# News & Current Events > Economy & Markets >  We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics

## EcoWarrier

Where the problem lay in the current economic system......

By Martin Wolf. Chief economic writer of the Financial Times. 

*Why were resources expunged from neo-classical economics?*

Something strange happened to economics about a century ago. In moving from classical to neo-classical economics — the dominant academic school today — *economists expunged land — or natural resources*. Neo-classical value theory — based on marginalism and subjective valuation — still makes a great deal of sense. Expunging natural resources from the way economists think about the world does not.

In classical economics, land, labour and capital were the three factors of production. With neo-classical economics, the standard production function had just two factors of production: capital and labour. Land — by which we mean the totality of natural resources — was then incorporated into capital.

All thinking about the world involves a degree of abstraction. Economics has taken this principle further than any other social science. This is a fruitful intellectual procedure. But it is also risky. The necessary process of abstraction may end up leaving essential aspects of the world out of the analysis. That can be intellectually crippling. I believe that that is exactly what has happened, in this case.

The idea that land and capital are the same thing is evidently ludicrous. It requires us to believe that the economic machine is self-sustaining — a sort of perpetual motion machine. Capital is the product of savings and investment. It is the result of human frugality and the invention required to imagine and create new capital goods. Labour is also — and in today’s circumstances, increasingly — a form of capital. Parents, governments and individual people invest in their own skills, so making themselves more productive. Yet there would be no economy — indeed no humanity — without a constant inflow of natural resources into the system: what lies above our heads (the sun and the atmosphere), what lies close to us (the soil, the seas and location itself) and what lies beneath us (fossil fuels, metals and minerals and heat). Humanity does not make these things; it exploits them. Some of these resources are also appropriable and so a source of unearned personal wealth.

Why did this compelling distinction disappear from economics? After all, no economist can believe that the economic system will move without a constant infusion of external resources.

One reason was that the classical world view implies diminishing returns. Since the supply of land was fixed, it would become ever scarcer. Rents — the price of resource scarcity — would rise, profits would fall and growth slow. But the economy did not show signs of diminishing returns. Technical progress seemed to offset any tendency towards diminishing returns. So assuming that land, like capital, could be effectively expanded, without limit, via land-augmenting technical progress, seemed to be the right thing to do.

Another reason may have been political. Henry George argued that resource rents are not a reward for the efforts of the owners, but the fruit of the efforts of others. It would be both just and efficient to socialise rents, he argued, and then use the proceeds to finance the infrastructure that makes resources valuable. But the powerful owners of natural resources wished to protect their unearned gains. In practice, therefore, the tax burden fell on labour and capital. Economics, one might argue, was pushed into supporting this way of organising economic life.

Yet it would seem to me that this way of thinking by economists is no longer sensible, if it ever was. Land must again be treated as separate from labour and capital.

First, resource scarcity is an increasingly pressing issue. It shows up in concerns over pollution (including global warming), in the discussion of “peak oil” and so forth. The idea that diminishing returns will become a more significant factor in the next century than in the past two seems to me to be compelling, now that modern economic growth has spread across the globe. So we need to return to economic models that incorporate resources, as a matter of course.

Second, in a globalised economy, taxing labour and capital will become increasingly difficult. That leaves land. The Australian government is right to want to extract the full rental value of its mineral resources for the benefit of the Australian people. Similarly, the people of the UK should wish to extract the rental value of London for their own use. The benefits of infrastructure investments that make London more productive would automatically be recouped if land rents were heavily taxed. Meanwhile, the taxation of capital and land could be reduced.

I can see the objection that natural resources are necessary for the operation of capital and labour. Thus, the distinction between land, labour and capital is hard to draw. I agree with this. But there are two responses: first, from the point of view of economics, resource scarcity may mean diminishing returns, which are economically important; second, some natural resources are not appropriable and can be treated as free (sunlight, for example), but others are indeed appropriable.

*Thus, for both economic and political reasons, we should put natural resources into the heart of economics, thereby remedying a neoclassical mistake.*

The old fallacies are skillfully debunked in this long exchange:
http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exch...mics/#comments

*Martin Wolf concludes.........*

*The essential point is quite simple: the value of resources is created by the economic activity of other factors of production*. The owners of these resources can become hugely wealthy and are often untaxed on that increase in wealth: the Duke of Westminster is the richest Englishman simply because he owns a large amount of land in a valuable part of London. So why should he have command over the labour of so many other people? 

That wealth is, in the strictest sense, *unearned*. If that rise in wealth were taxed away, other taxes - those on labour, capital and entrepreneurship - could fall. This would be both efficient (because taxes on rent do not create distortions, as Ricardo showed) and also just, because the wealth was unearned. Now, surprisingly, the UK allows foreign landowners to enjoy the increase in value created by the British economy, entirely tax-free. This is utterly crazy.

Let me add four other points.

*First*, 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. The beauty of capitalism is that many of the wealthiest are no longer parasites. This is good. But many of the wealthy still are parasites. Moreover, now everybody wants to get rich by being a mini-landowner. That is a huge diversion of effort.

*Second*, the financial system's ills are the result of unchecked credit-creation. Yes. But unchecked credit-creation would be impossible without collateral. Land is always the principal form of collateral (buildings are a depreciating asset). That is why financial bubbles that do not create credit booms (like the dotcom bubble) are economically benign, while property bubbles are potentially catastrophic. When the value of collateral collapses, the financial system implodes.

*Third*, there is really nothing new about this understanding of the role of resource rents. They were central to the classical system, from which modern economics, in its various forms, derives. Ricardo's analysis of rent remains intellectually impeccable. 

Finally, as Herman Daly has noted (http://steadystate...zing-henry-george/), today economically valuable resources are much more than just land (and what lies below it). They include all the services of the biosphere - those that are appropriated, those that are appropriable and those that are non-appropriable. If we do not think seriously and intelligently about how to price resources, we are likely to go seriously adrift, perhaps even into disaster. Here land is the least of our problems - it is appropriable and, by and large, appropriated. So, at least, the price mechanism works, even though the distribution of the gain is grossly unjust. But, in other cases, no appropriation is possible, or at least it is not easy. Nobody can appropriate the atmosphere. It is nigh on impossible to appropriate the oceans. How do you own species diversity? These are serious challenges. 

So, I conclude where I started: resources matter. It was a great mistake to exclude them from the canonical neo-classical model. It is also a great mistake not to tax their owners to the hilt.

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## EcoWarrier

*The Queen Could not be Told the Truth*

When the Queen of England visited the London School of Economics. She asked a simple question about the looming economic disaster, 


_"why did no one notice it coming?"._ 

Professor Garicano replied, 


_"at every stage everyone was relying on someone else, and all thought they were doing the right thing"._ 

As modern economists use a collection of mangled economics the Queen could not be told the truth.

*Economists 100 Years Ago Colluded to Distort Economics*

A century ago a group of influential economists: John Bates Clark, Frank Knight, Francis Walker, Edward Seligan and Richard Ely, colluded to manipulate the building blocks of classical economics. They had an ideological agenda. The future they shaped is our reality. Their mission was clear to protect the vital interests of the privileged few. To so they had to conceal the unique qualities of the classical factors of production -* LAND*.

A century of economic disasters followed that literally messed with our lives. Economics has been a tool for contorting our collective consciousness. The current economic crisis as an example to the pathetic state to which economics has been reduced.

*Modern Economists are Confused*

We handsomely reward economists to fine tune to the economy to keep it stable. When boom turns to bust they escape into mysticism. They claim, 


_"occasional slow downs are natural and necessary features of a market economy"._

The people we trust to keep the economy on an even keel have no idea what makes an economy explode. Take the central bankers, they pontificated, moving interest rates up and and manipulating the money supply. They didn't know what they were doing - it was all an illusion. 

The problem lies in some of the theories invented by encomists. They do not reflect the real world. They are fictions invented to explain an imaginary market economy. When the economy overheats the imaginary equations turn out to be useless.

*Economists Admit Their Economic Models Do Not Work*

The Daddy of all central bankers was Alan Greenspan, of the US Federal Reserve. He said,


_"the models do not forecast recession because the parameters are dominated by what happens in normal times when the economy is growing_". 

As the economy crumbled, He said to the US congress, 


_"I discovered a flaw in the model which I perceived as a critical function structure which defines how the world works, I was shocked"_. 

Greenspan's victims are more than shocked, they are traumatised losing their homes and jobs. 

In failing to raise the warning flags, Greenspan was not alone, economists at the Bank of England also failed to forecast the end of the business cycle. They confessed their economic models break down when the going gets tough. Rachel Lomax, deputy governor of the Bank of England confessed, 


_"When it comes to quantifying the changes in credit conditions, our workhorse economic models still cannot help us very much"_.

If you were caught by surprise when the bottom fell out of the credit market, don't worry, you were in good company. Leading economist at places like the LSE were also shocked. Professor Sir Charles Woodhart, served on the Bank of England monetary policy committee, he now admits that standard forecast economic models are 


_"effectively pretty useless"._

Here is an example of the nonsense that can be produced by economic theory. According to the British governments Property Valuation office in Jan 2008, land values will continue to rise until 2013. Six months later the economy had broken down. The graph has been erased from their web site. 

*Land Speculators Are the Biggest Gainers*

Who gains from this intellectual mess? One groups of people reap spectacular rewards, property developers, land speculators all reap windfall gains from one asset that sustains us all, *LAND*. 

In the good times when people go mad buying and selling properties, we lionise these developers. Yet all they are doing is cashing in the on the land values others create. Take the case of a cluster of flats adjacent to a prime brownfields site. Their presence gives value to the adjacent site, yet the thousands of residents of the flats will not share in the increased values they help create.

*Banks Fuelled The Property/Land Bubble*

Bankers around the world played their part in the economic crisis pumping up credit to fuel the property bubble. As land values rose bankers even created more money. This was a self inflated bubble of hot air. It had to burst.

*Economists Who Know The Answers Are Supressed*

For the past century economist have messed with our minds. All is not lost. A few economists have been stewards of the precious knowledge of how the economy works. The Nobel prize winning economist Bill Vickry and the California professor, Mason Gaffney. All voices of reason that have been suppressed. 

*We Need To Force Through ChangeTo Eliminate Vested Interests*

With all the global crisis's converging, mass unemployment, poverty, terrorism. It is time to make up our minds and stop playing the game that was rigged 100 years ago. If we do not challenge the vested interests that exploit people, all of us, the environment and future generations will pay the ultimate price. 

We have to oblige our elected leaders to deal with the realities on the ground. In the end it is up to everyone to assume personal responsibility and restore common sense in the way we govern society.

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## VoluntaryAmerican

> *Land Speculators Are the Biggest Gainers*
> 
> Who gains from this intellectual mess? One groups of people reap spectacular rewards, property developers, land speculators all reap windfall gains from one asset that sustains us all, LAND.


Sounds like a good job. Where do I sign up?

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## EcoWarrier



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## Acala

I want the job of choosing where the "socialized" rents are to be distributed and, presumably, having my thugs enforce it at gun point.  It's good to be the king!.

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## Roy L

> Sounds like a good job. Where do I sign up?


Owning land is not a job.  It is simply a way of taking from the productive without contributing anything in return.  It is legalized theft:

_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, and he can even pretend that his profits come from his "property rights," not just a special government-issued license.  But in fact, 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 his "business" any different now that he is a landowner?

And for that matter, how 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?  Does their "free choice" to use the pass make it a consensual transaction?

If there were two, or three, or 300, or 3 million passes, each with its own resident bandit, would the merchants' being at "liberty" to choose which bandit robs them somehow make the bandits' enterprises a competitive industry in a free market?_

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## Roy L

> I want the job of choosing where the "socialized" rents are to be distributed


You already have that job, dumpling: voting.  But you are almost certainly one of the great majority of people who are too stupid, ignorant, greedy, lazy, stubborn, cowardly, and/or dishonest to exercise your franchise in your own best interests.



> and, presumably, having my thugs enforce it at gun point.


Your "thugs"??  What a remarkably dishonest bit of filth.  It is the *landowner* who needs government thugs enforcing his land title at gunpoint to enable him to rob the productive.  Why else would anyone pay him for what nature provided for free?



> It's good to be the king!.


Indeed.  And in the absence of responsible, democratic government, that is exactly what landowners are, as feudalism proved.

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## FlatIron



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## EcoWarrier

> I want the job of choosing where the "socialized" rents are to be distributed and, presumably, having my thugs enforce it at gun point.  It's good to be the king!.


The same is what happens to the money in government coffers right now.

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## EcoWarrier

The difference between a highway robber 
and a free rider is that the free rider does 
not have to draw a gun to take what belongs to others.

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## Steven Douglas

FlatIron nailed it. 



This thread should be merged with one of the other LVT-polluted threads.

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## anaconda

> After all, no economist can believe that the economic system will move without a constant infusion of external resources.


I don't see how lumping land and capital together for purposes of analysis somehow denies the use of natural resources. Over the decades, increases in per capita GDP have been due to massive increases in the productivity of labor. So we may theoretically continue this trend without utilizing any additional land. Maybe we'll just recycle and melt down the worn out capital and reshape it into something new, and with alternate forms of energy.

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## erowe1

> Owning land is not a job.  It is simply a way of taking from the productive without contributing anything in return.  It is legalized theft:


I would be more inclined to give this part of the argument a chance if I didn't know that the next part of the argument went:
"Therefore, we ought to let one particular gang of thieves anoint itself as the owner of all the land and charge us rent to use it."

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## Adrock

> I would be more inclined to give this part of the argument a chance if I didn't know that the next part of the argument went:
> "Therefore, we ought to let one particular gang of thieves anoint itself as the owner of all the land and charge us rent to use it."


You have it all wrong. "Therefore, we ought to *democratically* anoint a particular gang of thieves as owners of all the land and charge us rent to use it."

It makes it so much better if 51% of us agree on who the gang of thieves are. What is the worst that could happen?

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## Steven Douglas

> You have it all wrong. "Therefore, we ought to *democratically* anoint a particular gang of thieves as owners of all the land and charge us rent to use it."
> 
> It makes it so much better if 51% of us agree on who the gang of thieves are. What is the worst that could happen?


¶ 1 After many days of wandering Henry George did stub his toe upon a rock, which he took as a sign.  This caused Henry George to quake and tremble with a vision.  

2 And lo, out of the intense throbbing of his infernal bunion, Henry George did see the power of the landlords, and of private ownership of land rents. And he saw also the power of the taxing emperor, that his taxing and spending was sometimes sort of roughly equal to what the landlords received in land rents. And lo! A lightbulb did appear above his head. 

3 Henry George called his disciples together, and said unto them,  "These landowners have suckled their last sip from the collective genitals of generosity. Let us take from the landlords that which is being taken from the people, and give this to the emperor instead, that he may shower that milk and honey and other sticky and liquidy flowing stuffs from the land back upon the people."

4 And Henry George did charge his disciples to wander about as dirty ragged bands of collectively covetous vagabonds crying in the wilderness, to proclaim to all would listen (and to incessantly troll all who would not) that pure evil in private hands would become naught but pure righteousness and goodliness in the hands of a goodly collective.

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## Adrock

Got to love Henry George. An individual person owning property is inherently flawed, but a group of people doing the same is magically superior.

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## Roy L

> I would be more inclined to give this part of the argument a chance if I didn't know that the next part of the argument went:
> "Therefore, we ought to let one particular gang of thieves anoint itself as the owner of all the land and charge us rent to use it."


That's not the next part of the argument, so you can relax (and stop lying).

Those of us who are not stupid, ignorant, greedy, evil, lying sacks of $#!+ are aware of the fact that the sun, the oceans, the earth's atmosphere, the alphabet, mathematics, etc. can never rightly be anyone's property.  All who refuse to know that fact ARE in fact stupid, ignorant, greedy, evil, lying sacks of $#!+.  However, as all have equal liberty rights to use those things, honest people need a way to protect themselves against evil, greedy rent seekers who will never leave off contriving ways to charge others for what nature and their cultural heritage provide for free.  To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.  Calling such a government "one particular gang of thieves" that "anoints itself as the owner of all the land and charges us rent to use it" is just filthy, despicably dishonest "meeza hatesa gubmint" $#!+.  We need government to administer use of the land to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to use it, just as we need government to administer the atmosphere, the oceans, etc. to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to use them.

There is no way for anyone, or any group, or any government, or any corporation, or any church, or any other legal entity whatsoever rightly to own land.  It is impossible, as it inherently removes the liberty rights of others to use the land.  The only difference between owning land and owning a slave is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's rights.  When you own land, you remove one of all persons' rights.  The more of the land is owned, the fewer rights remain.  In the limit, if all the land is owned by one man, all the rest are in exactly the same position as if they were also all his property.  He has absolute power of life and death over them.  If two people own the land, or three, or 300, or 3 million, the others are only "free" to choose which master owns them, for whose benefit they will labor rather than their own.  They are not free not to be owned: their rights to liberty have been removed by force.

A good man might own land, just as a good man might own slaves.  Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, as did most of America's other Founding Fathers.  But the fact that a good man might own land does not justify landowning any more than a good man owning slaves justifies slave owning.  And landowning is inherently an instrument of theft, oppression and murder that serves the greedy and evil no matter who else participates in it, just as slave owning is.  Landowning is like the One Ring of Sauron: it is evil in its inherent, fundamental nature, and so ultimately it can serve only evil.

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## silverhandorder

I am perfectly fine with property rights. If you dont think peoperty can be owned then don't own it.

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## Roy L

> You have it all wrong. "Therefore, we ought to *democratically* anoint a particular gang of thieves as owners of all the land and charge us rent to use it."


<sigh>  Why even bother telling such stupid, evil lies, like a stupid, evil, lying sack of $#!+?

A trustee does not own the trust assets, and does not keep the rent of said assets for his own purposes even though he may, on behalf of the trust beneficiaries, charge rent of those who use the assets.  Likewise, officials of a responsible, democratic government do not keep tax revenue for their own purposes.  They likewise would not keep the publicly created land rent recovered by land value taxation for their own purposes.  They administer such funds for public purposes and benefit, according to systems of democratic accountability, or they lose their jobs.  To claim otherwise is just a stupid, evil lie.  Private landowners, by contrast, DO KEEP publicly created land rents for their own purposes, with no public accountability for what they take from the public by force.



> It makes it so much better if 51% of us agree on who the gang of thieves are.


That is nothing but stupid, dishonest, "meeza hatesa gubmint" filth.

Yes, some people are indeed stupid and dishonest enough to vote for a gang of thieves to implement and maintain a system of systematic, institutionalized thievery.  You are very likely one of them.  I am not.



> What is the worst that could happen?


I don't know, but one of the better things that could happen is that you could somehow find a willingness to know facts, and consequently want nothing more than to kneel in a cesspool and slit your belly open to atone for the monumental evil you have so dishonestly tried to rationalize, justify, defend, excuse and serve.

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## Steven Douglas

> [landownership] inherently removes the liberty rights of others to use the land.


If'n such an imagined right existed.  Until then, you mangy little LVT kids can get off my lawn, afore I fill your scraggly little butts with rock salt.

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## silverhandorder

Does not change the injustice of taking away property rights. If we elect a dictator and let him only to use dictatorial power within bounds is he no longer a dictator? I argue that he is still a dictator. Same applies to taxes.

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## Origanalist



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## Roy L

> I am perfectly fine with property rights. If you dont think peoperty can be owned then don't own it.


"Ah'm puhfectly fahn wid prop'ty rahts, too. If'n you don' think niggahs can be owned, whah, jes' don' own any."

If you weren't so keen to lie about what I have plainly written, you would know that I am also perfectly fine with property rights: RIGHTFUL property rights in the fruits of labor that can rightly be owned.

Simple question: do you think the sun can rightly be owned?  The atmosphere or the oceans?  The alphabet?  How about human beings?  No?  Why, don't you believe in property rights?

"If you don't think the atmosphere can be owned, don't own it.  Meanwhile, where's my rent for the air you are breathing?"

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## Roy L

> Got to love Henry George. An individual person owning property is inherently flawed,


You just lied again.  Inevitably.  Henry George was a great defender of owning property: RIGHTFUL property in the fruits of human labor, which can rightly be owned, and whose ownership does not violate others' rights.

STOP LYING.



> but a group of people doing the same is magically superior.


And again you lie.  No one here has said that groups of people can rightly own land any more than individuals.

STOP LYING.

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## Adrock

nm

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## silverhandorder

I believe as long as you are not displacing someone else and you can fence it off or defend it from incursion you should be able to own it. I dont care if it is the sun or your backyard.

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## James Madison



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## heavenlyboy34

> "Ah'm puhfectly fahn wid prop'ty rahts, too. If'n you don' think niggahs can be owned, whah, jes' don' own any."
> 
> If you weren't so keen to lie about what I have plainly written, you would know that I am also perfectly fine with property rights: RIGHTFUL property rights in the fruits of labor that can rightly be owned.
> 
> Simple question: do you think the sun can rightly be owned?  The atmosphere or the oceans?  The alphabet?  How about human beings?  No?  Why, don't you believe in property rights?
> 
> "If you don't think the atmosphere can be owned, don't own it.  Meanwhile, where's my rent for the air you are breathing?"


This is one concept you're exactly right about. (charging rent for super-abundant resources like sunlight, ideas, etc)

When you say "If you weren't so keen to lie about what I have plainly written, you would know that I am also perfectly fine with property rights: RIGHTFUL property rights in the fruits of labor that can rightly be owned.", do you mean to include gifts and other exchanges of property as "legitimate"?  In my idea of rightful property, I don't have to labor for something if another person is willing to voluntarily give (gift) it to me.

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## Austrian Econ Disciple

Roy simply does not understand NP Lockean property rights. It's pretty evident by the absurdity of his comments about the sun and the air. No one can own the sun because it is simply impossible to homestead, and with air you do own it, whenever you breathe. You've taken the oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. and inhaled it, making it your own, but air outside your body cannot be owned unless you build a large bubble or something and enclose it (say, like a balloon). 

As far as rents, capital, and land go, the Georgists have STILL yet to address Frank Fetter on this issue. What the hell do you think you are saving and investing? Resources....resources _are_ capital. There is no distinction, and to make one is to obfuscate and deceive the issue. Rents are just fine so long as the property has been homesteaded and or, proper title has been traded / gifted. 

Roy has no meaningful basis of his for property rights. I've yet to see something other than Lockean property rights make sense and or not be illogical.

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## Austrian Econ Disciple

> The difference between a highway robber 
> and a free rider is that the free rider does 
> not have to draw a gun to take what belongs to others.


There's no such thing as a free-rider. It's only a made up fiction by people who simply ignore exclusivity.

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## Roy L

> Does not change the injustice of taking away property rights.


Oh?  So, you think slavery should have been maintained, to avoid the "injustice of taking away property rights"?

WHAT ABOUT THE *LIBERTY* RIGHTS OWNERSHIP OF THAT "PROPERTY" *ALREADY* TOOK AWAY??



> If we elect a dictator and let him only to use dictatorial power within bounds is he no longer a dictator? I argue that he is still a dictator.


Sure.  Just as the Queen of England is still a queen.  But being "dictator" would no longer mean much politically, just as being queen of England no longer means much politically.  Remember, the term, "dictator" is just Latin for "the one who speaks" -- i.e., what he says, goes.  The Roman REPUBLIC had a special office of "dictator" for national emergencies when there was no time for consultations with the Senate.  That's where we get the word from.  The dictator was CHOSEN by the Senate to wield those emergency powers.  In fact, Julius Caesar was never emperor of Rome, as it was still a republic when he died; the highest office he ever held was "dictator."  He was assassinated not because the Senate could not remove him from office, but because he had the personal loyalty of the army, and the conspirators did not want another civil war (they got one anyway) if Caesar wanted to stay dictator.



> Same applies to taxes.


Not a land value tax, because the land rent could never rightly have belonged to the landholder in the first place.

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## Roy L

> There's no such thing as a free-rider.


Sure there is.  The bandit in the pass is indisputably a free rider, as is every landowner who charges others for what government, the community and nature provide.  Stop telling such stupid lies.



> It's only a made up fiction by people who simply ignore exclusivity.


ROTFL!!!  The merchants who hand over their rightful property to the bandit/toll taker/landowner in the pass aren't ignoring "exclusivity," dumpling.  He is rubbing their noses in his "exclusivity."

Your claims are just false, stupid, absurd, and dishonest.

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## silverhandorder

What slavery are you talking about? Same can be said about capital too. Capital owners rent capital to workers. Workers would not be able to produce as much as the capital lets them if they were to try it on their own. Is capital all of a sudden a non property too? How about excess bread in my pantry?  How about a higher standard of living of Americans? Do they not deserve it either? Should their property be redistributed to the point where they are equal to lets say Africa?

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## Austrian Econ Disciple

> Sure there is.  The bandit in the pass is indisputably a free rider, as is every landowner who charges others for what government, the community and nature provide.  Stop telling such stupid lies.
> 
> ROTFL!!!  The merchants who hand over their rightful property to the bandit/toll taker/landowner in the pass aren't ignoring "exclusivity," dumpling.  He is rubbing their noses in his "exclusivity."
> 
> Your claims are just false, stupid, absurd, and dishonest.


I don't even think you know what a free-rider is. The most common fallacious argument for this comes about with defense, and the idea that private armies or insurance companies cannot exist because of this problem, again, only if you throw out the perfectly reasonable and moral principle of exclusivity, that is, the company has no obligation to come to your aid. Which means, the raider may target you if you are defenseless (not saying it's right), thereby fixing the so-called free-rider problem.

The other argument is that you gain benefits from say, augments to my property which raise the property values of those around me. (I'm surprised Statists haven't latched onto this one...yet) That you should be compelled to pay for my property enhancements because it has the added effect of helping your property values. This is an absurd argument from the beginning because I've made the conscious decision that what matters to me, is the enhancement of my own property, and the 'benefits' to others is inconsequential to my actions. 

If people who believed in the free-rider non sense actually sat for a moment and mapped out chains of logic in the argument they would come to the realization of how absurd it is in the first place, considering if the free-rider issue was actually a problem NOTHING would get done and we would all starve and die and let our property rot and wither, but luckily we can observe reality and see that the free-rider issue is not an issue in the first place, and is only a fictitious Statist absurdity used to justify all sorts of heinous taxes, fees, resource redistribution, etc. etc. 

Should I have to pay for women to wear skirts, because I gain benefit of being aroused when they do so? Why not...since that means I'm a free-rider, and should have to pay for that, no?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> WHAT ABOUT THE *LIBERTY* RIGHTS OWNERSHIP OF THAT "PROPERTY" *ALREADY* TOOK AWAY??


What about them?  They still exist, and are alive and well in the imaginations that conjured them.

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> Oh?  So, you think slavery should have been maintained, to avoid the "injustice of taking away property rights"?
> 
> WHAT ABOUT THE *LIBERTY* RIGHTS OWNERSHIP OF THAT "PROPERTY" *ALREADY* TOOK AWAY??
> 
> Sure.  Just as the Queen of England is still a queen.  But being "dictator" would no longer mean much politically, just as being queen of England no longer means much politically.  Remember, the term, "dictator" is just Latin for "the one who speaks" -- i.e., what he says, goes.  The Roman REPUBLIC had a special office of "dictator" for national emergencies when there was no time for consultations with the Senate.  That's where we get the word from.  The dictator was CHOSEN by the Senate to wield those emergency powers.  In fact, Julius Caesar was never emperor of Rome, as it was still a republic when he died; the highest office he ever held was "dictator."  He was assassinated not because the Senate could not remove him from office, but because he had the personal loyalty of the army, and the conspirators did not want another civil war (they got one anyway) if Caesar wanted to stay dictator.
> 
> Not a land value tax, because the land rent could never rightly have belonged to the landholder in the first place.


Slavery is impossible with Lockean property rights...What the hell are you even babbling about?

----------


## Roy L

> Roy simply does not understand NP Lockean property rights.


OTC, I understand them far better than you, because I know how to make them non-contradictory.



> It's pretty evident by the absurdity of his comments about the sun and the air. No one can own the sun because it is simply impossible to homestead,


Says who?  We can easily imagine a future where technology makes it possible to orbit so many solar energy collectors around the sun that its light on earth is dimmed -- the widely known Dyson Sphere concept.  That's homesteading by the usual propertarian definition.



> and with air you do own it, whenever you breathe.


No you don't, stop lying.  All you are doing is fallaciously and dishonestly renaming ordinary animal functions as exercises of property rights.  Does a fish have property rights when the water passes over its gills?

Don't be so dishonest.



> You've taken the oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. and inhaled it, making it your own,


I repeat: do fish, insects, etc. all have property rights when they breathe?

"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.  You are trying to get people to believe the absurdity of animals having property rights in the air they breathe in order to make people commit the atrocity of forcibly removing other people's rights to liberty without just compensation.



> but air outside your body cannot be owned unless you build a large bubble or something and enclose it (say, like a balloon).


Fine.  Now at least you have said something honest that we can work with.

*WHY* CAN'T IT BE OWNED?



> As far as rents, capital, and land go, the Georgists have STILL yet to address Frank Fetter on this issue.


I have demolished Fetter's stupid nonsense utterly.



> What the hell do you think you are saving and investing?


??  Nothing.  Natural resources exist without being "saved" or "invested."

Next dishonest absurdity?



> Resources....resources _are_ capital.


Blatantly absurd and dishonest.



> There is no distinction,


Another blatant lie.  Capital must be made by labor.  Land *cannot* be made by labor.  The initial owner of capital is a producer.  The initial owner of land is a thief: as I already proved, there is REALLY no distinction between a bandit and a landowner.

So much for your "no distinction" crap.



> and to make one is to obfuscate and deceive the issue.


No, you are just lying.  To *DENY* the crucial, self-evident, and indisputable distinction -- that capital is a product of labor and land is not -- is to obfuscate and deceive the issue.



> Rents are just fine so long as the property has been homesteaded and or, proper title has been traded / gifted.


Rents are just fine because that's how people can justly compensate those whose liberty rights they violate by excluding them from accessing and using what nature provided for all.  But there can be no such thing as proper title to land, because there is no such thing as homesteading that does not forcibly remove others' rights to liberty.



> Roy has no meaningful basis of his for property rights.


Another blatant lie from you.  The basis of all valid property rights is the producer's act of production, which brings something into the world that did not previously exist.  The product of his labor is his property because he does not thereby deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have, while depriving him of it WOULD deprive him of something he would otherwise have.



> I've yet to see something other than Lockean property rights make sense and or not be illogical.


See immediately above.  When you produce something, you own your product, not the location where you produced it.  Pretty simple -- unless you are greedy and dishonest, and want to steal the fruits of others' labor.

----------


## Roy L

> What about them?


They have been forcibly removed without just compensation.



> They still exist, and are alive and well in the imaginations that conjured them.


No, the actual physical liberty without which our ancestors could not have existed has been removed by violent, forcible, aggressive physical coercion.

----------


## Roy L

> Slavery is impossible with Lockean property rights...


Wrong again, as already proved.  If Crusoe "homesteads" the island, then when Friday washes up on shore, Crusoe just points his musket at him and gives him a choice of being his slave, or getting back in the water.



> What the hell are you even babbling about?


<yawn>  I'm not the one falsely, stupidly, absurdly and dishonestly claiming insects own property, dumpling.  You are.

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> OTC, I understand them far better than you, because I know how to make them non-contradictory.
> 
> Says who?  We can easily imagine a future where technology makes it possible to orbit so many solar energy collectors around the sun that its light on earth is dimmed -- the widely known Dyson Sphere concept.  That's homesteading by the usual propertarian definition.
> 
> No you don't, stop lying.  All you are doing is fallaciously and dishonestly renaming ordinary animal functions as exercises of property rights.  Does a fish have property rights when the water passes over its gills?
> 
> Don't be so dishonest.
> 
> I repeat: do fish, insects, etc. all have property rights when they breathe?
> ...


Right...so the man who cultivates an orchid has no exclusivity to the fruits of his labors, in your view, since doing so has deprived others of the ability to 'homestead' that land. Again, why is not the fruit tree, and the land it is stationed upon, not the product of his labor? There is no individual ownership in your world, except what you can possess on your being. You say, you can own a factory, but not the land it is upon, but is not the factory made of resources found from the land? Why is land a special case and not the resources produced by the land? This is the essence of the Fetter argument, and no, Georgists have never answered it. 

Why can I own a tree, or an apple, but not the land that it is sitting upon? Have I not also deprived the so called right of all others to also pluck from that tree that apple? Should I pay them a 'rent' for me maintaining my orchid? 

I'm not even going to bother to address the other points because it would be futile. I mean, you didn't even pick up on the fact that you own the air that you inhale, since you extrapolated that means you can own all the air...what a $#@!ing stupid jump. It means exactly what I meant -- when you inhale, the air in your lungs, you own because you've taken it from its dorment state in nature, and changed it. To say we all own the air, means I would have to pay a tax just to breath. It's $#@!ing stupid. 

Also, why can't air be owned? As far as your theory that the sun can be blocked out...I don't think you even realize how large the sun is. Even if you used ALL the resources on Earth and from passing meteors and comets, you still wouldn't be able to block out more than .5% of the Sun's energy output. Never mind the fact that you would have to place your solar arrays so far away so they wouldn't become instantly melted means the size you would need to encase the sun with a spherical enclosure is so enormously large as it make it yes, impossible.

----------


## Roy L

> I don't even think you know what a free-rider is.


I don't think you are capable of even a nanosecond's honest thought.



> The most common fallacious argument for this comes about with defense, and the idea that private armies or insurance companies cannot exist because of this problem, again, only if you throw out the perfectly reasonable and moral principle of exclusivity, that is, the company has no obligation to come to your aid.


Private armies can obviously exist; if they are ALL the armies that exist, that's feudalism.



> Which means, the raider may target you if you are defenseless (not saying it's right), thereby fixing the so-called free-rider problem.


It doesn't fix the free rider problem at all.  It just assumes some raider will fix it.



> The other argument is that you gain benefits from say, augments to my property which raise the property values of those around me. (I'm surprised Statists haven't latched onto this one...yet)


That is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality.



> That you should be compelled to pay for my property enhancements because it has the added effect of helping your property values.


Who here has made such an argument?



> This is an absurd argument from the beginning


It is also, not coincidentally, a strawman fallacy.



> If people who believed in the free-rider non sense actually sat for a moment and mapped out chains of logic in the argument they would come to the realization of how absurd it is in the first place, considering if the free-rider issue was actually a problem NOTHING would get done and we would all starve and die and let our property rot and wither


Another absurd strawman fallacy.



> but luckily we can observe reality and see that the free-rider issue is not an issue in the first place,


It is definitely an issue, which is why all honest economic philosophers have addressed it.  It just isn't the issue *you* claim it is.



> and is only a fictitious Statist absurdity used to justify all sorts of heinous taxes, fees, resource redistribution, etc. etc.


Content = 0.



> Should I have to pay for women to wear skirts, because I gain benefit of being aroused when they do so? Why not...since that means I'm a free-rider, and should have to pay for that, no?


No, because male arousal is part of their motive for wearing them, duh.  Your convenience is NOT part of the motive for a road worker to do his job.  He doesn't know you and couldn't care less about you.  He is just doing the job he is being paid for.

----------


## Roy L

> FlatIron nailed it.


FlatIron only successfully avoided knowing facts that prove his beliefs are false and evil.



> This thread should be merged with one of the other LVT-polluted threads.


Land is not just one issue that should all be addressed in one thread any more than the November election is one issue that should all be in one thread.

----------


## Roy L

> I don't see how lumping land and capital together for purposes of analysis somehow denies the use of natural resources.


It denies the fact that natural resources don't have to be produced by labor, while capital does.



> Over the decades, increases in per capita GDP have been due to massive increases in the productivity of labor.


Increases that have been appropriated by landowners.



> So we may theoretically continue this trend without utilizing any additional land.


In economics, land is all natural resources, so we will definitely be using more land.



> Maybe we'll just recycle and melt down the worn out capital and reshape it into something new, and with alternate forms of energy.


And the source of that energy would be....?

----------


## Roy L

> If'n such an imagined right existed.


It definitely existed.  Our hunter-gatherer ancestors could not have existed without it.



> Until then, you mangy little LVT kids can get off my lawn, afore I fill your scraggly little butts with rock salt.


<yawn>

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> I don't think you are capable of even a nanosecond's honest thought.
> 
> Private armies can obviously exist; if they are ALL the armies that exist, that's feudalism.
> 
> It doesn't fix the free rider problem at all.  It just assumes some raider will fix it.
> 
> That is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality.
> 
> Who here has made such an argument?
> ...


A free-rider is someone who gains a benefit, or service, without remunerating the party that provided that benefit or service. This is why I said you have no idea what the $#@! you are talking about. It is specifically defined in a way that completely ignores exclusivity. The fire service has no responsibility to aid you if your house catches on fire if you have no contract with them. Just because your neighbors houses fires are put out does not in any way prevent people from wanting to purchase fire services because you may gain some benefit by prevention of house jumping fires. 

You even made the retarded statement that defense and property augmentations are not so-called 'free-rider' issues, when if you have ever read any of the arguments for the 'public' good of these services they all make the classical free-rider argument. 

There is no such free-rider problem unless of course, Government force is used to compel business to act to people who've never patronized their services. You see this today in the medical field. You are required to assist someone who've never paid for your services, and then you have people saying this must be done because of a free-rider problem. Non-sense. It's the fact that you've artificially restricted a choice by one party, that gave rise to a problem, not vice versa. 

I don't even know what the hell you are talking about with your road statement. Are you saying roads have to be 'public goods' because of some free-rider problem...I am unaware of? I suppose its only a problem if you believe these companies in a market-society are forced to accept folks who have not paid to use their roads, to allow them to use the roads LOL.

----------


## Roy L

> You can always tell that someone is making an effective argument when they feel the need to hurl insults.


Identifying stupid, absurd lies for what they are is not "hurling insults."



> Please tell us more about how everyone needs to pay a tax because they happen to exist.


Er, I'm the one who is saying they DON'T have to pay a tax -- neither to a private nor a public tax collector -- because they happen to exist, and therefore have equal rights to liberty.

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> It denies the fact that natural resources don't have to be produced by labor, while capital does.
> 
> Increases that have been appropriated by landowners.
> 
> In economics, land is all natural resources, so we will definitely be using more land.
> 
> And the source of that energy would be....?


Capital doesn't have to be a product of labor unless you mean in the loosest of terms. A gourd for instance is capital since it allows you to carry more water than you otherwise could, and your labor did not produce that gourd.

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> Identifying stupid, absurd lies for what they are is not "hurling insults."
> 
> Er, I'm the one who is saying they DON'T have to pay a tax -- neither to a private nor a public tax collector -- because they happen to exist, and therefore have equal rights to liberty.


Obviously you are saying you do have to pay a tax because you cannot exist without taking up space on land, and since you said that you must pay a tax on land, that means you have to pay a tax to exist, unless you can somehow exist without taking up space of land. Did that ever cross your mind, even once?

----------


## Roy L

> I believe as long as you are not displacing someone else


There is no point in a land title that does not displace someone else.



> and you can fence it off or defend it from incursion you should be able to own it.


The "grabbers get" theory of property rights...

So, it's fine by you when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and gives him the choice of being his slave or getting back in the water?

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that.



> I dont care if it is the sun or your backyard.


You'd care pretty quick if someone started charging you for the sunlight that falls on you, or air to breathe.

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> There is no point in a land title that does not displace someone else.
> 
> The "grabbers get" theory of property rights...
> 
> So, it's fine by you when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and gives him the choice of being his slave or getting back in the water?
> 
> Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something liek that.
> 
> You'd care pretty quick if someone started charging you for the sunlight that falls on you, or air to breathe.


Again, no one can charge you for the suns rays because the sun is impossible to homestead, same with air. You can only own the air that resides within you, just like you can own the product of the sun (radiation = energy = photovoltaic panels). Let me know when someone mixes their labor with the sun. HAHA.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> the actual physical liberty...


Yes, I know, the "liberty" for everyone to keep options open on everything they would "otherwise be at liberty" to choose, even when their actual liberty is EXERCISED, and the other choices are deliberately _not made_.

So by "actual physical liberty" you mean, of course, the liberty for everyone to have the option to use any nearby land, occupied or not -- which was never, and is not now, a physical reality, let alone a right.  From humanity's earliest beginnings, people have had physical limitations, with choices that had to be made about what land to occupy and what lands to benefit from.  The notion that you can make a choice, and have it fulfilled (you have a plot of land of your own), but are STILL suffering a "liberty deprivation" from others, is nothing more than the imaginative ramblings of a madman. 




> ...the actual physical liberty _[meaning the option to use any land of their choosing, even if the choice of other land is made]_ without which our ancestors could not have existed...


Bull$#@!. Complete and utter Geoist fantasy bull$#@!.  There have always been shared lands and exclusively used lands, with no LVT bull$#@! involved.  Our ancestors survived by simply surviving, having nothing to do with some fantasy bull$#@! arrangement regarding shared lands, or the even worse fantasy bull$#@! where "just compensation" is somehow due to a gang of covetous morons with their hands out, howling that they were not justly compensated for their deprivation...as if they actually did have an actual "liberty right" to a free, perpetual option on all nearby lands. 




> ...has been removed...


...was never a right to begin with, so nothing was removed, nor did anything need to be "removed". 




> ...by violent, forcible, aggressive physical coercion.


Like trespassers are physically "coerced" into leaving land that is already occupied, and defended from encroachment. Naturally. As it has always been, in all societies, including warring, primitive, highly territorial tribal societies, now and back through time.  Someone encroaches, you forcibly run their little would-be thieving panzy-asses off with guns, pitchforks, whatever it takes.  

They would have made minced meat out of you, Roy.

----------


## Roy L

> Obviously you are saying you do have to pay a tax because you cannot exist without taking up space on land, and since you said that you must pay a tax on land,


Where did I say that?  I said you have to make just compensation for depriving others of their liberty -- and you therefore GET just compensation from others who are doing the same thing to you.  That compensation takes the form of free, secure access to enough good land (as measured by value) to live on via a uniform, universal, individual land tax exemption.  So you can use all the land you want, exclusively and securely, FOR FREE, up to the exempt amount of rental value.



> that means you have to pay a tax to exist, unless you can somehow exist without taking up space of land.


Nope.  You only have to pay *ANY land tax at all* when you are excluding others from more than your equal share of the good land.



> Did that ever cross your mind, even once?


LOL!!  I have been demolishing ignoramuses on this issue for many years, so the idea that you are going to come up with something I haven't thought of is laughable.

----------


## Roy L

> When you say "If you weren't so keen to lie about what I have plainly written, you would know that I am also perfectly fine with property rights: RIGHTFUL property rights in the fruits of labor that can rightly be owned.", do you mean to include gifts and other exchanges of property as "legitimate"?


Yes, of course, because consensual gifts and exchange do not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have.  The principle of non-deprivation is the basis of all valid rights.



> In my idea of rightful property, I don't have to labor for something if another person is willing to voluntarily give (gift) it to me.


Right.  Then the issue is only the rightfulness of their prior title.

----------


## Roy L

> What slavery are you talking about?


The chattel slavery that evil, lying sacks of $#!+ called a property right:

"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



> Same can be said about capital too.


No, it can't, because ownership of capital does not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have.  



> Capital owners rent capital to workers. Workers would not be able to produce as much as the capital lets them if they were to try it on their own. Is capital all of a sudden a non property too?


No, because that's a non sequitur.  How is it alleged to derive from anything I said?



> How about excess bread in my pantry?  How about a higher standard of living of Americans? Do they not deserve it either? Should their property be redistributed to the point where they are equal to lets say Africa?


Incomprehensible.  What part of "the fruits of labor are rightly property" are you having trouble understanding?

----------


## Roy L

> Right...so the man who cultivates an orchid has no exclusivity to the fruits of his labors, in your view, since doing so has deprived others of the ability to 'homestead' that land.


Assuming you mean, "orchard," no.  The fruits of his labor are his -- but only the portion that is truly due TO his labors, and not to his exclusive use of advantageous land that others would have liked to use.  And FYI, "homesteading" is a legal privilege, not a natural ability.  What people have a natural liberty right to do is USE land, not to appropriate it.



> Again, why is not the fruit tree, and the land it is stationed upon, not the product of his labor?


A planted and cared-for fruit tree in an orchard self-evidently *IS* a product of labor, just as the land it is stationed upon self-evidently is *not*.  It was already there, ready to use, with no help from the orchardist or anyone else.  That is why he CHOSE to plant his orchard there, and not in the middle of the desert, or on top of a mountain.  You know this.  You just have to refuse to know it, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> There is no individual ownership in your world, except what you can possess on your being.


Lie.



> You say, you can own a factory, but not the land it is upon, but is not the factory made of resources found from the land?


Correct.  It is made FROM natural resources, but IS NOT a natural resource.



> Why is land a special case and not the resources produced by the land?


??  Land IS the resource.  Any "resources" produced by the land -- I assume you mean wild plants and animals, natural water flows, etc. -- are themselves just different kinds of land.



> This is the essence of the Fetter argument, and no, Georgists have never answered it.


I have demolished it, right here before your very eyes.



> Why can I own a tree, or an apple, but not the land that it is sitting upon?


Because the land existed without your help, while the tree and apple didn't.  The only way you can own the land is by depriving others of their liberty to use it.  You don't have to deprive anyone of anything to own the apple, because without your labor, they would not have been at liberty to eat it.



> Have I not also deprived the so called right of all others to also pluck from that tree that apple? Should I pay them a 'rent' for me maintaining my orchid?


They have been deprived of nothing, as they would not have been at liberty to pick apples that did not exist.  Your "argument" was demolished centuries ago.



> I'm not even going to bother to address the other points because it would be futile.


Hehe.  You're damn right it would.



> I mean, you didn't even pick up on the fact that you own the air that you inhale,


It's not a fact.  I proved your claim is absurd.



> since you extrapolated that means you can own all the air...what a $#@!ing stupid jump.


I did no such thing, stop lying.



> It means exactly what I meant -- when you inhale, the air in your lungs, you own because you've taken it from its dorment state in nature, and changed it.


It takes more than that to be property.  Peeing in a creek changes it.  That doesn't mean you own it.



> To say we all own the air, means I would have to pay a tax just to breath. It's $#@!ing stupid.


Which might be why I explicitly stated the fact that no one owns it.



> Also, why can't air be owned?


Atmospheric air can't be owned because it is not a product of labor.  Compressed air can be owned because it is.  But note that compressing air only results in a valid property right as long as air is abundant.  If someone started compressing so much air that others' use of the atmosphere was compromised, the compressor owner's property right in the compressed air would be invalidated.



> As far as your theory that the sun can be blocked out...I don't think you even realize how large the sun is. Even if you used ALL the resources on Earth and from passing meteors and comets, you still wouldn't be able to block out more than .5% of the Sun's energy output.


Calculation to support this claim?  Of course not.



> Never mind the fact that you would have to place your solar arrays so far away so they wouldn't become instantly melted means the size you would need to encase the sun with a spherical enclosure is so enormously large as it make it yes, impossible.


The Dyson Sphere is not a solid enclosure.  That's a popular misconception.  It's an array of orbiting collectors sufficiently dense as to intercept most of the sun's output.  But that is not even necessary.  You could dim the sunlight reaching earth substantially with a rather modest array at the L1 point -- and start charging the whole planet rent.

----------


## PierzStyx

> So you want to be a parasite leaching of the rest of us as well.


Hey, its good to be the king.

----------


## Roy L

> Capital doesn't have to be a product of labor unless you mean in the loosest of terms.


Wrong.  Capital is a product of labor by definition.



> A gourd for instance is capital since it allows you to carry more water than you otherwise could, and your labor did not produce that gourd.


<yawn>  Try carrying water in a gourd that has had no labor applied to it.

Is that sort of stupid, dishonest nonsense really the best you can do?

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> Assuming you mean, "orchard," no.  The fruits of his labor are his -- but only the portion that is truly due TO his labors, and not to his exclusive use of advantageous land that others would have liked to use.  And FYI, "homesteading" is a legal privilege, not a natural ability.  What people have a natural liberty right to do is USE land, not to appropriate it.
> 
> A planted and cared-for fruit tree in an orchard self-evidently *IS* a product of labor, just as the land it is stationed upon self-evidently is *not*.  It was already there, ready to use, with no help from the orchardist or anyone else.  That is why he CHOSE to plant his orchard there, and not in the middle of the desert, or on top of a mountain.  You know this.  You just have to refuse to know it, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.
> 
> Lie.
> 
> Correct.  It is made FROM natural resources, but IS NOT a natural resource.
> 
> ??  Land IS the resource.  Any "resources" produced by the land -- I assume you mean wild plants and animals, natural water flows, etc. -- are themselves just different kinds of land.
> ...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4cEyCaldH4
http://www.exploratorium.edu/venus/question4.html

Seriously....Jupiter only blocks 1% of the Sun's rays...JUPITER, which is 2.5x the size of all the other planets combined. 



So, you are telling me, that there is enough resources let alone the economic capacity of one entity controlling such amount of resources, to blot out enough of the sun as to make it economic (e.g. rentable). Never mind, the fact that if we were to intercept most of the sun's energy output that would destroy all life on Earth, so who exactly is going to be renting this energy?

----------


## Roy L

> A free-rider is someone who gains a benefit, or service, without remunerating the party that provided that benefit or service. This is why I said you have no idea what the $#@! you are talking about.


Incorrectly, as it happens.



> It is specifically defined in a way that completely ignores exclusivity.


Not everything is excludable.



> The fire service has no responsibility to aid you if your house catches on fire if you have no contract with them. Just because your neighbors houses fires are put out does not in any way prevent people from wanting to purchase fire services because you may gain some benefit by prevention of house jumping fires.


And the odd part is, you actually imagine that is relevant.



> You even made the retarded statement that defense and property augmentations are not so-called 'free-rider' issues, when if you have ever read any of the arguments for the 'public' good of these services they all make the classical free-rider argument.


I made no such statement, stop lying.



> There is no such free-rider problem unless of course, Government force is used to compel business to act to people who've never patronized their services. You see this today in the medical field. You are required to assist someone who've never paid for your services, and then you have people saying this must be done because of a free-rider problem. Non-sense. It's the fact that you've artificially restricted a choice by one party, that gave rise to a problem, not vice versa.


I don't know of anyone who claims free emergency medical care is provided because of a free rider problem.



> I don't even know what the hell you are talking about with your road statement.


Or any other facts.



> Are you saying roads have to be 'public goods' because of some free-rider problem...I am unaware of? I suppose its only a problem if you believe these companies in a market-society are forced to accept folks who have not paid to use their roads, to allow them to use the roads LOL.


The free rider is the LANDOWNER who gets to charge road users full market value for access to the road he did not build.

You are light-years away from understanding any of this.

----------


## Austrian Econ Disciple

> Incorrectly, as it happens.
> 
> Not everything is excludable.
> 
> And the odd part is, you actually imagine that is relevant.
> 
> I made no such statement, stop lying.
> 
> I don't know of anyone who claims free emergency medical care is provided because of a free rider problem.
> ...


You sound like Obama. How can the landowner not have built the road, since building the road is the precondition for owning the land in the first place? You said you understood Lockean property rights, but evidently, you do not. LOL. Also, I've never ever seen free rider being used to denote the property owner....

----------


## Roy L

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4cEyCaldH4
> http://www.exploratorium.edu/venus/question4.html
> 
> Seriously....Jupiter only blocks 1% of the Sun's rays...


Where on earth did you get that absurd notion?  It blocks about 2 *billionths* of the sun's rays.



> JUPITER, which is 2.5x the size of all the other planets combined.


Hmmm.  A sphere is like, the least efficient possible shape for a solar energy collector... 



> 


Uh, Jupiter is a spheroid, not a flat disc.



> So, you are telling me, that there is enough resources let alone the economic capacity of one entity controlling such amount of resources, to blot out enough of the sun as to make it economic (e.g. rentable).


No, now you are moving the goalposts.  I never claimed such an entity existed NOW.  I simply stated the fact that it is far from impossible.  Consider: during a total eclipse of the sun, the moon, which is less than 3500km in diameter, completely blocks out the sun.  The L1 point is about 1.5Mkm from the earth, or about 1% of the distance to the sun.  Therefore, a solar energy array -- or just a thin, flat, opaque disc -- just 1% of the sun's diameter (about 14Kkm) at the L1 point would be enough to block out the sun completely.  That is not only possible, it is something we could probably build in a few decades if we wanted to do it.  In the near future it will be as trivial as building a bridge is now.



> Never mind, the fact that if we were to intercept most of the sun's energy output that would destroy all life on Earth,


Huh?  The *earth* isn't going to intercept it.  Give your head a shake.



> so who exactly is going to be renting this energy?


People who don't want to freeze when the "homesteader" blocks the sun.

----------


## Roy L

> You sound like Obama.


Obama is a puddytat compared to me.



> How can the landowner not have built the road, since building the road is the precondition for owning the land in the first place?


??  On what planet?  How many people who own land have built the roads that run beside it?



> You said you understood Lockean property rights, but evidently, you do not. LOL.


You are spewing idiotic non sequiturs.



> Also, I've never ever seen free rider being used to denote the property owner....


Then listen up, because I'm schooling you.

----------


## Roy L

> Again, no one can charge you for the suns rays because the sun is impossible to homestead, same with air.


I just proved you wrong about the sun.  And air can certainly be "homesteaded" by compressing and storing it.



> You can only own the air that resides within you, just like you can own the product of the sun (radiation = energy = photovoltaic panels).


Absurdity.  Photovoltaic panels are products of labor, not of the sun.  You know this.



> Let me know when someone mixes their labor with the sun. HAHA.


There is no such thing as "mixing labor" with physical objects.  It is impossible, nothing but a misleading metaphor.

----------


## Roy L

> 


When you need to not know facts, there are always ways to arrange your mind not to know them.

----------


## Roy L

> Yes, I know, the "liberty" for everyone to keep options open on everything they would "otherwise be at liberty" to choose, even when their actual liberty is EXERCISED, and the other choices are deliberately _not made_.


Of course.  That's what liberty MEANS.  Having the liberty to live where you want to live doesn't stop when you choose a place to live.  You are still at liberty to live elsewhere.  Having the liberty to choose your employment doesn't stop when you land a job.

Why spew such stupid, dishonest drivel, Steven?



> So by "actual physical liberty" you mean, of course, the liberty for everyone to have the option to use any nearby land, occupied or not -- which was never, and is not now, a physical reality, let alone a right.


Of course it was.  It isn't now because the right to liberty has been forcibly removed by landowners.



> From humanity's earliest beginnings, people have had physical limitations, with choices that had to be made about what land to occupy and what lands to benefit from.


A physical limitation is not a violation of liberty.



> The notion that you can make a choice, and have it fulfilled (you have a plot of land of your own), but are STILL suffering a "liberty deprivation" from others, is nothing more than the imaginative ramblings of a madman.


It is self-evident and indisputable fact.  If you have a spot for your house, it doesn't do much good if a greedy, evil, thieving, murdering sack of $#!+ -- let's call him, "Steven" -- figures he owns the local water supply.



> Bull$#@!. Complete and utter Geoist fantasy bull$#@!.


Indisputable physical fact.  



> There have always been shared lands and exclusively used lands, with no LVT bull$#@! involved.


Until a few thousand years ago, there was no OWNERSHIP involved, so people were at liberty to use the land.  You just have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> Our ancestors survived by simply surviving,


No, they did not.



> having nothing to do with some fantasy bull$#@! arrangement regarding shared lands,


It is indisputable that hunter-gatherers share access to the land they live on.  It is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality.  You just have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> or the even worse fantasy bull$#@! where "just compensation" is somehow due to a gang of covetous morons with their hands out,


Oh, you mean landowners?



> howling that they were not justly compensated for their deprivation...as if they actually did have an actual "liberty right" to a free, perpetual option on all nearby lands.


They indisputably did have that liberty right: the option to use it when and as they wanted, for free.



> ...was never a right to begin with, so nothing was removed, nor did anything need to be "removed".


It was indisputably a right, and was indisputably removed by landowning.  The history of conflict between the natives of North America and the landowning culture that conquered, dispossessed and slaughtered them proves that fact beyond any possibility of honest dispute -- which obviously won't be stopping you from disputing it.  You just have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> Like trespassers are physically "coerced" into leaving land that is already occupied, and defended from encroachment.


I.e., land that has been stolen, forcibly removing their liberty right to use it.



> Naturally.


No, not "naturally."



> As it has always been, in all societies,


Flat-out lie.



> including warring, primitive, highly territorial tribal societies, now and back through time.  Someone encroaches, you forcibly run their little would-be thieving panzy-asses off with guns, pitchforks, whatever it takes.


Nope.  You're just lying again.  The North American natives, for example, did not try to expel the early European colonists.  Only after it became clear that the colonists intended to expel *them* did they resist the encroachment.



> They would have made minced meat out of you, Roy.


Murderous, thieving landowners, you mean?  Sure.  Murder comes naturally to greedy, evil, thieving parasites.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Got to love Henry George. An individual person owning property is inherently flawed, but a group of people doing the same is magically superior.


Henry George wrote no such thing.  He said, reclaim community created wealth that soaked into the land crystallizing as a land values.  Land values were NOT made by the landower. *Use this community created economic growth to fund community services*.  He said *do not use privately created weath to fund common services*.  ALL MAKES SENSE.

He did not advocate government ownership of land - well government holding of the title deeds, as the government owns it anyhow.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I am perfectly fine with property rights. If you dont think peoperty can be owned then don't own it.


LAND = the ground under out feet which nature gave.
PROPERTY = the Capital on the land, the buildings, which man made.

Do not confuse the two.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Does not change the injustice of taking away property rights.


*Geoism does not take away property rights. It is just a highly just tax shift. All stays the same: land ownership, business laws, business behaviour, civil laws, criminal laws, etc.*

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I've never ever seen free rider being used to denote the property owner....


A House.  Split into two parts.  The CAPITAL (the bricks) and the LAND. The Capital depreciates over time, the Land appreciates.  think hard about why?

Land values are created by Community created economic growth that soaks into the land and crystallizes as land values.
That is where the land values come from. They do not come from the sky or the fact you may have painted your window frames (the frames are Capital).  The landowner DID NOT created the land values, the community did. This is economic fact not opinion. 

Once the above is understood the rest is easier. *Currently, the landowner keeps the gains created by the community - freeloading*.  Reclaiming this community created economic growth to pay for community services makes lots of sense. 

*Community growth pays for community services - MAKES LOTS OF SENSE. 
Community services are NOT paid for by private wealth, that stays private by having no Income tax - MAKES LOTS OF SENSE.*

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I don't see how lumping land and capital together for purposes of analysis somehow denies the use of natural resources. Over the decades, increases in per capita GDP have been due to massive increases in the productivity of labor. So we may theoretically continue this trend without utilizing any additional land. Maybe we'll just recycle and melt down the worn out capital and reshape it into something new, and with alternate forms of energy.


Martin Wolf...

_The idea that land and capital are the same thing is evidently ludicrous. It requires us to believe that the economic machine is self-sustaining  a sort of perpetual motion machine._

As we all know perpetual motion machines do not work 

Martin Wolf...

_"But the powerful owners of natural resources wished to protect their unearned gains. In practice, therefore, the tax burden fell on labour and capital. Economics, one might argue, was pushed into supporting this way of organising economic life."_

That is rigging the system.

----------


## erowe1

> honest people need a way to protect themselves against evil, greedy rent seekers who will never leave off contriving ways to charge others for what nature and their cultural heritage provide for free.


I agree. Honest people need a way to protect themselves against the state.

----------


## Swarmed

> Community created economic growth


No such thing.  Communities and societies don't exist.

----------


## Roy L

> I agree. Honest people need a way to protect themselves against the state.


Sorry, but you're just spewing stupid, dishonest "meeza hatesa gubmint" swill again.  It's true that greedy, evil, parasitic private rent seekers, being the vicious, cowardly filth that they are, will always try to use the state to create and enforce their rent seeking privileges to rob and enslave the honest and productive.  Like any other technology, the state confers power, which can be used responsibly or irresponsibly -- and is very attractive to those who want to use it irresponsibly.

But without the state, the honest are absolutely at the mercy of the greedy, dishonest and sociopathic, as Somalia -- and every other historical example of statelessness -- proves.  As Washington so astutely observed, government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master -- but responsible, democratic government *IS* A *SERVANT*, and a very necessary one to the existence of civilization.  So chanting "meeza hatesa gubmint" doesn't solve anything.  It's just a way of evading your responsibility to think, and to participate in government BY the people of which you are one.

----------


## Roy L

> No such thing.  Communities and societies don't exist.


Another example of the dishonest absurdities intended to justify and enable atrocities.

----------


## Swarmed

There is no responsibility to participate in governments or any other collectives.

I'm not being dishonest.  Society doesn't exist, only individuals do.  Society is just a concept, individuals interacting with one another.  My words are intended to justify and enable freedom, not atrocities.

----------


## erowe1

> But without the state, the honest are absolutely at the mercy of the greedy, dishonest and sociopathic, as Somalia -- and every other historical example of statelessness -- proves.


Somalia isn't stateless. People there are subjugated to violent gangs who rule them without their consent (i.e. states).

----------


## silverhandorder

I do not believe in community property rights or taxes. And land belongs to whoever is on it first.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It's true that greedy, evil, parasitic private rent seekers, being the vicious, cowardly filth that they are, will always try to use the state to create and enforce their rent seeking privileges to rob and enslave the honest and productive.


Substitute public for private, and out of your own words you are denounced:  

It's true that greedy, evil, parasitic _public_ rent seekers, being the vicious, cowardly filth that they are, will always try to use the state to create and enforce their rent seeking privileges to rob and enslave the honest and productive.

