What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[jascott]

Land is not a big enough factor in the economy, so a land tax won't raise much revenue. We aren't all farmers any more.

American government spending (including federal, state, and local) is now $6 trillion annually. Eliminate interest payments on the federal debt, and eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, and unemployment payments, and it's still $4 trillion. Eliminate the DOD too, and you're down to $3.3 trillion.
But http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2007-05/msg00176.html points out that land rent today is only 5% of GNP. So land rent is only $730 billion. If this is a very inaccurate estimate, do you have a more accurate one? Or even if it's accurate, do you say that after LVT replaces all other major taxes, the LVT will take in much more than $730 billion? Or if you would supplement LVT with other major taxes, then which ones, and how much revenue do you expect from them? Or would you run a perpetual deficit, as we do now? Or do you say that spending should be cut down from the current $6 trillion to $730 billion, and if so, then what percentage would you allocate to federal spending, and can you give a rough idea of what your federal budget would look like? If land is indeed a big enough factor in the economy, then the claim to the contrary should be the easiest of all anti-LVT arguments to refute, by simply giving some numbers.

 

[Roy L]

On the assumption that you are referring to this as a matter of principle and not political boundaries, how far out does that extend?

It's a matter of principle, but that principle can only be implemented within political boundaries.

If only two villages existed on Earth, are the villagers in western China depriving the villagers in central America of anything by using or depleting resources from their respective lands, such that one village has a rightful tax claim on the other, even separated by thousands of miles? What if the villagers are closer - say, on opposite sides of the Andes, but still separated by hundreds of miles?

There's a couple of simple tests:

1. Who actually suffers deprivation as a result of someone excluding others from resources? They are the ones who should rightly be compensated.

2. What is the extent of the taxing authority's authority? It is not responsible for securing and reconciling the equal rights of people outside its boundaries, only inside.

Or, bringing it closer to home and removing ownership - if I pan gold from a public stream in an area that is uninhabited or controlled by anyone, not claiming ownership of any kind, but depleting a resource therefrom, have I, a) interfered with anybody else's "natural liberty right" to do likewise, and/or b) deprived anybody of any kind of 'just compensation' for what I have panned? In other words, was anything "stolen" for which a compensation to some collective could be justified?

No, because you are not depriving anyone of anything they would otherwise have. There was no competition for access to the opportunity, so it had no value for you to repay.

I'm having difficulty grasping how a depleted resource on one part of the Earth creates an obligation for remuneration to someone on another part of the Earth (regardless of distance - whether they are next door or in the next continent), because that could extend, literally and absolutely, to virtually everything that you possess, since it was extracted at some point from the Earth.

No. Extraction from the earth removes the resource from nature, a one-time process that triggers a one-time tax at the time of extraction. The problematical thing about resource extraction/depletion is that the people who are most interested in doing it are very prepared to do it almost anywhere, and depriving them of access even in foreign countries violates their rights. At the same time, as a practical matter, resources are under the control of local sovereign governments, which have no responsibility to secure and reconcile the rights of anyone but their own citizens.

Who gets payment for that, and how its it equitably "redistributed"?

I don't generally advocate remuneration of individuals for resource depletion, but rather restoration of their rights to liberty through a uniform, universal individual land tax exemption. Aside from an allowance for that, IMO LVT revenue should all be spent for public purposes and benefit according to the democratically expressed will of the people. If that includes a citizens' dividend, so be it. But unlike the liberty right the exemption represents, there is no individual right to collect publicly created rent.

In the case where land is marked or fenced with boundaries where usage is restricted, and trespassing becomes an issue, is this a case where literally everyone is deprived of a "natural liberty right" - or does it involve only who would want to exercise a conflicting claim for the same space in time?

It's an issue for all those who could have used the land.

I would think that if I built a bridge charged a toll, only those needing to cross the bridge could be injured.

No one is injured by your building a bridge and charging tolls in any case.

Then the question comes, was that particular land the only option available? (e.g., the only wellspring for miles, and you control the water). I could see that a "affected by the public interest".

Not sure what your point is, here.

If nobody "owns" the land, even collectively, then how is a collective able to claim injury?

Each individual member of the community who could have used the land is injured by being deprived of the exercise of his liberty. But only government is competent to secure and reconcile everyone's equal rights to liberty.

It would seem to me that the only parties who could claim injury by deprivation of a natural liberty right or loss of a depleted resource, would be those who actually want to engage in usage of the same land, but were denied.

No, because the denial of those who want to use it puts them in competition for other sites with those who don't want to use it.

If I traveled to Antarctica and mined gold from a place where no other human even wanted to go, is the another human being on Earth, let alone all humans on Earth, that could claim that I deprive them of anything, or that I owe them anything whatsoever?

No, it doesn't sound like it, but details could change that.

