Lol, Marx considered George's Single Tax idea as capitalism last ditch ploy. And George referred to Marx as the king of all muddleheads. Just because they both recognized a flaw in the economic system doesn't mean they had similar solutions.
If I say that my solution is to bind your legs, but someone else's solution is to bind your hands and arms, by your logic I could say the solutions are not at all similar, as arms are very different from legs. Anyone can see that hands and arms are far more useful than legs, so my solution is obviously superior, and not anything like the other, as you are still quite "FREE" to use your hands and arms with my solution.
Under a Georgist regime, Capital and Labor - two of the basic factors of production - requirements for productivity and wealth creation, would remain in private hands where they rightly belong.
There are in fact three basic factors of production. You forgot land.
Read what you quoted again (emphasis in bold). The very next paragraph referred to the Georgist state appropriation (binding of the legs only) of 100% of the value of
the entire third factor of production.
You still have trouble understanding the difference between common property and collective property dont you?
Not at all, but let's get into that hair-splitting exercise on the part of you and one Dan Sullivan, shall we?
One of the great tragedies of socialism has been the confounding of common rights (natural rights common to each individual) with collective rights (those that have been delegated to the community or its government). Common rights are inalienable, individual rights -- the very opposite of collective rights. Classical liberalism was based on the idea of common rights.
Where you and Dan Sullivan err is in wanting to have your socialist cake and justify eating it too by calling it classical liberalism cake. Sullivan states that "Common rights are inalienable, individual rights -- the very opposite of collective rights." -- and yet he is trying to make the argument for collectivization of land based on individual deprivations and abrogation of individual rights (TO LAND). But those so-called "individual rights" are not individualized AT ALL. They are FOREVER collectivized under LVT. So what he is arguing is as absurd as it is self-contradictory.
Here's where Dan Sullivan makes an unwitting argument against LVT by quoting Locke (whom I happen to agree with) as an authority, but trying to spin Locke's words and position in a light that is favorable to LVT:
The Lockean Proviso
John Locke's chapter "On Property," from his Second Treatise on Government, asserted that any person has a right to exclusive possession of land, "provided that there is enough, and as good, left to others." This is but another way of saying that the common right to hold land is limited only by the equal rights of others. As long as this proviso is met, the landholder has no reciprocal obligation to the community or its members, because his holding land has not prevented others from exercising their rights to do likewise.
So far so good, that is what I have been arguing all along. The solution to a violation of Locke's Proviso (that someone/anyone is denied opportunity to access to land of their own) is to unblock those who have artificially blocked that access; to open up that opportunity and restore that access as an inalienable
INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO EACH, and not the exclusive privilege of the very few (PUBLIC OR PRIVATE).
Geolibs fully accept this deprivation as a first principle. Their solution is not to see a violation of Locke's Proviso and UNVIOLATE IT. Their solution is not to unblock that opportunity of access and restore the right of access to individuals FOR LANDS OF THEIR OWN as a matter of right. Their solution is to say, "Yes, you can continue your exclusive possession, and continue to violate Locke's Proviso, denying this Common right of individuals,
but only for a price. That is where LVT proponents collectivize the rights of others and offer them up FOR RENT to the highest bidder. And that rent paid -- under color of recompense for the denial of Common Rights
of Individuals -- is not paid directly to ANY individual whose rights are denied. This is because their so-called equal "Common", equal, individual rights have been collectivized.
Sullivan goes on to say:
Locke also noted that economies relying on private possession of land are vastly more productive than nomadic economies, and that it is in the public interest to grant possession within the limits of his proviso.
Locke further noted that his proviso referred to there being land as good as the unimproved value of the land already taken up:
He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour: if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him in common with others to labour on, and whereof there was as good left, as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to. [Sec. 34]
Here Locke talks about lands actually held in common, but even there this entails possession, or exclusive use of lands worked. So long as more land existed for a claim for others, there is NO DEPRIVATION involved, no cause for complaint, and no obligation on the part of the exclusive holders. This is counter to the geolib claim that everyone has an equal claim to all lands, and that a deprivation is being suffered even when other neighboring lands are readily available.
Locke went on to state that, when populations were sparse and the economy was not fully monetized, there was no incentive for people to take up more land than they intended to use, and so there was little violation of the rights of others. However, with the growth of population, good land became scarce, and with the introduction of money, it became profitable for people to take up land they had no intention of using, so that others would pay them to let go of that land. It is at this point that Locke's proviso was violated, and systems of land tenure had to be established by social compact.
That's not really an accurate paraphrase, but let's stipulate for the sake of discussion that it is. Once again, the obvious solution to scarcity and value increases due to speculation only is to prevent or undo all such speculation WITHOUT TREADING ON THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS WHO ARE NOT SPECULATING, but who are only acting as a matter of right under Locke's Proviso. One mechanism for this could be to charge LVT, or Ground Rents targeted TO SPECULATORS ONLY -
only to those acting as a matter of privilege, and not right. In other words, make it not worth it for most to speculate. And if charging Ground Rent to speculators fails to bring the scarcity down, sterner "anti-trust" measures could be taken, right down to outright confiscation and public auctions for non-compliance.
Locke did not state what the particulars of social compacts should be, but it would be logical for him to advocate a compact that would be harmonious with his proviso that land should be accessible to others, and with his other proviso, that land should not be appropriated to be held out of use.
And I agree.
Those are the first principles; NOT a revenue mechanism for the State, but rather land that is accessible to others to possess exclusively as a matter of right, and not appropriated or held out of use, or to the exclusion of others
for lands of their own. As Sullivan correctly stated, "As long as [Locke's Proviso] is met,
the landholder has no reciprocal obligation to the community or its members, because his holding land has not prevented others from exercising their rights to do likewise.
And that's the argument AGAINST LVT in a nutshell.
LVT proponents, because of their primary focus on LVT as a revenue source for the State, rather than a protection of individual rights of exclusive land possession,
seek to make de facto Locke's Proviso Violators out of everyone, when nothing could be further from the truth. The two major causes of the violation are the land speculators and the state (to the extent that lands are artificially withheld from private possession and usage). LVT proponents seek to make a pact between the two biggest violators that includes everyone by default. Deal specifically with those violations, those violators, and there is no violation on anyone's part, and therefore "no reciprocal obligation to the community or its members" by any landholder.
No, LVT proponents are in the business of making violations the rule and not the exception, even to the point of rewarding and encouraging violations by selling the rights to them to the highest bidder, as a kind of
Locke's Violation Indulgences. Meanwhile, the people are not free, as the very "rights" each could have held equally in common as individuals (NOT COLLECTIVE) is converted en masse to privilege status for everyone, even as the state becomes the BIGGEST perpetual encourager, facilitator, aider and abettor of wanton violations of Locke's Proviso.
And I take it there is no state-level property tax.
