I didn't say you did. Learn to read.
We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics
- Thread starter EcoWarrier
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No, they don't, which is the point.
The area of disagreement is actually quite limited, and revolves around the manner of reconciling property rights with liberty rights. The anti-LVT side advocates property in things IN ADDITION TO the fruits of one's labor. That is logically impossible except by removing others' liberty rights to access and use those things.
It's not a false choice. It's not even a false dichotomy. It's simply an alternative: we can fund public expenditures as we currently do, by confiscating privately created wealth and using it to give value to landowners, or we can fund them by recovering the value the expenditures themselves create, rather than giving it away to landowners in return for nothing. It's really just that simple.
Lurid imagery aside, that's just silly garbage. No taxes --> no government --> no civilization.
True: it's more a case of "let the actual facts in."
Then they are stupid as well as ignorant and dishonest.
That is indisputable: they forcibly deprive me of liberty I would otherwise have, and you appear to know that very well. I suspect you might be closer to the collapse of your false and evil beliefs than you realize.
Then it backfired.
Garbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction. Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.
Lie. Crusoe is simply enforcing his claim to own the land, same as any other land "owner" pointing a gun at a "trespasser" and telling them to clear out. Giving Friday the option of permanent servitude is just an offer of "voluntary" trade.
According to you, that is...
So, in your view, property in slaves should have been protected instead of abolished?
That is an absurd and outrageous lie. Governments are ALL ABOUT protection of individual property. That's how the rich get rich, stay rich, and get rapidly richer:
"Government has no other end than the preservation of property." -- John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
Yes, and your favored system would end in feudalism as landowning gradually concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, as it always has before.
Heinrich's anti-LVT "arguments" are garbage, as Rothbard's were. I'm not going to take the time to demolish them all in detail here. If you pick one or two that you think are particularly strong, I'll demolish them before your very eyes.
You have quite an imagination.
Where are there no taxes?
The landowner qua landowner is always inherently a freeloader. See post #6 in this thread.
Yes, of course they are. AFAICT, they are explicitly claiming that because it is levied specifically on the basis of property ownership, LVT is more collectivist, Stalinist, communist, socialist, blah, blah, blah than income tax, sales tax, excise tax, poll tax, value added tax, estate tax, gas tax, luxury tax, and every other kind of tax.
It is certainly an enormous improvement over what we have now. That is why evil, greedy, lying, anti-LVT filth oppose it with such maniacal ferocity: they know that if anyone actually tries LVT, it will immediately be obvious that their "all taxes are evil" rant is objectively false.
If they are, then they are being dishonest as well as stupid.
No tax at all is not one of the options.
You mean, as the Founding Fathers tried to do in the Articles of Confederation?
But you are just objectively wrong about that. Increasing the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners can never be beneficial. Never.
Absurdly and dishonestly.
And you are wrong and we are correct, as explained in post #135 in this thread.
WilliamShrugged
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exactly, they wouldn't be a slave. They would be a servant. Fail.
WilliamShrugged
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heavenlyboy34
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LOLZ! So, who owns you? (FYI, people sell themselves all the time. They sell their labor and surrender free will to employers in exchange for some wage or benefit.)
You do realize that Locke included the protection of the poor's property in this, don't you? Contextomy fail. Why is it okay for you to lie about and misrepresent Locke but not okay for others to represent George as they choose?
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erowe1
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I'm having trouble pinning you down because you seem to avoid the point I was making here and post #135 does not address it either.
Suppose the federal government instituted a revenue-neutral tax shift, replacing the income tax we have now with a land value tax that raises the same amount of revenue. After doing that, would lowering the rate of that LVT, so as to decrease federal revenue, be a good thing or not?
Steven Douglas
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The actual area of disagreement is not limited in area, literally speaking, because it encompasses ALL area - even the land area of the entire Earth, used as a basis for a tax. The "liberty rights" deprivation argument is YOUR framing of the issue, given that you alone feel that they a) exist as you describe them, and are b) being violated by landownership without "just compensation" to the state, no less, which you further seek to reconcile by c) a universal individual exemption amount that is equal for all individuals. I say that Rube Goldberg machine of a trickle-down dog doesn't hunt.
There are no rights to the fruits of one's labor without rights to "property in things".
But you don't mean "things", do you. Specifically, we're talking about property in LAND, not "things", and your belief that the exclusive holding of land (without "just compensation" to others via the state) is a violation of others' "liberty rights", which I argue do not, and should not ever, exist or be acknowledged as you describe them. That's your house of cards, not theirs.
