Taxes Avoided by the Rich Could Pay Off the Deficit

[EcoWarrier]

“Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.” Can any one guess where this is pulled from?

Give us a clue. It is nothing to do with Geonomics. Private ownership in land is not an issue in Geonomics.

 

[EcoWarrier]

WTF - Don't ask me, ask the hundreds of millions who suffered and died as a direct result of his [Marx] economics and political agenda experiments being put to the test by his followers.

Marx died before all these misinterpretations of his theories came about. He never did anything. He was an academic looking into why in an age of technical and economic progress in which masses of wealth were being generated, masses of grinding poverty existed. Marx mainly wrote of the FAILURE of CAPITALISM. Which he largely got right. Marx's views on how to rectify the obvious problems were not the best, although many misinterpreted his teachings and only took a small aspect of it. Marx would have been disgusted at the regimes, with dictators, that emerged after his death with his name attached. Marx went to Britain as he was persecuted and drive out of Continental countries because of his views. The British said yes you can come here as we like free thinker and you can write what you like. Das Kapital was written in the British Museum Library. Marx is buried at Highgate Cemetery in London.

Henry George, and others of his ilk, who looked the the problem at the same time as Marx got it right - Marx and George locked horns over matters and disagreed sharply. Others after George have honed it even more.

This will help you....
Marx's Labor Theory of Value....

 

[Tudo]

The real solution is to concentrate on becoming self sufficient and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing or not doing. IF you become succesful you'll find you don't give a damn.

 

[EcoWarrier]

The real solution is to concentrate on becoming self sufficient and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing or not doing. IF you become successful you'll find you don't give a damn.

Few nations can be self sufficient. That implies you have all natural resources you need and all types of food. Then you have to trade with other countries.

Nations can improve their agriculture to make more food - in some cases it is cheaper to import food that grow it yourself. Energy importation can be reduced drastically in many cases.

The current trend in shippimng food from far off continents has a great beneficial effect if a famime occurs in one place. Then food can be shipped from around the world. If the transport mechanism is not there food cannot shipped.

 

[Roy L]

ROY: [mass murders by Mao] at least ended the constant warfare that had wracked China for 100 years. That's an omelette that could never have been made without breaking a lot of eggs.
ME: Nice rationale for murder by the tens of millions.
ROY: It stopped murder by the scores of millions.
ME: How many "eggs" would you feel justified in seeing broken to make your LVT omelet?
ROY: Every one that opposed liberty, justice and truth by force, that's for sure.

You prefer to murder scores of millions rather than no one at all, as long as those murders put another dollar in your pocket. You've made that clear.

WTF - Don't ask me, ask the hundreds of millions who suffered and died as a direct result of his economics and political agenda experiments being put to the test by his followers.

"Hundreds of millions"? Ah, no. Marxists, including Mao, probably killed about 80 million, total. But compare that to the BILLIONS who have suffered and died as a direct result of uncompensated, forcible removal of their rights to liberty by private landowning, a horror to which Marxism was an understandable though entirely ill-conceived reaction.

 

[Roy L]

Wow. Just, wow.

Oooooh, cogent.

He is in fact correct. The global financial crisis was directly caused by land speculation: people buying houses they could not afford, assuming the land value increase would make it a good investment: i.e., "unearned income from increasing land values."

 

[Roy L]

The real solution is to concentrate on becoming self sufficient and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing or not doing. IF you become succesful you'll find you don't give a damn.

Translation: "Shut up and get back on the treadmill!"

 

[Roy L]

“Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.” Can any one guess where this is pulled from?
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It's the first plank of the Communist Manifesto, and was put there to gain the attention, respect, sympathy, and allegiance of millions of freedom-loving people who had no interest in Marxism, socialism, or violent proletarian revolution, but were fed up with being the slaves of landowners. Similar proposals had been made earlier by champions of liberty and justice like the French economists Quesnay and Turgot (i.e., the "physiocrats" from whom Adam Smith learned the virtues of free markets), Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, etc.

