Taxes Avoided by the Rich Could Pay Off the Deficit

[James Madison]

Wow. And I thought voluntaryists and an-caps were delusional. EcoWarrier and RoyL know how to bring the stupid.

Carry on.

 

[Roy L]

Wow. And I thought voluntaryists and an-caps were delusional. EcoWarrier and RoyL know how to bring the stupid.

You cannot refute a single sentence I have written, and you know it. Simple.

Many great economists, philosophers and other deep thinkers have advocated LVT. They merely understand what you do not.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Consider two farmers farming the same amount and quality of land. One owns the land he farms, the other rents it. They are both selling their crops at the same price. They are both equally efficient. They both use the same production methods. Because the owner/farmer owns the land, he is pocketing the land rent as well as the profit from farming, so his income is maybe triple the renting farmer's income. Now introduce LVT. The renting farmer is completely unaffected, as he now just pays the exact same rent to the government that he formerly paid to the landowner. His profits stay the same, his selling price stays the same, etc. The farmer who owns his land is not happy because now he only makes as much money as the renting farmer, but there is no reason for him to close his business or go bankrupt: he can't get back his unearned income by giving up his earned income. He just no longer enjoys the unfair advantage he had over the renting farmer through owning the land.

What a cute little story, the moral of which appears to be: A renter has two reasons for happiness should all former owners be turned into renters. For one, the renter's situatation has not changed, since he owes the same rents, only now they go to the state. But the renter's other reason for being happy with landowners being reduced to renters is the satisfaction of knowing that they both now share the same economic disadvantages.

Let's bust that story out of your false choice, closed loop, all-encompassing and ridiculously LVT-convenient paper tiger mode, shall we?

Consider two farmers (Very Good Friends and Neighbors) who are farming the same amount and quality of land, with a country border that separates them. Both farmers own the land they farm. As both are landowners, neither has ever paid rents to any other landowner. Both farmers sell their crops at the same price, are equally efficient, and using the same production methods. Both are pocketing all of the profits from farming, which naturally includes the land rents, since that factor of production was bought and paid for (to each respective state, we'll call them both homestead farmers), and is owned by each farmer. So both are free and secure on their land, with income that is roughly equal.

Now introduce LVT, as a Land Fascist/GeoSocialist coup has taken place on one side of the border, in one country only. Now one of the farmers rents his land from the state. The other farmer still owns his land, so his income is now "maybe triple the renting farmer's income".

The landowning farmer in the LVT-free country is unaffected, as he never paid rents to a landowner to begin with, and still owes no rents to the government. His profits stay the same, his selling price stays the same, etc. The farmer who now rents his land from the state is obviously not happy because now he makes far less money than the landowning farmer, who now has more capital to work with on his farm. The LVT-renting farmer, on the other hand, must work much, much harder to simply exist, as he is now effectively a sharecropper who must support both his farm and the state, and has much less capital to invest.

The LVT Fascist/"State Capitalists" let the renting farmer know that he is a simpleton who does not know any economics, and should feel good now that he is no longer a thief who is robbing everyone in the community and depriving them of justice and liberty without just compensation, while supporting the cause of millions upon millions of deaths, to the tune of two holocausts, every year. They further let him know that there is no reason to close his business or go bankrupt. He must accept his permanent indentured servitude status to the new Geosocialist state, and learn new terminology language that is not so Evil Murdering Propertarian oriented.

The LVT-renting farmer can downsize his farm, making room for other would-be state sharecroppers (er, farmers), but the more likely path if he can't make it is to sell to the more capital-rich farmer nearby, who seizes the opportunity to consolidate all the other farmers eggs into his basket for maximum yield. Having sold, the former renting farmer might be able to flee across the border, and try for citizenship in the LVT-free country. Or, he can just listen to Roy, the community LVT zealot, who can teach him all about how to stew, green with envy in the knowledge that the LVT-free landowning neighbor (and sympathetic friend) across the fence, whose situation has not changed, has "obtained" an economic advantage that he never really sought in the first place. But the renter will really stew against his own state - not his landowning neighbor and friend, because the perpetual-renter-with-no-landowning-opportunity knows the truth - that he is now artificially fettered with economic disadvantages that were clapped onto him like a ball and chain, as the land that was once his was "incorporated" and arrogated as State Capital by those at the State Capitol without his consent.

NOTE TO ROY: The people of East Germany did not wish that West Germany would become more like East Germany. Quite the opposite, all but the most hardened, glassy-eyed believing zealots wanted the fuck out, into the land with the LEAST economic disadvantages.

 

[EcoWarrier]

LVT adds nothing to the annual cost of running a farm or business, because it is exactly the same whether any farm or business is run on the land or not. And by replacing unfair and harmful taxes, it REDUCES the cost of running a farm or business. The only "activity" it increases the cost of is owning land. But owning land doesn't produce any food.

GET IT?

As Ricardo showed 200 years ago, the cost of land is the payment for an economic advantage. It has no effect on the price of food, which is determined by supply and demand, and is the same for farmers who pay the most rent as for those who pay no rent.

But LVT makes his costs go down, not up, because it reduces the acquisition cost of land and replaces taxes that increase his costs. The producer no longer has to pay for government twice.

