What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[helmuth_hubener]

Roy, the earth is not yours to begin with so no one is stealing from you by owning land.

Silence, you fiend from the infernal pit! Your sick lies slaughter millions of people every year. How do you sleep at night?

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Roy is a magic man. An X-Man in his own right, with invisible tentacles which make it possible for him to be "otherwise at liberty" to use each and every property occupied exclusively by anyone else wherever he goes.

What makes this possible is not magic, but the plain and undeniable fact that he would, indeed, be at liberty to use and control (but not own!) each and every one of these natural resources (not properties, Steven -- that was a lie) if it were not for greedy, grasping monopolists grabbing up said resources and preventing him from doing so.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

You didn't prove that. Repetition of an assertion does not make it true.

It does if the assertion is true! How hard is this to understand?

A landowner takes people's money for doing nothing.
A bandit takes people's money for doing nothing.
A landowner is an evil parasite.
A bandit is an evil parasite.
A landowner has no right to charge people.
A bandit has no right to charge people.
Thus, landowner is just a fancy word for bandit.

It's an airtight case!

 

[Roy L]

Tell me, do you practice what you preach? Do you allow others to use your land as they wish (assuming you own land)?

I have been a landlord in the past (I don't own any land now, as I think it is still a bad time to own, especially in my local area), and no, I did not allow others to use my land as they wished, because that's not how this system works.

If not, why not?

For the same reason I think the people who go to Africa and buy up slaves in order to free them are fools: they are just creating a more lucrative market for the slavers. If I had let people use my land as they wished, I would just be relieving some of the pressure to change the system.

Surely you could solve the supposed problem you believe exists by simply buying up vast tracts of land and turning it into your utopia! Put your money where your mouth is, Roy L!

That's been tried, and while it has worked well as far as it goes, subsequent events -- crooked lawyers, court challenges, speculators trying to take advantage, senior government meddling, etc. -- have invariably corrupted the system. The more corruption, the worse the system has worked, and the more excuse there has been to corrupt it further. So I am convinced that education must come first.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

<yawn> And I have proved them.

No, you haven't

Lie. I have demolished you utterly. AFAIK the last "argument" I didn't answer was Aquabuddha's last post on scriptural interpretation, which IMO would have been futile, as interpretations of scripture have occupied scholars for thousands of years with not much to show for it.

Repeating this still doesn't make it true, but you can keep trying if you like.

You are lying again. I have debated seriously with jascott as he is honest, and with Steven until he started lying. What I don't want is to give an erroneous impression that the absurd lies and fallacious, dishonest nonsense offered by apologists for greed, privilege and injustice constitute "serious debate."

I didn't lie. You're just disagreeing to be disagreeable. I haven't seen anything truly honest from you in this entire debate. Just groundless assertions rooted in flimsy, shallow philosophy. You keep making positive claims and failing to prove them.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I have been a landlord in the past (I don't own any land now, as I think it is still a bad time to own, especially in my local area), and no, I did not allow others to use my land as they wished, because that's not how this system works.

For the same reason I think the people who go to Africa and buy up slaves in order to free them are fools: they are just creating a more lucrative market for the slavers. If I had let people use my land as they wished, I would just be relieving some of the pressure to change the system.
That's been tried, and while it has worked well as far as it goes, subsequent events -- crooked lawyers, court challenges, speculators trying to take advantage, senior government meddling, etc. -- have invariably corrupted the system. The more corruption, the worse the system has worked, and the more excuse there has been to corrupt it further. So I am convinced that education must come first.

So, all you have is a thought experiment. You found that it doesn't work in reality, but continue to believe it correct. Not something I would be willing to bet my livelihood on.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I didn't lie.

How dare you! How DARE you, sir!?! How dare you claim to not be lying when you self-evidently are? The gall! The audacity! The lyyiinng!

You do not determine when you are lying; that is determined by reality. That reality will continue to be decided and pointed out by the LVT Crusaders.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Calling atheism a religion is like calling not collecting stamps a hobby.

