Steven Douglas
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Robin Hood Tax ?
- Thread starter Origanalist
- Start date
MattintheCrown
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It's self refuting. It's literally comical.Which is another way of saying....
Steven Douglas
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And that, class, is what "cajones in a vice" looks like on these here innernets.
Backhanded surrender accepted.
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Self-contradiction. What would it mean to rent land that others can still go on without restriction?
Well, aside from self-evidently not being about LVT (there being no attempt even to measure, let alone charge, the market rent, nor to secure exclusive tenure in return for it), let alone LVT + UIE, what on earth did you erroneously imagine the point of that little thoughtless experiment to be?
MattintheCrown
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Oh, Steven. You are resourceful, I'll give you that. Seeing now that you are utterly unable to rationally dispute our claims, you've now moved on to making increasingly long and inane posts, figuring that no one will have the time or inclination to comprehensively refute them in the manner of all of your previous claims, at which point you will declare victory. Not the first time I've encountered this, but few are willing to put so much time and effort into refusing to learn. So I'll doff my chapeau on that account.
Still, for the forum's benefit, I'll give a taste of just how ridiculous your post was. You said:
Here, you've invented a concept: location of improvements. But it's just patently obvious that the location is a property of the land, not the improvement. The value of location is what developers would be paying for; their aim would be to make improvements which exploit the benefits inherent in a given location, which would in turn benefit all of society, as it would provide amenities that are in demand in locations where they are demanded.
Every "point" you make is equally ludicrous, but that serves as a nice example. Really, your making this argument proves you are either comprehensively ignorant of basic logic, or are being wildly disingenuous, and in either case it means that you don't have much to contribute to the discussion.
Steven Douglas
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The location is a property of whatever is in that location, which of course includes land. But location is not a property that is exclusive to land. It is also a property of ALL IMPROVEMENTS WHICH ARE STACKED ON THAT LAND. How could that not be completely and utterly obvious to you, let alone anyone with a lick of common sense? Take ANY massive object in the universe, let alone the economy, and ONE of its properties will be its location. LVT does not account for locational advantages of capital (not directly, anyway) - only unimproved land.
Under LVT, once the land value tax is paid for the location advantages of only the unimproved land, the quantity and value of goods that I can stack on that land are pure gravy. Only the land rents belong to the state, remember? The rents on capital located on that location are the sole, non-taxable property of the owner. Remember? The location of the capital is not taxed. Only the unimproved land (sans capital improvements), is taxed. Remember? And that is without regard to quantity, value OR location of those improvements. That is why an empty lot incurs the SAME LVT as a next door neighboring hi-rise on the same-sized parcel of land.
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awake
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My final response to hopeless fanatics...
"Some Georgists lay great emphasis on the fixity of land: the supply
of land sites is fixed and so increased population raises land values;
again, horses are not fixed in supply but land is. Rebuttal to this is in
two parts: (a) land sites may be fixed, but so are Rembrandts. Why
not confiscate Rembrandt value? (b) physical land may be fixed, but
the service of supplying the land is not; it is the productive service
by the site-owner that generates value, and it will be gravely discouraged
by taxes on land values. A 100 percent tax on land values will
generate chaos in land and therefore in production generally; a lesser
degree of taxes will inflict lesser damage, but damage there most
certainly will be.
Finally, many Georgists have, by inference, accused me of wishing
to levy taxes on production, and have expounded on the beneficial
effects that would flow once such taxes were lifted from the
economy. I have great respect for many aspects of Henry George;
and none more than for his passages on the benefits that would ensue
once taxes were removed from production. Our difference is that I
believe that land value taxation would also blight production, and,
further, be unjust rather than the contrary. If we wish to establish
justice and remove taxes from production, some other means than
land value taxation will have to be found." Rothbard
Now
"Some Georgists lay great emphasis on the fixity of land: the supply
of land sites is fixed and so increased population raises land values;
again, horses are not fixed in supply but land is. Rebuttal to this is in
two parts: (a) land sites may be fixed, but so are Rembrandts. Why
not confiscate Rembrandt value? (b) physical land may be fixed, but
the service of supplying the land is not; it is the productive service
by the site-owner that generates value, and it will be gravely discouraged
by taxes on land values. A 100 percent tax on land values will
generate chaos in land and therefore in production generally; a lesser
degree of taxes will inflict lesser damage, but damage there most
certainly will be.
