Location_ is the more abstract item you are talking about.



> and to say someone can own a territory while absent is authoritarian and no different to the state.


Actually, the state usually provides benefits to go along with its administration of the land.  The private landowner qua landowner, by contrast, is a pure parasite.



> The only other thing I can think of that is similar would be radio spectrum - essentially a gap to be filled.


Broadcast spectrum is land in the economic sense.



> Their solution to the problem is rather odd however. Why on earth is a tax necessary?


That is explained in the thread.  There are several conclusive and indisputable reasons why a tax is necessary if land is to be privately owned (if it is publicly owned, market leasing works similarly):

1. It is the only way to recover the publicly created value of privately owned land for public purposes and benefit.

2. It is the only way to fund the mechanism for securing the equal liberty rights of all to use land without forcing the productive to relinquish the fruits of their labor.

3. It is the only way to make exclusive tenure not constitute a welfare subsidy giveaway to the landholder at the expense of the productive.

4. It is the most effective way to ensure efficient market allocation of the resource.

5. It is the only way to require just compensation from the landowner for depriving others of their liberty and to fund just compensation for those who are forcibly deprived of their liberty.

And there are other, less obvious reasons.



> It'd probably have some negative consequences too - imagine a poor squatter who is currently growing some food in a piece of land she is using. She only has enough food to use for herself, and is not making an income. How can she stay anywhere if she can't afford to be anywhere?


All serious LVT proposals I am aware of include a flat, universal land tax exemption (or, second best, a citizens' dividend) for all resident citizens to restore the equal individual right to liberty.  ALL resident citizens would be ensured FREE, SECURE tenure on enough good land of their choice to live on.  This is explained in the thread.



> Declaring that all land is collectively owned and thus those that use it owe something to everyone else is rather ludicrous.


It's *not* collectively owned.  It is *un*owned, and *unownable*, so those who deprive others of their liberty to use it must make just compensation for forcibly violating their rights.  Consider the water in a river.  No one owns it, but if someone takes out so much that others' ability to use it is impaired, they owe just compensation.



> In order for that to be true, everyone would need to be using every square inch of the world at once.


This misapprehension is cleared up in the thread.  The relevant right is the natural liberty right to use ANY land one wishes, not ALL land at once.



> Rather than saying that _everyone_ owns _all_ land, it makes much more sense to say that _no-one_ owns _any_ land.


Right.



> Then the solution is simple - the current user is the current owner,


You are contradicting yourself.  No one can ever rightly own land.



> and when that person leaves, they abandon their right to use the land.


Then they aren't an owner but a usufruct tenant.  One problem with this "solution" is that it sacrifices the rights of the younger and the landless to the convenience and profit of their landed elders.  Those who ALREADY HAVE the good land are privileged to violate the rights of those who don't.  Another very serious problem with it is that many uses of land -- like an apartment building -- involve multiple simultaneous users, and it is not clear how to handle the holding of large amounts of land by developers or development companies that don't "leave," or how to recognize tenants' rights to use the land.  LVT solves those problems.



> Of course, an absolute interpretation of the use equals ownership model would result in unsavoury situations, where mobs of people stand outside the most valued areas, waiting for the current occupier to leave the residence. So rather the model that I'd prefer would be tradable rights to first use.


That's a privilege, not a right; like a taxi medallion.



> Say someone packs up his large farm to go on holiday for a year. He can't have the right to bar people from his previous residency, they must have the right to pitch tents and so on. But neither would it be fair for him to lose his entire livelihood just because he decided to go on holiday. So he should have the right to use the land first. All this would be subject to abandonment of course; if he instead interloped off somewhere for a decade, it would be hardly fair for him to close down shop of everybody who has settled in.


IMO if you consider the matter more carefully, you will see that LVT is a far superior solution.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Under a proper LVT scheme there will be a great deal of land available that is essentially free.  People won't desire to own it, or they'll not desire it enough to make the land worth all that much.  In any case there should be plenty enough land available for people to homestead.  LVT will be a god send for small farmers, especially those who want to not only profit from farming but also use farming to enhance and improve their local ecology.  Country people and rural people have the most to gain from this.  Where do you see the worst material poverty?  Rural populations in poor states where there are a few great private landowning interests in control.  Visit the Alabama Black Belt.  
> 
> LVT is a socially minded scheme and will remove a great many inequities.  Small farmers and rural people and especially the rural poor will benefit enormously.  Virtually everyone benefits from LVT.


As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

----------


## Roy L

> Why would it be authoritarian?


True, it's more feudal and despotic than authoritarian.



> Some people have long-term plans and complex plans, and are not necessarily present at nor using all their property every day,


Question begging fallacy.  We have already established that land can never rightly be their property.



> but there is no authoritarianism in them retaining ownership, keeping it away from other people, as part of their master plan, perhaps not to take place until 30 years in the future, or even 1,000 years in the future.  That doesn't seem authoritarian to me.


True, a more accurate word would be, "evil."



> Also, "land" is not unique


Helmuth will now tell a typical lie that apologists for landowner privilege frequently tell:



> -- _everything_ consists of raw material,


That is self-evidently a flat-out lie.  Products of labor indisputably DO NOT consist of raw material, by definition.



> occupies a set of coordinates,


But not everything persistently deprives people of their natural liberty right to access a *particular* set of coordinates.  Helmuth is dishonestly trying to pretend that the physical space a car occupies -- which can move around -- deprives others of their liberty in just the same way that fencing off an acre of land they want to use does.  However, that is just a transparent lie.



> and otherwise relies on characteristics and resources of existence.


Meaningless gibberish designed to divert attention from the relevant facts.



> That is indeed one of the core points of contention which has been repeated over and over, but you put it nicely.


No, it's a mistaken characterization of what LVT proponents propose.



> Of course, the LVTers don't see it as ludicrous.


More accurately, we don't say it.



> And there's nothing that will change that -- people don't really ever change their minds.


More accurately, apologists for landowner privilege don't change their minds unless they somehow find a willingness to know facts that prove their beliefs are false and evil.  I was unable to see the cat until I realized I was lying to prevent myself from seeing it.  Other LVT proponents have told me of similar revelations, including some who have thanked me for my persistence in identifying the fact that they were lying.

----------


## MattButler

> As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.


Probably does not mean insignificantly.  Besides land tax is not all good.  It is after all, a tax, but at least its a tax that works in the most benign kind of way.  One purpose is to enhance mankind's environment.  That is as benign a goal as any you will find.   You must confront the issues openly and soundly.  If myself and others are willing to devote so much time maybe there is a great deal of value in the thing.

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## Roy L

> As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.


Yes, like eradicating smallpox, or abolishing slavery, or providing whole cities with clean, safe drinking water, or curing pneumonia, or communicating instantly with people anywhere in the world, or being able to access any music you like at any time for free, or storing a library worth of text on a device smaller than your finger that you can buy for 20 minutes' labor....

Yes, LVT offers benefits that sound too good to be true.  But they ARE true.  LVT has ALWAYS WORKED.  ALWAYS.  It MUST do so as a matter of economic law.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Probably does not mean insignificantly.  Besides land tax is not all good.  It is after all, a tax, but at least its a tax that works in the most benign kind of way.  One purpose is to enhance mankind's environment.  That is as benign a goal as any you will find.   You must confront the issues openly and soundly.  If myself and others are willing to devote so much time maybe there is a great deal of value in the thing.


Yes, but the problem with LVT (and almost any other tax) is that it is unaportioned, and will invariably be used for nefarious deeds-and will more than likely increase as the State expands.  People wasting time with LVT would be better off just using reason to persuade people to donate to the treasury.  If it is in fact in the rational self interest of the taxed, they will gladly do it.  I say put it to the test.  Give people the choice of LVT.  Me, I prefer microsecession so I don't have to pay any silly taxes except tariffs.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yes, like eradicating smallpox, or abolishing slavery, or providing whole cities with clean, safe drinking water, or curing pneumonia, or communicating instantly with people anywhere in the world, or being able to access any music you like at any time for free, or storing a library worth of text on a device smaller than your finger that you can buy for 20 minutes' labor....
> 
> Yes, LVT offers benefits that sound too good to be true.  But they ARE true.*  LVT has ALWAYS WORKED.  ALWAYS.  It MUST do so as a matter of economic law.*


Yes, it works to move wealth from group A to group B.  Noone is questioning that it "works" in that regard. As I stated earlier, even Rothbard conceded that it is the "least evil" tax.  That, however, doesn't mean it is good or necessary.

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, but the problem with LVT (and almost any other tax) is that it is unaportioned,


Unlike other taxes, LVT is apportioned exactly to the benefits of which the landholder deprives society.



> and will invariably be used for nefarious deeds-


Then unlike other taxes, government will automatically get less revenue from it next year.  LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE tax that aligns government's financial incentives with the public interest.



> and will more than likely increase as the State expands.


Right: as government spending on services and infrastructure *creates* land value, an expanding state naturally generates more revenue from land value.  As the whole benefit of expanding state activities goes to landowners, the alternative to expanding LVT revenue as the state expands is to give a welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.



> People wasting time with LVT would be better off just using reason to persuade people to donate to the treasury.


No, because there is no way to use reason to persuade people to do something so irrational.  The notion of funding government by donations is self-evidently cretinous.  It has never been done, and never can be, and everyone over the age of 12 understands that fact.



> If it is in fact in the rational self interest of the taxed, they will gladly do it.


No, they will not, any more than landowners will donate enough funds to build roads.  Your claims are just absurd.



> I say put it to the test.  Give people the choice of LVT.


But first tell them an arbitrarily large number of lies about it....



> Me, I prefer microsecession so I don't have to pay any silly taxes except tariffs.


Tariffs, unlike LVT, are certainly silly.

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, it works to move wealth from group A to group B.


Right: it moves wealth from privileged, greedy parasites who have not earned it to honest, productive people who have.



> Noone is questioning that it "works" in that regard. As I stated earlier, even Rothbard conceded that it is the "least evil" tax.  That, however, doesn't mean it is good or necessary.


It is indisputably good.  And it is absolutely necessary to liberty and justice.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It's *not* collectively owned.  It is *un*owned, and *unownable*, so those who deprive others of their liberty to use it must make just compensation for forcibly violating their rights.


See, helmuth? Told you different words would be used, and that would make it indisputably and self-evidently different.  




*0:45* OK, Not-land-owner State, want to go out and charge some Not-rents? The _other-than-ownership-power_ to charge _other-than-rent_ for occupancy of _other-than-ownable-land_ will be appraised at a "fair market value" by an _other-than-landlord-state_. 

Of course, forget that the net effect would be exactly the same as if the land was said to be collectively owned, but that is only if you want to quibble with words and paradigms from some other planet. We won't call it that on our planet, because that's propertarian language that we want eradicated, as this is Dawning of the Non-propertarian Age of Aquarius.  

Under a Georgist LVT regime, exclusive tenure will no longer constitute a welfare subsidy giveaway to "the exclusive landholders" (the Georgist Bourgeois), at the expense of "the productive" (the Georgist Proletariat). Not sure how the distinction is made, since exclusive landholders who are paying the highest LVT are also presumed to be "the most productive". Hence, in many cases, Bourgeois=Proletariat, which means they will not be given a welfare subsidy at their own expense(?).  Even so, this decidedly and presumptively non-Marxist way will constitute an Honest Injun, We Guarantee It, Indisputable And Self-Evident Intention of not forcing "the productive" to relinquish the fruits of their labor. 

But is that true?

Leaseholds will be valued such that the "presumably most productive" entities (as evidenced by rent payments alone) will be forced to return only the _"publicly created value"_ that was magically infused into the land, as provided for by society and government. This is why it cannot be considered a relinquishing of "the fruits of their labor". This in turn will fund "the mechanism" for securing the equal liberty rights of all to use land (not sure what "the mechanism" is, or exactly how it secures equal liberty rights to use all land, but that's what Roy wrote).  

The only other thing I'm not _quite_ sure about**: 

Clearly, an _ad valorem_ land value tax places land-value-dependent commerce at a disadvantage from all other commerce, as leaseholders bear all the costs of government (at least under the idealized Georgist "single tax" system).  However, is it even accurate to say that land-value-dependent commerce is "bearing" those costs, given that the "productive" leaseholders, who are paying all the highest costs for their exclusive land use, would simply continue, as they always have, to pass those costs on to the end-of-line consumers, who _ultimately pay all bills, including all the taxes_? 

It would seem that an LVT is really tantamount to a complex internal tariff on all goods and services that are highly land-use and land-value dependent  (read=_most_ of the basic needs that all humans require for basic survival, which comes from the land itself).  If that really is the case, how does land, via land-dependent commerce, not remain a mere channel through which basic needs are taxed, and consumer productivity (individual wealth) is really and ultimately siphoned?

Lastly, the "Henry George Theorem" states that under certain ideal conditions, aggregate spending by government will be equal to aggregate rent based on land value (land rent). 

You can see where the intent lies for LVT proponents.  Here are two enormous, but roughly equal, amounts of wealth siphoned from the public.  Simply divert that nice, juicy revenue stream away from the landowners, and channel it to government, and you can eliminate other taxes altogether at the expense of both destructive taxes and equally destructive "landowner privilege".  Sounds simple enough. 

My problems with this: 

First and foremost, the Georgist paradigm identifies renters as productive, and landowners as parasites, even when they are owner-occupiers. So it's plain enough to me why government cannot be referred to as a "collective landowner", as that could be like saying "collective parasite".  No, the state, in combination with "society", provides a "publicly created value", and "access to all that nature provides", once it is recognized as the right of everyone, means that a collection of land value rents is not parasitic, but merely a mechanism for recovering what was "deprived" of others "by force".  And the state is not collecting for itself, but rather, ostensibly, on behalf of those who were "otherwise at liberty" but dispossessed.  

With an absolute state-controlled monopoly on leaseholds, however, and no competing interests with which to compare real "market value", what would stop LVT rents from multiplying to many times what they otherwise might have been under a strictly landowner market - such that the aggregate LVT/government spending exceeds the prior aggregate of both rents and government expenditures combined? And how, PRECISELY, would you know this with any certainty?  Do you trust that government is capable of fair and proper valuation _of anything at all_?  I don't. Never will, in fact.  Roy has what he believes is a formula (which I'll call the Georgist Roy Standard).  But why would the state be trusted to follow that when it can't even be trusted with following and protecting something as truly simple as a gold standard (i.e., one UNIT of currency = one WEIGHT/PURITY of metal)?   

Even if I accepted the Georgist liberty rights of-everything-to-everyone premise, which I do not, the extent that government overvalues and otherwise manipulates land to artificially increase its value (through special zoning, artificial scarcity, etc.,) would be the extent to which I viewed (as I do now our current government) as little more than a presumptuous, self-serving, winner choosing and wealth-redistributing parasite.

----------


## Inny Binny

> Why would it be authoritarian?  Some people have long-term plans and complex plans, and are not necessarily present at nor using all their property every day, but there is no authoritarianism in them retaining ownership, keeping it away from other people, as part of their master plan, perhaps not to take place until 30 years in the future, or even 1,000 years in the future.  That doesn't seem authoritarian to me.
> 
> Also, "land" is not unique -- _everything_ consists of raw material, occupies a set of coordinates, and otherwise relies on characteristics and resources of existence.


Well land, or more appropriately territory, is unique in the sense that it _is_ the set of coordinates, not merely an object that occupies them. Of course we could be silly and talk about the dirt in the ground, but we live above ground and not within it, so we're really talking about a volume that people might occupy. It's hard to see how forcing people outside of this is not authoritarian.

Of course the most leftist of social anarchists might say that all absentee ownership is inherently authoritarian. Which is probably correct in the sense that you're using force to prevent someone from using something. But some authoritarianism in property ownership probably necessary for a functioning society; it's just that the ownership of territories is the most strikingly dictatorial of all and is unacceptable to me. Any large-scale absentee ownership of land is essentially a miniature feudalism or monarchy.

@Roy L - It's pretty hard to respond to a set of meaningless decontextualised snippets.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Ever heard of Arden, Delaware? It is a Georgist community where land is not “owned” and it cannot be sold. Instead it is leased. Whatever land you occupy you are free to improve it however you wish. Residents pay only a land value tax for that community. It’s been around  since 1900 and, as far as I know, is still successful.


I don't know if I would call Arden, Delaware a success story or a model, especially given its limited size, but it can be used to give some idea about how extremely pro-LVT people think, believe and behave.  Arden is 160 acres of moderately expensive leasehold land, the "full rental value" assessments of which are driven and determined, no surprise to me, largely by _budget needs_ (which includes county taxes which are levied and paid for out of leasehold payments). 




> LINK - Excerpt
> 
> The Board of Assessors establishes the land rent rates for Arden leaseholds, according to the Georgist principle of “full rental value” of the land. Since Henry George himself never spelled out how to calculate “full rental value,” this is no simple task.


No simple task indeed. Arden's methods are not based on Roy's version of people "bidding" on lands which establish floor values in an otherwise free market.  In fact, there are no 'bids' that control a single thing in Arden. "The Board of Assessors" report is used to determine *how much money must be raised to fund the Village and the Trust, as well as pay County and School taxes*.  This in turn dictates "Base Land Values", which vary only by edict, using arbitrary "value capture" formulas, as also determined by the Board of Assessors.  




> LINK (pdf) 
> *Excerpted from Arden Board of Assessors Report* (emphasis added)
> 
> Sum of town expenses (both "non-budget" in the form of county and school taxes, and "budget" as embodied in the town's budget), and the cost of administering the trust, while maintaining a "prudent reserve".  This method divides full rental value by acreage of land held privately in leaseholds, such divisions determined by assessors' formulas. The formulas, which are intended to reflect the relative value of leaseholds, are based on lot size, *zoning privileges and location factors* (see rates and factors below).


As I predicted, zoning privileges, which are artificially established by planners, is but one method used for value determination based on artificial scarcity which drives up value. Location factors are things like "Forest Factor", adjacency to specific areas, like preferred and non-preferred roads, proximity or adjacency to "communal green".  Factors that would normally determine free market value based on individual preferences and value judgments (e.g., childless or older couple doesn't care about proximity to schools) are all made as "value" assessments, which are made up entirely by an oligarchical elite. 

There is no exactness to the value capture multipliers of leaseholds, which vary by in 5% increments, and a base that equally arbitrarily adds increased value assessment to the A Rate base, like 80% for a B Rate, and 40% for a C Rate.  All of these percentages are distributed shares of tax burden, the total of which is determined by the sum of the overall budget and "prudent reserve".  The percentages themselves only give the impression of just 'feeling their way through', as they experiment with numbers, rather than arrive at any real-world valuations - like Roosevelt waking up each morning after his confiscation of gold to decide arbitrarily what the value of gold was going to be that day.    

Arden is a very small village, with people who presumably interact with one another on a daily basis, which I would think would automatically place a natural check and balance on arbitrary abuses of power, given that everybody pretty much knows everybody by name there. That presents very limited (but certainly not impossible) ability for arbitrary political abuses on an otherwise faceless constituency.  Despite this, Arden already practices what looks like totally arbitrary price-fixing absurdity to me -- something I would never want to be subjected to even that small a scale, and definitely not on the scale of an average city or county.

EDIT:  For anyone who thinks that elected representatives are a check and balance on power in Arden, think again.




> *Trustees*
> The trustees collect the land rent, pay county and school
> taxes, oversee administrative costs of the trust, and see
> that the money remaining is spent in accordance with the
> approved budget. They also invest funds and approve
> the transfer of leases when houses are sold. Occasionally
> they decide on requests to divide lots or adjust boundaries
> (subject to zoning restrictions); give authorization to cut
> trees on leaseholds; deal with encroachment issues, housing
> ...

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Of course the most leftist of social anarchists might say that all absentee ownership is inherently authoritarian.


 Actually, _all_ ownership, absentee or not.  "Property is Theft"; that's the old anarchist mantra.

I really don't see the problem with absentee ownership, in land nor anything else, but you do, so hey, what can one do?  Continue to disagree I suppose.




> Which is probably correct in the sense that you're using force to prevent someone from using something.


 But is that force defensive or aggressive?  In libertarianism (anarcho-capitalism) that is always the big question.  Is the "something" their just property?  If so, then force can be used to defend it.  The force which the "someone" is using to try to start using the "something" would in that case be the unjust force.  

Two kids are fighting over a stick.  Who had it first determines who is in the right.

Force isn't always a bad thing.  In a libertarian society there'd be tons of force: all around, overwhelming, and ever-present.  It would just be defensive force.




> @Roy L - It's pretty hard to respond to a set of meaningless decontextualised snippets.


 Ha ha ha ha ha he he he!!!

----------


## redbluepill

> But am I not correct in my proposal that governments, in your improved micro-secessionist world, would essentially be land-owners?


How so?




> You proposed that under anarcho-capitalism, each land owner is essentially a sovereign nation, and I agreed with you that that's true in a lot of ways -- actually _everyone_ is a sovereign, whatever the nature of his possessions and whether they include land or not.


So what difference would it make if I was a Mexican peasant in the 19th century forced to work for a wealthy landlord? Whether its government or a landlord, in the end there is no difference, I live and work under their rules.




> Now I propose that likewise, under a system of micro-nations, the political rulers (if any) of each micro-nation are for all practical purposes the ultimate landowners of the territory which the micro-nation covers.


The "rulers" would be elected and have limited terms under a geolibertarian micro-nation. Same cannot be said about a landlord who rules a chunk of land til the day he dies and passes it on to an heir.




> Since you didn't directly reply to this point, I assume you agree that it is basically correct.  Governments = landowners.  Your system does not really abolish landownership, it makes the political rulers the new landowners.


Under geolibertarianism, governments do not decide what the tax will be, the market does. The government does not dictate who, when or how its used.

In The Condition of Labor Henry George stated, "We propose--leaving land in the private possession of individuals, with full liberty on their part to give, sell or bequeath it--simply to levy on it for public uses a tax that shall equal the annual value of the land itself, irrespective of the use made of it or the improvements on it."

^Can't be much of an "owner" if you cant do any of those things.

You say landowning is a right. If that is the case then there is logically no right to life. In order to live we must have a right to access resources (food, water, shelter, etc). If we must ask permission for such things then there are no rights. There are only the "rights" of the landowners.

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## Roy L

> @Roy L - It's pretty hard to respond to a set of meaningless decontextualised snippets.


I know, it's annoying that the site doesn't support multiple levels of quoting, as some other forums do, but IMO a sentence-by-sentence response makes it clearer where the issues are and what I am responding to.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> How so?


Gee whiz, don't go Roy L. on me now and start replying to messages without reading them first.  The rest of your reply makes it clear that you understand exactly "how so".




> So what difference would it make if I was a Mexican peasant in the 19th century forced to work for a wealthy landlord? Whether its government or a landlord, in the end there is no difference, I live and work under their rules.


 For one thing, you're not _forced_ to work for the landlord.  Of course, we are not usually forced to work for the state, either.  But anyway, I went through some differences I see as important (no mass slavery permitted, no mass robbery, no mass murder), but you didn't see those differences as impressive.  So be it!




> The "rulers" would be elected and have limited terms under a geolibertarian micro-nation. Same cannot be said about a landlord who rules a chunk of land til the day he dies and passes it on to an heir.


 Bingo!  So you do see it!  The rulers are ruling over the land, and are thus the de-facto and de-jure lords of that land.  They are landlords.  Now as you say, there are differences between them and typical free-market landlords.  The rulers might be term-limited, for instance.  Think about the incentives that gives them, by the way.  The king who can pass on his land to his heirs, will he want to preserve and enhance its value?  The geo-libertarian demagogue who will only be in charge for 4 years, will he want to run his land into the ground, extracting every penny he can from it during his few available years of exploitation?

In any case, a short-term (and short-sighted) time horizon is but one potential difference between political landlords and market landlords.  The market landlord gets his land through homesteading and success at productive voluntary trade.  The political landlord gets his through military conquests and success at being a master politician -- that is, being a master conniver, manipulator, and deceiver.  I'd rather reward the adventurous, clever, and wealth-generating, rather they who excel at violence and lying.  that's just me!

Natural resources ("land") are initially unowned.  Then humans come along and start to make decisions about said resources.  At that point, someone is going to make the ultimate decisions over natural resources.  That's the reality.  That ultimate decision-making is what defines ownership.  _Someone_ is going to be the "owner".  Fantasies to the contrary have nothing to recommend them but utter impossibility.

I submit that you do not want to end landownership, redbluepill.  That would be impossible (without ending humanity).  We both understand this.  What you want is to limit landownership in certain ways, to put certain checks and balances, limits and leashes, onto your landowners so that their ownership will be a boon to society rather than a bane.  I personally think that my proposed checks and balances -- those of competition and the free market -- will be more effective at limiting any tyrannical impulses of landlords than yours -- those of democratic pressures, constitutional provisions, and other incentives native to the political realm.  But we both do want kind of sort of the same end result: a diverse and non-agressive society, with each individual at liberty to go about his life as he chooses.




> Under geolibertarianism, governments do not decide what the tax will be, the market does. The government does not dictate who, when or how its used.


 Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I have reason to believe that governments, having a monopoly on final violence in a given area, will on occasion abuse this power and perhaps somewhat exceed the bounds laid down for them by their people's wills or by their Constitution.  You do not share this skepticism?




> Can't be much of an "owner" if you cant do any of those things.


 If each micro-state is truly independent, it could decide to stop being strictly Georgist at any time, and start imposing certain "reasonable restrictions" like zoning, permits, licensure, seizing land for the state's use, etc., etc.  Most of which Georgist deviants like Roy L. would wholeheartedly support.




> You say landowning is a right. If that is the case then there is logically no right to life. In order to live we must have a right to access resources (food, water, shelter, etc). If we must ask permission for such things then there are no rights. There are only the "rights" of the landowners.


 To me, the right to life is the right to not have your life aggressively ended by another person.  It is not the right to have your life maintained.  It's up to you to secure whatever resources you need to stay alive, should you choose to exercise this right to live (you don't have to exercise it).  It's like the right to bear arms.  The right does not actually depend upon the real availability of arms to you, or even their existence.  If you want to exercise the right, it's up to you to make it happen.  People have the right to speech, the right to education, and the right to health care in the same sense.  No one's right are violated should they lack communicative faculties, lack funds to hire tutelage, or lack nearby doctors.  These are lacks, or privations, not aggressions and oppressions.

----------


## Roy L

> See, helmuth? Told you different words would be used, and that would make it indisputably and self-evidently different.


Different words are used because it IS different.



> OK, Not-land-owner State, want to go out and charge some Not-rents? The _other-than-ownership-power_ to charge _other-than-rent_ for occupancy of _other-than-ownable-land_ will be appraised at a "fair market value" by an _other-than-landlord-state_.


<sigh>  A trustee charges market rent -- is indeed normally required to -- but does not own the asset.  You just have to refuse to know that fact, and pretend I have not already informed you of it multiple times.



> Of course, forget that the net effect would be exactly the same as if the land was said to be collectively owned, but that is only if you want to quibble with words and paradigms from some other planet.


Wrong AGAIN.  If the land were collectively owned, the collective could rightly decide to sell it.  They can't.



> Under a Georgist LVT regime, exclusive tenure will no longer constitute a welfare subsidy giveaway to "the exclusive landholders" (the Georgist Bourgeois), at the expense of "the productive" (the Georgist Proletariat). Not sure how the distinction is made, since exclusive landholders who are paying the highest LVT are also presumed to be "the most productive".


Right: you are not sure, because you permanently refuse to know the fact that LVT removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner that makes him unjustly privileged.



> Hence, in many cases, Bourgeois=Proletariat, which means they will not be given a welfare subsidy at their own expense(?).


Right.  It is merely inconceivable to you that under LVT, no one is privileged at others' expense.  Having never seen justice, and refusing to know all relevant facts, you are as incapable of conceiving of justice as the aboriginal Americans were of conceiving private landowning.



> Leaseholds will be valued such that the "presumably most productive" entities (as evidenced by rent payments alone) will be forced to return only the _"publicly created value"_ that was magically infused into the land, as provided for by society and government.


LVT is a voluntary value-for-value transaction, not "force."  It is the private landowner who initiates force to remove the liberty rights of others.



> This is why it cannot be considered a relinquishing of "the fruits of their labor". This in turn will fund "the mechanism" for securing the equal liberty rights of all to use land (not sure what "the mechanism" is, or exactly how it secures equal liberty rights to use all land, but that's what Roy wrote).


The mechanism is the LVT system, obviously.  



> The only other thing I'm not _quite_ sure about**: 
> 
> Clearly, an _ad valorem_ land value tax places land-value-dependent commerce at a disadvantage from all other commerce, as leaseholders bear all the costs of government (at least under the idealized Georgist "single tax" system).


The only commerce that is "land-value-dependent" is the parasitic rent-seeking activity of landowners and land speculators.  Actual productive USE of land does not depend on land value in the least, as the user does not care if he pays the rent to a public land administration to fund desired services and infrastructure or a private landowner in return for nothing -- except that in the former case, he would of course not be liable to pay taxes as well.  Indeed, the most productive producers using the most advantageous land would likely gain the *most* from LVT, as they are the ones currently shouldering most of the tax burden* ON TOP OF* PAYING RENT.



> However, is it even accurate to say that land-value-dependent commerce is "bearing" those costs, given that the "productive" leaseholders, who are paying all the highest costs for their exclusive land use, would simply continue, as they always have, to pass those costs on to the end-of-line consumers, who _ultimately pay all bills, including all the taxes_?


Again, that claim is just pure economic ignorance.  Land rent is not a cost that is passed on to consumers whether it is paid to landowners or to a public land administration, because it is the measure of the ADVANTAGE the land user obtains.  IOW, a store does not charge higher prices in order to pay higher rent for its good location; it has to pay higher rent for its good location because it is able to sell things for higher prices there.  Please take a few months off work to think about what this means, as you clearly haven't the foggiest notion.

However, CURRENT TAXES (other than the land value portion of property taxes), which the productive pay to fund the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners, ARE passed on to consumers in various degrees (probably averaging around half) depending on the type of tax.  That is why LVT both reduces consumer prices and increases producers' wages.



> It would seem that an LVT is really tantamount to a complex internal tariff on all goods and services that are highly land-use and land-value dependent  (read=_most_ of the basic needs that all humans require for basic survival, which comes from the land itself).


Yes, it would seem that way -- but only to an economic ignoramus or lying apologist for landowner privilege.  Market land rent is exactly the same whether it is paid to a private landowner or a public land administration, so LVT does not increase the cost of *using* land, only of *owning* land.  Land rent is also exactly the same whether the land is used at its most productive or not used at all, so it is* not a cost of production* whether it is paid to a private landowner or to a public land administration.  Try to find a willingness to know those two facts, as they prove you have no idea what you are talking about.



> If that really is the case, how does land, via land-dependent commerce, not remain a mere channel through which basic needs are taxed, and consumer productivity (individual wealth) is really and ultimately siphoned?


Only the landowner loses by LVT, as only the landowner is made worse off; and he only loses the privilege of pocketing *unearned* wealth, not a return to productivity.



> Lastly, the "Henry George Theorem" states that under certain ideal conditions, aggregate spending by government will be equal to aggregate rent based on land value (land rent). 
> 
> You can see where the intent lies for LVT proponents.  Here are two enormous, but roughly equal, amounts of wealth siphoned from the public.  Simply divert that nice, juicy revenue stream away from the landowners, and channel it to government, and you can eliminate other taxes altogether at the expense of both destructive taxes and equally destructive "landowner privilege".  Sounds simple enough.


And it is.  Simple choice: pay for government twice so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing, or pay for government only once, cutting out the something-for-nothing payment to the landowner.  *It really is just that simple.*



> First and foremost, the Georgist paradigm identifies renters as productive, and landowners as parasites, even when they are owner-occupiers.


Which they are, as such.  It is economic roles we are talking about, not actual persons who often fulfill a number of different roles.  A working person who also owns land is productive by working, and a parasite by owning land.  If he also happens to sit on the town council, he is part of the government, too.  That doesn't mean the government also does the productive work and owns the land, any more than it means owning land also involves doing productive work.  



> So it's plain enough to me why government cannot be referred to as a "collective landowner", as that could be like saying "collective parasite".  No, the state, in combination with "society", provides a "publicly created value", and "access to all that nature provides", once it is recognized as the right of everyone, means that a collection of land value rents is not parasitic, but merely a mechanism for recovering what was "deprived" of others "by force".  And the state is not collecting for itself, but rather, ostensibly, on behalf of those who were "otherwise at liberty" but dispossessed.


By George, he's got it!



> With an absolute state-controlled monopoly on leaseholds,


Land is always a monopoly.  It is a canonical example of monopoly.



> however, and no competing interests with which to compare real "market value",


Wrong AGAIN.  It is land *users* who compete for the land, and that is what establishes its market value.



> what would stop LVT rents from multiplying to many times what they otherwise might have been under a strictly landowner market - such that the aggregate LVT/government spending exceeds the prior aggregate of both rents and government expenditures combined?


The Law of Rent.  People will not bid more for land than the difference between the return they can obtain on good land and what they can obtain on marginal land.



> And how, PRECISELY, would you know this with any certainty?


By comparing aggregate rents with GDP.  In general, a given percent increase in GDP implies a slightly greater percent increase in aggregate land rent.



> Do you trust that government is capable of fair and proper valuation _of anything at all_?  I don't. Never will, in fact.


<sigh>  The market values land, and the government can't get more revenue from LVT than by charging the market rent on each site.  People are radically unpredictable, so no one can guarantee what any government will do in practice, but *LVT ALIGNS GOVERNMENT'S FINANCIAL INCENTIVES with the public interest.*



> Roy has what he believes is a formula (which I'll call the Georgist Roy Standard).  But why would the state be trusted to follow that when it can't even be trusted with following and protecting something as truly simple as a gold standard (i.e., one UNIT of currency = one WEIGHT/PURITY of metal)?


WHAT ARE THE INCENTIVES?  In fact, the Roman (later Byzantine) empire maintained a very reliable gold standard -- the aureus -- for over 700 years.



> Even if I accepted the Georgist liberty rights of-everything-to-everyone premise, which I do not, the extent that government overvalues and otherwise manipulates land to artificially increase its value (through special zoning, artificial scarcity, etc.,)


<sigh>  *IT DOES THAT NOW AT THE BEHEST OF POLITICALLY CONNECTED LANDOWNERS.*  Hello?



> would be the extent to which I viewed (as I do now our current government) as little more than a presumptuous, self-serving, winner choosing and wealth-redistributing parasite.


Well, "meeza hatesa gubmint" types might still think of an LVT government that way, but it would not in fact be that way.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Under geolibertarianism, governments do not decide what the tax will be, the market does. The government does not dictate who, when or how its used.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have reason to believe that governments, having a monopoly on final violence in a given area, will on occasion abuse this power and perhaps somewhat exceed the bounds laid down for them by their people's wills or by their Constitution. You do not share this skepticism?


I think that is a matter of absolute certainty and historical fact, which you answered well enough with your very next line:




> If each micro-state is truly independent, it could decide to stop being strictly Georgist at any time, and start imposing certain "reasonable restrictions" like zoning, permits, licensure, seizing land for the state's use, etc., etc. Most of which Georgist deviants like Roy L. would wholeheartedly support.


I have yet to see a response to this other than dismissive form of "Well, that can happen anyway under any system".

Most of the Georgists/Geoists I've read, and I've read a lot from other sites since jumping into this thread, fall into the same category of believing that Geoism would work well, if only their particular version, with their preferred constraints, or formulas, were applied - which would make it "pure". This implies a kind of belief in some kind of restraint and altruistic purity on the side of the state, while completely ignoring the history of states, and state-side "market" dynamics, which always exist.  States have agendas, and budgets, which are only limited (as an ever-rising, never-falling ceiling) by markets - not dictated by them.  

Geoists give formulas, and intents, with implied assurances that somehow only "the market" will dictate.  That reminds me of Roosevelt's first Fireside chat, as he assured the American public:




> Remember that the essential accomplishment of the new legislation is that it makes it possible for banks more readily to convert their assets into cash than was the case before. More liberal provision has been made for banks to borrow on these assets at the Reserve Banks and more liberal provision has also been made for issuing currency on the security of these good assets. *This currency is not fiat currency. It is issued only on adequate security, and every good bank has an abundance of such security.*


Well, of course it wasn't a fiat currency. Why, even Roosevelt knew that would be bad(?), else why give assurances to the contrary?  And of course the "good" banks had an abundance of security, else why the need for a bank holiday? That was just the "bad" banks.  THAT is the recorded history, and track record, of the state. And now the camel, with his nose even more firmly in the tent, need only confiscate all gold, and later start playing with its value -- and even later recognize the need for a fiat currency after all, as it dips farther and deeper into a collectivized well that is now thoroughly debased.  

Oh no, not a "pure" Georgist LVT system.  Why, it would only be a single tax, because no other tax would be needed! 

And of course, as a massive social experiment, this particular one cannot even be tried without completely abolishing what many, including myself, consider a fundamental right.  And once you cede rights to the state, the state is never inclined to acknowledge, recognize, or give them back. Not without spilling a lot of blood, and even then, more not than often.

----------


## Roy L

> For one thing, you're not _forced_ to work for the landlord.


If you are not a landowner, and government does not intercede on your behalf, you work for a landlord or you die.  Please re-read the case of the Quakers in India.



> Of course, we are not usually forced to work for the state, either.  But anyway, I went through some differences I see as important (no mass slavery permitted, no mass robbery, no mass murder), but you didn't see those differences as impressive.


Absent government intervention on behalf of the landless, private landowning reliably results in mass slavery, mass robbery and mass murder.



> The geo-libertarian demagogue who will only be in charge for 4 years, will he want to run his land into the ground, extracting every penny he can from it during his few available years of exploitation?


Unlike the king, he doesn't get to keep the money, duh.



> The market landlord gets his land through homesteading


No, that has never happened, stop lying.  Land is never initially obtained by any means but forcible appropriation.  You just want to legitimize all current land titles by *PRETENDING* they *might* have been obtained other than by violation of rights.



> and success at productive voluntary trade.


No, we have already established that as land is not a product of labor, it can never be earned by labor.



> The political landlord gets his through military conquests and success at being a master politician -- that is, being a master conniver, manipulator, and deceiver.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  It is *actual current land titles* that are always based on deceit, manipulation, theft and slaughter.  The geolibertarian "landlord," by contrast, is selected by the people whose interests he is to serve on the basis of their confidence in his competence and honesty.



> I'd rather reward the adventurous, clever, and wealth-generating, rather they who excel at violence and lying.  that's just me!


No, more accurately, that's just another evil, vicious, despicable lie from you.  The private ownership of land that you *demand* be rewarded and subsidized by forcible, violent theft from the productive has *always* initially been obtained by violence, lying and/or butchery, and that is what you wish to reward: the maximum possible level of parasitism and evil.  Ownership of land has *never* initially been obtained by being adventurous or clever (other than in the practice of violence, lying and butchery), and certainly never by wealth generation.  We have already established that that is logically impossible.



> Natural resources ("land") are initially unowned.  Then humans come along and start to make decisions about said resources.


And they are still unowned.



> At that point, someone is going to make the ultimate decisions over natural resources.  That's the reality.


No, it isn't, as hunter-gatherers use and make decisions about natural resources without anyone owning them or "making ultimate decisions" about them.



> That ultimate decision-making is what defines ownership.


<sigh>  Nope.  Already disproved: a trustee makes ultimate decisions regarding trust assets, but does not own them.  Ownership is a bundle of four rights, of which decision making (control) is only one.  



> _Someone_ is going to be the "owner".  Fantasies to the contrary have nothing to recommend them but utter impossibility.


ROTFL!!  Already disproved.  And speaking of utter impossibility, who owns the earth's atmosphere, hmmmm?  We all seem to use it just fine without anyone owning it.

You just always have to tell absurd lies.  *Always*.



> I submit that you do not want to end landownership, redbluepill.


I submit that you intend always to lie about what rbp and I say, Helmuth.



> That would be impossible (without ending humanity).


Nonsense.  Our ancestors lived just fine without anyone owning the land.



> What you want is to limit landownership in certain ways, to put certain checks and balances, limits and leashes, onto your landowners so that their ownership will be a boon to society rather than a bane.


Right.



> I personally think that my proposed checks and balances -- those of competition and the free market -- will be more effective at limiting any tyrannical impulses of landlords than yours -- those of democratic pressures, constitutional provisions, and other incentives native to the political realm.


But in fact, all of history and the established facts of economics prove you are objectively wrong about that (not that being proved objectively wrong could ever stimulate you to reconsider your proved-wrong beliefs).



> But we both do want kind of sort of the same end result: a diverse and non-agressive society, with each individual at liberty to go about his life as he chooses.


Which is inherently impossible under your private landowning model.



> I have reason to believe that governments, having a monopoly on final violence in a given area, will on occasion abuse this power and perhaps somewhat exceed the bounds laid down for them by their people's wills or by their Constitution.  You do not share this skepticism?


Certainly.  Just as cars will occasionally break down.  That doesn't mean having a car is a bad idea. 



> If each micro-state is truly independent, it could decide to stop being strictly Georgist at any time, and start imposing certain "reasonable restrictions" like zoning, permits, licensure, seizing land for the state's use, etc., etc.  Most of which Georgist deviants like Roy L. would wholeheartedly support.


I neither call nor consider myself a Georgist, deviant or otherwise.  I don't think permits and licensure are particularly necessary, but zoning and eminent domain probably are.



> It's up to you to secure whatever resources you need to stay alive, should you choose to exercise this right to live (you don't have to exercise it).


No.  It is not up to people to "secure" the resources they need to stay alive by laboring for the unearned profit of those who have forcibly removed their liberty right to access and use said resources.  To impose such a burden of involuntary servitude in place of the right to liberty would simply be to enable extortion and parasitism by the greedy, evil filth who are privileged to own everyone else's rights -- which is what you obviously want to enable.



> It's like the right to bear arms.  The right does not actually depend upon the real availability of arms to you, or even their existence.  If you want to exercise the right, it's up to you to make it happen.  People have the right to speech, the right to education, and the right to health care in the same sense.  No one's right are violated should they lack communicative faculties, lack funds to hire tutelage, or lack nearby doctors.  These are lacks, or privations, not aggressions and oppressions.


True.  But it *is* oppression and aggression when Dirtowner Harry demands a lifetime of servitude for Thirsty's access to the water nature provided.  It *is* oppression and aggression when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and tells him to choose between a lifetime of servitude and getting back in the water.  It *is* oppression and aggression when the bandit/toll taker/landowner demands loot/tolls/rent from the merchants for use of the pass nature provided.  You just always have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> If the land were collectively owned, the collective could rightly decide to sell it.  They can't.


Remember those sourced definitions which you asked for, which I provided and you never responded to? Here they are again:




> *own·er·ship* - _noun_
> the state or fact of being an ownerlegal right of possession; lawful title (to something); proprietorship
> *own·er* - _noun_
> possessor
> *own* - _transitive verb_
> to possessto hold as personal propertyto have
> 
> *SOURCE:* Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
> 
> ...


*Possession*, not the ability to sell, is all that is required for _a fact of ownership_. *A right of possession* (aka right of control) is all that is required for a _legal right of ownership_.  The option to sell or not is not required at all. That is only one quality of one expanded version of ownership in your mind. Not base ownership, factual or legal. 

Hypothetically, Congress could grant me title to a million acres of BLM land as allodial or fee simple land - in my name alone.  It could allocate this land to me personally under the Necessary and Proper clause, with a proviso that prohibited title transfer to anyone else.  You might split hairs and want to refer to it as a trust, or something else, but if Congress did that, _I would become the legal owner of the land_, inasmuch as I would have a full _right of possession and control_.  I could rent it out, lease it out, and otherwise dispose of it in any way that I wished, so long as there was no title transfer in the process.  The fact that I couldn't sell or otherwise transfer ownership by law is a stickler in your own mind only, Roy (i.e., "Bah! It's not real ownership if you can't sell or dispose of it!"). But that would not be based on any fundamental or root definition of ownership, but your own personal rules for what "ought to" constitute ownership, in your mind only.  

You honestly think the inability for the state to sell land has somehow magically disposed of the concept of ownership itself? It has not, as a fact of ownership is possession only, and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control). Which the state would have under an LVT, making the state, "the collective" the "OWNER". 

WORSE YET - you are in serious error, Roy, confusing intent with a capacity, or power.  The state, _of all entities_, DOES RETAIN both the right and ability to sell the land - to create and transfer titles, regardless of its initial intent. Just pass yet another law, a Constitutional Amendment even, and POOF! all that land that was FULLY under state "right of forcible possession" control can go right onto the market.  So much for the state's (the collectives') inability to "rightly decide" to sell.  The collective (the state) can "rightly decide" (that is "lawfully and legally" decide - having NOTHING to do with moral rights) to pass a Constitutional Amendment that legalizes murder if it wanted.    




> (emphasis added)
> Again, that claim is just pure economic ignorance. * Land rent is not a cost that is passed on to consumers* whether it is paid to landowners or to a public land administration, because* it is the measure of the ADVANTAGE the land user obtains*.  IOW, a store does not charge higher prices in order to pay higher rent for its good location; it has to pay higher rent for its good location because it is able to sell things for higher prices there.  Please take a few months off work to think about what this means, as you clearly haven't the foggiest notion.


That is one of the foggiest-headed, mush-brained things I have ever read!  Talk about economic ignorance, Roy. Blithering nonsense of the most pathetic kind.  I run businesses, Roy.  Rent may be a "measure of advantage" in your mind, in the context of your economy theories, but to most businesses rents is nothing more than an *EXPENSE*  - an integral part of my "manufacturing overhead", which I (AND MOST OTHER) businesses factor into our total costs, _which in turn dictates our prices_.  

So you are, once again, wrong in the absolute.  Rent, like any other *expense*, is factored in as overhead cost, which is *ALWAYS* passed onto the consumer.  Even if we did nothing but break even, not taking a profit of any kind, I don't have, nor do I know of any accountant, or accounting program, that has a category for rents or any other expenses paid called "MEASURE OF ADVANTAGE".  We kinda tend to more think of rent as a "Measure of One Kind Of Expense".  Even if I put myself into a Monty Python song called, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Rent" (whistle along), and I convinced myself that it was indeed a "Measure of Advantage", it would not make it any less of an EXPENSE - AKA MEASURE OF COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE (to an equivalent manufacturer of the same widget next door who owns his property outright and does not have rent or mortgage to factor in as overhead).

That was priceless, Roy.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Remember those sourced definitions which you asked for, which I provided and you never responded to? Here they are again:
> 
> 
> 
> *Possession*, not the ability to sell, is all that is required for _a fact of ownership_. *A right of possession* (aka right of control) is all that is required for a _legal right of ownership_.  The option to sell or not is not required at all. That is only one quality of one expanded version of ownership in your mind. Not base ownership, factual or legal. 
> 
> Hypothetically, Congress could grant me title to a million acres of BLM land as allodial or fee simple land - in my name alone.  It could allocate this land to me personally under the Necessary and Proper clause, with a proviso that prohibited title transfer to anyone else.  You might split hairs and want to refer to it as a trust, or something else, but if Congress did that, _I would become the legal owner of the land_, inasmuch as I would have a full _right of possession and control_.  I could rent it out, lease it out, and otherwise dispose of it in any way that I wished, so long as there was no title transfer in the process.  The fact that I couldn't sell or otherwise transfer ownership by law is a stickler in your own mind only, Roy (i.e., "Bah! It's not real ownership if you can't sell or dispose of it!"). But that would not be based on any fundamental or root definition of ownership, but your own personal rules for what "ought to" constitute ownership, in your mind only.  
> 
> You honestly think the inability for the state to sell land has somehow magically disposed of the concept of ownership itself? It has not, as a fact of ownership is possession only, and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control). Which the state would have under an LVT, making the state, "the collective" the "OWNER". 
> ...


I tried explaining this to Roy earlier, but he dismissed it.  Maybe your explanation will be more satisfactory.

----------


## Roy L

> I have yet to see a response to this other than dismissive form of "Well, that can happen anyway under any system".


Do you think that the ever-present threat of food poisoning is a good reason to stop eating food?



> Most of the Georgists/Geoists I've read, and I've read a lot from other sites since jumping into this thread, fall into the same category of believing that Geoism would work well, if only their particular version, with their preferred constraints, or formulas, were applied - which would make it "pure".


So?  You can also go to a bunch of different exercise sites, or diet sites, and find disagreements about what is "just right."  It depends to some extent on your goals, and to some extent on where you are starting from.  Just because there are disagreements about details of implementation doesn't mean there is not agreement on the principles, or that the principles are not true and valid.  Recovery of publicly created land rent for public purposes and benefit would work to the extent that it is actually applied, just as it always has.

However, like Henry George, some Georgists have not yet appreciated the necessity of restoring the individual right to liberty through a uniform, universal individual land tax exemption (or, second best, an equivalent citizens' dividend).  That is one reason I prefer to call myself a "geoist": one who considers the equal human rights to life and liberty to imply an equal right to the liberty to access and use what nature provides -- the earth's resources -- to sustain one's life.



> This implies a kind of belief in some kind of restraint and altruistic purity on the side of the state, while completely ignoring the history of states, and state-side "market" dynamics, which always exist.  States have agendas, and budgets, which are only limited (as an ever-rising, never-falling ceiling) by markets - not dictated by them.


Except LVT, which is automatically limited to recovering the land rent government and society create.  Any attempt to take more just results in reduced revenue as land is left unused.



> Geoists give formulas, and intents, with implied assurances that somehow only "the market" will dictate.


Only the market CAN say what people are willing to pay.



> That reminds me of Roosevelt's first Fireside chat, as he assured the American public:


But facts of economics aren't determined by what various things happen to remind you of.



> Well, of course it wasn't a fiat currency. Why, even Roosevelt knew that would be bad(?), else why give assurances to the contrary?  And of course the "good" banks had an abundance of security, else why the need for a bank holiday? That was just the "bad" banks.  THAT is the recorded history, and track record, of the state.


No, it's just one incident in the history of one state.  Give your head a shake.



> Oh no, not a "pure" Georgist LVT system.  Why, it would only be a single tax, because no other tax would be needed!


The advantages of replacing as many taxes as possible with LVT revenue do not depend on whether additional revenue is thought to be needed.  It is simply beneficial to the extent that it is used.  It does not guarantee that all other government policies will also be beneficial.



> And of course, as a massive social experiment, this particular one cannot even be tried without completely abolishing what many, including myself, consider a fundamental right.


But which Hong Kong proves is actually *not*  -- and I have proved can never be -- a fundamental right.

In any case, it is quite possible to try LVT without first abolishing private landowning.  Just remove the property tax on improvements and gradually increase the rate, and see how it improves the economy and solves social problems.  



> And once you cede rights to the state, the state is never inclined to acknowledge, recognize, or give them back. Not without spilling a lot of blood, and even then, more not than often.


Private landowners never had a right to own land.  They only had a state-issued and -enforced privilege.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I tried explaining this to Roy earlier, but he dismissed it.  Maybe your explanation will be more satisfactory.


The fact that he didn't understand something as simple as rent as a "measure of expense" tells me he won't get it at all. Way too disconnected from reality.  I see what Roy means, and where his confusion lies. He is thinking in terms of a location advantage, without realizing that it's also being nullified by rents charged in the case of the existence of a landlord.

If I have a hotel on a beachfront, I have a measurable advantage over a hotel that is two blocks away from the beach -- ASSUMING we both owned our properties outright. My more desirable (to the public) location does make it more valuable, because people will be willing to pay more to rent a room from me.  But that is the rents I CHARGE!  If both I and the hotel owner down the street do not own our properties, but are paying unequal rents for our respective lands, that can amount to a zero-sum gain, or even a slight profit/balance sheet advantage to my competitor down the sheet, as the entire _Measure of Advantage_ goes to the landlord only (public or private)!

----------


## Roy L

> Primary definitions only:


And therefore equivocations:



> *own·er·ship* - _noun_
> the state or fact of being an ownerlegal right of possession; lawful title (to something); proprietorship
> *own·er* - _noun_
> possessor
> *own* - _transitive verb_
> to possessto hold as personal propertyto have
> 
> *SOURCE:* Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
> 
> ...


You have mixed irrelevant with relevant senses.  That's equivocation, and it is fallacious.  I don't know any other way to explain that to you.

----------


## eduardo89

How is an LVT fair to homeowners whose land goes up in value (and therefore their tax as well) but their wages remain stagnant? 

As the supporters of LVT claim, the tax should be levied on the intrinsic value of a site. But it turns out that such values often depend on the surroundings of the plot and not only on the plot itself. There is no purely intrinsic value, especially when it comes to land in the cities. In other words, changes made by your neighbours will affect the value of your property. If your neighbour builds a polluting factory, your land value and thus your LVT will fall. If your neighbour, however, opens a theme park or if a new tube line stops in front of your door, your land value will increase and with it the tax you would have to pay on it. So in other words, the tax one has to pay does not actually depend solely on one’s own property positions, let alone one’s financial situation, but on the consequences of other people’s actions. Surely, such a system of taxation cannot be regarded as fair or just.

----------


## Roy L

> The fact that he didn't understand something as simple as rent as a "measure of expense" tells me he won't get it at all.


Land rent is not a measure of expense.  Period.  The fact that you think it is just shows you aren't talking about land rent but something else.



> Way too disconnected from reality.  I see what Roy means, and where his confusion lies.


The confusion is yours.  Trying to correct it is apparently a waste of my time.



> He is thinking in terms of a location advantage, without realizing that it's also being nullified by rents charged in the case of the existence of a landlord.


The location advantage (land rent) is the same no matter if it is being paid to a private landlord or to a public land tax administration, or is being pocketed by the user, or is simply being wasted if the land is unused.



> If I have a hotel on a beachfront, I have a measurable advantage over a hotel that is two blocks away from the beach -- ASSUMING we both owned our properties outright.


The locational advantage does not depend on who owns the hotel, or whether they owe money on it, or anything else related to the user, or how much the tax is, or even if the land is vacant.  You are confusing the locational advantage with WHO GETS that advantage.



> My more desirable (to the public) location does make it more valuable, because people will be willing to pay more to rent a room from me.  But that is the rents I CHARGE!


Which is the point.  You don't charge those higher room rates because you have more rent to pay.  You charge them because people are willing to pay them, and you have no reason to forego that additional revenue.



> If both I and the hotel owner down the street do not own our properties, but are paying unequal rents for our respective lands, that can amount to a zero-sum gain, or even a slight profit/balance sheet advantage to my competitor down the sheet, as the entire _Measure of Advantage_ goes to the landlord only (public or private)!


Sorry, Steven, but that is GIBBERISH.  And as with all your other gibberish, I will not be responding to it because I cannot figure out what it means.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Do you think that the ever-present threat of food poisoning is a good reason to stop eating food?


Not all foods, but I would certainly avoid foods that are known to be contaminated.  Well, for example, I would avoid having anything to do with a known-contaminated Federal Reserve dollar wherever possible, looking instead for much healthier alternatives.




> Only the market CAN say what people are willing to pay.


NOT in the case of a monopoly, especially on something that is absolutely essential to life itself.  What are you "willing" to pay for water if I am the only source, and you are dying of thirst? A monopoly owner can dictate price, and the market participants who are forced to deal with the Only Market Owner In Town, can only dictate _what they are ABLE_, not "willing", to pay.  A universe of difference, and there lies the rub. 




> But which Hong Kong proves is actually *not*  -- and I have proved can never be -- a fundamental right.


You're confusing fundamental with universal, and further giving it a mush-factor when you talk about rights.  When I say "fundamental right", or even "unalienable right" I am not talking universal, or even legal rights. I am referring to a normative - not what can be proved or disproved (rights exist only as human constructs, and cannot be proved or disproved outside of these constructs) - only what I believe "OUGHT" to be recognized by society as fundamental, and codified as law.  

Hong Kong neither proves or disproves anything with regard to rights.  The fact that rights can be recognized, acknowledged, agreed upon or declared, and the fact that these can take on virtually ANY form - only proves what we as humans are capable of conjuring and manifesting as normatives.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Land rent is not a measure of expense.  Period.  The fact that you think it is just shows you aren't talking about land rent but something else.


See, heavenlyboy34? Told you he wouldn't get it. 




> (corrections added)
> The location advantage (increased land rent) is the same no matter if it is being paid to a private landlord or to a public land tax administration, or is being pocketed by the user, or is simply being wasted if the land is unused.


Wrong. The ultimate controller (owner/landlord) can exploit the location advantage such that there is really no economic competitive advantage to the leaseholder.  In the case of the End Renter (the customer of the hotel) this is acknowledged up front.  They will simply pay more for a preferred location, or go down the street if they want to save some money.  The landlord (public or private), meanwhile, is EVER-AWARE of location advantage, and can merely siphon this "Measure of Advantage" off as his own.  Then, all things being artificially equalized by those who control the base rents, or leaseholds, there might be no "Measure of Advantage" to the leaseholders in terms of profits earned.   




> The locational advantage does not depend on who owns the hotel, or whether they owe money on it, or anything else related to the user, or how much the tax is, or even if the land is vacant.  You are confusing the locational advantage with WHO GETS that advantage.


You are confused, as usual, since if nobody GETS the advantage, there IS NO advantage. 

If I own a hotel and its beachfront land outright, I do have a Measurable Advantage over someone who owns a hotel and land of equal size and quality down the street, away from the beach.   Advantage Me, as I can earn more based on my location alone, all other things being equal.  Enter an LVT, and that Measurable Advantage can easily be siphoned completely away, as it is taxed by the LVT landlord - who ALONE takes the advantage.  




> Which is the point.  You don't charge those higher room rates because you have more rent to pay.  You charge them because people are willing to pay them, and you have no reason to forego that additional revenue.


It's not a case of either/or. It depends on my competition.  If I have a competitor who is forced to keep his prices high because he is burdened by a high rent, high mortgage, debts, high interest payments, etc., then I have *the choice* of whether to undercut his prices, possibly forcing him into bankruptcy, or I can keep my prices higher and pocket the difference.  That also depends on my supply, and what the market really is willing to bear.  But the idea that someone does not charge higher prices based on higher expenses, especially if it makes a difference between solvency and insolvency, is ludicrous on its face. 




> Sorry, Steven, but that is GIBBERISH.  And as with all your other gibberish, I will not be responding to it because I cannot figure out what it means.


I know you cannot figure out what it means, Roy. I've realized that for some time now.  It really is gibberish to you. I see that.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The geo-libertarian demagogue who will only be in charge for 4 years, will he want to run his land into the ground, extracting every penny he can from it during his few available years of exploitation?
> 			
> 		
> 
> Unlike the king, he doesn't get to keep the money, duh.





> The political landlord gets his through military conquests and success at being a master politician -- that is, being a master conniver, manipulator, and deceiver.
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  The geolibertarian "landlord" is selected by the people whose interests he is to serve on the basis of their confidence in his competence and honesty.


 Wow!  Roy, I perceive this to be astoundingly naive.  Well, always nice to have faith in something.  I hope your faith gives some cheeriness to your otherwise dreary life.




> True.  But it *is* oppression and aggression when Dirtowner Harry demands a lifetime of servitude for Thirsty's access to the water nature provided.  It *is* oppression and aggression when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and tells him to choose between a lifetime of servitude and getting back in the water.  It *is* oppression and aggression when the bandit/toll taker/landowner demands loot/tolls/rent from the merchants for use of the pass nature provided.  You just always have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.


 And I, of course, disagree and say it is not aggression nor oppression.  I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree!  

Oh, by the way, I've been forgetting (sorry!): Mr. Roy L., you are right about everything you have ever written.  I wish someday to be as right as you.  I should do as you advise and re-read the case of the Quakers in India.  I feel that if I re-read it enough times, I will surely be convinced.  It will just take time.  Be patient with me!

Also, could you keep posting the quote from Slavey the ex (but not really ex) slave Jones so I can re-read it several more times?  Thank you so much.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You have mixed irrelevant with relevant senses.  That's equivocation, and it is fallacious.  I don't know any other way to explain that to you.


That's Roy-centeredness at play. Which ones are relevant, and which are irrelevant, and why? Those are answerable questions, Roy. You made a big deal about relying on standard definitions, but that fell apart when sourced definitions were provided, based on whatever you considered relevant or irrelevant to your theories, wants and desires concerning the way you want the world to operate. You didn't even come back at me with other standard definitions to make your case. You can't articulate why it's an equivocation, you merely assert that it is fallacious, and even call this a "way to explain" it (while explaining nothing), and leaving it at that. 

Truth is, you were proved wrong, Roy - as not merely asserted, but also articulated and meticulously argued, in ways you could not refute but only dismissed out of "ignore"-ance.  The possibility that you were indeed proved wrong is so unspeakably ugly to you that it cannot possible be the truth.

----------


## Roy L

> Remember those sourced definitions which you asked for, which I provided and you never responded to? Here they are again:


How many times are you going to post the same fallacious crap after I have proved it is fallacious?



> *Possession*, not the ability to sell, is all that is required for _a fact of ownership_.


You are wasting my time with repetition of claims I have already refuted.  Try selling a stolen car that is in your possession and see how far your "fact of ownership" gets you.  My guess: prison.



> *A right of possession* (aka right of control) is all that is required for a _legal right of ownership_.


Absurd.  Trustees control and have a right to possess trust assets, but do not own them.  I have explained this to you multiple times, and you just keep repeating the same stupid garbage I have already proved wrong.



> The option to sell or not is not required at all. That is only one quality of one expanded version of ownership in your mind. Not base ownership, factual or legal.


<sigh>  Ownership of property consists of four basic rights.  If any of them are missing, it is not ownership.  I have already proved this to you.



> Hypothetically, Congress could grant me title to a million acres of BLM land as allodial or fee simple land - in my name alone.  It could allocate this land to me personally under the Necessary and Proper clause, with a proviso that prohibited title transfer to anyone else.  You might split hairs and want to refer to it as a trust, or something else, but if Congress did that, _I would become the legal owner of the land_, inasmuch as I would have a full _right of possession and control_.


Legal ownership is not rightful ownership, as slavery proved.  Why can't you ever remember that, Steven?



> I could rent it out, lease it out, and otherwise dispose of it in any way that I wished, so long as there was no title transfer in the process.  The fact that I couldn't sell or otherwise transfer ownership by law is a stickler in your own mind only, Roy (i.e., "Bah! It's not real ownership if you can't sell or dispose of it!"). But that would not be based on any fundamental or root definition of ownership, but your own personal rules for what "ought to" constitute ownership, in your mind only.


Wrong, as already proved.



> You honestly think the inability for the state to sell land has somehow magically disposed of the concept of ownership itself?


No, because that's just something you made up.



> It has not, as a fact of ownership is possession only,


Stupid garbage, as you will learn if you take someone else's car into your possession without their permission.



> and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control).


A RIGHT of forcible possession.  Not just forcible possession.

GET IT?



> Which the state would have under an LVT, making the state, "the collective" the "OWNER".


<yawn>



> WORSE YET - you are in serious error, Roy, confusing intent with a capacity, or power.


No, *you* are in serious error, confusing your silly and dishonest fabrications with my views.



> The state, _of all entities_, DOES RETAIN both the right and ability to sell the land - to create and transfer titles, regardless of its initial intent. Just pass yet another law, a Constitutional Amendment even, and POOF! all that land that was FULLY under state "right of forcible possession" control can go right onto the market.  So much for the state's (the collectives') inability to "rightly decide" to sell.


You just *explicitly* confused power with right.  Why am I wasting my time on you?



> The collective (the state) can "rightly decide" (that is "lawfully and legally" decide - having NOTHING to do with moral rights) to pass a Constitutional Amendment that legalizes murder if it wanted.


Blatant self-contradiction.   



> That is one of the foggiest-headed, mush-brained things I have ever read!  Talk about economic ignorance, Roy. Blithering nonsense of the most pathetic kind.


It is fact.



> I run businesses, Roy.


That's a claim I find more and more dubious the more I read of your anti-economic nonsense -- although my brother, who is an accountant, does say the business owners he works for often have no idea what they are doing, and those who get the most money from a business have often contributed the least to its success, or have even impeded its success.  They are simply very good at taking credit for what others have done, and convincing others that they are entitled to things they have not earned and don't deserve.  I have also seen this phenomenon in the firms I have worked for and done business with.



> Rent may be a "measure of advantage" in your mind, in the context of your economy theories, but to most businesses rents is nothing more than an *EXPENSE* - an integral part of my "manufacturing overhead", which I (AND MOST OTHER) businesses factor into our total costs, _which in turn dictates our prices_.


Your costs do not dictate your prices, stop lying.  If rent is merely an expense to you, which you pass on in higher prices, why not locate your business out in the wilderness where you don't have to pay any rent, and gain a competitive edge through offering lower prices?



> So you are, once again, wrong in the absolute.


No, you are just making a fool of yourself, and wasting my time with nonsense.



> Rent, like any other *expense*, is factored in as overhead cost, which is *ALWAYS* passed onto the consumer.


No, that's just a flat-out, stupid lie.  If firms could just pass on their expenses to consumers, no firm would ever go bankrupt.

Do you ever READ what you write before posting it?



> Even if we did nothing but break even, not taking a profit of any kind, I don't have, nor do I know of any accountant, or accounting program, that has a category for rents or any other expenses paid called "MEASURE OF ADVANTAGE".


And you might even consider that relevant.  Remarkable.



> We kinda tend to more think of rent as a "Measure of One Kind Of Expense".  Even if I put myself into a Monty Python song called, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Rent" (whistle along), and I convinced myself that it was indeed a "Measure of Advantage", it would not make it any less of an EXPENSE - AKA MEASURE OF COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE


If it is not a measure of advantage, what makes you willing to pay it?  Why are you willing to pay to be disadvantaged?

See how easily I prove your claims are false, absurd, and dishonest?



> (to an equivalent manufacturer of the same widget next door who owns his property outright and does not have rent or mortgage to factor in as overhead).


<sigh>  His advantage is that as a landowner he is privileged to pocket the rent.  Do you think he will reduce his prices to compensate for that, undercutting you by foregoing the rent of his land?



> That was priceless, Roy.


<sigh>  You are like a child lecturing an adult on how to pay off his credit card bills by taking money from the bank machine.

----------


## Roy L

> How is an LVT fair to homeowners whose land goes up in value (and therefore their tax as well) but their wages remain stagnant?


It is fair because a fair tax is based not on the value one CONTRIBUTES TO society (wages), but on the value one TAKES FROM society (land rent).



> As the supporters of LVT claim, the tax should be levied on the intrinsic value of a site.


There is no such thing as intrinsic value of land.  Value is determined in the market, and changes with market conditions.  We say the tax should be on the UNIMPROVED value of the land, not "intrinsic" value.



> But it turns out that such values often depend on the surroundings of the plot and not only on the plot itself. There is no purely intrinsic value, especially when it comes to land in the cities.


So why fabricate a claim that we advocate taxation of something that doesn't exist?

Oh.  Right.



> In other words, changes made by your neighbours will affect the value of your property.


Right.  Land value is PUBLICLY CREATED.



> If your neighbour builds a polluting factory, your land value and thus your LVT will fall.


Which seems fair, does it not?  You are getting less benefit from holding the site.



> If your neighbour, however, opens a theme park or if a new tube line stops in front of your door, your land value will increase and with it the tax you would have to pay on it.


Yes, public investment in transportation infrastructure increases land value.  So, explain for me again why this increased value, paid for by other people's taxes, should be given away to the landowner in return for nothing...?



> So in other words, the tax one has to pay does not actually depend solely on ones own property positions,


It depends *entirely* on one's *LAND* positions, as their value measures what one is taking from society.



> let alone ones financial situation, but on the consequences of other peoples actions.


It depends on the value of what YOU DECIDE to take from society.

Similarly, the prices of items in the grocery store depend on the consequences of other people's actions.  But what you have to pay when you leave the store depends on what YOU CHOOSE to take home.

I'm not sure there is any clearer or simpler way to explain this to you.



> Surely, such a system of taxation cannot be regarded as fair or just.


Is it fair or just that you pay for the groceries you take home, and not an amount depending on your wages or financial situation?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Try selling a stolen car that is in your possession and see how far your "fact of ownership" gets you.  My guess: prison.


It all boils down to the chain of events that lead to successful forcible possession.  So no, you don't try selling a stolen car. You can own it by disguising it, or else by keeping it out of sight.  You won't be the rightful owner, but you will be the owner.




> Trustees control and have a right to possess trust assets, but do not own them.


That is correct. Trustees are not owners, any more than the leaseholders and renters are.  They only have a limited license to possess, control, or administrate, which can be traced back to the ultimate owner(s) who issued the license or otherwise gave permission, or delegated THEIR "ownership" power.  The only actual owners are those who have the ultimate forcible right of possession.  In any conflict of possession or right of possession, the victor is your owner - in the case of the LVT, that would be the state.  If I pulled secessionist act, barricaded myself and went to war over a piece of land, whomever was the victor in the war would go the spoils - including ownership (aka _ultimate_ forcible possession). 




> <sigh>  Ownership of property consists of four basic rights.  If any of them are missing, it is not ownership.  I have already proved this to you.


Sources, Roy. I don't give a tiny rat's butt about your personal philosophy of ownership (or anyone else's), or what it proves to you, or your redefinitions of what are already commonly used and well defined terms. Show me your sources. 




> Legal ownership is not rightful ownership, as slavery proved.  Why can't you ever remember that, Steven?


In the case of slavery there were conflicting rights of ownership - legal versus moral.  The states enforced the only legal right of ownership, while the slaves themselves held a moral right of ownership over themselves.  The slaves' moral right of ownership was in conflict, however, with what some slave owners felt was a moral right to own slaves _even in the absence of a legal right._ 

The same was true of our own Founders. They had no legal right to declare independence and rebel against King George - only a moral one that they felt.  That created a conflict between two separate rights of possession, which was ultimately resolved by war - the fact of ownership by mere possession became the new legal ownership by virtue of victory, as the spoils of war, including a new legal right of possession, went to the victors. 

Strictly speaking, from a point of view of English law only, the American War of Independence resulted in an ownership transfer _by virtue of theft._ It was only right, wrong, just, unjust, depending on whose point of view you considered. But it is a point of fact that a "legal right of [absentee] ownership" that was retained by a sovereign crown, conflicted with a later claim to that same right of ownership.   

I never said legal ownership was "rightful" ownership (right of possession). Legal right of possession, moral right of possession and a fact of possession can all constitute ownership.  All of them relate to possession and control, regardless how it is delegated.  




> and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control).
> 			
> 		
> 
> A RIGHT of forcible possession. Not just forcible possession.
> 
> GET IT?


Oh yes, I get it. Better than you do, Roy.  A LEGAL right of possession (legal "ownership") does require more than just forcible possession. A "legal" right of possession is, after all, not a mere fact of possession, or ownership, but a "legal right" thereto.  However, that does not mean that ownership cannot transfer by theft (as already proved in the case of MF Global, and Roosevelt's gold confiscation, in a post which you did not bother refute).  

I can STEAL your car, Roy, and become the new OWNER.  Not the moral ("rightful") owner, but the owner in fact nonetheless. All it requires is that I retain forcible possession, and that you never recover possession.  FURTHERMORE - I can become the LEGAL owner of what is otherwise LEGALLY your car - by counterfeiting VIN numbers and such, placing a mechanic's lien on the vehicle, and duly registering it.  I would then be the OWNER, the LEGAL OWNER (absent yours or anyone else's conflicting claim, of course), but not the RIGHTFUL owner (morally speaking).  




> Your costs do not dictate your prices, stop lying.  If rent is merely an expense to you, which you pass on in higher prices, why not locate your business out in the wilderness where you don't have to pay any rent, and gain a competitive edge through offering lower prices?


Because it would not be "cost" effective, you dolt.  The amount saved in rents would indeed be an advantage, but that advantage would be quickly eaten up in many other ways. 

Costs ALWAYS dictate profits, and are factored into prices in ANY truly free market competitive environment.  The fact that you don't comprehend this tells me that there is a high likelihood that a) you have never been in business, or b) you have tried to go into business but failed miserably. 




> *Rent*, like any other *expense*, is factored in as overhead cost, which is ALWAYS passed onto the consumer.
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, that's just a flat-out, stupid lie.  If firms could just pass on their expenses to consumers, no firm would ever go bankrupt.


That is why you should NEVER be in charge of ANYTHING, Roy.  I can see that you're keyed in on the word ALWAYS, but that aside, you have no comprehension of overhead, and how it relates to profits and solvency. I'm not a "gubmint", Roy. My customers are not my captives, and I don't have a monopoly on anything. I don't have the arrogant, disconnected, sociopathic presumption that whatever I charge _must be paid_ simply because I "passed it on".  However, every business that operates in the black DOES pass their costs onto the consumer.  Those which are unable to do so, as often happens, operate *at a loss*. And some of them do go bankrupt.  Indeed, it is only without costs of any kind, including rent, that no firm could ever go bankrupt. Indeed, profit is revenue minus their costs, which includes direct expenses like RENT.  If there was no rent expense, the profit margin, and therefore solvency, would increase by that much.  





> (to an equivalent manufacturer of the same widget next door who owns his property outright and does not have rent or mortgage to factor in as overhead).
> 			
> 		
> 
> <sigh> His advantage is that as a landowner he is privileged to pocket the rent. Do you think he will reduce his prices to compensate for that, undercutting you by foregoing the rent of his land?


No, you idiot, he pockets the profit -- the difference between the aggregate of what he pays out and what he receives, which does not include the *rent-that-does-not-exist* given that _he isn't charging himself rent_.  There is no rent due or owing, because he actually owns the land.  He might play an accounting game for tax purposes, where one of his companies pays his other, landholding company rent - but it is not a net rent payment to him. 

That is a very tough one for you, Roy, because you truly want to cling to rent as one of those undeniable and universal facts of existence - so that the only question remaining is whether its revenues should be publicly or privately enjoyed.  *Landowners do not pay themselves rent, Roy.* They don't "pocket their rents", because those rents DO NOT EXIST as expenses. That is the advantage of paying off a mortgage.  No more rent.  They don't have that need, so it would be silly.  They would be shuffling numbers from one side of a ledger and back to the other, putting money from their right pocket into their left, with no net payment of any kind.  Free of rent.  

The company that has more expenses, like rent, inefficiency and waste, insurance, interest, legal fees, repairs, supplies, taxes, etc., can be at a decided disadvantage from ALL OF THESE expenses, because it won't have as much profit margin to play with.  If I fire my lawyer I don't "pocket the lawyers fees". _Those fees that otherwise would have been paid just don't leave my pocket to begin with!_ I am not "pocketing" what I was "otherwise at liberty to pay".  When I decide not to spend a million dollars, I don't "pocket" a million dollars. Assuming I had that money to begin with, it would just _stay in my pocket_. Every business that is running in the black that cuts one of these expenses gains the ability to either cut prices or pocket the profit. 

In accounting terms, Rent is an expense, Roy. Part of overhead cost. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether what they received (or not) in return for these expenses was advantageous or not is incidental.

----------


## Roy L

> And I, of course, disagree and say it is not aggression nor oppression.


But objectively, it self-evidently and indisputably is.



> I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree!


Right.  I don't agree with you that forcibly robbing and enslaving people can be a right, and neither of us is willing to consider that we might be wrong.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> How is an LVT fair to homeowners whose land goes up in value (and therefore their tax as well) but their wages remain stagnant?
> 			
> 		
> 
> It is fair because a fair tax is based not on the value one CONTRIBUTES TO society (wages), but on the value one TAKES FROM society (land rent).


It took me a while to realize exactly where Roy was coming from on this one. How could a homeowner, who had completely paid for his home, and who lived in that home himself, without letting it out to others or charging rents to anyone, "TAKE" (land rent) "FROM" anyone, let alone "society"? 

The answer is simple (on Roy's part, at least).  

By default, rents, regardless of whether they currently exist, or are paid/collected by anyone outside of the state, are universally due and owing, by everyone on the face of the Earth, to the community in which they exist, by virtue of their exclusive use of land. The de facto owing of all such rents is based on at least two fundamental Georgist premises:

That the value of all land is created by the community, such that exclusive use of land incurs a debt that is owed to the community in the form of rents [1], andThat things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all. [2] .

While I think that both premises are bizarre, completely absurd, Roy believes that our failure to recognize these as "objectively self-evident and indisputable" truths, has been responsible for *most* of the suffering, poverty and bloodshed in the world throughout history.  

Roy is arguing what are only moral rights at this point (the normative "ought" for most of the US), which he wants recognized by society and codified and enforced by the state. Roy believes so passionately in these premises that to even refer to them as "putative" will cause his hackles to rise. To him, they are objectively, self-evidently indisputable.  Thus, it is easy to see how Roy could then couch all of his language as fitting only into this paradigm, (to the virtual irrelevancy of all else). Acceptance of the above premises would indeed make _"a homeowner who owns his home, and neither pays nor charges any rents"_ into someone who is "depriving" the community of "pocketed rents" and depriving others of their uncompensated liberty rights to their use of land under Georgist/Geoist dogma. 

An "LVT exemption", in Roy's particular Georgist (geoist) spinoff, which not all Georgists agree with, would apply to individuals in the form of a "dividend" that is either credited or paid out from LVT rents collected, which would in theory enable people to live rent free on habitable land of their choosing (with no ownership rights, of course).  Note the use of the word "exemption", as applied to a rent-debt that must first be recognized and acknowledged for an "exemption" to even make sense.  

Roy's thorough immersion and fanatical commitment to his own geoist paradigm seems to cause a disconnect that makes it difficult to him to articulate his points and make his arguments.  He's so "out there", already gone in his mind into the Brave New Geoist World, that even "coming back" to explain himself to the unwashed, ignorant, presumably lying propertarian apologist masses, let alone to have to defend a paradigm that to Roy is objectively self-evident and indisputable, is a maddening, even sickening, chore.  <sigh>

Roy makes much of comparing landownership to slavery (with slavery as a distant evil second), that he refers to landownership in terms of "forcibly robbing and enslaving people".  What I have yet to decipher is whether this charge applies only to those who are actually absentee landowners who actually do charge rents, or whether that includes homeowners and other "exclusive land occupiers" who charge nobody rent, but also pay nothing to the community in the form of an LVT. 

1 - George, Henry (1879). Progress and Poverty. The often cited passage is titled “The unbound Savannah.”
2 - Land Value Taxation: An Applied Analysis, William J. McCluskey, Riël C. D. Franzsen

So, Roy, aside from my editorializing (e.g., ad hominem observations, calling it bizarre), which won't change and isn't yours to correct, if I have gotten any of your actual position wrong - incorrect phrasing, misuse of a word, etc., or misstated Georgist/Geosist positions, as cited, by all means correct me and I'll be happy to edit.

----------


## Roy L

> It took me a while to realize exactly where Roy was coming from on this one.


Translation: time to make some $#!+ up and attribute it to me.



> How could a homeowner, who had completely paid for his home, and who lived in that home himself, without letting it out to others or charging rents to anyone, "TAKE" (land rent) "FROM" anyone, let alone "society"?


He deprives everyone else in society of some of the advantages government, the community and nature provide by excluding them from a location from which they are accessible. 



> The answer is simple (on Roy's part, at least).  
> 
> By default, rents, regardless of whether they currently exist, or are paid/collected by anyone outside of the state, are universally due and owing, by everyone on the face of the Earth, to the community in which they exist, by virtue of their exclusive use of land.


Steven doesn't understand what land rent is.  He should Google it and start reading.  It is not a payment or expense but a measure of economic advantage.



> The de facto owing of all such rents is based on at least two fundamental Georgist premises:
> [*]That the value of all land is created by the community, such that exclusive use of land incurs a debt that is owed to the community in the form of rents, and


Because it is value taken from everyone else who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.



> [*]That things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all.


They "belong" to no one, and never can, except by being removed from nature by labor and transformed into products.  It is the equal right to liberty -- to *access* natural resources and opportunity -- that belongs to all.



> While I think that both premises are bizarre, completely absurd,


But can't refute them...



> Roy believes that our failure to recognize these as "objectively self-evident and indisputable" truths, has been responsible for *most* of the suffering, poverty and bloodshed in the world throughout history.


The denial of the landholder's obligation to those whom he deprives of the land has indeed been responsible for *most* of the suffering, poverty and bloodshed in the world throughout history.



> Roy is arguing what are only moral rights at this point (the normative "ought" for most of the US), which he wants recognized by society and codified and enforced by the state.


As that is the state's raison d'etre.



> Roy believes so passionately in these premises that to even refer to them as "putative" will cause his hackles to rise. To him, they are objectively, self-evidently indisputable.


No, an additional premise is needed: the equal human rights of all to life and liberty.  Apologists for landowner privilege reject that premise, and hold that by forcibly appropriating land as his private property, the landowner has removed a portion of others' rights to life and liberty.



> Thus, it is easy to see how Roy could then couch all of his language as fitting only into this paradigm, (to the virtual irrelevancy of all else). Acceptance of the above premises would indeed make _"a homeowner who owns his home, and neither pays nor charges any rents"_ into someone who is "depriving" the community of "pocketed rents" and depriving others of their uncompensated liberty rights to their use of land under Georgist/Geoist dogma.


It is indisputable that the landowner deprives others of their liberty to use the land.  *Indisputable*.



> An "LVT exemption", in Roy's particular Georgist (geoist) spinoff, which not all Georgists agree with, would apply to individuals in the form of a "dividend" that is either credited or paid out from LVT rents collected, which would in theory enable people to live rent free on habitable land of their choosing (with no ownership rights, of course).  Note the use of the word "exemption", as applied to a rent-debt that must first be recognized and acknowledged for an "exemption" to even make sense.  
> 
> Roy's thorough immersion and fanatical commitment to his own geoist paradigm seems to cause a disconnect that makes it difficult to him to articulate his points and make his arguments.  He's so "out there", already gone in his mind into the Brave New Geoist World, that even "coming back" to explain himself to the unwashed, ignorant, presumably lying propertarian apologist masses, let alone to have to defend a paradigm that to Roy is objectively self-evident and indisputable, is a maddening, even sickening, chore.  <sigh>
> 
> Roy makes much of comparing landownership to slavery (with slavery as a distant evil second), that he refers to landownership in terms of "forcibly robbing and enslaving people".  What I have yet to decipher is whether this charge applies only to those who are actually absentee landowners who actually do charge rents, or whether that includes homeowners and other "exclusive land occupiers" who charge nobody rent, but also pay nothing to the community in the form of an LVT.


It applies to all who deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation.



> So, Roy, aside from my editorializing (e.g., ad hominem observations, calling it bizarre), which won't change and isn't yours to correct, if I have gotten any of your actual position wrong - incorrect phrasing, misuse of a word, etc., or misstated Georgist/Geosist positions, as cited, by all means correct me and I'll be happy to edit.


First you need to figure out what land rent is.

----------


## Roy L

> That's Roy-centeredness at play.


I don't know any way to make you willing to talk about the relevant concepts, sorry.



> Which ones are relevant, and which are irrelevant, and why?


The concepts pertaining to ownership of property -- the social institution property law tries to codify and formalize -- are relevant.  Other concepts of owning ("Pirates owned the Barbary Coast.") are not.



> Those are answerable questions, Roy.


Yes, but you refuse to know the answers.



> You made a big deal about relying on standard definitions,


The RELEVANT standard definitions.



> but that fell apart when sourced definitions were provided, based on whatever you considered relevant or irrelevant to your theories, wants and desires concerning the way you want the world to operate.


It has nothing to do with how I want the world to operate.  You're just not talking about the relevant concepts other than to equivocate about them.  In a discussion putatively about land value taxation, you won't even talk about the tax base: land rent.



> You didn't even come back at me with other standard definitions to make your case. You can't articulate why it's an equivocation, you merely assert that it is fallacious, and even call this a "way to explain" it (while explaining nothing), and leaving it at that.


Just the fact that you quoted so many different definitions for the same words shows you are equivocating.  Any time you use a word to denote more than one concept, and pretend they are the same concept, that's equivocation.



> Truth is, you were proved wrong, Roy


You haven't even addressed what I said, let alone proved anything about it.



> - as not merely asserted, but also articulated and meticulously argued, in ways you could not refute but only dismissed out of "ignore"-ance.


However "articulate" and "meticulous" they might be, one can't refute "arguments" that have no discernible meaning.



> The possibility that you were indeed proved wrong is so unspeakably ugly to you that it cannot possible be the truth.


I've only been proved wrong in my assumption that it was possible to communicate with you.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Well, that was definitely enlightening, stating my interpretation of your position and seeing your corrections.  No need to correct what I wrote, as your post highlights the differences and fills in the gaps quite nicely. 




> Steven doesn't understand what land rent is.  He should Google it and start reading.  It is not a payment or expense but a measure of economic advantage.


Well, I could wax snarky here and tell everyone not to worry, that an LVT (a bill designed to recover that "measure of economic advantage") is not something they need to actually pay under your proposed version of a geoist LVT system, because that is pretty much how most people would read _"It is not a payment or expense..."_. But that would not be accurate, would it?  That is the reason for this "measure of economic advantage" called land rent, is it not?  

To me it is like you are looking over the shoulder of someone who is making a home budget and saying, "No! Food is not a 'Grocery Expense', but rather a measure of nutritional advantages for the body. You should Google food and start reading." 

"B-but Roy, I do have to pay for f--"

"Food is not a payment or an expense! It is a measure of nutritional advantage which is self-evidently and indisputably obvious! <sigh> Why do I waste time trying to explain things to cretins? I am surprised you have even lived this long."

The only reason for "measuring economic advantage" is to levy a tax which will recover this "measure of economic advantage", also known as "land rent".  From the point of view of those who receive an actual BILL that is due and payable, "land rent", or "measure of economic advantage" is in the Description column, while _the amount_ itself, the actual "measure", is the cost, or "expense".  There is no getting around that. 

You stated that your brother is an accountant.  Has he ever described rent to you in strictly accounting terms? I would love to hear his raw, unedited response. I have always been led to think of a bill for rent payments as an expense, which is included in overhead costs. In accounting terms, all *expenses are debits* because they reduce the owner’s equity, just as *revenues are credits* because they increase owner’s equity.

You see part of the revenues as derived solely from "landowner privilege", and want that offset, paid to the State via a corresponding "Measure of Economic Advantage" (land rent) bill, which, when paid, would be _an expense_.  It is common knowledge, in accounting terms, that rent (payable, land or otherwise) *is an expense*. If you can accept that much (by all means check with your brother), Here's Wikipedia's take on the accounting view of expenses: (emphasis mine)




> In accounting, expense has a very specific meaning. It is an *outflow of cash* or other valuable assets from a person or company to another person or company. This outflow of cash is generally one side of a trade for products or services that have equal or better current or future value to the buyer than to the seller. Technically, an expense is an event in which an asset is used up or a liability is incurred. In terms of the accounting equation, expenses reduce owners' equity. The International Accounting Standards Board defines expenses as
> 
>     ...*decreases in economic benefits* during the accounting period *in the form of outflows or depletions of assets* or incurrences of liabilities *that result in decreases in equity*, other than those relating to distributions to equity participants.


So, in accounting terms only, are you saying that paying a bill for land rents (labeled "Measure of Economic Advantage" in the "Description" column) does not qualify as a "depletion of assets" along with a corresponding "decrease in equity"?  

It appears that you want "land rent" described only in terms of a measure of benefits or advantages received, without looking at the fact that you want this "measure of economic advantage" to represent an actual _cost_ to landholders (regardless of justification), which would, in effect, nullify that "measure of economic advantage". It is like a product or service someone is pitching, or selling, but does not want the focus to be on costs, and will avoid the very mention of costs until he is absolutely sure that you are ready to be closed, and fully understand and are sold on the benefits first.  But you don't even do that, Roy. You flat out state, up front, that *"[land rent] is not a payment or expense..."*.  Even though that is the end result, and the sole reason for attempting to _measure_ anything in the first place. 

Henry George defined rent as [SOURCE]
"the part of the produce that accrues to the owners of land (or other natural capabilities) by virtue of ownership" and as"the share of wealth given to landowners because they have an exclusive right to the use of those natural capabilities."




> They "belong" to no one, and never can, except by being removed from nature by labor and transformed into products.  It is the equal right to liberty -- to *access* natural resources and opportunity -- that belongs to all.


Well, Henry George did not equivocate on the subject of ownership, and did advocate "public ownership" of lands.  Perhaps that is part of why you prefer to be referred to as a "geoist" rather than a "Georgist". 

Regardless whether you call it "collective ownership", "public ownership" or something which repudiates the very idea of "ownership", what you are advocating is a Land Value Tax which attempts to recover, in part, "the part of the produce that accrues to the owners of land (or other natural capabilities) by virtue of ownership", and "the share of wealth given to landowners because they have an exclusive right to the use of those natural capabilities."

In other words, the State (and ostensibly the community, or "society" on the whole), would attempt to "recover", via a Land Value Tax, only those advantages that would otherwise have accrued to landowners by virtue of ownership alone.  Thus, even if the State is not labeled a "landowner", it would receive the very same "measure of economic advantages" that might otherwise have accrued to absentee landowners, even if only as a collector of "landholder's obligations" on behalf of those whom the landholder has deprived of the land, which includes their equal human rights to life and liberty. 

It is not a question in my mind of whether the state is acting as a "collective owner" of land, and a "collectivized landlord", regardless how it is labeled. Only whether it is justified (as the state's raison d'etre).  For you this a foregone conclusion, based on what is indisputable.  




> It is indisputable that the landowner deprives others of their liberty to use the land.  *Indisputable*.


That is actually not in dispute, as it really is a self-evident physical reality. Every fence, every locked door, truly is a deprivation of someone's liberty. The only thing that is in dispute is whether others have _an actual right_ to such liberty.   

Likewise, I would not dispute that real economic advantages accrue to landholders by virtue of land ownership or exclusive occupancy or possession alone.  What I dispute is whether anyone else, individually or collectively, has any rightful moral or legal claim on those advantages.

----------


## Roy L

> Well, I could wax snarky here and tell everyone not to worry, that an LVT is not something they need to actually pay under your proposed version of a geoist LVT system, because that is pretty much how most people would read _"It is not a payment or expense..."_. But that would not be accurate, would it?


No, because a tax on land value is not the same thing as land value.  Similarly, a tax on gasoline is not gasoline.  Is this too subtle a concept for you to grasp?



> That is the reason for this "measure of economic advantage" called land rent, is it not?


The "reason" for land rent is that some land is more advantageous than other land, and when there is competition for land, people are willing to pay more to use the more advantageous land.



> To me it is like you are looking over the shoulder of someone who is making a home budget and saying, "No! Food is not a 'Grocery Expense', but rather a measure of nutritional advantages for the body. You should Google food and start reading."


That is correct, because we are not actually making a budget here.  We are talking about a tax, and the nature and source of the tax base.  You are talking about food (land rent) as if it is only an expense, and not something you are willing to pay for because of the advantages you expect to obtain by consuming it.



> The only reason for "measuring economic advantage" is to levy a tax which will recover this "measure of economic advantage", also known as "land rent".


No, there are many good reasons to measure it.  People want to know how much they should be prepared to pay for it.



> From the point of view of those who receive an actual BILL that is due and payable, "land rent", or "measure of economic advantage" is in the Description column, while _the amount_ itself, the actual "measure", is an "expense".  There is no getting around that.


You might get a tax bill from the government (or a rent bill from a private landlord) for land rent, but it is just a bill.  It might accurately reflect the land rent, it might not.  If it's a tax bill, it might be levied on only a portion of the land rent.  If it's from a private landlord, he might not be up to date on what the land is worth in the market.  Land rent is what makes the land user WILLING TO PAY the bill.



> You stated that your brother is an accountant.  Has he ever described rent to you in strictly accounting terms? I would love to hear his raw, unedited response. I have always been led to think of a bill for rent payments as an expense, which is included in overhead costs. In accounting terms, all *expenses are debits* because they reduce the owners equity, just as *revenues are credits* because they increase owners equity.
> It is common knowledge, in accounting terms, that rent (payable, land or otherwise) is an expense.  Here's Wikipedia's take on the accounting view of expenses: (emphasis mine)
> 
> So, in accounting terms only, are you saying that paying a bill for land rents (labeled "Measure of Economic Advantage" in the "Description" column) does not qualify as a "depletion of assets" along with a corresponding "decrease in equity"?


A miracle of irrelevance. 



> It appears that you want "land rent" described only in terms of a measure of benefits or advantages received,


No, of advantages TAKEN FROM OTHERS.  If the landholder doesn't use the land, he gets no advantage.  But he still owes for depriving others of it, just as a shopper owes for a loaf of bread he takes out of the store even if he drops it in a mud puddle right outside, because others wanted to eat it and were also willing to pay for it.



> without looking at the fact that you want this "measure of economic advantage" to represent an actual _cost_ to landholders (regardless of justification), which would, in effect, nullify that "measure of economic advantage".


It nullifies the advantage just exactly as paying it to a private landowner does, because both public and private landlords want to charge all the traffic will bear.  That is the land's rent.



> It is like a product or service someone is pitching, or selling, but does not want the focus to be on costs, and will avoid the very mention of costs until he is absolutely sure that you are ready to be closed, and fully understand and are sold on the benefits first.


Land *HAS* no cost of production.  That is very much the point.  The cost of buying it is just the market value of the privilege of getting something for nothing, like buying a license to steal.



> But you don't even do that, Roy. You flat out state, up front, that *"[land rent] is not a payment or expense..."*.  Even though that is the end result, and the sole reason for _measuring_ anything in the first place.


The payment for a thing is not the thing.  I'm not sure there is any clearer way to explain that to you.



> Henry George defined rent as [SOURCE][*]"the part of the produce that accrues to the owners of land (or other natural capabilities) by virtue of ownership" and as [*]"the share of wealth given to landowners because they have an exclusive right to the use of those natural capabilities."


Those definitions are not accurate for the technical term in economics, as they leave out the case of land left unused, or used at less than its most productive use.  Such land still has the same rental value as if it were used at its most productive.



> Well, Henry George did not equivocate on the subject of ownership, and did advocate "public ownership" of lands.  Perhaps that is part of why you prefer to be referred to as a "geoist" rather than a "Georgist".


There are several reasons.  George advocated leaving _pro forma_ landowning in place.  I would accept that pragmatically, but IMO it leaves too much room for people to imagine they could rightly own the land.



> Regardless whether you call it "collective ownership", "public ownership" or something which repudiates the very idea of "ownership", what you are advocating is a Land Value Tax which attempts to recover, in part, "the part of the produce that accrues to the owners of land (or other natural capabilities) by virtue of ownership", and "the share of wealth given to landowners because they have an exclusive right to the use of those natural capabilities."


More accurately, I want to require those who exclude others from land to repay the full market value (I don't insist on 100%, as zero tolerance is unscientific nonsense) of the advantages they deprive them of.