Consider two farmers farming the same amount and quality of land. One owns the land he farms, the other rents it. They are both selling their crops at the same price. They are both equally efficient. They both use the same production methods. Because the owner/farmer owns the land, he is pocketing the land rent as well as the profit from farming, so his income is maybe triple the renting farmer's income. Now introduce LVT. The renting farmer is completely unaffected, as he now just pays the exact same rent to the government that he formerly paid to the landowner. His profits stay the same, his selling price stays the same, etc. The farmer who owns his land is not happy because now he only makes as much money as the renting farmer, but there is no reason for him to close his business or go bankrupt: he can't get back his unearned income by giving up his earned income. He just no longer enjoys the unfair advantage he had over the renting farmer through owning the land.

Roy, fantastic. Very well put across.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Consider two farmers (Very Good Friends and Neighbors) who are farming the same amount and quality of land, with a country border that separates them. Both farmers own the land they farm. As both are landowners, neither has ever paid rents to any other landowner. Both farmers sell their crops at the same price, are equally efficient, and using the same production methods. Both are pocketing all of the profits from farming, which naturally includes the land rents, since that factor of production was bought and paid for (to each respective state, we'll call them both homestead farmers), and is owned by each farmer. So both are free and secure on their land, with income that is roughly equal.

Now introduce LVT, as a Land Fascist/GeoSocialist coup has taken place on one side of the border, in one country only. Now one of the farmers rents his land from the state. The other farmer still owns his land, so his income is now "maybe triple the renting farmer's income".

Steven what a silly little story. You are confused - as usual. The farmer on the good guy LVT side of the border pays no Sales tax, Income tax, Property tax and other steath taxes, while the farmer on the economic, parastical, land facist side of the border pays all these inane heavy-weight taxes.

Steven, boy you really do not get it, do you !! Wow.

 

[EcoWarrier]

The problem with the current system is the exorbitant, growing, and unsustainable welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners at the expense of the productive.

Spot on! Appropriation of commonwealth (owned by us all) by private indiviuals and organizations is the crux of the problem in the flawed capitalist system we now have. Solve this and many other social problems are solved.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Many of the greatest minds around the world have recognised that the public appropriation of the value of land is morally right and economically effective. This is just a modest selection of these many people and represent, once again, a surprising cross-section of political orientations.
______________________________

It is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.

Thomas Paine, intellectual, American revolutionary, author of "Common Sense" and "The Rights of Man"
______________________________

I respect the man who properly named these villains land sharks. They are like the wretched ghouls who follow a ship and fatten on its offal.

The land, the earth God gave to man for his home, sustenance and support, should never be the possession of any man, corporation, society or unfriendly government, any more than the air or water -- if as much. An individual or company, or enterprise, acquiring land should hold no more than is required for their home and sustenance, and never more than they have in actual use in the prudent management of their legitimate business, and this much should not be permitted when it creates an exclusive monopoly.

Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, 1861 to 1865. First President of the Republican Party, known as "the Great Emancipator"
______________________________

The only indubitable means of improving the position of the workers, which is at the same time in conformity with the will of God, consists in the liberation of the land from its usurpation by the landlords. …The most just and practicable scheme, in my opinion, is that of Henry George, known as the single-tax system.

Leo Tolstoy, Christian anarchist, pacifist, author "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" widely regarded as one of the greatest novelists of all time
______________________________

...one of the most cogent and audacious thinkers, ...George's book was a revelation not only for the workers, but also for the intellectuals. Only Darwin, in the natural sciences, left an impression comparable to that of George in the social sciences. ...His devotion can be compared to the love of Nazareen, expressed in the language of our times. ...

José Martí, leader of the Cuban independence movement and noted poet and writer
______________________________

We want to do something to bring the land within the grasp of the people. We want to put an end to the system whereby the land of this country is retailed by the ounce, so that there should not be an extra grain of breathing spaces. . . .The resources of the land are frozen by the old feudal system. I am looking forward to the spring-time, when the thaw will set in, and when the people and the children of the people shall enter into the inheritance that has been given them from on high.

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1916-1922
______________________________

When we learn that the value of land belongs to all of us, then we will be free men -- no need to legislate to keep men and women from working themselves to death; no need to legislate against the white slave traffic. ...The "single tax" is so simple, so fundamental and so easy to carry into effect that I have no doubt that it will be about the last land reform the world will ever get. People in this world are not often logical.

Clarence Darrow, American lawyer, leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, defender of John T. Scopes in the so-called "Monkey" Trial of 1925.
______________________________

We ought to tax all idle land the way Henry George said -- tax it heavily, so that its owners would have to make it productive.

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the modern assembly line used in mass production.
______________________________

Our moral thoughts are usually cast ultimately into a theological form, and so the land reformer's case is generally opened by a statement like ' the land is God's common gift to all.' Cast in its severely economic form, however, the point is equally effective. Rent is a toll, not a payment for service. By it social values are transferred from social pools into private pockets, and it becomes the means of vast economic exploitation... Rent is obviously a common resource. Differences of fertility and value of site must be equalised by rent, and it ought to go to common funds and be spent in the common interest.