You can see a similar appeal to public sympathy in plank 10: "Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production." Many people were concerned about education (Adam Smith had contributed an analysis showing why public funding of education was necessary to social and economic progress) and the horrendous conditions of child labor in mines and factories. Marx knew this, of course, and tried to bring them on board with his proletarian revolution via plank 10.

 

[Steven Douglas]

"Hundreds of millions"? Ah, no. Marxists, including Mao, probably killed about 80 million, total.

Yes, hundreds of millions. The "about 80 million, total" was just the ones that were killed as a direct result of war and policy implementation. Indirectly it was many times that number, as the effects lingered through generations. For everyone killed there were many others that eventually died as a result.

If one wanted to get really goofy-loopy, with estimates that are completely out of all touch with reality, reason, logic and common sense, you could say something like:

But compare that to the BILLIONS who have suffered and died as a direct result of uncompensated, forcible removal of their rights to liberty by private landowning, a horror to which Marxism was an understandable though entirely ill-conceived reaction.

Now that's when Absurdity itself spits its coffee in a coughing fit, unable to catch its breath for the credulity that you strain beyond the limits of the most fantastic.

You prefer to murder scores of millions rather than no one at all, as long as those murders put another dollar in your pocket. You've made that clear.

Shut up, Roy. Just, shut up already. Go defend Marxism and Marxist tyranny as "understandable though entirely ill-conceived" somewhere else. Not only are you not on the same planet as most, but that dungeon of a mind of yours is floating off in some other universe. I'd say that you'd better sell out while shit is still selling, but the reality is that nobody's buying your shit here except your tiny troll choir. And they're already stocked up.

Four Geoists, One Cup.

 

[blustreeak]

This is the Ron Paul Forums

Why does Eco hijack all the threads to talk about Geoism? Why don't you start a Geoist forum?

 

[Roy L]

Why do you do this to yourself, Steven? You know you are just going to be demolished and humiliated for the fallaciousness, absurdity, and dishonesty of your "arguments."

THE BANDIT - OR - DO IMPROVEMENTS ENTITLE ANY ENTITY TO RENTS ON WHAT NATURE PROVIDED FOR FREE?

What improvements? Are you perhaps referring to the service government provides of securing people's rights against the depredations of bandits? Or the services and infrastructure government provides that enables the communities on each end of the pass to create the economic opportunities that make the pass worth using by the merchants? Those "improvements"?

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?

So you agree that the landowner is effectively a thief. Good.

Now, suppose he has purchased, for an annual fee, a license from the state (i.e., gave the state, not those being robbed, "something in return") to charge tolls of those who use the pass. This license could be issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them. From the all-important perspective of those being robbed, does that license fee paid by the bandit to the state constitute "giving something in return"?

Yes, of course it does, though it might be too subtle and indirect for stupid people to understand, and for dishonest people to be willing to know.

Remember, from the "all-important perspective of those being robbed," the bandit is only taking what they are WILLING TO PAY to use the pass. So it's not so much a case of their being victims as of his being a dirty, thieving, evil parasite -- exactly the same as landowners who charge rent that the user "willingly" pays for access to the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides. The new annual fee (assuming it is the annual rental value of the pass, like a full LVT implementation) allows the bandit no income at all from his forcible possession of the pass (i.e., it makes his profession of "bandit/landowner" redundant), and doesn't take anything from the merchants that they aren't willing to pay for the advantage of using the pass. But it helps fund the government that secures the merchants' rights and thus makes the pass useful: i.e., makes it worth the merchants' while to use the pass and pay the toll. It also helps to make sure the bandit doesn't get greedy and just take everything. In ancient times, governments often subcontracted "tax farmers" who paid government for the privilege of practicing their profession -- forcibly wringing as much wealth from the populace as possible -- in a given area. The erstwhile bandit now collecting pass rent (as, effectively, a government employee) is far preferable to a tax farmer.