> In other words, the State (and ostensibly the community, or "society" on the whole), would attempt to "recover", via a Land Value Tax, only those advantages that would otherwise have accrued to landowners by virtue of ownership alone.  Thus, even if the State is not labeled a "landowner", it would receive the very same "measure of economic advantages" that might otherwise have accrued to absentee landowners, even if only as a collector of "landholder's obligations" on behalf of those whom the landholder has deprived of the land, which includes their equal human rights to life and liberty.
> 
> It is not a question in my mind of whether the state is acting as a "collective owner" of land, and a "collectivized landlord", regardless how it is labeled. Only whether it is justified (as the state's raison d'etre).  For you this a foregone conclusion, based on what is indisputable.


Right.



> That is actually not in dispute, as it really is a self-evident physical reality.


Careful of that camel's nose.  Any willingness to know facts could prove fatal to your beliefs.



> Every fence, every locked door, truly is a deprivation of someone's liberty.


But deprivations of the *natural right* to liberty are limited to the liberty people would have had in nature, if those who deprive them of it did not exist.  Depriving others of access to something YOU PROVIDE does not deprive them of any natural liberty, as they would not naturally be at liberty to use it.



> The only thing that is in dispute is whether others have _an actual right_ to such liberty.


I've explained why they do and must.  Why do you think they don't?   



> Likewise, I would not dispute that real economic advantages accrue to landholders by virtue of land ownership or exclusive occupancy or possession alone.  What I dispute is whether anyone else, individually or collectively, has any rightful moral or legal claim on those advantages.


No one has a right forcibly to deprive others of them, so the only way to obtain a moral claim on them is to compensate those whom you deprive of them.  The only way to do that is through society, its land administration trustee (government), and LVT.

----------


## redbluepill

> For one thing, you're not forced to work for the landlord. Of course, we are not usually forced to work for the state, either. But anyway, I went through some differences I see as important (no mass slavery permitted, no mass robbery, no mass murder), but you didn't see those differences as impressive. So be it!


You know what I mean by forced. They are in a condition where they have no other choice. They have to work with the system. You think everyone who is a prostitute wants to be a prostitute?




> Bingo! So you do see it! The rulers are ruling over the land, and are thus the de-facto and de-jure lords of that land. They are landlords. Now as you say, there are differences between them and typical free-market landlords. The rulers might be term-limited, for instance. Think about the incentives that gives them, by the way. The king who can pass on his land to his heirs, will he want to preserve and enhance its value? The geo-libertarian demagogue who will only be in charge for 4 years, will he want to run his land into the ground, extracting every penny he can from it during his few available years of exploitation?


Already addressed this. No geolibertarian society would give permission to bureaucrats to have any say in how land is used, who uses it, etc. If the bureaucrats do have control then it is not a geolibertarian society.






> In any case, a short-term (and short-sighted) time horizon is but one potential difference between political landlords and market landlords. The market landlord gets his land through homesteading and success at productive voluntary trade.


Most land has been take through violence. In the case of the US, homesteading usually occurred once Native Americans were forced from the land.




> The political landlord gets his through military conquests and success at being a master politician -- that is, being a master conniver, manipulator, and deceiver. I'd rather reward the adventurous, clever, and wealth-generating, rather they who excel at violence and lying. that's just me!


Being a landlord does not create wealth. This has already been proven by Roy and I.





> Natural resources ("land") are initially unowned. Then humans come along and start to make decisions about said resources. At that point, someone is going to make the ultimate decisions over natural resources. That's the reality. That ultimate decision-making is what defines ownership. Someone is going to be the "owner". Fantasies to the contrary have nothing to recommend them but utter impossibility.


And you still havent proven how much work or decisionmaking is required to rightfully call a natural resource capital or property. You admitted it is essentially an arbitrary decision that should be left to free market courts to decide upon. But I find this idea silly because a free market court ruling against a landlord would goes against what you believe. The free market court would become the mob you fear.





> I submit that you do not want to end landownership, redbluepill.


I want to end the idea that land is capital. It is an absolutely preposterous idea that has cost lives, freedom, and decreased wealth generation. Private land possession is fine with me. But obviously if an LVT is enacted then the possessor isnt really an owner is he?




> That would be impossible (without ending humanity). We both understand this. What you want is to limit landownership in certain ways, to put certain checks and balances, limits and leashes, onto your landowners so that their ownership will be a boon to society rather than a bane. I personally think that my proposed checks and balances -- those of competition and the free market -- will be more effective at limiting any tyrannical impulses of landlords than yours -- those of democratic pressures, constitutional provisions, and other incentives native to the political realm. But we both do want kind of sort of the same end result: a diverse and non-agressive society, with each individual at liberty to go about his life as he chooses.


Remember, most corporations and individuals who own large tracts of land have acquired it through the aide of the state (while I dont agree with Benjamin Tucker on some issues, his piece The Four Monopolies does a good job at pointing out how the government has created the situation were in). I see the LVT as a way to reverse the injustice. Unfortunately, most mainstream libertarians see practically all privately possessed land as legitimate. They fail to realize that we dont have a free market and they defend the monopolizing conditions the mixed market has given us.

But what are your proposed checks and balances? You havent given much detail to your proposed free market court. If a landlord does not wish to contribute his money to a free market justice system  and creates his/her own justice system would that be okay with you, even if say the lord has hundreds of renters?

Under geolibertarianism, governments do not decide what the tax will be, the market does. The government does not dictate who, when or how its used. 




> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have reason to believe that governments, having a monopoly on final violence in a given area, will on occasion abuse this power and perhaps somewhat exceed the bounds laid down for them by their people's wills or by their Constitution. You do not share this skepticism?


Anyone with power can abuse it. That is why I seek to limit both government AND landlord power (to me they are one in the same).




> If each micro-state is truly independent, it could decide to stop being strictly Georgist at any time, and start imposing certain "reasonable restrictions" like zoning, permits, licensure, seizing land for the state's use, etc., etc. Most of which Georgist deviants like Roy L. would wholeheartedly support.


Geolibertarian economist Fred Foldvary addresses zoning in this article. It essentially summarizes my view. Im sure you would agree with most of it.
http://www.progress.org/fold189.htm




> To me, the right to life is the right to not have your life aggressively ended by another person.


Thats it? So slavery is okay as long as your master doesnt kill you?




> It is not the right to have your life maintained.


I never asked for anyone to maintain my life.




> It's up to you to secure whatever resources you need to stay alive, should you choose to exercise this right to live (you don't have to exercise it).


And once those resources are owned by others then what?




> It's like the right to bear arms.


No it isnt




> The right does not actually depend upon the real availability of arms to you, or even their existence.


Arms are not a natural resource. They do not exist outside of the fruits of labor.




> If you want to exercise the right, it's up to you to make it happen.


Its up to me to ask permission from a landlord to access what Mother Earth provides. Gotcha. ;-)




> People have the right to speech, the right to education, and the right to health care in the same sense. No one's right are violated should they lack communicative faculties, lack funds to hire tutelage, or lack nearby doctors. These are lacks, or privations, not aggressions and oppressions.


People have a right to seek education, health care, and speak their minds. But once again, those things are no longer recognized as rights if you must ask permission from a government or landlord to seek those things.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, because a tax on land value is not the same thing as land value.  Similarly, a tax on gasoline is not gasoline.  Is this too subtle a concept for you to grasp?


I grasp it entirely.  You want all of the focus on the economic theory behind the tax, and zero focus on the accounting ramifications of the tax itself.  I do get it. 




> The "reason" for land rent is that some land is more advantageous than other land, and when there is competition for land, people are willing to pay more to use the more advantageous land.


WRONG. That dynamic is ONLY initiated because people are willing to CHARGE MORE - which in turn tests people's willingness (or even ability in the case of a monopoly, or "Scarcity Rent") to pay.  Huge difference.  Prima facie proof:  If given a choice, people are far *more willing* to pay LESS, not more - for anything.   You are confusing "forced to pay" with "willing to pay".  They're not the same things, Roy. 

"When there is competition for land, people are *forced* to pay more to use the more advantageous land."




> No, there are many good reasons to measure it.  People want to know how much they should be prepared to pay for it.


Again, just as you confused "forced" with "willing", you also confuse "must" with "want to".  Both "willing" and "want to" are your anti-propertarian fantasies, which have nothing to do with reality. 

We are not the appraisers, Roy, nor are we all sitting on your side, willingly, in a community counsel circle "wanting" to measure anything at all, since the sole intent of that measurement is so that you can put an LVT price tag on landholdings.  We don't "want to know how much [we] should be prepared to pay", any more than we want to find out how much we are willing to pay for hurricane damage, or anything else.  We would find out that bit of Unwanted Information soon enough. Don't be so quick as to shift everyone into your paradigm as willing participants. That would NEVER be the case, even if an LVT made its nasty way en masse into the American economy. 




> You might get a tax bill from the government (or a rent bill from a private landlord) for land rent, but it is just a bill.  It might accurately reflect the land rent, it might not.  If it's a tax bill, it might be levied on only a portion of the land rent.  If it's from a private landlord, he might not be up to date on what the land is worth in the market.  Land rent is what makes the land user WILLING TO PAY the bill.


Wrong, as proved above.  Most people are *more willing* to pay less rather than more for anything, and don't give a rat's behind that Roy might consider that a willingness to steal, enslave, rob or anything else. A land rent bill, not land rent itself, however it is measured, reflects the state's WILLINGNESS TO CHARGE, which in turn TESTS people's willingness (or ability, in the case of Scarcity Rent) to pay.  If the state is not willing to charge more, almost NOBODY will be willing to pay more. 




> If the landholder doesn't use the land, he gets no advantage.  But he still owes for depriving others of it...


Unlike the state, which can and does withhold land in order to collect Scarcity Rent from all of the artificially limited available lands, but is not willing (let alone able) to compensate anyone for lands which are artificially withheld. 




> It nullifies the advantage just exactly as paying it to a private landowner does, because both public and private landlords want to charge all the traffic will bear.  That is the land's rent.


Yeah, I agree. Rent is a bad, bad thing, Roy, a form of servitude and enslavement regardless who collects it, or what the money is used for.  Very evil stuff that.




> But deprivations of the *natural right* to liberty are limited to the liberty people would have had in nature, if those who deprive them of it did not exist.


The fact of other people's existence precludes such a "natural right". I don't believe in an Existence Tax, Roy.  I have an inalienable right to exist, and my right to existence does indeed constitute a RIGHT TO DEPRIVE others of "what they would otherwise be at liberty to have" if I did not exist - which always includes exclusive use of lands.  And, vice versa, I am not interested in being compensated for deprivations based on other people's use of lands, given that I "would otherwise have been at liberty to use those lands if they did not exist".  They don't owe me a tax based on the fact of their existence, which I consider their right. That would be SLAVERY, and I want no part of it.  They also have a right to create such a deprivation by virtue of their Right of Existence.   I want my own land, because I require exclusive use of land to exist as something other than a share-cropping slave or a wandering nomad on Earth. That is a JUSTIFIED DEPRIVATION to everyone else for which absolutely nothing is due and owing -- not an "exemption" from something that would "otherwise" be due and owing. It is simply not owed. To ANYONE. EVER.  

I do have a right to forcibly deprive others of what they would otherwise have been at liberty to use had I not existed. The fact of my existence establishes that right to deprive everyone of what they otherwise would have had, which I alone do require for my existence, including exclusive use of land, regardless how it gains in "community value", with ZERO moral obligation on my part to compensate anyone else.  And I would extend that same moral right to everyone else on the face of the Earth.

Anyone who is born into a large, wealthy family can fantasize all they want about what their inheritance _would otherwise have been_ if they were an only child, and sole heir, and if only the other family members had not existed.  That fantasy - _that non-reality_ - does not establish a claim that each sibling has on all the others. The reality is that they all do exist, and each has their own claim, _to the complete exclusion of the others._

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Geolibertarian economist Fred Foldvary addresses zoning in this article. It essentially summarizes my view. I’m sure you would agree with most of it.
> http://www.progress.org/fold189.htm


Couldn't agree more. It is a brilliantly written article that reflects my views of zoning (although not LVT) 100%.  

All zoning laws should be abolished in their entirety.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Its up to me to ask permission from a landlord to access what Mother Earth provides. Gotcha. ;-)


 Unfortunately, every reply to every one of your points would just be repeating myself. I do not want to spend my time just typing the same things over and over.  However, to this, I will repeat one more time what I said before:

Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use. *Nature is not a vending machine!*

Natural resources have to be discovered. Their usefulness has to be discovered. They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual. Robinson Crusoe can take a bunch of vines and make a net to catch fish, but only if he knows about nets or can invent the concept himself, otherwise the vines are of no value. If he never took the time to look around and find the vines, likewise then they are of no value. They might as well not be there. Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.

Mother Nature really gave you a big fat zip!  You owe everything to landowners.  Give some gratitude.

All the best, redblue!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Unfortunately, every reply to every one of your points would just be repeating myself. I do not want to spend my time just typing the same things over and over.  However, to this, I will repeat one more time what I said before:
> 
> Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use. *Nature is not a vending machine!*
> 
> Natural resources have to be discovered. Their usefulness has to be discovered. They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual. Robinson Crusoe can take a bunch of vines and make a net to catch fish, but only if he knows about nets or can invent the concept himself, otherwise the vines are of no value. If he never took the time to look around and find the vines, likewise then they are of no value. They might as well not be there. Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.
> 
> Mother Nature really gave you a big fat zip!  You owe everything to landowners.  Give some gratitude.
> 
> All the best, redblue!


qft!

----------


## Roy L

> Unfortunately, every reply to every one of your points would just be repeating myself.


Right: the same fallacious, absurd and dishonest garbage as always.



> I do not want to spend my time just typing the same things over and over.


Think how _I_ feel!



> Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use.


No, that's just another lie from you.  You are *lying,* as all apologists for landowner privilege must inevitably do.  Plants use natural resources without using any intelligence or labor at all.  And while it takes labor for a human being to *remove resources from nature and turn them into products of labor*, that doesn't *produce* any natural resources which could then rightly be considered property.  It just uses them up.

As to "obtaining" natural resources, that's just a matter of initiating force against all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them, or saying, "that's mine," and finding fools gullible enough to believe you.  It doesn't take any more labor or intelligence to "obtain" natural resources than it does to steal products of labor from their rightful owners.



> *Nature is not a vending machine!*


Right: because you don't have to put any money in to get stuff out.



> Natural resources have to be discovered.


No, that is a stupid lie, and you're just lying again.  They are already there, without being discovered.  Discovery is only an improvement to human knowledge, not to natural resources.  You know this.



> Their usefulness has to be discovered.


Too bad it is not landowners who contribute that improvement to human knowledge.



> They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual.


Lie.  They must ALREADY BE actually useful before rearranging them could possibly be worthwhile.  That is why some land is valuable while most land is worthless.  You know this.  You KNOW it.  Of course you do.  You merely decided deliberately to lie about it because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> Robinson Crusoe can take a bunch of vines and make a net to catch fish, but only if he knows about nets or can invent the concept himself, otherwise the vines are of no value.


So, explain for me again how simply improving his own knowledge makes the vines into Crusoe's property before he even touches them.



> If he never took the time to look around and find the vines, likewise then they are of no value.


No, that's a lie.  Everyone else would be at liberty to use them for whatever purposes they chose.



> They might as well not be there.


*WRONG.*  THEY HAD TO BE THERE _BEFORE_ ANYONE COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED MAKING THEM INTO A NET.  THE RESOURCE _MUST_ COME FIRST, BEFORE ANY PRODUCTIVE EFFORT TO USE IT IS POSSIBLE.

You *KNOW* this.  *STOP LYING.*



> Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.


More self-evidently absurd lies from you.  Without the resources nature provides, how did human intelligence and capacity for labor ever come into existence?



> Mother Nature really gave you a big fat zip!


That is self-evidently and indisputably an absurd lie.  Nature, by definition, has provided the entire physical universe other than human beings and the products of their labor.



> You owe everything to landowners. Give some gratitude.


That is just stupid, dishonest, evil garbage.

Read and learn, Helmuth:

_Give Thanks for the Landlord!

    In 1620 the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock with its band of Pilgrims, and supplies and provisions for the first winter. They were of the working class, ready and able to turn their hands to labor. They had carpenters, masons, joiners, bakers, farmers, chandlers, boatmen, fishers, hunters, and other useful types. The women could cook, sew, wash, harvest, peel and all such wifely things. All stood as one in faith and purpose, giving mutual aid, but owning and trading goods too, knowing the arts of bargaining, the power of self-interest and the usages of the market. They never ate the seed corn, but consumed little, storing up capital to make tools and provision their winters. By Christian humility and fair dealing they made friends of the neighbors, and wasted little on vain warfare.

    Yet all their hard work, frugality, mutual aid and trading availed them naught, God did not prosper their ventures. Poverty and distress prevailed; crops withered; timbers rotted; stores spoiled; women sued for divorce; discontent ran riot. The Elders pondered.

    As luck would have it, one bachelor had packed along a book on Political Economy for the lonely evenings. Studying one night he suddenly cried, "Eureka! Political Economy will save us!"

    "What? What could it be?" cried the Elders all together. "Tell us, prithee, before the vision leaveth!"

    "You forgot the most important thing: you forgot to bring a landlord!"

    The Elders were puzzled. "Of what use is a landlord?" said one boldly. "God already put the land here."

    "Obviously," said the bachelor, "you never studied Political Economy. You think working, saving, building and trading make an economy? Ha! It is not enough for land simply to be: it must be supplied. Landlords supply land."

    "But how have we survived thus far, then?" asked another Elder, a bit awed. The bachelor turned some pages. "By non-land activities," he declared, "like trading, fishing and woodworking. If you want to make it in farming, however, you must have a landlord."

    "Can't we be our own landlords?" asked another. "That will hardly do," said the scholar, lifting his chin a little. "It is a skilled specialty. Landlords don't just supply land, they allocate it. They bear the financial burdens of ownership: carrying title, preventing unauthorized production, extending credit to tenants who can't pay the rent, all that sort of thing.

    "They hold land and perform the exacting labor of waiting while it becomes fit for higher uses. They collect rent, a most onerous burden; they help young tenants to a sound start in life by requiring them to exercise frugality; they pledge land for loans, the basis of any banking system. They invest in land, and you know how vital investment is to an economy; they reap increments to value, lest these go to waste; they sell land and raise capital to buy more land: lots of difficult things like that.

    "You can see supplying these services calls for special skill and acumen since you don't understand them, do you?" The Elders didn't, so the point was made. A New England without landlords? What self-willed fools they had been!

    They straightway did God's will, as revealed by Political Economy. They sent to England for the missing specialist and by God's grace found one. This charitable soul took on the grievous burden of ownership; he also served by collecting rent. He supplied, allocated and withheld ripening land, and helped young tenants get started by not withholding from their use all the land he supplied. He borrowed on rising land values to invest in more land, whose sellers invested in more land, sending out shock-waves of induced investment that quickly reallocated to higher purposes the land their neighbors the aboriginals had been allowing to languish, landlordless. He even saved the grateful Pilgrims the cost of a passage, for he did all this while drunk in a bar in Piccadilly._

----------


## redbluepill

> Unfortunately, every reply to every one of your points would just be repeating myself. I do not want to spend my time just typing the same things over and over.


What do you think I've had to do? :-D






> Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use. *Nature is not a vending machine!*
> 
> Natural resources have to be discovered. Their usefulness has to be discovered.


According to you all you have to do is stand upon a piece of land and declare it yours. Wow! That takes a lot of intelligence! Even Rothbard thought that idea was stupid.





> They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual.


And what is rearranged becomes the product of labor. AKA capital. Not the same thing as land.

*Sigh* You're not the only one having to repeat himself.




> Robinson Crusoe can take a bunch of vines and make a net to catch fish, but only if he knows about nets or can invent the concept himself, otherwise the vines are of no value.


And that net is the product of labor which makes it his property. But somehow you think that net would make the whole island his property and justly makes Friday a slave if he is to live on the island.





> If he never took the time to look around and find the vines, likewise then they are of no value. They might as well not be there. Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.


Things have value when people desire those things, whether it be land or capital.





> Mother Nature really gave you a big fat zip!


?




> You owe everything to landowners.  Give some gratitude.


Might as well replace "landowner" with "the state". Both are parasites.






> All the best, redblue!


Same to you helmuth. Hopefully the truth will find you ;-)

----------


## redbluepill

Roy, that story always makes me laugh. Its a classic.

----------


## Roy L

> I grasp it entirely.  You want all of the focus on the economic theory behind the tax, and zero focus on the accounting ramifications of the tax itself.  I do get it.


??  "_Accounting_ ramifications"??  WTF?  I once edited a textbook on accounting, Steven.  The notion of "accounting ramifications" of LVT is just stupid.  Period.



> WRONG. That dynamic is ONLY initiated because people are willing to CHARGE MORE -


I invite all readers to savor the absurdity and dishonesty of this cretinous claim.  "Willing to charge more"???  "WILLING TO CHARGE MORE"????

BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAHHHAAAA!!!!1!1!!



> which in turn tests people's willingness (or even ability in the case of a monopoly, or "Scarcity Rent") to pay.  Huge difference.


You are right, Steven, there IS a huge difference: what I said was clear, rational, and indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact; what you said is absurd, cretinous and dishonest nonsense.



> Prima facie proof:  If given a choice, people are far *more willing* to pay LESS, not more - for anything.


That is only proof of one thing, Steven: your need to evade the facts I am identifying.



> You are confusing "forced to pay" with "willing to pay".


No, that's just a stupid lie from you, Steven.



> They're not the same things, Roy.


<yawn>  You saying I said something is not the same as me having said it, Steven.  You are a little confused on that point.



> "When there is competition for land, people are *forced* to pay more to use the more advantageous land."


ROTFL!!

I see.  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your, "mind," people can be "forced" to pay for more advantageous land, but somehow whoever is "forcing" them to pay more for it can't also "force" them to pay more for the less advantageous land??  Presumably, this is like the grocery store, where unwilling victims are "forced" to pay more for steak than for potatoes, and it is only the forbearance of the armed thugs patrolling the aisles that permits the potato buyers to leave the store without paying the same price as for steak?

Is that really your claim, Steven?  Really??  REALLY????

I invite all readers to contemplate the implications of Steven's inevitable descent into absurdity.



> Again, just as you confused "forced" with "willing", you also confuse "must" with "want to".  Both "willing" and "want to" are your anti-propertarian fantasies, which have nothing to do with reality.


ROTFL!!  This, from the fellow who finds it remarkable how certain favored people are able to summon a willingness to charge more?



> We are not the appraisers, Roy,


Where do land appraisers come from, Steven, if not the demand by market participants for information on how much land is worth?



> nor are we all sitting on your side, willingly, in a community counsel circle "wanting" to measure anything at all, since the sole intent of that measurement is so that you can put an LVT price tag on landholdings.


No, that's an absurd lie.  The measurements of rent are already being made by market participants for their own purposes.  The LVT administration simply takes the market's judgments as given facts.



> We don't "want to know how much [we] should be prepared to pay",


Then you are a fool, and I doubt more than ever that you have ever been engaged in any sort of productive business.



> any more than we want to find out how much we are willing to pay for hurricane damage, or anything else.


Do you know what "insurance" is, Steven?  Do you have ANY IDEA how it works?



> We would find out that bit of Unwanted Information soon enough.


Oh, really?  How would you find it out, Steven?  From whom?



> Don't be so quick as to shift everyone into your paradigm as willing participants.


??  Why would they participate if they weren't willing?  Who is holding a gun to their heads?



> That would NEVER be the case, even if an LVT made its nasty way en masse into the American economy.


Meaningless shrieking.



> Wrong, as proved above.


Don't be ridiculous.  The only thing you proved above was your willingness to say and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER to preserve your false and evil beliefs.



> Most people are *more willing* to pay less rather than more for anything, and don't give a rat's behind that Roy might consider that a willingness to steal, enslave, rob or anything else. A land rent bill, not land rent itself, however it is measured, reflects the state's WILLINGNESS TO CHARGE, which in turn TESTS people's willingness (or ability, in the case of Scarcity Rent) to pay.  If the state is not willing to charge more, almost NOBODY will be willing to pay more.


I invite all readers to contemplate the self-destruction of Steven's mind that his allegiance to landowner privilege has required him to undergo.



> Unlike the state, which can and does withhold land in order to collect Scarcity Rent from all of the artificially limited available lands, but is not willing (let alone able) to compensate anyone for lands which are artificially withheld.


Er... huh?  WTF do you imagine you think you might be talking about?



> Yeah, I agree. Rent is a bad, bad thing, Roy, a form of servitude and enslavement regardless who collects it, or what the money is used for.  Very evil stuff that.


Stupid garbage unrelated either to anything I have said or to objective reality.



> The fact of other people's existence precludes such a "natural right".


No, that is just a stupid, absurd and dishonest lie, Steven.



> I don't believe in an Existence Tax, Roy.


Except the one landowners are privileged to collect, of course...



> I have an inalienable right to exist, and my right to existence does indeed constitute a RIGHT TO DEPRIVE others of "what they would otherwise be at liberty to have" if I did not exist -


No, of course it doesn't.  You're just saying anything, now.



> which always includes exclusive use of lands.


Lie, as proved by all our hunter-gatherer ancestors who did not exclude each other from use of land.



> And, vice versa, I am not interested in being compensated for deprivations based on other people's use of lands, given that I "would otherwise have been at liberty to use those lands if they did not exist".


Perhaps not, but more rational (and honest) people are.



> They don't owe me a tax based on the fact of their existence, which I consider their right.


<sigh>  It's not landowners' _existence_ that deprives you of your liberty to use the land they are excluding you from, Steven.  It is not Crusoe's _existence_ that points a musket at Friday and orders him back into the water, Steven.  It is not Dirtowner Harry's _existence_ that condemns Thirsty to enslavement or an agonizing death by dehydration, Steven.  It is not the bandit's _existence_ that forces the merchants to turn over part of their cargo to him for using the pass nature provided, Steven.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just have to lie about it.



> That would be SLAVERY, and I want no part of it.


No, of course it wouldn't.  That's just a lie from you.  Stop lying, Steven.



> They also have a right to create such a deprivation by virtue of their Right of Existence.


No, that's just a fabrication on your part.



> I want my own land, because I require exclusive use of land to exist as something other than a share-cropping slave or a wandering nomad on Earth.


You don't have to own land to have exclusive use of it, Steven.  Every tenant knows that, and Hong Kong proves it.



> That is a JUSTIFIED DEPRIVATION to everyone else for which absolutely nothing is due and owing -- not an "exemption" from something that would "otherwise" be due and owing.


"Justified"?  I am still waiting for you to justify Dirtowner Harry's enslavement of Thirsty, and Crusoe's enslavement of Friday, Steven.  And you will not be providing any such justification.



> It is simply not owed. To ANYONE. EVER.


When you violate others' rights, you owe them just compensation.  Your claim is simply a statement of your desire to violate others' rights and not make just compensation: your desire to rob and enslave others in order to obtain unearned wealth, in typical parasitic  landowner fashion.



> I do have a right to forcibly deprive others of what they would otherwise have been at liberty to use had I not existed.


No, you do not, because that would be a self-contradictory "right" to rob, enslave and murder them, as already proved.  Whatever happened to *their* rights, hmmmm?



> The fact of my existence establishes that right to deprive everyone of what they otherwise would have had, which I alone do require for my existence, including exclusive use of land, regardless how it gains in "community value", with ZERO moral obligation on my part to compensate anyone else.


Claiming you have a right to rob, enslave and murder others does not give you such a right, Steven.  It's just meaningless sociopathic shrieking.



> And I would extend that same moral right to everyone else on the face of the Earth.


Reducing all humanity to the moral status of animals, who take and hold by force.  Cute.



> Anyone who is born into a large, wealthy family can fantasize all they want about what their inheritance _would otherwise have been_ if they were an only child, and sole heir, and if only the other family members had not existed.  That fantasy - _that non-reality_ - does not establish a claim that each sibling has on all the others. The reality is that they all do exist, and each has their own claim, _to the complete exclusion of the others._


And did you really imagine that could be relevant?  Remarkable.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> According to you all you have to do is stand upon a piece of land and declare it yours. Wow! That takes a lot of intelligence! Even Rothbard thought that idea was stupid.


 That's actually not a correct characterization of my view.  Do you think you could, with a bit of effort, restate my view more accurately?




> Things have value when people desire those things, whether it be land or capital.


That depends on what you mean by "value", now doesn't it?

----------


## Roy L

> That's actually not a correct characterization of my view.  Do you think you could, with a bit of effort, restate my view more accurately?


Yes, your view is that one must also forcibly drive off or kill those who would otherwise exercise their liberty to use the land, or (much more often, of course) get government to do it for you.



> That depends on what you mean by "value", now doesn't it?


The relevant sense is the amount, especially of money, that a thing can be traded for in the market.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> ??  "_Accounting_ ramifications"??  WTF?  I once edited a textbook on accounting, Steven.  The notion of "accounting ramifications" of LVT is just stupid.  Period.


Appeal to [your own] authority, with no counter-argument.   My argument stands. 




> I invite all readers to savor the absurdity and dishonesty of this cretinous claim.  "Willing to charge more"???  "WILLING TO CHARGE MORE"????
> 
> BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAHHHAAAA!!!!1!1!!


Argument by ridicule. My argument stands




> You are right, Steven, there IS a huge difference: what I said was clear, rational, and indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact; what you said is absurd, cretinous and dishonest nonsense.


Argument by ridicule. My argument stands




> That is only proof of one thing, Steven: your need to evade the facts I am identifying.


Ad Hominem attack, no counter-argument. My argument stands. 




> No, that's just a stupid lie from you, Steven.


Ad Hominem attack, no counter-argument. My argument stands. 




> <yawn>  You saying I said something is not the same as me having said it, Steven.  You are a little confused on that point.


Strawman argument identified, I stand corrected. 




> ROTFL!!


Argument by ridicule. My argument stands. 




> I see.  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your, "mind," people can be "forced" to pay for more advantageous land, but somehow whoever is "forcing" them to pay more for it can't also "force" them to pay more for the less advantageous land??  Presumably, this is like the grocery store, where unwilling victims are "forced" to pay more for steak than for potatoes, and it is only the forbearance of the armed thugs patrolling the aisles that permits the potato buyers to leave the store without paying the same price as for steak?


If that same store held a monopoly on all food, or anything else vital to life itself, then the "force" involved is in having to deal with that store in the first place, with no alternatives (aka "choice") - not the "choices" offered by that Ridiculously Presumptuous Monstrosity, once I am fully trapped into and forced to deal within its confines. 

Choices are also given to gladiators, cocks and dogs thrust together into fighting arenas. Technically, nobody is forcing them to fight. They can all just lie down if they want to.  

You are like the sociopath Jigsaw from the SAW movies, Roy. You want to play a game.  Your game is one of "Let's you and him fight over who is going to pay me the biggest land rent payments".  That certainly has the element of competition that you would find in a free market, but it is anything but a "free market". 




> Is that really your claim, Steven?  Really??  REALLY????


Appeal to ridicule. My argument stands. 




> I invite all readers to contemplate the implications of Steven's inevitable descent into absurdity.


Appeal to ridicule. My argument stands. 




> ROTFL!!  This, from the fellow who finds it remarkable how certain favored people are able to summon a willingness to charge more?


Ad hominem appeal to ridicule with no counter-argument. My argument stands. 




> Where do land appraisers come from, Steven, if not the demand by market participants for information on how much land is worth?


Well, sometimes land appraisers come from...government.  You know, that sometimes other "market participant"?




> No, that's an absurd lie.  The measurements of rent are already being made by market participants for their own purposes.  The LVT administration simply takes the market's judgments as given facts.


WRONG. You couldn't be more dead wrong, and I mean that along with an absolute dismissal of Georgist economic theory of Land Rent, and your blithering nonsense about Publicly Created Value, as if it really was that, and as if the "Public" had any rightful claim to such a fiction.  

When I draw a crowd to my theater, that is not value that is CREATED BY the public.  It is value I TAKE FROM the public IN EXCHANGE FOR what I have provided in my theater, which is 100% PRIVATELY CREATED VALUE.  You see, how it works, Roy, is the public pays me to get into my theater, because I have enticed them to come.  And not everyone was forced to come. Those who do come give me money, I give them a show, and everybody goes home happy. But the crowd did not draw itself. I DREW THAT CROWD.  

Furthermore, I also PAID for my share of the infrastructure, public and private, that got all of us there. All paid for, Roy! Nobody profits from that. The "public" (the state) is not a Market Participant.  We really do own the infrastructure. That alone is what we share FREELY in common.  That's why cities, counties and states can't charge admission fees by virtue of their existence, and have to work very hard to even justify toll roads and toll bridges.  

Landowners who charge rent are not always charging for "LAND RENT".  Las Vegas proves that. They are just entertainers in the middle of the desert, providing the only PRIVATELY CREATED VALUE that really counts. Roads and bridges to nowhere don't count any more than roads and bridges that lead to Privately Created Value. 




> Then you are a fool, and I doubt more than ever that you have ever been engaged in any sort of productive business.


Argument by ridicule. My argument stands. 




> Do you know what "insurance" is, Steven?  Do you have ANY IDEA how it works?


Sure do. In a free market, it is my ability to place bets, as a hedge against my own losses.  In a non-free market, it is the ability to force others to make bets which hedge against my losses. 




> We would find out that bit of Unwanted Information soon enough.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Oh, really?  How would you find it out, Steven?  From whom?


Well, in the case of a County Tax appraiser, you get a nice little bill from a tax collector, saying *PAY THIS BILL OR FORFEIT YOUR PROPERTY*.




> ??  Why would they participate if they weren't willing?  Who is holding a gun to their heads?


See above re: Jigsaw.  I'm not a "willing" participant of the Federal Reserve System either. Is anyone holding a gun to my head there? 




> Meaningless shrieking.


Equally meaningless non-counter-argument. 




> Don't be ridiculous.  The only thing you proved above was your willingness to say and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER to preserve your false and evil beliefs.


Ad hominem attack with no counter-argument. My unanswered argument stands. 




> I invite all readers to contemplate the self-destruction of Steven's mind that his allegiance to landowner privilege has required him to undergo.


Ad hominem appeal to ridicule in a circular framework. 




> Er... huh?  WTF do you imagine you think you might be talking about?


Incoherent non-response.




> Stupid garbage unrelated either to anything I have said or to objective reality.


No counter-argument. My argument stands.




> No, that is just a stupid, absurd and dishonest lie, Steven.


Ad hominem attack with no counter-argument. My unanswered argument stands. 




> Except the one landowners are privileged to collect, of course...


You are the only one who believes, and has asserted, but has not established or proved, that mere owner-occupation of land, without charging any rent, constitutes a "collection privilege", to which the public has a rightful claim. 

No, of course it doesn't.  You're just saying anything, now.




> Lie, as proved by all our hunter-gatherer ancestors who did not exclude each other from use of land.


You weren't there, Roy, but we can state with certainty that humans, like so many other mammals, have always been decidedly territorial.  That is part of our INDIVIDUAL nature. We provide for ourselves and those we call "our own", even as families compete with families. Always have, always will. They most certainly did "exclude each other from use of land", and your hunter-gatherer agrarian fantasy falls flat on its face at worst, or at best remains moot. 




> Perhaps not, but more rational (and honest) people are.


'No True Scotsman' fallacy. 




> <sigh>  It's not landowners' _existence_ that deprives you of your liberty to use the land they are excluding you from, Steven.


Of course it is, assuming a permanent structure is built on that land. He has every right to the land and what he built on it, and every right to "deprive me of my liberty" to use it.  You claim that I would otherwise be naturally at liberty to use that land if he did not exist.  His existence, and therefore the land and shelter he required, RIGHTFULLY precluded any claim I might "otherwise have had" on such liberty - all as a matter of his right of existence.  

That he 'could' live elsewhere, or under other circumstances, is true. However, being forced to live elsewhere, or under other circumstances, is not liberty - as Native Americans know only too well.  Your perceived right to liberty of use of his exclusive space does not trump his right to remain in his space - because that would violate HIS right to liberty.  Not unless you can imagine what liberty would be like without his existence in that place, and convert that FICTION into a real claim that actually nullifies his right to exist (in that place). 




> It is not Crusoe's _existence_ that points a musket at Friday and orders him back into the water, Steven.


*YOU are Crusoe, Roy.* Friday is Steven. Friday doesn't want to rule over the whole island. Only Crusoe does. You are the one trying to school ME in the LVT economics of having to comply with a strange system that demands payment for my exclusive occupation of land of my choice, or else face a musket that forces me to move.  You actually believe that an "exemption" should mean something to me. I don't require an exemption, because Friday does not acknowledge the fictitious debt Crusoe imagines should be the Rule of the Island.  

Friday sees Crusoe build a hut on one side of the island and demands nothing from him. Friday can build his own hut, and coexist. That is in Friday's nature, and there is more than enough island, and island resources, for both live and survive on. Only LVT Roy Crusoe is not happy with that arrangement, once he looks across and later realizes that Friday actually has a much better place on the island. So covetous, greedy, murderous, enslaving, controlling bastard in his heart that he is, *Crusoe imagines how much more liberty he would have on the island if Friday did not exist!* 

LVT ROY CRUSOE:  "Friday is depriving me of what I would naturally be at liberty to use if he did not exist, just as I as I am depriving him of the same.  We therefore have a just and rightful indisputable claim on one another.  Friday's land obviously has much more value than mine, which means he owes more to the public treasury than I do. And, since I own all of the coins on the island, I will go and bid one coin for every three months for occupancy of his land. If he bids more, I will bid one more coin than that.  And I will throw in another four coins to Justly and Fairly compensate Friday for the hut he built.  These coins can also be deposited in the treasury, which can then be used to hire Friday, who is unproductive and badly in need of employment, to build for us some badly needed island infrastructure. I will then pay the treasury another few coins every three months for my old hut as an alternate dwelling. This will stimulate the economy. I can use this money to hire Friday to build a new hut for himself, which he may use as his exemption, and a way of returning some of the publicly created value between us."  

This would be Crusoe's desire; to rob and enslave Friday, and to obtain unearned wealth, in typical parasitic Island-owner fashion, which island's interests are now aligned perfectly with Crusoe's. And it all begins with Crusoe COVETING. 



Well, at least one of us is completely off our rocker, Roy -- willfully ignorant of and blind to reality, locked in an extremely limited paradigm, with a seriously inept, retarded capacity for reason, logic and common sense.  You might say that it is me, as I say that it is you. Nothing new there. But I am fairly certain that one or both of us is right about the other.

----------


## eduardo89

> Yes, your view is that one must also forcibly drive off or kill those who would otherwise exercise their liberty to use the land, or (much more often, of course) get government to do it for you.

----------


## Roy L

> 


You cannot refute anything I have said, so you just post some silly garbage to make yourself feel like a man.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You cannot refute anything I have said, so you just post some silly garbage to make yourself feel like a man.


 Roy L. is the manliest of us all.  He is the manliest man on the internet.

I am still religiously re-reading the story of the Amish in Pakistan once an hour, on the hour.  I figure by day 30 of this regimen I should see major progress towards becoming a reasonable, right, holy, intelligent, and manly LVT-advocating person.  Please pray for me, Roy, that this will succeed and the landownership demons will leave me.  Thank you for all that you've done, and for all that you are.  

For Liberty Elveety!

----------


## eduardo89

> You cannot refute anything I have said, so you just post some silly garbage to make yourself feel like a man.


Your own arguments, tone, and worldview refute your posts on their own.

----------


## redbluepill

> That's actually not a correct characterization of my view.  Do you think you could, with a bit of effort, restate my view more accurately?


You are being given the opportunity to defend your views. Thats what this forum is for.





> That depends on what you mean by "value", now doesn't it?


No, thats exactly what value means.


val·ue/ˈvalyo͞o/
Noun:	
The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something: "your support is of great value".
Verb:	
Estimate the monetary worth of (something): "his estate was valued at $45,000".
Synonyms:	
noun.  worth - price - cost - merit - rate
verb.  appreciate - evaluate - estimate - appraise - assess

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> You are being given the opportunity to defend your views. Thats what this forum is for.


 I'm not defending it.  Just vaguely wondering if you're able to restate it.  People like that.  Shows reading comprehension/intelligence. http://www.analytictech.com/mb119/reflecti.htm

If not, I might as well be typing to a Turing Machine.







> No, that's exactly what value means.


 So you think things you'd be willing to pay money for are the only things which have value?  No, I give the benefit of the doubt that you, like all of us, understand there are many different ways to look at value.  Depending on your philosophy, you may also feel that there are certain actions, virtues, or qualities which have intrinsic value, or perhaps objective value, even if an individual actor may not comprehend and accept its value to him.  I see value as a very large and multifaceted subject to dive into.

----------


## redbluepill

> I'm not defending it.  Just vaguely wondering if you're able to restate it.  People like that.  Shows reading comprehension/intelligence. http://www.analytictech.com/mb119/reflecti.htm
> 
> If not, I might as well be typing to a Turing Machine.


Why should I restate it when that is exactly what you believe? In your mind its finders keepers.







> So you think things you'd be willing to pay money for are the only things which have value?


Things you'd be willing to pay for are examples of things with value.





> No, I give the benefit of the doubt that you, like all of us, understand there are many different ways to look at value.  Depending on your philosophy, you may also feel that there are certain actions, virtues, or qualities which have intrinsic value, or perhaps objective value, even if an individual actor may not comprehend and accept its value to him.  I see value as a very large and multifaceted subject to dive into.


How does this contradict anything I've said?

----------


## Steven Douglas

Well, I have to say this thread has been fun, as well as informative. Good to know how other people think. The fact that LVT is being attempted in different parts of the world makes it in my interest to learn about, even if I don't agree with the principles or precepts involved.  

My objective would never be on how to align state interests with commerce. That puts the state "on the take" - something I think is precisely what is destroying the world now, and even what gave rise to the Federal Reserve system.  

I don't want a state that is ever growing and on the take. I want it to be the ever servant and champion for the individual liberties required to make small commerce an ever present and continuous _competitive threat_ to large commerce, with no artificial advantages that attempt to reward or give any artificial preference whatsoever to ANY larger enterprise. Failure is A Very Good Thing in a free market, as it creates opportunity, and nobody is Too Big To Fail.  

I see an LVT as a mechanism that makes the state the artificial auctioneer over an equally artificial state-controlled monopoly on land.  ALL states are notorious for doing whatever they can to MAXIMIZE revenues, by whatever means are at their disposal.  Because revenue would dependent on land value under an LVT "single tax" system, the state would have a very, VERY powerful incentive, and would also be in an all-powerful position (as it is even now), to do whatever it can do to continue to artificially _increase the value of lands_ - through zoning laws and withholding land from wider public usage which would cheapen the value of land, in order to collect on higher Scarcity Rents.  

Artificial zoning laws and artificial scarcity rents are an enormous part of what keeps land values, and therefore prices, artificially high.  This automatically favors large commerce, with its capital advantages and immediate proven capabilities, over small commerce, as those who bid the most gold are automatically given preference to the best lands, but only out of those made available by the government itself, which controls the availability of all land, including that land on which the market does not operate.  

It is easy to see why LVT appeals to environmentalists so much, who would all love to have their say in such a system, because it really does give the state incentive to withhold land from "those who would otherwise be at liberty to use them" (with or without so-called "just" compensation).  I don't give a crap about such "compensation".  I don't want an exemption or dividend from commerce I can't compete with for lack of land usage, and I DO NOT WANT THEIR LAND. I want use of *unused lands that are being withheld*, by both the state and wealthy land speculators, for no other reason than to artificially increase the value of the already limited available lands.    

I agree that being forced to pay rents to private landowners can be economically devastating (to the only real "economies" that actually count), and all for lack of opportunity to have access to exclusive use of lands of their own.  The solution, to me, is not to change landlords so that the same rents can be charged, only now it is somehow "recovered" fer da' people. The solution is to break ALL monopolies on land, including and especially state monopolies, so that land really is available for "free usage" (i.e. OWNERSHIP), given its value is not artificially determined, publicly or privately, in the first place. 

Now there's a good use for Eminent Domain laws. Big Corporate Speculator buys up an enormous tract of land, and just holds onto it, as property values rise.  Screw the speculators, including homeowners who want the values to go up, and SCREW THE ZONING COMMISSION for its market manipulating complicity.  Force Big Corporate Speculator to sell its land at "fair market" value, based on projected FALLEN land values, as land becomes LESS SCARCE.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Why should I restate it when that is exactly what you believe? In your mind its finders keepers.


 I am gladdened to hear you know with such exactness what I believe.  I am confused when this confident and exact knowledge seems to be at variance with what I had thought I believed, especially since I had presented it multiple times fairly clearly and further clarified it after questions.

But, what do I know?

I thought you were not a pure rhetorical agenda-bot.  You were able to comprehend sentences and reply to them in an interesting and relevant way which I could not necessarily anticipate in advance.  Now you're acting like just another Roy.  Oh well!  Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I am gladdened to hear you know with such exactness what I believe.  I am confused when this confident and exact knowledge seems to be at variance with what I had thought I believed, especially since I had presented it multiple times fairly clearly and further clarified it after questions.
> 
> But, what do I know?
> 
> I thought you were not a pure rhetorical agenda-bot.  You were able to comprehend sentences and reply to them in an interesting and relevant way which I could not necessarily anticipate in advance.  Now you're acting like just another Roy.  Oh well!  Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!


Happy Festivus and Happy New Year, sir!!

----------


## Roy L

> Appeal to [your own] authority, with no counter-argument.   My argument stands.


You didn't make any argument, Steven.  You just made a fallacious, absurd and dishonest claim, which I demolished.  There are no "accounting ramifications" of LVT, Steven.  That notion is the distilled essence of pure absurdity.



> Argument by ridicule. My argument stands


ROTFL!!!  Ah, no.  _Reductio ad absurdum_ has been known to be a conclusive refutation for thousands of years Steven.  That fact just isn't known to you, because you do not know any logic.  The only way any of your "arguments" stand is as monuments to absurdity and dishonesty.



> Argument by ridicule. My argument stands


As above.  Your non-argument has been comprehensively and conclusively demolished.



> Ad Hominem attack, no counter-argument. My argument stands.


Your "argument" was idiotic, Steven.  Identifying that fact is not an ad hominem attack.



> Ad Hominem attack, no counter-argument. My argument stands.


You didn't make any argument, Steven.  You just made a false, absurd and dishonest claim with no basis in fact or logic.



> Argument by ridicule. My argument stands.


As an eternal monument to absurdity and dishonesty.  Right.



> If that same store held a monopoly on all food, or anything else vital to life itself, then the "force" involved is in having to deal with that store in the first place, with no alternatives (aka "choice") - not the "choices" offered by that Ridiculously Presumptuous Monstrosity, once I am fully trapped into and forced to deal within its confines.


And on your planet, that bizarre fantasy might even be relevant.  Here on earth, not so much.



> Choices are also given to gladiators, cocks and dogs thrust together into fighting arenas. Technically, nobody is forcing them to fight. They can all just lie down if they want to.


Gladiators are not given a choice, that is a lie.  If they don't fight, they are killed.  Cocks and dogs fight because it is inherent in their nature, just as apologists for landowner privilege lie.



> You are like the sociopath Jigsaw from the SAW movies, Roy.


You are like a lying apologist for greed, privilege, injustice and evil, Steven.  



> You want to play a game.


Liberty and justice is not a game.



> Your game is one of "Let's you and him fight over who is going to pay me the biggest land rent payments".


??  You are merely falsely accusing me of seeking to do what LANDOWNERS ALREADY do, Steven.  Re-read the account of the Quakers in India, and try to find a willingness to know the facts it identifies.  There is no prospect that I, personally, would be pocketing others' land rent payments under LVT.  Landowners, by contrast, DO pocket others' land rent payments under the current system.



> That certainly has the element of competition that you would find in a free market, but it is anything but a "free market".


No, it is very much a free market, Steven, stop lying.  What is not free about it?  You don't have to deprive others of their liberty.  You just want to take others' liberty from them and not be required to repay the value of what you take.  You want to profit by thieving and parasitism, like any landowner.



> Appeal to ridicule. My argument stands. 
> Appeal to ridicule. My argument stands. 
> Ad hominem appeal to ridicule with no counter-argument. My argument stands.


ROTFL!!  I see.  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," by making self-evidently ridiculous claims, claims so absurd they can't even meaningfully be addressed, you have constructed "arguments" that can never be refuted!  Brilliant!



> Well, sometimes land appraisers come from...government.  You know, that sometimes other "market participant"?


Evasion.  The fact that appraisers serve a market need independently of government stands, and your whole "argument" consequently fails.



> WRONG.


No, my statement is objectively correct: market participants already measure land rent for their own purposes.



> You couldn't be more dead wrong, and I mean that along with an absolute dismissal of Georgist economic theory of Land Rent, and your blithering nonsense about Publicly Created Value, as if it really was that, and as if the "Public" had any rightful claim to such a fiction.


It is not a fiction.  That is just a lie.  The fact that land rent is publicly created is an established fact of economics.



> When I draw a crowd to my theater, that is not value that is CREATED BY the public.  It is value I TAKE FROM the public IN EXCHANGE FOR what I have provided in my theater, which is 100% PRIVATELY CREATED VALUE.  You see, how it works, Roy, is the public pays me to get into my theater, because I have enticed them to come.  And not everyone was forced to come. Those who do come give me money, I give them a show, and everybody goes home happy. But the crowd did not draw itself. I DREW THAT CROWD.


Did you imagine that had something to do with land value?

Oh, wait a minute, that's right, it did:

YOU ONLY BUILT YOUR THEATER AT THAT LOCATION IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE THE *PUBLICLY CREATED LAND VALUE* -- THE *OPPORTUNITY* TO DRAW A LARGE CROWD FROM THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITY, BY MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE *PROVIDED BY GOVERNMENT* -- JUSTIFIED IT.



> Furthermore, I also PAID for my share of the infrastructure, public and private, that got all of us there.


No, you did not, Steven.  That is a *lie*.  You are LYING.  The *only* way you could *possibly* have paid your share of the publicly provided infrastructure is through a land value tax on the site of your theater.



> All paid for, Roy! Nobody profits from that.


No, that is a lie, Steven.  You are lying.  The landowner profits from it, as absent LVT, he pockets the value it creates in return for nothing.



> The "public" (the state) is not a Market Participant.


Yes, it is, sorry.  Your claims are all objectively false.



> We really do own the infrastructure. That alone is what we share FREELY in common.


No, we must pay landowners for access to it.



> That's why cities, counties and states can't charge admission fees by virtue of their existence,


Landowners charge the admission fees.



> and have to work very hard to even justify toll roads and toll bridges.


Because landowners want the larger welfare subsidy giveaway that free roads and bridges imply. Churchill explained it for you this way:

_"Some years ago in London there was a toll bar on a bridge across the Thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings offended the public conscience, and agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the taxpayers, the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved sixpence a week, but within a very short time rents on the south side of the river were found to have risen about sixpence a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted!"_



> Landowners who charge rent are not always charging for "LAND RENT".  Las Vegas proves that.


No, it does not.  The landowner qua landowner charges only land rent, which is easily separable from whatever he may be charging for in capacities other than that of landowner.



> They are just entertainers in the middle of the desert, providing the only PRIVATELY CREATED VALUE that really counts.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  Entertainers in the middle of the desert die of thirst.  Las Vegas is *not* desert because it has government-provided water supply, roads, airport, and tons of other infrastructure and services that make it possible for entertainers to make a lot of money there -- even after paying the local landowners a fortune in land rent for the opportunity.  Your claims are just idiotic.



> Roads and bridges to nowhere don't count any more than roads and bridges that lead to Privately Created Value.


Stupidity.  Roads and bridges to nowhere create the land value that makes the nowhere turn into somewhere -- as Las Vegas did when it got water, roads, an airport, etc. from government.



> Argument by ridicule. My argument stands


As a monument to absurdity and dishonesty. 



> Sure do. In a free market, it is my ability to place bets, as a hedge against my own losses.


OK, so you agree that you were LYING when you claimed we don't want to find out how much we are willing to pay for hurricane damage.  Good.  It's always good to confess when you have lied.



> Well, in the case of a County Tax appraiser, you get a nice little bill from a tax collector, saying *PAY THIS BILL OR FORFEIT YOUR PROPERTY*.


That doesn't make you willing to pay it, Steven.  That only shows how much you are being asked to pay.

I repeat: HOW will you determine how much you are willing to pay to keep the property?  Who will tell you whether it is worth your while to pay?  Who will tell you, and on what basis, if the tax bill is too much to pay?

Blank out.



> See above re: Jigsaw.


See above re: evil, lying filth.



> I'm not a "willing" participant of the Federal Reserve System either. Is anyone holding a gun to my head there?


Ignoratio elenchi fallacy.



> Equally meaningless non-counter-argument.


Refusal to know facts.



> Ad hominem attack with no counter-argument. My unanswered argument stands.


As a towering monument to irrelevancy.



> Ad hominem appeal to ridicule in a circular framework.


The "circular framework" would be the trash can your idiotic evasions belong in.



> Incoherent non-response.
> No counter-argument. My argument stands.
> Ad hominem attack with no counter-argument. My unanswered argument stands.


<yawn>  Your refusal to know facts does not alter them, Steven.



> You are the only one who believes, and has asserted, but has not established or proved, that mere owner-occupation of land, without charging any rent, constitutes a "collection privilege", to which the public has a rightful claim.


Of course I have proved it: the owner-user is depriving others of their liberty, and the publicly created advantages of the land, just as much as the owner-rentier.



> You weren't there, Roy, but we can state with certainty that humans, like so many other mammals, have always been decidedly territorial.


No, that's just garbage.  **** sapiens is not territorial.  Period.  Here is a typical article about territoriality that talks about dozens of territorial species, and DOES NOT MENTION human beings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_%28animal%29



> That is part of our INDIVIDUAL nature. We provide for ourselves and those we call "our own", even as families compete with families. Always have, always will.


But that's not territoriality.  So you fail.  Your "argument" fails.



> They most certainly did "exclude each other from use of land",


Only on a community, societal or tribal basis.  Not as individuals, the way genuinely territorial species do.



> and your hunter-gatherer agrarian fantasy falls flat on its face at worst, or at best remains moot.


Blatant oxymoron and contentless gibberish.



> 'No True Scotsman' fallacy.


LOL!  Garbage.  You have no knowledge of logic.  None.



> Of course it is, assuming a permanent structure is built on that land.


No such assumption is made or warranted, and your claim is self-evidently false, absurd and dishonest.



> He has every right to the land and what he built on it, and every right to "deprive me of my liberty" to use it.


No, that's just a self-evidently false claim with no supporting facts or logic.  You are baldly claiming the landowner has a right to deprive others of their rights.  That is blatantly self-contradictory.  If he can remove others' rights, they can just as rightly remove his.  But that means no one has any rights, including rights to remove others' rights.

You are destroyed.



> You claim that I would otherwise be naturally at liberty to use that land if he did not exist.


That is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  But you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil, so you have to deny it.



> His existence, and therefore the land and shelter he required,


Blatant fabrication and non sequitur fallacy.  Which land and shelter?  You are just makin' $#!+ up again.



> RIGHTFULLY precluded any claim I might "otherwise have had" on such liberty - all as a matter of his right of existence.


No, that's indisputably another non sequitur fallacy.  You simply haven't provided any argument for such a claim, Steven, and you will not be doing so.  There is no sense in which another's existence removes your right to liberty.  Such claims are absurd, self-contradictory, and idiotic.



> That he 'could' live elsewhere, or under other circumstances, is true.


And proves that you lied, above.



> However, being forced to live elsewhere, or under other circumstances, is not liberty - as Native Americans know only too well.


I see.  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," it is not liberty if the community forces one soi-disant land "owner" to live elsewhere and under other circumstances in order to secure the equal rights of all to life and liberty, but it somehow *IS* liberty if that one landowner *forces the whole community* to live elsewhere and under other circumstances in order to rob and enslave them...?

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...



> Your perceived right to liberty of use of his exclusive space does not trump his right to remain in his space - because that would violate HIS right to liberty.


"His" "space"?  Blatant question begging fallacy.

And I haven't claimed my liberty right trumps his, only that his does not trump mine.  The only way to reconcile our conflicting rights to liberty while enabling exclusive use of space, therefore, is through compensation: only by A paying B more to vacate a given space than B will pay A can A rightly claim exclusive use of it.



> Not unless you can imagine what liberty would be like without his existence in that place, and convert that FICTION into a real claim that actually nullifies his right to exist (in that place).


Nonsense.  The FACT of natural liberty could not possibly nullify the right to life, as all rights are inherently compatible with all facts.  You are simply lying that a landowner's right to life necessarily implies a right to secure ownership of "his" land as "the space his body occupies."  But of course, that is just an infinitely stupid lie on your part.

The total absence of even the *concept* of private landowning from hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding societies *proves* there cannot possibly be any human right to own land as private property.  Period.  Private property in land is purely a legal fiction.



> *YOU are Crusoe, Roy.*


ROTFL!!  No, *you* are *lying*, Steven.  It is not I who seeks to enslave others by depriving them of their liberty to use what nature provided for all.  It's you.



> Friday is Steven. Friday doesn't want to rule over the whole island. Only Crusoe does.


Wrong AGAIN.  As a hunter-gatherer, Friday doesn't claim to own *any* land.  *Crusoe does.*  That proves you are *lying,* Steven, and YOU are the Crusoe in the case, I am the Friday.



> You are the one trying to school ME in the LVT economics of having to comply with a strange system that demands payment for my exclusive occupation of land of my choice, or else face a musket that forces me to move.


Nope.  Wrong.  As a hunter-gatherer, Friday makes no claim of exclusive occupation, so that is another proof that you are just lying when you try to claim Friday's mantle of moral innocence.



> You actually believe that an "exemption" should mean something to me.


No, I am fully aware that facts, logic, liberty, justice and truth do not mean anything to you.



> I don't require an exemption, because Friday does not acknowledge the fictitious debt Crusoe imagines should be the Rule of the Island.


LOL!  If you don't want your right to liberty restored, that's your prerogative.  Just don't bitch when the productive outbid you for all the good land.



> Friday sees Crusoe build a hut on one side of the island and demands nothing from him. Friday can build his own hut, and coexist. That is in Friday's nature.


Because he does not claim to own the land.  Crusoe does.  That is what makes you Crusoe and me Friday, Steven, rather than the other way around as you so ludicrously and dishonestly claim.



> Only LVT Roy Crusoe is not happy with that arrangement, once he looks across and later realizes that Friday actually has a much better place on the island. So covetous, greedy, murderous, enslaving, controlling bastard in his heart that he is,


LOL!  You're projecting, Steven.



> *Crusoe imagines how much more liberty he would have on the island if Friday did not exist!*


Which is an indisputable fact, so you of course deny it.



> LVT ROY CRUSOE:  "Friday is depriving me of what I would naturally be at liberty to use if he did not exist, just as I as I am depriving him of the same. We therefore have a just and rightful indisputable claim on one another.  Friday's land obviously has much more value than mine, which means he owes more to the public treasury than I do."


And if the bids in the market confirm LRC's opinion, then Friday does indeed take more from society than LRC, and does indeed consequently owe more compensation in repayment for what he takes. 



> This would be Crusoe's desire; to rob and enslave Friday to obtain unearned wealth, in typical parasitic Island-owner fashion.


By George, he's got it!

Except, of course, that Steven has concocted some stupid lies to tell himself to prevent himself from actually getting it.

Like the stupid lie that government provision of the services and infrastructure that create land's value is "parasitic," and does not earn that value.

Like the stupid lie that requiring Friday to repay what he takes from society "robs and enslaves" him, rather than simply and JUSTLY requiring him to repay value he is taking, value that was never rightly his in the first place.

Like the stupid lie that recovery of *publicly created* value for *public purposes and benefi*t through voluntary, value-for-value transactions is the same as *private* appropriation of *publicly created value* through forcible removal of others' rights.



> And it all begins with Crusoe COVETING.


One of the most evil things any lying apologist for greed, privilege and injustice can do is to accuse those who oppose injustice of envy for its beneficiaries, because only by such viciously evil, despicable, disgraceful and dishonest means can two Holocausts a year be rationalized and justified.

Sorry, but prolonged exposure to evil makes me physically ill, so I can't respond to any more evil lies tonight.  In fact, I think I'll make a New Year's Resolution to stop participating in forums, as the constant, vicious, stupid, evil lying just makes me sick.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Evil, lying apologists for greed, privilege and injustice, blah blah blah...


I don't care if it's a government as a monopoly speculator or wealthy private interests buying up and hoarding land on spec. As landlords with monopolies, they can all, _every one of them_, and you, kiss my greedy, libertarian, exclusive land-owning/land-using, land-rent-keeping, propertarian butt.  

Go enslave someone else with your sick, twisted, convoluted, communistic, collectivist, ugly step-cousin of Marxist rent-seeking crap, Crusoe. 

No need to return liberty or value to "the people" that wasn't stolen or robbed from them in the first place by any evil entity that steps up and declares "That was the Bad Landlord. I am the Good Landlord, so PAY UP."  Oh, and someone else's land, and exclusive use thereof - that does not necessarily constitute a _wrongful_ deprivation to anyone, nor are others entitled to land rent in the economic (non)sense, by the thoroughly demented collectivist reasoning of "publicly created value" or that others "would otherwise have been at liberty to use it".   

And here -- :::: throwing a massive wad of paper out the door and to the winds ::::  

Take your worthless, conscience assuaging exemptions and dividends with you. Use them to build a fire, or else to construct a shelter of your own, on your own land. And word to the wise: Be sure to buy that land, so that you're not a slave to rent-seeking by government or private interests. Try North Dakota sometime after June. I hear the Pharoah and his priests there have been put on notice, by the people, to Let My People Go.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I don't care if it's a government as a monopoly speculator or wealthy private interests buying up and hoarding land on spec. As landlords with monopolies, they can all, _every one of them_, and you, kiss my greedy, libertarian, exclusive land-owning/land-using, land-rent-keeping, propertarian butt.  
> 
> Go enslave someone else with your sick, twisted, convoluted, communistic, collectivist, ugly step-cousin of Marxist rent-seeking crap, Crusoe. 
> 
> No need to return liberty or value to "the people" that wasn't stolen or robbed from them in the first place by any evil entity that steps up and declares "That was the Bad Landlord. I am the Good Landlord, so PAY UP."  Oh, and someone else's land, and exclusive use thereof - that does not necessarily constitute a _wrongful_ deprivation to anyone, nor are others entitled to land rent in the economic (non)sense, by the thoroughly demented collectivist reasoning of "publicly created value" or that others "would otherwise have been at liberty to use it".   
> 
> And here -- :::: throwing a massive wad of paper out the door and to the winds ::::  
> 
> Take your worthless, conscience assuaging exemptions and dividends with you. Use them to build a fire, or else to construct a shelter of your own, on your own land. And word to the wise: Be sure to buy that land, so that you're not a slave to rent-seeking by government or private interests. Try North Dakota sometime after June. I hear the Pharoah and his priests there have been put on notice, by the people, to Let My People Go.


Very important points there.  Those condemning "rent seekers" are neglecting the fact that an LVT is, in practice, a type of rent-except it goes to a government (or some "super" agency).  
Also, land is not fungible, as you've alluded to here and several other places.  The geoist view, as described in this thread, attempts to "prove" land land to be fungible (though usually tacitly).  Non-fungible goods are always unique from each other.  For example, my parcel is different than every other parcel.  The act of taxing non-fungible goods necessitates a considerable amount of tyranny and unfairness.  I imagine the "wealthy" would buy up cheap land that the poor would otherwise use (and pay rent for) and live out of the country. (effectively a tax shelter)  This will force the "unlanded" into becoming "rent slaves" anyway.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Yep. 




> _“Illiterate they may be, but they are not blind. They see no reason to give their loyalty to rich and powerful men who simply want to take over the role of the British in the name of freedom."_ - Gandhi (1982), speaking of the people of India regarding Indian Home Rule


...which is pretty much what happened in India.

Just change that to _"...collectivist-minded politicians who simply want to take over the roles and revenues of private landlords..."_ and you have the raw essence of LVT in a nutshell.

That particular camel's nose shouldn't just be pushed out of the tent. That nose should be chopped completely off, so that it lacks the capacity to even smell such things.

----------


## Warrior_of_Freedom

Paying tax on net worth is wrong. if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax? How can you tax me on money I did not make that year? That's not tax, it's a fee.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Paying tax on net worth is wrong. if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax? How can you tax me on money I did not make that year? That's not tax, it's a fee.


Hey!  No inconvenient truths in Georgist Fantasy Land!!!11!!

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Paying tax on net worth is wrong. if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax? How can you tax me on money I did not make that year? That's not tax, it's a fee.


That's why Roy proposes a theft exemption for individuals. Of course, if the value of your current land exceeds your exemption amount, you'll still have to pay or get the hell out - make room for the 'more productive hands'. Can't have non-productive hands like yours standing in the way of state revenue real productivity.  No rest for the weary, as the state's interests are not aligned with yours. They are perpetually aligned only with those who have more ability willingness to pay than you.  

OK, I know - if you had more you might be willing to pay more, but you don't have more, so it's all about ability now.  Besides, you got bought off with your individual exemption. Now quit complaining and go find suitably dense land that actually aligns with your standard exemption amount somewhere on the Lesser Valued Lands Reservation. (yes, Native Americans were _less productive hands_ as well, and had to be relocated - but we gave them a nice exemption, with suitable lands to live on, so there's that)



He should have proposed an LVT. That would make the king the sole landlord, and his word magicians could make it illegal to refer to that as ownership. They could just make statements like, "The land is not owned because land is un-ownable". Plus, if a few wings were added to a few leading universities, along with some "grants to study the matter", a few thousand papers later there could be a "mountain of evidence" and an "overwhelming consensus" that would positively, scientifically, academically show this to be indisputably correct.

----------


## Luciconsort

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


ding ding ding.... that is the correct answer lol

----------


## eduardo89

Did this thread die?

----------


## Steven Douglas

Self-evidently and indisputably.

----------


## Roy L

> Did this thread die?


I thought Steven's post #1494 was as honest and accurate as his contributions were likely to get, and didn't want to spoil his concession speech.  Despite his ham-handed attempts to malign LVT ("theft exemption," etc. -- <yawn>), he was forced to admit that it is the revenue solution that aligns government's financial interests with the market's judgment and the people's interest in efficient land allocation to maximize liberty, justice and prosperity.  It just doesn't sacrifice liberty, justice and prosperity to landowner privilege and parasitism, so Steven has to oppose it.

----------


## Roy L

> Paying tax on net worth is wrong.


LVT is not a tax on net worth.  It simply recovers the value the landholder takes from society by depriving others of use of the land.



> if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax?


You yield the land to a more productive user and seek accommodation better suited to your needs and means.



> How can you tax me on money I did not make that year?


By levying a tax that is not an income tax.  You seem to be unaware that people who "did not make" any money "that year" still pay sales tax, excise tax, gas tax, etc., as well as property tax.  They just pay it out of their assets. 



> That's not tax, it's a fee.


LVT is a fee for the benefits society provides, and of which you are depriving others, correct.

----------


## eduardo89

The troll is back...

----------


## Danke

[WIKI][/WIKI]


> Did this thread die?



Keep it going, it is close to overtaking the Fiji water thread.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Despite his ham-handed attempts to malign LVT ("theft exemption," etc. -- <yawn>)...,


Actually, I left that deliberately unqualified, so that you could take your own meaning from it. You declared many times that uncompensated exclusive use of land is a form of theft.  Ergo, since you would allow individuals a certain amount of land for exclusive use without any compensation paid to others, "an exemption" on LVT (not LVT itself) would literally be an exemption on theft. 

Of course, it works the other way as well. You see uncompensated exclusive use of land as theft, while I see LVT as a form of theft. So it can accurately ::: yawn ::: be considered a theft exemption either way, from either POV.




> ...he was forced to admit that it is the revenue solution that aligns government's financial interests with the market's judgment...


Hardly. Nice try, Mr. Eel.  There is no doubt that such a revenue mechanism would make the state an active market participant, with its interests most certainly aligned mostly with highest bidders in its own macabre artificial arena game of Let's Everyone Fight, but I never once believed that the "market's judgment" would drive LVT, except as primarily governed by the state's judgment (e.g., artificial scarcity via zoning laws, or decisions on which lands to withhold from the market - without compensation to anyone - , etc., along with government derived formulae and methodologies for assessing rent values).

----------


## Roy L

> Actually, I left that deliberately unqualified, so that you could take your own meaning from it. You declared many times that uncompensated exclusive use of land is a form of theft.  Ergo, since you would allow individuals a certain amount of land for exclusive use without any compensation paid to others,


Nope.  Wrong AGAIN.  Their exemptions ARE the compensation paid to others.  The user who only uses up to the exempt amount of land compensates others for depriving them of it by not exercising HIS natural liberty right to use the land THEY choose to use exclusively for free.



> "an exemption" on LVT (not LVT itself) would literally be an exemption on theft.


Refuted.



> Of course, it works the other way as well. You see uncompensated exclusive use of land as theft, while I see LVT as a form of theft.


The difference being, of course, that I can support my view with fact and logic.



> There is no doubt that such a revenue mechanism would make the state an active market participant,


No more than any other trustee honorably discharging his responsibilities.



> with its interests most certainly aligned mostly with highest bidders in its own macabre artificial arena game of Let's Everyone Fight,


That's just a silly lie from you, of course.  There is nothing artificial (let alone "macabre," LOL!) about market bidding, nor is any fighting involved.  You know this.



> but I never once believed that the "market's judgment" would drive LVT, except as primarily governed by the state's judgment (e.g., artificial scarcity via zoning laws,


Nope.  You're wrong AGAIN.  The LVT authority's financial incentive is to match the most productive users and uses with each parcel, because that maximizes *total* revenue.  Zoning laws create artificial scarcity *NOW* because they are imposed for the unearned profit of politically connected landowners, speculators, and developers at the expense of everyone else.  It is in fact the *current* system of _private_ landowner privilege, by contrast, that creates an artificial game of Let's Everyone Fight, by giving every landowner a financial incentive to get government to stop productive use of all the other landowners' land.



> or decisions on which lands to withhold from the market - without compensation to anyone - ,


Lie.  The exemption *is* compensation.



> etc., along with government derived formulae and methodologies for assessing rent values).


Lie.  The formulae and methodologies are developed to serve prospective private land users who want to know where to invest in productive capital improvements and enterprises.

Steven, don't you understand what it means when you always have to lie in order to have anything to say at all?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The difference being, of course, that I can support my view with fact and logic.


That has never been the case, Roy, unless we first accept you as the lone arbiter of what constitutes both fact and logic in this entire debate, as you argue in complete circles from your own ideological premises.  




> The LVT authority's financial incentive is to match the most productive users and uses with each parcel, because that maximizes *total* revenue.


...to the state. Revenue _to the state_. Nothing special there, as any monopoly worth its tyrannical salt is going to attempt to maximize _its own revenue_ in exactly that way. Nothing magic there, and it is not by matching "the most productive users" with each parcel, since productivity is _not a criterion_. Highest valued lands are matched to the "*highest paying landholders*". _Highest paying_ is all that can honestly be stated about them, with no assumption, _a priori_, that "highest paying" = "most productive". That's your geoist conscience-assuaging fantasy.




> Zoning laws create artificial scarcity *NOW* because they are imposed for the unearned profit of politically connected landowners, speculators, and developers at the expense of everyone else.


Yeah, terrible isn't it? What if we could inflict that same market-manipulating, market-distorting evil, but this time only for good? Why, if only those zoning laws could impose artificial scarcity *IN THE FUTURE*, _For All The Right And Just Reasons_, all would be peachy and justice would finally be served!  This time it wouldn't be "at the expense of everyone else" because this time the state (which we will pretend is "everyone else") would be the one restricting land use. Without compensation to anyone else. And it can do this much more efficiently, given its total monopoly on land use issuance - and land withholding. Which brings us to...




> It is in fact the *current* system of _private_ landowner privilege, by contrast, that creates an artificial game of Let's Everyone Fight, by giving every landowner a financial incentive to get government to stop productive use of all the other landowners' land.


Yeah, and somehow shifting that same financial incentive to the state is the panacea? To restrict productive use of all its own withheld lands as _a way of maximizing revenue_ through artificial scarcity - without so much as the willingness, let alone ability, to compensate anyone for that?  Sounds loopy to me, Roy, but I can see why LVT would appeal to so many Earth-worshiping, humanity hating eco-terrorists. The scarcity implications aren't lost on them. 




> The formulae and methodologies are developed to serve prospective private land users who want to know where to invest in productive capital improvements and enterprises.


Oh, is that what the formulae and methodologies are developed for? And here I thought it was just to manage the monopolistic issuance of landholding privileges in whatever way would tend to maximize state revenues.

----------


## eduardo89

> [WIKI][/WIKI]
> 
> 
> Keep it going, it is close to overtaking the Fiji water thread.


You're pretty good at pissing people off, give me a hand at debating with Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> That has never been the case, Roy, unless we first accept you as the lone arbiter of what constitutes both fact and logic in this entire debate, as you argue in complete circles from your own ideological premises.


No, you are lying Steven, as I have supported everything I have said with established facts of history, economics, and objective physical reality.



> ...to the state. Revenue _to the state_.


That is correct.  As LVT makes the state's revenue equal to the value it gives to landholders -- value it would otherwise be giving away to them in return for nothing, as a welfare subsidy giveaway at the expense of the honest and productive -- maximizing the state's revenue under LVT means maximizing the total benefit government confers on the people using the land within its jurisdiction.  Indeed, as I have proved to you before but you always refuse to know, the Henry George Theorem implies that LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE way to align government's financial interests with the people's best interests.



> Nothing special there, as any monopoly worth its tyrannical salt is going to attempt to maximize _its own revenue_ in exactly that way.


No, that stupid and dishonest claim has already been proved false by the indisputable facts of objective physical reality: exclusive use of land is always inherently a monopoly -- land is a canonical example of monopoly -- but although many private landowners *do* try to maximize their revenue by enlisting government's aid in forcibly blocking productive use of other landowners' land, often with notable success, they do so by FORCIBLY DEPRIVING OTHERS of EXISTING opportunities (i.e., by being greedy, vicious, evil, thieving, murdering parasites), not by CREATING BETTER opportunities, as government would have a financial incentive to do under LVT.



> Nothing magic there, and it is not by matching "the most productive users" with each parcel, since productivity is _not a criterion_.


ROTFL!!  Of course it is, you silly boy, as YOU YOURSELF ALREADY ADMITTED in post #1494.  Remember?  Here it is again:




> Of course, if the value of your current land exceeds your exemption amount, you'll still have to pay or get the hell out - *make room for the 'more productive hands'.* Can't have non-productive hands like yours standing in the way of state revenue* real productivity.* No rest for the weary, as the state's interests are not aligned with yours. They are perpetually aligned only with those who have more ability willingness to pay than you.
> 
> OK, I know - if you had more you might be willing to pay more, but you don't have more, so *it's all about ability now.*


See??  See how easily I prove that you lie not only about the facts of history and economics, not only about the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality, not only about what I have plainly written, but about what YOU YOURSELF have plainly written?



> Highest valued lands are matched to the "*highest paying landholders*". _Highest paying_ is all that can honestly be stated about them, with no assumption, _a priori_, that "highest paying" = "most productive". That's your geoist conscience-assuaging fantasy.


No, Steven, that's just another stupid lie from you, of course.  It's the MARKET'S JUDGMENT of who is most productive, as measured by the *price paid for that use*, and any attempt by you to pretend that you know better than the market is of course just further proof of your eagerness to humiliate yourself by demonstrating your ignorance and dishonesty.  Is it possible that that user will not be the most productive, and will lose money?  Of course.  But we can't know that ahead of time, and must await the MARKET'S judgment.



> Yeah, terrible isn't it?


I am aware that you believe robbing, starving, enslaving, torturing and murdering people is good, as long as a private landowner profits by it.



> What if we could inflict that same market-manipulating, market-distorting evil,


Zoning is not inherently evil; it is the inescapable effect of private landowner rent seeking that makes it evil.



> but this time only for good? Why, if only those zoning laws could impose artificial scarcity *IN THE FUTURE*, _For All The Right And Just Reasons_, all would be peachy and justice would finally be served!  This time it wouldn't be "at the expense of everyone else" because this time the state (which we will pretend is "everyone else")


There is no pretense about it, stop lying.



> would be the one restricting land use. Without compensation to anyone else.


Oh, but you already know that is a lie, don't you Steven?  Of course you do.  A vicious, stupid, evil and despicable lie.  The uniform, universal individual LVT exemption IS compensation.  You know that.  Of course you do.  You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.



> Yeah, and somehow shifting that same financial incentive to the state is the panacea?


Strawman fallacy (i.e., another lie about what I have plainly written).  It eliminates that *particular* problem, because under LVT the state can't increase its revenue by blocking production.  It can only reduce it -- unlike private landowners under the current system.



> To restrict productive use of all its own withheld lands as _a way of maximizing revenue_ through artificial scarcity


You're just talking stupid, irrational garbage again, Steven.  The state *can't* maximize its revenue that way, any more than a casino owner can maximize his revenue by hiring incompetent dealers for some of his tables to drive gamblers to his other tables.  It's just more stupid garbage from you.



> - without so much as the willingness, let alone ability, to compensate anyone for that?


Stop lying.  You know the exemption is compensation.



> Sounds loopy to me, Roy, but I can see why LVT would appeal to so many Earth-worshiping, humanity hating eco-terrorists. The scarcity implications aren't lost on them.


But of course, you are just making $#!+ up again, Steven, exactly as if you were yourself an evil, lying sack of $#!+.  LVT *doesn't* appeal to "Earth-worshiping, humanity hating eco-terrorists," because they know it increases productive use, wealth and prosperity.  I have actually had vituperative disputes with such individuals over LVT, and they always, *ALWAYS* oppose it.

But of course, you *had* to lie about that, Steven.  Once you have decided to serve evil, you have no choice but to lie.



> Oh, is that what the formulae and methodologies are developed for?


Yes.  You can't erase facts from the universe by refusing to know them, Steven, sorry.



> And here I thought it was just to manage the monopolistic issuance of landholding privileges in whatever way would tend to maximize state revenues.


*THEY'RE ONLY USEFUL FOR THE LATTER BECAUSE THEY WERE DEVELOPED FOR THE FORMER.*  That is very much the point.  Under LVT, government CAN'T DO BETTER than to let the market value the land for private users' information.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, you are lying Steven, as I have supported everything I have said with established facts of history, economics, and objective physical reality.


Says who, Roy? Given that we disagree completely, whose conclusions about all of this are we relying upon? And if merely predicating whatever you say with words like "proved/proven", "indisputably", "objective", "established", "self-evident", "reality", etc., they are nonetheless your assertions only.   Saying "proved, but you refuse to know" is absolutely meaningless...except to you.  And you aren't that important, Roy.  Neither of us are. 




> ...maximizing the state's revenue under LVT means maximizing the total benefit government confers on the people using the land within its jurisdiction.


Oh yeah? So government can actually confer greater and greater real value (on "people using the land" no less?) in its quest to maximize its land rent revenues?  That's quite a trick.  We didn't need a government to 'confer' such wonderful benefits, Roy. The state is the least contributor in all cases.  Putting the state into a Goodfellas on-the-take position won't make it any different. 




> Indeed, as I have proved to you before but you always refuse to know, the Henry George Theorem implies that LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE way to align government's financial interests with the people's best interests.


Your Henry George Theorem doesn't prove a damned thing. Even the mathematical derivative of the original by Arnott and Stiglitz only states that *under certain conditions*, land rent roughly approximates government spending.  The addle-brained, class warfare conscious, wealth redistribution-minded see this, and ::: LIGHT BULB ::: "Wow! That's the ticket! The non-Marxist, neo-communist Holy Grail! Why, duh, geeeee, that would be enough revenue to fund government all by itself! Now -- if the state could just abolish land ownership entirely, and then channel those same land rents to itself via a confiscatory tax ..." 

And as usual, you conflate government with people - and honestly believe that if government's financial interests are somehow "aligned with the interests" of *those who are willing to pay the most to government* (what a joke), this will automatically equate to what is in "the people's" best interests.  Stow your simplistic, naive and altruistic assumptions about the state, Roy. The State and The People are distinguished in our Constitution for a very good reason. They are not the same thing, regardless of the political regime or any sentiments or stated intentions. People are not identical units, and commerce is not an homogenous blob, nor is commerce equivalent to The People and their "best interests" either.  




> ROTFL!!  Of course it is, you silly boy, as YOU YOURSELF ALREADY ADMITTED in post #1494.  Remember?  Here it is again:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				Of course, if the value of your current land exceeds your exemption amount, you'll still have to pay or get the hell out - make room for the 'more productive hands'.


You missed the quotes, Roy ('more productive hands'), like someone who holds up two hands with curled "quotes" fingers in the air before using a term in a way that is akin to sarcasm. That was me crawling into the prison that is your own mind to argue from your own premises with you.  And you, so imprisoned by your own delusions, so wedded to your own premises, missed that I might be calling your precious bride an ugly pig.  That whole post #1494 was just that.




> Is it possible that that user will not be the most productive, and will lose money? Of course.


More importantly, and the part you are missing, is that is entirely possible for a user to profit without being productive at all. Rent-seeking isn't just about land, Roy. You should know that. And don't EVER forget that I would never agree, that land value is largely the result of community, government services and infrastructure, any more than I would attribute the value of a home to the construction hands, landscaper, security guards, etc., who may be hired along the way.  Screw your infrastructure. Take the state's hand out of that bucket and watch the infrastructure get created regardless. And more efficiently.    

The fact that you believe robbing, starving, enslaving, torturing and murdering people is good, as long as the state profits from it means nothing to me.




> Zoning is not inherently evil; it is the inescapable effect of private landowner rent seeking that makes it evil.


Yes, zoning is inherently evil, Roy. The principle itself is evil, with no exceptions to the rule.  You see what a thief gains, and mistakenly believe that the state can somehow assume the role of the thief, as it is somehow incapable of theft. That's beyond nasty, Roy. There is no proper role for theft in society.  




> To restrict productive use of all its own withheld lands as a way of maximizing revenue through artificial scarcity
> 			
> 		
> 
> The state *can't* maximize its revenue that way, any more than a casino owner can maximize his revenue by hiring incompetent dealers for some of his tables to drive gamblers to his other tables.


Roy, are you really that retarded? An increase in the scarcity of ANYTHING in demand, be it land, good, or service, drives up its value. That's fundamental, Roy.  Really elementary stuff that virtually no economist, mainstream or Austrian, disagrees with.  Zoning laws and withholding of lands produces *artificial scarcity*, which does artificially drive UP the value of lands.  By withholding land from usage, you really can *maximize its value*, and therefore revenues, by getting more resources chasing fewer lands. 

Is it really possible that you are truly blind to that fact? 




> But of course, you are just making $#!+ up again, Steven, exactly as if you were yourself an evil, lying sack of $#!+.  LVT *doesn't* appeal to "Earth-worshiping, humanity hating eco-terrorists," because they know it increases productive use, wealth and prosperity.  I have actually had vituperative disputes with such individuals over LVT, and they always, *ALWAYS* oppose it.


Oh yeah? I guess you weren't talking to anyone from the Green Party of the UK, with its Policies for a Sustainable Society [LINK], as they pretty much adopted every tenet of the Georgist/Geoist ideology, and LVT as you have described it, as their manifesto regarding land usage. And their proposed policies?




> *Policies* 
> 
> *Land-use planning and registry*
> 
> LD300 Criteria for reformed and strengthened land-use planning should include:
> 
> a)protection of sites of special importance as habitats or amenity value; (read = withholding land for use)
> b)support for the overall sustainability of the economy;
> c)promotion of community self-reliance;
> ...





> *Policies
> 
> Townscapes and landscape with buildings*
> 
> LP400 As far as possible any *development within present cities should be confined within the city boundaries*, the intention being not to encroach on any more agricultural land. For similar reasons development brought about by the *needs of population dispersal* should be sited on derelict or other poor quality land within the confines of an existing built-up area. However, the need for urban green spaces, both formal and informal, should be recognised and *these spaces should be protected*.
> 
> LP401 *Housing densities should be increased* by high quality design incorporating a reduction in road and parking space, keeping vehicles to the edge of site wherever possible. Car-free developments should also be encouraged, especially in areas close to amenities or with good public transport. (see TR036)
> 
> LP402 Derelict land, particularly from extractive industries, should be improved for re-use, not only for recreational purposes, but for housing and light industry. Such sites should only be developed in a way which does not lead to the loss of wildlife habitats or biodiversity. (see LD300-301)
> ...



LVT appeals to the Greenies, Roy, precisely because it gives the state carte blanche to maximize revenues by artificially incentivizing the state to withhold land from usage, and to dictate control over the types of usage of remaining available lands, WITHOUT compensation to anyone. What private landowners do separately to maximize value of their rents, the state would do the same, and more. ON CRACK. 

Again, the lying, clueless, well-intending but evil, LVT-pushing camel's nose needs to be chopped off for even approaching the tent.  No ability to smell. Just blood gushing from what was once an idiotic face.

----------


## Steven Douglas

OK Roy, going back to revisit a few of your biggest fallacies... (each in bold)

*FALLACY #1*



> Price is determined by supply and demand, *so as the supply of land is fixed*, its price is determined solely by demand.


The total supply (total area) of land _on Earth_ is fixed, but the total supply of land which is available to a given usage or purpose _is artificially determined_ by the state, through a) zoning laws, and b) withholding of 'protected' lands which are held in reserve by the state (read = MOST), restricted from any usage whatsoever, and c) the question of scalability of Henry George Theorem itself, as proponents and later administrators attempt to [artificially] determine an "optimum" community size. _Available_ land supply for a given purpose is, therefore, as deliberately scarce as it is highly elastic -- _anything but fixed_. Ergo, its price is affected by _both demand and artificial scarcity of supply_.  

*FALLACY #2*



> Demand for land arises from the economic advantage obtainable by using it. This advantage comes from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides (*the landowner providing nothing*).


That final statement ("the landowner providing nothing") is a flagrant self-contradiction.You cannot include "opportunities and amenities the community provides" as a factor which adds value to land while simultaneously failing to recognize the self-evident fact that the landowner/landholder may well be, in most cases, a key producer of the very *"opportunities and amenities the community provides"* -- even a full participant, and sometimes major or even primary "provider", as in the case of a small community that depends upon a single large factory for the bulk of its wages and productivity.  All other "opportunities and amenities" may be provided by neighboring communities, but that single factory may be the sole source of "opportunities" for that particular community - which means that this factory does indeed (according to you) contribute to the value of the land upon which that factory rests.

Under any regime, if I am an exclusive landholder engaged in commerce that benefits the community, I am, by definition, one of the community "providers" of opportunities and/or amenities, and I am, therefore, and by YOUR reckoning, at least part of what gives land its value. Try and collectivize that. 

*FALLACY #3* 



> *A tax on land value does not affect that advantage* (i.e., the user does not care if he pays the rent to a private landowner or the government; the difference is just that the government is the source of the economic advantage he gains by using the land, and the landowner isn't).


Firstly, you are not in a position to project your sensibilities onto others in terms of what they care or do not care about.  A user that was previously an unencumbered landowner (not absentee, owner of the enterprise which is located on land that he previously owned outright) never made rent payments to anyone in the first place, and would certainly "care" about going from no rent payments to a perpetual rent payment to the state.  Secondly, I don't know of any rent-paying firm that would not be delighted to pay no rent, without regard to whether the rent collector was public or private. 

...and your notion that the landowner/(economically productive occupier) is not a source of economic advantage that gives value to land was proved false above, as he provides part of the "opportunities and amenities" you credit "the community" with providing. 

*FALLACY #4*



> *The landowner cannot pass on the tax*, because he can't affect either supply or demand. This is very different from the situation with income tax, sales tax, etc. where the people who pay the tax CAN affect supply and/or demand.


You used a Marshallian economic model of price, with the conclusion that price is actually _determined by_ supply and demand, almost as if consumer goods and services were items traded on a commodities exchange. On the scale of the community, and the individual firm, the economic model of price, as applied to specific firms is a gross oversimplification which completely ignores the degree to which, a) perfect competition exists (a fundamental assumption of supply and demand as determinant of price), - b) price variance regardless of competition c) individual buyer and seller behavior and preferences, and d) what buyers and sellers agree upon, or "what the market will bear", which includes sellers' supply, costs and future expectations on one side, and buyers' demand, as determined by each individual purchase. 

You applied the economic model of price to individual firms under an LVT regime, claiming that it was somehow impossible for a landholder to pass LVT rent payments to the consumer, based solely on what you believed to be the fact that a seller was unable to affect supply or demand (of its own goods or services no less).  However, what you failed to recognize is that _rent is always factored in as a cost of goods which affects owner equity_. Furthermore, in a perfectly competitive environment under an LVT regime, you would need to assume that all similar competing firms' costs would have similar LVT expenses of their own, which could be safely be factored into their cost of goods as well - meaning they could all safely raise their prices to reflect (pass onto the consumer) their rent costs.  Which they would. All would.

----------


## redbluepill

> I am gladdened to hear you know with such exactness what I believe.  I am confused when this confident and exact knowledge seems to be at variance with what I had thought I believed, especially since I had presented it multiple times fairly clearly and further clarified it after questions.
> 
> But, what do I know?
> 
> I thought you were not a pure rhetorical agenda-bot.  You were able to comprehend sentences and reply to them in an interesting and relevant way which I could not necessarily anticipate in advance.  Now you're acting like just another Roy.  Oh well!  Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!


We discussed this when I posted the Rothbard excerpt from The Ethics of Liberty. You said you disagree with him on labor being a requirement to claim land. If I missed anything else then please correct me.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> We discussed this when I posted the Rothbard excerpt from The Ethics of Liberty. You said you disagree with him on labor being a requirement to claim land. If I missed anything else then please correct me.


 It was a little more complex than that.  I think that there are a variety of factors which make a claim more or less likely to be valid, and undertaking transformation of the claimed resource is one of the biggest ones, probably the biggest.  The size of the claim, the nature of the resource, the location of the resource, what kind of transformation you're doing, how far along the transformation is, and on and on, all play into its justice.  It would be very difficult to establish a just claim without having done any labor whatsoever.  In fact, I can't think of a case where that would be possible.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It would be very difficult to establish a just claim without having done any labor whatsoever.  In fact, I can't think of a case where that would be possible.


Oh, that's easy. Just call it a _birthright_. An equal and inalienable "right of access and usage" inheritance. Then we all become joint heirs, fully and equally entitled, in theory, with no labor required.  The state is not the owner, but rather more like the executor of a will. This will never gets fully executed, of course. The heirs are treated as minors, idiots, incompetents - wards of the state in perpetuity, under the governance of local trustees who must be appointed/elected/whatever.  

Innat wonderful? 

The joint heirs remain joint heirs forever - but only as joint wards of the [e]state. There are no individual claims of ownership of land, as that would violate the equal claims of the others (in that community only). Furthermore, the strength of your individual claim of access and usage very much depends on your proximity to the center of the community - with a Catch-22, as proximity to the center is also dependent on your ability and willingness to pay more than your fellow so-called heirs - given they will give more in return for what has been taken from you (and everyone else).  

This all forms a nice theoretical circle of *value returned by others* in exchange for *value taken from you*, as a member of the community.  How these "returns of value" get back to you and the others is another story. It is not returned directly to you or any other joint heir.  The community is acting as a corporation, which may or may not pay any dividends, and which may or may not owe you, an equal shareholder, anything at all. 

You, me, and everyone else, who are tantamount to idiots and wards of the state, cannot receive a return of stolen value directly. This "return of value", in the form of land rents collected, is to the [e]state itself only, not to you, which state will then decide what to do that is in the best interests _of the estate_. This is why it is a form of fascism, or statist capitalism, with the full assumption that whatever serves the best interests of the estate is also in the best interests of the wards, or "joint heirs" thereof. 

In other words, whatever the state collects and uses, even if all the majority of that revenue was used to provide more infrastructure to the center of the community, is all counted as full remuneration to you.  

That is where the Catch-22 comes full circle, because the strength and quality of your "equal right of access and usage" claim, as a ward of the trustees who exercise full control of the rules of the estate, fully depends on your proximity to the center of that estate/community. In other words, you have to be in a community to have any claim, but proximity to the center once you are in the community boundaries is only available to those who can promise to pay more.  *Those who are in the center: pay the most, and have the greatest claim.*  The further you get from the center, the less you pay, and the less claim you have.  

Oh, and when a community provides infrastructure, so that you can have an easier commute from the outskirts to the center - that somehow counts as better "access" to the center.  Not exclusive usage. Just "access".   

That's fine, you say. Screw that community, its rules, and all of its well-established power pyramids.  You have a pioneering spirit, and recognize that there is PLENTY of land available on the Earth, for which you, a proper and devout believer in Georgist/Geoist principles, have an equal right of access to - one that extends to use of ALL other lands, most of which is unused. Just go completely out of that community, you think, and into _between-community lands_ that no community uses. From there you may not even have to compete with those in other communities. But you might be able, given enough time. Why, you can establish a community of your own.  

No. You cannot do that. That forbidden fruit is the rank hypocrisy of Georgist ideology's Garden of Eden Collectives, as *you will not be permitted to use*, and you will have no claim on, between-community lands. Too many of your fellow Georgist ideologues have erroneously concluded that community precedes all else; not just as a matter of possibility, but by legislative decree.  Thus, you may not live without proximity to an already existing, established community. Not because you are unable, or physically incapable, but because _the state will not permit it_.  Communities are FIAT. Like legal tender, it is not a question of whether you will belong to an existing community, but only which community you will belong to at any given time.

----------


## Roy L

> Says who, Roy? Given that we disagree completely, whose conclusions about all of this are we relying upon?


I'm not relying on anyone's conclusions.  I'm just informing you of what has occurred.



> And if merely predicating whatever you say with words like "proved/proven", "indisputably", "objective", "established", "self-evident", "reality", etc., they are nonetheless your assertions only.


No.  Facts do not somehow cease to be facts just because you call them "assertions only" and refuse to know them.



> Saying "proved, but you refuse to know" is absolutely meaningless...except to you.


No, it accurately describes the situation: you have been proved wrong; you know you have been proved wrong; but to preserve your false and evil beliefs, you simply refuse to know the facts that prove you wrong.



> Oh yeah? So government can actually confer greater and greater real value (on "people using the land" no less?) in its quest to maximize its land rent revenues?  That's quite a trick.


No, it's inevitable under LVT.



> We didn't need a government to 'confer' such wonderful benefits, Roy.


Yes, we did, as the invariable absence of land value in places without government proves.



> The state is the least contributor in all cases.


That is puerile "meeza hatesa gubmint" chanting.



> Putting the state into a Goodfellas on-the-take position won't make it any different.