The final question I have comes from the tax itself - whether "severance" or LVT - who is presuming authority and the jurisdiction to collect, and on whose behalf (i.e., how is that money "redistributed") I can't conceive of it being, in most cases, any more than one abstraction used as rationale to pay for yet another abstraction.

It's government's job to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.

 

[jascott]

I would only add that restoration of the individual human right to liberty via a uniform, universal individual exemption to the land value tax, ensuring free, secure tenure on enough good land of the individual's choice to live on and participate in society must also be part of the solution.

Would you agree that the most practical way to accomplish this would be simply to pay a citizen's dividend, i.e. give each citizen a fixed (or revenue indexed) amount of money each year, paid for out of LVT revenue, and assess the LVT on all land without any exemptions? Then each citizen can choose to live on land whose annual LVT is the same as the citizen's dividend, in which case he's effectively exempt from taxation for his land, or he can choose to live on really cheap land, and be compensated by the difference between the citizen's dividend and the low LVT assessed for his land, or he can choose to live on expensive land, whose LVT is only partially covered by the citizen's dividend and he must pay the remainder out of his own pocket. Suppose America were to switch to this system today; can you give a rough estimate of an appropriate citizen's dividend? $100? $1,000? Would you pay per citizen, or only per adult citizen?
Or did you have in mind some other mechanism which would be even more practical than this?

 

[jascott]

Geoists say that the most practical way for exclusive landusers to compensate everybody else is via tax money paid to a government. If there's more than enough LVT revenue to pay the government's expenses, do you lower the LVT rate so that revenue equals expenses, or do you maintain a high rate (e.g. 90% or 100% of assessed rental value), and distribute the excess as a citizen's dividend? It seems the geoist argument would require the latter choice, but in that case, if 55% of the citizens vote to spend all available revenue on the maximum possible military defensive capability, but the other 45% believe that Christ's command to "turn the other cheek" means literally that they must choose to suffer death rather than defend themselves, and they therefore object to spending any money on the military at all and would rather have the excess revenue distributed to them so that they can donate it to charities which build water purification plants in Africa, then doesn't this mean that the 55% is stealing from the 45%? Wouldn't the right thing to do be to distribute all of the LVT revenue to the citizens, then the 55% can donate their money to the military? It's true that the 45% will then receive defense for free because it isn't practical for the military to defend just the 55%, but this is the type of systemic imperfection which geoists themselves already accept; for example, the 55% could invest their own money to build an upscale shopping center, which increases the surrounding land rental values, which increases LVT revenue, which is distributed to all citizens equally (or used to pay for government services which benefit all citizens equally), not just to the 55% who paid to create the new value. Or I, as a private citizen, can openly carry a firearm while eating at a restaurant, and thereby prevent thieves from deciding to hold up the restaurant and its patrons, but the restaurant and patrons obviously don't owe me any money for this service.

Or, since science fiction sometimes becomes reality, let's consider a particular sci-fi future: man has been improved by genetic engineering. All of unimproved mankind has died out. Every man is now at least as virtuous as any man who had ever lived before. There's no murder, or theft, or any other crime, because nobody tries or even wants to do such things. Therefore there's no need for militaries, or police, or prisons. When there are disagreements about ownership and obligations, people hire other citizens at random to be arbiters, and losers cheerfully pay for winners' and arbiters' time. Roads are obsolete, because helicopters and blimps have replaced cars, buses, and trucks. Electric grids and natural gas distribution pipes are obsolete, because everybody has a small nuclear reactor buried in his back yard. Water and sewer pipes are obsolete, because everybody has a well and a septic tank. Government expenditures are zero; there's nothing to do. In this case, do we eliminate the LVT, or do we keep it at 90% or 100% and distribute all of the revenue as a citizen's dividend?

Can I prepay my geoist taxes/rent? Is there a limit to how far in advance I can prepay? Can I prepay for the entire duration of the government's existence? Let's say 500 years; that's a very optimistic estimate for any government. Then, surely I can sublease the land which I've lawfully rented, and can sell or give away the privilege of exclusive use which my rent money paid for. In this case, how is prepayment of the tax any different from outright purchase of the land? In either case, after the invasion or revolution which destroys the government, the privileges of exclusive land use which the government granted, like the titles of land ownership which other destroyed or evicted governments have granted in the past, are unlikely to be honored, especially when asserted by people who supported the incumbent government during the war.
If I'm not allowed to prepay, then what's the justification for the government refusing to accept from me today the money which I'll owe next year? It would make more sense for the government to accept the money, and earn interest on it, then use the principal next year for next year's operational expenses, and consider the interest to be a donation from me.
Or look at it another way: if an annual tax is better than an hourly tax due to lessened payment processing overhead, then isn't a semimillennial tax even better? This also has the advantage of pacifying the anti-geoists, because they can then pretend that they own their land in practice after they've paid their taxes. People who can't afford to pay the semimillennial tax upfront have the option of annual installment payments, which the anti-geoists can pretend are mortgage payments.
To avoid the controversy regarding land for which title of private ownership has already been granted, let's just talk about government-owned land (or for the geoists, land for which no privilege of exclusive private use has been granted yet) which the government is considering selling or renting out (or granting exclusive privilege for). On what basis would either the geoists or anti-geoists object to semimillennial lease/tax periods?

