Zippy Juan said:
If nobody owns it it is more likely to get abused and trashed and its value lessened (see Tragedy of the Commons).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Only if government does not perform its legitimate function of securing and reconciling the equal rights of all to use it.
Zippy Juan's Problem: Equal rights of all to use the same resource results in its damage and/or depletion. (Tragedy of the Commons)
Roy's Solution: Government must secure and reconcile equal rights to use of all to use it.
The Tragedy of the Commons is caused by everyone
already having an equal, free right of common access to use of the same parcel of land, or common resource. Thus, on the surface, Roy's solution might appear to be a logical absurdity, as he seems to be advocating the very cause of the problem as a solution. But that is not what Roy means when he says "
securing and reconciling the equal rights of all to use it".
The net effect of Roy's solution (as government's "legitimate function") is to forcibly remove equal access to all for use of Common Land. What was once
equal access to all becomes
exclusive access granted to one (whomever is willing to pay the highest fee to the taxing jurisdiction that administers the land appropriated to it).
Garrett Hardin, the author of "The Tragedy of the Commons," was dismayed that his work was appropriated by right-wing know-nothings as an argument for privatization of public resources, because he was actually arguing for better public stewardship of them.
This can be somewhat misleading, because Roy's argument is for the privatization
of exclusive access to those same "public resources". That wouldn't change. The only difference in either case (leasehold under LVT or freehold under landownership) is who is entitled to the economic rents - NOT the fact that exclusive access to the resource itself is granted and secured by the state to some paying entity, to the physical exclusion of all others.
Granting exclusive access to land to a single paying entity eliminates the problem of the Tragedy of the Commons, but creates a new problem, as everyone else is now physically, forcibly excluded or prevented from access to use of that same land. Under Roy's paradigm, that is a "right" that is unalienable, and therefore infringed. This infringement is then reconciled (economically) by Roy's solution in two parts:
In parsing what Roy wrote, note that he stated that government has a "
legitimate function of securing and reconciling the equal rights of all to use it." (three operative words). So government must:
1) secure the equal rights of all to use "it", and it must also
2) reconcile the rights of all to use "it".
In the context of
securing the equal rights of all to use "it", Roy could not have meant securing actual physical access (to everyone) to that particular parcel of land. Exclusive access is already granted to a single entity, which necessarily precludes access/use of that parcel of land to everyone else, who are necessarily excluded. Thus, that parcel of land is no longer available for their use during the term of the leasehold (which can be a lifetime for many if the leasehold remains in force for a long enough term). What cannot be physically "secured" as physical access must then be "reconciled" by compensation to individuals for a right that still exists but has been infringed - "reconciling" being the other operative word, through the unspoken-but-implied "just compensation".
What Roy's proposal really boils down to are the mechanics of "
reconciling the rights of all to use it" whenever they are infringed upon (by agreement between the state and the landholder through which exclusive use and access is granted). The solution and rationale of this reconciliation are two-fold, involving Land Value Tax (LVT) and Roy's Universal Individual Exemption (UIE).
Under Roy's paradigm, LVT paid to the taxing jurisdiction is the equivalent of paying everyone in that community who was deprived of any access or use of any land within that taxing jurisdiction. However, that revenue is not paid to those individuals, and cannot be called just compensation to them to the extent that they do not receive it, as this revenue goes directly to the State, ostensibly to pay for government services and infrastructure that contributed, in part, to the value of land in the first place.
Scarce lands are allocated, from most to least valued lands, not according to equal rights of all, but rather according to the willingness and ability on the parts of certain entities (individuals or others, regardless of their legal status) to pay the most to the taxing jurisdiction. This satisfies the state's requirement for funding for services, infrastructure and other expenditures (some of which COULD, in theory, go individuals), but does not necessarily secure or reconcile any of the rights of those excluded from use or access to better lands held in common (for want of the willingness and ability to pay more to the taxing jurisdiction). That's where the UIE kicks in.*
The Universal Individual Exemption (UIE) would be granted to all individuals living within a taxing jurisdiction for the same amount to all that is said to be equal, according to Roy, for "enough good land to live on" (as defined by the state). That exemption could then be applied toward any land, thus making individuals exempt from paying for economic rents. The UIE is the primary mechanism for direct
reconciliation ("just compensation") for any losses suffered by individuals for having been excluded from use of other land parcels in that taxing jurisdiction.
* Some LVT proponents propose actual dividends paid out to individuals - the way Alaska does now with tax dividends paid on oil revenues, but that is not discussed as it is not part of Roy's version of policy proposals surrounding his version of LVT.
Privately owned land is often held vacant for decades at a stretch. Rented land, by contrast, is used productively, or yielded to a more productive user.
Often true also of publicly owned land, which is often held vacant (in reserve) throughout the entire existence of the state.
Land value is identically equal to the minimum value the owner expects to take...
Aside from buyer/owner/holder expectations, actual market value is a forever transient phenomenon -- a dynamic variable that could be much more or much less than anyone's expectation - as anyone who bought in 2007 with long speculation in mind learned quickly enough as sellers made out like bandits while many buyers were turned upside down. Likewise longterm leaseholdings in Hong Kong, the real market value of which always deviates from what the leaseholder expects to take as minimum value versus what the state expected to capture in land value.