It is the private landowner who is running an extortion racket, as already proved: he needs the land user, the land user doesn't need him.



> Your Henry George Theorem doesn't prove a damned thing.


It proves what it says: to the extent that government spending on services and infrastructure benefits the public, it benefits landowners exclusively.



> Even the mathematical derivative of the original by Arnott and Stiglitz only states that *under certain conditions*, land rent roughly approximates government spending.


Nope.  Under certain conditions, it is EXACTLY EQUAL to government spending, and any deviation from that condition merely indicates a deviation from those not-very-unrealistic conditions.



> The addle-brained, class warfare conscious,


It's a funny kind of class warfare where the only class that is ever accused of waging it is also the only class that ever takes any casualties...



> wealth redistribution-minded


It is landowner privilege -- i.e., lack of LVT -- that redistributes wealth from its producers to idle landowners.



> see this, and ::: LIGHT BULB ::: "Wow! That's the ticket! The non-Marxist, neo-communist Holy Grail! Why, duh, geeeee, that would be enough revenue to fund government all by itself! Now -- if the state could just abolish land ownership entirely, and then channel those same land rents to itself via a confiscatory tax ..."


Maybe a confiscatory tax on slaves would have been a better way to abolish slavery than fighting a bloody war.



> And as usual, you conflate government with people


There is no agency but government that can secure and reconcile the equal rights of all the people.  That fact is not a conflation of government with people.  Stop lying.



> - and honestly believe that if government's financial interests are somehow "aligned with the interests" of *those who are willing to pay the most to government* (what a joke),


That's not what I said, so you can stop lying.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: you can't.



> this will automatically equate to what is in "the people's" best interests.  Stow your simplistic, naive and altruistic assumptions about the state, Roy.


I made no such assumptions, but simply identified the nature of the relevant economic incentives.  Stop lying.



> The State and The People are distinguished in our Constitution for a very good reason. They are not the same thing, regardless of the political regime or any sentiments or stated intentions. People are not identical units, and commerce is not an homogenous blob, nor is commerce equivalent to The People and their "best interests" either.


And the sad thing is, you probably imagine that is relevant.



> You missed the quotes, Roy ('more productive hands'), like someone who holds up two hands with curled "quotes" fingers in the air before using a term in a way that is akin to sarcasm. That was me crawling into the prison that is your own mind to argue from your own premises with you.  And you, so imprisoned by your own delusions, so wedded to your own premises, missed that I might be calling your precious bride an ugly pig.  That whole post #1494 was just that.


When you are caught in a self-contradiction, just claim you were joking.  Cute.

Is there some reason why I would continue to respond to such despicable dishonesty?  Help me out, here.



> More importantly, and the part you are missing, is that is entirely possible for a user to profit without being productive at all.


Not by paying land rent, it isn't.



> Rent-seeking isn't just about land, Roy. You should know that.


So, explain for me again exactly how, if the landholder is not using the land productively, his rent payment is contributing to his profits?



> And don't EVER forget that I would never agree, that land value is largely the result of community, government services and infrastructure,


I am aware that you refuse to know all relevant facts.  That is why debate with you is pointless, other than as an object lesson to readers on the character of all apologists for landowner privilege.



> any more than I would attribute the value of a home to the construction hands, landscaper, security guards, etc., who may be hired along the way.


Right: you refuse to know the fact that if a house had not been constructed, landscaped, etc., it would not have any value.



> Screw your infrastructure.


Screw your refusal to know facts.



> Take the state's hand out of that bucket and watch the infrastructure get created regardless.


I'm still watching, 5,000 years later, but it never happened anywhere there has been no state.  And I mean ANYWHERE.



> And more efficiently.


Never happened.  Ever.



> The fact that you believe robbing, starving, enslaving, torturing and murdering people is good, as long as the state profits from it means nothing to me.


The state is not a profit-making venture.  It spends its revenue to provide goods and services (some of which may not be desirable, granted, depending on how democratic it is).



> Yes, zoning is inherently evil, Roy.


No, that's just stupid garbage from you, Steven.



> The principle itself is evil, with no exceptions to the rule.


No, your claims are just puerile "meeza hatesa gubmint" garbage, Steven, with no exceptions to the rule.



> You see what a thief gains, and mistakenly believe that the state can somehow assume the role of the thief,


Lie.  Unlike an LVT-funded state, a thief does not recover value he has himself created.  It is the bandit/landowner in the pass who is the thief, as already proved.



> as it is somehow incapable of theft.


It is taxes OTHER THAN LVT that are state thefts -- thefts whose proceeds are given to landowners.

You always have to lie about what I have plainly written.  Always.



> That's beyond nasty, Roy. There is no proper role for theft in society.


And the example of the bandit in the pass proves it is landowners who are the thieves.



> Roy, are you really that retarded? An increase in the scarcity of ANYTHING in demand, be it land, good, or service, drives up its value. That's fundamental, Roy.


No, it's false, absurd, and stupid anti-economic twaddle.  Do you really think that Microsoft could make more money just by making fewer copies of Windoze?  REALLY??

Do you really think that if the world's wheat crop was wiped out by some new disease, and only a few tons of stored wheat were left, that those few tons would be worth more than all the millions of tons of a normal world wheat crop?  REALLY??

Do you really think that if an art collector bought up all the extant works of some dead artist, he could make his collection more valuable by just burning a few canvases every now and then?  REALLY??

Steven, are you *really* that retarded?

*REALLY???*



> Really elementary stuff that virtually no economist, mainstream or Austrian, disagrees with.


LOL!!  You are hilariously wrong about that really elementary stuff, Steven, because you are not an economist, and you have not asked the opinion of one.



> Zoning laws and withholding of lands produces *artificial scarcity*, which does artificially drive UP the value of lands.


It drives up the value of OTHER land, but only at the expense of the value of the land withheld.  *Total* land value (which is what an LVT-funded government is interested in) is always reduced by artificially holding land idle.



> By withholding land from usage, you really can *maximize its value*, and therefore revenues, by getting more resources chasing fewer lands.


No, you cannot.  Your claims are prima facie absurd anti-economic garbage because you do not comprehend the implications of monopoly control of a fixed supply.



> Is it really possible that you are truly blind to that fact?


It's not a fact.  It's just stupid, anti-economic garbage, as proved, repeat, PROVED above.



> Oh yeah? I guess you weren't talking to anyone from the Green Party of the UK, with its Policies for a Sustainable Society [LINK], as they pretty much adopted every tenet of the Georgist/Geoist ideology, and LVT as you have described it, as their manifesto regarding land usage. And their proposed policies?


UK Green Party policies are an inconsistent mish-mash of ideas that have attained some threshold of political acceptability, and cannot honestly be described as "Earth-worshiping humanity-hating eco-terrorist."



> LVT appeals to the Greenies, Roy,


It appeals to many of the ones who aren't "Earth-worshiping humanity-hating eco-terrorists."



> precisely because it gives the state carte blanche to maximize revenues by artificially incentivizing the state to withhold land from usage,


Stupid anti-economic garbage.



> and to dictate control over the types of usage of remaining available lands, WITHOUT compensation to anyone. What private landowners do separately to maximize value of their rents, the state would do the same, and more. ON CRACK.


Nope.  Can't happen, because unlike certain people, the state is not a blithering economic ignoramus.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> the state is not a blithering economic ignoramus.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> the state is not a blithering economic ignoramus.






> 


+a zillion

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by Roy L
> 
> 
> the state is not a blithering economic ignoramus.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


To infinity and beyond! ∞ 

Well, Roy, what can I say, but that once again...

...you have been proved wrong; you know you have been proved wrong; but to preserve your false and evil beliefs, you simply refuse to know the facts that prove you wrong. 

^^^ Just a little trick I learned on how to know for sure that I won an argument. This is based on my sure knowledge that even my opponent knows that he is wrong, but just refuses to know facts, and continues to spout off the same nonsense over and over again to preserve his false and evil beliefs. This is, of course, self-evident, indisputable, and based on objective physical reality. 

_the state is not a blithering economic ignoramus_ *-* Roy L.

*meeza hatesa gubmint -* Steven Douglas

----------


## Roy L

> Price is determined by supply and demand, so as the supply of land is fixed, its price is determined solely by demand.
> 			
> 		
> 
> The total supply (total area) of land _on Earth_ is fixed, but the total supply of land which is available to a given usage or purpose _is artificially determined_ by the state, through a) zoning laws, and b) withholding of 'protected' lands which are held in reserve by the state (read = MOST), restricted from any usage whatsoever, and c) the question of scalability of Henry George Theorem itself, as proponents and later administrators attempt to [artificially] determine an "optimum" community size.


Gibberish.



> _Available_ land supply for a given purpose is, therefore, as deliberately scarce as it is highly elastic -- _anything but fixed_.


It is completely inelastic, as it does not respond to price.

You just don't understand why that refutes your "argument," because you are a total economic ignoramus.



> Ergo, its price is affected by _both demand and artificial scarcity of supply_.


The condition of "artificial scarcity" IS the fixed supply, because it is unaffected by price.

You just don't understand what that means, because you are a total economic ignoramus.



> Demand for land arises from the economic advantage obtainable by using it. This advantage comes from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides (the landowner providing nothing).
> 			
> 		
> 
> That final statement ("the landowner providing nothing") is a flagrant self-contradiction.


It is fact.



> You cannot include "opportunities and amenities the community provides" as a factor which adds value to land while simultaneously failing to recognize the self-evident fact that the landowner/landholder may well be, in most cases,


Ignoratio elenchi fallacy.  The fact that a pedophile may well be, in most cases, contributing to the opportunities and amenities the community provides does not mean that pedophiles make land more desirable.  It just means that people who HAPPEN TO BE pedophiles are often also doing other things in their lives that contribute to making land more desirable.  Landowners do not provide anything to the land user QUA landowners any more than pedophiles do QUA pedophiles.

GET IT??



> a key producer of the very *"opportunities and amenities the community provides"* -- even a full participant, and sometimes major or even primary "provider", as in the case of a small community that depends upon a single large factory for the bulk of its wages and productivity.


A factory is not land, and building a factory is not owning land.  The fact that a pedophile or landowner may own a factory does not mean that pedophiles or landowners provide the bulk -- or any -- of the wages and productivity in a town.  You just can't find a willingness to know such facts.



> All other "opportunities and amenities" may be provided by neighboring communities, but that single factory may be the sole source of "opportunities" for that particular community - which means that this factory does indeed (according to you) contribute to the value of the land upon which that factory rests.


By definition, the unimproved value of the land is the value it would have if the factory were removed and the land reverted to its natural state.  The factory may therefore contribute to the value of nearby land, but by definition cannot contribute to the unimproved value of the parcel it is sitting on.



> Under any regime, if I am an exclusive landholder engaged in commerce that benefits the community, I am, by definition, one of the community "providers" of opportunities and/or amenities, and I am, therefore, and by YOUR reckoning, at least part of what gives land its value. Try and collectivize that.


<sigh>  Is your statement any less true if the words, "an exclusive landholder" are deleted?  How, then, does your being an exclusive landholder augment the opportunities and amenities you are providing through your engagement in commercial enterprise?

See how easily all your "arguments" are proved fallacious and absurd?



> A tax on land value does not affect that advantage (i.e., the user does not care if he pays the rent to a private landowner or the government; the difference is just that the government is the source of the economic advantage he gains by using the land, and the landowner isn't).
> 			
> 		
> 
> Firstly, you are not in a position to project your sensibilities onto others in terms of what they care or do not care about.


<sigh>  It's nothing to do with my sensibilities, Steven, are you really that retarded?  The arm's-length nature of market transactions -- that participants are indifferent as to whom they trade with -- is a given, a basic assumption of economic analysis (which is presumably why you are ignorant of it).



> A user that was previously an unencumbered landowner (not absentee, owner of the enterprise which is located on land that he previously owned outright) never made rent payments to anyone in the first place,


He made all the rent payments in advance when he bought the land.



> and would certainly "care" about going from no rent payments to a perpetual rent payment to the state.


He only cares in his capacity as landOWNER, not land USER.



> Secondly, I don't know of any rent-paying firm that would not be delighted to pay no rent, without regard to whether the rent collector was public or private.


That is not one of the options.  You just can't permit yourself to know the fact that a firm's status as tenant or owner of the land under its premises does not affect its production decisions, it only affects whether it is a landowner or not.



> ...and your notion that the landowner/(economically productive occupier)


Those are two entirely different things, Steven.  You just have to refuse to know that fact.



> is not a source of economic advantage that gives value to land was proved false above, as he provides part of the "opportunities and amenities" you credit "the community" with providing.


The landowner provides exactly as much of the opportunities and amenities the community provides as the pedophile does, and in exactly the same sense: purely by coincidence.



> The landowner cannot pass on the tax, because he can't affect either supply or demand. This is very different from the situation with income tax, sales tax, etc. where the people who pay the tax CAN affect supply and/or demand.
> 			
> 		
> 
> You used a Marshallian economic model of price, with the conclusion that price is actually _determined by_ supply and demand, almost as if consumer goods and services were items traded on a commodities exchange. On the scale of the community, and the individual firm, the economic model of price, as applied to specific firms is a gross oversimplification which completely ignores the degree to which, a) perfect competition exists (a fundamental assumption of supply and demand as determinant of price),


Wrong.  There is no such assumption.  You are just an economic ignoramus.



> - b) price variance regardless of competition c) individual buyer and seller behavior and preferences, and d) what buyers and sellers agree upon, or "what the market will bear", which includes sellers' supply, costs and future expectations on one side, and buyers' demand, as determined by each individual purchase.


Irrelevant gobbledegook.



> You applied the economic model of price to individual firms under an LVT regime, claiming that it was somehow impossible for a landholder to pass LVT rent payments to the consumer, based solely on what you believed to be the fact


That LVT cannot be passed on to consumers is a fact of economics that has been known for 200 years.  It is merely a fact that is not known to YOU, because you do not know any economics.



> that a seller was unable to affect supply or demand (of its own goods or services no less).


The landowner qua landowner does not provide any good or service.  All he does is demand money for staying out of the way, like the bandit in the pass or a protection racketeer.  



> However, what you failed to recognize is that _rent is always factored in as a cost of goods which affects owner equity_.


Land rent is not a cost of goods, it is a measure of economic advantage.  It is the same whether any goods are produced on the site or not, so it cannot be a cost of goods.



> Furthermore, in a perfectly competitive environment under an LVT regime, you would need to assume that all similar competing firms' costs would have similar LVT expenses of their own, which could be safely be factored into their cost of goods as well - meaning they could all safely raise their prices to reflect (pass onto the consumer) their rent costs.  Which they would. All would.


Nope.  They can't.  The firms that are currently tenants have no increase in their costs, as the Law of Rent proves, so their landowning competitors can't raise prices without losing market share.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> To infinity and beyond! ∞ 
> 
> Well, Roy, what can I say, but that once again...
> 
> ...you have been proved wrong; you know you have been proved wrong; but to preserve your false and evil beliefs, you simply refuse to know the facts that prove you wrong. 
> 
> ^^^ Just a little trick I learned on how to know for sure that I won an argument. This is based on my sure knowledge that even my opponent knows that he is wrong, but just refuses to know facts, and continues to spout off the same nonsense over and over again to preserve his false and evil beliefs. This is, of course, self-evident, indisputable, and based on objective physical reality. 
> 
> _the state is not a blithering economic ignoramus_ *-* Roy L.
> ...


What's most interesting about Roy's claim about the State is that it is contradictory to Geoist thought.  (Geoism is)"a "political philosophy that holds along with other forms of libertarian individualism that each individual has an exclusive right to the fruits of his or her labor, as opposed to this product being owned collectively by society or the community.  Geolibertarianism (also known as geoanarchism) is, in a sense, a branch of anarcho-capitalism, taking its tenets from Locke, Jefferson, and Smith."  ~Wikipedia  The claim that the State is "not a blithering economic ignoramus" is fundamentally at odds with the Geoists seem to stand for.  _Very_ interesting.

----------


## bossman068410

This thred still going?  No, no, no, and Hell NO.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> What's most interesting about Roy's claim about the State is that it is contradictory to Geoist thought.  (Geoism is)"a "political philosophy that holds along with other forms of libertarian individualism that each individual has an exclusive right to the fruits of his or her labor, as opposed to this product being owned collectively by society or the community.  Geolibertarianism (also known as geoanarchism) is, in a sense, a branch of anarcho-capitalism, taking its tenets from Locke, Jefferson, and Smith."  ~Wikipedia  The claim that the State is "not a blithering economic ignoramus" is fundamentally at odds with the Geoists seem to stand for.  _Very_ interesting.


I've noticed that as well - especially using arguments practically plagiarized from geolibs and mainstream economists who double in the finance and accounting worlds, just to see if Roy agreed with any of their premises. The only time he ever liked anything I wrote - he lit up like a Christmas tree, in fact - was in post #1494, when I took great pains to argue my points using only his words, phrased strictly according to Roy's peculiar geolibertarian heterox verbiage.  

Yep. A one of a kind, lone voice crying in the wilderness, and no doubt a turd in the Geolibertarian punchbowl.

----------


## Roy L

> What's most interesting about Roy's claim about the State is that it is contradictory to Geoist thought.


What's incredibly dull about all hb's claims is that they are stupid lies.



> (Geoism is)"a "political philosophy that holds along with other forms of libertarian individualism that each individual has an exclusive right to the fruits of his or her labor, as opposed to this product being owned collectively by society or the community.


No contradiction there.



> Geolibertarianism (also known as geoanarchism) is, in a sense, a branch of anarcho-capitalism, taking its tenets from Locke, Jefferson, and Smith."  ~Wikipedia


I am not an anarchist, geo-anarchist or anarcho-capitalist, and have never claimed to be.  I am more or less a geolibertarian, although I do think that democratic governments funded by LVT would likely choose to provide more services and infrastructure than current governments, just because such investments would no longer involve such large welfare subsidy giveaways to landowners.



> The claim that the State is "not a blithering economic ignoramus" is fundamentally at odds with the Geoists seem to stand for.


No, that's just a fabrication on your part.  The geoist position is that the state has its legitimate role: to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.



> _Very_ interesting.


Wish I could say the same....

----------


## eduardo89

> This thred still going?  No, no, no, and Hell NO.

----------


## Roy L

> Oh, that's easy. Just call it a _birthright_.


Identifying the fact of natural liberty.



> An equal and inalienable "right of access and usage" inheritance. Then we all become joint heirs, fully and equally entitled, in theory, with no labor required.


Rights are things we inherit from our forebears _without_ having to work or pay for them.



> The state is not the owner, but rather more like the executor of a will. This will never gets fully executed, of course. The heirs are treated as minors, idiots, incompetents


Someone here evidently is projecting....



> - wards of the state in perpetuity, under the governance of local trustees who must be appointed/elected/whatever.  
> 
> Innat wonderful? 
> 
> The joint heirs remain joint heirs forever - but only as joint wards of the [e]state.


Pure fabrication.



> There are no individual claims of ownership of land, as that would violate the equal claims of the others (in that community only). Furthermore, the strength of your individual claim of access and usage very much depends on your proximity to the center of the community - with a Catch-22, as proximity to the center is also dependent on your ability and willingness to pay more than your fellow so-called heirs - given they will give more in return for what has been taken from you (and everyone else).


Another fabrication.  Everyone is at liberty to be as close to the center as they please -- but the closer to the center they want to be, the less land they will be able to deprive others of without making just compensation.  



> This all forms a nice theoretical circle of *value returned by others* in exchange for *value taken from you*, as a member of the community.


Correct.



> How these "returns of value" get back to you and the others is another story.


One you will no doubt now make up.



> It is not returned directly to you or any other joint heir.


"Not returned directly"?  I don't know how it could be returned any *more* directly.  Certainly the value taken is returned, in the form of the universal individual exemption.  This restoration of the individual right to liberty, enabling all to use enough good land to live on for free, is a very direct return of the value taken by those who exclude others from more good land than their own share.  It is indeed more direct than a cash payment, as there is no intermediate transfer of value through the state's hands.



> The community is acting as a corporation, which may or may not pay any dividends, and which may or may not owe you, an equal shareholder, anything at all.


You are not a shareholder in the community, as the community cannot be owned and is therefore not a corporation.



> You, me, and everyone else, who are tantamount to idiots and wards of the state,


Steven speaks only for his own likely condition should he be relieved of his unjust privileges.



> cannot receive a return of stolen value directly. This "return of value", in the form of land rents collected, is to the [e]state itself only, not to you, which state will then decide what to do that is in the best interests _of the estate_. This is why it is a form of fascism, or statist capitalism, with the full assumption that whatever serves the best interests of the estate is also in the best interests of the wards, or "joint heirs" thereof.


That is why if the state is not democratic, it functions effectively as a private landowner like Saudi Arabia, which is the Saud family's private estate.



> In other words, whatever the state collects and uses, even if all the majority of that revenue was used to provide more infrastructure to the center of the community, is all counted as full remuneration to you.


As your exemption gives you free access to it.  Right. 



> That is where the Catch-22 comes full circle, because the strength and quality of your "equal right of access and usage" claim, as a ward of the trustees who exercise full control of the rules of the estate, fully depends on your proximity to the center of that estate/community.


No, it does not.  The farther out you are, the more land you can use for free.



> In other words, you have to be in a community to have any claim, but proximity to the center once you are in the community boundaries is only available to those who can promise to pay more.


Lie refuted above.  There is merely a trade-off between proximity to the center and the amount of land you can use for free.



> *Those who are in the center: pay the most, and have the greatest claim.*  The further you get from the center, the less you pay, and the less claim you have.  
> 
> Oh, and when a community provides infrastructure, so that you can have an easier commute from the outskirts to the center - that somehow counts as better "access" to the center.  Not exclusive usage. Just "access".


"Somehow" meaning, "in fact."



> You have a pioneering spirit, and recognize that there is PLENTY of land available on the Earth, for which you, a proper and devout believer in Georgist/Geoist principles, have an equal right of access to - one that extends to use of ALL other lands, most of which is unused. Just go completely out of that community, you think, and into _between-community lands_ that no community uses. From there you may not even have to compete with those in other communities. But you might be able, given enough time. Why, you can establish a community of your own.  
> 
> No. You cannot do that.


Yes.  You can.  Stop telling stupid lies.



> That forbidden fruit is the rank hypocrisy of Georgist ideology's Garden of Eden Collectives, as *you will not be permitted to use*, and you will have no claim on, between-community lands.


That is a lie.  You are perfectly at liberty to use them.  Just not to OWN them.



> Too many of your fellow Georgist ideologues have erroneously concluded that community precedes all else; not just as a matter of possibility, but by legislative decree.  Thus, you may not live without proximity to an already existing, established community.


That is another stupid lie, Steven.  Why are you telling so many stupid lies?

Oh, wait a minute, that's right: you have no choice.



> Not because you are unable, or physically incapable, but because _the state will not permit it_.


You are lying, Steven.  LYING.



> Communities are FIAT.


That is a LIE.



> Like legal tender, it is not a question of whether you will belong to an existing community, but only which community you will belong to at any given time.


You are free to not belong to a community.  You just aren't free to violate the rights of those who do.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Roy, you stink.  Seriously, this is the eve of our Victory, and you're going to come in here spouting your junk like nothing even happened?  At least congratulate us on a great showing for the cause of Liberty and for Ron Paul.

Also, in case you didn't know, your posts are completely worthless.  You just spew.  And then you spew.  And then you spew some more.  You are the worst emissary LVT has ever had.  Any cause you even remotely support any healthy, happy person would seriously question and rethink whether they wanted to be part of, just because someone like you is associated with it.

You really need to get your life in order, get some happiness, focus on things in your own life that you have control over, set goals and achieve them, etc.  This mania for LVT is really dragging you down.  I'm telling you, it's not my and Steven's overwhelming evil that's making you physically ill to read our posts.  You're doing that to yourself.

Just think about it.

----------


## Steven Douglas

You know what's funny, Helmuth?  If Roy was in charge of LVT implementation, I really do believe that he really would give access to ALL lands, including go-jillions of acres of currently restricted BLM lands.  I believe that completely. 

I have lived in "communist/socialist" China, and know that I could survive just fine under most political regimes - even those to which I am most vehemently opposed as a matter of principle.  And if Roy was king, and his plan was enacted by royal edict, I would be fine with it. I think I would do quite well, in fact. I would still oppose it as a matter of principle, but it would be fun to watch as the fantasy collides with reality - best laid plans and all that.

But Roy would not, and never will, be king. What Roy refuses (fails?) to see is that his particular plan will not be adopted by anyone, and _would not be implemented or administered by Roy_. It would not be according to Roy's special sets of rules, principles, and governing assumptions. I've seen what a lot of the others favoring or implementing LVT are doing, and it none of it quite matches what Roy is advancing. Whatever Roy thinks is the perfect formula or rule for LVT would have very little to do with anything at all, as Roy would not determine rent value assessment formulae, he would not be in charge of zoning, or determining which lands were available for public usage. 

Roy really does believe that an exemption would give each individual enough good, free land to live on - that this wouldn't be tampered with by anyone, such that an exemption reduced everyone to a postage stamp of available dirt, so that everyone would end up having to pay a whopper of a difference in LVT anyway.  I take Roy's word at that.  _Roy's word._ Only.  Only if Roy was king, and only for as long as Roy was alive.  I would actually trust Roy with an LVT.  But I wouldn't trust anyone else. 

Roy really believes that the LVT, as a "single tax" solution, would somehow satisfy government (all government at all levels, no less), and that the reality of any other taxes would not creep in and take over as additional revenue streams and layers of additional taxes, and taxes on taxes, after the fact. You know, like they already did, and do now.  

Roy believes in _how he would implement LVT_ so much that he imputes his own altruism to the state. Which makes me think, "SERIOUSLY, ROY?" What did the state ever do to earn that kind of "meeza lubs and twusts gubmint!" devotion?  

To know how our particular state would treat any plan (including our own Constitution, for that matter) in terms of a likelihood that the plan would be distorted, warped, abused, debased, corrupted, ignored, abridged, usurped, etc., _we need only look at our present, and our own history._ Roy doesn't seem to think it's an issue. 

I see LVT as accomplishing only ONE thing - the abolishment of landownership. That's all. More power to the state, and an additional revenue stream to boot, for a state that has already proved its own corruption time and again, such that it cannot be trusted with the simplest of tasks. 

Yep. Meeza hates dis gubmint. Meeza lubs da gubmint methinks it can and should be.  Just like Roy does his own version, which I don't believe even can exist, except in Roy's mind.  Of course, the reality is that both versions may be pipe dreams. But as long as I can dream, and have to relate it to the real world, I'll go with my version. Not Roy's.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Right.  You have to look at the realisticness of your plan being able to be implemented.  This is part of economics (a part that Roy ignores).  You have to look at incentives.  You have to think about individuals, put yourself in their shoes, think about "if I were politician X, how could I really make an ungodly amount of money?  By being an incorruptible agent of LVT purity, administering the system without favoritism in a way that I misguidedly believe will help the people?  Or maybe... not?"  The Public Choice school of economics focuses on these issues.  I do not think Roy has ever read their books and studied their ideas.

Luckily, he easily can, and with the greatest of ease, thanks to the generosity of libertarian institutions and this wonderful libertarian tool we have called the internet:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Buchanan/buchCv3.html

Or:

http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Conse.../dp/0472061003

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, you stink.  Seriously, this is the eve of our Victory,


And you accuse ME of being unrealistic??  ROTFL!!  I have said before that I consider it impossible for Ron Paul to become the Republican nominee for president.  The system is simply too thoroughly corrupted by money, greed and privilege.



> and you're going to come in here spouting your junk like nothing even happened?


I'm just refuting fallacious, absurd and dishonest claims.



> At least congratulate us on a great showing for the cause of Liberty and for Ron Paul.


Congratulations!  But I still think Ron Paul's solid second-place finishes in Iowa and NH are more of an intellectual and moral victory for liberty than a harbinger of genuine political victory.



> Also, in case you didn't know, your posts are completely worthless.


Others, who unlike you are honest and willing to know facts, disagree with you.



> You just spew.  And then you spew.  And then you spew some more.


You know that is a lie.  I refute, and then refute, and then refute some more.



> You are the worst emissary LVT has ever had.  Any cause you even remotely support any healthy, happy person would seriously question and rethink whether they wanted to be part of, just because someone like you is associated with it.


I am aware that anger is not an attractive emotion, but IMO it is the only appropriate human response to two Holocausts a year, year after decade after century after millennium.  Maybe you can watch the boot stamping on the face of humanity, forever, and think to yourself, "Just as long as I could be the one wearing the boot...." (even though it is in fact your face and the faces of your loved ones that are getting stomped).  I can't do that.



> You really need to get your life in order, get some happiness, focus on things in your own life that you have control over, set goals and achieve them, etc.


I've done all those things.  How would your advice differ from the advice given to those who opposed slavery or Naziism with the appropriate level of passion?



> This mania for LVT is really dragging you down.  I'm telling you, it's not my and Steven's overwhelming evil that's making you physically ill to read our posts.  You're doing that to yourself.


No.  I am aware that my inability to just accept the greatest evil in the history of the world and get on with my life is a handicap.  But I am not the author of that evil, and my response to it is not something I am doing to myself.  Could the abolitionists, or those who opposed the Nazis, just ignore the evil they saw and get on with their lives?  Not if they were anything like me, they couldn't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScHhuIY4Pwo

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> And you accuse ME of being unrealistic??  ROTFL!!  I have said before that I consider it impossible for Ron Paul to become the Republican nominee for president.  The system is simply too thoroughly corrupted by money, greed and privilege.


 Uhh... who cares?




> Congratulations!


Thank you.  There, see, if you were sincere and believable there, you would have gained some pathos points with this.




> But I still think Ron Paul's solid second-place finishes in Iowa and NH are more of an intellectual and moral victory for liberty than a harbinger of genuine political victory.


 What kind of victory did you think I was talking about?  Of course it was an intellectual victory.  This is a long-term movement.  We all understand that.  Were in this for the long haul.  "It’s not like I’m just trying to win and get elected. I’m trying to change the course of history." -- Ron Paul




Anyway, my advice is good.  Those passionately opposing the Nazis were not all unhappy people.  We don't have a moral obligation to be long-suffering and self-tortured.  You can be just as passionate and be optimistic.  I know I am.  I am really passionate about my Rothbardianism and my opposition to the horrible people and horrible actions and horrible ideas of the State.  But I'm very optimistic and very happy, because that's not all there is to my life, and also because my ideas will work and are catching on.  I'm winning.

So I guess I can understand your despair.  _Your_ ideas are _not_ catching on.  You are _not_ winning.  Georgism is a dead and disappearing philosophy promoted by 15 die-hards on the Internet, all of whom are probably over 50.  That would be frustrating.  I feel your pain.  

Maybe that's a sign, though, that you should find a different philosophy.  One that could actually work!  One that's vibrant and brilliant and _right_!  That would be: the Mises-Rothbard-Rockwell-Paul wing of intelligent, no-compromise Libertarianism.

----------


## Roy L

> What Roy refuses (fails?) to see is that his particular plan will not be adopted by anyone, and _would not be implemented or administered by Roy_.


I've never been able to understand how anyone could imagine that is an objection of any interest.  It's like I'm explaining the principles of a healthy diet to you, and you're saying, "Nobody is going to follow your diet plan exactly, Roy.  They are going to eat birthday cake on their birthdays, even though you think cake is not very healthy.  So much for your diet plan.  You just refuse to see that it is other people who are choosing the food they eat, not you."  I am unable rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could prompt such comments.



> It would not be according to Roy's special sets of rules, principles, and governing assumptions. I've seen what a lot of the others favoring or implementing LVT are doing, and it none of it quite matches what Roy is advancing.


So?  There are lots of diets out there, too.  There is lots of disagreement about details.  But every competent dietician and nutritionist knows there are certain principles underlying all healthful diets.



> Whatever Roy thinks is the perfect formula or rule for LVT would have very little to do with anything at all, as Roy would not determine rent value assessment formulae, he would not be in charge of zoning, or determining which lands were available for public usage.


I would not be choosing the food other people eat, either.  That doesn't mean nothing I could say about diet has any validity.



> Roy really does believe that an exemption would give each individual enough good, free land to live on - that this wouldn't be tampered with by anyone, such that an exemption reduced everyone to a postage stamp of available dirt, so that everyone would end up having to pay a whopper of a difference in LVT anyway.  I take Roy's word at that.  _Roy's word._ Only.  Only if Roy was king, and only for as long as Roy was alive.  I would actually trust Roy with an LVT.  But I wouldn't trust anyone else.


I am only saying what *would* happen if certain reforms were enacted.  I have never claimed to be predicting what *WILL* happen -- other than my prediction, which has always come true and always will come true, that all apologists for landowner privilege inevitably lie.



> Roy really believes that the LVT, as a "single tax" solution, would somehow satisfy government (all government at all levels, no less), and that the reality of any other taxes would not creep in and take over as additional revenue streams and layers of additional taxes, and taxes on taxes, after the fact. You know, like they already did, and do now.


They already did and do now because they have to fund the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.  



> Roy believes in _how he would implement LVT_ so much that he imputes his own altruism to the state.


I am not an altruist, and unlike you I don't anthropomorphize or impute motives to the state.



> Which makes me think, "SERIOUSLY, ROY?" What did the state ever do to earn that kind of "meeza lubs and twusts gubmint!" devotion?


While the state made Swaziland much like Somalia, it also made Switzerland and many other countries *not* like Somalia.  The fact that many foods are unhealthy is not a good reason to stop eating altogether.



> To know how our particular state would treat any plan (including our own Constitution, for that matter) in terms of a likelihood that the plan would be distorted, warped, abused, debased, corrupted, ignored, abridged, usurped, etc., _we need only look at our present, and our own history._ Roy doesn't seem to think it's an issue.


No, I just understand, as you do not, how landowner privilege is at the root of many of the problems you have with the state.



> I see LVT as accomplishing only ONE thing - the abolishment of landownership. That's all. More power to the state, and an additional revenue stream to boot, for a state that has already proved its own corruption time and again, such that it cannot be trusted with the simplest of tasks.


It cannot be trusted WHEN ITS TASK IS TO SERVE LANDOWNERS.

----------


## bnvalerie

Forgive me if this has been addressed, or is too philosophical of a tangent. I haven't taken the time to read all 1528 posts of this thread. If it this idea has been addressed, please direct me to  that point in the discussion, as I'd like to see others' thoughts.

In what I have read, there seem to me to be an omission that is fundamental to a free society. Doesn't the Natural Law that endows us all with the very rights at the heart of this discussion, imply a Creator granted us such rights?

If, accepting this as the basis for Natural Law, the law that endows all with their life, liberty and property, is the foundation for a free society. Anything that violates this is a violation of that most basic of all truths. If we accept this, then it seems clear to me any form of property taxation is a violation. This discussion about how much violation is acceptable in what would then be an almost free society seems irrelevant as there is no such thing, either you are free or you are not.

Yet, we must discuss it. It seems to me the basis of concern stems from this: that a truly free society then means that naturally a man is indeed with in his Rights to deny others the use of or any portion of that which is his, whether it is his property, or his labor. And this indeed means that there is the possibility that some shipwrecked penniless man would be at the utter disposal of the man who owns that on which the other is shipwrecked.(I'll omit the debate on what constitutes ownership out, as I don't believe it has bearing either way on my point)

It may be naturally within man to hoard what is his. And it seems to me that much of the discussion here assumes that man is basically evil. I disagree. I think Men are basically good.

This is the natural law that isn't addressed. The creator that made man, also created within him a natural inclination to care about fellow man. This is basic. The desire to continue the human species, man must interact with others in order to achieve this. This is also complex. As man is more than animal, and has a soul and a connection to other men. This is nature. This is essential to liberty.

There will be those men that do bad, and men are inclined to corruption, and evil. But men are also good and most will help others when perceived to be needed. This often is so strong, that people ironically become tyrannical, in their efforts to do good. This drives many people to do what they do. Most people who support socialism, support it out of the desire to do good. People want to help their fellow man. Free people want to promote freedom, thus the cycle of freedom and despotism ensues. Man cares about other men so much, that he becomes tyrannical in making everyone "free". Those wholly evil know this basic law of nature and use it to their advantage. How does any massive societal change ever occur if not under the guise of doing good?

Our grand experiment in Liberty is proof of this, as our Country seems to have the most generous people. But this is not because of some disproportionate sprinkling of generosity. Perhaps this is because when men are guaranteed the protections of their freedom, and when men are free(or believe themselves to be), they will freely help others as well, and will perpetuate freedom. When men are slaves, they will still help others, but is it not more difficult to do so? Therefore the best form which will help the most people, is it not one of freedom?

Is it the concern that people will suffer, if everyone is indeed allowed to exercise complete freedom? Is the implication of a safeguard to address the concern, one that always leads to despotism? To somehow ensure that all men do good, must we violate the rights of all men?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> [The state] cannot be trusted WHEN ITS TASK IS TO SERVE LANDOWNERS.


...or the highest bidding landholders it would serve under LVT. 

States are not to be trusted, period. You don't judge them on their stated intents, but only by the broadest reaches of power conceivable, which it will always seek to extend outward from its necessarily limited purposes.  States are like wild, power-hungry, disobedient animals by default.  You don't unleash or uncage them for any reason. Ever. They can be anthropomorphized because they are the products of men and their wants, needs and desires.  They prefer self-growth and will resist shrinkage at all costs, the genie that never goes willingly back into its bottle. They are The Little Shop of Horrors, every one of them, at their core - _Feed me, Seymour._ They will eat you. They will enslave you.  They will seek to trade places with you, seeing you put into their tiny, powerless bottle. For your safety and well being, naturally. 
That's the history of most states, including ours.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It seems to me the basis of concern stems from this: that a truly free society then means that naturally a man is indeed with in his Rights to deny others the use of or any portion of that which is his, whether it is his property, or his labor.


To be clear, Geoists/Georgists/geolibertarians, like many libertarians, believe that "property rights" are fundamental.  What you earn, build, produce, etc., really is yours to keep, and should be free of taxation or confiscation by anyone.  They only make a distinction - and it is a sharp distinction - where land is concerned (and in many versions, what comes out of the land).  They don't see land as "property" in the ownership sense of the word, nor do they recognize "property rights" of land in the ownership sense, which many, like Roy, see as responsible for most of the world's ills.  There is convoluted can of reasoning worms behind that distinction, which has taken some 1500+ pages (and counting) to discuss - with a fairly wide chasm of disagreement and very little room for compromise, as they want the very concept of landownership to be abolished entirely, while keeping intact the concept of land rents (valuation assessments of rents), which they see as a debt that "exclusive landholders" owe to the community and government which ostensibly provided such value (along with nature, which everyone has an "otherwise at liberty right" to use), as a single tax source of revenue for all government. 

So basically, you have a right to keep, and even hoard exclusively, the fruits of your labors, but if you are using land to the exclusion of others, without payment of some kind to those others, you are stealing from them - even to the point, in some geoists' minds, of robbing, enslaving and murdering - just by the fact of your exclusive use or withholding of lands without payment to others.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> In what I have read, there seem to me to be an omission that is fundamental to a free society. Doesn't the Natural Law that endows us all with the very rights at the heart of this discussion, imply a Creator granted us such rights?


I would say yes, though whether that Creator is an actual person or the ineffable forces of physics and the Anthropic Principle does not affect the conclusion.




> If, accepting this as the basis for Natural Law, the law that endows all with their life, liberty and property, is the foundation for a free society. Anything that violates this is a violation of that most basic of all truths. If we accept this, then it seems clear to me any form of property taxation is a violation. This discussion about how much violation is acceptable in what would then be an almost free society seems irrelevant as there is no such thing, either you are free or you are not.


I would again say yes.  And I take the side of total unabridged freedom.  That needs to be our ideology and our goal.




> Yet, we must discuss it. It seems to me the basis of concern stems from this: that a truly free society then means that naturally a man is indeed with in his Rights to deny others the use of or any portion of that which is his, whether it is his property, or his labor. And this indeed means that there is the possibility that some shipwrecked penniless man would be at the utter disposal of the man who owns that on which the other is shipwrecked.(I'll omit the debate on what constitutes ownership out, as I don't believe it has bearing either way on my point)


I don't know that we need to discuss it.  The Crusoe scenario is totally at odds with my own conception of what reality is, but it does reinforce the Georgist's mental model of what they think reality is: a place where mean, nasty landowners are constantly oppressing everyone by the mere fact of their owning land.




> It may be naturally within man to hoard what is his. And it seems to me that much of the discussion here assumes that man is basically evil. I disagree. I think Men are basically good.


 I would agree that we're basically good in many ways.  Civilization of any kind would be pretty impossible if we weren't.  Even more fundamentally important to our nature than any basic goodness or basic evilness is this: that men are basically *free,* to choose whether to be good or evil.




> There will be those men that do bad, and men are inclined to corruption, and evil. But men are also good and most will help others when perceived to be needed. This often is so strong, that people ironically become tyrannical, in their efforts to do good. This drives many people to do what they do. Most people who support socialism, support it out of the desire to do good. People want to help their fellow man. Free people want to promote freedom, thus the cycle of freedom and despotism ensues. Man cares about other men so much, that he becomes tyrannical in making everyone "free". Those wholly evil know this basic law of nature and use it to their advantage. How does any massive societal change ever occur if not under the guise of doing good?


I agree that it probably doesn't.  It has to at least seem good.




> Therefore the best form which will help the most people, is it not one of freedom?


Indeed.




> Is it the concern that people will suffer, if everyone is indeed allowed to exercise complete freedom? Is the implication of a safeguard to address the concern, one that always leads to despotism? To somehow ensure that all men do good, must we violate the rights of all men?


I would say yes, yes, and yes.

----------


## Roy L

> ...or the highest bidding landholders it would serve under LVT.


No, it would NOT be serving them, it would be TRADING with them by mutual consent, as they would be repaying the full value of what they took.  That is the point.



> States are not to be trusted, period.


That betrays a fundamental misconception of what states are.  Trust is not a concept that applies to them.



> You don't judge them on their stated intents, but only by the broadest reaches of power conceivable, which it will always seek to extend outward from its necessarily limited purposes.  States are like wild, power-hungry, disobedient animals by default.  You don't unleash or uncage them for any reason. Ever.


"Meeza hatesa gubmint."  We know.  What we don't know is what might be meant by "unleashing" or "uncaging" a state.



> They can be anthropomorphized because they are the products of men and their wants, needs and desires.


No, such claims are absurd.  A building is also a product of men's wants, needs and desires, but it is nonsensical to anthropomorphize it.



> They prefer self-growth and will resist shrinkage at all costs, the genie that never goes willingly back into its bottle. They are The Little Shop of Horrors, every one of them, at their core - _Feed me, Seymour._ They will eat you. They will enslave you.


No, history shows that states are the only thing stopping landowners from enslaving you.



> They will seek to trade places with you, seeing you put into their tiny, powerless bottle. For your safety and well being, naturally. 
> That's the history of most states, including ours.


Yeah, yeah: "Meeza hatesa gubmint."  We know.

----------


## Roy L

> In what I have read, there seem to me to be an omission that is fundamental to a free society. Doesn't the Natural Law that endows us all with the very rights at the heart of this discussion, imply a Creator granted us such rights?


I have explained why it does not.  Rights are just as real and natural and necessary whether there is any Creator or not, because societies where people have rights out-compete societies where they don't.



> If, accepting this as the basis for Natural Law, the law that endows all with their life, liberty and property, is the foundation for a free society.


As already proved, there is no natural law that endows anyone, or ever has or ever could endow anyone, with property in *land,* because that would inherently violate others' rights to life and liberty.  



> Anything that violates this is a violation of that most basic of all truths. If we accept this, then it seems clear to me any form of property taxation is a violation.


Assuming that it is a tax on actual valid property (i.e., products of labor) and not on government-issued and -enforced privileges such as land titles.  Right.



> This discussion about how much violation is acceptable in what would then be an almost free society seems irrelevant as there is no such thing, either you are free or you are not.


True; and if land is privately owned, you are not free.  Period.  The landowner has removed a portion of your right to liberty.  If enough land is privately owned, you are effectively enslaved, as proved by the slave-like condition of the landless in all countries where private landowning is well established, but government does not intercede on behalf of the landless through welfare, public health care and education, union monopolies, minimum wages, etc.



> It seems to me the basis of concern stems from this: that a truly free society then means that naturally a man is indeed with in his Rights to deny others the use of or any portion of that which is his, whether it is his property, or his labor.


Recognizing that land cannot possibly be his property, any more than the earth's atmosphere or the sea could be.



> And this indeed means that there is the possibility that some shipwrecked penniless man would be at the utter disposal of the man who owns that on which the other is shipwrecked.(I'll omit the debate on what constitutes ownership out, as I don't believe it has bearing either way on my point)


What constitutes valid ownership is absolutely fundamental.  

If what the penniless man is shipwrecked on is validly owned, like a raft the other man has built, then the other man, whatever the terms he offers, is only offering a *positive benefit* that the shipwrecked man would not otherwise have.

By contrast, if what the penniless man is shipwrecked on is not validly owned but merely held by forcible appropriation, like land, then the other man is harming him, and violating his rights by forcibly depriving him of the means of survival that he would otherwise have been at liberty to use.

It's very simple: if the ownership is valid, taking the owner out of the picture leaves the penniless man worse off.  If the ownership is invalid, taking the owner out of the picture makes the penniless man better off.  The latter type of ownership can never be valid, as it inherently harms the penniless man.



> It may be naturally within man to hoard what is his. And it seems to me that much of the discussion here assumes that man is basically evil. I disagree. I think Men are basically good.


True: privileges like landowning turn basically good men into evil, ravening monsters who gleefully rob, torture, starve, enslave and murder their fellows.



> This is the natural law that isn't addressed.


It has been addressed.  See above for a brief treatment of the issue.



> Most people who support socialism, support it out of the desire to do good.


I doubt that.  IME most who support socialism desire unearned wealth or power.



> People want to help their fellow man. Free people want to promote freedom, thus the cycle of freedom and despotism ensues. Man cares about other men so much, that he becomes tyrannical in making everyone "free". Those wholly evil know this basic law of nature and use it to their advantage. How does any massive societal change ever occur if not under the guise of doing good?


It is true that all evil must be rationalized and justified; and institutionalized evil, evil inflicted as a matter of public policy, requires an extraordinary amount of it.



> Is it the concern that people will suffer, if everyone is indeed allowed to exercise complete freedom?


If you think there can be a "freedom" to remove others' rights by such means as slavery or landowning, then yes.



> To somehow ensure that all men do good, must we violate the rights of all men?


No.  Rather, to stop them doing _evil_, we must stop them from violating the rights of other men without making just compensation.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> States can be anthropomorphized because they are the products of men and their wants, needs and desires.
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, such claims are absurd.  A building is also a product of men's wants, needs and desires, but it is nonsensical to anthropomorphize it.


Nice nonsensical fallacy of composition on your part, Roy.  I didn't anthropomorphize a building, because that truly would be absurd (to even think of it). The state capital _building_ is not the state. It is just a building. And I didn't claim the state could be anthropomorphized because it was *created by* humans, but rather because it was *comprised of* humans.   

What do you think a state is, Roy?  It is _nothing but a collection of people_. *People who act.*  That's it! All the rest is stuff and fluff and bother. All human collectives, including a "state", can rightly be anthropomorphized because they are comprised of humans - the very "anthro" of anthropomorphism.




> States are not to be trusted, period.
> 			
> 		
> 
> That betrays a fundamental misconception of what states are. Trust is not a concept that applies to them.


Oh yeah? When you vote for a politician to represent you in the state, you "entrust" that politician - else it wouldn't get your vote.  And even though I "entrust" a politician with my vote, that does not necessarily mean that I "trust" that politician (that person who runs that part of "the state").  I am usually voting for what I consider the lesser of evils in most elections.  

My conception of a state, and why trust is a concept which very much applies to all of them, is dead on the mark and fits with reality.  The fact that you believe otherwise is fascinating to me, as it causes me to wonder what kind of bizarre concept you have about what states really are.




> IME most who support socialism desire unearned wealth or power.


Likewise the non-Marxist but every bit as socialist geoists, who also desire unearned wealth or power by simply redefining ownership and fabricating prior claims of liberty with regard to certain kinds of wealth - flipping definitions such that a landowner becomes a thief, and a would be thief becomes a collective landowner - the landownership essence of which is negated and dismissed through philosophical sophistry and etymological sleight-of-hand, which changes the very definitions of owner and ownership, such that land becomes not owned, but "unownable", even when it is collectively _something-which-shall-be-called-other-than-owned_.

----------


## thoughtomator

How did this discussion get to 154 pages? Property taxes are inherently odious. What a man earns the government has no right to take away.

----------


## redbluepill

> It was a little more complex than that.  I think that there are a variety of factors which make a claim more or less likely to be valid, and undertaking transformation of the claimed resource is one of the biggest ones, probably the biggest.  The size of the claim, the nature of the resource, the location of the resource, what kind of transformation you're doing, how far along the transformation is, and on and on, all play into its justice.  It would be very difficult to establish a just claim without having done any labor whatsoever.  In fact, I can't think of a case where that would be possible.


Ted Turner owns 1,910,000 acres. He must have labored REALLY hard on all that land. ;-)

----------


## redbluepill

> How did this discussion get to 154 pages? Property taxes are inherently odious. What a man earns the government has no right to take away.


No one here claims the land should be owned by the government. No one here claims the government should confiscate land.

----------


## Roy L

> How did this discussion get to 154 pages?


Mostly through repetition of fallacious, absurd and dishonest objections to LVT, and their refutations.



> Property taxes are inherently odious.


No, that's objectively false, as proved by the fact that the US states with the highest property tax rates, like NH, NJ, TX, WI, etc. tend to have better economies, higher incomes, less welfare, unemployment and crime, better education and public services, more affordable housing, etc. than the average, while the states with the lowest property tax rates, like LA, AL, MS, CA, etc. tend to have worse economies, lower incomes, more welfare, unemployment and crime, worse education and public services, less affordable housing, etc. than the average.  The catastrophic effect of lower property tax rates since Proposition 13 passed in CA in 1978 is blatantly obvious and indisputable. 



> What a man earns the government has no right to take away.


True.  But as labor earns its product, and land is not a product of labor, it is logically impossible for any man ever to have earned land.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Ted Turner owns 1,910,000 acres. He must have labored REALLY hard on all that land. ;-)


Right, he did!  Labored hard to get it, that is.  Change your word "on" to "for".  He had to earn a lot of wealth to be able to trade for all that land.

Now he was not the original homesteader, of course, which is what we were talking about, but hey, I'm easy!  Move the goal posts all you want, I'll roll with it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> No one here claims the land should be owned by the government. No one here claims the government should confiscate land.


Henry George does.  You guys, his disciples, basically do too.  Taxing the land at the confiscatory rate you advocate is essentially seizure by what St. Henry (patron Saint of Envy) thought would be a more politically feasible guise.

----------


## Roy L

> Nice nonsensical fallacy of composition on your part, Roy.


Uh, that's YOUR fallacy, Steven:



> I didn't anthropomorphize a building, because that truly would be absurd (to even think of it). The state capital _building_ is not the state. It is just a building. And I didn't claim the state could be anthropomorphized because it was *created by* humans, but rather because it was *comprised of* humans.


See?



> What do you think a state is, Roy?  It is _nothing but a collection of people_.


Wrong.  A state is a geographically bounded society under unitary political administration.  So it includes not only people but land and institutions.



> *People who act.*  That's it! All the rest is stuff and fluff and bother. All human collectives, including a "state", can rightly be anthropomorphized because they are comprised of humans - the very "anthro" of anthropomorphism.


*That's* the fallacy of composition.



> Oh yeah? When you vote for a politician to represent you in the state, you "entrust" that politician - else it wouldn't get your vote.  And even though I "entrust" a politician with my vote, that does not necessarily mean that I "trust" that politician (that person who runs that part of "the state").  I am usually voting for what I consider the lesser of evils in most elections.


But to the extent that you are placing trust by voting for a politician, it is in a person, not the state.  Even when you vote on a referendum, your trust is in those determining and administering the result, not in the state.



> My conception of a state, and why trust is a concept which very much applies to all of them, is dead on the mark and fits with reality.  The fact that you believe otherwise is fascinating to me, as it causes me to wonder what kind of bizarre concept you have about what states really are.


States are neither politicians nor appointed officials nor their populations.



> Likewise the non-Marxist but every bit as socialist geoists,


No, you are just lying again, Steven.  You know that geoists oppose collective ownership of products of labor (capital).  You are just lying about it.



> who also desire unearned wealth or power


No, you are lying, Steven.  LYING.  It is indisputably the *landowner* who both desires and *obtains* unearned wealth and power under the *CURRENT* system, and it is the apologist for landowner privilege who rationalizes and justifies this redistribution of wealth and power to landowners in return for zero (0) contribution.  The geoist, by contrast, is totally committed to wealth and power going only to those who have earned them by commensurate productive contribution.



> by simply redefining ownership and fabricating prior claims of liberty with regard to certain kinds of wealth


As the abolitionists did regarding slavery...?  There is nothing "fabricated" about the fact that all people are naturally at liberty to use what nature provided, Steven.  It is self-evident and indisputable.  Apologists for slavery tried to pretend property in slaves was rightful and its abolition would be immoral and disastrous:

_When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. Worse than all, private property was to be invaded (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects._

Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850

But we now know that the exact opposite was the case.  And though apologists for landowning likewise try to pretend that property in land is rightful, and its abolition would be immoral and disastrous, I have proved the exact opposite is the case.  



> - flipping definitions such that a landowner becomes a thief,


I have proved irrefutably that the landowner is a thief, and no flipping of definitions is involved, so stop lying:

_THE BANDIT

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?_



> and a would be thief becomes a collective landowner


No, that's another lie from you.  He simply has his natural right to liberty restored, and is justly compensated for its forcible violation by landowners.



> - the landownership essence of which is negated and dismissed through philosophical sophistry and etymological sleight-of-hand,


Lies.



> which changes the very definitions of owner and ownership, such that land becomes not owned, but "unownable", even when it is collectively _something-which-shall-be-called-other-than-owned_.


Is the earth's atmosphere or the ocean owned?  Is it ownable?  Does government administer its use to safeguard the equal rights of all?  Why could not similar logic apply to land?

----------


## Roy L

> Right, he did!  Labored hard to get it, that is.


No, he didn't.  He mainly profited from government-issued and -enforced privileges.



> Change your word "on" to "for".  He had to earn a lot of wealth to be able to trade for all that land.


And change your word "land" to "slaves," and the irrelevance of his having "traded" for it is made clear: trading for something that was never rightly property in the first place cannot make it rightly your property.



> Now he was not the original homesteader, of course, which is what we were talking about, but hey, I'm easy!  Move the goal posts all you want, I'll roll with it.


Your evidence that the "original homesteaders" of that land did not obtain it through the forcible dispossession of its previous occupants, as historical fact plainly shows?

Thought not.

----------


## Roy L

> No one here claims the land should be owned by the government.


True, although legal formulas might require something of the sort if there can't be a land trust administered by government.



> No one here claims the government should confiscate land.


IMO it would be more accurate to say no one here claims the government should *nationalize* land.  I definitely claim government should confiscate land from those who do not justly compensate those whom they deprive of it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Your evidence that the "original homesteaders" of that land did not obtain it through the forcible dispossession of its previous occupants, as historical fact plainly shows?
> 
> Thought not.


The Mormons didn't.  I'll bet Turner owns at least some land in Utah, Idaho, or Arizona.

----------


## Roy L

> The Mormons didn't.


Which Mormons?  Where?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Which Mormons?  Where?


Any Mormons.  Anywhere. But we're talking about the American West, the settling of which the Mormons played a big part in.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No one here claims the land should be owned by the government. No one here claims the government should confiscate land.


No, just the rent value in the form of a perpetual confiscatory tax on land rents.* 

Yeah, you just redefine terms, and what you wrote becomes true. Abolish all "propertarian" language, so that all the force and effect of public/collective landownership exists, but is referred to as something else, such that a rose any other name magically becomes something else entirely.  No more "landownership", and no "confiscation", because that would imply that "ownership" was even possible. With that verbal slight of hand, you're in like Flynn.  But you're not really "confiscating" value -- so much as "recovering value" that was otherwise confiscated by the "exclusive landholder", who interfered with everyone's natural liberty right to equal use of that same land, which value must be compensated to the collectivized _landlord-which-shall-not-be-referred-to-as-a-landowner_.  

Yeah, there is no government-owned land and no confiscation that I can see, besides a geo-*liberation* of lands, and *a confiscatory tax on land rents**, and a return of value to all community and state comrades who contributed value to the land, and therefore have a self-evident, just, rightful, indisputable and equal claim in common. 





> * Geoist/LVT Propoenents, and Henry George theorem author Richard Arnott, along with Kenneth Arrow, Anthony B. Atkinson and Jacques H. Dreze, editors, Public Economics: Selected Papers by William Vickrey. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
> 
> From the introduction to the section on Urban Economics, p. 336.:
> 
>     "One of the most celebrated results in urban economics is the Henry George Theorem. The best-known variant of the Theorem states that in a city of optimal population size, where the source of agglomeration is a localized pure public good, urban (differential) land rents equal expenditure on the public good. *Thus, a confiscatory tax on land rents is the single tax necessary to finance the public good.*"

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Wrong.  A state is a geographically bounded society under unitary political administration.  So it includes not only people but land and institutions.


You committed the fallacy of composition by pointing to objects not in question or at issue, ignoring those which are at issue, and judging the whole based on those select factors alone.   

A) The parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
B) Therefore the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C. 

"I don't trust the state."
A. States are made up of things that include geographical boundaries, land, and buildings, for which the concept of trust does not apply.
C. Therefore, the concept of trust does not apply to the state. 

"The gunman shot me with a bullet."
A. The gunman wore jeans. 
B. Jeans are incapable of shooting bullets.
C. Therefore, the gunman was incapable of shooting bullets. 

I pointed to the _only parts for which I do have a problem._ You committed the fallacy of composition (and simultaneous red herring) by throwing up parts of the composition _which are not at issue_.  You are the one who wants to say that "*[The state] includes not only people but land and institutions...*" so as to draw attention away from the *people* - for which trust is very much at issue.  

*That's* the fallacy of composition, Roy. And it's all yours.




> But to the extent that you are placing trust by voting for a politician, it is in a person, not the state.  Even when you vote on a referendum, your trust is in those determining and administering the result, not in the state.


Yeah, and the Constitution has a clause which was supposed to "determine and administer" the result of "No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."  

It's just a document, after all. An inanimate object with mere words scribbled thereon -- supposedly _The Law of the Land_, and an integral part of "the state".   How is that one working out for us?  Does trust apply there, Roy? Is there any trust betrayed there that you can see?  Why is that not being followed? Was it due to improper geographical boundaries, or did it perhaps have something to do with building construction? Or, could it, perhaps, have had something to do with that little, insignificant part of the state that you want to ignore, referred to as *"unitary political administration"* (aka PEOPLE ACTING)? 




> States are neither politicians nor appointed officials nor their populations.


Again with a variation on the composition fallacy, and also a flagrant self-contradiction.  

YOU: 
1. States include not only people but land and institutions.
2. States are neither politicians (people) nor appointed officials (people) nor their populations (people).

Ergo, as a tautology, and according to you, Roy: *States are not people, but states include (are comprised of) people.* 

Hmm...OK. As long as we are clarifying, it's the people running the state that I have a problem with, as they have proved, historically and in my humble personal estimation, to be COMPLETELY UNTRUSTWORTHY ON THE WHOLE.  Not the buildings. Not the geographical boundaries or lands they describe.  Just THE PEOPLE in the state - the vast majority of them.  Not the barrel itself - just the hundreds of rotten apples that have cycled in and out of that barrel since long before I was born.  But meeza lubs barrels, and meeza lubs fresh apples. 

You want the state to take on magical properties by way of composition, as we meld the constituent parts together *as a composition*, in such a way that it takes on characteristics that can no longer be examined individually. 




> Likewise the non-Marxist but every bit as socialist geoists, 
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, you are just lying again, Steven.  You know that geoists oppose collective ownership of products of labor (capital).  You are just lying about it.


I said "non-Marxist", Roy, what more do you want? I didn't say a thing about labor, or the rationale or mechanism used by a collectivist who looks to redistribute wealth for the good of the whole.  I just lumped your ideology in as a variation on socialism, in much the same way that I see fascism and socialism, not as opposites, but having too much in common with each other - despite their diametrically opposed reasoning and mechanisms. 




> There is nothing "fabricated" about the fact that all people are naturally at liberty to use what nature provided, Steven.  It is self-evident and indisputable.


By that same logic, I am every bit as much "naturally at liberty" (self-evidently and indisputably, no less) to apply that to some of your personal wealth. It does not matter whether it is right or wrong in anyone's mind.  If we both spy the same chunk of gold on the ground, but you beat me to it and pick it up first - I am as "naturally at liberty" to use that chunk of gold as you are. I would also be "otherwise at liberty" to find and use that same gold had you not existed. You want land to be somehow special, the lone exception to the rule, and for your own narrow reasons.   




> I have proved irrefutably that the landowner is a thief, and no flipping of definitions is involved, so stop lying:


You did nothing of the sort. You used verbal slight of hand to make would-be thieves owners, and owners thieves.  That's all you did, Roy.




> Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.
> 
> A thief, right?


Yes, even when that thief promises to share the loot with every other parasite who inhabits that mountain pass, and even when that thief wears a badge and steals on behalf of everyone under color of law.  A consortium of thieves are still filthy rotten thieves nonetheless, right down to each individual who accepts stolen goods. 




> Is the earth's atmosphere or the ocean owned?  Is it ownable?  Does government administer its use to safeguard the equal rights of all?  Why could not similar logic apply to land?


Non-sequitur.  If the state could (and it is trying) it would behave every bit as much as the AIRLORD and OCEANLORD (and I wouldn't put it past them to want to be SUNLORDS and SPACELORDS if they thought they could get away with it), as you want it to act as a LANDLORD - collecting rents for which none is due. A carbon tax is an example of AIR RENT collected from the AIRLORD.  Not as an "administrator". That's your disingenuous, intellectually dishonest, anti-propertarian sleight-of-hand double-talk for *COLLECTIVE OWNER*.

----------


## Roy L

> St. Henry (patron Saint of Envy)


Evil, despicable filth.

One of the most evil moral crimes any human being can commit is to accuse those who oppose injustice of envy for its beneficiaries.  For an apologist for landowner privilege to accuse geoists of envy for landowners is as deeply evil as it was for apologists for slavery to accuse the abolitionists of envy for slave owners.  The evil of such an act is so staggering, so monumental, so utterly satanic, that one can almost smell the reek of sulfur through the computer monitor when reading the words.

----------


## Roy L

> You committed the fallacy of composition by pointing to objects not in question or at issue, ignoring those which are at issue, and judging the whole based on those select factors alone.


Lie.



> A) The parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
> B) Therefore the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C. 
> 
> "I don't trust the state."
> A. States are made up of things that include geographical boundaries, land, and buildings, for which the concept of trust does not apply.
> C. Therefore, the concept of trust does not apply to the state. 
> 
> "The gunman shot me with a bullet."
> A. The gunman wore jeans. 
> ...


ROTFL!!  No, it isn't the fallacy of composition, you indisputably don't know any logic and probably never will, and your above attempt to pretend to talk about logic is laughable gibberish so inane I can't even figure out what it means.



> Yeah, and the Constitution has a clause which was supposed to "determine and administer" the result of "No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."  
> 
> It's just a document, after all. An inanimate object with mere words scribbled thereon -- supposedly _The Law of the Land_, and an integral part of "the state".   How is that one working out for us?


Pretty well, as these things go.



> Does trust apply there, Roy? Is there any trust betrayed there that you can see?


Yes, and it started with a Constitution written specifically to relieve landowners of the rightful burden of taxation the Articles of Confederation laid on them.



> Why is that not being followed?


That would not redound to the unearned profit of the privileged, especially landowners.



> Was it due to improper geographical boundaries, or did it perhaps have something to do with building construction? Or, could it, perhaps, have had something to do with that little, insignificant part of the state that you want to ignore, referred to as *"unitary political administration"* (aka PEOPLE ACTING)?


It has to do with increasing the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.



> Again with a variation on the composition fallacy, and also a flagrant self-contradiction.  
> 
> YOU: 
> 1. States include not only people but land and institutions.
> 2. States are neither politicians (people) nor appointed officials (people) nor their populations (people).
> 
> Ergo, as a tautology, and according to you, Roy: *States are not people, but states include (are comprised of) people.*


??  Just as people are not blood, but include blood.  Sounds right to me.



> Hmm...OK. As long as we are clarifying, it's the people running the state that I have a problem with, as they have proved, historically and in my humble personal estimation, to be COMPLETELY UNTRUSTWORTHY ON THE WHOLE.


Because unlike an LVT state, those states were SET UP FROM THE OUTSET to do evil: to steal from the productive and give the loot to landowners.



> Not the buildings. Not the geographical boundaries or lands they describe.  Just THE PEOPLE in the state - the vast majority of them.  Not the barrel itself - just the hundreds of rotten apples that have cycled in and out of that barrel since long before I was born.  But meeza lubs barrels, and meeza lubs fresh apples.


You only blame innocent people for the evil effects of evil institutions because you love and serve evil, and prefer it to good.



> You want the state to take on magical properties by way of composition, as we meld the constituent parts together *as a composition*, in such a way that it takes on characteristics that can no longer be examined individually.


Incomprehensible gibberish.



> I said "non-Marxist", Roy, what more do you want?


I want you to stop lying.



> I didn't say a thing about labor, or the rationale or mechanism used by a collectivist who looks to redistribute wealth for the good of the whole.


At least that would be better than redistributing it to a small, idle, greedy, privileged minority at the *expense* of the whole, as you advocate.



> I just lumped your ideology in as a variation on socialism, in much the same way that I see fascism and socialism, not as opposites, but having too much in common with each other - despite their diametrically opposed reasoning and mechanisms.


IOW, you just say and believe anything, no matter how inane, fallacious, absurd, and dishonest, like any other lying propertarian sack of $#!+.  Thought so.



> By that same logic, I am every bit as much "naturally at liberty" (self-evidently and indisputably, no less) to apply that to some of your personal wealth.


No, that's a lie, as already proved many times.  Without me, my personal wealth would not exist, so you would NOT naturally be at liberty to use it.  Without me, the land, by contrast, *would* still exist and be available for use, and you WOULD naturally be at liberty to use it.  You know this.  Of course you do.  The facts are self-evident and indisputable; but because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil, you have to refuse to know them.



> It does not matter whether it is right or wrong in anyone's mind.  If we both spy the same chunk of gold on the ground, but you beat me to it and pick it up first - I am as "naturally at liberty" to use that chunk of gold as you are.[/qutoe]
> No, you are not.  The natural opportunity no longer exists.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				I would also be "otherwise at liberty" to find and use that same gold had you not existed.
> 			
> ...


Nonsense.  It's people and the products of their labor that are special, and comprise a microscopic fraction of all that exists.  Land is everything else, so it can hardly be called special.  It is the property status of products of labor that is special.  The rest of the universe is not property, and thus not special.



> You did nothing of the sort.


I most certainly did.  Stop lying.



> You used verbal slight of hand to make would-be thieves owners, and owners thieves.  That's all you did, Roy.


You are lying.  There was no verbal sleight of hand.  I simply identified facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil, so you have to refuse to know them.



> Yes, even when that thief promises to share the loot with every other parasite who inhabits that mountain pass,


Why always spew stupid lies, Steven?  The only parasite in the case is the guy who demands a portion of production without making any contribution to production: the bandit/toll taker/landowner.  There isn't anyone else in the pass; and if there were, they wouldn't be parasites because they would be herding their sheep or milking their yaks or whatever other productive contribution they were making to earn a living, not robbing the caravans like the bandit/landowner.

You *always* have to spew stupid lies.  *ALWAYS*.



> and even when that thief wears a badge and steals on behalf of everyone under color of law.


Recovering value taken by thieves in return for nothing is not stealing, Steven.  It is REDRESSING a theft.  You are simply claiming, with disgraceful evil and dishonesty, that when peace officers wearing badges secure the human rights of all by recovering stolen property and returning it to its rightful owners, it is they who are the thieves, and not the actual thief who took what he never earned.



> A consortium of thieves are still filthy rotten thieves nonetheless, right down to each individual who accepts stolen goods.


It is the landowner who is doing the stealing, Steven.  I already proved that to you.  People who band together to defend their rights to liberty against forcible, violent, coercive landowner aggression are not thieves.  They are virtuous people defending liberty, justice and truth against evil, lying apologists for landowner privilege.



> Non-sequitur.  If the state could (and it is trying) it would behave every bit as much as the AIRLORD and OCEANLORD (and I wouldn't put it past them to want to be SUNLORDS and SPACELORDS if they thought they could get away with it),


But in fact, it clearly ISN'T trying.  You're just makin' $#!+ up, as usual.



> as you want it to act as a LANDLORD - collecting rents for which none is due.


The rent is most certainly due to the government and community that create it.



> A carbon tax is an example of AIR RENT collected from the AIRLORD.  Not as an "administrator". That's your disingenuous, intellectually dishonest, anti-propertarian sleight-of-hand double-talk for *COLLECTIVE OWNER*.


The atmosphere clearly can't be owned.  You're talking idiotic propertarian rubbish.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Wow, just a litany of repeated blanket denials, and a continuance of your overriding fallacy from the beginning of this thread and throughout: _argumentum ad nauseam_, the logical fallacy that something will be true if repeated often enough.




> ...your above attempt to pretend to talk about logic is laughable gibberish so inane I can't even figure out what it means.


I know you can't, Roy. And it was fun for me too.

----------


## redbluepill

> Right, he did!  Labored hard to get it, that is.  Change your word "on" to "for".  He had to earn a lot of wealth to be able to trade for all that land.
> 
> Now he was not the original homesteader, of course, which is what we were talking about, but hey, I'm easy!  Move the goal posts all you want, I'll roll with it.


And those homesteaders marked off large chunks of land for themselves with minimal to no work at all.

_
A right of property in movable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands not till after that establishment.... He who plants a field keeps possession of it till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated and their owner protected in his possession. Till then the property is in the body of the nation._

--Thomas Jefferson

----------


## redbluepill

> Henry George does.


Give me a quote from George.





> You guys, his disciples, basically do too.


Show me where I said that.





> Taxing the land at the confiscatory rate you advocate is essentially seizure by what St. Henry (patron Saint of Envy) thought would be a more politically feasible guise.


No, Georgists do not advocates confiscation of land and eliminating basic natural rights... but you do.

----------


## redbluepill

> Right, he did! Labored hard to get it, that is





> No, he didn't.  He mainly profited from government-issued and -enforced privileges.


Its a perfect quote for the 'vulgar libertarianism' Kevin Carson warns about.

----------


## redbluepill

> True, although legal formulas might require something of the sort if there can't be a land trust administered by government.
> 
> IMO it would be more accurate to say no one here claims the government should *nationalize* land.  I definitely claim government should confiscate land from those who do not justly compensate those whom they deprive of it.


My apologies if it appears I put words in your mouth. Believe me, I've debated this one in my head many times. This is how i currently see it: would confiscation through government force actually be necessary? If a landlord refused to pay the ground rent then the government simply has to stop enforcing his privilege and it becomes open for others to settle and use. If the landlord threatened or enacted force against new settlers then that is something that can be handled in the courts. I'm sure theres flaws to that idea but thats the conclusion I've made.

----------


## redbluepill

> No, just the rent value in the form of a perpetual confiscatory tax on land rents.* 
> 
> Yeah, you just redefine terms, and what you wrote becomes true. Abolish all "propertarian" language, so that all the force and effect of public/collective landownership exists, but is referred to as something else, such that a rose any other name magically becomes something else entirely.


I have not redefined any terms. Calling it 'rent' is perfectly acceptable terminology.

Many royal libertarians are perfectly comfortable with referring to land as 'capital' when it clearly is not.






> Yeah, there is no government-owned land and no confiscation that I can see, besides a geo-*liberation* of lands, and *a confiscatory tax on land rents**, and a return of value to all community and state comrades who contributed value to the land, and therefore have a self-evident, just, rightful, indisputable and equal claim in common.


State property and common property are not the same thing. In common property we all have inalienable rights. State property is controlled and distributed by the government. Georgists and classical liberals reject the right of the state to appropriate land as it sees fit. Royal libertarians are clearly okay with it because they recognize corporate and landlord privileges as 'legitimate'.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Give me a quote from George.


 I begin to get inklings that you may never have actually read Henry George to apparently be unaware of his view on this, which he made so abundantly clear!  So, satisfy my curiosity: what books by Henry George have you, redbluepill, actually read?

Anyway, here's one quote, pulled almost at random and with the greatest of ease, by myself, hardly a George scholar:


Deduction and induction have brought us to the same
truth: Unequal ownership of land causes unequal distribution
of wealth. And because unequal ownership of land
is inseperable from the recognition of individual property
in land, it necessarily follows that there is only one
remedy for the unjust distribution of wealth:

_We must make land common property._

But this is a truth that will arouse the most bitter
antagonism, given the present state of society. It must
fight its way, inch by inch.

Henry George obviously, blatantly, for his entire sorry career, advocated for the nationalization of land.  He just thought that nationalizing it in the traditional way would be politically impractical, and thus his idea for a confiscatory land tax, to remove all benefits of ownership, and thus accomplish the same thing by different means, means which he felt would be more palatable to the British political establishment.

----------


## Tim Calhoun

I just finished reading every single post on this thread and, wow, I feel like shooting myself in the head. This Roy fellow is a blithering idiot if he really believes he has a right to use all land he wishes and that landowning deprives him on that liberty. The biggest flaw in his "plan" (if you can call such an idiocy that) is that he wants to transfer the landlord status from a private individual to a government who can only intervene into the market and coerce people through the threat of force. It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever seen. I swear Fire11 had more intelligent posts on this forum!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I just finished reading every single post on this thread and, wow, I feel like shooting myself in the head.


 Thank you, Mr. Calhoun, for joining us, and welcome to the Ron Paul forums.




> The biggest flaw in his "plan" (if you can call such an idiocy that) is that he wants to transfer the landlord status from a private individual to a government who can only intervene into the market and coerce people through the threat of force. It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever seen.


 Yep.  LVT amounts to a massive centralization of landlord status.  That's all it is, when it all boils down.

Roy's plan is to massively centralize landlord status, grabbing it away from millions of independent landlords and bestowing it instead on one continent-spanning hegemon: The American nation-state he knows and trusts so dearly.

Redbluepill's plan is to massively centralize landlord status, grabbing it away from millions of independent landlords and bestowing it instead on thousands of political entities which divvy up North America.

Redbluepill's plan is approximately ten thousand times better than Roy L.'s, but they're both pretty lousy.  My millions of landlords are a thousand times superior to his thousands of landlords.

Decentralize!  Dehegemonize!  Detyrannize!  These are the cries of the freedom-lover.  The Georgists cry for the opposite.  And they wonder why we just can't see the common ground.

----------


## eduardo89

> I just finished reading every single post on this thread and, wow, I feel like shooting myself in the head. This Roy fellow is a blithering idiot if he really believes he has a right to use all land he wishes and that landowning deprives him on that liberty. The biggest flaw in his "plan" (if you can call such an idiocy that) is that he wants to transfer the landlord status from a private individual to a government who can only intervene into the market and coerce people through the threat of force. It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever seen. I swear Fire11 had more intelligent posts on this forum!


Oh Dear God, Tim. Why would you put yourself through that agony?!

----------


## Roy L

> This Roy fellow is a blithering idiot if he really believes he has a right to use all land he wishes and that landowning deprives him on that liberty.


I am aware that my right to liberty has been forcibly removed without just compensation. 

It is self-evident and indisputable that before land was appropriated as private property, all were at liberty to use it, though not exclusively.  It is self-evident and indisputable that were it not for landowners (or government acting on behalf of landowners) initiating force against us, we would all still be at liberty to use it.

You will never offer any sort of facts or logic to dispute these facts, because they are self-evident and indisputable.  You will just, like all the apologists for landowner privilege in this thread or anywhere else, ignore, dismiss, lie about, and refuse to know these self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> The biggest flaw in his "plan" (if you can call such an idiocy that) is that he wants to transfer the landlord status from a private individual to a government who can only intervene into the market and coerce people through the threat of force.


No, that's just a lie on your part.  It is the private landowner who coerces people through the threat of force, as I already proved to you by the examples of the bandit in the pass, Dirtowner Harry and Thirsty, and Robinson Crusoe and Friday.  There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force.  It is inherently impossible, as all are naturally at liberty to use it.  It is government's specific, legitimate role to administer possession and use of land in order to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.  The only question is, will government discharge that function faithfully, or will it simply violate the people's rights for the unearned profit of a greedy, idle, privileged, parasitic minority of landowners?  The latter is the current system.  The former is the system I advocate.



> It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever seen.


It has been endorsed by several Nobel laureates in economics.  They understand economics.  You do not.  Simple.



> I swear Fire11 had more intelligent posts on this forum!


Thanks for sharing your opinion.  Too bad it could not have been a reasoned or informed one.

----------


## Roy L

> This is how i currently see it: would confiscation through government force actually be necessary?


If you want anyone to have secure, exclusive use of land, which is necessary for any condition of society above the nomadic herding level, force is necessary.  There is simply no way around it.  The only choice is between force to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all, or force to violate those rights.  Private landowning is the latter choice.



> If a landlord refused to pay the ground rent then the government simply has to stop enforcing his privilege and it becomes open for others to settle and use.


OK, but what if others are willing to pay the rent to use it exclusively?  What if the "landlord" also decides to use other land that others are paying the rent to use exclusively?



> If the landlord threatened or enacted force against new settlers then that is something that can be handled in the courts.


How could that solve anything if the courts couldn't use force?



> I'm sure theres flaws to that idea but thats the conclusion I've made.


The problem arises when people -- whether they call themselves owners of the land or whatever -- insist on using land that others are paying rent to use exclusively.  Can you see that it doesn't matter if the trespasser claims to own that land or not?  There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by initiating force, and no way to make that initiation of force consistent with securing and reconciling the equal rights of all (which only government is competent to do) but through just compensation for the deprivations of liberty thus imposed.

----------


## Steven Douglas

^^^ Rinse and Repeat scriptural references, from that nuttier-than-nutty nutshell, encapsulated by the _a priori_ axiomatic, highly dogmatic tenets of an economic religion, regurgitated and recycled, practically by rote, by a fanatic who argues from his own circular premises, in a tightly enclosed loop, ad nauseam. 

And take heed that each scriptural reference of Roy's be quoted precisely, or you will have an "Uh-oh! V-E-R-N Vern!" Rain Man loose cannon on your hands.  

To engage fully with Roy, one must first descend into the tiny dungeon that is his mind - a proverbial steel trap-cum-maze which lets in nothing "impure", and resists all evil, and already knows all that need be known.  If a fact is not already in Roy's mind, it does not exist.  Facts which do exist have already been categorized and sorted according to a tightly interlocking set of dogmatic assumptions.  The only way to know what is self-evident or indisputable is to climb into an impossibly small, dark prison space, and view everything from Roy's own personal, highly distorted lens.  Whatever Roy does not agree with is a lie, or your refusal to know facts as he knows them, or is otherwise irrelevant gibberish, not worthy of a response. 

Like Karl Marx, Henry George was pioneer of a sad, dark, highly distorted and logically fallacious half-understandings and whole misunderstandings about the relationship between humans, governments, and the environs of their functions and dysfunctions.  Like mainstream Keynesian-spawned theories and proponents, the simplest of concepts at the individual level are completely abandoned, rendered irrelevant to all the Master Aggregate Reckoning and Aggregate Solutions, with highly complex and convoluted reasoning which forms the ad hoc fabric of a net of misery which cast onto the whole -- for its own good.

----------


## Roy L

> ^^^ Rinse and Repeat scriptural references, from that nuttier-than-nutty nutshell, encapsulated by the _a priori_ axiomatic, highly dogmatic tenets of an economic religion, regurgitated and recycled, practically by rote, by a fanatic who argues from his own circular premises, in a tightly enclosed loop, ad nauseam. 
> 
> And take heed that each scriptural reference of Roy's be quoted precisely, or you will have an "Uh-oh! V-E-R-N Vern!" Rain Man loose cannon on your hands.  
> 
> To engage fully with Roy, one must first descend into the tiny dungeon that is his mind - a proverbial steel trap-cum-maze which lets in nothing "impure", and resists all evil, and already knows all that need be known.  If a fact is not already in Roy's mind, it does not exist.  Facts which do exist have already been categorized and sorted according to a tightly interlocking set of dogmatic assumptions.  The only way to know what is self-evident or indisputable is to climb into an impossibly small, dark prison space, and view everything from Roy's own personal, highly distorted lens.  Whatever Roy does not agree with is a lie, or your refusal to know facts as he knows them, or is otherwise irrelevant gibberish, not worthy of a response. 
> 
> Like Karl Marx, Henry George was pioneer of a sad, dark, highly distorted and logically fallacious half-understandings and whole misunderstandings about the relationship between humans, governments, and the environs of their functions and dysfunctions.  Like mainstream Keynesian-spawned theories and proponents, the simplest of concepts at the individual level are completely abandoned, rendered irrelevant to all the Master Aggregate Reckoning and Aggregate Solutions, with highly complex and convoluted reasoning which forms the ad hoc fabric of a net of misery which cast onto the whole -- for its own good.


Irrelevant gibberish not worthy of a response.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Irrelevant gibberish not worthy of a response.


Oh, are we only responding to things worthy of reponse now?  If that is the rule thus thread could have been over long ago.

----------


## eduardo89

> Oh, are we only responding to things worthy of reponse now?  If that is the rule thus thread could have been over long ago.


QFT

----------


## Roy L

> Oh, are we only responding to things worthy of reponse now?  If that is the rule thus thread could have been over long ago.


Indeed.  I have responded to hundreds of stupid and dishonest posts in this thread that were not worthy of responses, but did so to demonstrate the fallacious, absurd and dishonest nature of all anti-LVT spew for the enlightenment of readers.  Steven's latest spew of idiotic vomitus does not even serve that purpose, as it identifies no facts, essays no arguments, and does not even make any meaningful claims.  It's just insensate shrieking.

----------


## eduardo89

> Indeed.  I have responded to hundreds of stupid and dishonest posts in this thread that were not worthy of responses, but did so to demonstrate the fallacious, absurd and dishonest nature of all anti-LVT spew for the enlightenment of readers.  Steven's latest spew of idiotic vomitus does not even serve that purpose, as it identifies no facts, essays no arguments, and does not even make any meaningful claims.  It's just insensate shrieking.


I don't think that's what Helmuth was saying...

----------


## heavenlyboy34

Oi, vey, this is still alive?  FRANKENTHREAD!!!

----------


## eduardo89

> Oi, vey, this is still alive?  FRANKENTHREAD!!!


Roy is very persistent.

----------


## redbluepill

> I begin to get inklings that you may never have actually read Henry George to apparently be unaware of his view on this, which he made so abundantly clear!  So, satisfy my curiosity: what books by Henry George have you, redbluepill, actually read?
> 
> Anyway, here's one quote, pulled almost at random and with the greatest of ease, by myself, hardly a George scholar:
> 
> 
> Deduction and induction have brought us to the same
> truth: Unequal ownership of land causes unequal distribution
> of wealth. And because unequal ownership of land
> is inseperable from the recognition of individual property
> ...



LOL! You are becoming desperate Helmuth. There is nothing in that quote that says the government must nationalize or confiscate the land. Try again.

----------


## redbluepill

> Redbluepill's plan is to massively centralize landlord status, grabbing it away from millions of independent landlords and bestowing it instead on thousands of political entities which divvy up North America.


Simply false.




> Redbluepill's plan is approximately ten thousand times better than Roy L.'s, but they're both pretty lousy.  My millions of landlords are a thousand times superior to his thousands of landlords.


?? The LVT would actually help the poor acquire land. It would reduce the artificially high price of land, increase wages by ensuring increased productivity, and reduce the 'need' of other nonproductive taxes.





> Decentralize!  Dehegemonize!  Detyrannize!  These are the cries of the freedom-lover.  The Georgists cry for the opposite.  And they wonder why we just can't see the common ground.


Most georgists want to decentralize. You should know that by now.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Roy is very persistent.


Why wouldn't he be?  He's fighting an entire universe of ownership.  The all-pervasive evil of this sickening idea of ownership is everywhere...how could you sleep at night???


In an interesting side note, John Robbins at a homeschooling conference one time said that you shouldn't teach your children to share.  He said it gives them the wrong idea about ownership.  Instead, you should teach your children to barter for their time with toys and such things.  Then it becomes a voluntary transaction instead of an issue of force.

I thought that was really cool.  I posted the audio somewhere on these boards.

----------


## eduardo89

> Why wouldn't he be?  He's fighting an entire universe of ownership.  The all-pervasive evil of this sickening idea of ownership is everywhere...how could you sleep at night???
> 
> 
> In an interesting side note, John Robbins at a homeschooling conference one time said that you shouldn't teach your children to share.  He said it gives them the wrong idea about ownership.  Instead, you should teach your children to barter for their time with toys and such things.  Then it becomes a voluntary transaction instead of an issue of force.
> 
> I thought that was really cool.  I posted the audio somewhere on these boards.


That is a really interesting idea. I'm going to look into it. Thanks!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Indeed.  I have responded to hundreds of stupid and dishonest posts in this thread that were not worthy of responses, but did so to demonstrate the fallacious, absurd and dishonest nature of all anti-LVT spew for the enlightenment of readers.  Steven's latest spew of idiotic vomitus does not even serve that purpose, as it identifies no facts, essays no arguments, and does not even make any meaningful claims.  It's just insensate shrieking.


You keep crying about fallacies, but you are committing one in doing this.  The fallacy fallacy.  That is, "Argument *A* for the conclusion *C* is fallacious". 
Therefore, *C* is false.   ".

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Why wouldn't he be?  He's fighting an entire universe of ownership.  The all-pervasive evil of this sickening idea of ownership is everywhere...how could you sleep at night???
> 
> 
> In an interesting side note, John Robbins at a homeschooling conference one time said that you shouldn't teach your children to share.  He said it gives them the wrong idea about ownership.  Instead, you should teach your children to barter for their time with toys and such things.  Then it becomes a voluntary transaction instead of an issue of force.
> 
> I thought that was really cool.  I posted the audio somewhere on these boards.


You are correct, but Roy's argument is specifically about the "evil" of land ownership.  I suspect you could easily write an exposition disputing that.  You're a very learned fellow.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> That is a really interesting idea. I'm going to look into it. Thanks!


Here's the audio of it:

*Teaching Economics From The Bible, John Robbins*
http://www.trinitylectures.org/MP3/T...hn_Robbins.mp3

----------


## eduardo89

> Here's the audio of it:
> 
> *Teaching Economics From The Bible, John Robbins*
> http://www.trinitylectures.org/MP3/T...hn_Robbins.mp3


Thanks! +rep (even if you're a Calvinist  )

----------


## redbluepill

> If you want anyone to have secure, exclusive use of land, which is necessary for any condition of society above the nomadic herding level, force is necessary. There is simply no way around it. The only choice is between force to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all, or force to violate those rights. Private landowning is the latter choice.


Agreed.





> OK, but what if others are willing to pay the rent to use it exclusively? What if the "landlord" also decides to use other land that others are paying the rent to use exclusively?


In cases where the land is being paid for through LVT I understand government stepping in to enforce that privilege. Otherwise there would be no incentive for people to pay it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> In cases where the land is being paid for through LVT I understand government stepping in to enforce that privilege. Otherwise there would be no incentive for people to pay it.


What about Roy's earlier claim (I don't recall the post number now) that geoism is compatible with stateless society (anarchism)?

----------


## redbluepill

> What about Roy's earlier claim (I don't recall the post number now) that geoism is compatible with stateless society (anarchism)?


I would argue that it is certainly compatible with a stateless society.

Fred Foldvary discussed the very issue here: http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html

_Anarchist geoism

In a libertarian or anarchist world, some people might be unaffiliated anarcho-capitalists, contracting with various firms for services. But if we look at markets today, we see instead contractual communities. We see condominiums, homeowner associations, cooperatives, and neighborhood associations. For temporary lodging, folks stay in hotels, and stores get lumped into shopping centers. Historically, human beings have preferred to live and work in communities. Competition induces efficiency, and private communities tend to be financed from the rentals of sites and facilities, since this is the most efficient source of funding. Henry George recognized that site rents are the most efficient way to finance community goods because it is a fee paid for benefits, paying back that value added by those benefits. Private communities today such as hotels and condominiums use geoist financing. Unfortunately, governments do not.

Geoist communities would join together in leagues and associations to provide services that are more efficient on a large scale, such as defense, if needed. The voting and financing would be bottom up. The local communities would elect representatives, and provide finances, and would be able to secede when they felt association was no longer in their interest._

----------


## redbluepill

I know Helmuth already answered this question but I was curious what the rest of you guys thought about this issue: How much labor is required to declare land as 'personal property' and how much land can actually be claimed? Does the first man to take a fish from the ocean get to declare the entire ocean his property?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I would argue that it is certainly compatible with a stateless society.
> 
> Fred Foldvary discussed the very issue here: http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html
> 
> _Anarchist geoism
> 
> In a libertarian or anarchist world, some people might be unaffiliated anarcho-capitalists, contracting with various firms for services. But if we look at markets today, we see instead contractual communities. We see condominiums, homeowner associations, cooperatives, and neighborhood associations. For temporary lodging, folks stay in hotels, and stores get lumped into shopping centers. Historically, human beings have preferred to live and work in communities. Competition induces efficiency, and private communities tend to be financed from the rentals of sites and facilities, since this is the most efficient source of funding. Henry George recognized that site rents are the most efficient way to finance community goods because it is a fee paid for benefits, paying back that value added by those benefits. Private communities today such as hotels and condominiums use geoist financing. Unfortunately, governments do not.
> 
> Geoist communities would join together in leagues and associations to provide services that are more efficient on a large scale, such as defense, if needed. The voting and financing would be bottom up. The local communities would elect representatives, and provide finances, and would be able to secede when they felt association was no longer in their interest._


But if that were to happen, it would no longer be truly stateless.  There would be a group with a monopoly on the "legitimate" use of force-the standard definition of a State.  These "communities" are just small States by a different name.

----------


## redbluepill

> But if that were to happen, it would no longer be truly stateless.  There would be a group with a monopoly on the "legitimate" use of force-the standard definition of a State.  These "communities" are just small States by a different name.


From my understanding, in an anarchist society people would belong to the community through a contract. It would be no more a 'state' than any other non-government institutions.

----------


## eduardo89

> From my understanding, in an anarchist society people would belong to the community through a contract. It would be no more a 'state' than any other non-government institutions.


How is that any different to citizenship that we have now. In that anarchist society, you can't be "stateless".

----------


## Roy L

> You keep crying about fallacies, but you are committing one in doing this.  The fallacy fallacy.  That is, "Argument *A* for the conclusion *C* is fallacious". 
> Therefore, *C* is false.   ".


I made no such argument.  I have demonstrated that not just one but ALL "arguments" against LVT that have been offered in this thread have been fallacious, absurd and/or dishonest.  Usually all three.  If I had only refuted one anti-LVT fallacy, that would indeed not be conclusive.  But when ALL anti-LVT arguments have been refuted, and no credible refutation has been offered for ANY pro-LVT argument, the conclusion has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt.

----------


## eduardo89

I honestly don't get what Roy is doing here on this forum. He's not a Ron Paul supporter and he only ever posts on this thread.

----------


## Roy L

> Why wouldn't he be?  He's fighting an entire universe of ownership.


No, such claims are just stupid and dishonest.  I have repeatedly identified the conditions under which ownership of private property is justified and rightful.  Land ownership just doesn't satisfy them.



> The all-pervasive evil of this sickening idea of ownership is everywhere...how could you sleep at night???


Are you willing to know the fact that some things, such as products of labor, are rightly ownable, and others, such as the sun and the alphabet, are not?  If not, then you do not understand the concept of property well enough to be discussing it with adults.  If so, then we can discuss the question of what is rightly property and what is not after you stop spewing stupid lies about what I have plainly written.

----------


## Roy L

> You are correct, but Roy's argument is specifically about the "evil" of land ownership.


Thank you for identifying the fact that he flat-out LIED about what I have plainly written.

----------


## Roy L

> In cases where the land is being paid for through LVT I understand government stepping in to enforce that privilege. Otherwise there would be no incentive for people to pay it.


OK, so are we also agreed that government stepping in, including with force, to secure exclusive tenure to the private party that is paying the land rent does not constitute "government confiscation of land," even if one or more of those thus excluded claims to "own" the land?

----------


## Roy L

> What about Roy's earlier claim (I don't recall the post number now) that geoism is compatible with stateless society (anarchism)?


Sure it's compatible.  It just isn't practical, for much the same reasons that anarchism is not practical.

----------


## eduardo89

> Sure it's compatible.  It just isn't practical, for much the same reasons that anarchism is not practical.


So you agree that geoism isn't practical?

----------


## Roy L

> How is that any different to citizenship that we have now.


Citizenship is not normally chosen now.



> In that anarchist society, you can't be "stateless".


Why couldn't you?  You just wouldn't be part of any such community.  Nothing would stop you from living outside the jurisdiction of all the communities.

----------


## Roy L

> I honestly don't get what Roy is doing here on this forum. He's not a Ron Paul supporter and he only ever posts on this thread.


I have posted on other threads; but most don't last long, are not as interesting to me, and don't provoke the kind of brainless opposition this one does.  And inasmuch as I support any current candidate for president, it's Ron Paul.  I just don't think he can be elected.

----------


## Roy L

> So you agree that geoism isn't practical?


I said anarchism isn't practical.  Geoist anarchism is probably closer to being practical than any other kind.

----------


## eduardo89

> Why couldn't you?  You just wouldn't be part of any such community.  Nothing would stop you from living outside the jurisdiction of all the communities.


But then who would you pay LVT to?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I know Helmuth already answered this question but I was curious what the rest of you guys thought about this issue: How much labor is required to declare land as 'personal property' and how much land can actually be claimed? Does the first man to take a fish from the ocean get to declare the entire ocean his property?


Your question assumes the labor theory of value.  This isn't really that applicable to land/bodies of water.  A man who "improves" a property can sell it-yet still not get what he believes it to be worth, as that is just his subjective opinion for the most part (unless he is only asking for the market price of the land and the improvements-therefore not making much, if any profit).  The LToV isn't that great, IMO (especially when applied to land). 

