The Singapore Model?

[Becker]

As I have not advanced a labor theory of value, and won't be doing so, better advice would be: don't waste your attention on economic ignorami who can't tell the difference between a labor theory of value and a consistency criterion of property rights.

I'm with you there, I don't think you advance labor theory of value, you don't accept labor theory of acquisition or ownership (aka homesteading).

Let me see if I understood you.
Land ownership is a subsidized privilege that violates free market.
Land ownership is theft.
Land ownership is unjust and immoral, like slavery.
Land ownership via homestead is akin to slavery.
Land ownership violates rights of others to use land as they please.
People who disagree with you are false and evil, and can't say the same about you.
You believe in natural rights, and landing owning isn't one of them.
Government is the only entity justified in administering land control (and nobody has a right to own land, but if anybody, government would be first)
There is not just price for infinite or indefinite ownership of land.

Please correct me if I misrepresented anything you said.

 

[Roy L]

I'm with you there, I don't think you advance labor theory of value, you don't accept labor theory of acquisition or ownership (aka homesteading).

What would a "labor theory of acquisition or ownership" be? Labor produces, and earns its product. That is the source of all rightful ownership. Labor by definition does not appropriate -- "acquire" -- what it never produced and others would otherwise be at liberty to use. That is stealing, not "homesteading." As land is not a product of labor, it can never rightly have been acquired by labor.

The notion that homesteading is a source of rightful land titles is nothing but a rationalization for landowner greed. There is not one square inch of privately owned land, anywhere in the world, whose title can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an initial homesteader who violated no one else's rights in appropriating the land. Not one square inch.

ALL landowning is founded on forcible appropriation. ALWAYS.

Let me see if I understood you.
Land ownership is a subsidized privilege that violates free market.
Land ownership is theft.
Land ownership is unjust and immoral, like slavery.
Land ownership via homestead is akin to slavery.
Land ownership violates rights of others to use land as they please.

All correct. The resemblance of landowning to slavery can be seen in the condition of the landless in countries where government does not make provision to defend them from the consequences of landowning.

People who disagree with you are false and evil, and can't say the same about you.

No, people who try to rationalize landowner privilege always resort to lies, because they are trying to rationalize and excuse evil, and there is no way to do that but by lying. We have seen that demonstrated in this thread, but even more in the "land value tax" thread.

You believe in natural rights, and landing owning isn't one of them.

Correct. Only other people (or their institutions) can violate natural rights, so natural rights are the things a man would have if others did not violate his rights by forcibly depriving him of them. Absent landowning, all people would be at liberty to use the land, as our hunter-gatherer ancestors were, so landowning inherently violates their natural right to liberty.

Government is the only entity justified in administering land control (and nobody has a right to own land, but if anybody, government would be first)

More accurately, anyone who administers possession and use of land is acting as a government; and that is only justifiable when that government governs by consent rather than force, and does so to secure the equal natural rights of all, not to violate them.

There is not just price for infinite or indefinite ownership of land.

Correct: no just current price, only an ongoing just (i.e., market) price of compensation to all who are deprived of it, when they are deprived of it.

 

[Becker]

What would a "labor theory of acquisition or ownership" be? Labor produces, and earns its product. That is the source of all rightful ownership. Labor by definition does not appropriate -- "acquire" -- what it never produced and others would otherwise be at liberty to use. That is stealing, not "homesteading." As land is not a product of labor, it can never rightly have been acquired by labor.

The notion that homesteading is a source of rightful land titles is nothing but a rationalization for landowner greed. There is not one square inch of privately owned land, anywhere in the world, whose title can be traced in an unbroken line of consensual transactions to an initial homesteader who violated no one else's rights in appropriating the land. Not one square inch.

ALL landowning is founded on forcible appropriation. ALWAYS.

All correct. The resemblance of landowning to slavery can be seen in the condition of the landless in countries where government does not make provision to defend them from the consequences of landowning.

No, people who try to rationalize landowner privilege always resort to lies, because they are trying to rationalize and excuse evil, and there is no way to do that but by lying. We have seen that demonstrated in this thread, but even more in the "land value tax" thread.

Correct. Only other people (or their institutions) can violate natural rights, so natural rights are the things a man would have if others did not violate his rights by forcibly depriving him of them. Absent landowning, all people would be at liberty to use the land, as our hunter-gatherer ancestors were, so landowning inherently violates their natural right to liberty.

More accurately, anyone who administers possession and use of land is acting as a government; and that is only justifiable when that government governs by consent rather than force, and does so to secure the equal natural rights of all, not to violate them.

Correct: no just current price, only an ongoing just (i.e., market) price of compensation to all who are deprived of it, when they are deprived of it.

You basically decided in advance that land ownership is evil, and unjust, so whatever people say will be "rationalizing" or "justifying" and if possible, "lying".
I was simply illustrating the theory and definition of homesteading, ownership based on "mixing labor", the same way value is said to be "intrinsic" based on spending labor. That was all, I understand you don't accept homestead.

 

[Roy L]

You basically decided in advance that land ownership is evil, and unjust, so whatever people say will be "rationalizing" or "justifying" and if possible, "lying".

No, I DEMONSTRATED it by incontrovertible fact. The lies are inevitable once the decision has been made to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil.

I was simply illustrating the theory and definition of homesteading, ownership based on "mixing labor", the same way value is said to be "intrinsic" based on spending labor. That was all, I understand you don't accept homestead.

I am of course well aware of Locke's "mixing labor" argument, but there is no such thing as "mixing labor" with land. That is physically impossible, and nothing but an uninformative metaphor. What one makes by labor is a product, not land. Land is by definition what has NOT been removed from nature and altered by labor to make a product.