Finally, many Georgists have, by inference, accused me of wishing
to levy taxes on production, and have expounded on the beneficial
effects that would flow once such taxes were lifted from the
economy. I have great respect for many aspects of Henry George;
and none more than for his passages on the benefits that would ensue
once taxes were removed from production. Our difference is that I
believe that land value taxation would also blight production, and,
further, be unjust rather than the contrary. If we wish to establish
justice and remove taxes from production, some other means than
land value taxation will have to be found." Rothbard
Now
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More absurdity intended to enable commission of atrocities.
1. LVT is not based on unimproved land. It is based on the value land would have IF it were unimproved.
2. That value IS, directly and precisely, the locational advantage that the capital and labor best suited to that land would enjoy there.
I.e., what you produce there, and the products you locate there -- contributions to the wealth of the community -- are not taxed. Right.
<sigh> The location of the capital is taxed because that is precisely what gives the land its unimproved value: the economic advantage the user enjoys by deploying, at that location, the capital and labor best suited to it.
Remember?
Right. And both are taxed according to the advantage the user would enjoy by deploying on them the capital and labor best suited to them. Meaning the vacant lot doesn't stay vacant for long.
MattintheCrown
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Sigh. Only if they're on that land, obviously.
Capital doesn't have locational advantages: locations do. Duh. Locations are part of unimproved land. In fact, they define unimproved land: what is the land in some specific location worth, minus improvements?
Right, that's the point: because owners of land are charged the full rental value of their location, they are induced to use it as productively as they can, as doing so is the only means to make money, instead of losing money. End result? Society allocates capital more efficiently, and everyone gets more wealth for less work. That's what economizing is all about.
You're equivocating with the word "rent" here. The returns to capital that developers get for use of their improvements isn't a rent, but is "profit" or "interest."
Assume an LVT and imagine two identical McDonalds restaurants, in two different locations of a city. When they were built, the land in the two locations was of comparable value. Each McDonalds paid the same tax, and they got roughly the same amount of business. Now, imagine that the area near one of the sites becomes a growing district of the city for some reason or another; more businesses move in, and there's more people in that end of town in general. Now, that McDonalds will get way more business due to the increased number of potential customers: but it will also pay more tax. The advantage of being located in the busier area is taxed away. And that's fair, as the increased revenue had nothing to do with anything the McDonalds did, but was a result of a greater social trend.
The location is taxed. The capital has no separate location to tax. Are you claiming that a building can have a location independent of the site it's on? You're talking nonsense.
Riiiight. And? Again, there is no separate "building location"; there's just location, and the benefits of a location are taxed. Giving landowners incentive to use their land productively is a good thing, as it ensures society will have adequate accommodations where such accommodations are desired. You want capitalists competing with each other to supply fixed improvements to land; that makes everyone richer.
While both Rembrandts and land are in fixed supply, and thus have the same monopolistic market characteristics, and it would consequently make sense to tax Rembrandts if we were only concerned about the economic effects (it would stimulate the optimum amount of exhibition to the public), it does not make moral sense to tax them for three reasons:
1. The value of Rembrandts doesn't come from government spending, it comes from Rembrandt, and however indirectly, the current owner of the painting paid him for it.
2. Rembrandts are not something people would otherwise be at liberty to use, so no compensation is owed for stopping others from using them, or for being stopped.
3. Unlike land, Rembrandts are easily destroyed or lost, and do not naturally recover their value when left alone, so reducing their value by taxation could lead to their permanent loss through neglect.