How should LVT be implemented in America? Presumably all other major taxes are eliminated. Do we keep the current structure of federal, state, and local governments, with each plot of land thus still in 2 or 3 jurisdictions simultaneously, and part of the tax money for that land is sent to each government? Does the federal government decide what portion to take, and the leftovers are for the state and local governments, or vice versa?

Let's say that in the current system, I own a huge amount of land. I rent it all out to the highest bidders, and pocket 100% of the rent money. Tens of millions of dollars per year. I have no reason to sell any of the land, or change my profitable policy of renting it out to the highest bidders. Then, the nation institutes a 90% LVT, and abolishes all other taxes. What changes? The landless no longer directly bear the cost of government, and I only get to pocket 10% of the rent money, so I now make less profit, only millions of dollars per year. But I still have no reason to sell any of the land, or change my profitable policy of renting it out to the highest bidders. Other mega-landlords are in the same situation as I am, and don't change their behavior either. How is the LVT going to increase efficiency of land use, or cause any change in the ways that various plots of land are used?

 

[jascott]

There really are no good arguments against it unless you are an anarchist and you reject government. Even anarchists though believe in private security. Private security does not come free, and its reasonable to think private security co's would charge you to protect your land based on something like its value or size. I think they would charge you based on the value and not the size, because no one is going to seize from you 40 acres of worthless desert land, but they might try to seize an acre of prime commercial property.

An LVT doesn't align the tax with what a private security company would charge to defend the land, because defending the land necessarily involves defending what's on it, too; nobody can trespass in my buildings unless he also trespasses on my land (or land which I'm paying for exclusive access to). Under an LVT, I'd only have to pay less than a hundred thousand dollars per year for the government to keep trespassers off my $1 million plot of land and therefore also out of my $1 billion factory, but under a system of private security, a competitive security company would have to charge several million dollars per year just to break even, if effective security is to be provided. Under an LVT, either the government will fail to provide the promised services, i.e. it'll fail to keep trespassers off my land, or it'll provide me with a lot more value in security services than I've paid for.

 

[jascott]

Removal of depletable resources from nature in fact triggers not a land tax but a once-and-for-all "severance" tax, which recognizes the difference between violating others' rights by permanently depleting a natural resource and by merely temporarily occupying it.

Geoists always state explicitly that human beings and the products of their labor are not land.

Land is the whole physical universe OTHER THAN human beings and the products of their labor. It includes mineral resources, natural water sources, broadcast spectrum, the oceans, sunlight, rainfall, wildlife, the sun, moon, planets and stars, and many other things as well as the earth's surface.

What you and others call "land" would be much more appropriately called "natural resources" (which in your reply to helmuth_hubener you said would be a suitable term), one of which is space, and another one of which is land, where "land" variously means certain matter (part of the crust of the Earth) which occupies a particular space, or the space itself. "Land" is not a suitable term for natural resources in general, even if classical economists use it that way. Using the ordinary meanings of words eases understanding for laymen, and in this case there's no need for a domain-specific generalization of the term "land" because there's already an ordinary phrase with the intended general meaning. Sunlight is a natural resource; sunlight is not land.

If I understand the geoist argument correctly, you're allowing outright ownership (following payment of a severance tax, and thereafter no ongoing tax) of _all_ matter, including the dirt and rock which comprises the surface of the crust of the Earth, and I can launch some of it into outer space as a private rocket ship after I pay the severance tax, but you're disallowing outright ownership only of _space_, including the space of the crust of the Earth, including the space of the hole from which I dug the material for my rocket ship. Nearly all of the matter of the Earth is currently unowned, because nobody has paid the severance tax on it yet, and the matter which is available for sale (which isn't all of it) is available on a first-come-first-served basis. At any given time, the space which is most valuable, and therefore on which the most tax/rent is charged, depends on Earth's current position and orientation. The space extending from a few yards below (not clearly defined because until recently people couldn't dig very deeply) the rocky surface of the Earth (whether dry surface, or under water), up into the air perhaps 50 yards or whatever (not clearly defined because until recently people couldn't build tall things or fly), is land. Land is the most valuable space.