Ramsey MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1924 and 1929 - 1935
______________________________

When modern, enlightened cities levy land taxes, the burdens upon the common people are lightened, and many other advantages follow. If Canton city should now collect land taxes according to land values, the government would have a large and steady source of funds for administration. The whole place could be put into good order.

But at present, the rising land values in Canton all go to the landowners themselves -- they do not belong to the community. The government has no regular income, and so to meet expenses it has to levy all sorts of miscellaneous taxes upon the common people. This burden upon the common people is too heavy; they are always having to pay out taxes and so are terribly poor -- and the number of poor people in China is enormous. The reasons for the heavy burdens upon the poor are the unjust system of taxation practiced by the government, and the unequal distribution of land power and the failure to solve the land problem. If we can put the land tax completely into effect, the land problem will be solved and the common people will not have to endure such suffering.

Sun Yat Sen, Chinese revoluitionary, "Father of the Nation", first president of the Republic of China, co-founder of the Kuomintang
______________________________

I have made speeches by the yard on the subject of land value taxation, and you know what a supporter I am of that policy.

It is quite true that the land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies -- it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all forms of monopoly.

Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of our monopolist opponents to prove that other forms of property and increment are exactly the same, and are similar in all respects to the unearned increment in land.

Winston S. Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940-1945, 1951-1955, Winner 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature
______________________________

The mere abolition of rent would not remove injustice, since it would confer a capricious advantage upon the occupiers of the best sites and the most fertile land. It is necessary that there should be rent, but it should be paid to the state or to some body which performs public services; or, if the total rental were more than is required for such purposes, it might be paid into a common fund and divided equally among the population.

Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician and political activist
______________________________

Site-value property taxation may also spark greater development in cities by taxing land, not buildings. Unlike traditional taxation -- which rewards developers who put up cheap, tacky housing and strip malls -- site-value taxation gives developers the incentive to build gracious, durable buildings. Allowances for affordable housing, however, need to be part of site-value schemes.

We need a big debate on different kinds of taxation, to talk about how corporations are freeloading on public services and getting tax breaks while taxes are falling on workers and smaller businesses. We need to open a debate about land taxation and Henry George, to tax bad things, not good things, and not to tax people who go to work every day.

Ralph Nader, U.S. attorney and political activist, advocate of consumer rights, feminism, environmentalism and democratic government. Greens candidate for President, founder of almost fifty non-profit organisations.
______________________________

 

[angelatc]

There's no such thing as "the public."

 

[James Madison]

You cannot refute a single sentence I have written, and you know it. Simple.

Many great economists, philosophers and other deep thinkers have advocated LVT. They merely understand what you do not.

U mad, bro?

 

[EcoWarrier]

U mad, bro?

The only mad one is you. Roy is highly intelligent man, who has educated many on these forums. Most here are freeloaders.

 

[EcoWarrier]

There's no such thing as "the public."

Maybe not in La-la land, but on planet earth there is.

 

[Dr.3D]

LOL, just clicked on this thread to see why it was up to 391 posts.... turns out it has turned into another infomercial about LVT.

 

[awake]

The notion that there are good taxes and bad taxes is laughable, and LVT as a good tax is absurd.

The idea that the state is necessary to carry out certain special functions is borderline infantile. Hoppe demolishes this view:

"These statist arguments can be refuted by a combination of three fundamental insights: First, as for the kindergarten argument, it does not follow from the fact that the state provides roads and schools that only the state can provide such goods. People have little difficulty recognizing that this is a fallacy. From the fact that monkeys can ride bikes it does not follow that only monkeys can ride bikes. And second, immediately following, it must be recalled that the state is an institution that can legislate and tax; and hence, that state agents have little incentive to produce efficiently. State roads and schools will only be more costly and their quality lower. For there is always a tendency for state agents to use up as many resources as possible doing whatever they do but actually work as little as possible doing it.Third, as for the more sophisticated statist argument, it involves the same fallacy encountered already at the kindergarten level. For even if one were to grant the rest of the argument, it is still a fallacy to conclude from the fact that states provide public goods that only states can do so.More importantly, however, it must be pointed out that the entire argument demonstrates a total ignorance of the most fundamental fact of human life, namely, scarcity. True, markets will not provide for all desirable things. There are always unsatisfied wants as long as we do not inhabit the Garden of Eden. But to bring such unproduced goods into existence scarce resources must be expended, which consequently can no longer be used to produce other, likewise desirable things. Whether public goods exist next to private ones does not matter in this regard—the fact of scarcity remains unchanged: more “public” goods can come only at the expense of less “private” goods. Yet what needs to be demonstrated is that one good is more important and valuable than another one. This is what is meant by “economizing.”Yet can the state help economize scarce resources? This is the question that must be answered. In fact, however, conclusive proof exists that the state does not and cannot economize: For in order to produce anything, the state must resort to taxation (or legislation)—which demonstrates irrefutably that its subjects do not want what the state produces but prefer instead something else as more important. Rather than economize, the state can only redistribute: it can produce more of what it wants and less of what the people want—and, to recall, whatever the state then produces will be produced inefficiently.Finally, the most sophisticated argument in favor of the state must be briefly examined. From Hobbes on down this argument has been repeated endlessly. It runs like this: In the state of nature—before the establishment of a state—permanent conflict reigns. Everyone claims a right to everything, and this will result in interminable war. There is no way out of this predicament by means of agreements; for who would enforce these agreements? Whenever the situation appeared advantageous, one or both parties would break the agreement. Hence, people recognize that there is but one solution to the desideratum of peace: the establishment, per agreement, of a state, i.e., a third, independent party as ultimate judge and enforcer. Yet if this thesis is correct and agreements require an outside enforcer to make them binding, then a state-by-agreement can never come into existence. For in order to enforce the very agreement that is to result in the formation of a state (to make this agreement binding), another outside enforcer, a prior state, would already have to exist. And in order for this state to have come into existence, yet another still earlier state must be postulated, and so on, in infinite regress."