The Homesteading principle tells us that individuals can claim otherwise unclaimed land (or water in the case of seasteading...and air if it ever becomes practical) by making a legal claim to the land.  IOW, a person can technically homestead anywhere that no one else has claimed.  The question of how much land a person can claim is simply however much he can in practicality maintain.  I, for example, wouldn't claim more than enough land for a house and decent lawn space.  More than that becomes too much of a liability.  Here's another example for you-US bases in Afghanistan.  In the most technical sense, these are US property, but it's all so expensive to maintain that it just can't last for any significant amount of time.  The regime can certainly _try_ to maintain all these overseas bases, but entropy, economics, and other natural forces seem to make it inevitable that it will end.  

Does that sufficiently answer your question?  If not, I'll elaborate on it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Sure it's compatible.  It just isn't practical, for much the same reasons* that anarchism is not practical.*


What makes you think it's not practical?  Anarchist literature certainly answers many more questions of practicality than geoism does.  If you can think of something you haven't heard anarchists come up with a stateless alternative for, just ask about it on the forums.  Our local anarchists will be happy to explain it to you.

----------


## Roy L

> But then who would you pay LVT to?


If you're outside the jurisdiction of all land administration, there's no one to pay it to.

----------


## Roy L

> Your question assumes the labor theory of value.


No, of course it doesn't.  Such claims are just ignorant if not dishonest.



> This isn't really that applicable to land/bodies of water.  A man who "improves" a property can sell it-yet still not get what he believes it to be worth, as that is just his subjective opinion for the most part (unless he is only asking for the market price of the land and the improvements-therefore not making much, if any profit).  The LToV isn't that great, IMO (especially when applied to land).


It clearly has no relation to land, which has value despite zero labor cost.



> The Homesteading principle tells us that individuals can claim otherwise unclaimed land


No, it ASSUMES, without justification, that the land user's property right to fixed improvements he produces validly extinguishes others' liberty rights to use the land he didn't produce.



> (or water in the case of seasteading...and air if it ever becomes practical) by making a legal claim to the land.


Mention law, and you are just question begging.



> IOW, a person can technically homestead anywhere that no one else has claimed.


Garbage.  That absurd "principle" just gives ownership of land to whoever first finds someone gullible enough to believe his claim of ownership, ignoring the rights of those who would otherwise be at liberty to use it or may even have BEEN using it.



> The question of how much land a person can claim is simply however much he can in practicality maintain.


More garbage.  Land needs no maintenance by definition.



> I, for example, wouldn't claim more than enough land for a house and decent lawn space.


How magnanimous of you.



> More than that becomes too much of a liability.


Landed property is an asset, not a liability, which is why those who think they can claim land generally try to claim as much as possible, up to and including whole continents.



> Here's another example for you-US bases in Afghanistan.  In the most technical sense, these are US property,


The improvements might be.



> but it's all so expensive to maintain that it just can't last for any significant amount of time.  The regime can certainly _try_ to maintain all these overseas bases, but entropy, economics, and other natural forces seem to make it inevitable that it will end.


The land could never become property in the first place.

----------


## Roy L

> What makes you think it's not practical?  Anarchist literature certainly answers many more questions of practicality than geoism does.


Nonsense.  Geoism clearly provides an improved economic framework for a society with familiar and proven institutions.  Anarchism does not.



> If you can think of something you haven't heard anarchists come up with a stateless alternative for, just ask about it on the forums.  Our local anarchists will be happy to explain it to you.


I've seen all the anarcho-nonsense I care to, thanks.  If it could work, why hasn't it out-competed states?

----------


## eduardo89

> If you're outside the jurisdiction of all land administration, there's no one to pay it to.


But then how do you compensate everyone whose liberty you're violating?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> If it could work, why hasn't it out-competed states?


Because States have a monopoly on violence.  Once established, they don't relinquish their power.  If Geoism works, why hasn't everyone accepted it?  (since you believe in and fancy yourself an expert in formal logic, you should know you just committed an ad populum fallacy )

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Nonsense.  Geoism clearly provides an improved economic framework for a society with familiar and proven institutions.  Anarchism does not.


Au Contraire.  Geoists have to make up institutions out of thin air, as you've mentioned throughout this thread.  Anarchists have dealt extensively with the economic framework of society and various institutions.  It's far more convincing than Geoist literature.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Are you willing to know the fact that some things, such as products of labor, are rightly ownable, and others, such as the sun and the alphabet, are not?  If not, then you do not understand the concept of property well enough to be discussing it with adults.  If so, then we can discuss the question of what is rightly property and what is not after you stop spewing stupid lies about what I have plainly written.



We've already been through this about 30 pages ago.  God gave Adam the title rights to the earth, and Adam passed those rights to his children, and so on and so on.  So the earth is declared by God as a specific sphere of human ownership, just like other earthly temporal possessions.  This is why there were laws against moving your neighbors boundary stones...ownership is implied in the commands against land theft.  In regards to ownership, there is no distinction between land and other property in Scripture like you are making.  


Biblically, the sun is not specified as an entity that is possible to be owned by _humans_, but the sun is still owned.  That is why I said that you are fighting an entire universe of ownership.  The Creator is the owner of every molecule of His material creation.  Even alphabets and thoughts and those kinds of things are, in the final eternal sense, owned...because God is the ultimate cause of thought itself.  God used the Hebrew and Greek alphabets, for example, as instruments to communicate His Word to men.  Nothing, not even immaterial things like laws and thoughts, exist independent of the Creator's will.  The Christian man is to "take every thought captive to the mind of Christ":




> 2nd Corinthians 10:5
> 
> "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."



So, as a Christian, I can take a step back and consider all the arguments for or against IP for example, and not have to make a specific declaration about it, even though I have my opinions on it.  But ownership in regards to land on this earth is something that I as a Christian have to make a specific declaration about, because God has given me the specific command of earthly dominion in Scripture and there are actual voluntary title transfers.


Well, anyway....  I have to thank you Roy, because you have really made me dig deep into my worldview to provide a justification for the things I am talking about.

----------


## onlyrp

> Because States have a monopoly on violence.  Once established, they don't relinquish their power.  If Geoism works, why hasn't everyone accepted it?  (since you believe in and fancy yourself an expert in formal logic, you should know you just committed an ad populum fallacy )


I love this logic, the fact something hasn't been accepted by everybody, means it can't work.

----------


## presence

Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His *labour* hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and_ hath_ thereby _appropriated to_ himself.

-------------------------

John Locke 
Second Treatise of Government
Chapter V - On Property
Section 28-32

Sec. 28. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or 
the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly 
appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his. I 
ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat? 
or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? 
and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else 
could. That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added 
something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and 
so they became his private right. And will any one say, he had no right to 
those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent 
of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself 
what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man 
had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. We see in 
commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what 
is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which 
begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking 
of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the 
commoners. Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; 
and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in 
common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent 
of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common 
state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.

Sec. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any 
one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children 
or servants could not cut the meat, which their father or master had 
provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar 
part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can 
doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath 
taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged 
equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself.

Sec. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath 
killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon 
it, though before it was the common right of every one. And amongst those 
who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied 
positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the 
beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place; and by 
virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still 
remaining common of mankind; or what ambergrise any one takes up here, is by 
the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made 
his property, who takes that pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare 
that any one is hunting, is thought his who pursues her during the chase: 
for being a beast that is still looked upon as common, and no man's private 
possession; whoever has employed so much labour about any of that kind, as 
to find and pursue her, has thereby removed her from the state of nature, 
wherein she was common, and hath begun a property.

Sec. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns, 
or other fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any one may 
ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of 
nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that 
property too. God has given us all things richly, 1 Tim. vi. 12. is the 
voice of reason confirmed by inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To 
enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it 
spoils, so much he may by his Labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond 
this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God 
for man to spoil or destroy. And thus, considering the plenty of natural 
provisions there was a long time in the world, and the few spenders; and to 
how small a part of that provision the industry of one man could extend 
itself, and ingross it to the prejudice of others; especially keeping within 
the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use; there could be 
then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established.

Sec. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the 
earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that 
which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that 
property in that too is acquired as the former. *As much land as a man tills, 
plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his 
property.* He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common. Nor 
will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has an equal title to 
it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the 
consent of all his fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when he gave the 
world in common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury 
of his condition required it of him. God and his reason commanded him to 
subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay 
out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to 
this command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby 
annexed to it something that was his property, which another had no title 
to, nor could without injury take from him.


say ye?

presence

----------


## redbluepill

> How is that any different to citizenship that we have now. In that anarchist society, you can't be "stateless".


There will still be contracts and communities in a stateless society. I dont get your point.

----------


## redbluepill

> OK, so are we also agreed that government stepping in, including with force, to secure exclusive tenure to the private party that is paying the land rent does not constitute "government confiscation of land," even if one or more of those thus excluded claims to "own" the land?


We're in agreement. I am considering the case where no one else is paying for the privilege.

----------


## eduardo89

> There will still be contracts and communities in a stateless society. I dont get your point.


My point was that in that stateless society, all land is taken up by "corporations", communities, etc so no matter where you live you have to belong to one of them. It's essentially the same as citizenship of a state we have now, as all land is taken up by a community.

----------


## redbluepill

> Your question assumes the labor theory of value.  This isn't really that applicable to land/bodies of water.  A man who "improves" a property can sell it-yet still not get what he believes it to be worth, as that is just his subjective opinion for the most part (unless he is only asking for the market price of the land and the improvements-therefore not making much, if any profit).  The LToV isn't that great, IMO (especially when applied to land).


Lets be clear, I do not support the labor theory of value. Henry George did not either: 
_
"It is never the amount of labor that has been exerted in bringing a thing into being that determines its value, but always the amount of labor that will be rendered in exchange for it." -- The Science of Political Economy, p. 253_

I do not make the argument that any amount of labor can make land property.





> The Homesteading principle tells us that individuals can claim otherwise unclaimed land (or water in the case of seasteading...and air if it ever becomes practical) by making a legal claim to the land.  IOW, a person can technically homestead anywhere that no one else has claimed.  The question of how much land a person can claim is simply however much he can in practicality maintain. I, for example, wouldn't claim more than enough land for a house and decent lawn space.  More than that becomes too much of a liability.  Here's another example for you-US bases in Afghanistan.  In the most technical sense, these are US property, but it's all so expensive to maintain that it just can't last for any significant amount of time.  The regime can certainly _try_ to maintain all these overseas bases, but entropy, economics, and other natural forces seem to make it inevitable that it will end.


If it just isnt practical to own large chunks of land then tell me why does Ted Turner own close to 2 million acres of land? You assume these landlords actually USE all the land the own. They don't.

----------


## redbluepill

> My point was that in that stateless society, all land is taken up by "corporations", communities, etc so no matter where you live you have to belong to one of them. It's essentially the same as citizenship of a state we have now, as all land is taken up by a community.


Never said that the geoist system would be universal if we had anarchism.

----------


## Roy L

> But then how do you compensate everyone whose liberty you're violating?


Compensate for what?  If there is no community, how much more advantageous can your location be than the next one?  "Everyone" meaning whom?  If there is no community, whose liberty are you violating?

If you are talking about a case of extreme scarcity between competing prospective users like Dirtowner Harry and Thirsty or Crusoe and Friday, then yes, you do owe compensation; but there is no market per se to value the land, so there can't be any LVT.  The compensation would just be set by the two of you bidding to compensate each other for whatever exclusive tenure privileges each of you wants.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His *labour* hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and_ hath_ thereby _appropriated to_ himself.
> 
> -------------------------
> 
> John Locke 
> Second Treatise of Government
> Chapter V - On Property
> Section 28-32
> 
> ...


I believe it was 10 pages ago or so that Roy declared Locke to An Evil Not To Be Trusted.  But, I hope he answers your question for you anyway.

----------


## Roy L

> Because States have a monopoly on violence.  Once established, they don't relinquish their power.


Bingo.  Anarchism can't compete with states in the power arena.  We HAD anarchism, for millions of years.  It lost to states because the latter are far more effective at wielding power.



> If Geoism works, why hasn't everyone accepted it?


It only works in the arenas of liberty, justice and prosperity.  Those arenas are different from the arena of popular acceptance, as the popular acceptance of slavery proved.



> (since you believe in and fancy yourself an expert in formal logic, you should know you just committed an ad populum fallacy )


No, I didn't.  Popularity is a different issue.

----------


## Roy L

> Au Contraire.  Geoists have to make up institutions out of thin air, as you've mentioned throughout this thread.


Which institutions would those be?  There is already a property tax in most places.  Nothing stops it from being levied only on land value (as is already done in a few places, with great success), and at a higher rate.  That's LVT.  It is the institution of private property in land that had to be made up out of thin air.



> Anarchists have dealt extensively with the economic framework of society and various institutions.


Extensively, but not convincingly.



> It's far more convincing than Geoist literature.


That is only your opinion, and it is not supported by fact.  Many great economists and other notable thinkers have been fully convinced by geoist analysis, including the founders of economics, the French physiocrats Quesnay and Turgot (Adam Smith owed most of his understanding of markets, division of labor, investment, and laissez faire to Turgot's writings).  Anarcho-nonsense hasn't convinced anyone but a few ninnies like Murray Rothbard.

----------


## Roy L

> My point was that in that stateless society, all land is taken up by "corporations", communities, etc so no matter where you live you have to belong to one of them. It's essentially the same as citizenship of a state we have now, as all land is taken up by a community.


Why do you think all land would be taken up?  It's true that states tend to be acquisitive of land, and eagerly claim authority over land they have no use for, but that's no different with corporations and individuals.  You have the same problem no matter how you arrange society: exclusive tenure to land violates people's rights to liberty.  You are complaining because you think (probably correctly) that geoist communities or states would forcibly remove your liberty to use the land in between their centers of population, but you claim the exact same power to remove others' rights to use that same land, which you want to claim as somehow being your "property."  Can't you see the blatant hypocrisy of your "argument"?

----------


## Roy L

> We're in agreement. I am considering the case where no one else is paying for the privilege.


Then we agree on that, too: there is no reason for government to take any action wrt land no one is paying rent for -- other than, perhaps, to invite people to consider whether they might not want secure exclusive tenure on it.

----------


## eduardo89

> Why do you think all land would be taken up?  It's true that states tend to be acquisitive of land, and eagerly claim authority over land they have no use for, but that's no different with corporations and individuals.  You have the same problem no matter how you arrange society: exclusive tenure to land violates people's rights to liberty.  You are complaining because you think (probably correctly) that geoist communities or states would forcibly remove your liberty to use the land in between their centers of population, but you claim the exact same power to remove others' rights to use that same land, which you want to claim as somehow being your "property."  Can't you see the blatant hypocrisy of your "argument"?


Its not hypocritical because I don't believe that owning land deprives anyone of any liberty. I think it's hypocritical that you advocate simply transferring the land title from individuals to government who can then use force to extort money from those who use the land. I think your position is hypocritical, you don't like individual land owners, but when the government or some geoist community owns it it's fine. 

To sum it up:
LVT = idiotic
Geoism = idiotic

----------


## Roy L

> We've already been through this about 30 pages ago.


Yes, and all you offered was your highly contrived re-interpretation of scripture to rationalize and justify the sins (very common among landowners) of pride, sloth and avarice.  I'm not going to argue interpretations of scripture, as it is known that the devil can quote it to his own purposes -- which certainly include yours.



> God gave Adam the title rights to the earth, and Adam passed those rights to his children, and so on and so on.  So the earth is declared by God as a specific sphere of human ownership, just like other earthly temporal possessions.


That's just indisputably false, as already proved.  The MOST you can possibly claim is that God gave Adam and his descendants a TENURE right to the earth.  There is nothing anywhere in scripture to indicate that God was granting a title of ownership rather than a right of tenure, and plenty to indicate that tenure was all God intended to grant, as Leviticus 25:23 shows.



> This is why there were laws against moving your neighbors boundary stones...ownership is implied in the commands against land theft.


Nope.  That's just a flat-out fabrication.  Boundary stones indicate only the limit of tenure rights, not a title of ownership.  This is proved, repeat, PROVED by the fact that in the ancient Celtic tradition, where there was no landowning, they were widely used to delimit the portions of village commons that were to be used by the various households in the village, who DID NOT OWN the land thus delimited and had to relinquish it to someone else in a succeeding year.  Legal historians are broadly agreed that while exclusive land *tenure* dates from the earliest settled agricultural societies, the institution of private *property* in land similar to the long-recognized property in products of labor was unknown before it was created under Roman law.  



> In regards to ownership, there is no distinction between land and other property in Scripture like you are making.


That's a flat-out fabrication.  The Biblical description of the jubilee explicitly states that the LAND is to be reapportioned from those who claim to own it to the heirs of the original holders -- *land and nothing else.*  Here:
_
"On the Knesset Web site, the Basic Law on Israel Lands (1960) states: "The ownership of Israel lands, being the lands in Israel of the State, the Development Authority or the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael [Jewish National Fund], shall not be transferred either by sale or in any other manner." Along comes a ministerial committee headed by the new prime minister, which hastily decides that Israel's lands will henceforth be marketed for sale and not for lease. Once again, the cabinet - a ministerial committee decision, as is known, is the same as a cabinet decision - has not responsibly and comprehensively scrutinized the initiative's significance.

The Israel Lands Administration needs basic reforms. But the decision to sell and not lease lands has far-reaching national-Zionist implications that could bring about grave fundamental changes. Not only is the decision a clear infraction of a Basic Law, it goes against one of the Jewish people's most ancient national and religious laws, the prohibition against selling the nation's land, even to its own people."_

The people who wrote that law have been studying those passages of scripture for over 3000 years.



> Biblically, the sun is not specified as an entity that is possible to be owned by _humans_,


And neither is land.



> but the sun is still owned.  That is why I said that you are fighting an entire universe of ownership.  The Creator is the owner of every molecule of His material creation.  Even alphabets and thoughts and those kinds of things are, in the final eternal sense, owned...because God is the ultimate cause of thought itself.  God used the Hebrew and Greek alphabets, for example, as instruments to communicate His Word to men.  Nothing, not even immaterial things like laws and thoughts, exist independent of the Creator's will.


What does it even mean to say that God owns everything, material and immaterial both?  That doesn't solve anything.



> So, as a Christian, I can take a step back and consider all the arguments for or against IP for example, and not have to make a specific declaration about it, even though I have my opinions on it.  But ownership in regards to land on this earth is something that I as a Christian have to make a specific declaration about, because God has given me the specific command of earthly dominion in Scripture and there are actual voluntary title transfers.


Dominion is only tenure, not ownership; and God specifically told you that land was NOT to be sold forever, "voluntary" title transfer or no voluntary title transfer.  If you can't sell it forever, it isn't your property.



> Well, anyway....  I have to thank you Roy, because you have really made me dig deep into my worldview to provide a justification for the things I am talking about.


Not quite deep _enough_, though...

----------


## sharkcity

> Land Value Tax on Wikipedia


Other taxes are illegal including the income tax..States can do whatever they want but they risk revolt and failure if they overstep -gotta love competition

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Yes, and all you offered was your highly contrived re-interpretation of scripture to rationalize and justify the sins (very common among landowners) of pride, sloth and avarice.  I'm not going to argue interpretations of scripture, as it is known that the devil can quote it to his own purposes -- which certainly include yours.


Aqua, you proud, slothful, avaricious devil you.

----------


## Danke

> The constitution provides excise taxes to fund federal operations
> 
> Other taxes are illegal including the income tax..States can do whatever they want but they risk revolt and failure if they overstep -gotta love competition


The income tax is an excise tax.

----------


## Roy L

> Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His *labour* hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and_ hath_ thereby _appropriated to_ himself.


The water in the pitcher has been removed from nature.  A location on the earth's surface can't be removed from nature.  It's always going to be exactly where nature put it, until we find a way to move the earth.



> John Locke   Second Treatise of Government
> Chapter V - On Property   Section 28-32
> 
> Sec. 28. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or 
> the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly 
> appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his.


Not so fast, John.  They are only rightly his if he did not deprive others of the opportunity to gather them.  If the people of the community have agreed among themselves that it is best for all if the wild apples are left on the tree until they are ripe, rather than being harvested too early on a grabbers-get basis, then going to clean out the tree the day before the agreed harvesting time does NOT gain rightful ownership of the apples.  Similarly, if others also know about and intend to pick up some of the acorns under that oak tree at the appointed time, going there first and picking up all the acorns plainly violates others' equal rights to access the resource.



> I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat? 
> or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? 
> and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else 
> could.


It may be plain to Locke, but as shown above, it is not clear they are rightly his at all.



> That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added 
> something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and 
> so they became his private right.


No, they did not become his private right if he deprived others of them, as explained above.



> And will any one say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his?


Blatant strawman fallacy.  It was not all mankind that had the opportunity and liberty to use the resources, and suffered a deprivation through his appropriation of them.



> Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common?


It may well have been, as explained above.



> If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him.


OTC, if Locke's principle of "grabbers get" had been generally accepted among our hunter-gatherer forebears, the apples would always have been harvested too early, and been sour and lacked nutrients; much time and effort would always have been wasted as acorn harvesters went to the tree when there were too few acorns on the ground to make the effort pay, out of fear of not getting any if a grabber took them all.  Not permitting the grabber to appropriate common resources to himself just by taking them first avoids the Tragedy of the Private.



> We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property;


No, appropriation of common property by private grabbers, with which Locke was surely familiar in the form of land enclosures, violates the pre-existing common right of use.



> without which the common is of no use.


Locke knew better than this.  The commons were of enormous use precisely because they could be used to PRODUCE what had not previously existed as common property; and the right to remove what was already there did not begin with the removal: rather, the removal was only rightful and permissible because the user had a pre-existing right to use the common for that purpose.



> And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners.


Perhaps not, but it *DOES* depend on the *institutional* consent of those who administer the common on *behalf* of all the commoners.  



> Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; 
> and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in 
> common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent 
> of any body.


Flat false, as proved above.  If permitted, such grabbers-get depredations would indeed result in a tragedy of the privatized commons.  Fortunately, real commons were not unmanaged, and thus avoided the tragic fate Locke's notion would have consigned them to.



> The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.


Garbage lacking any supporting facts or logic.  The only way labor secures a property right all by itself is when it produces a product using only resources that either no one else wanted, or that the user made just compensation for depriving others of.



> Sec. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any 
> one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children 
> or servants could not cut the meat, which their father or master had 
> provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar 
> part.


Strawman fallacy.  No one claims explicit and unanimous consent is needed, as institutions administer common resources on behalf of all.  The children and servants know what portion of the meat they are entitled to by tradition and institutional arrangements, and do not try to take more.



> Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can 
> doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath 
> taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged 
> equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself.


But only because the institution or trust administering use of the fountain on behalf of all who have a right to use it has recognized THAT much appropriation of the common resource as rightful and permissible in that it does not deprive others of their like use of it.  Take more than your share, leaving others without, and the property right in what is taken vanishes.



> Sec. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath 
> killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon 
> it, though before it was the common right of every one.


But only because no one is consequently deprived of their liberty, as there are plenty more deer like that one.



> And amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the 
> beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place;


LOL!  Locke lived in the time of the enclosures, and certainly knew better than to imagine they were based on any such principle.



> and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still 
> remaining common of mankind; or what ambergrise any one takes up here, is by 
> the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made 
> his property, who takes that pains about it.


Within the limits identified above.



> Sec. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns, 
> or other fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any one may 
> ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of 
> nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that 
> property too. God has given us all things richly, 1 Tim. vi. 12. is the 
> voice of reason confirmed by inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To 
> enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it 
> spoils, so much he may by his Labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond 
> this, is more than his share, and belongs to others.


OK, so Locke understands his claim above was indefensible.  He has just chosen an indefensible way of trying to make it defensible.



> Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. And thus, considering the plenty of natural provisions there was a long time in the world, and the few spenders; and to how small a part of that provision the industry of one man could extend 
> itself, and ingross it to the prejudice of others; especially keeping within 
> the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use; there could be 
> then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established.


ROTFL!!  Wishful thinking refuted by all history.  OTC, there must be from the outset an established principle that wherever one's appropriation of common resources works to the prejudice or injury of others, depriving them of what they would otherwise be at liberty to use, just compensation is due for the damages thus inflicted.



> Sec. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the 
> earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that 
> which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that 
> property in that too is acquired as the former.


But in fact it plainly isn't, as the earth itself -- and the locations on its surface -- cannot be removed from nature by labor as food growing wild can, nor can it be produced by labor as crops and domestic animals can.



> *As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property.*


We've already seen that in addition to not being the case for more than a microscopic fraction of all the land that is owned in the world, this claim can't be true, as it implies the landless have no rights to life or liberty.



> He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common.


Locke knew that was not how the commons were being enclosed, and he hasn't provided any factual or logical support for his claim anyway.



> Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has an equal title to 
> it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the 
> consent of all his fellow-commoners, all mankind.


Right: he can't rightly enclose it even *WITH* the consent of all mankind, because they cannot rightly dispose of the rights of generations unborn.



> God, when he gave the world in common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him. God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay 
> out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to 
> this command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby 
> annexed to it something that was his property, which another had no title 
> to, nor could without injury take from him.


I.e., the product of his labor.  Not the location where it was produced, as that cannot be taken from others without injury.

----------


## Roy L

> Its not hypocritical because I don't believe that owning land deprives anyone of any liberty.


Well, it's just self-evident and indisputable that owning land deprives others of their liberty, as we have already established; but if it were not true, then you would presumably have no objection to geoist communities administering -- effectively owning in trust -- all the land between them, as it would not deprive *you* of any liberty.



> I think it's hypocritical that you advocate simply transferring the land title from individuals to government who can then use force to extort money from those who use the land.


You are certainly industrious at finding multiple ways to be wrong.

I *don't* advocate transferring the land titles from private owners (the great majority of land by value in the USA is owned by corporations, not individuals, btw) to government, and it is *private* landowners who *currently* use *government force* to extort money from those who use the land.  With LVT, payment of compensation for depriving others of the land becomes a voluntary, market-based, value-for-value transaction:_ it is GOVERNMENT AND THE COMMUNITY THAT ARE CREATING THE LAND'S VALUE, AND THEREFORE HAVE A RIGHT TO RECOVER IT FROM THE USER._

Private landowners are *not* the ones creating that value, and they therefore have _NO_ right to pocket it.



> I think your position is hypocritical, you don't like individual land owners, but when the government or some geoist community owns it it's fine.


Wrong again.  I also don't want any private interest owning the earth's atmosphere or the oceans, but I think it's fine for governments to administer those resources in trust to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all.  THAT'S GOVERNMENT'S JOB.  You could with equal "logic" claim it is hypocritical of me to oppose private ownership of nuclear weapons, while agreeing that governments can rightly own them.  It's just idiotic.



> To sum it up:
> LVT = idiotic
> Geoism = idiotic


Eduardo = just sad, now.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Perhaps not, but it *DOES* depend on the *institutional* consent of those who administer the common on *behalf* of all the commoners.


Not "does" - "would" - hypothetical future tense - assuming an administrational institution having such a directive was established. Even Locke was not speaking in terms of then existing ways or institutions, but what he thought, right or wrong, were axiomatic, or self-evident normatives, as principles.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Private landowners are *not* the ones creating that value, and they therefore have _NO_ right to pocket it.


Not in the case of all landowners. Like you said, if there is no community, how much more advantageous can their location be than the next one? If there is no community, whose liberty are they violating?

----------


## Roy L

> Not "does" - "would" - hypothetical future tense - assuming an administrational institution having such a directive was established. Even Locke was not speaking in terms of then existing ways or institutions, but what he thought, right or wrong, were axiomatic, or self-evident normatives, as principles.


There has to be some way the commoners are living together and sharing access to common resources, and Locke's "express consent of all the commoners" is still a strawman.

----------


## Roy L

> Not in the case of all landowners. Like you said, if there is no community, how much more advantageous can their location be than the next one?


And therefore, how much value can it have?  Remember, the Law of Rent compares the economic advantage of a good site with that of a marginal one.  If there is no one else around, there is a pretty good chance you are on marginal or near-marginal land.



> If there is no community, whose liberty are they violating?


Right.  And how much value can the land have?

----------


## redbluepill

You know guys, after watching the debate tonight I got thinking. There will always be issues that even libertarians will argue over. And while the LVT is a very important issue to me, seeing Ron Paul get booed over the golden rule and Romney applauded for supporting the NDAA makes me thank god for the posters on ronpaulforums. If Ron Paul did not have such a fervent following I'd lose all faith in humanity.

----------


## Tim Calhoun

Can't. Let. Thread. Die.

----------


## eduardo89

> Can't. Let. Thread. Die.


Roy seems to be on vacation.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Can't. Let. Thread. Die.


BAD Canuck. Bad, BAD Canuck.  You trying to start a riot?

----------


## Roy L

> Roy seems to be on vacation.


What's left to demolish?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VCcvdrhn3M

----------


## eduardo89

> What's left to demolish?
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VCcvdrhn3M


My home since I haven't paid my LVT

----------


## Sola_Fide

> My home since I haven't paid my LVT


You cretinous liar!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

You still haven't insulted _my_ family members, decrying them as disgustingly evil and vile.  There are also a few third-world tin pot dictators who have yet to be lauded by you as heroes.

If you're going to crush evil and celebrate good, you should be thorough.  Don't just pick off the relatives of a single poster -- crush them all!  I want to hear about _my_ great-grandparents' reprehensibility.  Otherwise, you lose all credibility in my eyes.

----------


## furface

Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here.  The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time.  For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the Queen of England uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land.  This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me.  It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.

The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land.  It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources.  Neither is the "community value" concept.  Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.  

In general all economic markets are community based, so LVT seems to be an argument for pure socialism by claiming that communities create wealth, therefore all wealth should be collectivized.

Back to my semantic argument.  I think that a better way of looking at natural resource ownership is the concept of equitable natural resource ownership in another thread I started here.  Queen Elizabeth II's land should be taxed.  People with one family residence & perhaps a plot of land to do business on should not be taxed.

This is getting down to the core of what private property & ownership is and why societies have a vested interest in protecting it.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> ...there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.
> Queen Elizabeth II's land should be taxed.  People with one family residence & perhaps a plot of land to do business on should not be taxed.


 You can't help the little guy by setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution and instructing it to be on the side of the little guy.  Think about it for *TWO* *SECONDS*!  

Why are the powerful going to be hurting themselves?  

Why is Queen Elizabeth II going to tax her own land?

It makes no sense!

That is an delusion which is really, really common and really, really important for us to point out as naive.  It's one of the LVters' and other pro-tax pro-collectivism anti-market people's most favoritest and closely-held delusions.  Government is of the little people, by the little people.  It protects us and watches out for our interests.  Private men, in contrast, care only about their private interests and are devoted to furthering their own wealth by crushing the little people and maiming their children in coal mines.  Governments aren't perfect, they have problems, sure.  When we see those problems, we vote in new people to fix the problems and things are fixed.  After all that's what I learned in Social Studies in 5th grade.  I don't need to think any further than that, right?  I mean, what could be more sophisticated than the truths I learned in my 5th grade education camp? And no one can tell me that it was biased just because it was run by interested parties.  That's loony conspiracy talk.  When a private man has a problem, we have no recourse.  We can't vote in a new landlord or new mine owner.  We're just stuck.  that's the difference between the responsive, caring, accountable government and the callous, out-of-control, hegemonic Business-Man or Land-Lord.

The Nation-State: Our Friend.  Our happy friend.  Our loyal friend.  The only one protecting us from the voracious and deadly predations of the evil private interests.

----------


## furface

Helmuth, thanks for replying.  I'd like to clear something up if you don't mind.

Who exactly benefits by not taxing QEII's land?

1. Does everybody benefit?

2. Does QEII benefit?

3. Is the question irrelevant?

----------


## eduardo89

> Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here.  The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time.  For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the *Queen of England* uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land.  This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me.  It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.


There is no "Queen of England". England has not had its own crown since 1707. She is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of 16 other countries (all separate crowns).

----------


## furface

> There is no "Queen of England".


Thanks for pointing that out.  You learn something new every day, I guess.

----------


## eduardo89

> Thanks for pointing that out.  You learn something new every day, I guess.


Glad you learned something from my nitpicking

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Helmuth, thanks for replying.  I'd like to clear something up if you don't mind.
> 
> Who exactly benefits by not taxing QEII's land?


 I had to think about this for a while trying to craft the perfect and most accurate answer, partly because I am not British.  So let's change the scenario to one more familiar and American.

The Queen is part of the government apparatus in Great Britain, correct?  So, this question is equivalent to asking "who exactly benefits by not taxing Barack Obama?".  In the end, the question is irrelevant, option 3.  100% of Obama's salary comes from the government -- from tax revenues.  Likewise, all the Queen's land and other wealth came from taxation.  For Obama to tax himself is just taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other.  If Obama pays a 50% tax, it's the same as if he just took a 50% pay cut.  The government still has the same amount of money either way, whether it spends it on Obama's hamburger or a new toilet seat in Baghdad.  So while I am absolutely opposed to taxation, it's impossible for me to care whether the taxers themselves are taxed.  It's just a fiction and an irrelevancy.  People whose sole subsistence is taxation cannot pay taxes.  The Queen absolutely cannot, by the rules of logic, pay any taxes.  100% of her wealth came from taxes.  Even to give 100% of it back would just make her a net break-even -- no longer a tax-eater.  To be a tax payer, she'd have to give all of it back, then go get a real job, then pay taxes on that.

To answer 2.: Obviously the Queen benefits from owning vast tracts of land.  To answer 1.: It is not clear that anyone would benefit from taxing that land, other than the other parasites in the government, which would have that much more money and power directed to themselves rather than the Queen.  

The right thing to do would be an attempt at redress of grievances of some kind.  The people whose land was stolen, or whose property was stolen to pay for land, they or their heirs should be allowed to bring suit against the Queen and be compensated.

----------


## Roy L

> My home since I haven't paid my LVT


Why even bother saying something so stupid and dishonest?  If you couldn't afford to compensate the community for what you take from others by violating their rights to liberty, you would just sell your house and seek accommodation better suited to your needs and means, much as people do now if they find they can't afford to continue paying their  mortgage, credit card bills, alimony, medical insurance, property taxes, etc.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land.  It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources.  Neither is the "community value" concept.  Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.


It would be more precise to say that Rare Earth metals are worthless without _a technologically-based infrastructure_.  Not community-based. This is proved by the fact that Rare-Earth metals processing does not require the existence of artisans, barbers, antique dealers, blacksmiths, and a whole host of entities that might belong to a surrounding "community".  The value of the final Rare Earth metals product cannot be increased by the existence of such entities, which are completely incidental.  

Words like "related" and "based" (e.g., "alcohol related" or "community based") are generalities that attempt to impute CAUSAL relevance or value where none may exist. For example, a statistic on "alcohol related" deaths (rather than the more intellectually honest "alcohol caused") may include an automobile accident that involved someone who was driving home from a bar, even though no alcohol was consumed or involved in any way -- which makes the "related" statistic, to that degree, meaningless.  

Likewise, the Georgist/Geoist concept of "community based" value of land attempts (what I consider a logical impossibility) to view land rent independent and irrespective of "land improvements", or anything that is produced on that land.  In other words, what *"nature, government and the community"* provides is the value of the land rent, completely separate and independent from the value of whatever you do to/on the land, which is seen only as "taking benefit" from what nature, government and the community provided.  

Along with the fundamental tenet that all "community members" have a natural liberty right of access to _all that nature provides_ - nature, government and community are combined, Vulcan-like mind-melded together, as one interrelated, land value-causing entity.  Thus, anyone making exclusive use of land is "taking" (stealing, if taken without compensation) value that has been "provided" by this singularized/collectivized *NatureGovernmentCommunity* entity. 

To me, that's not just a pretzel of convoluted reasoning - it's more like a funnel cake. A web spun by funnel cake spiders.

----------


## Roy L

> You still haven't insulted _my_ family members, decrying them as disgustingly evil and vile.


Post the evidence that they are, and I might oblige.



> There are also a few third-world tin pot dictators who have yet to be lauded by you as heroes.


Which third world tin pot dictator have I lauded?  Or are you just deliberately lying again?



> If you're going to crush evil and celebrate good, you should be thorough.  Don't just pick off the relatives of a single poster -- crush them all!  I want to hear about _my_ great-grandparents' reprehensibility.  Otherwise, you lose all credibility in my eyes.


Were you under an erroneous impression that you were contributing something worthwhile to the discussion?

----------


## Roy L

> Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here.


There are indeed.  The founders of neoclassical economics changed the definition of "capital" to include land, and changed the definition of "rent" to denote how MUCH a factor payment is, rather than how it is obtained.



> The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time.  For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the Queen of England uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land.  This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me.  It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.


Others here will be quick to inform you that identifying such facts only proves that you are envious of those who are more successful than you.



> The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land.  It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources.


The difference is that excluding others from using natural resources deprives them of liberty and opportunity *they would otherwise have*.  Excluding them from using a product of labor doesn't, as the product did not otherwise exist.



> Neither is the "community value" concept.  Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.


They are also, unlike land and other natural resources, worthless without the labor and investment of those who extract them from the earth, refine them, etc.



> In general all economic markets are community based, so LVT seems to be an argument for pure socialism by claiming that communities create wealth, therefore all wealth should be collectivized.


No.  Please try to find a willingness to know the fact that the value of rare earth elements in the ground, as natural ore, is created by the community, but the DIFFERENCE in value between that ore and the REEs when mined, refined and ready to use is produced by the folks who invested to create the mining machinery and infrastructure, performed the labor, etc.  Those who are willing to know that fact are good, honest and virtuous champions of liberty, justice and truth.  Those who are not willing to know it are vile, evil, despicable filth who lie to rationalize privilege and justify injustice.



> Back to my semantic argument.  I think that a better way of looking at natural resource ownership is the concept of equitable natural resource ownership in another thread I started here.  Queen Elizabeth II's land should be taxed.  People with one family residence & perhaps a plot of land to do business on should not be taxed.


Modern LVT proposals typically include a flat, universal individual exemption for secure tenure on sufficient land for a normal person to live on (or, second best, an equivalent citizens' dividend).  In practice, most people would pay little or no net LVT, and would be far better off than under the current system.



> This is getting down to the core of what private property & ownership is and why societies have a vested interest in protecting it.


That is exactly correct.

----------


## Roy L

> You can't help the little guy by setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution and instructing it to be on the side of the little guy.  Think about it for *TWO* *SECONDS*!


No one has suggested "setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution," so you can stop lying.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: you can't.

The LVT authority would be microscopically small compared to current taxing authorities, and would have one (1) power: to secure the tenure of those who paid the tax.



> Why are the powerful going to be hurting themselves?  
> 
> Why is Queen Elizabeth II going to tax her own land?


You have a very peculiar notion of how democratic government works.



> It makes no sense!


No objection to LVT ever makes any sense.



> That is an delusion which is really, really common and really, really important for us to point out as naive.


"Justice?  Liberty?  Fuggettaboutit!" is not a new objection to LVT.  But it remains a pretty amusing one.



> It's one of the LVters' and other pro-tax pro-collectivism anti-market people's most favoritest and closely-held delusions.


LVT is a voluntary, *market-based*, value-for-value transaction; LVT with a universal individual exemption is the *only* way to restore the _equal individual right to liberty_; and LVT would render much current government spending unnecessary, _REDUCING TOTAL TAXES_, so *STOP LYING*.



> Government is of the little people, by the little people.  It protects us and watches out for our interests.


Only when we, as voters, watch out for our own interests.  The absence of LVT shows how poorly we have been doing that so far.  It doesn't show we can never do any better.



> Private men, in contrast, care only about their private interests and are devoted to furthering their own wealth by crushing the little people and maiming their children in coal mines.


More accurately, the incentive structure of a privilege-based economy _makes_ private interests rob, starve, enslave and kill others for profit whether they intend to do so or not.



> Governments aren't perfect, they have problems, sure.  When we see those problems, we vote in new people to fix the problems and things are fixed.  After all that's what I learned in Social Studies in 5th grade.  I don't need to think any further than that, right?


Well, at any rate you _haven't_ thought any further...



> I mean, what could be more sophisticated than the truths I learned in my 5th grade education camp? And no one can tell me that it was biased just because it was run by interested parties.  That's loony conspiracy talk.  When a private man has a problem, we have no recourse.  We can't vote in a new landlord or new mine owner.  We're just stuck.  that's the difference between the responsive, caring, accountable government and the callous, out-of-control, hegemonic Business-Man or Land-Lord.


<yawn>  It's not like much smarter people than you have never thought about these things, Steven.



> The Nation-State: Our Friend.  Our happy friend.  Our loyal friend.  The only one protecting us from the voracious and deadly predations of the evil private interests.


Bingo, as Somalia proves.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> There are indeed.  The founders of neoclassical economics changed the definition of "capital" to include land, and changed the definition of "rent" to denote how MUCH a factor payment is, rather than how it is obtained.


Land is a factor of production in neoclassical (and classical) economics, not capital.

----------


## furface

Helmuth, the reason I asked the question is that in my view there has to be some sort of equation that optimizes something for some group of people when deciding to levy taxes or not.  If you claim the Queen benefits from not being taxed, I believe that it is easy to prove that ultimately she would benefit from paying taxes.  The reason is that market driven economies require markets. If all the money is tied up in within a small group of people, there are no markets.  If you're not trying to optimize well being for everybody, and like to just see people suffer, I guess it would make sense that the Queen not pay taxes.

Steven, property values are indeed a combination of a lot of things.  Land is one of the best examples of that.  I would argue that land in Manhattan for instance is not naturally valuable.  It's valuable because of a State driven monetary monopoly that creates artificial demand for property on Wall Street, Madison Ave, etc.  The same would go for some place like London, although I think London is a pretty cool place regardless of the fact that the remnants of the British Empire uses it as its base. 

I think that pure "community" has very little to do with it in a broad sense.  OWNERSHIP makes communities valuable, and communities that have low ownership rates tend to be very depressed.  Governments can mess with this rule for a while if they are allowed to print money arbitrarily and hand it out, but eventually it will catch up like it's doing in the US and all over Europe.

Better to give people zero interest loans and encourage true ownership, which is mortgage free ownership on property, than to have this nutty system of taxation, bureaucratic mayhem, and then redistribution.  Empower people with ownership and then leave them alone.  If they can't make things work, at that point they deserve to be slaves, but at least give them the chance.

I have a problem with excessive resource driven wealth without taxation, though.  That has nothing to do with the benefits of one's labor.  It has to do with governments protecting a privileged class of people to the detriment of the working class.  I also have a problem with taxing anybody people merely to hand over to government unions.  Put money into the hands of individual people, not government.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Please try to find a willingness to know the fact that the value of rare earth elements in the ground, as natural ore, is created by the community...


furface, you can expect a lot of that ("find a willingness to know") on Roy's part. Know that your "unwillingness to know" can and will be used against you in a court of Roy, as evidence that you are LYING.

Note that no distinction is ever made with reference to those actual do value the ore, or which community members are bona fide parties of interest in that ore. They are all considered parties of interest, all having "provided value" which is not attributed to any specific community members, but rather a nebulous collective blob that is simply labeled "community", which fully encompasses all members therein, equally, and without regard to individual contributions. In other words, the "community value" portion of land value, as provided by "the community" is entirely collectivized/socialized.  

One of the tenets of geolibertarianism (at least as espoused by Roy), is the premise that exclusive use of land means that ALL OTHERS (jointly and severally in that community) have been excluded from using natural resources, which deprives them of liberty and opportunity *they would otherwise have*. In this context, liberty and opportunity means nothing more than OPTIONS to access and usage, not the resources themselves.  

In a functioning economy (of any type), it is possible to identify those who actually DO use a resource, in contrast with those who merely had an option, but did not exercise it.  In Roy's hypothetical framework of "liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have", EVERYONE in a community is identified as someone who _has been deprived_.  This is true, in that they have been deprived of what otherwise would have been an OPTION for them. However, the only ones who could be said to have been deprived of the resource itself would be those who would *otherwise would have exercised their option, had it existed*.  And that is not everyone.  

A farmer and a barber, for example, each of whom might otherwise have had no intention of becoming a miner, cannot be said to have been deprived *of a resource*, _but only of the option_ to common access to a resource, whether or not it was available, valued or wanted.  And what value, in the real world, is an option that is _freely available_, but not otherwise exercised? Zero. Hence, what value deprivation can there be for something you *otherwise would not have wanted* anyway? Again, zero. 

Doesn't matter to Roy, it all constitutes a deprivation, as even the un-exercised "otherwise" options are valued as if that option would otherwise _have been_ exercised - by anyone and everyone.

----------


## Steven Douglas

*Afterthought, using Disneyland as an example:*  Out of all the value of all the land upon which Disneyland rests, in Roy's mind ZERO LAND VALUE can be attributed to Disney for anything built or done on that particular 17 acres of Magic Kingdom land. Everything Disney built above ground, yes, but the land value itself: it is Disney who is TAKING value that, in Roy's mind, was "provided by" Nature-Government-Community _alone_.  

Now, as a MEMBER of the community of that time, Disney, by virtue of the creation of Disneyland and its mere existence, did, in fact, DIRECTLY cause an increase in the value of immediate surrounding lands, which did skyrocket in price by virtue of that fact alone, even before Disneyland opened.  Now, does Disney get any proportional credit whatsoever for "Community Provided Value" for this?  No. Not at all under Roy's LVT regime.  Disneyland is only a TAKER OF PROVIDED VALUE - not a giver in any way; a DEPRIVER of liberty and access to resources that others would otherwise have" (if Disney/Disneyland did not exist).  And Walt Disney himself - why, he was just one more community member, like anyone else, whose "community contribution" could be counted no differently than any minimum wage employee working on the outskirts of town.

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## helmuth_hubener

> LVT is voluntary


See definition _voluntary_.

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## eduardo89

> See definition _voluntary_.


Thread winner.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Helmuth, the reason I asked the question is that in my view there has to be some sort of equation that optimizes something for some group of people when deciding to levy taxes or not.


My view differs.  I look out on the world and ask myself, "Self, ought people to take other people's stuff without permission?"  

And I answer myself: "No, self, they ought not to do that."  

So then I ask: "Is taxation an act which is defined as taking other people's stuff without permission?"  

"Yes, yes, it definitely is; no avoiding that," comes the reply.  

"So," my selves agree in unison, "Taxation ought not to exist."

As you can see, my view is colored by bright, bold, and unapologetic hues of morality.  You may or may not be able to relate to that.  Your own glasses may tint the world differently.  Morality has rather gone out of style the last few decades; few believers in it are left, and I expect practitioners may dwindle soon as well unless the belief is shored up.





> I have a problem with excessive resource driven wealth without taxation, though.


I don't.  But even if I did, because such wealth is not immoral I would find it immoral and thus unacceptable to take these people's "excessive" stuff without their permission in an attempt to solve the problem.  It is immoral to take other people's stuff without permission.  It is also uncivilized.  It also shows bad breeding.  To engage in or advocate such behavior should be a shame and a reproach among decent society.






> furface, you can expect a lot of that ("find a willingness to know") on Roy's part. Know that your "unwillingness to know" can and will be used against you in a court of Roy, as evidence that you are LYING.


 I have already proven to my own satisfaction that "Roy" is merely an obnoxiously-programmed Turing machine -- able to emulate human-like interaction, yes, but only in a very narrow scope.  It provides a fun, hilarious, and useful foil.  But I have already found all of its forks.  The programmer was obnoxious, but also lazy -- all the forks are pretty brief, curving back to the main "You're lying! I hate you!" trunk in short order.

----------


## Roy L

> I had to think about this for a while trying to craft the perfect and most accurate answer,


You misspelled, "a suitably cretinous lie."



> partly because I am not British.  So let's change the scenario to one more familiar and American.


Without reading any further, I know that Helmuth will now say something fallacious, absurd and dishonest.



> The Queen is part of the government apparatus in Great Britain, correct?  So, this question is equivalent to asking "who exactly benefits by not taxing Barack Obama?".


No, such a claim is of course fallacious, absurd, and dishonest.  And stupid.  Thank you for proving my prophecy correct.



> In the end, the question is irrelevant, option 3.


You have to pretend it is irrelevant, because the objectively true answer proves that your belief system is false, vicious, and evil.



> 100% of Obama's salary comes from the government -- from tax revenues.  Likewise, all the Queen's land and other wealth came from taxation.


Obviously, that's just another bald lie from you.  The land was there before there were any taxes, and it was obtained by forcible military conquest, not taxation.  Everything you say to rationalize and justify landowner privilege always has to be a lie.



> For Obama to tax himself is just taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other.


Obama does not levy taxes.  That is purely another stupid lie from you.



> If Obama pays a 50% tax, it's the same as if he just took a 50% pay cut.  The government still has the same amount of money either way, whether it spends it on Obama's hamburger or a new toilet seat in Baghdad.  So while I am absolutely opposed to taxation, it's impossible for me to care whether the taxers themselves are taxed.  It's just a fiction and an irrelevancy.  People whose sole subsistence is taxation cannot pay taxes.


That claim is also, of course, dishonest and stupid.  Both Obama the the Queen have other sources of income, and the Queen's landholdings were not obtained by taxation.  You just always have to lie.  ALWAYS.



> The Queen absolutely cannot, by the rules of logic, pay any taxes.


That is, by the rules of logic, just another stupid lie.



> 100% of her wealth came from taxes.


That is, by the rules of logic, nothing but another stupid lie.



> Even to give 100% of it back would just make her a net break-even -- no longer a tax-eater.  To be a tax payer, she'd have to give all of it back, then go get a real job, then pay taxes on that.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you, Helmuth.  People who pay taxes may pay on their consumption, on their real estate holdings, etc., not just on their "jobs" (actually their wages).  Many people who pay taxes -- e.g., retirees -- have no job to pay taxes on.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You are just vomiting stupid lie after stupid lie.  Everyone reading this knows you are vomiting stupid lies, including you.  There is no way for those who oppose LVT to say anything except to vomit stupid lies.  And so you always have to vomit stupid lies.



> To answer 2.: Obviously the Queen benefits from owning vast tracts of land.  To answer 1.: It is not clear that anyone would benefit from taxing that land, other than the other parasites in the government, which would have that much more money and power directed to themselves rather than the Queen.


No, Helmuth, you know very well that that is just another stupid lie you are vomiting.  The British government's tax revenue is not just given to those in the government to spend on their own personal priorities.  It is devoted to public purposes and benefit according to rules of legal and democratic accountability.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You are just telling stupid lies about it, because you have already realized that the truth proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> The right thing to do would be an attempt at redress of grievances of some kind.


Like the people whose liberty to use the land -- and all other privately owned land -- was forcibly removed without just compensation.



> The people whose land was stolen,


I.e., all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.  Right.



> or whose property was stolen to pay for land, they or their heirs should be allowed to bring suit against the Queen and be compensated.


See?  You have to pretend people never had any right to liberty whose loss must rightly be compensated, because that is the only way you can evade the fact that you are rationalizing and justifying theft and extortion on a massive, monstrous scale.

Two Holocausts a year, Helmuth.  How proud the Fatherland must be of you.

----------


## Roy L

> It would be more precise to say that Rare Earth metals are worthless without _a technologically-based infrastructure_.


No, it wouldn't.



> Not community-based. This is proved by the fact that Rare-Earth metals processing does not require the existence of artisans, barbers, antique dealers, blacksmiths, and a whole host of entities that might belong to a surrounding "community".  The value of the final Rare Earth metals product cannot be increased by the existence of such entities, which are completely incidental.


False.  REEs are used in many products that such people want to buy.  Their labor creates the purchasing power that boosts demand for and thus value of REEs.



> Likewise, the Georgist/Geoist concept of "community based" value of land attempts (what I consider a logical impossibility) to view land rent independent and irrespective of "land improvements", or anything that is produced on that land.


All competent real estate appraisers are aware of the fact that land value is independent of what is produced on the land.



> In other words, what *"nature, government and the community"* provides is the value of the land rent, completely separate and independent from the value of whatever you do to/on the land, which is seen only as "taking benefit" from what nature, government and the community provided.


Correct.  And indisputable.



> Along with the fundamental tenet that all "community members" have a natural liberty right of access to _all that nature provides_


That is not a "tenet" but an indisputable physical fact.  Absent initiation of force by others, all are physically at liberty to access and use all that nature provides, just as our hunter-gatherer ancestors accessed and used it.



> - nature, government and community are combined, Vulcan-like mind-melded together, as one interrelated, land value-causing entity.


No, they are quite distinct in how they produce land value, each contributing its own distinct type of advantage.



> Thus, anyone making exclusive use of land is "taking" (stealing, if taken without compensation) value that has been "provided" by this singularized/collectivized *NatureGovernmentCommunity* entity.


There is no such entity.  You are just lying about what I have plainly written.  As usual.



> To me, that's not just a pretzel of convoluted reasoning - it's more like a funnel cake. A web spun by funnel cake spiders.


It is a pretzel of funnel cake web spider convoluted unreason spinning because YOU MADE IT UP.

----------


## Roy L

> Land is a factor of production in neoclassical (and classical) economics, not capital.


Wrong.  Capital is a factor of production in both classical and neoclassical economics; but neoclassical economics generally considers land a type of capital.

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## Roy L

> Helmuth, the reason I asked the question is that in my view there has to be some sort of equation that optimizes something for some group of people when deciding to levy taxes or not.


Two concepts you should be aware of: the "incidence" of taxation (who actually pays the tax -- it is rarely all paid by the nominal remitter of the tax), and the "excess burden" of taxation (the economic loss to society occasioned by a tax over and above the revenue it raises).



> If you claim the Queen benefits from not being taxed, I believe that it is easy to prove that ultimately she would benefit from paying taxes.


No, you can't prove that because it's false.  She benefits by SOMEONE paying taxes, but loses those benefits to the extent that it is her.



> The reason is that market driven economies require markets. If all the money is tied up in within a small group of people, there are no markets.  If you're not trying to optimize well being for everybody, and like to just see people suffer, I guess it would make sense that the Queen not pay taxes.


Again, there is plenty of money around to sustain markets without the Queen having to contribute any.



> I think that pure "community" has very little to do with it in a broad sense.  OWNERSHIP makes communities valuable, and communities that have low ownership rates tend to be very depressed.


The four European countries with the highest rates of homeownership: Bulgaria, Italy, Ireland and Spain.  The latter three are poster children for financial disaster, unemployment, and economic depression.  The European country with the lowest rate of homeownership: Germany, which also has Europe's strongest economy.  You stand refuted.



> Governments can mess with this rule for a while if they are allowed to print money arbitrarily and hand it out, but eventually it will catch up like it's doing in the US and all over Europe.


Almost all money in advanced countries is created by private banks in the course of lending, not by government.



> Better to give people zero interest loans and encourage true ownership, which is mortgage free ownership on property, than to have this nutty system of taxation, bureaucratic mayhem, and then redistribution.


That cannot work as a matter of immutable economic law.  Low interest loans simply increase the price demanded for land, according to the Net Present Value Equation.  That is what happened to Japan in the 1980s, and to the US housing market in 1995-2007.  All it does is increase the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.  Like most other things governments do for the putative benefit of working people.



> Empower people with ownership and then leave them alone.  If they can't make things work, at that point they deserve to be slaves, but at least give them the chance.


The best way to empower people with ownership is to make that ownership rightful, by requiring payment of the land's full rental value to the community of those who create that value and whom the owner deprives of it, and levying no tax on the privately created value of  improvements, wages, capital, consumption, etc.



> I have a problem with excessive resource driven wealth without taxation, though.  That has nothing to do with the benefits of one's labor.  It has to do with governments protecting a privileged class of people to the detriment of the working class.


You are objectively correct.  However, lying apologists for privilege and injustice here will tell you that you are a socialist, a communist, envious of your betters, etc. because you have identified that fact.



> I also have a problem with taxing anybody people merely to hand over to government unions.  Put money into the hands of individual people, not government.


Government (and most other) unions are an example of rent seeking.  The usual pattern with private unions is that they slowly bankrupt their employers.  Government (and utility monopoly) unions simply take more and more from taxpayers and consumers: because there is a double layer of monopoly, there is no accountability.

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## Roy L

> See definition _voluntary_.


I have.  *LVT is voluntary* because you are only required to pay for what you take, same as the _voluntary_ purchases you make at the grocery store.  You are merely accustomed to walking out of the store without paying for what you take, so now when it is suggested that you *should* pay for what you take, you become indignant, and claim that such a payment would not be voluntary.  But in fact it is the loss of what you have been taking without payment that is not voluntary.  It is stealing on your part.  You just want to go on stealing because you like it, and that's the truth.  So you lie, and claim that being required to pay for what you take is not a voluntary transaction.

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## Steven Douglas

> False.  REEs are used in many products that such people want to buy.  Their labor creates the purchasing power that boosts demand for and thus value of REEs.


::: BUZZZZZ ::: Thanks for playing!  Roy, you could pass a law forbidding consumption of all Hershey's chocolate and other Hersheys products in any community where one of its factories is established, and Hershey's *wouldn't even feel it*.  So much for "boosted purchasing power" to Hersheys from the so-called "Community Provided Value".  That is NEGLIGIBLE, so quit lying, Roy, it's evil.  Likewise, every resident in the Anaheim and Ocala areas could be forbidden by law to patronize Disneyland and Disneyworld, and _Disney wouldn't feel a thing_. That hole in the bucket would be instantly filled. So much for your little village model of "Community Provided Value".    




> All competent real estate appraisers are aware of the fact that land value is independent of what is produced on the land.


No true Scotsman fallacy. Ergo, only an "incompetent" real estate appraiser would argue otherwise.  Stop your habitual use of evil lying fallacies, Roy. It's downright creepy.  




> - nature, government and community are combined, Vulcan-like mind-melded together, as one interrelated, land value-causing entity.
> 			
> 		
> 
> No, they are quite distinct in how they produce land value, each contributing its own distinct type of advantage.


Yeah, and three fictitious value "creators" are all melded together as One Rationale for a Single Tax:  

*NATURE:*  The only true provider, tied into a fictitious natural "otherwise would have been at liberty" right.
*GOVERNMENT:* Run-of-the-mill, dime a dozen infrastructure - the only rightful SLAVE which is OWNED IN COMMON, puffed up and taking "value" credit where none is due. 
*COMMUNITY:*  A fictitious, nebulous blob, where unnamed individuals are imputed to be equal contributors, which "community" somehow "provides" value to land, which must therefore be compensated. 

Again, all melded together as a combined rationale for a single tax.  




> Thus, anyone making exclusive use of land is "taking" (stealing, if taken without compensation) value that has been "provided" by this singularized/collectivized NatureGovernmentCommunity entity.
> 			
> 		
> 
> There is no such entity.  You are just lying about what I have plainly written.  As usual.


You know that you believe there is, Roy. Of course you do. Even separate they are inseparable in your mind - as combined rationale for One Tax.  It is the very foundation of your LVT Geolibertarian House of Cards.  Three entities - which, combined, "create" ALL land value - Nature, Government, and Community. By virtue of three fictions derived from each, a landowner can be seen as "taking" from others by virtue of occupation and usage to the exclusion of all others, and by a commonly held fictitious liberty right, outright confiscation - theft - can be spun to mean "just compensation".  

Meanwhile, the very real landowner "rights", which really do now exist as rights, not privileges, are referred to by you only as landowner "privilege".  That's how you make what is fiction real, and what is real fiction.  In your mind.  

Nature, Government, Community is your mantra, Roy, one that you repeat ad nauseam as that which "provides" all land value - it is your Geoist Creed and Holy LVT Trinity that gives rise to One Taxer, Indivisible, with collective control of all lands and rent collected for all.  Forever and ever, Amen.

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## Roy L

> My view differs.  I look out on the world and ask myself, "Self, ought people to take other people's stuff without permission?"


But Helmuth's looking out on the world does not include any actual looking at just exactly HOW those people's "stuff" came to be "their" stuff.  In the particular case of land, he simply declares that it was initially rightly appropriated as someone's stuff by "homesteading" -- and delicately ignores the fact that he cannot identify a single square inch of privately owned land, anywhere on earth, whose current title of ownership can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an original appropriator who came to possess it without the violation, by himself or others, of anyone else's rights. 



> And I answer myself: "No, self, they ought not to do that."


Indeed, Helmuth goes further: he tells not only himself but the rest of us that however a landowner came to have land as his "stuff," if anyone else attempts to exercise their natural liberty to use that land, then the "owner" should rightly kill or forcibly enslave that person, the property "right" of the landowner having unconditional priority over the lives and liberty of those who, not owning land, are subhuman, and thus have no rights.



> So then I ask: "Is taxation an act which is defined as taking other people's stuff without permission?"  
> 
> "Yes, yes, it definitely is; no avoiding that," comes the reply.


Again delicately ignoring the fact that taxation that recovers the publicly created value of government-issued and -enforced privileges like land titles is not without the owner's permission, as the obligation to pay the tax was part of the original grant of privilege.



> "So," my selves agree in unison, "Taxation ought not to exist."


Helmuth is very good at convincing himselves of such absurd, fallacious and dishonest garbage.



> As you can see, my view is colored by bright, bold, and unapologetic hues of morality.


Though delicately fogged and shaded whenever certain inconvenient facts obtrude into the field of view...



> You may or may not be able to relate to that.  Your own glasses may tint the world differently.  Morality has rather gone out of style the last few decades; few believers in it are left, and I expect practitioners may dwindle soon as well unless the belief is shored up.


Yes, Helmuth's morality is a matter of belief... as fact and logic stubbornly refuse to support it.



> I don't.  But even if I did, because such wealth is not immoral


Helmuth is aware that I have proved many times that it is immoral.



> I would find it immoral and thus unacceptable to take these people's "excessive" stuff without their permission in an attempt to solve the problem.


They are the ones who have taken it -- STOLEN it -- from everyone else.  This fact is self-evident and indisputable.



> It is immoral to take other people's stuff without permission.  It is also uncivilized.  It also shows bad breeding.


It is immoral to obtain possession of stuff by violating other people's rights without making just compensation.  It is also uncivilized.  It also shows bad breeding.  To engage in or advocate such behavior should be a shame and a reproach among decent society.



> I have already proven to my own satisfaction that "Roy" is merely an obnoxiously-programmed Turing machine -- able to emulate human-like interaction, yes, but only in a very narrow scope.  It provides a fun, hilarious, and useful foil.  But I have already found all of its forks.  The programmer was obnoxious, but also lazy -- all the forks are pretty brief, curving back to the main "You're lying! I hate you!" trunk in short order.


Translation: I have repeatedly demolished Helmuth, and he has no answers.

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## Steven Douglas

> In the particular case of land, he simply declares that it was initially rightly appropriated as someone's stuff by "homesteading" -- and delicately ignores the fact that he cannot identify a single square inch of privately owned land, anywhere on earth, whose current title of ownership can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an original appropriator who came to possess it without the violation, by himself or others, of anyone else's rights.


I don't know about the "original appropriator who came to possess it without the violation ... of anyone else's rights" - tall order proving that never happened.  No peaceful settlers anywhere on Earth?  Only conquerors, enslavers and rights violators one and all?  I guess that could be true, if you first invoke anti-propertarian geolibertarian gibberish.  Then every homesteader in existence is a de facto violator of someone's fictitious rights. 

As for the "unbroken line of consensual transactions" nonsense, that is no testament to anything but the fact that landownership and homeowner rights have been abused, abrogated and violated since the beginning of time. Usually by government.  Isn't that a bitch? Nobody protecting private landownership, everyone wanting to eat away at it, and erode landowner rights by every nasty contrivance the human brain can come up with?  

Shame on you for taking it so over the top, Roy. Talk about a full-on desire for unbridled evil. You want the worst offender of all to reign - with a complete abolishment of landownership, along with the most naive, childish trust that this somehow would not equate to widespread abuse and poverty of individuals - regardless how innocent the intentions of the benevolent camel whose nose AND body you want fully in the tent, and fully empowered.  In fact, you're so blitheringly naive that you can't even conceive that YOUR particular brand of geolibertarianism ALREADY DIFFERS dramatically from other LVT proponent's views, and therefore would NOT be implemented as you envision. But somehow your view is the only one.  And therefore LVT is to be trusted - cuz youza lubs Roy-styled gubmint. Only.

Helmuth has left you limbless and headless on the battlefield too many times to count, but you are the Black Knight who calls it "just a flesh wound" as you vow to keeping hop on, while declaring victory.

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## Steven Douglas

> The four European countries with the highest rates of homeownership: Bulgaria, Italy, Ireland and Spain.  The latter three are poster children for financial disaster, unemployment, and economic depression.  The European country with the lowest rate of homeownership: Germany, which also has Europe's strongest economy.  You stand refuted.


Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Correlation = Causation?  Again, stop with the evil, lying fallacies, Roy.  You refuted nothing. 




> Government (and most other) unions are an example of rent seeking.  The usual pattern with private unions is that they slowly bankrupt their employers.  Government (and utility monopoly) unions simply take more and more from taxpayers and consumers: because there is a double layer of monopoly, there is no accountability.


Yes. How refreshing, and correct, as that is government's proven bent under all regimes. Eliminate government monopolies of every kind, double and single layer, abolish all hidden taxes, as well as the state's power to "take".  I would not do that by handing over yet more power to the state, with the ultimate monopoly power on land, as yet another revenue channel to control and manipulate according to their proven bent (to take ever more). 

One of the biggest problems we have in this country is multiple entities (government and private-but-government-sanctioned) on the confiscatory take, as federal, state and local governments both cooperate and compete for power and layers upon layers of revenue gathering and wealth confiscation and redistribution methodologies from the same sources.  LVT proponents envision a single confiscatory tax at the local level as a final solution - as if that stands a local snowball's chance in federal/global hell, or would somehow be considered anything but another taxing option.  I want all of these taxing schemes to fail, beginning with property taxes, the most rightly hated and pernicious of them all.  As such, I have great hope that North Dakota (or ANY other state which follows suit) will finally succeed in constitutionally abolishing property taxes once and for all. It will be the only state in which land can actually be owned. After that well deserved smack down, it's one down, two to go.

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## robert9712000

I'm surprised this thread is still going. I guess ill add my 2 cents.Im not going to read thru all 166 pages,so if my response has already been covered then oh well.

  A Tax on Land goes against the basic concept of libertarianism.The idea of a Libertarian Government is to protect the right of a individual to do whatever he wants,but there's 2 limitations to that right.The first is you don't have the right to infringe(harm) on another person.Second because not everyone believes in the same thing .The way you allow a individual to live life how ever they see fit without becoming a burden on another persons desires is to let them have there own space to where than can do whatever they want.Thus the concept of private property as a space where a individual can do whatever they want,which allows them access to the foundation of the constitutions Life ,Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

  When you impose a tax on land you have all of the sudden opened up a door as a means of giving another person the ability to control another persons life ,liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. Just because you say well just have a set tax and that's it isn't a good enough answer.When you give a person a means for potential abuse Its going to happen eventually.

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## Barrex

I am from Croatia.
Land value tax is ALWAYS ending taking land from poor and giving it to the rich. 


Government will always try to find ways to tax people. Believe it or not when my country was occupied by Turkish empire there was tax on chimneys. LVT is just that. Too big government getting bigger and bigger and needs more and more money to sustain itself....sooner or later it will burst. In Turkish (Ottoman) empire inflation went so high that you needed full sack of paper mney to buy 1 bread. History repeats itself . Not just in U.S.A. in entire world.

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## furface

Here's the way I look at it.  You have 2 different theories.

1. Contract theory - government should be a neutral observer/enforcer of only individual contracts.

2. Value theory - government should look at cost/benefit relationships and do what is best for the highest amount of people.

I would argue that these 2 things actually reinforce each other.  If you do what's best for all of society, that is equivalent to enforcing all legitimate contracts both implied and written precisely and concisely.

The problem arises when people use these formulas in simplistic ways.  For instance "I have this piece of paper saying I own this land, therefore the government can't tax me, but still has to intervene when I think someone violates my ownership contract.  Never mind that my ownership contract is written & enforced by the government.  Never mind that I use public roads to access my land.  Never mind that I use public water for my house.  It's my land."  

The government & community add Value to your land and you accept it, but then you rely on an idiotically simplistic interpretation of an ownership contract to claim you are not obliged to contribute your fair share to that increased value. 

"Contract theorists" in a broader sense are very dangerous people.  This is the logic that is used to perpetuate American militarism throughout the world.  "America is exceptional & we MUST use our exceptional quality to make the world safe for democracy."  It's a contractual statement, stating that America is exceptional & is obliged to protect the world.  But why?  What VALUE is there in doing that?  No, you can't ask that.  It's a contract that exists for America, so you're not allowed to question it.

Some of you might remember Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America."  That's just the way he thinks.  He's a "contract theorist" instead of a value theorist.  He believes the world is a static place that is defined by whatever nonsense thoughts exist in his head at the time, which btw is not very static and floats around with whatever filth for the moment someone has paid him to put there.

In a lot of ways, America is the result of different "contract theory" contingents shouting at each other.  We need to start talking about Value, but then again like I said the 2 different concepts mirror each other.  Consistent contract theory is the same as consistent value theory.

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## furface

BTW, Roy.  It's hard to tell if I'm agreeing with you or not.  I thought I was to a certain extent, but you seem to make arguments on one side of an an issue, then completely contradict yourself just to troll up someone else's comments.

I'll respond to this, though.




> The four European countries with the highest rates of homeownership: Bulgaria, Italy, Ireland and Spain. The latter three are poster children for financial disaster, unemployment, and economic depression. The European country with the lowest rate of homeownership: Germany, which also has Europe's strongest economy. You stand refuted.


1st of all "ownership" doesn't mean you have title to a $300,000 house that is leaned up by a $400,000 mortgage.  I'm talking about free and clear ownership.  I know that Ireland, Spain, & Bulgaria all have mortgage crises brewing.

2nd of all, home ownership rates in the US were about 48% in 1930 and decreased during the 1930s.  They went up to about 66% in 1990, a time that was clearly more prosperous than 1930. 

We'll see if places like Germany, France, & Britain can keep up their rent subsidies without going bankrupt.  Also, rent control is form of defacto ownership.  You could argue that places like Santa Monica, CA & New York, NY effectively have high ownership rates because the State has given renters effective ownership.

3rdly, when I talk about house "value" I'm talking essentially about neighborhood value.  Do you live in a neighborhood with lots of rentals?  If so, I'm guessing that the value of houses in your neighborhood is lower than neighborhoods with higher ownership rates.

----------


## truthspeaker

To the topic, I just want to jump in. We are talking about property tax, right?

 As someone who lives in a state that has it, I absolutely hate it. Get this: counties charge more taxes to a "richer" area than a poorer one. What makes an area rich to them? What kinds of industries are nearby. It makes me sick. In a "rich" area a two bedroom house built in the 1960s gets charged $3500/yr in taxes while in a poor area a larger house built in the 2000s is only charged $2000. The cost of the homes is about the same. What's worse, to probably get paid to afford living in that "rich" area, you probably must be college-educated (and probably have that debt as well) or you are one of the lucky ones and have found a high paying job (but it's in a dangerous field, like chemical plants). This is just what I've seen. If you can't pay, the county can auction your land off for a fraction of its original cost.

----------


## furface

> As someone who lives in a state that has it, I absolutely hate it.


I hate property taxes too.  Personally I think that they shouldn't exist for individual residences & small businesses.  I have a different opinion about larger entities, though.

One thing I really hate about it is the idea of governments taxing you to give you back "services" that most people really don't want.  Wouldn't it be better to just let people keep their money, & be more financially secure than to make them insecure & give them schools that they'd rather not send their kids to, police forces that harass them for things that should be legal like drug use, & firefighters that tend to be over paid and under worked, all things where the community would be better served if they were privatized.  Let people keep their money, be more financially secure, and decide for themselves what to spend.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The problem arises when people use these formulas in simplistic ways.  For instance "I have this piece of paper saying I own this land, therefore the government can't tax me, but still has to intervene when I think someone violates my ownership contract.  Never mind that my ownership contract is written & enforced by the government.  Never mind that I use public roads to access my land.  Never mind that I use public water for my house.  It's my land."  
> 
> The government & community add Value to your land and you accept it, but then you rely on an idiotically simplistic interpretation of an ownership contract to claim you are not obliged to contribute your fair share to that increased value.


 As for me, I believe a voluntary society is the ideal.  If there is some group which I expect to intervene to protect me from violations of my person or property, I do expect to be paying that group for their service.  Voluntarily.  I do not, however expect that group to have a monopoly on decreeing who owns what and which contracts or "pieces of paper" that I have are valid, on dispensing justice (or injustice), on conscripting men to work for them involuntarily, on waging bloody warfare on me, my neighbors, and whomever it chooses, on caging whomever it chooses, and on and on.

The government has claimed, and to a large extent achieved, a monopoly on road ownership, and also on water distribution.  You bring up these two monopolies, then try to somehow say that my moral position is undermined due to the existence of these monopolies.  That I am somehow weakened morally by having water distributed to me and conveying myself on roadways.  That I am a hypocrite because I... what?  Because I do not devote my life to being thrown into jail for attempting to build an illegal competing water pipe system?

Anti-morality people are so predictable.  They don't believe in absolute morality, yet humans are naturally censorious, so what to do?  Ahh, to the rescue, the Last Great Sin: Hypocrisy.  Even if one cannot judge any system of morals objectively, because one is just as good as the other (as the "mainstream" folks, the non-moralists or moral relativists, believe) one can still match a man's actions against that man's own professed beliefs.  One can then stretch and contort until one finds an imagined contradiction, and then loud shall the cry ring through the hall: Hypocrite!  Hypocrite!

I myself am a libertarian, an anarchocapitalist libertarian to be specific.  I do not want the government to be piping water for me.  I do not want them managing roadways for me.  I just want them to leave me alone.  The fact that they refuse to do so undermines _their_ moral position, not mine.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Helmuth delicately ignores the fact that he cannot identify a single square inch of privately owned land, anywhere on earth, whose current title of ownership can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an original appropriator who came to possess it without the violation, by himself or others, of anyone else's rights.


Actually, I kind of did, but you forgot.  Here's a few such square inches:

http://www.flexmls.com/cgi-bin/mainm...s=6&id=1&cid=1

----------


## furface

> The government has claimed, and to a large extent achieved, a monopoly on road ownership, and also on water distribution. You bring up these two monopolies, then try to somehow say that my moral position is undermined due to the existence of these monopolies.


If I said that I was being unclear about what I was trying to convey.  I believe in equitable natural resource distribution, the exact opposite of monopolies.  My view is that government monopolies and large private monopolies are equally evil.  Everybody's entitled to their own portion of their Earth to do with what they like and collectivize or not in whatever community they like.  Nobody's ever entitled to anybody else's labor without that person's consent.  That's what I believe.  I'm guessing we believe similar things if we put aside semantics.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> I have.  *LVT is voluntary* because you are only required to pay for what you take, same as the _voluntary_ purchases you make at the grocery store.


  From whom are you making the purchase?  What are you purchasing?  How did the "grocery store" come to be the legitimate owner of this item you are purchasing?  Can I refuse to do business with the grocery store, instead patronizing one of several other groceries with overlapping jurisdictions and in healthy competition in a market with open entry?  

Or is *force* going to be used against me to *enforce* your tax?  Well, see definition _tax_, and compare definition _voluntary_.  You yourself have repeatedly averred that force is required to enforce LVT.  Using force is not voluntary.  Acts of force are anathema to voluntary action.  You (bizarrely) claim this force would be somehow (contortedly) defensive, but 'twould definitely be force and definitely thus _not_ voluntary.  The very _opposite_ of voluntary is perfectly embodied in the idea of forcing other people to do XYZ.  Specifically, you want to force other people to pay you money.  That does not fall under the umbrella, no matter how broadly spread, of "voluntary activity."

'Round and 'round the mulberry bush...

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> If I said that I was being unclear about what I was trying to convey.  I believe in equitable natural resource distribution, the exact opposite of monopolies.  My view is that government monopolies and large private monopolies are equally evil.  Everybody's entitled to their own portion of their Earth to do with what they like and collectivize or not in whatever community they like.  Nobody's ever entitled to anybody else's labor without that person's consent.  That's what I believe.


 And I believe that no one is ever entitled to anything.  Ever.  No entitlements.  I am anti-entitlement.  The entitlement mentality is destroying western civilization.

What portion of the Earth are you entitled to?  How large?  Who decides?  Why?

No, you have a right to try to buy any portion you may fancy, but no one has any obligation to sell to you.  Thus, you don't have an _entitlement_ to _anything_.

----------


## furface

> Thus, you don't have an entitlement to anything.


Stop breathing.  You didn't buy the air that's in your lungs.  Give it back.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Stop breathing.  You didn't buy the air that's in your lungs.  Give it back.


No one to buy it from.  If someone had homesteaded it, as, for example, on a lunar colony, then absolutely I would not be permitted to breathe the air someone else owned without paying them or otherwise obtaining their leave.

----------


## Roy L

> To the topic, I just want to jump in. We are talking about property tax, right?


No.  The ordinary property tax is actually two opposite taxes: a tax on improvement value, which measures what the owner contributes to the wealth of the community, and a tax on land value, which measures what the community contributes to the wealth of the landowner.  A land value tax (LVT) only taxes the latter.



> As someone who lives in a state that has it, I absolutely hate it.


There is a clear positive relationship between states' property tax rates and the health of their economies and social indicators.  The lowest property tax states are basket cases like LA, AL, AR, CA, etc., while the highest property tax states are relative utopias like NH, NJ, WI and TX.



> Get this: counties charge more taxes to a "richer" area than a poorer one. What makes an area rich to them? What kinds of industries are nearby. It makes me sick. In a "rich" area a two bedroom house built in the 1960s gets charged $3500/yr in taxes while in a poor area a larger house built in the 2000s is only charged $2000. The cost of the homes is about the same.


I don't know on what basis the property taxes are defined for "rich" and "poor" areas, but that sounds right to me: the older house probably has higher land value, and therefore SHOULD pay more taxes.  Land value is precisely equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes.



> What's worse, to probably get paid to afford living in that "rich" area, you probably must be college-educated (and probably have that debt as well) or you are one of the lucky ones and have found a high paying job (but it's in a dangerous field, like chemical plants). This is just what I've seen. If you can't pay, the county can auction your land off for a fraction of its original cost.


Maybe the assessments are out of date, then.  It's certainly a common enough problem.

----------


## Roy L

> Land value tax is ALWAYS ending taking land from poor and giving it to the rich.


No, that has never happened in the whole history of the world.  A tax that could do that might be called a "land value tax" on some sort of official document, but would not in fact be one.  The British Raj in India, for example, had a tax they called a "land value tax," but it was actually calculated based on improvements, number of occupants, etc., and ignored land value altogether!



> Government will always try to find ways to tax people. Believe it or not when my country was occupied by Turkish empire there was tax on chimneys. LVT is just that.


No, it indisputably is not.

----------


## Roy L

> *Afterthought, using Disneyland as an example:*  Out of all the value of all the land upon which Disneyland rests, in Roy's mind ZERO LAND VALUE can be attributed to Disney for anything built or done on that particular 17 acres of Magic Kingdom land. Everything Disney built above ground, yes, but the land value itself: it is Disney who is TAKING value that, in Roy's mind, was "provided by" Nature-Government-Community _alone_.


That is correct by definition: land value is the value the land would have if all the improvements were removed.  You therefore cannot actually dispute that fact.  You can only embarrass yourself by _denying_ it, thus acting like a silly, lying sack of $#!+.



> Now, as a MEMBER of the community of that time, Disney, by virtue of the creation of Disneyland and its mere existence, did, in fact, DIRECTLY cause an increase in the value of immediate surrounding lands, which did skyrocket in price by virtue of that fact alone, even before Disneyland opened.


Very true, as is the case with everyone who contributes, by their private activities, to the opportunities and amenities the community provides.  Private charities create an immense amount of land value that way.



> Now, does Disney get any proportional credit whatsoever for "Community Provided Value" for this?  No. Not at all under Roy's LVT regime.


What do you mean, "proportional credit"?  Disney contributes in some ways, but imposes costs in other ways.  To some extent it just shifts land value from other places to the vicinity of Disneyland.  It is completely impossible to disentangle all these effects or calculate any individual's net contribution.



> Disneyland is only a TAKER OF PROVIDED VALUE - not a giver in any way;


No, you're just lying again, Steven.  Disneyland is a taker of provided value IN ITS ROLE AS LAND OCCUPIER.  In its role as productive enterprise, of course it creates value, just as any other productive enterprise does.



> a DEPRIVER of liberty and access to resources that others would otherwise have" (if Disney/Disneyland did not exist).


That is indisputable.



> And Walt Disney himself - why, he was just one more community member, like anyone else, whose "community contribution" could be counted no differently than any minimum wage employee working on the outskirts of town.


We have no way of calculating what any individual's contribution is, other than their wages and the return to the capital goods they provide -- which they would be able to keep, if they were not being taxed by the income tax (i.e., if it had been replaced by LVT).  The net contribution of any one individual or firm to AGGREGATE land value is completely imponderable.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> That is correct by definition: land value is the value the land would have if all the improvements were removed.  You therefore cannot actually dispute that fact.  You can only embarrass yourself by _denying_ it, thus acting like a silly, lying sack of $#!+.


Well, in your strange world, where a factory only TAKES land value (which, of course, is provided exclusively by the all important Nature-Government-Community-mind-meld), how do you explain MASSIVE land value drops, of both factory land and surrounding community land, of a once thriving ghost town that relied, once upon a time, on a single factory or industry for most of its economy?  That's even when the improvements are left standing, Roy. 

Ever hear of the Rust Belt?  All over the real world, there are places where you can shut down a single factory, or primary local industry, and kiss the land value (both factory and surrounding land), goodbye.  Not totally goodbye, of course, because land always does has some value, but down to an extremely low floor, and all because the factory is not there to PROVIDE VALUE to the land.  That value you want minimized, marginalized to virtually nothing, and interpreted only as a net "taking". 




> The net contribution of any one individual or firm to AGGREGATE land value is completely imponderable.


Yeah, so let's not ponder it at all, even as a matter of principle, and instead make mindless aggregate substitutions, as if they had real meaning.  We can't say who is being deprived of an actual resource, so let's count an "otherwise opportunity deprivation" to everyone as meaning essentially the same thing - and since the net value of any individual's contribution is imponderable, let's mindlessly collectivize it, and impute equal contribution to everyone instead, with all having an equal claim. 

Like I said, house of cards. And a wobbly fictitious one at that.

----------


## Roy L

> Note that no distinction is ever made with reference to those actual do value the ore, or which community members are bona fide parties of interest in that ore.


"Parties of interest"?  What would that even mean?  Greedy grabbers whom you want to empower to enslave and murder producers?



> They are all considered parties of interest,


They all have equal rights to life and liberty, and all are interested in exercising those rights.  That makes them parties of interest.



> all having "provided value" which is not attributed to any specific community members,


It is true that land value is not attributed to any specific community members, because it inherently cannot be.  The individual contributions cannot be disentangled.  But all have equal rights to life and liberty.  They therefore all provide value when they consent not to exercise their rights to liberty on certain land, thus enabling its exclusive user to obtain a greater advantage from it.  



> but rather a nebulous collective blob that is simply labeled "community", which fully encompasses all members therein, equally, and without regard to individual contributions.


People's individual contributions are reflected in their wages and the returns they obtain on the capital goods they provide to the production process.  Because LVT replaces income tax, sales tax, etc., it enables those individuals who make contributions to KEEP the value of their individual contributions, rather than having that value stolen and given to landowners in return for nothing, as is done under every system *other* than LVT.



> In other words, the "community value" portion of land value, as provided by "the community" is entirely collectivized/socialized.


Yes, because it is inherently entirely a collective, social creation, as a matter of objective fact.  I am willing to know that fact; you are not.  You just don't like objective facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil, so you refuse to know them.



> One of the tenets of geolibertarianism (at least as espoused by Roy), is the premise that exclusive use of land means that ALL OTHERS (jointly and severally in that community) have been excluded from using natural resources, which deprives them of liberty and opportunity *they would otherwise have*.


Which is indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact.



> In this context, liberty and opportunity means nothing more than OPTIONS to access and usage, not the resources themselves.


As in all honest and factual contexts.



> In a functioning economy (of any type), it is possible to identify those who actually DO use a resource, in contrast with those who merely had an option, but did not exercise it.


Or did not have it because they were forcibly deprived of it by institutionalized landowner privilege.



> In Roy's hypothetical framework of "liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have", EVERYONE in a community is identified as someone who _has been deprived_.


Which they indisputably are.  The framework is not hypothetical, it  is factual.



> This is true, in that they have been deprived of what otherwise would have been an OPTION for them.


Which is precisely what liberty consists in.



> However, the only ones who could be said to have been deprived of the resource itself would be those who would *otherwise would have exercised their option, had it existed*.  And that is not everyone.


But we can't say exactly who it is and isn't.



> A farmer and a barber, for example, each of whom might otherwise have had no intention of becoming a miner, cannot be said to have been deprived *of a resource*, _but only of the option_ to common access to a resource, whether or not it was available, valued or wanted.  And what value, in the real world, is an option that is _freely available_, but not otherwise exercised? Zero.


Nonsense.  People only have limited time and capital to invest, and will try to take the most promising option to invest them.  History proves you wrong emphatically and conclusively, in the shape of all the farmers, barbers, etc. who DID become miners when sufficiently attractive options became available during gold rushes.  That didn't mean the options they left behind had no value.



> Hence, what value deprivation can there be for something you *otherwise would not have wanted* anyway? Again, zero.


Nope.  Flat wrong, as usual.  When A is deprived of an option B doesn't want, he starts competing with B for the options B DOES want.  So the deprivation A suffers is shifted onto B even when B had no interest whatever in the option A was deprived of.  Everyone is in competition for numerous opportunities they want, so each deprivation each individual suffers ripples outward, causing deprivations to other individuals far from the original deprivation.



> Doesn't matter to Roy, it all constitutes a deprivation, as even the un-exercised "otherwise" options are valued as if that option would otherwise _have been_ exercised - by anyone and everyone.


No, Steven just refuses to know the fact that when someone is deprived of an option that others might not have wanted, he seeks other options, and starts competing for ones others DO want.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Note that no distinction is ever made with reference to those actual do value the ore, or which community members are bona fide parties of interest in that ore.
> 			
> 		
> 
> "Parties of interest"?  What would that even mean?  Greedy grabbers whom you want to empower to enslave and murder producers?


Not me - you're the one who wants greedy grabbers to be collectively empowered to enslave and murder producers, not me.  




> People's individual contributions are reflected in their wages and the returns they obtain on the capital goods they provide to the production process.  Because LVT replaces income tax, sales tax, etc., it enables those individuals who make contributions to KEEP the value of their individual contributions, rather than having that value stolen and given to landowners in return for nothing, as is done under every system *other* than LVT.


That is on the naive assumption that LVT really would be a single tax, which it never would, and not just one more revenue stream to a government that always seeks more, not less - as it is even now, as proved by property taxes in every state, on top of state, federal and every other kind of hidden tax. 

As for that nonsense of "value stolen and given to landowners in return for nothing": Landowners who merely own land, and use it, without renting it out, aren't stealing anything, except for your fictitious "otherwise would have been at liberty" right.  Abolish property taxes and rent-seeking altogether and everyone really can, for once, own land.  Wahoo! 




> Yes, because it is inherently entirely a collective, social creation, as a matter of objective fact.


No, that is a matter of subjective interpretation on your part, based on incidental realities.  Nobody sat around and said, "Here's an idea - let's form a collective!" until after a collective was already incidentally formed.  Stuff your aggregate thinking - you see an aggregate forest of individuals and treat it as a Whole Body in your mind - I see nothing but individuals, some coming, some going, some staying, the rights of each one trumping in the absolute anything that could be said to be a "right of the collective".  

Collectives don't have rights, Roy. Only power. Not governments, unions, corporations or any other collective, public or private.  Only individuals have rights - and they can't be collectivized in a way that magnifies or multiplies them.  




> However, the only ones who could be said to have been deprived of the resource itself would be those who would otherwise would have exercised their option, had it existed. And that is not everyone.
> 			
> 		
> 
> But we can't say exactly who it is and isn't.


Right, which is also the reason you cannot say that everyone is.  But that is exactly what you want.  A tangible deprivation of literally everyone based on an intangible opportunity deprivation of everyone that might have resulted in a tangible deprivation to a few.  A tangible deprivation, remember, that I and many like me consider right and just in the first place.   




> People only have limited time and capital to invest, and will try to take the most promising option to invest them.  History proves you wrong emphatically and conclusively, in the shape of all the farmers, barbers, etc. who DID become miners when sufficiently attractive options became available during gold rushes.  That didn't mean the options they left behind had no value.


Exactly, which is my point, by the way. Firstly, not all became miners, which was my first point - so not all were deprived of anything tangible. Secondly, an abandoned farm and barber shop did create opportunities for those who filled the void in their absence.  Free market, fully functioning, nobody deprived of any right along the way, including your fictitious "otherwise would have been at liberty" right.   




> Hence, what value deprivation can there be for something you otherwise would not have wanted anyway? Again, zero.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Nope.  Flat wrong, as usual.  When A is deprived of an option B doesn't want, he starts competing with B for the options B DOES want.


So? That is all legitimate - the deprivation, the consequent competition, and the ripple effect outward.  Nothing wrong with any of that.  What WOULD be wrong is for a fictitious artificial opportunity and liberty deprivation to be imputed as a tangible deprivation to everyone, with meddling that attempts to correct it, which then ripples outward and deprives everyone in the process.


Oh, and the number of your posts is now 666, you beast, you.

----------


## Roy L

> ::: BUZZZZZ ::: Thanks for playing!


Thanks for making me look even better by comparison with your silliness, ignorance, illogic and dishonesty!



> Roy, you could pass a law forbidding consumption of all Hershey's chocolate and other Hersheys products in any community where one of its factories is established, and Hershey's *wouldn't even feel it*.


Because that would only be a microscopic fraction of Hershey's market.  So?



> So much for "boosted purchasing power" to Hersheys from the so-called "Community Provided Value".


???  What on earth do you imagine you think you might be talking about?  We were talking about the value of REE ores, not chocolate bars.  But the value of Hershey's chocolate bars, like the value of REE ores, also depends on the affluence of those who want to buy them, whichever community they might live in.  

Try not to be so silly, irrational and dishonest all the time.



> That is NEGLIGIBLE, so quit lying, Roy, it's evil.


<yawn>  Your constant, evil, vicious lying is making you project, Steven.  The evil always have to accuse the virtuous of the very crimes of which the evil are themselves most guilty.  That is why you feel an irresistible compulsion falsely to accuse me of lying.



> Likewise, every resident in the Anaheim and Ocala areas could be forbidden by law to patronize Disneyland and Disneyworld, and _Disney wouldn't feel a thing_.


Because they sell their products and services to people all over the world, not just residents of Anaheim and Ocala.  So?  Were you under an erroneous impression that you were saying something relevant?



> That hole in the bucket would be instantly filled. So much for your little village model of "Community Provided Value".


Why always act as if you are stupen, Stevid?  Take away the services and infrastructure that those communities provide to Disneyland and Disneyworld patrons -- the hotels and restaurants, the transportation services, the water and sewer systems, the airports, the police and fire protection, etc., etc. -- and Disneyland and Disneyworld would both be bankrupt within one month.

Try not to be so stevid, Stupen.



> No true Scotsman fallacy.


BWAHAHAHAA!  No, Steven, it is not, because we are not discussing who the competent appraisers are, but what they know.



> Ergo, only an "incompetent" real estate appraiser would argue otherwise.


That is certainly true.  



> Stop your habitual use of evil lying fallacies, Roy. It's downright creepy.


<yawn>  It's true there are some people here who are nothing but evil, lying filth.  But they are called, "apologists for landowner privilege."



> Yeah, and three fictitious value "creators"


They aren't fictitious and you know it, so stop lying.



> are all melded together as One Rationale for a Single Tax:  
> 
> *NATURE:*  The only true provider, tied into a fictitious natural "otherwise would have been at liberty" right.


That liberty is an indisputable physical fact.



> *GOVERNMENT:* Run-of-the-mill, dime a dozen infrastructure


Thank you for proving you have nothing to offer but absurd lies.



> - the only rightful SLAVE which is OWNED IN COMMON, puffed up and taking "value" credit where none is due.


That is an obvious lie, as it is the *landowner* who (with the help of his lying apologists, like you) takes credit for land value where none is due.  The Henry George Theorem proves that to the extent that government spending on services and infrastructure is not wasted or diverted by corruption, it becomes land value.

Remove the landowner, and the land's value is unaffected.  Remove government, OTOH, and the land's value drops to Somali levels.  This fact proves you lied.  Again.  As always.



> *COMMUNITY:*  A fictitious,


Lie.  Everyone reading this knows that communities are real, including you.  You are LYING.



> nebulous blob, where unnamed individuals are imputed to be equal contributors,


Lie.  They just have equal rights, and their individual contributions cannot be disentangled or calculated.



> which "community" somehow "provides" value to land, which must therefore be compensated.


Again, you cannot argue against that fact.  You can only make a fool of yourself by denying it.



> Again, all melded together as a combined rationale for a single tax.


No, just indisputable facts of objective physical reality, which you have to refuse to know because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil. 



> You know that you believe there is, Roy. Of course you do.


You know that you are deliberately lying about what I have plainly written, Stupen.  Of course you do.



> Even separate they are inseparable in your mind - as combined rationale for One Tax.


Their contributions also cannot be disentangled, but they are not a single entity any more than the individuals in the community are a single entity, and I have never said or implied that they were a single entity -- indeed, I have been at pains to keep them separate -- so you are just lying again, as usual.



> It is the very foundation of your LVT Geolibertarian House of Cards.  Three entities - which, combined, "create" ALL land value - Nature, Government, and Community. By virtue of three fictions derived from each,


They are fact, not fiction, stop lying.



> a landowner can be seen as "taking" from others by virtue of occupation and usage to the exclusion of all others,


Which he is, as a matter of indisputable physical fact.



> and by a commonly held fictitious liberty right,


You either believe in the equal human rights to life and liberty or you don't.  You don't.  Simple.



> outright confiscation - theft - can be spun to mean "just compensation".


I have already proved to you that it is the landowner who is the thief.  Here is the proof again:

_THE BANDIT

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them.  The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force.  How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?_ 



> Meanwhile, the very real landowner "rights", which really do now exist as rights, not privileges,


No, they do not, as they inherently contradict genuine rights such as the equal human rights to life and liberty.  Landowner privilege cannot possibly be a right, as there is no way it can exist except by violating others' rights.



> are referred to by you only as landowner "privilege".


I have proved that it is privilege and not right.



> That's how you make what is fiction real, and what is real fiction.  In your mind.


It is still an open question whether the apologist for landowner privilege is infinitely evil and dishonest, or just inconceivably evil and dishonest.

The two Holocausts a year that landowner privilege causes are not fiction.  The billions of innocent people crushed into poverty and despair for the unearned profit of greedy, evil, privileged landowning parasites are not fiction.  The assassinations of land reform activists at the behest of landowners in bastions of landowner privilege like the Philippines, Pakistan and Brazil are not fiction.



