The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

I'll ignore your disingenuous deflection blather and all its preachy circular nonsense, and wait instead for your more timely response to my latest post - one that was directed specifically at you.

I have overexposed myself to your dishonesty and evil again, and have become ill. So I won't be able to demolish any more of your dishonest garbage today, and maybe not tomorrow, either.

 

[EcoWarrier]

I have overexposed myself to your dishonesty and evil again, and have become ill. So I won't be able to demolish any more of your dishonest garbage today, and maybe not tomorrow, either.

Roy, get well soon.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Professor Michael Hudson....

Economic Rent:
"Income earned without any enterprise, without any cost of production."
"Over and above the actual cots of providing housing and office buildings"
"Over and above what was provided by nature"

"if the Income Tax system had fallen on this economic rent, the FIRE sector, Finance, Insurance and Real Estate, you wouldn't have to tax labor at all. Then we would have the lowest priced labor in the world".

 

[Steven Douglas]

 

[EcoWarrier]

Confused political propaganda.

No one owns land. You are only a custodian.
How can you own something nature gave us? Answer. You cannot.

Well someone officially owns Mars.

You do not want to pay your way in society and sponge of it - a parasite.

George was anti socialism. His support was mainly from the right. If he aligned himself with socialists your standard of living now would be greatly higher.

Geoism is apolitical. Fits into any ism.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

How can you own something nature gave us? Answer. You cannot.

Easy. People own all sort of things nature gave us: wood, stone, metals, etc. Every fabricated thing around you was once part of nature in some way.  The biggest problem of all (in statist societies especially) is when someone tries to claim something truly un-ownable: ideas.  

 

[Roy L]

Showing himself to be the king of muddleheads...

Marx refused to know the fact that physical capital -- equipment, buildings, vehicles, etc. -- is provided to producers by capitalists. He also refused to know that "capitalist exploitation" is only made possible by the forcible, uncompensated removal of people's rights to liberty by private landowning.

Steven refuses to know the fact that land is not provided to producers by landowners, and that the latter's sole function is to extort wealth from the productive by threatening to withdraw from production land that would otherwise be available. This has been proven to him many times. He he just blankly refuses to know the relevant self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality. That is the only "argument" anti-geoist clowns have ever had, or ever will have.

 

[Roy L]

Easy. People own all sort of things nature gave us: wood, stone, metals, etc.

No, they don't rightly own any of those things until they have removed them from nature, making them something nature DID NOT give us.

Every fabricated thing around you was once part of nature in some way.

But as you know, that is irrelevant, because it in fact is not something nature gave us.

The biggest problem of all (in statist societies especially) is when someone tries to claim something truly un-ownable: ideas.

Ideas can be owned the exact same way land or slaves can be owned: only by government saying they can be owned.

 

[Roy L]

Roy, get well soon.

Thank you, I'm fine now. I just can't take prolonged, intensive exposure to evil.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

No, they don't rightly own any of those things until they have removed them from nature, making them something nature DID NOT give us.

Not necessarily. Firewood is never "transformed", even though it is sometimes removed from nature (other times used "in nature"-like campfires in the forest). And people own firewood routinely. If you've ever been to someplace where the weather gets really cold, you'll notice that it's common for people to collect large piles of firewood and store them year-round.

But as you know, that is irrelevant, because it in fact is not something nature gave us.

Except it's not irrelevant. Nature gave us the raw materials, which producers/laborers transformed into useful things.

Ideas can be owned the exact same way land or slaves can be owned: only by government saying they can be owned.

Exactly correct.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Marx refused to know the fact that physical capital -- equipment, buildings, vehicles, etc. -- is provided to producers by capitalists.

He didn't "refuse to know" it - he just refused to give it the significance and importance you and Henry George ascribe to it (as a setup for your notion that the "provider" is key).

He also refused to know that "capitalist exploitation" is only made possible by the forcible, uncompensated removal of people's rights to liberty by private landowning.