The "service of supplying land" is indisputably fixed, at zero. There is no such thing as a "service of supplying the land," because the supply of land is fixed, and cannot be increased or decreased by the site owner.
There is no such service, never has been, and never will be. The site-owner does nothing whatever but pocket the rent, which he can do just as well while comatose. He is a pure parasite, and contributes no value whatever. This is proved by the fact that removal of the owner and everything he has ever done has no effect whatever on the availability or unimproved value of the land.
That is just a stupid lie that Murray Rothbard told because there is no way to contrive objections to liberty, justice and truth other than by telling stupid lies. He decided to oppose LVT, and therefore decided, at the same moment, to tell stupid lies, and proceeded to tell them. It's always the same. We have seen it here in this thread and in all the other threads where LVT has been discussed: there are no honest objections to LVT, never have been, and never will be, only stupid lies.
But never provided any logical or factual basis for that belief.
Again, that is indisputably contrary to fact. Any injustice is associated with the transition, and is easily handled by appropriate temporary measures.
No other method is possible, has ever been possible, or ever will be possible.
Exactly how I pictured you....
MattintheCrown
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Because the state's interests and society's interests are better aligned under an LVT than under the current tax regime. Right now, the state taxes people based on what they provide to society; under the LVT, the state taxes people based on what they take from society.
As we all know that taxes act as a disincentive to a particular activity, it's easy to see why a state where monopolizing land is discouraged is better than a state where producing wealth is discouraged. We want the former, and don't want the latter. Our current tax regime puts wealth producers at odds with the state, whereas under the LVT, producers would be untaxed, and people would only pay based on the services they receive (namely, exclusive use of a given site).
Edit: I forgot to add another very important reason. In a democratic state, the government is a reflection of the society it governs (albeit, a distorted reflection). As a result, states that are poor and have widespread poverty, and have huge contrasts between the rich and poor are invariably rife with corruption; states that are wealthy, have little poverty, and have a lesser gap between the haves and have-nots typically have government that is much more accountable, and functions far better. As a society under the LVT would be incomparably more wealthy and less poverty-stricken than any we know today, it follows that the state that governed it would tend to be much more effective for that reason alone.
(a) Because Rembrandts are products of labor. It's true that taxing them won't cause any deadweight loss, just like a tax on land, but unlike land, no one has any right to use of Rembrandts (or, put another way, people who by Rembrandts do have a legitimate right to restrict others from using the painting, as there's presumably a chain of custody going back to the producer himself).
(b) There is no such thing as a service of supplying land, as it was supplied by nature. Site owners do not generate the value of their sites; Rothbard is simply talking nonsense on that score.
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"Dogged" would be the most flattering term for it.
True. And his less inventive dittoheads give him + reps for them, too...
Steven Douglas
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Thanks for the quasi-honesty, as that is exactly what geoists are proposing. What you failed to distinguish, but it's in geonomics anyway, is "WHICH" lands. But you did say "if 'it' were unimproved. Meaning the land in question only. Land would not have the same economic value if you took away ALL private improvements in the community. An entire community area with nothing but vacant unimproved lands, even with infrastructure magically in place (police, fire, roads, everything ready to go except private improvements and private economic activity), would have SOME value. But not the same value as it would with everything and everyone already in place. So the space would fill up, no question about that, but land rents would start out much lower, and would only grow through bootstrapping, as private individuals were finally enticed to come and fill the private economic voids.
The unimproved value is for a given parcel of land only, and only relative to the value of all the other marginal IMPROVED lands, which value includes the value of someone else's capital improvements and prior existing economic activity (i.e, OTHER'S capital and labor), which are factored into the land rents, or unimproved value of that land only (all neighboring lands).
And that pace, that "land rents value bar" for an empty lot, is established by all neighboring lands and their capital improvements, labor and other economic activities that are already in place. And there's your Great Developers Race in a nutshell. Just as the banks and first users of Fed-system-created currency are the clear winners in a currency-debauching regime, under an LVT regime, the first users (growing firms on lands of initially low value) grow naturally, as they enjoy paying the very lowest land rents, in increments they can automatically afford, as they are the ones setting the bar.