> Nature, Government, Community is your mantra, Roy, one that you repeat ad nauseam as that which "provides" all land value - it is your Geoist Creed and Holy LVT Trinity that gives rise to One Taxer, Indivisible, with collective control of all lands and rent collected for all.  Forever and ever, Amen.


Merely facts that you refuse to know, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Wow, Helmuth was right, you really are a Turing machine with a limited number of self-referencing, intelligence-simulating forks.  I could map out pretty much everything you've written in this thread as a predictable flow chart, and that could be stuck on auto-pilot in an infinite self-referencing loop. Whenever something does not compute, simply choose from a short list of dismissive auto-responses, and, without argument or further refutation, move onto the next line.  Some of your posts are mostly that. 

Let me leave you in one of your loops, Roy, as it is your trademark - one of your defining characteristics: 

*The evil always have to accuse the virtuous of the very crimes of which the evil are themselves most guilty. That is why you feel an irresistible compulsion falsely to accuse me of lying.* 

I agree, and you must be the evil, guilty criminal in this case, Roy, since every true Scotsman, and any virtuous real estate appraiser that is worth his or her salt, will tell you that I am virtuous.

----------


## Roy L

> Actually, I kind of did, but you forgot.  Here's a few such square inches:
> 
> http://www.flexmls.com/cgi-bin/mainm...s=6&id=1&cid=1


Nonsense.  Previous occupants and "owners" of the area had been forcibly dispossessed.  The USA took the area from Mexico by force, just as the Spanish had annexed it by force before Mexico won its independence.  Even the aboriginals had forced out their predecessors, and though the Mormons were "invited" to settle there by one tribal chief, it was just a response to duress from other intruders, the invitation had little real legitimacy, and there continued to be violent conflict over the land (see the Walker War).

----------


## Roy L

> I don't know about the "original appropriator who came to possess it without the violation ... of anyone else's rights" - tall order proving that never happened.  No peaceful settlers anywhere on Earth?


Sure.  But once those settlers style themselves as landowners, they never *stay* peaceful.  They *always* have to initiate force to violate others' rights.  *Always*.



> Only conquerors, enslavers and rights violators one and all?


Once they claim to own the land, the enslavement and rights violations are inevitable.



> I guess that could be true, if you first invoke anti-propertarian geolibertarian gibberish.


It is your propertarian rationalizations of evil that are gibberish.



> Then every homesteader in existence is a de facto violator of someone's fictitious rights.


The rights to life and liberty are not fictitious.  You just don't believe in them.



> As for the "unbroken line of consensual transactions" nonsense, that is no testament to anything but the fact that landownership and homeowner rights have been abused, abrogated and violated since the beginning of time.


No, it is testament to the fact that no private land title on earth is valid or morally defensible.



> Usually by government.  Isn't that a bitch?


As government's legitimate function is to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the products of their labor, one of the things it can rightly do is redress landowner theft and extortion.



> Nobody protecting private landownership,


Lie.  Land thieves have always tried to retain their own ill-gotten gains, have usually successfully enlisted government's assistance in doing so, and have consequently destroyed many great civilizations in their unlimited greed for unearned wealth.  The genocide of aboriginals in the New World by land thieves dispossessing them and either murdering them or removing them to land where they could not survive is a fact of history.  It is merely a fact that you refuse to know, because you have already realized that it proves you are a servant of the greatest evil that has ever existed.



> everyone wanting to eat away at it,


You misspelled, "trying to regain their rights to life and liberty after landowners forcibly removed them."



> and erode landowner rights by every nasty contrivance the human brain can come up with?


Nope.  It is historically always landowners and land grabbers who have come up with the nastiest contrivances to erase others' rights to life and liberty.  ALWAYS.



> Shame on you for taking it so over the top, Roy. Talk about a full-on desire for unbridled evil.


You disgrace yourself and all your ancestors -- and condemn your Immortal Soul to Eternal Damnation in the Pit that is Bottomless -- by your despicable dishonesty in the service of the most monstrous, satanic evil that has ever existed.



> You want the worst offender of all to reign


That is a monstrous, disgraceful lie.  It is not government that inflicts two Holocausts a year on innocent human beings.  It is not government that has laid billions of human sacrifices on the altar of the Great God Property.  It is *the evil you serve,* landowner privilege, that has done so.



> - with a complete abolishment of landownership, along with the most naive, childish trust that this somehow would not equate to widespread abuse and poverty of individuals


Where was the widespread abuse and poverty of individuals in Hong Kong, Stupen, hmmmmm?  Where?  HK has no private landowning, and hasn't for 160 years.  Yet it has routinely topped lists of the world's freest economies, and been one of the most prosperous places on earth.  By your philosophy, that fact is inexplicable, impossible, inconceivable.  By mine it is inevitable.

See?  The facts of objective physical reality prove that I am right, and you are a lying sack of $#!+.

There is nothing naive or childish about being willing to know facts of economics, Stevid, so stop lying.  You just hate those facts, and refuse to know them, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false, vicious, and evil.

Your infinite viciousness, dishonesty and evil are making me physically ill again.



> - regardless how innocent the intentions of the benevolent camel whose nose AND body you want fully in the tent, and fully empowered.


Stupid lie.



> In fact, you're so blitheringly naive that you can't even conceive that YOUR particular brand of geolibertarianism ALREADY DIFFERS dramatically from other LVT proponent's views,


No, the differences are quite minor, so stop lying.



> and therefore would NOT be implemented as you envision.


No one can tell what will happen in the future (except that apologists for landowner greed, privilege and parasitism will lie -- that is absolutely certain), and it can't overturn eternal truths.  In any case, it's not relevant to the current discussion: the physicists who identify the facts of reality that make it possible to build safe bridges are not responsible for the errors later made by engineers, construction workers, machinery operators, maintenance workers, etc. that result in bridges collapsing.



> But somehow your view is the only one.  And therefore LVT is to be trusted - cuz youza lubs Roy-styled gubmint.


No, I have identified the facts of objective reality that imply LVT is necessary to the achievement of liberty, justice and prosperity for all.



> Helmuth has left you limbless and headless on the battlefield too many times to count, but you are the Black Knight who calls it "just a flesh wound" as you vow to keeping hop on, while declaring victory.


???  ROTFL!!!  _Helmuth_??  You can't be serious.  I have demolished and humiliated him on every substantive claim he has made.  As I have you.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Once they claim to own the land, the enslavement and rights violations are inevitable.


What a strong argument against LVT based on a monopoly control of land right there.  That's one of your biggest challenges, Roy. How do you have all the effects of perpetual ownership and rent-seeking via monopolistic control of lands, and then convince everyone that such control and rent collecting cannot be considered a form of "ownership"?  

Ask anyone with half a brain (not to mention every true Scotsman) and they will tell you, _"Show me the one who is collecting the rents, and I will show you the owner."_

Don't see how you can get around that one, Roy.  That particular rose by any other name or verbal/mental contortion will smell just as rotten.   




> You disgrace yourself and all your ancestors -- and condemn your Immortal Soul to Eternal Damnation in the Pit that is Bottomless -- by your despicable dishonesty in the service of the most monstrous, satanic evil that has ever existed.


If I didn't know better, I would think you were accusing me of heresy, Roy.  Are you implying that I am a heretic?  My, such untoward language - and what a marvelous quotable!

----------


## Steven Douglas



----------


## Steven Douglas

> The genocide of aboriginals in the New World by land thieves dispossessing them and either murdering them or removing them to land where they could not survive is a fact of history.


Yeah, taking away their right of possession, not recognizing any right of ownership on their parts, and forcibly removing them from their land was monstrously evil.  All you need for that to happen is a bunch of conquerors who can look at aboriginals as possessing land without just compensation to the conquerors (which "just compensation" happens to be control over the land itself). 

What happened to aboriginals would happen to everyone under an LVT.  Pay up or move out.  Unless, of course, the Very Goodly & Benevolent Roy L. is personally in charge, of course. He would like to give all individuals an 'exemption', unlike present governments, most of which, including Hong Hong, consider a property tax just another means, and another source of revenue.  Governments' idea of an exemption, when it is offered, is in the form of a _discount_, as those offered to seniors and disabled, who still have to pay, but just not as much. How benevolent of them. 




> No one can tell what will happen in the future...


Well, fortunately, we do have history as a very important guide.  Even when the realities of abuses, corruption and debauchery are identified, and stern, strict, sweeping laws are passed with the intent of preventing them, government eventually finds a way around them, the crafty, resourceful little bastards. No leash strong enough or short enough to contain them for long.

----------


## Roy L

> Yeah, taking away their right of possession,


Lie, as always.  They had no right of POSSESSION to the land, that claim is merely another confirmation that you always have to lie.  They had a right to LIBERTY, a right to ACCESS AND USE the land, until it was forcibly removed by greed-besotted, evil, parasitic filth who claimed a right to extinguish the original occupants' and users' rights to life and liberty by owning land that had never been -- and could never rightly be -- owned.  The landowner always forcibly removes everyone else's rights to liberty.  That is why those who try to rationalize and justify landowning are always pure evil, and can only be understood as despicable, subhuman, monstrous filth, and the most disgusting, scummy, vicious entities that could possibly exist.



> not recognizing any right of ownership on their parts,


Because there cannot be a right of land ownership any more than there can be a right of ownership over the sea, the air, or the sky.  The aboriginal inhabitants understood that, and consequently did not claim to own the land.



> and forcibly removing them from their land was monstrously evil.


It wasn't "their" land, that is just a monstrously evil lie on your part.  The aboriginals were indeed willing to share the land, and to recognize the European settlers' rights to liberty.  They did not understand until it was too late that they were up against the most vicious, monstrous evil that had ever existed, or ever could exist: landowner greed.  



> All you need for that to happen is a bunch of conquerors who can look at aboriginals as possessing land without just compensation to the conquerors (which "just compensation" happens to be control over the land itself).


No, that's self-evidently and indisputably just another stupid, evil lie from you, Stupen.  You are just vomiting pure evil.



> What happened to aboriginals would happen to everyone under an LVT.


No, that's self-evidently and indisputably just another stupid, evil lie from you, Stupen.  You are vomiting pure evil, and you know it.  The aboriginals' rights to liberty were forcibly removed by landowner greed.  LVT restores everyone's equal rights to liberty.



> Pay up or move out.


Only if someone else justly compensates you and everyone else for depriving you of the opportunity.



> Unless, of course, the Very Goodly & Benevolent Roy L. is personally in charge, of course. He would like to give all individuals an 'exemption', unlike present governments, most of which, including Hong Hong, consider a property tax just another means, and another source of revenue.


HK doesn't use LVT.  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," LVT must be rejected because governments that *don't* use it also don't secure the equal rights of all to life and liberty.

And you even claim this with a straight face, as if a thinking human being could have said it.  Remarkable.



> Governments' idea of an exemption, when it is offered, is in the form of a _discount_, as those offered to seniors and disabled, who still have to pay, but just not as much. How benevolent of them.


Governments do all sorts of things.  In what you are no doubt pleased to call your, "mind," LVT must therefore be rejected because governments that don't use LVT do many other things that you find objectionable.

Sorry, Stepid, but no amount of ridicule on my part could possibly make that "argument" look any more absurd and dishonest than it already is on its face.



> Well, fortunately, we do have history as a very important guide.


For you to ignore.



> Even when the realities of abuses, corruption and debauchery are identified, and stern, strict, sweeping laws are passed with the intent of preventing them, government eventually finds a way around them, the crafty, resourceful little bastards. No leash strong enough or short enough to contain them for long.


You are speaking, of course, exclusively of governments that do not use LVT...

And you have the gall to accuse _me_ of a post hoc fallacy!

----------


## Roy L

> I am virtuous.


A virtuous person could not tell hundreds of lies to rationalize and justify the greatest evil that has ever existed, as you have.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yeah, taking away their right of possession, not recognizing any right of ownership on their parts, and forcibly removing them from their land was monstrously evil.  All you need for that to happen is a bunch of conquerors who can look at aboriginals as possessing land without just compensation to the conquerors (which "just compensation" happens to be control over the land itself). 
> 
> What happened to aboriginals would happen to everyone under an LVT.  Pay up or move out.  Unless, of course, the Very Goodly & Benevolent Roy L. is personally in charge, of course. He would like to give all individuals an 'exemption', unlike present governments, most of which, including Hong Hong, consider a property tax just another means, and another source of revenue.  Governments' idea of an exemption, when it is offered, is in the form of a _discount_, as those offered to seniors and disabled, who still have to pay, but just not as much. How benevolent of them. 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, fortunately, we do have history as a very important guide.  Even when the realities of abuses, corruption and debauchery are identified, and stern, strict, sweeping laws are passed with the intent of preventing them, government eventually finds a way around them, the crafty, resourceful little bastards. No leash strong enough or short enough to contain them for long.


Another thing on this subject-not many aboriginals believed in land ownership.  One of the reasons they remained far behind the West in terms of human/cultural progress.

----------


## Roy L

> What a strong argument against LVT based on a monopoly control of land right there.


Nope.  Land is a canonical example of monopoly, so all control of land is monopoly control.  Government's unique function and ability, and therefore its unique qualification to exercise control over land, is to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all.



> That's one of your biggest challenges, Roy.


You have never offered me any challenge at all, Stuvid (other than to my stomach for exposure to the pure, distilled essence of evil), and that will not be changing now.



> How do you have all the effects of perpetual ownership and rent-seeking via monopolistic control of lands, and then convince everyone that such control and rent collecting cannot be considered a form of "ownership"?


A trust is a form of ownership, but administration in trust for all, the rightful function of government wrt land, is not ownership.  I have explained this to you before, many times.

There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force.  That force will be wielded either to violate the people's rights for the unearned profit of the privileged (the current system), or to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life and liberty (LVT).



> Ask anyone with half a brain (not to mention every true Scotsman) and they will tell you, _"Show me the one who is collecting the rents, and I will show you the owner."_


Your true Scotsman is unfortunately as truly ignorant as you: trustees collect rent, but do not own the property they collect the rent from.



> Don't see how you can get around that one, Roy.  That particular rose by any other name or verbal/mental contortion will smell just as rotten.


You know that I have already refuted you, Stepid.  Government administers our use of the sea, the atmosphere, orbital positions, etc. but does not own them.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just always have to deliberately lie about it.

----------


## Roy L

> Another thing on this subject-not many aboriginals believed in land ownership.  One of the reasons they remained far behind the West in terms of human/cultural progress.


Yes, and that explains why Hong Kong is so far behind landowning paradises like Bangladesh in terms of human/cultural progress...

Tell me, boy: do you ever actually *think* about what you have written before you click the "Post" button?

----------


## Roy L

> I hate property taxes too.


Landowners hate property taxes much as young children accustomed to candy and soda hate vegetables and milk.



> Personally I think that they shouldn't exist for individual residences & small businesses.  I have a different opinion about larger entities, though.


Please consider the merits of a flat, uniform land tax exemption for all resident citizens.



> One thing I really hate about it is the idea of governments taxing you to give you back "services" that most people really don't want.


The point is, the landowner is occupying a space that those who DO want those services could be using to access them.  If you leave the grocery store with a loaf of bread, you have to pay for it because you are depriving the store of the chance to sell it to someone else who wants it, even if you decide you don't want it, and drop it in a mud puddle right outside the door.  If you don't want the services government provides, just move far enough out of town to a place where you won't have to pay for them because you aren't depriving anyone else of them.



> Wouldn't it be better to just let people keep their money, & be more financially secure than to make them insecure & give them schools that they'd rather not send their kids to,


But someone else would, which is why proximity to schools is a major determiner of land value.



> police forces that harass them for things that should be legal like drug use,


Don't blame police forces for what their corrupt and evil bosses in government make them do.



> & firefighters that tend to be over paid and under worked,


Uh, you should thank your lucky stars your firefighters are "under-worked."  I live a block away from a firehall, and they don't seem under-worked to me.



> all things where the community would be better served if they were privatized.


Garbage.  The evidence shows such services are worse and more expensive when privatized.



> Let people keep their money, be more financially secure, and decide for themselves what to spend.


Having no police force does not make people more financially secure, sorry.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Nonsense.  Previous occupants and "owners" of the area had been forcibly dispossessed.  The USA took the area from Mexico by force, just as the Spanish had annexed it by force before Mexico won its independence.  Even the aboriginals had forced out their predecessors, and though the Mormons were "invited" to settle there by one tribal chief, it was just a response to duress from other intruders, the invitation had little real legitimacy, and there continued to be violent conflict over the land (see the Walker War).


 The various imaginary borders that various nation-states drew around the continent were of little relevance to St. George -- nor to the rest of the Mormon colonies in what is now Utah, but we are focusing on St. George for now, and just a few square inches within St George at that.  Take your pick of which inches from my MLS page, just let me know which ones you're claiming were got by aggression.

Which other tribes were previously possessing and occupying St George, whom Paiutes "forced out"?  In what way did the Mormons in St. George use aggressive force to steal St. George from the Paiutes, or anyone else?

Just pick one of the lots, and explain to me in simple words exactly who was dispossessed of this lot, and when.  Your position is that the history of the lot (as with all lots) is an unbroken line of bloodbath after bloodbath, holocaust after holocaust, with robbery, aggression, and other rights-violations mixed in.  So: *Show me the Blood!*

http://www.flexmls.com/cgi-bin/mainm...s=6&id=1&cid=1

In fact, there were no rights violations which occurred in connection with the original homesteading of any of the listed lots in St George, so far as I am aware and history records.  Homesteading works.  Mutual respect for other human beings works.  Mutually acknowledging each other's land claims works.  Works all the time.

Aggression happens too.  Not as often as the programmer of Roy imagined (i.e.: always), but quite frequently.  The frequency of this aggression will lessen the more my own political philosophy -- the philosophy of liberty, the non-aggression principle -- takes hold and wins out over dead and dying cobbled-together Franken-philosophies like Georgism/Geoism and nation-statism.

To a bright tomorrow and an ever-growing cadre of youthful anarchocapitalists!  Lift your glasses and three cheers!

*Noli Me Tangre!

Liberty!

FREEEEEDOOOMMMMMMM!!*

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Lie, as always.  They had no right of POSSESSION to the land.


Of course they did. You know this. Of course you do.

The fact that a geographic location is immovable does not make it unpossessable. Governments with geographical boundaries are proof of that.  It is only a question of division of sovereignty from there.  




> Because there cannot be a right of land ownership any more than there can be a right of ownership over the sea, the air, or the sky.  The aboriginal inhabitants understood that, and consequently did not claim to own the land.


Stop imputing Roy-like warped sensibilities onto the aboriginals, Roy. It's disgusting and insulting to both common sense and the aboriginals. Stow your romanticized idyllic hunter-gatherer nonsense.  Aboriginal thought was much simpler, but they did had a concept of their own forcibly attained rights, as they were as territorial as any other territorial animal. Humans are territorial, Roy - that is the concept of landownership rights at the core.  

And even when rot-brained idiots collude to become Super-territorial, in the name of justice, fictitious rights, a public "trust" or anything else, it is only an expanded version of the same concept which all humans have about OWNERSHIP.  It's not anti-propertarian or anti-landownership at all. It's _ownership on crack_, making that mush-brained thingy that you're into nothing more than collective ownership and rent-seeking greed on a statist level.  




> It wasn't "their" land, that is just a monstrously evil lie on your part.


Oh, well drive them off it forcibly then. 




> The aboriginals were indeed willing to share the land, and to recognize the European settlers' rights to liberty.  They did not understand until it was too late that they were up against the most vicious, monstrous evil that had ever existed, or ever could exist: landowner greed.


Oh, stop with your romanticizing idiocy of one group, Roy, and your mindless vilification of another - as simplistically enlightened and innocent peace-loving hunter-gatherers were all "willing to share", but were faced with evil greedy landowner types instead.  It was nothing more than one group of territorial barbarians facing off with a smaller, very different and less sophisticated group _of territorial barbarians_.  Animals, Roy, in both cases - both groups of which had fundamental rights to exclusive territories of their own - _all at the individual level, each and every barbaric one of them_.   




> HK doesn't use LVT.


You intellectually dishonest curmudgeon, you.  That's like saying that China was never a Communist country.  True, but so what?  That's the ideal they are trying to approach.    

So no, Roy, not your version of LVT to be sure, but the mechanisms are in place. And you keep playing on both sides of it, throwing up Hong Kong as an example of why LVT could work - while insisting at the same time that HK doesn't use it - even though it has basic elements of it in place.  The point of Hong Kong (and I didn't bring it up, you did) was not to show how an LVT-only single tax wouldn't work, even If Hong Kong had one.  My argument is not that it would not work - my argument is that it would work for some, and not for many - and that it would be MORE EVIL if it did manage to function.  

My only point with Hong Kong was to show that whatever they have, which is a form of "public trust administration of land" highlights that it is only another revenue stream by government. 




> And you have the gall to accuse _me_ of a post hoc fallacy!


Nah. In this case it's not a fallacy at all.  Government abuse-seeking is not only possible and probable based on history - it is probable enough to be considered inevitable in all cases.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Land is a canonical example of monopoly, so all control of land is monopoly control.


No, you idiot. Singular control over a single thing is an example of a monopoly. Individual and separate control over separate parcels of a thing, including land, is not a monopoly.  You need an enema to clean out that brain of yours. 




> A trust is a form of ownership, but administration in trust for all, the rightful function of government wrt land, is not ownership.  I have explained this to you before, many times.


Yes, and you were just as wrong, each and every time. "Trust for all" is a way of saying "ownership for all" (under one collectivized "all" umbrella).   At least most of the other LVT'ers are honest enough to admit that it's collective ownership up front. 




> There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force. That force will be wielded either to violate the people's rights for the unearned profit of the privileged (the current system), or to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life and liberty (LVT).


Well, that's one way to say it. Another way would be that the current system violates people's rights to landownership to the extent the land value is appraised and taxed, which of course is a form of outright theft, while LVT promises to steal all land, and place all title to land under one collectivized umbrella, so that the state can collect unearned profits which can be redistributed under the guise of equal rights of life and liberty for all. 




> Your true Scotsman is unfortunately as truly ignorant as you: trustees collect rent, but do not own the property they collect the rent from.


Roy, under an LVT, both the trustees and the tyrannous majority that hired such thugs to collect unearned profits on their behalf are thieves. That's all. Cowards, parasites and rent-seeking thieves.   




> You know that I have already refuted you, Stepid.  Government administers our use of the sea, the atmosphere, orbital positions, etc. but does not own them.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just always have to deliberately lie about it.


Yeah? Why is harvesting rainwater from your own roof illegal in some states, Roy?  It's because the state has claimed title to the $#@!ing rain itself, that's why. Ownership -- of what is in the atmosphere. Claimed by the state.  You know this. Of course you do. You just always have to deliberately lie about it.  

Now go puke your guts out, as you are getting sick for a very good reason, Roy. Cognitive dissonance like yours can make one very ill.

----------


## rockerrockstar

I don't like the idea of LVT.  I can see this being a issue where you could not afford the LVT and they kick you out of your home.  I personally don't like property taxes to begin with.   Say you paid your house off and are retired.  They can take your home if you can't afford the property tax.  This is bad. With inflation and a fixed income you can be put in a position where you could lose your paid off home because its value increases do to development of the neighbor hood. The other reason is that you all ready paid for the house why should you pay taxes on something you all ready paid for.  I think there should be a one time tax and that is it.  At minimum they should not make senior citizens pay property taxes.

People that are handed houses down for generations could have to sell the home do to properties taxes owed.  This is all ready an issue with regular property taxes.  I think this is something that would need addressing too.

----------


## Roy L

> The various imaginary borders


Lie.



> that various nation-states drew around the continent were of little relevance to St. George


Bald falsehood.  The Mormons went to Utah because it was US territory, and they knew the US government and military would support their appropriation of the land -- which they did, as I already proved to you by the example of Walker's War.



> -- nor to the rest of the Mormon colonies in what is now Utah, but we are focusing on St. George for now, and just a few square inches within St George at that.  Take your pick of which inches from my MLS page, just let me know which ones you're claiming were got by aggression.


They all were, as there is no other way forcibly to remove others' rights to liberty.



> Which other tribes were previously possessing and occupying St George, whom Paiutes "forced out"?


The Anasazi.  I suppose now you require the name of each individual involved, too?



> In what way did the Mormons in St. George use aggressive force to steal St. George from the Paiutes, or anyone else?


By declaring the land to be their property, they have stolen it from _everyone_ else who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.



> Just pick one of the lots, and explain to me in simple words exactly who was dispossessed of this lot, and when.


Such a demand is absurd, and you know it.  The lots were only parceled out long after the aboriginal occupants had been dispossessed.  You know very well they were illiterate, and left no record of what happened in the whole area, let alone to some specific residential lot.



> Your position is that the history of the lot (as with all lots) is an unbroken line of bloodbath after bloodbath, holocaust after holocaust, with robbery, aggression, and other rights-violations mixed in.


As always, you have no choice but to lie about what I have plainly written.  Of course people are peaceful most of the time; the point is that even a SINGLE non-consensual transfer of possession conclusively refutes your claim that current land titles are based on innocent homesteading that violated no one's rights.



> In fact, there were no rights violations which occurred in connection with the original homesteading of any of the listed lots in St George, so far as I am aware and history records.


Of course you are not "aware" of those violations.  You conveniently just refuse to know facts when you realize they prove your beliefs are false and evil, unilaterally declare the liberty rights of the landless null and void, and gleefully redefine initiation of force as "defense of property rights."



> Homesteading works.


For the homesteaders and their heirs.  Just as thieving, enslaving and extorting "work" for the thieves, slavers and extortionists.



> Mutual respect for other human beings works.


But not as profitably as landowner extortion and thievery.



> Mutually acknowledging each other's land claims works.


For those who own those land claims.  Not so much for those who must consequently pay greedy, evil parasites for the liberty to access what nature provided for free.



> Works all the time.


To enslave and murder the landless.



> Aggression happens too.  Not as often as the programmer of Roy imagined (i.e.: always),


Provide a quote to support that claim, or admit that you are a lying sack of $#!+.

Thought not.



> but quite frequently.  The frequency of this aggression will lessen the more my own political philosophy -- the philosophy of liberty, the non-aggression principle -- takes hold and wins out over dead and dying cobbled-together Franken-philosophies like Georgism/Geoism and nation-statism.


We have seen the frequency of aggression your propertarian religion requires: 10 or 15 million human sacrifices laid on the altar of your Great God Property EVERY YEAR.



> FREEEEEDOOOMMMMMMM!![/I][/B]


Freedom for the landed and privileged to rob, enslave and murder the innocent.  You have already admitted that, remember?

----------


## Roy L

> I don't like the idea of LVT.  I can see this being a issue where you could not afford the LVT and they kick you out of your home.


No, you'd just sell your home and seek accommodation in a location better suited to your needs and means, just as people do now when they can't afford to pay for their mortgage payments, alimony, credit card debt, property taxes, or whatever.  There's no real difference between not being able to afford the land you're using and not being able to afford any other aspect of your lifestyle.



> I personally don't like property taxes to begin with.   Say you paid your house off and are retired.  They can take your home if you can't afford the property tax.


And if you are so stupid you can't figure out it's time to seek more appropriate accommodation.  But actually, that never happens.  People (OK, maybe not you) are smart enough to figure out when they can't afford to pay for what they are taking, just sell their place for a big tax-free capital gain, and buy in a lower-cost area.  When people lose their homes for tax arrears, there is ALWAYS some other financial problem at the root of it: excessive mortgage debt, divorce, medical bills, drug addiction, gambling, mental illness, credit card debt, booze, Alzheimer's, prison, job loss, etc.  No one _ever_ loses their house purely because of back taxes.  _EVER_.



> This is bad. With inflation and a fixed income you can be put in a position where you could lose your paid off home because its value increases do to development of the neighbor hood.


No, you can't, unless you are as stupid as a bag of hammers (which could happen), and can't figure out that you just need to sell and pocket the capital gain to buy a more suitable house in a less expensive area.



> The other reason is that you all ready paid for the house why should you pay taxes on something you all ready paid for.


You *DIDN'T* already pay for the _land_ (at least, not the right party), because it provides a permanent flow of advantages.



> I think there should be a one time tax and that is it.


Nope.  Not fair or practical.  You can't pay a one-time tax and then expect to get all the benefits that flow to the land for 50 or 100 or 200 or 500 years.  It's absurd.



> At minimum they should not make senior citizens pay property taxes.


No, people all have equal rights.  Every resident citizen should get an equal LVT exemption.  In many cases, it will be enough to eliminate all their land tax liabilities.  Seniors don't need to live in prime locations, so they can easily arrange to live where their exemptions pay their full LVT for them.



> People that are handed houses down for generations could have to sell the home do to properties taxes owed.


And your point would be...?  The movement of resources into more productive hands is a BENEFIT of the free market.  



> This is all ready an issue with regular property taxes.  I think this is something that would need addressing too.


You need to explain why it is a problem for society, and not just for landowners who are a bit lazy.

----------


## Steven Douglas

See, rockerrockstar? Roy is a cold-blooded, sociopathic, would-be murderous enslaver - someone who calls good evil, and evil good, and means it with every fiber of his corrupt being.  He would force everyone into permanent perpetual bondage through a fictitious perpetual land value debt that everyone owes to everyone else for that "permanent flow of advantages" (of rock, sand and dirt), based on fictitious deprivations, forever demanding a price for whatever we provided for each other, regardless if the costs have already been paid.  But, like Fed debt-money, the debt always looms over your head, and can never be paid in full. That's Roy's LVT macabre slavery treadmill - the artificial hamster wheel of death that he wants everyone on. 

Beyond nasty, isn't it?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Lie.







> Bald falsehood.  The Mormons went to Utah because it was US territory, and they knew the US government and military would support their appropriation of the land -- which they did, as I already proved to you by the example of Walker's War.







> The Anasazi.


 !

The Roy L. program's historical understanding has many holes.  Highly amusing holes.

There were no forcible appropriations for any of these lots in St. George, not in all of history.  There was never, as the Roy L. program requires, "a SINGLE non-consensual transfer of possession."

Anasazi indeed.  I'm still chuckling to myself.   Anyone with some familiarity with history will know why.  Or anyone who has more flexibility and growth ability than a Turing program, allowing them to do a search in an encyclopedia or history book and educate themselves.  It will also be trivial for such a person to discover which nation-state claimed Utah in 1846 (and in the earlier 1840s, when the exodus was being planned).

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Wow, Helmuth was right, you really are a Turing machine with a limited number of self-referencing, intelligence-simulating forks.


 I'd like to pull up the Slavey-the-Former-Slave-Man's quote again, but I'm not sure which combination of words calls it up.  "Land-ownership", "not that bad", "over-reacting", "sensationalism", "annual holocaust of the landless"?  Let's see if that does it.

I think that may just cue one of the several randomized "undefined response" dead ends though. ("Were you under the impression you were contributing something worthwhile to the discussion", "<YAWN>", "incomprehensible gibberish", etc.)

----------


## helmuth_hubener

I thought I had finished saying everything I had to say about this back on page 100, and maybe I had and this is just a very minor variant, but another thought struck me as I was going to sleep last night.

Land is given its value not by "the community".  That's bunk.  Land, like all factors of production, is given value by _consumers_.

Consider the vineyard district of Champagne, where all the grapes for champagne come from.  You go to the store and buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate something, it might cost you $100 (or even much more, if you get high-end stuff).  That $100 pays everyone involved in the production process, including the landowners back in Champagne.  Now the British classical economists would say that champagne is so expensive because its factors of production are so expensive -- one main such factor being the very scarce and very expensive land back in Champagne.

Austrians see it differently.  We say that the classical economists have the story flipped.  It's not that the champagne is expensive because the land is expensive.  The reason that the land is expensive is because champagne is so expensive, in other words, because consumers desire champagne so much.  The value the consumer places in the champagne is then imputed backwards up the production line to all the factors of its production.

If consumers worldwide decided they liked champagne even more than they do now, and started more fervently wanting to buy it in greater quantity, the price would go up.  Let's say the price of a bottle goes up from $100 to $200 dollars.  The price of that land back in Champagne is going to go up by some significant amount as a result.  Or, the opposite: say people stop buying champagne.  They decide that it gives them cancer or makes them drunk or something.  It's undesirable.  They stop buying it.  The liquor stores are putting it on super-discount -- $50, $25, and finally they just throw it away.  What happens to the value of those Champagne vineyards?  Into the toilet.  The consumer is in the driver's seat in the economy.  The consumer controls the value of champagne, and thus the value of its factors of production.

Why is all this relevant?  Well, just to say that it is not just the actions of the local "community" which are relevant in making the land in Champagne valuable.  In fact, in the case of that particular land the local situation is virtually inconsequential.  All the neighbors and locals in Champagne could decide they hate champagne and won't buy it any more.  That would be irrelevant.  Champagne is a global marketplace commodity.

As global trade expands, more and more land is like the land in Champagne.  More and more products are sold globally.  The land in and around the Microsoft campus in Redmond would plummet in value if people in Germany stop buying Microsoft products.  Land in Memphis would plummet in value if consumers switch to DHL, NPT or UPS in large numbers.  If people stop buying Magtag washers, Newton, Iowa empties out and land becomes worth zip (oh, already happened).  If consumers start preferring and buying more Tecumseh engines, Tecumseh, Michigan prospers and land goes up in value.  If people in the Ukraine start buying more cheese, then land in Tillamook, Oregon and Plymouth, Wisconsin will become more expensive.

Consumer preferences allocate all the factors of production -- including land -- according to their fickle and ever-changing desires.  To swoop in and start taxing all the land, to the point where -- and this is the stated goal of LVTers -- landowners make absolutely zero profit on their land, 100% is taxed away, to do that would mess up this whole finely-tuned mechanism.  It would mess the whole economy up!  The existing taxes mess up the economy to a great extent already.

Anyway, this fact that globally-dispersed consumers, and not local school board authorities, determine whether land has value and how much, this fact undermines the excuse for LVT that it just "gives back" to the local community what the local community gave the landowner in the first place.

----------


## Roy L

> !
> The Roy L. program's historical understanding has many holes.  Highly amusing holes.


<yawn>



> There were no forcible appropriations for any of these lots in St. George, not in all of history.


So forcible appropriation only counts when people have a written language and can therefore record the fact for history?  How convenient for those who write the history.



> There was never, as the Roy L. program requires, "a SINGLE non-consensual transfer of possession."


That's a flat-out fabrication.  I have identified the non-consensual transfers.  You just refuse to know the facts, as usual.



> Anasazi indeed.  I'm still chuckling to myself.   Anyone with some familiarity with history will know why.


Yep: because you have been refuted and have no answers.  Simple.

----------


## Roy L

> Well, in your strange world, where a factory only TAKES land value (which, of course, is provided exclusively by the all important Nature-Government-Community-mind-meld),


You are still always lying about everything I have plainly written, Stupen.  I have said no such thing.  A factory may add value to nearby land, or subtract it.  It all depends on how the nearby land can best be used.



> how do you explain MASSIVE land value drops, of both factory land and surrounding community land, of a once thriving ghost town that relied, once upon a time, on a single factory or industry for most of its economy?  That's even when the improvements are left standing, Roy.


Very simply, clearly and logically: when the factory closes, opportunity is reduced for people living nearby.  Land value drops.  People who worked or could potentially work at the factory start to leave, the suppliers who once dealt with the factory leave, and then the land the factory is sitting on does not provide as much opportunity for a business running a factory, and _that_ land drops in value.



> Ever hear of the Rust Belt?  All over the real world, there are places where you can shut down a single factory, or primary local industry, and kiss the land value (both factory and surrounding land), goodbye.  Not totally goodbye, of course, because land always does has some value, but down to an extremely low floor, and all because the factory is not there to PROVIDE VALUE to the land.


You know I have said that the opportunities and amenities the community provides -- which include investments in productive capital like factories -- add to land value.  Why are you trying to deceive readers by pretending I haven't?



> That value you want minimized, marginalized to virtually nothing,


You are (let's be charitable) confused again.  Land has both rental value -- the economic advantage obtainable by _using_ it, which in the aggregate is a measure of the prosperity and opportunity that things like factories and government services and infrastructure provide -- and capital value: the minimum value of the welfare subsidy giveaway the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes.  It is the capital value I want to minimize, not the rental value.  The capital value is just a measure of the amount of rental value the landowner gets to keep in return for doing and contributing nothing whatever.



> and interpreted only as a net "taking".


Of course before land value can be taken, it must first be _provided_, by government, the community and nature.  You know I have stated this fact many times.



> Yeah, so let's not ponder it at all, even as a matter of principle, and instead make mindless aggregate substitutions, as if they had real meaning.


Oh, don't be so absurd and ridiculous.  We use such aggregations all the time.  They are not only meaningful but absolutely indispensable to a modern economy.  When a number of people are hired at a given wage for a given type of work, they all end up contributing different amounts to their employer in return for those wages.  But their employers don't try to figure out exactly how much each individual contributed, because it's obviously impossible -- and unlike you, employers try to think rationally.



> We can't say who is being deprived of an actual resource,


We all are, just of different resources.



> so let's count an "otherwise opportunity deprivation" to everyone as meaning essentially the same thing


It's not the deprivation that's the same for all, it's the right to liberty.  Stop lying.



> - and since the net value of any individual's contribution is imponderable, let's mindlessly collectivize it,


Oh, stop telling stupid lies.  It's no more mindless than everyone having the same number of votes.  Some exercise their votes in a reasoned and informed manner, others rather ignorantly and heedlessly, and many don't bother voting at all.  They still all get one vote each, and there are very good reasons for that.  You are just being absurd and dishonest.  As usual.



> and impute equal contribution to everyone instead, with all having an equal claim.


<sigh>  It's their RIGHTS that are equal, not their contributions.  STOP LYING.



> Like I said, house of cards. And a wobbly fictitious one at that.


<yawn>  It has worked beautifully everywhere it has ever been tried.  Unlike your brain-dead notions.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> STOP LYING.


In your view, why is lying wrong?

----------


## Roy L

> See, rockerrockstar? Roy is a cold-blooded, sociopathic, would-be murderous enslaver


<yawn>  History is unanimous on this point: it is LANDOWNERS who are the cold-blooded, sociopathic, murderous enslavers.  And those who rationalize and justify their depredations -- the enablers -- are of course far worse.



> - someone who calls good evil, and evil good, and means it with every fiber of his corrupt being.


Stuvid is lying again.  Greed -- unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money" -- is the root of all manner of evil.  Greed is defined as excessive desire for more than one needs or deserves.  As landowners neither need nor deserve to pocket land rent, their desire to pocket it is by definition greedy, and therefore is a root of evil.

LVT advocates are therefore champions of liberty, justice and good; the apologists for landowner privilege, by contrast, are servants of enslavement, injustice and evil.  They are the lowest, most despicable subhuman filth that has ever existed.



> He would force everyone into permanent perpetual bondage


Filth.  Evil, despicable, lying filth.  Everyone would in fact have free, secure tenure on enough land to live on, and only those who wanted to exclude others from more than their own fair share of the land would pay anything at all.



> through a fictitious perpetual land value debt that everyone owes to everyone else for that "permanent flow of advantages" (of rock, sand and dirt),


Stop lying, Stupen.  You make me sick with your constant, vicious, despicable, evil  lying.  You know I have stated many times that the advantages arise not only from the physical qualities nature provides -- which also include climate, proximity to water supplies, views, slope, exposure, etc. -- but the services and infrastructure government provides, and the opportunities and amenities the community provides.  You just insist that landowners should continue to be privileged to pocket the value of those advantages -- including the ones other people's taxes pay for -- in return for contributing exactly nothing.  You are an apologist for the filthiest, most despicable, evil parasites on earth.



> based on fictitious deprivations,


You are a lying sack of $#!+, Stupin.  The deprivations the landless suffer kill millions of them every year.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just believe it is _rightful_ to lay millions of human sacrifices per year on the altar of your Great God Property.  You are completely in favor of murdering millions of innocent people per year, as long as private landowners profit from the slaughter.



> forever demanding a price for whatever we provided for each other, regardless if the costs have already been paid.


Why always lie, Stuvid?  The costs of providing government services and infrastructure cannot already have been paid, and the cost of providing land cannot be other than zero, as it was already there, ready to use, with no help from any landowner or anyone else.



> But, like Fed debt-money, the debt always looms over your head, and can never be paid in full.


No, you just always have to tell stupid lies.  Unlike interest on debt money, land rent is paid for an ongoing flow of benefits provided by government and the community.  You have to keep paying for it for the exact same reason you have to keep paying for the groceries you eat: you keep paying more because you KEEP TAKING MORE.



> That's Roy's LVT macabre slavery treadmill - the artificial hamster wheel of death that he wants everyone on. 
> 
> Beyond nasty, isn't it?


Your claims are beyond absurd, dishonest and idiotic.

----------


## Roy L

> In your view, why is lying wrong?


In this case, it's wrong because it is rationalizing, justifying and enabling the greatest evil that has ever existed.  More generally, it's wrong because it undercuts social trust and people's ability to think and behave rationally.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> More generally, it's wrong because it undercuts social trust and people's ability to think and behave rationally.


Why is undercutting trust wrong?

----------


## Sola_Fide

No answer Roy?

I'm trying to get down to the fundamentals of your worldview.  You keep saying things are "wrong" and "evil", but I bet I can show that you can't say anything is wrong or evil.

----------


## Roy L

> No answer Roy?


Unlike evil, I have to sleep sometime.



> I'm trying to get down to the fundamentals of your worldview.


They're beyond the scope of this thread.



> You keep saying things are "wrong" and "evil", but I bet I can show that you can't say anything is wrong or evil.


Bet you can't.  I  hold a degree in philosophy, with honors, from an internationally respected university.  You, by contrast, have probably never had a course in logic.  The notion that you are going to school me in moral reasoning is laughable.

----------


## Roy L

> Why is undercutting trust wrong?


It weakens society by reducing cooperation and promoting internal conflict.  The effect of individual behavior on reproductive success through its influence on societal fitness is the evolutionary source of the human capacity for moral reasoning, and defines right and wrong.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> That's a flat-out fabrication.  I have identified the non-consensual transfers.  You just refuse to know the facts, as usual.


You identified no such transfers.  There are no such transfers.

I feel pedantic and time-wasting even having to write the above, it was so obvious from the exchange.



So many endless hours could be wasted playing with this Turing monster.  Better to talk with Siri.

Thanks to the high traffic and tolerance found on RPF, the program has gone on for far longer than ever planned for.  The programmer made no provision for a thread so long.  Which is why the program seems like it's not even trying any more (fallacious anthropomorphizing, I know).

----------


## furface

Sorry, but all this anti-landowner stuff sounds like this to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ0up_MjsLk

Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.

Ownership makes people happy.  That's why I whole heartily advocate it.  Paying rent makes people bitter.  Maybe if we had more rent subsidies like in Europe it wouldn't.  Gotta have big taxes for welfare states like that, though.

Get on Section 8 and get over it, Roy.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> It weakens society by reducing cooperation and promoting internal conflict.


Why is promoting internal conflict wrong?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> It weakens society by reducing cooperation and promoting internal conflict.


Lack of land ownership weakens society and promotes conflict.  This is why colonial Americans HAD to adopt private property.  Otherwise they would have starved to death.  Learn about William Bradford and the failed experiment in landowner-less society here.

----------


## eduardo89

This thread is about half way there to being the longest thread on RPF. Good job Roy!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> This thread is about half way there to being the longest troll thread on RPF. Good job Roy!


 I also congratulate Roy.

----------


## eduardo89

> I also congratulate Roy.


Roy:

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I also congratulate Roy.


Me too! For things he would not want congratulations for, but I would congratulate him nonetheless. I even want to give him a medal of freedom or something, for all his unwitting, unintended hard work on my behalf.  Let me explain:

I was shocked during a fifth grade spelling contest that I got to choose my own opponent.  I was no doubt the best speller in the class - I knew that. But naturally, I picked the dumbest guy in the class anyway, and WHOOPED him soundly. Hollow victory? Yeah. Of course. But it was fun, and I won.  

I can think of no better way of defeating an obnoxious proposal than to be able to hand pick its most obnoxious, vocal and _people-repulsive_ champions by hand.  You might as well embrace them as allies!  In that regard, Roy is the gift that just keeps on giving, and for that, I congratulate him.  There's no chance that Roy can be accused of being a puppet straw man, working as a counter-agent against the LVT cause.  He's just too damned dedicated! 

In that respect Roy would be my first round draft pick _every time_, because every time he types something about LVT, nothing but bugs, worms and hissing snakes come crawling out of his keyboard!  He spares absolutely nobody from his venom and vitriol, including many who might otherwise agree with him in principle! He's a one-man wrecking crew, an unintended consequence monster of his own making, for his own cause.

----------


## gb13

Well, without the State (and their enforcement powers), it seems true that "land property ownership" in the traditional sense doesn't really exist. So therefore, it makes sense to have some sort of tax imposed on deeded land, in repayment for the ability to legally "own" it, and to use the State to enforce that right. That's the gist of Georgism, anyway, and in large part I agree with that perspective. To be honest, it might be the fairest way to fund government. Since "labor", "sales", etc. could obviously exist without the State, the State has no right to tax them IMHO. Land ownership is different; the state declares a portion of what was once common land, as exclusively "yours", and therefore, the state has some claim to your ability to "own" it. The strong caveat I have is that I do not believe that the State should be able to seize your primary residence in the case that you fail to make payment. In the case of non-payment (and with the lack of State land-seizure rights), then I could entertain the State pursuing alternative means of securing payment from a land owner. Perhaps then, compensatory and punitive taxes on income would be a reasonable way to pay back taxes on land. Secondary plots, would be fair game for seizure if the owner fails to pay. I think that would be a pretty fair system.

The same goes for Corporations (if they are to exist). Sole proprietorships should not be subject to taxation on profits. Corporations in all their various forms, however, are merely legal fictions created by the State. No State, no corporations. Therefore, the State has the right to impose excise on profits for those who choose to use that privilege. 

The only question is how much the state is fairly entitled to, and that's a question that really has no perfect answer.

I'm not really well versed on tariffs, but I know that many libertarians and the like seem to favor them over other forms of taxation. Anyone care to school me?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> The only question is how much the state is fairly entitled to, and that's a question that really has no perfect answer.


I do-none.  To claim otherwise presupposes that man does not own himself.  This is why as the Regime claims more and more of individual's wealth and property as its own, society breaks down.  IOW, when the State grows, it does so at the expense of everyone else-like a cancer.

----------


## Roy L

> No, you idiot.


Yes, you economic ignoramus:

"The rent of land, considered as the price paid for the use of Lands, is naturally a monopoly price,"
-- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations



> Singular control over a single thing is an example of a monopoly.


And so is singular control over a unique factor in fixed supply.



> Individual and separate control over separate parcels of a thing, including land, is not a monopoly.


Wrong.  It is well known that conceptual aggregation of unique goods in fixed supply under some broader term -- like calling all the unique original artworks "art," or all the unique land parcels "land" -- does not alter the monopoly character of the market for each one.  IOW, even if one person owned them all, they could not get a higher total price than the combined prices obtained by the various owners of each one.



> You need an enema to clean out that brain of yours.


I am objectively correct.  You are an economic ignoramus.  Simple.



> Yes, and you were just as wrong, each and every time.


No, I was correct as a matter of objective fact each time.



> "Trust for all" is a way of saying "ownership for all" (under one collectivized "all" umbrella).


Already refuted.  Government administers use of the atmosphere and oceans in trust for all, but does not own them.  How many more times, and in how many more different ways, would I have to prove you wrong before you would become willing to consider the possibility that you actually ARE wrong?



> At least most of the other LVT'ers are honest enough to admit that it's collective ownership up front.


It is only ownership as a matter of legal form because there is no legal trust in place to exercise authority over it.



> Well, that's one way to say it. Another way would be that the current system violates people's rights to landownership


No, such a right cannot exist in the first place, as it inherently violates the right to liberty.



> to the extent the land value is appraised and taxed, which of course is a form of outright theft,


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  It is the landowner who is guilty of outright theft, as land value measures what he takes from society but does not repay.



> while LVT promises to steal all land,


To redress a prior theft is not stealing, so stop lying.



> and place all title to land under one collectivized umbrella, so that the state can collect unearned profits


No, you are just lying again.  The state _earns_ land rent by providing the services and infrastructure that make land valuable, and sustaining the community that provides the opportunities and amenities that make it even more valuable.  It is the private landowner, by contrast, who exacts the unearned profits, as he does not provide or contribute anything whatever.



> which can be redistributed under the guise of equal rights of life and liberty for all.


You either believe in the equal human rights to life and liberty or you don't.  You don't.  Simple.



> Roy, under an LVT, both the trustees and the tyrannous majority


ROTFL!!!  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," a majority acting to secure and reconcile their equal rights to life and liberty, and establish a just framework for land allocation in their society, is "tyrannous," but one bloated feudal landowner robbing and oppressing millions of people into permanent, inescapable, grinding poverty by exercising his legal property "rights" over millions of acres of the land nature provided for free is somehow just another peaceable participant in the voluntary free market?

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...



> that hired such thugs to collect unearned profits


It is government and the community that earn land rent by creating it, and the landowner whose profits are unearned because he contributes nothing, as I already proved to you.



> on their behalf are thieves. That's all. Cowards, parasites and rent-seeking thieves.


No, Steven, _you_ have already _proved_ that it is the private landowner who is the parasite, coward, and rent-seeking thief, by your inability to answer The Question:

"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"



> Yeah? Why is harvesting rainwater from your own roof illegal in some states, Roy?


Because legislators wanted to stop large-scale diversions of public water resources by private interests, and didn't realize that small-scale collection for domestic use actually reduces demand on public water systems.



> It's because the state has claimed title to the $#@!ing rain itself, that's why.


No, you are just $#@!ing lying again.  Aquifers, open water bodies, watercourses, etc. are rightly recognized to be public resources, not private property, and diversion of rainfall from those resources is stealing from the public.



> Ownership -- of what is in the atmosphere. Claimed by the state.  You know this. Of course you do. You just always have to deliberately lie about it.


Either provide a direct quote from a duly enacted law claiming state ownership of the atmosphere, or admit that you are evil, despicable, lying filth.



> Now go puke your guts out, as you are getting sick for a very good reason, Roy.


True.  The monstrous evil of apologists for landowner privilege is grotesquely sickening.



> Cognitive dissonance like yours can make one very ill.


No cognitive dissonance here.  Everything makes sense to me, because I am willing to know facts -- everything, that is, except the monstrous, horrifying, satanic dishonesty and evil practiced by apologists for landowner privilege who rationalize and justify the greatest evil in the history of the world.  They serve an evil that not only almost always harms them personally, but will almost certainly rob and enslave their own children, whose liberty and lives the servants of greed, privilege and evil eagerly offer up as human sacrifices on the altar of their Great God Property.

That cannot be made to make sense.

----------


## gb13

> I do-none.


Ok, fine. Then no one owns land in the colloquial sense, because the state doesn't have any reason to enforce ownership rights. You can sit on your land with a gun at all times to fend off individuals who arguably have just as much of a claim over it as you do. Or maybe hire someone else to do it for you....just hope that the looters don't offer them more to turn a blind eye. Look, I'm not arguing for or against the existence of a State, I'm just simply stating that without the State, land property ownership in the traditional sense doesn't really exist. Which is entirely true.




> To claim otherwise presupposes that man does not own himself.  This is why as the Regime claims more and more of individual's wealth and property as its own, society breaks down.  IOW, when the State grows, it does so at the expense of everyone else-like a cancer.


I should have clarified, but I meant to imply that the State could seize private land only for the purposes of auctioning it off to another private individual, in order to recoup the taxes owed. Never to keep it or claim it as their own. Any profits obtained beyond compensation for back-taxes and perhaps reasonable punitive fees (what's reasonable?) would have to be returned to the original owner.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The same goes for Corporations (if they are to exist). Sole proprietorships should not be subject to taxation on profits. Corporations in all their various forms, however, are merely legal fictions created by the State. No State, no corporations. Therefore, the State has the right to impose excise on profits for those who choose to use that privilege.


I would _not_ say that "the same goes for corporations" - I would say that it ONLY goes for corporations, foreign entities, or any other entity that operates as a matter of privilege, and not right.  If you completely separated sovereign individuals from all of this nonsense, for which it should not apply, I would actually have no problem with LVT, at least in principle, or what the state did with regard to such entities - so long as no rights of individuals were interfered with (and by that, I don't mean fictitious "otherwise would be at liberty rights").   Not "an exemption" for individuals, for which such laws should not apply in the first place.

----------


## Roy L

> Lack of land ownership weakens society and promotes conflict.


Nope.  There is no evidence for such a claim, and ample evidence against it.  Private landowner parasitism has been the most common cause of revolution and societal collapse throughout history.



> This is why colonial Americans HAD to adopt private property.


In products of labor.  But even their aboriginal neighbors had that, which allowed them to survive comfortably in the very same location, _landowner-less_, even with only Stone Age technology.  Why can't you ever remember that, hmmmm?



> Otherwise they would have starved to death.  Learn about William Bradford and the failed experiment in landowner-less society here.


No, I already refuted your stupid garbage, remember?  The failed experiment that Bradford recorded, which has also failed numerous other times, was a PRODUCT-ownerless society.  From YOUR OWN SOURCE:

"Knowing that _the fruits of his labor_ would benefit his own family and dependents, the head of each household was given an incentive to work harder."

Many societies have had no private landowners whatever and have thrived, Hong Kong being just the most glaring example.  The Plymouth colony's aboriginal neighbors survived comfortably without any landowners even though they enjoyed a far lower level of technology than the pilgrims, because they had *private property in products of labor*.  Therefore, that was the key factor the Plymouth experiment had got wrong, not landowning.  It was effectively a controlled experiment in political economy, and the results were unambiguous:

High technology without property in land or products of labor  --> failure
Low technology without property in land but WITH property in products of labor --> success
High technology with property in land and products of labor --> success

The results of the experiment demonstrate that neither technology nor property in land were relevant to societal success.  The ONLY relevant factor was property in products of labor.

You will now refuse to know the facts clearly demonstrated by this experiment.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Well, without the State (and their enforcement powers), it seems true that "land property ownership" in the traditional sense doesn't really exist. ... Land ownership is different; the state declares a portion of what was once common land, as exclusively "yours", and therefore, the state has some claim to your ability to "own" it.


  That's the myth, but in actuality, humans spontaneously form property-rights orders when "left to themselves" in the absence of a state.  *This has happened repeatedly throughout history.  People respect each other's property rights in land repeatedly throughout history, without any state involved or even anywhere in sight.  Think of the American Old West, for instance.*  The land was not all once this mythical "common land" with things only being divvied up once the wise and all-knowing state came on the scene and started divvying and doling.  That's just not reality; that's not how it happened, happens, or would happen in the future under any likely scenario.  

Everyone knows about "chaos theory", right?  Order spontaneously arises out of chaos.  You don't have to have things being planned and directed from the top down.  The alternative to a top-down approach, and superior in many ways, is the bottom-up collaboration of freedom.  It's superior in flexibility, resilience, and efficiency.  It is more humane, respectful of individuality, and compatible with human dignity and liberty.

Most good laws and good aspects of our legal system were originally created by non-state, market-driven, free and collaborative processes.  Not by the state -- the state just co-opts the good ideas.  Property law can be taken care of on the free market.  It is not dependent on the state.  Defensive and security measures can be provided on the market as well -- security guards, surveillance, physical barriers, detective work, retaliation against aggressors, etc.  All these things can be done so much better by free and competitive firms than they can be by slow, stupid, and monopolistic state police agencies, courts, and prisons.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Ok, fine. Then no one owns land in the colloquial sense, because the state doesn't have any reason to enforce ownership rights. You can sit on your land with a gun at all times to fend off individuals who arguably have just as much of a claim over it as you do. Or maybe hire someone else to do it for you....just hope that the looters don't offer them more to turn a blind eye. Look, I'm not arguing for or against the existence of a State, I'm just simply stating that without the State, land property ownership in the traditional sense doesn't really exist. Which is entirely true.


No, this is entirely false.  Land ownership in the Western territories existed long before official entry into the union.  History doesn't bear out what you're saying.  btw, just because looters use force to take my land doesn't make it legitimately theirs-same as any other sort of theft.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> That's the myth, but in actuality, humans spontaneously form property-rights orders when "left to themselves" in the absence of a state.  *This has happened repeatedly throughout history.  People respect each other's property rights in land repeatedly throughout history, without any state involved or even anywhere in sight.  Think of the American Old West, for instance.*  The land was not all once this mythical "common land" with things only being divvied up once the wise and all-knowing state came on the scene and started divvying and doling.  That's just not reality; that's not how it happened, happens, or would happen in the future under any likely scenario.  
> 
> Everyone knows about "chaos theory", right?  Order spontaneously arises out of chaos.  You don't have to have things being planned and directed from the top down.  The alternative to a top-down approach, and superior in many ways, is the bottom-up collaboration of freedom.  It's superior in flexibility, resilience, and efficiency.  It is more humane, respectful of individuality, and compatible with human dignity and liberty.
> 
> Most good laws and good aspects of our legal system were originally created by non-state, market-driven, free and collaborative processes.  Not by the state -- the state just co-opts the good ideas.  Property law can be taken care of on the free market.  It is not dependent on the state.  Defensive and security measures can be provided on the market as well -- security guards, surveillance, physical barriers, detective work, retaliation against aggressors, etc.  All these things can be done so much better by free and competitive firms than they can be by slow, stupid, and monopolistic state police agencies, courts, and prisons.


qft!

----------


## awake

If you do not repeal the 16th amendment its only a matter of whether your facing forward or back before going over the falls. Starve the beast, cut its means to metastasize.

----------


## redbluepill

> Lack of land ownership weakens society and promotes conflict.  This is why colonial Americans HAD to adopt private property.  Otherwise they would have starved to death.  Learn about William Bradford and the failed experiment in landowner-less society here.


Its so funny you point out that story because it proves that a geoist society WORKS! 
_
As Governor Bradford describes it, "At last after much debate of things, the governor gave way that they should set corn everyman for his own particular... That had very good success for it made all hands very industrious, so much [more] corn was planted than otherwise would have been". The Pilgrims changed their economic system from communism to geoism; the land was still owned in common and could not be sold or inherited, but each family was allotted a portion, and they could keep whatever they grew. The governor "assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end."_ 

http://www.progress.org/fold65.htm

----------


## redbluepill

An entertaining and informative short video that summarizes why poverty continues despite our 'progress'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itO7OoKtNUc

----------


## redbluepill

> If you do not repeal the 16th amendment its only a matter of whether your facing forward or back before going over the falls. Starve the beast, cut its means to metastasize.


Agreed. The 16th amendment is a moral abomination.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> An entertaining and informative short video that summarizes why poverty continues despite our 'progress'.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itO7OoKtNUc


Everyone even remotely persuaded by or sympathetic to anything in that video _deserves_ to be a Georgist.  Or a Marxist.  Or, most likely, a Marxo-georgist.  I don't want them; you can keep them.  They're not smart enough to be a libertarian.  I don't want them anywhere near my movement.

The video is a perfect condensation and concentration of everything most horribly wrong about Georgism; all the very worst arguments and sentiments which any of its adherents have expressed.

And you wonder why people think you're like Marxists!  Sickeningly patronizing maternalism: check.  Class envy: raw and ugly.  In that video it was all flaunted and even celebrated with no shame at all.

----------


## redbluepill

> Everyone even remotely persuaded by or sympathetic to anything in that video _deserves_ to be a Georgist.  I don't want them; you can keep them.  They're not smart enough to be a libertarian.  I don't want them anywhere near my movement.


Your movement...  





> The video is a perfect condensation and concentration of everything most horribly wrong about Georgism; all the very worst arguments and sentiments which any of its adherents have expressed.


Bravo! Great job deconstructing the arguments it makes! The truth is you cannot argue against any of its points therefore you simply dismiss it.

_People do not argue with the teachings of Henry George; they simply do not know it . He who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree._ ~ Leo Tolstoy

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Its so funny you point out that story because it proves that a geoist society WORKS! 
> _
> As Governor Bradford describes it, "At last after much debate of things, the governor gave way that they should set corn everyman for his own particular... That had very good success for it made all hands very industrious, so much [more] corn was planted than otherwise would have been". The Pilgrims changed their economic system from communism to geoism; the land was still owned in common and could not be sold or inherited, but each family was allotted a portion, and they could keep whatever they grew. The governor "assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end."_ 
> 
> http://www.progress.org/fold65.htm


No.  Collective ownership of land property failed.  Per your article- _This bitter lesson would be learned all over again by the people of the Soviet Union, where socialism and communalism of production failed again. Fortunately the Pilgrims, a smaller community in simpler times, were able to switch quickly and realize_ the great prosperity that comes from applying the geoist principle of the common ownership of land and the individual ownership of labor

This is not the lesson of the Pilgrims' story.  The moral is the importance of the division of labor and private ownership of land and means of production.  Common ownership of land is what had nearly starved them to death.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> _People do not argue with the teachings of Henry George; they simply do not know it . He who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree._ ~ Leo Tolstoy


Tolstoy was what we now call a Christian anarchist.  Reading his fiction and non-fiction, one would not conclude that he agreed with Geoism as described in this thread.  Which of George's teachings is he referring to in this out of context quote?
(also keep in mind that Tolstoy lived in a still rather Feudalist Russia, and his concern was more about landowners being given special treatment by the regime.  See "The Slavery Of Our Times")

----------


## redbluepill

> And you wonder why people think you're like Marxists!


No, I don’t wonder why at all. I know the reason why, they don’t do their own research.

Refer to Tolstoy quote above.




> Sickeningly patronizing maternalism: check.


Are you just blathering? It has nothing to do with maternalism.




> Class envy: raw and ugly.  In that video it was all flaunted and even celebrated with no shame at all.


I don’t envy the lazy and privileged. 

“... Nature gives to labour, and to labour alone; there must be human work before any article of wealth can be produced; and in the natural state of things the man who toiled honestly and well would be the rich man, and he who did not work would be poor. We have so reversed the order of nature that we are accustomed to think of the workingman as a poor man.” ~ Henry George

----------


## redbluepill

> No.  Collective ownership of land property failed.  Per your article- _This bitter lesson would be learned all over again by the people of the Soviet Union, where socialism and communalism of production failed again. Fortunately the Pilgrims, a smaller community in simpler times, were able to switch quickly and realize_ the great prosperity that comes from applying the geoist principle of the common ownership of land and the individual ownership of labor
> 
> This is not the lesson of the Pilgrims' story.  The moral is the importance of the division of labor and private ownership of land and means of production.  Common ownership of land is what had nearly starved them to death.


*Sigh* It was the collective ownership of the FRUITS OF LABOR that nearly starved them all. Whatever the Pilgrims gathered from their hard work everyone shared equally. Obviously it failed partly due to the fact that communism begets idleness. While some worked others refused and a smaller crop was the result.

They changed their society by assigning each family/person a plot and allowing them to keep the fruits of their own labor. The land was still held in common as Foldvary points out in his article.

----------


## redbluepill

> Tolstoy was what we now call a Christian anarchist.  Reading his fiction and non-fiction, one would not conclude that he agreed with Geoism as described in this thread.


Already talked about geo-anarchism, so no, Tolstoy would not be contradicting himself in his support of George.

You would be hard-pressed to find a bigger admirer of Henry George than Leo Tolstoy! (The man kept a picture of George next to his bed).

http://wealthandwant.com/auth/Tolstoy.htm





> (also keep in mind that Tolstoy lived in a still rather Feudalist Russia, and his concern was more about landowners being given special treatment by the regime.  See "The Slavery Of Our Times")



_By 1908, two years before his death, Tolstoy had become obsessed with George's single tax, regarding it as vital for the moral and economic regeneration not only of his homeland, but of the world. This idee fixe is amply illustrated in the following correspondence.
_


"I read through your letter and I find your thoughts about land to be correct. The land is God's. It should not and cannot belong to anyone. All people have an equal right to it and the only concern is how to distribute it. ... Many people like you truthfully say that the land cannot be anyone's property. Genuine property is determined only by labor and people must work in harmony on it. Many truly understand that to distribute the land among the people is important and wise. These matters were resolved in a very just form by the American scholar Henry George. . . . [Whoever uses the land] would pay. . . to society i.e., to the government for community needs. . . . There will be no domestic taxes or foreign duties, i.e., there will not be requisitions or taking anything away from people's work, because all taxes will be replaced by this land payment. Henry George was wise concerning this. . . . The injustice of landownership is now becoming as obvious to people as what occurred fifty years ago when the evil of serfdom became blatant. It could not last long, and when the time came, it was abolished. The slavery of people and the stealing from their labor through landownership cannot long remain in the same manner.42" ~ Leo Tolstoy

----------


## Roy L

> Everyone even remotely persuaded by or sympathetic to anything in that video _deserves_ to be a Georgist.


<yawn>  Including the quotes from Thomas Paine, Adam Smith and Winston Churchill?



> Or a Marxist.  Or, most likely, a Marxo-georgist.


There is no such thing, and never can be, so stop lying.  Marxism and Georgism are mutually contradictory.



> I don't want them; you can keep them.  They're not smart enough to be a libertarian.


Nope.  Too smart to be deceived by feudal libertarian bull$#!+.  John Stuart Mill advocated land rent recovery, and he was one of the smartest men who ever lived -- definitely much smarter than you.



> The video is a perfect condensation and concentration of everything most horribly wrong about Georgism; all the very worst arguments and sentiments which any of its adherents have expressed.


None of which, oddly, you can actually refute, as usual.



> And you wonder why people think you're like Marxists!  Sickeningly patronizing maternalism: check.  Class envy: raw and ugly.


Despicable lie.  Landowner parasitism was just accurately identified, so you immediately had to lie that it was an expression of envy.



> In that video it was all flaunted and even celebrated with no shame at all.


That's right.  Why would anyone be ashamed of advocating liberty, justice and truth?  It is the shamelessness of your service to privilege, greed, parasitism and evil that needs an explanation.

----------


## Roy L

> That's the myth, but in actuality, humans spontaneously form property-rights orders when "left to themselves" in the absence of a state.


For property in products of labor, yes.  Not for property in land.  That requires a state, or the habit of people accustomed to living in a state.



> [B]This has happened repeatedly throughout history.


Not for property in land.  That never happens except in a state, or under the direction of people who are accustomed to property in land through having grown up in a state where it was customary.



> People respect each other's property rights in land repeatedly throughout history, without any state involved or even anywhere in sight.


No, that has never happened except when the individuals involved were accustomed to think of land as property through having grown up and lived under a state-administered system of landed property.



> Think of the American Old West, for instance.


I invite you to do so.



> The land was not all once this mythical "common land" with things only being divvied up once the wise and all-knowing state came on the scene and started divvying and doling.


The divvying and doling of land in the American West was initiated by people who had learned about divvying and doling land through having grown up and lived under a state apparatus for divvying and doling land -- and knew that those who ended up with the land would inexorably take everything from everyone else.



> That's just not reality; that's not how it happened, happens, or would happen in the future under any likely scenario.


Wrong.  Land grabbers in the Old West were keenly aware of the need for state sanction of their thefts, whether the state was the Spanish crown, the British crown, Mexico, the French revolutionary government that sold the Louisiana Purchase land to the USA, or whatever.  Without that their land was nearly worthless, as the title was not secure.  The falsity of your claim is proved by the fact that the cattlemen who had "homesteaded" the land according to you, were dispossessed of it by farmers who were homesteading under state authorization.  You're just objectively wrong as a matter of historical fact.



> Most good laws and good aspects of our legal system were originally created by non-state, market-driven, free and collaborative processes.  Not by the state -- the state just co-opts the good ideas.  Property law can be taken care of on the free market.  It is not dependent on the state.  Defensive and security measures can be provided on the market as well -- security guards, surveillance, physical barriers, detective work, retaliation against aggressors, etc.  All these things can be done so much better by free and competitive firms than they can be by slow, stupid, and monopolistic state police agencies, courts, and prisons.


Except, that is just false.  What you claim must happen has in fact never happened.  Private law, defense and security simply can't compete with the vastly more efficient state versions.

----------


## Roy L

> No, this is entirely false.  Land ownership in the Western territories existed long before official entry into the union.


Under land grants from the French, Spanish and British governments that (for the most part) were later recognized by the US government.



> History doesn't bear out what you're saying.


Yes, in fact it does.



> btw, just because looters use force to take my land doesn't make it legitimately theirs-same as any other sort of theft.


Your theft of the land from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it doesn't make it legitimately yours, either, sunshine.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Your theft of the land from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it doesn't make it legitimately yours, either, sunshine.


In your view, why is denying people's liberty wrong?

----------


## Roy L

> No.  Collective ownership of land property failed.


Nope.  It's already been proved to you that that is a flat-out falsehood.  The land remained collectively owned -- the Pilgrims' post-communist land allocation system was rather like the old Celtic system of village commons, which had also worked well for thousands of years in Europe -- after private property in products of labor was restored.  It was the latter reform that rescued the Plymouth colony even as the land remained common property.



> Per your article- _This bitter lesson would be learned all over again by the people of the Soviet Union, where socialism and communalism of production failed again. Fortunately the Pilgrims, a smaller community in simpler times, were able to switch quickly and realize_ the great prosperity that comes from applying the geoist principle of the common ownership of land and the individual ownership of labor
> This is not the lesson of the Pilgrims' story.


Yes, actually, it is.  You just want to substitute a lie that rationalizes landowner privilege for the historical truth that proves LVT is good and right.



> The moral is the importance of the division of labor and private ownership of land and means of production.


Nope.  It can't be, because land was not made into private property when the Pilgrims abandoned communism; it was allocated according to number of persons in each household, and could not be sold or inherited.



> Common ownership of land is what had nearly starved them to death.


No, now you are just flat-out lying.  That claim has already been proved wrong by the fact that the aboriginals survived in the exact same place with common holding of land, and the fact that the colony began to prosper when products of labor were recognized as private property, but land was still allocated as a common resource, not private property.

----------


## Roy L

> In your view, why is denying people's liberty wrong?


People who are denied their liberty are less productive, and feel less loyalty to their communities as they know that other members of those communities are inflicting injustice upon them.  This weakens those communities, which makes them less able to compete with communities where people's rights to liberty are secured.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> People who are denied their liberty are less productive, and feel less loyalty to their communities as they know that other members of those communities are inflicting injustice upon them.  This weakens those communities, which makes them less able to compete with communities where people's rights to liberty are secured.


Why is it wrong to weaken a community?

----------


## Roy L

> I do-none.  To claim otherwise presupposes that man does not own himself.


Nope.  There is no way that ownership of land can be interpreted as ownership of oneself.

----------


## Roy L

> Why is it wrong to weaken a community?


It's wrong to weaken one's _own_ community because it has a strong prejudicial effect on one's evolutionary success.  Under the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that shaped the human genome to enable morality to arise, it was more calamitous for the propagation of one's genes to be a member of a failed society than to die personally without posterity, because there were so many more copies of one's genes among the other members of one's community, who were mostly close relatives.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> It's wrong to weaken one's _own_ community because it has a strong prejudicial effect on one's evolutionary success.  Under the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that shaped the human genome to enable morality to arise, it was more calamitous for the propagation of one's genes to be a member of a failed society than to die personally without posterity, because there were so many more copies of one's genes among the other members of one's community, who were mostly close relatives.


Why is it wrong to weaken ones own survival?

----------


## Roy L

> Why is it wrong to weaken ones own survival?


Because the very CONCEPT of "wrong" is a product of evolution that inherently places one's own (genetic) survival above all other considerations.  The human capacity even to think in terms of right and wrong, which animals do not share, is deeper and more real than any definition of right and wrong that can ever be derived from it.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Because the very CONCEPT of "wrong" is a product of evolution that inherently places one's own (genetic) survival above all other considerations.  The human capacity even to think in terms of right and wrong, which animals do not share, is deeper and more real than any definition of right and wrong that can ever be derived from it.


Murder is also a product of our evolution.  We've evolved to be very efficient at killing each other.  So murder must be another thing you think is "right", correct?

In other words, what you're giving us here is an argument that commits the naturalistic or is/ought fallacy.  But you said you had a degree in philosophy from an internationally respected university, right?  Did they teach you about valid and invalid arguments?

----------


## redbluepill

> Why is it wrong to weaken a community?


Jan Helfeld is that you? ;-)

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The truth is you cannot argue against any of its points therefore you simply dismiss it.


 Can't... or won't?  Oh well, we'll never know I guess!  

I only have so much time in life.  Never shoot down, only shoot up, that's what they say.  I have no desire to argue against any of its "points".  The whole thing is pathetic on its face.  I made what I feel was the most useful and honest response to it by simply documenting my reaction.  It's junk.  That's it.  No one who thinks even remotely like me could possibly think that "wow, that video made some really good points."  Anyone who could is a total lost cause.

You don't see the maternalism?  This hapless, helpless, half-retarded "farmer in green" can't figure anything out for himself, just keeps getting taken advantage of by reality, and he needs you, redbluepill, to swoop in and protect him from the mean nasty world, and from his own prodigious stupidity.

Poverty is a solved problem.  It's done.  There is no poverty in the United States.  It is completely impossible to starve to death in the U.S., no matter how unfortunate, useless, or lazy you are.  End of story.  Hand-wringing and belly-aching about "how oh how do we stop poverty" is an exercise in amusing me.

----------


## ConCap

> What makes it your land?



WTF?
A deed of ownership and the rule of law.

----------


## furface

> Poverty is a solved problem. It's done. There is no poverty in the United States. It is completely impossible to starve to death in the U.S., no matter how unfortunate, useless, or lazy you are. End of story. Hand-wringing and belly-aching about "how oh how do we stop poverty" is an exercise in amusing me.


For some reason I always want to understand the background of people when they make blanket statements like this.  I 100% agree with you that there is no starvation or even hunger in the US.  "Poverty" in general is another issue altogether.  Getting down to a more general issue like "financial insecurity" and you find a striking and profound problem in the US.  

I'm guessing you wouldn't make such statements about poverty being solved if you've ever had a $1,000 mortgage payment and only $800 in the bank.  Or rent, or $50,000 in medical bills and an income of $30,000 per year.  Regardless of any masturbatory spins on "morality" that seem to be so common in this thread and others here, there are people who are suffering because of financial insecurity.  Of course we all know that the reason people are financially insecure is that they are worthless as human beings and rich people like Newt Gingrich & Mitt Romney are wonderful.

----------


## redbluepill

> WTF?
> A deed of ownership and the rule of law.


...as it was under slavery.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> For some reason I always want to understand the background of people when they make blanket statements like this.


 Wonderful!  Probably because you think that the rich are the ones who cannot understand the plight of the purr.  No, I have lieved a normal life exposed to many of the folks who you would call poor.  But using a more objective and historical measure of poverty, none of them have been poor, they have all been affluent.




> I 100% agree with you that there is no starvation or even hunger in the US. "Poverty" in general is another issue altogether.


 Historically, no.  That's what poverty is.  It's a strange kind of poverty indeed when the biggest health problem among the "poor" is obesity.

There will always be poor among us if "poor" can be redefined as "having only one yacht."  But otherwise, the poor are history in the US, and on their way out in much of the rest of the world.




> Getting down to a more general issue like "financial insecurity" and you find a striking and profound problem in the US.


 It's a problem, of course, that can be summed up thusly: *it's their own darn fault*.

Financial insecurity is a solved problem.  One solves it by having financial intelligence.  By practicing sound budgeting.  By making good financial decisions.  That's it.  You can't force people to act intelligently.





> I'm guessing you wouldn't make such statements about poverty being solved if you've ever had a $1,000 mortgage payment and only $800 in the bank.


  There's an easy solution to this problem: sell the house. There's a reason I've never had to solve this problem myself: I'm not stupid.




> Or rent, or $50,000 in medical bills and an income of $30,000 per year.


 There's an easy solution to this problem: don't incur bills in excess of your ability to pay.  Specifically to this case: get catastrophic medical insurance.




> Regardless of any masturbatory spins on "morality" that seem to be so common in this thread and others here, there are people who are suffering because of financial insecurity.


 There are even very high-income people, or even people who have won the lottery, who are suffering because of financial insecurity.  It's because they are financially stupid.




> Of course we all know that the reason people are financially insecure is that they are worthless as human beings and rich people like Newt Gingrich & Mitt Romney are wonderful.


 The reason is often because they have no financial intelligence.  Combined with this, they generally have an extremely high time preference.  Simply put: they don't save money.  They spend everything they earn.

You get rich by not doing that.

Read Rich Dad Poor Dad, Millionaire Next Door, etc.

----------


## ConCap

> ...as it was under slavery.


so your ok with someone moving into your house when you are at work?

----------


## redbluepill

> so your ok with someone moving into your house when you are at work?


Nope. A house is created through my labor or through the labor of a paid worker. Land is not. 

My point was that 19th century law protected the "right" of slaveowners to own slaves so basing your argument behind what the law says is a little weak.

----------


## Roy L

> Murder is also a product of our evolution.  We've evolved to be very efficient at killing each other.


Actually, we have evolved to be much more efficient at killing other creatures than at killing each other.  Murder is rather commonplace among non-human animals, and not something specifically human like our moral capacity (right-wrong thinking).  In fact, murder is mainly a behavior mediated by the pre-mammalian, reptilian brain that is ruled by emotion rather than cognition.



> So murder must be another thing you think is "right", correct?


Wrong.  Evolution is not a process with an end point.  Murder is a behavior much older than human moral capacity, as shown by the high murder rates observed in our closest relatives among the primates that lack moral capacity -- far higher than typical human murder rates -- let alone among lower animals.

Human beings have many characteristics that evolved under very different circumstances many millions of years ago, and are no longer adaptive in our current ways of life.  The fact that prohibition of murder (the older behavior) is a near-universal feature of human moral reasoning (the newer behavior) indicates that murder is no longer adaptive in current social environments, as we indeed find to be the case.

If it helps you understand my argument, you can think of my definition of "moral good" as, "reproductively successful given the type of societal environments anatomically modern humans tend to create."  That is an empirical proposition, and people can therefore be objectively wrong about it.



> In other words, what you're giving us here is an argument that commits the naturalistic or is/ought fallacy.


My argument may indeed fall into the category of what Moore considered naturalistic "fallacy," but Moore's argument that such arguments are fallacious in fact fails.  He commits a question-begging fallacy in the first premise of the Open-Question Argument, a fact easily seen by substituting ordinary empirical terms into the formula:

"If murder is adaptive, the question 'Is it true that murder is adaptive?" is meaningless."

This premise is clearly false, as we can examine the question empirically.  As the Wikipedia article on the Open-Question Argument explains:




> "The main assumption within the open-question argument can be found within premise 1. It is assumed that analytic equivalency will result in meaningless analysis.[4] Thus, if we understand Concept C, and Concept C* can be analysed in terms of Concept C, then we should grasp concept C* by virtue of our understanding of Concept C. Yet it is obvious that such understanding of Concept C* only comes about through the analysis proper. Mathematics would be the prime example: mathematics is tautological and its claims are true by definition, yet we can develop new mathematical conceptions and theorems. Thus, X (i.e. some non-moral property) might well be analytically equivalent to the good, and still the question of "Is X good?" can be meaningful. Ergo premise 1 does not hold and the argument falls."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Question_Argument

The Wiki article on the naturalistic fallacy includes this refutation of Moore's argument:




> "According to Bernard Williams, Moore's use of the phrase 'naturalistic fallacy' to describe this particular kind of meta-ethical thinking was a 'spectacular misnomer'; Williams contending that it is not properly either naturalistic or a fallacy."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural...3ought_problem



> But you said you had a degree in philosophy from an internationally respected university, right?  Did they teach you about valid and invalid arguments?


<yawn>  They taught me not to accept philosophers' claims about other philosophers' arguments as givens.

----------


## Roy L

> so your ok with someone moving into your house when you are at work?


So you refuse to know the fact that what is produced by labor is produced by labor, and what is not is not?

----------


## Roy L

> For some reason I always want to understand the background of people when they make blanket statements like this.


Do you have a strong stomach?



> I 100% agree with you that there is no starvation or even hunger in the US.


Only because government intercedes on behalf of the landless.



> Of course we all know that the reason people are financially insecure is that they are worthless as human beings and rich people like Newt Gingrich & Mitt Romney are wonderful.


Hehe...

----------


## ConCap

> Nope. A house is created through my labor or through the labor of a paid worker. Land is not. 
> 
> My point was that 19th century law protected the "right" of slaveowners to own slaves so basing your argument behind what the law says is a little weak.


Is your house floating?

----------


## Roy L

> This hapless, helpless, half-retarded "farmer in green" can't figure anything out for himself, just keeps getting taken advantage of by reality,


No, by greedy, parasitic landowners.



> and he needs you, redbluepill, to swoop in and protect him from the mean nasty world,


No, from greedy, parasitic landowners



> and from his own prodigious stupidity.


"Stupidity" being defined as, "producing, when you could just be taking by owning land."



> Poverty is a solved problem.  It's done.  There is no poverty in the United States.


That will be news to the homeless.



> It is completely impossible to starve to death in the U.S., no matter how unfortunate, useless, or lazy you are.


Because government intercedes massively on behalf of the landless to rescue them from the effects of landowner privilege, despite the best efforts of people like you.

----------


## Roy L

> Is your house floating?


No.  Were you under an erroneous impression that you were saying something relevant?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Because government intercedes massively on behalf of the landless to rescue them from the effects of landowner privilege, despite the best efforts of people like you.


No.  This is an illusion that will disappear when the parasitic State has drained the life out of the productive class.  It is an unsustainable model.  Already the EBT cards are managed by JP Morgan and other bankers.

----------


## ConCap

> No.  Were you under an erroneous impression that you were saying something relevant?


ooops.  wires crossed.

----------


## Roy L

> No.  This is an illusion that will disappear when the parasitic State has drained the life out of the productive class.


It is the parasitic privileged -- especially landowning -- class that is draining the life out of the productive class, with the state's help.  Your delusions are monumental.



> It is an unsustainable model.


True, as the destruction of many civilizations at the hands of landowner privilege attests.



> Already the EBT cards are managed by JP Morgan and other bankers.


More parasites.  _Obviously_.

----------


## Roy L

> Your house occupies the land I want to build mine on.
> Could you please move it?


No.  If you want to exclude others from a plot of land, whether to build a house on it or for any other purpose, make just compensation to them for removing their liberty, as I am willing to do to keep my house where it is.

----------


## ConCap

> No.  If you want to exclude others from a plot of land, whether to build a house on it or for any other purpose, make just compensation to them for removing their liberty, as I am willing to do to keep my house where it is.


Who gets this tax you pay to set your home on if no one owns the land to begin with?

Are you just renting it?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by ConCap
> 
> Your house occupies the land I want to build mine on.
> Could you please move it?
> 
> 
> No.  If you want to exclude others from a plot of land, whether to build a house on it or for any other purpose, make just compensation to them for removing their liberty, as I am willing to do to keep my house where it is.


The answer is not no, nor is it a matter of compensation directly to Roy only, as he is not the only party of interest.  Ask Roy how that would work if he said no, but you insisted. Is there a mechanism whereby you could force him to move?  According to Roy, the answer is a resounding yes. 

If his house occupies the land you want to build yours on, the landholding rental is as good as up for auction ... perpetually.  If you are willing to pay the landlord/state more rent than the existing homeowner/not-landowner, as the highest bidder, you're in like Flynn.  You would have to compensate Roy for the house he built - but that valuation will be up to an appraiser, not Roy.  And as the owner of the real estate improvements, Roy cannot attach any sentimental value to his property.  He cannot create an immovable architectural masterpiece, or work of art, for example, and set his own reserve price for that.  

Under Roy's LVT, the state's financial interests are tied directly to land value only, and nothing else.  Since it has NO interest in your improvements, it also has zero interest in protecting your notions of what those improvements are worth _to you_ - only market value - what the market is willing to pay, as determined by an appraiser.    

Once Roy is "justly compensated" (based on an appraisal, regardless of Roy's feelings on whether it was just or not, which is irrelevant), Roy is then free, or "at liberty" to go build elsewhere, on land the rents of which he can afford to pay, over and above his individual land exemption amount, whatever that is.  To Roy, that is "just", because so long as there is someone willing to pay more to occupy the land he occupies, his staying on that land for less would represent a deprivation to others without just compensation.  Of course, if no higher bidder showed up to displace him, the amount he currently pays would be considered just.  It is the presence of a higher bidder alone that drives the land rent upward.  So if Roy doesn't want to be displaced, it is in his interests to keep a Very Low Profile, and hope that the location of his home does not attract too much attention. 

Roy was lying through his keyboard teeth when he said no.  The question is not whether or not you can force him to move.  Only how much it would take.  Your house is perpetually considered to be _on the market - up for sale_.   It's not a question of whether you could do this to Roy, but only of your ability to price him out of his own home, coupled with his inability to compete with you, all sentimental "willingness to keep his house where it is" notwithstanding, and irrelevant.

----------


## bolil

Anyway I could get a readers digest on this thread?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Anyway I could get a readers digest on this thread?


Okay. "Landowners are thieves.  I'm right, and you who disagree with me are entirely wrong-no matter how much overwhelming evidence to the contrary of my opinion exists.  There can be no other way,"  said Roy L.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Anyway I could get a readers digest on this thread?


You don't need one.  


When you get down to the fundamentals of Roy's worldview, right and wrong is based on whatever has "evolved" to be right or wrong...which is the same thing as saying that nothing can ultimately be right or wrong.  For all of Roy's railing against "evil", he doesn't have a worldview that provides for anything to be objectively "evil".


Nothing. To. See. Here.  This is the most pointless thread on the internet.

----------


## redbluepill

> Is your house floating?


Sure why not. The economic definition of land includes air.

Term land Definition: One of four basic categories of resources, or factors of production (the other three are labor, capital, and entrepreneurship). This category includes the natural resources used to produce goods and services, including the land itself; the minerals and nutrients in the ground; the water, wildlife, and vegetation on the surface; and the air above.
http://glossary.econguru.com/economic-term/land

----------


## Roy L

> Who gets this tax you pay to set your home on if no one owns the land to begin with?


The government, community and public that create the value I am paying for.



> Are you just renting it?


As it can't rightly be owned, that would be one way of putting it.

----------


## Roy L

> The answer is not no, nor is it a matter of compensation directly to Roy only, as he is not the only party of interest.  Ask Roy how that would work if he said no, but you insisted. Is there a mechanism whereby you could force him to move?  According to Roy, the answer is a resounding yes. 
> 
> If his house occupies the land you want to build yours on, the landholding rental is as good as up for auction ... perpetually.  If you are willing to pay the landlord/state more rent than the existing homeowner/not-landowner, as the highest bidder, you're in like Flynn.  You would have to compensate Roy for the house he built - but that valuation will be up to an appraiser, not Roy.  And as the owner of the real estate improvements, Roy cannot attach any sentimental value to his property.  He cannot create an immovable architectural masterpiece, or work of art, for example, and set his own reserve price for that.  
> 
> Under Roy's LVT, the state's financial interests are tied directly to land value only, and nothing else.  Since it has NO interest in your improvements, it also has zero interest in protecting your notions of what those improvements are worth _to you_ - only market value - what the market is willing to pay, as determined by an appraiser.    
> 
> Once Roy is "justly compensated" (based on an appraisal, regardless of Roy's feelings on whether it was just or not, which is irrelevant), Roy is then free, or "at liberty" to go build elsewhere, on land the rents of which he can afford to pay, over and above his individual land exemption amount, whatever that is.  To Roy, that is "just", because so long as there is someone willing to pay more to occupy the land he occupies, his staying on that land for less would represent a deprivation to others without just compensation.  Of course, if no higher bidder showed up to displace him, the amount he currently pays would be considered just.  It is the presence of a higher bidder alone that drives the land rent upward.  So if Roy doesn't want to be displaced, it is in his interests to keep a Very Low Profile, and hope that the location of his home does not attract too much attention.


You astonish me, Steven.  The above, while a bit slanted, is nevertheless reasonably accurate and honest.  That wasn't so hard, was it?



> Roy was lying through his keyboard teeth when he said no.  The question is not whether or not you can force him to move.  Only how much it would take.


Now, now, Steven.  He didn't mention compensation, he just said please.  I wouldn't move my house for a please, but obviously would do it for enough compensation -- and as I am, unlike some others here, rational, I wouldn't even charge much over the market rate for moving it.



> Your house is perpetually considered to be _on the market - up for sale_.


The land it sits on is.  But then, it is now, too.  There's just a lower holding cost under the current system, which prevents it from being efficient.

----------


## bluesc

Damn, can we lock this thread already? I'm sick of seeing at at the top of New Posts constantly.

Roy L will _never_ be convinced by this futile debate.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Maybe there should be an "ignore thread" feature?

----------


## Roy L

> When you get down to the fundamentals of Roy's worldview, right and wrong is based on whatever has "evolved" to be right or wrong...which is the same thing as saying that nothing can ultimately be right or wrong.


More accurately, I delete the ought-is problem by observing what ought *is*.



> For all of Roy's railing against "evil", he doesn't have a worldview that provides for anything to be objectively "evil".


Wrong.  It's just an empirical question and not easy to determine in every case.  But the Good Book was definitely on the right track when it said that greed (unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money") is the root of all manner of evil.



> Nothing. To. See. Here.  This is the most pointless thread on the internet.


This thread may be the most important thing you will ever read.

----------


## bluesc

> Maybe there should be an "ignore thread" feature?


I would love that.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> This thread may be the most important thing you will ever read.


 This sentence may be the most hilarious thing I have ever read.  OK, just most hilarious today.  This is a good candidate for inclusion in a sig.

<light bulb>

Roy, you should put it in _your_ sig!!!!

----------


## heavenlyboy34

Greatest.  Troll.  Thread.  Ever.

----------


## bluesc

> Greatest.  Troll.  Thread.  Ever.


I've seen much better. But this guy is a persistent troll, going back many years.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You astonish me, Steven.  The above, while a bit slanted, is nevertheless reasonably accurate and honest.  That wasn't so hard, was it?


What you viewed as a reasonably accurate and honest assessment, I and many others would view as _an indictment_ -- the truth that is more shocking and repulsive than fiction.  The reason I am trying to understand your position as accurately as possible is because I believe most people would reject LVT as a ghastly thing, once they clearly understand the actual mechanics of what is being proposed, the underlying rationale, and the ramifications of who wins and who loses (as they, not you, view it. Remember? "$#@! Granny.").  




> Now, now, Steven.  He didn't mention compensation, he just said please.  I wouldn't move my house for a please, but obviously would do it for enough compensation -- and as I am, unlike some others here, rational, I wouldn't even charge much over the market rate for moving it.


But it's not really up to you, though, now is it? You aren't necessarily negotiating with the seller, and certainly not from a position of power since you can't say no to any offer an appraiser considers reasonable.  In fact, you really don't have to sell the buyer on a thing - just the appraiser.  And if you think the appraisal was too low, exercise whatever due process might exist, but barring that it's tough beans for you, as that is the selling price you'll be forced to accept.  In a free market both buyer and the seller are free to part ways if they cannot agree on a price. Under an LVT regime, the seller is at the mercy of the appraiser and the buyer, and the buyer is the only one empowered to walk away if the price isn't right. 

Can you imagine if merchants around the world could only price their goods and services on the basis of government appraisals?  I think there's a word for that.   




> Your house is perpetually considered to be on the market - up for sale. 
> The land it sits on is.  But then, it is now, too.  There's just a lower holding cost under the current system, which prevents it from being efficient.


If you're referring to property taxes, you're right. That's why I am hoping against hope that North Dakota or some other state sets a precedent and abolishes property taxes once and for all.  If you are referring to anything else, however (e.g., other than Eminent Domain), then no, your house is not on the market unless you place it on the market. As the owner, only you have the final say on if, when, and for how much it will sell.  And there are people on this Earth who will not, if given a choice, sell at any offered price.  Offer them ten times what it is worth, and they will turn down the offer - because for many it is not about money. 

Also, if the land your house sits on is perpetually considered to be on the market, then so is the house by default.  In the case of immovable structures, there is no getting around that.  

Once again, this is a special case of a non-free market, where individuals who are not secure in their locations are not only forced to sell, but forced to accept a price for their improvements based on the final word given by a government appraisal - and all because of state monopoly control on the only part the value of which the state has an interest in protecting -- the rug underneath it all.  

That doesn't mean that the state won't have an interest in protecting _new developments_. Quite the opposite, as new developments drive up land values, and therefore rents that can be ultimately collected.  That makes for a great partnership between developers and the state, both of which will slop from the same trough.   So it is in the interest of the state to lure developers in, _to outbid and force out its own constituency_, with a promise of higher assessed values for the new developer, and ever-increasing rent revenues for the state along the way. Thus, I can easily see why construction would boom in an LVT area. Good for the state, but even better for the developer - similar to what we have now with central banks, as they are good for the state, but ten times as good for banking and commerce.   Not so good, in any case, for anyone who is simply content with what they already have.  If they aren't on the perpetual value expansion treadmill, their interests aren't protected at all.

----------


## Roy L

> WTF?
> A deed of ownership and the rule of law.


I.e., the exact same things that made human beings into someone's property when slavery was legal.  Thanks for making the nature of your landowning explicit: it's nothing but a government-issued and -enforced privilege of violating others' rights without making just compensation.

----------


## Roy L

> You identified no such transfers.  There are no such transfers.


You're just lying again.  I identified the fact that the USA took it from the Mexicans, who took it from the Spanish, who took it from the Paiute, who took it from the Anasazi, and we don't know who they took it from, but it doesn't matter, because even one forcible transfer invalidates all subsequent transfers.



> I feel pedantic and time-wasting even having to write the above, it was so obvious from the exchange.


No, you made a false claim, and you couldn't back it up.  Simple.

----------


## eduardo89

> Damn, can we lock this thread already? I'm sick of seeing at at the top of New Posts constantly.
> 
> Roy L will _never_ be convinced by this futile debate.


No but maybe he can convince us to stop lying and apologizing for parasitic landowners.

----------


## Sola_Fide

The next time Roy tells you that "you're lying", just ask him why lying is wrong (especially if it is in one's evolutionary or survival advantage to do so).


When he can't give you a non-arbitrary answer as to why lying is wrong, you will start to see that he has no foundation to say anything else is wrong either, including "stealing liberty" or whatever he says.


This is the most pointless thread on the internet.  We have this moron here for 180 pages calling people "evil" and saying things are "wrong" when his Darwinistic worldview doesn't even provide for anything to be objectively "evil".

----------


## redbluepill

The reason this thread has become pointless (and got soooo lonnnnggg) is not necessarily the name-calling, its the ignorant assumptions about geoism and land.