Yep.  LVT, and you, to a tee. 

I am thoroughly convinced that you would not have been opposed in principle to slavery or slave ownership prior to its abolition, any more than you are opposed in principle to private landownership or rent-seeking behavior now. That isn't your concern at all.  You would accept slave ownership in principle then, just as you accept landownership in principle now, your _only_ concern centering around the notion of "just compensation" and equal (socialized) public access to "unearned" wealth.

----------


## Gumba of Liberty

> That's not the next part of the argument, so you can relax (and stop lying).
> 
> Those of us who are not stupid, ignorant, greedy, evil, lying sacks of $#!+ are aware of the fact that the sun, the oceans, the earth's atmosphere, the alphabet, mathematics, etc. can never rightly be anyone's property.  All who refuse to know that fact ARE in fact stupid, ignorant, greedy, evil, lying sacks of $#!+.  However, as all have equal liberty rights to use those things, honest people need a way to protect themselves against evil, greedy rent seekers who will never leave off contriving ways to charge others for what nature and their cultural heritage provide for free.  To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.  Calling such a government "one particular gang of thieves" that "anoints itself as the owner of all the land and charges us rent to use it" is just filthy, despicably dishonest "meeza hatesa gubmint" $#!+.  We need government to administer use of the land to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to use it, just as we need government to administer the atmosphere, the oceans, etc. to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to use them.
> 
> There is no way for anyone, or any group, or any government, or any corporation, or any church, or any other legal entity whatsoever rightly to own land.  It is impossible, *as it inherently removes the liberty rights of others to use the land.*  The only difference between owning land and owning a slave is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's rights.  When you own land, you remove one of all persons' rights.  The more of the land is owned, the fewer rights remain.  In the limit, if all the land is owned by one man, all the rest are in exactly the same position as if they were also all his property.  He has absolute power of life and death over them.  If two people own the land, or three, or 300, or 3 million, the others are only "free" to choose which master owns them, for whose benefit they will labor rather than their own.  They are not free not to be owned: their rights to liberty have been removed by force.
> 
> A good man might own land, just as a good man might own slaves.  Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, as did most of America's other Founding Fathers.  But the fact that a good man might own land does not justify landowning any more than a good man owning slaves justifies slave owning.  And landowning is inherently an instrument of theft, oppression and murder that serves the greedy and evil no matter who else participates in it, just as slave owning is.  Landowning is like the One Ring of Sauron: it is evil in its inherent, fundamental nature, and so ultimately it can serve only evil.


Under a strict Lockean or Rothbardian definition of property rights, the ONLY way to own land is to USE it. This is called homesteading. If you use it you own it. If not, others can homestead it. Others cannot use what is already in use. Does this make sense to you or am I just typing for my keyboard?

----------


## anaconda

> It denies the fact that natural resources don't have to be produced by labor, while capital does.


Workers receive a wage for extracting resources and others receive a wage for transforming them into intermediate or final goods. The cost is included in the final goods and counted in GDP. This does not seem like denial to me.

----------


## Roy L

> There is no responsibility to participate in governments or any other collectives.


Yes, there is, because the only way to repay your heritage is by your posterity.  Reneging on your responsibility to pay your debts to your benefactors is not only childish and selfish, it's greedy, dishonest and sociopathic.



> I'm not being dishonest.


You are indisputably being dishonest.



> Society doesn't exist, only individuals do.


No, that's just another repetition of the same stupid lie on your part.  Society indisputably exists.  You could with equal "logic" claim that molecules don't exist, only atoms.  Or beehives don't exist, only individual bees.  It's just stupid, absurd, dishonest crap, and the only reason you are saying it is to justify the atrocities you intend to commit in your slavering, ravenous, sociopathic greed to obtain unearned wealth by violating others' rights.



> Society is just a concept, individuals interacting with one another.


Again, you know that is a lie.  Individuals also interact with one another online, but that is not society.  Any good dictionary can tell you what society is, in terms that make clear it exists just as much as molecules and beehives exist.



> My words are intended to justify and enable freedom, not atrocities.


No.  Your words are intended to rationalize, justify, and enable the enslavement of billions of human beings, and the *murders* of around 15 million of them *EVERY YEAR*, for no reason but your own desire for unearned profit.

----------


## Roy L

> Somalia isn't stateless.


It is most definitely stateless, though like all stateless societies it is moving toward feudalism.



> People there are subjugated to violent gangs who rule them without their consent (i.e. states).


No, that is not what a state is, as any good dictionary could inform you, if you were willing to be informed, which you are not.  The definition you gave is one definition of *anarchy*: the rule of a thousand tyrants.  You are just lying about what a state is, because you have already realized that Somalia proves your beliefs are false, stupid, and evil.

----------


## Roy L

> I do not believe in community property rights or taxes.


Then you do not believe in justice, which cannot exist without community property rights in what the community produces, and you do not believe in civilization, which cannot exist without taxes.



> And land belongs to whoever is on it first.


Why?  Why not whoever sees it first, or whoever names it first, or whoever pisses on it first, as dogs claim their territories?

Of course, your claim is just objectively false.  Human beings have *never* recognized a property right in land simply on the basis of first arrival.  *Never*.

Why don't you just stop making false, absurd, stupid and dishonest claims, and find a willingness to know facts?

----------


## Swarmed

> No, that's just another repetition of the same stupid lie on your part.  Society indisputably exists.  You could with equal "logic" claim that molecules don't exist, only atoms.  Or beehives don't exist, only individual bees.  It's just stupid, absurd, dishonest crap, and the only reason you are saying it is to justify the atrocities you intend to commit in your slavering, ravenous, sociopathic greed to obtain unearned wealth by violating others' rights.


Molecules physically exist.
Beehives physically exist.
Individuals physically exist.
Society does not physically exist.




> Again, you know that is a lie.  Individuals also interact with one another online, but that is not society.  Any good dictionary can tell you what society is, in terms that make clear it exists just as much as molecules and beehives exist.


It's a community, which doesn't physically exist, it is a concept.

----------


## Roy L

> Under a strict Lockean or Rothbardian definition of property rights, the ONLY way to own land is to USE it.


How would that confer a right forcibly to remove others' rights to use it by violent, aggressive physical coercion?  It seems to me that if you are using a natural resource that others want to use, you have already had your turn, and it is now someone else's turn.



> This is called homesteading.


But more honestly and accurately, it is called, "stealing."



> If you use it you own it.


So if you swim in a river, you own it?

If you use the earth's atmosphere to carry toxic gases away from your chemical plant, you own the atmosphere?

I don't think so.  Try again.



> If not, others can homestead it.


How would they have any more right to remove others' rights than you did?



> Others cannot use what is already in use.


Of course they can.  Why wouldn't they be able to?  Our ancestors certainly did so for millions of years, exercising their natural liberty rights to sustain their own lives and those of their families -- until greedy, thieving parasites figured out that they could steal everything others produced indefinitely into the future by just forcibly removing their liberty to use the land.



> Does this make sense to you or am I just typing for my keyboard?


It makes no sense because it implies absurd conclusions, as proved above.

----------


## Roy L

> Molecules physically exist.
> Beehives physically exist.
> Individuals physically exist.
> Society does not physically exist.


Society indisputably physically exists, as any good dictionary would be able to inform you, if you were willing to be informed, which you are not.



> It's a community, which doesn't physically exist, it is a concept.


Of course the community physically exists, just as molecules, beehives and individuals exist.  Get that stupid Margaret Thatcher $#!+ out of your head.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> ...justice...cannot exist without community property rights in what the community produces...


Somebody stick a fork in Roy, he just went from half-baked to done in one sentence.

----------


## Roy L

> Workers receive a wage for extracting resources and others receive a wage for transforming them into intermediate or final goods. The cost is included in the final goods and counted in GDP. This does not seem like denial to me.


Then where is the part about where the resources came from, and who was paid for them, and why?

You have just changed the subject completely, and are now talking about labor, not land or capital.

Denial doesn't get much more ambitious than that.

----------


## Roy L

> Somebody stick a fork in Roy, he just went from half-baked to done in one sentence.


<yawn>  What, another lying ninny who claims "the community does not exist"?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> <yawn>  What, another lying ninny who claims "the community does not exist"?


Let's just put what you believe back up on the big screen again, all stripped nekkid so everyone can see:

*Justice cannot exist without community property rights in what the community produces.* - Roy LVT Hive Manifesto

It's nighttime, soldier ant, and I think I hear your queen calling. Shouldn't you be herding and milking caterpillars, or fast asleep in a dirt mound somewhere?

----------


## Roy L

> Substitute public for private, and out of your own words you are denounced:


No, those are now *your* words, not mine, and they are of course just stupid, evil lies.  Stop lying. 



> It's true that greedy, evil, parasitic _public_ rent seekers,


BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.  Lie.  Unlike the *private* appropriation of *publicly created* land rent, the *public* recovery of *PUBLICLY CREATED* land rent is *not* parasitic, because the economic advantages the rent is paid for *COME FROM* the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides -- i.e., FROM THE PUBLIC -- not from the *nothing* the private landowner provides.

Strike One.



> being the vicious, cowardly filth that they are, will always try to use the state to create and enforce their rent seeking privileges to rob and enslave the honest and productive.


BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.  Another lie.  Paying land rent does not and cannot enslave the honest and productive, because it is a voluntary, market-based, value-for-value transaction.  The honest and productive pay the same land rent either way (except that under LVT + UIE, they *don't* have to pay it up to the exempt amount).  The difference with LVT is that they don't ALSO have to pay taxes on their productive economic activities in order to support a wealthy, greedy, idle, privileged, parasitic landowning class.  They no longer have to pay for government TWICE in order to enable landowners to pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.  LVT therefore indisputably RELEASES the honest and productive from their part-time slavery as taxpayers, liberating them from bitter bondage -- and that's aside from the universal individual exemption, which makes them *ABSOLUTELY FREE* to use land without paying anyone else anything, ever -- a liberty they can never enjoy under the system of landowner privilege and parasitism.

STRIKE TWO.



> Yep.  LVT, and you, to a tee.


BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.  Another stupid, evil lie, as proved above.

That's Strike Three, pumpkin.  You're Out.



> I am thoroughly convinced that you would not have been opposed in principle to slavery or slave ownership prior to its abolition, any more than you are opposed in principle to private landownership or rent-seeking behavior now.


<yawn>  I guess that depends on what your definition of "in principle" is.  If slave title deeds no longer enabled their owners to compel the labor of "their" slaves by force, or otherwise remove their rights without making just compensation (like the "slaves" in high school "Slave Days" -- do they still have those?), then they would be an empty shell rather than an actual privilege, like private land title deeds under full public rent recovery, and the injustice would be gone.  It's true that I don't waste my time and energy opposing empty formalisms when there is so much genuine evil, injustice and oppression to oppose.

So maybe you are right -- if by opposing slavery "in principle" you mean opposing high school Slave Days.



> That isn't your concern at all.


Lie.  I have consistently opposed all privileges that stimulate rent seeking behavior (which public recovery of *publicly created* land rents does not), as it is wasteful.



> You would accept slave ownership in principle then,


High school Slave Days.



> just as you accept landownership in principle now,


Lie.  I have proved many times that land cannot rightly be owned, so STOP LYING about what I have plainly written.  Ownership in principle must include all four basic property rights -- exclusive possession, control of use, benefit, and disposition -- and I do not accept the latter two of those rights wrt private land titles.



> your _only_ concern centering around the notion of "just compensation" and equal (socialized) public access to "unearned" wealth.


Lie.  Stop lying about what I have plainly written, and explained to you very clearly and patiently many times.

----------


## Roy L

> Let's just put what you believe back up on the big screen again, all stripped nekkid so everyone can see:
> 
> *Justice cannot exist without community property rights in what the community produces.* - Roy LVT Hive Manifesto


<yawn>  It is indisputable fact.  If the community has no property right in the value it produces, it will be taken by someone who didn't produce it (i.e., in practice, landowners).  They will get something for nothing, while the community that produced the value will get nothing for something.  That is by definition not justice.



> It's nighttime, soldier ant, and I think I hear your queen calling. Shouldn't you be herding and milking caterpillars, or fast asleep in a dirt mound somewhere?


Evil, dishonest filth beneath contempt.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I do not believe in community property rights or taxes. And land belongs to whoever is on it first.


Land belongs to the state. They have sovereignty. You have title deeds - a set of rights.

Understand how values came about in land. The landowner never made them - the community did.  LVT leaves land ownership alone.   LVT does not tax the property on the land (the buildings - Capital), it reclaims the community created economic growth that soaked into the land crystallizing as land values. Realistically it does NOT tax the land or buildings on it. 

If men can claim land, given by nature, can they claim the air we breathe as well, which is given by nature?  Can they claim the oceans?

In ye olden tymes, you only occupied land if you made full productive use of it, otherwise it went back to the community.  Then no one can hoard land and speculate and manipulate land markets - making money for doing nothing.  But LVT say keep the land, stay on it.  We reclaim our community created value, even on unused land. So the speculators cannot leave land for 20 years to drive up land values they cream off by doing NOTHING.

LVT is a brilliantly elegant solution that appeals to all. Oh BTW, it also eliminates Income Tax.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Under a strict Lockean or Rothbardian definition of property rights, the ONLY way to own land is to USE it. This is called homesteading. If you use it you own it. If not, others can homestead it. Others cannot use what is already in use. Does this make sense to you or am I just typing for my keyboard?


I am sure Roy full understands that. So what you are advocating is a Feudal system. 

Being just a tax shift, LVT leaves all alone. Land ownership stays the same. If you want to own 50 acres on the edge of city hoping the city will expand and your land's value increased 100-fold, then do it. But you pay a levy on that land by its value, whether a building is on it or not, or whether crops or on it or not.  Currently landowners pay ZERO.  Currently, Mr Big-Moneybags can land bank to his hearts content and hold land back inside cities that could otherwise be used for the people in the city.  LVT will make him use the land productively or finacially make him sell to someone who does.  

Then Mr Big-Moneybags can spend his money on doing soemthing productive and use some enterprise.

Harmful land speculation is stopped. Parasites are rolled back. Money and effort is used for productive uses.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> No such thing.  Communities and societies don't exist.


Maybe in la-la land they do not. 

Man is a social animal and always grouped from the beginning of time.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> <yawn>  It is indisputable fact.  If the community has no property right in the value it produces, it will be taken by someone who didn't produce it (i.e., in practice, landowners).  *They will get something for nothing*, while the community that produced the value will get nothing for something.  That is by definition not justice.


Spot on!

----------


## Steven Douglas

OK, Roy, EcoWarrier(sic), I've read enough of your geodrivel. 

I vote no.

----------


## EcoWarrier

This may be easy for some..

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Workers receive a wage for extracting resources and others receive a wage for transforming them into intermediate or final goods. The cost is included in the final goods and counted in GDP. This does not seem like denial to me.


Factors of Productiuon:

LAND - made by nature and all its resouces, inc, air, seabed, seas, ectromagnetic spectrum, etc. 
CAPITAL - all man made things, inc money.
LABOR - men's efforts

The resouces of Land (ores, oil, etc) were NOT made by men, nature gave that. It is Commonwealth. 

Workers (Labor) extract resources, using tools (Capital). Other workers (Labor) transform the resouces to Capital in goods using machines (Capital). The resouces (Commonwealth) were obtained free. 

Geonomics puts a levy on the resources that were extracted to pay for community services. This reduces, or elimiates, Income Tax. This gives more money to people to buy the products.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I vote no.


So you vote for slavery.  That is sad.

----------


## silverhandorder

Your idea of justice is completely wrong. The community creates no value. Each individual within community creates value and enjoys it too. There is no obligation on no one's part to pay back if they receive more value then others. Furthermore since resources were made by no one the most just system would have the resources go to the first finder.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Your idea of justice is completely wrong. The community creates no value. Each individual within community creates value and enjoys it too. There is no obligation on no one's part to pay back if they receive more value then others. Furthermore since resources were made by no one the most just system would have the resources go to the first finder.


Truth.  A community can, in practice, creative negative value-for example, purposefully ceasing productive work in favor of getting welfare checks.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> But more honestly and accurately, it is called, "stealing."


You established in post 82 that you aren't allowed to redefine words this way.

----------


## Steven Douglas

We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Sanity.  Back to the good old days, when you'd see a collectivist on the sidewalk, take pity on him, and drop some change into his cup, knowing that the only value he ever soaked into the land was the puddle of urine under him.

----------


## rpwi

It's interesting to see how these LVT arguments devolve into circles...

The pro-LVT camp focuses on imperfections of land ownership...and they're right!

The anti-LVT camp focuses on the flaws of a property/land tax...and they're right!

In any such situation in which each side argues from only their own strengths, cross talks results and granularity and addressing the other side's arguments are key to resolution.

The pro-LVT argument has two DISTINCT and SEPARATE arguments that HAVE to be split up.  

The first is that land ownership is presently not distributed in proportion to merit.  The LVT'er absolutely has to establish this argument before moving on.

If the first argument is acknowledged, then a derivative conclusion can be reach that there exist justification for some type of change to the status quo.

The second argument is about solutions.  Because land ownership results in skewed wealth, LVT represents one of many possible solutions to rectify the flaws of land distribution.

In truth, there should be only two types of arguments on LVT.  The first whether land is distributed accordingly (which can not be argued effectively if LVT is a distraction).

The other argument, would then only take place if there is agreement upon the first that the status quo in land ownership is flawed.  In which case appropriate arguments from the LVT camp would be that LVT would be a possible solution to an agreed upon issue.  A counter from the anti-LVT camp, would be to acknowledge the land problem...but to argue that LVT would be a cure worse than the disease.  A proper back-and-forth could develop over the economic affects of LVT vs the status quo vs other other options.  This we don't have in our land debates...hence why they go in circles.

----------


## silverhandorder

I don't know about previous arguments since I can't stand to read long threads. I argue from a moral stand point. You can not tax people period. Whether the status quo is just or not is not even up to discussion. Government owns most land out of anyone, we technically don't own any land since there are land taxes and ability for government to simply take away any wealth they like. Obviously this status quo is unjust. LVT people are arguing against the theoretical status quo where property rights actually exist.

As far as I am concerned we live in a moral paradigm of LVT. That is community leaders can do w.e they want to you and "your" land.

----------


## Roy L

> Your idea of justice is completely wrong.


It is objectively correct.



> The community creates no value.


That is nothing but another stupid lie from you, an absurdity intended to rationalize, justify and enable atrocities.  You intend to rob, enslave and murder innocent people for your own unearned profit, and you need such absurdities to rationalize and justify your greedy, evil intentions.

The community creates value by providing government services and infrastructure, as well as opportunities and amenities.  There is no way to decompose those contributions to value into individual contributions.  The community per se is essential to their value and their existence, but no one individual is.  For example, the community is absolutely essential to the development and existence of language -- it is something that is completely impossible for individuals to create in the absence of community -- and without language, economic opportunity and value both cease to exist.



> Each individual within community creates value and enjoys it too.


Wrong.  The productive create value, and landowners take it from them by force and enjoy it.



> There is no obligation on no one's part to pay back if they receive more value then others.


There most certainly is, if they "receive" it by forcibly violating and removing others' rights, as landowners do.



> Furthermore since resources were made by no one the most just system would have the resources go to the first finder.


No, there is nothing just about that at all.  It's just an arbitrary system of "grabbers get" that is based on injustice and forcible violation of rights, as already proved.  If your claim were not stupid, evil garbage, Crusoe would be within his rights to point his musket at Friday and give him a choice between becoming his permanent slave or getting back in the water.  As we know that is false, your claim stands irretrievably refuted.

----------


## Roy L

> You established in post 82 that you aren't allowed to redefine words this way.


OK, I guess "banditry" would be more accurate, as already proved by the example of the bandit in the pass.

----------


## Roy L

> The anti-LVT camp focuses on the flaws of a property/land tax...and they're right!


No, they are almost never right; and when they are, their arguments apply much more to other taxes than to a land value tax.



> In any such situation in which each side argues from only their own strengths, cross talks results and granularity and addressing the other side's arguments are key to resolution.


I have never seen an opponent of LVT even ATTEMPT to address the arguments made by the pro-LVT side.  They can't.



> The pro-LVT argument has two DISTINCT and SEPARATE arguments that HAVE to be split up.


Strawman alert.



> The first is that land ownership is presently not distributed in proportion to merit.  The LVT'er absolutely has to establish this argument before moving on.


It is self-evident and indisputable that land ownership is not distributed in proportion to merit.  To claim it is is simply dishonest.  By what conceivable notion of "merit" could the Saud family own oil-bearing lands valued in the trillions of dollars?



> The second argument is about solutions.  Because land ownership results in skewed wealth, LVT represents one of many possible solutions to rectify the flaws of land distribution.


But that is not all it does.  It gets the incentives right, and removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners at its root.



> In truth, there should be only two types of arguments on LVT.  The first whether land is distributed accordingly (which can not be argued effectively if LVT is a distraction).


That is not an argument that any honest person could engage in, as it is self-evident and indisputable that land is not distributed justly, appropriately, efficiently, or according to any honest concept of merit.



> The other argument, would then only take place if there is agreement upon the first that the status quo in land ownership is flawed.


We all know it is flawed.  The anti-LVT side just denies it even though they know it.



> In which case appropriate arguments from the LVT camp would be that LVT would be a possible solution to an agreed upon issue.  A counter from the anti-LVT camp, would be to acknowledge the land problem...but to argue that LVT would be a cure worse than the disease.


There's never been such an argument, and there never will be.  The superiority of LVT is indisputable.



> A proper back-and-forth could develop over the economic affects of LVT vs the status quo vs other other options.  This we don't have in our land debates...hence why they go in circles.


No, we go in circles because the only "argument" the anti-LVT side ever offers is their personal refusal to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.

----------


## Roy L

> I don't know about previous arguments since I can't stand to read long threads.


No, because you can't stand to see repeated proofs that your beliefs are false and evil.



> I argue from a moral stand point.


Right: you want to pretend that your greed and intention to violate others' rights for your own unearned profit are moral, and not evil.



> You can not tax people period.


No taxes --> no civilization.



> Whether the status quo is just or not is not even up to discussion.


It is not up for discussion with YOU because you know very well the status quo is unjust, and you simply *prefer* it to be unjust because you believe (probably incorrectly, as it happens) that you will profit from that injustice.



> Government owns most land out of anyone, we technically don't own any land since there are land taxes and ability for government to simply take away any wealth they like.


Nonsense.  Under current legal arrangements, land meets all the criteria for being legally property, just as slaves did in the antebellum South.



> Obviously this status quo is unjust. LVT people are arguing against the theoretical status quo where property rights actually exist.


No, we are arguing against an institution that robs the productive for the unearned profit of greedy, idle, privileged parasites.



> As far as I am concerned we live in a moral paradigm of LVT. That is community leaders can do w.e they want to you and "your" land.


More silliness.

----------


## silverhandorder

Roy L you are like a broken record.  At this point you are just trying to out talk everyone. You are making no argument.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy L you are like a broken record.


That is because the same self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that refuted your previous fallacious, absurd and dishonest garbage also refute your latest fallacious, absurd and dishonest garbage.



> At this point you are just trying to out talk everyone. You are making no argument.


That is a lie.  I am simply identifying the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.  It is not my fault that you continue to refuse to know them, and must be reminded of them over and over and over again.

----------


## silverhandorder

Here is a clue you respond to me as if we talked before. Seems like you copy pasted one of your previous posts. You accuse me of saying lies before when this is the first time we argue. 

Your objective reality as you describe contradicts it self non stop.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Here is a clue you respond to me as if we talked before. Seems like you copy pasted one of your previous posts. You accuse me of saying lies before when this is the first time we argue.


That's because Roy is like an autistic Borg. It's fascinating to me, as Roy seems incapable of thinking and reasoning in anything but collectivist terms (he just happens to be the dominant central brain of his imaginary hive). And it's all very black and white, with a classic and epic Good vs. Evil battle campaign, with anyone opposed to his ideology and beliefs not only firmly in the evil camp, but _knowing it_ (or "refusing" to know otherwise) as well.  That's an extension of his collectivist mind regime, because you are part of his collective as well - albeit an evil rogue part. Roy cannot fathom individual thought that isn't an offshoot that is rooted in a single collective, the "right and good" thoughts of which, coincidentally, are in excellent agreement with how he thinks. That's how you cannot simply be in honest, earnest disagreement. There is no "loyal opposition" in Roy's mind; no, you are actually LYING, or "refusing to know" what we all collectively, secretly or openly, know.  

Roy speaks as, for, and on behalf of a collective, arguing with what he can only reason to be an evil rogue collective -- the same one he argues with all the time.  So when you argue a point for the first time, you're just another manifestation of me or someone else he trolled with turing machine responses argued with three years ago.  

Another defining characteristic of Roy is what I call the Don Quixote complex.  He swings an imaginary sword at a windmill, and truly believes he just slayed a dragon and rescued yet another damsel.  Roy said the equivalent of "Bang! You're dead!". And in his mind, he really did kill you, and you really are dead. You just have to finally stop refusing to know it. Stop being a zombie and recognize it.  Thus, since in Roy's own mind he already "demolished" _your/my/our/their_ arguments years ago, and since he truly believes that they were "demolished", and since we all come from the same collective mind, Roy can come to only one conclusion: that you're just (sigh) lying...again...a dishonest sack of $#@!, refusing to know (what he has already firmly pronounced as indisputable facts of objective reality)...again.

----------


## Roy L

> Here is a clue you respond to me as if we talked before.


I have seen all your absurd, dishonest garbage before, starting with the dishonest strawman fallacy you tried in your very first post in this thread.



> Seems like you copy pasted one of your previous posts. You accuse me of saying lies before when this is the first time we argue.


In your first post in this thread, #18, you dishonestly tried to imply that by opposing wrongful property in slaves and land, EW and I must also be opposing rightful property in products of labor.  The honesty of your "contributions" has gone downhill from there.

In your second post, #21, you claimed that the absence of a moral basis for property in human beings and land "does not change the injustice of taking away property rights," refusing even to acknowledge the basic issue that property in land is an artificial government-issued privilege, not a right.

In post #26, you flat-out LIED that you "do not care if it is the sun or your back yard."  You know very well that you would never tolerate being charged rent for the sunlight that falls on you and your land, let alone for the air you breathe.  You KNOW that.  You just deliberately decided to lie about it.

In post #33, you said, "What slavery are you talking about? Same can be said about capital too," but YOU KNEW VERY WELL that ownership of slaves violates people's rights, while ownership of capital does not.  You knew it, but you deliberately decided to lie about it.  I have proved (see the examples of the bandit in the pass and Crusoe's island "homestead") that landowning also violates people's rights.  You could have made an attempt at honest argument by describing some moral basis for property in land, but you just took the low road.

Etc.



> Your objective reality as you describe contradicts it self non stop.


You have never identified any such contradiction, nor will you ever be doing so.

----------


## Roy L

> That's because Roy is like an autistic Borg. It's fascinating to me, as Roy seems incapable of thinking and reasoning in anything but collectivist terms


As you know, that is a lie.  You just use "collectivist" as an all-purpose pejorative, so it ceases to have any meaning.  Certainly it doesn't describe anything I have written, any more than "poopy bum-hole stink pants" does.



> There is no "loyal opposition" in Roy's mind; no, you are actually LYING, or "refusing to know" what we all collectively, secretly or openly, know.


No, the facts in question are self-evident and indisputable, so we all know them individually.  What is known collectively is aggregate knowledge, like the findings of a whole scientific discipline.



> Roy speaks as, for, and on behalf of a collective,


Lie.  I speak for a disparate set of billions of _individuals_ all over the world whose *individual* rights are being violated without just compensation -- who are being scammed, robbed, oppressed, enslaved, starved, tortured and murdered by the greatest evil that has ever existed.



> arguing with what he can only reason to be an evil rogue collective -- the same one he argues with all the time.


How refreshingly self-perceptive.



> So when you argue a point for the first time, you're just another manifestation of me or someone else he argued with three years ago.


Correct: servants of the same evil, who always use the same fallacious, absurd and dishonest "arguments."  But it was usually ten years ago, or more.



> Another defining characteristic of Roy is what I call the Don Quixote complex.  He swings an imaginary sword at a windmill, and truly believes he just slayed a dragon and rescued yet another damsel.


"A thousand hack at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." -- Thoreau

I have indeed destroyed the philosophical roots of landowner privilege, but it is a different matter to remove their dead and rotting remains from people's minds.  I have no illusions that I have rescued any of the billions of victims of landowner privilege, nor even a single one of the millions of human sacrifices that are laid on its obscene altar EVERY YEAR.



> Roy said the equivalent of "Bang! You're dead!". And in his mind, he really did kill you, and you really are dead. You just have to finally stop refusing to know it. Stop being a zombie and recognize it.  Thus, since in Roy's own mind he already "demolished" _your/my/our/their_ arguments years ago, and since he truly believes that they were "demolished", and since we all come from the same collective mind, Roy can come to only one conclusion: that you're just (sigh) lying...again...a dishonest sack of $#@!, refusing to know (what he has already firmly pronounced as indisputable facts of objective reality)...again.


That is exactly right.  You know that I have proved your beliefs are false and evil.  You just refuse to know it.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> It's fascinating to me, as Roy seems incapable of thinking and reasoning in anything but collectivist terms


How anyone can remotely conclude that a tax shift, LVT, is collectivist is beyond all sane men.

----------


## erowe1

> How anyone can remotely conclude that a tax shift, LVT, is collectivist is beyond all sane men.


When you look at it as a tax shift, you're comparing it with some other tax system. Everyone here who opposes the LVT would also oppose that other tax system you compare it with. When they oppose the LVT, they're comparing it with having no taxes. Their problem with you isn't that you say the LVT is less bad than some other tax (I myself might well agree with that). Their problem is that you say it's a positive good, such that if we had an LVT, then tax cuts would be a bad thing.

It is the man who says, "Tax cuts would be a bad thing." who is beyond all sane men, as well as, most likely, yes, collectivist.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> The anti-LVT camp focuses on the flaws of a property/land tax...and they're right!


They are far from right. 
"property taxes?" Yes. 
Land values tax? NO!!!




> The pro-LT argument has two DISTINCT and SEPARATE arguments that HAVE to be split up.  
> 
> The first is that land ownership is presently not distributed in proportion to merit.


That is nonsense. LVT reclaims community created wealth to pay for community services. Simple.  It has amazing spin-off benefits, which would result in a more even distribution of land owership, etc, etc.




> The second argument is about solutions.  Because land ownership results in skewed wealth, LVT represents one of many possible solutions to rectify the flaws of land distribution.


LVT has little to do with land distribution - LVT is a tax shift.  
LVT reclaims community created economic growth that soaks into the land crystallizing as LAND VALUES.  This is used for community services. 
*Socialized wealth is kept socialized and not appropriated by private individuals and organizations. Private wealth is kept private.*

It is very easy.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Their problem is that you say it's a positive good, such that if we had an LVT, then tax cuts would be a bad thing.


"tax cuts would be a bad thing"?  The aim is to eliminate personal taxation and taxation on production. No tax.  

*LVT uses socially created weath for social puposes.  Simple.  Good idea.* Geoism also taxes those who extract natural resources and use common resouces.  Commonnwealth is Commonweath and should not be appropriated by private means. It is used for common purposes, leaving private individuals alone.

----------


## erowe1

> "tax cuts would be a bad thing"?  The aim is to eliminate personal taxation and taxation on production. No tax.  
> 
> *LVT uses socially created weath for social puposes.  Simple.  Good idea.* Geoism also taxes those who extract natural resources and use common resouces.  Commonnwealth is Commonweath and should not be appropriated by private means. It is used for common purposes, leaving private individuals alone.


What does the T in LVT stand for?

----------


## yoshimaroka

> LVT reclaims community created economic growth that soaks into the land crystallizing as LAND VALUES.  This is used for community services.


Can you define community created economic growth as well as community services?




> *Private wealth is kept private.*
> 
> It is very easy.


Going along the terminology you have used, is society a concept which consists of private individuals?
Therefore, isn't private wealth really public wealth? y'know what I'm sayin'?




> Socialized wealth is kept socialized and not appropriated by private individuals and organizations


For that wealth to be socialized, does it not need to be appropriated by individuals? Individuals who compromise an organization?

----------


## givemeliberty2010

> By Martin Wolf. Chief economic writer of the Financial Times. 
> 
> Why were resources expunged from neo-classical economics?
> 
> Something strange happened to economics about a century ago. In moving from classical to neo-classical economics — the dominant academic school today — economists expunged land — or natural resources. Neo-classical value theory — based on marginalism and subjective valuation — still makes a great deal of sense. Expunging natural resources from the way economists think about the world does not.


Isn't marginal and subjective value theory the heart of Ron Paul's Austrian economics?

----------


## EcoWarrier

> What does the T in LVT stand for?


Tax is a misnomer. Many Geoists do not like the idea of Tax in the title, wanting it renamed. Reclaiming common wealth is not an arbitrary tax that goes into a pot you do not know where it is spent.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Can you define community created economic growth as well as community services?


That has been explained.

LVT reclaims community created economic growth that soaks into the land crystallizing as LAND VALUES. That is where land values come from - not the sky.  The landowner did not created them, the community did.  This is used for community services. Which are...what we have now: army, navy, police, schools, etc.  Welfare spending will diminish as enterprise is encouraged and speculation discouraged.




> Going along the terminology you have used, is society a concept which consists of private individuals?
> Therefore, isn't private wealth really public wealth? y'know what I'm sayin'?


I do not know what you are saying. Privately created wealth should stay private. Income tax, Sales Tax, etc, are eliminated as they are taxes on production and trade.  LVT, a tax shift, can fit into any ism, except probably not North Korea.  What ism do you want?  LVT will fit into it.




> For that wealth to be socialized, does it not need to be appropriated by individuals? Individuals who compromise an organization?


*The wealth is already socialized. It stays socialized - not appropriated by private individuals or organizations.*

----------


## silverhandorder

> I have seen all your absurd, dishonest garbage before, starting with the dishonest strawman fallacy you tried in your very first post in this thread.
> 
> In your first post in this thread, #18, you dishonestly tried to imply that by opposing wrongful property in slaves and land, EW and I must also be opposing rightful property in products of labor.  The honesty of your "contributions" has gone downhill from there.
> 
> In your second post, #21, you claimed that the absence of a moral basis for property in human beings and land "does not change the injustice of taking away property rights," refusing even to acknowledge the basic issue that property in land is an artificial government-issued privilege, not a right.
> 
> In post #26, you flat-out LIED that you "do not care if it is the sun or your back yard."  You know very well that you would never tolerate being charged rent for the sunlight that falls on you and your land, let alone for the air you breathe.  You KNOW that.  You just deliberately decided to lie about it.
> 
> In post #33, you said, "What slavery are you talking about? Same can be said about capital too," but YOU KNEW VERY WELL that ownership of slaves violates people's rights, while ownership of capital does not.  You knew it, but you deliberately decided to lie about it.  I have proved (see the examples of the bandit in the pass and Crusoe's island "homestead") that landowning also violates people's rights.  You could have made an attempt at honest argument by describing some moral basis for property in land, but you just took the low road.
> ...


You need to calm down. Especially because you are the one who wants to do injustice to people. What you accuse me of lying is a premise I have never accepted. 

Sunlight and air are commodities that are unlimited. If they become scarce then we would need to enforce property rights for them as well. This is where you contradict your self. If land is not scarce commodity so is any capital good. As far as being made by nature that is a non argument. Everything comes from the land. So again that would negate property rights if we allow your premises to stand.

Now as far as community made goods. We are going to exclude goods that can be privatized such as police, courts and etc. Since if they can be privatized it is moot to claim we need to pay taxes for them. We could just as well privatize them and not pay taxes. Considering that taxes are unjust in the first place guess where I stand.

So then the only goods left for which you claim LVT are the benefits derived from people cooperating. In this case one can not quantify that and even if you could there is no justice in requiring people to repay on benefits they reap if they taken nothing from you.

----------


## GeorgiaAvenger

This geo-nonsense is Biblically incompatible. 

Land is considered property for humans as leased by God(not the state), and theft is a sin.

Thread defeated.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Considering that taxes are unjust in the first place guess where I stand.


I am with you. Taxes on the person are u8njust.  Look up Geonomics, recliming public wealth to pay for public services.




> So then the only goods left for which you claim LVT


LVT is not levied on goods (CAPITAL), it is levied on LAND - hence Land Value Tax.  A tax on the value of the land. The land value is set by the free-market - an auto regulating tax, that may go up or down by the year.

You want to privatize the courts and police? How naive.  That is a recipe for 100% corruption and injustice.  When profit is in the equation justice goes out of the window.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> This geo-nonsense is Biblically incompatible. 
> 
> Land is considered property for humans as leased by God(not the state), and theft is a sin.
> 
> Thread defeated.


You are very confused.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You are very confused.


 He's extremely inarticulate, but technically correct.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> He's extremely inarticulate, but technically correct.


Technically incorrect. He is right that theft is a sin. Those who appropriate land for exploitation of others. I am not religeous but to those who are:

_Leviticus 25:23-24 - The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land._

Definition of re·demp·tion  (r-dmpshn)

1. The act of redeeming or the condition of having been redeemed.
2. Recovery of something pawned or mortgaged.
*3. The payment of an obligation.*

_Leviticus 25:23 
“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me."_

So, the Bible is fully inline with Geonomics. The land occupier must give payment of  an obligation.

I am agnostic and have no bias in regards to the Bible. I would have to agree the Bible is very right on this issue of land, which gives me some respect for the Bible. There are so many people who claim to have faith in the Bible who do not have faith in what the Bible teaches.

----------


## Roy L

> When you look at it as a tax shift, you're comparing it with some other tax system. Everyone here who opposes the LVT would also oppose that other tax system you compare it with.


I doubt that very much, because opposing all taxes is anarchism.

And in practice, as a political reality, opposing LVT means that you are supporting the current tax system or something very much like it, because no taxes is not an option in the real world.



> When they oppose the LVT, they're comparing it with having no taxes.


Then they are being dishonest as well as naive, if not infantile and stupid.



> Their problem with you isn't that you say the LVT is less bad than some other tax (I myself might well agree with that). Their problem is that you say it's a positive good, such that if we had an LVT, then tax cuts would be a bad thing.


That is exactly correct.  LVT corrects an injustice: the forcible removal of people's rights to liberty by the institution of private property in land.  Cutting LVT therefore increases injustice.  The ability of landowners to get something for nothing means that others are getting nothing for something.  It's that simple.  



> It is the man who says, "Tax cuts would be a bad thing." who is beyond all sane men, as well as, most likely, yes, collectivist.


"Collectivist" seems to be the favorite cuss-word to apply to anyone intelligent and honest enough to know the fact that society exists -- I.e., about 99% of the adult population that is not in long-term institutional care.  All the stupid, brain-dead $#!+ I see hear about society not existing, government being the root of all evil, Somalia being better than Switzerland, feudalism being better than republican democracy, blah, blah, blah, frankly strikes me as sociopathic.  The saving grace is that the people saying all that stupid $#!+ don't really believe it.  They're just lying their fool heads off in order to avoid knowing the fact that their beliefs are false and evil.

----------


## Roy L

> This geo-nonsense is Biblically incompatible.


Yes, well, so are most scientific facts.



> Land is considered property for humans as leased by God(not the state), and theft is a sin.


Where does the Bible say people are supposed to lease land from God?  I've read that whole silly book and I don't recall seeing that anywhere.  What it DOES say, is that land shall not be sold permanently, and that every 60 years, land is to be returned to the families that originally held it, no matter who might currently have possession of it.



> Thread defeated.


See above.  Biblical smackdown delivered.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> What it DOES say, is that land shall not be sold permanently,


Superb!




> and that every 60 years, land is to be returned to the families that originally held it, no matter who might currently have possession of it.


Now that is dumb.  The Bible got that really wrong.  Unless...as people lived far shorter lives then, less than 60 years, this would ensure land cycled around, so fertile land would not be in the hands of one family for ever, as is the case in the UK.  Land would not be monopolized.  There could be something in that.

----------


## Roy L

> What does the T in LVT stand for?


That's the problem: you see the word, "tax," and you just chant your "meeza hatesa gubmint" mantra and stop thinking.  You refuse to know any of the facts that prove LVT is *entirely different* from the unjust and economically harmful taxes you are used to.

LVT recovers *publicly* created value for public purposes and benefit instead of confiscating *privately* created value.
It *reduces* the cost of production instead of increasing it.
It makes business *more* competitive in supplying goods and services to markets, not less competitive.
It *encourages* productive effort and investment instead of discouraging them.
It makes allocation of resources *more* efficient, not less efficient.
It *increases* people's access to economic opportunity, instead of reducing it.
It aligns government's financial incentives *with* the public interest, instead of placing them in opposition to the public interest.

And it does all these things *MORE* at higher rates and *LESS* at lower rates, making it a *POSITIVE BENEFIT* to the economy and the people.

----------


## Roy L

> Now that is dumb.  The Bible got that really wrong.  Unless...as people lived far shorter lives then, less than 60 years, this would ensure land cycled around, so fertile land would not be in the hands of one family for ever, as is the case in the UK.  Land would not be monopolized.  There could be something in that.


It's actually not as bad as it sounds (certainly not as bad as private landowning), as the effect is something like that of the Celtic tradition of village commons, which every household had a right to use in rotation.  It's not as good because the families that had fewer children would have more land per person, effectively making people's descendants share the rights of their ancestors instead of having rights of their own.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Yes, well, so are most scientific facts.
> 
> Where does the Bible say people are supposed to lease land from God?  I've read that whole silly book and I don't recall seeing that anywhere.  What it DOES say, is that land shall not be sold permanently, and that every 60 years, land is to be returned to the families that originally held it, no matter who might currently have possession of it.
> 
> See above.  Biblical smackdown delivered.


Roy,

Didn't you and I already go through this?  Didn't I already show you that the laws only applied to lands and people conquered under Joshua?  Didn't I already show you that Christ fulfilled the jubilee laws in Luke chapter 4?  Why are you still citing them as an argument for LVT?

----------


## Roy L

> Can you define community created economic growth as well as community services?


I'll take a stab at it.  Community created economic growth is the economic advantage that the existence and character of the whole community provide: the culture, the legal system, the level of honesty in both private and public affairs, the level of education, the public infrastructure, security of liberty, property and contract rights, attitudes to work, saving and investment, etc.  Community services are the services and infrastructure provided by public employees and contractors, and funded by pooled public revenue.



> Going along the terminology you have used, is society a concept which consists of private individuals?


Society is made up of private individuals, but is not just an arbitrary set of private individuals.  The central defining characteristic of a society is that its members are aware of being members, and of who else are members.



> Therefore, isn't private wealth really public wealth? y'know what I'm sayin'?


No, and no.



> For that wealth to be socialized, does it not need to be appropriated by individuals? Individuals who compromise an organization?


No, its appropriation by individuals would be privatization, by definition.  Just because you are used to it being appropriated by private interests doesn't make that the baseline case.

----------


## Roy L

> Didn't you and I already go through this?  Didn't I already show you that the laws only applied to lands and people conquered under Joshua?


No.  You made some claims based on idiosyncratic interpretations of some ambiguous verses, but that was about the extent of your arguments.



> Didn't I already show you that Christ fulfilled the jubilee laws in Luke chapter 4?


No.



> Why are you still citing them as an argument for LVT?


Because they are, your idiosyncratic and heretical misreadings of the word of God to serve your god Mammon notwithstanding.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> No.  You made some claims based on idiosyncratic interpretations of some ambiguous verses, but that was about the extent of your arguments.
> 
> No.
> 
> Because they are, your idiosyncratic and heretical misreadings of the word of God to serve your god Mammon notwithstanding.


Luke chapter 4:




> Luke 4:16-21 NIV
> 
> 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, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "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,  to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."  Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."


Jesus said the jubilee is fulfilled.  Period.  Stop using the jubilee as arguments for your version of collectivism.

----------


## Roy L

> You need to calm down.


I think a lot of evil could have been prevented if people hadn't been so willing to calm down when that evil was being done.

So no, I don't need to calm down.



> Especially because you are the one who wants to do injustice to people.


You know that is a lie.  Injustice is rewards not commensurate with contributions made and penalties not commensurate with deprivations inflicted.  That is what YOU advocate through the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners, not I.



> What you accuse me of lying is a premise I have never accepted.


You lied when you claimed you would not care if someone started charging you rent for sunlight.  It was just a flat-out LIE.



> Sunlight and air are commodities that are unlimited.


Wrong.  Sunlight and air are not commodities (compressed air is, but I assume you are talking about atmospheric air), and nothing is unlimited (except, of course, the stupidity and dishonesty of anti-LVT liars).  And even if they were unlimited, making them into property would limit them in a hurry.



> If they become scarce then we would need to enforce property rights for them as well.


Oh, really now?  Human organs suitable for transplants are scarce.  Very scarce.  Do we need to make them into property and enforce property rights for them, too?  Beautiful 12-year-old blonde girls are scarce.  Are you going to make _them_ into property?  How about facts that refute the arguments for LVT?  Those are scarce as hen's teeth.  Do we need to enforce property rights for them, too?

In any case, you are just trying to evade responsibility for your lie.  You said you don't care if someone made the sun into their private property.  You were lying.  Now you are saying, "but no one can make the sun into private property because it isn't scarce," ignoring the fact that the very reason you would mind someone making it into their private property is that that would MAKE it scarce.



> This is where you contradict your self.


Lie.



> If land is not scarce commodity so is any capital good.


??  Cannot parse.  Scarcity has nothing to do with it.  The relevant fact is that people are naturally at liberty to use land, and appropriating the land as private property removes their rights to liberty without just compensation.  People are NOT naturally at liberty to use capital, as it first has to be supplied by its producer.



> As far as being made by nature that is a non argument.


No, it is merely a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality that conclusively refutes all your arguments, and that you are non-capable of answering.



> Everything comes from the land.


No, it most certainly does not.  Your stupid, evil lies, for example, do not come from the land.  So stop blaming your stupid, evil lies on the land.  They come from YOU, and nowhere else.  Blaming the land for them is grotesque and obscene as well as dishonest and evil.



> So again that would negate property rights if we allow your premises to stand.


Absurd and dishonest non sequitur.  Makin' $#!+ up about what my premises are is not an argument, sorry.

Products of labor are not land and do not come from the land.  They are produced by human labor.  If you want to insist on your stupid and dishonest charade of claiming "everything comes from the land," that just shifts the terminology.  Fine.  Instead of just using the honest terms, "land" and "capital," we can instead distinguish between "things that come from the land" with the assistance of human labor and those that come from the land without any assistance from human labor.  As the former are not things people would otherwise be at liberty to use, they are rightly property.  As the latter are things that people WOULD otherwise be at liberty to use, making them into property removes people's rights to liberty, and therefore can't be rightful.



> Now as far as community made goods. We are going to exclude goods that can be privatized such as police, courts and etc.


No, we aren't, any more than we are going to exclude the bread we take home from the supermarket from our grocery bill because we could make bread at home or get it from a food bank.  Even assuming the police, courts, etc. can be privatized without sacrificing their raison d'etre -- justice -- (which they can't), until they ARE privatized, we need a way to pay for them.



> Since if they can be privatized it is moot to claim we need to pay taxes for them.


No, that's just an absurd and outrageous lie.  What's really moot is your claim that they *can* be privatized: how is that workin' out for ya in Somalia?  Until they HAVE been privatized, we DO need to pay taxes for them.



> We could just as well privatize them and not pay taxes.


Even assuming you could privatize them (you can't), you would then just be paying for them some other way -- and probably paying more for less.



> Considering that taxes are unjust in the first place guess where I stand.


Blatant question begging fallacy.



> So then the only goods left for which you claim LVT are the benefits derived from people cooperating. In this case one can not quantify that


Wrong.  Land value quantifies it very exactly.  It is identically equal to the minimum value of the benefits the landowner expects to take from other people and not repay in taxes.



> and even if you could there is no justice in requiring people to repay on benefits they reap if they taken nothing from you.


They have taken my liberty to use the land from me, stop lying.  They have taken everyone else's liberty to use the land from them, too, stop lying.  They have taken away our opportunity to benefit from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides and the physical advantages nature provides at that location, stop lying.

----------


## Roy L

> Jesus said the jubilee is fulfilled.  Period.


Garbage.  Please point to where the word, "jubilee" is used in that passage, or where it mentions returning the land to the families who initially held it as specified in Leviticus.  Point to where it says debts will be forgiven.  Quote where the jubilee is described in Leviticus as the year the blind would recover their sight.

Thought not.



> Stop using the jubilee as arguments for your version of collectivism.


Stop lying about the word of God to serve your god, Mammon.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Injustice is rewards not commensurate with contributions made...


Nice leftist-collectivist sentiment - the stuff of labor unions and Marxist socialism. I'm pretty sure it was Marx who first touched on the notion of injustice with regard to rewards vs. contributions, with a collectivist presumption regarding distribution of "social goods", the initial principle being, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution" (later 'need', as the regime works its wonderful magic throughout all the land).  

That little sentiment of yours quoted above is the best argument against the Geo-socialist LVT rent tax yet, because you are specifically calling for a system wherein collectivist leeches and parasites are all equal in rewards, even though many of them contributed nothing but their "deprivations", which required "just compensation". 

Yeah, meeza hatesa your Geo-Socialist gubmint.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Nice leftist-collectivist sentiment - the stuff of labor unions and Marxist socialism.


Since when has justice been the preserve of the left? 

So you support the injustice of unchecked runaway Capitalism.  Wow.

Marx was not the first to see injustices in a society. Henry George did and he opposed Marx.

How can a tax shift be socialist? Dugh!  Look below even the right wing UK Conservative party have an LVT lobby.

Good news from across the pond.....

LIB DEMS ALTER
Website: http://libdemsalter.org.uk/en/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/libdemsalter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/LibDemsALTER

OTHER PARTY LVT CAMPAIGNS
Green: http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/new...and-tax-plans-...
Labour: http://www.labourland.org/
Conservative: http://toryreformgroup.tumblr.com/po...progressive-co...

LVT BILL PRESENTED TO UK PARLIAMENT
Caroline Lucas from the Green Party has proposed replacing Council Tax and Business Rates with land based taxes.
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/...dvaluetax.html

This would be the first step towards a full and comprehensive Land Tax.
http://libdemsalter.org.uk/en/articl...-wealth-tax-by...

The bill will be voted on its Second Reading on 9th November 2012.

----------


## yoshimaroka

> That has been explained.
> 
> LVT reclaims community created economic growth that soaks into the land crystallizing as LAND VALUES. That is where land values come from - not the sky.  The landowner did not created them, the community did.  This is used for community services. Which are...what we have now: army, navy, police, schools, etc.  Welfare spending will diminish as enterprise is encouraged and speculation discouraged.


It's not a service if it's forced upon individuals. In that case it's exploitation/slavery.

As an aside, what do you think about mutualism? It bypasses all the state stuff.




> I do not know what you are saying. Privately created wealth should stay private. Income tax, Sales Tax, etc, are eliminated as they are taxes on production and trade.  LVT, a tax shift, can fit into any ism, except probably not North Korea.  What ism do you want?  LVT will fit into it.


It's still a tax. Taxation is extortion.




> *The wealth is already socialized. It stays socialized - not appropriated by private individuals or organizations.*


Where does the wealth originate from and how is it already socialized?

----------


## Len Larson

> No taxes --> no civilization.


This is perhaps the root of the disagreement. Advocates of Liberty believe that Civilization is the spontaneous order that emerges from the voluntary exchanges of each individual. 

A little thought experiment might help. If govt. is the source of civilization, then govt. institutions like prisons should be paragons of civilization. Just take the prisoners out and substitute a random selection from the public and voila you have perfect civilization. 

The real kicker here is that the "thought experiment" has in fact been done many times. What do you think your "civilized" govt. did with the prisoners it removed? 

RoyL your LVT rhetoric "greedy, idle, privileged parasites" is perilously close to the "Final Solution".

----------


## yoshimaroka

What happened to the false left/right dichotomy?




> Look below even the right wing UK Conservative party have an LVT lobby.


C'mon dude, you know that's not a fair comparison. Right wing parties in most of Europe are more left leaning than Democrats in the USA.

Right wing in Europe has shifted to the left, as it has in North America. Just look at the origins of the Neocons.
More dependance on the state has been the emphasis… a dictatorship by consent like Huxley's Brave New World.

----------


## silverhandorder

> I think a lot of evil could have been prevented if people hadn't been so willing to calm down when that evil was being done.
> 
> So no, I don't need to calm down.


I know I feel the same way. I look at you with complete disgust. For the benefit of the doubt I am going to continue to argue.




> You know that is a lie.  Injustice is rewards not commensurate with contributions made and penalties not commensurate with deprivations inflicted.  That is what YOU advocate through the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners, not I.


Yes that is exactly what I advocate. I do not advocate punishment based legal system. I want reparations instead of penalties. If a man takes something away, I want that returned. The penalty can only come to his reputation not to his body. Now as far as rewards go I will not even entertain the idea that justice is rewards commensurate with contributions. The value put to rewards and the contributions are completely subjective. As such it can not be used to objectively define justice. 




> You lied when you claimed you would not care if someone started charging you rent for sunlight.  It was just a flat-out LIE.
> 
> Wrong.  Sunlight and air are not commodities (compressed air is, but I assume you are talking about atmospheric air), and nothing is unlimited (except, of course, the stupidity and dishonesty of anti-LVT liars).  And even if they were unlimited, making them into property would limit them in a hurry.
> 
> Oh, really now?  Human organs suitable for transplants are scarce.  Very scarce.  Do we need to make them into property and enforce property rights for them, too?  Beautiful 12-year-old blonde girls are scarce.  Are you going to make _them_ into property?  How about facts that refute the arguments for LVT?  Those are scarce as hen's teeth.  Do we need to enforce property rights for them, too?
> 
> In any case, you are just trying to evade responsibility for your lie.  You said you don't care if someone made the sun into their private property.  You were lying.  Now you are saying, "but no one can make the sun into private property because it isn't scarce," ignoring the fact that the very reason you would mind someone making it into their private property is that that would MAKE it scarce.


Yes I would be ok with someone homesteading the sun and the air. I don't see how it is possible with our technology at the present. So I would not accept any rents until it is possible.

Human organs and bodies are the property of their owners. Only the owners of their property can give it away. And absolutely property rights should exist for them. That means you can not murder me or tax me.




> ??  Cannot parse.  Scarcity has nothing to do with it.  The relevant fact is that people are naturally at liberty to use land, and appropriating the land as private property removes their rights to liberty without just compensation.  People are NOT naturally at liberty to use capital, as it first has to be supplied by its producer.


You not at liberty to use it until someone puts their labor into it. It is just for the land to go to the person who put work into it instead of the latecomer. 




> No, it is merely a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality that conclusively refutes all your arguments, and that you are non-capable of answering.
> 
> No, it most certainly does not.  Your stupid, evil lies, for example, do not come from the land.  So stop blaming your stupid, evil lies on the land.  They come from YOU, and nowhere else.  Blaming the land for them is grotesque and obscene as well as dishonest and evil.


Ideas and words are not scarce that is the reason they are not property. I do not support intellectual property.




> Absurd and dishonest non sequitur.  Makin' $#!+ up about what my premises are is not an argument, sorry.


What are your premises? List them and I will show you how I am right. Instead of hiding and making me guess at them.



> Products of labor are not land and do not come from the land.  They are produced by human labor.  If you want to insist on your stupid and dishonest charade of claiming "everything comes from the land," that just shifts the terminology.  Fine.  Instead of just using the honest terms, "land" and "capital," we can instead distinguish between "things that come from the land" with the assistance of human labor and those that come from the land without any assistance from human labor.  As the former are not things people would otherwise be at liberty to use, they are rightly property.  As the latter are things that people WOULD otherwise be at liberty to use, making them into property removes people's rights to liberty, and therefore can't be rightful.


So is the land that had a fence put on it, that a had a hole dug in it, that had a seed planted in it, that was fertilized, that had a house put on it. All of that land had labor mixed into it. All of that land is property. All of that land can be considered a good that had labor mixed into it. 




> No, we aren't, any more than we are going to exclude the bread we take home from the supermarket from our grocery bill because we could make bread at home or get it from a food bank.  Even assuming the police, courts, etc. can be privatized without sacrificing their raison d'etre -- justice -- (which they can't), until they ARE privatized, we need a way to pay for them.
> 
> No, that's just an absurd and outrageous lie.  What's really moot is your claim that they *can* be privatized: how is that workin' out for ya in Somalia?  Until they HAVE been privatized, we DO need to pay taxes for them.


Bread has nothing to do with your claim that society produces goods that people use. Society gets a benefit from every single individual in it. It is a subjective benefit and as such it can not be taxes. My participation in society as a peaceful individual brings peace to society as much as they bring peace to me. As such those goods are equal. A bread seller gives me as much benefit as my money gives him. Everything is a equal subjective trade. As such you can not levy a tax on that. Even if trades were not equal but they must according to basic logic they are still just since they are done voluntarily.
Even assuming you could privatize them (you can't), you would then just be paying for them some other way -- and probably paying more for less.





> Wrong.  Land value quantifies it very exactly.  It is identically equal to the minimum value of the benefits the landowner expects to take from other people and not repay in taxes.


I am going to abandon the argument from practical stand point because of two reasons. It is too easy to win and second this type of argument can only be won from a moral stand point.




> They have taken my liberty to use the land from me, stop lying.  They have taken everyone else's liberty to use the land from them, too, stop lying.  They have taken away our opportunity to benefit from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides and the physical advantages nature provides at that location, stop lying.


No one taken this liberty from you, you never had it in the first place. You have liberty to take unused land. Stop being a parasite, trying to take something for nothing.

----------


## Roy L

> Nice leftist-collectivist sentiment


No, that's nothing but another stupid lie from you.  You always have to lie about what I have plainly written.  ALWAYS.



> the stuff of labor unions and Marxist socialism.


No, that's nothing but another stupid lie from you.  You always have to lie about what I have plainly written.  ALWAYS.



> I'm pretty sure it was Marx who first touched on the notion of injustice with regard to rewards vs. contributions,


But you are objectively wrong, as the ideas of reward commensurate with contribution made and punishment commensurate with wrong inflicted -- i.e., _JUST deserts_ -- are fundamental to the concept of justice, and are as old as the concept of justice.



> with a collectivist presumption regarding distribution of "social goods",


No, that is just another stupid lie unrelated to what I wrote.  Your "argument" consists of makin' some stupid $#!+ up and dishonestly attributing it to me.

You just can't help heaping disgrace upon yourself.



> the initial principle being, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution"


No, that's a lie, because people's contributions are what they have initially, through having produced them.  So you have to *start* with those who have made a contribution.  What YOU are advocating is "FROM each according to his contribution TO each according to his ownership of government-enforced privileges like land titles."



> (later 'need', as the regime works its wonderful magic throughout all the land).


No, that's just more stupid lying from you, with no relation to what I wrote.  Stop telling such stupid lies.



> That little sentiment of yours quoted above


You didn't quote any sentiment of mine above.  You are just baldly lying.  That is the point.  You haven't done anything but baldly lie about what I plainly wrote.  You have no facts, no logic, no arguments of any kind to offer, so all you can do is lie about what I have written in clear, grammatical English.



> is the best argument against the Geo-socialist LVT rent tax yet, because you are specifically calling for a system wherein collectivist leeches and parasites are all equal in rewards,


No, that's just you telling stupid lies again.  All you can ever do is tell stupid lies about what I have plainly written.  You have decided to serve Evil, so you have no choice but to lie.

What I call for is recognition of the equal human rights of all, and equal compensation for the forcible removal of those rights.  The *ADDITIONAL* rewards people would *EARN* through their contributions of labor and capital to production of goods and services are *OVER AND ABOVE* that modest, universal compensation, which *you know* is limited to free, secure, exclusive tenure on just enough good land to live on, in order to prevent landholders from enslaving honest working people.  You just want government to empower landholders to enslave honest working people, as they have done throughout history wherever government has not interceded massively on their behalf.



> even though many of them contributed nothing but their "deprivations", which required "just compensation".


Forcibly removing people's rights to liberty requires just compensation.  Those who contributed nothing more than their peaceful acquiescence in the removal of their liberty would receive no more than the minimal access to opportunity ensured by the universal individual exemption.  You know this.  You just want to be able to remove others' rights to liberty and *not* make just compensation, because you want to steal from them and enslave them.  It is really just that simple.



> Yeah, meeza hatesa your Geo-Socialist gubmint.


You hate liberty (for anyone but yourself), justice, and especially truth, as proved above.  I know.  You have made that extremely clear.

----------


## Roy L

> It's not a service if it's forced upon individuals.


Who is being "forced" to deny others their liberty to use the land?



> In that case it's exploitation/slavery.


Look at the condition of the landless in EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY where private landowning is well established, but government does not intercede massively on behalf of the landless to rescue them from the exploitation and enslavement inherent in it.  The notion that LVT could ever "exploit/enslave" landholders by comparison to how landowning exploits and enslaves the landless is absurd and grotesque.



> As an aside, what do you think about mutualism? It bypasses all the state stuff.


Fine, as long as everyone agrees.  They won't.



> It's still a tax. Taxation is extortion.


Taxation is necessary if we are going to have a civilization.  See my explanation in post #135 of how LVT is *fundamentally different* from other taxes.  Other taxes may effectively be extortion, but LVT is a voluntary, beneficiary-pay, market-based, value-for-value transaction, _not_ extortion.  It is landowning that is extortion, as proved in post #6.  



> Where does the wealth originate from


The productive.



> and how is it already socialized?