They are not paying on the basis of some crystal ball future vision of their own future successes. They are only paying based on the past successes of the surrounding lands. So they are profitable "from the ground floor", so to speak (pun intended), as they drive the floor of the marginal rents of empty neighboring lots upward. FIRST GROWING USERS OF LAND, and nobody else, get all the enormous benefits of that ground floor. They alone capture all the rental values of their own capital improvements. They are NEVER taxed on the basis of the capital improvements of their poorer neighbors. It is the other way around. Their re-assessments always occur after-the-fact, with new bars (for everyone) set on the basis of their proven abilities only.
So the worst thing that can happen to you under LVT is that a WEALTHY MEGA-FIRM DEVELOPER ON STEROIDS plops its ass next door to you, because it is as good as an occupancy repellent to you. That is because ALL ITS ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES, an activities from ITS CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS, will be charged...to you. That is because ALL economic advantages that would otherwise have existed without LVT, are being charged to you, whether you take advantage of them or not.
And yet "what you produce there, and the products you locate there -- contributions to the wealth of the community", etc., are all responsible for driving up the LVT on marginal unimproved lands. So...somebody is being taxed based on the existence of that capital (which is being counted as LAND RENTS!). Somebody is bearing the burden of somebody else's capital improvements.
And there's the rub. And the lie. It is impossible for a late-comer to "grow" a business on an empty lot in the same way as a first-comer who grew theirs on a neighboring parcel of land. Any newcomers will have to pay as if they were already a going concern, just like their neighbors that drove up the land rents in the first place. And that's Survival of the Fittest Developer time under LVT -- a race between neighbors, as the most successful cause an erosion of the equity of all the rest -- because the economic activities related to ONE PERSON'S capital improvements (which you erroneously believe are are not taxed) become a very basis for someone else's tax.
That "locational advantage" is only really being enjoyed by someone who is already established and profitable, and whose capital improvements and other marginal economic activities were able to grow naturally, but were in turn responsible for artificially driving the value of neighboring lands. As a first-comer, MY capital, MY economic activity, is the very basis, in part for someone else's land value tax!
That had to make you sigh, given it's a blatant self-contradiction.
"the capital" doesn't yet exist for an empty lot with an already incredibly high LVT -- only "the location" on which to put future capital" is taxed. But not because of that as-yet nonexistent capital. The unimproved value of that location is taxed because of the location and existence of someone else's capital, which drove those values up. Without someone else's capital in place, already in existence, the economic activities that drive "unimproved land values" would not be the same at all.
Thus, LVT is, in substantial part, a tax on capital -- your neighbor's capital! Not land. Capital.
Your own capital COULD be yours to keep, but only to the extent that you set the equity-eroding bar for your neighbors. That is the ONLY WAY to avoid a direct tax on everyone else's capital -- that is charged to you!
It's more efficient, more just, more prosperous, more honest, more stable, etc. Instead of paying for government twice so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing, the productive only pay for it once, when they voluntarily pay for the economic advantages government and the community give to land. Landowners no longer own part-shares in millions of part-time slaves called, "taxpayers."
MattintheCrown
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Right. And there was never any confusion on this point. In fact, it's been explicitly pointed out that land value is the product of three categories:
1) the natural qualities of the land itself provided by nature
2) the opportunities and amenities provided by society
3) the services and infrastructure provided by government
All land value arises from a combination of these three sources.
As the value rises, the amount they pay rises. That's what Roy means when he says it's a value-for-value exchange: landowners pay for the privilege of exclusive use of a site, whatever the benefits of use of that site may be.
And that's problematic how? Under the current system, first comers are at a far greater advantage: if their land increases in value due to the efforts of others on neighboring land, they are simply enriched. They get to pocket the increment. They don't even have to be productive and exploit that advantage to any societally-beneficial use; they can just let their improvements go to waste, and cash out when the land value has risen sufficiently for their liking.