Burning stamps might be considered a hobby. Not collecting stamps sounds more like agnosticism to me.

 

[Roy L]

You didn't prove that.

Yes, of course I did.

Repetition of an assertion does not make it true.

<yawn> Refusal to know facts does not make them disappear.

 

[eduardo89]

<yawn> Refusal to know facts does not make them disappear.

right back at ya buddy!

 

[Roy L]

So, all you have is a thought experiment.

No, privately buying up land and then recovering its rent has been tried, and it doesn't solve the problem posed by the broader legal environment that imposes unfair taxes and offers rewards to idle rent seeking.

You found that it doesn't work in reality, but continue to believe it correct. Not something I would be willing to bet my livelihood on.

No, you have become confused and lost your way. Read back through the thread. You asked me -- quite stupidly and dishonestly, of course -- if I had tried buying up vast tracts of land and privately administering it according to LVT principles. Not being a billionaire, I haven't, but similar experiments have been tried in places like Fairhope, AL and Arden, DE, and while they have produced highly livable communities, it has not been possible to escape or even greatly to mitigate the influence of senior governments and the corrupt environment of landowner privilege.

 

[Roy L]

I didn't lie.

You most certainly did. You lied when you claimed I had not proved landowning is theft, and you lied when you claimed secularism, atheism and statism are religions.

You're just disagreeing to be disagreeable. I haven't seen anything truly honest from you in this entire debate. Just groundless assertions rooted in flimsy, shallow philosophy. You keep making positive claims and failing to prove them.

Four more lies.

 

[Steven Douglas]

No, privately buying up land and then recovering its rent...doesn't solve the problem posed by the broader legal environment that imposes unfair taxes and offers rewards to idle rent seeking.

Spoken as if that was really ever was the intent or purpose.

Eeesh, compulsory collectivist mentalities of every stripe give me the absolute heeby-jeebies. Is there no cure for this mental illness - this nasty, rotten cancer in all its well-and-ill-intending, but all-enslaving forms?

Where is the red button? I want to push the red button.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Spoken as if that was really ever was the intent or purpose.

Eeesh, compulsory collectivist mentalities of every stripe give me the absolute heeby-jeebies. Is there no cure for this mental illness - this nasty, rotten cancer in all its well-and-ill-intending, but all-enslaving forms?

Where is the red button? I want to push the red button.

Probably best you and I bail out of this thread. I suspect Roy L is either a lost cause or a hilarious troll.

 

[Steven Douglas]

I suspect Roy L is either a lost cause or a hilarious troll.

Both, I think. I'm here for the entertainment now, he's the gift that just keeps on giving!

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Both, I think. I'm here for the entertainment now, he's the gift that just keeps on giving!

Good idea!

 

[Roy L]

Wait, does he have one of those? I've never heard it! I want to hear it! No, you must be talking about some paper he wrote, yes? Or perhaps the short selection you refuted via ROFLs and <yawn>s?

Stop lying. While much of it was ridiculous and a waste of time, I refuted it with fact and logic. Anyone reading this can verify for themselves the fact that you are just flat-out lying again:

http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2007-05/msg00098.html

Well the question is how it's initiating force at all to deprive you of something.

How else are you going to do that against my will?

In order to directly initiate force against me you must somehow subjugate my body to your will by introducing physical factors to my body not of my own choosing, by punching my body, for example, or by poisoning me. Whatever is going on with all the rest of the outside world, how is it possible that the goings-on even could be aggressions against me, so long as no one is committing violence against my body? Well it isn't possible until you have property rights theory.

Flat wrong. Threats are also an initiation of force, such as Crusoe pointing his musket at Friday and ordering him back into the water. He need never touch or injure Friday to have initiated force against him.

The only way to initiate force against me is to actually use violence (force) against me -- that is, my body -- and to be the one starting (initiating) the trouble, not defending yourself against me.

Wrong. A threat of violence is also an initiation of force. All credible rights theorists are agreed on this fact. You just refuse to know it because you have realized it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

Other than that, it's none of my business what's going on with the rest of the Universe; I have no rights over the rest of the Universe, only over myself.