It exists as the value of an opportunity or economic advantage that all have equal liberty rights to access, and that can't be recovered by the productive individuals who created it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Taxation is necessary if we are going to have a civilization.


A state-run civilization, yes.  Civilization can easily exist without taxation.  It just requires of members of said society to have the necessary character traits.

----------


## Roy L

> This is perhaps the root of the disagreement.


No, the root is actually deeper than that, in the concept of valid property rights.



> Advocates of Liberty


You mean advocates of the enslavement of the landless by landholders, don't you?



> believe that Civilization is the spontaneous order that emerges from the voluntary exchanges of each individual.


But in fact, it never has, and never will.



> A little thought experiment might help. If govt. is the source of civilization, then govt. institutions like prisons should be paragons of civilization.


I see.  So, if a cow is the source of milk, its stomach should be milk, its hooves should be milk, etc.?

How many years did you have to study to be able to make your brain do funny things like that?



> Just take the prisoners out and substitute a random selection from the public and voila you have perfect civilization.


Idiocy.



> The real kicker here is that the "thought experiment" has in fact been done many times.


Name one.



> What do you think your "civilized" govt. did with the prisoners it removed?


No such event ever took place.



> RoyL your LVT rhetoric "greedy, idle, privileged parasites" is perilously close to the "Final Solution".


Garbage.  They can always just choose not to be greedy, idle, privileged parasites, same as slave owners could.  Why is it always the perpetrators and beneficiaries of unjust privilege that we must be careful not to harm, rather than the victims?

----------


## Roy L

> What happened to the false left/right dichotomy?


It's a continuum rather than a dichotomy, it means egalitarian/elitist, and it's alive and well.



> Right wing parties in most of Europe are more left leaning than Democrats in the USA.


Would you take William F Buckley's word as a right-wing American conservative?

----------


## Roy L

> Civilization can easily exist without taxation.


Yet somehow never has...



> It just requires of members of said society to have the necessary character traits.


Like ants, you mean?  Good luck with that.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> But you are objectively wrong, as the ideas of reward commensurate with contribution made and punishment commensurate with wrong inflicted -- i.e., _JUST deserts_ -- are fundamental to the concept of justice, and are as old as the concept of justice.


Just deserts my ass - the rallying cries of class warfare statist-collectivist mass murderers like Stalin, Mao and Polpot (with whom I have you grouped).  




> ...people's contributions are what they have initially, through having produced them.  So you have to *start* with those who have made a contribution.


People's contributions are what what they OWN, _regardless of whether or not they produced anything at all_.  I form a partnership and "contribute" a computer, which I did not produce.  And for that matter, I can form a firm and contribute nothing at all beyond my will and a bunch of contracts and promises, as I act as nothing more than a go-between operating out of an empty shell.  And I WILL OWN IT.  I can hire laborers to work for me. They own their labor, which they rent to me for a time, as a factor production, at a price, which is their ONLY profit. They are _contributing_ to the success of the firm. In fact, their labors may be responsible for 90% of the success of the firm. And despite these MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS, they are not entitled to _any of the firm's profits_. They are only entitled to payment for what we contracted for.  That is because individuals ARE FIRMS, in and of themselves -- operating as privileged entities within other firms, without ANY claims to ownership thereof. 

So $#@! your ideological notions of "contribution" as being the meaningful metric and starting point for rewards determination. OWNERSHIP, and ownership rights (NOT privileges) are key when determining rewards. NOT _contributions_.  

If I contract for a firm for minimum wage, and then do Amazing Things that cause that firm to suddenly go Fortune 500, and my _contributions_ were such that they were singularly responsible for 99.999% of the profits and success of that firm, what rewards am I _entitled_ to?  I am entitled to the paycheck I contracted for, _and nothing more_.  Anything the OWNERS of the firm want to give me, over and above what I contracted for, is gravy to me, and NOT REQUIRED by them. I can be a typical leftist laborer and whine about how I am being exploited, and wail about how my rewards are not at all commensurate with my contributions, but the fact that I was STUPID enough to CONTRIBUTE out of all proportion to what I contracted to receive (assuming I actually did, and it wasn't just my utter vanity speaking) is MY PROBLEM.  The fact that I didn't negotiate better terms, or withhold that kind of performance without a better contract, is my lunacy, my stupidity, because WHAT I OWNED (my labor, my performance, my superior contribution) I sold for a pittance.   

So no, you are wrong in the absolute. We do NOT "*start* with those who have made a contribution" when determining rewards. That's leftist Marxist Socialist muddled reasoning. Rather we start with OWNERSHIP, in light of contracts, which includes contribution-related elements like consideration and performance over time.  




> What YOU are advocating is "FROM each according to his contribution TO each according to his *ownership*...


*CORRECT.* More or less. More accurately it would read:

*From each according to the ownership (of his contribution), to each according to the terms and performance of his voluntary contract.*

That is no different, in principle, than what YOU are advocating.  The only difference is the shift in ownership (of land rents); that the state (_commune_-ity/taxing jurisdiction), assume collectivized "for profit" OWNERSHIP (on behalf of Da Peephole) of the economic rents on _all land_.  

And note that Marx, Stalin, Mao and Polpot all saw private ownership, in one form or another, as the root of all evil, with the shortest distance between two points on a problem-solution line being nothing more than a _change in ownership_, with "just deserts" used as a rationale for collective ownership. Your vilification of private ownership and advocacy for socialized wealth and socialized ownership (of anything), puts you _squarely_ in their camp, regardless of your specific differences. 

Back to contributions vs. actual ownership: 

Under our current regime (which is getting more and more socialist all the time), police, fire, road workers, etc., ALL make "contributions".  However, those contributions are like the contributions of laborers I hire in my firm. Their services are contracted for a price, and are not _for profit_ to the state, because the state, contrary to your $#@!ed up paradigm, IS NOT A FIRM, and should never (my wonderful righteous goodly paradigm) behave as one, because that presents an untenable conflict of interest, given the powers of the state.  

It is only by virtue of SOCIALIST STATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND RENTS that the state can be seen as making more than _mere contributions_, which are contracted as needed and paid for out of the public treasury (which ALWAYS originates privately).  You want that changed such that the Collectivized Public at Large (read=all PRIVATE individuals, regardless of individual contributions, which are NEVER EQUAL) are equal shareholders, entitled to a return on land rents. It is in that way that you propose that the state be seen as an active market participant -- an owner of interest, for profit -- as it CONTRACTS with those who desire to shop at its cute little Land Rents Store. 

*A circular presumption* of STATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND RENTS is the ONLY way you can look at someone who is not paying land rents to the state and compare them to a thief who is stealing from an actual store without paying.  The "contributions of others" (police, fire, road workers, infrastructure builders, etc.,) is only one rationale you use for state *ownership* of land rents; NO differently than a $#@!ing Marxist could justify seizing my firm and redistributing its profits to my employees -- the "real contributors" -- the new owners, whose rewards (change of ownership, "just deserts") are rationalized on the basis of their COLLECTIVE contributions (public and private, no less).

Have a nice Marxist Lite. On crack.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yet somehow never has...


wrong.  The first known tax was in Egypt, circa 3000-2800 BC. (relatively recent in the grand scheme of civilization)




> Like ants, you mean?  Good luck with that.


No, traits like rationality and morality.

----------


## erowe1

> wrong.  The first known tax was in Egypt, circa 3000-2800 BC. (relatively recent in the grand scheme of civilization)


3000 B.C. gets us pretty close to as far back as written history can take us. So we wouldn't have a way to know about a tax before that.

But whatever was the first time anyone stole from anyone, I'd call that the first tax.

----------


## Roy L

> 3000 B.C. gets us pretty close to as far back as written history can take us. So we wouldn't have a way to know about a tax before that.


True.  But clay tablets from Lagash dating back to nearly 6000 BC have been interpreted as tax records:

https://secure.sauder.ubc.ca/re_cred...../carlson.pdf

Taxation is definitely as old as civilization, because civilization cannot exist without taxes.



> But whatever was the first time anyone stole from anyone, I'd call that the first tax.


But you would be lying.  Private theft -- which certainly long predates humanity, let alone civilization, and probably predates the first land animals -- is not a source of public revenue.  You know this.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Taxation is definitely as old as civilization, because civilization cannot exist without taxes.


And slavery is as old as civilization. Therefore, civilization cannot exist without slavery.  Ditto for subjugation of women.

----------


## Roy L

> wrong.  The first known tax was in Egypt, circa 3000-2800 BC. (relatively recent in the grand scheme of civilization)


Nope.  Civilization was extremely rare before about 4000 BC, and some of the earliest known records, clay tablets excavated at Lagash, are thought to have been tax records:

https://secure.sauder.ubc.ca/re_cred...../carlson.pdf

Taxation is as old as civilization, because civilization cannot exist without taxes.



> No, traits like rationality and morality.


As long as people think they own land, rationality and morality are not among the options.

----------


## Roy L

> And slavery is as old as civilization. Therefore, civilization cannot exist without slavery.  Ditto for subjugation of women.


???  Huh?  There are civilizations NOW that DON'T have slavery or subjugation of women.

Give your head a shake.

There has never been a civilization that didn't have taxes.  Never.

Fail.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> ???  Huh?  There are civilizations NOW that DON'T have slavery or subjugation of women.
> 
> Give your head a shake.
> *
> There has never been a civilization that didn't have taxes.  Never.
> *
> Fail.


Therefore, taxation is justified.  Of course. 
Fail.  That's what you get when you rely on immoral precedent.

----------


## erowe1

> True.  But clay tablets from Lagash dating back to nearly 6000 BC have been interpreted as tax records:
> 
> https://secure.sauder.ubc.ca/re_cred...../carlson.pdf


That link isn't working for me. Do you have another? I'm skeptical about there being any clay tablets that old.

----------


## Len Larson

I thought I was merely wasting my time replying in this thread, but now I feel dirty for helping RoyL achieve climax with his masochistic LVT fetish.

If RoyL truly believes civilization is merely a product of taxes and govt. (or should I say his refusal to admit his knowledge to the contrary  ), then I fear there is nothing we can say that will reach him. We can only hope his life experiences in the future will afford him an opportunity to grow. *Daisies would be the best I think.* 

Welcome to my ignore list. EcoWarrier [sic] too.

----------


## GeorgiaAvenger

George Orwell double speak.

Pay your rent and you will have property freedom.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Technically incorrect. He is right that theft is a sin. Those who appropriate land for exploitation of others. I am not religeous but to those who are:
> 
> _Leviticus 25:23-24 - The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land._
> 
> Definition of re·demp·tion  (r-dmpshn)
> 
> 1. The act of redeeming or the condition of having been redeemed.
> 2. Recovery of something pawned or mortgaged.
> *3. The payment of an obligation.*
> ...


This is one of the ways the old (Mosaic) law was flawed.  Hence the need for a proper interpretation by Yeshua.  gtg for now, but I'll be back later.

----------


## Roy L

> Therefore, taxation is justified.  Of course.


It's justified by the ultimate justification: evolutionary success.  Civilization beats no civilization.  Societies with taxes beat societies without taxes.  Claims that taxes are immoral per se therefore fail immediately because morality *has no meaning* other than as an expression of what makes societies succeed or fail.

----------


## erowe1

> morality *has no meaning* other than as an expression of what makes societies succeed or fail.


Succeed or fail at what?

----------


## Roy L

> I thought I was merely wasting my time replying in this thread, but now I feel dirty for helping RoyL achieve climax with his masochistic LVT fetish.


Filth beneath contempt.  As expected.



> If RoyL truly believes civilization is merely a product of taxes and govt.


You again prove that you have to lie about what I have plainly written.  Taxes and government are *necessary* but not *sufficient* conditions for civilization.



> (or should I say his refusal to admit his knowledge to the contrary  ), then I fear there is nothing we can say that will reach him.


You won't reach me by lying about what I have plainly written, that's for sure.

But then, you can't do anything else, can you?  Once you choose to serve evil, you have no choice but to lie.



> Welcome to my ignore list. EcoWarrier [sic] too.


I'm sure we're in good company.

----------


## Roy L

> Succeed or fail at what?


Existence, growth, reproduction.  The usual evolutionary criteria.

----------


## Roy L

> George Orwell double speak.


Lie.



> Pay your rent and you will have property freedom.


"Property freedom"???  What might that be?  The "freedom" of slaves to be property, perhaps...?  Or their "freedom" to buy their own liberty from their owners?  Crusoe's "freedom" to point his musket in Friday's face and give him a choice between permanent servitude and getting back in the water?  The caravan merchants' freedom to choose which pass to use, and thus which bandit to pay off?

Inquiring minds want to know.

----------


## Roy L

> That link isn't working for me. Do you have another? I'm skeptical about there being any clay tablets that old.


Sorry, the "secure" prefix should have tipped me off.  Here:

http://www.enterstageright.com/archi...0899taxrel.htm

This one says it was 6Ky BP, not BCE, so roughly 4K BCE.  There are multiple sources for the former date, so the 6K BCE seems to have been an error in transcription.  In any case, virtually the oldest recorded writing found anywhere consists of tax records.  That speaks volumes for the relationship between taxes and civilization.

----------


## GeorgiaAvenger

> "Property freedom"???  What might that be?  The "freedom" of slaves to be property, perhaps...?  Or their "freedom" to buy their own liberty from their owners?  Crusoe's "freedom" to point his musket in Friday's face and give him a choice between permanent servitude and getting back in the water?  The caravan merchants' freedom to choose which pass to use, and thus which bandit to pay off?
> 
> Inquiring minds want to know.


Nobody is a slave if they have the right to own property. 

Turning somebody away from a free lunch is not slavery.

As you emphasize "evolutionary process", the process is for humans to claim land and own it. They do.

Mother Earth has no voice. The idea that land must be shared is not fact, it is fantasy.

----------


## erowe1

> Existence, growth, reproduction.  The usual evolutionary criteria.


How do those things indicate ought and not just is?

Also, aren't all those things present in all societies, including those without whatever hallmarks you might be using to classify certain societies as "civilizations"?

----------


## Gumba of Liberty

> *It's justified by the ultimate justification: evolutionary success.*  Civilization beats no civilization.  Societies with taxes beat societies without taxes.  Claims that taxes are immoral per se therefore fail immediately because morality *has no meaning* other than as an expression of what makes societies succeed or fail.


HAHAHAHA. Alright Buddy. This sounds so familiar.

----------


## Gumba of Liberty

> It's justified by the ultimate justification: evolutionary success.  Civilization beats no civilization.  Societies with taxes beat societies without taxes.  *Claims that taxes are immoral per se therefore fail immediately because morality has no meaning other than as an expression of what makes societies succeed or fail*.


So if The 3rd Reich had succeeded and lead the world in science and engineering, would it have been morally right? This is nothing more than utilitarian, B.S. There is a Right and a Wrong. You learn it as a kid. Don't hit, don't steal, don't lie, and don't kill. Those actions are universally wrong in all societies and all spheres of human life, except for government which breaks all the rules and is therefore immoral.

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> "Property freedom"???  What might that be?  The "freedom" of slaves to be property, perhaps...?  Or their "freedom" to buy their own liberty from their owners?  Crusoe's "freedom" to point his musket in Friday's face and give him a choice between permanent servitude and getting back in the water?  The caravan merchants' freedom to choose which pass to use, and thus which bandit to pay off?
> 
> Inquiring minds want to know.


I think that he was mocking you in that line...

I think you missed something with this little property freedom rant. Owning or forcing of a slave itself is a violation of property (individual owns himself therefore not a slave). Crusoe also would be violating Friday's property (himself). So if you have a society that follows some system of rules (whether that's voluntarism or a government) property should be protected. Sadly governments (thanks to ideologies like yourself) care very little about protection of individual property. Personally, i would have more trust in a voluntarist society filled with many others that follow NAP. Know that that still doesn't prevent violations 100%. I also have the power to protect myself further (multiple ways).

----------


## GeorgiaAvenger

http://archive.mises.org/1610/murray...-henry-george/

----------


## EcoWarrier

> It's not a service if it's forced upon individuals. In that case it's exploitation/slavery.


Well you are saying we are slaves right now. LVT is TAX SHIFT. IT takes tax from where it should be taken, not from individuals wages. All else stays the same. It takes wealth that is commonly created for common services. Private wealth stays private - untouched.

It is very simple. 

LVT is NOT a tax. It reclaims commonly created wealth for common purposes.  It is very simple.

You are some sort of anarchist, which is sad. Common services have to be funded.  LVT reclaims the funds from the right place. Geoism reclaims wealth from land's resources as well and also Pigovian taxes.

Your idea of a world is Sodom and Gomorrah.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Just deserts my ass - the rallying cries of class warfare statist-collectivist mass murderers like Stalin, Mao and Polpot (with whom I have you grouped).


Do you have Roy grouped with Cyberman as well?  

Wow!  A tax shift is Stalinism. You learn every day

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Do you have Roy grouped with Cyberman as well?


No, actually, that would be you. 

Roy's the committed autistic ideologue type; the Professor Nash, Jr. of LVT, who has barricaded himself in a room, in a house high atop Mount Crumpet. Thousands of charts, clippings and other sundry LVT-related minutia paper every square inch of his walls, ceiling, and every other flat available surface. Hundreds of yards of yarn, rubber bands and colored string criss-cross and weave in and out from tack to well placed tack, confirming to Roy what he knew all along: that landownership is despicable, evil, people-enslaving and murdering filth which MUST be stopped. But how?! 

EcoWarrier(sic) seems more the harmless Cyberman type, who actually fancies himself a kind of LVT GeoSuperhero, who is on a quest for Truth, Justice, and the LVT way. Armed with simple LVT-affirming soundbites, and fortified by a brown paper sack filled with tracts and propaganda leaflets from which to copy and paste, he is equally committed (and should be), as he is motivated by the pure and basic blind faith of a zealous believer, one who lives in a very simplistic LVT fantasy world.

----------


## EcoWarrier

I am a GeoSuperhero. Thank you. 

You are institutionalized, unable to shake off the pre-conceived notions bouncing around your head. That is sad. Also, unable see basic common sense devoid of simple logic. Again sad.  Think outside the box that your mind has been put into.

Your idea of freedom is the freedom to free-load.

----------


## Len Larson



----------


## WilliamShrugged

> I am a GeoSuperhero. Thank you. 
> 
> You are institutionalized, unable to shake off the pre-conceived notions bouncing around your head. That is sad. Also, unable see basic common sense devoid of simple logic. Again sad.  Think outside the box that your mind has been put into.
> 
> Your idea of freedom is the freedom to free-load.


Pointless post here.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Pointless post here.


So you are saying most people's idea on this forum is that freedom is the freedom to free-load.

----------


## erowe1

> A tax shift is Stalinism.


You keep calling it a tax shift. How is switching from no taxes to taxes just a tax shift?

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> So you are saying most people's idea on this forum is that freedom is the freedom to free-load.


No im regarding your waste of time post... 


> You are institutionalized, unable to shake off the pre-conceived notions bouncing around your head. That is sad. Also, unable see basic common sense devoid of simple logic. Again sad. Think outside the box that your mind has been put into.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> You keep calling it a tax shift. How is switching from no taxes to taxes just a tax shift?


You are confused. LVT as the Single Tax, removes Income, Sales & Property (tax on the buildings)taxes.  It reclaim community created wealth that crystallized as land values.  Simple.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> No im regarding your waste of time post...


So you are saying they would never understand anything from personal free-loading, so my post will not penetrate their conditioning. We have to try.

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> So you are saying they would never understand anything from personal free-loading, so my post will not penetrate their conditioning. We have to try.


 When THIS is 90% of the post, it's useless. 


> You are institutionalized, unable to shake off the pre-conceived notions bouncing around your head. That is sad. Also, unable see basic common sense devoid of simple logic. Again sad. Think outside the box that your mind has been put into.


Notice that i haven't brought up free loading, yet you keep thinking that. I'm pointing out your stupid elitist remarks.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> When THIS is 90% of the post, it's useless.   
> 
> Notice that i haven't brought up free loading, yet you keep thinking that. I'm pointing out your stupid elitist remarks.


Elitists?  Stupid? Have you just dropped in from La-la land as well? The post was to the point. They are brainwashed regurgitating the same indoctrinated tripe continually.  One keeps saying a tax shift is Stalinist and all sorts of things that come to head.  Amazing of course.

----------


## erowe1

> You are confused. LVT as the Single Tax, removes Income, Sales & Property (tax on the buildings)taxes.  It reclaim community created wealth that crystallized as land values.  Simple.


I'm not confused. I already explained this.

The people criticizing LVT aren't saying that it's worse or more collectivist or Stalinist or whatever than we have now. It may well be an improvement over what we have now. They're criticizing it in comparison with no tax at all. A switch between an income tax and an LVT is a tax shift. But a switch between nothing at all and an LVT is not.

ETA: To put it another way...
Let us suppose for the sake of argument that our federal government right now instituted a revenue neutral tax shift from the income tax to a land value tax. And for the sake of argument, I grant that that revenue neutral tax shift would be an improvement, or, at least, that is not the point at which I really differ with you.

Where I really differ with you is that I would insist that if that revenue-neutral tax shift were to occur, then we could continue to improve the situation even more by lowering the rates of that LVT. And the lower we took them, all the way down to zero if possible, the better the situation would get. You, it seems, disagree with this. And it is because of this disagreement, and not simply your support for a tax shift, that you have been called "Stalinist." The rest of us think tax cuts are always a good thing. You don't.

----------


## The Free Hornet

> I am a GeoSuperhero. Thank you.


Would a superhero address some questions from a late thread comer?

1) Why not link to the Wikipedia article (Land Value Tax) on it?

As poor as that link may be, it is ten times better than the one-sided descriptions by the proponents of LVT who overpromise and underdeliver. Also, rectify differences between the wiki ("Requires clear ownership [of land]") and the proselytization of Roy ("[Owning land] is legalized theft").

Are you advocating an ideology or a revenue system?  Although I agree you _might_ need both (especially statists who love those revenue systems), it is too mucked up for me to understand what you're getting at.

<LVT_protest>I may have to pay your stinking LVT, but I don't have to agree with your BS!</LVT_protest>


2a) What do you want the government to do regardless of how the income is raised? Hopefully you are libertarians or minarchists or something.  There is never justice or fairness in coercive redistribution.  Is it fair if one family gets more free fruit because they had twins and  the other family had one really fat baby?


2b) Can you justify taxation... AT ALL??!! Views on tax vary from a necessary or unnecessary evil, to those who see absolute goodness radiating from every paycheck FICA deduction. If I wander onto unoccupied state park territory and start living off the land and living in a ramshackle dwelling, then it could be said maybe that I own nothing and owe nothing. True or False?


3) If you can't own land, what else can't you own? Land versus stuff is just an artificial distinction. Land is just the crusty stuff we presently store on top of the mantle. My neighbors would be pissed if I rented some land and took all the crust with me. Mighty pissed indeed as they gazed into the ten-mile deep hole which I miraculously dug between the iron spikes of my plot.


From your first post, "All thinking about the world involves a degree of abstraction." I think you need another layer of abstraction to unify certain concepts. Drop the focus on land, land, land. Does it matter if the gubblemint defends and builds roads to my land _or_ my pile of sugar?



But if I defend that sugar myself...



Provide for its transportation...



What right do you have to partake in it?




Additionally, here is a link for discussion:




> Founder David Nolan supports land value tax as the only tax that does not fall on productivity, and the late Karl Hess often described land value tax as the one tax to levy until the state could be abolished entirely.


What is the plan to end/minimize the LVT???

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> Elitists?  Stupid? *Have you just dropped in from La-la land as well? The post was to the point. They are brainwashed regurgitating the same indoctrinated tripe continually.*  One keeps saying a tax shift is Stalinist and all sorts of things that come to head.  Amazing of course.


And you question being called elitist. Many could say the same about you..

----------


## Roy L

> Nobody is a slave if they have the right to own property.


No, that's a just another stupid, flat-out lie from you.  Slaves have often had the right to own property: there is no other way a slave could ever have purchased his freedom from his owner, is there?  There were slaves in ancient Rome who became quite wealthy. 



> Turning somebody away from a free lunch is not slavery.


It is if you demand they labor for you in return for access to a lunch they would have been free to eat if you did not forcibly stop them.  That is precisely what the landowner does.



> As you emphasize "evolutionary process", the process is for humans to claim land and own it.


No, that is a process of theft, not evolution.



> They do.


As they once owned slaves.



> Mother Earth has no voice.


The landless have voices.  It is they whose rights to liberty have been forcibly removed, not "Mother Earth's."



> The idea that land must be shared is not fact, it is fantasy.


The fact that people shared land for millions of years before greedy, evil, parasitic thieves started stealing it is most definitely a fact.

Either land is shared, or the landless are enslaved.  That is also a fact.

The fantasy is your notion that forcible removal of others' rights to liberty can somehow be justified.

----------


## Roy L

> And you question being called elitist. Many could say the same about you..


But they would be (surprise!) lying.  There is nothing elitist about advocating equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.

----------


## Roy L

> How do those things indicate ought and not just is?


We've been through this.  The concept of ought only arises because human beings have evolved a capacity for moral reasoning to replace instinctive primate social behaviors.  That is a fact: what IS.  I.e., we don't have to derive an ought from an is, because we start with factual premises about what _ought_ is: a way of reconciling individual people's animal self-interest with their subtler, longer-term, less direct but *equally important* interest in being members of successful societies.  In terms of reproductive success, to be a member of a failed society is probably worse than personal extinction even if you survive your society's fall, not only because your subsequent survival and reproduction are so prejudiced, but because fellow members of your society tend to carry so many copies of your genes, and their survival and reproduction is also prejudiced.  



> Also, aren't all those things present in all societies, including those without whatever hallmarks you might be using to classify certain societies as "civilizations"?


No, because all the societies that no longer exist failed the existence and growth tests, and most failed the reproduction test (i.e., their peculiar qualities are not represented in the current population of societies).

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> But they would be (surprise!) lying.  There is nothing elitist about advocating equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.


When did i say his ideology was elitist?  Man you and Ecowarrior take the cake on stupidity.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> There is nothing elitist about advocating equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.


Which nearly everyone in this forum advocates, of course. Just not by your geolib-centric intended meanings of every single term you used. They're not faced with your false choice between LVT and other taxes. And they 'dontsa hatesa gubmint' either, because they're actually calling for a gubmint -- one that would cause you and everyone else with taxing tentacles to draw back bloody stumps. 

It's not a case of "let the right one in".  You're just another statist bloodsucker to them, trying to argue that you're the one being bitten, by landowners who are not "justly compensating" you for your loss of liberty to use whatever land they now hold as property.

----------


## Roy L

> So if The 3rd Reich had succeeded and lead the world in science and engineering, would it have been morally right?


Hypothesis contrary to fact fallacy.  You could with equal "logic" ask, if 2 + 2 equalled 5, would 2 - 2 equal 1?

Let me answer the more interesting and perceptive question that you didn't ask: all societies and all moralities, like all organisms, are evolutionary works in progress.  There isn't an end point of evolution that results in a perfect organism or a perfect morality.



> This is nothing more than utilitarian, B.S.


No, it isn't.  Utilitarianism takes aggregate human "happiness" (by some measure) as the test of morality, not societal evolutionary success.  You would be more accurate to call it pragmatism, but it is actually subtler than that, as the determination of right and wrong is never actually completed.



> There is a Right and a Wrong.


Indeed.  But what are they, and *why*?



> You learn it as a kid. Don't hit, don't steal, don't lie, and don't kill.


OTC, lots of people learn to hit as children, and some even learn to steal and lie.  A very few learn to kill.

So, what then?



> Those actions are universally wrong in all societies and all spheres of human life, except for government which breaks all the rules and is therefore immoral.


Nonsense.  Your view of morality is jejune, as is your view of government.  Of course it is not universally wrong to hit, nor to steal or lie or kill.  Sometimes we have to do these things to defend ourselves, our family members, our rights, or our society.  In _general_ these actions tend to weaken society, and that is why they are considered wrong.  But they are not the *test* of right and wrong.

----------


## Roy L

> When did i say his ideology was elitist?  Man you and Ecowarrior take the cake on stupidity.


I didn't say you did.  Learn to read.

----------


## Roy L

> Which nearly everyone in this forum advocates, of course.


No, they don't, which is the point.



> Just not by your geolib-centric intended meanings of every single term you used.


The area of disagreement is actually quite limited, and revolves around the manner of reconciling property rights with liberty rights.  The anti-LVT side advocates property in things IN ADDITION TO the fruits of one's labor.  That is logically impossible except by removing others' liberty rights to access and use those things.



> They're not faced with your false choice between LVT and other taxes.


It's not a false choice.  It's not even a false dichotomy.  It's simply an alternative: we can fund public expenditures as we currently do, by confiscating privately created wealth and using it to give value to landowners, or we can fund them by recovering the value the expenditures themselves create, rather than giving it away to landowners in return for nothing.  It's really just that simple.



> And they 'dontsa hatesa gubmint' either, because they're actually calling for a gubmint -- one that would cause you and everyone else with taxing tentacles to draw back bloody stumps.


Lurid imagery aside, that's just silly garbage.  No taxes --> no government --> no civilization.



> It's not a case of "let the right one in".


True: it's more a case of "let the actual facts in."



> You're just another statist bloodsucker to them,


Then they are stupid as well as ignorant and dishonest.



> trying to argue that you're the one being bitten, by landowners who are not "justly compensating" you for your loss of liberty to use whatever land they now hold as property.


That is indisputable: they forcibly deprive me of liberty I would otherwise have, and you appear to know that very well.  I suspect you might be closer to the collapse of your false and evil beliefs than you realize.

----------


## Roy L

> I think that he was mocking you in that line...


Then it backfired.



> I think you missed something with this little property freedom rant. Owning or forcing of a slave itself is a violation of property (individual owns himself therefore not a slave).


Garbage.  Self-ownership is a logical contradiction.  Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.



> Crusoe also would be violating Friday's property (himself).


Lie.  Crusoe is simply enforcing his claim to own the land, same as any other land "owner" pointing a gun at a "trespasser" and telling them to clear out.  Giving Friday the option of permanent servitude is just an offer of "voluntary" trade.

According to you, that is...



> So if you have a society that follows some system of rules (whether that's voluntarism or a government) property should be protected.


So, in your view, property in slaves should have been protected instead of abolished?



> Sadly governments (thanks to ideologies like yourself) care very little about protection of individual property.


That is an absurd and outrageous lie.  Governments are ALL ABOUT protection of individual property.  That's how the rich get rich, stay rich, and get rapidly richer:

"Government has no other end than the preservation of property." -- John Locke, Second Treatise on Government



> Personally, i would have more trust in a voluntarist society filled with many others that follow NAP. Know that that still doesn't prevent violations 100%. I also have the power to protect myself further (multiple ways).


Yes, and your favored system would end in feudalism as landowning gradually concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, as it always has before.

----------


## Roy L

> http://archive.mises.org/1610/murray...-henry-george/


Heinrich's anti-LVT "arguments" are garbage, as Rothbard's were.  I'm not going to take the time to demolish them all in detail here.  If you pick one or two that you think are particularly strong, I'll demolish them before your very eyes.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy's the committed autistic ideologue type; the Professor Nash, Jr. of LVT, who has barricaded himself in a room, in a house high atop Mount Crumpet. Thousands of charts, clippings and other sundry LVT-related minutia paper every square inch of his walls, ceiling, and every other flat available surface. Hundreds of yards of yarn, rubber bands and colored string criss-cross and weave in and out from tack to well placed tack, confirming to Roy what he knew all along: that landownership is despicable, evil, people-enslaving and murdering filth which MUST be stopped. But how?!


You have quite an imagination.

----------


## Roy L

> You keep calling it a tax shift. How is switching from no taxes to taxes just a tax shift?


Where are there no taxes?

----------


## Roy L

> Notice that i haven't brought up free loading, yet you keep thinking that.


The landowner qua landowner is always inherently a freeloader.  See post #6 in this thread.

----------


## Roy L

> The people criticizing LVT aren't saying that it's worse or more collectivist or Stalinist or whatever than we have now.


Yes, of course they are.  AFAICT, they are explicitly claiming that because it is levied specifically on the basis of property ownership, LVT is more collectivist, Stalinist, communist, socialist, blah, blah, blah than income tax, sales tax, excise tax, poll tax, value added tax, estate tax, gas tax, luxury tax, and every other kind of tax.



> It may well be an improvement over what we have now.


It is certainly an enormous improvement over what we have now.  That is why evil, greedy, lying, anti-LVT filth oppose it with such maniacal ferocity: they know that if anyone actually tries LVT, it will immediately be obvious that their "all taxes are evil" rant is objectively false.



> They're criticizing it in comparison with no tax at all.


If they are, then they are being dishonest as well as stupid.



> A switch between an income tax and an LVT is a tax shift. But a switch between nothing at all and an LVT is not.


No tax at all is not one of the options.



> Let us suppose for the sake of argument that our federal government right now instituted a revenue neutral tax shift from the income tax to a land value tax.


You mean, as the Founding Fathers tried to do in the Articles of Confederation?



> Where I really differ with you is that I would insist that if that revenue-neutral tax shift were to occur, then we could continue to improve the situation even more by lowering the rates of that LVT. And the lower we took them, all the way down to zero if possible, the better the situation would get.


But you are just objectively wrong about that.  Increasing the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners can never be beneficial.  Never.



> You, it seems, disagree with this. And it is because of this disagreement, and not simply your support for a tax shift, that you have been called "Stalinist."


Absurdly and dishonestly.



> The rest of us think tax cuts are always a good thing. You don't.


And you are wrong and we are correct, as explained in post #135 in this thread.

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> Garbage.  Self-ownership is a logical contradiction.  Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.


exactly, they wouldn't be a slave. They would be a servant. Fail.

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> I didn't say you did.  Learn to read.


Then why state this to me stupid 


> There is nothing elitist about advocating equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Garbage.  Self-ownership is a logical contradiction.  Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.


LOLZ!  So, who owns you?  (FYI, people sell themselves all the time.  They sell their labor and surrender free will to employers in exchange for some wage or benefit.)





> That is an absurd and outrageous lie.  Governments are ALL ABOUT protection of individual property.  That's how the rich get rich, stay rich, and get rapidly richer:
> 
> "Government has no other end than the preservation of property." -- John Locke, Second Treatise on Government


You do realize that Locke included the protection of the poor's property in this, don't you?  Contextomy fail.  Why is it okay for you to lie about and misrepresent Locke but not okay for others to represent George as they choose?

----------


## erowe1

> But you are just objectively wrong about that.  Increasing the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners can never be beneficial.  Never.
> 
> Absurdly and dishonestly.
> 
> And you are wrong and we are correct, as explained in post #135 in this thread.


I'm having trouble pinning you down because you seem to avoid the point I was making here and post #135 does not address it either.

Suppose the federal government instituted a revenue-neutral tax shift, replacing the income tax we have now with a land value tax that raises the same amount of revenue. After doing that, would lowering the rate of that LVT, so as to decrease federal revenue, be a good thing or not?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The area of disagreement is actually quite limited, and revolves around the manner of reconciling property rights with liberty rights.


The actual area of disagreement is not limited in area, literally speaking, because it encompasses ALL area - even the land area of the entire Earth, used as a basis for a tax.   The "liberty rights" deprivation argument is YOUR framing of the issue, given that you alone feel that they a) exist as you describe them, and are b) being violated by landownership without "just compensation" to the state, no less, which you further seek to reconcile by c) a universal individual exemption amount that is equal for all individuals.   I say that Rube Goldberg machine of a trickle-down dog doesn't hunt. 




> The anti-LVT side advocates property in things IN ADDITION TO the fruits of one's labor.


*There are no rights to the fruits of one's labor without rights to "property in things".*




> That is logically impossible except by removing others' liberty rights to access and use those things.


But you don't mean "things", do you. Specifically, we're talking about property in LAND, not "things", and your belief that the exclusive holding of land (without "just compensation" to others via the state) is a violation of others' "liberty rights", which I argue do not, _and should not ever_, exist or be acknowledged as you describe them.  That's your house of cards, not theirs. 




> It's not a false choice.  It's not even a false dichotomy.  It's simply an alternative: we can fund public expenditures as we currently do...


Fund public expenditures as we currently do?  I know you mean "method of or basis for funding", and not the amounts currently funded or spent, but that's still a false choice.  Most here are arguing that *most public expenditures should not even exist*.  And I agree. So we're not sitting around trying to figure out different ways to fund them. While you propose to stop taxing labor and capital (which they would agree with already), and shift all tax burdens exclusively onto landowners, most here are instead trying to figure out ways to shrink most of the expenditures down and *drown most of them in a bathtub*, such that there really is no burden to speak of in the first place. 

But even there I'm not exactly on the same page, because I don't think that the size of funding and expenditures in and of themselves are the problem at all, any more than I believe the factor of production targeted is the problem -- in terms of the REAL PROBLEM you're trying to reconcile; that of *burden-shifting*. 




> No taxes --> no government --> no civilization.


*I am not calling for "no taxes"*, which brings us to my point.  

I believe strongly in taxes -- just not on INDIVIDUALS ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT.  None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not for ANY $#@!ing reason. That doesn't mean "no taxes", because these rights-endowed individuals *are not the only taxable entities*. There are plenty of taxable entities who can and should bear the burden, to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of conditional privilege.  That includes corporations (who are not people), collectives and speculators of all kinds, and even foreigners...but NEVER REAL PEOPLE ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT. 

You and Henry George have everything just as $#@!ed up as Marx as you focus on "which factor of production should be universally targeted", and, by extension, you falsely think, which class of people will naturally end up shouldering the burden (landowners in your case - GENERIC - regardless of their legal status, all of which you conflate as one and the same, as if all landowning entities were created equal). THAT is the lie, THAT is the false choice.  That's how JP Morgan and the average hard-working Joe Sixpack get MUSH-MELDED as one, MUCH to JPM's delight, because not only is JPM treated as if it, too, was CREATED EQUAL in terms of rights, but JPM is also better equipped to avoid the taxes, happy to let a million Joe Sixpacks pay them instead.  

The choice for me deals with legal status, and the inalienable rights of each and every (uncollectivized) individual Citizen, and what types of entities are being taxed -- _not the basis for that tax_.  Wrong target, as the system gets gamed and real people get used as human shields anyway, regardless of the target. If people (individuals) are free, it does not matter what factor of production, or anything else, the state uses as its basis to tax privileged entities who are not acting as a matter of right.  Tax their land, tax their income, tax the sales (on purchases from privileged entities only), or anything else. It doesn't even need a reason. Tax them "just because", because it has that power. They're targeted and caught in the cross-hairs, without any human shields to camouflage themselves as or hide behind.  

*The power to tax is the power to destroy*, and if the state taxes any privileged entity too aggressively, it does so at its own peril, as it can literally tax its own revenue sources out of existence (read=capital flight, right out of the taxing jurisdiction), while only creating more opportunities for competing individuals who are *not taxable as a matter of right and cannot therefore be destroyed or driven out of the market by taxation as a matter of principle*.  So break out that Laffer curve for privileged taxables entities, State, and take care to strike the right balance, because real, free and natural Citizens stand to benefit either way. 

What I propose requires absolutely no "promise" of a universal individual exemption, which may or may not be implemented (and if history is a guide, the chances of any truly meaningful dividend or exemption are an absolute joke of a rotten dangled plum). My proposal does not require any dangled plums, or promises based on "trusting the state" (or worse yet, a tyrannous majority) to do the "right" or "fair" thing. It is not required because the immunity is _already inherent_ in any individual that behaves as a matter of right, a status that ends and becomes privileged behavior with those individuals and other entities to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of privilege.  

It's easy to prove that someone is behaving as a land speculator who is not simply behaving as a matter of right. Likewise, corporations, collectives and foreigners are ALREADY inherently acting as a matter of privilege. They would _all_, without exception, be subject to your tax, as well as any other tax, as the state saw fitting.  And I don't care if it's LVT, income, capital gains or anything else or all of them combined into a fifty-legged stool.  But it only applies to _them_ - not real, free and natural Citizens, to whom the fruits of labor, the benefits of capital and economic rents on land and anything else should be freely and privately enjoyed. 

So no, it's not "no tax" (on anyone) vs. "the best tax" (on everyone).  It ALWAYS boils down (even in the real world today) to a question of *For Whom The Tax Bell Tolls*.  And that's where individuals, especially the truly productive ones, are the sitting ducks that get shafted every time, without fail, under EVERY regime, every 'ism'.  That's why LVT would end up gamed like every other tax, as Zoning laws, Enterprise and Renaissance Zones, Special Exemptions, Abatements and Grants creep in, NATURALLY, to sort out the clever and well-healed from the not-so-connected, and the real people end up shouldering all the burdens anyway.  $#@! that.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Where I really differ with you is that I would insist that if that revenue-neutral tax shift were to occur, then we could continue to improve the situation even more by lowering the rates of that LVT. And the lower we took them, all the way down to zero if possible, the better the situation would get. You, it seems, disagree with this. And it is because of this disagreement, and not simply your support for a tax shift, that you have been called "Stalinist." The rest of us think tax cuts are always a good thing. You don't.


I was right you are confused. Geonomics doesn't tax only land, most followers want LVT as the Single Tax for personal and small businesses at least - no Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax (tax on the buildings), Inheritance Tax, etc.  It is so much easier and simple. The state's tax collection bill is very, very cheap.  LVT is impossible to avoid as land's location is known to the inch. It cannot be taken off-shore. 

Other taxes on extracting natural resources, like oil, ores and fish from the sea, and use of natural resources apply (e.g., charging taxi drivers a license to use common streets) as do Pigovian taxes, like alcohol, tobacco, congestion charges, polluters, etc.

LVT promotes enterprise, as taxes on production and trade are removed, and gives economic stability. Enterprise makes people more wealthy, reducing the Welfare bill, etc. The taxes on resources take precedence and if necessary the LVT bill is lowered. But it is a balance. As the LVT gets very low it may spark harmful land speculation (Taiwan increased its LVT rate to counter land speculation and get land & buildings in use). In marginal land the values is very low, so the LVT is near buttons. You can move to an internal tax haven and next to nothing. 

Taxation only falls on commonly created wealth (where it should do), not personal wealth. Common wealth pays for common services.

Simple.

If you think we can  live in a society without taxation, get out of La-La land.

----------


## EcoWarrier

Land monopoly is not the only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies -- it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.

_Unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit, but they are the principal form of unearned increment_, and they are derived from processes which are not merely not beneficial, but positively detrimental to the general public.

- Winston Churchill


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


No matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream for himself, and everywhere today the man or the public body that wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior one, and in some cases to no use at all. All comes back to _land value_, and its owner is able to levy toll upon all other forms of wealth and every form of industry. 

- Winston Churchill


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!

- Winston Churchill


I hope you will understand that, when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the process than with the individual land owner who, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched. I have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. _It is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad._

- Winston Churchill 


We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law.

- Winston Churchill

----------


## Roy L

> LOLZ!  So, who owns you?


???  Huh?  No one.  I didn't sell myself into slavery.  Duh.

Non sequitur fail.



> (FYI, people sell themselves all the time.  They sell their labor and surrender free will to employers in exchange for some wage or benefit.)


FYI, that's not selling yourself, it's performing labor for wages, and in no sense do people "surrender free will" to their employers.  Give your head a shake.



> You do realize that Locke included the protection of the poor's property in this, don't you?


Of course.  And your point would be...?

Are you stupidly and dishonestly claiming that the homeless beggar who gets protection of his few dollars worth of clothes and cigarettes is getting the same benefit from government as the billionaire who owns the land the homeless beggar is not allowed to use to house and support himself, and access the government services his sales taxes helped pay for?

Another non sequitur fail.



> Contextomy fail.


Stupid, dishonest garbage disproved above.



> Why is it okay for you to lie about and misrepresent Locke


<sigh>  You now have exactly two choices, hb: you can identify, with direct, verbatim, in-context quotes, where I lied about and misrepresented Locke, or you can admit that you are just another evil, lying sack of anti-LVT $#!+.  Failure to do the first will constitute doing the second.  And you will not be doing the first.



> but not okay for others to represent George as they choose?


I did not lie about, misquote, or misrepresent Locke.  Lying anti-LVT sacks of $#!+ DO lie about and misrepresent what Henry George and LVT advocates plainly wrote.  INVARIABLY.

----------


## Roy L

> I'm having trouble pinning you down because you seem to avoid the point I was making here and post #135 does not address it either.


Yes, it does.



> Suppose the federal government instituted a revenue-neutral tax shift, replacing the income tax we have now with a land value tax that raises the same amount of revenue. After doing that, would lowering the rate of that LVT, so as to decrease federal revenue, be a good thing or not?


No, because that would give landowners an increased welfare subsidy giveaway of unearned wealth at the expense of reducing the earned wealth of the productive.  It would do this by bringing back the inefficiencies and counter-productive incentives that LVT removes, as I explained in post #135.

You need to find a willingness to know the fact that preventing people from earning wealth by devoting their labor and investments in capital goods to productive ends reduces their wealth just as surely as taxing away their earned income does.  Other taxes like income tax have what economists call an "excess burden": the amount by which they reduce total wealth OVER AND ABOVE the amount of money they take from taxpayers.  For taxes other than LVT, which bear on productive economic activity, the higher the tax, the greater the excess burden and the less wealth is produced.

But LVT has the OPPOSITE of an excess burden: the amount by which total wealth is reduced by *failing* to recover the full publicly created value of land and eliminate the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.  With LVT, the higher the tax rate, the LOWER the excess burden, and the MORE wealth is produced.

----------


## Roy L

> exactly, they wouldn't be a slave. They would be a servant. Fail.


No, you are lying.  Servants can't be sold to someone else.  Slaves can.  Servants can't be compelled to labor by force.  Slaves can.

*EPIC FAIL.*

----------


## Roy L

> Then why state this to me stupid


Because in post #190 you wrote:

"I'm pointing out your stupid elitist remarks."

It would be nice if you would provide the post number of comments you are not responding to directly, so readers could check for themselves why you deleted the context without having to go through many previous posts looking for it.

----------


## Swarmed

> Garbage.  Self-ownership is a logical contradiction.


wrong

----------


## Roy L

> I know I feel the same way. I look at you with complete disgust.


Then you're not even close to what I feel.  Try adding contempt, pity, horror, frustration, loathing, incredulity, and revulsion.

In _1984_, George Orwell created a famously horrific image of a totalitarian future that would be like, "a boot stamping on a human face, forever."  When I read fallacious, absurd and dishonest anti-LVT lies (and yours are no different from any others in that respect), I see the boot stamping on the human face, forever -- and the face eagerly kissing and licking the boot in grateful worship, as it stamps down again and again and again.



> Yes that is exactly what I advocate.


Right.  You advocate injustice, I advocate justice.



> I want reparations instead of penalties. If a man takes something away, I want that returned.


Except if he takes away others' liberty to use land.



> Now as far as rewards go I will not even entertain the idea that justice is rewards commensurate with contributions.


But in fact, you know that that is what it is.



> The value put to rewards and the contributions are completely subjective.


Nonsense.  Value is what a thing would trade for in the market, which by definition can't be subjective as it requires two different agents' inputs.



> As such it can not be used to objectively define justice.


Yes, it can, as proved above.



> Yes I would be ok with someone homesteading the sun and the air.


That's an obvious lie.



> I don't see how it is possible with our technology at the present.


That's not the point, and you know it.



> So I would not accept any rents until it is possible.


So if someone invented a giant machine that compressed atmospheric air, and ran his machine until people became short of breath and had to pay him rent for air to breathe in order to keep from suffocating, you would accept that and just pay the rent?

You are lying, and you know it.



> Human organs and bodies are the property of their owners.


Propertarian nonsense.  They can't be sold.



> Only the owners of their property can give it away.


If you can't sell it, you don't own it.



> And absolutely property rights should exist for them. That means you can not murder me or tax me.


Absurd non sequitur.



> You not at liberty to use it until someone puts their labor into it.


ROTFL!!!  No, that's just another flat-out stupid lie from you, not to mention a blatant self-contradiction:

How did the *first* person to use it put their labor into it if they were not at liberty to do so, hmmmmmm?

You are destroyed.  What you don't seem to understand is that ALL your garbage is as stupid, irrational and dishonest as your brain-dead claim above.



> It is just for the land to go to the person who put work into it instead of the latecomer.


No, that's just a false, absurd and dishonest claim not supported by any facts or logic.  If it were true, Crusoe would be within his rights to point his musket in Friday's face and give him a choice between permanent servitude and getting back in the water.  But he self-evidently and indisputably is not.



> Ideas and words are not scarce that is the reason they are not property.


???  They often ARE property under patent and copyright laws.  Like land, they have been made into property by law.  That is the point.



> I do not support intellectual property.


Ignoratio elenchi.  Making ideas and words into property MAKES them scarce.  That is why they are made into property.



> What are your premises?


Equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.



> List them and I will show you how I am right.


No, of course you won't.  Don't be stupid.



> Instead of hiding and making me guess at them.


I haven't hidden them or made you guess.  I have stated them frequently, including in this thread.  But in post #126, you wrote:

"Everything comes from the land. So again that would negate property rights if we allow your premises to stand."

You are the one who claims my premises negate property rights.  So you need to identify the specific premises you are talking about, and show *how* they negate property rights.  (Hint: "Everything comes from the land," being obviously false, is not one of my premises.)

I'm waiting.  But I'm not holding my breath.



> So is the land that had a fence put on it, that a had a hole dug in it, that had a seed planted in it, that was fertilized, that had a house put on it.


Blatantly false.  The fence does not alter the natural land underneath it or around it, and the same is true of the hole, the seed, the house, and any other product of labor that happens to be produced or located on the land but is not and cannot itself be land.

HOW COULD PUTTING A PRODUCT OF LABOR *ON* LAND THAT NATURE PUT THERE MAKE THAT LAND A PRODUCT OF LABOR?



> All of that land had labor mixed into it.


False.  It is physically impossible to "mix labor into" land.  That is nothing but a misleading metaphor.  A fence is a product of labor, not land, and it is sitting on top of the land, not "mixed into" the land.  Likewise the house, seed, hole, etc.



> All of that land is property.


Nope.  Conclusively refuted above.  Producing a product gives you ownership of the product, not the location where you made it or put it.



> All of that land can be considered a good that had labor mixed into it.


Wrong again.  That is literally nonsense.  Land, by definition, HASN'T had labor "mixed into" it.  It is what nature provided.



> Bread has nothing to do with your claim that society produces goods that people use.


It most certainly does.  You can't expect to take bread from someone else without paying for it, and you likewise can't expect to take the economic advantage society produces at a given location from_ everyone_ else without paying for it.



> Society gets a benefit from every single individual in it.


Wrong.  The comatose, the criminal, etc. give society no benefit.

But they still have rights.



> It is a subjective benefit and as such it can not be taxes.


It's subjective in the true sense: it's imaginary, exists only in your own mind, and is nothing but some $#!+ you made up.



> My participation in society as a peaceful individual brings peace to society as much as they bring peace to me.


Clearly false.  You don't face down armed criminals.  Society pays someone to do that for you.



> As such those goods are equal.


Refuted above.



> A bread seller gives me as much benefit as my money gives him.


So you do agree you can't expect to take his bread and not pay for it?  Then why do you think you can take someone else's liberty and not pay for it?



> Everything is a equal subjective trade.


The landowner's removal of others' liberty to use the land is not an equal trade.  He just takes away their rights to liberty and gives them nothing in return.



> As such you can not levy a tax on that.


I don't propose to tax trades.  Landowning is not a trade.



> Even if trades were not equal but they must according to basic logic they are still just since they are done voluntarily.


When did I voluntarily give up my right to use the land others claim they own?



> I am going to abandon the argument from practical stand point because of two reasons. It is too easy to win and second this type of argument can only be won from a moral stand point.


Right: it is too easy for ME to win, and I have already won it from a moral standpoint.



> No one taken this liberty from you, you never had it in the first place.


That is a lie.  You could with equal "logic" claim a child of slaves has not had his liberty taken from him because he "never had it in the first place."



> You have liberty to take unused land.


That's not true (I am forbidden to "take" or use unused but owned land), and it's not liberty anyway.  Our ancestors for millions of years were at liberty to use land whether or not others had used or were using it.  THAT is liberty.  "Taking" land is a blatant violation of others' liberty rights to use it.



> Stop being a parasite, trying to take something for nothing.


Stop telling such stupid, despicable lies.  I have not tried to take anything for nothing, other than my human rights, which I am supposed to get just for being alive.  But my right to liberty has been taken from me by landowners.  It is the landowner who takes something for nothing, living as a parasite, as already proved in post #6 in this thread.  It is the parasitic landowner who gets something for nothing by charging others full market value for what government, the community and nature provide:

"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 monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price"  Andrew Carnegie

"Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economising. 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 the individual who might hold title."  John Stuart Mill

Etc.

Stop lying.

----------


## Roy L

> wrong


It is fact.  Ownership includes four distinct powers, one of which is the power of dispostion or transfer.  You can't transfer yourself to anyone else, because you are immutably inside your own body.  No one else can operate your body, perform labor with it, etc.

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> No, you are lying.  Servants can't be sold to someone else.  Slaves can.  Servants can't be compelled to labor by force.  Slaves can.
> 
> *EPIC FAIL.*


In post #203 you state
[QUOTEGarbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction. Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.] [/QUOTE]

You just said that a person can choose to become a slave (which in real terms would be a servant). If they have the power of choice then how do they not own themselves? I doubt many would choose to become a slave (a forced servant with no deciding power of contract or free will.) A servant can sell their service to someone else as long as it is agreed between them and whoever they are serving (normally set up by contract, verbally or written). Why? Because they own themselves and because of that they get to choose. *EXTREME EPIC FAILURE*

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> Because in post #190 you wrote:
> 
> "I'm pointing out your stupid elitist remarks."
> 
> It would be nice if you would provide the post number of comments you are not responding to directly, so readers could check for themselves why you deleted the context without having to go through many previous posts looking for it.


What i am posting is directly what im addressing. 

 Ecowarrior's pointless post #182 saying 


> You are institutionalized, unable to shake off the pre-conceived notions bouncing around your head. That is sad. Also, unable see basic common sense devoid of simple logic. Again sad. Think outside the box that your mind has been put into.


Notice all he did was talk down his opponent without making a point? I called that out. He keep assuming something else (like a stance) when my point was his stupid elitist talking down. 

Then you decide to be his hero and say in post 196...




> There is nothing elitist about advocating equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.


Clearly you missed what i was referring to in his post (which i stated multiple times, and why i question both of your intelligence). Which i point out had nothing to do with his ideology or stance. So you claim you didn't say that i did in post 201. THEN WHY SAY THE POINTLESS THINGS YOU SAID IN #196??? Did you have to say something that didn't pertain to what i was discussing with Ecowarrior?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Servants can't be sold to someone else. Slaves can.


Tell that to any MLB player that just got force-traded to another team without any advanced warning, and must pack up and leave within hours, and be ready to suit up and play for his new master.  It is by virtue of a contract provision that this 'servant' can indeed be sold to someone else.  




> Servants can't be sold to someone else. Slaves can. Servants can't be compelled to labor by force. Slaves can.


Then I guess it's safe to say that you were never in the military, huh, Roy? Your ass belongs to Uncle Sam as a matter of contract (even compelled against your will in the case of involuntary conscription), wherein you become the property of the U.S. Government.  You can't even get a bad sunburn without risking punishment for damage to U.S. Property. You can also be sold to someone else (shipped and reassigned without your consent to another master within that same regime), and you can be compelled to labor by force.  

So tell me, Roy, with regard to certain major league baseball players and members of the military, just as two examples: are they slaves, or are they more like indentured servants?

----------


## erowe1

> No, because that would give landowners an increased welfare subsidy giveaway of unearned wealth at the expense of reducing the earned wealth of the productive.  It would do this by bringing back the inefficiencies and counter-productive incentives that LVT removes, as I explained in post #135.


So you don't think the federal budget of $4 Trillion per year should be cut any. You just want it to be funded by a different method.

Should the budget increase? Or is it coincidentally at just the perfect size right now?

Or does that even matter? Maybe your view is that, as long as we have an LVT, it makes no difference how large it is.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> It is fact.  Ownership includes four distinct powers, one of which is the power of dispostion or transfer.  You can't transfer yourself to anyone else, because you are immutably inside your own body.  No one else can operate your body, perform labor with it, etc.


Now you're just being silly.  Can you "operate" your pets?  No.  Therefore, you do not own pets.

----------


## Roy L

> Tell that to any MLB player that just got force-traded to another team without any advanced warning, and must pack up and leave within hours, and be ready to suit up and play for his new master.  It is by virtue of a contract provision that this 'servant' can indeed be sold to someone else.


Nonsense.  The player isn't being sold, that's just a metaphor.  It's the exclusive right to his services that is being sold.  Totally different thing.  Nobody is going to try to make him play by beating or starving him.  Give your head a shake.  All they can do is not pay him, and arrange for no one else in the league to pay him, either.  So what?  He can still go and play in Japan and make a ton of dough.  Slaves can't.  That seems to be a slight difference you missed.

Really, Stephen, comparing MLB millionaires to slaves?  What were you thinking?



> Then I guess it's safe to say that you were never in the military, huh, Roy? Your ass belongs to Uncle Sam as a matter of contract (even compelled against your will in the case of involuntary conscription), wherein you become the property of the U.S. Government.


You'll need to provide some kind of evidence for that claim, and you can't.  

You are at least closer with the military than your absurd MLB nonsense.  When you join the military you do sign a very draconian contract that subjects you to military discipline, military courts, etc. and may stop you from leaving should you decide you don't like it as much as you expected; but the military can't turn around and sell you to Argentina.



> You can't even get a bad sunburn without risking punishment for damage to U.S. Property.


Absurd.



> You can also be sold to someone else (shipped and reassigned without your consent to another master within that same regime),


No, that's just a lie.  There is no monetary exchange between the units involved in a soldier's transfer.



> and you can be compelled to labor by force.


That is indeed close to slavery, even if you do agree to it when you sign up.



> So tell me, Roy, with regard to certain major league baseball players and members of the military, just as two examples: are they slaves, or are they more like indentured servants?


MLB players are pampered, privileged rich guys.  Soldiers (especially draftees) are much more like slaves.  In WW I, the British army executed more than 300 of its own soldiers for desertion.  In some armies the toll has been much higher: the origin of the term, "decimate" was a form of Roman military discipline in which every tenth man was executed, and this measure was actually used in the field as late as the 20th century.  So yeah, that's very much like being a slave.

----------


## Roy L

> Now you're just being silly.  Can you "operate" your pets?  No.  Therefore, you do not own pets.


A pet is not the one transfering ownership of it to another, and it is no less subject to the will of the second owner than the first.  A person, by contrast, is immutably subject to his own will.

----------


## Roy L

> So you don't think the federal budget of $4 Trillion per year should be cut any.


I think most of it should be cut.  The NYT had a web page where people could try to balance the budget, and I found it was quite easy to do by just cutting out the obviously wasteful and corrupt stuff like corporate subsidies and bailouts, military procurement, military operations in other countries, etc.  But income tax funds less than half of that.



> You just want it to be funded by a different method.


Yes, but I also recognize that if government at all levels were not spending a lot of money rescuing the landless from the effects of landowners removing their rights to liberty, Americans would be destitute, starving and dying by the millions, as the landless typically are in countries that have landowning but not massive government rescue programs for the landless.



> Should the budget increase? Or is it coincidentally at just the perfect size right now?


It's insanely bloated by corporate welfare and military excess, and could be much smaller still if the landless did not need to be rescued from the harmful effects of the removal of their rights to liberty.  IMO LVT should be a more local tax, a role to which it is ideally suited, and the federal government should be financed largely by issuing money (instead of privileging private banksters to do it) and taxing federal privileges like spectrum allocations, IP monopolies (if they can't be abolished outright), use of federal port facilities and airport landing slots, recovering the full market value of oil, mineral and water rights, etc.



> Or does that even matter? Maybe your view is that, as long as we have an LVT, it makes no difference how large it is.


The larger the better for both justice and efficiency, up to the full rental value of the land.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Hey, Land Rents Marxist, you missed one. 





> The area of disagreement is actually quite limited, and revolves around the manner of reconciling property rights with liberty rights.


The actual area of disagreement is not limited in area, literally speaking, because it encompasses ALL area - even the land area of the entire Earth, used as a basis for a tax.   The "liberty rights" deprivation argument is YOUR framing of the issue, given that you alone feel that they a) exist as you describe them, and are b) being violated by landownership without "just compensation" to the state, no less, which you further seek to reconcile by c) a universal individual exemption amount that is equal for all individuals.   I say that Rube Goldberg machine of a trickle-down dog doesn't hunt. 




> The anti-LVT side advocates property in things IN ADDITION TO the fruits of one's labor.


*There are no rights to the fruits of one's labor without rights to "property in things".*




> That is logically impossible except by removing others' liberty rights to access and use those things.


But you don't mean "things", do you. Specifically, we're talking about property in LAND, not "things", and your belief that the exclusive holding of land (without "just compensation" to others via the state) is a violation of others' "liberty rights", which I argue do not, _and should not ever_, exist or be acknowledged as you describe them.  That's your house of cards, not theirs. 




> It's not a false choice.  It's not even a false dichotomy.  It's simply an alternative: we can fund public expenditures as we currently do...


Fund public expenditures as we currently do?  I know you mean "method of or basis for funding", and not the amounts currently funded or spent, but that's still a false choice.  Most here are arguing that *most public expenditures should not even exist*.  And I agree. So we're not sitting around trying to figure out different ways to fund them. While you propose to stop taxing labor and capital (which they would agree with already), and shift all tax burdens exclusively onto landowners, most here are instead trying to figure out ways to shrink most of the expenditures down and *drown most of them in a bathtub*, such that there really is no burden to speak of in the first place. 