The tolls that the licensed bandit charges are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force. How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? How can the mere existence of that piece of state-created paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

Very easily: he is now effectiely working as a tax collector for the government that makes it possible for the merchants to do business and use the pass in safety. I.e., he is now actually contributing value, rather than just taking it, because he is helping the government recover some of the value it creates, thereby aiding not only the merchants but the cause of liberty, justice and prosperity.

He is still just a thief, right?

Wrong, as proved, repeat, PROVED above.

He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return to the caravans he robbed, save safe passage and protection from other bandits,

Wrong again. There are no other bandits only because the safe passage is courtesy of the government of which he now effectively functions as an employee.

none of which would have been required in the absence of all bandits.

It takes government to make sure all bandits are absent. That's the little detail that you always conveniently "forget," and that demolishes your whole "argument."

Would contributing something else in return (to those caravans, of course) make a difference where extortion or highway robbery are concerned?

Certainly, like security and the economic advantage use of the pass confers on them. See above.

Would legitimacy be in effect if the bandits offered other goods, services and opportunities to caravans on a strictly voluntary basis in addition to the rents charged for the pass itself, which nature provided for free?

Sure, if it was government effectively charging for it, because it is government that keeps bandits out of the picture, creates the economic opportunity to trade between the communities at each end of the pass, and thus makes the pass worth using at all.

But what if the bandit found that more people preferred to use another mountain pass, occupied by other state-licensed bandits, because the other bandits took less by force from the caravans than he did?

<sigh> Try to remember, Steven: land rent measures what the market will voluntarily pay for the convenience and advantages of using the different available natural opportunities. That's what land rent IS.

And what if that bandit responded by robbing the caravans in "his" pass of even less, such that word spread that it was more desirable to be robbed by him instead?

He has no motive to charge less than the rent, because that measures the economic advantage the merchants obtain by using that pass rather than others they could use for less, or for free. Rent can't be reduced by competition because it is the RESULT of competition among users for the advantage of using the best land, which is fixed in supply.

Would those thefts of a lesser amount lend any legitimacy to the bandit's theft, such that it was no longer theft?

It stopped being theft when it became a voluntary, beneficiary-pay, market-based, value-for-value transaction wherein the merchants paid government market value for the economic advantage it conferred on the pass user by keeping the pass clear of bandits, sustaining the communities that offer economic oportunity to the merchants who use the pass, etc.

What if, to be even more competitive with the other bandits in other passes, the bandit actually blanketed the pass with improvements, and assured a safer, more pleasant passage as an enticement?

Then he's not just collecting land rents any more. He's a developer, and collecting land rent has become tangential to his actual business of providing improvements, as proved by the fact that if he does not own the pass, he will be willing to pay rent for it to operate his improvements business.

Would that legitimize the bandits claim of rents on the underlying pass that nature nonetheless provided for free?

It's already legitimate, as proved above, because he is effectively only functioning as a tax collector for the government that enables merchants to travel safely, and makes the pass worth using.

And now suppose, that instead of a license to steal, the "native" bandit attends a summit, appeals to a league of nation-states, and negotiates a deal that causes the entire pass to become a recognized independent state. The once highly organized crime racket-cum-state now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable state.

So the "summit" has effectively made him a feudal landowner, with power to exact rent from the pass's users, but no responsibility to repay the government and community that make the pass useful and valuable to the merchants. Check.

How can the mere existence of that state-created piece of paper, even if it nothing but a former bandit now issuing it, entitling him to rob the caravans, alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

You mean, he is no longer turning over the rent of the pass to the state that secures the merchants' rights and makes the pass valuable to them by supporting the communities that create the economic opportunity for trade?? Well, that sounds like he is in effect just a landowner. Which he is, but a feudal one who does not answer to anyone or get his possession of the pass secured for him for free. Like the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia and pocket the rent of its oil resources. So in that sense, he is less of a parasite than he would be as a private landowner protected and privileged by a government funded by others' taxes.

How has the nature of the bandit's business really changed?

He is back to being a bandit/landowner, because he is no longer repaying the community that creates the value he is stealing.