Circular gibberish. You didn't like my little creation? Would you feel better if I added your head to the Hydra? You essentially agreed with the Marxist statement ("capitalist exploitation", which you, George and Marx all see as a problem in need of a solution), while spinning its cause, and therefore implied solution, into a purely Georgist framework.

Steven refuses to know the fact that land is not provided to producers by landowners...,

No, I don't refuse to know that fact - I just don't ascribe significance or relevance to it the way you do. Unlike you, Henry George and Karl Marx, I have no fixation on "producers" (as you see them). I have no use for Champions of the Collective. By and large they disgust me. For me, producers/production is but one pathway to ownership - the real key - and I don't see economic rents as "unearned", regardless of their source. And I don't care who "provided" the means, nor do I accept that the State (whether in the name of the Commune-ity, or the collective "peephole") is entitled to any of it as a fundamental matter.

...and that the latter's sole function is to extort wealth from the productive by threatening to withdraw from production land that would otherwise be available.

I don't buy into the Marxist/Georgist question-begging pretzel logic of "extort wealth from the productive" with regard to ownership (capital or land, respectively). To me that's bat-looney silliness. However, I do believe that land speculation, and withholding land from production, is a problem. But only generally speaking. I just don't see LVT as the solution -- at least not the way ANY LVT proponent I have seen has presented it.

All of my solutions would be diametrically opposed to yours because I alone recognize and draw a strong distinction between individuals, whom I believe act as a matter of right, and entities that I believe should operate at all times as a matter of conditional privilege only -- entities like collectives (public and private), and especially fictitious entities with limited liability and accountability that otherwise behave as people, and are recognized by the law as people. You, George, Marx and other muddle-headed collectivists make what I see as the fatal mistake of lumping them all together without distinction. That lack of distinction on your part is what puts us forever at odds. My conscience couldn't bear that kind of unconscionable life-meddling idiocy. It would make me physically ill to even think that way.

What you propose as "an exemption" to the LVT rule, I see as an Absolute Immunity (read = NOT APPLICABLE) where individuals are concerned. That rule must come first, before I would entertain anything else you would bind and lay at your altar.

 

[Roy L]

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily.

Firewood is never "transformed",

Yes, of course it is, and you know it.

even though it is sometimes removed from nature (other times used "in nature"-like campfires in the forest).

It is always removed from nature, and thus not what nature provided, and you know it.

And people own firewood routinely.

Because it is not what nature provided. You know this, but you refuse to know it.

If you've ever been to someplace where the weather gets really cold, you'll notice that it's common for people to collect large piles of firewood and store them year-round.

If you weren't committed to rationalizing evil, you would be willing to know the fact that collecting large piles of firewood and storing them year-round involves removing it from nature.

Except it's not irrelevant.

It is absolutely and indisputably irrelevant, as it ignores the central fact that production IS transformation.

Nature gave us the raw materials, which producers/laborers transformed into useful things.

Which are not what nature provided. You know this. Of course you do. You just have to refuse to know it.

All opponents of land rent recovery lie. That is a natural law of the universe. There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

 

[Roy L]

He didn't "refuse to know" it

Yes, of course he did. It is impossible that he would not know it. So in order not to know it, he had to refuse to know it.

- he just refused to give it the significance and importance you and Henry George ascribe to it (as a setup for your notion that the "provider" is key).

No, he literally refused to know it. That is why he had to contrive his ludicrous composition-equivocation fallacy that because "the workers" had made the capital, "the workers" were its rightful owners.

Circular gibberish.

Stupid lie. There is nothing circular about it.

You didn't like my little creation?

Let's just say it was worthy of you.

Would you feel better if I added your head to the Hydra?

More stupid lies wouldn't improve it.

You essentially agreed with the Marxist statement

Lie.