Further: If we accept the Hobbesian idea that the enforcement of mutually agreed upon rules does require some independent third party, this would actually rule out the establishment of a state. In fact, it would constitute a conclusive argument against the institution of a state, i.e., of a monopolistof ultimate decision-making and arbitration. For then, there must also exist an independent third party to decide in every case of conflict between me (private citizen) and some state agent, and likewise an independent third party must exist for every case of intra-state conflicts (and there must be another independent third party for the case of conflicts between various third parties)—yet this means, of course, that such a “state” (or any independent third party) would be no state as I have defined it at the outset but simply one of many freely competing third-party conflict arbitrators

....Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts between them. Someone then proposes, as a solution to this human problem, that he (or someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. Is this is a deal that you would accept? I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable. Yet this is precisely what all statists propose."


Citing Lincoln as an advocate of liberty is simply peeing on the 600,000 dead Americans he needlessly sent to their graves preventing the south from seceding. Its was the South's liberty to do so and he crushed them like the tyrant he was.

Liberty through statisim is a monumental contradiction. And the argument that LVT as a necessary means to a better form of government securing a just society is rightfully dead in the water.

“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”—Frédéric Bastiat
​

 

[Zippyjuan]

You will find that the title of the land is "yours" as soon as you sign the mortgage documents NOT on the final payment. The mortgage provider cannot walk onto your land or into your house at any time.

Say the value of the land you bought when you took up the mortgage was $100,000. Now it is worth $400,000. That is an unearned gain of $300,000. Where did this $300,000 in value come from? The sky? mmm, no. By you painting the window frames of the house? mmmm, no.

The increased $300,000 value was created by economic community activity which soaked into the land crystallizing as land values. That is economic fact. The landowner, you, did not make the land values. Currently this common wealth, which you, did NOT create is appropriated by you. That is legalized theft. Freeloading

Say you bought gold when it was $250 an ounce and today it is $1250. You have "stolen" $1000 from society. You should pay taxes on that amount. You did not earn that money. Where did that $1000 come from- the sky? mmm- no.

The gains exist only on paper. I don't have that $300,000. I could if I sold my house today- just as you don't have that $1000 increase in the value of your gold. I didn't buy a $400k house because I could not afford one- why should I pay taxes for a $400k house when I did not buy one? You did not buy $1250 gold either. Now we must both sell waht we bought to be able to get the money to "give back" that which we "stole" from society.

No- we did not steal from society but if this is the result, it is us who are being stolen from.

 

[Zippyjuan]

You cannot refute a single sentence I have written, and you know it. Simple.

Many great economists, philosophers and other deep thinkers have advocated LVT. They merely understand what you do not.

You have been refuted all over the place and are unable to recognize it.

 

[Roy L]

What a cute little story, the moral of which appears to be: A renter has two reasons for happiness should all former owners be turned into renters. For one, the renter's situatation has not changed, since he owes the same rents, only now they go to the state. But the renter's other reason for being happy with landowners being reduced to renters is the satisfaction of knowing that they both now share the same economic disadvantages.

I.e., he is no longer being robbed through taxation of his economic activity to support an idle, privileged, greedy landowning overclass. That is indeed a good reason for him -- or any honest person -- to be happy.

Let's bust that story out of your false choice, closed loop, all-encompassing and ridiculously LVT-convenient paper tiger mode, shall we?

It is self-evidently clear, honest and irrefutable.

Without reading any further, I predict that you will now start lying:

Consider two farmers (Very Good Friends and Neighbors) who are farming the same amount and quality of land, with a country border that separates them. Both farmers own the land they farm. As both are landowners, neither has ever paid rents to any other landowner.

First lie. The only way people become landowners is by paying all the future rents to the current landowner in advance.

Both farmers sell their crops at the same price, are equally efficient, and using the same production methods. Both are pocketing all of the profits from farming, which naturally includes the land rents,

Second lie. Land rent is not a profit of farming, as the landowner gets it without doing any farming.

since that factor of production was bought and paid for (to each respective state, we'll call them both homestead farmers),

Third lie. Appropriating land under a legal privilege of removing others' rights to liberty without making just compensation is not the same as paying the state for it. What you have done here, by assuming the farmers got their land effectively for free as "homesteaders," is conveniently -- and very, very dishonestly -- erase the fact that land is not free, that someone entering the farming business would have to pay full market value for it, and that others who did not get it for free have had to pay for it effectively as a subsidy to those who got it for free.

and is owned by each farmer.