Garbage. Your right to liberty is nothing other than society's recognition that others cannot rightly deprive you of your natural liberty with respect to the rest of the universe.

In the good non-landownership way of thought, my rights (and everyone else's) are extended over the rest of the external Universe automatically and irrevocably, by virtue of my being a human being and having the capability to access the various parts of the Universe if I were to encounter them in Nature free from the interference of any other greedy humans. Is that a fair re-phrasing of your view?

Close enough.

I know you don't like the word "own", and you've never been able to explain what you think ownership is and how it is absolutely not the same thing as the combination of controlship and usership.

Ownership of property is generally considered to consist of a bundle of four basic rights to:
- control
- benefit by
- exclude others from
- dispose of

A tenant, for example, has rights to control, benefit by and exclude, but not to dispose of. A trustee can control, exclude others and dispose of, but cannot benefit by.

But anyway, my understanding is that everyone naturally has a liberty to access and use whatever parts of the Universe he could access and use were the greedy guys not preventing him. This liberty is immutable, caused by his nature as a human and the nature of the Universe, and so ought to be respected.

No, it ought to be respected because that is how human beings and their societies best thrive and succeed.

In the evil land-ownership way of thought, my rights are not extended over the rest of the external Universe automatically. I get rights to parts of the external Universe only as I homestead them, if they are not already homesteaded by someone else. Those parts of the Universe which have already been homesteaded, I simply have no right to, though I can obtain the right by purchase or gift.

You haven't explained how chanting your cargo cult incantations can extinguish others' liberty. You merely assume that it does.

This, of course, leads to the death of millions each year and is the most monstrous idea ever to curse the Earth. But it does have a certain logical consistency, do you agree? I mean, the use and control of the Universe's space and natural resources must be divvied up somehow, and homesteading seems a just and internally consistent way of doing so, if you start from the premise that everyone does not have a right to access all the resources of the Universe that happen to be available to him locally.

Right. If you assume there are no universal human rights to life or liberty, the propertarian stance is logically consistent and defensible.

Right, of course, but to know that we must assume that that "natural liberty" to use everything in the Universe is a valid right, immutable and thus not overridden by any homesteading claims of other humans.

No, there are no such assumptions. It is simply a PHYSICAL FACT that people ARE at liberty to use all that nature provides unless someone else initiates force to stop them. The question begging is all on the propertarian side, which needs to find a justification for initiating force to deprive others of their liberty, and can't.

I wonder what if I didn't? What if I didn't make it, nor pay for it. I found it, a relic from a long-lost advanced civilization. Is it then not mine? The evil libertarians/propertarians would say that so long as you did not steal it from anyone else, it can be rightfully yours.

There are rules governing salvage; but at some point, maybe after 100 years or so, products of labor become part of our common heritage, like artifacts at an archaeological dig. All civilized people understand that such items are not simply up for grabs, because of the threat such looting poses to their scientific, historical and cultural value.

Anyway, if you have seen many science fiction movies, you'll know that picking up and using an artificial arm left by a long-lost advanced civilization is probably a REALLY BAD IDEA.

Of course, right-thinking land-communists say that too, but we understand that if you took it from nature, that is stealing, because everyone has a natural liberty to nature. We understand that because we assume it. It is self-evidently the correct assumption.

No, there is no assumption involved. Unlike the premises of Propertarianism, the religion whose acolytes worship at -- and lay human sacrifices on -- the altar of the Great God Property, liberty and justice are based on self-evident and indisputable facts. It is not an assumption that everyone is naturally at liberty to use what nature provided. It is a fact.

Anyway, I wonder what are the implications of our correct assumption in this case of the abandoned product of labor. I must pay an extraction tax, perhaps?

Probably not, but it depends on the circumstances. In some cases salvage rights are pretty clear. But if the time since abandonment is too short, the original owner might still have some rights. If it is too long, the item might be considered a cultural legacy owned in common by all.