("capitalist exploitation", which you, George and Marx all see as a problem in need of a solution),

Like anyone else with a functioning conscience.

while spinning its cause, and therefore implied solution, into a purely Georgist framework.

Identifying the relevant facts and their inescapable logical implications is not "spinning."

No, I don't refuse to know that fact

Yes, in fact, you do.

- I just don't ascribe significance or relevance to it the way you do.

You cannot know it without knowing its relevance. As you deny its relevance, you refuse to know it.

Unlike you, Henry George and Karl Marx, I have no fixation on "producers" (as you see them).

As they in fact are. Noting that production relies on the contributions of producers and not on the non-contributions of non-producers is not a "fixation." It is a simple fact of objective physical reality.

I have no use for Champions of the Collective.

More accurately, you have no use for liberty, justice, truth, or individual human rights, the things of which I am a champion.

By and large they disgust me.

Well, think of how you feel about them, and then square it, and you will get some idea of how I feel about people who lie to rationalize evil.

For me, producers/production is but one pathway to ownership - the real key -

Right. Producers and production are the real key to your preferred pathway to ownership: taking production from the producers.

and I don't see economic rents as "unearned", regardless of their source.

Right. I have stated that fact numerous times: you believe that the bandit in the pass is earning his loot. You believe that Crusoe earns the food he extorts from Friday by waving his musket in his face and threatening to put him back in the water. You believe that the owner of a slave earns the fruits of the slave's labor, not the slave.

And I don't care who "provided" the means,

Bravo! At last! How admirably honest of you. That is exactly correct, and what I have been telling you for hundreds of messages: you DO NOT CARE about liberty, justice, rights, earning, deserving, contributing, or merit. Your only concern is to rationalize and justify taking by greedy, privileged parasites. We agree.

nor do I accept that the State (whether in the name of the Commune-ity, or the collective "peephole") is entitled to any of it as a fundamental matter.

Right. You believe that private landowners, who do not create or contribute to their land's value, are entitled to take that value (which the community creates) from the community that creates it, forcibly depriving others of their rights to liberty, and that the community that creates the value has no right to what it creates.

I don't buy into the Marxist/Georgist question-begging pretzel logic

None of which you can refute, or even state accurately...

of "extort wealth from the productive" with regard to ownership (capital or land, respectively).

Right. You refuse to know the fact that you cannot answer The Question:

"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"

Or what that fact implies. If the landowner is not contributing to production -- and you know that he isn't -- then the share of production he obtains cannot be obtained by any means OTHER than extortion. Why would the producer give it to him, if not under duress?

To me that's bat-looney silliness.

You just refuse to know the relevant facts.

However, I do believe that land speculation, and withholding land from production, is a problem. But only generally speaking. I just don't see LVT as the solution -- at least not the way ANY LVT proponent I have seen has presented it.

Right, because any solution that involves liberty or justice is automatically disqualified from your consideration.

All of my solutions would be diametrically opposed to yours

And would therefore make the problem worse.

because I alone recognize and draw a strong distinction between individuals, whom I believe act as a matter of right, and entities that I believe should operate at all times as a matter of conditional privilege only -- entities like collectives (public and private), and especially fictitious entities with limited liability and accountability that otherwise behave as people, and are recognized by the law as people.

States, governments and communities are not fictitious.

You, George, Marx and other muddle-headed collectivists make what I see as the fatal mistake of lumping them all together without distinction.

That claim bears no relation to what George or I have written.

That lack of distinction on your part is what puts us forever at odds.

It's something you made up.

My conscience couldn't bear that kind of unconscionable life-meddling idiocy.

You refuse to know the fact that "life-meddling" society is necessary for human life to exist in the first place.

It would make me physically ill to even think that way.

No, you are merely neither honest nor intelligent enough to think that way.

What you propose as "an exemption" to the LVT rule, I see as an Absolute Immunity (read = NOT APPLICABLE) where individuals are concerned.