Just a few of the ignorant comments I've seen:

1. Land is not in limited supply because we can create more land!

2. Georgism is just another name for Marxism!

3. The LVT will tax my house!

4. The LVT will mean the government owns my land!

5. More land is created whenever a volcano erupts!

6. The Founding Fathers never would have supported an LVT! Any quotes from classic liberals/libertarians that demonstrate support of the LVT are actually taken out of context!

...and then when get to 100 pages...

You don't have to agree with the LVT, but at least get the facts right!

----------


## Roy L

> I thought I had finished saying everything I had to say about this back on page 100, and maybe I had and this is just a very minor variant, but another thought struck me as I was going to sleep last night.


And it might even be sufficiently stupid and anti-rational to persuade you of its validity.



> Land is given its value not by "the community".  That's bunk.


It is indisputable fact.



> Land, like all factors of production, is given value by _consumers_.


No, that is stupid garbage with no basis in fact.



> Consider the vineyard district of Champagne, where all the grapes for champagne come from.  You go to the store and buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate something, it might cost you $100 (or even much more, if you get high-end stuff).  That $100 pays everyone involved in the production process, including the landowners back in Champagne.


Stop lying.  The landowners are not involved in the production process.  They simply charge the producers for not stopping the production process, like any other protection racketeer.



> Now the British classical economists would say that champagne is so expensive because its factors of production are so expensive -- one main such factor being the very scarce and very expensive land back in Champagne.


No, you merely prove your ignorance of classical economics.  David Ricardo demonstrated that land rent is not even a cost of production, but merely the value of the additional production that the landowner is enabled to take from the producer through owning better than marginal land.



> Austrians see it differently.  We say that the classical economists have the story flipped.


You just made up what you claim the classical economists' story is.



> It's not that the champagne is expensive because the land is expensive.


Correct, as the classical economists stated.



> The reason that the land is expensive is because champagne is so expensive,


No, that is just anti-economic garbage.  The land is expensive because it is so much better for growing champagne grapes than marginal land.  It has nothing to do with champagne being expensive.  This is easily proved by imagining that champagne is ten times as expensive, but because of climate change, the land won't grow champagne grapes much better than marginal land, so the amount of champagne produced has fallen by 99%.  The land is then nearly worthless, even though champagne is ten times as expensive.



> in other words, because consumers desire champagne so much.


False, as proved above.  Champagne is not so expensive because consumers desire it so much, but because the supply is artificially restricted by intellectual property law: vintners who get their grapes from anywhere but Champagne are not allowed to call their products "champagne," even though those products might be indistinguishable, to the consumer, from the product of Champagne grapes, or even superior to it.  IOW, the high price of land in Champagne is a result of the Champagne landowners' rent-seeking and champagne-production-reducing efforts, supported by governments around the world.

Once this fact is understood, it becomes apparent why David Ricardo, who was much smarter than you, was right, and you are wrong.  The champagne IP monopoly places a premium on grapes from Champagne, making them more valuable than grapes from elsewhere.  This stimulates people in Champagne to press worse grape-growing land into use to take advantage of the price premium.  Land that would more suitably be used to grow tomatoes, olives, etc. is devoted to grapes.  As the rent of grape-growing land is equal to the _difference_ between the productivity of a given parcel of land and the worst land in use, bringing worse land into use for grape growing in Champagne raises the rent on all the better grape growing land in Champagne.  



> The value the consumer places in the champagne is then imputed backwards up the production line to all the factors of its production.


False.  The resulting rent goes only to the landowners.  The working people who actually make the champagne, the equipment suppliers, etc., are paid no more to help make champagne than those who help make any other French wine.  It is only the landowners of Champagne who profit from the monopolistic constraint on production of "champagne."  That is why the landowners of Champagne are immensely rich, while the vineyard workers, vintners, etc. who actually produce the champagne are no better off than winery workers anywhere else in France.



> If consumers worldwide decided they liked champagne even more than they do now, and started more fervently wanting to buy it in greater quantity, the price would go up.


Because the SUPPLY can't go up, other than by pressing worse and worse land in Champagne into use for vineyards, thus raising the rent on all the better vineyard land in Champagne.



> Let's say the price of a bottle goes up from $100 to $200 dollars.  The price of that land back in Champagne is going to go up by some significant amount as a result.


False, as proved above.  If the price went up to $200/bottle as a result of a shift in climate that made the good grape growing land in Champagne no more productive than the worst, the value of the formerly expensive land would CRASH, as it would no longer provide any advantage over the marginal land.



> Or, the opposite: say people stop buying champagne.  They decide that it gives them cancer or makes them drunk or something.  It's undesirable.  They stop buying it.  The liquor stores are putting it on super-discount -- $50, $25, and finally they just throw it away.  What happens to the value of those Champagne vineyards?  Into the toilet.  The consumer is in the driver's seat in the economy.  The consumer controls the value of champagne, and thus the value of its factors of production.


Disproved above.  The value of the factors depends on the economic advantage they confer, not on consumer opinions.



> Why is all this relevant?


Well, it confirms that you are an economic ignoramus.



> Well, just to say that it is not just the actions of the local "community" which are relevant in making the land in Champagne valuable.


True.  It's a case where governments around the world help the Champagne landowners push up the value of their land by restricting production of champagne.



> In fact, in the case of that particular land the local situation is virtually inconsequential.


No, it is crucial, because the "champagne" appellation is only permitted on wines made from grapes grown in Champagne.  If the province's government brought in a law requiring double the wages for vineyard workers in Champagne, the land value would crash.  If it brought in a law forbidding grapes to be grown anywhere but on a few favored estates, the value of those estates would skyrocket.



> As global trade expands, more and more land is like the land in Champagne.


No, it is not, as proved above.  Such claims are absurd, anti-economic nonsense.



> More and more products are sold globally.  The land in and around the Microsoft campus in Redmond would plummet in value if people in Germany stop buying Microsoft products.


No, it would not, as most German Microsoft products don't come from Redmond, and the German demand for Microsoft products has very little effect on the economic advantage of land in Redmond.  It was also not a decision by German consumers to locate Microsoft's HQ in Redmond, which is what made land values there higher.  



> Land in Memphis would plummet in value if consumers switch to DHL, NPT or UPS in large numbers.


It might.  But that wouldn't mean they were creating its value.  The land value in Memphis would just move to wherever the business went.



> If people stop buying Magtag washers, Newton, Iowa empties out and land becomes worth zip (oh, already happened).


It is self-evidently stupid to claim that the formerly higher land values in the area were due to _consumer_ preferences, and not to the company's decision to locate its manufacturing facilities there.  It is also stupid to claim that consumers are creating the land value when the land value associated with satisfying their desires would just move to wherever their new suppliers were located.



> If consumers start preferring and buying more Tecumseh engines, Tecumseh, Michigan prospers and land goes up in value.  If people in the Ukraine start buying more cheese, then land in Tillamook, Oregon and Plymouth, Wisconsin will become more expensive.


That's just land value moving around to follow economic activity, not creation of land value; and it's the producers who are moving it by their decisions of where to locate their factories, not consumers.



> Consumer preferences allocate all the factors of production -- including land -- according to their fickle and ever-changing desires.  To swoop in and start taxing all the land, to the point where -- and this is the stated goal of LVTers -- landowners make absolutely zero profit on their land, 100% is taxed away, to do that would mess up this whole finely-tuned mechanism.


No, such claims are just false and stupid.  The producers could not care less if they have to pay a private landowner for land or pay the same amount to a public land tax authority -- except that in the latter case, they would be relieved of an equivalent tax burden on their productive activities.



> It would mess the whole economy up!


It would radically improve it, making almost everyone but the top few percent of landowners far better off.



> The existing taxes mess up the economy to a great extent already.


Yes, because unlike LVT they are not levied on factors in fixed supply.



> Anyway, this fact that globally-dispersed consumers, and not local school board authorities, determine whether land has value and how much,


It's not a fact, as proved above.  It's just an absurd anti-economic fabrication.



> this fact undermines the excuse for LVT that it just "gives back" to the local community what the local community gave the landowner in the first place.


It's true that in some places, like Champagne and Redmond, governments all over the world help make the land more valuable.

----------


## Roy L

> The next time Roy tells you that "you're lying", just ask him why lying is wrong (especially if it is in one's evolutionary or survival advantage to do so).


I've explained to you why it's wrong, and one's personal survival advantage is not the reason.



> When he can't give you a non-arbitrary answer as to why lying is wrong,


I've already given you a non-arbitrary answer, so stop lying.  It's wrong.



> you will start to see that he has no foundation to say anything else is wrong either, including "stealing liberty" or whatever he says.


Lie.  The foundation is in the empirical nature of the concepts of right and wrong, as already explained.



> We have this moron here for 180 pages calling people "evil" and saying things are "wrong" when his Darwinistic worldview doesn't even provide for anything to be objectively "evil".


Lie.  It's just an empirical question, which people -- like you -- can get wrong, especially by assuming it has been solved by some mystical supernatural being.

----------


## Roy L

> What you viewed as a reasonably accurate and honest assessment, I and many others would view as _an indictment_ -- the truth that is more shocking and repulsive than fiction.  The reason I am trying to understand your position as accurately as possible is because I believe most people would reject LVT as a ghastly thing, once they clearly understand the actual mechanics of what is being proposed, the underlying rationale, and the ramifications of who wins and who loses (as they, not you, view it. Remember? "$#@! Granny.").


Yes, $#@! Granny if -- remember? -- she thinks her *preferences* are more important than other people's _rights_.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Yes, $#@! Granny if -- remember? -- she thinks her *preferences* are more important than other people's _rights_.


Let's rephrase that for accuracy:  "if...she thinks that what she believes is her individual right  *preferences* to be secure in her location  are is superior to Roy's idea of what constitutes other people's nebulous and collectivized 'liberty rights'."

LVT is Eminent Domain on crack, the ultimate and artificial Superior Capital vs. Inferior-labor-capital battle - a fight that can be invoked by force at any time by capital interests alone.  And once again, only the buyer, not the seller, is free to walk away if the price is not right.  The seller's ASK for improvements is irrelevant, and not under the control of the seller, but rather the appraiser.  Disadvantage Individual Seller at the lower end of the food chain -Clear Advantage Developer at the upper end. 

With LVT the state's interests are not aligned with individual rights, as those rights are already collectivized, not individualized, as part of the rationale for LVT.  Individuals are so much flotsam and jetsam to be viewed only in the aggregate - chum and fodder to a finely tuned, developer-dominated food chain.  Just as owners of commercial banks are the clear winners under a central banking Ponzi regime, land developers would be the major winners - the state's veritable darlings - under an LVT regime.  Whatever keeps property values maximized at all times, as average people who lack the same capital as developers are sitting ducks - pushed to the outside, forced to accept whatever an appraiser deems fitting, but later forced to jump at overpriced dangling developer plums.  

To protect yourself against competition under LVT, just BUILD BIG.  _Really big._ Like...Hong Kong big.  Since capital improvements and income therefrom cannot be taxed, and since these improvements must be reimbursed for an LVT to go up, the idea is to *"make new land"* - in the form of improvements on that new land.  _Vertically._



Roy-the-homeowner might not have the ability (and certainly not the incentive) to create an architectural masterpiece of his home, but big developers whose interests are aligned with its Godfather and partner, the state, certainly do have such incentives, and would make those improvements, because rent-seeking for those improvements is involved at all times. 

Apex Predators who have no higher-ups will always tend to be politically well connected, and can have direct influence over what constitutes competition in the food chain.  With the state as a willing facilitator, the developers, like commercial banks under a Fed, can be assured of uniformity and stability, but only amongst themselves.    

Large developers alone can make it cost prohibitive for ANYONE except the major players in the arena to outbid them for their land, based on their superior improvements on that land.  Hence, the LVT ceiling has a natural limit for the largest players -- as they finally reach a point where NOBODY will outbid them for their land rent, because nobody is able to reimburse the apex predator/developer for its improvements.  And because nobody will outbid them, their LVT remains flat.  With enough politically connected developers, they can all get together and simply agree on outrageously inflated prices for their improvements.  It is in all of their interests to do just that - something no individual with a home can accomplish. 

So you build vertically, like they do in Hong Kong, because you can charge rents on all your improvements - whether a hotel or an office skyscraper with leases -- _just like they do in Hong Kong_.  Not "land rents", which are theoretically, ostensibly, separate from improvements or the income therefrom, which is always yours to keep.  In that respect, LVT is not a problem for large rent-seeking developers at all, as the real money comes from rent-seeking from the _new land_ that is vertically created, _which is not considered land_.  

Individuals who are not developers, on the other hand, are forced to fight in a state-controlled king-of-the-hill arena, with a state that is anything but neutral, as it very much favors the strongest players - primarily land developers - at all times. The weaker individuals must, at all times, make way for those with superior capital, as the whole of the economy becomes them, and whomever works for them, as they build and service all the artificial 'community' pyramids.   

Rent and rent-seeking are not ended under LVT - quite the opposite, they are maximized and multiplied as the rule of the day for virtually everyone.  *But landownership does not end - it merely goes vertical, and takes on a completely different form.*  What a Brave New World, as George was little more than a Marxist who realized that the only way to control the capitalistic beast is to make them fight over who pays the state the most for its privileges, as the state takes center stage and exercises monopolistic control over _the ground floor._  If you can't beat them, BE ONE with them, and get your cut, early and often.   And yes, $#@! Granny - she's the least of the developing, rent-maximizing, rent-seeking contributors.  She'll get her "just compensation" as it trickles back to her in the form of an individual exemption, and possibly a minor dividend. For whatever it's worth.

Oh, and look at all those millions of eggs packed together in all those incredibly tall vertical baskets. If the global economy ever goes through a super-collapse, and global food shortages become a reality as a result - not because there is not enough food, but because the currencies have all collapsed - that pretty island concrete metropolis, with no farms, and no stores of survival value, is ground zero for absolute mayhem.  I could be wrong, of course, but I have no normalcy bias where this is concerned, as we have never, EVER had any currency fundamentals of the magnitude we have today.  I personally think we will witness that apocalyptic scenario in our lifetime. Likewise with all completely dependent, non-self-sustaining metropolitan hives.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> The reason this thread has become pointless (and got soooo lonnnnggg) is not necessarily the name-calling, its the ignorant assumptions about geoism and land.
> 
> Just a few of the ignorant comments I've seen:
> 
> 1. Land is not in limited supply because we can create more land!


 That was me!  I totally stand by it.  I'm totally right. Land is not limited in any meaningful sense.  I made a few posts on that, and I think did a passable job in explaining this idea.




> 2. Georgism is just another name for Marxism!


 This was me too, but I never actually said _that_, precisely.  But the two obvious have similar sympathies and prejudices.  Redistributionism, a pathetic victim mentality, etc.




> 3. The LVT will tax my house!


 Well that's definitely true, not ignorant.  The house is making use of all kinds of natural resources and space (i.e.: _land_) in order to exist.




> 4. The LVT will mean the government owns my land!


 That seems to be definitely the case; no one has presented a case for why I should not consider the government to be the landlord under an LVT regime, though I did give you, redbluepill, the opportunity a couple times to provide such an case.  The government would have ultimate decision-making authority and use/benefit of land.  Sounds like an owner to me.




> 5. More land is created whenever a volcano erupts!


 Yeah, someone did write this.  It's actually pretty true that land increases in a relevant way for humans when dry (useful) surface area takes the place of water-covered (basically useless) seas.  Either through volcanos or through Arabs building palm-shaped peninsulas.




> 6. The Founding Fathers never would have supported an LVT! Any quotes from classic liberals/libertarians that demonstrate support of the LVT are actually taken out of context!


I don't know if anyone said that exactly.  But maybe they did.  Regardless, the good Founding Fathers, if they were alive today, would not be in favor of such a tax nor any other tax, once Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell got done with them.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> I've explained to you why it's wrong, and one's personal survival advantage is not the reason.
> 
> I've already given you a non-arbitrary answer, so stop lying.  It's wrong.
> 
> Lie.  The foundation is in the empirical nature of the concepts of right and wrong, as already explained.
> 
> Lie.  It's just an empirical question, which people -- like you -- can get wrong, especially by assuming it has been solved by some mystical supernatural being.




Lying is "wrong" because "it is an empirical question"?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


What?  You can prove something is a lie by observing or it is true or not?   How do you prove that your sensations are infallible?  If your epistemology is based on the infallibility of your senses, how would you ever confirm this?  By another appeal to other sensations?  Then you just beg the question!  What a failure you are!


Not only that, who cares if I observe two trees but tell you I only observe one tree?  THE QUESTION IS WHY OUGHT I TELL YOU THE TRUTH INSTEAD OF A LIE?  WHY OUGHT I?  WHY OUGHT I?


Your entire worldview is ridiculous. You base ethics on "observations"?  Wahahaha...I have NEVER come across an answer as inadequate and stupid as this.  You didn't even COME CLOSE to answering a question about ethics.  And still you call people "liars"...... I quit ....I can't take anymore....

----------


## Roy L

> Lying is "wrong" because "it is an empirical question"?


Yep.  It's been established empirically -- every normal adult is aware of the fact, though sociopaths are not -- that lying typically causes distrust, dissension and disorder in society, and is therefore wrong.  However, it may not be that simple, as certain kinds of lies, such as those told by priests and politicians, appear often to have a socially unifying effect.



> What?  You can prove something is a lie by observing or it is true or not?


If you ever figure out what you are falsely trying to claim I said, let me know.



> How do you prove that your sensations are infallible?


I haven't talked about sensations, and infallibility is only for mathematics (and popes, I suppose).  Were you going to consider at some point addressing something I have actually said?



> If your epistemology is based on the infallibility of your senses,


Why always tell stupid lies about what I have plainly written?



> how would you ever confirm this?  By another appeal to other sensations?  Then you just beg the question!  What a failure you are!


Speaking of utter, abject failures, if you ever decide to respond to anything I have actually said, let me know.



> Not only that, who cares if I observe two trees but tell you I only observe one tree?


Everyone who has reason to care if you are trustworthy.



> THE QUESTION IS WHY OUGHT I TELL YOU THE TRUTH INSTEAD OF A LIE?  WHY OUGHT I?  WHY OUGHT I?


I have already told you: it will likely help your genes persist.



> Your entire worldview is ridiculous.


Which must be why you always have to tell stupid lies about it.



> You base ethics on "observations"?


Like any other empirical issue.



> Wahahaha...I have NEVER come across an answer as inadequate and stupid as this.


Which must be why you deliberately decided to lie about what I plainly wrote.



> You didn't even COME CLOSE to answering a question about ethics.


You are lying.  Again.



> And still you call people "liars"...... I quit ....I can't take anymore....


<yawn>  Good riddance.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> --that lying typically causes distrust, dissension and disorder in society, and is therefore wrong.



Okay folks. I am going to try to have a conversation with a person who in no way can prove that anything is objectively wrong.  Here I go...


*Roy, why is causing "distrust, dissension, and disorder" in society wrong?*


I will wait for your arbitrary answer and then I will continue the questioning to prove you have nothing but arbitrary answers so everyone here can see it.

----------


## Roy L

> Okay folks. I am going to try to have a conversation with a person who in no way can prove that anything is objectively wrong.


I don't know what you think "prove" and "objectively" mean, but if you think I can't, then you certainly can't (hint: referring to the superstitious traditions of Bronze Age pastoralists does not constitute proof that something is objectively wrong).



> *Roy, why is causing "distrust, dissension, and disorder" in society wrong?*


As I already explained to you, and you have again ignored, the concept of "wrong" derives from the human capacity for moral reasoning, a characteristic that sets us apart from non-human animals that are ruled by instinct.  It _does not exist in any other way_.  But that capacity is itself a product of evolution.  The superficial appearance that moral behavior is not selfish enough to confer reproductive success is resolved by the observation that for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, the failure of one's society -- such as economic collapse or defeat in war -- was worse for the reproductive success of one's genes than personal extinction, because of the number of copies of one's genes other members of one's society carried.  This means that the emergence of moral reasoning and moral behavior is explicable through the medium of societal reproductive success: what is "wrong" is behavior that harms society -- makes it weaker and less able to compete with other societies -- more than it benefits individuals engaging in that behavior.  But as strong societies also depend on healthy and flourishing individual members, there is a stochastic equilibrium between the individual and society that defines what is right and wrong.  A behavior's moral quality is therefore a feature of objective reality, but one that will often be difficult to establish empirically, and not the same for all societal environments.

For example, in many less advanced societies living in harsh environments, it has been considered moral to abandon the elderly when they became an economic drain on society.  Societal survival was just too precarious to support them.  In more advanced societies living in less demanding environments, this is considered immoral because the elderly are the repositories of socially useful knowledge and cultural heritage that is considered to outweigh their lack of more concrete productive contributions.  



> I will wait for your arbitrary answer and then I will continue the questioning to prove you have nothing but arbitrary answers so everyone here can see it.


<yawn>  OK, so you don't know what "arbitrary" means, either.  No problemo: objective reality is not arbitrary.  Get it?

----------


## Roy L

> 1. Land is not in limited supply because we can create more land!
> 			
> 		
> 
> That was me! I totally stand by it. I'm totally right.


No, you are indisputably wrong, *by definition*.



> Land is not limited in any meaningful sense. I made a few posts on that, and I think did a passable job in explaining this idea.


And were duly demolished.  Land's supply is not only limited, it is FIXED: its supply cannot be increased by labor and does not respond to price.  Even if the _amount_ of land in the universe is infinite, it is only infinite in the sense that the supply of integers is infinite -- and is thus also _fixed_: if the integer you want to use is 2, 3 is no damn use to you at all, let alone 495723049574079.



> 2. Georgism is just another name for Marxism!
> 			
> 		
> 
> This was me too, but I never actually said that, precisely. But the two obvious have similar sympathies and prejudices. Redistributionism, a pathetic victim mentality, etc.


OK, so you agree that you were just lying, and the only thing Georgism has in common with Marxism is opposition to the kind of privilege and institutionalized injustice you favor.  Good.



> 3. The LVT will tax my house!
> 			
> 		
> 
> Well that's definitely true, not ignorant.


No, it's a flat-out lie, as you know.



> The house is making use of all kinds of natural resources and space (i.e.: land) in order to exist.


So do cats.  But even _you_ are not dishonest enough (please, God) to claim that LVT is a tax on cats.  So you agree that you were just stupidly and dishonestly lying again.  Good.



> 4. The LVT will mean the government owns my land!
> 			
> 		
> 
> That seems to be definitely the case; no one has presented a case for why I should not consider the government to be the landlord under an LVT regime, though I did give you, redbluepill, the opportunity a couple times to provide such an case.


There is a difference between a strata council and a landlord, Helmuth: a strata council doesn't KEEP the fees you pay it, but devotes them to the things that make you willing to pay them, and made you agree to pay them when you acquired the strata title, just as government would not KEEP the land rent, but would devote it to the public purposes and benefit that you AGREED and are WILLING to pay for.



> The government would ultimate decision-making authority and use/benefit of land. Sounds like an owner to me.


Nope.  Wrong.  Government would not use or benefit from the land.



> 5. More land is created whenever a volcano erupts!
> 			
> 		
> 
> Yeah, someone did write this. It's actually pretty true that land increases in a relevant way for humans when dry (useful) surface area takes the place of water-covered (basically useless) seas.


It's actually true when this happens _naturally_, but does not alter the fact that land's supply is fixed in the relevant (i.e., economic) sense.



> Either through volcanos or through Arabs building palm-shaped peninsulas.


No, anything people build is not land by definition.  The palm-shaped peninsulas are improvements sitting on underwater land, not land.  You know this, but have decided deliberately to lie about it.



> 6. The Founding Fathers never would have supported an LVT! Any quotes from classic liberals/libertarians that demonstrate support of the LVT are actually taken out of context!
> 			
> 		
> 
> I don't know if anyone said that exactly. But maybe they did. Regardless, the good Founding Fathers, if they were alive today, would not be in favor of such a tax nor any other tax, once Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell got done with them.


LOL!  If Ron and Lew can't do any better than you and Steven, the Founders would be staying with their original opinion, which is found in the Articles of Confederation that, unlike the Constitution, *they wrote*.

----------


## redbluepill

> That was me!  I totally stand by it.  I'm totally right. Land is not limited in any meaningful sense.  I made a few posts on that, and I think did a passable job in explaining this idea.





> Yeah, someone did write this.  It's actually pretty true that land increases in a relevant way for humans when dry (useful) surface area takes the place of water-covered (basically useless) seas.  Either through volcanos or through Arabs building palm-shaped peninsulas.


You demonstrate once again you guys don't know what we are talking about when we speak of land in economic terms. Here, I will repost the definition a third time: _One of four basic categories of resources, or factors of production (the other three are labor, capital, and entrepreneurship). This category includes the natural resources used to produce goods and services, including the land itself; the minerals and nutrients in the ground; the water, wildlife, and vegetation on the surface; and the air above._
http://glossary.econguru.com/economic-term/land






> This was me too, but I never actually said _that_, precisely.  But the two obvious have similar sympathies and prejudices.  Redistributionism, a pathetic victim mentality, etc.


Actually a lot of posters were saying this. Socialists believe in collective rights. Georgists, like the classical liberals of the past, believe in common rights. According to a socialists/Marxist, if someone wants to use the land they must be given permission by the state. Georgists believe that no one needs the consent of society/state to use the land. However, if that person excludes others from the land which nature provides then it is only fair to reimburse others in the community for that privilege. Georgists also believe that all taxes on capital and labor are inherently wrong.




> Well that's definitely true, not ignorant.  The house is making use of all kinds of natural resources and space (i.e.: _land_) in order to exist.


You should know by now the LVT = land value - value of improvements. If the tax is the same whether the house exists or not then the tax clearly does not affect the house. Georgists abhore taxes on productive activity and products of labor.




> That seems to be definitely the case; no one has presented a case for why I should not consider the government to be the landlord under an LVT regime, though I did give you, redbluepill, the opportunity a couple times to provide such an case.  The government would ultimate decision-making authority and use/benefit of land.  Sounds like an owner to me.


It has already been explained on numerous occasions why the government would not control the land under a Georgist system. Politicians would have no say on how much the tax will be. They have no say on transactions. Anything other than that is NOT Georgism.




> I don't know if anyone said that exactly.  But maybe they did.  Regardless, the good Founding Fathers, if they were alive today, would not be in favor of such a tax nor any other tax, once Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell got done with them.


So I assume you do not count Thomas Jefferson as one of the "good" Founding Fathers?

I do believe many of the Founding Fathers would not have been in favor of the LVT (after all, many of them were landlords themselves). But you have to remember they were not anarchists (and far from it). There were taxes they favored and taxes they opposed. It appears that enough of them like a variation of the LVT enough to make it the source of revenue for the federal government in the Articles of Confederation.

And Paul is a minarchist at his most extreme. I have never seen anything from him stating his views on the LVT (although I am sure he would side with Rothbard). I would love to discuss the issue with him if he visits Chicago in the near future.

----------


## Roy L

> Let's rephrase that for accuracy:  "if...she thinks that what she believes is her individual right  *preferences* to be secure in her location


No, Steven, you're just spewing false, absurd and dishonest garbage again.  You know very well there is no "right to be secure in one's location," because if there were, private landlords would have no right to evict tenants from their locations for not paying the rent.  You only believe that those who OWN their locations have a right to be secure in them, because that is the only kind of security of location that supports the privilege of landowners to take from society and contribute nothing in return.



> are is superior to Roy's idea of what constitutes other people's nebulous and collectivized 'liberty rights'."


There is nothing collectivized or nebulous about the individual right to liberty, so stop lying.  You just don't happen to believe in it.  Simple.



> LVT is Eminent Domain on crack, the ultimate and artificial Superior Capital vs. Inferior-labor-capital battle - a fight that can be invoked by force at any time by capital interests alone.


Silliness.



> And once again, only the buyer, not the seller, is free to walk away if the price is not right.


Lie.  Both sides are free to walk away.  You just want the landowner to have a privilege of walking away while not actually going anywhere.



> The seller's ASK for improvements is irrelevant, and not under the control of the seller, but rather the appraiser.  Disadvantage Individual Seller at the lower end of the food chain -Clear Advantage Developer at the upper end.


The more productive prospective user has the advantage -- but that is an inherent characteristic of the free market.  You just don't like the free market, and prefer a market that is rigged in favor of landowners.  Simple.



> With LVT the state's interests are not aligned with individual rights, as those rights are already collectivized, not individualized, as part of the rationale for LVT.


Lie.  It is the equal INDIVIDUAL right to liberty that makes LVT absolutely essential.



> Individuals are so much flotsam and jetsam to be viewed only in the aggregate - chum and fodder to a finely tuned, developer-dominated food chain.


More lies.  The flat, universal individual LVT exemption RESTORES the individual right to liberty that landowning removed.



> Just as owners of commercial banks are the clear winners under a central banking Ponzi regime, land developers would be the major winners - the state's veritable darlings - under an LVT regime.


Silliness.  Private banks' issuance of debt money is a privilege.  LVT REMOVES a privilege.  It is the CURRENT system that makes landowners and banksters the twin parasites draining the lifeblood of the productive.



> Whatever keeps property values maximized at all times,


No, because LVT REMOVES land value entirely, reducing property value to the depreciated cost of construction -- which is the minimum level consistent with availability of desired improvements.



> as average people who lack the same capital as developers are sitting ducks - pushed to the outside, forced to accept whatever an appraiser deems fitting, but later forced to jump at overpriced dangling developer plums.


<yawn>  Nope.  Every historical example of LVT in use has demonstrated reduced housing costs, and the facts of economics show why this result is inevitable.  You are just makin' $#!+ up again, Steven.  It is IMPOSSIBLE for developers to overprice properties with LVT, because it is far too expensive to hold land idle.  Anyone who thinks the kind of improvements he wants to use are overpriced is free at any time to take up some underused land and start building.  It is not LVT but the CURRENT system that makes it profitable for developers to hold land out of use to jack up prices.



> To protect yourself against competition under LVT, just BUILD BIG.  _Really big._ Like...Hong Kong big.


As long as the land's rent justifies it.  If it doesn't, you are just going to lose money building improvements that sit empty.



> Since capital improvements and income therefrom cannot be taxed,


Correct.  Unlike the current system, LVT does not punish and discourage productive effort and investment by taxing them.



> and since these improvements must be reimbursed for an LVT to go up,


Flat wrong.  The LVT can go up any time the market rent goes up.  Reimbursement only comes into the picture when someone decides they don't want to pay what the market will, and sells their improvements to a more productive prospective user.  If the more productive prospective user does not want those improvements, the land tax authority would only reimburse when the increase in LVT from the more productive user would exceed the cost of reimbursing the improvements' owner, thus financially justifying the transfer.



> the idea is to *"make new land"* - in the form of improvements on that new land.  _Vertically._


Improvements are not land by definition, stop lying.



> Roy-the-homeowner might not have the ability (and certainly not the incentive) to create an architectural masterpiece of his home, but big developers whose interests are aligned with its Godfather and partner, the state, certainly do have such incentives, and would make those improvements, because rent-seeking for those improvements is involved at all times.


Idiocy.  "Rent-seeking for those improvements" is meaningless anti-economic gibberish.  Creating an architectural masterpiece might have its own rewards, but it would make no financial sense unless someone wanted to use it enough to pay for it.  How does the developer recoup the investment?  You are just spewing stupid garbage.



> Apex Predators who have no higher-ups will always tend to be politically well connected, and can have direct influence over what constitutes competition in the food chain


Predators require a mechanism whereby they can forcibly consume their prey's substance.  LVT with a flat, universal individual exemption removes that mechanism.



> With the state as a willing facilitator, the developers, like commercial banks under a Fed, can be assured of uniformity and stability, but only amongst themselves.


Such claims are so remote from reality, one cannot even ascertain what they might be intended to mean.   



> Large developers alone can make it cost prohibitive for ANYONE except the major players in the arena to outbid them for their land, based on their superior improvements on that land.


Right.  That's called, "the most productive user having the secure tenure needed to justify the investment needed to support the most productive use."



> Hence, the LVT ceiling has a natural limit for the largest players -- as they finally reach a point where NOBODY will outbid them for their land rent, because nobody is able to reimburse the apex predator/developer for its improvements.


I have no idea what you think you imagine you might be talking about, but it sounds like you might be suggesting that the way to become a large player in the development industry under LVT is to spend so much money on excess improvements that no one would want to buy them.  Such a hypothesis is of course consistent with the intellectual level of all the rest of your "contributions" in this thread.



> And because nobody will outbid them, their LVT remains flat.


Along with their bank accounts....



> With enough politically connected developers,


ROFTL!  Developers are politically connected under the CURRENT system Steven -- and the lower the property tax rate, the more connected they are.  They run almost all successful civic election campaigns.  LVT removes the financial advantage from developer political connections, ensuring they won't be paid for.



> they can all get together and simply agree on outrageously inflated prices for their improvements.


What good would that do?  Unless improvements are trading for those outrageous prices, they will have no effect on appraised value.



> It is in all of their interests to do just that - something no individual with a home can accomplish.


What would they gain?  They'd still be losing money hand over fist while telling each other how much their properties are worth.



> So you build vertically, like they do in Hong Kong, because you can charge rents on all your improvements - whether a hotel or an office skyscraper with leases -- _just like they do in Hong Kong_.


<sigh>  They do that in HK because they _don't have LVT_ (let alone a universal individual exemption), and the government artificially restricts access to buildable land in a misguided attempt to increase lease revenue.



> Not "land rents", which are theoretically, ostensibly, separate from improvements or the income therefrom, which is always yours to keep.  In that respect, LVT is not a problem for large rent-seeking developers at all, as the real money comes from rent-seeking from the _new land_ that is vertically created, _which is not considered land_.


I agree, and have in fact told you multiple times, that the most productive users would do BETTER under LVT.



> Individuals who are not developers, on the other hand, are forced to fight in a state-controlled king-of-the-hill arena,


No, the LVT state just does what the market recommends.



> with a state that is anything but neutral, as it very much favors the strongest players - primarily land developers - at all times.


No, such a claim is completely without basis in fact, and is indeed just flat-out stupid.  The LVT state's financial incentive is to allocate each plot of land to the most productive prospective user.



> The weaker individuals must, at all times, make way for those with superior capital, as the whole of the economy becomes them, and whomever works for them, as they build and service all the artificial 'community' pyramids.


??  The what?  There's not much doubt that the most productive developers would thrive under LVT while the parasitic rent-seeking ones would perish, because production is the only WAY to thrive under LVT.



> Rent and rent-seeking are not ended under LVT - quite the opposite, they are maximized and multiplied as the rule of the day for virtually everyone.


Nonsense.  Nothing can end rent but total economic catastrophe, but LVT effectively ends rent seeking wrt land.



> *But landownership does not end - it merely goes vertical, and takes on a completely different form.*


A form that is not, in fact, landownership at all...



> What a Brave New World, as George was little more than a Marxist


Those who call George a Marxist are either ignorant nincompoops or evil, lying sacks of $#!+.



> who realized that the only way to control the capitalistic beast is to make them fight over who pays the state the most for its privileges, as the state takes center stage and exercises monopolistic control over _the ground floor._  If you can't beat them, BE ONE with them, and get your cut, early and often.


Mindless invective.



> And yes, $#@! Granny - she's the least of the developing, rent-maximizing, rent-seeking contributors.  She'll get her "just compensation" as it trickles back to her in the form of an individual exemption, and possibly a minor dividend. For whatever it's worth.


What it's worth depends on how highly you value equal rights.

----------


## Roy L

> But it's not really up to you, though, now is it?


If you mean that it is the market that determines value, not the owner, then yes, that is correct: determining the value of something I own is up to the market, not me.



> You aren't necessarily negotiating with the seller, and certainly not from a position of power since you can't say no to any offer an appraiser considers reasonable.


If I doubt an appraiser's word or competence, I can get an independent appraisal.  I just can't forcibly deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation, or edit the market value of my assets to suit my own preferences.

Consider some other examples when to prevent an owner of fixed improvements from violating others' rights, government steps in and deprives him of those improvements, giving market value in compensation whether the owner considers it adequate or not:

1. A building is found to be structurally unsound, and threatens both nearby properties and passersby.  The owner can't afford or doesn't want to make the required repairs, just as an owner under LVT might not be able to afford or want to make the required compensation payments for depriving others of the land, and can't or won't find a buyer who will pay what he wants for the improvements.  In both cases, in the interest of securing everyone else's rights against the threat of violation posed by the delinquent owner, government expropriates or demolishes the building and gives him its market value (possibly very low in the case of an unsound building) in compensation.

2. Firefighters demolish a wooden building in the path of a large fire to prevent further destruction.  The building's owner gets only the market value of the improvements in compensation, not whatever amount he would prefer to get.

3. A small island with a house on it is found to be a hazard to navigation, and is removed by blasting.  The house's owner only gets market value in compensation, not whatever amount he would prefer.

Such examples as these could be multiplied indefinitely, and they prove that despite all your shrieking, howling, and gnashing of teeth, the owner of improvements has no right to any more than market value in compensation when security of others' rights requires that he be deprived of those improvements.



> In fact, you really don't have to sell the buyer on a thing - just the appraiser.  And if you think the appraisal was too low, exercise whatever due process might exist, but barring that it's tough beans for you, as that is the selling price you'll be forced to accept.


<yawn>  Despite all your dark insinuations of the evil collusion of appraisers with government, appraisal remains the best measure of market value for unique items like land parcels, improvements, artworks, etc. -- even better than a single transaction price, which can be far from market value if the transaction is not at arm's length.



> In a free market both buyer and the seller are free to part ways if they cannot agree on a price. Under an LVT regime, the seller is at the mercy of the appraiser and the buyer, and the buyer is the only one empowered to walk away if the price isn't right.


The buyer and appraiser aren't violating others' rights to liberty.  The landholder is.  That means he has no right to insist on his preferred price: a free market has no place for such privileged participants, and cannot exist if they are empowered to violate others' rights without making just compensation.



> Can you imagine if merchants around the world could only price their goods and services on the basis of government appraisals?  I think there's a word for that.


There's a word for trying to pretend that making GOODS AND SERVICES that one PRODUCES available to others who would not otherwise have had access to them is the same as FORCIBLY DEPRIVING others of NATURAL RESOURCES they WOULD otherwise have had access to: that word is, "dishonesty."



> If you're referring to property taxes, you're right. That's why I am hoping against hope that North Dakota or some other state sets a precedent and abolishes property taxes once and for all.


There are lots of places with no property taxes, Steven, and they are mostly $#!+ holes.  Louisiana's property taxes are now so low they might as well be zero.  How's that workin' out for everyone but the largest landowners?  Unfortunately most people have to actually suffer, as Californians have suffered since Proposition 13, before they can learn from experience.  Indeed, too many of them obviously refuse to learn even from their own suffering.  ND following CA off the landowner privilege cliff won't change that.

America's Founding Fathers understood government, justice and taxation incomparably better than you, Steven, which is why they made taxation of landed property the sole source of revenue for the federal government when they wrote the Articles of Confederation.  They just didn't understand privilege well enough to foresee that greedy, parasitic landowners would prefer to destroy the infant USA rather than relinquish their privilege of pocketing publicly created land value.



> If you are referring to anything else, however (e.g., other than Eminent Domain), then no, your house is not on the market unless you place it on the market.


Wrong.  Everything that is owned is always on the market -- people can bid on it -- and everything that exists is always available -- though only a microscopic fraction is useful -- to market participants.



> As the owner, only you have the final say on if, when, and for how much it will sell.  And there are people on this Earth who will not, if given a choice, sell at any offered price.


I await evidence for this claim.

Thought not.



> Offer them ten times what it is worth, and they will turn down the offer - because for many it is not about money.


Such people are called, "silly," and their neurotic or cognitively impaired preferences do not give them a veto over others' rights, sorry.



> Also, if the land your house sits on is perpetually considered to be on the market, then so is the house by default.  In the case of immovable structures, there is no getting around that.


Right.  There is no getting around facts.  There is only denying and refusing to know them.



> Once again, this is a special case of a non-free market,


No, because any market that includes private landowner privilege inherently gives a welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners, and there is no place for welfare subsidy giveaways in the free market.



> where individuals who are not secure in their locations


Like tenants under the current system...?



> are not only forced to sell, but forced to accept a price for their improvements based on the final word given by a government appraisal


As opposed to tenants of private landlords under the current system, who get *no compensation whatever* for any improvements they may have made should the landowner decide to remove them from their location.



> - and all because of state monopoly control on the only part the value of which the state has an interest in protecting -- the rug underneath it all.


No, all such claims continue to be maximally false, stupid, absurd and dishonest.  The LVT state has to be extremely solicitous of the rights of improvement owners, or it will lose LVT revenue as prospective users become reluctant to invest in the improvements needed to support the most productive use and thus pay the full rent.



> That doesn't mean that the state won't have an interest in protecting _new developments_. Quite the opposite, as new developments drive up land values, and therefore rents that can be ultimately collected.


ROTFL!!!  Try telling that to Las Vegas, where new development has created such an oversupply of housing that land values have crashed.



> That makes for a great partnership between developers and the state, both of which will slop from the same trough.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you, Steven.  Developers in the LVT state will only retain the _privately created_ value of the improvements *THEY BUILD,* while the state will recover the _publicly created_ value of the services and infrastructure _IT PROVIDES._



> So it is in the interest of the state to lure developers in, _to outbid and force out its own constituency_,


Its constituency is resident citizens, stop lying.



> with a promise of higher assessed values for the new developer,


No such promise is plausible, as all the assessments are public, and anomalous ones can therefore easily be exposed.



> and ever-increasing rent revenues for the state along the way.


Yes, rapid economic growth is one invariable consequence of LVT.



> Thus, I can easily see why construction would boom in an LVT area. Good for the state, but even better for the developer


No, even better for the people and firms who want an abundant supply of nice improvements to use.  Developers end up making only what they earn by being efficient and providing value for money.



> - similar to what we have now with central banks, as they are good for the state, but ten times as good for banking and commerce.


There is no similarity, as already proved.



> Not so good, in any case, for anyone who is simply content with what they already have.  If they aren't on the perpetual value expansion treadmill, their interests aren't protected at all.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you, Steven.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> As I already explained to you, and you have again ignored, the concept of "wrong" derives from the human capacity for moral reasoning, a characteristic that sets us apart from non-human animals that are ruled by instinct.  It _does not exist in any other way_.  But that capacity is itself a product of evolution.  The superficial appearance that moral behavior is not selfish enough to confer reproductive success is resolved by the observation that for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, the failure of one's society -- such as economic collapse or defeat in war -- was worse for the reproductive success of one's genes than personal extinction, because of the number of copies of one's genes other members of one's society carried.  *This means that the emergence of moral reasoning and moral behavior is explicable through the medium of societal reproductive success: what is "wrong" is behavior that harms society -- makes it weaker and less able to compete with other societies -- more than it benefits individuals engaging in that behavior.*  But as strong societies also depend on healthy and flourishing individual members, there is a stochastic equilibrium between the individual and society that defines what is right and wrong.  A behavior's moral quality is therefore a feature of objective reality, but one that will often be difficult to establish empirically, and not the same for all societal environments.



*Why is it wrong to harm the survival of society?*







> <yawn>  OK, so you don't know what "arbitrary" means, either.  No problemo: objective reality is not arbitrary.  Get it?


What is 'objective reality'?  Is this something you know through the senses?  If reality is something you know through the senses, how would you ever test the "reality" your senses perceive?  Through other senses?  

*If the only thing that is present to the mind is your sense perception, how do you ever prove what "reality" is?  By another sense perception?  But that is just begging the question.  If nothing is ever present to the mind except the senses, then there is no way to prove what "objective reality" is.*  

David Hume discovered this many, many years ago, and still morons like you still religiously tout this irrational epistemology.  This is the downfall of all atheistic epistemologies.  They rely on empiricism, and empricism is unable to provide an explanation for "reality", because if information comes only through the senses, then it is impossible to know anything or to make a statement of objective truth.



But, here is the question:

*Why is it wrong to harm the survival of society?*

----------


## Roy L

> *Why is it wrong to harm the survival of society?*


<sigh>  As already explained: because societal competitive advantage is how the concept of "wrong" -- the human capacity even to think of behaviors as being "right" or "wrong" -- arose in the first place.



> What is 'objective reality'?


The reality that is independent of any observer, and the experience of which is shareable among observers.

More simply, it's the reason you think there is a point in typing your question.



> Is this something you know through the senses?


Yes, and its existence and nature explain _WHY I have_ senses.



> If reality is something you know through the senses, how would you ever test the "reality" your senses perceive?


Evolution has done that testing for me.



> Through other senses?


By testing the consistency of what my senses perceive with what I do by acts of will, and observing the sharpness of the boundary between what I can do by acts of will and what I cannot.



> If the only thing that is present to the mind is your sense perception,


That may describe YOUR mind, as it describes the minds of lower animals who have sense perception but not understanding.  My mind works rather better than that.



> how do you ever prove what "reality" is?


The question does not arise, as the concept of "proof" only has meaning if there is an objective reality.



> By another sense perception?


By thinking rationally and being willing to know self-evident and indisputable facts.  You should try it.



> But that is just begging the question.  If nothing is ever present to the mind except the senses, then there is no way to prove what "objective reality" is.


Depends what you mean by "prove."  Our perceptions of reality can temporarily diverge from objective reality without our being aware of the fact, as particularly vivid dreams and some forms of mental illness demonstrate.  So can we prove that what we sense is not an elaborate hallucination or dream, any more than someone who is hallucinating can?  Yes, we can, by testing the logical consistency of what we observe over time, and the solidity of the boundary between what we can do by acts of will and what we can't.



> David Hume discovered this many, many years ago,


And it was just as silly and irrational when he said it.



> and still morons like you still religiously tout this irrational epistemology.


"Irrational epistemology"??  ROTFL!!!  I'm not the religious believer claiming objective reality can't exist without supernatural assistance, sunshine.  You are.

I'm also not the guy typing on a keyboard on the assumption that someone thousands of miles away can read what I have typed in the absence of an objective reality to make that communication possible.  You are.



> This is the downfall of all atheistic epistemologies.


LOL!  No, the notion of such a "downfall" is the confession of epistemological bankruptcy of all theistic epistemologies -- like that of Hume, with his claim that absent God, there is not sufficient reason to believe the sun will rise tomorrow.



> They rely on empiricism, and empricism is unable to provide an explanation for "reality",


Wrong.  See above.



> because if information comes only through the senses, then it is impossible to know anything or to make a statement of objective truth.


<sigh>  Here's an objective truth: you must have come from somewhere, and that somewhere must have been objective reality, as it existed independently of you.



> But, here is the question:
> 
> *Why is it wrong to harm the survival of society?*


See above for answer.  Again.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> <sigh>  As already explained: because societal competitive advantage is how the concept of "wrong" -- the human capacity even to think of behaviors as being "right" or "wrong" -- arose in the first place.


You're still dodging the question.  The fact that humans have concepts of right and wrong does not tell us why it is wrong to harm the survival society.  I may have a worldview which holds that the survival of society is irrelevant or perhaps entirely wrong.  So what?

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> You're still dodging the question.  The fact that humans have concepts of right and wrong does not tell us why it is wrong to harm the survival society.  I may have a worldview which holds that the survival of society is irrelevant or perhaps entirely wrong.  So what?

----------


## Sola_Fide

> <sigh>  As already explained: because societal competitive advantage is how the concept of "wrong" -- the human capacity even to think of behaviors as being "right" or "wrong" -- arose in the first place.


See Heavenlyboy's response.  You in no way answered the question of why it was wrong to harm society.

Try it in sentence form.  Make it easy for all of us:  It is wrong to harm society because ____________________.






> The reality that is independent of any observer, and the experience of which is shareable among observers.



Christian apologetics is not that difficult, if you just let your unbelieving opponent talk long enough...because empiricism leads to the logical fallacy just stated above, which is called the fallacy of induction.  Induction is the attempt to derive a general law from a number of particular instances.  It is a fallacious argument because no number of "shared experiences" can ever bring down the conclusion of a universal truth. For example:




> _For example, if a scientist is studying crows, he might observe 999 crows and find that they all are black. But is he ever able to assert that all crows are black? No; the next crow he observes might be an albino. One can never observe all crows: past, present, and future. Universal propositions can never be validly obtained by observation._


It is logically impossible to obtain a universal proposition from independent or shared observations.  Why?  Because there is no such thing as universal observation or exhaustive knowledge, both of which are assumed erroneously in inductive thinking.  You said that you were a philosophy doctorate?  Wow.  I'm just a poly sci undergrad, and a "Christian idiot" at that...and I just refuted your entire method of obtaining knowledge.  Every argument you use that utilizes a number of experiences to attempt to obtain a universal or objective truth is invalid.  Why do you think you've never thought of this before?







> More simply, it's the reason you think there is a point in typing your question.
> 
> Yes, and its existence and nature explain _WHY I have_ senses.
> 
> Evolution has done that testing for me.
> 
> By testing the consistency of what my senses perceive with what I do by acts of will, and observing the sharpness of the boundary between what I can do by acts of will and what I cannot.
> 
> That may describe YOUR mind, as it describes the minds of lower animals who have sense perception but not understanding.  My mind works rather better than that.
> ...



^^^I ignore anything you type when you only respond to one sentence completely out of context.  What a completely dishonest way to debate.  






> Depends what you mean by "prove."  Our perceptions of reality can temporarily diverge from objective reality without our being aware of the fact, as particularly vivid dreams and some forms of mental illness demonstrate.  So can we prove that what we sense is not an elaborate hallucination or dream, any more than someone who is hallucinating can?  Yes, we can, by testing the logical consistency of what we observe over time, and the solidity of the boundary between what we can do by acts of will and what we can't.


You never read...it's like you didn't even _understand_...what I said in my previous post.  It's like you couldn't even comprehend it.  You are talking about the difference between a hallucination and a "real" sensation.  I didn't even _begin_ to get in to that (which is another way that I can absolutely destroy your epistemology).  _I am telling you that you can't prove ANY sensation that you have...at all._  Not one.  So lets read again what I posted and then we will see what your answer is:




> Originally Posted by *AquaBuddha2010* 
> What is 'objective reality'? Is this something you know through the senses? If reality is something you know through the senses, how would you ever test the "reality" your senses perceive? Through other senses? 
> 
> *If the only thing that is present to the mind is your sense perception, how do you ever prove what "reality" is? By another sense perception? But that is just begging the question. If nothing is ever present to the mind except the senses, then there is no way to prove what "objective reality" is*.







> LOL!  No, the notion of such a "downfall" is the confession of epistemological bankruptcy of all theistic epistemologies -- like that of Hume, with his claim that absent God, there is not sufficient reason to believe the sun will rise tomorrow.


Hmmm, I thought that a philosophy major like yourself would have known that David Hume was a professed atheist until the day he died.  David Hume did not have a theistic epistemology, he simply admitted that his unbelieving empirical epistemology could not answer the question of induction and he admitted his failure and irrationality at this point instead of converting to the truth.






> <sigh>  Here's an objective truth: you must have come from somewhere, and that somewhere must have been objective reality, as it existed independently of you.
> 
> See above for answer.  Again.


How do you know what exists?  By your senses?  How would you ever test your senses against the "objective reality" when all you have is your senses to try to confirm it?  Don't you see the alarming circularity in your irrational worldview yet lol?

----------


## Roy L

> You're still dodging the question.


No, I am answering it as clearly and directly as I can.



> The fact that humans have concepts of right and wrong does not tell us why it is wrong to harm the survival society.


*Yes it does,* and I have explained why: that's where those concepts come from, and that's_ all they mean_.



> I may have a worldview which holds that the survival of society is irrelevant or perhaps entirely wrong.  So what?


So you are objectively wrong, and evolution will delete your erroneous -- literally sociopathic -- view.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, Steven, you're just spewing false, absurd and dishonest garbage again.  You know very well there is no "right to be secure in one's location," because if there were, private landlords would have no right to evict tenants from their locations for not paying the rent.


What a completely absurd non-sequitur.  That is like saying that car owners have no right to be secure in their ownership of a car, because if they were, car rental companies would have no right to repossess their cars from renters.  The absurdity is in conflating car owners with car renters, as if they were in the same class, with the same applicable rules.  They are not.  

I am speaking, of course, of what I believe (as a normative), _ought to be_ the rights of landowner/occupiers, _not renters_. I am referring specifically to those who have nothing to do with paying out or receiving rents, to or from anyone.  You know that, Roy. Of course you do. Take your head out of your butt, moonshine.




> You only believe that those who OWN their locations have a right to be secure in them, because that is the only kind of security of location that supports the privilege of landowners to take from society and contribute nothing in return.


That is Roy's geolibertarian gibberish put into my mouth, which imputes motives to me from a Roy-spin Zone, the premises of which are both moot and irrelevant.  

We are both speaking in normative terms, Roy - what each of us wants, and believes "ought" to be recognized and enforced by the state as rights that are protected under the law - whatever they might be in our minds, and regardless of our reasoning.  I do not believe that _"...those who own their locations HAVE a right to be secure in them."_ Rather I believe that they OUGHT to have such right - which is not yet fully recognized by the law, and which does not yet fully exist, any more than your "otherwise at liberty" or other "rights" you believe OUGHT to be recognized under an LVT regime. 

Don't lump me in as someone who has your "self-evident and indisputable" gibberish mindset with regard to rights.  I personally believe in the concept of unalienable rights, but I also fully recognize that these a moral beliefs on my part - _forever normative_, with no empirical basis for any of of it.  I do not buy into the nonsense, as regards rights, of anything being "self-evident" or "indisputable".  It is really no different from my belief in a creator. I have beliefs in this regard, but I am not so stupid as to ignore the fact there is no empirical evidence of such a thing that everyone would accept.  In the case of so-called "unalienable rights" I fully recognize that this is not universal, not testable and not falsifiable; nor will there _ever_ be unanimous agreement among humans on what those so-called rights are.  We can identify capacities, capabilities, and even individual wills as being self-evident, but to conflate these "rights", as if they were also self-evident or indisputable would be a GROSS error on my part.  Such "rights", as subjective normatives, will differ for everyone.    

You also make multiple mind-numbingly erroneous references to "rights" which are not currently acknowledged, and do not exist as a matter of law, as if they were already actualized. Such "rights" are established firmly in your mind - the only thing remaining is for others "recognize" them, now that you you have recognized them to the point of making unilateral pronouncements that they are somehow "self-evident" and "indisputable".  Likewise, you take actual rights (e.g., landowner rights), which now are acknowledged, and DO exist, to the extent that they are, and refer to them as "privileges", as if that had also already been established, separate and quite apart from your own strange mind. 

Your _"...because that is the only kind of security of location that supports the privilege of landowners to take from society and contribute nothing in return..."_ is your personal gibberish, and a straw man that argues from its own premises.  The reasons why I believe there "ought" to be a right is quite different. It is also debatable, of course, but wholly irrelevant to the "fact" that I believe such a right ought to exist.  Likewise your reasons, equally normative, as to why there ought NOT to be a right of landownership, are debatable, but irrelevant to the "fact" that you believe such a thing should not exist as a right.  




> There is nothing collectivized or nebulous about the individual right to liberty, so stop lying.  You just don't happen to believe in it.  Simple.  Silliness.


Idiot, you believe that all have "otherwise at liberty rights" which are equal, even though you have agreed repeatedly that it is impossible to separate individual deprivations or contributions, which you fully acknowledge are not equal, and are never the same for each individual. The "flat universal exemption" is also flat-out refusal to acknowledge or account for superior and inferior "otherwise deprivations" or individual contributions to land value. That is prima facie proof that rights, as you perceive them, are made both nebulous and collectivized.    




> Lie.  Both sides are free to walk away.  You just want the landowner to have a privilege of walking away while not actually going anywhere.


Again, you lie - and this time with a disgusting and slippery semantics play, as "walk away" (from a deal, 'walk' being a metaphor for "refusing to negotiate or deal any further") is different than "walk away" (from a parcel of land).  On the one side, the buyer is free to walk away, both from the deal and from the land. On the other side, the leaseholder under an LVT regime would be forced into a transaction, unable to "walk away" from that transaction, and forced to "walk away" from the land if s/he is unable to compete with a superior offer from a competitor. 

So your "Both sides are free to walk away" is incorrect in the absolute - unless me throwing your ass out, from my house onto the street, means that you are now "free" to be on the street. 




> The more productive prospective user has the advantage -- but that is an inherent characteristic of the free market.  You just don't like the free market, and prefer a market that is rigged in favor of landowners.  Simple.


Geolibertarian gibberish - arguing from the premise, and lying to yourself at the same time, given that you want the market "rigged" to favor the state, and whomever it favors as a result - using geolibertarian gibberish as your rationale. 




> Lie.  It is the equal INDIVIDUAL right to liberty that makes LVT absolutely essential.
> 
> More lies.  The flat, universal individual LVT exemption RESTORES the individual right to liberty that landowning removed.


Argument from your own gibberish premise. 




> Silliness.  Private banks' issuance of debt money is a privilege.  LVT REMOVES a privilege.  It is the CURRENT system that makes landowners and banksters the twin parasites draining the lifeblood of the productive.


Your system would complete the blood-sucking parasite trifecta, with a unholy Trinity of banksters, land developers and the state - all in collusion. 




> No, because LVT REMOVES land value entirely, reducing property value to the depreciated cost of construction -- which is the minimum level consistent with availability of desired improvements.


Lie. LVT does not "remove" land value entirely. It merely calls that apportioned part of it "the state's cut" in the monopolistic renter regime you want established. 




> It is IMPOSSIBLE for developers to overprice properties with LVT, because it is far too expensive to hold land idle.  Anyone who thinks the kind of improvements he wants to use are overpriced is free at any time to take up some underused land and start building.


Naive. The last part of your sentence explains one reason why it is in their interests to do just that. MORE DEVELOPMENT.  Greater land value. Good for the developer and banksters that thrive on NEW development, and good for the state, as more developed land means more land rent - can't charge much in the way of land rents on undeveloped land.       




> Flat wrong.  The LVT can go up any time the market rent goes up.


"Market rent" for what, Roy?  If I have a 100 story hi-rise for lease, the "market rent" is based, not on what I earn from rental of that hotel's improvements (mine to keep, remember?) - but only on what another is willing to pay overall (land rent + improvements) to get me off that property.  If I am already at the apex, and politically connected, I can get the value of my improvements jacked up to where it is not economically feasible for anyone to compete - get your own hotel. As a developer, you can push someone else off their land, and are free to build. 




> Reimbursement only comes into the picture when someone decides they don't want to pay what the market will, and sells their improvements to a more productive prospective user.  If the more productive prospective user does not want those improvements, the land tax authority would only reimburse when the increase in LVT from the more productive user would exceed the cost of reimbursing the improvements' owner, thus financially justifying the transfer.


"the land tax authority would only reimburse" -- Complete gibberish.  There is no "land tax authority" in place, nor have its rules been written, or any probability that can be pointed to that it would happen this way.  You are speculating, no differently than I am.  




> Improvements are not land by definition, stop lying.


A rose by any other name - I don't give a $#@! what you call land, or an improvement.  The net effect is occupancy of "space" for rent.  And if most of the occupy-able "space" is all above land, on my "improvements only", regardless what you call it, what do I as a landholder care?  The net effect is the same.  I don't need "land" to be a rent-seeking whatever-you-want-to-call-it.   I can create my own "non-land", and since the vast majority of Space For Rent would be "non-land", the net effect is the same. 




> Idiocy.  "Rent-seeking for those improvements" is meaningless anti-economic gibberish.  Creating an architectural masterpiece might have its own rewards, but it would make no financial sense unless someone wanted to use it enough to pay for it.  How does the developer recoup the investment?  You are just spewing stupid garbage.


See above - label it however you want, as if that makes any difference. 




> Predators require a mechanism whereby they can forcibly consume their prey's substance.  LVT with a flat, universal individual exemption removes that mechanism.


Wrong. A "universal individual exemption" under your regime is not based on quantity and quality of land, but land rent value only - as a fixed price.  It is conceivable, as overall land values go up, that such an exemption would not cover 100% of ANY habitable space, but only a portion thereof.  The Income Tax was only supposed to be a 1% tax on the very wealthy, and ONLY on the interest they earned.  From there its tentacles expanded out to the monstrosity it is today.  But somehow you believe that this is not possible under an LVT, and to argue otherwise is nothing more than "meeza hatsea gubint" in your mind; that is to say, you don't have an argument for that. 




> I have no idea what you think you imagine you might be talking about, but it sounds like you might be suggesting that the way to become a large player in the development industry under LVT is to spend so much money on excess improvements that no one would want to buy them.


No, not the improvements - only the inflated appraisals that value land and improvements in such a way that is beneficial to your State-Bankster-Developer Holy Trinity.  Remember how the market actually works, Roy?  




> ROFTL!  Developers are politically connected under the CURRENT system Steven -- and the lower the property tax rate, the more connected they are.


Yeah, you want to reverse that, alright, by making it in both the state's, developers' and banksters' interests to drive up land rents, the real costs of which are ever-absorbed by all the vertically free-floating sublessees.   




> What good would that do?  Unless improvements are trading for those outrageous prices, they will have no effect on appraised value.


Keeps everyone at the top happy;  leaseholders are not threatened with hostile takeovers, based on inflated improvement prices - developers and banksters are happy, as they really can look elsewhere for cheaper land to develop on - and finally, the state is happy, because yet more land, and therefore future land rents, is being seeded. 




> What would they gain?  They'd still be losing money hand over fist while telling each other how much their properties are worth.


They're not trying to buy and sell Roy - under a Universal Rent Regime, RENT is where all the money is for leaseholders with improvements. 




> <sigh>  They do that in HK because they _don't have LVT_ (let alone a universal individual exemption), and the government artificially restricts access to buildable land in a misguided attempt to increase lease revenue.


Yeah, you still haven't explained how all that proven nonsense would be avoided here. You know, with actual politicians, and not Roy L., in charge.  Give me some examples of all this LVT wonderfulness you're talking about. Show me an instance of LVT attempted implementation that comes closest to what you are proposing.

----------


## Roy L

> See Heavenlyboy's response.  You in no way answered the question of why it was wrong to harm society.


Yes, I did: that's what wrong MEANS.



> Christian apologetics is not that difficult, if you just let your unbelieving opponent talk long enough...because empiricism leads to the logical fallacy just stated above, which is called the fallacy of induction.


Induction is not a fallacy.  It is the insistence that induction be justified either deductively or circularly that is the fallacy.  You are 200 years behind the times.



> Induction is the attempt to derive a general law from a number of particular instances.  It is a fallacious argument because no number of "shared experiences" can ever bring down the conclusion of a universal truth. For example:


That is a strawman fallacy, because induction does not actually purport to make such generalizations.  The next crow is not expected to be black because the previous ones were, but because whatever made the previous ones black will likely make the next one black, too.



> It is logically impossible to obtain a universal proposition from independent or shared observations.  Why?  Because there is no such thing as universal observation or exhaustive knowledge, both of which are assumed erroneously in inductive thinking.


No, they are falsely claimed to be assumed by inductive thinking by those who do not understand inductive thinking (and are likely incapable of it).



> You said that you were a philosophy doctorate?


No, I didn't.  But I am compared to you.



> Wow.  I'm just a poly sci undergrad, and a "Christian idiot" at that...and I just refuted your entire method of obtaining knowledge.


LOL!!  No, you didn't even talk about my method of obtaining knowledge, and seem incapable even of conceiving it.



> Every argument you use that utilizes a number of experiences to attempt to obtain a universal or objective truth is invalid.


<yawn>  Or at least it would be, if my reasoning was as shallow and impoverished as your cartoon of it.



> Why do you think you've never thought of this before?


Maybe because it has nothing to do with my arguments?



> ^^^I ignore anything you type when you only respond to one sentence completely out of context.


<yawn>  I can't make you address my demolitions of your silly garbage.  So?



> What a completely dishonest way to debate.


No, it's not dishonest in the least.  It just makes very clear what I am refuting and how, in order to demolish you sentence by sentence, sometimes clause by clause.  You just have no answers.



> You never read...it's like you didn't even _understand_...what I said in my previous post.


No, I already refuted it, and you just repeated what I already refuted.



> It's like you couldn't even comprehend it.  You are talking about the difference between a hallucination and a "real" sensation.


Which you cretinously claim are indistinguishable....



> I didn't even _begin_ to get in to that (which is another way that I can absolutely destroy your epistemology).


LOL!  No, of course it isn't, and no, you can't.  Religious faith "absolutely destroying" science, that's a good one.  You'd be amusing if you weren't so pathetic.



> _I am telling you that you can't prove ANY sensation that you have...at all. Not one. _


BWAHAHAHAAA!  Oh, it's worse than that, sunshine: I can't even figure out what you imagine you think you mean by "prove a sensation."  You haven't even got to the point of knowing that sensations are not propositions.



> So lets read again what I posted and then we will see what your answer is:


??  And you claim I haven't read YOUR responses??  READ WHAT I WROTE.



> Hmmm, I thought that a philosophy major like yourself would have known that David Hume was a professed atheist until the day he died.  David Hume did not have a theistic epistemology, he simply admitted that his unbelieving empirical epistemology could not answer the question of induction.


Sorry, you're right, I was thinking of Berkeley.  It's been many years since I read Hume, and I don't have any desire to renew my acquaintance with him.



> How do you know what exists?  By your senses?


That's what they are for.



> How would you ever test your senses against the "objective reality" when all you have is your senses to try to confirm it?


I don't.  Unlike you, I also have reason.



> Don't you see the alarming circularity in your irrational worldview yet lol?


<yawn>  You mean the "alarming circularity" modern civilization rests on, and which has demolished any epistemological pretense that religion is anything but superstition?

----------


## Roy L

> How do you know what exists?  By your senses?  How would you ever test your senses against the "objective reality" when all you have is your senses to try to confirm it?  Don't you see the alarming circularity in your irrational worldview yet lol?


Perhaps the most irrational and dishonest part of your irrational and dishonest garbage is your view that somehow your Humeian radical skepticism invalidates my factual, logical and economic arguments for LVT, but not your purely religious "argument" against it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Perhaps the most irrational and dishonest part of your irrational and dishonest garbage is your view that somehow your Humeian radical skepticism invalidates my factual, logical and economic arguments for LVT, but not your purely religious "argument" against it.


What's "irrational and dishonest" about it?  Karl Popper talked about this long ago.  Bertrand Russell agrees with AB's assessment as well.  It's not as if AB is pulling this stuff out of thin air.

----------


## Roy L

> What's "irrational and dishonest" about it?


The pretense that radical skepticism only invalidates others' views, not his own.  Such arguments are incoherent, as anyone who advances them must assume they are fallacious in order to make them.



> Karl Popper talked about this long ago.


He REFUTED it long ago.  



> Bertrand Russell agrees with AB's assessment as well.  It's not as if AB is pulling this stuff out of thin air.


I am aware of the irrationalist and radical skeptic traditions.  As Ayn Rand so astutely observed, Hume was merely the Bertrand Russell of his time -- you know: the same Bertrand Russell who took 200 pages to prove that 1+1=2.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Yes, I did: that's what wrong MEANS.


Wow. There's your answer folks.  If someone asked me why atheism was wrong, and I replied "Sure its wrong.  That's what wrong means!", what would you think about that?  No explanation, totally arbitrary, period, that's it.  

You would laugh me out of the public debate, and rightfully so.






> Induction is not a fallacy.  It is the insistence that induction be justified either deductively or circularly that is the fallacy.  You are 200 years behind the times.
> 
> That is a strawman fallacy, because induction does not actually purport to make such generalizations.  The next crow is not expected to be black because the previous ones were, but because whatever made the previous ones black will likely make the next one black, too.
> 
> No, they are falsely claimed to be assumed by inductive thinking by those who do not understand inductive thinking (and are likely incapable of it).
> 
> No, I didn't.  But I am compared to you.
> 
> LOL!!  No, you didn't even talk about my method of obtaining knowledge, and seem incapable even of conceiving it.
> ...




Induction is "not a fallacy" folks.  Wow.  Um....Okay.  Did you buy your philosophy degree online?


Yes, sensations are not propositions (which is another reason it is irrational to base a method of obtaining knowledge on them.  Sensations aren't "true").  But they can be put into propositional form, and that is what I meant to say in that sentence.  I meant to say you can't prove "reality" by your senses, and that is why I quoted myself again after that to drive home the point.  You have no answer for my skepticism, because there is no answer to it.


You are still saying...after STILL not getting what I am saying...that your senses sense the "objective world".  Of course, you have no way of ever proving this, because you have nothing objective to test your senses by.  All you have is more subjective sense perceptions.


But then you say you have "reason" now.  Okay.  Where do you get the information that your "reason" utilizes?   That's right, from your senses.  Are your senses reliable?  How could you ever objectively know?  Can you make a statement of universal truth from your sense experiences?  No, because you dont have universal experience or exhaustive knowledge. This is the inductive fallacy.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Wow. There's your answer folks.  If someone asked me why atheism was wrong, and I replied "that's what wrong means!", what would you think about that?  No explanation, totally arbitrary, period, that's it.  You would laugh me out of the public debate, and rightfully so.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Induction is "not a fallacy" folks.  Wow.  Um....Okay.  Did you buy your philosophy degree online?
> ...


+rep

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> 


This doesn't qualify as an answer, sir.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Here is a great debate that employs (a lot better than I can do) the Scripturalist apologetic that I am using in this thread.  It is a fascinating read:  http://www.vincentcheung.com/biblica...-assertionism/

----------


## Roy L

> Wow. There's your answer folks.  If someone asked me why atheism was wrong, and I replied "Sure its wrong.  That's what wrong means!", what would you think about that?


That you were an ignoramus and/or a liar, as that's indisputably NOT what wrong means.



> No explanation, totally arbitrary, period, that's it.


No, unlike you, I explained *why* "wrong" means harmful to society, so stop lying: lying is wrong.



> You would laugh me out of the public debate, and rightfully so.


Right, because unlike me, you would just be making a blatantly false assertion, not providing facts and logic to support a true one.



> Induction is "not a fallacy" folks.  Wow.  Um....Okay.  Did you buy your philosophy degree online?


<yawn>  The fact that induction is not a fallacy is proved by the existence of the technology you are using at this very moment.  You have merely decided to be so irrational, silly and dishonest that you refuse to know that fact.  This phenomenon is quite common among people who have decided to cut out and destroy their own brains in order to make room in their skulls for their religious faith.



> Yes, sensations are not propositions


OK, so you agree that your "argument" was just a silly spew of irrational gibberish.  Good.



> (which is another reason it is irrational to base a method of obtaining knowledge on them.  Sensations aren't "true").


It is precisely because we cannot begin with -- we are not born with -- knowledge of what is true that we must begin the process of obtaining knowledge by processing sensations.



> But they can be put into propositional form, and that is what I meant to say in that sentence.


No, sensations cannot be put into propositional form, as they are nothing but physical processes devoid of conceptual content.  You might as well claim that a raindrop hitting the ground can be put into propositional form.



> I meant to say you can't prove "reality" by your senses,


Reality is also not a proposition.  Try to keep your eye on the ball, junior: you are rather cruelly exposing your ignorance of epistemology and incompetence in logic.



> and that is why I quoted myself again after that to drive home the point.  You have no answer for my skepticism, because there is no answer to it.


That is precisely correct.  I have stated many, many times in this thread that opposition to LVT can _only_ be based on refusal to know the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.  There is no sort of argument that can reverse a refusal to know facts.  I only identify the fact that apologists for landowner privilege are refusing to know facts in an attempt to shame them into being willing to know them.  I certainly realize shaming is not an argument.



> You are still saying...after STILL not getting what I am saying...that your senses sense the "objective world".


Indeed, because that is what the "objective world" _means_: the persistent and internally consistent world that other minds report experiencing much as we do.



> Of course, you have no way of ever proving this, because you have nothing objective to test your senses by.  All you have is more subjective sense perceptions.


Of what else do you erroneously imagine such a proof could consist?



> But then you say you have "reason" now.  Okay.  Where do you get the information that your "reason" utilizes?   That's right, from your senses.  Are your senses reliable?


Reliable enough, yes.  The technology you are using at this moment proves that.



> How could you ever objectively know?


By comparing their evidence with the reports of other minds.



> Can you make a statement of universal truth from your sense experiences?


Yes: sense experience is the only possible way we can obtain information about the objective world.



> No, because you dont have universal experience or exhaustive knowledge.


They are not necessary.



> This is the inductive fallacy.


It's not a fallacy.  It's how people survive.  People like you and Hume are simply stating your decisions to become unfit to survive, and to rely on others who retain their faculties of reason to keep you alive.

----------


## Roy L

> Here is a great debate that employs (a lot better than I can do) the Scripturalist apologetic that I am using in this thread.  It is a fascinating read:  http://www.vincentcheung.com/biblica...-assertionism/


What a tedious load of dishonest and anti-rational garbage Vincent Cheung spews.  Refusal to know facts is not an argument against them, sorry.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> It's not a fallacy.  It's how people survive.  People like you and Hume are simply stating your decisions to become unfit to survive, and to rely on others who retain their faculties of reason to keep you alive.


Allow me to introduce you to inductive logic 101 and why it is fallacious.

*http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/induct.htm
Inductive reasoning consists of inferring from the properties of a sample to the properties of a population as a whole.
For example, suppose we have a barrel containing of 1,000 beans. Some of the beans are black and some of the beans are white. Suppose now we take a sample of 100 beans from the barrel and that 50 of them are white and 50 of them are black. Then we could infer inductively that half the beans in the barrel (that is, 500 of them) are black and half are white.
All inductive reasoning depends on the similarity of the sample and the population. The more similar the same is to the population as a whole, the more reliable will be the inductive inference. On the other hand, if the sample is relevantly dissimilar to the population, then the inductive inference will be unreliable.
No inductive inference is perfect. That means that any inductive inference can sometimes fail. Even though the premises are true, the conclusion might be false. Nonetheless, a good inductive inference gives us a reason to believe that the conclusion is probably true.
The following inductive fallacies are described in this section:
Hasty Generalization
Unrepresentative Sample
False Analogy
Slothful Induction
Fallacy of Exclusion*

----------


## Sola_Fide

> No, sensations cannot be put into propositional form, as they are nothing but physical processes devoid of conceptual content.  You might as well claim that a *raindrop hitting the ground can be put into propositional form.*



Proposition:  The ground is wet.

You don't know what you're talking about.





> Reality is also not a proposition.


Roy's Proposition:  Reality is what can be sensed.

My response: Facepalm! (read below)






> Yes: sense experience is the only possible way we can obtain information about the objective world.



Did you _sense_ that sense experience is the only way to know things?  If you didn't sense it, how do you know it?

----------


## Roy L

> Allow me to introduce you to inductive logic 101


You have obviously never taken a course in logic, boy.



> and why it is fallacious.
> 
> [B]http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/induct.htm
> Inductive reasoning consists of inferring from the properties of a sample to the properties of a population as a whole.


Wrong.  Flat, outright wrong.  That is statistical inference, not induction.



> For example, suppose we have a barrel containing of 1,000 beans. Some of the beans are black and some of the beans are white. Suppose now we take a sample of 100 beans from the barrel and that 50 of them are white and 50 of them are black. Then we could infer inductively that half the beans in the barrel (that is, 500 of them) are black and half are white.
> All inductive reasoning depends on the similarity of the sample and the population.


No, it does not.



> The more similar the same is to the population as a whole, the more reliable will be the inductive inference. On the other hand, if the sample is relevantly dissimilar to the population, then the inductive inference will be unreliable.


LOL!  In fact, induction is a process of distinguishing relevant and essential similarities that are useful for prediction from irrelevant and arbitrary ones that aren't.  We do this by delineating relevant causal relationships, not by piling up statistics.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You have obviously never taken a course in logic, boy.


No, but I studied it independently and know more about it than you do, child.  You struggle with even the most basic concepts of formal logic.




> Wrong. Flat, outright wrong. That is statistical inference, not induction.
> 
> For example, suppose we have a barrel containing of 1,000 beans. Some of the beans are black and some of the beans are white. Suppose now we take a sample of 100 beans from the barrel and that 50 of them are white and 50 of them are black. Then we could infer inductively that half the beans in the barrel (that is, 500 of them) are black and half are white.
> All inductive reasoning depends on the similarity of the sample and the population.
> 
> 
> No, it does not.
> 
> The more similar the same is to the population as a whole, the more reliable will be the inductive inference. On the other hand, if the sample is relevantly dissimilar to the population, then the inductive inference will be unreliable.
> ...


Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.  Let me give you a formula for asserting the consequent-a type of inductive reasoning.  "*A, therefore B*".  This logic, like all inductive logic is ALWAYS fallacious.

Here's another, since the last one was too hard for you:

http://changingminds.org/disciplines.../induction.htm
Inductive reasoning, or induction, is reasoning from a specific case or cases and deriving a general rule. It draws inferences from observations in order to make generalizations.
Inference can be done in four stages:
_Observation_: collect facts, without bias._Analysis_: classify the facts, identifying patterns o of regularity._Inference_: From the patterns, infer generalizations about the relations between the facts._Confirmation_: Testing the inference through further observation.In an argument, you might:
Derive a general rule in an accepted area and then apply the rule in the area where you want the person to behave.Give them lots of detail, then explain what it all means.Talk about the benefits of the parts and only get to the overall benefits later.Take what has happened and give a plausible explanation for why it has happened.Inductive arguments can include:
_Part-to-whole_: where the whole is assumed to be like individual parts (only bigger)._Extrapolations_: where areas beyond the area of study are assumed to be like the studied area._Predictions_: where the future is assumed to be like the past.

----------


## eduardo89

> Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.


Checkmate.

----------


## Roy L

> Proposition:  The ground is wet.
> 
> You don't know what you're talking about.


<yawn>  Ah, yes, actually, I do.  You, by contrast, do not.  "The ground is wet," is not a sensation, nor is it a propositional form of a sensation (whatever that might be).  It is, rather (which refutes your claim that sensations don't or can't tell us about objective reality), a proposition about objective reality that any number of sensations could support, or refute.



> Roy's Proposition:  Reality is what can be sensed.


I said no such thing.  Much of reality _can't_ be sensed.  What I _said_ was that reality is what our senses EXIST to sense.



> My response: Facepalm! (read below)


My response: <yawn>



> Did you _sense_ that sense experience is the only way to know things?


No, that is a proposition.  Sensations are not propositions.  It is also a proposition that is different from the proposition I stated, so you have again confessed your dishonesty by engaging in a strawman fallacy.



> If you didn't sense it, how do you know it?


By having a brain and being willing to use it.  That is apparently a mystery that will be forever impenetrable to you.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> I said no such thing.  Much of reality _can't_ be sensed.  What I _said_ was that reality is what our senses EXIST to sense.


Did you sense the reality that can't be sensed?  If you didn't sense that it can't be sensed, how do you know it can't be sensed?






> By having a brain and being willing to use it.  That is apparently a mystery that will be forever impenetrable to you.


How do you know that you have a brain?  Did you sense it?

----------


## Roy L

> No, but I studied it independently and know more about it than you do, child.  You struggle with even the most basic concepts of formal logic.


ROTFL!!  No, you consistently embarrass yourself by your juvenile misapprehensions of what you are woefully ill-equipped to comprehend.  Do yourself a favor and take an introductory course from someone who is actually qualified to teach logic before you embarrass yourself any further.



> Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.  Let me give you a formula for asserting the consequent-a type of inductive reasoning.  "*A, therefore B*".


??  BWAHAHAHAAAA!!!  Speaking of wrong, wrong and wrong, that is _not_ a formula for affirming the consequent.  Your ignorance of logic is comprehensive and incurable.  Also hilarious in one who presumes to lecture ME on the subject.  THIS is a formula for affirming the consequent:

A implies B.
B, therefore A.



> This logic, like all inductive logic is ALWAYS fallacious.


You claim affirming the consequent is an example of induction (it isn't), let alone all induction, while proving you don't even know what affirming the consequent _IS_??  ROTFL!!



> Here's another, since the last one was too hard for you:


You are really intent on making a fool of yourself, aren't you?



> http://changingminds.org/disciplines.../induction.htm


Cool!  a "logic" reference that shows me ads for an Asian dating site....



> Inductive reasoning, or induction, is reasoning from a specific case or cases and deriving a general rule. It draws inferences from observations in order to make generalizations.
> Inference can be done in four stages:
> _Observation_: collect facts, without bias._Analysis_: classify the facts, identifying patterns o of regularity._Inference_: From the patterns, infer generalizations about the relations between the facts._Confirmation_: Testing the inference through further observation.


Well, that is at least closer than the idiotic statistical claim.  But now it goes off the rails into "How to Win Friends and Influence People":



> In an argument, you might:
> Derive a general rule in an accepted area and then apply the rule in the area where you want the person to behave.Give them lots of detail, then explain what it all means.Talk about the benefits of the parts and only get to the overall benefits later.Take what has happened and give a plausible explanation for why it has happened.Inductive arguments can include:
> _Part-to-whole_: where the whole is assumed to be like individual parts (only bigger).


ROTFL!!  That's the fallacy of composition, not induction.  Duh.



> _Extrapolations_: where areas beyond the area of study are assumed to be like the studied area._Predictions_: where the future is assumed to be like the past.


<yawn>  More examples of fallacies that aren't induction.

Geez.

----------


## Roy L

> Did you sense the reality that can't be sensed?


Why even bother with such stupid garbage?



> If you didn't sense that it can't be sensed, how do you know it can't be sensed?


By being willing to know the logical implications of its consistent effects on what can be sensed.



> How do you know that you have a brain?


From the fact that I am neither impressed nor deceived nor intimidated by your dishonest and despicable rhetorical formulas.



> Did you sense it?


One's own brain is one of those parts of reality that one cannot sense except under extraordinary circumstances.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> ROTFL!!  No, you consistently embarrass yourself by your juvenile misapprehensions of what you are woefully ill-equipped to comprehend.  Do yourself a favor and take an introductory course from someone who is actually qualified to teach logic before you embarrass yourself any further.
> 
> ??  BWAHAHAHAAAA!!!  Speaking of wrong, wrong and wrong, that is _not_ a formula for affirming the consequent.  Your ignorance of logic is comprehensive and incurable.  Also hilarious in one who presumes to lecture ME on the subject.  THIS is a formula for affirming the consequent:
> 
> A implies B.
> B, therefore A.
> 
> You claim affirming the consequent is an example of induction (it isn't), let alone all induction, while proving you don't even know what affirming the consequent _IS_??  ROTFL!!
> 
> ...


Wrong on every count, but I'm glad you amuse yourself. You are the juvenile here, in every sense of the word.  Either you didn't actually study logic, or you slept through class.

Here's an excellent book for you. 

See especially page 181.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Why even bother with such stupid garbage?


But, but...you're the all-wise, all-knowing ROY L!!!  You should be able to do it with one hand behind your back!!11!!

----------


## Roy L

> Wrong on every count, but I'm glad you amuse yourself. You are the juvenile here, in every sense of the word.  Either you didn't actually study logic, or you slept through class.


Anyone reading this can Google "affirming the consequent" and confirm that I am objectively correct about what it is and the form it takes, and you are objectively wrong.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Anyone reading this can Google "affirming the consequent" and confirm that I am objectively correct about what it is and the form it takes, and you are objectively wrong.


actually, they'd find that I'm right.  The first link that shows up demonstrates this.  There are more than 4 million other hits which confirm that I am correct (if google is your standard).  But, as you've shown again and again, intellectual honesty is not your "thing".

----------


## Roy L

> Here is a great debate that employs (a lot better than I can do) the Scripturalist apologetic that I am using in this thread.  It is a fascinating read:  http://www.vincentcheung.com/biblica...-assertionism/


Oh, and Buddha?  Next time you are following a scripted rhetorical formula designed to intimidate, confuse, browbeat and exhaust the other side rather than to engage or inform it, and to inundate all substantive issues under a tsunami of red herrings rather than to illuminate or clarify them, at least have the good sense not to link to a site that links to a site that links to a document that describes in detail exactly what you are doing, and how:

http://www.vincentcheung.com/books/conversation2011.pdf

----------


## LibXist

WTF!!! Why does this thread keep popping up? I've been seeing it for almost as long as I've been on these forums. Jeez, some threads just never die around here.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> WTF!!! Why does this thread keep popping up? I've been seeing it for almost as long as I've been on these forums. Jeez, some threads just never die around here.


Roy L is an obnoxious, soft, easy target that I use for practice and amusement.  I'm pretty sure others around here feel the same.

----------


## Roy L

> actually, they'd find that I'm right.


No, they will find that you are indisputably wrong, and I am indisputably right.  I'm not sure there is any clearer way to explain that to you.



> The first link that shows up demonstrates this.


It shows you are blatantly wrong, and lying.  _YOUR OWN SOURCE says:_



> Form
> If p then q.
> q.
> Therefore, p.


That is the form _I_ gave, not the form _you_ gave, and it has nothing to do with induction.  Nothing.



> There are more than 4 million other hits which confirm that I am correct (if google is your standard).


That is a lie.  You are just lying.



> But, as you've shown again and again, intellectual honesty is not your "thing".


Despicable.  Every hit I looked at -- about the first half dozen -- proved me right and you wrong:

Wikipedia:  Affirming the consequent, sometimes called converse error, is a formal fallacy, committed by reasoning in the form:
    If P, then Q.
    Q.
    Therefore, P.

onegoodmove:  Any argument of the following form is invalid:
If A then B
B
Therefore, A 

changingminds:  Description
If A is true then B is true. B is true. Therefore A is true.

logicalfallacies:
The fallacy of affirming the consequent is committed by arguments that have the form:

(1) If A then B
(2) B
Therefore:
(3) A

hebrew4christians:  That is, any argument having the following form is invalid:

    If p then q
    q
    Therefore, p.

commonsenseatheism:  Today we discuss affirming the consequent. It looks like this:

    If P then Q.
    Q.
    Therefore, P.

Etc.

I am at a loss to understand what you think you gain from trying to brazen it out when you know you are wrong and I am humiliating you on everything you say.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Oh, and Buddha?  Next time you are following a scripted rhetorical formula designed to intimidate, confuse, browbeat and exhaust the other side rather than to engage or inform it, and to inundate all substantive issues under a tsunami of red herrings rather than to illuminate or clarify them, at least have the good sense not to link to a site that links to a site that links to a document that describes in detail exactly what you are doing, and how:
> 
> http://www.vincentcheung.com/books/conversation2011.pdf



Great link!  Thanks!

Back to our discussion...

You said:




> Originally Posted by *Roy L*
> Yes: sense experience is the only possible way we can obtain information about the objective world.


(bear in mind that because of the inductive fallacy, you can never validly conclude that anything is "objective")

and..




> Originally Posted by *Roy L*
> I said no such thing. Much of reality can't be sensed. What I said was that reality is what our senses EXIST to sense.



Then I said:



> Originally Posted by *AquaBuddha2010*
> Did you sense the reality that can't be sensed? If you didn't sense that it can't be sensed, how do you know it can't be sensed?


 
To this you replied strangely:



> Originally Posted by *Roy L*
> Why even bother with such stupid garbage? By being willing to know the logical implications of its consistent effects on what can be sensed.



I'm sorry that I have to extract the relevant portions of the conversation out of your post..but hey, I'm dealing with you here, ya know.  Anyway, I don't understand your answer.  Could you expain that further?  How do you sense a "logical implication"?  If you didn't sense it, how do you know it?  How do you know what "can be sensed" if you haven't sensed what all could be sensed?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, they will find that you are indisputably wrong, and I am indisputably right.  I'm not sure there is any clearer way to explain that to you.
> 
> It shows you are blatantly wrong, and lying.  _YOUR OWN SOURCE says:_
> 
> That is the form _I_ gave, not the form _you_ gave, and it has nothing to do with induction.  Nothing.
> 
> That is a lie.  You are just lying.
> 
> Despicable.  Every hit I looked at -- about the first half dozen -- proved me right and you wrong:
> ...


No, what you said is just another way of saying what I said.  I just use a and b rather than p and q. A rose by any other name is still a rose.  Nice try, though.  Hit the books, Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> (bear in mind that because of the inductive fallacy, you can never validly conclude that anything is "objective")


Induction is not a fallacy, and "valid" describes more than just deductive arguments.



> How do you sense a "logical implication"?


You have to think, not just sense like an animal.



> If you didn't sense it, how do you know it?


By thinking rationally and being willing to know self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  "Thinking" denotes a concept you probably aren't familiar with.



> How do you know what "can be sensed" if you haven't sensed what all could be sensed?


<yawn>  I don't have to know everything to know something.

BTW, good job on following Cheung's red herring script.

----------


## Roy L

> No, what you said is just another way of saying what I said.


<sigh>  No, stop lying.  What you said (post #1830): 



> Let me give you a formula for asserting the consequent-a type of inductive reasoning.
> *"A, therefore B"*.


What I said (post #1834):



> THIS is a formula for affirming the consequent:
> 
> *A implies B.
> B, therefore A.*


Everyone reading this can confirm for himself that we both used A and B, and that the form I provided for the fallacy matches the forms given by all the other sources, while the form you gave does not match any of them.



> I just use a and b rather than p and q. A rose by any other name is still a rose.


And a despicable, lying sack of $#! is still a despicable, lying sack of $#!+.



> Nice try, though.  Hit the books, Roy.


I'm feeling more in need of a barf bucket.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> <yawn>  I don't have to know everything to know something.


Yes you do, because your standard of knowledge is sensation.  Here you are making universal claims.  You said:




> Originally Posted by *Roy L*
> Yes: sense experience is the only possible way we can obtain information about the objective world.


This is the inductive fallacy.  Since you do not have universal experience, since you have not sensed everything, and since you do not have universal knowledge, you cannot make a universal claim like this.  You have not had universal experience past, present, and future...therefore your statement is self-refuting.  


You do not know what can be sensed or not sensed.  _You do not even know that an individual sensation you have is reliable, since you cannot ever test your sensation against the "objective world", but only by another subjective sense perception._  You cannot even prove that an objective world exists.  Since the only thing that is ever present to the mind are your sense perceptions, you paint yourself into your corner of solipcism.  Empiricism starts out promising knowledge, but in the end it destroys it.


I don't have anything against you RoyL, seriously man.  I apologize if I've been a little too snippy in this thread.  Maybe you will read the Vincent Cheung links and realize that empiricism is fallacious.  That's what I hope anyway...


Cheers.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> What I said (post #1834):
> 
> Everyone reading this can confirm for himself that we both used A and B, and that the form I provided for the fallacy matches the forms given by all the other sources, while the form you gave does not match any of them.


Are you friggin kidding me?  Sorry, hb, I feel like stepping in.  Roy, you both did more than just use A and B.  What you wrote in #1834 is absolutely no different than saying: 

*B implies A.
A, therefore B.*

Transposing the two makes no difference...which is exactly what hb wrote, in shorter form: 

*A, therefore B.*, only he put it in shorter form, leaving out the "If A, then B" part. You just transposed A and B, and added the qualifier at the top. But even that was incorrect, as it's not "A *implies* B".  That's your goofy-loose interpretation, which leaves out the even longer, but more accurate form:  *"A implies B, B is true, therefore A is true."*  Or, in shortest form: "B. Therefore A."

He provided a link to his source, which clearly states it properly, and puts his reference in context.  Other than that, where is the substantive difference?  You're acting like a child playground nerd who thinks he has a bona fide "GOTCHA!" on a stupid technicality that is easily resolved with an iota of critical thought when read in context.  But you don't like paying attention to context or the spirit of intent when it's not yours, do you?

----------


## Sola_Fide

By the way, HeavenlyBoy is absolutely correct in pointing out that empricists commit the fallacy of asserting the consequent.  Here is a great, and easy-to-understand explanation of how atheists commit this fallacy.  It's blistering:

*A Gang Of Pandas
by Vincent Cheung*
http://www.vincentcheung.com/other/gangpanda.pdf


About scientific experimentation as a basis for "truth":




> If what is said about scientific experiments is difficult for some
> people to understand, the problem of "affirming the consequent"
> may be more easily grasped. Consider the following form of
> argument:
> 1. If X, then Y
> 2. Y
> 3. Therefore, X
> This form of reasoning, called "affirming the consequent," is
> always a formal fallacy in logic; that is, the structure of the
> ...




What about the argument of the "success of science" (as RoyL made many times already in this thread):




> To appeal to the effect of science (medicine, microwave, etc.), is only an appeal to the
> fallacy of affirming the consequent again. Affirming the consequent is just another way
> of saying an appeal to the result or effect. The assumption is that if you seem to be
> getting the result that you want or predict, then there must be some truth behind the
> assumption that yields this result. Again, that is a logical fallacy. Correlation does not
> indicate causation. But my contention is that science cannot even detect or establish
> correlation.

----------


## Roy L

> Are you friggin kidding me?


No, I'm expecting you to lie.  And you will not disappoint me.



> Roy, you both did more than just use A and B.  What you wrote in #1834 is absolutely no different than saying: 
> 
> *B implies A.
> A, therefore B.*
> 
> Transposing the two makes no difference...


True.  The form is the same.



> which is exactly what hb wrote, in shorter form:


No, Steven, that is a lie.  You are LYING AGAIN.  That is indisputably NOT what hb wrote.



> *A, therefore B.*, only he put it in shorter form, leaving out the "If A, then B" part.


That is not a "shorter form" of affirming the consequent, it is an entirely different thing -- an ordinary entailment premise -- and it is NOT FALLACIOUS.  You are either a total logical ignoramus or a lying sack of $#!+, and I certainly do not rule out both.



> You just transposed A and B, and added the qualifier at the top.


That is not a "qualifier."  It is the major premise.  *Without it, there is no fallacy.*  You are just telling stupid, outrageous lies.  As usual.



> But even that was incorrect,


No, I was absolutely and indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact, as usual, and you are just spewing absurd and outrageous lies.



> as it's not "A *implies* B".


Yes, in fact it is.  That is the same logical form as, "If A then B."  You know nothing about logic, and are lying about what I plainly wrote, as usual.



> That's your goofy-loose interpretation,


That is your idiotic lie.



> which leaves out the even longer, but more accurate form:  *"A implies B, B is true, therefore A is true."*  Or, in shortest form: "B. Therefore A."


That is not a "shortest form" of affirming the consequent.  It is a completely different form: an ordinary entailment premise.  There is no inference, and therefore no fallacy.  Every logician in the world will tell you that you are a total ignoramus and are telling stupid, sickening lies about what I plainly wrote.



> He provided a link to his source,


Which proved him wrong.



> which clearly states it properly, and puts his reference in context.


And indisputably proves him wrong.



> Other than that, where is the substantive difference?


You mean other than hb's form being totally different from the real form?



> You're acting like a child playground nerd who thinks he has a bona fide "GOTCHA!" on a stupid technicality that is easily resolved with an iota of critical thought when read in context.


hb was objectively wrong.  But rather than just admit it and move on, he is trying to brazen it out, pretending he knows some logic when he clearly knows none and presuming to lecture his moral and intellectual superior when he has indisputably been demolished and humiliated.



