Check out the ONLY source of federal revenue in the Articles of Confederation the Founding Fathers wrote before the Constitution:
Humans can and have and do make and create more land. Dykes in the Netherlands created huge tracts of new land. Artificial islands off Dubai are new land created by man. For practical purposes, technology has made tons and tons and tons of previously useless, unusable, worthless land into economically valuable land, feasible to occupy or put to some use. Though this land may have technically existed before, as far as humans are concerned it may as well not have because we couldn't put it to any use. Now we can.
Hong Kong has done very well with no private ownership of land for over 160 years. You are therefore objectively wrong. Try to understand why.
That would be good. Looters go home!
No, that is logically impossible.
No, they merely allowed pre-existing land to be dried out. That is why the dykes were built there, and not just anywhere.
No, that is just building up pre-existing land. And again, it was only possible because the water covering the land was not too deep.
Yes, but that is not creation of land.
The new technology enables certain more productive uses of land, but it does not create land. The point is that even though no one may have wanted to use the land before, they were at liberty to do so. The advent of new technology does not somehow justify depriving them of that liberty without just compensation.
You know what I thought of? Freedom will even allow our good friends the Georgists to buy up a bunch of land and then tax themselves for their crime of monopolizing the land. They can form their own little gated community where everyone must pay land tax and then that is distributed to everyone in their community or whatever their particular version of Georgist theory teaches them should be done with the money. Maybe they will even send some small checks to those of us living outside the community in the larger libertarian society in return for ripping us off by monopolizing their land. And if their ideas are as awesome as they know that they are, it will be so wildly successful eventually everyone will be following their lead. Freedom is fantastic!
Most of them were aware of the problematic character of property in land, which is one factor that makes it suitable for taxation, while other, more valid forms of property are not suitable. Remember, none of them lived under an allodial land property system: landed property was always recognized to be a privilege issued by government, and was always conditional, especially on payment of taxes.
If we had our freedom, what would be our motive for paying some parasite for what nature provided for free?
Hong Kong. Now being imitated by China. 'Nuff said.
Well yes, obviously. I mean there's only a fixed quantity of land, period, by definition. I mean, that is, if you define it a certain way. And, I mean, there's probably only one way to define it, right? I mean, land is land and it's, like, special somehow, right? Like, mystical almost. I mean, some matter is land and always will be and some matter just isn't and never can be. Whoa, I'm blowing my mind here.
It is not agrarian. You are just makin' $#!+ up.
That is an absurd and despicable fabrication. The idea of taxing land alone was originated by the French physiocrats Quesnay and Turgot, both of whom were wealthy, eminent and successful.
It's very simple: some matter is as nature provided it, other matter has been made into products of labor.
Wrong. Inevitably. Both are products of labor and thus rightly property.
Because it can be removed from nature.
That land was there all along. It was just wet.
The manufactured island IS property. Just not the land it is sitting on.
Yes.
That is a fabrication on your part. It is very consistent.
I have proved you do not.
Flat false. You are just makin' $#!+ up about what Georgism plainly says.
"Land" has a number of different senses (it can even be used as different parts of speech), but only one relevant one: the economic one.
In economics, land is the whole physical universe other than human beings and the products of their labor.
Oh, I'm sure you do.
Suppose he is using the whole island for a game preserve, as the English aristocrats did their land?
No, because they are not land. They were not already there, ready to use, with no help from anyone. Land was.
Because that would lend it legitimacy it does not merit.
A home is a product of labor and thus rightly property. Land isn't, and thus isn't. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Not property in land, they didn't (unless they learned it from other societies where it was practised). You are AGAIN trying to change the subject from property in land to all property.
Of course. There are even many specific quotes to that effect:
All of them.
So you are wrong.
Right: to keep weather out, not to keep people off the land.
The door prevents access to people and products of labor, not just the land.
Legitimation models are outside the scope of this discussion. Please stop trying to change the subject.
I didn't say they owned it or that anyone told them they owned it. Borders are established by mutual agreement or by force. Stop makin' $#!+ up.
Why are you just makin' $#!+ up about what I plainly wrote?
Why are you pretending not to know how governments are established?
It is government's JOB to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the products of their labor. It cannot do that unless it recovers the publicly created value of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it. Anything else inherently subsidizes landowners at the expense of the productive.
It is government that administers possession and use of land, and our government has no authority over other people in their own countries. So you don't compensate them, but they also don't compensate you. As long as countries are fairly big and diverse, it's more or less a wash. Borders are to some extent arbitrary -- think of some of the boundaries between states -- but it is just a practical reality that governments only exercise their authority within those boundaries.
Bingo. Well said. You stopped short, though. Should have explained it.
Maybe in some imaginary world it is. But in the real world the government's job is to maintain and increase the power the rulers have over those they rule.
So then all I have to do to attain the right to own land and rent it out to people is call myself a government?
Yes. But it doesn't only prevent access to people and the products of their labor. It also prevents access to certain land. Do people have a right to use locked doors to prevent others from accessing certain land or not?