To the extent you have a point here, your point is far more damning of our current system; the LVT undercuts this phenomenon to a great extent. Thanks for pointing out why justice requires the LVT.
But, if you're actually productive, you can exploit those benefits. That's the point: if land owners are given incentive to be productive, and to use their land as productively as they can, all of society benefits. Society saves resources, allowing more wealth with less labor.
Nope. They're not bearing the burden, because even as they're being charged extra, they're also enjoying the benefit of being located next to such improvements. If I own a sandwich shop in a city, and the surrounding area is developed more intensely, it's true that I will end up paying more tax, but it's also true that my potential customer base is expanded. The rent I pay is just a reflection of the benefit I enjoy of being so located.
That's why the LVT improves efficiency, and is fair: landowners pay for the benefits they enjoy, and producers go untaxed. We want more capital. We want more goods. What the LVT does is ensure that locations where goods and services are in demand are supplied with goods and services. This saves time, effort, and resources, and thus makes all of society that much wealthier. The LVT eliminates rent-seeking behavior: people who want to make money are forced to be productive, and to supply goods and services commensurate with demand in that area.
Not at all. Any prospective entrepreneur goes into the endeavor knowing what his tax burden will be, and what benefits he will enjoy. Some might choose to locate in low land-value areas, pay little tax, and build small-time businesses, whereas others may choose to locate in high land-value areas, pay a lot of tax, and build large businesses. In either case, newcomers are more or less on equal footing with established business -quite contrary to our existing system, where established businesses are privileged to pocket the benefits society bestows on their sites. This obviously makes competition more intense, and thus allocates resources more efficiently.
You're confusing life under the LVT with life now. Right now, newcomers are at a huge disadvantage, because existing businesses are not charged for any increments in locational benefits they enjoy: on the contrary, they're privileged to charge others for them. They don't even have to be productive; they can rest on their laurels, and just watch their land increase in value. Meanwhile, their competition has to pay the new, high cost for the land. In a down year, the latter are at a massive disadvantage, as the former has built up "equity" and can wait them out. As it stands now, established, less efficient producers are in the position to drive newer, more efficient producers out of business, as they have the advantage of not having to pay for the increased benefits their site provides. The LVT eliminates that advantage, and puts all producers on equal footing. Again: you're arguing for the LVT.
Hahah. You don't realize how effectively you're arguing in favor of the LVT.
In some cases. Refer to my three sources of land value above.
Nope. No one is taxed on capital. They're taxed on the benefits stemming from capital, which is not the same thing. Taxing capital would reduce the incentive to supply capital, whereas taxing land has the opposite effect: it makes it so that owners of the land have to supply capital, lest they lose money on their land. The LVT literally incentivizes capital production.
It's not a tax on everyone else's capital: it's a tax on the benefit of proximity to everyone else's capital. And that's a very real and obvious benefit. Take my McDonalds example from a couple of posts back if you're not clear on why that is.
Steven Douglas
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...the rents of which could rightly be captured from fictitious commercial entities and other non-Citizen entities, foreign and domestic, but which rightly belong, in my mind, to individual Citizens as a matter of right.
1) privately held lands do not 'belong' to everyone in the community -- unless "foreigners" are in the mix competing with those who have actual rights.
2) the economic rents, or benefits of owning land near increases in private economic activities should inure to the benefit of private individuals with rights.
3) government services and infrastructure are NOT for profit where private individuals with unalienable rights.
No, you are creating is a diseconomy of agglomeration, with artificial values tug-o-wars, as the natural benefits of locating near one other (division of labor, specialization, variety of suppliers of various scales in competition) are all taxed away by the state. This works as a disincentive for average firms which distorts economies of scale in a way that favors only the heaviest-hitting developers, who are in a no-lose economic advantage situation every time.