You also wrote that the LVT for the land on which an artificial island is located, "is typically going to be little or nothing, as it was underwater and NO ONE ELSE WANTED TO USE IT" (emphasis yours). But you wrote that in past tense: "wanted". Does the government-assessed rental value of land, and therefore the LVT levied by the government, change over time, according to the demand for usage of that land, or does the assessed rental value not change? What about 50 years from now, when the artificial island hosts a thriving metropolis; is the LVT still going to be little or nothing, even though the island's creator is earning huge rental income for use of space on the island? If you apply the LVT to the land occuped by artificial islands the same as to natural islands, and tax away all of the rental value including the portion of the rental value which exists due to the existence of the artificial island (or even just tax away 90% of the rental value, so that the creator is unable to earn a worthwhile return on his investment in his lifetime), and the creator happens to have no incentive for creating islands other than the prospect of future rental value, then doesn't this mean that your LVT prevents the production of wealth (artificial islands) which otherwise would be produced?
On the other hand, if the assessed rental value doesn't change, then you're contradicting Henry George, who said that one of the purposes of the LVT is to prevent land speculation, in which somebody buys rural land at low value, holds it during development around it, then sells it as prime real estate. Of course, the answer to the question of whether the assessed rental value changes can't justly depend on the situation (buying cheap natural dry land and waiting for development around it, or investing to build an artificial island on wet land); either assessed rental value of _all_ land is subject to change over time, or _no_ assessed value is subject to change. And George's position was that it must be subject to change. You've said you aren't a Georgist, but is he right about this issue?
Not only the creation of artificial islands, but also the draining of swamps, and even the building of houses (because their presence increases the value of the land on which they're located), are disincentivized by changing LVT. For any given plot of land, the disincentive can only be prevented by permanently setting the assessed rental value, so that the LVT doesn't increase as improvements on or in the vicinity of the plot are made.

 

[jascott]

I've made several posts questioning the geoist position; now I'll question the anti-geoist position.
Roy L brought up a good point about owning the atmosphere. Nobody, geoist or anti-geoist, would honor anybody's claim to exclusively own it. Everybody is free to breathe it, use it to burn stuff, or compress it into scuba tanks. But suppose I pump enough air into my giant array of compressed-air energy storage tanks to reduce atmospheric pressure below what people can survive without supplemental oxygen (the technical difficulty in compressing this much air isn't relevant here). The geoists have a simple answer: they have equal right to the air, so I have to pay a tax on this natural resource which I'm hoarding, and I can't afford to compress enough to cause problems, although it does seem that this would require some sort of world government for me to pay the tax to, or a world-wide treaty for governments to receive tax payments proportional to their citizen populations.
But what do the anti-geoists say; what's their justification for interfering with my compression enterprise, if unclaimed natural resources are free for the taking? They can bolt pressure domes over their own land and thereby enclose air, making that air their own property and no longer free for the taking, thus isolating their land from atmospheric pressure drops, but they have no right to prevent me from draining the unenclosed atmosphere, or to require me to pay them for the privilege. It also makes no difference whether I then simply keep my air, or rent out tanks full of it, or sell it, or destroy it by fixing the nitrogen and using the oxygen to burn stuff, or just graciously release it for free back into the open atmosphere. Oil under the ocean floor is another such natural resource, and the same arguments apply. Surely they also apply to other natural resources as well, including oil under dry land, and land itself.

 

[jascott]

if one fails to pay his/her ground rent then the government would simply not recognize and enforce his/her privilege to exclude others from the land occupied. I do not believe the government should kick somebody off a piece of land.

The government would not only refuse to enforce the privilege, but also refuse to recognize the privilege? In that case, does the government consider the land to be unallocated (i.e. no privilege of exclusive use has been granted to anybody)? If I pay the ground rent which you failed to pay, and I find you and your family working in the field, and I evict you all at gunpoint, then should the government recognize and enforce my privilege (which I lawfully paid for) to exclude you from the land?

If government is going to recognize your privilege even though you fail to pay the tax, then what's your incentive to ever pay the tax, except during the intermittent times when you happen to need the government's assistance in defending your land against my attempts to invade it and evict you?

Suppose that neither you nor I pay the tax, and the government therefore refuses to enforce or recognize any privilege of exclusive use. In this case, the government recognizes _everybody's_ right to nonexclusive use. Does the government enforce this right? If you live on the land and plant crops in the field, but I use the field for dirtbike practice and damage the crops, does the government defend me against your attempts to unlawfully evict me from public land? Or arrest me for damaging your private property (your crops), even though you don't pay the government anything? Or does the government just ignore us and the land, and leave us to work out our own problems? In the latter case, does the government continue to ignore us even if one of us is killed during our gunfights, if we aren't bothering anybody else?

 

[jascott]

How small can a political entity be in your system? You propose to have thousands in the territory of the formerly united States. So that means political entities the size of present-day counties. Can one of these county-sized nations split itself into 20 pieces? Can one of those new pieces reorganize itself into 200 confederate but sovereign cantons? If not, why not? If so, you're getting down to 20 acre plots of sovereignty.