But even there I'm not exactly on the same page, because I don't think that the size of funding and expenditures in and of themselves are the problem at all, any more than I believe the factor of production targeted is the problem -- in terms of the REAL PROBLEM you're trying to reconcile; that of *burden-shifting*. 




> No taxes --> no government --> no civilization.


*I am not calling for "no taxes"*, which brings us to my point.  

I believe strongly in taxes -- just not on INDIVIDUALS ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT.  None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not for ANY $#@!ing reason. That doesn't mean "no taxes", because these rights-endowed individuals *are not the only taxable entities*. There are plenty of taxable entities who can and should bear the burden, to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of conditional privilege.  That includes corporations (who are not people), collectives and speculators of all kinds, and even foreigners...but NEVER REAL PEOPLE ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT. 

You and Henry George have everything just as $#@!ed up as Marx as you focus on "which factor of production should be universally targeted", and, by extension, you falsely think, which class of people will naturally end up shouldering the burden (landowners in your case - GENERIC - regardless of their legal status, all of which you conflate as one and the same, as if all landowning entities were created equal). THAT is the lie, THAT is the false choice.  That's how JP Morgan and the average hard-working Joe Sixpack get MUSH-MELDED as one, MUCH to JPM's delight, because not only is JPM treated as if it, too, was CREATED EQUAL in terms of rights, but JPM is also better equipped to avoid the taxes, happy to let a million Joe Sixpacks pay them instead.  

The choice for me deals with legal status, and the inalienable rights of each and every (uncollectivized) individual Citizen, and what types of entities are being taxed -- _not the basis for that tax_.  Wrong target, as the system gets gamed and real people get used as human shields anyway, regardless of the target. If people (individuals) are free, it does not matter what factor of production, or anything else, the state uses as its basis to tax privileged entities who are not acting as a matter of right.  Tax their land, tax their income, tax the sales (on purchases from privileged entities only), or anything else. It doesn't even need a reason. Tax them "just because", because it has that power. They're targeted and caught in the cross-hairs, without any human shields to camouflage themselves as or hide behind.  

*The power to tax is the power to destroy*, and if the state taxes any privileged entity too aggressively, it does so at its own peril, as it can literally tax its own revenue sources out of existence (read=capital flight, right out of the taxing jurisdiction), while only creating more opportunities for competing individuals who are *not taxable as a matter of right and cannot therefore be destroyed or driven out of the market or off their land by taxation as a matter of principle*.  So break out that Laffer curve for privileged taxables entities, State, and take care to strike the right balance, because real, free and natural Citizens stand to benefit either way. 

What I propose requires absolutely no "promise" of a universal individual exemption, which may or may not be implemented (and if history is a guide, the chances of any truly meaningful dividend or exemption are an absolute joke of a rotten dangled plum). My proposal does not require any dangled plums, or promises based on "trusting the state" (or worse yet, a tyrannous majority) to do the "right" or "fair" thing. It is not required because the immunity is _already inherent_ in any individual that behaves as a matter of right, a status that ends and becomes privileged behavior with those individuals and other entities to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of privilege.  

It's easy to prove that someone is behaving as a land speculator who is not simply behaving as a matter of right. Likewise, corporations, collectives and foreigners are ALREADY inherently acting as a matter of privilege. They would _all_, without exception, be subject to your tax, as well as any other tax, as the state saw fitting.  And I don't care if it's LVT, income, capital gains or anything else or all of them combined into a fifty-legged stool.  But it only applies to _them_ - not real, free and natural Citizens, to whom the fruits of labor, the benefits of capital and economic rents on land and anything else should be freely and privately enjoyed. 

So no, it's not "no tax" (on anyone) vs. "the best tax" (on everyone).  It ALWAYS boils down (even in the real world today) to a question of *For Whom The Tax Bell Tolls*.  And that's where individuals, especially the truly productive ones, are the sitting ducks that get shafted every time, without fail, under EVERY regime, every 'ism'.  That's why LVT would end up gamed like every other tax, as Zoning laws, Enterprise and Renaissance Zones, Special Exemptions, Abatements and Grants creep in, NATURALLY, to sort out the clever and well-healed from the not-so-connected, and the real people end up shouldering all the burdens anyway.  $#@! that.

----------


## Roy L

> What i am posting is directly what im addressing. 
> 
>  Ecowarrior's pointless post #182 saying 
> 
> Notice all he did was talk down his opponent without making a point? I called that out. He keep assuming something else (like a stance) when my point was his stupid elitist talking down.


What??  Oh.  My.  God.

Post #182 was a direct, immediate response to post #181, an epic of sneering trash talk.

So you decided it was _EW_ that needed to be called out?!??

Give your head a shake.  Seriously.



> Clearly you missed what i was referring to in his post (which i stated multiple times, and why i question both of your intelligence). Which i point out had nothing to do with his ideology or stance.


Clearly you missed -- or deliberately ignored -- the context he was responding to.  Read post #181 and try to get some kind of clue.



> So you claim you didn't say that i did in post 201. THEN WHY SAY THE POINTLESS THINGS YOU SAID IN #196???


To help you get a sense of perspective.  You need it.

----------


## Roy L

> In post #203 you state
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				Garbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction. Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.]
> 			
> 		
> ...


No.  A servant can choose whom he works for.  A slave can't.



> If they have the power of choice then how do they not own themselves?


Ownership is a legal condition, not a physical one.



> A servant can sell their service to someone else as long as it is agreed between them and whoever they are serving (normally set up by contract, verbally or written). Why? Because they own themselves and because of that they get to choose.


Nonsense.  It's nothing to do with owning or selling yourself.  You just enter into a contract to provide your labor.

Self-ownership is self-contradictory because it is alleged to be the reason one can't own slaves.  But if you owned yourself, then you could sell yourself as a slave to someone else, who would then own you. 

*EXTREME EPIC FAILURE*

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Hey, Land Rents Marxist, you missed one.


 Above is clear political indocrination. Sad but true. 


> The power to tax is the power to destroy


 It is also the power to create and encourage as well. It all depends on what you tax. *Tax production, as we do now, and we destroy. Tax community created wealth and use for community purposes, eliminating taxes on production, and we create.* Very simple.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Yes, but I also recognize that if government at all levels were not spending a lot of money rescuing the landless from the effects of landowners removing their rights to liberty, Americans would be destitute, starving and dying by the millions, as the landless typically are in countries that have landowning but not massive government rescue programs for the landless.


True. Welfare is mainly for the benefit of landlords, as they are the major beneficiaries.  Large landowners like the welfare system. It stops the poor from looking at the root cause of the problem and then uptuning the system getting fairness in society.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
> 
> The power to tax is the power to destroy
> 
> 
> It is also the power to create and encourage as well.


You actually typed that with a straight face, too.  The idea that the purpose of taxes is to "create and encourage" is clear _leftist/statist_ political indoctrination. Sad but true.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> You actually typed that with a straight face, too.


I actually typed:

"It is also the power to create and encourage as well. It all depends on what you tax. 
*Tax production, as we do now, and we destroy. 
Tax community created wealth and use for community purposes, eliminating taxes on production, and we create.* 

Very simple. "

< snip tripe >

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I actually typed:
> 
> "It is also the power to create and encourage as well. It all depends on what you tax. 
> *Tax production, as we do now, and we destroy. 
> Tax community created wealth and use for community purposes, eliminating taxes on production, and we create.* 
> 
> Very simple. "


Your reasoning was irrelevant.  Your premise, as well as the naive, half-baked rationale that followed, was nothing more than leftist/collectivist/statist political indoctrination.  Very simple[ton].

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Your reasoning was irrelevant.


It was very relevant.  A simple tax shift that fits into any political ism.  Pick you ism, it will fit.

< snip the rest of the confused drivel >

----------


## SewrRatt

I'm not going to bother coming back to look for any responses to this, but your theory of how self-ownership is a contradiction is crap. I own myself, and I do indeed have the right to sell myself into slavery if I want to. If you claim I don't, it means you think you have some sort of ownership stake in me, and that's a slavery I didn't even consent to. Massah.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I'm not going to bother coming back to look for any responses to this, but your theory of how self-ownership is a contradiction is crap.


You got it wrong. Geonomics is just a tax shift.  Nothing but. Land ownership, politics and business stays the same.  Own land by all means. LVT merely reclaims publicly created wealth that soaked into the land crystallizing as land values, for public services. Leaving private wealth alone and in the pockets of the individual.

*Commonly created wealth is used for common services*.  Simple. Common sense.

----------


## Roy L

> You actually typed that with a straight face, too.  The idea that the purpose of taxes is to "create and encourage" is clear _leftist/statist_ political indoctrination. Sad but true.


He didn't say that was the purpose of taxes.  He said taxes confer that _power_.

So you lied about what he said.  Again.  Sad but true.

----------


## Roy L

> I'm not going to bother coming back to look for any responses to this,


Of course not.  When you encounter facts that prove you wrong, just refuse to know them.  Simple.



> but your theory of how self-ownership is a contradiction is crap.


Ooo, cogent.



> I own myself, and I do indeed have the right to sell myself into slavery if I want to.


But in fact, you don't.



> If you claim I don't, it means you think you have some sort of ownership stake in me,


Hilarious non sequitur fallacy.

If I say you don't have a right to sell your kids or your neighbors into slavery, does that mean I think I have an ownership stake in _them_, too...??

I never cease to be impressed by the total absence of even the most elementary logical ability among LVT opponents.



> and that's a slavery I didn't even consent to. Massah.


I hope you are proud.  Everyone who read your asinine "argument" is dumber for the experience.

----------


## SewrRatt

And yet I'm not the idiot who equated a denial of control over the self with a denial of control over others. Talk about a non sequitur. You're not even serious about all this $#@! you're spewing, you're just a run-of-the-mill sophist who learned a little logic by accident and now misuses it as entertainment to troll message boards rather than using it properly to find truth. The kind that's always accusing others of committing the logical fallacies that YOU are actually committing. The kind that thrives on suckers trying to seriously engage your spiel because they believe you're serious.

Now that I've informed ya'll that you're posting in a troll thread, I'm going to move along. I'd recommend not dignifying any more of these guys' nonsense with any response at all.

----------


## EcoWarrier

< snip lots of personal vitriol >




> to find truth.


Roy found the truth a long time ago, that is clear - which is different to your type of truth. You even keep yourself at a disadvantage, as you have not seen the truth.  Open your mind and use a little logic and just plain common sense. It is not difficult.

< snip more personal vitriol >

----------


## Steven Douglas

> He didn't say that was the purpose of taxes.  He said taxes confer that _power_.


Yeah? Well, what about this post?

----------


## Roy L

> And yet I'm not the idiot who equated a denial of control over the self with a denial of control over others.


Nor am I, so who's the idiot?  Control is not ownership, duh.



> Talk about a non sequitur. You're not even serious about all this $#@! you're spewing, you're just a run-of-the-mill sophist who learned a little logic by accident and now misuses it as entertainment to troll message boards rather than using it properly to find truth.


Lie.



> The kind that's always accusing others of committing the logical fallacies that YOU are actually committing.


Huge lie.



> The kind that thrives on suckers trying to seriously engage your spiel because they believe you're serious.


I am.



> Now that I've informed ya'll that you're posting in a troll thread, I'm going to move along. I'd recommend not dignifying any more of these guys' nonsense with any response at all.


Too bad you can't refute a single sentence of it.

----------


## Roy L

> Yeah? Well, what about this post?


Huh?  How is that relevant to your error?  I saw you posted your tsunami of evil, dishonest, toxic, anti-rational, anti-factual, anti-liberty, anti-justice, anti-economic swill again.  I just haven't felt well enough to expose myself to it long enough to demolish it.  Maybe when I'm feeling better.

----------


## Roy L

The Free Hornet has posed some interesting, thoughtful and respectful questions, so I would like to respond even though I'm not the superhero in question.



> Would a superhero address some questions from a late thread comer?
> 
> 1) Why not link to the Wikipedia article (Land Value Tax) on it?


Because the response is, "Wikipedia is your source??  LOL!"



> As poor as that link may be, it is ten times better than the one-sided descriptions by the proponents of LVT who overpromise and underdeliver.


What have we overpromised and under-delivered?



> Also, rectify differences between the wiki ("Requires clear ownership [of land]") and the proselytization of Roy ("[Owning land] is legalized theft").


There's a bit of a risk of equivocation there.  The "clear ownership" of the wiki statement would more accurately be called, "clear legal entitlement to exclusive tenure."  As a matter of convenient legal form, morally unownable resources that all have equal rights to use (e.g., the broadcast spectrum, navigable waterways, the atmosphere, etc. as well as land sites) are often administered as publicly -- i.e., government -- owned.  OTOH, what I meant by "owning land" being legalized theft is the kind of title that entails no obligation to others, that only correctly applies to products of labor, and that feudal libertarians erroneously imagine morally invalidates LVT.



> Are you advocating an ideology or a revenue system?


A revenue system based on an ideology.  Call the ideology geoism: the view that all human beings have equal rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor, and that an important implication of these rights is that violation or removal of one's right to liberty through exclusive land tenure arrangements must rightly be compensated through both payments by the landholder to the community of those he excludes, and compensatory restoration of the individual's liberty to access and use land through either a uniform, universal, individual land tax exemption ("UIE") for enough good land to live on, or (IMO second best) an equivalent uniform, universal, individual cash land rent distribution ("dividend").



> Although I agree you _might_ need both (especially statists who love those revenue systems), it is too mucked up for me to understand what you're getting at.


I hope the above makes it clearer.



> <LVT_protest>I may have to pay your stinking LVT, but I don't have to agree with your BS!</LVT_protest>


We fervently hope that you will think all this through yourself.  "In nothing trust to me." -- Henry George.



> 2a) What do you want the government to do regardless of how the income is raised?


There is no uniform position on that question.



> Hopefully you are libertarians or minarchists or something.


Many geoists have a strong libertarian bent, others are quite comfortable with large governments.  There is an argument that if an LVT-funded public expenditure will pay for itself in public benefits that people willingly pay for in land rent, why not do it?  It makes society unambiguously wealthier, unlike leaving the land rent in the landholder's hands or distributing it via a citizens' dividend.  In the latter case we would just be trusting that people would not squander the money wastefully or even use it destructively.

My own view is that much of what government currently spends money on is only justified by the need to rescue people, especially the landless, from the harmful effects of removing their rights to liberty through private landowning.  Restore their rights to liberty, and you can abolish most "social" spending, as people won't need it any more.  Most other government spending is just wasteful and corrupt, like corporate subsidies and bailouts, military and other procurement, interest on bank-created debt money, etc. and could be eliminated to society's general benefit.



> There is never justice or fairness in coercive redistribution.


Sure there is, if the original distribution was coercive, as it always is under private landowning.



> Is it fair if one family gets more free fruit because they had twins and the other family had one really fat baby?


If the free fruit is compensation for removal of the babies' rights, then yes, it is most certainly fair, because the twins had rights removed from twice as many people as the fat baby.



> 2b) Can you justify taxation... AT ALL??!!


Of course.  And it is certainly far easier to justify taxation that recovers the value government spending creates to fund that spending than it is to justify taxation that confiscates privately created value in order to give a welfare subsidy to wealthy, greedy, idle, privileged parasites.



> If I wander onto unoccupied state park territory and start living off the land and living in a ramshackle dwelling, then it could be said maybe that I own nothing and owe nothing. True or False?


Depends.  State parks are generally desirable because others are being kept off.  They are owed compensation for that.  But there may be marginal land there that no more than one person would be willing to pay to use, and could thus be used tax-free even if you didn't have your universal individual exemption (UIE).



> 3) If you can't own land, what else can't you own?


Anything whose ownership would deprive others of liberty they would otherwise have.  Note that this specifically does not include products of labor, as no one would be at liberty to use them if their producers had not produced them.



> Land versus stuff is just an artificial distinction.


Who says the distinction is land vs "stuff"?  It's land vs products of labor, and there is nothing artifical about it.



> Land is just the crusty stuff we presently store on top of the mantle.


We do no such thing, and you know it.  First lie.



> My neighbors would be pissed if I rented some land and took all the crust with me.


There are laws against nuisances, laws to ensure land uses are compatible with nearby uses, and under LVT there would be a special "severance" tax on those whose use of land reduced its value, such as by extracting minerals, toxic contamination, etc.



> Drop the focus on land, land, land.


There are two excellent reasons to keep the focus on land, land, land: the Law of Rent, and the Henry George Theorem.

The Law of Rent says, in effect, that the productive -- working people, entrepreneurs, and investors in productive capital goods -- are all on a treadmill, laboring just to stay in the same place, while landowners are riding up on an escalator that the treadmill powers.  This is because all the additional production that capital investment, education, etc. make possible tends to increase on advantageous land much more than marginal land, and is consequently appropriated by landowners rather than going to the workers and investors who produced it.

The Henry George Theorem says that the treadmill and the escalator also exist wrt taxes and government spending: as landowners can charge everyone else full market value for access to the services and infrastructure government provides, all government spending on services and infrastructure goes to landowners, not to the putative beneficiaries.  It would be impossible to over-emphasize the importance of this point: the productive currently pay the taxes that fund government spending on 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.



> Does it matter if the gubblemint defends and builds roads to my land _or_ my pile of sugar?


Yes, because if you own a pile of sugar, but do not own the land it is sitting on, then you are *ALREADY PAYING A LANDOWNER* FOR THE GOVERNMENT ROADS AND DEFENSE SERVICES, which consequently make the land worth more, but do not make the pile of sugar worth more.

GET IT?



> But if I defend that sugar myself...
> Provide for its transportation...
> What right do you have to partake in it?


[silly images snipped]
The sugar was not already there, ready to use, with no help from anyone.  The land was.

GET IT??



> Additionally, here is a link for discussion:


Was there a particular argument there that you wanted to discuss?



> What is the plan to end/minimize the LVT???


You mean, what is the plan to end/minimize justice??

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I saw you posted your tsunami of evil, dishonest, toxic, anti-rational, anti-factual, anti-liberty, anti-justice, anti-economic swill again.  I just haven't felt well enough to expose myself to it long enough to demolish it.  Maybe when I'm feeling better.


Figured it was something along those lines. The closer to the truth it is, the more dissonant chords it strikes in your nerves, and the more self-conflicted and worse it makes you feel, as every red flag inside you is raised in denialistic revulsion. Side effect of cognitive dissonance and all that.

As a collectivist at your very core, you don't deal well at all with individual rights except as they are collectivized - and rented out to whomever will pay greatest tribute to the collective. You have to constantly rationalize $#@!ing over the average individual for the 'greater good', as you are forced to make value decisions on other people's behalf (e.g., "good enough land to live on", or "Granny needs to make way for 'more productive hands'." ).

In the end, you don't even deal with the fact that a massively publicly traded Walmart, while still technically on 'equal' legal footing with Joe's Trading Post...*is in reality on artificially superior footing at all times*.  Nobody is offering tax abatements, exemptions, Enterprise Zones and other subsidies to Joe for his DISPENSABLE trading post.  He's small potatoes. And individuals? $#@! them, if they want power they should form a collective, just like the other political gangsters.  

But *GO HERE*, and look at just how ONE major corporation manages to game the system and gain artificial market advantages over others -- including gaming and avoiding taxes, including those on land values, among others.  

But that's not your concern at all, is it?  That's only because you're obsessed with the wrong target.  Collectivists respect, revere and PROTECT other collectivists, both public and private.  That's what is meant, in part, by the power to tax is also the power to "create and encourage".  That's the left's part of the "too big to fail" mindset, because bailouts, subsidies, exemptions, etc.,  ALWAYS favor LARGE ENTITIES over smaller ones.  

That's why it doesn't matter what "thing" you or anyone else obsesses on as a target.  You'll be just as misguided as Marx, and for the same core reasons.  Human individuals with so-called "unalienable" alienated rights (that are constantly eroded and abrogated) will be used as shields, will always be caught in the crossfire, and will always have the majority of the burden shifted onto them.  There is NOTHING special about LVT that prevents that. It's just another basis for a tax that targets certain types of commerce, and can be gamed and avoided like any other.

----------


## Roy L

> Figured it was something along those lines. The closer to the truth it is, the more dissonant chords it strikes in your nerves, and the more self-conflicted and worse it makes you feel, as every red flag inside you is raised in denialistic revulsion.


<yawn>  Nope.  I've proved that the known and indisputable facts fully support my position, and flatly contradict yours, which is why you always have to refuse to know them.  Most tellingly, you have to refuse to know the fact that if the landowner (or government doing his bidding) did not forcibly prevent me, I would be at liberty to use the land.  That fact is indisputably self-evident and self-evidently indisputable.  It is obviously undeniable and undeniably obvious.  It is the core of the issue and the issue at the core.

But you have to REFUSE TO KNOW that fact, and make up some fallacious, stupid, and dishonest garbage about me somehow not otherwise being at liberty to use it, in order to preserve your false, stupid, and evil beliefs.



> Side effect of cognitive dissonance and all that.


LOL!  No, it's just the horror of seeing pure, utter, malignant evil at its scummy work.



> As a collectivist at your very core,


Why do you always have to screech the stupidest and most dishonest lies you can imagine, Stephen?  When you accuse the champions of liberty, justice and truth of being, "collectivist," it's just a meaningless, childish, all-purpose pejorative, like "poopypants."  You only heap the disgrace of dishonesty upon yourself.



> you don't deal well at all with individual rights except as they are collectivized


<yawn>  No, that's just another of your infantile "poopypants" lies.  I have dealt with individual rights so clearly, so logically, so systematically and so indisputably that you have to make up stupid lies about what I have plainly written in order to have anything to say at all, as you have no facts, logic or arguments to offer in rebuttal.

"To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."

Remember, Stephen?  That's the only "collective" involved: *individual* people cooperating with a common *purpose*: to secure mutually the *individual* rights they haven't the power to secure for themselves by acting as individuals.  Or are you claiming Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers were also all, "collectivists"?  If so, you merely expose yourself as a lying fool, and I'm happy to be in their company -- and as you already know (but of course always have to refuse to know), *they wanted to fund the federal government exclusively by a tax on land value*, proving that *they agreed with me* and would consider your "collectivist" claims nothing but stupid, dishonest, evil filth.  Which they of course are.

So STFU with your stupid "collectivist" lies, it's nothing but stupid, dishonest, evil, meaningless filth.



> - and rented out to whomever will pay greatest tribute to the collective.


Just (i.e., market) compensation is not "tribute," stop lying.  

Only COMPENSATION for the PRIVILEGE of depriving others of their liberty to use a given site would be paid for by the high bidder -- and you are in no position to criticize such an arrangement, as your alternative is exactly the same as mine, except you think government should empower rich, greedy, evil, privileged parasites forcibly to deprive others of their liberty WITHOUT making any such compensation.



> You have to constantly rationalize $#@!ing over the average individual for the 'greater good',


No, that is just another stupid, evil lie from you.  It is self-evidently and indisputably our CURRENT system of landowner privilege -- and the even worse one you favor -- that $#@!s over not only average individuals but almost all of the bottom 99%, consigning them permanently to a treadmill of paying taxes and mortgage interest in addition to land rent, so that landowners can ride up at their leisure on the escalator the treadmill powers.  The average individual would be INCOMPARABLY better off with LVT than under either the current system or your brain-dead system.  INCOMPARABLY.  YOU are the one who must constantly rationalize $#@!ing over, robbing, enslaving, starving, torturing and MURDERING average individuals to give unearned wealth to the greediest, most evil parasites on earth.



> as you are forced to make value decisions on other people's behalf (e.g., "good enough land to live on", or "Granny needs to make way for 'more productive hands'.").


Lie.  Inevitably.  I'm not proposing to make those decisions at all.  The market would make them.  You know this.  Of course you do.  You just have to lie about it.

You just demand a collectivist political power to designate certain women who in your personal opinion should have the privileged title of "Granny," and not have to pay market price for what they take home from the grocery store -- or is it only the opportunity they take from the landless that they shouldn't have to pay for?  



> In the end, you don't even deal with the fact that a massively publicly traded Walmart, while still technically on 'equal' legal footing with Joe's Trading Post...*is in reality on artificially superior footing at all times*.


That's a different topic, and I've dealt with it, so stop lying.  One of WalMart biggest sources of privilege and unearned wealth is the land-use concessions it is able to get from local governments because they don't use LVT.  Without LVT it is *economically impossible* to put the big landowner on an equal footing with the average individual.  The landowner will ALWAYS be empowered to rob and enslave the landless.



> Nobody is offering tax abatements, exemptions, Enterprise Zones and other subsidies to Joe for his DISPENSABLE trading post.


Lie.  As a resident citizen he would get the UIE.  WalMart would not.  You're just flat-out lying.



> And individuals? $#@! them, if they want power they should form a collective, just like the other political gangsters.


There are two main ways to get power: politics (your "collective") and landowning.  I'm more interested in restoring people's rights than pandering to those who want power.



> But *GO HERE*, and look at just how ONE major corporation manages to game the system and gain artificial market advantages over others -- including gaming and avoiding taxes, including those on land values, among others.


Where has WalMart gamed or avoided a land value tax?  Do you mean a property tax?  Because a property tax is quite different, and can easily be gamed because it consists of two OPPOSITE taxes: an improvement value tax on what the owner contributes to the wealth of the community, and a land value tax on what the community contributes to the wealth of the landowner.  Depending on circumstances, a property tax can be mostly a land value tax, or almost entirely an improvement value tax.



> But that's not your concern at all, is it?


It's just a separate issue.  You have been demolished on the LVT issue, so you are trying to confuse the issue.



> That's only because you're obsessed with the wrong target.


I've proved it is the right target.  See my response to The Free Hornet.  The Biritish constitutional crisis of 1909 also proved it -- the House of Landlords risked everything to stop LVT, because they knew what you refuse to know: that it eliminates the system of landowner privilege.



> Collectivists respect, revere and PROTECT other collectivists, both public and private.


More stupid "poopypants" garbage.



> That's what is meant, in part, by the power to tax is also the power to "create and encourage".


No, you refuse to know what it means.



> That's the left's part of the "too big to fail" mindset, because bailouts, subsidies, exemptions, etc.,  ALWAYS favor LARGE ENTITIES over smaller ones.


Lie.  How does the individual income tax exemption favor large over smaller entities?  



> That's why it doesn't matter what "thing" you or anyone else obsesses on as a target.


Refuted many times.



> You'll be just as misguided as Marx, and for the same core reasons.


Claim lacking any semblance of supporting evidence.  Indeed, we have shown why the error of propertarian capitalism is the same as the error of Marxism: socialists pretend capital is land to justify stealing capital, while capitalists pretend land is capital to justify stealing land.



> Human individuals with so-called "unalienable" alienated rights (that are constantly eroded and abrogated)


By landowning.



> will be used as shields, will always be caught in the crossfire, and will always have the majority of the burden shifted onto them.


Nope.  You're just squawling like the 19th century obstetricians who slaughtered their patients by the million, rationalizing their refusal to wash their hands by saying, "childbirth will always be hazardous, it says so in the Bible."



> There is NOTHING special about LVT that prevents that.


Lie refuted many times.  LVT is fundamentally different from all other taxes, as it recovers the value government spending creates to pay for that spending.



> It's just another basis for a tax that targets certain types of commerce, and can be gamed and avoided like any other.


Lie.  The only "commerce" LVT "targets" is unproductive rent seeking.  It can't be gamed or avoided because land can't be hidden, and it can't be moved.  That is why evil, lying filth fight LVT with such maniacal ferocity: they know they can't avoid it or game it except by taking the risk of criminally suborning assessors, government bookkeepers, etc.

Now your relentless dishonesty and evil have made me ill again.  Nice work.

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> No. A servant can choose whom he works for. A slave can't.


 You just said that if a person owns them self they could sell themselves into slavery (you also state that this has been done). I disagree because they would be a servant. Only a few would voluntarily decide to become a servant with so little say to be called a slave. But even then they decided to go that route for whatever reason. Is the person not choosing to be a servant? Even in the more extreme scenarios a slave has a choice (because they own their mind and body). They can choice to fight, run, die by their own hands, or continue being a slave.




> Ownership is a legal condition, not a physical one.


So who is deciding for you to come troll this forum? Since your mind is not the physical deciding factor who's legal document are you following?




> Nonsense. It's nothing to do with owning or selling yourself.* You just enter into a contract to provide your labor*.
> 
> Self-ownership is self-contradictory because it is alleged to be the reason one can't own slaves. But if you owned yourself, then you could sell yourself as a slave to someone else, who would then own you.


I've already addressed some of this stupidity. But the bold part covers what i have been saying. Did you not choose to enter that contract? Notice also you said "your labor". I thought self ownership is self contradictory??? Shouldn't it be "labor" according to your misguided ideology. But remember you don't get to decide that. Whoever legally owns you does.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> <yawn>  Nope.  I've proved that the known and indisputable facts fully support my position, and flatly contradict yours, which is why you always have to refuse to know them.


Prefacing an argument with bull$#@! self-affirmations like that doesn't make it any stronger.  




> Most tellingly, you have to refuse to know the fact that if the landowner (or government doing his bidding) did not forcibly prevent me, I would be at liberty to use the land.


Oh no you don't. Nice stab at a slippery, evil, dishonest strawman. I fully acknowledge that fact.  What I don't acknowledge is the notion that such "otherwise capacity/capability" should be labeled or treated as an actual right (one that you want collectivized, no less).  The _only_ the question, which is ABSOLUTELY MOOT, DISPUTABLE, AND IN DISPUTE NOW, is whether such liberty exists *as an actual right* even after someone else has assumed exclusive possession of a given parcel of land. That is _the only issue_ -- not your flagrant strawman argument, as if we somehow disagree about whether you WOULD have been "at liberty" or not.  That's not in dispute, so it's a meaningless goalpost that you can stuff up your butt. 




> But you have to REFUSE TO KNOW that fact, and make up some fallacious, stupid, and dishonest garbage about me somehow not otherwise being at liberty to use it, in order to preserve your false, stupid, and evil beliefs.


Funny how you conveniently omitted your circular, question-begging "right" in conjunction with liberty in that sentence. I never argued you were not "otherwise at liberty" to use land if nobody else existed to exert a prior claim.  What I argued is that such liberty is not perpetually and unconditionally *a right*.  I also argue that multiple claims to rights on the same parcel of privately held land should not EVER exist as a governing rule for all land. 

A hundred, a thousand, or an hundred million people, all desiring the same small single plot of land, does not a right make.  They are all RIGHTFULLY deprived of their liberty to use that land, and have no RIGHT, such that there need be any compensation to them from anyone, because they don't $#@!ing collectively own it.   




> When you accuse the champions of liberty, justice and truth of being, "collectivist,"


I have never, *EVER* accused champions of liberty, justice and truth of being "collectivist", any more than I would consider collectivists like yourself champions of liberty, justice and truth.  




> "To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."


Yeah, "these rights".  Including the ones you're fighting to abrogate.  You don't get away with that strawman either.  I'm pro-gubmint, Roy. Just not pro-your-piece-of-$#@!-collectivist-statist gubmint.




> ...to secure mutually the *individual* rights they haven't the power to secure for themselves by acting as individuals.


Ah, but you aren't doing that at all.  You've already established a paradox with multiple "at liberty" rights to all land by all community members.  Each and every member is said to have a liberty right to common use of all land.  Such a hare-brained paradox is impossible to physically secure, as you yourself admit that land must be held for exclusive use.  So rather than actually "secure the individual rights" (as you describe them, an impossibility), you instead attempt to "reconcile" it, by collectivizing those individual rights and renting them out, as the state acts on behalf of that collective, under color of "just compensation" for "liberty rights deprivations". 

Don't give me this bull$#@! about securing "mutually" the individual rights. In the context you say it, it's slippery code-speak for THEY DON'T EXIST EXCEPT COLLECTIVELY.   




> Or are you claiming Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers were also all, "collectivists"?


Firstly, you're no Thomas Jefferson, a man you quote out of context.  And secondly, for as much as I admire and revere the 17th century Founding Father for much of what he wrote and did, it's funny you should quote a slaveowner in support of LVT.  Furthermore, FYI, don't take my admiration for Jefferson and use it as a compound fallacy as assuming that I give assent to his every word. He was wrong about a lot of things.   




> If so, you merely expose yourself as a lying fool, and I'm happy to be in their company...


No, with your particular blind fanaticism and ideological zealotry, I tend to group you more in with the company of Marx, Stalin, Mao and Polpot. 




> -- and as you already know (but of course always have to refuse to know), *they wanted to fund the federal government exclusively by a tax on land value*, proving that *they agreed with me*...


Hardly. Jefferson wanted to fund the federal government exclusively by a tax on land value, but didn't use your collectivist rationale, and WOULD have excluded individuals with rights, as I am proposing, to wit:  

*"...there is reasonable ground of confidence that we may now safely dispense with all the internal taxes."* - Thomas Jefferson

And what did he do after taking the oath of office in 1802? He *eliminated all direct taxation on US Citizens*.  That's the difference between us, Roy. You would NEVER do that, Roy. NEVER. For you it's all about the land, while IKEA and Granny are created equal, in your eyes. They ALL exist and operate as a matter of privilege, and may the highest bidder win, because in truth, you only give a $#@! about the collectivist state.  

l'm fully in favor of a Land Value Tax - even if it was the sole source of funding for ALL government.  The difference between us, which makes me and not you, like Jefferson: it would not be a tax on individual US Citizens, who are THE ONLY ONES WITH ACTUAL RIGHTS.  So I'm the only Jeffersonian here, Roy, not you. As a Collectivist Statist/Land Rents Marxist/Geo-Fascist, you like taking him out of context to make your people-enslaving points, but you fail to look at the reality that was Thomas Jefferson. 




> Only COMPENSATION for the PRIVILEGE of depriving others of their liberty to use a given site would be paid for by the high bidder


Yeah, IKEA outbids Granny, whose soul and birthright you would appropriate, and whose rights to property in land you would collectivize and rent out to the highest bidders. Meanwhile, Walmart gets a sweet, delicious Enterprise Zone offer from a competing city.  But not Joe. $#@! him, who is he? He's not big enough, doesn't employ enough people (THE REAL SOURCE OF REVENUE) to make a difference. 




> -- and you are in no position to criticize such an arrangement, as your alternative is exactly the same as mine, except you think government should empower rich, greedy, evil, privileged parasites forcibly to deprive others of their liberty WITHOUT making any such compensation.


You're the only one presuming that everyone, including average *US Citizens* (average Joe Sixpack with a house on a small piece of land with a patch of green in front) as rich, greedy, evil, privileged parasites in _any landowning capacity_ if they aren't internally taxed under color of "just compensation" to the real parasites.  You included.  And your non-existent UIE as proposed is not only NOT JUST COMPENSATION (for the real deprivations that would be suffered under your insufferable regime); it is corruptible from the (lack of) onset, and absolutely meaningless. 

Thomas Jefferson made it so that the US Citizens were free of internal individual taxes. He was not a statist collectivist ideological moron in that regard. He recognized the difference between the Free Children of the Land and those entities that existed, behaved and interacted as a matter of licensed privilege only.  You know, those HIGHEST BIDDERS you would put on UNEQUAL FOOTING with real individuals.  Shame on you, Roy. 




> You just demand a collectivist political power to designate certain women who in your personal opinion should have the privileged title of "Granny," and not have to pay market price for what they take home from the grocery store?


Grocery stores actually sell $#@!, Roy. Stuff they own. They only rent out videos and carpet cleaning machines.  Private land is not in the state's "grocery RENTAL store".  

No, what I am proposing is that THE ENTIRE COUNTRY is a grocery store, but only where truly privileged _entities_ are concerned. They alone would have to pay tribute to operate within our market, *which would not be free to them, alone, but which is forever free to US as individuals existing and behaving as a matter of right* (and who therefore have no need for UIE - the mess pottage you offer them in exchange for their individual land rights).




> Now your relentless dishonesty and evil have made me ill again.  Nice work.


Google cognitive dissonance.  Real truth should make you, as I am, as calm as a summer morning.

----------


## Origanalist

> LOL! No, it's just the horror of seeing pure, utter, malignant evil at its scummy work.


 

Lol, still at it I see.

----------


## WilliamShrugged

> What??  Oh.  My.  God.
> 
> Post #182 was a direct, immediate response to post #181, an epic of sneering trash talk.
> 
> So you decided it was _EW_ that needed to be called out?!??
> 
> Give your head a shake.  Seriously.
> 
> Clearly you missed -- or deliberately ignored -- the context he was responding to.  Read post #181 and try to get some kind of clue.
> ...


Yeah i missed it. I read EW first because it was without a qouted reply. Which gave me the impression it would be something more general. Regardless, i am still correct that it was pointless (as was the other's post), and didn't need you spouting stupid things that had nothing to do with what i was regarding. So you're trying to justify your actions as well as EW because someone did it first and i didn't call them out? Grow up.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> The Free Hornet has posed some interesting, thoughtful and respectful questions, so I would like to respond even though I'm not the superhero in question.


Excellent response Roy. You are a superhero.  

Many just do not understand where land values come from. This leads to their confusion. Land values are created by economic community activity. LVT *reclaims* that wealth to pay for common services.  *Commonly created wealth pays for common services.*  Where the common services should be paid from.  This leaves private wealth in private pockets. Perfect. 

Currently we do the opposite. 
*Private wealth is socialized* (via Income, Sales & Property taxes) to pay for common services.*Socialized wealth is appropriated and privatized*, via land values and land resource extraction and usage.

This is a ridiculous situation that needs reversing.  Geonomics does that.

----------


## EcoWarrier

*Knowledge of the economy*. Economics is a tookit to understand that.

Why we must abandon neo-classical economics:

----------


## Roy L

> You just said that if a person owns them self they could sell themselves into slavery (you also state that this has been done). I disagree because they would be a servant.


Clearly false.  A servant is at liberty to leave.



> Only a few would voluntarily decide to become a servant with so little say to be called a slave. But even then they decided to go that route for whatever reason. Is the person not choosing to be a servant? Even in the more extreme scenarios a slave has a choice (because they own their mind and body).


Neither their mind nor their body is property, and therefore they do not own them.  Their physical power of choice is irrelevant.  The right to liberty is a constraint on what OTHERS do about one's choices.



> They can choice to fight, run, die by their own hands, or continue being a slave.


But no longer as a matter of right.  Duh.



> So who is deciding for you to come troll this forum?


You are deciding, dishonestly, to call my contributions trolling.



> Since your mind is not the physical deciding factor who's legal document are you following?


Dishonest and incomprehensible garbage.  My mind is definitely the physical deciding factor.  What are you even talking about?



> I've already addressed some of this stupidity.


Unsuccessfully.



> But the bold part covers what i have been saying. Did you not choose to enter that contract?


And...?



> Notice also you said "your labor". I thought self ownership is self contradictory???


How does providing a service in return for payment relate to the fact that self-ownership is self-contradictory?  You're not selling your self when you labor.  You're just providing a service.  Hello?



> Shouldn't it be "labor" according to your misguided ideology.


??  Shouldn't what be "labor"?



> But remember you don't get to decide that. Whoever legally owns you does.


??  No one legally owns me.  What do you even imagine you think you might be talking about?

----------


## redbluepill

> FlatIron nailed it. 
> 
> 
> 
> This thread should be merged with one of the other LVT-polluted threads.


In that case, I guess we should merge all the Austrian Economics threads.

----------


## redbluepill

> Simple question: do you think the sun can rightly be owned?


Of course it can be owned! This lady has the papers to prove she RIGHTFULLY owns the sun lol.


http://www.thestar.com/news/world/ar...ge-tax-on-rays

"Although the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prevents governments from claiming ownership of celestial bodies, it does not mention individuals, a loophole that Durans notary believes makes her claim legitimate."

Must have been an Austrian who had written up that treaty

----------


## redbluepill

> You can always tell that someone is making an effective argument when they feel the need to hurl insults. 
> 
> Please tell us more about how everyone needs to pay a tax because they happen to exist.


Umm, it is you who advocates paying a tax to exist (in the form of rent to a landlord). The LVT is merely for the PRIVILEGE to EXCLUSIVELY use a piece of the Earth.

----------


## Kade

> The same is what happens to the money in government coffers right now.


Bingo. 

Authority is authority. Power is Power. Many folks here continue to hold onto an earlier idea about the separation that may have been possible when there were open minerals and lands, where population was not out of control.

The market has given us the most powerful government money can buy because that is EXACTLY what the people who control it want. The market gets what the market wants.... and they want absolute control.

Lobby=Corporation=Government

----------


## redbluepill

> So, it's fine by you when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and gives him the choice of being his slave or getting back in the water?
> 
> Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that.


At least they're being consistent. ;-)

----------


## redbluepill

> What does the T in LVT stand for?


Its a misnomer. _"Although described as a tax, it is not really a tax at all, but a payment for benefits received. It would replace, not add to, existing taxes."_
http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/

Likewise, if a government court orders you to repay your neighbor after doing doughnuts on his lawn you wouldn't call it a tax but restitution.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> In that case, I guess we should merge all the Austrian Economics threads.


Tell you what, let's go to a pro-Obama forum and start trolling for Ron Paul. Start a few endless threads about his positions on various issues, hijack and derail a few others (we're just arguing what we feel is best for the country, after all - isn't that what everyone there is doing? Gosh! duh...). Then, when someone suggests they be merged together, we can say "In that case, I guess we should merge all the Obama related threads too." 

So you might have had a point, and what you said might have made sense IF this was a GEORGIST/GEOIST/LVT message board, where it was mostly a bunch of Land Socialists talking about All Things Georgism and LVT related -- and IF this was not _specifically_ the RON PAUL FORUMS, and IF Ron Paul wasn't such a RIGHT-LIBERTARIAN, both Austrian School and anti-tax/anti-spend *AND VERY ANTI-LVT*. 

Ron Paul was a staunch supporter of N.D.'s Measure 2, which would have eliminated all property taxes, including the land value tax component thereof. There is *no way in hell* that Ron Paul would *EVER* support a Land Value Tax. 

Section 4 of Ron Paul's Liberty Amendment reads: SOURCE




> Section 4. Three years after the ratification of this amendment the sixteenth article of amendments to the Constitution of the United States shall stand repealed and thereafter *Congress shall not levy taxes on personal incomes, estates, and gifts*..


And you can rest assured that by "estates", he meant that to include all privately owned wealth, _including privately owned land_. Ron Paul believes that both land and money are different forms of capital, and would NEVER support any form of Land Socialism or "reclaiming socially created wealth for the collectivist land rental commune". 

So yeah, let's pretend that Austrian Economics is just another tangent, another forum off-shoot, like the Land Socialist Tax.

----------


## redbluepill

> C'mon dude, you know that's not a fair comparison. Right wing parties in most of Europe are more left leaning than Democrats in the USA.
> 
> Right wing in Europe has shifted to the left, as it has in North America. Just look at the origins of the Neocons.
> More dependance on the state has been the emphasis a dictatorship by consent like Huxley's Brave New World.


Is Albert Jay Nock libertarian enough for you? He advocated the LVT. How about the anarchist Leo Tolstoy? He also advocated the LVT!

----------


## redbluepill

> I thought I was merely wasting my time replying in this thread, but now I feel dirty for helping RoyL achieve climax with his masochistic LVT fetish.
> 
> If RoyL truly believes civilization is merely a product of taxes and govt. (or should I say his refusal to admit his knowledge to the contrary  ), then I fear there is nothing we can say that will reach him. We can only hope his life experiences in the future will afford him an opportunity to grow. *Daisies would be the best I think.* 
> 
> Welcome to my ignore list. EcoWarrier [sic] too.


So the Ron Paul Forum is merely a circle jerk for the Austrian School-minded where any alternative libertarian views are ignored? Eh, suit yourself.

----------


## redbluepill

> George Orwell double speak.
> 
> Pay your rent and you will have property freedom.


Speaking of Orwell...

"If giving the land of England back to the people of England is theft, I am quite happy to call it theft."


"Stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land 
got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers 
to provide them with title-deeds. In the case of the enclosure of the 
common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the 
land-grabbers did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; 
they were quite frankly taking the heritage of their own countrymen, 
upon no sort of pretext except that they had the power to do so." 
 George Orwell

http://www.progress.org/orwell01.htm

----------


## redbluepill

> http://archive.mises.org/1610/murray...-henry-george/


http://www.nolanchart.com/article692...-argument.html

----------


## redbluepill

> Tell you what, let's go to a pro-Obama forum and start trolling for Ron Paul. Start a few endless threads about his positions on various issues, hijack and derail a few others (we're just arguing what we feel is best for the country, after all - isn't that what everyone there is doing? Gosh! duh...). Then, when someone suggests they be merged together, we can say "In that case, I guess we should merge all the Obama related threads too."


So you want one thread that is over 2000 pages long completely devoted to the LVT?

1. There are only a few threads devoted to LVT, each of them quite long. From what I've seen, almost all of them are created by different posters. Granted, there were a couple threads hijacked in the past. It happens.

2. Many Georgists are in fact Ron Paul supporters ( though they obviously don't agree with him on everything). Just read a message today on the LVT facebook group. The poster had a picture with him next to Paul. 






> So you might have had a point, and what you said might have made sense IF this was a GEORGIST/GEOIST/LVT message board, where it was mostly a bunch of Land Socialists talking about All Things Georgism and LVT related -- and IF this was not _specifically_ the RON PAUL FORUMS, and IF Ron Paul wasn't such a RIGHT-LIBERTARIAN, both Austrian School and anti-tax/anti-spend *AND VERY ANTI-LVT*.


So we all have to agree with Paul 100% if we are to be posting on this forum? Who's sounding like a cult now? He has pretty statist views on illegal immigration (bring the troops home so we can put them on the Mexican border, THATS a libertarian stance?!). 

The LVT has a rich history of support from freedom lovers and libertarians. Hardly socialist. But you should know that by now.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> So the Ron Paul Forum is merely a circle jerk for the Austrian School-minded where any alternative libertarian views are ignored? Eh, suit yourself.


"alternative libertarian" is one way of putting it, so long as we play fast and loose with the terms "liberty" and "libertarian".   We could more easily say "alternative leftist", given its statist/collectivist foundation. Either way, it's a jerk circle of its own that is far more limited. 

Funny how words get hijacked, and meanings get distorted.  Fidel Castro was a "liberator" of the Cubans, and the Chinese were the "liberators" of Tibet. Why, they were ONLY about "liberty"! They were "For The People!"

Just the word "geolibertarian" is a joke to me.  Earth+free? Hardly. Not to humans, anyway, because without Roy's joke of a meaningless Universal Individual Exemption Credit proposal, the Earth is not free to ANYBODY under a geolibertarian regime.  Everyone is a slave to everyone else, because everybody is presumed to owe everybody else for depriving them of their putative "liberty rights".   

Marxist ideology arrogates monopolistic control over all factors of production to the state. George distilled this into a much subtler "Marxist Lite" version, as he targeted only one factor of production -- albeit THE ENTIRETY of it, with monopolistic arrogation of land rents.  Geolib "single taxers" fancy this to be "libertarian" because it calls for an end to income, sales and other taxes.  

"See that, Libertarians? We have something in common! We don't want income or sales taxes either! Yippee! We'll all be "liberated"! We only want to _reclaim socialist created land value_ and compensate the people who created this value -- this socialist created wealth! But the people are free to keep everything else that they earn and own!!!!"  

It's also very "libertarian" if you buy into Roy L.'s view of everyone having a basic right to "liberty" to all lands, which must then be reconciled by a Land Value Tax, so that those deprived of this "liberty right" can, through the taxing jurisdiction, receive "just compensation". 

Yeah, I'll stick with my Austrian School-minded circle jerk and pass on the Land Socialism trying to pass itself off as "alternative libertarianism".

----------


## Steven Douglas

> 2. Many Georgists are in fact Ron Paul supporters...


Of course -- it's their only real shot for a foot in the door.  There are lots of "Green" tree-spiking eco-terrorists who support the Democratic Party also - that doesn't mean they're wanted, or that the party endorses their attitudes, actions or views. And their support doesn't make them any less a turd in the party punch bowl.

----------


## redbluepill

> "alternative libertarian" is one way of putting it, so long as we play fast and loose with the terms "liberty" and "libertarian".   We could more easily say "alternative leftist", given its statist/collectivist foundation.


It has no statist/collectivist foundation. We have proven that time and again. George and Marx may have agreed in a common problem but they completely disagreed on the solution. George's solution revolved around a free market. Marx's solution was communism.






> Funny how words get hijacked, and meanings get distorted.


Yeah, funny. Like calling ideas 'statist' or 'collectivist' when they are clearly not.





> Just the word "geolibertarian" is a joke to me.  Earth+free? Hardly. Not to humans, anyway, because without Roy's joke of a meaningless Universal Individual Exemption Credit proposal, the Earth is not free to ANYBODY under a geolibertarian regime.  Everyone is a slave to everyone else, because everybody is presumed to owe everybody else for depriving them of their putative "liberty rights".


No one owes anyone anything unless they themselves are depriving others from what nature provided. Pretty simple concept.




> Marxist ideology arrogates monopolistic control over all factors of production to the state. George distilled this into a much subtler "Marxist Lite" version, as he targeted only one factor of production -- albeit THE ENTIRETY of it, with monopolistic arrogation of land rents.  Geolib "single taxers" fancy this to be "libertarian" because it calls for an end to income, sales and other taxes.


There is no monopolistic arrogation of land rents. The government doesn't decide who uses the land, hows its used, or even how much each piece of land is taxed.




> "See that, Libertarians? We have something in common! We don't want income or sales taxes either! Yippee! We'll all be "liberated"! We only want to _reclaim socialist created land value_ and compensate the people who created this value -- this socialist created wealth! But the people are free to keep everything else that they earn and own!!!!"


Whats with the big 'L' for libertarian?

And its not 'something' in common its about 98% of issues we have in common.




> It's also very "libertarian" if you buy into Roy L.'s view of everyone having a basic right to "liberty" to all lands, which must then be reconciled by a Land Value Tax, so that those deprived of this "liberty right" can, through the taxing jurisdiction, receive "just compensation".


Its a view shared historically by many libertarians and freedom lovers. Many of them more libertarian than Paul.




> Yeah, I'll stick with my Austrian School-minded circle jerk and pass on the Land Socialism trying to pass itself off as "alternative libertarianism".


Easier to hold onto false doctrines when you only surround yourself with the likeminded.

----------


## redbluepill

> Of course -- it's their only real shot for a foot in the door.  There are lots of "Green" tree-spiking eco-terrorists who support the Democratic Party also - that doesn't mean they're wanted, or that the party endorses their attitudes, actions or views. And their support doesn't make them any less a turd in the party punch bowl.


So I have to agree with Ron Paul on all his stances to be a 'supporter'?

----------


## redbluepill

Btw, many libertarians don't consider Paul to be a real libertarian for many of his stances (abortion, immigration, etc.)

----------


## silverhandorder

> Btw, many libertarians don't consider Paul to be a real libertarian for many of his stances (abortion, immigration, etc.)


Real libertarians as in voluntarists know Ron Paul is a voluntarist.

----------


## redbluepill

> Real libertarians as in voluntarists know Ron Paul is a voluntarist.


Funny, there is no question about Paul's claim to being a 'voluntarist' yet geolibertarians are shot down as socialists. Paul is a voluntarist when it comes to abortion or immigration? Give me a break.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It has no statist/collectivist foundation. We have proven that time and again.


...to your own satisfaction, of course.  Delusions of truth and moral rightness are common defining characteristics of LVT proponents. They fancy themselves as "proving" things, and "destroying/demolishing arguments", as they deal only in "indisputable facts of objective reality", while others "refuse to know", and are "objectively false". 




> George and Marx may have agreed in a common problem but they completely disagreed on the solution. George's solution revolved around a free market. Marx's solution was communism.


We obviously disagree on what "free market" means.




> No one owes anyone anything unless they themselves are depriving others from what nature provided. Pretty simple concept.


Yes, it is a simplistic enough concept, so long as you swallow the whole "right not to be deprived by others of what nature provided" premise. Which I do not.  




> There is no monopolistic arrogation of land rents. The government doesn't decide who uses the land, hows its used, or even how much each piece of land is taxed.


Then you didn't read carefully.  I didn't write "monopolistic determination of land use".  I wrote "monopolistic arrogation of _land rents_". Which it most certainly is.

2) Unless you're calling for the abolishment of zoning laws, and land use allocation decisions, the government most certainly does decide HOW land is used.  And under an LVT regime there is a built-in incentive to exercise this zoning and allocation power such that LVT revenues are maximized.   Thus, for example, if industry or commerce is willing to pay more for more land than housing, more land will be zoned for commerce and industry, less for housing (just like $#@!ing Hong Kong does now).   

3) The government most certainly does, and would, decide _how much each piece of land is taxed_. Valuation is part of the levy determination, which is determined by Roy's "army of competent appraisers" that he has so much faith in.  But even they were 100% accurate, such that it paced perfectly with the otherwise free market that wouldn't exist for comparison, there's still the mill rate/multiplier side. That's where human decisions are made to determine the valuation multiplier to obtain the amount levied -- i.e., how much land rents to actually capture (50%? 90%? 100%? 200%?).  

4) Not only does the government determine what formulae are used to determine how much to levy, but also how much NOT to levy (special circumstances, exceptions to the LVT rule).  That's where the power of Renaissance and Enterprise zones come into play, as well as exemptions, abatements, grants, special use privileges, etc., which allow taxing jurisdictions to compete, while giving distinct preferential treatment and economic advantages to those favored. 

5) The government does not decide WHO SPECIFICALLY uses what land, any more than the FED decides who specifically gets which of its counterfeited fiat currency.  In other words, NOT TRUE, but let's pretend it is true.  Even without favoritism, the very regime itself is designed such that it is predictable which class of entities will ultimately have access to the very best lands (i.e., those who are willing to pay the most to the state), with ALL entities (not necessarily people) presumed as having equal status under the law.  




> Whats with the big 'L' for libertarian?


Consistency. I use a big G and S for Geo-Socialist, and I capitalize Marxist, as in Land Rents Marxist, and I capitalize Georgist as well.

----------


## redbluepill

> ...to your own satisfaction, of course. Delusions of truth and moral rightness are common defining characteristics of LVT proponents. They fancy themselves as "proving" things, and "destroying/demolishing arguments", as they deal only in "indisputable facts of objective reality", while others "refuse to know", and are "objectively false".


The fact that many well known proponents of LVT were minarchists or even anarchists should be a signal to you that it is not a collectivist idea. There is also something called geoanarchism and links have been posted numerous times to it.
http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html




> We obviously disagree on what "free market" means.


free market 
noun
an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free%20market


Nothing in that definition that is in violation of geoism.





> Then you didn't read carefully. I didn't write "monopolistic determination of land use". I wrote "monopolistic arrogation of land rents". Which it most certainly is.
> 
> 2) Unless you're calling for the abolishment of zoning laws, and land use allocation decisions, the government most certainly does decide HOW land is used. And under an LVT regime there is a built-in incentive to exercise this zoning and allocation power such that LVT revenues are maximized. Thus, for example, if industry or commerce is willing to pay more for more land than housing, more land will be zoned for commerce and industry, less for housing (just like $#@!ing Hong Kong does now).


I do call for an abolishment of zoning laws as does geolibertarian Fred Foldvary: http://www.progress.org/fold189.htm




> 3) The government most certainly does, and would, decide how much each piece of land is taxed. Firstly, there is the determination of how much land rents to actually capture (50%? 90%? 100%? 200%?). That human decision determines the amount levied, as a multiplier for the valuation. That's the other side of the levy determination, which is determined by Roy's "army of competent appraisers" that he has so much faith in.


While the percents have varied throughout history, a pure LVT would be at 100% of the land value. Yes, it would be up to government (or whatever ruling organization in charge) to enact the percentage, but the government wouldn't decide what the value actually is of each piece of land.




> 4) Not only does the government determine what formulae are used to determine how much to levy, but also how much NOT to levy (special circumstances, exceptions to the LVT rule). That's where the power of Renaissance and Enterprise zones come into play, as well as exemptions, abatements, grants, special use privileges, etc., which allow taxing jurisdictions to compete, while giving distinct preferential treatment and economic advantages to those favored.


The problems with corporatism are a huge reason why I am an LVT advocate. Compared to other forms of taxation it is easy to track and practically impossible to avoid (can't store away land on oversea bank accounts). The wealthy and/or privileged would have difficulty taking advantage of such a system. At least if they do it is not kept hidden from the public. 

There may be a few cases where I am for temporary deferments when transitioning over to a geoist system but ideally there would not be preferential treatment.





> 5) The government does not decide WHO SPECIFICALLY uses what land, any more than the FED decides who specifically gets which of its counterfeited fiat currency.


Government does not generate land nor would it hand it out under a geoist system. Poor analogy.




> The very regime itself is designed such that it is predictable which class of entities will have access to the very best lands (i.e., those who are willing to pay the most to the state), with ALL entities (not necessarily people) presumed as having equal status under the law.


Certain classes already have access to the very best lands. The LVT breaks up the monopoly and makes it easier for the rest to acquire a piece of nature.

And the LVT doesn't mean the government gets to offer a smaller percent tax to one class/group and a higher percent to another class/group. That has nothing to do with LVT

----------


## redbluepill

> Consistency. I use a big G and S for Geo-Socialist, and I capitalize Marxist, as in Land Rents Marxist, and I capitalize Georgist as well.


I ask because Libertarian usually implies the LP while libertarian implies a political ideology.

----------


## redbluepill

This is a thought-provoking article from Carl Milsted on the subject of natural rights. I don't think he identifies himself as a geoist but he clearly sympathizes with its ideals: 




> REALLY NATURAL RIGHTS
> 
> OK, this book is going to be a bit theoretical, so some of you might want to skip this and go on to the next book. However, the ideas herein have important implications. Much of the extremism of the libertarian movement is due to theoretical arguments, and many of the horrors of the Twentieth Century stem from the complete rejection of these same theories by others. So, what I am about to discuss has had a serious impact on human history despite its academic nature, and what I am going to propose can provide a basis for a “new” political coalition.
> 
> Who Governs the Governors?
> 
> What is a government? Is it simply the organization that has the might to control a geographical area? Does might make right? If so, is it moral to violently overthrow a government as long as you have sufficient might to do so? If not, is one obligated to obey a government even if is made of up a bunch of ruthless thugs?
> 
> There have been times and places in history where the “might makes right” school of legitimacy has prevailed, but in most times and places governments have claimed a moral justification for their use of force. Such justifications do help avoid the ugliness of perpetual civil war, and sometimes such justifications have also provided some checks on what the governors could do to the people with their monopolies on might.
> ...

----------


## Travlyr

> I ask because Libertarian usually implies the LP while libertarian implies a political ideology.


What you really need to answer, which has been asked many, many times, is what is so special about land value tax, rather than air value tax, and water value tax? When does the taxation end? And who benefits from the "tax"?

----------


## redbluepill

> What you really need to answer, which has been asked many, many times, is what is so special about land value tax, rather than air value tax, and water value tax? When does the taxation end? And who benefits from the "tax"?


The economic definition of land includes water and air. 

_Land.
The entire material universe exclusive of people and their products.

Everything physical (other than human beings) which is not the result of human effort is within the economic definition of land. This concept thus includes not merely the dry surface of the earth, but all natural materials, forces and opportunities. The trees in a virgin forest are land; in a cultivated forest they are wealth.

Radio and TV communications use the radio spectrum, a limited natural resource. Drivers of SUVs and other fuel-burning machinery use the earth's atmosphere as a dump for their greenhouse-gas wastes. To understand the meaning of land as a factor of production, we must conceive and define land broadly, as the entire set of natural opportunities._
http://www.henrygeorge.org/def2.htm


_
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


So if you have exclusive title over a lake you owe to the community the value of that lake just as you would if you held exclusive title over soil or airspace.

The taxation does not include the products of labor and you are only taxed for the land you exclude from everyone else.

----------


## Travlyr

> The economic definition of land includes water and air. 
> 
> _Land.
> The entire material universe exclusive of people and their products.
> 
> Everything physical (other than human beings) which is not the result of human effort is within the economic definition of land. This concept thus includes not merely the dry surface of the earth, but all natural materials, forces and opportunities. The trees in a virgin forest are land; in a cultivated forest they are wealth.
> 
> Radio and TV communications use the radio spectrum, a limited natural resource. Drivers of SUVs and other fuel-burning machinery use the earth's atmosphere as a dump for their greenhouse-gas wastes. To understand the meaning of land as a factor of production, we must conceive and define land broadly, as the entire set of natural opportunities._
> http://www.henrygeorge.org/def2.htm
> ...


Who is included in the "community?"

----------


## redbluepill

> Who is included in the "community?"


Whoever lives within the jurisdiction of the government that collects the rent.

----------


## silverhandorder

> Funny, there is no question about Paul's claim to being a 'voluntarist' yet geolibertarians are shot down as socialists. Paul is a voluntarist when it comes to abortion or immigration? Give me a break.


He is. He said on numerous occasions that he prefers no government in those matters.

----------


## Travlyr

> Whoever lives within the jurisdiction of the government that collects the rent.


And you trust your government leaders to be honest & fair with their redistribution to all members of the community? Why? Have they ever?

----------


## redbluepill

> He is. He said on numerous occasions that he prefers no government in those matters.


Not to detract from the original thread topic but I'm curious: How has he proposed a government-less system handling abortion?

----------


## silverhandorder

> Not to detract from the original thread topic but I'm curious: How has he proposed a government-less system handling abortion?