I see. So, if each of your hypothetical farmers owned a NYC taxi medallion and was being paid $50K/yr by the cab driver for it, that would be profit earned by farming?

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

So both are free and secure on their land, with income that is roughly equal.

What? No lie? You're slipping.

Now introduce LVT, as a Land Fascist/GeoSocialist

Two mutually contradictory (surprise!) lies.

coup has taken place on one side of the border, in one country only. Now one of the farmers rents his land from the state. The other farmer still owns his land, so his income is now "maybe triple the renting farmer's income".

Because he received, effectively for free, a highly lucrative privilege of removing others' rights to liberty without making just compensation.

The landowning farmer in the LVT-free country is unaffected, as he never paid rents to a landowner to begin with, and still owes no rents to the government.

Right: the institution of landowning is extremely lucrative for the initial appropriator who gets to remove others' rights to liberty without making just compensation.

His profits stay the same, his selling price stays the same, etc. The farmer who now rents his land from the state is obviously not happy because now he makes far less money than the landowning farmer, who now has more capital to work with on his farm.

No, you are confusing rent with wages and interest. The landowner has no particular reason to devote his unearned rent income to farm capital. He can just buy a taxi medallion and make the same return, without the risk of relying on his own farming skills to make a capital investment in his farm pay off.

The LVT-renting farmer, on the other hand, must work much, much harder to simply exist,

No, he just no longer gets to pocket the unearned rent income. If he is not making enough as a farmer while paying the market rent, why was he farming before the LVT reform in the first place, instead of renting out his land to someone better able to use it productively, and just pocketing the rent?

as he is now effectively a sharecropper who must support both his farm and the state,

Lie. Others are just no longer being forced to support HIM.

and has much less capital to invest.

Right. It's very much the same as if he formerly owned some slaves, and the nasty gubmint came along and emancipated them: he has less money, is getting only the wages he earns by his own labor, and is no longer privileged to pocket others' rightful wages taken from them by force.

That's the problem with hypothetical examples: the people in them can't be any smarter than the guy making up the example.

The LVT Fascist/"State Capitalists" let the renting farmer know that he is a simpleton who does not know any economics, and should feel good now that he is no longer a thief who is robbing everyone in the community and depriving them of justice and liberty without just compensation, while supporting the cause of millions upon millions of deaths, to the tune of two holocausts, every year. They further let him know that there is no reason to close his business or go bankrupt.

All perfectly true, except that if he is struggling to make a go of it as a farmer now that he can't pocket the rent, it means he is not competitive with the farmers who can afford to pay the full rent, and should therefore probably think about trying a more suitable line of work and letting a more productive farmer use the land. Unless he just loves farming so much that he can accept his reduced standard of living, of course.

He must accept his permanent indentured servitude status

Lie. He is free to sell up his capital and improvements to someone better able to use them, and seek a more suitable line of work. If he wants, he can choose to use no more good land than his equal fair share, and never pay anything to the state ever again.

You just always have to lie. ALWAYS.

to the new Geosocialist state,

<yawn> Lie.

and learn new terminology language that is not so Evil Murdering Propertarian oriented.

Well, it's quite possible that he mistakenly considered himself a successful farmer when he was really just a successful rent seeker, and that might be a hard truth to learn. But the fact that others were offering him more rent for the land than he was earning by his labor should have been a clue.

The LVT-renting farmer can downsize his farm, making room for other would-be state sharecroppers (er, farmers), but the more likely path if he can't make it is to sell to the more capital-rich farmer nearby, who seizes the opportunity to consolidate all the other farmers eggs into his basket for maximum yield.

I.e., thanks to LVT, a more efficient producer gets to use the land, INCREASING TOTAL PRODUCTION, JUST AS WE SAID WOULD HAPPEN, EVEN IN YOUR OWN EXAMPLE.

Having sold, the former renting farmer might be able to flee across the border, and try for citizenship in the LVT-free country.

I.e., having seen his escalator ride grind to a halt and offer him only the opportunity to climb up by his own efforts, like the former treadmill inmates LVT has liberated in his own country, he might nostalgically (though foolishly) choose to climb on the producers' treadmill that powers the landowners' escalator in the still-benighted anti-liberty, anti-justice, anti-prosperity country next door.

See above: the people in hypothetical examples unfortunately can't be any smarter than the guy making up the example.

Or, he can just listen to Roy, the community LVT zealot, who can teach him all about how to stew, green with envy in the knowledge that the LVT-free landowning neighbor (and sympathetic friend) across the fence, whose situation has not changed, has "obtained" an economic advantage that he never really sought in the first place.

He never sought to ride the escalator rather than toil on the treadmill that powers it? Really, Steven?

REALLY????

But in his greed for unearned wealth, the former escalator rider will really stew against his own state - not his still-riding neighbor and friend, because the perpetual-worker-with-no-freeloading-opportunity knows the truth - that his victims are no longer artificially fettered with economic disadvantages that were clapped onto them like a ball and chain, as the privilege that was once his was "eliminated" in the public interest by the defenders of liberty, justice and truth without his consent.