> But you don't like paying attention to context or the spirit of intent when it's not yours, do you?


I don't like lying ignorami presuming to lecture me on subjects of which they are self-evidently hilariously ignorant.

----------


## Roy L

> By the way, HeavenlyBoy is absolutely correct in pointing out that empricists commit the fallacy of asserting the consequent.


No, he is not.  He is a total ignoramus in logic, and so are you.



> Here is a great, and easy-to-understand explanation of how atheists commit this fallacy.  It's blistering:


No, it's cretinous.



> *A Gang Of Pandas
> by Vincent Cheung*
> http://www.vincentcheung.com/other/gangpanda.pdf
> About scientific experimentation as a basis for "truth":


More cretinous nonsense.  



> What about the argument of the "success of science" (as RoyL made many times already in this thread):


More cretinous nonsense.  Vincent Cheung has exactly one "argument": blank refusal to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> No, he is not.  He is a total ignoramus in logic, and so are you.
> 
> No, it's cretinous.
> 
> More cretinous nonsense.  
> 
> More cretinous nonsense.  Vincent Cheung has exactly one "argument": blank refusal to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.



lol..."cretinous" 

Well, as usual, you don't care about what I post so I don't know why I keep doing it.  You said that all information comes through the senses.  If that is the case, how can you ever know what the "objective world" is, or if there is an "objective world" at all? What are you going to test your sensation by?  Another one of your subjective sense perceptions?  If your sensation is the standard of obtaining information, then you can never know what the "objective world" is, because all you have are your subjective sense perceptions.  


When you try to make a statement of universal truth based on your subjective experiences, then you commit the fallacy of induction.  All inductive arguments are fallacious.  


When you argue that assumed hypotheses are "true" because they are confirmed by favorable experimentation, you commit the fallacy of asserting the consequent.  Correlation does not imply causation.  


But anyway, I know you don't understand the inductive fallacy.  I know you don't understand how scientific experimentation cannot yield truth statements because it asserts the consequent.  I know you don't understand it Roy.  That is why this last post of yours contained no substance, just name-calling.  But, hopefully some other people here will look in to these things.  Logic is a hard master...most people run from it into their existentialistic fantasies as fast as they can, and they never look back.

----------


## Roy L

> You said that all information comes through the senses.


No, I did not.



> If that is the case, how can you ever know what the "objective world" is, or if there is an "objective world" at all?


By not being as stupid as a bag of hammers, or as dishonest as a lying sack of $#!+ like Vincent Cheung.



> What are you going to test your sensation by?


Consistency.



> Another one of your subjective sense perceptions?


A lot of them.



> If your sensation is the standard of obtaining information,


It's a means, not the standard.



> then you can never know what the "objective world" is, because all you have are your subjective sense perceptions.


Wrong.  I also have a brain, and I am willing to use it -- conspicuously unlike the execrable Vincent Cheung and his grotesquely anti-rational disciples.



> When you try to make a statement of universal truth based on your subjective experiences, then you commit the fallacy of induction.


No, what you call a fallacy is not a fallacy.  It is the human method of reason.



> All inductive arguments are fallacious.


No, they are not, because they do not purport to be deductive.



> When you argue that assumed hypotheses are "true" because they are confirmed by favorable experimentation, you commit the fallacy of asserting the consequent.


No, I do not.



> Correlation does not imply causation.


<yawn>  What does?  Are you going to follow Hume off the epistemological cliff of denying there is any such thing as causation?



> But anyway, I know you don't understand the inductive fallacy.  I know you don't understand how scientific experimentation cannot yield truth statements because it asserts the consequent.  I know you don't understand it Roy.


I understand that such claims are nothing but anti-logical garbage.



> That is why this last post of yours contained no substance, just name-calling.


Lie.



> But, hopefully some other people here will look in to these things.


Hopefully you will _come to your senses_ before it is too late.



> Logic is a hard master...most people run from it into their existentialistic fantasies as fast as they can, and they never look back.


<yawn>  The guy who claims empirical science is a fallacious fantasy world but the Christian theology of a despicable, lying sack of $#!+ like Vincent Cheung is indisputable truth is presuming to lecture me about logic.

Sorry, but you are making a fool of yourself, Buddha, and everyone reading this knows it, including you.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Sorry, but you are making a fool of yourself, Buddha, and everyone reading this knows it, including you.


Must be true, I looked it up.  

everyone, pron. - See Roy L.; syn. with you, ex.: _You have been assimilated by Roy L. All your identity are belong to him._

----------


## eduardo89

I have a feeling Roy L's alter ego is JuicyG

----------


## Roy L

> Roy L is an obnoxious, soft, easy target that I use for practice and amusement.


Who has crushed, demolished and annihilated every substantive claim you have made.



> I'm pretty sure others around here feel the same.


Feelings... nothing more than feelings...

----------


## Roy L

> Here is a great debate that employs (a lot better than I can do) the Scripturalist apologetic that I am using in this thread.  It is a fascinating read:  http://www.vincentcheung.com/biblica...-assertionism/


BTW, here is your hero, lying his fool head off:

_Derek:You aren't going to attack the senses, using your senses, are you?

VINCENT: No._

That is self-evidently and indisputably a flat-out lie, as Cheung has indisputably used his senses to attack the senses, and he knows it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Who has crushed, demolished and annihilated every substantive claim you have made.


He loves his delusions too, see? ^^

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I have a feeling Roy L's alter ego is JuicyG


 That would explain a lot.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> BTW, here is your hero, lying his fool head off:
> 
> _Derek:You aren't going to attack the senses, using your senses, are you?
> 
> VINCENT: No._
> 
> That is self-evidently and indisputably a flat-out lie, as Cheung has indisputably used his senses to attack the senses, and he knows it.


Keep digging Roy.  You'll find the answer.

----------


## Roy L

> Keep digging Roy.  You'll find the answer.


I didn't have to dig very deep in a lying sack of $#!+ to find $#!+ or lies.

----------


## eduardo89

> I didn't have to dig very deep in a lying sack of $#!+ to find $#!+ or lies.


Stand back everyone. She's about to blow!!!!!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

LVT is doomed anyway.  Technology is going to make enforcement and collection impossible.  The technology I refer to: space travel.

----------


## eduardo89

> LVT is doomed anyway.  Technology is going to make enforcement and collection impossible.  The technology I refer to: space travel.


Roy L is already lobbying Newt Gingrich to include an LVT tax on his moon base colony.

----------


## ConCap

> I say: eliminate all taxes, and then institute a nation wide sales tax of 5 %. That would be enough to fund government.



Just cut all Government services and subsidies paid out after 1910 and run the rest on 2%.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Just cut all Government services and subsidies paid out after 1910 and run the rest on 2%.


We have 2%, do I hear 1%?.....

----------


## Cabal

> We have 2%, do I hear 1%?.....


0%

----------


## helmuth_hubener

We have a winner!  Sold!  Freedom goes for the price of 0% institutionalized theft.

----------


## Roy L

> LVT is doomed anyway.  Technology is going to make enforcement and collection impossible.  The technology I refer to: space travel.


Yeah, just like train travel and air travel were predicted to do....

----------


## Roy L

> We have a winner!  Sold!  Freedom goes for the price of 0% institutionalized theft.


<sigh>  It is *landowning* and the landowner's privilege of pocketing all the value government spending creates -- i.e., *lack of LVT* -- that constitute institutionalized theft, and that make the additional institutionalized thefts of income tax, sales tax, profits tax, gas tax, excise tax, etc. -- all the taxes that burden production rather than idle, parasitic rent seeking -- necessary to avoid becoming Somalia.  As I have proved to you dozens of times.

It is all so simple, if you can only find a willingness to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality: the evils you blame on government per se are in fact almost all caused by landowning and the taxpayer-funded welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners (which is also the principal cause of government corruption).

Government spending on services and infrastructure is the goose that lays the golden eggs.  You see the hard-working sharecroppers are made to feed the goose, and your solution is to kill it.  You just refuse to know the fact that the goose is laying golden eggs, and this renders you incapable of knowing the fact that those eggs are being taken by the landowner who contributes nothing to the farm or the goose's maintenance, rather than being collected to pay for its fodder.  We can free the sharecroppers of their burden and still get the benefit of the golden eggs if we will only collect them to pay for the goose fodder rather than letting the landowner take them in return for nothing.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

<sigh> It is *the nation-state* and the nation-state's privilege of pocketing the all the value they choose -- i.e.,* taxation, seizure, and other thefts* -- that constitutes institutionalized theft, and that makes LVT possible.   If you think LVT is so great, you should move to Somalia.  Somalia proves how well LVT works.  How's that Somalia working for ya, LVT advocates?

It is all so simple, if you can only find a willingness to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality: the evils you blame on landowners per se are in fact almost all caused by the tremendous monstrosity and criminality which you love and excuse and which goes by the name of the nation-state (which is inherently immoral and immune to market forces and thus inevitably thoroughly corrupt).

Low-time-preference savers are the geese that lay the golden eggs, making investment in services and infrastructure possible. You see the hard-working landowners (and other businessmen) feeding the consumer, meeting customer preferences, and your solution is to kill them. You just refuse to know the fact that the goose is laying golden eggs, and this renders you incapable of knowing the fact that those eggs are being taken by the nation-state who contributes nothing to the farm or the goose's maintenance, rather than being collected to pay for its fodder. We can free the savers of their burden and get even more, far more, golden eggs if we will only allow people to relate to each other on a voluntary basis, rather than allow a mythology to continue wherein one group or people robs everyone else and the Great God Demos makes it all holy and legitimate.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Low-time-preference savers are the geese that lay the golden eggs, making investment in services and infrastructure possible. You see the hard-working landowners (and other businessmen) feeding the consumer, meeting customer preferences, and your solution is to kill them. You just refuse to know the fact that the goose is laying golden eggs, and this renders you incapable of knowing the fact that those eggs are being taken by the nation-state who contributes nothing to the farm or the goose's maintenance, rather than being collected to pay for its fodder. We can free the savers of their burden and get even more, far more, golden eggs if we will only allow people to relate to each other on a voluntary basis, rather than allow a mythology to continue wherein one group or people robs everyone else and the Great God Demos makes it all holy and legitimate.


Come on, helmuth, under LVT, the golden egg layers are only returning value that was "provided" partly by you and I, and solely by virtue of our existence in a *Community of Individuals*. Each of us are part and parcel to the holy (and wholly incorporated) trinity of land value provided by Government, Nature and Community.  That makes us quasi-stockholders with a stake in whatever land happens to be in the community we are in, since we are included in the "community" part of the "land value provider" equation. If we are going to give up what we would otherwise have been at liberty to use (wherever we happen to live, if nobody else existed), we should fully expect - and are fully entitled to, you know, a little sump'n sump'n in return for the deprivations we suffer at the hands of exclusive landholders - those otherwise parasites on the land, the usage of which we also have a perpetual claim on. 

See, the LVT people explained it to me, and I can see the bottom line for me:  Everyone has to pay rent in perpetuity for any land they exclusively use, in exchange for the liberty deprivations they caused to everyone else.  If we grant the government the power to subject others to perpetual involuntary servitude, we will get a free pass as individuals. We will get an exemption (perhaps even a dividend), worth a certain, uniform amount, based on all the deprivations we have suffered!  Uniformly, of course. 

The only problem I have, though, is that I am not willing to sell my soul (that is, my unalienable right to liberty to _all that I would otherwise have been at liberty to non-exclusively use_) in exchange for a government exemption. My natural liberty rights are not for sale for mess of LVT pottage. If this is truly the unalienable birthright of each individual, then it cannot be collectivized on anyone's behalf without their individual consent.  When it comes to a deprivation of my natural liberty rights to non-exclusive use of lands, no compensation can be considered just. 

Nobody should be granted exclusive use of any land over which I have a natural liberty claim to non-exclusive use. _Ever._ That is an unconscionable violation of all my natural liberty rights, which "meeza lubs gubmint" _must protect_ - and not pimp out or rent out on my behalf.  That is presumptuous, and a theft if it is without my individual consent.  

An exemption makes everywhere I live akin to some kind of floating reservation.  Screw that. If there is gold in them thar hills, or in a mine, I DEMAND *non-exclusive access* to that gold. If there is a beautiful view of the ocean in a mansion on a cliff, no exemption can compensate for that.  I want _non-exclusive access, which I am willing to share with everyone_, to that land with the view.  NO EXEMPTION can compensate me for this kind of deprivation, because that deprivation will not enable me to have non-exclusive use of equivalent lands.  I see how that worked for the aboriginal Americans and displaced hunter-gatherers everywhere, who were always goodly and willing to share, but were displaced to worse lands every time.  I don't want to live as a parasite on the land, robbing others of their natural liberty rights, while pretending that it is OK, so long as I "justly" compensate them (through the government that pimps out those rights). 

No, no LVT for me. As a proper and pure geolibertarian, allowing for exclusive use of lands is like shaking hands with the devil. There is nobody who can sell or rent my liberty birthright to non-exclusive use of ALL LANDS in my community, because my natural liberty rights are UNALIENABLE, and UN-OWNABLE, and therefore UNCONTROLLABLE - by anyone but me. A deprivation does not cease to be a deprivation because someone shelled out compensate. The original deprivation - of all the advantages, which are the most important part - still exists.  

How dare you presume to rent out my INDIVIDUAL natural liberty birthright to all the highest bidding golden egg stealing land parasites, Roy.  That makes you an accomplice, and very much aligned with thieves, because for you it's not a question of whether exclusive use of land will be tolerated, decriminalized, as natural liberty deprivations are allowed, but only which collective band of merry thieves is going to be allowed to accomplish this for a collective price. 

That's pure evil, Roy. Count me out of your band of merry accomplices to all those bands of merry thieves. I am still displaced, I still have no NON-EXCLUSIVE access to the golden eggs and other advantages that nature provides from use of better lands - so the natural liberty deprivation still exists, WITH OR WITHOUT COMPENSATION - which ROBS ME of all the advantages that would otherwise be free - to me as an individual - provided that my access and usage is non-exclusive.  My natural liberty rights are not for sale, Roy - not even by a tyrannous majority of prior mountain pass thieves-turned-government - who have no right to deprive me of all the advantages that Government, Nature and Community provides FREELY for anyone who makes _non-exclusive_ use of lands -- which I am fully willing to share.

Oh, and screw the individual exemption, too.  I don't want exclusive access to lands, as that is asking me to indulge in evil, to get my hands dirty as I slop from the exclusive-use parasite trough. No pot-kettle hypocrisy here, and no deprivation of other people's natural liberty birthrights is desired or tolerated.  No quarter asked for, none given.  I want non-exclusive access to the gold mine/cliff on the hill overlooking the ocean. Tell me an individual exemption can compensate me for the equivalent of that. Impossible. Exclusive access to a mine means that I as an individual am deprived of FREE access to that same ore, which is much more valuable to me than any exemption. 

You didn't solve the liberty deprivations problem (of FREE NON-EXCLUSIVE ACCESS) with LVT, Roy. You exacerbated and multiplied it, closing the door on all such FREE access, making it all but impossible - _available by exclusive access only_.

----------


## Roy L

> What a completely absurd non-sequitur.


No, you just need to evade what you said.



> That is like saying that car owners have no right to be secure in their ownership of a car, because if they were, car rental companies would have no right to repossess their cars from renters.  The absurdity is in conflating car owners with car renters, as if they were in the same class, with the same applicable rules.  They are not.


<yawn>  Steven, I already informed you that when you said, "secure in her location," you actually meant, "secure in her privilege of depriving others of their rights to liberty by owning land."  You only said, "secure in her *location*" in order to pretend you weren't fallaciously begging the question by *assuming* she had a right to deprive others of their rights to liberty by owning land.



> I am speaking, of course, of what I believe (as a normative), _ought to be_ the rights of landowner/occupiers, _not renters_. I am referring specifically to those who have nothing to do with paying out or receiving rents, to or from anyone.


The rent of land is the economic advantage -- provided by government, the community and nature -- obtainable by using it.  The landowner/occupier inherently gets access to that advantage, and deprives everyone else of it.



> You know that, Roy. Of course you do.


I can only respond to what you SAY, and I can't help it if your beliefs are so irrational, indefensible and repugnant that you have to avoid stating them clearly. 



> We are both speaking in normative terms, Roy - what each of us wants, and believes "ought" to be recognized and enforced by the state as rights that are protected under the law - whatever they might be in our minds, and regardless of our reasoning.


If you had actually engaged in any reasoning, that is....

The difference is that my normative views are supported by fact and logic and total commitment to liberty, justice and truth, as described in my exchanges with Buddha and hb, while yours are not supported by anything but your desire for unearned wealth.



> I do not believe that _"...those who own their locations HAVE a right to be secure in them."_ Rather I believe that they OUGHT to have such right - which is not yet fully recognized by the law, and which does not yet fully exist, any more than your "otherwise at liberty" or other "rights" you believe OUGHT to be recognized under an LVT regime.


Nope.  The liberty people would have if landowners did not remove it is a physical fact.



> Don't lump me in as someone who has your "self-evident and indisputable" gibberish mindset with regard to rights.


The FACT of liberty is self-evident and indisputable.  The RIGHT to liberty is unfortunately subtle and controversial.



> I personally believe in the concept of unalienable rights, but I also fully recognize that these a moral beliefs on my part - _forever normative_, with no empirical basis for any of of it.


I have described the empirical basis of moral law in my exchange with Buddha and hb.



> I do not buy into the nonsense, as regards rights, of anything being "self-evident" or "indisputable".  It is really no different from my belief in a creator. I have beliefs in this regard, but I am not so stupid as to ignore the fact there is no empirical evidence of such a thing that everyone would accept.  In the case of so-called "unalienable rights" I fully recognize that this is not universal, not testable and not falsifiable; nor will there _ever_ be unanimous agreement among humans on what those so-called rights are.


There isn't unanimous agreement that the earth is round, either.  That doesn't mean that fact is disputable.



> We can identify capacities, capabilities, and even individual wills as being self-evident, but to conflate these "rights", as if they were also self-evident or indisputable would be a GROSS error on my part.  Such "rights", as subjective normatives, will differ for everyone.


Addressed elsewhere.   



> You also make multiple mind-numbingly erroneous references to "rights" which are not currently acknowledged, and do not exist as a matter of law, as if they were already actualized. Such "rights" are established firmly in your mind - the only thing remaining is for others "recognize" them, now that you you have recognized them to the point of making unilateral pronouncements that they are somehow "self-evident" and "indisputable".  Likewise, you take actual rights (e.g., landowner rights), which now are acknowledged, and DO exist, to the extent that they are, and refer to them as "privileges", as if that had also already been established, separate and quite apart from your own strange mind.


Please reread the above paragraph as if it had been written 200 years ago, substituting "slave owner" for "landowner," and note that the "logic" is precisely identical.



> Your _"...because that is the only kind of security of location that supports the privilege of landowners to take from society and contribute nothing in return..."_ is your personal gibberish, and a straw man that argues from its own premises.


It is not a strawman.  It is the actual content of your belief system.



> The reasons why I believe there "ought" to be a right is quite different. It is also debatable, of course, but wholly irrelevant to the "fact" that I believe such a right ought to exist.  Likewise your reasons, equally normative, as to why there ought NOT to be a right of landownership, are debatable, but irrelevant to the "fact" that you believe such a thing should not exist as a right.


I have identified the facts of objective reality that prove it can't be a right.



> Idiot, you believe that all have "otherwise at liberty rights" which are equal, even though you have agreed repeatedly that it is impossible to separate individual deprivations or contributions, which you fully acknowledge are not equal, and are never the same for each individual.


Deprivations and contributions are not the right to liberty that is at issue.  Compare the right to freedom of speech, which is the same for everyone even though some make more use of it than others, and whose abrogation would be felt more by some than others.



> The "flat universal exemption" is also flat-out refusal to acknowledge or account for superior and inferior "otherwise deprivations" or individual contributions to land value.


No, it simply recognizes that human rights are equal for all, and their removal merits equal compensation for all.  Indeed, your claim is proved flat wrong by the fact that the exemption is _not_ an equal _benefit_ for all, as those who do not wish to use -- i.e., are not being deprived of -- the full exempt amount of land value do not receive the full benefit.



> That is prima facie proof that rights, as you perceive them, are made both nebulous and collectivized.


No, that is just a non sequitur fallacy on your part.



> Again, you lie - and this time with a disgusting and slippery semantics play


Such claims are despicably dishonest.  You _know_ that I neither lied nor engaged in any "semantics play."



> , as "walk away" (from a deal, 'walk' being a metaphor for "refusing to negotiate or deal any further") is different than "walk away" (from a parcel of land).  On the one side, the buyer is free to walk away, both from the deal and from the land. On the other side, the leaseholder under an LVT regime would be forced into a transaction, unable to "walk away" from that transaction, and forced to "walk away" from the land if s/he is unable to compete with a superior offer from a competitor.


That is inherent in market competition for a resource in fixed supply.  You just want landowners to enjoy a privileged position, so they don't have to compete in the market.  To justify this, you have to delete from objective reality the fact that the landholder forcibly stops everyone else from using the land: by _not_ walking away, he continues to initiate force to impose his desires on everyone else who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.  So contrary to your claims, he _is_ only "walking away" if he leaves others free to use the land.  As long as he insists on forcibly excluding them, HE is the one forcibly imposing a transaction on THEM: the unrequited abrogation of their rights to liberty.



> So your "Both sides are free to walk away" is incorrect in the absolute - unless me throwing your ass out, from my house onto the street, means that you are now "free" to be on the street.


Just as the landowner leaves everyone else "free" to use other land -- except that all the other useful land is also owned, by other landowners.



> Geolibertarian gibberish - arguing from the premise,


Lie.  I simply identified the relevant facts of objective physical reality, facts that you have to refuse to know, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> and lying to yourself at the same time,


Infinitely evil and despicable filth.



> given that you want the market "rigged" to favor the state,


No, Steven, that is just a stupid lie.  A free market where those who create value get the value they create is not rigged.  No.  Rather, it is indisputably the _current_ market, which enables landowners to take value they did _not_ create, that is self-evidently rigged.



> and whomever it favors as a result - using geolibertarian gibberish as your rationale.


You continue to prove that you have no facts, logic or arguments to offer.



> Argument from your own gibberish premise.


Fact based on self-evident and indisputable fact.



> Your system would complete the blood-sucking parasite trifecta, with a unholy Trinity of banksters, land developers and the state - all in collusion.


No, such claims are not only indisputably false, but invariably unsupported, stupid and dishonest.

Under LVT, banks would have greatly reduced business and profits without land value to lend for and against (the resulting lack of debt issuance would likely require monetary reform, but that's another thread).  Likewise, land developers would no longer be able to appropriate publicly created land value, and would only be able to make money by providing value for money through efficient construction of desired improvements.  And the state's only financial incentive would be to make productive use of the land as advantageous as possible -- and that is virtually a definition of good government.



> Lie.


Disgraceful.  You know I have told the truth.



> LVT does not "remove" land value entirely.


It removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner, so the only residual value is pre-paid rent (and perhaps in rare cases, a small amount of speculative value if a prospective user thinks the rent will increase too fast for the assessment to keep up).



> It merely calls that apportioned part of it "the state's cut" in the monopolistic renter regime you want established.


Garbage.  The land market is _always_ inherently monopolistic because supply is fixed, as already proved.  And it is indisputably more just for the community to recover the value it creates for public purposes and benefit than to give it away to greedy, idle, privileged, parasitic landowners in return for nothing.



> Naive. The last part of your sentence explains one reason why it is in their interests to do just that. MORE DEVELOPMENT.  Greater land value.


LOL!  Why always prove your ignorance of economics?  More development means developers have more competition, and greater land rent (_not_ land _value_) means higher LVT payments they have to make.



> Good for the developer and banksters that thrive on NEW development,


Nope.  Disproved above.  Developers want _less_ competition (as under the current system, where greedy, privileged parasitic landowners hold developable land off the market waiting for zoning favors), not _more_, and banksters mainly want to pocket land rent as mortgage interest; LVT stops them from doing so, making life and profitability a lot more difficult for them.



> and good for the state, as more developed land means more land rent - can't charge much in the way of land rents on undeveloped land.


Yes, LVT is good for the community and the public, as it recovers the value they create for public purposes and benefit, and encourages the most productive and appropriate use of each land parcel, making economic growth zoom.



> "Market rent" for what, Roy?


The land.



> If I have a 100 story hi-rise for lease, the "market rent" is based, not on what I earn from rental of that hotel's improvements (mine to keep, remember?) - but only on what another is willing to pay overall (land rent + improvements) to get me off that property.


Nope.  It's what people are willing to pay for use of the unimproved site.



> If I am already at the apex, and politically connected, I can get the value of my improvements jacked up to where it is not economically feasible for anyone to compete - get your own hotel.


But that is of course exactly how people DO compete with the owner of improvements.



> As a developer, you can push someone else off their land, and are free to build.


It's not "their" land, and yes, the movement of resources into more productive hands is a BENEFIT of the free market.  You just hate freedom because freedom doesn't steal wealth from the productive to give it to landowners in return for nothing.  Hating freedom because it doesn't steal from the good and give to the evil is evil, Steven.  Evil.



> "the land tax authority would only reimburse" -- Complete gibberish.


No, it is perfectly clear.  You are just lying about what I have plainly written, as usual.  Stop lying.  



> There is no "land tax authority" in place, nor have its rules been written, or any probability that can be pointed to that it would happen this way.


So?  Evil, despicable, lying filth said the same sorts of things to America's Founding Fathers when they first proposed a new form of government.  The despicable, evil dishonesty of the evil, lying filth who serve greed, privilege, injustice, parasitism and evil is much the same throughout history.  It is always despicable.  It is always dishonest.  It is always filth.  It is always evil.  Always.



> You are speculating, no differently than I am.


No, I am proposing a far better way of ordering society, government and the economy, and I have explained how and why it would work.  You, by conspicuous contrast, lacking any actual facts, logic or arguments to offer, have instead opted for the least honest, least plausible, least logical and most risible "argument" possible: that the defect in the proposed system is that another system is currently in place, and still a third would be implemented, rather than the proposed one.  



> A rose by any other name - I don't give a $#@! what you call land, or an improvement.


Thank you for agreeing that you deliberately chose to lie, exactly as if you were an evil, lying sack of $#+.

Oh, wait a minute, that's right...



> The net effect is occupancy of "space" for rent.


No, it is not.  Built space is entirely different from land.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it, exactly as you would if you were an evil, lying sack of $#!+.

Oh, wait a minute, that's right...



> And if most of the occupy-able "space" is all above land, on my "improvements only", regardless what you call it, what do I as a landholder care?


<sigh>  The value of the built space YOU PROVIDE would _not be taxed_.  The value of the economic advantage government, the community and nature provide at that location and of which you forcibly deprive others, by contrast, _WOULD_ be taxed.  So as a landholder you can only make any money to the extent that you are _CONTRIBUTING_ something, and can't make any money just by *STEALING* from everyone else, as the landholder qua landholder does.

What you charge others for the built space _YOU PROVIDE_, you get to keep.

What you charge others for the economic advantage that government, the community and nature provide at that location, you do _NOT_ get to keep.

Is that difference not something that you, as a landholder, would care about?

I'm not sure how many more times, and in how many more different ways, I will have to explain these facts to you before you will find a willingness to know them.



> The net effect is the same.


That is either a stupid lie, or a confession of abject stupidity.  Probably both.



> I don't need "land" to be a rent-seeking whatever-you-want-to-call-it.


Yes, in fact, you do.  That is fundamental.



> I can create my own "non-land", and since the vast majority of Space For Rent would be "non-land", the net effect is the same.


No, that's just you telling more stupid, evil lies.  The net effect is totally different: if you just charge for the land, society is no better off, so you are not better off; by contrast, if you charge for built space, you have made society better off by constructing that built space, so you are better off.



> See above - label it however you want, as if that makes any difference.


The difference is between earning money by contributing and not earning any money because you are not contributing.



> Wrong.


I am of course objectively correct, and you are of course objectively lying.



> A "universal individual exemption" under your regime is not based on quantity and quality of land, but land rent value only - as a fixed price.


No, it is based on median land value used, or some similar statistical measure of how much land value is needed for a normal person to survive on.



> It is conceivable, as overall land values go up, that such an exemption would not cover 100% of ANY habitable space, but only a portion thereof.


True.  It is also conceivable that werewolves and vampires with super-powers would battle ninjas and pirates over the habitable space, preventing market price allocation.  And about as likely.

The uniform, universal individual land tax exemption is designed and calculated to provide free, secure tenure on enough good land for a normal person to live on.  Your "argument" therefore again, as usual, amounts to a claim that the proposed system is faulty because some other system would be implemented instead.  The fallaciousness, irrationality and stupidity of such "arguments" are all very close to being infinite.



> The Income Tax was only supposed to be a 1% tax on the very wealthy, and ONLY on the interest they earned.  From there its tentacles expanded out to the monstrosity it is today.


Yes, because it was designed to prevent LVT from gaining more popular support while actually aggravating landowner privilege.



> But somehow you believe that this is not possible under an LVT, and to argue otherwise is nothing more than "meeza hatsea gubint" in your mind; that is to say, you don't have an argument for that.


No, the argument is very simple, and it refutes and demolishes you conclusively: what you are objecting to is not LVT but something else, which you are claiming would be implemented in place of LVT.  But that "argument" applies to anything.  Unless you can show HOW and WHY that _particular_ other system would be implemented instead of LVT, how it is a predictable and inevitable result of even TRYING to implement LVT, then you are just spewing stupid, dishonest nonsense with no basis in fact.



> No, not the improvements - only the inflated appraisals that value land and improvements in such a way that is beneficial to your State-Bankster-Developer Holy Trinity.


I'm curious, Stuvid: just what "way" do you erroneously imagine that to be, and how do you imagine appraisals that are publicly available -- along with all the transaction data that goes into them -- can be inflated with no one noticing?



> Remember how the market actually works, Roy?


Oh, I do indeed: nothing like that.



> Yeah, you want to reverse that, alright, by making it in both the state's, developers' and banksters' interests to drive up land rents, the real costs of which are ever-absorbed by all the vertically free-floating sublessees.


ROTFL!!  You poor, deluded ignoramus.  You still can't bring yourself to know the truth, can you?  That land rent is not a _cost_ but the measure of an _ADVANTAGE_.  The higher land rents are, the bigger the individual exemption and the less leverage banksters and developers have over ordinary people.



> Keeps everyone at the top happy;  leaseholders are not threatened with hostile takeovers, based on inflated improvement prices -


They wouldn't be in any case.  That's just something stupid you made up.



> developers and banksters are happy, as they really can look elsewhere for cheaper land to develop on -


<sigh>  Developers and banksters can't pocket increases in land value with LVT, so they would have no motive to develop cheap land.  They'd just lose money by over-investing in improvements.  That is very much the point.



> and finally, the state is happy, because yet more land, and therefore future land rents, is being seeded.


Society thrives, grows, prospers.  Right.  You just have to claim that is somehow bad because when the state's interests are aligned with the people's interests, your "meeza hatesa gubmint" superstitions can't withstand the fact.



> They're not trying to buy and sell Roy


And on your planet, that might even be relevant.



> - under a Universal Rent Regime, RENT is where all the money is for leaseholders with improvements.


If that meant anything, which it doesn't, it would be an equivocation fallacy.  Leaseholders can't pocket ANY economic rent under LVT.  All they can get is the payment for the value -- improvements, maintenance, services, etc. -- that THEY PROVIDE, which is not rent in the economic sense.



> Yeah, you still haven't explained how all that proven nonsense would be avoided here.


It would not be in government's financial interest, and LVT could not be implemented in the first place if the people were stupid, dishonest and evil enough to sabotage it by such devices.



> You know, with actual politicians, and not Roy L., in charge.  Give me some examples of all this LVT wonderfulness you're talking about. Show me an instance of LVT attempted implementation that comes closest to what you are proposing.


The closest was in Kiaochow in the years before WW I.  It worked spectacularly, even recovering only about half the land rent.

----------


## Roy L

> <sigh> It is *the nation-state* and the nation-state's privilege of pocketing


First lie.  The nation state does not and cannot pocket anything.  Crooks, yes.  Landowners, yes.  Nation states, no.



> the all the value they choose


Second lie, as public revenue is constrained by many factors -- unless you want to prove your stupidity and dishonesty by claiming that however much revenue government obtains is "all the value it chooses" to obtain.



> -- i.e.,* taxation, seizure, and other thefts* -- that constitutes institutionalized theft, and that makes LVT possible.


Non sequitur fallacy.  There is no logical inference whereby other taxes make LVT possible.  That is just stupid, dishonest garbage from you, as usual.



> If you think LVT is so great, you should move to Somalia.  Somalia proves how well LVT works.  How's that Somalia working for ya, LVT advocates?


Somalia self-evidently and indisputably does not use LVT, proving that you have merely spewed more stupid lies, as usual.  But then, you have no choice, do you?  There is nothing else you can do.



> It is all so simple, if you can only find a willingness to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality: the evils you blame on landowners per se are in fact almost all caused by the tremendous monstrosity and criminality which you love and excuse and which goes by the name of the nation-state (which is inherently immoral and immune to market forces and thus inevitably thoroughly corrupt).


But in fact, the facts of objective reality prove me right and you wrong.  All the people who live well and happily live in nation states, and all the people who don't live in nation states don't live well or happily.  In Hong Kong, which has a nation state but no landowners, people live well and happily.  In Somalia, which has landowners but no nation state, people do not live well or happily.  These facts prove that landowners, not nation states, are the fundamental problem.  Your claims cannot possibly be correct, and are in fact the exact, diametric opposite of the truth.



> Low-time-preference savers are the geese that lay the golden eggs, making investment in services and infrastructure possible.


No, that's clearly just a lie from you, as they do not invest in services or infrastructure, and are not needed for government to do so.  



> You see the hard-working landowners


No, I do not.  That's indisputably just another stupid, evil lie from you, Helmuth, as the landowner qua landowner is not hardworking, and in fact does no work, and makes no contribution, whatsoever.  That is why you demand that he be privileged to steal from everyone else, as a greedy, evil parasite.



> (and other businessmen)


No, you are lying again, Helmuth.  The landowner is not a businessman, as I already proved to you: his "business" is morally and economically indistinguishable from that of a bandit.



> feeding the consumer, meeting customer preferences, and your solution is to kill them.


No, Helmuth, you are a lying sack of $#!+.  The landowner does not feed the consumer, you are just lying.  The landowner does not meet consumer preferences, you are just lying.  All the landowner does is charge the producer, who does feed the consumer and meet consumer preferences, full market value for what government, the community and nature provide.  That is why you have not answered, cannot answer, and will never answer The Question:

"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"



> You just refuse to know the fact that the goose is laying golden eggs, and this renders you incapable of knowing the fact that those eggs are being taken by the nation-state who contributes nothing to the farm or the goose's maintenance, rather than being collected to pay for its fodder.


No, that is just more stupid, "meeza hatesa gubmint" garbage from you that is refuted by objective reality, where absence of a nation state is invariably accompanied by zero (0) golden eggs.  



> We can free the savers of their burden


Notice how you have to try to change the subject from landowners to "savers"?



> and get even more, far more, golden eggs if we will only allow people to relate to each other on a voluntary basis,


When did the landless voluntarily relinquish their rights to liberty in return for no compensation?



> rather than allow a mythology to continue wherein one group or people robs everyone else


I.e., landowners.



> and the Great God Demos makes it all holy and legitimate.


You either believe people -- the demos -- have rights or you don't.  You don't.  Simple.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> ...the landholder forcibly stops everyone else from using the land: by _not_ walking away, he continues to initiate force to impose his desires on everyone else who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.

----------


## Roy L

> 


They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  So that comes to what, about 85 lies?

----------


## Roy L

> Come on, helmuth, under LVT, the golden egg layers are only returning value that was "provided" partly by you and I, and solely by virtue of our existence in a *Community of Individuals*. Each of us are part and parcel to the holy (and wholly incorporated) trinity of land value provided by Government, Nature and 
> Community.  That makes us quasi-stockholders with a stake in whatever land happens to be in the community we are in, since we are included in the "community" part of the "land value provider" equation. If we are going to give up what we would otherwise have been at liberty to use (wherever we happen to live, if nobody else existed), we should fully expect - and are fully entitled to, you know, a little sump'n sump'n in return for the deprivations we suffer at the hands of exclusive landholders - those otherwise parasites on the land, the usage of which we also have a perpetual claim on.


Sorry, Steven, but even trying your darnedest, you're having a little difficulty making liberty and justice sound bad.



> See, the LVT people explained it to me, and I can see the bottom line for me:  Everyone has to pay rent in perpetuity for any land they exclusively use, in exchange for the liberty deprivations they caused to everyone else.  If we grant the government the power to subject others to perpetual involuntary servitude,


Lie.  No one is compelled to labor under LVT, only to pay for what they deprive others of, over and above their equal share of what nature provided equally to all.  You are just lying.



> we will get a free pass as individuals. We will get an exemption (perhaps even a dividend), worth a certain, uniform amount, based on all the deprivations we have suffered!  Uniformly, of course.


Thus recognizing the equal (uniform) human rights to life and liberty by equally compensating their abrogation.



> The only problem I have, though, is that I am not willing to sell my soul (that is, my unalienable right to liberty to _all that I would otherwise have been at liberty to non-exclusively use_) in exchange for a government exemption.


LOL!  You are self-evidently lying, Steven, as you have already eagerly _GIVEN_ your soul, and your rights to life and liberty, away to private landowners in return for _NO_ exemption.  



> My natural liberty rights are not for sale for mess of LVT pottage.


They aren't for sale at all, because you do not have them: you have already given them away to landowners in return for no pottage.  That is very much the point.



> If this is truly the unalienable birthright of each individual, then it cannot be collectivized on anyone's behalf without their individual consent.


An _individual_ exemption is by definition not "collectivized," stop lying.  And "collective" is not a swear word that you can just apply indiscriminately to anything you don't like.



> When it comes to a deprivation of my natural liberty rights to non-exclusive use of lands, no compensation can be considered just.


LOL!!  Except that you already _willingly_ gave your liberty rights away to landowners in return for no compensation at all, and you somehow consider THAT just....

The uniform, universal LVT exemption is actually better than just compensation, as even a very limited secure right to exclusive use is worth far more than your natural liberty right to unlimited non-exclusive use.  You know this is true, as you have paid a lot for the very limited exclusive tenure on the land you purport to own, while you have little or no interest in exercising your right of non-exclusive use on the vast areas of public lands where you are pretty much free to do so.



> Nobody should be granted exclusive use of any land over which I have a natural liberty claim to non-exclusive use. _Ever._ That is an unconscionable violation of all my natural liberty rights, which "meeza lubs gubmint" _must protect_ - and not pimp out or rent out on my behalf.  That is presumptuous, and a theft if it is without my individual consent.


That is disingenuous, as it's somehow hunky dory with you that government has already done exactly that for the unearned benefit of private landowners.

It is also incoherent and self-refuting, as only government is competent to secure your claimed right to non-exclusive use, but government only exists in the first place because of the need to secure _exclusive_ tenure to protect the valid property rights of those who make fixed improvements.  You can't square that circle, Steven, sorry.  Your whole argument is self-refuting.



> An exemption makes everywhere I live akin to some kind of floating reservation.  Screw that.


Uh-huh.  "Screw that" restoration of your rights to life and liberty... but you are somehow fine with not getting even that "floating reservation" under the current system...

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that.



> If there is gold in them thar hills, or in a mine, I DEMAND *non-exclusive access* to that gold. If there is a beautiful view of the ocean in a mansion on a cliff, no exemption can compensate for that.


Sure it can.  You are merely pretending to hold values that you know you have already betrayed by supporting the system of private landowning.  Have you forgotten so soon that you have roundly declared the right to liberty does not exist, except as a "right" to pay landowners for it?



> I want _non-exclusive access, which I am willing to share with everyone_, to that land with the view.


Sorry, Stevie, but grown-ups know they can't always get what they want -- or DEMAND.

How do you propose to respect the property rights of those who make fixed improvements to the land, the problem for which landowning was the simple, obvious solution -- that turned out to be wrong?  



> NO EXEMPTION can compensate me for this kind of deprivation, because that deprivation will not enable me to have non-exclusive use of equivalent lands.  I see how that worked for the aboriginal Americans and displaced hunter-gatherers everywhere, who were always goodly and willing to share, but were displaced to worse lands every time.


You know that the dispossessed aboriginals were never granted exemptions remotely similar to those proposed under LVT, so no, you DIDN'T see how it worked for them.



> I don't want to live as a parasite on the land, robbing others of their natural liberty rights, while pretending that it is OK, so long as I "justly" compensate them (through the government that pimps out those rights).


Right.  You just want to live as a parasite on the land, robbing others of their natural liberty rights, while pretending that it is OK, WITHOUT justly compensating others in any way at all.



> No, no LVT for me. As a proper and pure geolibertarian, allowing for exclusive use of lands is like shaking hands with the devil.


IOW, as a foolish little Georgerer's apprentice who has learned a little of the geoist magic and now refuses to learn the rest, you think you can make the broom of rights respond only to your will, and ignore the well-being of the society to serve whose health and prosperity it exists in the first place.



> There is nobody who can sell or rent my liberty birthright to non-exclusive use of ALL LANDS in my community, because my natural liberty rights are UNALIENABLE, and UN-OWNABLE, and therefore UNCONTROLLABLE - by anyone but me.


Wrong.  Your rights only exist in the first place to strengthen society, and for no other reason.  They do not exist to serve you or cater to your whims.  If you think any right of yours can be bent to society's harm, you are simply mistaken about what rights are and what they are based on.



> A deprivation does not cease to be a deprivation because someone shelled out compensate. The original deprivation - of all the advantages, which are the most important part - still exists.


It is true that some people -- they are called, "sociopaths" -- are not willing to accept the adjustments of their natural liberty that are necessary to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all when people live together closely with one another in society.

You need to re-read my exchange with hb and Buddha.  Rights only exist in the first place to make society stronger.  There can therefore be no such thing as a right that makes society weaker, as your absurdly claimed "right" to keep everyone else in society at a hunter-gatherer or nomadic herding level of existence would do.



> How dare you presume to rent out my INDIVIDUAL natural liberty birthright


No right to weaken society can possibly exist, any more than a right unilaterally to extinguish others' rights can exist.



> to all the highest bidding golden egg stealing land parasites, Roy.


<yawn>  The parasites are the landowners who steal the golden eggs under the CURRENT system, Steven, as I have proved to you many times and you know very well.  Under LVT, landholders have to repay the full value of what they take and therefore cannot, repeat, CANNOT live as parasites, conspicuously UNlike landowners under the current system.  You know that, too.



> That makes you an accomplice, and very much aligned with thieves,


You are a lying sack of $#!+, Steven.  I have proved, repeat, PROVED that it is the landowner who is the thief.  You know this.



> because for you it's not a question of whether exclusive use of land will be tolerated, decriminalized, as natural liberty deprivations are allowed,


Right, for me it's not a question because there is no other way to secure the property rights of those who produce fixed improvements -- which are the sine qua non of civilization.  Unlike you, I am not married to a puerile, autistic, even sociopathic notion of rights that admits of no flexibility, no adjustment to accommodate reality, no recognition that rights are above all practical, not theoretical constructs (though actually, you are only disingenuously pretending to be married to that notion because you have no other facts, logic or arguments to offer).



> but only which collective band of merry thieves is going to be allowed to accomplish this for a collective price.


<yawn>  "Collective" is not a swear word that you can just hurl indiscriminately at anything you don't like, Steven.  



> That's pure evil, Roy.


No, that's a cretinous lie, Steven.  The very concept of evil is grounded in what is harmful to society.  As exclusive land tenure is crucial to society's prosperity, it cannot be evil.



> Count me out of your band of merry accomplices to all those bands of merry thieves.


It is landowners who are the thieves (as well as murderers), as already proved -- and _you_ are their accomplice.



> I am still displaced, I still have no NON-EXCLUSIVE access to the golden eggs and other advantages that nature provides from use of better lands


What nature provides doesn't amount to golden eggs -- as your hunter-gatherer ancestors could inform you, if you were willing to be informed -- and what government and the community provide (which _does_ amount to golden eggs), they have a right to withhold from their enemies.



> - so the natural liberty deprivation still exists, WITH OR WITHOUT COMPENSATION


Deprivations of liberty are inherent in social existence, as every adult understands.  Just compensation is what prevents them from being wrongful.



> - which ROBS ME of all the advantages that would otherwise be free - to me as an individual - provided that my access and usage is non-exclusive.


LVT provides compensation, private landowning doesn't, and you _prefer_ the alternative that doesn't, as you have already said many times, so stop lying.



> My natural liberty rights are not for sale, Roy


Right: you already eagerly gave them away to landowners in return for nothing.



> - not even by a tyrannous majority of prior mountain pass thieves-turned-government


You know you are lying.  The bandit/landowner only takes, and provides nothing, while what government provides is what makes the difference between land value in Slovenia and in Somalia.



> - who have no right to deprive me of all the advantages that Government, Nature and Community provides FREELY for anyone who makes _non-exclusive_ use of lands -- which I am fully willing to share.


Wrong AGAIN.  Government and the community indisputably have a right to deprive you of what_ they provide_.



> Oh, and screw the individual exemption, too.


Oooh, cogently argued....



> I don't want exclusive access to lands, as that is asking me to indulge in evil, to get my hands dirty as I slop from the exclusive-use parasite trough.


Well, you've already admitted you slop from exactly that trough, and paid good money to do so, so you are just lying again.



> No pot-kettle hypocrisy here,


ROTFL!!  Not much!!



> and no deprivation of other people's natural liberty birthrights is desired or tolerated.  No quarter asked for, none given.


Natural liberty is a physical fact.  Rights come from society.



> I want non-exclusive access to the gold mine/cliff on the hill overlooking the ocean.


You can't always get what you want... (sniff)



> Tell me an individual exemption can compensate me for the equivalent of that. Impossible.


It's not only possible but obvious, as the contrasting condition of people in hunter-gatherer societies and modern advanced societies proves.



> Exclusive access to a mine means that I as an individual am deprived of FREE access to that same ore, which is much more valuable to me than any exemption.


No, it is not, as your hunter-gatherer ancestors could inform you, if you were willing to be informed, which you are not.



> You didn't solve the liberty deprivations problem (of FREE NON-EXCLUSIVE ACCESS) with LVT, Roy.


That wasn't the only problem I wanted LVT to solve, and in any case the landowner privilege you favor solved it far less than LVT.



> You exacerbated and multiplied it, closing the door on all such FREE access, making it all but impossible - _available by exclusive access only_.


If abrogation of the liberty right of non-exclusive access was the only land-related rights problem in play, you might have had a point.  But it's not, so you don't.  There are also the problems of efficient resource allocation, of funding government without injustice or harm to the economy, of securing the valid property rights of those who make fixed improvements, of fostering economic prosperity, of preventing violent conflict over resources, etc.  LVT solves them all.  Your silly and disingenuous nonsense doesn't solve any of them.

----------


## eduardo89

So, Roy, now do you _really_ feel about an LVT?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Sorry, Steven, but even trying your darnedest, you're having a little difficulty making liberty and justice sound bad.


No, I make actual liberty and justice look good. You're the one who calls real liberty and justice evil, while redefining oppressiveness and perpetual injustice as "liberty and justice". 




> No one is compelled to labor under LVT, only to pay for what they deprive others of, over and above their equal share of what nature provided equally to all.


Why contradict yourself? Why say "No one is compelled to labor under LVT...", when that is patently untrue. You could honestly say, within your own framework, "People are only compelled to labor under LVT to the extent that they must pay for what they deprive others of..."  The compulsion to labor is very much there at all times.  Perpetually. The so-called "advantages" of land value don't magically convert themselves to money and appear in anyone's pocket, simply by virtue of landholding. 




> LOL!  You are self-evidently lying, Steven, as you have already eagerly _GIVEN_ your soul, and your rights to life and liberty, away to private landowners in return for _NO_ exemption.


In your goofy paradigm only, Roy. 




> They aren't for sale at all, because you do not have them: you have already given them away to landowners in return for no pottage.  That is very much the point.


No, Roy, once I pay other landowners for the land (not "rent" but actual purchase payments), _I get a fixed quantity of land in return_. Much better than any mess of pottage exemption. That is very much the point.  If I wanted to rent from a landowner, I could. But if I want no rent, I can buy just as well.  Then the only pernicious rent-seeking bastards violating the principle of landownership as a right are governments that allow for property taxes - making themselves perpetual landlords, collecting rents which are due and owing without regard to one's ability to pay. 




> An _individual_ exemption is by definition not "collectivized," stop lying.  And "collective" is not a swear word that you can just apply indiscriminately to anything you don't like.


Everything about your philosophy is based on collectivism, Roy.  And it is not the _individual_ exemption that is collectivized - only _the basis for it_. 




> ...you have paid a lot for the very limited exclusive tenure on the land you purport to own, while you have little or no interest in exercising your right of non-exclusive use on the vast areas of public lands where you are pretty much free to do so.


"non-exclusive use" - what a macabre joke, if it wasn't a lie in reality. Unless you mean that I can wander some parks freely, gather berries and smell the air. Go pitch a tent on public lands that aren't slated for that usage, Roy. You'll find there are laws governing even that. Are you hungry? See some game you want for dinner? Sorry, that's controlled too.  Want to build a fire to cook that game so you don't get sick? Sorry, that's controlled too.  Vast areas of public lands just free for non-exclusive use, indeed. Come up out of the rabbit hole, Alice. 




> ...as only government is competent to secure your claimed right to non-exclusive use...


Pretty much proven incompetent in that respect...




> ...but government only exists in the first place because of the need to secure _exclusive_ tenure to protect the valid property rights of those who make fixed improvements.


Yes, and your normative, your premise, Roy, is in the narrowing the definition of "valid", such that landownership is not part of property ownership.  That's your narrowing view of "valid", and also the proper role of government through your geolibertarian collectivist lens, and completely debatable. 

And the net effect of LVT, just like property taxes - don't make fixed improvements to the land, or do anything else that would cause the value of the unimproved land to increase. 




> Uh-huh.  "Screw that" restoration of your rights to life and liberty... but you are somehow fine with not getting even that "floating reservation" under the current system...


Yeah, I prefer a fixed reservation. Of my own acquisition and purchase. Freely convertible through sale of one and repurchase of another, with no evil landlord in the mix, public or private.  




> You are merely pretending to hold values that you know you have already betrayed by supporting the system of private landowning.  Have you forgotten so soon that you have roundly declared the right to liberty does not exist, except as a "right" to pay landowners for it?


No, you idiot, I was playing devil's advocate, and quite obviously I thought, to argue from your premises. You can't even do that, Roy. 




> Sorry, Stevie, but grown-ups know they can't always get what they want -- or DEMAND.


LOL, I agree. You should be quite used to knowing that by now, Roy. 




> How do you propose to respect the property rights of those who make fixed improvements to the land, the problem for which landowning was the simple, obvious solution -- that turned out to be wrong?


Easy - it didn't turn out to be wrong.  It was never the problem.  You're the one pointing out that others are condemned to pay rents that keep them enslaved and impoverished. Your answer: a friggin exemption - not for a specific quantity of land, but only "land value" exemption that can be applied somewhere on "good lands" that you "propose" be made available to everyone who has an exemption (how about do that first, and see what happens? Open up all available public lands, but only in limited quantities per first-time homesteaders. Would you be in favor of that to start with, Roy? Fat chance of that ever happening, now or under an LVT).

Meanwhile, the state takes over the role of those you hate so much, as all previous landlords are turned into a renter class. Yippee, and mission accomplished. That tickles your collectivist turnabout-equals-fairplay sensibilities to no end, but never did you propose that landownership should be everyone's right, because somewhere along the way you got the "LIGHT BULB!" that everyone was somehow violating everyone else's "otherwise at liberty" fact, which you want recognized as a right, so that those liberty deprivations can be recognized as "unjust", or "invalid" based on anyone's exclusive use of lands.    




> You know that the dispossessed aboriginals were never granted exemptions remotely similar to those proposed under LVT, so no, you DIDN'T see how it worked for them.


Yesss... isn't it funny how that works, Roy?  Propose in one hand, then let reality kick in, as the government $#@!s in the other, and see which one fills up fastest!

Those "dispossessed aboriginals" had government proposals which were turned into PROMISES - that weren't kept.  Like pretty much all government promises over time.  That's why your LVT "single tax" solution and "proposed" exemption promise, even if it was a good thing, isn't worth anything at all, Roy, because you haven't addressed that one niggling problem - that government does not keep its promises.  That's why we CONSTRAIN government, and still must remain vigilant, knowing in advance that Feed Me Seymour! is going to grow many heads and devour your children if you let it grow. 




> You just want to live as a parasite on the land, robbing others of their natural liberty rights, while pretending that it is OK, WITHOUT justly compensating others in any way at all.


Yes. That is precisely what I want to do, because I don't recognize "otherwise at liberty" as a right, nor do I pretend that my exclusive access to land is "unjustly" depriving anyone of any thing.  You haven't made that case at all. Capice?




> Wrong.  Your rights only exist in the first place to strengthen society, and for no other reason.


Ah, da gud o'da peephole. Live long and collectively prosper.  Spock, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (and most certainly the one). 

Collectivist. Nas-tee, Dir-tee, Fil-thee Collectivist. 

If you can't acknowledge the rights of each individual, as individual, you aren't worthy to look after the rights of more than one individual. 




> They do not exist to serve you or cater to your whims.


That is precisely what individual rights are for, Roy - so that we can cater to our own whims. 




> If you think any right of yours can be bent to society's harm, you are simply mistaken about what rights are and what they are based on.


I don't.  And I don't recognize or accept your twisted views on landownership, in and of itself, as the source of harm to that thing you call society, but which I see as nothing but individuals, EACH of whom have rights. 




> You need to re-read my exchange with hb and Buddha.  Rights only exist in the first place to make society stronger.


I did read it. What an evil, nasty, collectivist rationale for trampling on individual rights. There is nothing special about that Roy, and those aren't "rights" you are describing.  Those are privileges masquerading as rights. 




> There can therefore be no such thing as a right that makes society weaker...


I find the appeal to "society", with all its winners and losers under ANY regime, nauseating, naive, and even infantile. 




> ...as your absurdly claimed "right" to keep everyone else in society at a hunter-gatherer or nomadic herding level of existence would do.


Nah, I'm the only one who wants to give everyone equal access to the "right" to eliminate "evil landlords", and thieves of all kinds, public and private, from their lives.  You are the only one who is saying that the existence of a landlord is only good if it is a public landlord.  That's no different than Dennis Kucinich, who thinks that a counterfeiting Fed is BAD in the private hands, but GOOD in the hands of government - fer da gud o-da peephole.  




> No right to weaken society can possibly exist, any more than a right unilaterally to extinguish others' rights can exist.


You're the only proposing to a massive rights extinguisher, Roy.  You don't see it that way, but that's because you have a twisted, completely corrupted view of right and wrong. 




> You are a lying sack of $#!+, Steven.  I have proved, repeat, PROVED that it is the landowner who is the thief.  You know this.


You have only asserted, Roy, and repeated it in circles, ad nauseum. You have PROVED nothing whatsoever, except that you want to shift what you see as the power of THEFT, which will somehow be magically transformed into JUST COMPENSATION when practiced by the state.  




> Right, for me it's not a question because there is no other way to secure the property rights of those who produce fixed improvements -- which are the sine qua non of civilization.


Again, out of the rabbit hole, Roy.  The only way to secure the property rights of those who produce fixed improvements is to secure the ownership of the FOUNDATION upon which those improvements rest.  You want to do exactly the opposite of that, since your interest is in not in individual property rights, but rather whomever has the willingness AND ability to make the state strongest. That's the fascist component of LVT.  

In that, you are married to a puerile, autistic, even sociopathic notion of rights that admits of no flexibility, no adjustment to accommodate individual reality, no recognition that individual rights are the only rights that matter in any society.




> <yawn>  "Collective" is not a swear word that you can just hurl indiscriminately at anything you don't like, Steven.


Sure it is.




> No, that's a cretinous lie, Steven.  The very concept of evil is grounded in what is harmful to society.


There you go again. Collectivist.   Someone thunks Granny on her head, and leaves her bleeding and dying, and all you can think, in your Hive Oriented Mind, is that the Hive is in danger. $#@! Granny, she's disposable. Society is now weakened - that's what needs to be protected. 




> As exclusive land tenure is crucial to society's prosperity, it cannot be evil.


Again with "society", and "its" prosperity.  _Collectivist._  (sorry for the spray, I spit sometimes when I use that cuss word)




> It is landowners who are the thieves (as well as murderers).


Yeah, so let's make sure that if we're going to have thieving, murdering landlords (not just landowners, but landlords), that we make it The Good Kind.  You know, the one that will look after a Strong Society. 




> LVT provides compensation, private landowning doesn't.


Yeah, private landowning can eliminate the entire notion of "providing compensation".  It would be a wonder to me that you don't advocate the outlawing of rent collection of all kinds, were it not for your screwy rationale that an "otherwise deprivation" being a fictitious "liberty right". 




> Right: you already eagerly gave them away to landowners in return for nothing.


I was arguing as if LVT was already in place, Roy.  No landowners in that fairy tale world, remember?




> Natural liberty is a physical fact.  Rights come from society.


CORRECTAMUNDO! 

That those who would otherwise been at liberty to access land that is exclusively used by someone else are indeed deprived of that specific natural liberty. That is true. That this 'liberty' is a 'right', and that such a 'deprivation' is 'unjust' - is NOT A FACT. That is a *normative assertion* on your part, which has yet to be codified, recognized as an actual right, and consequent deprivation, according to law. 

And yet you persist in arguing, asserting disingenuously and quite dishonestly from your premises, as if they were already one in the same.   




> You can't always get what you want... (sniff)


No, Roy, that is true of everyone. I accept that, and just do what I can. Wipe your tears.

----------


## Roy L

> No, I make actual liberty and justice look good.


<yawn> No, Steven, you are LYING. This is the filthy, vicious, evil tyranny and injustice you grotesquely claim is, "liberty and justice":

"During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war
broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky
home for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old
negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God,
I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.' The planters, on the other hand, are contented
with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper
now than when we owned the slaves.' How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents
they take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled
to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were
compelled by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he
could no longer work. Now their interest and responsibility cease when they have
got all the work out of him they can."

From a letter by George M. Jackson, St. Louis. Dated August 15, 1885.
Reprinted in "Social Problems," by Henry George.

Your claim that this result is liberty and justice is just despicable filth.



> You're the one who calls real liberty and justice evil, while redefining oppressiveness and perpetual injustice as "liberty and justice".


No, you are telling evil lies again, Steven. Here's more of your "real liberty and justice":

"The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent." -- Thomas Carlyle

And with perfect evil, you call what I advocate -- rewards commensurate with contributions and payments commensurate with deprivations -- "oppressiveness and perpetual injustice."

Such claims are simply filth. Evil filth.



> Why contradict yourself?


Why always lie about what I have plainly written?



> Why say "No one is compelled to labor under LVT...", when that is patently untrue.


It is indisputably true. If it were not, you could show how someone is compelled to labor under LVT, and you can't.



> You could honestly say, within your own framework, "People are only compelled to labor under LVT to the extent that they must pay for what they deprive others of..."


No, I could not, because it is objectively false, like all your other claims. No one is compelled to labor under LVT, ever. Even those who wish to deprive others of access to more than their share of the land need not labor to do so. They can make their just compensation out of income not earned by labor, or indeed out of any sort of assets they wish.



> The compulsion to labor is very much there at all times.


No, Steven it is never there at all. You are just flatly lying about what I have written in plain English, as usual.



> Perpetually.


All apologists for landowner privilege must lie. Perpetually.



> The so-called "advantages" of land value don't magically convert themselves to money and appear in anyone's pocket, simply by virtue of landholding.


No one said economics was magic, Steven. Although, it might as well be for all you understand of it.

Anyone who holds land in an LVT system can always pay the LVT by simply allowing the high bidder to use the land. No compelled labor whatsoever. You are just lying. As usual.



> No, Roy, once I pay other landowners for the land (not "rent" but actual purchase payments),


?? "Once you pay"??? ROTFL!!! Why would you ever pay lazy, greedy parasites for what nature provided for free, unless you had already given away -- or been robbed of, except that you refuse to know it was robbery -- your liberty to use it?



> _I get a fixed quantity of land in return_.


By "agreeing" to pay them in return for _nothing_ (the land was already there, with no help from them or anyone else), you have already admitted that you are paying them for permission to exercise your erstwhile right to liberty.



> Much better than any mess of pottage exemption. That is very much the point.


Yes, well, just as it is much more appealing to evil, greedy parasites to be a slave owner than an honest producer, it is no doubt also much more appealing to them to be a landowner rather than an honest producer. THAT is very much the point.



> If I wanted to rent from a landowner, I could. But if I want no rent, I can buy just as well.


Buying land is just paying all the rent in advance, just like a slave buying his freedom from his owner by paying for all his future compelled labor in advance. So you are merely describing how you have successfully deceived yourself.



> Then the only pernicious rent-seeking bastards violating the principle of landownership as a right


What principle is that, Steven? The fallacious principle of begging the question? I have already proved to you that landownership inherently violates the liberty rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land, and therefore CANNOT be a right.



> are governments that allow for property taxes - making themselves perpetual landlords, collecting rents which are due and owing without regard to one's ability to pay.


No, you are still always lying, Steven. LVT is inherently always affordable. The landholder _always, by definition,_ has the ability to pay it by just allowing the high bidder to use the land. LVT is always levied with full regard for ability to pay, because holding land ALWAYS CONFERS the ability to pay its full rent. That is very much the point.

But even if you want to redefine ability to pay dishonestly, as ability to pay while forcibly depriving others of opportunity but not capitalizing on it yourself, and counting only income, not assets, as conferring ability to pay, then you still can't defend your claims: when you take something home from the grocery store, is the storekeeper obliged to adjust the price you pay for it based on your ability to pay? No? Then why would government be obliged to charge you less in tax than the value of what you take from society, just because you can't afford to pay for what you are taking without suffering a loss of net asset value, and consequently want to steal it?



> Everything about your philosophy is based on collectivism, Roy.


Empty name calling. The _only_ "collectivism" in my philosophy is the _FACT OF OBJECTIVE PHYSICAL REALITY_ that people are social animals, and our genetic make-up has been shaped by individual reproductive success within _societal_ success just as much as that of chimpanzees, ants, wolves, etc.



> And it is not the _individual_ exemption that is collectivized - only _the basis for it_.


The basis for it is the individual right to liberty -- which can only be _secured_ collectively. Stop lying.



> "non-exclusive use" - what a macabre joke, if it wasn't a lie in reality.


It is fact.



> Unless you mean that I can wander some parks freely, gather berries and smell the air. Go pitch a tent on public lands that aren't slated for that usage, Roy. You'll find there are laws governing even that.


Of course: pitching tents can compromise others' rights of non-exclusive use.



> Are you hungry? See some game you want for dinner? Sorry, that's controlled too.


As above.



> Want to build a fire to cook that game so you don't get sick? Sorry, that's controlled too.


As above. You just want to call your intended exclusive uses non-exclusive.



> Pretty much proven incompetent in that respect...


Except by comparison with everything else that has ever been tried...



> Yes, and your normative, your premise, Roy, is in the narrowing the definition of "valid", such that landownership is not part of property ownership.


WHICH IT NEVER, EVER WAS, until the advent of settled agriculture and significant fixed improvements some thousands of years ago made it a quick and dirty solution to the problem of securing property rights in those improvements.



> That's your narrowing view of "valid", and also the proper role of government through your geolibertarian collectivist lens, and completely debatable.


I'm still waiting for you to offer any actual arguments in debate. So far, I've seen nothing from you but factually false claims, outright lies, equivocation fallacies, name calling, lies, strawman fallacies, evasions and lies.

However, I completely agree that some of my premises are normative. But as explained in my exchange with Buddha, I have refuted the false dichotomy fallacy of normative vs factual. The normative is ultimately grounded in the physical facts of human evolutionary history.



> And the net effect of LVT, just like property taxes - don't make fixed improvements to the land, or do anything else that would cause the value of the unimproved land to increase.


ROTFL! Your economic ignorance and/or dishonesty is hilarious. LVT ENCOURAGES fixed improvements, because that's the only way the user is able to use the land productively enough to pay the LVT. And fixed improvements BY DEFINITION do not cause unimproved land value to increase, because unimproved land value is DEFINED AS the value the land would have if all the improvements were removed.

Every objection you have offered to LVT, or ever will offer, is objectively wrong.



> Yeah, I prefer a fixed reservation. Of my own acquisition and purchase. Freely convertible through sale of one and repurchase of another, with no evil landlord in the mix, public or private.


No, Steven, you are just lying again. Property in land INHERENTLY creates a greedy, privileged, evil, parasitic private landlord class, as already proved. There is no way around it.



> No, you idiot, I was playing devil's advocate, and quite obviously I thought, to argue from your premises. You can't even do that, Roy.


No, Steven. You tried (unsuccessfully, of course) to "argue from my premises" because you could not consistently defend your own premises, and thought you could derive a reductio ad absurdum from mine. But you couldn't.



> Easy - it didn't turn out to be wrong. It was never the problem.


ROTFL!! I suppose that must be why landowners are proverbial for their greed and parasitism in every culture that has an established tradition of private landowning, and why landowner privilege reliably destroys every civilization that lets it get a foothold. It must be why land reform to take land away from landowners and give it to users has been brilliantly successful in places like Japan, Taiwan, Korea, etc. It must be why Hong Kong, which has no private landowning, is reliably at the top of lists of the freest countries in the world. It must be why the crushing burden of rents and servitude to greedy, idle, parasitic landowners caused revolutions in China (at least three times), Russia, France, Mexico, Cuba, etc., etc.



> You're the one pointing out that others are condemned to pay rents that keep them enslaved and impoverished.


And you're the one who wants to keep them enslaved and impoverished. Right.



> Your answer: a friggin exemption - not for a specific quantity of land, but only "land value" exemption that can be applied somewhere on "good lands" that you "propose"


Putting scare quotes around clear, simple English words to try to impute a meaning that isn't there is despicable behavior, Steven. _Despicable_.



> be made available to everyone who has an exemption


<sigh> All resident citizens would have exemptions, and it is obvious that only someone as *stupid as a bag of hammers* could suggest that "quantity of land" be the basis of an _equal_ exemption, as an acre in a prime location can be worth millions, while an acre in most places is not enough to survive on. Land _value_ is the measure of economic advantage obtained by use of land. If the universal individual exemption is not based on value, some will have an unjust advantage over others. That is self-evident and indisputable. You have merely realized that it proves your beliefs are false, stupid, and evil, so you have to refuse to know it.



> (how about do that first, and see what happens? Open up all available public lands, but only in limited quantities per first-time homesteaders. Would you be in favor of that to start with, Roy?


That is exactly what LVT would do. It just wouldn't make such use of land by "homesteaders" the basis for receipt of an arbitrarily large welfare subsidy giveaway financed by taxing away the fruits of other people's labor indefinitely into the future.



> Fat chance of that ever happening, now or under an LVT).


So again, your only "argument" against LVT is that some other system is currently in place, and thanks to dishonest, brain-dead, evil opposition from people like you, LVT is not likely to be implemented as proposed. Moreover, you actually think that sort of puerile, anti-rational garbage deserves to be read and responded to.



> Meanwhile, the state takes over the role of those you hate so much, as all previous landlords are turned into a renter class. Yippee, and mission accomplished. That tickles your collectivist turnabout-equals-fairplay sensibilities to no end, but never did you propose that landownership should be everyone's right, because somewhere along the way you got the "LIGHT BULB!" that everyone was somehow violating everyone else's "otherwise at liberty" fact, which you want recognized as a right, so that those liberty deprivations can be recognized as "unjust", or "invalid" based on anyone's exclusive use of lands.


If landowning is anyone's right, it cannot be everyone's right. That fact is inherent in the fixity of land's supply.



> Yesss... isn't it funny how that works, Roy?


Funny how you have to lie about everything, you mean? No, I don't find it all that funny. It's totally predictable. Which is why I predicted it, and why my prediction has been proved correct.



> Propose in one hand, then let reality kick in, as the government $#@!s in the other, and see which one fills up fastest!


<yawn> "Meeza hatesa gubmint." The entire "content" of your philosophy...



> Those "dispossessed aboriginals" had government proposals which were turned into PROMISES - that weren't kept. Like pretty much all government promises over time. That's why your LVT "single tax" solution and "proposed" exemption promise, even if it was a good thing, isn't worth anything at all, Roy, because you haven't addressed that one niggling problem - that government does not keep its promises. That's why we CONSTRAIN government, and still must remain vigilant, knowing in advance that Feed Me Seymour! is going to grow many heads and devour your children if you let it grow.


As above.



> Yes. That is precisely what I want to do, because I don't recognize "otherwise at liberty" as a right, nor do I pretend that my exclusive access to land is "unjustly" depriving anyone of any thing. You haven't made that case at all. Capice?


I have proved it indisputably. You just deny and refuse to know it -- like a flat earther denying and refusing to know the facts that prove the earth is round even though it has been proved round indisputably -- because you have already realized that the facts prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> Ah, da gud o'da peephole. Live long and collectively prosper. Spock, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (and most certainly the one).
> 
> Collectivist. Nas-tee, Dir-tee, Fil-thee Collectivist.


<yawn> Your use of the word, "collectivist" purely for purposes of name calling does not impress me in the slightest, Steven. In fact, is it puerile and laughable. Yes, I am willing to know the fact that human beings are irreducibly social animals, and can only thrive in society, and to the degree that their society thrives. You just refuse to know that fact, and call anyone who is willing to know it a "collectivist" because you want to thrive at others' expense -- at society's expense -- and pretend there are no consequences of such behavior, like any other greedy, lying, evil sociopath.



> If you can't acknowledge the rights of each individual, as individual, you aren't worthy to look after the rights of more than one individual.


You have become confused again, Steven. Of the two of us, I am the one here who is championing individual rights. You are the one trying to rationalize and justify the removal of individuals' rights for the unearned profit of greedy, evil parasites.



> That is precisely what individual rights are for, Roy - so that we can cater to our own whims.


No, they are not. Such a concept of rights is jejune and self-evidently vacuous and circular. What you really mean is that _other people's_ individual rights exist to be sacrificed on the altar of the Great God Property to satisfy and cater to _YOUR_ whims.



> I don't.


Yes, you indisputably do. See your own words, immediately above.



> And I don't recognize or accept your twisted views on landownership, in and of itself, as the source of harm to that thing you call society, but which I see as nothing but individuals, EACH of whom have rights.


Your refusal to know the fact that society is an organic and interdependent whole and not just a random set of unrelated individuals does not and cannot alter the fact that it is.



> I did read it. What an evil, nasty, collectivist rationale for trampling on individual rights.


It is the BASIS of individual rights in empirical fact -- as opposed to Buddha's (and your?) doomed and laughable attempt to base individual rights on religious faith.



> There is nothing special about that Roy, and those aren't "rights" you are describing. Those are privileges masquerading as rights.


No, they are indisputably rights. You just do not know what rights are or why they exist.



> I find the appeal to "society", with all its winners and losers under ANY regime,


That is a dishonest attempt by you to pretend that there is no difference between a social regime such as the one I advocate, where those who contribute the most to the welfare of all win and those who steal the most from others lose, and a regime such as the one you advocate, where those who steal the most from others win, and those who contribute the most to all lose.



> nauseating, naive, and even infantile.


It is your pretense that society does not exist that is nauseating, naive and infantile. And dishonest.



> Nah, I'm the only one who wants to give everyone equal access to the "right" to eliminate "evil landlords", and thieves of all kinds, public and private, from their lives.


Nope. That's just a lie from you. You have stated explicitly that you want to enshrine landlord greed, privilege and parasitism as rights. It is inherently impossible to separate landowner privilege from thievery, as I already proved to you by the example of the bandit.



> You are the only one who is saying that the existence of a landlord is only good if it is a public landlord.


No, I am not. Many, many people, including some of the greatest minds who have ever lived, have agreed with me.



> That's no different than Dennis Kucinich, who thinks that a counterfeiting Fed is BAD in the private hands, but GOOD in the hands of government - fer da gud o-da peephole.


Fiat money is not counterfeit, and Kucinich is pretty much right about the monetary system, while Ron Paul is wrong. Trying to go from a debt money system to a gold money system would be catastrophic. Gold worked well as money in the past and is the best base for commodity money, but we can't get there from here. We CAN free ourselves from the banksters by using fiat money issued by government and eliminating debt money issued by private banks. All we have to do is separate the money ISSUING power from the money SPENDING power, and make price stability the former's only mandate.



> You have only asserted, Roy, and repeated it in circles, ad nauseum. You have PROVED nothing whatsoever,


You are lying, Steven. I proved that the landowner is no different in substance from an outright bandit. I also proved that you cannot answer The Question:

"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"

And no one else can, either.



> except that you want to shift what you see as the power of THEFT, which will somehow be magically transformed into JUST COMPENSATION when practiced by the state.


<sigh> That is exactly correct. The state, _unlike the private landowner_, is the _SOURCE_ of the value I propose to recover for its maintenance. _LVT is the only possible way_ to make government self-financing. You just don't want government to be self-financing. You want government to steal from the productive and give the loot to landowners in return for nothing. That is the entire content of your "philosophy": something for nothing, for YOU.

Such a "philosophy" is just evil, vicious filth.



> The only way to secure the property rights of those who produce fixed improvements is to secure the ownership of the FOUNDATION upon which those improvements rest.


<yawn> You have made that objectively false claim a number of times in this thread. Why can't you ever remember that Hong Kong proves all such stupid lies are objectively false?



> You want to do exactly the opposite of that, since your interest is in not in individual property rights, but rather whomever has the willingness AND ability to make the state strongest. That's the fascist component of LVT.


No, you are still always lying about what I have plainly written. It is the strength and health of _SOCIETY_ that is the standard of right and wrong, not the _state_. Two different things, no matter how you try to pretend they are both just "collectivist."



> In that, you are married to a puerile, autistic, even sociopathic notion of rights that admits of no flexibility, no adjustment to accommodate individual reality,


There is no such thing as "individual reality." Reality is objective, not subjective.



> no recognition that individual rights are the only rights that matter in any society.


Why do individual rights matter? Blank out.



> Sure it is.


No, that is merely a confession of moral and intellectual bankruptcy.



> There you go again. Collectivist. Someone thunks Granny on her head, and leaves her bleeding and dying, and all you can think, in your Hive Oriented Mind, is that the Hive is in danger. $#@! Granny, she's disposable. Society is now weakened - that's what needs to be protected.


That is exactly correct. We are all disposable, because in fact, we are all going to die. Children often have a problem coming to terms with that, and even adults may turn to religious fantasies in their desperation to evade it, but I don't. Unlike you, ACTUAL grannies are aware of that fact, and 9 out of 10 of them would sacrifice their own lives for their children and grandchildren without a second thought. Rights, and the human capacity for moral reasoning that they are founded on, are simply evolution's way of dealing with the fact that in society, the effects of grannie's situation and actions on her children and grandchildren's welfare are often subtle, indirect, and counter-intuitive.



> Again with "society", and "its" prosperity. _Collectivist._  (sorry for the spray, I spit sometimes when I use that cuss word)


Content = 0 (other than your usual sociopathic blather)



> Yeah, so let's make sure that if we're going to have thieving, murdering landlords (not just landowners, but landlords), that we make it The Good Kind. You know, the one that will look after a Strong Society.


Evolution will make sure that eventually the non-thieving and non-murdering kind of landlord -- which inherently cannot be any kind but government, as government is the source of land value and the only competent securer of the right to life -- prevails because that is more effective.  Privilege can't compete with justice on a level playing field.  It's just a question of how much needless suffering, how many needless deaths, apologists for privilege and injustice like you will force upon long-suffering humanity in the meantime.



> Yeah, private landowning can eliminate the entire notion of "providing compensation".


No, it can never, ever do that because the injustice will always be there, like an infected boil that cannot heal and can only get worse.  As long as the injustice is there, the need for compensation will be there.  It can never be eliminated.



> It would be a wonder to me that you don't advocate the outlawing of rent collection of all kinds, were it not for your screwy rationale that an "otherwise deprivation" being a fictitious "liberty right".


If you ever figure out what you intended to say there, and can translate it into English, let me know.



> I was arguing as if LVT was already in place, Roy.


No, you were "arguing" that LVT in place would be something other than what it is.



> No landowners in that fairy tale world, remember?


No landowners in Hong Kong, remember?



> That those who would otherwise been at liberty to access land that is exclusively used by someone else are indeed deprived of that specific natural liberty. That is true.


Thanks for conceding the whole debate.



> That this 'liberty' is a 'right', and that such a 'deprivation' is 'unjust' - is NOT A FACT.


Yes, actually, it is.  It is merely a fact that, because it proves your beliefs are false and evil, you have to refuse to know.



> That is a *normative assertion* on your part,


Yes, and I have explained that the normative - factual dichotomy is fallacious.



> which has yet to be codified, recognized as an actual right, and consequent deprivation, according to law.


Law is an attempt to codify rights.  It is not a source of rights.



> And yet you persist in arguing, asserting disingenuously and quite dishonestly from your premises, as if they were already one in the same.


No, I have never said rights were all codified in law.  I have stated many times that laws often violate rights, as laws codifying ownership of human beings or land do.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> "During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war
> broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky
> home for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old
> negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God,
> I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.' The planters, on the other hand, are contented
> with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper
> now than when we owned the slaves.' How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents
> they take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled
> to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were
> ...


I already responded to that disgusting, obviously lying piece of hearsay Uncle Tomfoolery. 




> "The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent." -- Thomas Carlyle


Roy, Not even you are opposed to someone charging rent for nettles if someone else is willing to pay.




> It is indisputably true. If it were not, you could show how someone is compelled to labor under LVT, and you can't.


Already did. Remember Granny? Sitting on land that is now considered too valuable for her exemption to justify?  She is _compelled_ to labor in order to keep her place and remain where she is, or else she will lose it, according evil, filthy, despicable force-using Roy and his LVT ilk, who would much rather that Granny get off the "better lands" and make way for "more productive hands".  

Indisputable. Irrefutable. Filthy. Despicable. 




> ...Even those who wish to deprive others of access to more than their share of the land...


Shut up with your "fair share" collectivist gibberish.  It's evil. And nauseating. 




> Anyone who holds land in an LVT system can always pay the LVT by simply allowing the high bidder to use the land. No compelled labor whatsoever.


ALLOWING? Well, if they choose NOT to "allow", it will be made very clear to them that the ONLY choice is to labor more or GET OUT - make way (BY FORCE) for those wonderful "more productive hands".   




> Why would you ever pay lazy, greedy parasites for what nature provided for free, unless you had already given away -- or been robbed of, except that you refuse to know it was robbery -- your liberty to use it?


For the same reason I might pay someone for a lump of gold they were lucky enough to find, you idiot.  Because they OWN it, and I acknowledge their RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP.  Because I am a good person, with honor, and integrity, and no desire to steal - not even under a collectivist shroud. 




> By "agreeing" to pay them in return for _nothing_ (the land was already there, with no help from them or anyone else), you have already admitted that you are paying them for permission to exercise your erstwhile right to liberty.


No, you moron. I never HAD a "right to liberty", let alone an "erstwhile right" where their land was concerned. That's your blithering twisted fantasy, Roy. Not reality.  And I am not paying them for nothing. I am paying them for THEIR LAND.  Which they own. Which I want to own.  So I will pay them for it, because I am not a thief - individually or collectively. 




> Yes, well, just as it is much more appealing to evil, greedy parasites to be a slave owner than an honest producer, it is no doubt also much more appealing to them to be a landowner rather than an honest producer. THAT is very much the point.


Shut your filthy keyboard, demon troglodyte collectivist land thief. Calling evil good and good evil. Harumph.  That's nasty talk right there. 




> Buying land is just paying all the rent in advance


No, not "all of it".  Once it's paid for, the rent payments end.  Perpetual rent NEVER ENDS, and can NEVER be paid in full, in advance or otherwise.  Which is the kind of slavery you advocate, and want to sell us all into. Perpetually.  Slaver.




> I have already proved to you that landownership inherently violates the liberty rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land, and therefore CANNOT be a right.


You haven't proved $#@!, Roy.  Remember that "subtle" subject, as you called it?  And "otherwise capacity" does _not equal a right_.  Quit trying to slippery your way past that one, as if you've established something.  Liar. 




> No, you are still always lying, Steven. LVT is inherently always affordable.


So is getting my pocket picked - most of the time. It's still theft. 




> The landholder _always, by definition,_ has the ability to pay it by just allowing the high bidder to use the land. LVT is always levied with full regard for ability to pay, because holding land ALWAYS CONFERS the ability to pay its full rent. That is very much the point.


Quiet with your "he can always leave if he can't pay", which you phrase, in your disingenuously, intellectually and repugnantly dishonest way, as "allowing" the high bidder to use the land.  Nasty spin. 




> But even if you want to redefine “ability to pay” dishonestly, as “ability to pay while forcibly depriving others of opportunity...


Moron, with your hair-brained spin notion of "forcibly depriving", and the whole other idiotic notion of entitlement to opportunity as if it was a right. Get off my land, creepy would-be parasite.  

On MY land, I have SOLE DESPOTIC DOMINION.  Nature provides me the opportunity, but I am both the community AND the government. You, on the other hand, are a creepy, nasty, thieving, would-be enslaving, FOREIGN INVADER.  I form treaties with my SOVEREIGN neighbors to repel all your ilk.  We can go to war over stuff like this, Roy, I have no problem with that.  

Welcome to a community of sovereigns, Roy.  You don't want to buy any of my land?  Some of it's for sale, you know. No? Well, do you want to rent a room for the night?  Sharecrop one of my fields for a time? Will you work for food? That choice is available to you as well.   Oh, you just want to pitch a tent in my field - that I'm not doing anything with at the moment?  Cost you five bucks field rent. No, make that ten bucks, because you're weird. And rude. Nice people stay for free.   

Nah, better yet, move along, little cowboy - you're creeping my fellow landowning neighbors out.

----------


## Roy L

> I already responded to that disgusting, obviously lying piece of hearsay Uncle Tomfoolery.


LOL!  It is self-evidently the truth, and records a phenomenon widely remarked (though not widely understood) at the time: the effectively unaltered economic condition of the majority of emancipated slaves even decades after the Civil War.



> Roy, Not even you are opposed to someone charging rent for nettles if someone else is willing to pay.


Wrong.  It depends entirely on whether the "someone" charging the rent (and notice that you must dishonestly leave their identify unspecified) has earned it or not.  The government employees and subcontractors who provide government services and infrastructure are not idle parasites as landowners are.  Unlike the perfumed seigneur, they EARN the land rent they would receive as payment for their labor under LVT: they produce it.  The landowner doesn't.

How many more times, and in how many more different ways, do I have to prove you wrong before you will become willing to consider the possibility that you actually ARE wrong?



> Already did.


No, of course you didn't.



> Remember Granny? Sitting on land that is now considered too valuable for her exemption to justify?  She is _compelled_ to labor in order to keep her place and remain where she is, or else she will lose it, according evil, filthy, despicable force-using Roy and his LVT ilk,


No, Steven, you are just lying, as usual.  Firstly, she can stay where she is if she has other income or assets that she chooses to use to pay for what she is taking from others, so she is indisputably NOT "compelled to labor."  _Which proves you lied._  Again.

Strike One.

Secondly, you deny that Granny would be "compelled to labor" were she the tenant of a PRIVATE landlord who raised the rent to a level she could not afford, so that again proves you lied by claiming she would be "compelled to labor" only if her landlord is a public one.

Strike Two.

Thirdly, you deny that Granny would be "compelled to labor" if she had a _mortgage_ she could not make the payments on, and her dwelling was repossessed, so you are lying when you claim it is only inability to repay what she takes from _society_ that results in her being "compelled to labor."

That's Strike Three, Steven.  You're out.



> who would much rather that Granny get off the "better lands" and make way for "more productive hands".


Yes, because unlike you I respect the free market, and understand that the incentives it provides benefit all, INCLUDING GRANNY.  You, by contrast, only like freedom when it is your freedom or benefits you.  You aren't interested in freedom for other people, or freedom that benefits other people.  You call that kind of freedom "oppression and injustice."



> Indisputable. Irrefutable.


Conclusively refuted and proved a lie above.



> Filthy. Despicable.


Evil filth.



> Shut up with your "fair share" collectivist gibberish.  It's evil. And nauseating.


I understand that you hate and fear liberty, justice and truth, and oppose them with maniacal ferocity.



> ALLOWING? Well, if they choose NOT to "allow",


I.e., forcibly to deprive others of their liberty...



> it will be made very clear to them that the ONLY choice is to labor more or GET OUT - make way (BY FORCE) for those wonderful "more productive hands".


Just like the tenant of a private landlord, or a mortgage debtor.  I have already proved all this to you many times, Steven.  Your position is inconsistent, incoherent and indefensible.



> For the same reason I might pay someone for a lump of gold they were lucky enough to find, you idiot.  Because they OWN it, and I acknowledge their RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP.


The same reason you would cheerfully pay someone for air to breathe if they happened to have privatized the earth's atmosphere...?



> Because I am a good person, with honor, and integrity, and no desire to steal - not even under a collectivist shroud.


No, you are a lying apologist for privilege and injustice with an overpowering lust to steal under a propertarian flag of convenience.



> No, you moron. I never HAD a "right to liberty", let alone an "erstwhile right" where their land was concerned. That's your blithering twisted fantasy, Roy. Not reality.


It is a physical fact: you are at liberty to use it, but they (or government working on their behalf) deprive you of your liberty by force.  You are just lying.



> And I am not paying them for nothing.


You are indisputably paying them for nothing.  What would stop you from using the land if they simply did not exist, and had never existed?  Blank out.



> I am paying them for THEIR LAND. Which they own. Which I want to own.


Just as you would pay an airlord for HIS AIR.  Which he owned.  Which you wanted to breathe.

See?  Any talk of "their land" is nothing but a question-begging fallacy until you have provided evidence that it is _rightly_ their land.  Which you can't.



> So I will pay them for it, because I am not a thief - individually or collectively.


All landowners are thieves, Steven, as I have proved.



> Shut your filthy keyboard, demon troglodyte collectivist land thief. Calling evil good and good evil. Harumph.  That's nasty talk right there.


Content = 0



> No, not "all of it".  Once it's paid for, the rent payments end.


But have already included all the future rent payments.



> Perpetual rent NEVER ENDS, and can NEVER be paid in full, in advance or otherwise.


Because the flow of benefits the landholder takes from society, provided by government and the community, does not end.



> Which is the kind of slavery you advocate, and want to sell us all into. Perpetually.  Slaver.


<yawn>  Voluntarily paying market value for what you take is not slavery, that is just another lie from you.



> You haven't proved $#@!, Roy.


<yawn>  Denial ain't just a river in Africa.



> Remember that "subtle" subject, as you called it?  And "otherwise capacity" does _not equal a right_.


Otherwise liberty does.  That's all liberty _is,_ or can be: what we would be free to do if others did not forcibly stop us.



> Quit trying to slippery your way past that one, as if you've established something.  Liar.


I have established the facts.



> So is getting my pocket picked - most of the time. It's still theft.


But being required to pay market value for what you voluntarily choose to take from others is not theft, Steven.  It is justice.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just always have to lie about it.



> Quiet with your "he can always leave if he can't pay", which you phrase, in your disingenuously, intellectually and repugnantly dishonest way, as "allowing" the high bidder to use the land.  Nasty spin.


It is indisputable fact, just as it is for the tenant of a private landlord or a mortgage debtor, and you have not made any argument to the contrary.  As usual.



> Moron, with your hair-brained spin notion of "forcibly depriving", and the whole other idiotic notion of entitlement to opportunity as if it was a right.


If you have no right to opportunity you have no right to life, as without opportunity, you cannot sustain your life.



> Get off my land, creepy would-be parasite.


It is indisputably the landowner who is the parasite, as he takes a portion of production but does not make any contribution to production.  Thus, you still cannot answer The Question.



> On MY land, I have SOLE DESPOTIC DOMINION.


You are raving.



> Nature provides me the opportunity,


And you deprive others of it.



> but I am both the community AND the government.


Of course you aren't.  You are just spewing absurdities.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire



> You, on the other hand, are a creepy, nasty, thieving, would-be enslaving, FOREIGN INVADER.


You are lying, Steven.  And you know it.



> I form treaties with my SOVEREIGN neighbors to repel all your ilk.


You do no such thing, and you know it.  You rely on government to do your dirty work for you, and do nothing whatever to "repel" those who would exercise their rights to liberty.  You are simply lying.



> We can go to war over stuff like this, Roy, I have no problem with that.


I am aware that you want to murder innocent people who try to exercise their rights to liberty.



> Welcome to a community of sovereigns, Roy.


Except for the enslaved landless, of course....



> You don't want to buy any of my land?  Some of it's for sale, you know. No? Well, do you want to rent a room for the night?  Sharecrop one of my fields for a time? Will you work for food? That choice is available to you as well.   Oh, you just want to pitch a tent in my field - that I'm not doing anything with at the moment?  Cost you five bucks field rent. No, make that ten bucks, because you're weird.


Thank you for describing your parasitism so accurately.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Blah, blah, geocollectivist gibberish, distortions, warped logic, and a never-ending screed of moralish pronouncements, blah blah blah...


You just shut your pie hole.  Everything you stand for is a recipe for enslavement, and rotten to its credulous, collectivist-worshiping, government-trusting core.

----------


## Roy L

> You just shut your pie hole.


ROTFL!!  It's encouraging to see you have finally realized you have no facts, no logic and no arguments to offer in support of your false and evil beliefs.



> Everything you stand for is a recipe for enslavement, and rotten to its credulous, collectivist-worshiping, government-trusting core.


Which is enslavement: Pakistan or Hong Kong?  The Philippines or Singapore?  Which governments are more to be trusted, Steven, hmmmmm?  

See how easily I prove that all your claims are the exact, diametric opposite of the truth?

"Collectivist" is just a meaningless cuss word for you; but it is rather odd that you who believe -- and imagine your readers would believe -- that Somalia is a better model of society than Slovenia (let alone Slovakia, Sweden, Singapore or Switzerland) should accuse me of credulity.  Really, Steven?  REALLY???

----------


## heavenlyboy34

[IMG][/IMG]

----------


## Roy L

> 


That's a natural reaction to learning that you are a servant of the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that inflicts a couple of Holocausts worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, misery, starvation, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR.

I still strongly recommend that apologists for the Annual Holocausts of the Landless watch "Judgment at Nuremberg."  It is very penetrating in its observations of how people manage to rationalize and justify even the most vicious, satanic evil.  To paraphrase Spencer Tracy's final line in the movie:

"You knew.  You knew the first time you refused to know facts which you knew to be accurate."

----------


## Steven Douglas

> ...robbery, oppression, enslavement, misery, starvation, despair and death on innocent human beings...


Silence, champion of all the above.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> That's a natural reaction to learning that you are a servant of the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that inflicts a couple of Holocausts worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, misery, starvation, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR.
> 
> I still strongly recommend that apologists for the Annual Holocausts of the Landless watch "Judgment at Nuremberg."  It is very penetrating in its observations of how people manage to rationalize and justify even the most vicious, satanic evil.  To paraphrase Spencer Tracy's final line in the movie:
> 
> "You knew.  You knew the first time you refused to know facts which you knew to be accurate."



You really are a never-ending source of amusement and bull$#@!.  You know well that the evils you so despise are State-caused, yet you keep railing against landowners in general.

----------


## Roy L

> You know well that the evils you so despise are State-caused, yet you keep railing against landowners in general.


<sigh>  I know well that the harms of obesity are eating-caused.  So, does it make more sense for me to oppose eating, or policies that subsidize purveyors of junk food?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> <sigh>  I know well that the harms of obesity are eating-caused.  So, does it make more sense for me to oppose eating, or policies that subsidize purveyors of junk food?


Is that supposed to be profound? Is the answer to that false dilemma really an obvious either/or in your mind?  Oppose "_policies_" that "_subsidize(?!)_" the purveyors of "_something Roy L decided he doesn't want others putting into their bodies_"? 

I find it freakishly scary that people would presume to even have such utterly demented thoughts. Like...zombie scary. Invasion of the Body Snatchers scary. Night of the Living Dead scary. Like, look at that bug under a glass, but don't let it hurt anyone scary. 

Crawl, slither, slink, or whatever, back to controlling-other-people hell, Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> Is that supposed to be profound?


No, it is supposed to demonstrate that profundity is quite superfluous when refuting "arguments" that are fallacious, stupid and dishonest at every level, including the most superficial.



> Is the answer to that false dilemma really an obvious either/or in your mind?


Yes.  It is as obvious as the answer to hb's blatant and laughable fallacy of composition: claiming that if any state does anything bad, it is the state per se that must be bad, and not merely the bad thing that state did.



> Oppose "_policies_" that "_subsidize(?!)_" the purveyors of "_something Roy L decided he doesn't want others putting into their bodies_"?
> 
> I find it freakishly scary that people would presume to even have such utterly demented thoughts.


I see.  So, now Steven, the great soi-disant libertarian, finds it "freakishly scary that people would presume to have such utterly demented thoughts" as being opposed to subsidies.

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...



> Like...zombie scary. Invasion of the Body Snatchers scary. Night of the Living Dead scary. Like, look at that bug under a glass, but don't let it hurt anyone scary. 
> 
> Crawl, slither, slink, or whatever, back to controlling-other-people hell, Roy.


I see.  So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," it is "freakishly, zombie, blah blah blah, scary" and "controlling other people" for anyone to oppose government policies that take wealth from the productive to provide welfare subsidy giveaways to those who purvey products that are harmful to both individual health and the economy.

Steven, are you really so freakishly, scarily, zombie-body-snatcher-living-dead STUPID, DISHONEST and EVIL that you think it is "utterly demented" to oppose subsidies for booze, cigarettes, airplane glue, etc.?  Really?  _REALLY????_

Crawl, slither, slink, or whatever, back to stupid, dishonest and evil people's hell, Steven.

----------


## bluesc

Trololololololol

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Steven, are you really so freakishly, scarily, zombie-body-snatcher-living-dead STUPID, DISHONEST and EVIL that you think it is "utterly demented" to oppose subsidies for booze, cigarettes, airplane glue, etc.?  Really?  _REALLY????_


First, exit the word "subsidies" from that, so that none of your typically slippery semantics games are played as YOUR fallacy of composition.  I already know from this thread that you have goofy-loopy ideas on how to define even a word that is normally clear to everyone as "subsidy". 