But that is self-contradictory, as you know: it simply entitles some individuals to enslave others.

That rule must come first, before I would entertain anything else you would bind and lay at your altar.

I am not the one offering up millions of human sacrifices on the altar of Greed every year, Steven. You are.

 

[Steven Douglas]

"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?"

Told you you were fixated on production. How, exactly, is that circular, question-begging question relevant to anyone but you? Aside from your usual fact-muddling religious tenet about the Government/Community/Nature Collectivist Triad that you want to speak for (do you cross yourself whenever you refer to it?), do you really see yourself as on some kind of leftist gubmint committee that sits around and tries to figure out how to "aid production"?

"...millions of human sacrifices on the altar of Greed..." indeed. ::: snicker snicker :::

Say, that reminds me - what do you think of the nifty image I made for you?

 

[EcoWarrier]

Easy. People own all sort of things nature gave us: wood, stone, metals, etc. *

You are on about the resources extracted from land. You will find you do not own land, only have title. We cannot live without land. Do you want individuals to own the air as well?

 

[EcoWarrier]

Steven refuses to know the fact that land is not provided to producers by landowners, and that the latter's sole function is to extort wealth from the productive by threatening to withdraw from production land that would otherwise be available. This has been proven to him many times. He he just blankly refuses to know the relevant self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality. That is the only "argument" anti-geoist clowns have ever had, or ever will have.

Reading the thread i get the clear impression Steven, and co, clearly can't figure out something so simple. Geoism is so elegant a solution. Elegance always accompanies simplicity.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Not necessarily. Firewood is never "transformed",

It took LABOR to cut the firewood down. It took LABOR to carry the firewood. It took CAPITAL (saw or axe) to cut the wood. This is all basic economics done at school. Look up the Three factors of production: LAND, LABOR, CAPITAL.

 

[EcoWarrier]

I don't buy into the Marxist/Georgist question-begging pretzel logic of "extort wealth from the productive" with regard to ownership (capital or land, respectively). To me that's bat-looney silliness.

You are attempting to discredit George by aligning him with Marx, when it is known that they opposed each other on many points.

Michael Hudson, an LVT advocate, criticizing the critics of George.
http://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/0801GeorgesCritics.pdf

'Upon being sent copies of Progress and Poverty in 1881, Marx wrote to John Swinton that it was "a last attempt to save the capitalist regime." He dismissed the book as saying precisely what his 1847 critique of Proudhon had forecast that industrial capital would advocate in its conflict with the landlord class: "We understand such economists as Mill, Cherbuliez, Hilditch and others demanding that rent should be handed over to the state to serve in place of taxes. That is a frank expression of the hatred the industrial capitalist bears towards the landed proprietor, who seems to him a useless thing, an excrescence upon the general body of bourgeois production.'​

You are dishonest in attempting to put Geoism as state control. Henry George, Ricardo, Adam Smith, Mills, etc, never advocated state ownership of land and were keen land taxers. Although state ownershipof land works brilliantly in Hong Kong using a form of LVT, giving the most financially free state in the world and the world's most dynamic economy - set up by the British, who could not do it in their own land because of the vested-interest of landed people in the House of Lords. I notice the brainwahsed parasites, hiding behind a false shield of "freedom", ignore HK, Singapore, etc. Selective amnesia sets in. I wonder why?

Geoism is not state ownership of land, YOU KNOW THAT. Although a moot point, the state owns the land anyhow as you only have title. LVT says, yes own land, fine, but we reclaim community created wealth that accumulates in the land and use that for community purposes. LVT leaves the individual and his income/wealth alone and ensures he is genuinely FREE. LVT cures many things like harmful land speculation, boom & bust, etc. LVT promotes positive production - enterprise. It rolls back the state. LV gives people genuine freedom.

However, I do believe that land speculation, and withholding land from production, is a problem.