He did not. The only thing that he said on abortion is that it needs to be controlled through moral means. Meaning people must be convinced not to go ahead with it.

----------


## redbluepill

> And you trust your government leaders to be honest & fair with their redistribution to all members of the community? Why? Have they ever?


No I don't trust government leaders. That is the very reason why I am a geolibertarian/minarchist. I also don't see a society run without some form of government.  I propose to limit government in all its forms (including in the form of a landlord). 
http://libertythinkers.com/education...r-land-rights/ 

The LVT is the best way to do this. We would eliminate all other forms of taxation. It naturally reduces the size of government and it allows the free market to work.

----------


## redbluepill

> He did not. The only thing that he said on abortion is that it needs to be controlled through moral means. Meaning people must be convinced not to go ahead with it.


So he doesn't support legislation (on the state level obviously) to ban it?

----------


## silverhandorder

> No I don't trust government leaders. That is the very reason why I am a geolibertarian/minarchist. I also don't see a society run without some form of government.  I propose to limit government in all its forms (including in the form of a landlord). 
> http://libertythinkers.com/education...r-land-rights/ 
> 
> The LVT is the best way to do this. We would eliminate all other forms of taxation. It naturally reduces the size of government and it allows the free market to work.


I disagree but as long as we advocate for minarchist state more power to you.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The fact that many well known proponents of LVT were minarchists or even anarchists should be a signal to you that it is not a collectivist idea. There is also something called geoanarchism and links have been posted numerous times to it.
> http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html


I'm referring to the collectivist dogma of "natural liberty rights" to ALL land, all of which is collectivized and considered to be "common wealth".  That has nothing to do with LVT, and everything to do with the rationale used here for it, which I reject outright. 




> free market 
> noun
> an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without *government regulation or fear of monopolies.*
> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free%20market
> 
> 
> Nothing in that definition that is in violation of geoism.


You said it backwards. We're talking about whether geoism is a violation of the free market, not the other way around.  The part I put in bold is the violation, all of which gets obfuscated and rationalized away with tortured logic by geoists (e.g., "land is a natural monopoly", "It doesn't matter whether it's a thousand owners or a single owner", "the supply of land is fixed" -- referring to the total geographical area in existence, not the economic definition of supply -- "LVT doesn't involve regulation", etc.,). 




> I do call for an abolishment of zoning laws as does geolibertarian Fred Foldvary: http://www.progress.org/fold189.htm


I don't care about Fred Foldvary, but if you're for the abolishment of zoning law, great.  But that brings me to another point.  People raise objections about LVT, and most of the geolibs I encounter pull an Obamacare-like attitude in response.  "Establish it first, then we'll work to perfect it."  To me that's worthy of a smack-down all by itself.  If a Geoist wants to impress me, pave the path to LVT by calling for things that eliminate the objections FIRST.  Here's just a few on a list that goes on...

*Universal Individual Exemption?*  WHY is that not being called for NOW? Where are the LVT advocates when it comes to tax exemption amounts for "good enough land to live on" AS A STARTING POINT.  An LVT regime is not required for that.
*Abolish zoning laws?* Any reason why that can't be eliminated NOW?  The ECO's in favor of LVT would $#@! themselves in vehement opposition, because for many of them that's the biggest advantage to LVT.  Preserve the Earth, and force humanity into an artificially smaller "eco-footprint".  Meanwhile, artificial scarcity drives up land values. 
*What about enterprise zones, abatements, special exemptions, grants and crony favoritism?*  Where are all the geoist voices on this when it comes to property taxes - as a matter of principle? Silence. Crickets. Which is not surprising given that some LVT sites actually TOUT enterprise zones, abatements, grants, etc., as USEFUL TOOLS under a geoist regime. 




> While the percents have varied throughout history, a pure LVT would be at 100% of the land value. Yes, it would be up to government (or whatever ruling organization in charge) to enact the percentage, but the government wouldn't decide what the value actually is of each piece of land.


That's precisely how the income tax got it's nasty foot in the door. And like I said, it doesn't really matter if the land value appraisal is nuts on, because the government decides the MULTIPLIER.  I don't care about anyone's best intentions, because I live in the real world.  I know that with most property taxes, the taxing jurisdictions set their budgets FIRST - tax later accordingly (by adjusting valuations and mill rate multipliers) to meet that budget.  The actual "valuation" is just to determine each taxpayers proportion.  The amount actually levied (usually by the multiplier, not the valuation) is subject to annual revision.   




> The problems with corporatism are a huge reason why I am an LVT advocate. Compared to other forms of taxation it is easy to track and practically impossible to avoid (can't store away land on oversea bank accounts). The wealthy and/or privileged would have difficulty taking advantage of such a system. At least *if they do it is not kept hidden from the public.*


Which it usually is. States and local governments are usually under no obligation to publish exemptions and favoritism, and most of the public doesn't think it doesn't affect them, or else isn't any of their business either way.  Measure 2 proponents played hell trying to get information on exempted property under FOIA, and most taxing jurisdictions dicked them around, and were not forthcoming. The LOCATION AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND is practically impossible to avoid. That's not the same thing as the tax, as property taxes (which include LVT) are already avoided to the tune of billions. 




> Government does not generate land nor would it hand it out under a geoist system. Poor analogy.


It was a perfect, because while governments do not generate physical land, they can effectively "hand it out" by simply declaring an area an "Enterprise Zone".  That's just one way it can "generate land".  




> Certain classes already have access to the very best lands. The LVT breaks up the monopoly and makes it easier for the rest to acquire a piece of nature


The only class divisions I'm concerned about have nothing to do with rich or poor, and everything to do with "unalienable rights" (of free and natural citizens) vs. "licensed, taxable privilege" of entities that do not, and should not EVER, be on par with those who have rights.  Not only does LVT not make a distinction - it actually ENCOURAGES privileged entities to SQUEEZE ORDINARY PEOPLE OUT.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> And you trust your government leaders to be honest & fair with their redistribution to all members of the community? Why? Have they ever?


LVT naturally distributes fairly. The free-market decides that. What the state collects is for services like: police, health, armed forces, education, build economic growth creating infrastructure etc. 

But LVT needs to be set at a level that discourages harmful land speculation. This may mean that the coffers are too full. Then a citizen's dividend may be in order.

----------


## osan

> No I don't trust government leaders. That is the very reason why I am a geolibertarian/minarchist. I also don't see a society run without some form of government.


Then either you are corrupt and are refusing to publish your full agenda or you simply do not understand one very radical element in the general discussion of human politics: the difference between "government" and _governance_.  The difference is not only glaring, but absolutely central to the definition of the boundaries that determine the qualities of vast proportions of our lives.

Government, per sé, is most literally _a figment of our imaginations._  This irrefutable fact escapes nearly every human being walking the earth this day.  There is NO SUCH THING as "government" as the belief, concept, and notion most commonly held in the minds of people.  It has no substance whatsoever.  Zero.  Yet, people speak of it and regard it in their minds as if it had an existence independent of humanity.  Remove people and where shall one find government?  Nowhere, because it exists ONLY within the confines of our skulls and NOWHERE else at any time, under any circumstance, for any reason, by any cause whatsoever.  It is fiction.  It is bull$#@!.  It is an outright lie. 

But for those in power, this grotesque abuse of cognition through the very deliberate misuse of language to skew the thinking of the rest into accepting the wholly false, if largely tacit, notion of government as an _institution_ possessing the nonexistent character and quality of an independent existence has served them admirably.  This accomplishment represents the single greatest _fait accompli_ in all of recorded human history.  It appears, in fact, that it may well prove the coupe de grace for the ruling class over all human freedom.  To accept this fiction, this utterly ridiculous nonsense, is to willfully acquiesce to being another's fool; to build around yourself a prison of someone else's design and behest, but at _your_ will and agreement.

The problem with government-as-institution is that the moment one accepts its literal, _material_ existence, the sky becomes the limit for those in power in terms of the qualities and characteristics which that entity may display and possess.  This is clearly betrayed in expressions such as, "government _has the power to..._" and worse yet, "government has the _right_ to..."  How can a concept, a materially nonexistent entity _have_​ anything?  A few more examples of this dangerous abuse of language and thought:
The _state has the right..._The state holds an overwhelming _interest_...The _people_ have the right... (here, "the people" meaning monobloc populations and not individuals)_Society_ has the right...All of these outright lies and the many I have not listed have been very deliberately designed to gain the voluntary compliance of the vast majority of persons over whom those in power presume to rule.  Note I wrote "rule", rather than "govern", the former leaving no possibility of fair action in the broader context, whereas the latter leaves that door ajar a slight crack, at least in principle.

Now compare all of that with the notion of _governance_, which by its very linguistic structure connotes no notion of an extant object but solely that of a _function to be discharged by individuals_.  There is nothing in principle there that connotes the greater authority of one individual over that of another.  Vis-a-vis "government", if we remove all humanity from the earth save one, governance still remains, all else equal such as rationality and an interest in continued life.  A single, solitary human being will govern _himself_.  The function is built into all nominally intact and healthy living organisms and this fact is readily established with even the most casual observation of any manner of life form.

Governance, therefore, is _organic_, whereas government is not only _purely synthetic,_ but dangerously mal-formed in the minds of most people. 




> propose to limit government in all its forms (including *in the form of a landlord*).


EDIT: And just for the record, this is a steaming pile of claptrap.  A landlord is not government.  What you write tacitly presupposes several things.  Firstly, it implies that private contracts are invalid.  Secondly, it implies that private property is invalid.  Thirdly, it implies that any person ostensibly in ownership of real property is evil.  Fourthly, it implies that any such a person promotes himself to a status of even greater evil for having not only the temerity to charge rent to another for making some use of that property, but that he dares to place conditions upon the renter such that his property is not brought to destruction or other harm.  Fifthly: it implies that there are people "out there" somewhere holding the authority to determine HOW MUCH property any given person may hold and that they hold it at the pleasure of others, further assassinating the notion of private property.

Those are the very direct implications of what you have written, above.  You are no friend of liberty.  Quite the opposite, judging by this embarrassingly flawed diatribe of yours.




> http://libertythinkers.com/education...r-land-rights/


EDIT cont.: This page chokes to death on its own fail in the very first paragraph.  The author was perhaps an idiot?  At best, he had less than zero understanding of that which constitutes proper liberty.  The article is poorly reasoned and builds upon rotten assumptions.  Landlords are already limited.  It is called "criminal law" as well as the laws of contracts.  If you do not like the conditions a landlord places upon your living in his house, then go elsewhere.  You are not entitled to reside there.  And all the nonsense about "per capita value" and the three conditions... Jesus, what stupidity.  His conflation of of Spooner's valid and correct observations about government with that of the landlord is precious in its cute idiocy.  If this is the sort of bull$#@! to which you subscribe, knock yourself out, but you would be far happier at http://revleft.com  I recommend you go find yourself a comfy home there.

If that is the libertarian position, count me out.

END ADDED EDITS

Just as the socialist/communist/progressive ideal may be well intended but disastrously flawed in design, so may we say is the case here.  Good intentions count for nothing whatsoever when the results imposed upon others against their wills are rotten.

This is simply the other side of the same counterfeit coin, granted with a prettier face and a greater level of rational thought behind it.  The moment you elevate a subset of a population above the rest, absolutely _anything_ may result.  The act itself - nay the mere ascent to it opens the door wide _in principle_ for tyranny of any form and degree you may care to name.  The only way to avoid this, and even then it is a dicey deal, is to eliminate all govern_ment_ in favor of govern_ance_.  The difference is fundamental and for anyone who understands it properly, it is not subtle but rather staggering not only in the basic structures in terms of concept, but in the materially substantive implications.

Anarchy means absence of a ruler, not of governance.  No rational person wishes an absence of governance as this would in principle allow for the worst chaos imaginable.  The Lord Of The Flies would rise up to rule and life would be worse than $#@!.  And that is pretty much what we have today with a gang calling itself "government" assuming authority over ever growing territory in our lives.  Minarchism does NOTHING to solve this _in principle_ and is, therefore, a non-starter in its fundamental equivalence to all other rotten forms of despotic control.

Either people are equal in terms of their general and inborn claims to life (i.e. equal in their fundamental rights) or they are not.  There is NOTHING in between these possibilities.  In this respect, equality is absolutely and purely discrete and bivalent.  It is a true and fundamental dichotomy that cannot be escaped by anyone at any time, by any means, or for any reason whatsoever.  It is as fundamental to the human fabric as gravity is to that of the observable universe.




> The LVT is the best way to do this. We would eliminate all other forms of taxation. It naturally reduces the size of government and it allows the free market to work.


Bull$#@!.  Taxation is theft; purely; simply, absolutely.  You are arguing for your flavor of pretty slavery. 

Fail.

Epically.

Catastrophically.

Terminally.

----------


## osan

> I don't care about Fred Foldvary


Hungarians are not noted for their political savvy.  Their history says it all.  Most embarrassingly. 




> People raise objections about LVT, and most of the geolibs I encounter pull an Obamacare-like attitude in response.  "Establish it first, then we'll work to perfect it."  To me that's worthy of a smack-down all by itself.  If a Geoist wants to impress me, pave the path to LVT by calling for things that eliminate the objections FIRST.


This has got to be one of the best things I've ever read.  

I heartily recommend everyone give rep for this.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Hungarians are not noted for their political savvy.


Racist comment

< snip the rest, not worth it after that >

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Bull$#@!.  Taxation is theft; purely; simply, absolutely.  You are arguing for your flavor of pretty slavery.


How do you propose the government funds the services?  I do agree that taxation is theft, that is why LVT scores well. It reclaims community created wealth for community services, leaving private wealth in private pockets.  Perfect.  It also charges for extraction of the land's resources - again leaving private wealth in private pockets.

It also stops a lot of free-loading.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I'm referring to the collectivist dogma of "natural liberty rights" to ALL land, all of which is collectivized and considered to be "common wealth".  That has nothing to do with LVT, and everything to do with the rationale used here for it, which I reject outright.


Land and its resources ARE common wealth.  Look up sovereignty.  *The problem is that private individuals and concerns are appropriating common wealth*.  This means the state needs to revert to stealing private wealth, via income, sales taxes, etc, to fund common services.

*Best to to use common wealth to fund common services.*  Simple. 

You should read Fred Foldvary.

----------


## Travlyr

> LVT naturally distributes fairly. The free-market decides that. What the state collects is for services like: police, health, armed forces, education, build economic growth creating infrastructure etc.


You make no sense. Markets under control of the State is not a free-market.




> But LVT *needs to be set* at a level that discourages harmful land speculation.


Needs to be set by whom? Wise overlords?




> This may mean that the coffers are too full. *Then a citizen's dividend may be in order.*


Or they could just pass out bonuses to all the wise overlords who are policing, medicating, militarizing, indoctrinating, planning the economy and their job creating infastructure contractor friends ... kind of exactly like they do today.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> That's precisely how the income tax got it's nasty foot in the door.


Income Tax was a temporary tax introduced by the British Tory government to fund the Napoleonic wars.  Prior, taxes came from land.  In 1692 Parliament introduced a national land tax. This tax was levied on rental values and applied both to rural and to urban land. No provision was made for re-assessing the 1692 valuations and consequently they remained in force well into the 18th century.

The Tory Party were the party of landowners. The saw the opportunity to push taxation from their lucrative acres to to working, productive people via income tax.  They had the thin edge of the wedge in and and rammed it in gently over 100 years to the point little taxation was coming from land.  As a result the richest people in the UK are landowners living on unearned income.  Clear theft.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> You make no sense. Markets under control of the State is not a free-market.


You are confused. A free-market is not under the control of the state. 

< snip wayward imagineering >

----------


## osan

Originally Posted by *Travlyr* 
You make no sense. Markets under control of the State is *not a free-market*.




> You are confused. A free-market is not under the control of the state.


I surely hope you have a severe substance abuse problem because it would sadden me to no end to think you were this cognitively handicapped.  Go back and read the part I made bold, italicized, and underlined.  Then read what you wrote.

HELLO.

----------


## Len Larson

Ah yes, the LVT civilization construction set.

----------


## Zippyjuan

The only way to build a truely Utopian Society.

----------


## Roy L

> Ah yes, the LVT civilization construction set.


It has been used successfully many times.

----------


## Roy L

> What you really need to answer, which has been asked many, many times, is what is so special about land value tax, rather than air value tax, and water value tax?


What you have been told many, many times, but always baldly refuse to know, is that the owner of land, but not of air or water, is empowered to charge others full market value for the services and infrastructure government spends its tax revenue to provide.  This is because ownership of land -- i.e., locations on the earth's solid surface -- confers the *advantage of proximity to those services and infrastructure*.  Therefore, to the extent that they buy things people are willing to pay for, all taxes that are spent on services and infrastructure are being given to landowners as a welfare subsidy giveaway.  It is the landowner and *the landowner alone* who benefits from and GETS TO POCKET taxes.  There is no way to run public spending that does not subsidize the landowner.  That is a law of economics.

You just permanently refuse to know that fact.



> When does the taxation end?


When all the public services and infrastructure have been paid for.



> And who benefits from the "tax"?


The landholder, of course.  He always gets all the benefit of government spending that isn't wasteful or corrupt.  That is why he should rightly pay for it.

However, you have decided to devote your life to serving greed, parasitism and evil; so you will say, do, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER to prevent that fact from entering your brain.  There is no amount of fact or logic or evidence or proof that can ever force it into your skull.  It is permanently impossible.

----------


## Roy L

> And you trust your government leaders to be honest & fair with their redistribution to all members of the community? Why? Have they ever?


Of course we don't "trust" them.  We hold them accountable for performance of their jobs, like any other employee.  Duh.

Do you actually know how to do anything but shriek, "meeza hatesa gubmint"?

----------


## Roy L

> Ron Paul was a staunch supporter of N.D.'s Measure 2, which would have eliminated all property taxes, including the land value tax component thereof. There is *no way in hell* that Ron Paul would *EVER* support a Land Value Tax.


As he is quite intelligent, he might well support LVT if he is more willing to know facts than you are.



> Section 4 of Ron Paul's Liberty Amendment reads: SOURCE
> And you can rest assured that by "estates", he meant that to include all privately owned wealth, _including privately owned land_.


No, you are just lying again, as usual.  By "estates" he indisputably meant the property of deceased persons under legal administration by executors or other trustees, and you know that fact very well.



> Ron Paul believes that both land and money are different forms of capital, and would NEVER support any form of Land Socialism or "reclaiming socially created wealth for the collectivist land rental commune".


Whom are you dishonestly pretending to be quoting when you put a stupid lie like, "collectivist land rental commune" in quotes?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> What you have been told many, many times, but always baldly refuse to know, is that the owner of land, but not of air or water, is empowered to charge others full market value for the services and infrastructure government spends its tax revenue to provide.  This is because ownership of land -- i.e., locations on the earth's solid surface -- confers the *advantage of proximity to those services and infrastructure*.  Therefore, to the extent that they buy things people are willing to pay for, all taxes that are spent on services and infrastructure are being given to landowners as a welfare subsidy giveaway.  It is the landowner and *the landowner alone* who benefits from and GETS TO POCKET taxes.  There is no way to run public spending that does not subsidize the landowner.  That is a law of economics.


Here you're very much mistaken-especially in regards to desert areas.  Parts of major rivers (i.e. the Salt River) are privately owned for the use of power companies.  There is a quite elaborate system for ownership of rights to certain parts of major rivers.  Owners of rights to these rivers in turn charge customers for power produced by the companies' use of the river. (IOW, this is a sort of "rent seeking" system)  I encourage you to move beyond what you _think_ you know and examine the real world.

----------


## Roy L

> Government, per sé, is most literally _a figment of our imaginations._  This irrefutable fact escapes nearly every human being walking the earth this day.  There is NO SUCH THING as "government" as the belief, concept, and notion most commonly held in the minds of people.  It has no substance whatsoever.  Zero.  Yet, people speak of it and regard it in their minds as if it had an existence independent of humanity.  Remove people and where shall one find government?  Nowhere, because it exists ONLY within the confines of our skulls and NOWHERE else at any time, under any circumstance, for any reason, by any cause whatsoever.  It is fiction.  It is bull$#@!.  It is an outright lie.


More of the absurdities intended to enable atrocities.



> A landlord is not government.


True: landlords don't have to maintain legitimacy or be responsible to the people they take money from.



> What you write tacitly presupposes several things.  Firstly, it implies that private contracts are invalid.


Stupid lie.  Duress invalidates the contracts made under duress, not all contracts.



> Secondly, it implies that private property is invalid.


Stupid lie.  Pointing out the fact that private property in land is invalid does not imply that private property is invalid, any more than pointing out that private property in slaves is invalid implies that private property is invalid.



> Thirdly, it implies that any person ostensibly in ownership of real property is evil.


Stupid lie.  Slavery is evil, but that does not mean every slave owner is evil.



> Fourthly, it implies that any such a person promotes himself to a status of even greater evil for having not only the temerity to charge rent to another for making some use of that property, but that he dares to place conditions upon the renter such that his property is not brought to destruction or other harm.


Strawman fallacy.



> Fifthly: it implies that there are people "out there" somewhere holding the authority to determine HOW MUCH property any given person may hold and that they hold it at the pleasure of others, further assassinating the notion of private property.


Stupid lie.  The question at issue is not "how much" property a person can own, but "what kinds" of things can rightly be property.



> Those are the very direct implications of what you have written, above.


Stupid lie.



> You are no friend of liberty.


You are an enemy not only of liberty but of justice and truth, as proved above.



> Quite the opposite, judging by this embarrassingly flawed diatribe of yours.


As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"



> http://libertythinkers.com/education...r-land-rights/ 
> EDIT cont.: This page chokes to death on its own fail in the very first paragraph.  The author was perhaps an idiot?  At best, he had less than zero understanding of that which constitutes proper liberty.  The article is poorly reasoned and builds upon rotten assumptions.


Anti-truth fail.



> Landlords are already limited.


Everything is limited -- except, of course, the stupidity, dishonesty and iniquity of evil, lying, anti-LVT filth.



> It is called "criminal law" as well as the laws of contracts.  If you do not like the conditions a landlord places upon your living in his house, then go elsewhere.  You are not entitled to reside there.


You know that trying to change the subject from land to houses is dishonest, but you did it anyway.



> And all the nonsense about "per capita value" and the three conditions... Jesus, what stupidity.  His conflation of of Spooner's valid and correct observations about government with that of the landlord is precious in its cute idiocy.  If this is the sort of bull$#@! to which you subscribe, knock yourself out, but you would be far happier at http://revleft.com  I recommend you go find yourself a comfy home there.


Content = 0.



> Good intentions count for nothing whatsoever when the results imposed upon others against their wills are rotten.


Landowning is precisely such a result imposed upon others against their wills.



> The moment you elevate a subset of a population above the rest, absolutely _anything_ may result.


As landowning has done throughout history.



> The act itself - nay the mere ascent to it opens the door wide _in principle_ for tyranny of any form and degree you may care to name.


The act of landowning does.  And has.  Right.



> Landowning is theft; purely; simply, absolutely.


There.  Fixed it for you.



> You are arguing for your flavor of pretty slavery.


No, you are, as already proved multiple times.



> Fail.
> 
> Epically.
> 
> Catastrophically.
> 
> Terminally.


Mirror time.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Government, per sé, is most literally _a figment of our imaginations._


So all that administraion all over the world is an illusion.  Boy......

< snip tht rest as it is pure childish drivel >

----------


## EcoWarrier

> What you have been told many, many times, but always baldly refuse to know, is that the owner of land, but not of air or water, is empowered to charge others full market value for the services and infrastructure government spends its tax revenue to provide.  This is because ownership of land -- i.e., locations on the earth's solid surface -- confers the *advantage of proximity to those services and infrastructure*.  Therefore, to the extent that they buy things people are willing to pay for, all taxes that are spent on services and infrastructure are being given to landowners as a welfare subsidy giveaway.  It is the landowner and *the landowner alone* who benefits from and GETS TO POCKET taxes.  There is no way to run public spending that does not subsidize the landowner.  That is a law of economics.
> 
> You just permanently refuse to know that fact.
> 
> When all the public services and infrastructure have been paid for.
> 
> The landholder, of course.  He always gets all the benefit of government spending that isn't wasteful or corrupt.  That is why he should rightly pay for it.


Nicely put.




> However, you have decided to devote your life to serving greed, parasitism and evil; so you will say, do, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER to prevent that fact from entering your brain.  There is no amount of fact or logic or evidence or proof that can ever force it into your skull.  It is permanently impossible.


Roy has highlighted the conditioning of greed in our societies. It runs so deep many tell themselves lies and believe them thinking they may at one point get a parasitical major financial gain somewhere and not work hard, or at all. 

They should be more concerned with something productive and having a system in place they encourages productiveness and eliminates parasitical activities.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Here you're very much mistaken-especially in regards to desert areas.  Parts of major rivers (i.e. the Salt River) are privately owned for the use of power companies.  There is a quite elaborate system for ownership of rights to certain parts of major rivers.  Owners of rights to these rivers in turn charge customers for power produced by the companies' use of the river. (IOW, this is a sort of "rent seeking" system)  I encourage you to move beyond what you _think_ you know and examine the real world.


You are in La-La world then. If power companies get the rights to certain parts of rivers (we own the rivers which is common wealth) then they pay a fee for using that common resouce.  Simple.  That is the real world.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, you are just lying again, as usual.  By "estates" he indisputably meant the property of deceased persons under legal administration by executors or other trustees, and you know that fact very well.


Even you can't be that daft, that obtuse, Roy. It's obvious that you saw the word "estate" and immediately thought "estate tax", the commonly used term that deals specifically with taxes on the property of deceased persons.  An estate however, is nothing more or less than the net worth of a person (*dead or alive*) at any point in time; the sum of a person's assets – legal rights, interests, obligations and entitlements to property of any kind (including land). 

Living people have estates, and while the "Estate Tax" was definitely _included_ in Ron Paul's amendment proposal, it was not limited thereto. You should know that.   




> Whom are you dishonestly pretending to be quoting when you put a stupid lie like, "collectivist land rental commune" in quotes?


Just paraphrasing for clarity, since it is the very essence of what you're seeking.  All land is subject to rent, by, for and in the name the just compensation to collectivized individuals, making any LVT regime, in essence, a collectivist land rental commune. 




> Government, per sé, is most literally a figment of our imaginations.
> 			
> 		
> 
> So all that administraion all over the world is an illusion.  Boy......


Hey, pay attention at the front! You missed the brightly colored block he put in front of you labeled GOVERNANCE (as distinguished from "government"), which he explained clearly enough for any child, but not anyone childishly snipping and full of information drivel, to understand.

(Told you all if it anything didn't resemble one of his familiar Fisher Price toys he'd go all "Uh-oh! V.E.R.N. Vern!" on us.)

----------


## Roy L

> Here you're very much mistaken-especially in regards to desert areas.


No, I am of course objectively correct, as usual.



> Parts of major rivers (i.e. the Salt River) are privately owned for the use of power companies. There is a quite elaborate system for ownership of rights to certain parts of major rivers.  Owners of rights to these rivers in turn charge customers for power produced by the companies' use of the river. (IOW, this is a sort of "rent seeking" system)  I encourage you to move beyond what you _think_ you know and examine the real world.


Please explain how you erroneously imagine that contradicts what I wrote.

----------


## Roy L

> Even you can't be that daft, that obtuse, Roy.


You lied, Steven.  I knew you would -- you have to -- and you did.

And now you are trying to divert attention from that fact with a spew of stupid, dishonest filth.



> It's obvious that you saw the word "estate" and immediately thought "estate tax", the commonly used term that deals specifically with taxes on the property of deceased persons.


And I was correct, because the amendment you quoted was *ABOUT* DIFFERENT TYPES OF TAXES.



> An estate however, is nothing more or less than the net worth of a person (*dead or alive*) at any point in time; the sum of a person's assets  legal rights, interests, obligations and entitlements to property of any kind (including land).


Blatant -- and grotesquely, sickeningly dishonest -- equivocation fallacy.  YOU KNOW that in the context of the quote, "estate" meant the property interests of deceased persons as have been subject to taxation.



> Living people have estates, and while the "Estate Tax" was definitely _included_ in Ron Paul's amendment proposal, it was not limited thereto.


Yes, of course it was, stop lying.  The amendment was specifically to remove the specified taxes.



> You should know that.


I know that you are lying.  Stop lying.



> Just paraphrasing for clarity,


No, you were deliberately lying, as usual.



> since it is the very essence of what you're seeking.


No, that is just another stupid lie from you about what I have plainly written.

All you do is think up the stupidest and most dishonest lie you can imagine, and then post it.  And then to rescue your lies, you think up even stupider and more dishonest lies.



> All land is subject to rent,


No, only land that more than one person is willing to pay to use.

You really can't write even a single honest, factual sentence on this topic, can you?



> by, for and in the name the just compensation to collectivized individuals,


Blatant oxymoron.



> making any LVT regime, in essence, a collectivist land rental commune.


No, that is just you telling another stupid, evil lie.  LVT is no more "collectivist" than any tax a society might use to fund its government, and a society that does so is no more a "commune" than any society whose members are aware of the responsibilities associated with living in society.

Some evil, lying sacks of $#!+ are so despicably, sickeningly dishonest that they pretend not to be aware of the responsibilities associated with living in society.  But LVT advocates, being honest, are not among them.

----------


## Steven Douglas

OK, so all land, including privately owned land, is considered "commonwealth", which belongs to everyone (but only collectively).  Other scarce resources, like ore, fossil fuels, water, and even bandwidth in the electromagnetic spectrum, would also be considered common wealth, and part of the definition of "land" subject to a Land Value Tax. 

Under LVT, the state, or taxing jurisdiction, behaves as a for-profit, profit-maximizing land-owning corporation, which is in the business of renting out titles to parcels of land within its jurisdiction. Every individual citizen is considered an equal shareholder (of a single share which may not be bought or sold) of this incorporated entity.  LVT rental fees (LVT levied) which are paid to the state are said to recapture "community created value", or economic land rents, which are collected by the state on behalf of the everyone -- collectively only -- in the community.  

The Universal Individual Exemption (if actually provided for), would be considered a Community Shareholder Privilege - a mechanism for providing "just compensation" that is owed to each individual who has been deprived of their natural liberty rights to use land which they are excluded from using in common.  The Universal Individual Exemption acts as an LVT Credit, which each individual can apply toward any land, but which is sufficient in itself for "enough good land to live on".  Also, like any corporation, dividends might also be paid out directly to community shareholders from the land rent profits. 

Sounds like a Collectivist Land Rental Commune to me.  A socialistic monopolistic racket.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> OK, so all land, including privately owned land, is considered "commonwealth", which belongs to everyone (but only collectively).  Other scarce resources, like ore, fossil fuels, water, and even bandwidth in the electromagnetic spectrum, would also be considered common wealth, and part of the definition of "land" subject to a Land Value Tax.


You are sort of there. The collectivist bit is off mark though.

Under LVT, the state, or taxing jurisdiction, behaves as a mechanism to reclaim commonly created wealth to fund common services.




> LVT rental fees (LVT levied) which are paid to the state are said to recapture "community created value", or economic land rents, which are collected by the state on behalf of the everyone -- collectively only -- in the community.


You are sort of there. The collectivist bit is off mark though. 




> Sounds like a Collectivist Land Rental Commune to me.  A socialistic monopolistic racket.


Steven after I thought you were doing so well, you write such drivel.  What a disappointment.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Sounds like a Collectivist Land Rental Commune to me.  A socialistic monopolistic racket.


The rambling thoughts of an obsessed mind.

Collecting tax a socialistic racket? Wow. We must have a very Marxist government in power right now then.  Wow.  I never knew that.

----------


## yoshimaroka

> Collecting tax a socialistic racket? Wow. We must have a very Marxist government in power right now then.  Wow.  I never knew that.


Which kind of government is in power is irrelevant.

*rack·et*
_noun_
*1.* […]
*2.* A dishonest business or practice, especially one that obtains money through fraud or extortion.

Since taxation is extortion, collecting tax is a racket. Regardless of the brand of statism.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Since taxation is extortion, collecting tax is a racket. Regardless of the brand of statism.


Do not be silly.  Taxation is NOT extortion or theft.  The taxation has to be right and tax extracted from the right point.  That is from community created wealth to pay for community services.  Taxing the individual, or production, is not the right place to collect tax.

----------


## silverhandorder

> Do not be silly.  Taxation is NOT extortion or theft.  The taxation has to be right and tax extracted from the right point.  That is from community created wealth to pay for community services.  Taxing the individual, or production, is not the right place to collect tax.


What wealth does the community create besides infrastructure that can easily be done by individuals.

----------


## redbluepill

> Hungarians are not noted for their political savvy.  Their history says it all.  Most embarrassingly.


Wow, anti-individualism on a Ron Paul forum?

----------


## yoshimaroka

> tax *extracted* from the right point. Taxing the individual, or production, is not the right place to *collect tax*.


Taxation is the levying of tax.

I've highlighted the actions in the quote above: "extracted", "collect".

By whom and how does the process of *extracting* or *collecting* happen?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> *Do not be silly.  Taxation is NOT extortion or theft.*  The taxation has to be right and tax extracted from the right point.  That is from community created wealth to pay for community services.  Taxing the individual, or production, is not the right place to collect tax.


lol!  Of course it's extortion and theft.  Who would pay if it weren't for the threat of force?  Speaking of being silly!

----------


## airborne373

Do readers realize the original post is arguing for the total socialization under govt. rule over every real assets on the planet? Plus this article is written as a classic "either - or argument." There is only two choices so you must chose one. IMO - This piece stinks of one world view propaganda. Pheww!

----------


## redbluepill

> I'm referring to the collectivist dogma of "natural liberty rights" to ALL land, all of which is collectivized and considered to be "common wealth". That has nothing to do with LVT, and everything to do with the rationale used here for it, which I reject outright.


You confuse common rights and collective rights. Classical liberals embraced common rights.
http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commonrights.html

_"Socialist Confusions 
The classical liberal distinctions between land, labor and capital were greatly confused by socialists, and particularly Marxists, who substituted the fuzzy abstract term, "means of production," for all three factors. They also blurred the distinction between common property and state property, for socialists believed, as royalty also believed, that they were the people.

Today, the confusions between land and capital and between state property and common property are shared by socialists and royal libertarians, and only classical liberals keep these distinctions clearly defined. Yet royal libertarians frequently duck the land issue by charging that it is the classical liberals, not the royal libertarians, who have embraced socialist ideas."_
http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Sullivan_RL.html




> You said it backwards. We're talking about whether geoism is a violation of the free market, not the other way around. The part I put in bold is the violation, all of which gets obfuscated and rationalized away with tortured logic by geoists (e.g., "land is a natural monopoly", "It doesn't matter whether it's a thousand owners or a single owner", "the supply of land is fixed" -- referring to the total geographical area in existence, not the economic definition of supply -- "LVT doesn't involve regulation", etc.,).


Having a government enforce restitution for theft is  not a violation of free market principles. I'm sure you would not consider it a violation of the free market when a court demands a citizen pay stealing his neighbor's car or setting fire to his house.

Classical liberals did not simply prefer LVT to other forms of taxation, they believed it was perfectly compatible or even a requirement for a free market.

Albert Jay Nock:
"He [Henry George] 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."
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Nock.html






> I don't care about Fred Foldvary,


Too bad. He is one of the smartest and most consistent libertarian economists alive today.




> but if you're for the abolishment of zoning law, great. But that brings me to another point. People raise objections about LVT, and most of the geolibs I encounter pull an Obamacare-like attitude in response. "Establish it first, then we'll work to perfect it." To me that's worthy of a smack-down all by itself. If a Geoist wants to impress me, pave the path to LVT by calling for things that eliminate the objections FIRST.
> Universal Individual Exemption? WHY is that not being called for NOW? Where are the LVT advocates when it comes to tax exemption amounts for "good enough land to live on" AS A STARTING POINT. An LVT regime is not required for that.
> Abolish zoning laws? Any reason why that can't be eliminated NOW? The ECO's in favor of LVT would $#@! themselves in vehement opposition, because for many of them that's the biggest advantage to LVT. Preserve the Earth, and force humanity into an artificially smaller "eco-footprint". Meanwhile, artificial scarcity drives up land values. 
> What about enterprise zones, abatements, special exemptions, grants and crony favoritism? Where are all the geoist voices on this when it comes to property taxes - as a matter of principle? Silence. Crickets. Which is not surprising given that some LVT sites actually TOUT enterprise zones, abatements, grants, etc., as USEFUL TOOLS under a geoist regime.


How are those issues going for you right now? Obviously you aren't going to end zoning laws, income taxes, and cronyism with the State as it is right now. You need a path towards deconstructing the State. I have stated several times that I believe the LVT can play a major role in putting us on the road towards freedom. 
More from your pal Foldvary:

_"Land value taxation would also result in a substantial reduction in the cost of government. The administrative cost of land value taxes would be less than that of existing property taxes (which require a greater inspection of buildings and improvements), and the cost of enforcing income and sales taxes would be eliminated. By improving economic growth and allowing workers to keep all the money they earn, land value taxation would result in higher incomes, reducing the demand for government welfare programs. Decentralization, privatization, and the elimination of wasteful government programs would further reduce the amount needed to fund government. ..."_

Henry George on the direct effect of the LVT:

_"1. It [LVT] would dispense with a whole army of tax gatherers and other officials which present taxes require, and place in the treasury a much larger portion of what is taken from people, while by making government simpler and cheaper, it would tend to make it purer."_ - Henry George
_
"(d) The unjust distribution which is giving us the hundred-fold millionaire on the one side and the tramp and pauper on the other, generates thieves, gamblers, and social parasites of all kinds, and requires large expenditure of money and energy in watchmen, policemen, courts, prisons, and other means of defense and repression. It kindles a greed of gain and a worship of wealth, and produces a bitter struggle for existence which fosters drunkenness, increases insanity, and causes men whose energies ought to be devoted to honest production to spend their time and strength in cheating and grabbing from each other. Besides the moral loss, all this involves an enormous economic loss which the Single Tax would save._" - Henry George


And while we advocate the LVT we, at the same time, advocate the elimination of taxes on rightfully earned wealth, the end of imperialism, and protection of free speech. Just because I oppose the Drug War does that mean I support it until the LVT is in place? Of course not. But having the LVT would make ending the Drug War much easier.






> That's precisely how the income tax got it's nasty foot in the door. And like I said, it doesn't really matter if the land value appraisal is nuts on, because the government decides the MULTIPLIER. I don't care about anyone's best intentions, because I live in the real world. I know that with most property taxes, the taxing jurisdictions set their budgets FIRST - tax later accordingly (by adjusting valuations and mill rate multipliers) to meet that budget. The actual "valuation" is just to determine each taxpayers proportion. The amount actually levied (usually by the multiplier, not the valuation) is subject to annual revision.


In other words, lets forget about ANY attempts at tax reform for the government will always find a way to abuse it. Sure.





> Which it usually is. States and local governments are usually under no obligation to publish exemptions and favoritism, and most of the public doesn't think it doesn't affect them, or else isn't any of their business either way. Measure 2 proponents played hell trying to get information on exempted property under FOIA, and most taxing jurisdictions dicked them around, and were not forthcoming. The LOCATION AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND is practically impossible to avoid. That's not the same thing as the tax, as property taxes (which include LVT) are already avoided to the tune of billions.


There are several ways to ensure the LVT system is not taken advantage of. For example, there are software-assisted crosschecks. On top of that, Geoists want all assessments open to scrutiny. So if you question how much Wal-Mart next door is paying in the tax you can go to the local office and see how it was calculated.





> It was a perfect, because while governments do not generate physical land, they can effectively "hand it out" by simply declaring an area an "Enterprise Zone". That's just one way it can "generate land".


And no geoist advocates "handing it out".

----------


## redbluepill

> Income Tax was a temporary tax introduced by the British Tory government to fund the Napoleonic wars.  Prior, taxes came from land.  In 1692 Parliament introduced a national land tax. This tax was levied on rental values and applied both to rural and to urban land. No provision was made for re-assessing the 1692 valuations and consequently they remained in force well into the 18th century.
> 
> The Tory Party were the party of landowners. The saw the opportunity to push taxation from their lucrative acres to to working, productive people via income tax.  They had the thin edge of the wedge in and and rammed it in gently over 100 years to the point little taxation was coming from land.  As a result the richest people in the UK are landowners living on unearned income.  Clear theft.


^Truth

----------


## silverhandorder

Common property is an oxymoron.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Common property is an oxymoron.


 Truth.

----------


## redbluepill

> Common property is an oxymoron.


At least address the article directly.

_Common Property vs. Collective Property

A parallel confusion exists between common property and collective property, and the classical liberal concept of common property has been all but obliterated. An open park perhaps comes closest to the idea of common property, for anyone has an equal right of access to the park. However, restrictions on what one may do in a park, to the degree that they are arbitrary, render the park a collective property.

A government maintenance building, on the other hand, is truly a collective property. Nobody is granted a right to trespass except on government-sanctioned business. This is another distinction blurred by socialists, who refer to "common property," but who propose to put that property under the control of governments, collectives, and majorities.

Common Property and Common Law

Prior to the degeneration of common-law communities into feudalism, land other than royal estates (government property) was held, not collectively, but "in common." This meant that any person had a right to take up land and use it, and in so doing, hold it in his exclusive possession for as long as he continued using it. The limit to this right was that he could not hold land out of use, nor take up so much as to deprive others their own right to similarly take up land. "Lords" (literally "great people") were given responsibility to serve as land stewards, and to settle disputes over access to land. (The royal family name "Stuart" is an early spelling of "steward.")_
http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commonrights.html

----------


## Roy L

> Which kind of government is in power is irrelevant.


Which kind of tax is levied is certainly relevant.



> *rack·et*
> _noun_
> *1.* []
> *2.* A dishonest business or practice, especially one that obtains money through fraud or extortion.
> 
> Since taxation is extortion, collecting tax is a racket. Regardless of the brand of statism.


Nope.  Land value taxation is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction, not extortion.

The services and infrastructure that make land valuable are publicly provided.

It is therefore indisputably the private landowner who engages in a racket, obtaining money through extortion, as I already proved in post #6 in this thread.  The value of land is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to extort from society and not repay in taxes.  To claim that requiring the landowner to pay for what he is taking is "extortion" is nothing but a bald lie, and a stupid one.

Stop telling such stupid lies.

----------


## Roy L

> Truth.


Lie.

Common property is simply property held in common, like the village commons of ancient Celtic tradition, which every household in the village had a right to use part of.  See rbp's explanation for more details.

----------


## silverhandorder

> Which kind of tax is levied is certainly relevant.
> 
> Nope.  Land value taxation is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction, not extortion.
> 
> The services and infrastructure that make land valuable are publicly provided.
> 
> It is therefore indisputably the private landowner who engages in a racket, obtaining money through extortion, as I already proved in post #6 in this thread.  The value of land is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to extort from society and not repay in taxes.  To claim that requiring the landowner to pay for what he is taking is "extortion" is nothing but a bald lie, and a stupid one.
> 
> Stop telling such stupid lies.


So if I do not pay nothing happens? Also what happens if we abolish public funding for infrastructure.

----------


## Roy L

> OK, so all land, including privately owned land, is considered "commonwealth", which belongs to everyone (but only collectively).


Lie.  It belongs to no one, but everyone has equal rights to use it.  You just permanently refuse to know that fact.  You just won't permit that fact to enter your brain, no matter how clearly or how many times it is explained to you.



> Other scarce resources, like ore, fossil fuels, water, and even bandwidth in the electromagnetic spectrum, would also be considered common wealth, and part of the definition of "land" subject to a Land Value Tax.


And a severance tax if they are depletable.



> Under LVT, the state, or taxing jurisdiction, behaves as a for-profit, profit-maximizing land-owning corporation,


Wrong.  It is more like a non-profit charitable trust that spends all its revenue on mandated endeavors.  There is revenue, and spending, but no one pocketing any profits.



> which is in the business of renting out titles to parcels of land within its jurisdiction.


It administers them as a trustee would, in the interests of the trust beneficiaries (i.e., all resident citizens).



> Every individual citizen is considered an equal shareholder (of a single share which may not be bought or sold) of this incorporated entity.


No, individuals simply have equal human rights, which the trust is mandated to secure and reconcile.  They are not part-owners of a corporation, have no right to its revenue, profits or assets, etc.



> LVT rental fees (LVT levied) which are paid to the state are said


...by the honest and informed...



> to recapture "community created value", or economic land rents, which are collected by the state on behalf of the everyone -- collectively only -- in the community.


No, the rents are recovered on behalf of every INDIVIDUAL whose rights the landowners have abrogated.  It's no more "collective" than any trust.



> The Universal Individual Exemption (if actually provided for), would be considered a Community Shareholder Privilege - a mechanism for providing "just compensation" that is owed to each individual who has been deprived of their natural liberty rights to use land which they are excluded from using in common.  The Universal Individual Exemption acts as an LVT Credit, which each individual can apply toward any land, but which is sufficient in itself for "enough good land to live on".  Also, like any corporation, dividends might also be paid out directly to community shareholders from the land rent profits.


More or less.  Congratulations on not lying for a whole paragraph.



> Sounds like a Collectivist Land Rental Commune to me.


No, of course it doesn't, so you are lying again, as usual.  You just got through explaining how it is like a corporation, not a commune.  You are merely using the word, "commune" dishonestly, as a way to fabricate a spurious, false connotation that LVT resembles communism.  Most readers understand a "commune" to be a group of people who live together, hold land *and capital* in common ownership, and share *the fruits of their labor* in common, like the Israeli kibbutzim.  But as you are fully aware of the fact that LVT implies no such arrangement, you are just being dishonest again.  As usual.  



> A socialistic monopolistic racket.


You just got through saying it was like a corporation.  Are you saying that corporations are socialistic monopolistic rackets?  That will be news to Austrian School capitalists.

----------


## Roy L

> So if I do not pay nothing happens?


No, what will probably happen is that someone else will be willing to pay for the privilege of excluding others from the land, and you will then be among the others who are excluded, rather than the one doing the excluding.  You would be well advised to sell off any fixed improvements before that happens.



> Also what happens if we abolish public funding for infrastructure.


It will decay, land rents will decline, and the economy will stagnate and decline as private interests cannot invest efficient amounts in public goods.

----------


## Roy L

> What wealth does the community create besides infrastructure that can easily be done by individuals.


If infrastructure could easily be done by individuals, it would be.  It isn't.

A lot of the wealth that crystallizes as land value comes from services like police and fire protection, public education and health care, courts and security of contracts, supervision of corporate governance and the monetary system, maintenance of public trust and confidence, etc.  Think of it as social rather than physical infrastructure.

----------


## erowe1

> If X could easily be done by individuals, it would be.  It isn't.


X could be about anything nowadays.

If the government took over shopping malls, you'd use this argument to say that shopping malls wouldn't exist if the government didn't run them.

----------


## Roy L

> lol!  Of course it's extortion and theft.


Only when a private landowner does it, as proved in post #6.



> Who would pay if it weren't for the threat of force?


Who would pay the private landowner the exact same amount of money for the exact same *publicly provided* benefits??



> Speaking of being silly!


Yes.  Speaking of being silly.

----------


## silverhandorder

> No, what will probably happen is that someone else will be wiling to pay for the privilege of excluding others from the land, and you will then be among the others who are excluded, rather than the one doing the excluding.  You would be well advised to sell off any fixed improvements before that happens.
> 
> It will decay, land rents will decline, and the economy will stagnate and decline as private interests cannot invest efficient amounts in public goods.





> If infrastructure could easily be done by individuals, it would be.  It isn't.
> 
> A lot of the wealth that crystallizes as land value comes from services like police and fire protection, public education and health care, courts and security of contracts, supervision of corporate governance and the monetary system, maintenance of public trust and confidence, etc.  Think of it as social rather than physical infrastructure.


Aha I see so gang will control a territory, extract money from people for protection and if they do not pay they will just bring the ones that can. In other words what we have now with a different flavor.

I also find it cute that you think like a socialist as far as infrastructure goes. You also lied there, funny how you accuse everyone else of lying but do it your self so easily. Private individuals are not allowed to build a lot of infrastructure you boast only government can make.

In other words I am done here. I will only resume this conversation when you admit to being a statist. I may suggest for you to go to Obama forums, there are people more likely to agree with your WRONG and IMMORAL premises.

----------


## Roy L

> X could be about anything nowadays.


Nope.  Private individuals have NEVER been able to provide efficient investment in infrastructure because it has too much of the character of a public good.  The history of privately built roads and railroads is replete with examples: the builders go broke, while the landowners along the route get rich for doing nothing.



> If the government took over shopping malls, you'd use this argument to say that shopping malls wouldn't exist if the government didn't run them.


Garbage.  We don't have any government "taking over" infrastructure building in Somalia.  Yet how many roads are private individuals building there?  How many water or sewer systems?  How many ports, airports, or canals?  Where have private individuals EVER built significant infrastructure without government help?

----------


## yoshimaroka

> Which kind of tax is levied is certainly relevant.
> 
> Nope.  Land value taxation is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction, not extortion.


How can the definition of taxation be shifting?

If it's voluntary, it is not a tax.

----------


## Roy L

> Aha I see so gang will control a territory, extract money from people for protection and if they do not pay they will just bring the ones that can. In other words what we have now with a different flavor.


No, it will be entirely different, as the "gang" controlling the territory will be accountable to the people and constituted to secure and reconcile their equal individual human rights, and to spend the money in the public interest, not their own, rather than what we have now, which is just government doing the dirty work for private bandits out for their own profit.



> I also find it cute that you think like a socialist as far as infrastructure goes.


Lie.  I think like a realist and an economist, not like an economic ignoramus and buffoon.



> You also lied there,


Lie.



> funny how you accuse everyone else of lying but do it your self so easily.


Lie.



> Private individuals are not allowed to build a lot of infrastructure you boast only government can make.


Lie.



> In other words I am done here.


You've been done for a while.



> I will only resume this conversation when you admit to being a statist.


Define it and I might.



> I may suggest for you to go to Obama forums, there are people more likely to agree with your WRONG and IMMORAL premises.


I'm not the one whose false and evil beliefs inflict two Holocausts worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, starvation, suffering, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR, pumpkin.  You are.

----------


## Roy L

> How can the definition of taxation be shifting?


My guess: equivocation fallacies.



> If it's voluntary, it is not a tax.


Fine, don't call it a tax.  But Webster's New Universal Unabridged says a tax is, "a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities, services, etc."  Nothing about it being involuntary.  A baker also "demands" money in return for a loaf of bread.  That doesn't make the transaction involuntary.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Lie.
> 
> Common property is simply property held in common, like the village commons of ancient Celtic tradition, which every household in the village had a right to use part of.  See rbp's explanation for more details.


Nope.  With few exceptions, "common" property was owned by the soverign, who in turn _allowed_ common use of it.

----------


## Roy L

> Do readers realize the original post is arguing for the total socialization under govt. rule over every real assets on the planet?


False.



> Plus this article is written as a classic "either - or argument." There is only two choices so you must chose one.


Justice, injustice.  Choose one.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Only when a private landowner does it, as proved in post #6.


It was not proved in that post.  You make an arbitrary, incorrect assumption that State initiation of force is legitimate while private initiation is not.




> Who would pay the private landowner the exact same amount of money for the exact same *publicly provided* benefits??


Taxes (in particular, direct and unapportioned) don't serve public interest.  To claim otherwise is wishful thinking.

----------


## erowe1

> We don't have any government "taking over" infrastructure building in Somalia.  Yet how many roads are private individuals building there?  How many water or sewer systems?  How many ports, airports, or canals?


Don't forget to mention telephone lines.




> Where have private individuals EVER built significant infrastructure without government help?


Lots of times. Plenty has been written about lighthouses alone, and more has been said about other examples.

But let's say we conceded that point. Let's say we still needed the state to manage infrastructure. That makes up, what, 10% of what is presently subsumed under government authority? And let's throw out all the government infrastructure projects that are really just excuses for make-work jobs and political payoffs. And let's say we were still left with the need for a government that costs as much as 5% of what we have now.

After fully funding that infrastructure, are we really to believe that we would be better off giving more money to politicians to spend on their own politically motivated ventures, just because we have some religious dogma that we need to give the politicians as much as the full rental value of the land?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Justice, injustice.  Choose one.


lol!  My idea of justice includes opting out of an LVT regime.  Too bad you don't allow for it in your false paradigm.

----------


## Roy L

> Nope.  With few exceptions, "common" property was owned by the soverign, who in turn _allowed_ common use of it.


Nope.  You're objectively wrong.  That feudal arrangement dates from a later era, when European ideas about land tenure had been infected with the Roman legal contrivances of "_res nullius_" and private property in land.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Lies!  Filthy lies!

----------


## Roy L

> lol!  My idea of justice includes opting out of an LVT regime.  Too bad you don't allow for it in your false paradigm.


You're lying.  You can opt out of an LVT regime all you want: just use some land no one else wants to use (or use no more than the exempt amount of better land).

But as soon as more than one person wants to use the land, opting out simply is not an option.  It's logically impossible.  Someone's will is going to be enforced on someone else who can't "opt out."  You just want to be the one enforcing your will on others who can't opt out.

----------


## erowe1

> You're lying.  You can opt out of an LVT regime all you want: just use some land no one else wants to use.


How does using land no one else wants ensure that the regime won't want my money?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Having a government enforce restitution for theft is not a violation of free market principles.


And with that statement you bring everything full circle as you beg the fundamental question of ownership, with an _a prior_ presumption in favor of your "common wealth" view. That's your position, your normative (should/ought) as you argue from that premise.  And yet, far from being a settled question, it is the very matter which is ultimately in dispute. 

The question of ultimate ownership of land cannot be resolved without a charge of theft on someone's part, with the victorious side considering legislative action favorable to their position "protection from theft". 

Thus, it all centers around ultimate ownership rights, with a matter that can only be argued, fundamentally, on moral grounds from either side.  Landowners who believe in property rights in land would see the state as the thief. This charge would naturally be dismissed by geoists, as they see landowners as the original thieves of land which they see as ultimately common wealth. For them, state arrogation of ultimate ownership (i.e., the power and authority to capture land rents) is seen merely a rescission of an odious contract. In other words, the state, once employed by landowners to enforce their "theft privileges", is now merely putting and taking things back so that the "rightful owners(s)" may finally receive just compensation.  

Although Henry George and many LVT proponents will come right out and say that land and other scarce resources are "common wealth", or "belonging equally to all" or "collectively owned", many of the geoists I've encountered attempt to dodge the question of ownership, or obfuscate where the essence of ultimate ownership is concerned. They don't even want the question up for debate, so they frame their issues in a way that attempts to prevent anyone from even thinking in terms of ownership (property in land) in the first place.  So you'll hear things like, "Stop thinking in propertarian language!" (Roy), or "Land can't be owned (is un-ownable)", or "The state doesn't own the land, but is merely an "administrator" of a tax on land", etc., as opposed to Ecowarrier(sic)'s more forthright, "The state owns the land. Period.", as if having it painted clearly onto one of his wooden LVT baby blocks somehow settled it. 




> I'm sure you would not consider it a violation of the free market when a court demands a citizen pay stealing his neighbor's car or setting fire to his house.


Of course not, because in that case I'm assuming that it really IS the neighbor's car or house.  But even if that very question is begged and vocally raised in court, it can be resolved.  In the case of geoists and LVT, they want the question of state/common [ultimate] ownership of property in land to be merely PRESUMED, so that they can (as you just did) argue from that premise. 




> "...confusions between land and capital..."


...are unnecessary.  Separating land from capital is important to geoists for obvious reasons, because they don't want land to be treated as capital, which then begs the question of whether it can/ought/should be considered "property".  I don't have a problem with the separation and consider the distinction valid for other reasons, only one of which is that it brings the question of _land as property_ squarely to the forefront.  

Out of the three classically defined factors of production -- land, labor and capital -- geoists argue, for their own reasons, that only one of these should be subject to and targeted as the basis for a tax -- that basis being the changing values of the land, which they see as a manifestation of "community created" wealth which must be captured on behalf of the commons/state/people/community/_collective_. 




> "...and between state property and common property..."


Note that the author omits "private" altogether, as if the only question that needed to be settled was some philosophical confusion about "state" versus "common".  He attempts to frame this "confusion" as being between between socialists and so-called "royal libertarians".  However, the focus is on "state" versus "common" only, which is really about what the geoists believe distinguishes them from socialists! That distinction, between state property vs. common property, is wholly irrelevant to private landownership propertarians, because the net effect, as it affects _ultimate_ private landownership, is IDENTICAL either way!  

At least a tyrant is honest about it. "I'm the ruler and god of this $#@!ing land. It's my country, my rules, so pay up."




> Classical liberals did not simply prefer LVT to other forms of taxation, they believed it was perfectly compatible or even a requirement for a free market.


I don't give a $#@! what Albert Jay Nock or any of the classical liberals believed about any tax.  We have minds of our own, and a lot more hindsight than any of them did.  To me it's not a question of which tax is preferable to another, or more "compatible" with a free market, but only to whom it should apply (and to whom it must _never_ apply). 




> Obviously you aren't going to end zoning laws, income taxes, and cronyism with the State as it is right now. You need a path towards deconstructing the State. I have stated several times that I believe the LVT can play a major role in putting us on the road towards freedom.


Paul Krugman believes that more spending can solve every problem. LVT proponents want LVT added in, on the belief that with enough LVT in place, people will somehow see the wisdom of eliminating other taxes.  And yet history shows otherwise. Exactly the opposite, in fact, in every single case.  Objectively and indisputably, as Roy would say.  LVT becomes just another basis for a tax, and a minor one at that, often phased out entirely, as other taxes dominate.  And yet the majority of geoists STILL believe that this pattern would somehow play out differently _this time_ - if only it was "implemented correctly".  They are happy to point to a list of what they THINK are LVT success stories, but I have yet to hear whether these were examples of LVT that were "implemented correctly".  Because if they were, it's not a success story for LVT after all.   




> There are several ways to ensure the LVT system is not taken advantage of. For example, there are software-assisted crosschecks.


DISCOVERY is only a problem for an ILLEGALLY dodged tax.  No software assistance is even necessary for a tax dodge that is legally sanctioned -- even ENCOURAGED. 




> On top of that, Geoists want...


...in one hand.  I wonder what they could do in the other, and which would fill up quicker?




> And no geoist advocates "handing it out".


Oh? No, as in, not one? I guess you missed *THIS ONE*, among others, huh?




> With an effective LVT program in place, *existing tools such as enterprise zones, abatements, grants and loans (when available) can be employed strategically* to supplement an LVT program.


That's a geoist/LVT proponent who advocates "handing it out". Strategically.

----------


## redbluepill

> If it's voluntary, it is not a tax.


Bingo. It isn't really a tax.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by yoshimaroka
> 
> If it's voluntary, it is not a tax.
> 
> 
> Bingo. It isn't really a tax.


By that strange logic, neither is the income, sales or most other taxes. _They're all voluntary._

Want to pay less income tax? Easy! Just voluntarily refrain from income, and no tax will be due or owing! How about sales taxes? Simple! Anyone can LEGALLY avoid them! Just don't buy as much $#@!, and no sales tax will be due! Oh, still have to buy SOME things? You can still pay less. Just don't buy the expensive $#@!. You'll still have "enough good $#@! to live on", but you'll pay way less in sales taxes.  It's all voluntary. Nobody's forcing you to earn an income, buy $#@! from the store, or any other voluntary activity which serves as the basis for a tax.  Silly Billy.

Activities and ownership, including ownership of value increases, are only bases for various taxes. These activities or facts of ownership are the only voluntary parts -- not the taxes themselves, which are mandatory and compulsory.  LVT proponents try to make this fact seem otherwise with some not-so-clever circular presumptions and some verbal sleight of hand.  Their presumption is that landowners are merely voluntarily "shopping from the state land rental store" (with the state presumed to be the ultimate owner).  Thus, it makes perfect sense (to them) that you shouldn't take something [that the 'community' is presumed to own] if you don't want to pay [the state, and by extension, the community] for it. Perpetually.

It all boils down to the question of ultimate ownership. Whomever has the power and authority to capture economic rents - THAT'S YOUR ONLY REAL OWNER.

----------


## Travlyr

> Bingo. It isn't really a tax.


LVT is a *Tax* by definition. That Is What It Means! *LVT is an acronym for Land Value Tax*. Enough with the Bull$#@!, boys.

LVT advocates *completely discredit themselves* by claiming that Land Value Tax is NOT a Tax even though it is part of the definition while claiming that everyone but themselves are liars. Steven, Osan, and many others have clearly described why LVT fails for free people. *Go back through the thread and read, or re-read, what they have written.* They KNOW what they are talking about. 

LVT people are not the only ones who understand what is a LIE and what is a TAX. 

A TAX is a TAX and a LIE is a LIE. Nobody is lying Roy L. ... No Matter How Many Times You Make That False Claim.

And if you don't want to call it a tax then call it something like LVR. Land Value Rape by wise overlords. You LVT 'boys' are clinging to old ideas that are proven failures as evidenced by the failure of Mercantilism. 

Owning land is a good thing for individuals for growing food, harvesting water, along with other valuable natural resources, and living individual prosperous free lives in privacy through homeownership. LVT people do not like that and want to RAPE their their brothers & sisters of their natural wealth while claiming the high-road ... all the while $#@!ing them out of their natural rights. LVT are collectivists of the highest order while promoting themselves as free-market free-loving saints. LVT advocates are Wolfs wearing Sheep Wool. _"Caveat Emptor"_ .... this is the 21st Century.

----------


## Roy L

> How does using land no one else wants ensure that the regime won't want my money?


How does posting on forums ensure that the evil government won't kidnap your family and hold them for ransom?