Right, the evasion is despicable.

Yes, and loathsome and disgraceful.

And as you've explained, whenever I transform something with my labor, including land even, I own what I transformed.

Land in the relevant sense has by definition not been transformed by labor.

Of course, if I move the "something" I must pay the extraction tax as penalty for depriving everyone else of using it. And of course I can never transform the space which the "something" occupies, so I can never own that space. But I can own land, as you've explained to the dense land-apologists, if you mean the thin layer of soil and etc. which I transform to make a farm (or a parking lot or whatever), I just can never, ever own the space which it occupies, because that space was there all along and everyone was naturally free to use and control (but not own!) it until I seized it away from them. Am I starting to get it?

Apparently you have progressed to the point of being able to paraphrase my position without always baldly lying about it. But the "land" you can rightly own -- the plowed furrows, steamrolled soil, etc. -- is not land in the relevant sense.

Right, this is incredibly amusing! If everyone doesn't have the natural liberty to use and control (but not own!) everything in nature he runs across, and to be compensated by anyone removing any of that nature from its naturally accessible state, then all he has is a right to starve to death, as those in land-owning societies prove by very frequently doing just that.

Unless government intercedes on their behalf. Right.

Right, you are absolutely right, of course. We want to have private property in almost everything, contrary to those trying to slander us as anti-property. We just don't accept the ridiculous idea of allowing private property in those things which are the genesis of all the other property. The beginning must not be privately owned. After that, though, all the products of labor which come about should be owned. The building blocks must remain unowned, but the structure they build must be owned. That's self-evident.

Right, just as one rightly owns the fish one pulls from the ocean but not the ocean, or the sun-dried tomatoes on the drying rack but not the sun that dried them. We can't rightly own the origins of what we produce, because that would initiate aggressive, violent, coercive force to deprive others of their rights to access the same opportunities. Deprive people of natural opportunities, and you deprive them of the means to sustain themselves.

Right, exactly. Well, we should remember to stipulate: as long as one pays the severance tax on the raw materials if the product of labor is portable (like a chainsaw), or the LVT if the product of labor is not portable (like a parking lot). As long as those conditions are met, and any other just and proper taxes are paid, and any other reasonable restrictions and limitations democracy enacts are complied with, then owning products of labor does not violate other's rights. Otherwise, it does.

No. It's not owning products per se that could violate people's rights, but the deprivations forcibly imposed on others in the course of their production or use.

One can never own the building blocks, only the tower.

Bad analogy, as building blocks are also products of labor. A more accurate (and honest) analogy would be that one can own the fish one caught, but not the ocean.

And even the tower is subject to the wishes of society, for the good of all.

<sigh>

But of course he is right that society gives his professorial services value.

No, he is not. That is pure sophistry. Society -- the market -- only values his services because of the quality HE gives them through his labor. If he just got up in front of a class and read Aristotle to them (let alone if he just sat at his desk and surfed the Internet on his iPad, leaving his students to their own devices ;^), he would soon find himself out of a paycheck.

The market only MEASURES value, it does not CREATE value. It is not the fact that many people in society desire a fine car that makes a Mercedes valuable, but the efforts of the folks at Mercedes who have PRODUCED a fine car. This is proved by the fact that the very same society somehow did NOT give a Lada much value. All the desire in the world does not create any value in the absence of the labor and investment that actually produces that desirable car.

If he were out in the middle of the Sahara preaching to the dunes, his lectures would have little to no value.

Ignoratio elenchi. By that "logic," the ocean gives a ship its value, not the shipyard that built it, because it would also be worthless if it were sitting in the middle of the Sahara.

It is a perfectly valid reason to dismiss that specific argument for a non-landownership society. If that were the only argument, we'd be sunk.

Wrong. Long's "argument" is absurd sophistry logically equivalent to claiming that the officials at the Olympics with their timers and tape measures create the winning performances, not the athletes.

The original argument that Mr. Long was addressing was that land should not be owned because without society it would have no value.