There. Fixed it for you.

NOTE TO ROY: The people of East Germany did not wish that West Germany would become more like East Germany. Quite the opposite, all but the most hardened, glassy-eyed believing zealots wanted the fuck out, into the land with the LEAST economic disadvantages.

At the time of unification, West Germany's taxes and government spending per capita were more than double East Germany's.

You are destroyed.

 

[Roy L]

Say you bought gold when it was $250 an ounce and today it is $1250. You have "stolen" $1000 from society.

No, because what you bought was not something others would otherwise have had for free. Someone produced it, and you paid them (however indirectly) for producing it.

You should pay taxes on that amount. You did not earn that money. Where did that $1000 come from- the sky? mmm- no.

It came from the increased value of what you paid the gold's producer for.

The gains exist only on paper.

They are as real as a gain on any asset's value. They just aren't liquid.

I don't have that $300,000.

Yes, you do, just as much as if it was stock that increased in value.

I could if I sold my house today- just as you don't have that $1000 increase in the value of your gold.

Yes, you do. The fact that it isn't liquid and might be lost doesn't mean it doesn't exist right now.

I didn't buy a $400k house because I could not afford one- why should I pay taxes for a $400k house when I did not buy one?

Because that reflects the value of what you are taking from the community.

You did not buy $1250 gold either. Now we must both sell waht we bought to be able to get the money to "give back" that which we "stole" from society.

The gold is a product of labor. The land is not.

No- we did not steal from society

Land value is identically equal to the minimum discounted present value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes. I.e., it is how much the landowner expects to steal.

but if this is the result, it is us who are being stolen from.

Garbage. How could anyone steal from you what was never rightly yours?

 

[Roy L]

There's no such thing as "the public."

Another absurdity intended to enable atrocity.

 

[Steven Douglas]

The only way people become landowners is by paying all the future rents to the current landowner in advance.

"All the future rents"? IMPOSSIBLE. Otherwise, we could CAP that as the LVT amount. Just pay "all the future rents" (as you say are reflected in the purchase price of that land) in that same way to the state. Then you would never owe LVT again, because you have finished "paying all the future rents in advance". But that's not how it works, and you know it. If that was the case, the land rents could be said to have been exhausted, a patent absurdity.

Land rent is not a profit of farming, as the landowner gets it without doing any farming.

Your misapprehension comes from not knowing anything about business or microeconomics, and your inability to stand in anything but government or collectivist shoes.

Once land is owned, land rents on any activities on that land is 100% profit from that activity -- whatever it is -- including farming.

Appropriating land under a legal privilege of removing others' rights to liberty without making just compensation is not the same as paying the state for it.

Geogibberish. Paradigm rejected, along with every false normative assumption therein.

What you have done here, by assuming the farmers got their land effectively for free as "homesteaders," is conveniently ... erase the fact that land is not free...

The land was free to begin with, as even the most stalwart and glassy-eyed Geocommunist will tell you. It does not continue to be free to anyone else once claimed, but you wouldn't agree with that because you want all land at all times to be considered by everyone to be common property -- which translates from geogibberish to a mechanism for perpetual enslavement and productivity siphoning.

...that someone entering the farming business would have to pay full market value for it...

Yes. The homesteading farmer got for free what nature provided for free. Once in his possession, it can only enter circulation when someone compensates the farmer for its full market value (i.e., the farmer is not displaced, and can get land of comparable value elsewhere - IF HE CHOOSES).

...and that others who did not get it for free have had to pay for it effectively as a subsidy to those who got it for free.

It is not a subsidy, as the farmer really does own that land, no differently than a gold miner who owns a chunk of gold he found lying on his claim, which is now in his pocket. What he got for free is now his to dispose of as he pleases -- including sell it for full market value to another should he choose to sell it.

So, if each of your hypothetical farmers owned a NYC taxi medallion and was being paid $50K/yr by the cab driver for it, that would be profit earned by farming?

If the taxi drivers earned money ferrying people around the farm, then yes. But if it's not related to any activity on that land, then no. It's just pure profit (assuming they actually "OWN" the medallions).

An NYC taxi medallion is a conditional license for a conditional privilege issued by the state. I know that you see all landownership through that lens, but in my example the Geoist infestation doesn't come until later. Initially, there are no "conditions" on the farmers for landownership imposed by the state. Both landowners actually do own their land -- until the LVT locusts arrive on one side of the border.

Because he received, effectively for free, a highly lucrative privilege of removing others' rights to liberty without making just compensation.

More geogibberish, and more continued rejection on my part of all your ludicrous normative assumptions.

Right: the institution of landowning is extremely lucrative for the initial appropriator who gets to remove others' rights to liberty without making just compensation.

More geogibberish notwithstanding, landowning is extremely lucrative for both the initial appropriator and anyone who compensates him (justly and voluntarily on the parts of buyer and seller).