Fund public expenditures as we currently do? I know you mean "method of or basis for funding", and not the amounts currently funded or spent, but that's still a false choice. Most here are arguing that most public expenditures should not even exist. And I agree. So we're not sitting around trying to figure out different ways to fund them. While you propose to stop taxing labor and capital (which they would agree with already), and shift all tax burdens exclusively onto landowners, most here are instead trying to figure out ways to shrink most of the expenditures down and drown most of them in a bathtub, such that there really is no burden to speak of in the first place.
But even there I'm not exactly on the same page, because I don't think that the size of funding and expenditures in and of themselves are the problem at all, any more than I believe the factor of production targeted is the problem -- in terms of the REAL PROBLEM you're trying to reconcile; that of burden-shifting.
I am not calling for "no taxes", which brings us to my point.
I believe strongly in taxes -- just not on INDIVIDUALS ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not for ANY fucking reason. That doesn't mean "no taxes", because these rights-endowed individuals are not the only taxable entities. There are plenty of taxable entities who can and should bear the burden, to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of conditional privilege. That includes corporations (who are not people), collectives and speculators of all kinds, and even foreigners...but NEVER REAL PEOPLE ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT.
You and Henry George have everything just as fucked up as Marx as you focus on "which factor of production should be universally targeted", and, by extension, you falsely think, which class of people will naturally end up shouldering the burden (landowners in your case - GENERIC - regardless of their legal status, all of which you conflate as one and the same, as if all landowning entities were created equal). THAT is the lie, THAT is the false choice. That's how JP Morgan and the average hard-working Joe Sixpack get MUSH-MELDED as one, MUCH to JPM's delight, because not only is JPM treated as if it, too, was CREATED EQUAL in terms of rights, but JPM is also better equipped to avoid the taxes, happy to let a million Joe Sixpacks pay them instead.
The choice for me deals with legal status, and the inalienable rights of each and every (uncollectivized) individual Citizen, and what types of entities are being taxed -- not the basis for that tax. Wrong target, as the system gets gamed and real people get used as human shields anyway, regardless of the target. If people (individuals) are free, it does not matter what factor of production, or anything else, the state uses as its basis to tax privileged entities who are not acting as a matter of right. Tax their land, tax their income, tax the sales (on purchases from privileged entities only), or anything else. It doesn't even need a reason. Tax them "just because", because it has that power. They're targeted and caught in the cross-hairs, without any human shields to camouflage themselves as or hide behind.
The power to tax is the power to destroy, and if the state taxes any privileged entity too aggressively, it does so at its own peril, as it can literally tax its own revenue sources out of existence (read=capital flight, right out of the taxing jurisdiction), while only creating more opportunities for competing individuals who are not taxable as a matter of right and cannot therefore be destroyed or driven out of the market by taxation as a matter of principle. So break out that Laffer curve for privileged taxables entities, State, and take care to strike the right balance, because real, free and natural Citizens stand to benefit either way.
What I propose requires absolutely no "promise" of a universal individual exemption, which may or may not be implemented (and if history is a guide, the chances of any truly meaningful dividend or exemption are an absolute joke of a rotten dangled plum). My proposal does not require any dangled plums, or promises based on "trusting the state" (or worse yet, a tyrannous majority) to do the "right" or "fair" thing. It is not required because the immunity is already inherent in any individual that behaves as a matter of right, a status that ends and becomes privileged behavior with those individuals and other entities to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of privilege.
It's easy to prove that someone is behaving as a land speculator who is not simply behaving as a matter of right. Likewise, corporations, collectives and foreigners are ALREADY inherently acting as a matter of privilege. They would all, without exception, be subject to your tax, as well as any other tax, as the state saw fitting. And I don't care if it's LVT, income, capital gains or anything else or all of them combined into a fifty-legged stool. But it only applies to them - not real, free and natural Citizens, to whom the fruits of labor, the benefits of capital and economic rents on land and anything else should be freely and privately enjoyed.
So no, it's not "no tax" (on anyone) vs. "the best tax" (on everyone). It ALWAYS boils down (even in the real world today) to a question of For Whom The Tax Bell Tolls. And that's where individuals, especially the truly productive ones, are the sitting ducks that get shafted every time, without fail, under EVERY regime, every 'ism'. That's why LVT would end up gamed like every other tax, as Zoning laws, Enterprise and Renaissance Zones, Special Exemptions, Abatements and Grants creep in, NATURALLY, to sort out the clever and well-healed from the not-so-connected, and the real people end up shouldering all the burdens anyway. Fuck that.
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EcoWarrier
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I was right you are confused. Geonomics doesn't tax only land, most followers want LVT as the Single Tax for personal and small businesses at least - no Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax (tax on the buildings), Inheritance Tax, etc. It is so much easier and simple. The state's tax collection bill is very, very cheap. LVT is impossible to avoid as land's location is known to the inch. It cannot be taken off-shore.