It's all legal now, but regardless whether he as a single bandit or a gang of organized bandits called a State,

That is not what a state is, and you know it. You just always have to lie. ALWAYS.

he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free.

Right: because he no longer repays the value he is taking to the government and community that create it, he has reverted to being a bandit/landowner. It's the difference between being a repo man and a car thief.

If he divides the proceeds equally amongst his Royal Family, friends, and other closely related mountain pass community members, that will not constitute "giving back" to those who continue to be robbed.

Right, because now he is no longer repaying the value that he is taking from the merchants to the government and community that create it.

That is the stubborn, irreducible fact you always have to evade and refuse to know: the only reason the merchants want to use that pass in the first place is the economic opportunity that the peaceful and prosperous communities on each end provide, which government makes possible.

No government --> no peaceful, prosperous communities --> no economic advantage for the land user --> no land rent.

You always have to refuse to know that indisputable fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

What this really boils down to are the improvements that someone made to the pass, making it more desirable or easier to use than other passes.

No, that's just another absurd and dishonest fabrication from you. There are no improvements to the pass. It is just as nature provided it, and the economic opportunity that makes use of the pass worth paying for is created by the communities that live on each end of it, not the bandit/landowner/feudal lord who just extorts value from those who use it, but does not contribute to that value. You just have to FALSELY CLAIM there are improvements in order to prevent yourself and the readers of this thread from knowing the fact that the ONLY reason the pass is worth using is the economic opportunity represented by the peaceful, prosperous communities on each end of it.

Are those improvements what entitles the bandit/licensed-bandit/state to rents on what nature nonetheless provided for free?

No, bandits and landowners are not entitled to rents on what nature provided for free. There are only three possible things that could entitle any entity to rents on what nature provided for free:

1. That entity created the rental value of what nature provided for free;
2. That entity makes just compensation to all who are deprived of their liberty to use what nature provided for free; and
3. That entity's legitimate function is to secure and reconcile the equal liberty rights of all to access, use, and benefit from what nature provided for free, and it is actually doing so.

Government and the community -- the "State," as you so tendentiously call them -- do the first. With LVT + UIE, government does the second. And government alone can do the third.

The private landowner, by contrast, does none of those three things.

If there were two, or three, or 300, or 3 million improved passes, each with its own resident state/bandit, would the merchants' being at liberty to choose which state/bandit robs them make the bandits' enterprise nothing more than a competitive industry in a free market?

We're not talking about improved passes. You just have to try to change the subject, because you have been utterly destroyed on the subject of land, and you know it.

Do the merchants, by using the improved pass when they know the bandit/licensed-bandit/state is there to collect rents, "agree" to pay for what nature provided for free on the basis of something else offered in addition?

No, on the basis that thanks to government, the community and nature, but no thanks to the landowner, it's worth paying for access to that natural opportunity.

Because (as we have established), paying rents on the undeveloped pass was never necessary, as that pass was not provided by any human or collection of humans.

Wrong again. Paying rent for the pass that was not provided by any human or collection of humans BECAME necessary as soon as government and the community made it valuable enough to attract a greedy parasite -- bandit, landowner, whatever -- who wanted to get something for nothing by charging others for access to it.

So we are only talking about improvements,

Lie, as proved above.

and whether their existence blanketing an area of land constitutes a perpetual entitlement to those that produced them - public or private.

Those who produce improvements are entitled to own them. But we are not talking about improvements. You are just trying to change the subject to improvements because you have already realized that you have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished on the subject of land.

And even if we consider that the caravans had the option of using another pass, does the existence of improvements, regardless of the source, mean that the merchants have agreed to pay rents on those improvements, even if it can be shown that they really only wanted to use what nature provided for free, and nothing else?

Blah, blah, blah <try to change the subject> blah blah, blah...

In other words, is any entity (state, private bandit, licensed or otherwise) morally entitled to rents (let alone a monopoly on rents) for what nature nonetheless provided for free, and strictly on the basis of opportunities or improvements, directly or indirectly provided in addition to what nature nonetheless provided for free?