Of course it is. it brought down the world's economy. It wasn't just the USA that was overspeculating in land. The UK, Spain(what a mess), Ireland, etc, did so. The UK rigged planning to create an artificially land shortage to ramp up land prices. The governmnet is complicit in this rape. How do you solve the speculation? No one has come out with an answer except Geoists. LVT and no income & Sales taxes stops land speculation dead in its tracks. Look at the post of mine about Denmark who used LVT 50 years ago - speculation stopped before the party got in power who were to implement it. Money was put into enterprise and unemployemnet was zero. Look at the post of mine of Martin Wolf, he clearly states land speculation was the problem and the cure is LVT. You don't get much bigger than Wolf. Do a youtube search on him and piles come up. The US networks can'tr get enough of him.

All others talked about tighter control of banks. But the likes of Thatcher and Reagan can come along in the future to a population who never knew crashes and deregulate to create a mini boom to win the next election. Then kaboom again. LVT solves it at the root. LVT is self regulating with minimal government interference.

If the land question isn't dealt with nothing else will work.

Geoism should be ingrained into the pysche of the people to the point it would not be tolerated being reversed, like votes for women.

 

[Steven Douglas]

You are attempting to discredit George by aligning him with Marx, when it is known that they opposed each other on many points.

I don't care about disagreement between two cannibals fighting over what parts of me are the safest, most proper and humane to eat. Off with both their cannibalistic heads.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama opposed each other on many points as well. Likewise Democrats and Republicans -- but it's not what the Dems and the GOP disagree about that is causing the greatest destruction in the world in my estimation, but rather what they agree on fully, albeit for different reasons.

Geoism is not state ownership of land...
...the state owns the land anyhow...

That's your default premise, and you can argue from it until you're blue in the geolib face. Whatever a state is, and however it is defined, regardless of its political form, is entirely subjective, based solely on human determination. That includes whatever it is that a state is said to "own", be it good or bad, right or wrong - land, property or even people.

No two states are exactly alike, nor is it a requirement that the state "own" anything whatsoever, including land within its political boundaries, to be considered a state. Geoism/Georgism/Geolibertarianism/LVT is nothing more than human-determined state-ownership of land.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Silly incorrect cartoons do not impress me.

No two states are exactly alike, nor is it a requirement that the state "own" anything whatsoever, including land within its political boundaries, to be considered a state.

Look up the meaning of "sovereignty". The state own the land. How they apportion the land within is another matter.

Geoism/Georgism/Geolibertarianism/LVT is nothing more than human-determined state-ownership of land.

Let us say "title" and not ownership to clarify and simplify matters for you. Geoism DOES NOT ADVOCATE state title holding of land. Anyone with half a brain can see that.

One of the prime points is that Geoism reclaims community created wealth that soaks into the land crystallizing as land values, using this wealth for community purposes - the land value was NOT created by the landowner. Socially created wealth is socialized for social purposes. Very simple. Whether that is via state title holding of land (as in Hong Kong) or private title holding is irrelevant, as LVT can fit into any ism. The Single Tax has a brilliant side-effect of keeping private wealth private by eliminating Income & Sale taxes. Privately created wealth is privatized.

Currently we do exactly the opposite as above and are in the bizarre position of the state stealing from individuals and individuals stealing from the state. This is clearly harmful to the economy and morally wrong. We privatize socially created wealth (land values are appropriated) and socialize privately created wealth (take the income from people via Income & Sales Tax)- and create financial catastrophes on a regular basis.

LVT, as the Single Tax can be implemented tomorrow with ease. It does not change the business system or business behavior. LVT seamlessly was introduced into Denmark.

I see you ignored Hong Kong again. Not what your mind wants to know is it? Factual. Works. The world's best.

Reading your posts I can only conclude that you thought you had solved matters in your head many years ago. Someone came along and demolished those constructs in your head - they are just plain wrong. As they have been there for so long you refuse to admit to yourself you were wrong for so long. Open your mind. See the light.