The seller entices the buyer to "appropriate" the land from him for a price, even as the buyer entices the "initial appropriator" to sell it to him for a price. A single lump sum. Once that voluntary agreement is reached on both parts (nobody forced to buy or sell) I think we can safely say that both the buyer and seller thought it would be extremely "lucrative" to each. As for the "others' rights to liberty without making just compensation", that geogibberish can safely be ignored. Like you say all the time, if "others" want the "liberty" to use "THAT LAND", they can pay for it, like they would anything on a bakery store shelf which happens to be offered for sale. They are not "the owners" under my propertarian regime, and that land does not "belong" to them, singularly or collectively. So they can fuck off and get their own land, assuming they find it advantageous enough to them.

His profits stay the same, his selling price stays the same, etc. The farmer who now rents his land from the state is obviously not happy because now he makes far less money than the landowning farmer, who now has more capital to work with on his farm.

No, you are confusing rent with wages and interest. The landowner has no particular reason to devote his unearned rent income to farm capital.

You are the one who is confused. Your first false presumption is that there is unearned rent "income". Land Rent "income" ALWAYS originates with the END USER. If he RENTED the land that he owned to someone else, then that someone would be the END USER, from whose economic activities the "income" was generated. In the case of the landowning farmer, the farmer himself is the END USER of that land, which means that the "income" from that land was generated by his economic activities on that land -- AKA EARNED, and inuring to the benefit that end user, as part of his equity ownership in the fruits of his labors.

If he is not making enough as a farmer while paying the market rent, why was he farming before the LVT reform in the first place, instead of renting out his land to someone better able to use it productively, and just pocketing the rent?

You don't know anything about business, do you Roy? Or "sustainability", for that matter. If a farmer, shackled with no LVT, is able to break even, he can consider himself both productive and successful, even as he contributes real value of real goods to other real (and presumably productive) people in that process (govt. tapeworms notwithstanding). And yet you, of all people, ask why he doesn't just engage in the very behavior you hate so much. But that's only because you NEED to think of all landowners as unproductive rent-seekers who are only renting out their lands to others for the purposes of capturing their productivity in the form of "unearned land rents". Without that rule in place for all landowners your entire house of cards comes crumbling down into geodust. It's the whole reason you try to prop it up with other geocrap, like "uncompensated liberty rights deprivations", just in case THE MAJORITY OF LANDOWNING INDIVIDUALS ON EARTH are not unproductive landowners in the way that you described.

All perfectly true, except that if he is struggling to make a go of it as a farmer now that he can't pocket the rent, it means he is not competitive with the farmers who can afford to pay the full rent...

Pay the full rent...to the tape worm. If I see two thirds of the population malnourished, dead or dying from tapeworms, and one third that is relatively much healthier (better metabolisms, healthier foods, etc.,), I might assume that it's because their bodies are naturally stronger, more productive, more efficient. And they might well be. In that sense, they could "afford the tape worm" more than others. "Hmmm", I think. "Very interesting." As I proceed to REMOVE THE TAPE WORM from each and everyone of them, starting from the weakest, and working my way up to the strongest.

You are destroyed, as Geofascism in all its forms deserves a very ugly death.

 

[Roy L]

"All the future rents"? IMPOSSIBLE. Otherwise, we could CAP that as the LVT amount.

We could, if we knew how much they would be, what the tax rate would be, and what the discount rate would be, for all eternity.

It has been known for hundreds of years that the purchase price of land is just the market value of all its future after-tax rents.

Just pay "all the future rents" (as you say are reflected in the purchase price of that land) in that same way to the state. Then you would never owe LVT again, because you have finished "paying all the future rents in advance". But that's not how it works, and you know it.

Actually, you're wrong (as usual); it has sometimes been done that way, but it turned out to be a ridiculously good deal for the landowners as the discounting did not account for rent growth. Google "land redemption" and start reading.

If that was the case, the land rents could be said to have been exhausted, a patent absurdity.

There is exactly one absurdity here, and that is your claim that the landowner hasn't paid any land rent for the land.

Your misapprehension comes from not knowing anything about business or microeconomics, and your inability to stand in anything but government or collectivist shoes.

Stupid garbage unrelated to anything.

Once land is owned, land rents on any activities on that land is 100% profit from that activity -- whatever it is -- including farming.

No, that's just more stupid garbage from you, as usual. The rent is the same whether there is any profit or not, whether there is any activity or not, and therefore cannot be the profit of any activity. You're just spewing whatever stupid $#!+ comes into your head.

Geogibberish. Paradigm rejected, along with every false normative assumption therein.

I identified the objective facts, and you have to refuse to know them. It's always the same.

The land was free to begin with, as even the most stalwart and glassy-eyed Geocommunist will tell you.

If there could be such a thing as a Geocommunist, which there can't.

It does not continue to be free to anyone else once claimed, but you wouldn't agree with that because you want all land at all times to be considered by everyone to be common property -- which translates from geogibberish to a mechanism for perpetual enslavement and productivity siphoning.

It is a universal fact of history that it is the institution of private property in land that enables perpetual enslavement and productivity siphoning, as proved by the condition of the landless in every country where land is privately owned, but government does not intercede massively on behalf of the landless to rescue them from the enslaving and productivity siphoning effects of private landowning.