See above for who can possibly have a rightful entitlement to rents on what nature provided for free.

 

[Roy L]

Why does Eco hijack all the threads to talk about Geoism? Why don't you start a Geoist forum?

It's only about half a dozen threads on topics to which geoism is crucially relevant, like this one, half of which were created specifically to discuss geoism.

 

[Roy L]

Yes, hundreds of millions. The "about 80 million, total" was just the ones that were killed as a direct result of war and policy implementation. Indirectly it was many times that number, as the effects lingered through generations. For everyone killed there were many others that eventually died as a result.

Nope. There is no evidence whatever for such a claim. None.

Now that's when Absurdity itself spits its coffee in a coughing fit, unable to catch its breath for the credulity that you strain beyond the limits of the most fantastic.

All your bluster cannot alter the fact that the poverty forcibly imposed on the landless by landowning and the wars fought over the privilege of landowning (i.e., pocketing land rent) have killed billions.

Shut up, Roy. Just, shut up already.

What an eloquent concession of defeat.

 

[EcoWarrier]

All your bluster cannot alter the fact that the poverty forcibly imposed on the landless by landowning and the wars fought over the privilege of landowning (i.e., pocketing land rent) have killed billions.

That is very true Roy. Very true. In WWW1 millions of landless, poor Britons living In a country that had the largest and richest empire the world had ever seen, went off to fight for "King and Country". The vast majority of them owned not one inch of the "country" they were potentially to give their lives for. Eventually millions did give their lives.

After WW1 there was no change in the system with these brave men cast back into poverty. All many did was give their lives, and lose limbs, to keep a ruling, privileged landed strata in power. Today, in the United Kingdom, 0.3% of the population own 70% of the land. In WW1 fewer than today owned most of the land.

In WW2 the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary was Lord Halifax. He was known as an appeaser pre WW2 wanting to talk peace terms with Germany after the fall of France. Churchill when gaining the Prime Ministers job replaced him shipping him off to do the lame job of Ambassador to the USA in Washington - most communication at the time went above his head, peer to peer in each country.

Halifax owned vast tacts of the county of Yorkshire. Halifax wanted to keep his lucrative acres, his prime aim. He would talk peace, appease or use the lives of the poor to keep his landed wealth.

"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.

"Except for the few surviving commons, the high roads, the lands of the National Trust, a certain number of parks, and the sea shore below high-tide mark, every square inch of England is `owned' by a few thousand families. These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms. It is desirable that people should own their own dwelling houses, and it is probably desirable that a farmer should own as much land as he can actually farm."
– George Orwell.​

 

[EcoWarrier]

Why does Eco hijack all the threads to talk about Geoism? Why don't you start a Geoist forum?

The points in question in these threads, Geoism is the glaring answer. Understand Geoism and what the great benefits are in relation to the topic and sub-topics discussed. There have been many thread created to discuss only Geoism.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Thank you for your answers. Now let's have some fun. One piece at a time.

So you agree that the landowner is effectively a thief. Good.

No, I was only humoring you in your nonsense, plucking at your cut-and-paste turing machine web and watching you run out and do ad hoc repairs. But it was not just for the sake of seeing you do it (although that's entertaining), as will be seen.

Remember, from the "all-important perspective of those being robbed," the bandit is only taking what they are WILLING TO PAY to use the pass.

Oh, really? Well, in your original BANDIT red herring story, you are the one who followed that all up with:

Do the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, agree to be robbed?

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

Those questions were only asked rhetorically, as if it was all somehow settled. Your latest response suggests, to me, that your answer to those questions would be that:

a) the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, do not agree to be robbed, because they aren't being robbed, given that
b) "the bandit is only taking what they are WILLING TO PAY to use the pass".

If the merchants are willing to pay, where is the theft? WHO, PRECISELY, ARE THE BANDITS STEALING FROM?