Stupid.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by erowe1
> 
> How does using land no one else wants ensure that the regime won't want my money?
> 
> 
> How does posting on forums ensure that the evil government won't kidnap your family and hold them for ransom?
> 
> Stupid.


Well, it would have been stupid, if he had ever written anything that implied or suggested that posting on forums would ensure that the evil government wouldn't kidnap your family and hold them for ransom.  It's not stupid, however, because you DO imply that LVT is a panacea that will eliminate untold societal ills and evils, including millions of people starving to death and murdered each year (all for lack of a properly implemented LVT regime). 

Now that is stupid.

----------


## Roy L

> It was not proved in that post.


It certainly was, and you know it.



> You make an arbitrary, incorrect assumption that State initiation of force is legitimate while private initiation is not.


I have made no such assumption.  Whether initiation of force is legitimate is determined by its purpose and effect, not by who wields it.  Initiation of force to secure and reconcile the equal individual human rights of all is legitimate, while initiation of force to violate or remove those rights without just compensation is not.  It just happens that government's job is to secure and reconcile individual human rights, and private interests' job is not.  It just happens that there is no way to allocate exclusive land tenure but by initiation of force, and private interests are not competent to do that in a way that secures and reconciles the equal rights of all to use the land.  Government is.



> Taxes (in particular, direct and unapportioned) don't serve public interest.


That is absurd nonsense refuted by the known facts of economics and every historical example of societies without taxes.  Every single one.



> To claim otherwise is wishful thinking.


No, it is self-evidently and indisputably wishful thinking -- as well as stupid and dishonest -- to imagine that the public interest is better served in Somalia than Slovenia, better served in Cambodia than Canada, better served in Haiti than in Holland, better served in Bangladesh than in Britain, better served in India than in Italy.

----------


## Roy L

> Well, it would have been stupid, if he had ever written anything that implied or suggested that posting on forums would ensure that the evil government wouldn't kidnap your family and hold them for ransom.


It also would have been stupid if he had implied that an arbitrary assumption of irrationality, economic incompetence and bad faith on the part of a government wise, knowledgeable and just enough to implement LVT constitutes an argument against LVT.

Which he did.



> It's not stupid, however, because you DO imply that LVT is a panacea that will eliminate untold societal ills and evils, including millions of people starving to death and murdered each year (all for lack of a properly implemented LVT regime).


No, it's still stupid, because it's still an arbitrary assumption with no relation to anything I've said.



> Now that is stupid.


It is fact, and it is not affected by stupid and arbitrary assumptions of bad faith.

----------


## erowe1

> It certainly was,


Lie.




> and you know it.


False.




> I have made no such assumption.


Objectively wrong.  




> Whether initiation of force is legitimate is determined by its purpose and effect, not by who wields it.


You know that's a lie, so why do you keep saying it?




> That is absurd nonsense


No. That is.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> You know that's a lie, so why do you keep saying it?


To Roy, repeating a lie enough times makes it true.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It also would have been stupid if he had implied that an arbitrary assumption of irrationality, economic incompetence and bad faith on the part of a government wise, knowledgeable and just enough to implement LVT constitutes an argument against LVT.
> 
> Which he did.


Absolutely, objectively and indisputably incorrect. You know this. Of course you do.




> No, it's still stupid, because it's still an arbitrary assumption with no relation to anything I've said.


Incorrect, as already proved. 




> It is fact, and it is not affected by stupid and arbitrary assumptions of bad faith.


It is objectively wrong, and not fact, which means that you are lying, and when you are not busy lying you are refusing to know the truth. As they say in Japan, mirror time!

----------


## Roy L

> LVT is a *Tax* by definition. That Is What It Means! *LVT is an acronym for Land Value Tax*. Enough with the Bull$#@!, boys.


The bull$#!+ is from the anti-LVT side, which keeps lying that as LVT is a tax, it can't be voluntary.

You can't have it both ways, sorry.

Is LVT a tax because it is used as a source of public revenue?  Sure.  But unlike all our current taxes, it is voluntary.

It was Yoshimaroka, *on the anti-LVT side*, who said, "If it's voluntary, it's not a tax."

We say, "Fine, if you say voluntary payments are not taxes, then it's not a tax."

Then you start shrieking, "LVT liars!  They claim LVT isn't a tax when the T *stands* for TAX!!!1!1!!1!!!!"

Do you really not understand how grotesquely dishonest that is?



> LVT advocates *completely discredit themselves* by claiming that Land Value Tax is NOT a Tax even though it is part of the definition while claiming that everyone but themselves are liars.


It DOESN'T MATTER if you call it a tax because it is used to fund public expenditures, or call it not a tax because it is voluntary.  What you call it, which depends on how you define "tax," is completely irrelevant to what it IS: a VOLUNTARY payment that is USED TO FUND PUBLIC EXPENDITURES.

GET IT?????



> Steven, Osan, and many others have clearly described why LVT fails for free people.


They have done no such thing.  They have merely described how LVT is inconvenient for evil, greedy, lying parasites who intend to use the privilege of landowning to rob and enslave the honest and productive.



> *Go back through the thread and read, or re-read, what they have written.* They KNOW what they are talking about.


I have demolished their stupid, evil, dishonest filth.



> LVT people are not the only ones who understand what is a LIE and what is a TAX.


DEFINE "TAX" AND THAT WILL TELL YOU IF LVT IS A TAX OR NOT.

You just want to use an equivocation fallacy to claim that because LVT is used to fund public expenditures, it can't be voluntary.

But that is a logical fallacy.  And it is sickeningly irrational and dishonest.



> A TAX is a TAX and a LIE is a LIE.


Is a voluntary payment used to fund public expenditures a tax?

Try not to lie.



> Nobody is lying Roy L. ... No Matter How Many Times You Make That False Claim.


The anti-LVT side is definitely lying.  All apologists for landowner privilege lie.  That is a law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.



> And if you don't want to call it a tax then call it something like LVR. Land Value Rape by wise overlords.


Ah.  So you _DO_ understand the dishonesty of what you are try to pull off, as that suggestion demonstrates: you are trying to condemn LVT not on the basis of what it is, or what it does, but purely through an exercise in name calling.



> You LVT 'boys' are clinging to old ideas that are proven failures as evidenced by the failure of Mercantilism.


Garbage with no basis in fact, logic, economics, history, or anything we have written.  LVT has succeeded everywhere it has ever been tried.



> Owning land is a good thing for individuals for growing food, harvesting water, along with other valuable natural resources, and living individual prosperous free lives in privacy through homeownership.


More accurately, "*Owning land is a good thing for individuals who want to take the wealth others produce* by growing food, harvesting water, along with other valuable natural resources, and living productive but impoverished lives with privacy through homeownership."

Of course getting a welfare subsidy giveaway from government at the expense of others is a good thing -- for those who get it.  It's just not so good for those who have to pay for it.

It's great to ride up at your leisure on the escalator -- but not so great to be stuck on the treadmill that powers the escalator.

The fact that you always have to deny, lie about, and refuse to know is that RENTING land is ALSO a good thing for individuals for growing food, harvesting water, along with other valuable natural resources, and living individual prosperous free lives in privacy through homeownership, as proved by the people who do exactly that on rented land all over the world, from Hong Kong and Singapore to London, NYC, Monaco, Vancouver, etc.  OWNING land, by contrast, is best for those who do not want to do anything productive, but merely to take from those who do.



> LVT people do not like that and want to RAPE their their brothers & sisters of their natural wealth


No, that's just evil, dishonest filth.  "Their" natural wealth??  How did it get to be "their" natural wealth, other than by stealing it from everyone who would naturally be at liberty to use it?

Your claims are nothing but evil, dishonest filth.



> while claiming the high-road ... all the while $#@!ing them out of their natural rights.


More sickening, evil, dishonest filth.  It is exclusively the _landowner_ who forcibly bends others over and $#@!s them up the ass with a spiked club, eliminating their rights to liberty in order to rob, enslave, oppress and murder them just to satisfy his own unlimited greed for unearned wealth.



> LVT are collectivists of the highest order while promoting themselves as free-market free-loving saints.


LVT advocates are the wisest, most noble and virtuous heroes and champions of individual rights, liberty, justice, and truth the world has ever seen.  LVT opponents, by contrast, are the most greedy, dishonest, irrational fascist-cum-feudalist swine the world has ever seen, who spew nothing but grotesquely evil, stupid, foul, absurd, dishonest, irrational filth.

----------


## Roy L

> Lie.
> False.
> Objectively wrong.  
> You know that's a lie, so why do you keep saying it?
> No. That is.


Relentless lies and total absence of responsive content noted.

----------


## Roy L

> Absolutely, objectively and indisputably incorrect. You know this. Of course you do.


It is correct, and you and everyone else reading this knows it.



> Incorrect, as already proved.


Lie.  You know my statement was correct.



> It is objectively wrong, and not fact, which means that you are lying, and when you are not busy lying you are refusing to know the truth. As they say in Japan, mirror time!


My statement was objectively correct, and you know it and are simply lying.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> But unlike all our current taxes, it is voluntary.


If that is true then I can still purchase land and not have to pay the LVT unless I want to.  Otherwise, it is not voluntary.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The bull$#!+ is from the anti-LVT side, which keeps lying that as LVT is a tax, it can't be voluntary.


Your objectively flawed reasoning is that because the basis for the tax (title to good land) can be voluntarily abstained from (i.e., just don't get any good land), that somehow makes the tax itself voluntary.  But that would be true of all taxes. Abstain from income, no income tax, abstain from retail purchases, no sale tax. Abstain from ownership of any estate, no estate tax.  You can "voluntarily" own precious metals, but that doesn't mean the compulsory capital gains tax that comes later is somehow voluntary. 

You can't have it both ways, sorry.

LVT is not a tax because it is used as a source of public revenue. It is a tax because it is both imposed by the state as well as mandatory and compulsory, regardless whether the activity upon which it was based was voluntary.  Give your skull a shake. 




> It was Yoshimaroka, *on the anti-LVT side*, who said, "If it's voluntary, it's not a tax."


And that's true, which is why LVT is a tax - because it is both mandatory and compulsory, regardless of its basis.  You want "volunteering" to own land to be synonymous with volunteering to pay the attendant/required/compulsory LVT, the CONDITION upon which landownership would be based. Torture logic all you want, you can't have it both ways. 

Do you really not understand how grotesquely dishonest you are being, Roy?




> It DOESN'T MATTER if you call it a tax because it is used to fund public expenditures...


The REASON (stated or actual) for a tax is NOT why it's a tax. The state could give the revenue away or flush it down the toilet and it would still be a tax.  

GET IT?????




> DEFINE "TAX" AND THAT WILL TELL YOU IF LVT IS A TAX OR NOT.


A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the state on the basis of activity, ownership, or value increases, for which there are negative repercussions to the one levied for nonpayment.

You just want to claim that because you might happily "volunteer" LVT that it "*can*" be voluntary (on your part alone), or worse yet, the sickeningly dishonest rationale that because someone is "choosing" to own land, they are also "volunteering" for the tax (as if land and the requirement for a tax were synonymous).  That is sickeningly irrational and dishonest, as that same rationale can used to show that all taxes are "voluntary", and by that same dishonest reasoning.




> Is a voluntary payment used to fund public expenditures a tax?


No, a PAYMENT THAT IS NOT COMPULSORY -- not obtained under threat, duress or coercion (read=you don't stand to lose something) is not a tax, REGARDLESS to whom it goes, or what it is spent on.  

Try not to lie and say that LVT is not obtained under threat, duress or coercion -- that the one being levied does not stand to lose something if payment is not made.

The LVT side is definitely lying.  All apologists for LVT lie.  That is a law of the universe.  There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

You are trying to condemn the anti-LVT side not on the basis of what they are saying, or what they say it does or does not do, but purely through an exercise in name calling.

LVT has never succeeded anywhere that it has ever been tried. It always ends up just another tax, supported by other taxes. 

More accurately, you believe that "*LVT is a good thing for collectivists who want to take the wealth others produce and enslave everyone to a life of perpetual rent payments to a collective,* by pretending that there is such a thing as "community created wealth" that needs to be reclaimed.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> It is correct, and you and everyone else reading this knows it.


Now we know that you are lying, predictably, as evidenced by your single red bar. 




> Lie.  You know my statement was correct.


Absolute lie on your part. You absolutely know that your statement was incorrect, but you chose to lie anyway. 




> My statement was objectively correct, and you know it and are simply lying.


Lie, as proved. You only have to refuse to know that fact.

----------


## Roy L

> If that is true then I can still purchase land and not have to pay the LVT unless I want to.


No, because despite "purchasing" the land from the previous "owner," you still haven't paid the right party for it yet.  Whomever you purchased it from did not have the right to sell you an unencumbered title because he didn't have one.  He owed the community for what he took, and so do you.  The fact that he may have been getting away with not paying for it is irelevant to the fact that he owed it, and you do, too.

You can't buy a house with a lien on it and then tell the lien holder, "I already paid for the house, so the transaction with you is only voluntary if I don't have to pay you unless I want to."  Sorry, no.  The title was encumbered by the lien, just as land titles are encumbered by the holder's obligation to repay the community for what he takes.  You can't just take something from the community and then claim the obligation to repay it isn't voluntary on the grounds that you already paid a third party for the privilege of taking it.  The third party had no right to sell that privilege.  You might as well have paid some con man for the Brooklyn Bridge.  The fact that the community hasn't been requiring you to repay what you have been taking up to now doesn't mean it has no right ever to require payment.

Think of a baker who has been in the habit of giving away day-old baked goods to customers who buy more than $10 worth of fresh goods.  You have been a steady customer, getting some day-old goods for free, so you erroneously imagine you are entitled to them, just as you erroneously imagine you are entitled not to pay LVT.  One day, the baker says to himself, "Wait a minute, people should be paying me fair value for those day-old things," and starts charging people half price for them.  You go into the bakery, spend your $10 on fresh goods, and try to walk out with some day-old goods without paying for them, claiming that having to pay for them wouldn't be voluntary.

That is the "logic" you are using to claim LVT is not voluntary.



> Otherwise, it is not voluntary.


Wrong, as proved above.  You are just used to not paying for what you are taking, and consequently imagine that paying for it would not be voluntary.  But someone else _is_ willing to pay, just as some other customer is willing to pay half price for the day-old baked goods.  If you don't want to pay, fine.  It's voluntary.  But don't expect to walk out of the store with the goods.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> , just as you erroneously imagine you are entitled not to pay LVT


and yet, 



> If you don't want to pay, fine. It's voluntary.


and from the earier post:




> But unlike all our current taxes, it is voluntary.


Ok. So then if as you say, it was erroneous of me to imagine that I can avoid paying LVT if I want to, then LVT is not voluntary as you claimed earlier.  Which of your two statments was the correct one?  Voluntary tax or not voluntary? They cannot both be true.  It is a very simple question. If it is voluntary, I don't have to pay it unless I want to.  If I cannot avoid it when I buy property, then it is not a voluntary tax. 

(ignoring the irrelevant side track of claiming I had somehow not properly purchased the property).

It's voluntary.  Then it isn't.  Then it is again.

----------


## Len Larson

Can't we just put a stake in this tax vampire already?

----------


## redbluepill

> Although Henry George and many LVT proponents will come right out and say that land and other scarce resources are "common wealth", or "belonging equally to all" or "collectively owned",


Collective property does not equal common property. Another point of confusion for the anti-geoists.





> many of the geoists I've encountered attempt to dodge the question of ownership, or obfuscate where the essence of ultimate ownership is concerned. They don't even want the question up for debate, so they frame their issues in a way that attempts to prevent anyone from even thinking in terms of ownership (property in land) in the first place. So you'll hear things like, "Stop thinking in propertarian language!" (Roy), or "Land can't be owned (is un-ownable)", or "The state doesn't own the land, but is merely an "administrator" of a tax on land", etc., as opposed to Ecowarrier(sic)'s more forthright, "The state owns the land. Period.", as if having it painted clearly onto one of his wooden LVT baby blocks somehow settled it.


What we should be addressing is private property vs common property vs collective property. Geoists are clear on the difference between the three. Private property = The fruits of one's labor. Common property = That which is created by nature which we all have an equal right to. Collective property = That which the state claims.
Marxists and most Anti-Marxists are not so clear (article for that topic posted a couple times). Private property in capital is simple. You create it, its yours. When asking a typical royal libertarian on private property in land they simply say "Well its theirs because they bought it from the "original owner." How do we determine who is the owner of the land? Since it is not created we must make arbitrary requirements, like "if you homestead for an x number of years" or "if you have this title issued by x." Some royal libertarians will go so far as to say whoever steps on the land first has rightful ownership over everything to the horizon (and beyond). 






> Separating land from capital is important to geoists for obvious reasons, because they don't want land to be treated as capital,


And you can easily replace geoist with classical liberal in that sentence. Separating land from capital was not some radical idea started by George.




> which then begs the question of whether it can/ought/should be considered "property".


For the hundredth time: THE FRUITS OF LABOR






> Out of the three classically defined factors of production -- land, labor and capital -- geoists argue, for their own reasons, that only one of these should be subject to and targeted as the basis for a tax-- that basis being the changing values of the land, which they see as a manifestation of "community created" wealth which must be captured on behalf of the commons/state/people/community/collective.


Well that empty lot some landowner holds smack dab in the middle of the city isn't rising in value because of any productivity of his own.

And there is another basis: The fact that land (unlike labor and capital) cannot be traced back to an original creator.





> Note that the author omits "private" altogether, as if the only question that needed to be settled was some philosophical confusion about "state" versus "common". He attempts to frame this "confusion" as being between between socialists and so-called "royal libertarians". However, the focus is on "state" versus "common" only, which is really about what the geoists believe distinguishes them from socialists! That distinction, between state property vs. common property, is wholly irrelevant to private landownership propertarians, because the net effect, as it affects ultimate private landownership, is IDENTICAL either way!


Even the Austrian economists believe there is in fact common property and that it is distinguishable from private property or property of the government.

"Libertarian scholar Roderick Long of Auburn University has argued that public (as opposed
to government) property is entirely legitimate:
Consider a village near a lake. It is common for the villagers to walk down to the lake to go fishing. In the early days of the community it’s hard to get to the lake because of all the bushes and fallen branches in the way. But over time, the way is cleared and a path forms–not through any centrally coordinated effort, but simply as a result of all the individuals walking that way day after day.
The cleared path is the product of labor–not any individual’s labor, but all of them together. If one villager decided to take advantage of the now-created path by setting up a gate and charging tolls, he would be violating the collective property right that the villagers together have earned."
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/feat...ment-property/

Kevin Carson (Mutualist not an Austrian): "Ostrom’s contributions, and Stiglitz’s attempted summary of them, point to an unfortunate tendency among many libertarians: the tendency to conflate the individual-commons distinction with the private-State distinction, and to equate common property to State property."






> At least a landlord is honest about it. "I'm the ruler and god of this $#@!ing land. It's my land, my rules, so pay up."


Fixed that for you ;-)





> I don't give a $#@! what Albert Jay Nock or any of the classical liberals believed about any tax.


Why don't you just step up and say Nock was a socialist/statist (the very man who was a major influence on Rothbard). You've gone so far as to call the rest of us those very names.




> We have minds of our own, and a lot more hindsight than any of them did.


I take it you don't read very much then (at least anything older than a decade, they were all ignoramuses). 





> Oh? No, as in, not one? I guess you missed THIS ONE, among others, huh?
> 
> With an effective LVT program in place, existing tools such as enterprise zones, abatements, grants and loans (when available) can be employed strategically to supplement an LVT program.
> That's a geoist/LVT proponent who advocates "handing it out". Strategically.


All those tools already exist. The writer is saying if we have them they should supplement an LVT program. 





> Paul Krugman believes that more spending can solve every problem.


Krugman is a fool.




> LVT proponents want LVT added in, on the believe that with enough LVT in place, people will somehow see the wisdom of eliminating other taxes. And yet history shows otherwise. Exactly the opposite, in fact, in every single case.


No stateless civilization has ever existed. I guess its time for you to give up on that crusade.

There are smaller communities that have in fact fully shifted their taxation. Altoona, Pennsylvania did so just last year. It is difficult to change the system. You Paulites should be fully aware of that fact. But nearly everywhere the LVT has been adopted (perfectly or imperfectly), it came away with great results.

----------


## redbluepill

> LVT is a *Tax* by definition. That Is What It Means! *LVT is an acronym for Land Value Tax*. Enough with the Bull$#@!, boys.


If you actually read the threads you would have seen this has been addressed a dozen times. "Tax" is a misnomer like how a peanut isn't really a nut or a koala bear isn't really a bear. But we say LVT or Single Tax because that is what its called historically. I, like many geoists, prefer the term "ground rent" like what Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, the French Physiocrats and JS Mill called it. In reality you are renting what was originally common property for private use.

And on whether it is voluntary:

_Land value taxes need not even be strictly mandatory. If you as a landholder decline to return to our community the ground rent you appropriate from us, then we could simply disconnect you from our wires and pipes, and while youre in arrears we could publish your name, address, and photo as someone whose property and person are excluded from the protections of our LVT-financed police and courts._
http://blog.knowinghumans.net/2010/0...and-value.html

----------


## Roy L

> Ok. So then if as you say, it was erroneous of me to imagine that I can avoid paying LVT if I want to,


I didn't say that.  I said you can avoid paying LVT by not taking more than your share of the benefits government and the community provide (land value up to the UIE).  But if you want to take more than your share, then you have to pay for what you are taking, just as you have to pay for the baked goods you take from the bakery.

Are you not clear on the fact that although you have to pay the baker for what you take, the transaction is still voluntary?



> then LVT is not voluntary as you claimed earlier.


<sigh>  Is the transaction with the baker voluntary?  If you say it isn't, and consensual transactions in the market are not voluntary because you have to pay for what you take, then fine, LVT isn't voluntary either.



> Which of your two statments was the correct one?  Voluntary tax or not voluntary?


I never said it was not voluntary.  It is voluntary the same way paying the baker for the goods you take home is voluntary.



> They cannot both be true.  It is a very simple question. If it is voluntary, I don't have to pay it unless I want to.


Do you want to pay the baker for the goods you take home, or get them for free?  Is that transaction voluntary?  The fact that you have to pay for what you take, and can't just take it for free, does not make the payment involuntary.



> If I cannot avoid it when I buy property, then it is not a voluntary tax.


Yes, it is, just as paying for the baked goods you take is voluntary even though you can't avoid it when you leave the store with them.



> (ignoring the irrelevant side track of claiming I had somehow not properly purchased the property).


You "purchased" it from the wrong party, and thus have not discharged your obligations.  That is the crucial point.  The privilege you purchased included the obligation to pay LVT, just as purchasing a slave includes an obligation to pay him market wages for his labor.  The fact that you paid his previous owner for the privilege of compelling the slave's labor by force does not alter your obligation to pay the slave, too.  You paid the wrong party for the slave's labor, just as you paid the wrong party for the publicly created economic advantages of the land.



> It's voluntary.  Then it isn't.  Then it is again.


It is.  Do you understand that buying goods from the baker is voluntary, even though you have to pay if you leave the store with his product?  Do you understand that paying wages for labor is voluntary, even though you may think you have purchased a right to compel "your" slave's labor by force, and not pay him wages?

----------


## Roy L

> Now we know that you are lying, predictably, as evidenced by your single red bar.


The single red bar means I have identified others' lies as such, and they didn't like it.



> Absolute lie on your part. You absolutely know that your statement was incorrect, but you chose to lie anyway. 
> Lie, as proved. You only have to refuse to know that fact.


<yawn>

----------


## Roy L

> Can't we just put a stake in this tax vampire already?


It is the landowner who drains the lifeblood from the throats of the productive; and many of the victims are in turn themselves recruited as evil, predatory, parasitic vampires by buying land in order to avoid being victimized permanently.

What an amazingly accurate analogy.  Thank you.

----------


## Roy L

> Your objectively flawed reasoning is that because the basis for the tax (title to good land) can be voluntarily abstained from (i.e., just don't get any good land), that somehow makes the tax itself voluntary.


That is *not* my argument.  That is just another dishonest strawman fallacy from you.



> But that would be true of all taxes. Abstain from income, no income tax, abstain from retail purchases, no sale tax. Abstain from ownership of any estate, no estate tax.  You can "voluntarily" own precious metals, but that doesn't mean the compulsory capital gains tax that comes later is somehow voluntary.


Right.  Which, if you had been interested in honest discussion, would have been your clue that that was not my argument.



> LVT is not a tax because it is used as a source of public revenue. It is a tax because it is both imposed by the state as well as mandatory and compulsory, regardless whether the activity upon which it was based was voluntary.


Question begging fallacy.  If you define any "mandatory and compulsory" payment "imposed by the state" as taxation, then you have just dishonestly (surprise!) redefined many voluntary, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value payments such as tolls on public bridges and roads, passport application processing fees, etc. as taxes.  You have also dishonestly (and absurdly) redefined mandatory and compulsory payments to *third parties* imposed by the state, like alimony and auto insurance, as taxes.



> And that's true, which is why LVT is a tax - because it is both mandatory and compulsory, regardless of its basis.


Affirming the consequent fallacy.  If you claim a voluntary payment is not a tax, then LVT is not a tax.

If your definition of a tax is "mandatory and compulsory payments imposed by the state," then alimony is a tax, bridge tolls are a tax, public liability auto insurance is a tax, the application processing fees for passports, state college admissions, etc. are taxes, and on and on.  Is that really what you want to claim?  Because most people do not think those payments are taxes, and will consider you dishonest for claiming they are.



> You want "volunteering" to own land to be synonymous with volunteering to pay the attendant/required/compulsory LVT, the CONDITION upon which landownership would be based. Torture logic all you want, you can't have it both ways.


No, I am saying that LVT is voluntary because it is a payment *to* the provider of benefits *FOR* the benefits provided, just like any other voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction.



> Do you really not understand how grotesquely dishonest you are being, Roy?


You have never met anyone more honest than me.



> The REASON (stated or actual) for a tax is NOT why it's a tax. The state could give the revenue away or flush it down the toilet and it would still be a tax.


Then which of the payments mentioned above are taxes?

alimony?
bridge tolls?
public liability auto insurance?
application processing fees for passports, state college admissions, etc.?




> A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the state on the basis of activity, ownership, or value increases, for which there are negative repercussions to the one levied for nonpayment.


OK, so that lets out alimony and auto insurance, but you still claim bridge tolls and application processing fees are taxes.



> You just want to claim that because you might happily "volunteer" LVT that it "*can*" be voluntary (on your part alone), or worse yet, the sickeningly dishonest rationale that because someone is "choosing" to own land, they are also "volunteering" for the tax (as if land and the requirement for a tax were synonymous).


I have made neither of those arguments, and you know it.



> That is sickeningly irrational and dishonest, as that same rationale can used to show that all taxes are "voluntary", and by that same dishonest reasoning.


Which might have been your clue that I was not making those arguments, if you had been honest.



> No, a PAYMENT THAT IS NOT COMPULSORY -- not obtained under threat, duress or coercion (read=you don't stand to lose something) is not a tax, REGARDLESS to whom it goes, or what it is spent on.


Then LVT is not a tax.



> Try not to lie and say that LVT is not obtained under threat, duress or coercion -- that the one being levied does not stand to lose something if payment is not made.


By that fallacious and dishonest definition, bridge tolls and application processing fees are taxes, as not making the payment loses the benefit of access to the bridge, having the application processed, etc.

In fact, your definition is so fallacious and dishonest that if a state-owned bakery charged you the market price for bread, you would call that a tax rather than a voluntary payment for benefits received: you would lose the bread you were carrying out the door if you didn't pay for it first.



> You are trying to condemn the anti-LVT side not on the basis of what they are saying, or what they say it does or does not do, but purely through an exercise in name calling.


Lie.



> LVT has never succeeded anywhere that it has ever been tried.


Lie.



> It always ends up just another tax, supported by other taxes.


Lie.



> More accurately, you believe that "LVT is a good thing for collectivists who want to take the wealth others produce


Evil filth.  It is indisputably the *landowner* who takes the wealth others produce, and contributes nothing in return.  By contrast, government and the community are indisputably the ones that CREATE the economic advantage the land user enjoys, and he should rightly repay them for taking it from everyone else.



> and enslave everyone to a life of perpetual rent payments to a collective,


Outrageously, despicably dishonest and evil lie.  It is the *CURRENT* system of perpetually paying for government *TWICE* -- first the taxes to pay for services and infrastructure, and then rent payments to landowners for access to the services and infrastructure the taxes just paid for -- that enslaves people, consigning them to the treadmill that powers the landowners' escalator.

With LVT, by contrast, many people would pay no land rent *or* taxes, and people's *total* payments for land (including interest on the land portion of mortgage debt) and government services and infrastructure would be less than half what they are now, *LIBERATING* them from both perpetual rent payments *AND* perpetual *tax* payments.  Everyone but the top few percent of least productive and most privileged landowners would be *FREED* from most of the perpetual payments they have to make NOW to finance the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.

Your claim is the absolute opposite of the truth.



> by pretending that there is such a thing as "community created wealth" that needs to be reclaimed.


There is no need for any such pretense, you are just lying.  It is *indisputable* that land value measures the economic advantage created by the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides, combined with the physical qualities nature provides, at a given location.  Land value is therefore INDISPUTABLY community created wealth.  You just want to be privileged to steal it.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> It is the landowner who drains the lifeblood from the throats of the productive; and many of the victims are in turn themselves recruited as evil, predatory, parasitic vampires by buying land in order to avoid being victimized permanently.
> 
> What an amazingly accurate analogy.  Thank you.


I see. Owning land is evil. Should everybody have equal access to all land?  Should they be able to use that land for whatever they see fit?  Who should decide what is the best use for a particular piece of land? Should the locals all vote on it? Should the government dictate it?  Jack want to build a house.  Tom wants to farm.  Jim wants a stripmine. All would produce economic benefits. Can I prevent you from doing something on the land I own?  Wait- under LTV you can't own land. It belongs to "society". Landowners are apparently incapable of using land in benefical ways since they are "taking from society" by virtue of owning.  When you own something, you are more likely to take care of it and try to use it in a beneficial manner.  If nobody owns it, it tends to get abused and value decreased. 

Curious- does anybody in your family own property?  If they did, would you also consider them parasites?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Collective property does not equal common property. Another point of confusion for the anti-geoists.


Point of major, extreme _disagreement_, not confusion. If there is a point of confusion, it originates from the reality-obfuscating geoists who argue from their normatives as if they were making positive statements of fact.  The disagreement (certainly not confusion) comes from the fact that geoists see ALL LAND, even the *entire area and internal volume of the Earth*, as "common property".   That's not a point of distinction.  That's ENTRAINMENT.  Full encapsulation, as a decidedly collectivist imaginary problem is met with an equally collectivist proposed solution. 




> What we should be addressing is private property vs common property vs collective property.  Geoists are clear on the difference between the three.


Geoist are crystal "clear", but only on THEIR definitions, their philosophical differences with others, and how THEY see those three. You are trying to state these definitions as if they were positive statements of fact, when in fact they are NORMATIVES ONLY. Should. Ought.  

So let's start with what you say is the geoist definition for Private Property.




> Private property = The fruits of one's labor.


Bull$#@!. Substitute "includes" for the equal sign and you'll be closer to the truth.  Property and property rights are legal concepts under any political or economic regime, and ANYTHING can be made private property.  The geoist criterion for what _they feel ought to be_ legally/politically defined and recognized as private property is a NORMATIVE argument that I reject outright, just as I reject Marx' Labor Theory of Value.  

Private property should certainly *include* the fruits of one's labor as a subset, but it is not, nor should it ever be, limited thereto.  Private property is a matter of title and property rights of ownership only. As such it can be anything, and does NOT REQUIRE that it be "earned", or "the result of productivity", or "the fruits of anyone's labor", or even traceable thereto.  For more on that see the "The Rap Against Unearned Riches". 

For me, _exclusive use of land_, and the power to dispose of it freely, is the equal and unalienable _right_ of all individuals on Earth. But that so-called "equal right" *does not mean equal value*, because value is entirely subjective, and land is not fungible. Furthermore, that equal right to a claim to exclusive private ownership of land by individuals DOES NOT EXTEND TO OTHER PEOPLE'S exercise of those same rights. 




> Common property = That which is created by nature which we all have an equal right to.


Once again, geoists want that to include "_all land_" (among other scarce resources) - which means *the entire surface area of the Earth*, and literally everything below! For geoists, there isn't a square inch of the Earth that you can occupy where _everyone else_ cannot consider themselves as also having an equal right thereto.  BULL$#@!. You can toss that agrarian hunter-gatherer collectivist notion in the waste bin as well. _Not the definition of common property_ (legitimate uses of which would include public roads, public parks, public infrastructure, etc.,), but rather what geoists want included in that definition (namely the whole $#@!ing Earth!).  




> Collective property = That which the state claims.


That's where your semantics-dicing question begging comes into play. 

*If all land on Earth is considered common property, there is no land that can be anything else*. Not unless it is a SUBSET OF COMMON PROPERTY -- to which everyone supposedly has an equal right.  

And yet the moment someone erected a hut on what was previously common land, it ceased to be "common" (commonly used), and began to be exclusive to that hut owner.  And since everyone is presumed to dwell exclusively in a hut of their own, nobody can say that they are deprived, based on land that was privately appropriated and removed from the commons.  *There is no such thing as common property in these lands after they are settled on without the state claiming it as such* (on behalf of "the commons").  It is only AFTERWARD, after the state claims ALL LAND -- including every parcel of residential land with every little hut erected thereon, that it is placed under this Common Property umbrella. Only then are other distinctions made regarding allocation and usage -- by the state.

It used to be that "common land" was merely land that was equally accessible by the public, who used it in common. A road is a perfect example of common land, like common grazing pastures, public parks and such.  Geoists want that to encompass EVERYTHING where land is concerned, from which all other land becomes a subset.  Now we need other words for subsets of "common property" (in land), to distinguish between publicly accessible land, state-only land, privately used land, agricultural, and industrial land, and whatever other "usage". 

The fact that the state has the power and authority to say which parcels of common land (read=ALL land within its jurisdiction) are for private usage, government usage, public property for public access, etc., which means that common property is all essentially either a) _state property_ and/or b) "community owned" property, with the state acting as executor on behalf of some collective, nebulous corporeal abstraction called "community". 




> Marxists and most Anti-Marxists are not so clear (article for that topic posted a couple times).


You keep saying this as if it's a clarity issue, or a simple matter of misunderstanding or mis-usage of terms. It's not. It's all matters of fundamental disagreement regardless of the terms used.  A rose by any other name...  




> When asking a typical royal libertarian on private property in land they simply say "Well its theirs because they bought it from the "original owner." How do we determine who is the owner of the land? Since it is not created we must make arbitrary requirements, like "if you homestead for an x number of years" or "if you have this title issued by x." Some royal libertarians will go so far as to say whoever steps on the land first has rightful ownership over everything to the horizon (and beyond).


I am not a so-called (by geoists) "royal libertarian", because I am not arguing that labor mixed with land is what makes it property. That might be used as an argument to strengthen a claim, but I'm not arguing that such criteria are even required, any more than you make that same claim *on behalf of everyone*.  When you say that everyone has an equal right to what nature created, I agree, albeit with enormous differences.  One of those is differences is that those rights are not COLLECTIVIZED - but never realized as first principles.  Private property rights (not privileges) in land is all about private exclusivity, as rights that remain individualized AT ALL TIMES.  These rights do not extend to ALL LAND, regardless of proximity to the individual, so the only thing that needs to be reconciled is whether someone is being deprived of the opportunity to own land -- not whether the state is in charge of renting out collectivized "Common Rights" as conditional privileges to highest bidders, as if that reconciled any $#@!ing thing at all!  

To summarize, common property does not, should not, include the entire land area and internal volume of the Earth. Furthermore, I argue that land should be privately owned, as _private property_, as a matter of right (as opposed to privilege). Lastly, I argue that land, or anything other resource that actually is considered common property (roads, parks, infrastructure, etc.,) should _never_ be subject to profit or rent-seeking by anyone, _including the state, which should NEVER behave as a commercial enterprise_. 




> Well that empty lot some landowner holds smack dab in the middle of the city isn't rising in value because of any productivity of his own.


Likewise with the Microsoft stock I BOUGHT AND OWN.  Likewise with the GOLD AND SILVER I $#@!ING OWN. And the list goes on, ad nauseam.  Any increases in their value are not due to any productivity of my own, but that fact does not make ANYONE else entitled -- unless you really are a Marxist at heart, and believe in the labor theory of value.  Otherwise I OWN THOSE INCREASES IN VALUE of whatever it is I own, without regard to my lack of "productivity" influence on that increase.   




> And there is another basis: The fact that land (unlike labor and capital) cannot be traced back to an original creator.


A false basis, your criterion, based on your Theory of Labor and Capital, and all its normative underpinnings, which are meaningless to me. 




> Even the Austrian economists believe there is in fact common property and that it is distinguishable from private property or property of the government.


And so I.  ::: setting a match to your straw man in the shape of a red herring :::

Now ask for a show of hands of those same Austrians who believe that common property should be defined as ALL LAND, AREA AND UNIMPROVED VOLUME, of the Earth.  




> No stateless civilization has ever existed.


::: setting fire to another straw man :::

Who said anything about a stateless civilization.  I want a state, just for different reasons, serving very different purposes than your ideal, and decidedly collectivist vision.

----------


## Roy L

> I see. Owning land is evil.


Correct.  Landowning is, in fact, the greatest evil in the history of the world.



> Should everybody have equal access to all land?


No, but they do have a right to equal access to all land.  The problem LVT solves is to reconcile that right with the producer's right to own fixed improvements.  Landowning was a crude, quick and dirty solution to that problem, but we now know LVT is a far better solution.



> Should they be able to use that land for whatever they see fit?


Within the constraints set by the community to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all.



> Who should decide what is the best use for a particular piece of land?


The market.



> Should the locals all vote on it?


They can vote on what uses are consistent with how they want to use neighboring land, but voting can't determine the best use.



> Should the government dictate it?


Only when it is government that is going to use it, such as for a military base, public building, water supply system, etc.



> Jack want to build a house.  Tom wants to farm.  Jim wants a stripmine. All would produce economic benefits.


Who is willing to pay the most to exclude others from it?



> Can I prevent you from doing something on the land I own?


Sure.  Just compensate me justly for removing my liberty to do so.



> Wait- under LTV you can't own land.


You can own it in name and enjoy secure tenure.  You just can't remove others' rights to use it without making just compensation.



> It belongs to "society".


All have equal rights to use it, but it "belongs" to no one.



> Landowners are apparently incapable of using land in benefical ways since they are "taking from society" by virtue of owning.


The landowner qua landowner is a pure parasite and does not use the land or contribute to society in any way whatever.  The fact that someone who owns land is also doing other things -- he may be a dentist, he may lead a Boy Scout troop, etc. -- does not and cannot alter the purely parasitic character of his role as landowner.



> When you own something, you are more likely to take care of it and try to use it in a beneficial manner.


There are thousands of vacant lots in every major city in America that prove you wrong.



> If nobody owns it, it tends to get abused and value decreased.


True, but only if nobody is managing it, either.  Nobody owns the oceans or the atmosphere, so governments have stepped in to manage those common resources to secure the equal rights of all to use them, and ensure no one abuses them excessively.  An early decision by international treaty not to dump nuclear waste in the oceans, for example, has kept radioactive contamination out of seafood.  Likewise, the nuclear test ban treaty kept radioactive fallout out of the atmosphere.



> Curious- does anybody in your family own property?


Of course.  And I have been a landlord.  I don't own land now because I think it is still a bad time to own in my area, but I anticipate owning and probably being a landlord again sometime in the next few years.



> If they did, would you also consider them parasites?


In their capacity as landowners, they are pure parasites.  Of course, they also do other things that are not parasitic.  But those things are not part of being a landowner.

----------


## Roy L

> If there is a point of confusion, it originates from the reality-obfuscating geoists who argue from their normatives as if they were making positive statements of fact.


Lie.  We identify positive facts.  They are merely facts that you have to refuse to know, as you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.  So you call them "normative," which is actually just your way of saying, "objectively true and indisputable, but incompatible with landowner privilege."  



> The disagreement (certainly not confusion) comes from the fact that geoists see ALL LAND, even the *entire area and internal volume of the Earth*, as "common property".   That's not a point of distinction.  That's ENTRAINMENT.  Full encapsulation, as a decidedly collectivist imaginary problem is met with an equally collectivist proposed solution.


No.  The problem is neither "collectivist" (which, when you use the term, just means, "poopypants") nor imaginary, as proved by the effective enslavement of the landless in every country that has private landowning but not massive government intercession on behalf of the landless.



> Geoist are crystal "clear", but only on THEIR definitions, their philosophical differences with others, and how THEY see those three. You are trying to state these definitions as if they were positive statements of fact, when in fact they are NORMATIVES ONLY. Should. Ought.


See above re what you call, "normatives."



> Property and property rights are legal concepts under any political or economic regime, and ANYTHING can be made private property.


Legalistic fallacy.  Law is made to recognize property that would exist without law, not create it out of whole cloth.



> The geoist criterion for what _they feel ought to be_ legally/politically defined and recognized as private property is a NORMATIVE argument that I reject outright, just as I reject Marx' Labor Theory of Value.


You reject the concept of equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.  Correct.  You do not believe in any human rights to life or liberty, only in the landowner's "right" to enslave and murder others by appropriating as "private property" the natural resources they need to survive.



> Private property *should* certainly *include* the fruits of one's labor as a subset, but it is not, nor *should* it ever be, limited thereto.


How _normative_ of you.

In fact, private property WAS limited to the fruits of labor until greedy, evil parasites figured out that they could enslave the productive by claiming to own what nature provided for all.



> Private property is a matter of title and property rights of ownership only.


Legalistic fallacy.



> As such it can be anything, and does NOT REQUIRE that it be "earned", or "the result of productivity", or "the fruits of anyone's labor", or even traceable thereto.  For more on that see the "The Rap Against Unearned Riches".


Stupid, dishonest and evil rationalization of theft by the privileged.



> For me, _exclusive use of land_, and the power to dispose of it freely, is the equal and unalienable _right_ of all individuals on Earth.


Self-contradiction.  The right cannot be equal as the land is not equal.  And exclusive use + power of disposition will lead to all land on earth being owned by a subset of the earth's population, and the elimination of the alleged "inalienable" right to exclusive use for all the other people.



> But that so-called "equal right" *does not mean equal value*, because value is entirely subjective, and land is not fungible.


Absurdities intended to enable atrocities.



> Furthermore, that equal right to a claim to exclusive private ownership of land by individuals DOES NOT EXTEND TO OTHER PEOPLE'S exercise of those same rights.


Absurdity intended to enable atrocity.



> For geoists, there isn't a square inch of the Earth that you can occupy where _everyone else_ cannot consider themselves as also having an equal right thereto.


What gives you a right to it but not them?  I thought rights were equal.



> You can toss that agrarian hunter-gatherer


Bone-headed oxymoron.



> poopypants notion in the waste bin as well. _Not the definition of common property_ (legitimate uses of which would include public roads, public parks, public infrastructure, etc.,), but rather what geoists want included in that definition (namely the whole $#@!ing Earth!).


By what right do you remove anyone else's rights to use any part of the whole earth?



> That's where your semantics-dicing question begging comes into play.


You are the one begging the question.



> *If all land on Earth is considered common property, there is no land that can be anything else*. Not unless it is a SUBSET OF COMMON PROPERTY -- to which everyone supposedly has an equal right.  
> 
> And yet the moment someone erected a hut on what was previously common land, it ceased to be "common" (commonly used), and began to be exclusive to that hut owner.  And since everyone is presumed to dwell exclusively in a hut of their own, nobody can say that they are deprived, based on land that was privately appropriated and removed from the commons.  *There is no such thing as common property in these lands after they are settled on without the state claiming it as such* (on behalf of "the commons").


Wrong again.  It is still common property, just as the land I temporarily occupy with my body wherever I go is still common property.  We all just have equal rights to occupy space with our bodies, because we can't exist any other way.  Similarly, we all have rights to occupy land temporarily with our dwellings -- a right you would remove by making land into private property, but I would secure through the UIE.   



> It is only AFTERWARD, after the state claims ALL LAND -- including every parcel of residential land with every little hut erected thereon, that it is placed under this Common Property umbrella. Only then are other distinctions made regarding allocation and usage -- by the state.


Flat false.  I have corrected you on this before.  Just as occupation of space by one's body confers no permanent title to that space, neither does occupation of an area by one's dwelling.  One can use that area as long as one dwells there, but once you leave, it's not yours any more.  It's therefore still common property.



> It used to be that "common land" was merely land that was equally accessible by the public, who used it in common. A road is a perfect example of common land, like common grazing pastures, public parks and such.  Geoists want that to encompass EVERYTHING where land is concerned, from which all other land becomes a subset.


That is how land is, by its nature, and how it always was before greedy, evil parasites figured out a way to steal it with lawyers' help.



> You keep saying this as if it's a clarity issue, or a simple matter of misunderstanding or mis-usage of terms. It's not. It's all matters of fundamental disagreement regardless of the terms used.  A rose by any other name...


Right.  Socialists and capitalists are not just misusing terms but ERASING CONCEPTS so that they can't even be thought about.



> I am not a so-called (by geoists) "royal libertarian",


Right.  The more accurate term I prefer is "feudal libertarian," because the actual system you favor and advocate is feudalism: government by private landowner.



> When you say that everyone has an equal right to what nature created, I agree, albeit with enormous differences.


Differences like, for Steven, "equal rights to ownership of nature as property" meaning, "I have a right to own nature as my property, and you have an equal right to be owned as my property."



> One of those is differences is that those rights are not COLLECTIVIZED - but never realized as first principles.  Private property rights (not privileges) in land is all about private exclusivity, as rights that remain individualized AT ALL TIMES.  These rights do not extend to ALL LAND, regardless of proximity to the individual, so the only thing that needs to be reconciled is whether someone is being deprived of the opportunity to own land


Meaningless, self-contradictory gibberish.



> -- not whether the state is in charge of renting out collectivized "Common Rights" as conditional privileges to highest bidders, as if that reconciled any $#@!ing thing at all!


It clearly reconciles the liberty rights of land users with the property rights of land improvers.



> To summarize, common property does not, should not, include the entire land area and internal volume of the Earth.


'Cause you wants to own dat $#!+.



> Furthermore, I argue that land should be privately owned, as _private property_, as a matter of right (as opposed to privilege).


But that can't happen, because it is _inherently_ a matter of privilege.



> Lastly, I argue that land, or anything other resource that actually is considered common property (roads, parks, infrastructure, etc.,) should _never_ be subject to profit or rent-seeking by anyone, _including the state, which should NEVER behave as a commercial enterprise_.


No, you argue no such thing.  You merely _claim_ it, with no supporting facts, logic, evidence, or arguments of any kind.



> Likewise with the Microsoft stock I BOUGHT AND OWN.  Likewise with the GOLD AND SILVER I $#@!ING OWN.


Wrong.  Flat, outright wrong.

When you buy stock, or products of labor like gold and silver, you are _paying_ the creator of the value (or indirectly, paying someone who paid someone who paid the creator, etc. -- the indirectness of the payment doesn't matter) _for_ creating that value.  When you buy land, by contrast, the payment never goes back to the creator of the value.  It only goes to a previous thief who was privileged to TAKE the value WITHOUT paying its creators for it.



> And the list goes on, ad nauseam.  Any increases in their value are not due to any productivity of my own,


But it was your CONTRIBUTION to productivity -- your payment for it _to its creator_ -- that gave the value to the stock or gold or silver, but NOT to the LAND.



> but that fact does not make ANYONE else entitled -- unless you really are a Marxist at heart, and believe in the labor theory of value.  Otherwise I OWN THOSE INCREASES IN VALUE of whatever it is I own, without regard to my lack of "productivity" influence on that increase.


No.  There is a difference between paying a producer to produce and paying a parasite for his place on the host.



> A false basis, your criterion, based on your Theory of Labor and Capital, and all its normative underpinnings, which are meaningless to me.


We know facts and morality are meaningless to you.



> Who said anything about a stateless civilization.  I want a state, just for different reasons, serving very different purposes than your ideal, and decidedly collectivist vision.


Right.  You want a state that empowers you to rob, enslave and murder others for your own unearned profit.

----------


## luctor-et-emergo

Government shouldn't spend money.
Therefore government has no need to tax.
Therefore LVT is obsolete.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Law is made to recognize property that would exist without law, not create it out of whole cloth.


Cool. Like my strawbale hut and the land upon which it rests. All personal, private property.  Everyone else should be able to do likewise, and everyone else can $#@! off from everyone else.  No deprivation required. 




> You reject the concept of equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.


No, I reject your concept of equal human rights to other peoples' life, liberty and property in the fruits of their labor via the pernicious geoist doctrine that the entire earth is "Common Property".     




> You do not believe in any human rights to life or liberty, only in the landowner's "right" to enslave and murder others by appropriating as "private property" the natural resources they need to survive.


Nobody else needs the land under my hut to survive. So long as there is enough land available for their own hut, and their own land to build it on, they can all $#@! off. You especially. 




> How _normative_ of you.


Correct, and I am the ONLY one between us that recognizes and acknowledges that we're all making nothing but normative arguments about what we think "should/ought" to be.  You're the only one who fails to see it, but that's because you're Roy-centric (everything in your mind is objective -- to you), and you lack the common sense required for reason and logic to have any meaning. 




> In fact, private property WAS limited to the fruits of labor until greedy, evil parasites figured out that they could enslave the productive by claiming to own what nature provided for all.


Wrong.  Private property was _anything privately secured for exclusive possession and use_, and which excludes others from possession and/or use. That was not constrained or limited to the fruits of labor.  A caveman finds a small cave, big enough for a large family only - and everyone else can $#@! off.  It's his property now, and he owes nothing to others for it.  He didn't construct it, it did not come about as result of the fruits of his labor, and in fact his only labor might be just defending it from intruders.  It is a place that is provided by nature, where he can live, sleep, eat, and store the fruits of his labors. And you can $#@! off. Find your own cave. Build your own hut. Your survival need not depend on HIS cave. 

His cave, like my hut, and all the land upon which it rests, is property, not because of the labor or materials required to build it, but because of the human requirement for exclusive use of land upon which every human requires for life, and also the security on that land required to enable the pursuit of life, liberty and other property.  

When he leaves his cave to go hunt and gather, his mate and brothers and uncles and their mates are left behind to guard it.  That's the only "state" that exists. That family, or tribe. If they all left the cave, it would *revert to common property* -- not "_still be_" common property.  But only for a time, until someone else claimed it and defended it as their own. This means that "common property" only really meant, in that case, "available for exclusive use as private property". 

Comes now another family.  They come in peace, with lots of hides and other cool $#@! to trade with.  The leader says, "I'll give you all my hides, horses and lots of other cool $#@! if you'll stop defending your cave and leave, so that my family can occupy and defend this cave instead of you."  The leader of the cave tribe says, "I can use this cool $#@! as we find another place I know about north of here.  So an agreement is struck, and a land sale takes place.  Between *two states* -- TWO FAMILIES.  




> For me, exclusive use of land, and the power to dispose of it freely, is the equal and unalienable right of all individuals on Earth.
> 			
> 		
> 
> Self contradiction. The right cannot be equal as the land is not equal.


You're the only one who is self-contradicted.  Labor and capital are not equal either, and yet the right to acquire both exist.  Equally. Not to the right to the $#@!ing amount! Remove your idiotic, self-contradictory thought that THE ENTIRE EARTH is "common property", and you'll see that it applies equally to land, which is no more equal in parceled existence than capital and labor are. 




> And exclusive use + power of disposition will lead to all land on earth being owned by a subset of the earth's population, and the elimination of the alleged "inalienable" right to exclusive use for all the other people.


That would only be true if you made no distinction (and you don't --your fatal flaw), between privileged entities and/or privileged behavior (like that of a foreigners, corporations, and outright land speculators, foreign and domestic) and the actual rights of individual Citizens who are none of the foregoing.  Buying up 4,000 acres of land for a land development project is _privileged behavior_.  Buying a parcel of residential land upon which to live is not. Apply LVT (and anything else) exclusively to those privileged entities, and the rights of individuals to be secure in their ownership of land as a matter of right, and free of forced displacement, interference or foreign invasion, can be *fully reconciled*.  In that way, LVT can be a great tool for funding government and reconciling actual rights at the same time - if and when it is properly applied to the appropriate entities.  




> Absurdities intended to enable atrocities.


Your absurdities, like all leftist, collectivist, blanket absurdities, would enable unintended atrocities.




> For geoists, there isn't a square inch of the Earth that you can occupy where everyone else cannot consider themselves as also having an equal right thereto.
> 			
> 		
> 
>  What gives you a right to it but not them?  I thought rights were equal.


You're the only one trying to reconcile an artificial absurdity (the whole Earth = Common Property).

When you say "it" you mean any part of THE WHOLE EARTH that is held exclusively as private property.  I would not be so arrogant, so stupid, as to presume a right of access to the whole Earth, because I am wise enough to recognize, at the very least, that there are billions of people living here already, who have an unalienable right to be secure in their claim on at least enough land to live on.  There is at least SOME land on Earth which is NOT COMMON PROPERTY, for which I DO NOT, SHOULD NOT, HAVE AN EQUAL RIGHT. 




> By what right do you remove anyone else's rights to use any part of the whole earth?


First, by a full-on rejection of your absurd, bizarre premise that the whole of the Earth is common property, to which everyone has a perpetual ongoing equal liberty right of access -- even to land that is already exclusively in use and supporting life already.  That eliminates all need to reconcile your self-contradictory "right" that does not, and should not, exist in the first place. 




> It is still common property, just as the land I temporarily occupy with my body wherever I go is still common property.


That's your collectivist normative, based on a fatally flawed assumption.  When you're home sleeping, that's _not common property_. When you're on the road traveling from city to city, _that road is common property_.  




> We all just have equal rights to occupy space with our bodies, because we can't exist any other way.


Yes.  And not as nomads or vagabonds either.  You can actually build a hut, and exclude everyone therefrom, including the land upon which it rests, without depriving anyone of ANYTHING beyond what someone else already had a right to for their life, their existence.  Your neighbors can do likewise, without you suffering any deprivation, given that you don't need THEIR SPACE to live, and THEY DON'T REQUIRE YOURS.  Only their own. 




> Similarly, we all have rights to occupy land temporarily with our dwellings -- a right you would remove by making land into private property, but I would secure through the UIE.


Replace "temporarily" with "exclusively", given that is the actual requirement, as a matter of right regardless how temporarily or fleeting it may be, and regardless how small that area might be. That _exclusive occupancy of land space for living_ is a requirement for life, and therefore a matter of right, not privilege. 

You want the emphasis placed on "temporarily", not exclusively, because your "The Whole Earth Is Common Property" means that even a poor bastard taking up sleeping space, however small, is automatically depriving EVERYONE, in that moment, of their "equal right" to that very space.  That's not only false, it's $#@!ing insane. We're not hunter-gatherers, nomads and vagabonds.  When you occupy land for the purpose of simply sleeping and eating, you do so *exclusively*.  Everyone can $#@! off from your sleeping quarters, which you and your family occupy EXCLUSIVELY, as a matter of right, because no matter how temporary the need (read=every night of your life), EXCLUSIVITY is an absolute physical requirement. 

Private property in land (to those who actually have unalienable rights to exclusive occupancy, and therefore possession) ensures that we are not nomads and vagabonds, whose *right to exclusive occupancy of land*, however temporary, can be alienated and abrogated by others -- all because of superior payment to the state. Under equally and unconditionally applied LVT, not only can the right of exclusive occupancy FOR THAT SPACE be obtained by superior payment to the state, it can be obtained even by a foreigner, corporate, or other privileged entity, which has NO SUCH RIGHT.

So you're not reconciling unalienable rights at all. You're converting rights to privileges and renting them out to all paying entities, foreign and domestic, individual and collective, regardless of privileges or rights status under the law.  You don't give a $#@!, everyone is tossed into the mix as if they were all created equal. Whichever entity pays the state the most is entitled to all the best.  That's not just statism, that's fascism; whatever is best for the state (which you in turn think will do whatever is best for the people). 

Your UIE proposal is one of the few geoist acknowledgements that LVT, in and of itself, does not reconcile the problem of the landless, and their so-called equal liberty rights to access and use of any land on Earth. The only thing you secured was funding for the state, and a rule by which ANY PAYING ENTITY (including those acting as a matter of privilege only) can *legally displace the poor*.  Enter your UIE "exemption amount/credit" -- the reconciliation bone you want thrown out to everyone, as if that somehow "reconciled" everything.  

But that brings us full circle to the original problem. Party A enjoys exclusive access to a "SUPERIOR" parcel of land, which parcel you claim all other persons have an equal right of access.  You didn't secure OR reconcile their $#@!ing access to that parcel of land -- not through LVT, and not through the UIE.  They still don't have access to that land!  Which makes perfect sense, due to the absurdity of your original and self-contradictory claim of "equal right of access", because *everybody cannot physically access the same land at the same time*!  Therefore a MANY-TO-ONE "COMMON PROPERTY" CLAIM  cannot be considered a right, and cannot be reconciled as such. 




> Just as occupation of space by one's body confers no permanent title to that space, neither does occupation of an area by one's dwelling.  One can use that area as long as one dwells there, but once you leave, it's not yours any more.  It's therefore still common property.


Idiotic "All Earth Is Common Property" notion rejected, of course. But you go quite beyond that, because you don't even acknowledge that while they are there, their exclusive occupancy of THAT SPACE, regardless how temporary, is a matter of right, as it is a requirement of life itself.  For you ALL SPACE is "common property" AT ALL TIMES - even while they are there, even as they sleep, and long before they "leave".   

Thus, contrary to your bull$#@! assertion, which you do not believe, that *"we all have rights to occupy land temporarily with our dwellings"* (add "exclusively", because that's what it also requires, and which I agree is an actual right), in your mind they are not there as a matter of right EVEN WHILE THEY ARE TEMPORARILY THERE.  It's ALL privileged behavior in your mind - _for all land, at all times_. There are no rights to it, because even if you displace someone (like Granny) from her current living space, and she uses her UIE to obtain other land, she is STILL there, even on that other land _as a matter of privilege, and not right_, because it, too, is "common property", to which EVERYONE ELSE is said to have a right of access that needs to be reconciled.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Government shouldn't spend money.
> Therefore government has no need to tax.
> Therefore LVT is obsolete.


What part of La-La land do you live in?  The part with pink elephants bouncing down the street?

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I want a state, just for different reasons, serving very different purposes than your ideal, and decidedly collectivist vision.


The rambling thoughts of Mr Douglas's obsessed mind. *LVT does not advocate collective ownership land.  You have repeatedly been told this.*

----------


## luctor-et-emergo

> Whay part of La-La land do you live in?  The part with pink elephants bouncing down the street?


Please use real arguments instead of ad hominem crap.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The rambling thoughts of Mr Douglas's obsessed mind. *LVT does not advocate collective ownership land.  You have repeatedly been told this.*


Show me the entity to which land rents are permanently and perpetually due and owing, even if as a condition for its possession and usage, and I'll show you the permanent and perpetual landowner.  And it doesn't matter if this isn't stamped clearly onto any of your LVT baby blocks. Others get exactly what it all means, and can understand it clearly enough. 

LVT does not "advocate" anything, in and of itself (and if you meant "The LVT Movement" you should explicitly say so), because LVT is just a basis for a tax, separate from the wider agenda of those who advocate that it be implemented, and quite apart from your propaganda spinning that attempts to describe it as reclaiming "_community socially created wealth for social purposes from the title holder..._" That's only the rationale for LVT, as part of the broader agenda of its proponents who advocate the elimination of private property rights in land on the basis of the geoist "common property" doctrine. The classical definition of common property would include things like public parks, roads, common grazing pastures, etc., which are indeed collectively or commonly owned, with "undivided interest" by all. The geoists' _normative_ is that ALL LAND IN EXISTENCE should be considered "common property".  Otherwise, you lied when you showed us what was stamped onto one of your LVT baby blocks, when you wrote: 




> You only have land title. The state owns the land.


So either you are able to distinguish clearly between a title holder and an owner, or else you lied, and you're blowing smoke up everyone's ass by referring to title-holding "renters" as "owners". 

And if you lied, does that mean that *all the land of the Earth* is not "common property" (collectively owned, with each and every individual having an equal right of access and usage to all land based thereon) after all?  So you don't have an equal right of access to all land after all, regardless of any parcel's current usage or disposition, which needs to be reconciled? And does that also mean that you don't have a "common/community/collectivized" claim to land rents, via the state, on the basis of "common property" (collectivized) ownership? 

No, not even you see yourself as "advocating" collective ownership of land. That's because you PRESUME it, de facto, as if collective ownership (i.e., all land, without exception = common property) was already the moral rule of law, having nothing to do with the state or anyone else. That is despite the fact that such a law would not exist in the real world without state recognition, adoption and enforcement. 

Now bust out your blocks again, and show me how neatly they stacked, such that it all makes perfect, and simple, sense to you.

----------


## Roy L

> Cool. Like my strawbale hut and the land upon which it rests.


Nope.  You're lying.  The hut is a product of labor so owning it doesn't violate others' rights.  The land is *not* a product of labor, so owning it *DOES* violate others' rights.  It therefore can't rightly be owned.



> All personal, private property.


Nope.  The hut is personal and private property because you built it.  The land is not personal or private property because all you are doing is temporarily occupying it.



> Everyone else should be able to do likewise, and everyone else can $#@! off from everyone else.