Other taxes on extracting natural resources, like oil, ores and fish from the sea, and use of natural resources apply (e.g., charging taxi drivers a license to use common streets) as do Pigovian taxes, like alcohol, tobacco, congestion charges, polluters, etc.
LVT promotes enterprise, as taxes on production and trade are removed, and gives economic stability. Enterprise makes people more wealthy, reducing the Welfare bill, etc. The taxes on resources take precedence and if necessary the LVT bill is lowered. But it is a balance. As the LVT gets very low it may spark harmful land speculation (Taiwan increased its LVT rate to counter land speculation and get land & buildings in use). In marginal land the values is very low, so the LVT is near buttons. You can move to an internal tax haven and next to nothing.
Taxation only falls on commonly created wealth (where it should do), not personal wealth. Common wealth pays for common services.
Simple.
If you think we can live in a society without taxation, get out of La-La land.
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EcoWarrier
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Land monopoly is not the only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies -- it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.
Unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit, but they are the principal form of unearned increment, and they are derived from processes which are not merely not beneficial, but positively detrimental to the general public.
- Winston Churchill
Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.
- Winston Churchill
No matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream for himself, and everywhere today the man or the public body that wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior one, and in some cases to no use at all. All comes back to land value, and its owner is able to levy toll upon all other forms of wealth and every form of industry.
- Winston Churchill
Some years ago in London there was a toll bar on a bridge across the Thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings offended the public conscience, and agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the taxpayers, the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved sixpence a week, but within a very short time rents on the south side of the river were found to have risen about sixpence a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted!
- Winston Churchill
I hope you will understand that, when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the process than with the individual land owner who, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched. I have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad.
- Winston Churchill
We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law.
- Winston Churchill
Unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit, but they are the principal form of unearned increment, and they are derived from processes which are not merely not beneficial, but positively detrimental to the general public.
- Winston Churchill
Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.
- Winston Churchill
No matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream for himself, and everywhere today the man or the public body that wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior one, and in some cases to no use at all. All comes back to land value, and its owner is able to levy toll upon all other forms of wealth and every form of industry.
- Winston Churchill
Some years ago in London there was a toll bar on a bridge across the Thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings offended the public conscience, and agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the taxpayers, the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved sixpence a week, but within a very short time rents on the south side of the river were found to have risen about sixpence a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted!
- Winston Churchill
I hope you will understand that, when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the process than with the individual land owner who, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched. I have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad.
- Winston Churchill
We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law.
- Winston Churchill
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??? Huh? No one. I didn't sell myself into slavery. Duh.
Non sequitur fail.
FYI, that's not selling yourself, it's performing labor for wages, and in no sense do people "surrender free will" to their employers. Give your head a shake.
Of course. And your point would be...?
Are you stupidly and dishonestly claiming that the homeless beggar who gets protection of his few dollars worth of clothes and cigarettes is getting the same benefit from government as the billionaire who owns the land the homeless beggar is not allowed to use to house and support himself, and access the government services his sales taxes helped pay for?
Another non sequitur fail.
Stupid, dishonest garbage disproved above.
<sigh> You now have exactly two choices, hb: you can identify, with direct, verbatim, in-context quotes, where I lied about and misrepresented Locke, or you can admit that you are just another evil, lying sack of anti-LVT $#!+. Failure to do the first will constitute doing the second. And you will not be doing the first.
I did not lie about, misquote, or misrepresent Locke. Lying anti-LVT sacks of $#!+ DO lie about and misrepresent what Henry George and LVT advocates plainly wrote. INVARIABLY.
Yes, it does.
No, because that would give landowners an increased welfare subsidy giveaway of unearned wealth at the expense of reducing the earned wealth of the productive. It would do this by bringing back the inefficiencies and counter-productive incentives that LVT removes, as I explained in post #135.
You need to find a willingness to know the fact that preventing people from earning wealth by devoting their labor and investments in capital goods to productive ends reduces their wealth just as surely as taxing away their earned income does. Other taxes like income tax have what economists call an "excess burden": the amount by which they reduce total wealth OVER AND ABOVE the amount of money they take from taxpayers. For taxes other than LVT, which bear on productive economic activity, the higher the tax, the greater the excess burden and the less wealth is produced.
But LVT has the OPPOSITE of an excess burden: the amount by which total wealth is reduced by failing to recover the full publicly created value of land and eliminate the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners. With LVT, the higher the tax rate, the LOWER the excess burden, and the MORE wealth is produced.
No, you are lying. Servants can't be sold to someone else. Slaves can. Servants can't be compelled to labor by force. Slaves can.
EPIC FAIL.
Because in post #190 you wrote:
"I'm pointing out your stupid elitist remarks."
It would be nice if you would provide the post number of comments you are not responding to directly, so readers could check for themselves why you deleted the context without having to go through many previous posts looking for it.
wrong
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