I am against GOVERNMENT subsidies of all kinds.  So yeah, if government is actually GIVING favors or redistributing money to anyone - health food stores, booze companies, tobacco farmers or soybean farmers, I vehemently oppose those "subsidies".  But that isn't what you mean by subsidy, is it? Pick your definition, Roy - declare it for all to see, and stick with it.

Control freak, you are on a Ron Paul forum.  Most of us are small government Libertarians, _not collectivist geolibertarians_. Are you even aware of RP's positions, as a matter of principle, when it comes to freaks and freaks in government trying to *protect us from ourselves*? Do you know his positions on things like prostitution, and harmful substances (and would include airplane glue), and a whole host of things we BOTH might consider harmful, or at least potentially harmful to human life?




Yes, I DO think it is "utterly demented" to oppose subsidies for booze, cigarettes, airplane glue, etc., - right in line with Ron Paul.  It's a Libertarian thing, Roy, as applies to individuals - so it may be impossible for you to understand, or get your Borg-like mind around.

----------


## Roy L

> First, exit the word "subsidies" from that, so that none of your typically slippery semantics games are played as YOUR fallacy of composition.


I.e., you just refuse to know facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil.  As usual.



> I already know from this thread that you have goofy-loopy ideas on how to define even a word that is normally clear to everyone as "subsidy".


Yeah, like your definition: what he gets from government is a subsidy; what I get from government is my right.



> I am against GOVERNMENT subsidies of all kinds.


No, for one thing, you DEMAND that government, at taxpayer expense, continue to give about 20% of GDP to landowners in return for nothing.



> So yeah, if government is actually GIVING favors or redistributing money to anyone - health food stores, booze companies, tobacco farmers or soybean farmers, I vehemently oppose those "subsidies".  But that isn't what you mean by subsidy, is it? Pick your definition, Roy - declare it for all to see, and stick with it.


A subsidy is a policy of giving economic benefits to privileged parties that the free market would not give them.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, for one thing, you DEMAND that government, at taxpayer expense, continue to give about 20% of GDP to landowners in return for nothing.
> 
> A subsidy is a policy of giving economic benefits to privileged parties that the free market would not give them.


See? Told you you had a goofy-loopy way of viewing subsidies, and you proved me right. 

So, how and by whom, exactly, are booze companies and airplane glue manufacturers being subsidized, Roy?

----------


## Roy L

> See? Told you you had a goofy-loopy way of viewing subsidies, and you proved me right.


No, it's very reasonable.



> So, how and by whom, exactly, are booze companies and airplane glue manufacturers being subsidized, Roy?


You have become confused and are makin' $#!+ up again, Steven.  I said junk food purveyors were subsidized.  You then made a fool of yourself by saying it was "utterly demented" to oppose such subsidies.  Sober up and read back through the thread.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You have become confused and are makin' $#!+ up again, Steven.  I said junk food purveyors were subsidized.  You then made a fool of yourself by saying it was "utterly demented" to oppose such subsidies.  Sober up and read back through the thread.


Really? I made this up? :




> ...you think it is "utterly demented" to oppose subsidies for booze, cigarettes, airplane glue, etc.?  Really?  _REALLY????_


Pretty sure you typed that Roy, or else your account was hacked or something.  I'll give the benefit of the doubt and ask instead: 

How and by whom, exactly, are "junk food purveyors" being subsidized?

----------


## Roy L

> Really? I made this up? :


No, stop lying, Steven.  That is not what I said you made up, so stop lying about what I plainly wrote.  It's dishonest and evil.  You are lying again, Steven, as usual, because you do not know how to do anything but lie.



> Pretty sure you typed that Roy, or else your account was hacked or something.


I wrote it in response to this, from you:




> Oppose "policies" that "subsidize(?!)" the purveyors of "something Roy L decided he doesn't want others putting into their bodies"?


 "something Roy L decided he doesn't want others putting into their bodies" is just something you made up.  By putting it in quotes, you told a lie about what I plainly wrote.  Because you always have to lie, as we established long ago.



> I find it freakishly scary that people would presume to even have such utterly demented thoughts.


See, Steven?  You stated explicitly that opposing taxpayer-funded government subsidies to people who sell poison and call it food is "freakishly scary" and "utterly demented."



> I'll give the benefit of the doubt and ask instead: 
> 
> How and by whom, exactly, are "junk food purveyors" being subsidized?


The US government subsidizes production of both sugar and corn, as well as many other low-nutrient products that are used mainly to make processed foods higher in calories and lower in nutrients:

"A recent report by the U.S. Public Interest Group (U.S. PIRG) titled, "Apples to Twinkies: Comparing Federal Subsidies of Fresh Produce and Junk Food," found that between 1995 and 2010, the U.S. has spent more than $260 billion on agricultural subsidies. Of this total, nearly $17 billion was spent on four common food additives -- corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch and soy oils; all known to contribute to weight gain.

In contrast, only $262 million was spent on apples, the _only_ fruit or vegetable with any measurable subsidy."

And:

"...researchers found that of the 37 ingredients in a Twinkie, 14 of them are made with federal subsidies."

http://type1diabetes.about.com/b/201...e-you-look.htm

----------


## Sola_Fide

Lies!

All lies!

----------


## JohnLVT

Johannesburg, South Africa has no tax on buildings. The entire property tax is on land. Mason Gaffney, a highly respected land economist and Professor of Economics at UC Riverside, visited Johannesburg. This is what he said about it.

"The miracle of Johannesburg: Jo-burg is a Bootstrap City. It should have died when its gold mines played out, like a proper mining boomtown; instead it remains as the economic capital of its nation and half a continent."Johannesburg defies most laws of urban economics, e.g. that mines create no great cities. Explainers still site the mines, but its mines have played out; it should now be a ghost town. It has no harbor, no water transportation, nor even any gravity water supply. It is, in fact, on a ridge top, the Rand or "reef," at an elevation of 5,000 ft. Unlike Chicago or Boston, it has no sunburst of rail lines, except perhaps what it has attracted itself. It is "on the main rail line," Explainers say, but so are 1000 miles of other sites. The natural site lacks outstanding amenities, and certainly can't hold a candle to Cape Town. Jo-burg has no governmental economic base. Surrounding farmland is poor. 

Why Johannesburg? Why is it the largest city, the center of finance, industry, commerce, and international air travel? As a public finance economist I may overvalue incentive taxation, but Jo-burg has it. _The property tax is on site value only_, and at a high rate: they tell me it is 4%. This is what makes Jo-burg distinctive. Challenge and response: Jo-burg had to do something right in order to survive, and that is what it did. It not only survived, it became and remains Number One. Give me a better explanation and I'll back off. I haven't heard one yet."

Unhappily, the ANC forced Jo-Burg, against its will, to drop taxation on land values (1918 to 1996).  The city is now mired in disinvestment and unemployment.  Similar situations occurred in Pittsburgh (Land Value Tax (LVT) dropped in 1990), NYC (LVT was dropped in the late 1930s) and declined until WW2 brought full employment.

However these examples do show the stark difference of the before and after. But the detractors will no doubt blame the transition from apartite and the world slumps (2008 and the 1930s) but not the real reason for the decline - *the removal of LVT*.

Mason's observations are spot on. Jo-Burg is in a God forsaken part of South Africa and had no right to be the economic super-city for all Southern Africa below the equator. Nothing was going for it at all. It comes across as an artificial creation I suppose like Brasilia. Mason hit the nail on the head in defining the success of this anomaly.  *Land Value Tax (LVT) can makes cities prosper where they have no right to.*

----------


## eduardo89

Hmmmm...I think Roy has a sock puppet account

----------


## JohnLVT

Geonomics is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly *land*, belong equally to all.

Land Value Taxation *does not* tax the land you occupy.  Community created economic growth soaks into the land and crystalizes as land values - that is where land values come from. This is economics, not an opinion. Land Value Tax merely reclaims that growth and puts it back into the cycle to fund the infrastructure that aided the creation in the first place. Currently the cycle is cut and a giant sluice is inserted taking away that wealth in the form of windfalls in the land market - socially created wealth is privatized. It needs to be 180 degrees the other the way around. LVT *reclaims* community created wealth to pay for community services. 

Many Geoists observe two prime negative points of current taxation in modern states:
*Privately created wealth is socialized -* via Income Tax, sales tax, etc.*Socially created wealth is privatized -* community created land values are extracted by individuals and organizations.The Geoists rightly argue the opposite should be the case in that a Single Tax using only Land Value Tax will:
*Socialize socially created wealth -* socially created land values are taxed and used for community revenues.*Privatize privately created wealth -* no Income Tax is levied, hence people keep the fruits of their labor.Geoists view the Single Tax (no Income Tax, tax on buildings, sales tax, etc) as only using socially created wealth to fund social and state services, with an individual retaining 100% the fruits of their labor. This appeals to many across the political spectrum.

----------


## JohnLVT

> Hmmmm...I think Roy has a sock puppet account


No he doesn't.   What don't you understand?

----------


## eduardo89

> Hmmmm...I think Roy has a sock puppet account





> No he doesn't.   What don't you understand?

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Hmmmm...I think Roy has a sock puppet account


We'll find out if he's the real McCoy if JohnLVT starts calling everyone cretinous liars.

----------


## Tim Calhoun

> We'll find out if he's the real McCoy if JohnLVT starts calling everyone cretinous liars.


He doesn't need to, we've already proven we are.

----------


## JohnLVT

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.


What happens when you do not pay the existing property taxes?  Do the authorities leave you alone? No they go and get that money and if that means getting your home they will do that as well. Land Value Tax will have exemptions for the elderly, etc.

----------


## eduardo89

> What happens when you do not pay the existing property taxes?  Do the authorities leave you alone? No they go and get that money and if that means getting your home they will do that as well. Land Value Tax will have exemptions for the elderly, etc.


Wouldn't it be easier (and more fair) just to have absolutely no taxes on property?

----------


## JohnLVT

> Wouldn't it be easier (and more fair) just to have absolutely no taxes on property?


Yes, if the property is the bricks and wood, the building (the CAPITAL). The land (LAND & RESOURCES) is separate.  LVT *reclaims* community created wealth that soaked into the land.  Value the landowner never created as the community did. The building depreciates in value like a car. The Land appreciates as it is inelastic.

LVT is easy to collect, as land's location is known to the inch. It cannot be taken off-shore.  So an Athens mansion would have to pay the tax.  LVT is very cheap to collect.

LVT is known as the *Single Tax*. Only one tax, no enterprise killing Income Tax, Property Tax, Sales Tax, etc). LVT is a misnomer it is really a site reclaim levy.

----------


## JohnLVT

Land Value Taxes create wealth, it promotes it, especially when income tax is reduced or eliminated, as in dynamic Hong Kong and Taiwan, etc, All implementations around the world have done so. It is well proven not a wild theory.  LVT dragged Taiwan from a backward agricultural country to a dynamic high-tech world force. 

We stupidly tax a man's labor via income tax. This is retrograde, as it prevents enterprise from flourishing.  It prevents money from circulating.  Income Tax makes him poorer taking a part of his income at source - income tax was a temporary tax to fund the British Army and Navy in the Napoleonic wars which Tory Land owners got made permanent to push taxes from their lands onto the people. The USA followed in 1913?  Currently wealth laying idle, locked up in land, is not taxed.  We tax the fruits of the the labors of those who need least to be taxed - the wealth creators. That is why most wealth of a society ends up in the hands of the top few percent. 

The top 1% in the USA own more wealth than the bottom 90%. That indicates there is a systemic failure in the economy. LVT will balance it in a *fair* way.  Yet it does not change business behavior. It can work with any ism, probably apart from North Korea.  LVT prevent boom and busts as it pegs land speculation. Land speculation was the root cause of the 1929 and 2008 world-wide crashes.



*Economist Fred Harrison....*

"Any good economist will tell you, *as people's real disposable incomes rise, that money ends up in one place, and one place only, the LAND MARKET*. As there is growth land values rise, and it should rise. Except, the problem occurred when that increase in value went into private pockets instead of going into services: highways, hospitals, schools and so on, that created that value in the first place"
..
..
"*This is the sources of our problem*, not bankers, big bonuses, sub-prime mortgages in America and the other excuses they have. *This is the heart of the problem of the market economy*, we have to address it. There has to be political consensus, there has to consensus, with no body playing party politics"
The above is at. 3 min 35 secs

----------


## ClydeCoulter

> I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land.   It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it.  All property taxes should be abandoned.


+1 rep ^^

Here, Here!  How is it my land if it can be taken?

----------


## ClydeCoulter

I think Ron Paul said something to the effect that "If a man robs and bank and gets away with it and it's profitable to him, do we say it is a success to follow"?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> 


+a zillion.  Great shades of Fire11!!!111!!

----------


## JohnLVT

> +1 rep ^^
> 
> Here, Here!  How is it my land if it can be taken?


The state can take anything. A state has sovereignty (ownership) over the defined territory.  All land is owned by the state. You hold title which is a set of rights.  You are custodian of the land.  This is fundamental and trivial to the prime positive points of LVT and not worth debating. 

Will people please remove those large pictures they have posted. They clutter the thread with silly junk.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The state can take anything. A state has sovereignty (ownership) over the defined territory.  All land is owned by the state. You hold title which is a set of rights.  You are custodian of the land.  This is fundamental and trivial to the prime positive points of LVT and not worth debating.


Not worth it for you personally, perhaps - to debate that minor little trivial point that practically defines feudal society. Trivial? I think not. Trivial only to you in a "I need to marginalize this" in a personally dismissive kind of way. I'm not a serf to my government.  I don't see myself as a "subject", but a sovereign - regardless how you or the government see otherwise. That is the language of state oppression and the unmitigated cowardice of those collectivists who encourage it.  

Likewise I do not believe my government should own, control or tax land that is private.  Most importantly, I am not a "custodian" of "the state's land" or anything else.  The state doesn't even exist except as a fiction which *I created and brought into being* as one of "We The People"). The state is the "custodian" -- and an absolutely piss poor one at that, it turns out -- of my individual rights. Not entitlements. Not collectivized anything. Certainly not my land.  Just my individual rights.  

Will we ever be able to own our homes (INCLUDING the land it is built upon) without paying rent to the government - the ad valorem tax that has no relationship to one's ability to pay?  

Possibly.  Two words:

*North Dakota*
*YESM2.COM*

_Legendary_, baby.




*Ron Paul stands behind them 100%.* 
So much for minor, trivial, and not worth debating.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> The state can take anything. A state has sovereignty (ownership) over the defined territory.  All land is owned by the state. You hold title which is a set of rights.  You are custodian of the land.  This is fundamental and trivial to the prime positive points of LVT and not worth debating. 
> 
> Will people please remove those large pictures they have posted. They clutter the thread with silly junk.


redbluepill claimed otherwise earlier.  Perhaps you haven't read the Geoist handbook completely?  It has been claimed several times in this thread that Geoism is compatible with anarchism.

----------


## JohnLVT

Firstly, Geoism is *not* compatible with anarchism.  It rolls back the state for sure and reduces the state in our affairs.  Geoism can fit into any political ism as I have previously stated on this thread. 

_"George's blend of radicalism and conservatism can puzzle one, until it is seen as a reconciliation of the two. The system is internally consistent, but defies conventional stereotypes."
_- Professor Mason Gaffney (US economist)




> Likewise I do not believe my government should own, control or tax land that is private.


LVT does no such thing. LVT reclaims community created wealth that soaks into land.  This is basic economics.  You have to understand where the value in land comes from - it didn't drop in from the sky. LVT as the *Single Tax* leaves private wealth in private hands - no Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property tax on your buildings, inheritance tax, etc. Read my previous posts in this thread on this point.

Whether you like it or not, the state ultimately owns all the land.  This is non-point in LVT and a detraction.  What the community does with LVT is *reclaim* community created wealth while leaving private wealth in private hands.  Very Republican. LVT as the *Single Tax*, no other taxes, is not rent to the government.  Currently the state taxes your home, bricks & wood. Make it larger and they tax you more.  This is ludicrous. Do you want them to tax your washing machine as well?

BTW, you have to pay for community services where ever you live, unless you live on Mars.

----------


## JohnLVT

There are shanty towns in the USA again as foreclosure has thrown millions out of their homes. Many shanty towns overlook empty homes. 




LVT would have prevented all this.  The English economist clearly states the case.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> LVT does no such thing. LVT reclaims community created wealth...


Yeah, I've heard that myth somewhere before -- "community created"/"provided" wealth.  Individuals need not apply - but if you're a member of the community, you share in the credit for having helped "create" all that wonderful "community created" wealth.  Yeehaw and Coombayah, there's something in it for everybody!

Now if we can just slip past questioning that tenuous reach of logic - that nebulous generality, all that's left is to figure out which community entity is best suited to go and "reclaim" all the wonderful wealth this "corporeal entity" helped to create.  See? Corporations aren't the only ones who can act as a person.  Incorporated communities can get in on the action as well!  The faceless, voiceless, but not-so-nameless blob called "community" now has a voice, and the land has finally found its rightful, long neglected and robbed "real owner".

----------


## JohnLVT

> Yeah, I've heard that myth somewhere before -- "community created"/"provided" wealth.


It is clear you lack understanding of where land values come from.  The landowner does not create the value in the land. Get to know this fundament aspect of economics - it is not an opinion. 


Land Value Taxation *does not* tax the land you occupy. Community created economic growth soaks into the land and crystalizes as land values - *that is where land values come from*. This is economics, not an opinion. Land Value Tax merely reclaims that growth and puts it back into the cycle to fund the infrastructure that aided the creation in the first place. Currently the cycle is cut and a giant sluice is inserted taking away that wealth in the form of windfalls in the land market - socially created wealth is privatized. It needs to be 180 degrees the other the way around. LVT *reclaims* community created wealth to pay for community services. 

Many Geoists observe two prime negative and destructive points of current taxation in modern states:
*Privately created wealth is socialized -* via Income Tax, sales tax, etc.*Socially created wealth is privatized -* community created land values are extracted by individuals and organizations.The Geoists rightly argue the opposite should be the case in that a Single Tax using only Land Value Tax will:
*Socialize socially created wealth -* socially created land values are reclaimed and used for community revenues.*Privatize privately created wealth -* no Income Tax, etc, is levied, hence people keep the fruits of their labor.Geoists view the Single Tax (no Income Tax, tax on buildings, sales tax, etc) as only using socially created wealth to fund social and state services, with an individual retaining 100% the fruits of their labor. This appeals to many across the political spectrum.

All this has be proven in use around the world, even in the USA. I never made all this up.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

If I buy a piece of land, there is no wealth created or soaked into that land other than what I do with it, that's not an opinion.  

Others may build around my land, create theoretical wealth all around it (in the sense that if you bomb it all, what's it worth then), they can envy my land, desire to have it because of it's theoretical value, etc.  Many years later, it becomes a ghost town of sorts, some of the original owners have stayed and endured all the percieved successes and turnovers.

----------


## JohnLVT

> If I buy a piece of land, there is no wealth created or soaked into that land other than what I do with it, that's not an opinion.



_"Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes NOTHING to the process from which his own enrichment is derived."
_- Winston Churchill

----------


## ClydeCoulter

Except that he pay for any service that he choose to enrich himself with that others have brought near to him.  Or he still burns wood for heat, lights a candle, etc..  Free Market.

----------


## JohnLVT

> Except that he pay for any service that he choose to enrich himself with that others have brought near to him.  Or he still burns wood for heat, lights a candle, etc..  Free Market.


Those who rent still pay for the same services.  A man who pays for utilities did *nothing* to increase the values of his land. Nothing as Winston Churchill said. 

Fred Harrison again....

*THE PROBLEM*

Three million children today are living in poverty. Successions of governments, of different parties, can't change this due to the tax system.  Children born to the poorest families suffer little or no social mobility.  

Are politicians to blame? 

The biggest scam in history was instigated on the people centuries ago by the Lords, Barons and Knights of the land.   Governments used the tax system to milk the poor.  

Why did they do it?

To enrich the people who own land. It is operated by all democratic governments around the world. The biggest winners are those who own land or homes in the best locations.  

People who rent pay rent to landlords and taxes to the government. People who rent pay taxes to fund the service that they receive: police, rail, roads, army, etc.  That sounds fair. They pay for what they receive.

Britain's top earners pay on average £1.25 million in taxes in their lifetime. The people who rent their homes are generally in the lowest income bracket. Over their working lives the poor pay over £0.25 million in taxes. The rich on average pay 5 times more in taxes.

That sounds fair. Doesn't it?

Income tax is the more you earn, the more you pay. Called Progressive taxes. Progressive taxes has exactly the opposite effect.

_Rich people complain that they pay a lot of money to the government. But, the government pays it all back to them._ 

How do they do this? 

Governments spend our tax money on infrastructure, such as: Schools Universities Hospitals Rail networks Roads This infrastructure raises the productivity of the economy resulting in economic growth. Because of the way the market economy works, those economic gains are crystallised as land values. Then these gains surface as windfalls or capital gains in the property market.

Those capital gains are not shared out equally amongst all of us, taxpayers who rent their homes for example, are excluded. 
The windfalls are pocketed by people who own land. The rises in property values more than offsets the taxes they pay into the public purse. Then who pays for the services the rich people use? The families on the lowest incomes.

Every increase in house value for top earners offsets any tax they contribute. _During boom times it's possible to claw back a lifetimes taxes in just three years. Meanwhile...the lowest earners and those who pay rent, pay more overall._ 

*Families on the lowest incomes subsidise the lives of the rich.*

Is that fair? 

There is only one way to make the tax system fair. Parliament has to tell the taxman to stop collecting taxes from people's wages.

We need a kind of tax reform that Winston Churchill and Lloyd George nearly introduced in Parliament 100 years ago. But, the landlords blocked them.

The only war Winston Churchill lost was the war against the British landlords. If we cancel the tax on people's wages, how do we pay for public services? By levying a charge on the value of land. People who live in valuable locations will pay much more than those who live in less expensive properties. That's fair. It also happens to be the most efficient way to fund the service we all share in common. 

*THE SOLUTION*

There is a simple solution to this injustice.
_We should place the cost of public services on the values of land._ Owners with houses in valuable locations would pay more than those who rent their homes. Owners with houses in valuable locations wouldn't be able to claw back their taxes. That way everybody pays for the services they receive and we are all treated as *equals*

----------


## ClydeCoulter

For a man that inhabits his land, it's value is to him is what he has put into it.  He sees no value from those around him other than what he pays for to enrich himself of their goods or services.  He does not prohibit growth around him, neither is he responsible for it.  He considered a a price for a piece of land when he bought it, then he considered his effort to supply himself with his comforts, which are his.

I can see a man invest to build himself and his family a good place to provide for themselves.  Someone envies his land and the land around him, perhaps because he is competition or for some large development.  He does not choose to sell out, so they enrich the environment around him and thrust him from his place through LVT.

----------


## JohnLVT

> For a man that inhabits his land, it's value is to him is what he has put into it.


Basic economics tells us that land values come from economic growth activity from the community. Understand that. Do not fight it. 




> I can see a man invest to build himself and his family a good place to provide for themselves.


LVT does that for him, as it does not extract wealth *he* created via income tax.

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## Roy L

> Hmmmm...I think Roy has a sock puppet account


Congratulations on finding something else to be wrong about.

----------


## Roy L

> Wouldn't it be easier (and more fair) just to have absolutely no taxes on property?


No, it would be far less fair, because the value of land is publicly created.  Giving it away to landowners in return for nothing is self-evidently unfair, as it means they get something for nothing.  Someone else -- producers -- are therefore getting nothing for something.  That's not fair.

----------


## Roy L

> He doesn't need to, we've already proven we are.


All apologists for privilege, greed and injustice lie.  That is a natural law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

----------


## Roy L

> How is it my land if it can be taken?


How is it your land in any case...?

----------


## Roy L

> I think Ron Paul said something to the effect that "If a man robs and bank and gets away with it and it's profitable to him, do we say it is a success to follow"?


Bingo.  Read and learn:

THE BANDIT

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them. The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force. How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

Is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?

Do the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, agree to be robbed?

If there were two, or three, or 300 passes, each with its own bandit, would the merchants' being at liberty to choose which bandit robs them make the bandits' enterprise a competitive industry in a free market?

----------


## Roy L

> redbluepill claimed otherwise earlier.  Perhaps you haven't read the Geoist handbook completely?  It has been claimed several times in this thread that Geoism is compatible with anarchism.


Try to respond to what has been said, instead of pretending we are all one person saying the same things.  If you disagree with redbluepill or JohnLVT, answer what they have said, not what you want them to have said.

----------


## Roy L

> If I buy a piece of land, there is no wealth created or soaked into that land other than what I do with it,


No, that's just self-evidently and indisputably false as a matter of objective physical fact.  You can turn around and sell it for its market value having done nothing whatever with it.  The publicly created value that has soaked into the land is precisely what made you willing to pay so much money to buy it.  Why else would you?  It didn't cost anything to produce, nature did that for free.



> that's not an opinion.


True: it's a flat-out lie.



> Others may build around my land, create theoretical wealth all around it (in the sense that if you bomb it all, what's it worth then),


OK, so you admit that what others build around your land adds to its value, wealth soaking into your land without you lifting a finger.  Good.



> they can envy my land


<yawn>  Only a matter of time before that despicable filth showed up again...



> desire to have it because of it's theoretical value, etc.  Many years later, it becomes a ghost town of sorts, some of the original owners have stayed and endured all the percieved successes and turnovers.


And the land is almost certain to be worth far more because of what the COMMUNITY has done in the meantime, while YOU have done NOTHING WHATEVER to earn that value.

----------


## Roy L

> Yeah, I've heard that myth somewhere before -- "community created"/"provided" wealth.


It's not a myth.  It's an indisputable fact.  Land value is publicly created.  Period.



> Individuals need not apply - but if you're a member of the community,


The members of the community ARE individuals.  Duh.



> you share in the credit for having helped "create" all that wonderful "community created" wealth.  Yeehaw and Coombayah, there's something in it for everybody!


Yep: the right to liberty, restored via a uniform, universal, individual land tax exemption.



> Now if we can just slip past questioning that tenuous reach of logic - that nebulous generality, all that's left is to figure out which community entity is best suited to go and "reclaim" all the wonderful wealth this "corporeal entity" helped to create.


It ain't the Lorax...



> See? Corporations aren't the only ones who can act as a person.  Incorporated communities can get in on the action as well!  The faceless, voiceless, but not-so-nameless blob called "community" now has a voice, and the land has finally found its rightful, long neglected and robbed "real owner".


Yep: everyone, into the indefinite future, who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.

----------


## Roy L

> Not worth it for you personally, perhaps - to debate that minor little trivial point that practically defines feudal society.


It has nothing to do with feudal society.  You're just bloviating.



> Trivial? I think not. Trivial only to you in a "I need to marginalize this" in a personally dismissive kind of way. I'm not a serf to my government.  I don't see myself as a "subject", but a sovereign


Objectively, as a matter of physical fact, you are not a sovereign, as you do not exercise ultimate authority over a specific area of land.



> - regardless how you or the government see otherwise. That is the language of state oppression and the unmitigated cowardice of those collectivists who encourage it.


No, that's just silly "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense. 



> Likewise I do not believe my government should own, control or tax land that is private.


How could land be private?  What happened to the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it?



> Most importantly, I am not a "custodian" of "the state's land" or anything else.  The state doesn't even exist except as a fiction which *I created and brought into being* as one of "We The People").


No, you did not, as a matter of indisputable, objective physical fact.  The state is not a fiction.  That is just a stupid lie.



> The state is the "custodian" -- and an absolutely piss poor one at that, it turns out -- of my individual rights. Not entitlements. Not collectivized anything. Certainly not my land.  Just my individual rights.


If there is any such thing as "your land," the state has already made itself a piss-poor custodian of the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.  That is logically inescapable.



> Will we ever be able to own our homes (INCLUDING the land it is built upon) without paying rent to the government - the ad valorem tax that has no relationship to one's ability to pay?


Land value tax_ never exceeds_ to ability to pay: just let the high bidder use the land, and he will pay it for you. 



> Possibly.  Two words:
> 
> *North Dakota*
> *YESM2.COM*
> 
> _Legendary_, baby.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Will ND follow CA off the Prop 13 cliff?  Maybe.  People are certainly stupid enough to give everything they earn to idle landowners in return for nothing.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

Roy, the problem you have is that you are assuming that everyone is after a profit.
No profit is earned if you don't resell.
I buy land, work it, provide for myself, pass it down to my children.  The only profit is what I create, not others.

Yes, some day, one of my great grandchildren sell it, now prices have gone up, but so has coffee.  That's not my fault, it's inflation that is the e-v-i-l.

----------


## Roy L

> For a man that inhabits his land, it's value is to him is what he has put into it.


No, of course it isn't, stop lying.  He is there for reasons that existed before he arrived, or he wouldn't be there, and those reasons had nothing to do with anything he has put into it since.



> He sees no value from those around him other than what he pays for to enrich himself of their goods or services.


No, that's plainly another lie.  He only has access to the OPPORTUNITY to pay others for those goods and services because of what they have done.  That opportunity to deal with them on favorable terms that he is wiling to pay for is part of what makes his land valuable independently of anything he has done.  And access to that opportunity is what makes the land valuable without his having to lift a finger.



> He considered a a price for a piece of land when he bought it, then he considered his effort to supply himself with his comforts, which are his.


What made him willing to pay that price for the land, hmmmm?  He hadn't put anything into it yet.  Why was it so valuable to him?  Blank out.



> I can see a man invest to build himself and his family a good place to provide for themselves.  Someone envies his land and the land around him, perhaps because he is competition or for some large development.  He does not choose to sell out, so they enrich the environment around him and thrust him from his place through LVT.


Such claims are just absurd.  They would have nothing to gain from such maneuvers.  They would not get to pocket the land's value, they'd just make sure they had to pay even more LVT themselves.  You are talking anti-economic nonsense.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, the problem you have is that you are assuming that everyone is after a profit.


I assume no such thing.  I DO assume that everyone responds to incentives.



> No profit is earned if you don't resell.


No profit is EARNED if you DO resell.



> I buy land, work it, provide for myself, pass it down to my children.  The only profit is what I create, not others.


No, that's indisputably false.  The land has become worth orders of magnitude more TO YOU -- in the convenience of your access to all the services, infrastructure, opportunities and amenities around you -- because of what government and the community have done.



> Yes, some day, one of my great grandchildren sell it, now prices have gone up, but so has coffee.  That's not my fault, it's inflation that is the e-v-i-l.


No, It has nothing to do with inflation, which is far less than land value increases.  Community-created land value increases were noted hundreds of years ago when inflation was effectively zero.  If land only increased in value as fast as inflation, there would be no reason to buy it.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

RoyL is talking in circles.  

When I buy land and use it for my purpose to support myself (and my family), I can't help what others do around me.  You say they provide this and that and opportunities and crap.
So who the f&&& cares.  I pay more because someone else does something? 

Oh, move if you don't like it.  Move my house?  So, I incur an expense or loss because someone else decides to build whatnot around me, bull$#@!!

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Wouldn't it be easier (and more fair) just to have absolutely no taxes on property?


 Two kinds of people in this world: those who just want to be left alone, and those who will not leave them alone.

We can accurately apply that to this situation and say there are two kinds of people in this world: 

* Those who want to tax

* And those who don't

----------


## Roy L

> RoyL is talking in circles.


No, you are refusing to know facts, so I have to identify them for you again.



> When I buy land and use it for my purpose to support myself (and my family), I can't help what others do around me.  You say they provide this and that and opportunities and crap.


Which they indisputably are.  And you are depriving still others of those opportunities, which they would otherwise be at liberty to access.



> So who the f&&& cares.


Everyone who would like to use that land, and can't because you are forcibly excluding them from it.  This is self-evident and indisputable.  You just refuse to know it.



> I pay more because someone else does something?


No, because as a result, YOU ARE TAKING MORE FROM OTHERS.



> Oh, move if you don't like it.  Move my house?


People do move, duh.  People do seek accommodation better suited to their needs and means.  Why can't you, if you can't afford to pay for what you take from others?  Why pretend you can't move?  If a tornado blew your house away and dumped toxic waste on "your" land, you'd move, and you know it.



> So, I incur an expense or loss because someone else decides to build whatnot around me, bull$#@!!


You don't incur any loss.  The expense is the additional value of what you are taking from others.  Why do you think you should not have to pay the market price for what you take home from the grocery store just because you were getting it cheaper before?

----------


## Roy L

> Two kinds of people in this world: those who just want to be left alone, and those who will not leave them alone.


Right: if I want a landowner to leave me alone to use what nature provided for my sustenance, he won't.  He will initiate force against me to deprive me of my right to liberty by forcible, aggressive, violent coercion -- or rather, get government to do it for him, like the greedy, cowardly parasite he is.



> We can accurately apply that to this situation and say there are two kinds of people in this world:


Yep: those who want something for nothing, like landowners, and those who are honest and only want what they have earned, like LVT advocates. 



> * Those who want to tax
> 
> * And those who don't


If you don't want any taxes, go to one of the places where there aren't any, like Somalia.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: in places like that, there's no one to defend you against the kind of people who don't want to leave others alone.

Some people just can't wrap their minds around the fact that we have done the experiments, and the people who have governments win.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Some people just can't wrap their minds around the fact that we have done the experiments, and the people who have governments win.


No, the people pulling the strings of governments win.  The French and American revolutions prove this.  (not to mention the failed attempts by various States to conquer Afghanistan) The citizenry remain slaves to the State (even if cognitive dissonance prevents them from understanding this-like the advocates of LVT and other forms of Statism)

----------


## Roy L

> No, the people pulling the strings of governments win.  The French and American revolutions prove this.  (not to mention the failed attempts by various States to conquer Afghanistan)


LOL!  Who's better off, the people of France or the USA, or the Afghans?



> The citizenry remain slaves to the State (even if cognitive dissonance prevents them from understanding this-like the advocates of LVT and other forms of Statism)


I look around me, and no, that's just nonsense.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Objectively, as a matter of physical fact, you are not a sovereign, as you do not exercise ultimate authority over a specific area of land.


The same could be said for everything you're talking about.  That's one of the big difference between us, Roy. I am fully aware that I am speaking in normatives.  Not what "is", but what I say "ought" to be.  Unlike you, as you take what you think "ought" to be, and speak about it as if it "is".  




> No, that's just silly "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense.


Not silly. Meeza duz.  This version of it (and your version as well) anyway.




> How could land be private?  What happened to the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it?


They don't have any, remember?  See the first made point above - that's you trying stupidly and futility to pass off a normative as a positive.  




> No, you did not, as a matter of indisputable, objective physical fact.  The state is not a fiction.  That is just a stupid lie.


You don't even know what a fiction is, Roy, you're so used to mistaking your own for reality.  




> If there is any such thing as "your land," the state has already made itself a piss-poor custodian of the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.  That is logically inescapable.


See above - there are no "rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it".  That's your goofy fiction that you want made into a reality so badly that you will restate it ad nauseam, as if constant repetition will somehow cement it in place.  




> Land value tax_ never exceeds_ to ability to pay: just let the high bidder use the land, and he will pay it for you.


Pay it "for me"? If I was evicted (FORCIBLY, VIOLENTLY REMOVED) from the land for non-payment of your silly-ass rent, the new landholder would not "pay it for me" - _he would pay it for himself_.  I'd be out of the picture. You know -- given that _the rent exceeded my ability to pay_ - not someone else's.  But you're not speaking from any POV other than the state - so it really doesn't matter to you anyway. You're just a landlord.  So long as someone can pay, your government sensibilities are tingling with joy. 




> Will ND follow CA off the Prop 13 cliff?


No, Prop 13 isn't what is taking California over a cliff. They have far-left liberals in the driver seat to thank for that.  And no, ND won't, because they will actually do the job that Prop 13 didn't go far enough doing.  They will actually *abolish the tax altogether*.  AD VALOREM TAXES PROHIBITED. 

Isn't that a wonderful thought?  Actually being secure on your private land, and not subject to nasty, evil multi-tentacled people who think that perpetual rent payments to the state are a good thing? 




> Maybe.  People are certainly stupid enough to give everything they earn to idle landowners in return for nothing.


OK, that tears it. Just for that I'm going to need first, last, and a whopping security deposit from you, or you can just go find someone else to pay your beloved Measure of Advantage tax to.

----------


## Roy L

> The same could be said for everything you're talking about.


But not accurately.



> That's one of the big difference between us, Roy. I am fully aware that I am speaking in normatives.  Not what "is", but what I say "ought" to be.  Unlike you, as you take what you think "ought" to be, and speak about it as if it "is".


No, I state what is, and what it implies about what ought to be.



> They don't have any, remember?  See the first made point above - that's you trying stupidly and futility to pass off a normative as a positive.


People do have rights of various kinds.  It's a question of which, and why.



> See above - there are no "rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it".


Only in the same vacuous legal sense that slaves had no right to liberty when slavery was legal.



> That's your goofy fiction that you want made into a reality so badly that you will restate it ad nauseam, as if constant repetition will somehow cement it in place.


I'm just accepting your own principle of non-initiation of force, and showing you what it actually implies.



> Pay it "for me"? If I was evicted (FORCIBLY, VIOLENTLY REMOVED) from the land for non-payment of your silly-ass rent,


I just told you: let the high bidder use the land, and you can pay the rent.  



> the new landholder would not "pay it for me"


You can still "hold" the land.  You just can't use it.  If you use it, you have to pay for it.  Funny how that works.



> - _he would pay it for himself_.


And it would be affordable, and right in line with his ability to pay.



> I'd be out of the picture.


And not being charged any tax you could be unable to pay.  Thank you for agreeing that LVT can't exceed ability to pay, and I am therefore right and you are wrong.



> You know -- given that _the rent exceeded my ability to pay_ - not someone else's.


It didn't and couldn't exceed your ability to pay while you held the land, as proved above.  It only exceeded your ability to pay for the land while simultaneously depriving others of it.  But that's not a sign  of the tax being unaffordable.  It's a sign of you living beyond your means.



> But you're not speaking from any POV other than the state - so it really doesn't matter to you anyway. You're just a landlord.  So long as someone can pay, your government sensibilities are tingling with joy.


I am interested in showing how government can work fairly, with liberty, justice and prosperity for all.  You just don't want liberty, justice and prosperity for all.  You want liberty and prosperity for you, at the expense of servitude, injustice and poverty forcibly inflicted on others.



> No, Prop 13 isn't what is taking California over a cliff.


It most certainly is, and it was predicted to do so when Prop 13 passed, more than 30 years ago.  People today are too young to remember what CA was like before Prop 13.  It was prosperous.  It had low unemployment and high wages.  It had good services and infrastructure.  Prop 13 killed CA dead.  Or rather, CA committed suicide when it passed Prop 13.



> They have far-left liberals in the driver seat to thank for that.


Garbage.  CA's government spending as a fraction of state GDP is not out of line.  How is CA different?  That's easy: it recovers a smaller fraction of total land rent than any state but that other proud and prosperous economic dynamo, Louisiana.



> And no, ND won't, because they will actually do the job that Prop 13 didn't go far enough doing.  They will actually *abolish the tax altogether*.  AD VALOREM TAXES PROHIBITED.


And if they do, they will go off the same cliff of welfare subsidy giveaways to landowners as CA, but faster.



> Isn't that a wonderful thought?  Actually being secure on your private land, and not subject to nasty, evil multi-tentacled people who think that perpetual rent payments to the state are a good thing?


You poor fool.  Haven't you learned ANYTHING from CA?  Prop 13 was supposed to prevent a few hundred people a year from being "taxed out of their homes" (i.e., pocketing a huge, unearned and tax-free capital gain courtesy of government and the community, and buying a bigger house in a less exclusive neighborhood).  But the ACTUAL RESULT of Prop 13 is that now instead of a few hundred people a year "losing" (actually selling at a tidy profit) their homes, MILLIONS of people are literally _losing_ their homes, their life savings, and everything else, and being kicked out into the gutter.  People's "security" in their homes is incomparably worse now than it ever was before Prop 13.  The _actual result_ is colossally the exact, diametric opposite of what you claim to want.  Hello?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> You can still "hold" the land.  You just can't use it.  If you use it, you have to pay for it.  Funny how that works.


Isn't it, though? Can't have your cake and eat it under LVT. Guess we'll have to abolish it preemptively. 




> And it would be affordable, and right in line with his ability to pay.


Yes, affordable...to him. Right in line with...HIS...ability to pay.  Not someone else's.  




> And not being charged any tax you could be unable to pay.  Thank you for agreeing that LVT can't exceed ability to pay, and I am therefore right and you are wrong.


Hold your slippery evil tongue there, Roy.  The point at which the ability (FOR ONE PARTICULAR PERSON) to pay is exceeded is the very point where a forced eviction can ensue.  Someone who is out on their ass on the street is no longer being charged, but that doesn't mean their ability to pay wasn't exceeded.  Proof of that: 

1 - You pay $1,000 a month on LVT, but someone bids $1,100.  
2 - You can stay, but only if you pay $1,100, because your bidding opponent will pay it otherwise.  
3 - You do not have $1,100 to pay. You only have $1,000, so you are forcibly removed. (no "let" or "allow someone else" to it, to satisfy your we-should-all-be-ho-so-so-pleased sensibilities.  All force)  
4 - Your ass is now on the street, but you still have $1,000 that you aren't being charged.  What do you want? The land Roy's useful idiots just brute-forced you out of.  However, the value for that land _now exceeds your ability to pay_.

Why does simple, fundamental $#@! like this escape your pretzeled brain, Roy? Pretty sure that's deliberate on your part.  




> It didn't and couldn't exceed your ability to pay while you held the land, as proved above.


As proved otherwise (while showing your bare-assed naked stupidity in the process), it did -- as ADMITTED by your very next ass-revealing statement:




> It only exceeded your ability to pay for the land while simultaneously depriving others of it.


See? It did exceed the ability to pay. Out of your own words, regardless of conditions you place on it that don't make it otherwise.  I don't care what was simultaneously going on with others.  By whatever mechanism, the price was raised, and the state issued a "PAY MORE OR GET THE $#@! OUT" order. 




> But that's not a sign  of the tax being unaffordable.  It's a sign of you living beyond your means.


Bald faced lie, Roy. Bald faced.  Or genuinely stupid - a sign of no critical thinking skills.  You don't know and cannot predict or judge the circumstances that make one price affordable some but not to others (not that you care, being a collectivist parasite and all).  That's where your callous, evil, unthinking stupidity comes into play.  Someone could have faced a hardship that was beyond their control.  Perhaps BUMBLING, STUMBLING, UNTHINKING ROY L. accidentally set fire to his business, and then disappeared to go pollute another community and business with his pyromaniacal ideas.  A large portion of wealth is wiped out by Roy's bugger-picking stupidity, but the landholder is hanging on, albeit by a thread.  Until Roy L.'s ugly but smarter and far more successful sister shows up, and lays down a bid of her own on the land.   

Snip all your nonsense about CA and Prop 13. I would rebut it, but this thread is already inflated with too much of your nonsense already.

----------


## Roy L

> Isn't it, though? Can't have your cake and eat it under LVT. Guess we'll have to abolish it preemptively.


I know you want to have your cake and eat it.  You don't care that that means others can neither have nor eat theirs.

The current system requires the productive to pay for government TWICE so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.  LVT eliminates that something-for-nothing payment to the landowner, ensuring that everyone pays only once for what they take from society.  You just want to take from society without paying for what you take, and to accomplish that you want to force, repeat, FORCE the productive to pay twice for what they take.

You demand to have your cake and eat it, too.  Simple.



> Yes, affordable...to him. Right in line with...HIS...ability to pay.  Not someone else's.


Because he now holds the land that the tax liability comes from.  Duh.



> Hold your slippery evil tongue there, Roy.


<yawn>  The evil always accuse the virtuous of the very sins of which they are themselves most guilty.



> The point at which the ability (FOR ONE PARTICULAR PERSON) to pay is exceeded is the very point where a forced eviction can ensue.


Nonsense.  A forced eviction can ensue any time someone forcibly excludes others from land they don't pay for.  Whether they are ABLE to pay is a different question from whether they DO pay.



> Someone who is out on their ass on the street


What would stop them from using their individual exemption to obtain accommodation better suited to their needs and means, as honest, responsible, mature adults do every day?  Certainly greedy, whiny, lying, infantile sociopaths might not do that, but I'm not much interested in advocating a society designed to accommodate the whims of greedy, whiny, lying, infantile sociopaths at the expense of honest, responsible, mature adults.



> is no longer being charged, but that doesn't mean their ability to pay wasn't exceeded.


It means their ability to pay ISN'T exceeded.  That is exactly the free market allocation mechanism whereby LVT is always affordable, and never exceeds the landholder's ability to pay.  You are just crying like a spoiled little girl -- or is it like a greedy, whiny, lying, infantile sociopath? -- because you want to eat cake  from the grocery store that you are not willing to pay for.



> Proof of that: 
> 
> 1 - You pay $1,000 a month on LVT, but someone bids $1,100.  
> 2 - You can stay, but only if you pay $1,100, because your bidding opponent will pay it otherwise.  
> 3 - You do not have $1,100 to pay. You only have $1,000, so you are forcibly removed. (no "let" or "allow someone else" to it, to satisfy your we-should-all-be-ho-so-so-pleased sensibilities.  All force)


There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force.  Market allocation of land tenure through LVT at least places that force under predictable, objective, efficient and accountable control.



> 4 - Your ass is now on the street,


Nonsense.  You just move to accommodation better suited to your needs and means, as people who are not greedy, whiny, lying, infantile sociopaths do every day.



> but you still have $1,000 that you aren't being charged.  What do you want? The land Roy's useful idiots just brute-forced you out of.


No more than you were brute-forcing everyone else out of it.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right, I forgot: it's only brute force when government does it to you, not when you do it to everyone else...



> However, the value for that land _now exceeds your ability to pay_.


??  Of course you can't forcibly exclude others from all the good land you want without paying for it.  Don't be absurd.  That doesn't mean LVT exceeds ability to pay.  It just means you aren't WILLING to pay as much as control of the land makes you ABLE to pay.

You are just sniveling because under LVT you can't take everything you want without paying for it.



> Why does simple, fundamental $#@! like this escape your pretzeled brain, Roy? Pretty sure that's deliberate on your part.


Are you serious?  The really simple, fundamental $#!+ that escapes _your_ pretzeled brain is that LVT only charges you for the land you _are_ excluding others from, not all the land you _wish_ you could afford to exclude others from.



> As proved otherwise (while showing your bare-assed naked stupidity in the process), it did -- as ADMITTED by your very next ass-revealing statement:
> 
> _"It only exceeded your ability to pay for the land while simultaneously depriving others of it."_


Oh, stop prevaricating.  I never said LVT couldn't exceed the value you wanted to take from others and not pay for.  I said it couldn't exceed the value you _took_.  *THAT* value is what confers the _ability_ to pay.  Not the _WILLINGNESS_, which is what you are whining about.



> See? It did exceed the ability to pay.


No, that's a flat-out lie.  You still have the ability to pay it.  Same as if you take home a cake from the grocery store, bought on credit.  If you have the cake, you have the ability to pay for it, because (in principle) you can always just sell it to someone else who likes the same kind of cake in order to pay the store.  What you want to do is _eat_ the cake, and then claim that the grocery store is charging you more than you are able to pay, because you can no longer sell it to someone else in order to pay the store for it.  The stupidity and dishonesty of such an "argument" stagger the imagination.



> Out of your own words, regardless of conditions you place on it that don't make it otherwise.


Ah, no, the conditions very much DO make it otherwise, as proved above.  Control of the land automatically confers ability to pay for it.  Full stop.  It just may not confer WILLINGNESS to pay for it by allowing a more productive user to have the use of it.



> I don't care what was simultaneously going on with others.


IOW, you want to have it both ways.  Sorry, that's just blatantly fallacious.

You don't want to sell the cake you took, or pay the market price for it, but you do want to eat it.  Simple.



> By whatever mechanism, the price was raised, and the state issued a "PAY MORE OR GET THE $#@! OUT" order.


"PAY FOR THE CAKE YOU TOOK, OR SELL IT TO SOMEONE WHO WILL, OR GIVE IT BACK."

Right.



> Bald faced lie, Roy. Bald faced.


No, that's just another stupid, evil lie from you, as proved above.



> Or genuinely stupid - a sign of no critical thinking skills.


As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"



> You don't know and cannot predict or judge the circumstances that make one price affordable some but not to others


The individual's "circumstances" are irrelevant to the _market_ conditions: the store's cakes are known to be affordable, because it sells them at the market price.  And if you take one home, it is known that you are _able to pay for it_ because you can get the same price for it from someone else.  If you don't want to pay for the cake you took home, or sell it, then DON'T EAT IT.  Just give it back.  But don't eat it and then claim the store is charging you more for it than you can afford to pay.



> (not that you care, being a collectivist parasite and all).


The landowner is the parasite, as already proved.  



> That's where your callous, evil, unthinking stupidity comes into play.


Mirror time again.  I'm not the one whose belief system condemns millions of innocent people to agonizing death every year.  You are.



> Someone could have faced a hardship that was beyond their control.


The land they hold is not beyond their control.



> Perhaps BUMBLING, STUMBLING, UNTHINKING ROY L. accidentally set fire to his business, and then disappeared to go pollute another community and business with his pyromaniacal ideas.  A large portion of wealth is wiped out by Roy's bugger-picking stupidity, but the landholder is hanging on, albeit by a thread.  Until Roy L.'s ugly but smarter and far more successful sister shows up, and lays down a bid of her own on the land.


Were you under an erroneous impression that that spew of dishonest shrieking meant something?



> Snip all your nonsense about CA and Prop 13. I would rebut it, but this thread is already inflated with too much of your nonsense already.


You can't rebut it.  Every day in every way since Prop 13 passed, CA gets worse and worse.

----------


## JohnLVT

> If you don't want any taxes, go to one of the places where there aren't any, like Somalia.
> 
> Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: in places like that, there's no one to defend you against the kind of people who don't want to leave others alone.



_People sleep peaceably in their beds at 
night only because rough men stand 
ready to do violence on their behalf. 
_- George Orwell

----------


## eduardo89

> You can't rebut it.  Every day in every way since Prop 13 passed, CA gets worse and worse.


So if they just had the ability to raise taxes everything would be fine?

----------


## Roy L

> So if they just had the ability to raise taxes everything would be fine?


If CA recovered publicly created land value for public purposes and benefit instead of giving it away to landowners, most things would be a lot better (LVT admittedly wouldn't stop the evil and insane War on Drugs, or other problems that are unrelated to land and taxation).

----------


## eduardo89

> If CA recovered publicly created land value for public purposes and benefit instead of giving it away to landowners, most things would be a lot better (LVT admittedly wouldn't stop the evil and insane War on Drugs, or other problems that are unrelated to land and taxation).


Why not just cut spending and privatize many state functions? That makes more sense to me than increase taxes.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Why not just cut spending and privatize many state functions? That makes more sense to me than increase taxes.


 Because then you can't get even with the "evil" rent-seekers by taking their money and handing it too "the poor"-all necessary in Roy L's utopian fantasy land.

----------


## Roy L

> Why not just cut spending and privatize many state functions?


Because private interests cannot perform most of those functions as efficiently as the state.



> That makes more sense to me than increase taxes.


LVT is not a tax increase.  It replaces unjust and destructive taxes that confiscate privately created value with a just and beneficial tax that recovers publicly created value for public purposes and benefit.  By solving the economic problems caused by those unjust and destructive taxes, it would allow a great reduction in total government spending.  The more government subsidizes landowning, the more social problems it creates, and the more it will spend futilely trying to solve them.  You just don't understand that by refusing to consider liberty and justice, you guarantee government has to get bigger.

----------


## flynn

Watch this.

spikednationdotcom/evideo/epa-will-$#@!-you

You don't need LVT.

----------


## eduardo89

> Because private interests cannot perform most of those functions as efficiently as the state.


Oh wow, I never thought your posts could reach this level of stupidity. 

Proposal:

Privatize/turn over to local government virtually all state government functions
Levy user fees on remaining services
Abolish taxes

----------


## Roy L

> Because then you can't get even with the "evil" rent-seekers by taking their money


Rent is money (actually wealth) the rent seekers have stolen from the productive with government's help.  Government should take that money back instead of stealing even more from the productive in taxes.



> and handing it too "the poor"-all necessary in Roy L's utopian fantasy land.


No, you're just lying again about what I have plainly written.  I have never advocated giving money to the poor.  I advocate restoring EVERYONE'S EQUAL individual rights to liberty by EXEMPTING EVERYONE EQUALLY from paying LVT on enough good land for a normal person to live on.  Some geoists advocate an equal, universal citizens' dividend (*not* payments only to the poor) funded by LVT, but I am not one of them.

----------


## Roy L

> Oh wow, I never thought your posts could reach this level of stupidity.


You just don't know anything about market failures or the economics of public goods.



> Proposal:
> 
> Privatize/turn over to local government virtually all state government functions
> Levy user fees on remaining services
> Abolish taxes


Silliness.  Google "public goods" and start reading.

----------


## eduardo89

> You just don't know anything about market failures or the economics of public goods.
> 
> Silliness.  Google "public goods" and start reading.


Socks can be public goods.

----------


## Roy L

> Socks can be public goods.


Windsocks, maybe...

----------


## eduardo89

> Windsocks, maybe...


No, I mean the garment




> First, there is a health ques- tion. People who do not wear socks are liable to colds, sore feet, blisters, and possibly pneumonia. And sickness means lost days of work and lost production; it means possible contagion (as in the diphtheria case); it may result in rising doctor bills and increased health insurance premiums for other policyholders. Increased demand for doctors' time and energy will result in reduced medical attention for others. There is, in addition, an aesthetic problem: many people take umbrage at socklessness. Restaurants often forbid bare feet, presumably in the interests of retaining their more sensitive customers. Not wearing socks is also interpreted by some as a disturbing political statement, like flag or draft-card burning. Many mothers-a third party, if ever there was one-rejoice when their "hip" sons f d l y don footwear. That benefits of sock-wearing "spill over" to these mothers cannot be denied.
> 
> http://direct.mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_1.pdf

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> No, you're just lying again about what I have plainly written.  I have never advocated giving money to the poor.  I advocate restoring EVERYONE'S EQUAL individual rights to liberty by EXEMPTING EVERYONE EQUALLY from paying LVT on enough good land for a normal person to live on.  Some geoists advocate an equal, universal citizens' dividend (*not* payments only to the poor) funded by LVT, but I am not one of them.


Except your claim that everyone has an equal claim to property is a figment of your (and other geoists') imagination.  How does one determine "enough good land for a normal person to live on".  "Good" is subjective, as is "enough".  The whole system you want is completely arbitrary and illogical.  Let the ancient, backward places in the world like Hong Kong have your LVT.  I prefer freedom.

----------


## Roy L

> Except your claim that everyone has an equal claim to property


I made no such claim, stop lying.  Everyone has an equal right to _liberty_.



> is a figment of your (and other geoists') imagination.  How does one determine "enough good land for a normal person to live on".


Statistically, by looking at how much land, by value, people actually use.



> "Good" is subjective, as is "enough".


Nope.  Good is measured by value, and so is enough.



> The whole system you want is completely arbitrary and illogical.


No, it makes perfect economic and moral sense, and has consequently been advocated by some of the most brilliant economists and philosophers who ever lived.  You are not one of them, and are not qualified to have an opinion on the subject.



> Let the ancient, backward places in the world like Hong Kong


??  ROTFL!!  You again disqualify yourself from economic discussion.



> have your LVT.  I prefer freedom.


HK routinely tops lists of the world's freest economies.

----------


## Roy L

> No, I mean the garment
> 
> First, there is a health ques- tion. People who do not wear socks are liable to colds, sore feet, blisters, and possibly pneumonia. And sickness means lost days of work and lost production; it means possible contagion (as in the diphtheria case); it may result in rising doctor bills and increased health insurance premiums for other policyholders. Increased demand for doctors' time and energy will result in reduced medical attention for others. There is, in addition, an aesthetic problem: many people take umbrage at socklessness. Restaurants often forbid bare feet, presumably in the interests of retaining their more sensitive customers. Not wearing socks is also interpreted by some as a disturbing political statement, like flag or draft-card burning. Many mothers-a third party, if ever there was one-rejoice when their "hip" sons f d l y don footwear. That benefits of sock-wearing "spill over" to these mothers cannot be denied.
> 
> http://direct.mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_1.pdf


What a load of stupid, irrelevant, anti-economic garbage.  Rivalrous.  Excludable.  Learn them or continue to talk nonsense on the subject permanently.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> What a load of stupid, irrelevant, anti-economic garbage.  Rivalrous.  Excludable.  Learn them or continue to talk nonsense on the subject permanently.


In other words, you have no legitimate response. So you instead respond with your version of:

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You are not one of them, and are not qualified to have an opinion on the subject.


Neither are you.  Does this mean you are going to admit that you aren't qualified to have an opinion and stop posting about this?



> Nope. Good is measured by value, and so is enough


LMFAO!!!  So, you think you've solved an issue that has kept philosophers and ethicists completely divided for thousands of years this way?  Value itself is subjective and clearly isn't enough.  You don't even have an objective definition of "value" yet.  Is it what markets determine?  What States determine?  Utility?  Labor?  I asked you to start thinking earlier several times, Roy.  Please TRY it before responding again.

----------


## Roy L

> In other words, you have no legitimate response.


There was nothing to respond to.  The quoted passage was pretending to talk about public goods, but clearly had no idea what they are.

----------


## Roy L

> Neither are you.  Does this mean you are going to admit that you aren't qualified to have an opinion and stop posting about this?


Unlike you, I have done the reading, and know the relevant economics.



> So, you think you've solved an issue that has kept philosophers and ethicists completely divided for thousands of years this way?


What issue would that be?  (Prediction: you will equivocate)



> Value itself is subjective and clearly isn't enough.


Value is not subjective.  That's anti-economic rubbish.  Value is what an item can be exchanged for in the market.  As that requires at least two opinions, it cannot be subjective by definition.  The Austrian School's subjective theory of value is simply anti-economic rubbish.



> You don't even have an objective definition of "value" yet.


Value is not objective either, and I have told you the definition many times.  See above.



> Is it what markets determine?


Yep.



> What States determine?  Utility?  Labor?


Nope.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I know you want to have your cake and eat it.  You don't care that that means others can neither have nor eat theirs.


Well, you don't deserve any cake, that's for sure.  Not until you stop advocating cake theft. 




> The current system requires the productive to pay for government TWICE so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.


Twisted, convoluted failed logic, but if it's any consolation, there shouldn't have been a ONCE to any of that.  It's not an either/or proposition for me. No compulsory income tax, no confiscatory property tax.  And certainly no LVT.  Perish that evil thought.  None of them are necessary.  




> LVT eliminates that something-for-nothing payment to the landowner, ensuring that *everyone pays only once for what they take* from society.


*NASTY FILTHY LIE*.  That's the nature of rent payments, Roy: they almost always go up, and they never go away.  You pay and pay - the payments ALWAYS come due, and nothing is every truly "PAID IN FULL".   It has no relation on ANYTHING you might receive in return - that's always presumed. 




> You just want to take from society without paying for what you take, and to accomplish that you want to force, repeat, FORCE the productive to pay twice for what they take.


*ANOTHER NASTY FILTHY LIE*.  I want the income tax (ALL tax on labor, including hidden taxes from currency debasement) ABOLISHED.  

You are the ONLY one between us that wants to force a choice between what I see as two completely foul and unnecessary taxes. Cause yousa lubbsa gubmint. 




> You demand to have your cake and eat it, too.  Simple.


Yes. It's that simple.  Keep and be secure in what you own, including land. No thieves, even collectivist thieves (the worst kind of al) need apply.  




> Because he now holds the land that the tax liability comes from.  Duh.


Yes, you idiot, but we weren't talking about him. We were talking about the one who was thrown off the land. 




> <yawn>  The evil always accuse the virtuous of the very sins of which they are themselves most guilty.


Do you assume that you are virtuous, and did you make yourself an exception to the two-edged sword rule?  




> Nonsense.  A forced eviction can ensue any time someone forcibly excludes others from land they don't pay for.  Whether they are ABLE to pay is a different question from whether they DO pay.


Moron. We are only talking about ability to pay. Not willingness. 




> What would stop them from using their individual exemption to obtain accommodation better suited to their needs and means, as honest, responsible, mature adults do every day?


Oh, I don't know - perhaps the fact that such an individual exemption does not yet exist, and the amount of which fiction has not yet been determined by anyone in power?  We don't have any way of knowing what, if anything, the VALUE of such an exemption - IF IT WAS DECIDED UPON, WHICH IT HAS NOT - would cover.  

Get out of fantasy-land, Roy. You're talking in completely irrelevant hypothetical fictions, with no basis in reality.  Under property taxes, the elderly and disabled are often given "exemptions" which only amount to a _small discount_.  So we do have that to go on, at least.  




> It means their ability to pay ISN'T exceeded.  That is exactly the free market allocation mechanism whereby LVT is always affordable, and never exceeds the landholder's ability to pay.


Well, of course, because by definition, anyone whose ass was forcibly removed from land for their inability to pay is no longer the "landholder", while those who took their places only did so because THEY had the ability to pay.  Freakishly dishonest of you, Roy.  Nasty, nasty stuff. 




> You are just crying like a spoiled little girl -- or is it like a greedy, whiny, lying, infantile sociopath? -- because you want to eat cake  from the grocery store that you are not willing to pay for.


No, it's not a grocery store, Roy.  With a grocery store, you pay for what you can afford, and you actually own (and make dispose of as you please) whatever it is you PAY for.  The state perpetually renting out land that it never created, based on highest bidders only, with no actual "sale" allowed, is nothing but a case of THEFT. A total scam.  




> There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force.


When the state forcibly removes someone from land for non-payment of a PERPETUAL RENT TAX is only defending ITS claim to that rent. Not someone else's "rights" to that property, but rather someone's privilege to occupy that property based solely on their ability to pay (THE STATE).  The state doesn't give two $#@!s about who pays the rent, so long as the highest bidder is yielded to at all times.  

Well done, Deng Xiao Ping - you don't care if it's a white cat or a black cat, so long as it catches mice (FOR THE STATE).  




> Nonsense.  You just move to accommodation better suited to your needs and means, as people who are not greedy, whiny, lying, infantile sociopaths do every day.


Hey, state-favoring sociopath, you're making the present-day landlord's argument. 




> Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right, I forgot: it's only brute force when government does it to you, not when you do it to everyone else...


Everyone else doesn't have a claim, or right of liberty as you would like to see it recognized.  All zombies must hang. 




> ??  Of course you can't forcibly exclude others from all the good land you want without paying for it.


There's no such thing as "paying for it" under an LVT. All you can do is pay a "use privilege rent". Perpetually.  Nothing is ever paid in full. 




> That doesn't mean LVT exceeds ability to pay.  It just means you aren't WILLING to pay as much as control of the land makes you ABLE to pay.


Some aren't WILLING.  Others become INCAPABLE. Without regard to "willingness".  Any non-sociopathic human being with a soul (as well as every True Scotsman) understands that. 




> You are just sniveling because under LVT you can't take everything you want without paying for it.


No, Roy, I'm tired of you sniveling on behalf of the state for trying to take ALL LAND and rent it out to everyone without paying for it.   




> Oh, stop prevaricating.  I never said LVT couldn't exceed the value you wanted to take from others and not pay for.  I said it couldn't exceed the value you _took_.


That's your bull$#@! house of cards premises at work --- that land is not "ownable", that somehow infrastructure isn't fully PAID FOR as services are rendered and payments come due, along with the fiction of "community created value" that makes the state the corporate monopoly owner of a land rental taxing scam.  Nobody PAID FOR the land originally.  Even if you're not religious, you can say that "Earth" provided land, just as it "provided" us, just as the Big Bang provided both.   

And you don't speak on behalf of Earth.  




> *THAT* value is what confers the _ability_ to pay.  Not the _WILLINGNESS_, which is what you are whining about.


Another of your convoluted idiocies at work, proving that you lack critical thinking skills.  The VALUE of the land does not automatically confer an "ability to [exchange value for something else] pay".  Could you be more daft?  The "ability to pay", assuming any payment is even due ANYONE, can come from the land (i.e., plant a farm, sell a crop - dig a mine, sell some ore), but that same ability to pay, whatever it is, can also originate EXTERNALLY from that land.  

It is absolute blithering idiocy to suggest that land AUTOMATICALLY CONFERS "the ability to pay".  




> You still have the ability to pay it.  Same as if you take home a cake from the grocery store, bought on credit.  If you have the cake, you have the ability to pay for it, because (in principle) you can always just sell it to someone else who likes the same kind of cake in order to pay the store.


Again with the blithering lunacy, which assumes (in principle) that finding another buyer for something you want is the same thing as having the ability to pay.  NO, YOU BLITHERING MORON - all you have done is found SOMEONE ELSE who has the ability to pay. THEY PAY, THEY EAT. You aren't part of the picture any more.   

It really takes an insanely collectivist mindset to lack the ability to distinguish between your ability to pay and someone else's.  You conflate the two because you're an idiot collectivist with no concept of the individual!  If I can find someone with the ability to pay, somehow that means that I had the ability to pay!  That's some kind of goof-stupid logic you have going there. 




> What you want to do is _eat_ the cake, and then claim that the grocery store is charging you more than you are able to pay, because you can no longer sell it to someone else in order to pay the store for it.  The stupidity and dishonesty of such an "argument" stagger the imagination.


Again, proof of absolute idiocy.   I'm hungry, so I go to the store. According to you there's no problem, as I have the ability to pay for EVERYTHING in the store. Why? Because (in principle, says you), I can always find someone ELSE who able and willing to pay for it all.   Of course, they would be the ones eating, and that little zero-sum cancel-me-out game has ZERO to with what I personally have the ability to pay. But not to you.  You honestly think that is the same as MY ability to pay.   Moron, your bus is leaving...

And again you repeat your absolute stupidity when you say:




> Control of the land automatically confers ability to pay for it.


Proved otherwise above.  You are certifiable based on that statement alone. A special ed needs child all the way, completely disconnected from reality.

----------


## JohnLVT

> *Roy L..*
> LVT eliminates that something-for-nothing payment to the landowner, _ensuring that everyone pays only once for what they take from society._
> 
> 
> NASTY FILTHY LIE. That's the nature of rent payments,


Roy is 100% correct.  We pay twice for many things as this clearly shows.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4267046




> *Roy L..*
> You just want to take from society without paying for what you take, and to accomplish that you want to force, repeat, FORCE the productive to pay twice for what they take.
> 			
> 		
> 
> ANOTHER NASTY FILTHY LIE. I want the income tax (ALL tax on labor, including hidden taxes from currency debasement) ABOLISHED.


The Single Tax with LVT as its core does exactly that. That is what Roy L is advocating.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Roy is 100% correct.  We pay twice for many things as this clearly shows.


No, we pay MANY more times than twice. From compulsory, confiscatory revenue streams that should never have existed even ONCE.  If the tax isn't 100% voluntary, it is 100% theft. 




> The Single Tax with LVT as its core does exactly that. That is what Roy L is advocating.


The "Single Tax" with LVT is a way of socializing EVERYTHING - _including wages._ It's easy in such a regime to milk wages - you can do it with zoning laws alone.  Increase the artificial scarcity of available land, and watch the property values increase, and the wages as they get coughed up. 

Even if the decision was made to do away with other taxes, it's only a tax shift to the ONE TAX over which you have ZERO CONTROL.  If income goes done, so does your income tax. That's not an argument for income taxes, which should never have existed - only showing its superiority over LVT.  If spending goes down, so do your sales taxes.  But the ad valorem tax is different.  It's not based on you, and does not give a rat $#@! about your condition or your ability to pay.  You are NEVER SECURE.  You are on a taxation treadmill over which you have no control FOREVER. 

Of course, if you're Roy L., you'll see total individual control - because you can move to $#@!tier land - _if'n it's available_.  You can apply your "LVT EXEMPTION" too - if'n there is one, and it's worth anything at all.   

Ah, but once land is socialized, what happens then?  Economic Development Zones, _naturally_.  LVT abatements for the well-healed and well connected - subsidies, corporate welfare (to attract business to the community, natch).  Until half the population isn't paying the tax anyway (like what they're fighting now in North Dakota), and it's all heaped onto the backs of those who NEVER get abatements or special favors - but still have to cough up their WAGES to pay RENT on SOCIALIZED LAND. 




> "But the people of India are untouched.
> Their politics are confined to bread and salt.
> Illiterate they may be, but they're not blind. 
> They see no reason to give their loyalty to
> rich and powerful men who simply want to take
> over the role of the [LANDLORDS] in the name of 'freedom.'"
> - Gandhi 1982


Just substituted "Landlords" for "British". It works.

Friggin socialist scammers, breathing other people's perfectly good air.  Air we all would otherwise be at liberty to breathe if they did not exist.

----------


## JohnLVT

> No, we pay MANY more times than twice.


Thanks.It is even worse. With LVT we only pay once.




> The "Single Tax" with LVT is a way of socializing EVERYTHING - _including wages._


That is strange. Wages are the result of CAPITAL. LVT reclaims the wealth that soaked into the LAND.  LAND & CAPITAL are two separate factors of production.

Reagan & Thatcher rigged wages (CAPITAL) and hence the free-market.  Why we are in the situation we are in now, as the create demand as wages were suppressed they liberalized credit and and Tom, Dick or Harry could get into heavy debt.  The debt was poured into tax free LAND. This animation shows it....


Here is an assessment of what caused the Credit Crunch. David Harvey is at NY uni.  He happens to be a Marxist, but do not not allow that to cloud your viewing.  He is just stating facts of how the crises came about.  He said at the end he doesn't have a solution, so no Marxist theories are being put forward. BTW, most of Marx writing were about the failures of Capitalism, which were pretty spot on.  Marx conclusion on how to solve the problem was off-mark.  He locked horns with henry George over the Single Tax on grappling with a solution. 

One thing stands out.  The free-market was rigged by Reagan and Thatcher, in LABOR, who also off-shored manufacturing to China. Then to spark the economy, because labor costs were driven down, they dreamt up credit for all.  Then kaboooooom!








> Even if the decision was made to do away with other taxes, it's only a tax shift to the ONE TAX over which you have ZERO CONTROL.  If income goes done, so does your income tax.


The state control is the percentage rate they set the LVT at.  After that it is self-regulating.  If the economy drops so does your LVT.  If the district you live in drops in value for whatever reason so does the LVT.

You can move to an internal tax haven by moving to a lower LVT town or district - that doers not mean poorer quality district. If you want to live in the boonies, your LVT will be pennies as the land is not worth much at all. It scales up and down naturally for all. 

Land is not socialized under LVT.  If it was it would be leased out as in Hong Kong.  LVT caters for private ownership - all stays the same.  


Martin Wolf, Chief Economist of the Financial Times....

_"Even if the state owned all land, it could auction its use (like the spectrum). Again, this is a perfectly adequate price discovery mechanism. It could then lease the land for long periods and renew the leases, again at auction. All these are perfectly valid price-setting mechanisms."_
_"leaseholds can always be resold in the market, too."_

LVT fits into any political ism.  Take your pick.

----------


## JohnLVT

> Air we all would otherwise be at liberty to breathe if they did not exist.


Air, provided by nature and not man, is not charged for.  So why are we charge for using land?  Land is another aspect provided free by nature and not man.  By men charge us for using land.  How perverse.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Air, provided by nature and not man, is not charged for.  So why are we charge for using land?


I agree. Stop advocating it at once.

----------


## eduardo89

> Air, provided by nature and not man, is not charged for.  So why are we charge for using land?  Land is another aspect provided free by nature and not man.  By men charge us for using land.  How perverse.


I agree, no one should have to pay to continue to own their land. Abolish ALL property taxes, that includes LVT.

Either that or be philosophically consistent and advocate an AVT (air value tax).

----------


## JohnLVT

> I agree, no one should have to pay to continue to own their land.  Abolish ALL property taxes, that includes LVT.


LVT does not charge you owning your land. You pay once and only once for the land. LVT reclaims community created wealth that soaked into the land. The wealth in the land is NOT the landowners.   You have difficulty with is - just accept it for now.

LVT is liberating.

----------


## JohnLVT

> I agree. Stop advocating it at once.


So no land ownership and renting it out then. That is what you want?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> So no land ownership and renting it out then. That is what you want?


No, that's what you want, and to which you would pledge socialist parasitic allegiance: 

One nation, under LVT, indivisible, with zero landownership and perpetual rents for all.

----------


## mczerone

> I agree, no one should have to pay to continue to own their land. Abolish ALL property taxes, that includes LVT.
> 
> Either that or be philosophically consistent and advocate an AVT (air value tax).


Don't forget the SVT, WVT, and CVT (Sun, Water, Carbon, respectively).

----------


## JohnLVT

> Don't forget the SVT, WVT, and CVT (Sun, Water, Carbon, respectively).


We allow private individuals to own land and charge others for using it. That is fact, that does happen. Slavery without using shackles.

----------


## eduardo89

> We allow private individuals to own land and charge others for using it. That is fact, that does happen. Slavery without using shackles.


So you're against hotels?

----------


## JohnLVT

> No, that's what you want,


I do not.  I want imposing LVT on "all" land and leave ownership alone. But subject land to monopoly commissions etc.

----------


## eduardo89

> I do not.  I want imposing LVT on "all" land and leave ownership alone. But subject land to monopoly commissions etc.


Let's face it. You want government control. Plain and simple.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> We allow private individuals to own land and charge others for using it. That is fact, that does happen. Slavery without using shackles.


Yeah, so envy that model to the point where we add those shackles, by locking everyone onto a plantation wherever they go, letting the state be the only slave-owner. 

What is it with people who think that the solution to an evil is more of the same evil, or worse yet, state control of that evil?

----------


## JohnLVT

> So you're against hotels?


The "guests" stay inside the capital, the building. The guests do not permanently live in the hotel.

----------


## JohnLVT

> Let's face it. You want government control. Plain and simple.


You are a very confused person.  Read back on all my posts. Get this greedy, me, me, me, out your head.

----------


## eduardo89

> You are a very confused person.  Read back on all my posts. Get this greedy, me, me, me, out your head.


What's more greedy: me wanting to pay for myself and opposing the government stealing from others to pay for me, or you who wants the government to steal from people at gunpoint unless they pay for other?

----------


## JohnLVT

> Yeah, so envy


Some people did envy slave owners.  For sure.




> that model to the point where we add those shackles, by locking everyone onto a plantation wherever they go, letting the state be the only slave-owner.



LVT liberates the slaves.

----------


## eduardo89

> LVT liberates the slaves.


No it doesn't, it simply makes us slaves to the state in a different manner.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No it doesn't, it simply makes us slaves to the state in a different manner.


Yep - much worse, and in the absolute.   You can avoid slavery (to an extent in today's upside down entitlement world of parasites) by owning land and avoiding holding fiat currency.   With LVT all land is spoken for by the state.  There is no rest for the weary, no security for anyone, not once the hungry hungry hippo parasite has a main line to the main artery of absolutely every individual from which to suckle -- as everybody "reclaims wealth they created" (as part of the cum-myun-it-tee) from everybody else. 

Oh, when will these nutbags buy a clue?

----------


## JohnLVT

> Yep - much worse, and in the absolute.   You can avoid slavery (to an extent in today's upside down entitlement world of parasites) by owning land


If you rent it out you are akin to a slaver.  As to parasites:
Martin Wolf Chief economist for the Financial Times:

_"throughout history, the main source of wealth was land-ownership. The_ *parasitic landowner* _became wealthy on the efforts of others - peasants, tenants and even developers. Sometimes the parasite was also a farmer or developer, but that does not change the fact that these are two distinct economic roles. The parasite built fine castles and palaces and often sponsored music and culture. But he was still a parasite."
_

----------


## RubySold

Isn't this bordering on Communism, where the government essentially own your land and take it off you if you don't cough up the cash?  The Chinese have the 100 year lease; this is one step closer to that.

----------


## JohnLVT

> Isn't this bordering on Communism, where the government essentially own your land and take it off you if you don't cough up the cash?  The Chinese have the 100 year lease; this is one step closer to that.


Read the thread from the beginning. All is there. The gvmt does not own your land.  It does in Hong Kong where they lease the land, payable per year, dropping income tax creating a dynamic economy - created by the British. Hong Kong built a full underground metro not using income tax, only land taxes.  Taiwan and Singapore use LVT.  Taiwan was catapulted in one generation from a rural backwater to a world, dynamic, technological, power.

LVT is a levy on the value on "all" land. Ownerships is irrelevant.  LVT reclaims community created wealth.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Isn't this bordering on Communism, where the government essentially own your land and take it off you if you don't cough up the cash?  The Chinese have the 100 year lease; this is one step closer to that.


It is a very much a form of communism - a complete redistribution of wealth. The state (government at whatever level) owns all land, and charges rent for the privilege of using "its land".  It's that simple.  

Geoists/Georgists/geolibs attempt describe it using different terms, in the hopes of making self-reinforcing paradigm shifting arguments (e.g., "The state doesn't own the land because land is unownable. The state only administers and controls it" or, "It's not a 'tax', it's only 'reclaiming' value that the community provided!").  

All completely irrelevant, except as ways of promoting their arguments.  The net effect is absolutely no different than if the state came right out and declared that it OWNED all land in perpetuity and forever charged RENT for the privilege of using it, based on whatever formulae were adopted to administer the ad valorem ("based on value only") tax.

----------


## eduardo89

LOL! Steven did you see John/Roy's other thread? Not only does he want the governmental steal all your land but he also wants to ban guns!

----------


## JohnLVT

> LOL! Steven did you see John/Roy's other thread? Not only does he want the governmental steal all your land but he also wants to ban guns!


Steal your land?  Such a vivid imagination.

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## Steven Douglas

> LOL! Steven did you see John/Roy's other thread? Not only does he want the governmental steal all your land but he also wants to ban guns!


I did see that. lol

But you know, he/they doesn't/don't see it that way.  Why, that's not your land at all.  That's community land.   You see, if I come mow your lawn, sweep your sidewalk, and wash your windows for you, and do a really good job of it, and all that nice looking grass and such makes people interested in buying from you -- I'm not just mowing your lawn and such - I'm actually SOAKING VALUE INTO YOUR LAND.   Value that I simply must reclaim. If I can't reclaim it, you're the thief, doncha know.

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## JohnLVT

> It is a very much a form of communism - a complete redistribution of wealth.


_It is pure Capitalism_, with an unrigged free-market.  You have been constantly told this but your conditioning gets the better of you. That is sad.  Please at least try.  Although LVT would work in Commie country as well as Republican USA. 




> The state (government at whatever level) owns all land, and charges rent for the privilege of using "its land".  It's that simple.


LVT does no such thing.  A team of economist, mainly US, went to Russia to help in the transition to the free-market.  They said do not sell land, keep it community owned and leased out as dynamic Hong Kong does. They never did it - Russia would have been a world economic power by now if it did.

LVT _fairly_ distributes the proceeds of a society's production. Not equally.  If I work harder than you I earn more than you. 

You must try harder.  Please do.

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## Steven Douglas

> _It is pure Capitalism_.


Yeah - so's the Mafia. Go figure!

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## JohnLVT

> Yeah - so's the Mafia. Go figure!


I know what you mean.  Appalling the way the USA turned out in some parts. The economic system allowed organized crime to flourish.  Geoism would make it difficult for these people to operate.

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## Steven Douglas

> I know what you mean.  Appalling the way the USA turned out in some parts. The economic system allowed organized crime to flourish.  Geoism would make it difficult for these people to operate.


Actually, it would legitimize them, making it incredibly easy for them to operate, and on the grandest scale imaginable.  LVT would do for land what the Fed did for currency.  Instead of Mafia, you just say "State".  Oh, and just like the Mafia, they'll know which palms to grease, what needs to be "given back" to key parts of da community.  No free lunch, you don't slop from the public trough without making sure that enough voting little piggies get their turn at all that "reclaimed" wealth.  And most can be bought for a song.

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## Roy L

> Actually, it would legitimize them, making it incredibly easy for them to operate, and on the grandest scale imaginable.


No, that's just your moronic nonsense.



> LVT would do for land what the Fed did for currency.


No, that is physically impossible, as land's supply is fixed.  You just have to spew the stupidest lies you can think of, don't you?



> Instead of Mafia, you just say "State".  Oh, and just like the Mafia, they'll know which palms to grease, what needs to be "given back" to key parts of da community.


Unlike the mafia, the state_ contributes value_ through services and infrastructure, as proved by the incomparably higher land value where there is a state than where there isn't.



> No free lunch, you don't slop from the public trough without making sure that enough voting little piggies get their turn at all that "reclaimed" wealth.  And most can be bought for a song.


More dishonesty, silliness and nonsense.

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## ClydeCoulter

Wow, this thread is still going on, and on, and on.....

Steven Douglas,  He really is tearing you up will those intelligent "silliness and nonsense" type come back, you need to try harder, how can you possibilly answer such a harsh critical critique?  //sarcasam

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## heavenlyboy34

> Actually, it would legitimize them, making it incredibly easy for them to operate, and on the grandest scale imaginable.  LVT would do for land what the Fed did for currency.  Instead of Mafia, you just say "State".  Oh, and just like the Mafia, they'll know which palms to grease, what needs to be "given back" to key parts of da community.  No free lunch, you don't slop from the public trough without making sure that enough voting little piggies get their turn at all that "reclaimed" wealth.  And most can be bought for a song.


This is true.  Consider Roy's favorite example: Hong Kong.   The regime became so corrupt it necessitate the creation of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974.  After this, this police and government made every attempt to overthrow the ICAC, and eventually did.  They required British intervention to even begin to get reforms going (the head of the ICAC answered to the British Prime Minister). (1)  

Daydreams of a "successful" LVT regime (if the end goal is true justice and maximum freedom) will always be just daydreams.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Wow, this thread is still going on, and on, and on.....
> 
> Steven Douglas,  He really is tearing you up will those intelligent "silliness and nonsense" type come back, you need to try harder, how can you possibilly answer such a harsh critical critique?  //sarcasam


Indeed!  Trolling the troll is fun!

----------


## eduardo89

> Wow, this thread is still going on, and on, and on.....
> 
> Steven Douglas,  He really is tearing you up will those intelligent "silliness and nonsense" type come back, you need to try harder, how can you possibilly answer such a harsh critical critique?  //sarcasam


I think Steven is one of the forum member I would most like to have a beer with. Obviously the beer would be to cheer him up about being so decisively demolished by Roy

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## heavenlyboy34

> I think Steven is one of the forum member I would most like to have a beer with. Obviously the beer would be to cheer him up about being so decisively demolished by Roy


lolz...So I'll have to cry in my beer alone?   I haz teh sad.

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## eduardo89

> lolz...So I'll have to cry in my beer alone?   I haz teh sad.


You're just not cool enough to drink with eduardo89. You can have a beer with Roy

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## ClydeCoulter

> You're just not cool enough to drink with eduardo89. You can have a beer with Roy


Shoot, let's all get together and have a beer, maybe even have Roy join us...even heavenlyboy34 too

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## ClydeCoulter

I sure wish there were some RP supporters around where I live......alas....

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## eduardo89

> I sure wish there were some RP supporters around where I live......alas....


There's probably more than in Spain

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## ClydeCoulter

> There's probably more than in Spain


Yeah, although I haven't met any yet.....there are a few RP posters in scattered yards in Greencastle, IN (about 8 miles away)......but none around here.  Maybe I should go there and knock on their door to talk to them...

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## Roy L

> This is true.  Consider Roy's favorite example: Hong Kong.   The regime became so corrupt it necessitate the creation of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974.


Nope.  Flat wrong.  HK was and remains an island of clean government with only a single rival in all of East Asia: Singapore -- where the government not coincidentally aggressively nationalized land in the 1960s and now owns 70% of it.  HK only became corrupt in the 50s, 60s and 70s because of the huge influx of refugees from the PRC, many of whom were already corrupt and found life too risky in the PRC, especially with the Cultural Revolution going on.  And HK was also only corrupt by comparison with the standards of the UK, which has been one of the least corrupt countries in the world for centuries.

But what has public ownership of land wrought in HK since then?  Why, looka here: _YOUR OWN SOURCE_ confirms that _PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF LAND has DEFEATED corruption_, even despite the handover to the PRC in 1997:

_Transparency International now ranks Hong Kong among the least corrupt places in the world, ahead of countries like the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States._

This is an almost miraculous achievement against corruption, and it destroys you comprehensively, conclusively, utterly and permanently.  Every time you try to slag LVT, you only prove you have to be grotesquely dishonest to do it.



> After this, this police and government made every attempt to overthrow the ICAC, and eventually did.


Flat wrong.



> They required British intervention to even begin to get reforms going (the head of the ICAC answered to the British Prime Minister). (1)  
> 
> Daydreams of a "successful" LVT regime (if the end goal is true justice and maximum freedom) will always be just daydreams.


Hong Kong proves you wrong, so you have to lie about it.  Simple.

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## Roy L

> I agree, no one should have to pay to continue to own their land.


But they should continue to pocket its publicly created value, paid for by other people's taxes?  Uh-huh.

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...



> Abolish ALL property taxes, that includes LVT.


As land and capital are legally property, that leaves taxes on... labor.  What a shocker!

Rarely has the argument for greed, privilege and injustice been articulated so baldly.



> Either that or be philosophically consistent and advocate an AVT (air value tax).


As air is just a different kind of land (another natural resource men have a right to use, and need to use in order to live) I would advocate an air value tax... if air had any market value.  Whereas if greedy, evil filth started privatizing the air, found a way to "homestead" it and fence it off, started charging you rent for air to breathe, then you would feel blessed by the joys of capitalism!

Now, don't you feel as stupid as a bag of hammers?

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## heavenlyboy34

> Shoot, let's all get together and have a beer, maybe even have Roy join us...even heavenlyboy34 too


 I'll take you up on that if I'm in your neighborhood.

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## Steven Douglas

> ...if greedy, evil filth started privatizing the air, found a way to "homestead" it and fence it off, started charging you rent for air to breathe, then you would feel blessed by the joys of capitalism!


You mean as opposed to finding a way to "homestead" it, fence it ALL off on behalf of the state, which then forever charged you rent for air to breathe, then you would feel blessed by the joys of communism!

Now, don't you feel as stupid as a bag of all hammers in existence?

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## heavenlyboy34

> As air is just a different kind of land (another natural resource men have a right to use, and need to use in order to live) I would advocate an air value tax... if air had any market value.  Whereas if greedy, evil filth started privatizing the air, found a way to "homestead" it and fence it off, started charging you rent for air to breathe, then you would feel blessed by the joys of capitalism!
> 
> Now, don't you feel as stupid as a bag of hammers?


Air is super abundant and its value is 0.  Only air _space_ is finite.  Don't want a claim on airspace?  Good luck defending yourself when foreigners decide to use your airspace to drop bombs on you.

You don't want a claim on the air where you live?  Okay, seal it off and I'll make sure to send all my various air pollution your way, and throw in some mustard gas for good measure.  Enjoy your air!

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## Roy L

> You mean as opposed to finding a way to "homestead" it, fence it ALL off on behalf of the state, which then forever charged you rent for air to breathe, then you would feel blessed by the joys of communism!


If you were the stupidest person on earth, you still would not be so stupid that you wouldn't know: 

1) Government in fact _ALREADY DOES_ administer use of air so that the rights of all to breathe it are secured, and
2) Not being evil, greedy filth as private airlords would indisputably be, it in fact _doesn't_ charge anyone any rent for air to breathe.

So, stupidity cannot be the cause of your absurd, fallacious and grotesque nonsense.  Only dishonesty can produce such completely outrageous garbage.

Don't you understand what it means when I always prove your "arguments" are stupid, fallacious, absurd, dishonest, and stupid?



> Now, don't you feel as stupid as a bag of all hammers in existence?


No, right about now I am feeling infinitely more intelligent, as well as infinitely more knowledgeable and honest, than you.

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## Roy L

> Air is super abundant and its value is 0.  Only air _space_ is finite.  Don't want a claim on airspace?


Airspace is land.  So I _do_ want a claim on it: the liberty right to use it.



> Good luck defending yourself when foreigners decide to use your airspace to drop bombs on you.


What are you blathering about?



> You don't want a claim on the air where you live?


Oh, learn how to read.  Or think.  I already _have_ a claim on it: my rights to life and liberty.



> Okay, seal it off and I'll make sure to send all my various air pollution your way, and throw in some mustard gas for good measure.  Enjoy your air!


Try not to confess your evil quite so blatantly.

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## Steven Douglas

> If you were the stupidest person on earth, you still would not be so stupid that you wouldn't know: 
> 
> 1) Government in fact _ALREADY DOES_ administer use of air so that the rights of all to breathe it are secured, and
> 2) Not being evil, greedy filth as private airlords would indisputably be, it in fact _doesn't_ charge anyone any rent for air to breathe.
> 
> So, stupidity cannot be the cause of your absurd, fallacious and grotesque nonsense.  Only dishonesty can produce such completely outrageous garbage.
> 
> Don't you understand what it means when I always prove your "arguments" are stupid, fallacious, absurd, dishonest, and stupid?
> 
> No, right about now I am feeling infinitely more intelligent, as well as infinitely more knowledgeable and honest, than you.


1) Government does not "_administer use of air_".  That's silliness on your part, like a Saint Bernard bitch who winces from a flea bite and you, the chihuahua on the stool that is humping her from behind, says, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I hurt you honey?"  Government attempts to govern and regulate localized air usage (factories, autos, etc.,), but it does not, and cannot, collectivize the air, nor does it "administer use of air".   That's upside down and backwards crank talk right there. 

2) Merely saying thing like, _"...evil, greedy filth...private...stupidity...absurd, fallacious and grotesque nonsense...dishonesty...completely outrageous garbage...stupid, fallacious, absurd, dishonest, and stupid..."_ is evidence to me of nausea and stomach pains on your part, but it does not make you "...infinitely more intelligent, as well as infinitely more knowledgeable and honest..." Then again, you didn't claim that, did you? You said it had you ""right now feeling" that way. I don't think that's true, but it is at least consistent with all your prior delusions of intelligence and honesty.

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## Roy L

> 1) Government does not "_administer use of air_".


It most certainly and indisputably does, stop lying.



> That's silliness on your part,


It is obvious fact, and you are just lying.



> Government attempts to govern and regulate localized air usage (factories, autos, etc.,), but it does not, and cannot, collectivize the air,


Nice attempt to change the subject.



> nor does it "administer use of air".


You are indisputably wrong.  As usual.  EPA standards, auto emission standards, carbon taxes, acid rain sulfur limits, etc. are all manifestations of government administration of use of air. 



> That's upside down and backwards crank talk right there.


That's stupid, empty garbage right there.

----------


## Roy L

> Actually, it would legitimize them, making it incredibly easy for them to operate, and on the grandest scale imaginable.  LVT would do for land what the Fed did for currency.  Instead of Mafia, you just say "State".  Oh, and just like the Mafia, they'll know which palms to grease, what needs to be "given back" to key parts of da community.  No free lunch, you don't slop from the public trough without making sure that enough voting little piggies get their turn at all that "reclaimed" wealth.  And most can be bought for a song.


Here's more proof just how wrong you always have to be when you stupidly and dishonestly slag LVT:

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-39...m-private-jail

----------


## helmuth_hubener

*Table of Contents*
Directory to what I feel were my most substantive contributions in this thread.

*Some Criticism: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3577112


What is Property?:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3585601


A Right is a Boundary:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3585708


Use and control is what ownership *is*: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3782367


LVT Makes the State the Land-Owner: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3908042
Continued: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3913177
Continued: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4021701


Regarding land ownership being inherently monopolistic, due to non-homogeneity of land:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3585760
And more about land being homogeneous/heterogenous, and also about the supply of land being fixed: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3630122
And more: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3632718
And more: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3634017
And more: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3639251


Explaining yet again, this time with ASCII graphics, that the transfer of money does not negate injustice: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3587263
Explaining it yet again, this time with song: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3588236

Does everyone have a rightful claim to the universe, or does no one: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...40#post3621340
Continued: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...25#post3623925
Continued: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3627987


Regarding the land-owner's productive function as ultimate decision-maker: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3676602
Land-owner as ultimate decision-maker -- explaining the concept of delegation: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3695459
Mr. L. thinks the owners of car rental businesses do not control nor use their cars: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3790254
So I explain it again: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3790976


Renting just is not that bad: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3685284


Rothbardianism is so awesome, even the crazy Georgists can have their way under it and we can all live in harmony: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3693178


A couple fundamental disagreements between Georgists and us (Or, A Last Hurrah at Attempting to Communicate With a Turing Program): 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3694703


Will land will be used better if there is a Land Value Tax? (Bringing in North Dakota to the discussion): 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3696912


Further elaboration on the Double-Whammy: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3753562


Land-owners also are productive by lowering society's average time preference; If LVT, why not CVT?: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3698271


Grab-bag (No homesteading = no property; power to the state to smash land-owners will back-fire; more taxed =/= more efficient): 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3718319


Again Concerning Public Choice and Plans Back-firing: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4007650


More Public Choice Common Sense vs. Savior-State Naivety: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...81#post4105181


Grab-bag (How does the newborn get a right rather than the homesteader; Homesteading is a transformation, and the result is a product of labor; wild animals as land): 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3676489


Grab-bag (more detail on production is transformation using parking lot and chainsaw; feudalism rocks; just who's initiating force?; which is it, everyone or no one?): 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3734355


CVT and LVT parallels (Factory vs. Land parallels; abandoned products of labor don't disappear): 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3741002


Land Taxation causes economic destruction: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3741684


Regarding whether rationing resources is murder: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3586982


Property Rights: the Great Problem Solver: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3742768
Continued: The State: the Great Destroyer: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3745338


Grab-bag to MattButler: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3744412


The *only* thing that's holy, the *only* thing that's land, is locations on the Earth's surface: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3748437


You Could Own a Whole Planet, But You'd Have Calculation Problems: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3759398
Continued: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3785571


Hong Kong!: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3782319
Hong Kong! addendum: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3790884


Manners and Mutual Respect (respecting that it's not for sale) vs. LVT Covetousness: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3792359


Knowledge or Wanting: Which one creates the initiation of Force?: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3792458


Cantillon (Land Barony is A-OK!): 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3793697


An Instance of the Impossible -- Legitimately Homesteaded Land: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4114906


Four of My Idiotic Howlers: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3757325


Nature is not a Vending Machine!: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3919973*


*George wanted to nationalize land: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4015769*
*Continued: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4021482*


*Georgism Wrong on Value-Imputation: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4116328*


*The Question: 
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3793722*

----------


## TheTexan

> What do you think of Land Value Tax


$#@! that

/thread

----------


## Roy L

> $#@! that
> 
> /thread


...obviously not having read the thread, and knowing nothing about land value tax, but seeing the word, "tax" and reacting with a knee-jerk reflex...

Like all who refuse to think about this issue, you deserve your society's fate.

----------