The homesteading farmer got for free what nature provided for free. Once in his possession, it can only enter circulation when someone compensates the farmer for its full market value (i.e., the farmer is not displaced, and can get land of comparable value elsewhere - IF HE CHOOSES).

I.e., he gets something for nothing. Right.

It is not a subsidy, as the farmer really does own that land, no differently than a gold miner who owns a chunk of gold he found lying on his claim, which is now in his pocket. What he got for free is now his to dispose of as he pleases -- including sell it for full market value to another should he choose to sell it.

It is definitely a subsidy, as the landowner is getting something for nothing at the community's expense.

If the taxi drivers earned money ferrying people around the farm, then yes.

More of the absurdity intended to enable atrocity.

An NYC taxi medallion is a conditional license for a conditional privilege issued by the state. I know that you see all landownership through that lens,

Because that's what it self-evidently and indisputably is.

More geogibberish, and more continued rejection on my part of all your ludicrous normative assumptions.

The facts are indisputable. You are the one basing all your claims on ludicrous normative assumptions.

More geogibberish notwithstanding, landowning is extremely lucrative for both the initial appropriator and anyone who compensates him (justly and voluntarily on the parts of buyer and seller).

No. Many people go broke buying land -- HELLOOOOO?!?!??!?? -- but the initial appropriation is flat-out theft.

The seller entices the buyer to "appropriate" the land from him for a price, even as the buyer entices the "initial appropriator" to sell it to him for a price.

There is typically no such "enticement" involved.

Once that voluntary agreement is reached on both parts (nobody forced to buy or sell) I think we can safely say that both the buyer and seller thought it would be extremely "lucrative" to each.

But in fact, it is to the seller, but might not be to the buyer.

As for the "others' rights to liberty without making just compensation", that geogibberish can safely be ignored.

You have to ignore it, because it is a fact that proves your beliefs are false and evil.

Like you say all the time, if "others" want the "liberty" to use "THAT LAND", they can pay for it, like they would anything on a bakery store shelf which happens to be offered for sale.

And pay the hoodlum standing in front of the bread, instead of paying the baker who created its value....

You are the one who is confused. Your first false presumption is that there is unearned rent "income".

Land rent income is indisputably unearned, as the recipient doesn't do anything for it.

Land Rent "income" ALWAYS originates with the END USER. If he RENTED the land that he owned to someone else, then that someone would be the END USER, from whose economic activities the "income" was generated.

LOL! Right. The land rent income was earned.... just not by the landowner who got it.

In the case of the landowning farmer, the farmer himself is the END USER of that land, which means that the "income" from that land was generated by his economic activities on that land -- AKA EARNED, and inuring to the benefit that end user, as part of his equity ownership in the fruits of his labors.

Garbage. The advantage he obtains by excluding others from the better land is not earned by labor, it is the proceeds of theft.

You don't know anything about business, do you Roy?

<yawn> I've run my own business for 20 years, and worked closely enough with MANY business executives and owners to be intimately acquainted with their operations.

If a farmer, shackled with no LVT, is able to break even, he can consider himself both productive and successful, even as he contributes real value of real goods to other real (and presumably productive) people in that process (govt. tapeworms notwithstanding).

Nonsense. If someone else could use that land more productively, he is IMPEDING production, not contributing to it. And if the market rent is greater than his total product, he is actually reducing the community's wealth by keeping others from using the land.

And yet you, of all people, ask why he doesn't just engage in the very behavior you hate so much. But that's only because you NEED to think of all landowners as unproductive rent-seekers who are only renting out their lands to others for the purposes of capturing their productivity in the form of "unearned land rents".

Because that is indisputably what they are.

Without that rule in place for all landowners your entire house of cards comes crumbling down into geodust.

Garbage unrelated to fact or logic.

It's the whole reason you try to prop it up with other geocrap, like "uncompensated liberty rights deprivations", just in case THE MAJORITY OF LANDOWNING INDIVIDUALS ON EARTH are not unproductive landowners in the way that you described.

What landowners do as individuals is irrelevant. Maybe one landowner farms his land. Maybe another works as a baker. Maybe another leads a Boy Scout troop. So what? It is what they do QUA landowner that defines the economic role of the landowner.

Pay the full rent...to the tape worm.

No, the community that creates it.

If I see two thirds of the population malnourished, dead or dying from tapeworms, and one third that is relatively much healthier (better metabolisms, healthier foods, etc.,),

It means you're in a place with private landowning and a government that doesn't intercede massively on behalf of the landless to rescue them from its inevitable economic effects.

I might assume that it's because their bodies are naturally stronger, more productive, more efficient. And they might well be. In that sense, they could "afford the tape worm" more than others. "Hmmm", I think. "Very interesting." As I proceed to REMOVE THE TAPE WORM from each and everyone of them,

Nope. By making land into private property, you infest all of the productive with tapeworms.

starting from the weakest, and working my way up to the strongest.

The private landowner is the tapeworm, as already proved. He is the one who takes from the producer and contributes nothing in return, as already proved.

You are destroyed, as Geofascism in all its forms deserves a very ugly death.

You would be funny if your viciously evil ideology were not inflicting two Holocausts a year on innocent human beings.