Nope.  That's impossible.  Once you steal the land from everyone who would otherwise be at liberty to use it, you have removed part of their liberty rights.  Steal more land, and you remove more of their rights.  This is easily proved: you build a hut in one location and claim it gives you ownership of the land; then you build a hut elsewhere, claiming that land, too.  Others are doing the same.  Gradually all the land is taken as property.  Before long there is no place left for the younger generation to build a hut without paying rent to a greedy, evil, thieving, parasitic land thief.  They cannot "do likewise," and are therefore robbed of their rights to liberty, and are permanently enslaved.  To rob and enslave the honest and productive is the only possible motive for greedy, evil, thieving parasites to steal land.



> No deprivation required.


Nope.  You're just lying, and you know it.  When you use forcible, aggressive, coercive government officials to obtain the evil, force-based, government-issued and government-enforced privilege of private property in land, thereby removing others' rights to liberty, you deprive them of their liberty, their access to opportunity, their rights to life, and their property in the fruits of their own labor.  



> No, I reject your concept of equal human rights to other peoples' life, liberty and property


You are again just baldly lying about what I have plainly written.  It is private landowning that removes others' rights to life, liberty and property, as proved, repeat, PROVED by the condition of the landless in every country where land is privately owned but government does not intervene massively to rescue the landless from the inevitable economic effects of private landowning.



> in the fruits of their labor via the pernicious geoist doctrine that the entire earth is "Common Property".


The earth is common "property" only in the sense that all have equal rights to exist on it and use what nature provided to sustain themselves.   How are you claiming those rights were removed? 



> Nobody else needs the land under my hut to survive.


Which is why you have a right to use it -- but not to own it after you are done using it.



> So long as there is enough land available for their own hut, and their own land to build it on, they can all $#@! off. You especially.


I see.  So, everyone can $#@! off, especially me, until all the land is owned, and then they can pay you rent for access to space in which to exist, or die.

Evil filth.



> Correct, and I am the ONLY one between us that recognizes and acknowledges that we're all making nothing but normative arguments about what we think "should/ought" to be.


No.  We are identifying known facts of physical reality, history, and economics that support our position.  You are just chanting about your desire to rob, enslave and murder the honest and productive for your own unearned profit, and pretending your chant somehow gives you a right to do so.



> Private property was _anything privately secured for exclusive possession and use_, and which excludes others from possession and/or use. That was not constrained or limited to the fruits of labor.


Flat false.  The land under his hut, for example, was secured for his private possession and use, and that right was socially recognized.  But he had no property right in it, because until greedy, evil land thieves and their lawyers came along, no one even conceived the baldly evil notion that his TEMPORARY exclusive possession and use of it gave him a right to keep others off it once he had moved on.



> A caveman finds a small cave, big enough for a large family only - and everyone else can $#@! off.


BUT ONLY UNTIL HE MOVES ON.  His right of temporary exclusive occupancy of the cave did NOT confer a property right in the cave because it ceased when he ceased to occupy it, just as his right to occupy the physical space of his body ceased when he took a step and moved it to a different location.



> It's his property now, and he owes nothing to others for it.


Refuted above.  It's not his property, because he has no right to keep others off it once he is no longer occupying it.



> He didn't construct it,


So it's not his property.



> it did not come about as result of the fruits of his labor,


So it's not his property.



> and in fact his only labor might be just defending it from intruders.


Which he typically wouldn't have to do, as others would recognize it as his temporary exclusive possession, like the space his body occupies.



> It is a place that is provided by nature, where he can live, sleep, eat, and store the fruits of his labors.


Until he moves on.  Then it is up for grabs.  Proving, repeat, *PROVING* he never *owned* it.

*PROVING.*



> And you can $#@! off. Find your own cave. Build your own hut. Your survival need not depend on HIS cave.


Until all the caves are owned.  Then what?  Then the greedy, evil, parasitic cave thief -- call him, "Steven" -- starts charging others rent for "his" caves, of course.



> His cave, like my hut, and all the land upon which it rests, is property,


Already proved a stupid lie, above.  Stop telling such stupid lies, Steven.  Seriously.  It's time.



> not because of the labor or materials required to build it, but because of the human requirement for exclusive use of land upon which every human requires for life,


TEMPORARY exclusive use, like the occupation of the space his body takes up.



> and also the security on that land required to enable the pursuit of life, liberty and other property.


But NOT a privilege of keeping others off it (unless they pay you rent for it) once you are through using it.  That's a little detail you "forgot."



> When he leaves his cave to go hunt and gather, his mate and brothers and uncles and their mates are left behind to guard it.


Nope.  No one has to guard it, because his right of *temporary* exclusive possession and use is recognized, like his right to temporary exclusive occupation and use of the space his body passes through as he goes about his business.



> That's the only "state" that exists. That family, or tribe. If they all left the cave, it would *revert to common property* -- not "_still be_" common property.


Nope.  You're lying.  The fact that it would "revert" to common property *proves* it still is, and was never anything else but, common property.



> But only for a time, until someone else claimed it and defended it as their own. This means that "common property" only really meant, in that case, "available for exclusive use as private property".


Nope.  What it self-evidently and indisputably means is, "available for TEMPORARY exclusive use as COMMON property with NO option to appropriate as PRIVATE property."



> Comes now another family.  They come in peace, with lots of hides and other cool $#@! to trade with.


And safe in the knowledge that the cave's previous occupier is not a greedy, evil, parasitic land thief who will try to claim he owns the cave in order rob, enslave and murder them in a feeding frenzy of greed for unearned wealth.



> The leader says, "I'll give you all my hides, horses and lots of other cool $#@! if you'll stop defending your cave and leave, so that my family can occupy and defend this cave instead of you."


Nope.  He would never make such an offer, as he knows the terms of exclusive TEMPORARY occupancy and use do not permit treating caves as their occupants' private property.  That scenario simply NEVER HAPPENED in the millions of years people occupied caves.  Such a transaction has NEVER been recorded by anthropologists studying hunter-gatherer and nomadic-herding societies.  Not once.  And you know it.



> The leader of the cave tribe says, "I can use this cool $#@! as we find another place I know about north of here.  So an agreement is struck, and a land sale takes place.  Between *two states* -- TWO FAMILIES.


Nope.  Never happened, and never could have happened.  Only the emergence of greedy, evil, parasitic land thieves, their lawyers, and their government thugs could make such a scenario even conceivable.



> You're the only one who is self-contradicted.


Lie.



> Labor and capital are not equal either, and yet the right to acquire both exist.  Equally.


Because they are both produced by human effort, which earns ownership.  Land is not, so there is no way to earn ownership of it.



> Not to the right to the $#@!ing amount!


Because the amount owned is exactly the amount produced.  No land is produced, therefore none is owned.



> Remove your idiotic, self-contradictory thought that THE ENTIRE EARTH is "common property",


There's nothing self-contradictory about it, as proved by the fact that THE ENTIRE EARTH was indisputably common property for millions of years before greedy, evil, parasitic land thieves' lawyers got everyone else's rights removed.



> and you'll see that it applies equally to land, which is no more equal in parceled existence than capital and labor are.


Its existence isn't parceled, stop lying.



> That would only be true if you made no distinction (and you don't --your fatal flaw), between privileged entities and/or privileged behavior (like that of a foreigners, corporations, and outright land speculators, foreign and domestic) and the actual rights of individual Citizens who are none of the foregoing.


Stupid, meaningless, dishonest garbage.  Privileged entities like landowners engage in privileged behavior, like removing others' rights.  If you engage in privileged behavior, you're a privileged entity. Privileged entity, privileged behavior.  Privileged behavior, privileged entity.  Not rocket science.



> Buying up 4,000 acres of land for a land development project is _privileged behavior_.  Buying a parcel of residential land upon which to live is not.


Yes, it is, it's purely a question of scale, not of kind.



> Apply LVT (and anything else) exclusively to those privileged entities, and the rights of individuals to be secure in their ownership of land as a matter of right, and free of forced displacement, interference or foreign invasion, can be *fully reconciled*.


Not with rights to life and liberty, they can't, as already proved.



> Your absurdities, like all leftist, collectivist, blanket absurdities, would enable unintended atrocities.


Nope.  Never happened.  Never can.  You just lie that allowing the free market to signal people that they are using more good land than they can use productvely is an "atrocity."



> You're the only one trying to reconcile an artificial absurdity (the whole Earth = Common Property).


That can't be absurd, as it was indisputably the case for millions of years.



> When you say "it" you mean any part of THE WHOLE EARTH that is held exclusively as private property.  I would not be so arrogant, so stupid, as to presume a right of access to the whole Earth,


You mean you would not be so honest and intelligent.



> because I am wise enough to recognize, at the very least, that there are billions of people living here already, who have an unalienable right to be secure in their claim on at least enough land to live on.


But the landless don't?



> There is at least SOME land on Earth which is NOT COMMON PROPERTY, for which I DO NOT, SHOULD NOT, HAVE AN EQUAL RIGHT.


True.  You don't, for example, have an equal right to access and use World Heritage Sites that need protection from indiscriminate use.



> First, by a full-on rejection of your absurd, bizarre premise that the whole of the Earth is common property,


Stupid lie.  It is neither absurd nor bizarre, because common property is the default condition that held for millions of years.



> to which everyone has a perpetual ongoing equal liberty right of access -- even to land that is already exclusively in use and supporting life already.  That eliminates all need to reconcile your self-contradictory "right" that does not, and should not, exist in the first place.


It certainly exists, and should, and did for millions of years.  To remove it is the method of greedy, evil, thieving parasites.



> That's your collectivist normative, based on a fatally flawed assumption.  When you're home sleeping, that's _not common property_. When you're on the road traveling from city to city, _that road is common property_.


Nope.  Only the time scale of the temporary exclusive use is different.



> You can actually build a hut, and exclude everyone therefrom, including the land upon which it rests, without depriving anyone of ANYTHING beyond what someone else already had a right to for their life, their existence.  Your neighbors can do likewise, without you suffering any deprivation, given that you don't need THEIR SPACE to live, and THEY DON'T REQUIRE YOURS.  Only their own.


But they don't need to OWN it, as already proved, and owning it just means someone WILL be suffering a deprivation.



> Replace "temporarily" with "exclusively", given that is the actual requirement, as a matter of right regardless how temporarily or fleeting it may be, and regardless how small that area might be. That _exclusive occupancy of land space for living_ is a requirement for life, and therefore a matter of right, not privilege.


Correct.  As therefore implemented through the UIE.  What people don't and can't have as a matter of right is OWNERSHIP of land, as that removes others' rights to use it even when no one is using it.



> You want the emphasis placed on "temporarily", not exclusively, because your "The Whole Earth Is Common Property" means that even a poor bastard taking up sleeping space, however small, is automatically depriving EVERYONE, in that moment, of their "equal right" to that very space.  That's not only false, it's $#@!ing insane.


It is indisputably true as a matter of self-evident physical fact: he is there, so they can't be.



> We're not hunter-gatherers, nomads and vagabonds.


That is what we evolved to be, and is therefore the basis of our moral reasoning.



> When you occupy land for the purpose of simply sleeping and eating, you do so *exclusively*.  Everyone can $#@! off from your sleeping quarters, which you and your family occupy EXCLUSIVELY, as a matter of right, because no matter how temporary the need (read=every night of your life), EXCLUSIVITY is an absolute physical requirement.


But not ownership after you leave.  That's pure privilege.



> Private property in land (to those who actually have unalienable rights to exclusive occupancy, and therefore possession) ensures that we are not nomads and vagabonds, whose *right to exclusive occupancy of land*, however temporary, can be alienated and abrogated by others -- all because of superior payment to the state.


You're lying.  It is precisely private property in land that forcibly *removes* the individual right to occupy and use land even *non*-exclusively, even *temporarily*, unless one makes superior payment to a *private landowner*, and agrees to be "voluntarily" robbed and enslaved.

Stop telling such stupid lies.



> Under equally and unconditionally applied LVT, not only can the right of exclusive occupancy FOR THAT SPACE be obtained by superior payment to the state, it can be obtained even by a foreigner, corporate, or other privileged entity, which has NO SUCH RIGHT.


The privileged entity is the landowner.  It is that *privilege* that is obtained by payment to the public treasury, not a *right*.



> So you're not reconciling unalienable rights at all.


Of course I am, stop lying.



> You're converting rights to privileges and renting them out to all paying entities, foreign and domestic, individual and collective, regardless of privileges or rights status under the law.


It's true that the law is irrelevant, as it is merely an attempt to implement the sort of principles that are under discussion.  But there was never any right to exclude others from the land, so the privilege to do so is not a "converted right."  It's a privilege that arises to reconcile the right to property in fixed improvements with the right to liberty.



> You don't give a $#@!, everyone is tossed into the mix as if they were all created equal.


They are equal in their moral capacity (with few exceptions that are handled in other ways).



> Whichever entity pays the state the most is entitled to all the best.  That's not just statism, that's fascism;


LOL!  No, it's the *market* solution.  The character of fascism is quite the opposite: the privileged government and private elites get all the best WITHOUT paying for it.



> whatever is best for the state (which you in turn think will do whatever is best for the people).


I don't know what the state will do.  I do know that it needs to be held accountable by knowledgeable people capable of critical thinking, and that stupid, evil, lying, anti-LVT filth can never qualify.  I also know that without the state, we would end up like Somalia.



> Your UIE proposal is one of the few geoist acknowledgements that LVT, in and of itself, does not reconcile the problem of the landless, and their so-called equal liberty rights to access and use of any land on Earth. The only thing you secured was funding for the state, and a rule by which ANY PAYING ENTITY (including those acting as a matter of privilege only) can *legally displace the poor*.  Enter your UIE "exemption amount/credit" -- the reconciliation bone you want thrown out to everyone, as if that somehow "reconciled" everything.


It does.  It's the key element missing from earlier LVT proposals (though some had flawed versions of it).



> But that brings us full circle to the original problem. Party A enjoys exclusive access to a "SUPERIOR" parcel of land, which parcel you claim all other persons have an equal right of access.  You didn't secure OR reconcile their $#@!ing access to that parcel of land -- not through LVT, and not through the UIE.  They still don't have access to that land!


But they get *compensation*.  We know that people living together in society are not going to be able to have all their rights secured all the time.  That is the point of reconciling and compensating them when they are violated.



> Which makes perfect sense, due to the absurdity of your original and self-contradictory claim of "equal right of access", because *everybody cannot physically access the same land at the same time*!


Strawman fallacy.  That's not what the right of equal access means.



> Therefore a MANY-TO-ONE "COMMON PROPERTY" CLAIM  cannot be considered a right, and cannot be reconciled as such.


Refuted above.



> Idiotic "All Earth Is Common Property" notion rejected, of course.


You have to deny all facts, of course, but it is indisputable that the earth has been common property for millions of years.



> But you go quite beyond that, because you don't even acknowledge that while they are there, their exclusive occupancy of THAT SPACE, regardless how temporary, is a matter of right, as it is a requirement of life itself.  For you ALL SPACE is "common property" AT ALL TIMES - even while they are there, even as they sleep, and long before they "leave".


That is HOW they have a right to use and occupy it.  Because they are among the everyone who does.  Duh.



> Thus, contrary to your bull$#@! assertion, which you do not believe, that *"we all have rights to occupy land temporarily with our dwellings"* (add "exclusively", because that's what it also requires, and which I agree is an actual right), in your mind they are not there as a matter of right EVEN WHILE THEY ARE TEMPORARILY THERE.


They are there as a matter of right, but cannot exclude others as a matter of right.



> It's ALL privileged behavior in your mind - _for all land, at all times_. There are no rights to it, because even if you displace someone (like Granny) from her current living space, and she uses her UIE to obtain other land, she is STILL there, even on that other land _as a matter of privilege, and not right_, because it, too, is "common property", to which EVERYONE ELSE is said to have a right of access that needs to be reconciled.


And is, by LVT + UIE.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Once you steal the land from everyone who would otherwise be at liberty to use it you have removed part of their liberty rights...


Go beg that question somewhere else. Saying, "steal from everyone", our resident collectivist poopy-pants and his gang of would-be thieves, is where you're all $#@!ed up.  

< remainder of disjointed half-baked and repetitive LVT screed snipped >

----------


## Steven Douglas

*Scenario 1:*



> This is easily proved: you build a hut in one location and claim it gives you ownership of the land;


And it does give me ownership, as I exist, and have acted, as a matter of right.

*Scenario 2:*



> ...then you build a hut elsewhere, claiming that land, too.


Sure...as a matter of privilege, not right.  That *extra* land (surplus), *which I do not require for survival, as a matter of right*, could be taxable, based on privileged behavior. See how that works? If I sell my original hut first, however, along with the land upon which it rests, thus converting that wealth to a common medium of exchange, I become landless again.  When I transfer that wealth, including buying land in another area, all of that behavior occurs as a matter of right (liberty and property, including property in the new land I acquire), because those rights are inherent in me, NOT the land. So they transfer with me.  But I have no more RIGHT to a monopoly ownership claim on ALL land, and its rents, than does any geoist collective under a "common property" doctrine that extends throughout all time and space.

*Scenario 3:*

Toshiba buys land.  Toshiba is a corporation. There are NO rights involved. Its very existence, along with everything they do (as with any other corporation or collective) is a matter of privilege.  Thus, any land they buy is subject to tax, including a tax on any economic advantages, including those that arise from rent-seeking behavior as they compete alongside real people in the land market who have actual rights.  Their capacity to exist, let alone compete, let alone buy land, can literally be taxed away, and out of existence. Rent-seeking incentives gone, state funded, as more land freed from privileged behavior is made available to those with actual rights. Meanwhile, real individuals who already own land as a matter of right are protected and secure _in their individual land rights_ (the only land rights that actually exist to be reconciled in the first place), because they are neither privileged entities, nor are they behaving as a matter of privilege. 

*Scenario 4: * 

Kenyan multimillionaire Imbatu Gamutu purchases land on US soil and builds his hut on it. It's not even a mansion, and not on very much land at all - a tiny fraction of an acre. Nonetheless, he's a foreigner, not a US Citizen, and does not exist or behave on US soil except as a matter of licensed, therefore taxable, privilege. 

Not everyone exists or behaves as a matter of privilege, but those that do are subject to taxes. Not only LVT, but any tax the state sees fit to impose, for any amount and reason whatsoever.  Privileged entities are not even guests in someone else's house, because that would imply that their activity, their stay, is free. They must all pay to play, as the states sees fit, in contrast to real individuals who are free and natural Citizens (to the extent that they exist _and behave_ as a matter of right). 



So what was it you were saying again about all that land supposedly being bought up by land speculators, and how private ownership of residential land as a matter of right somehow steals from others, while locking out future generations from land ownership themselves?   How is that even possible, when _the vast majority of economic behavior with regard to land is taxable privileged behavior_, by privileged entities, most of which are fictitious persons, and not even real people.  

If land for real people with rights was getting scarce, and we needed to free up more for real people with rights, RAISE TAXES ON LAND. It won't adversely affect landowners with actual rights (other than falling land prices) because they are immune (to the extent that they are acting as a matter of right). _It could only adversely affect privileged entities and behavior._ The resulting fire sale on land would free up land, with lower land prices that would positively affect non-landowners who exist and are behaving as a matter of right, who could actually now have greater opportunity to claim their rights -- to land -- now that a free market became that much less distorted by privileged entities and behavior. 

_Taxes can be a tool that protects individual rights ONLY if they do not apply to individuals who actually have them._  The state can get as greedy as it wants with privileged, taxable entities; up to whatever the Taxable Privilege Market will bear.  The more the state taxes privileged entities, the more market opportunities and advantages are created that benefit real people with unalienable rights.  That's how Mom and Pop's General Corner Store is forever able to compete with Walmart.  That's your automatic market checks and balances, including checks and balances on the state, in a nutshell.  

If you want to free up capital, by all means, tax capital, or their gains.  Real individuals, who are ALWAYS IMMUNE, would be right there to take up all the slack, buying up all the surplus at huge discounts from those privileged entities wanting to avoid a tax.  Such a tax can only apply to entities that exist and/or behave as a matter of licensed privilege, not unalienable rights.  WINNERS: Real individuals with rights.  Always. 

Furthermore, the lowering of land values as a result of increased LVT levy need not result in decreased revenue from taxable privileged entities. Their mill rates can go up, regardless of valuations.  That's because we don't even need a reason to tax them. We can levy any amount for any reason whatsoever on privileged entities. And because they are not lumped in _collectively_ with real, free and natural human Citizens, those same Citizens cannot be used passively, as human shields, as they do all the fighting for privileged entities on the basis of "rights" that we are ALL presumed to have, as if we were ALL created equal. We are not.  Corporations, foreigners, collectives of all kinds are LEGALLY INFERIOR ENTITIES, with inferior legal status.  They are welcome only to the extent that they act for our common good, and to the extent that they do not interfere with INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.  *"WE THE PEOPLE REAL PERSONS"* ARE THE $#@!ING SPOTTED OWLS - the endangered species. 

The only entities with a viable claim on land rents (or any other types of economic rent) besides the state (which can tax privileged entities only) are the very individuals whose "land rights" you are PRETENDING to protect and secure.

LVT and other taxes are forms of economic Round-Up. You don't spray the whole $#@!ing garden with Round-Up. You use it on economic weeds only, which are easy enough to identify, especially those plants that are choking off life, space and nutrients of others.  You don't take the only plants that have an actual unalienable RIGHT to exist *and thrive anywhere* in the garden and label them, presumptively and presumptuously, as weeds.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I see. Owning land is evil.


No it is not evil.  It is appropriating into private hands the common wealth that land produces that is evil.  LVT is a mechanism that leaves land ownership alone but captures the common wealth in land and its resources for common purposes.

A libertarian society without adressing the land problem leads to a feudal state with landowners in control – as in the UK where 0.6% of the population own 70% of the land and omipresent in the second chamber the House of (land)Lords, ensuring laws favor themselves. A situation that eventually leads to its destruction.  Some Liberartians are often infatuated by the prospect of a stateless society in which the individual is King.

*The free market always fails because it is rigged*.  The left see problems in a free market blaming it for grinding poverty - but they fail to see it isn't free.  They then want the government to control the market because of the failures they rightly see.  A true free market does not fail.

A major problem is lack of competition. An operation cannot be assessed as operating properly except in a free market context.  In cases where the market isn't feasible as in building and running urban infrastructure, it is desirable that government is small enough for people to monitor closely and question what it is doing.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Please use real arguments instead of ad hominem crap.


The only way to confont ad hominem crap is by ad hominem crap

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Show me the entity to which land rents are permanently and perpetually due and owing,


What are you babbling about? What entity?  




> So either you are able to distinguish clearly between a title holder and an owner, or else you lied,


Again..You only have land title. The state owns the land.  That is the case right now.

All the land of the Earth is "common property".  Title means it keeps others off it while you productively use it.

You must stop babbling and at least try and think and UNDERSTAND.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Show me the entity to which land rents are permanently and perpetually due and owing,
> 			
> 		
> 
> What are you babbling about? What entity?


What entity, indeed. Good question. What is this "community" of which you babble on about - this "entity" you believe land rents should be permanently and perpetually due and owing? 




> Again..You only have land title. The state owns the land.  That is the case right now.


Yes, and that needs to change where individuals with inalienable rights are concerned. Speaking from my normative, of course, which is in vehement opposition to yours.   




> All the land of the Earth is "common property".


Well, unlike your statement that "The state owns the land", that's one you don't get as a gimme.  Sorry, Earth Communist, but I do not see *all the land of the Earth* as "common property", nor is that "the case right now". That's the paradigm YOU believe in; your pernicious, human-enslaving doctrine that you want established as a general principle and applied to the whole of the Earth. That's an idiotic, irreconcilable notion that I'd happily push over a cliff. 




> Title means it keeps others off it while you productively use it.


That's not a positive statement of fact either. That's you spouting off a personal opinion about what the word title means to you, as seen through your geoist lens. I don't particularly give a $#@! what the word title means to you, or how neatly it's stamped on any of your LVT baby blocks.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> What entity, indeed. Good question. What is this "community" of which you babble on about


This is a major source of your confusion which leads to your inane babble. You cannot recognize we have a community. Look around and you may notice one - unless you live in a caveman environment with no laws, where they kill each other on sight. There is such thing as a community. In your state of mind, this you will just have to accept. 

There is such thing as commonly created wealth.  In your state of mind, this you will just have to accept. 

LVT is tax shift and does not interfere with individual rights.  Some people think an individual right is to freeload.  This you clearly think.  LVT does stop a lot of that, so their "perceived" individual right is sharply negated. 
LVT does not interfere with individual rights.  In your state of mind, this you will just have to accept. 

All the land of the Earth is not regarded as "common property", and that is one of the biggest problems we have.  People can own land and not use it productively.  The Earth is common property.  In your state of mind, this you will just have to accept. 

LVT sets people free.  The state does not steal the fruits of their labors.  In your state of mind, this you will just have to accept.

----------


## Todd

> Land belongs to the state. They have sovereignty.


And I am outta here.   

Good f'in grief!

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Originally Posted by *EcoWarrier* 
> 
> Land belongs to the state. They have sovereignty.
> 
> 
> And I am outta here.   
> 
> Good f'in grief!


Facts confuse you.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> There is such thing as commonly created wealth.LVT is tax shift and does not interfere with individual rights.The Earth is common property.LVT sets people free.The state does not steal the fruits of their labors.


Very clearly stated.  Sounds simpleton enough. 

Someday, when they put your baby blocks away, and let you out of your common property sandbox, I hope you finally manage to get a life.

----------


## EcoWarrier

There is such thing as commonly created wealth.LVT is tax shift and does not interfere with individual rights.The Earth is common property.LVT sets people free.The state does not steal the fruits of their labors. 

Spot on. Highly factual. What don't you understand about it?  I might be able to help you along.  I can't help you with your life.

----------


## Roy L

> Go beg that question somewhere else. Saying, "steal from everyone", our resident collectivist poopy-pants and his gang of would-be thieves, is where you're all $#@!ed up.


Suppose someone invents a machine that compresses atmospheric air and stores it at extremely low cost.  He runs his machine until the earth's atmosphere becomes so thin that people have to pay him for air to breathe, or suffocate.  If he has not STOLEN THE AIR FROM EVERYONE, what exactly do you imagine he HAS done?  And given that he indisputably HAS stolen the air from everyone, how is his machine different, in principle, from the legal doctrine of private landowning that makes private property of what was previously available to all?



> < remainder of disjointed half-baked and repetitive LVT screed snipped >


You have been demolished, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.

----------


## Travlyr

> Suppose someone invents a machine that compresses atmospheric air and stores it at extremely low cost.  He runs his machine until the earth's atmosphere becomes so thin that people have to pay him for air to breathe, or suffocate.  If he has not STOLEN THE AIR FROM EVERYONE, what exactly do you imagine he HAS done?  And given that he indisputably HAS stolen the air from everyone, how is his machine different, in principle, from the legal doctrine of private landowning that makes private property of what was previously available to all?
> 
> You have been demolished, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.


There is plenty of land for everyone on Earth.

----------


## Roy L

> Someday, when they put your baby blocks away, and let you out of your common property sandbox, I hope you finally manage to get a life.


Someday, when you awaken to the true magnitude, depth and horror of the evil you seek to rationalize, defend and excuse, I hope that you don't, in justified self-loathing, commit suicide by an excessively quick and merciful method.

----------


## Roy L

> There is plenty of land for everyone on Earth.


Its price proves you wrong.

Duh.

There is also plenty of air for everyone on earth, and still would be even if we had to pay thieves for it: it would just not be accessible.  Likewise, there is plenty of land for everyone on earth even though we have to pay thieves for it because they have made it inaccessible.

----------


## Travlyr

> Its price proves you wrong.
> 
> Duh.
> 
> There is also plenty of air for everyone on earth, and still would be even if we had to pay thieves for it: it would just not be accessible.  Likewise, there is plenty of land for everyone on earth even though *we have to pay thieves for it because they have made it inaccessible*.


The price of land is totally distorted due to inflation. That is caused by central planners. Their job is to steal. They counterfeit money and hoard resources. For example, the federal government in the United States owns 650 million acres of land in the western states. 
http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/291...ands-in-the-us

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Its price proves you wrong.
> 
> Duh.
> *
> There is also plenty of air for everyone on earth, and still would be even if we had to pay thieves for it: it would just not be accessible.  Likewise, there is plenty of land for everyone on earth even though we have to pay thieves for it because they have made it inaccessible*.


Apples and oranges.  Air is super-abundant and land isn't.

----------


## Zippyjuan

And between the two resources, air or land, which is the most likely to be abused or even destroyed?  The Air- for the very reason that you cannot own it. If I own land, I am more likely to want to get value from it and to maintain that value. If it is free and freely accessable, then it is much more likely to be abused- such as pumping air pollution into it. There may be a cost if I damage or pollute yoru land- but it is much harder to punish me for polluting the air.  As pointed out a while back, the Tragedy of the Commons. If we take away ownership of land and replace it with rents (the LVT is really a rent- not a tax) then the land is less likely to be protected and cared for than if people are allowed to own it.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> And between the two resources, air or land, which is the most likely to be abused or even destroyed?  The Air- for the very reason that you cannot own it. If I own land, I am more likely to want to get value from it and to maintain that value. If it is free and freely accessable, then it is much more likely to be abused- such as pumping air pollution into it. There may be a cost if I damage or pollute yoru land- but it is much harder to punish me for polluting the air.  As pointed out a while back, the Tragedy of the Commons. If we take away ownership of land and replace it with rents (the LVT is really a rent- not a tax) then the land is less likely to be protected and cared for than if people are allowed to own it.


+a bunch.  IOU a +rep when I get some more.

----------


## DamianTV

> The price of land is totally distorted due to inflation. That is caused by central planners. Their job is to steal. They counterfeit money and hoard resources. For example, the federal government in the United States owns 650 million acres of land in the western states. 
> http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/291...ands-in-the-us


Winner!

If you allow Banks and Corporations the power to create and issue currency, they will buy the world.  Take what they have stolen away from them, but leave them the power to create and issue currency, with the flip of a pen and a bit of time, they will just buy it all back again.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Suppose someone invents a machine that compresses atmospheric air and stores it at extremely low cost.  He runs his machine until the earth's atmosphere becomes so thin that people have to pay him for air to breathe, or suffocate.  If he has not STOLEN THE AIR FROM EVERYONE, what exactly do you imagine he HAS done?  And given that he indisputably HAS stolen the air from everyone, how is his machine different, in principle, from the legal doctrine of private landowning that makes private property of what was previously available to all?
> 
> You have been demolished, you know it, and you have no answers.  Simple.


You just demolished yourself, by self-asphyxiation. 

There is only one person between us who believes even _the smallest area of Earth "owned" by anyone_ constitutes a theft _from everyone_. So by your logic, the inventor has STOLEN THE AIR FROM EVERYONE the moment he ran his air compressor and took in and stored the first few cc's of air without "just compensation to everyone" (via the state) -- not when he finally compressed so much air that literally nobody could breathe without paying rents. 

If I really was a super-powerful being who could pull off such a feat in the first place, that would make me the EMPEROR (aka the state).  And once I call myself "The State", I instantly have Roy L. on my side, a trusty minion who will act tireless as my loyal devotee and Air Value Tax emissary.  And he will go far, as he can even be one of my Army of Competent Air Appraisers.  And all because there is only one person between us who believes in monopolistic presumptive ownership of a vital resource by an entity, so long as that entity is the state, and so long as it presumes to simply administrate for a fee on behalf of everyone (to secure "air liberty rights" for everyone, doncha know).  

I can then claim that I am only siphoning air out of the atmosphere on everyone's behalf, to make sure that it doesn't get too polluted, or worse yet, "privately" owned by anyone else (because private ownership of air would be evil, natch). As the Air Emperor, and no longer a private entity, I can further claim that by paying me Air Rents (Air Value Tax, or AVT), at least I am the only entity that is in a position to actually take care of the air that I am returning to everyone (for a fee). 

Meanwhile, it is also possible (you would argue, given your logic and past arguments) that I could at least be a benevolent Air Emperor. And I will be! Because I will give every individual an Universal Air Exemption! (cue cheering throngs below)  Naturally, it won't be the same oxygen-enriched air that the *Really Productive Lungs* are getting (I deduce that they are more productive based on who pays me the most rents).  But the equal UAE will be for *Enough Good Air To Live On*, thus liberating everyone. Meanwhile, the very best, most oxygen-enriched air is reserved, and will only be released to the *Most Productive Entities*, based on their AVT payments to me. So let the bidding for the best air begin.

----------


## Roy L

> And it does give me ownership, as I exist, and have acted, as a matter of right.


False.  You have no right to remove others' rights to liberty.  How could you?



> Sure...as a matter of privilege, not right.


Thank you for agreeing that your claimed right to remove others' rights is not consistently defensible.



> That *extra* land (surplus), *which I do not require for survival, as a matter of right*, could be taxable, based on privileged behavior. See how that works?


Yes: I see you know full well that your claimed right to remove others' rights can't be consistently defended, so you have abandoned it, and substituted a pathetic attempt to pretend that something can be done once as a right, but magically becomes a privilege when done a second time.



> If I sell my original hut first, however, along with the land upon which it rests, thus converting that wealth to a common medium of exchange, I become landless again.


Interestingly enough, there were actually parasites who used that scam to amass unearned wealth by "homesteading" land in the American West over and over again: doing the bare minimum to register their claims, selling their "homesteads" to later arrivals for a fat profit as soon as they qualified for legal title, then moving on to the most promising vacant land to steal. 



> When I transfer that wealth, including buying land in another area, all of that behavior occurs as a matter of right (liberty and property, including property in the new land I acquire),


Blatant question begging fallacy.  You have offered no reason to imagine your claimed property right in land exists.



> because those rights are inherent in me, NOT the land.


Strawman fallacy.  No one has said the rights are in the land rather than individuals, so enough of the stupid and dishonest strawman crap.



> So they transfer with me.  But I have no more RIGHT to a monopoly ownership claim on ALL land, and its rents, than does any geoist collective under a "common property" doctrine that extends throughout all time and space.


Another strawman.  The obligation to pay rent to those whom you deprive of the land extends only to those whose rights the local government is securing, and to the land in its jurisdiction.



> Toshiba buys land.  Toshiba is a corporation. There are NO rights involved. Its very existence, along with everything they do (as with any other corporation or collective) is a matter of privilege.  Thus, any land they buy is subject to tax, including a tax on any economic advantages, including those that arise from rent-seeking behavior as they compete alongside real people in the land market who have actual rights.


Which cannot include a "right" to remove others' rights.



> Their capacity to exist, let alone compete, let alone buy land, can literally be taxed away, and out of existence. Rent-seeking incentives gone, state funded, as more land freed from privileged behavior is made available to those with actual rights.


Nope.  Flat wrong.  You have merely transferred the rent seeking privileges from corporations to individuals, and called them "rights."



> Meanwhile, real individuals who already own land as a matter of right are protected and secure _in their individual land rights_ (the only land rights that actually exist to be reconciled in the first place), because they are neither privileged entities, nor are they behaving as a matter of privilege.


LOL!  When Crusoe waves his musket in Friday's face and tells him to either get to work or get back in the water, that's not behaving as a matter of privilege?  He has a _"right"_ to do that?

Despicable, evil filth.



> Kenyan multimillionaire Imbatu Gamutu purchases land on US soil and builds his hut on it. It's not even a mansion, and not on very much land at all - a tiny fraction of an acre. Nonetheless, he's a foreigner, not a US Citizen, and does not exist or behave on US soil except as a matter of licensed, therefore taxable, privilege.


That is just legalistic nonsense.  What makes him "not a US Citizen"?  You aren't even _trying_ to talk about human rights any more.



> Not everyone exists or behaves as a matter of privilege, but those that do are subject to taxes.


Like those who deprive others of their liberty by dint of privilege: landowners.



> Not only LVT, but any tax the state sees fit to impose, for any amount and reason whatsoever.


IOW, you have no interest in whether any given tax is just or efficient.  But then, we already knew that from your opposition to LVT, didn't we?



> Privileged entities are not even guests in someone else's house, because that would imply that their activity, their stay, is free. They must all pay to play, as the states sees fit, in contrast to real individuals who are free and natural Citizens (to the extent that they exist _and behave_ as a matter of right).


Please explain how Crusoe is behaving "as a matter of right" when he waves his musket in Friday's face and tells him to either get to work or get back in the water.

Thought not.

Despicable, evil filth.



> So what was it you were saying again about all that land supposedly being bought up by land speculators,


There is nothing "supposed" about it, as you know very well.



> and how private ownership of residential land as a matter of right somehow steals from others, while locking out future generations from land ownership themselves?


It is the inevitable result of appropriating land as private property without making just compensation to those whose rights are thereby removed.



> How is that even possible, when _the vast majority of economic behavior with regard to land is taxable privileged behavior_, by privileged entities, most of which are fictitious persons, and not even real people.


Look what happened everywhere land was made into private property even in the absence of corporate and foreign ("privileged") ownership -- like every feudal society.



> If land for real people with rights was getting scarce, and we needed to free up more for real people with rights, RAISE TAXES ON LAND. It won't adversely affect landowners with actual rights (other than falling land prices) because they are immune (to the extent that they are acting as a matter of right).


Your stupid, evil idea has already been tried, lotsa times.  Making some landowners taxable and others not just drives all the good land into the hands of the untaxed, making them immensely wealthy through theft of publicly created value, and impoverishing everyone else.  In ancient Egypt, it was the priests.  In Rome, it was the noble senatorial families.  In Mughal India, it was the Muslims.  Raising the tax on land just accelerates the process of pushing land into untaxed hands, which invariably destroys the society that tries it.

That is always the result when public policy is based on a relentless spew of vicious, evil, despicable filth.



> _It could only adversely affect privileged entities and behavior._


All landowning is inherently and by definition privileged behavior by privileged entities.



> The resulting fire sale on land would free up land, with lower land prices that would positively affect non-landowners who exist and are behaving as a matter of right, who could actually now have greater opportunity to claim their rights -- to land -- now that a free market became that much less distorted by privileged entities and behavior.


Stupid garbage, as proved above.  There would be no "fire sale" on land, because the wealthy, privileged, greedy, UNTAXED landowning elite would snap it up.  Why not?  It's guaranteed to shovel money into their pockets in return for nothing, forever.



> _Taxes can be a tool that protects individual rights ONLY if they do not apply to individuals who actually have them._


As the UIE for resident citizens proves.  Right.  You have a right to deprive others of enough good land for a person to live on.  Deprive them of any more, and you'll need to make just compensation: LVT.



> The state can get as greedy as it wants with privileged, taxable entities; up to whatever the Taxable Privilege Market will bear.


I.e., the full rent, which LVT can recover.



> The more the state taxes privileged entities, the more market opportunities and advantages are created that benefit real people with unalienable rights.


Through the access to opportunity the UIE guarantees.



> That's how Mom and Pop's General Corner Store is forever able to compete with Walmart.


You have no idea what you are talking about.  WalMart has become rich by owning land, but it doesn't have to own land to out-compete Mom and Pop.



> That's your automatic market checks and balances, including checks and balances on the state, in a nutshell.


Where's the check on landowners?  



> If you want to free up capital, by all means, tax capital, or their gains.


Taxing capital reduces the supply of capital, and taxing capital gains makes capital less free.  You clearly know nothing whatever of taxation economics.  Nothing.



> Real individuals, who are ALWAYS IMMUNE,


Like the Roman nobles...



> would be right there to take up all the slack, buying up all the surplus at huge discounts from those privileged entities wanting to avoid a tax.


I.e., something for nothing, for you.  Sorry, but there won't be any "huge discounts" on capital for you to take advantage of your privileged tax-free status.  Taxing capital removes it from the economy.



> Such a tax can only apply to entities that exist and/or behave as a matter of licensed privilege, not unalienable rights.  WINNERS: Real individuals with rights.  Always.


Stupid garbage with no basis in fact, logic, or economics.  Always.



> Furthermore, the lowering of land values as a result of increased LVT levy need not result in decreased revenue from taxable privileged entities.


Wrong, as proved above.  The land will just flow into untaxed hands.



> Their mill rates can go up, regardless of valuations.  That's because we don't even need a reason to tax them. We can levy any amount for any reason whatsoever on privileged entities. And because they are not lumped in _collectively_ with real, free and natural human Citizens, those same Citizens cannot be used passively, as human shields, as they do all the fighting for privileged entities on the basis of "rights" that we are ALL presumed to have, as if we were ALL created equal. We are not.  Corporations, foreigners, collectives of all kinds are LEGALLY INFERIOR ENTITIES, with inferior legal status.  They are welcome only to the extent that they act for our common good, and to the extent that they do not interfere with INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.  *"WE THE PEOPLE REAL PERSONS"* ARE THE $#@!ING SPOTTED OWLS - the endangered species.


Incoherent gibberish.



> The only entities with a viable claim on land rents (or any other types of economic rent) besides the state (which can tax privileged entities only) are the very individuals whose "land rights" you are PRETENDING to protect and secure.


How would they ever have a just claim on land rents the community creates?



> LVT and other taxes are forms of economic Round-Up. You don't spray the whole $#@!ing garden with Round-Up.


I have explained repeatedly why LVT is not like other taxes.  It does not stifle the economy, it invigorates it.



> You use it on economic weeds only, which are easy enough to identify, especially those plants that are choking off life, space and nutrients of others.


I.e., landowners.



> You don't take the only plants that have an actual unalienable RIGHT to exist *and thrive anywhere* in the garden and label them, presumptively and presumptuously, as weeds.


The landowner qua landowner is in fact ALWAYS a weed, a parasite, and contributes nothing to society but his demands that the productive fill his greedy pockets in return for nothing.

----------


## Roy L

> The price of land is totally distorted due to inflation.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  Land value skyrocketed in the decade before the crash, even as inflation continued in low single digits.  Certainly land is a good inflation hedge, but that's only because its consistently rising rental value is automatically indexed to inflation.  It is immensely valuable even if inflation is zero or negative, as Japan has been proving for 20 years.

But thanks for sharing your total -- and permanently incurable -- ignorance of the subject.



> That is caused by central planners.


It is caused by those who issue money.  Under our current debt money system, that is private banksters, not "central planners."  Your economic ignorance is comprehensive.



> Their job is to steal.


It is the landowner whose "job" is to steal, as I have proved to you many times.  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, and he can even pretend that his profits come from his "property rights," not just a special government-issued license. But in fact, 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 his "business" any different now that he is a landowner?

And for that matter, how 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? Does their "free choice" to use the pass make it a consensual transaction?

If there were two, or three, or 300, or 3 million passes, each with its own resident bandit, would the merchants' being at "liberty" to choose which bandit robs them somehow make the bandits' enterprises a competitive industry in a free market?*



> They counterfeit money and hoard resources. For example, the federal government in the United States owns 650 million acres of land in the western states. 
> http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/291...ands-in-the-us


How do you imagine that could be relevant?  Land out in the middle of the desert, or on a mountainside, or the tundra of Alaska, doesn't relieve the shortage of good land that confers access to economic opportunity.

----------


## Roy L

> Apples and oranges.  Air is super-abundant and land isn't.


So you agree Travlyr's claim was just stupid, dishonest garbage.  Good.

----------


## Roy L

> And between the two resources, air or land, which is the most likely to be abused or even destroyed?


History says: the land.



> The Air- for the very reason that you cannot own it.


Objectively wrong.



> If I own land, I am more likely to want to get value from it and to maintain that value.


Land needs no maintenance, and history shows that people will not hesitate to get value from land they own in ways that reduces its value: not only mining, forestry, and other resource extraction industries, but agriculture that exhausts the soil, over-irrigation that leads to salt build-up, etc.



> If it is free and freely accessable, then it is much more likely to be abused- such as pumping air pollution into it. There may be a cost if I damage or pollute yoru land- but it is much harder to punish me for polluting the air.  As pointed out a while back, the Tragedy of the Commons.


Which, as pointed out a while back, lying fools continue to misrepresent.  Garrett Hardin, the AUTHOR of "The Tragedy of the Commons" AND AN ADVOCATE OF LVT, said later that he should have called it, "The Tragedy of the UNMANAGED Commons," and was dismayed that right-wing liars had appropriated his work as a call for privatization of public resources, when it was actually a call for better public stewardship.



> If we take away ownership of land and replace it with rents (the LVT is really a rent- not a tax) then the land is less likely to be protected and cared for than if people are allowed to own it.


Wrong, as proved by every one of the thousands of privately owned vacant lots in every major city in America vs the immaculate conditions in LVT-based leasehold communities like Fairhope, AL and Arden, DE.

----------


## Roy L

> You just demolished yourself, by self-asphyxiation.


No.  You will now spew some stupid, fallacious and dishonest garbage.



> There is only one person between us who believes even _the smallest area of Earth "owned" by anyone_ constitutes a theft _from everyone_. So by your logic, the inventor has STOLEN THE AIR FROM EVERYONE the moment he ran his air compressor and took in and stored the first few cc's of air without "just compensation to everyone" (via the state) -- not when he finally compressed so much air that literally nobody could breathe without paying rents.


Correct.  But as no one noticed any difference, no compensation was due.  No deprivation --> no compensation.

See how simple everything is if you can just find a willingness to know facts? 



> If I really was a super-powerful being who could pull off such a feat in the first place, that would make me the EMPEROR (aka the state).


You're clearly lying.  There is no relation between such powers and the state.



> And once I call myself "The State", I instantly have Roy L. on my side, a trusty minion who will act tireless as my loyal devotee and Air Value Tax emissary.


Stupid lie.



> And he will go far, as he can even be one of my Army of Competent Air Appraisers.  And all because there is only one person between us who believes in monopolistic presumptive ownership of a vital resource by an entity, so long as that entity is the state,


All landownership is inherently monopolistic.



> and so long as it presumes to simply administrate for a fee on behalf of everyone (to secure "air liberty rights" for everyone, doncha know).


That is in fact how people's rights to breathe clean air are secured.  You just permanently refuse to know all such facts.



> I can then claim that I am only siphoning air out of the atmosphere on everyone's behalf, to make sure that it doesn't get too polluted, or worse yet, "privately" owned by anyone else (because private ownership of air would be evil, natch). As the Air Emperor, and no longer a private entity, I can further claim that by paying me Air Rents (Air Value Tax, or AVT), at least I am the only entity that is in a position to actually take care of the air that I am returning to everyone (for a fee).


The predicted spew of stupid, fallacious and dishonest garbage.



> Meanwhile, it is also possible (you would argue, given your logic and past arguments)


Lie.



> that I could at least be a benevolent Air Emperor.


Privilege corrupts, and absolute privilege corrupts absolutely.



> And I will be! Because I will give every individual an Universal Air Exemption! (cue cheering throngs below)  Naturally, it won't be the same oxygen-enriched air that the *Really Productive Lungs* are getting (I deduce that they are more productive based on who pays me the most rents).  But the equal UAE will be for *Enough Good Air To Live On*, thus liberating everyone. Meanwhile, the very best, most oxygen-enriched air is reserved, and will only be released to the *Most Productive Entities*, based on their AVT payments to me. So let the bidding for the best air begin.


More of the predicted spew of stupid, fallacious and dishonest garbage.

You really think your readers are so stupid they won't notice the difference between creating a shortage of an abundant resource and administering possession and use of an already-scarce resource?

Well, I guess if they've been with you up to now...

----------


## Steven Douglas

> False.  You have no right to remove others' rights to liberty.  How could you?


It's by the same right that I have to steal pixies right off of your front lawn. In broad daylight! Prove the pixies exist, and then prove they were yours, and then sue me.  




> I see you know full well that your claimed right to remove others' pixies can't be consistently defended...


There, I fixed it for you.  But I'll stipulate to it. I stole your pixies, I'm without remorse, and I'd do it again. 




> Interestingly enough, there were actually parasites who used that scam to amass unearned wealth by "homesteading" land in the American West over and over again: doing the bare minimum to register their claims, selling their "homesteads" to later arrivals for a fat profit as soon as they qualified for legal title, then moving on to the most promising vacant land to steal.


Sounds like a gas.  I guess you don't much care for scalpers either.  




> You have offered no reason to imagine your claimed property right in land exists.


My pixies are more real than your pixies.  Stop oppressing my pixies. 




> No one has said the rights are in the land rather than individuals...


It's implied, given all that "value" from community individuals that "soaks" into the land, like so much piss.  I can see why you avoid that analogy, because it forces you to deal with the fact that you're in effect treating the land, not people, as if it had rights. 




> LOL!  When Crusoe waves his musket in Friday's face and tells him to either get to work or get back in the water, that's not behaving as a matter of privilege?  He has a _"right"_ to do that?


Wow, I guess Crusoe sucks as an emperor of his island.  So much for state benevolence.  He should have offered Friday a UIE.  Despicable, evil filth.




> IOW, you have no interest in whether any given tax is just or efficient.  But then, we already knew that from your opposition to LVT, didn't we?


Beg that self-congratulatory stupidity somewhere else.  Being in favor of LVT (as you envision it) is not evidence of interest in justice or efficiency. 




> Please explain how Crusoe is behaving "as a matter of right" when he waves his musket in Friday's face and tells him to either get to work or get back in the water.


Is Crusoe the king? The state?  




> Making some landowners taxable and others not.... just *drives all the good land into the hands of the untaxed*...


...which "untaxed" would be "all real people/individual Citizens" only in my scenario.  Thanks for the backhanded endorsement of my plan. 

In ancient Egypt, it was the priests.  That's not ALL real people. 
In Rome, it was the noble senatorial families.  Again, not ALL real people. 
In Mughal India, it was the Muslims.  Again, not ALL real people.




> Raising the tax on land just accelerates the process of pushing land into untaxed hands...


Kazzactly. And thanks again for that confession, that ringing backhanded endorsement. 




> ...which invariably destroys the society that tries it.


Nah, it just destroys the advantages of those who are taxed. And _if it's not real people with rights_, whose advantages are being destroyed?




> All landowning is inherently and by definition privileged behavior by privileged entities.


You wish. You so wish. Go collectivize someone else, Privilege Communist.  




> WalMart has become rich by owning land, but it doesn't have to own land to out-compete Mom and Pop.


No, to really do a number on Mom and Pop, it needs to seek out additional artificial advantages, like exemptions and abatements -- inducements by local governments to come to their cities to compete with their Moms and Pops, rather than another city's Moms and Pops.  




> I have explained repeatedly why LVT is not like other taxes.  It does not stifle the economy, it invigorates it.


Whose economy? Who's invigorated by it? As a hive-minded, aggregate-only-thinking collectivist, you'd be blind to any such distinctions, unable to comprehend that you have indeed chosen winners and losers.  




> The landowner qua landowner is in fact ALWAYS a weed, a parasite, and contributes nothing to society but his demands that the productive fill his greedy pockets in return for nothing.


Fortunately, most people don't buy that mush-brained, class warmongering collectivist crap.  So you end up right where Henry George ended up -- losing, and all for lack of critical thinking skills, wisdom and common sense where it counts most.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> History says: the land.
> 
> Objectively wrong.
> 
> Land needs no maintenance, and history shows that people will not hesitate to get value from land they own in ways that reduces its value: not only mining, forestry, and other resource extraction industries, but agriculture that exhausts the soil, over-irrigation that leads to salt build-up, etc.
> 
> Which, as pointed out a while back, lying fools continue to misrepresent.  Garrett Hardin, the AUTHOR of "The Tragedy of the Commons" AND AN ADVOCATE OF LVT, said later that he should have called it, "The Tragedy of the UNMANAGED Commons," and was dismayed that right-wing liars had appropriated his work as a call for privatization of public resources, when it was actually a call for better public stewardship.
> 
> Wrong, as proved by every one of the thousands of privately owned vacant lots in every major city in America vs the immaculate conditions in LVT-based leasehold communities like Fairhope, AL and Arden, DE.


Land needs no maintainance, eh? Will this fix itself? 
Tar sands pits in Alberta, Canada. 

http://goodcanadiankid.com/canadian-oil-sands/

That used to be a pristine wilderness. 



> The heavy oil sands of northeast Alberta are expansive geologic formations that cover 140,000 km2 of pristine boreal wilderness  an area slightly smaller then the state of Florida (Johnson and Miyanishi, 2008). The reserves are massive and unprecedented in size, second only to Saudi Arabia, representing a potential supply larger than the conventional oil reserves of Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait (Bott, 2010). Of this available resource, 20% is deemed as economically feasibly for extraction through in-situ techniques (e.g., steam assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD) (Bott, 2010) while approximately 2% is profitable through surface mining operations (Woynillowicz et al., 2005).
> 
> 
> Location and range of oil sand deposits in the Athabasca region of northereastern Alberta (adapted from Johnson and Miyanishi, 2008)
> 
> *Surface mining operations, are, of course, highly destructive,* and involve the removal of vast areas of vegetation and surficial hydrologic deposits (Price et al., 2010). Conversely,  SAGD is an in-situ process, where wells are installed in pairs that pump oil out of the ground. This technique is of low-impact to the environment, as it involves the installation of a small plant often no larger than a football field. The highly destructive methods of extraction, the type we all see on TV that involve massive trucks and large open pits, makes up only 2% of the entire resource (which, in relative terms, is still quite large!).


As for the air- our air is pretty clean because we have passed laws against pollution and added costs to polluters in the form of fines.  Without them, look at what the air in China is like with no or very few penalties for polluting:

A half dozen pictures (thousands more can be found on the internet). http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...article642170/

Same problem with water. Nobody owns the water and about half of their waterways are so polluted that even swimming in them is dangerous. 
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php...10&subcatid=66




> WATER POLLUTION IN CHINA
> 
> 
> 
> River like blood in Roxian, Guangxi About one third of the industrial waste water and more than 90 percent of household sewage in China is released into rivers and lakes without being treated. Nearly 80 percent of China's cities (278 of them) have no sewage treatment facilities and few have plans to build any and underground water supplies in 90 percent of the cites are contaminated.
> 
> Water shortages and water pollution in China are such a problem that the World Bank warns of catastrophic consequences for future generations. Half of Chinas population lacks safe drinking water. Nearly two thirds of Chinas rural populationmore than 500 million peopleuse water contaminated by human and industrial waste.
> 
> In summer of 2011, the China government reported 43 percent of state-monitored rivers are so polluted, they're unsuitable for human contact. By one estimate one sixth of Chinas population is threatened by seriously polluted water. One study found that eight of 10 Chinese coastal cities discharge excessive amounts of sewage and pollutants into the sea, often near coastal resorts and sea farming areas. Water pollution is especially bad along the coastal manufacturing belt. Despite the closure of thousands of paper mills, breweries, chemical factories and other potential sources of contamination, the water quality along a third of the waterway falls far below even the modest standards that the government requires. Most of Chinas rural areas have no system in place to treat waste water.
> ...

----------


## Zippyjuan

And how is pollution in that often cited LVT paradise of Hong Kong?  
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8710IA20120802




> Air pollution in Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, is a major source of worry for local citizens and foreign businesses, which increasingly see it as compromising the quality of life.
> 
> In a recent survey by human resources consultancy ECA International, Hong Kong distinguished itself as a place where *its air quality was among the worst in the world.*
> 
> The pollution comes largely from coal-fired power stations and traffic, though a significant contribution wafts down from the tens of thousands of factories in China's neighboring manufacturing heartland of the Pearl River Delta.
> 
> Under intense lobbying, the government has been gradually tightening its air-quality objectives and monitoring measures to meet World Health Organization standards, but these remain far short of global guidelines, green groups say.


The buildings sparkle and glisten and reach for the skies and the streets are clean (they are owned) but the air, which is not owned, is among the worst in the world. 

And their water (drinking water is treated but the waste water which runs into the ocean is polluted).
http://gbraga2.blogspot.com/2007/05/...hong-kong.html




> *Guangdong's coastal waters have been turned into a huge rubbish dump, with massive amounts of pollution being discharged into the sea, according to an official report*. 
> Feng Weizhong , a senior engineer with the State Oceanic Administration's South China Sea Marine Prediction Centre, said Hong Kong was badly affected by pollution carried by currents from Guangdong. 
> 
> The Nanfang Daily reported at the weekend that 12.62 billion tonnes of "polluted materials" and 8.3 billion tonnes of waste water were discharged into the waters off Guangdong last year, up 60 per cent from five years ago. 
> 
> The "2006 Guangdong Sea Environment Quality Report" said *offshore pollution had worsened in recent years and the ecological damage in the Pearl River Estuary was irreparable in the short term.* 
> 
> Li Zhujiang , director of the Guangdong Provincial Oceanic and Fishery Administration, which issued the report, asked for more investment and said Guangdong should implement its own policies - tougher than national ones - to cut back on pollution. 
> 
> ...

----------


## Steven Douglas

> And how is pollution in that often cited LVT paradise of Hong Kong?  
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8710IA20120802


Roy conveniently surfs both sides of the fence with HK.  Like a bible basher, he can make any point he needs to make by pointing out only those parts that appear to make his point, while avoiding or being an apologist for those parts that appear to be in direct, stark contradiction.  He cites HK as proof that an economy can boom in the absence of landownership (as if that means anything, and even though the longterm leaseholds there effectively operate as a form of landownership).  But Roy has an escape clause for himself there as well, as he will be just as quick to point out that HK doesn't even have LVT (at least not as Roy L envisions it).

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Roy conveniently surfs both sides of the fence with HK.  Like a bible basher, he can make any point he needs to make by pointing out only those parts that appear to make his point, while avoiding or being an apologist for those parts that appear to be in direct, stark contradiction.  He cites HK as proof that an economy can boom in the absence of landownership (as if that means anything, and even though the longterm leaseholds there effectively operate as a form of landownership).  But Roy has an escape clause for himself there as well, as he will be just as quick to point out that HK doesn't even have LVT (at least not as Roy L envisions it).


I look forward to Roy L returning to admit he was destroyed.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  Land value skyrocketed in the decade before the crash, even as inflation continued in low single digits.  Certainly land is a good inflation hedge, but that's only because its consistently rising rental value is automatically indexed to inflation.  It is immensely valuable even if inflation is zero or negative, as Japan has been proving for 20 years.
> 
> But thanks for sharing your total -- and permanently incurable -- ignorance of the subject.
> 
> It is caused by those who issue money.  Under our current debt money system, that is private banksters, not "central planners."  Your economic ignorance is comprehensive.
> 
> It is the landowner whose "job" is to steal, as I have proved to you many times.  Remember?
> 
> *The Bandit
> ...


Let us examine what Garret Harden, "Tragedy of the Commons" has to say about tolls. 
As you say, he was a proponent of LVT (I have not verified this but am going by your claim):
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/T...heCommons.html



> Congestion on public roads that do not charge tolls is another example of a government-created tragedy of the commons. If roads were privately owned, owners would charge tolls and people would take the toll into account in deciding whether to use them. Owners of private roads would probably also engage in what is called peak-load pricing, charging higher prices during times of peak demand and lower prices at other times. But because governments own roads that they finance with tax dollars, they normally do not charge tolls. The government makes roads into a commons. The result is congestion.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> I look forward to Roy L returning to admit he was destroyed.


I think you will wait a very long time.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I think you will wait a very long time.


If he doesn't, you can always tell him so yourself and claim you've won the argument in ALL CAPS(so it's even more certain)-no if's, and's, or but's about it.

----------


## Zippyjuan

Quote from Mason Gafney- proponent of LVT in "Tragedy of the (unmanaged) Commons":
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/...y_Commons.html



> Tenure control of some land tends to drive the excluded population to untenured land (the "commons"), creating an allocational bias *unless all land is either tenured or common*


Tenured meaning owned. 

He goes on to list some things which may be abused due to lack of proper tenure because users don't pay the full costs of what they use:



> Some land of high value is untenured or underpriced because consumers resist paying for what they think of as "free" because it has no cost of production, and which nature continues to supply even though the price is too low to ration the land economically.  Examples: 
> 
> water whose natural source is in southern California (it is tenured, but underpriced); 
> city streets for movement and parking space, even in New York; 
> *air and water used for waste disposal in populated areas;* 
> housing that is subject to rent controls; 
> popular beaches and trails; 
> oil and gas subject to field price controls; and so on. 
> *When land is open to public access*, so maybe the capital used to improve

----------


## Steven Douglas

> If he doesn't, you can always tell him so yourself and claim you've won the argument in ALL CAPS(so it's even more certain)-no if's, and's, or but's about it.


Yeah, but you have to admit that Roy demolishes everyone when he invokes magic, 'dib-hocks-dice-no-take-backs', truth-cementing words, like "objectively" and "indisputably". How do you fight against the logical argument equivalents of a Triple-Dog Dare?  If you say Quadruple-Dog Dare you're just being silly, that's a given.  And the same magical argument-winning words won't even work in reverse on "I'm rubber and you're glue" Roy "mirror-time" L. That's the frustrating part.  He cleverly preempts that by "objectively" and "indisputably" establishing up front that anyone who misquotes or is opposed to anything he writes is simply a liar.  Thus, when you write "objective" and "indisputable" it is not only subjective and disputable, but objectively and indisputably it must be false (as he has already "proved").

----------


## EcoWarrier

> And how is pollution in that often cited LVT paradise of Hong Kong?


*Pay attention at the back!* 

Such wayward minds!  The point is land value caputure (community created wealth) to pay for community services, not pollution.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Yeah, but you have to admit that Roy demolishes everyone


He wipes the floor with you and others, 100%. 

< snip irrelevant drivel >

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I look forward to Roy L returning to admit he was destroyed.


Destroyed by who and what?  He marmalizes everyone here.  Read what he writes and UNDERSTAND it. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose.  Free your minds and bodies.  Get into freedom and out of bondage.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Tenured meaning owned.


My God, some are so dumb. Tenure does NOT mean owning.