Each of these thousands of political entities would act, of course, as a monopolistic land-owner, if they are to be anything like current-day political entities. The forces of one state would have no right to enter the boundaries of another. They could even have border controls to keep out anyone they wished. They could make whatever rules of conduct they wished pertaining to their land.

Ok, there's a cult living on the neighboring ranch, which is a sovereign state. They sacrifice their newborns to Satan. Their rules allow this. Who has the right to stop them? Will you ally with me, or ally with the cult, or remain neutral, if I try to invade the ranch in order to rescue the newborns?
If you would ally with me in the above case, but ally with the cult (or at least consider selling your defense services to them) in the case that their only "crime" is that they dance the macarena on Sunday and I find it offensive, then what's your criterion for distinguishing between the two crimes? Your personal whim? The majority vote of the populations of the surrounding sovereign states?

 

[jascott]

Repeating over and over and over that land should not be owned is not persuasive. It's not even persuasion, not any method I'm familiar with. So not only has your method not been successful, it is impossible for it to ever be successful

Repetition is a method of persuasion, and it can be very successful. Ask a psychologist whether this is true, and he'll confirm it.

"But I think land shouldn't be privatey owned."
"But I think it should be."
And that's it! That's as far as one can go!

We can go further. By "should", do you just mean that it's practical? And/or that somebody who tries to prevent it (or tax it) is doing something wrong? In the latter case, is this just your personal opinion? Any basis for it? Or do you mean that he's doing something evil, and in that case, is it evil because you, or a majority of Americans, or a majority of human beings, say so? Would it be no longer evil if the majority changes its vote? Anyway on what basis do you say that evil is determined by majority vote, or by whatever other authority you choose? Or do you say that the fact that somebody who tries to prevent or tax private land ownership is doing something evil can be concluded on the basis of what God said? In that case, what did God say, and how do you know this, and how do you even know that God exists?
Perhaps the argument will get to the point of "God exists" and "No, he doesn't", at which point it merges with that ancient argument, and good luck resolving it. Or maybe you both agree that God exists, or that he doesn't, in which case maybe you'll progress to what specifically God said, or whether it takes a simple majority or 2/3 vote to determine evil, or whatever. But you can certainly progress beyond "land shouldn't be privately owned" and "yes, it should be."

 

[jascott]

A man dying of thirst stumbles into an oasis fed by a natural spring. He stoops to drink from the pool nature provided when he hears a revolver being cocked behind his ear.

You really claim Dirtowner Harry isn't violating the dying man's rights?

A man dying of thirst stumbles across an unlocked jeep loaded with an abundance of bottles of water. He reaches in to drink from a bottle when he hears a revolver being cocked behind his ear. "You have two choices," says Harry. "Die of thirst, or die by gunshot. And BTW if you choose the latter, I'll sue your heirs for the cost of the bullet." Dan, the dying man, chooses to do the honorable thing: refrain from trying to steal the water, and instead die of thirst, and save his heirs the cost of the bullet.
You really claim Bottleowner Harry isn't violating Dan's rights?

If you admit that Bottleowner Harry _is_ violating Dan's rights, even though Harry obviously does own the water, then of course Dirtowner Harry is also violating Dan's rights, _regardless_ of whether Harry owns the water. In this case, isn't it clear that the conclusion that Harry is violating Dan's rights must be drawn from some other premise than that Harry doesn't own the water? Although your conclusion is true (i.e. Harry is violating Dan's rights), your argument is invalid (i.e. Harry doesn't own the oasis, therefore Harry is violating Dan's rights). Even if it's true that Harry doesn't own the oasis, and even if it's true that any claim of ownership of the oasis would be illegitimate, that has nothing to do with Harry's violation of Dan's rights.

If you deny that Bottleowner Harry is violating Dan's rights, then you must also claim that God doesn't exist, or at least that God didn't command that man is his brother's keeper (which certainly includes "give him a drink of water to save his life if you have an abundance"), or at least that man's laws, giving Harry unconditional ownership of (and therefore the right to keep) his bottled water, override God's laws, which require Harry to give water to Dan.
If you acknowledge that God exists, then do you claim that he doesn't authorize man to own land (or at least to own land without paying LVT to a central government)? Or if he does authorize it, then does the basis for your denial of man's authority to own land lie outside the chain of authority stemming from God? In the latter case, are you really claiming that, although God exists, not all authority stems from him?

The logical conclusions for the theistic geoist seem to be that God doesn't authorize man to own land, and doesn't authorize Bottleowner Harry to withhold his water from Dan. The logical conclusions for the theistic anti-geoist are that God does authorize man to own land, but doesn't authorize either Dirtowner or Bottleowner Harry to withhold his water from Dan. However, if Harry does withhold his water, God doesn't authorize man to punish Harry; in this case, God reserves that authority. To the athesists, I just ask: where does authority come from? Majority vote? Does all authority stem from one root, or are there multiple roots?