If MegaDeveloper generates a ton of economic activity for itself, and not necessarily its neighbors, it nonetheless causes assessed neighboring land values to rise (on the simpleton's presumption that there must necessarily be economic advantages that arise from simply being next door). This initially makes neighboring firms (which have not necessarily figured out how to exploit all those juicy putative advantages) less profitable. It also clears out everyone who cannot afford the new LVT assessments associated with being MD's neighbor. Bye bye, so long, sorry you weren't more efficient, say the geofascist. Fuck off. If, over time, however, it is revealed that there really are no economic advantages to being next to MD (as nobody else can afford to the LVT levied and the lands remain vacant), the land values eventually must fall again until the land vacancies finally refill. ("oopsie" and "oh well" to those who lost their shirts or went belly-up or had to move in the process). Meanwhile, MegaDeveloper could always afford the rents, but never, ever pays more than what his next highest paying neighboring pays. That is the CAP on MD's LVT. So an additional advantage comes from being the biggest developer fish in a little developer pond. The sky is now the limit for MegaDeveloper, because his LVT has also gone down, and will never go higher than his next highest-paying landowner neighbor.
Yay, individual Citizens with actual rights. Their windfall, baby, that's their unalienable rights at work, good for them. Not so Yay in my mind when it comes to speculators and Megadevelopers, like fictitious entities, foreign and domestic, who have no rights in my mind, but only conditional privileges, and only as their activities and existence serve the common good. That is the difference between your system, the current system, and the one I envision. I'm not against a Land Value Tax, generically and not geocommunistically speaking, and more than I'm against any tax. As long as it doesn't touch real individual human beings who exist and behave as as a matter of right, I see it as a valuable tool.
But geofascists? They're the stuff of Hellbound Hellraiser, with oh, such sights to show us. They have little humanity, as they don't really know or respect the difference between a real individual Citizen with actual rights and the fictitious entities that exploit them. Geofascists don't give a fuck enough to know the difference, because when it comes right down to it they were all about the security of the state, and those who suckle from it. If that means turning a handful of mega-developers into economic feudal overlords, so be it. It will be good for everyone so long as those suckling from the state get theirs -- kind of like what we have now, only on land value crack.
No, not as you have it envisioned, that's for sure. That's a nightmare for individuals and an automatic windfall for the largest land developers only. All backwards. Under your system, real individual Citizens with real human rights are all thrown into a mish-mash diseconomy of agglomeration, equated as being on equal rights footing with fucking developer sharks and other capital-advantaged fictitious entities that are treated as being on par with real people, but who are actually FAVORED by the state, until those entities, those developers, become the new feudal lords. JUST LIKE HONG KONG.
Only to those who refuse to understand the difference.
You are describing landowners.
That's objectively false, as Somalia and every feudal society prove.
LVT is a voluntary, beneficiary-pay, market-based, value-for-value transaction. That is just not good enough for you, because you are accustomed to riding up on the escalator courtesy of the people on the treadmill, and being privileged to steal from the productive. That greed for unearned wealth through landowner privilege is the only basis on which anyone ever opposes LVT.
You have not understood that LVT doesn't take anyone's property, and doesn't threaten to put anyone in jail. It simply requires payment of the market rent of land to the government and community that create its rental value, to defray the cost of the services and infrastructure that create it. It is a value-for-value transaction, like paying for the groceries or putting them back on the shelf. You are merely accustomed to walking out of the store with groceries without paying for them, so you think you have a right to do so, and accuse the supplier of the groceries of stealing when he tells you to either pay for what you are taking or do without it. You don't have any right to take from others without paying, and your complaints are the squalling of a greedy little brat.
No, that claim is just stupid garbage with no basis in fact or logic.
Forever.
You have to lie about the fact that land would otherwise be available for others' use, while products of labor would not. And so you lie about it.
But that claim is objectively false, as he would not otherwise be at liberty to use the products of labor, as they would not exist without their producers having produced them. Land would. You are essentially saying that you cannot tell the difference between a thief claiming a right to use the products of your labor and you asserting your right to breathe atmospheric air without paying rent for it.