Even with bandits your assumption is that the bandit is only taking what the merchants are "WILLING TO PAY". However, why put words in your mouth, when you can answer for yourself. From your original bandit story:

1) Do the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, agree to be robbed?

2) 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 make the bandits' enterprise a competitive industry in a free market?

You never did answer those questions yourself, Roy. What are your answers to each of those questions? And by all means, after giving a simple YES or NO, feel free to elaborate.

 

[EcoWarrier]

So you agree that the landowner is effectively a thief. Good.

No, I was only humoring you

George Orwell (you may had heard of him) on landowners...

"These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms".
Orwell got that right OK...and so did Roy.

 

[Zippyjuan]

I am a land owner (or soon it will be all mine- it is more than 90% mine now- my final mortgage payment goes in by the end of the year). Can you prove what I have stolen from you? Demonstrate this loss I have imposed on society and how would you calculate the value of it?

 

[Roy L]

I am a land owner

Surprise!

Can you prove what I have stolen from you?

You have removed my liberty to use and benefit from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides at that location.

Demonstrate this loss I have imposed on society

You are stopping others from using what government, the community and nature provide.

and how would you calculate the value of it?

The unimproved value of land is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes. That's what land value IS. And that is why land is so expensive.

 

[Roy L]

No, I was only humoring you in your nonsense, plucking at your cut-and-paste turing machine web and watching you run out and do ad hoc repairs. But it was not just for the sake of seeing you do it (although that's entertaining), as will be seen.

I see. So it was just another dishonest little bit of evasion that allowed you to appear not to be denying self-evident fact, but subsequently claim not to have admitted it. Par for the course.

Well, in your original BANDIT red herring story,

Nothing red herring about it. It just proves you wrong, so you have to refuse to know the facts it identifies.

you are the one who followed that all up with:

Do the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, agree to be robbed?

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

Those questions were only asked rhetorically, as if it was all somehow settled.

Oh, it's definitely settled. And you know it. Which is why you did not even try to answer those questions.

Your latest response suggests, to me, that your answer to those questions would be that:
a) the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, do not agree to be robbed, because they aren't being robbed, given that
b) "the bandit is only taking what they are WILLING TO PAY to use the pass".

No, that's just another fabrication on your part. They are willing to pay for the advantage the bandit controls, but he is robbing them because there is no reason they should be paying HIM for it. You know this, and you know that it is the central, crucial fact that you always have to evade, ignore, dismiss, and deny because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil. Consider the very similar case of a bandit stopping motorists on a public road and extorting $10 from them. They might be willing to pay a $10 toll to use the road, but even you are not stupid or dishonest enough to claim they aren't being robbed. Or consider a long-established protection racketeer who charges businesses for access to the local customer base (if he is not paid, he doesn't harm the business's premises, just lets it be known in the neighborhood that no one is to patronize the business). They are willing to pay for it (the protection racketeer's demands just come out of the land rent the businesses have to pay landowners for access to the market -- which should be a clue to you just what the landowners are being paid for), but they are definitely being robbed.

If the merchants are willing to pay, where is the theft?

The theft is in their being forced to pay someone who is not providing value in return, as you know perfectly well.

WHO, PRECISELY, ARE THE BANDITS STEALING FROM?

The merchants (though notice that in the case of the protection racket, the loser is the landowner who has had his protection racket muscled in on).

Even with bandits your assumption is that the bandit is only taking what the merchants are "WILLING TO PAY".

Yep. Just like the protection racketeer's victims. There is just no reason they should pay HIM.

However, why put words in your mouth, when you can answer for yourself. From your original bandit story:

1) Do the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, agree to be robbed?

2) 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 make the bandits' enterprise a competitive industry in a free market?

You never did answer those questions yourself, Roy. What are your answers to each of those questions.

No in both cases, obviously.

Now you answer them.

And by all means, after giving a simple YES or NO, feel free to elaborate.

What's to elaborate? No amount of twisting, squirming and dishonesty by you can alter the fact that government and the community create land's value, and therefore should rightly be paid for it, while the landowner does not, and therefore rightly should not.