No, the argument was that its value could not rightly be appropriated by the landowner because it comes from society, not the landowner.

He addressed it and made a fair point. His professorial services also would have no value without society.

More of the same idiotic sophistry. Nothing has any value without a market. But the market only measures value, it does not create value.

Since that's not a conclusive argument to disallow private property in his professorial services, it cannot be a conclusive argument to disallow private property in land.

It's also not the argument George made. The argument he made -- and it is indisputably correct -- is that what MAKES a location valuable to society (the market) is government spending on services and infrastructure that are accessible at that location, and the opportunities and amenities the community provides at that location, as well as the physical qualities nature provides there, and NOT ANYTHING THE LANDOWNER DOES.

It can be a contributing persuasive element, it can be another point to bring up to people, I'm not saying you shouldn't bring it up, but ultimately we cannot decide to disallow private appropriation merely because without society a Thing X would have no value, because almost all Thing Xs would have no value without society, not land only.

Let me try to make this as simple as possible, so that the nature of your evasions will be apparent to all:

Society creates the land's value but not Long's labor's value because his labor's value would disappear, society's "contribution" notwithstanding, if he did not expend the effort to perform it at the required standard. His land's value, by contrast, would be just the same if he had never existed.

The land's value is completely independent of Long. His labor's value, OTOH, is completely dependent on him. That is why he creates the value of his labor, but society creates the value of the land.

So, which part of that fact do you refuse to know?

Well, Mr. Long probably did not intend that conclusion, but it is nevertheless inevitable. One cannot hide from the truth! All the facts of the case add up to one thing: LVT would be just, natural, and consistent with liberty. It's the only possible way to deal with land that is.

True. Or at least, the only way compatible with an economy above the nomadic herding level.

You are a libertarian of sorts also, you've implied, right? So I guess this just means you are a much better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long! Am I right?

Yes. I was a better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long when I was still a teenager.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Yes. I was a better libertarian theorist and philosopher than Dr. Long when I was still a teenager.

LMAO!!!! Pride goeth before the fall.

 

[Roy L]

Spoken as if that was really ever was the intent or purpose.

Thank you for admitting that you have simply been fabricating intents and purposes for LVT and dishonestly attributing them to me without evidence.

The intent and purpose of LVT is to achieve far greater liberty, prosperity and justice than can possibly be achieved without it. Any other intent and purpose is something you have made up.

Eeesh, compulsory collectivist mentalities of every stripe give me the absolute heeby-jeebies. Is there no cure for this mental illness - this nasty, rotten cancer in all its well-and-ill-intending, but all-enslaving forms?

<yawn> The right to use land, which landowning unilaterally abrogates, is an INDIVIDUAL right. It is to restore and reconcile that INDIVIDUAL right of all human beings that LVT is necessary. And as to all-enslaving cancers, maybe you should try to find a willingness to know the fact that that describes landowner privilege in many poor countries, but has no relation to anything in Hong Kong.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Well the question is how it's initiating force at all to deprive you of something.

How else are you going to do that against my will?

Ooh! I may know the answer to this one! No armed guards, violence, or threats of violence of any kind. We just build barricades strong enough to keep Roy L. and his land use coveting ilk out. Permanently. Bomb proof even. Completely exclusive.

The deprivations Roy and his motley crew will suffer will still be there, of course, but the only threat of force or violence will be on their parts alone.

Unless, that is, we can call a barricade a "threat" or "initiated force" against anyone who tries to batter their way in? Kind of like, "He hit his face with my fist!"

Yes, Roy, putting the land in a giant "safe" of sorts, with nobody needed to guard it, would definitely be a 'force' that would promise, not threaten, to deprive you of its contents - which you could ONLY get to by initiating force, or threats of your own.

Take down the sign that says PRIVATE PROPERTY - KEEP OUT, along with the one that says TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT - and just let the barricade speak for itself.

The idea of depriving someone of what they think is their "natural liberty right to otherwise use" is getting more and more delicious to me.