My point is that the stated disagreements of the participants in this thread might stem from disagreements about more fundamental, unstated premises.

 

[MattButler]

Let me first translate for all the thread's loyal readers what I see to be your point: Factories actually are taxed with an LVT. Both the resources used to build and also to maintain and operate them -- concrete and metal and whatever -- are taxed, back when they're in the ground.

That's the big point, and then the grand finale is: "So it turns out not only does LVT efficiently allocate resources to which factories get built, it also allocates resources efficiently to those which wish to remain in operation." Umm, no, let's be precise: it turns out that an LVT taxes resources.

LVT does not tax resources. Competition in the marketplace for ownership rights to land, which may be driven by the resources within land, sets the market price for land. The land owner is then assessed a tax on the land. What he chooses to do with the resources is left to his own discretion, with one caveat, he must earn enough income to pay the LVT, or else someone more capable will end up owning the land.

Well bully for the LVT. That's not a great selling point for me. It's not that hard to set up a system that taxes raw materials -- you just start stealing from people based on their ownership of raw materials.

It may not be that hard to tax resources, but relatively it is harder than an LVT. You must determine what resources will be taxed. You must determine whether to tax known proven reserves of resources, theoretical reserves of resources, projected and normal extractions of resources, or actual extractions of resources. You must determine whether to account for loss of resources during extraction process. You must determine whether you will tax all resources at the same rate. You must appoint or license experts to monitor all of this to ensure its done according to statute. Administering an LVT on the other hand is simple in comparison. What is the marketplace willing to pay for ownership of the land? That value determines the LVT. Because it is transparent and easily administrated, in theory there should be less corruption and cheating and tax dodging, in other words fairness.

The land's not fixed either. Set your LVT high enough, and no landowner will be able to make a profit on it. The land will be abandoned. Top soil could even be scraped off and hauled away, I suppose, though this is even more unlikely and unfeasible with land than with the factory. In any case, even though it's more difficult for land to be transported, it's not impossible at all for it to disappear... from the economy.

Well part of the point of LVT is we don't think anyone should profit from land ownership, at least not profit extraordinarily. As to setting the LVT so high that it will be abandoned, I think you're ignoring the market function. At some point the land becomes so cheap that buyers are attracted to owning it. If in fact no one wants to "own it", then it becomes available for use to anyone that chooses to use it. As to removing land (the dirt) completely, in other words carving our a massive hole in the ground, a theoretical argument, that may be possible. However if the dirt is that valuable, than the land value is likely to be very high, and the tax will reflect this. Furthermore, and you ought to know this being in the resource extraction business, there are basic common laws regulating use of property that could regulate you removing all the ground. To wit, if you remove all the dirt and ground so that your neighbor's land loses lateral support and collapses, then you have violated your neighbor's common law property rights.

Taxation is a parasitic activity.

That may be true, but LVT in a Geoist society is the least parasitic and least bad of all taxes, and many economists, ranging from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman agree. Ludwig von Mises, while never endorsing an LVT, recognized some of the distinctions of land ownership from other capital, and over the course of several editions of Human Action continuously refined his position; in other words it at least presented an issue to Mises that could not be easily dismissed. Your criticism that taxes can be so high as to drive out all economic activity is valid, but that is true with any system of government. That is not a criticism of LVT, rather it is a criticism of social welfare programs and excessive government spending. To the extent that government spends money for public purposes that benefit general welfare, an LVT closely mirrors what is achieved with simple user fees. To the extent government engages in specific welfare, social welfare and the like, then an LVT does not achieve true fairness, because such spending is patently unfair anyway. If we ever have a Geoist society, in my opinion, the idea of one man one vote is up for discussion. Maybe the right to vote should only accrue to landowners in such a society.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Nobody, geoist or anti-geoist, would honor anybody's claim to exclusively own it.

I would. Everything that can be owned, should be owned.

The owner of an orchard also owns the "air rights" to clean healthy air above his land (assuming it was clean and healthy when he bought the place). If a new factory comes in and starts polluting the air and all his trees are dying, he can bring a tort, and force the factory to cease aggressing against his property, the air around his trees.

Lowering everyone's air pressure is obviously just an even bigger tort.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

LVT does not tax resources.

Of course it does. That was your whole point. It just doesn't tax them directly under your particular brand of LVT. I should have written "Both the resources used to build and also to maintain and operate them -- concrete and metal and whatever -- are taxed, back when they're in the ground, because the value of those resources is a component of the land's value." But I didn't realize there'd be any confusion.

Most of your post resulted from that confusion, so there's no need to respond to it, I think. We're on the same page.

Well part of the point of LVT is we don't think anyone should profit from land ownership, at least not profit extraordinarily.