Yes, it is: there can be no right to the impossible.
Always a good fallback position when you have been comprehensively and conclusively proved wrong.
I've put a couple of orders of magnitude more thought into it than you have, and moreover my thought has been clear, informed, and effective.
MattintheCrown
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What?
1) No land 'belongs' to anyone. The privilege of privately holding land demands compensation to those thereby deprived its use.
2) Which private individuals? Why?
3) Does not parse.
There's nothing artificial about it. You pay for the benefits you enjoy. What you're saying is like saying that hotels tax away all the benefits of their rooms by charging customers. But obviously, that's just stupid.
Nope: it just directs differently-sized firms to locate in areas suited to their needs.
There's no presumption: the land value arises to the extent there actually are benefits, and others are willing to pay for them. If there are no such benefits, or no one's willing to pay for them, the tax doesn't rise. Duh.
Which, of course, couldn't happen, as explained above.
When is it not advantageous to be the big fish? Your whole line of argumentation is idiotic.
What right is that, pray tell? Why should anyone get to charge his fellow citizens for access to benefits provided by the government and other citizens?
Meaningless.
Utter rot.
Ridiculous reasoning disproved above.
How is Hong Kong anything like you describe? Oh, that's right, it isn't, and you're just pulling this from your rectal duct.
Steven Douglas
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I think you're being obtuse. Add "are concerned" to the end (as I'm sure most did already, given that it was more than obvious) - and to further clarify, add "to the state" after the words "for profit", such that it reads, and will parse as:
Government services and infrastructure are NOT for profit to the state where private individuals with unalienable rights are concerned.
Clear enough? Could you parse that?
What an absolute load of nebulous, collectivized and narrowed assumptions, with flagrantly presumptive compound question begging. To wit:
Only "fellow citizens" are considered. The word "anyone" could have applied to any commercially acting entity, real or fictitious, foreign or domestic, public or private. However, you specifically wrote "his fellow citizens", which deliberately constrains your meaning of "anyone" to any individual fellow citizen only - singular (foreigners, the state, corporations which are fictitious entities created by the state, etc., are not "fellow citizens").
We can table your deliberately constrained bullshit question for the moment, as we make other, equally narrowed (but also equally inclusive) distinctions that begin to flesh out the realities of a much larger geoist picture. For example, you could just as easily have asked, as a narrowly focused compound question:
"Why should a foreigner get to charge Citizens of another country for access to benefits provided by those Citizens via the very government that was created by them to serve on their behalf, and to protect their interests?"
The above sentence applies equally to your geoist paradigm. But it would also be a very differently loaded question, which I would answer very differently, given the status of each of three entities involved. Note the deliberate omission of "access to [privately owned] benefits provided by [private] Citizens", which can be considered separately, as a matter of principle.
The answer to the question as I phrased it above is a resounding, "Good question, with a very easy answer.":
"Foreigners should NEVER have the power to charge Citizens, individually or collectively, for access to benefits provided by those very Citizens through their government."
And did you see how I removed government as a "provider"? We can toss out that question-begging bullshit as well. Our government provides nothing except as a servant, agent, and extension of all its individual Citizens, on whose behalf of it exists and acts. If a government can be viewed as truly separate from its Citizens, or seen in any other light, there is no legitimacy for that government that I would accept.
Your compound question was ridiculously loaded in other ways, as it was as nebulous and ill-defined in some areas as it was deliberately constrained in meaning in others (e.g., the words "charge", and "access to" and "benefits").
We can continue to dissect and drill down into what those mean, and how and to whom they would apply, but let's see how well we do with what I have written thus far. Before we get a rational rephrasing of your compound question so that it really can be answered, answer mine:
"Why should a foreigner get to charge Citizens of another country for access to benefits provided by those Citizens in their country via the very government that was created by them to serve on their behalf, and to protect their interests?
If you think my version contains question begging that you don't accept, just say so as well, and we can debate that as well.
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