*ten·ure * (tnyr, -yr)
.
1. 
a. The act, fact, or condition of holding something in one's possession, as real estate or an office; occupation.
b. A period during which something is held.




> He [Prof Mason Gaffney] goes on to list some things which may be abused due to lack of proper tenure because users don't pay the full costs of what they use:


You never got the point - as usual.  People are appropriating common wealth for private gain.  He goes on and mentions gas, oil and others.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> *Pay attention at the back!*


I know you like to play teacher and all, and hold court from your little sandbox, but...



Can't help it. I'm a libertarian.  

If it makes you feel any better, you can jot a note in my file that says, "Does not play well with pretend-land would-be indoctrinators." When you grow up and get in power you can send me and my ilk to the Land Socialist Reeducation Camp for proper training.

----------


## Roy L

> Tenured meaning owned.


No.  Tenured meaning tenured.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy conveniently surfs both sides of the fence with HK.


I state the facts.



> He cites HK as proof that an economy can boom in the absence of landownership (as if that means anything, and even though the longterm leaseholds there effectively operate as a form of landownership).


It most certainly does mean something, because long-term leaseholds are NOT a form of landownership.



> But Roy has an escape clause for himself there as well, as he will be just as quick to point out that HK doesn't even have LVT (at least not as Roy L envisions it).


It doesn't.

----------


## Roy L

> Let us examine what Garret Harden, "Tragedy of the Commons" has to say about tolls. 
> As you say, he was a proponent of LVT (I have not verified this but am going by your claim):
> http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/T...heCommons.html


Actually, some city governments -- most notably London's -- have tried tolling public roads with varying degrees of success.  Most commentators regard London's congestion-pricing road tolls as highly successful.  It's a recent thing and we are still learning about it, because technology has just recently made it feasible to collect tolls on city streets.

----------


## Roy L

> And how is pollution in that often cited LVT paradise of Hong Kong?  
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8710IA20120802


Not too good, as it is downwind of Guangdong, Shenzhen, etc.



> The buildings sparkle and glisten and reach for the skies and the streets are clean (they are owned)


But not privately.



> but the air, which is not owned, is among the worst in the world.


And it gets that way... elsewhere.



> And their water (drinking water is treated but the waste water which runs into the ocean is polluted).
> http://gbraga2.blogspot.com/2007/05/...hong-kong.html


And...?  China isn't doing a great job of administering possession and use of natural resources, including air, because it was socialist until 30 years ago, and feudal before it was socalist; so there is no tradition of respecting or securing individual rights to use and benefit from what nature provided for all.  HK has become significantly more corrupt, and air quality has declined, in the 15 years since China took over its administration.

----------


## Roy L

> Land needs no maintainance, eh? Will this fix itself? 
> Tar sands pits in Alberta, Canada. 
> 
> http://goodcanadiankid.com/canadian-oil-sands/


Certainly.  15,000 years ago, it was under two miles of ice.



> That used to be a pristine wilderness.


Not really.  The oil was slowly leaking out anyway, creating chronic low-level hydrocarbon pollution.  Better to get all the toxic crud out in 50 years than have it go on for 50,000.  Just my opinion.



> As for the air- our air is pretty clean because we have passed laws against pollution and added costs to polluters in the form of fines.  Without them, look at what the air in China is like with no or very few penalties for polluting:
> 
> A half dozen pictures (thousands more can be found on the internet). http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...article642170/


Were you under an erroneous impression that you were addressing something I have said?



> Same problem with water. Nobody owns the water and about half of their waterways are so polluted that even swimming in them is dangerous.


False.  The government owns all natural resources in China.  It just has no tradition of protecting individuals' rights to use them.  Our governments here have done much better protecting the public's right to access and use public water resources.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I know you like to play teacher and all, and hold court from your little sandbox, but...


When arguments and logic runs out, post silly pictures.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> *Steven Douglas:*
> But Roy has an escape clause for himself there as well, as he will be just as quick to point out that HK doesn't even have LVT (at least not as Roy L envisions it). 
> 			
> 		
> 
> It doesn't.


HK is not the ideal Geonomics society. No country or city that taxes land values does it to the full extent, however they all prosper greatly because of the taxing of land values, clearly indicating the great success of land value taxing and that full implementation in the form of Geoism should be adopted.

But HK does get a fair level of its revenue by taxing land and not people's wages. Corporation tax and income tax is low in HK pomoting enterprise - and boy they do that well.  Under any other tax system HK would have melted away as another ex colonial Chinese city, like Macau. *Taxing land does not penalize production and trade.  Taxing land values captures communty created wealth to pay for community services.*

----------


## EcoWarrier

> Land needs no maintainance, eh? Will this fix itself? 
> Tar sands pits in Alberta, Canada. 
> 
> http://goodcanadiankid.com/canadian-oil-sands/


Fantastic!  Look at all that wealth ready to be extracted and the community can charge for its extraction. The community can also charge an annual fee on the value of this enormously valuable land.   Then eliminate income tax and sales tax which penalize trade and production. 

Those who do pollute air under Geoism would be charged for polluting - factories, etc. Breaking limits means fines. The Congestion and pollution charges in London charges those who pollute and clog the city up - London has a superb underground rail network and surface buses with dedicated bus lanes. If you do not use them and you pollute, you pay.

You have highlighted how some countries pollute their environment, especially where people are. Geoism would stop that.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> I state the facts.


You constantly meld your own opinions with actual facts, as you attempt to pass them off as if they were ("objectively and indisputably" no less) one and the same. 

Example:  "liberty rights" 

You meld those two words together in a strictly geocommunist context.

*FACT*: Exclusive possession of a parcel land denies "liberty" to others to use that parcel of land.
*OPINION*: All other people in proximity to that land maintain an ongoing, inalienable "right" to said liberty (geocommunist common property in all land). 
*ERGO* (Roy's fact-opinion mind-meld): Exclusive possession denies "liberty rights" to others, which must be reconciled.
*WHEN IN FACT*: Exclusive possession denies liberty to others.  "Liberty Rights" is strictly normative (should/ought/opinion).   

In other words, your entire language is fraught with question begging.  




> ...long-term leaseholds are NOT a form of landownership.


Of course they are - they are as much a form of landownership, as a net effect, as any real estate (_land-plus-improvements_) in the US that is subject to property taxes that includes land values. You only see it otherwise because you mince words while ignoring the net effect. 

Party A in Country A owns an ownership title to a parcel of land and all its improvements for fifty years, on which he pays property taxes. 
Party B in Country B owns a fifty year leasehold on a parcel of land, on which he owns all improvements, but for which leasehold payments on the land itself are due.  

Both have a "title" (something that "entitles" them) to exclusive possession of the land on which the improvements rest.

One title is labeled "ownership", the other labeled "leasehold".Neither ever intends to give up their titles - their entitlement - to exclusive occupation and/or usage of the land.Exclusive use and possession in both cases is conditioned upon payment to the state.One conditional payment is labeled a "tax", while the other conditional payment is labeled a "leasehold payment".
You're under the delusion that relabeling things, while leaving the net salient effect the same, somehow makes a difference. 

Looking at the net effect only, you can "own" land in Hong Kong every bit as much as you can "own" land in the US.

----------


## Roy L

> You constantly meld your own opinions with actual facts, as you attempt to pass them off as if they were ("objectively and indisputably" no less) one and the same.


No, I identify the facts that show why my opinions are correct.



> Example:  "liberty rights" 
> 
> You meld those two words together in a strictly geocommunist context.


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  You can offer no facts, no logic, no arguments, so you have to make up dishonest anti-concepts like "geocommunist" to avoid knowing the facts.



> *FACT*: Exclusive possession of a parcel land denies "liberty" to others to use that parcel of land.


Correct.



> *OPINION*: All other people in proximity to that land maintain an ongoing, inalienable "right" to said liberty (geocommunist common property in all land).


I realize, and have identified numerous times, the fact that you do not believe in an equal human right to liberty.  I do.



> *ERGO* (Roy's fact-opinion mind-meld): Exclusive possession denies "liberty rights" to others, which must be reconciled.
> *WHEN IN FACT*: Exclusive possession denies liberty to others.


Thank you for conceding the whole argument.



> "Liberty Rights" is strictly normative (should/ought/opinion).


No, I have explained many times that normative/positive is a phony conflict, because the human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts. 



> In other words, your entire language is fraught with question begging.


Lie.  It is you who constantly beg the question by assuming the land thief can rightly remove others' rights.



> Of course they are - they are as much a form of landownership, as a net effect, as any real estate (_land-plus-improvements_) in the US that is subject to property taxes that includes land values. You only see it otherwise because you mince words while ignoring the net effect.


No, that is a bald lie.  You are just lying.



> Party A in Country A owns an ownership title to a parcel of land and all its improvements for fifty years, on which he pays property taxes. 
> Party B in Country B owns a fifty year leasehold on a parcel of land, on which he owns all improvements, but for which leasehold payments on the land itself are due.  
> 
> Both have a "title" (something that "entitles" them) to exclusive possession of the land on which the improvements rest.


*YOU KNOW* that at the end of the 50 years, the owner can sell his owned property for a nice profit, while the leaseholder just relinquishes possession.  You know it, but you decided you had better deliberately lie about it.  All "arguments" against LVT are based on conscious, deliberate lying such as yours.  You just lie and lie and lie and lie and lie.  You have no choice.  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.



> One title is labeled "ownership", the other labeled "leasehold".


Because that is what they are.



> Neither ever intends to give up their titles - their entitlement - to exclusive occupation and/or usage of the land.


That is a lie.  The leaseholder pays for temporary tenure -- not a title -- knowing he will lose his right of tenure when the lease expires.  You know this.  You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.



> Exclusive use and possession in both cases is conditioned upon payment to the state.
> One conditional payment is labeled a "tax", while the other conditional payment is labeled a "leasehold payment".
> 
> You're under the delusion that relabeling things, while leaving the net salient effect the same, somehow makes a difference.


Lie.  *You know* that the "net salient effect" gives the owner a huge capital gain *if he chooses* to relinquish his tenure at the end of the 50 years, while the leaseholder gets nothing.  You know it, but you consciously and deliberately decided to lie about it.

YOU ARE _LYING_.



> Looking at the net effect only, you can "own" land in Hong Kong every bit as much as you can "own" land in the US.


No, that is a lie.  You are lying.  Stop lying.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, I have explained many times that normative/positive is a phony conflict, because the human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts.


And you claim to have a degree in philosophy, with honors, no less?  

Your explanations are pure Roy L Gobbletygook; self-contradictory gibberish.  That is one of those one-way "I'm rubber you're glue" special rules you wrote for yourself. In Roy-La-Land, as something can only be a right, as a positive fact, _when Roy's normative reasoning_ is melded with a positive fact.  For all other positive facts, created by that same process no less, but in others' minds, check with Roy to ensure that there is no conflict. 

Your "liberty rights", as believed in and envisioned normatively by you, can only be reconciled by the same force that establishes the landownership rights that are in conflict with them. That is how either, but not both, can be rights, as positive facts -- when they exist outside the mind, as codified and recognized by people and/or the state.  It has nothing to do with morality - right or wrong, good or bad.  A right can exist as a right even when most people reason it should not exist as such.  

An existing right can be seen as a violation of other rights. That's what you want established; that landownership violates "natural liberty rights" as you believe in them, even to the point of declaring them as positive statements of fact.  In other words, *Roy thinks* (for everyone), *therefore it is*.  So let it be normatively reasoned by Roy, so let it be positive fact. That is how you can refer to the positive fact of "landownership rights", _even when they do exist as positive fact_, as "landowner privilege".  To you that is the only "positive fact", even when the reality is otherwise. That is only because ROY'S human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts. And when Roy's normative reasoning-cum-positive facts are in direct contradiction with someone else's, see Roy, and he'll sort it out for everyone.  

You've established a regime, in your mind, whereby you are the sole arbiter of positive facts as it relates to normative privileges and rights such that, ultimately, only YOUR normatives can be deemed positive facts.  




> You know that the "net salient effect" gives the owner a huge capital gain if he chooses to relinquish his tenure at the end of the 50 years, while the leaseholder gets nothing. You know it, but you consciously and deliberately decided to lie about it.


That's another area where a large part of your nutbag philosophy falls apart, as part of the advantages upon which land rents arise to be taxed are based on the presumption that all people will ultimately choose to take profit from any value increases in land.  Even to the point where it is inconceivable to you that someone really will never, ever, decide to sell their land for a profit. And yet that is reality, a positive statement of fact, for millions of landowners.

That's a very sick, twisted, Roy-centric horror of a controlling rabbit-hole you live in.  Count me out.

----------


## Roy L

> And you claim to have a degree in philosophy, with honors, no less?


I do indeed, which is how I know what I am talking about. 



> Your explanations are pure Roy L Gobbletygook; self-contradictory gibberish.


Lie.



> That is one of those one-way "I'm rubber you're glue" special rules you wrote for yourself.


No, it's an understanding that I possess and you do not, thus your constant refrain (and it is certainly common enough among people who have learned a little moral philosophy) that moral statements can't be grounded in positive fact.  That view is a relic of former times when morality was considered to be based on God's will or abstract concepts, but it was basically rendered obsolete by Darwin.  It's an empirical issue, so I can't "prove" it, but to me the most reasonable approach considers human moral capacity, the *source* of "ought" concepts, as simply a product of evolution.  I.e., it has conferred a reproductive advantage on those who possess it, probably by suppressing and augmenting pre-existing ape social instincts to fit the new conditions of survival and reproduction that have arisen in human societies where technology and exchange (i.e., economics) are in play.  



> In Roy-La-Land, as something can only be a right, as a positive fact, _when Roy's normative reasoning_ is melded with a positive fact.  For all other positive facts, created by that same process no less, but in others' minds, check with Roy to ensure that there is no conflict.


Garbage.  I simply decline to base my moral reasoning on theological or metaphysical hypotheses, and ground it in biological fact, instead.  That is why I find claims of the state's inherent immorality incoherent.  States reliably defeat stateless societies in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral.  It's easy to be a child, and chant "meeza hatesa gubmint," but adults understand that maturity and responsibility consist not in railing against the state's flaws, but in doing what is necessary to correct them, and make the state work as well as it can.



> Your "liberty rights", as believed in and envisioned normatively by you, can only be reconciled by the same force that establishes the landownership rights that are in conflict with them.


No.  There is ample empirical evidence that liberty rights foster societal and the associated reproductive success.  Landownership's empirical record is mixed (like slavery's) because of the problem of distinguishing rightful from wrongful property; but it is not that good, especially in its pure, untaxed form.  If you were willing to know any facts you could easily check the evidence for yourself, like California before and after Proposition 13.



> That is how either, but not both, can be rights, as positive facts -- when they exist outside the mind, as codified and recognized by people and/or the state.  It has nothing to do with morality - right or wrong, good or bad.


No.  See above.



> A right can exist as a right even when most people reason it should not exist as such.


Equivocation.  IMO it is more informative to consider concepts of rights in three distinct instantiations, and avoid equivocating between them:

1) the *legal*, which for our purposes is not informative at all;

2) the *societal*, which the legal is typically an attempt to implement, and which simply records what evolution has produced as popular opinion in a given society under its unique set of historical circumstances, like the qualities of a given living organism; and

3) the *ideal* or *natural*, which we could deduce as being most effective in securing reproductive success given a complete understanding of human nature: physiology, psychology, economics, etc.

You are confusing the second concept with the third.  I am normally only interested in the third.



> An existing right can be seen as a violation of other rights.


Right!  Just as an existing quality of an organism can conflict with other qualities that also confer reproductive advantages.  Evolution strikes a balance between them, but the balance is always subject to revision based on changing circumstances.  Consider polygamy.  It has often been considered a right, but is now illegal.  IMO it is difficult to say whether it strengthens or weakens society -- i.e., is moral or immoral -- under any given circumstances.



> That's what you want established; that landownership violates "natural liberty rights" as you believe in them, even to the point of declaring them as positive statements of fact.


Any comprehension of history beyond the kindergarten level will establish the conflict between liberty and landowning.  It is absolutely pervasive.



> In other words, *Roy thinks* (for everyone), *therefore it is*.


No, that's just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.  I identify facts and their logical implications.  Anyone can follow my reasoning and reach the same conclusions.  That is why you always have to refuse to know the facts I identify.



> So let it be normatively reasoned by Roy, so let it be positive fact.


Garbage, as proved above.



> That is how you can refer to the positive fact of "landownership rights", _even when they do exist as positive fact_, as "landowner privilege".  To you that is the only "positive fact", even when the reality is otherwise. That is only because ROY'S human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts. And when Roy's normative reasoning-cum-positive facts are in direct contradiction with someone else's, see Roy, and he'll sort it out for everyone.


Now substitute "slave owner" for "landowner" in the above, and notice that 200 years ago, your "argument" would have been just as "valid" when applied to an abolitionist.  As we know it wasn't, it stands refuted, with no further argumentation needed.  The abolitionists were simply willing to know facts that the slave owners refused to know, just as I am willing to know facts that you refuse to know.



> You've established a regime, in your mind, whereby you are the sole arbiter of positive facts as it relates to normative privileges and rights such that, ultimately, only YOUR normatives can be deemed positive facts.


No, that's just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you.  The facts I identify are accessible to anyone.  In most cases, they are self-evident and indisputable.  In the remaining cases, they are easily verified facts of history and economics.



> That's another area where a large part of your nutbag philosophy falls apart, as part of the advantages upon which land rents arise to be taxed are based on the presumption that all people will ultimately choose to take profit from any value increases in land.


No, you are just lying again.  I make no such assumption.  I simply pointed out that you were lying when you claimed that the leaseholder and landowner have equivalent claims on such value increases.



> Even to the point where it is inconceivable to you that someone really will never, ever, decide to sell their land for a profit. And yet that is reality, a positive statement of fact, for millions of landowners.


No, you are just trying to change the subject because I proved you lied.  Of course many landowners never decide to sell -- but they do eventually die.  Whether any given landowner ever decides to liquidate what he takes from the community is irrelevant, just as the bandit's decision to use, sell, or bury the loot he takes from the merchant caravans, or just pass it on to his kids, is irrelevant.



> That's a very sick, twisted, Roy-centric horror of a controlling rabbit-hole you live in.


No, it's just another stupid fabrication on your part.



> Count me out.


The ref counted you out about 1000 messages ago.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> No, it's an understanding that I possess and you do not, thus your constant refrain that moral statements can't be grounded in positive fact.


I have never claimed such a thing, but this is very fun for me, Roy, because I think we are getting much closer to the source of your illness. 

You obviously think that you are onto some kind of logical verbal alchemy -- a way to out-clever logic itself with loophole reasoning of your own -- a way to make the subjective objective -- a way to take subjective moral opinions and magically rend them into something akin to objective, logically positive facts. You think that this can be accomplished, in part, by association, as your moral argument becomes a kind of "free rider" once it is attached to ("grounded in") or associated with a logically positive fact. Once associated, or connected, the moral argument then takes on the logical positive's attributes, by association or some kind of verbal osmosis.  You think you've further cemented moral opinion into fact your logically disjointed and erroneous supposition that the fact of a statement (the fact that it was made) can be passed off (once again, as a "free rider") as if the content of the statement (the moral argument) was fact. 

A moral _statement_ can indeed be "grounded in" (related to) positive fact.  That relationship does not, however, render _the contents of the statements_ themselves (moral arguments/shoulds/oughts) into positive facts; not by association, and not by verbal osmosis. Not ever. _Not by any mechanism_. Try to out-clever it all you want, it's one source of your sickness. 

Moral arguments and logically positive facts are like chemically incompatible elements. They can be associated, but never mixed, as neither will ever dissolve into the other. Attaching one to the other will not make one into the other.  The logically positive fact remains a logically positive fact, and the moral argument relating to that fact remains forever separate and entirely subjective.  It is for that reason that two subjective beings can reach mutually exclusive conclusions, and make mutually exclusive moral arguments about the same logically positive fact.  The nature of the fact remains intact, while the opinions, which are *never* intrinsic to that fact, can change, as variations that are subjective to each individual.  




> That view is a relic of former times when morality was considered to be based on God's will or abstract concepts, but it was basically rendered obsolete by Darwin. It's an empirical issue, *so I can't "prove" it, but to me the most reasonable approach* considers human moral capacity, the *source* of "ought" concepts, as simply a product of evolution.


Onto some more fun.  You say that you cannot prove it, and yet you erroneously declare that Darwin somehow rendered obsolete the notion that morality was _based on abstract concepts_, which implies that Darwin somehow did prove it. The reason you can't prove it, Roy, is that it is not an empirical issue, and no "reasonable approach" will make it otherwise, _as Darwin argued_. 

Darwin posited that all morality was a byproduct of evolution; the effect of natural selection as it works upon the raw material of _variations in each individual_. Darwin believed that nature did not "intend" to create any particular type of morality (See that? No single objective morality, contrary to Roy L's assertions), any more than nature intended to create one certain length of finch beak. Nor does nature "judge" any particular type of morality, as long as, Darwin surmised, it does not violate the principle of natural selection.

As such, Darwin never argued that "human moral capacity" was anything collective, homogenous, or objectively "true", but was, rather, a byproduct of natural selection as it forever takes on *unique variations within EACH individual*. According to Darwin, that means that _all of your moral arguments, your individualized and wholly abstract concepts of morality_, as a byproduct of natural selection, _vary uniquely and distinctly from all other individuals_. Thus, they are as abstract as anyone else's, and equally subjective (one relative to others). 




> ...[evolution] has conferred a reproductive advantage on those who possess [human moral capacity], probably by suppressing and augmenting pre-existing ape social instincts to fit the new conditions of survival and reproduction that have arisen in human societies where technology and exchange (i.e., economics) are in play.


Darwin didn't argue for one objective "ideal" morality. He argued exactly the opposite; that no two human moralities would be exactly alike, with as many subjective variations on morality as there are humans! But your idea that morality is an "objectively indisputable" thing, as it is "grounded in" positive fact, explains a lot, and specifically your Roy-The-Omniscient-Secular-Centric-God delusions, with your UNIQUE MORALITY FINGERPRINT that you project onto everyone else, and honestly believe should be regarded by everyone else as objectively true!   




> I simply decline to base my moral reasoning on theological or metaphysical hypotheses, and ground it in biological fact, instead.


Well, that gives me a decided advantage, because I do not engage in the former, and I'm not stupid enough to think that the latter would create a secular version of the former, as I appeal to the authority of the "Secular God Within".  That's the difference between us, Roy. I respect all differences, while holding to my own. And I recognize at all times that I am only trying to persuade -- not appeal to my opinions as if they were facts. Advantage ME, because others would see right through it anyway, just as they do your attempts.  At best, you can only gather a choir of birds that are already of your feather.

You actually think that by "grounding" your morality in fact (relating it to a fact), that you are "discovering" some kind of "objective morality", with your delusion that causes you to believe you have actually rended your own opinions into facts - by simple association. 

NEWS FLASH:  Every normative/opinion is "grounded in"/associated with/connected to -- logically positive fact.   




> *States reliably defeat stateless societies in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral.*


That's some sociopathic scary/funny $#@! right there, Roy! Do you even know how to reduce a state to its lowest common denominator, or is a state really just a mystical and magical thing to you?  Gangs defeat the gangless in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral -- because they $#@!ing survived? Death and extinction are evidence of wrong, while power and survival by any means necessary makes right?  

Your blind State Worship now makes a lot more sense. You just admitted that your criteria for morality is only indirectly and collectively to do with individual rights, with the prime focus on evolutionary *competition* -- which you want ratcheted up. No wonder you'd throw Granny under a bus. You're not just a statist. You're an amoral, sociopathic statist. The natural law of survival of the fittest now is now magnified by an artificially imposed mechanism, with the _Survival Of The Amoral State_ as your central theme. 

That is why it would be very easy to have you as a blind, obedient minion if I was a ruler who had sole despotic dominion over the Earth.  Long live the King!




> It's easy to be a child, and chant "meeza hatesa gubmint,"


Then stop chanting it. Meeza *lubsa* my gubmint. Meezas hatesa yours only.  It's not "gubmint" Roy. That's your strawman. Specifically it's your amoral, sociopathic view of gubmint that is deserving of everyone's hatred. Not government in general.  I don't argue for a stateless society. I very much want a state -- if only to make sure that your version of a state gets its ugly, sociopathic head chopped off every time it rears its ugly, creepy, weedy head. 




> IMO it is more informative to consider concepts of rights in three distinct instantiations, and avoid equivocating between them:
> 
> 1) the *legal*, which for our purposes is not informative at all;
> 
> 2) the *societal*, which the legal is typically an attempt to implement, and which simply records what evolution has produced as popular opinion in a given society under its unique set of historical circumstances, like the qualities of a given living organism; and
> 
> 3) the *ideal* or *natural*, which we could deduce as being most effective in securing reproductive success given a complete understanding of human nature: physiology, psychology, economics, etc.
> 
> You are confusing the second concept with the third.  I am normally only interested in the third.


I confuse nothing, that's your projection, and you are completely ass-backwards, as usual, because ultimately we are ONLY talking about the first, as the second and third serve as reasoning and arguments for the same. 

Your entire list is both a manipulation and an equivocation. Your second definition is a bull$#@! meaningless collectivist abstract, and your third is your attempt to accomplish what was already refuted in the beginning of this post; namely, that your ideal is not my ideal, and there is no universal homogenous ideal that can be "deduced" (remember? natural selection does not "intend" or "design" a specific morality).  

Some species survive and propagate through cannibalism (wolf spiders). Others through incest (Bonobo monkeys).  Whatever is "best for the species" on the whole (your criteria for morality) may not be good for the majority of its individuals. *Respect and reverence for non-collectivized individuals, and not collectives competing primarily for whatever will strengthen a hive, is my secular contribution to evolution.*  That's the state I want, the state meeza lubs. 

It is far more clear, as well as informative, to dispense with all of your socio-babble gibberish and consider rights in the simplest terms; moral and legal, both of which are extremely useful (and to the point) and only as they relate to individuals - because that's really all we are.  

1) Moral, _individual_ (all internal reasoning)
2) State/Legal, _individual and universal_ (externalized, codified, recognized by two or more and enforced)

It doesn't get any simpler than that. Everything else is so much extraneous means to those ends.  




> Right!  Just as an existing quality of an organism can conflict with other qualities that also confer reproductive advantages.  Evolution strikes a balance between them


Evolution can just as easily wipe out one in preference to the other. Evolution can result in mass extinctions, because there was no balance to be struck. Ironically, that can be caused by adaptations - by only those willing to strike a balance. I.E., NOT YOU.  For example, I see LVT, and I want to adapt what I think are the actual "good" and "useful" parts (my normative, my evolutionary secular morality variant). That is so that I can a) employ it to its intended effect, while hopefully b) causing a mass extinction, if possible, of your version.  You want to accomplish a mass extinction of a different kind, with respect to landownership - with no balance struck. As such, I hope your state, your LVT and UIE, ends up joining Henry George in the state evolutionary tar pits.

----------


## Roy L

> I have never claimed such a thing,


Lie.



> but this is very fun for me, Roy, because I think we are getting much closer to the source of your illness.


Stupid garbage.



> You obviously think that you are onto some kind of logical verbal alchemy -- a way to out-clever logic itself with loophole reasoning of your own -- a way to make the subjective objective -- a way to take subjective moral opinions and magically rend them into something akin to objective, logically positive facts. You think that this can be accomplished, in part, by association, as your moral argument becomes a kind of "free rider" once it is attached to ("grounded in") or associated with a logically positive fact.


Strawman.  You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.



> Once associated, or connected, the moral argument then takes on the logical positive's attributes, by association or some kind of verbal osmosis.  You think you've further cemented moral opinion into fact your logically disjointed and erroneous supposition that the fact of a statement (the fact that it was made) can be passed off (once again, as a "free rider") as if the content of the statement (the moral argument) was fact.


Strawman.  You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.



> A moral _statement_ can indeed be "grounded in" (related to) positive fact.


"Grounded in" doesn't mean "related to."  You're just lying.  As usual.



> That relationship does not, however, render _the contents of the statements_ themselves (moral arguments/shoulds/oughts) into positive facts; not by association, and not by verbal osmosis. Not ever. _Not by any mechanism_.


Wrong again.  A moral statement that expresses an objective fact of human nature is a positive fact.



> Try to out-clever it all you want, it's one source of your sickness.


Your constant, despicable dishonesty is the source of my sickness.



> Moral arguments and logically positive facts are like chemically incompatible elements. They can be associated, but never mixed, as neither will ever dissolve into the other. Attaching one to the other will not make one into the other.  The logically positive fact remains a logically positive fact, and the moral argument relating to that fact remains forever separate and entirely subjective.


Nope.  Moral statements are positive claims about how human actions in society affect reproductive success _through_ society.  They can be true or false, and it can be extremely difficult to determine which is which, but their content is a positive description.  Normative statements are a subset of positive statements, not a disjoint set.



> It is for that reason that two subjective beings can reach mutually exclusive conclusions, and make mutually exclusive moral arguments about the same logically positive fact.


But they cannot both be right.



> The nature of the fact remains intact, while the opinions, which are *never* intrinsic to that fact, can change, as variations that are subjective to each individual.


Opinions cannot change facts.  That is one of your problematic beliefs.  Moral sentiments are typically opinions rather than facts because it is so hard to judge the facts, but their actual content is still positive, whether true or false.



> You say that you cannot prove it, and yet you erroneously declare that Darwin somehow rendered obsolete the notion that morality was _based on abstract concepts_, which implies that Darwin somehow did prove it.


No.  He demonstrated an empirical fact.  The didn't prove a theorem.  That is why it is called the _theory_ of evolution and not a theorem.



> The reason you can't prove it, Roy, is that it is not an empirical issue, and no "reasonable approach" will make it otherwise, _as Darwin argued_.


ROTFL!!  You just made a prize fool of yourself again, Steven.  The reason I can't prove it is because it IS an empirical issue, and not an exercise in mathematics or formal logic.



> Darwin posited that all morality was a byproduct of evolution;


Oh?  A "byproduct"?  He stated quite clearly that the human moral faculty was a necessary adaptation given human social existence.



> the effect of natural selection as it works upon the raw material of _variations in each individual_. Darwin believed that nature did not "intend" to create any particular type of morality (See that? No single objective morality, contrary to Roy L's assertions), any more than nature intended to create one certain length of finch beak.


Non sequitur.  Nature doesn't "intend" anything.  Nevertheless, the result of that blind, undirected process of evolution is a positive, objective fact: the genetic make-up of a given organism.  And just as a given length of finch beak is objectively correct or incorrect in a given physical environment, so is a given moral principle objectively correct or not depending on the environment, especially the societal and cultural environment.



> Nor does nature "judge" any particular type of morality, as long as, Darwin surmised, it does not violate the principle of natural selection.


OTC, nature is constantly judging all moralities on exactly that basis, and could in principle, by that means, determine which are objectively correct and incorrect.  In practice, we don't arrive at any neat, final product, but in principle it is possible to describe one, and to judge how closely other ones come to it.



> As such, Darwin never argued that "human moral capacity" was anything collective, homogenous, or objectively "true", but was, rather, a byproduct of natural selection as it forever takes on *[I]unique variations within EACH individual*.


No, he was clear that human moral capacity was fairly uniform, and had to be to confer a reproductive advantage.



> According to Darwin, that means that _all of your moral arguments, your individualized and wholly abstract concepts of morality_, as a byproduct of natural selection, _vary uniquely and distinctly from all other individuals_. Thus, they are as abstract as anyone else's, and equally subjective (one relative to others).


Nonsense.  The human moral capacity must reside on a fairly modest number of genes, and those will, by sheer chance, sometimes be identical in two given individuals.  Moreover, there is nothing abstract or subjective in the biological capacity.  The abstractions and subjective opinions are built USING that capacity.



> Darwin didn't argue for one objective morality.


Nor do I.  I simply observe that for a given set of conditions, there is probably one or at least a very small number of moral systems that will work best, and are therefore objectively correct under those conditions.



> He argued exactly the opposite; that no two human moralities would be exactly alike, with as many subjective variations on morality as there are humans!


*But they aren't all equally correct,* (i.e., effective in achieving reproductive success) and that is the POINT of their being part of our evolving nature: they will be winnowed, the inferior and incorrect being supplanted by the superior and thus more correct.



> But your idea that morality is an "objectively indisputable" thing,


I didn't say it was indisputable, stop lying.  For example, you do not believe in an equal individual right to liberty.  That's a moral point you dispute with me, right there.

But however much we may dispute it, it's a positive claim about what will work _objectively_, in society, not a mere subjective difference in taste, and we can't both be right about it.



> as it is "grounded in" positive fact,


It is not only grounded in positive fact, but is a statement that ASSERTS a positive fact, whether it is actually true or not.



> explains a lot, and specifically your Roy-The-Omniscient-Secular-Centric-God delusions, with your UNIQUE MORALITY FINGERPRINT that you project onto everyone else, and honestly believe should be regarded by everyone else as objectively true!


I have explained WHY it is objectively true: i.e., why it will make society stronger and better able to compete.



> Well, that gives me a decided advantage, because I do not engage in the former,


Ah, yes, you most certainly do.



> and I'm not stupid enough to think that the latter would create a secular version of the former, as I appeal to the authority of the "Secular God Within".


I make no such appeal.  I identify objedctive facts and their logical implications.



> That's the difference between us, Roy. I respect all differences, while holding to my own.


It's true that unlike you, I do not respect (let alone subscribe to) false, absurd and dishonest views.



> And I recognize at all times that I am only trying to persuade -- not appeal to my opinions as if they were facts. Advantage ME, because others would see right through it anyway, just as they do your attempts.  At best, you can only gather a choir of birds that are already of your feather.


You are at liberty to refuse to know the facts I identify.



> You actually think that by "grounding" your morality in fact (relating it to a fact),


No, BASING IT ON fact.



> that you are "discovering" some kind of "objective morality", with your delusion that causes you to believe you have actually rended your own opinions into facts - by simple association.


No, by objective causal entailment, not mere association.  My opinions might be right or wrong, but they are opinions ABOUT propositions that are either true or false.



> NEWS FLASH:  Every normative/opinion is "grounded in"/associated with/connected to -- logically positive fact.


NEWS FLASH: Those do not by any means mean the same thing.



> That's some sociopathic scary/funny $#@! right there, Roy! Do you even know how to reduce a state to its lowest common denominator, or is a state really just a mystical and magical thing to you?


I notice you snipped the context to make it look like I said *ACTUAL* states can't be immoral, when the context makes it clear I said the state *per se* can't *inherently* be immoral.  Certainly a given individual state can be immoral, just as an individual human being can, and history is filled with the corpses of both sorts.  But the doctrine of original sin notwithstanding, the state can't be immoral in its basic nature any more than man can.



> Gangs defeat the gangless in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral -- because they $#@!ing survived?


Do they?  What do you mean by "gangs"?  Most gangs do a piss-poor job of surviving, and their members do even worse.



> Death and extinction are evidence of wrong,


Right.  Evidence but not _proof_, as time and chance happeneth to all.



> while power and survival by any means necessary makes right?


Power is often dangerous to those who hold and wield it -- in some societies the most common manner of royal succession has been assassination, and dynasties have wiped themselves out in pursuit of the throne -- but in the long run, survival is the only feasible criterion for judgment of right.



> Your blind State Worship


Lie.



> now makes a lot more sense. You just admitted that your criteria for morality is only indirectly and collectively to do with individual rights, with the prime focus on evolutionary *competition* -- which you want ratcheted up.


Stupid lie.



> No wonder you'd throw Granny under a bus.


Stupid, evil lie.



> You're not just a statist. You're an amoral, sociopathic statist.


Stupid, evil, despicable lie.



> The natural law of survival of the fittest now is now magnified by an artificially imposed mechanism,


Fabricated out of whole cloth by you.



> with the _Survival Of The Amoral State_ as your central theme.


Another lie.  I've just explained how the state's morality can be judged.



> That is why it would be very easy to have you as a blind, obedient minion if I was a ruler who had sole despotic dominion over the Earth.  Long live the King!


Infantile.



> Then stop chanting it. Meeza *lubsa* my gubmint. Meezas hatesa yours only.


No, you're constantly chanting stupid garbage about the state always being bad, and you know it.



> It's not "gubmint" Roy. That's your strawman. Specifically it's your amoral, sociopathic view of gubmint that is deserving of everyone's hatred.


You constantly lie your silly head off, and you call MY view amoral and sociopathic?



> Not government in general.  I don't argue for a stateless society.


You don't argue, period.  You just assert.



> I very much want a state -- if only to make sure that your version of a state gets its ugly, sociopathic head chopped off every time it rears its ugly, creepy, weedy head.


And name-call, of course. 



> I confuse nothing, that's your projection, and you are completely ass-backwards, as usual, because ultimately we are ONLY talking about the first, as the second and third serve as reasoning and arguments for the same.


Wrong again.  The first is irrelevant, as slavery proved, and the second is only an approximation of the third.



> Your entire list is both a manipulation and an equivocation.


Lie.



> Your second definition is a bull$#@! meaningless collectivist abstract,


No, that's just another stupid lie from you.  The first is BASED ON the second, at least in democratic societies.



> and your third is your attempt to accomplish what was already refuted in the beginning of this post; namely, that your ideal is not my ideal, and there is no universal homogenous ideal that can be "deduced" (remember? natural selection does not "intend" or "design" a specific morality).


Non sequitur.  Nature doesn't intend people to see, either, but we can certainly deduce that people who can see are better equipped for survival than people who can't.



> Some species survive and propagate through cannibalism (wolf spiders). Others through incest (Bonobo monkeys).  Whatever is "best for the species" on the whole (your criteria for morality)


Bald lie.  Evolution works on the basis of individuals' survival and reproduction.  It just happens, as a contingent empirical fact, that individual *human* survival is intimately linked with societal strength and health.  The same goes, to a lesser extent, for chimpanzees and gorillas.  It DOESN'T go for orangutans, which are solitary.



> may not be good for the majority of its individuals.


"Good"?  Isn't that just you begging the question again with a normative claim?



> *Respect and reverence for non-collectivized individuals, and not collectives competing primarily for whatever will strengthen a hive, is my secular contribution to evolution.*  That's the state I want, the state meeza lubs.


No, you're just lying again, this time about what YOU have plainly written.  Your actual "contribution" to moral evolution is that non-collectivized individuals, up to and including the majority in society, should be robbed, enslaved, and sacrificed for the unearned profit of landowners.



> It is far more clear, as well as informative, to dispense with all of your socio-babble gibberish and consider rights in the simplest terms; moral and legal, both of which are extremely useful (and to the point) and only as they relate to individuals - because that's really all we are.


Self-contradiction.  Legal rights only exist in the context of the collective, the society that encodes and secures them.  



> 1) Moral, _individual_ (all internal reasoning)


Based on what?  Blank out.



> 2) State/Legal, _individual and universal_ (externalized, codified, recognized by two or more and enforced)
> 
> It doesn't get any simpler than that. Everything else is so much extraneous means to those ends.


No, such impoverished conceptions do not permit even the most elementary understanding of rights.



> Evolution can just as easily wipe out one in preference to the other. Evolution can result in mass extinctions, because there was no balance to be struck. Ironically, that can be caused by adaptations - by only those willing to strike a balance.


Irrelevant.



> I.E., NOT YOU.


Stupid garbage.



> For example, I see LVT, and I want to adapt what I think are the actual "good" and "useful" parts (my normative, my evolutionary secular morality variant).


Ah.  That must be why you slag it so relentlessly and dishonestly.



> That is so that I can a) employ it to its intended effect, while hopefully b) causing a mass extinction, if possible, of your version.  You want to accomplish a mass extinction of a different kind, with respect to landownership - with no balance struck.


Lie.  The balance of LVT + UIE is exquisitely just and efficient.



> As such, I hope your state, your LVT and UIE, ends up joining Henry George in the state evolutionary tar pits.


Eventually, my version will prevail.  It's just a question of how much evil, misery and slaughter apologists for landowner privilege will inflict on long-suffering humanity in the meantime.

----------


## EcoWarrier

Steven, why do you go on about this guy called Norman?  

Roy is great at detecting Tom Peppers.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> A moral statement that expresses an objective fact of human nature is a positive fact.


Please give a specific example of a moral statement that expresses objective fact, wherein the moral statement itself is a positive fact, claim or description.  And since this all arose in the context of your claim of "natural liberty rights", could you keep in that context? 




> Moral statements are positive claims about how human actions in society affect reproductive success _through_ society.


Oh, is that so? Who constrained moral statements to that narrow definition, do you have a source for that? Why was it constrained to "reproductive success", and why "_through_ society"? That last part sounds like flagrant question begging to me.  Unless, by "society" you simply mean any two or more persons. 

And how, exactly, is "reproductive success" defined? Does that mean quality or quantity of reproduction, or is it some combination or other meaning, and who defines this success of which you speak? Be specific, because if you are referring to success as a function of quantity, any positive statement about Asia (China and India in particular) might also be considered positive claims about the superior "reproductive success" (sheer population numbers), which one could attribute to any or all of their past normatives employed in those countries. 

Your criterion ("affect reproductive success") is ill-defined, so you might not have meant population growth, but rather something else entirely. How do you define "reproductive success", and specifically the word "success". How is that determined, or is that also a subset of yet another positive claim? 

Here is an *amoral* statement for you, which is "grounded in" positive fact:

"Impoverished people tend to reproduce in greater numbers than non-impoverished people.  Therefore, impoverishment is the best means for stimulating population growth."  




> They can be true or false, and it can be extremely difficult to determine which is which, but their content is a positive description.


They can be, but that's not what you're doing, which is why I ask for a specific example related to your version of "liberty rights".




> Normative statements are a subset of positive statements, not a disjoint set.


WRONG. NEITHER. Nice try.  Normative statements are neither a subset of positive statements, nor are they a disjoint set (i.e., having nothing in common).  Normative statements are _prescriptive_ (should/ought), and go beyond the merely logically positive _predictive_ or _descriptive_ (true/false) facts or claims they reference.  It is not a disjoint set of whatever logic positives it references, and only because it has in common those references upon which the normative is predicated.  So, again, nice try. 




> ...two subjective beings can reach mutually exclusive conclusions, and make mutually exclusive moral arguments about the same logically positive fact.
> 			
> 		
> 
> But they cannot both be right.


WRONG AGAIN.  Of course they can both be right (both having advantageous outcomes or successes, however those are defined _for each_). There's more than one way to skin an evolutionary cat, because there is no SINGLE BODY that is taking ("deciding upon") a single course of action, nor is there only one course of action that is ever taken.  A mutually exclusive conclusion is just a fork in the road.  And not only can "both" be right, MILLIONS of mutually exclusive propositions can all be right.  

A) "We can all get to our destination by taking an airline. We will be happier because we will spend less time in transit." 
B) "We can all get to our destination by taking buses. We will be happier because we will spend less money."
C) "We can all get to our destination by any mode of transportation that is individually preferred. We will each be happier because each of us will spend less of whatever we value most." 

These are all mutually exclusive conclusions (We are not Yogi Berra, and cannot simply come to a fork and "take it"), and yet all of them may be right (correct).  Multiple entities, multiple paths, infinite combinations, no single "right" outcome. 

The Permian-Triassic mass extinction event did not give us evidence that surviving lifeforms were "right" -- only that they were more suited/placed/adapted/etc. to survive that particular catastrophe, regardless of its cause or origin.    




> Opinions cannot change facts.  That is one of your problematic beliefs.


Projection on your part. I am the ONLY one between us who does not confuse or conflate facts with opinions.  




> No.  [Darwin] demonstrated an empirical fact.


WRONG. Darwin observed empirical facts, and formulated a theory (drew a conclusion and posited his hypothesis) *on the basis of* those facts.  




> The reason I can't prove it is because it IS an empirical issue, and not an exercise in mathematics or formal logic.


There goes your mind-melding verbal alchemy tendency again, as you play fast and loose with a new Roy-fuzzy-logic term: the "_empirical issue_".  You can't out-clever logic, Roy. There are certainly empirical facts, but the only "issue" here is *your individual moral conclusions* about those empirical facts, which you want to pass off as one and the same (by "_grounding it_" in them).  And we are talking about logical, not mathematical (your red herring) proof. 




> Nature doesn't "intend" anything.


*WRONG.*  Nature most certainly "intends" to propagate.  _Life will out_. According to Darwin, via natural selection theory, the only thing that nature does not "intend", is to accomplish this propagation by any single branch or method. Nature will tend to try as many natural variations as successive generations will allow, with survival of a propagating branch determined by natural selection, as unsuccessful attempts result in extinct branches, even as two or more successful branches may split off, as *multiple, mutually exclusive successes*, which gives even more variety for future adaptability and more chances at propagation. 

Unlike leftists, statists and other collectivists, Nature doesn't put all its eggs in one basket, nor does it strive for a single ideal. 




> Nevertheless, the result of that blind, undirected process of evolution is a positive, objective fact: the genetic make-up of a given organism.


...among trillions, none static, all branching out. 

Ignoring your moot "blind" description, while the "process of evolution" can be described as an all-encompassing collective singular, in reality it is anything but a singular process, as it is infinite variations of individual processes that continuously split off and branch out (and quite irreversibly on a macro-scale in geological time, e.g., hippos and whales, their closest living relative, cannot produce offspring).   




> And just as a given length of finch beak is objectively correct or incorrect in a given physical environment, so is a given moral principle objectively correct or not depending on the environment, especially the societal and cultural environment.


Just couldn't help yourself, could you? Had to try to slip it in there somehow? You're question begging your view of the "objective correctness" of a given moral principle.  Sorry, Bub, you have to actually argue it, asserting it is meaningless.  

For a "given moral principle" to be "objectively correct or not" depends, once again, on your definition of correct, or more specifically, "success".  Finch populations with beaks of a certain length _branched away from their relatives_, finch and non-finch, each opportunistically to their own "successes".  There was NO ONE CORRECT ANSWER, because the "intent" of life/nature itself was to simply PROPAGATE. Compete, multiply, consume and be consumed.  

You think of branches, divergence, diversity, variations, etc., only in terms of CONVERGENCE, to a "SINGLE IDEAL" -- a single "objective moral fact" which you believe exists, contrary to anything suggested by empirical facts.  




> OTC, nature is constantly judging all moralities on exactly that basis, and could in principle, by that means, determine which are objectively correct and incorrect.


BULL$#@!. COMPLETE AND UTTER BULL$#@!. Nature doesn't "judge" morality at all, nor is there anything "objectively correct or incorrect" in nature.  REALITY and circumstances are the judges of morality in a temporal sphere. Nature only adapts and responds with *its only intent* - propagation through variation and adaptation: to reality, as it comes.

Nature provides propagation, and trial and error, with adaptations which are successful in producing surviving branches. And all of that includes "sand-bagging" by nature.  The Cambrian Explosion was followed by the unimaginably catastrophic Great Dying 250 Million years ago: 96% of all marine species, 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species -- 57% of all families and 83% of all genera -- all extinct, with the only known mass extinction event that wiped out insects. We don't have a record of all that lived then. Who is to say there wasn't advanced intelligence or "morality" involved then? 

The Permian-Triassic extinction boundary was followed by nature rebounding with dinosaurs, ALL of which were wiped out 65Ma. Nature then rebounded with other life, including hominids.  One event can wipe ALL OF THEM out and nature would rebound with other lifeforms, because nature does not give a flying $#@! about morality, yours or mine.  According to Darwin, it's just a tool for survival, and infinite in variation. What we do with it is our risk, our reward, but with no judgments from nature, no single ideal, no guarantees, and no take-backs or refunds.      




> In practice, we don't arrive at any neat, final product, but in principle it is possible to describe one, and to judge how closely other ones come to it.


Again, COMPLETE AND UTTER BULL$#@!, a meaningless blanket assertion. In arguing for that assertion, someone must actually define the "ideal", the criteria for "success".  So while "how closely" one comes to it (that success, based on some human-defined metric) may be positively claimed or described, and the yardstick for that success may be described in logically positive terms -- it ignores the fact that OTHER, MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE BUT EQUALLY VALID yardsticks, or metrics could also have been defined, and applied.  




> No, he was clear that human moral capacity was fairly uniform, and had to be to confer a reproductive advantage.


Who gives a $#@! what he was clear on? Darwin was just a man, asking questions and forming hypotheses, not an omniscient god of nature and genetic engineering.  




> The human moral capacity must reside on a fairly modest number of genes, and those will, by sheer chance, sometimes be identical in two given individuals.  Moreover, there is nothing abstract or subjective in the biological capacity.  The abstractions and subjective opinions are built USING that capacity.


All nothing but speculative, ill-defined gibberish. "fairly modest", "sheer chance", "sometimes identical in two individuals", "nothing abstract or subjective" -- keep babbling on with great conviction about $#@! you know very little about. 




> I simply observe that for a given set of conditions, there is probably one or at least a very small number of moral systems that will work best...


"will work best"?  What does that mean? Best how, and for whom? By what metric? Define "BEST".  And if you wax slippery-dishonest as you take refuge in the nebulous "_effective in achieving reproductive success through society_", then define all of that, including a reduction and definition of each of those terms -- especially "success" and "society".  




> *But they aren't all equally correct,* (i.e., effective in achieving reproductive success) and that is the POINT of their being part of our evolving nature: they will be winnowed, the inferior and incorrect being supplanted by the superior and thus more correct.


Define "superior" and "inferior" while you're at it.  




> For example, you do not believe in an equal individual right to liberty.  That's a moral point you dispute with me, right there.


Flagrant question begging, using only your "common property" definition of "liberty".  




> But however much we may dispute it, it's a positive claim about what will work _objectively_, in society, not a mere subjective difference in taste, and we can't both be right about it.


BULL$#@!.  Multiple variations and multiple branches can, as nature proves, provide multiple "right" successes. 




> But the doctrine of original sin notwithstanding, the state can't be immoral in its basic nature any more than man can.


Oh, well I guess you were LYING, then, every time you denounced anyone or anything as "evil". 




> Do they?  What do you mean by "gangs"?  Most gangs do a piss-poor job of surviving, and their members do even worse.


Really? Are you an expert on the genealogies of gangs and their members?  Did you take an actual count of how many ho's and bitches they knocked up, or were you just referring to life expectancy, and not PROPAGATION?  Sea turtle hatchlings do a piss-poor job of surviving on the whole, but because of their sheer numbers, they seem to do alright as a propagating species. 

Again, Roy, what's your metric for "success"?  




> Evolution works on the basis of individuals' survival and reproduction.  It just happens, as a contingent empirical fact, that individual *human* survival is intimately linked with societal strength and health.  The same goes, to a lesser extent, for chimpanzees and gorillas.  It DOESN'T go for orangutans, which are solitary


Humans could be said to be more like rodents, rabbits and cockroaches than apes or monkeys in terms of propagation, adaptation and survival capacities.  We reproduce far faster and far more often than any apes, and our capacity for variation in our diet is comparable to mice and rats, not apes, even as we are far more adaptable to our environments (can exist nearly anywhere on Earth).  You think that's all "intimately linked with societal strength and health"?  I ask "WHOSE SOCIETAL STRENGTH AND HEALTH?" Because that's a two-edged sword. 

Our sheer population numbers, including our capacity for adaptation and rapid reproduction, are also intimately linked to POVERTY, HUMAN WEAKNESS (soft, furless, smelly, with no sharp fangs or claws or other natural physical defenses), and BRUTALITY _as a byproduct and function of_ "SOCIETAL STRENGTH AND HEALTH".  That's because humans, when their long term survival is threatened, _tend to branch out, fight, prey upon one another, huddle together, run away, find other opportunities, and, most importantly, $#@! a lot more_. That, too, is intimately linked with "societal strength and health"  -- another term you have ill-defined, because you aren't paying attention to "WHOSE". In your aggregate-collectivist-hive mindset, you think that when you put together words like "societal" and "strength" and "health" you've actually said something meaningful.  

So, what's "better", Roy, or more "objectively reproductively successful":  larger-brained, fiercely independent, self-sufficient, relatively brutal, snarling, fighting Lupines, and their complex social order, or would it be their close relatives, the smaller-brained, weaker, mostly human dependent and domesticated canines?  And why?  By what criteria?




> Eventually, my version will prevail.


Any variation can prevail. For a time. Just as something close to your version has prevailed, in isolation, in the past, for a time.  




> It's just a question of how much evil, misery and slaughter apologists for landowner privilege will inflict on long-suffering humanity in the meantime.


You argue for a complex, indirect "value credit" compensation on the basis of a deprivation of putative "natural liberty rights", based on the equally putative premise that the entire Earth is "common property".  You see people having no "rights of possession of land", but only "rights of liberty access" thereto.  But you don't secure either. You fully embrace that deprivation, and want to compensate for them instead, with an indirect political promise based on an economic consequence.  

I argue for simply for rights in land -- actual rights of possession and disposal of parcels to individuals -- not an economic reconciliation of "liberty rights to all land", as I auction those collectivized putative rights to highest bidders.  Furthermore, I am the ONLY one who does not believe that ALL ECONOMIC ENTITIES ARE CREATED EQUAL. You, in fact, do.  You treat them all equally, because it's all about money to you, with land only a means to an end.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I argue for simply for rights in land -- actual rights of possession and disposal of parcels to individuals


Geonomics gives that. Title and "ownership", buying and selling stays the same. LVT is a tax shift, taxing commonly created wealth leaving us alone with our own money and wealth.

You want to freeload.

----------


## erowe1

> Lie.
> 
> Stupid garbage.
> 
> Strawman.  You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.
> 
> Strawman.  You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.
> 
> "Grounded in" doesn't mean "related to."  You're just lying.  As usual.
> ...


I hope you have shortcut keys for some of these lines.

----------


## erowe1

> Lie.
> 
> Stupid garbage.
> 
> Strawman.  You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.
> 
> Strawman.  You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.
> 
> "Grounded in" doesn't mean "related to."  You're just lying.  As usual.
> ...


I hope you have shortcut keys for some of these lines.

----------


## EcoWarrier

> I hope you have shortcut keys for some of these lines.


I hope you have a delete key to snip the large quoted content which you never commented on. Your post was just unwanted noise.

----------


## Roy L

> It's by the same right that I have to steal pixies right off of your front lawn. In broad daylight! Prove the pixies exist, and then prove they were yours, and then sue me.


So you are admitting that you consider the right to liberty in the same category as pixies: i.e., non-existent.  That's what I've been telling you: you do not believe in a human right to liberty.  What you believe in is a self-contradictory "right" to property: a right to appropriate for yourself what nature provided for all *by using it*, but to do so *without* having any *liberty* right *to* use it.

Which is a bald self-contradiction.



> There, I fixed it for you.  But I'll stipulate to it. I stole your pixies, I'm without remorse, and I'd do it again.


You again openly confess that you do not believe in a right to liberty, only a right to deprive others of their liberty: to rob, enslave and murder them for your own unearned profit.

Which is evil, self-contradictory filth.



> Sounds like a gas.  I guess you don't much care for scalpers either.


Thank you for proving that you favor parasitism.



> My pixies are more real than your pixies.  Stop oppressing my pixies.


"Ah got me a real property right in mah niggahs!  The law says so, and the law is all that mattuhs!"



> It's implied, given all that "value" from community individuals that "soaks" into the land, like so much piss.


No, the fact that land has value doesn't imply it has rights, any more than a car having value implies it has rights.  You are just saying any stupid, dishonest thing that comes into your head in order to avoid knowing the facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil.



> I can see why you avoid that analogy, because it forces you to deal with the fact that you're in effect treating the land, not people, as if it had rights.


Nope.  You're just lying again.  There is nothing in anything I have said that implies the land rather than individuals have rights.  That's just a flat-out lie with no basis in logic, fact or evidence.  It is something stupid that you made up out of whole cloth.



> Wow, I guess Crusoe sucks as an emperor of his island.  So much for state benevolence.  He should have offered Friday a UIE.  Despicable, evil filth.


Now you're getting it.  Because even you have limits to how much fact you can evade.



> Beg that self-congratulatory stupidity somewhere else.


You admitted you have no interest in justice or efficiency.  That's just a fact.



> Being in favor of LVT (as you envision it) is not evidence of interest in justice or efficiency.


Oh, but it is.  That is why many very intelligent individuals who were known to be interested in justice and/or efficiency have been in favor of LVT: John Stuart Mill, Leo Tolstoy, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, etc.



> Is Crusoe the king? The state?


No, just the land"owner."  And thus, by your "logic," rightfully entitled to enslave Friday by force.



> ...which "untaxed" would be "all real people/individual Citizens" only in my scenario.  Thanks for the backhanded endorsement of my plan.


Well, your plan couldn't very well be pure evil in _every_ way, could it?  That's not going to get very far.  But it is still essentially a recipe for feudalism as landownership concentrates in fewer and fewer hands.



> In ancient Egypt, it was the priests.  That's not ALL real people. 
> In Rome, it was the noble senatorial families.  Again, not ALL real people.


And...?  So what?



> In Mughal India, it was the Muslims.  Again, not ALL real people.


But in the predominantly Muslim areas that are now Pakistan and Bangladesh, it was pretty close to all real people, and that didn't stop land from concentrating in the hands of a few rich, greedy parasites while the great majority were robbed and enslaved.  LOOK AT PAKISTAN.  That is the result of effectively tax-free landownership extended to effectively the entire population: a tiny minority ends up owning virtually all the land, and the condition of the landless is indistinguishable from that of slaves.



> Kazzactly. And thanks again for that confession, that ringing backhanded endorsement.


"Same as Pakistan and Bangladesh" is not an endorsement, hello?



> Nah, it just destroys the advantages of those who are taxed.


No, it mostly *gives* an advantage to those who hold land tax-free: a massive welfare subsidy giveaway of publicly created value paid for by other people's taxes.  The more land they hold, the more they are enabled to steal from everyone else.



> And _if it's not real people with rights_, whose advantages are being destroyed?


The rights of the landless are being destroyed, for the unearned advantage of the landed.



> You wish. You so wish.


It is indisputable fact, and I have proved it.



> Go collectivize someone else, Privilege Communist.


Go lie about what someone else has plainly written, Lying Sack of $#!+.



> No, to really do a number on Mom and Pop, it needs to seek out additional artificial advantages, like exemptions and abatements -- inducements by local governments to come to their cities to compete with their Moms and Pops, rather than another city's Moms and Pops.


No, it can easily outcompete Mom and Pop without those artificial advantages through its immense economies of scale.  The land use favors, property tax abatements, etc. just shovel additional money into WalMart's pockets.



> Whose economy?


Society's.  The community's.  Ours.



> Who's invigorated by it?


The productive (whom you would prefer be robbed and enslaved).



> As a hive-minded, aggregate-only-thinking collectivist,


Stupid "poopypants" yammering with no basis in fact.



> you'd be blind to any such distinctions, unable to comprehend that you have indeed chosen winners and losers.


I know perfectly well I have "chosen" the same winners and losers the free market chooses: with LVT the honest and productive win; the dishonest, unproductive and greedy lose.  That is exactly why you hate and fear it with such maniacal ferocity.



> Fortunately, most people don't buy that mush-brained, class warmongering collectivist crap.


It is objective fact, as proved by your continuing 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?"



> So you end up right where Henry George ended up -- losing, and all for lack of critical thinking skills, wisdom and common sense where it counts most.


Nope.  The truth can never lose.  It can fall behind, even far behind, but it will and must always win in the end.  Landowner privilege has destroyed hundreds of societies over 5000 years, but it will ultimately lose because it is based on lies.  Take it to the bank.

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## Steven Douglas

> So you are admitting that you consider the right to liberty in the same category as pixies: i.e., non-existent.


Which liberty, Roy? That is more of your disingenuous, intellectually dishonest collectivizing at work - your usual, circular, question-begging fallacy of composition, as you failed (quite deliberately) to distinguish _which kind of liberty_ you are referring to when you say "right to liberty". You have never gotten away with that, Roy, save in your own irrelevant mind, which billions of people on Earth take no notice of, do not agree with, and do not give a $#@! about.  

There are millions of liberties that you yourself don't consider rights, morally speaking, and that you personally do not believe _ought_ to be recognized and codified as "liberty rights" by the state.  Does that mean that you are against the "right to liberty"? Yes, in those cases, once the specific meanings are clarified, it very much does. With regard to those particular liberties, you are against the "right to [those] liberties". 

Now onto your fantasy Pixies Liberty. What you specifically mean when you dishonestly say the "right to liberty", is the *nonexclusive access and use of any and all land within your immediate personal "community" vicinity*.  This could indeed be a _physically liberty_ if others didn't exist.  That is the liberty you are calling a "right", and hoping to get away with referring to it as a generic "right to liberty".  But that particular type of liberty exists, only in your mind and those like-minded, as a moral right. It does not exist as such in my mind, nor does it exist in hundreds of millions of other minds (thus making it the equivalent of a fantasy pixie).  

_Legally_, however, such a right does not exist anywhere on Earth -- because that so-called "liberty right" that you are claiming exists (of non-exclusive access to every individual to the very best lands in their community) is physically impossible to reconcile, and remains a deprivation even under LVT.  The fact that you believe LVT and UIE would [_economically_] "reconcile" such deprivations does not physically secure those liberties which you are calling rights. Quite the opposite, as it only _secures the physically irreconcilable deprivation of those liberties_. 




> That's what I've been telling you: you do not believe in a human right to *liberty-as-meant-when-Roy-writes-it*.


Fixed it for you, Roy, by including what you shamelessly and deliberately omitted. And that is absolutely, positively correct. I do not believe in a human right to *liberty-as-meant-when-Roy-writes-it*. 

Go sell your crazy human enslavement snake-oil contraption somewhere else.

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