But is it not also undesirable for rich people of all and sundry types to "profit extraordinarily", according to the masses? Why are the masses wrong, except for about... wait, do I say natural resources or land to you? In what sense are you using "land"? Because in economic terminology, of course, the "resources" we were discussing earlier -- ore, concrete, etc. -- are land. You've muddied the waters a bit here; clear them up again so we can proceed.

As to setting the LVT so high that it will be abandoned, I think you're ignoring the market function. At some point the land becomes so cheap that buyers are attracted to owning it.

Except for that they're not, because they can't afford the LVT.

If in fact no one wants to "own it", then it becomes available for use to anyone that chooses to use it.

Yes, and housing vagrants is probably not a very efficient or high-value use, is it?

As to removing land (the dirt) completely, in other words carving our a massive hole in the ground, a theoretical argument, that may be possible. However if the dirt is that valuable, than the land value is likely to be very high, and the tax will reflect this. Furthermore, and you ought to know this being in the resource extraction business, there are basic common laws regulating use of property that could regulate you removing all the ground. To wit, if you remove all the dirt and ground so that your neighbor's land loses lateral support and collapses, then you have violated your neighbor's common law property rights.

You're focusing on irrelevant details. I wrote that post in a parallel structure for a reason, to make it clear the parallels between factories and land. There's no philosophic difference between the matter and space we call "factory" and the matter and space we call (layman's) "land" that makes one ownable and one not. They both consist of matter, which has been rearranged to an extent by man. They both occupy three-dimensional space. The matter in both can, in theory, be moved. They both should be ownable.

That may be true, but LVT in a Geoist society is the least parasitic and least bad of all taxes, and many economists, ranging from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman agree.

How does one measure such a thing? Is there a badness meter we can use to empirically prove or disprove your theory? Some would say a low general tariff is the least bad. Others would say a poll tax.

Others, like myself, would say that the most important thing to realize about taxes, all taxes, is that they are nothing but an institutionalized crime -- extortion -- and must all be abolished.

Ludwig von Mises, while never endorsing an LVT, recognized some of the distinctions of land ownership from other capital, and over the course of several editions of Human Action continuously refined his position; in other words it at least presented an issue to Mises that could not be easily dismissed.

Murray Rothbard, while never endorsing an LVT, thought LVT was a horrible idea and was incompatible with a free society.

Your criticism that taxes can be so high as to drive out all economic activity is valid, but that is true with any system of government. That is not a criticism of LVT, rather it is a criticism of social welfare programs and excessive government spending.

True. It's nevertheless useful to remember or realize that the same factors that apply to other kinds of taxation apply to LVT. The two I mentioned were: "you can only squeeze your host for so much or else he dies", and "all taxation is a drain on the economy". By its nature, taxation transfers wealth from the economic class, society, to the political class, the state. That is what LVT does. Are you OK with that? Do you think it's OK for that group of parasites we call the state to rob society?

To the extent that government spends money for public purposes that benefit general welfare, an LVT closely mirrors what is achieved with simple user fees.

Then why not just use user fees?

To the extent government engages in specific welfare, social welfare and the like, then an LVT does not achieve true fairness, because such spending is patently unfair anyway. If we ever have a Geoist society, in my opinion, the idea of one man one vote is up for discussion. Maybe the right to vote should only accrue to landowners in such a society.

So then the landowners are paying for it all -- all these beneficial things -- and they are the ones deciding what to spend, managing the process, and keeping oversight on things. I see the advantage to this, I see what you're saying, and it's the right idea. But why not take it all the way? Why set up a crazy monopolistic system with use of aggressive force as a primary mode of operation? Why not just have landowners voluntarily pay in order to obtain these various benefits for the general welfare?

Voluntary is good. Aggression is bad.

 

[Roy L]

Sometimes, in the course of our lives, there come times when we must use our brains in more than superficial ways.

When were you thinking of starting?

"Middle Ages", mein spanker. What was going on in the Middle Ages?

Oh, quite a lot of things:

The fragmentation and decay of the culminating political order, legal system and culture of the ancient world, involving:

Loss of enormous intellectual capital, including art, science, literature, philosophy and technology, under an anarcho-capitalist feudal order that could never invest efficient amounts in education and so left it up to:

An international religious institution exercising considerable authority over putatively sovereign but actually weak secular powers that engaged in nearly constant warfare that made it difficult to counter:

A profound threat to that religious order from a rival, openly militaristic religious empire to the south and east, followed by another profound threat from militarized nomadic peoples in East Asia.

So basically a long period of poverty, ignorance and stagnation under feudalism, followed by:

Re-establishment of monarchic nation-state government alongside democratic city-state government, and a consequent economic and cultural revival stimulated by:

The Black Death, which by reducing population, dramatically reduced land rents and increased wages, leading to the re-establishment of an economically secure productive class for the first time in nearly 1000 years.

This is not even a close call.

Correct. There is no support whatever in that lecture for your claims of feudalism's economic virtues. None.

Not only does this lecture "support" my claims, my claims were totally plagiarized from the lecture! Almost word for word in some cases![

Yet somehow, you have not identified any actual support for your claim.

The lecture is the one making the claims at which you're screaming "liar, liar", and I'm just parroting those claims! See 10:00-11:57. When was it that Rome fell again, remind me? And what system was it that Europe had after the fall of Rome? Did it start with an "F"?

Relevance to your claim?

Thought not.

See also 14:48-14:56 (Middle Ages), 15:50-17:00 (feudalism, feudalism, feudalism),

As I said: no support for your claim that feudalism caused an economic miracle. Not too surprising, as it never had before, either.

27:30-29:05 (Middle Ages were not the Dark Ages),

Already refuted. And the "Middle Ages" the lecture refers to were hardly the Dark Ages because the real an-cap feudal period of the Dark Ages was much earlier, in the fifth to ninth centuries.

32:00-32:58 (representative bodies back then were elected solely and only by the taxpaying property owners -- i.e. landowners -- making them, of course, pure evil),

AT LEAST THEY WERE PAYING MOST OF THE TAXES, which unquestionably caused all the beneficial economic effects you have so hilariously claimed for feudalism.

and on and on.

None of which supports your claim that feudalism produced some sort of economic miracle.

The whole lecture is fantastic, in fact the whole lecture series is outstandingly erudite and illuminating.

That lecture, where it is true at all, does not support your claim.

 

[Roy L]

It was already built. It's already there.

No, you are just trying to pretend that because some factories already exist, and land already exists, the supply of land is no more fixed than the supply of factories. That is fallacious and idiotic.

Land's supply is not fixed by definition.

Already refuted many times.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

That lecture, where it is true at all, does not support your claim.

The lecture is making the claim. Explicitly. The lecture is saying "feudalism made the modern world". By saying that that is not what the lecture is saying, you are bizarrely mistaken.

You should instead furiously explain to us where Ralph Raico is wrong, where he is lying, and where he is evil. You should tell us what a worthless human being he is. You should not pretend that he is a human being with any virtues whatsoever who is not arguing that feudalism had a lot of good points. He clearly is arguing that feudalism had a lot of good points. Just concede that point.

 

[Steven Douglas]

The biggest problem I have with LVT is the same problem I have with property taxes in general: assuming the principle of LVT itself was unanimously accepted and adopted as valid by virtually everyone (setting aside the wills of tyrants, tyrannous oligarchies and tyrannous majorities), it takes an extremely presumptuous mindset to even come up with any formula that makes any sense whatsoever - not to mention that in both cases (LVT and property tax) there is a presumption regarding the very purpose of land (as it relates to individual survival only) - that land should only be occupied if its inhabitants continue to produce for others not living on that land. That, to me, is disgustingly presumptuous.

Life itself can be said to be a "rental" - for absolutely all life forms - in that you must constantly exert energy to convert matter and energy just to live. Failure to do this will result in death (forced eviction from the body), which means that survival itself is already a naturally imposed "rental tax" - on all life. Those born into gilded cages of whatever size notwithstanding (i.e., the basic means for survival is inherited), add to that a completely artificial tax, one that declares, in essence, that you must not only convert the matter and energy required for your own survival, but even more of the same for the survival of unnamed others as 'restitution' for what they might have been deprived of. My first thought, beyond characterizing this as a classic parasitic relationship (mutually beneficial or otherwise), is, "Why?"

It has even been proposed that there exists a "natural liberty right" to occupy the same space and time as another person. Not the same Earth, or space within the same political boundary. The same space in the same time. That is not only a physical impossibility, but one that presumes that there was no other space available to occupy - and thus, a concept that I could never recognize as anyone's individual right; and, by extension, certainly not the right of any collective.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

No, you are just trying to pretend that because some factories already exist, and land already exists, the supply of land is no more fixed than the supply of factories. That is fallacious and idiotic.

You should perhaps refrain from telling me what I think if you will not take the effort to understand my thought processes. A factory being already built has no effect on the fixity or non-fixity of land. It merely means the factory is already there. Not a major point, not one, I think, from which any conclusions whatsoever can be drawn, but it is one on which you contradicted me. I said a built factory is already there. You said it is not. I said again that it is. You again say "no". Your position is inexplicable. A factory which has already been built has, umm, already been built. Part of the nature of already being built is something we call "being there". Existing. An existing factory exists. That's all I'm trying to say. Can you admit that you were wrong when you wrote that an existing factory was not already there?

Already refuted many times.

Already asserted many times. You have your definition, I have mine; you have your economists, I have mine. Whose are better? That would be mine.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

It has even been proposed that there exists a "natural liberty right" to occupy the same space and time as another person.

Really? Who has proposed that?