What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

@Roy L - It's pretty hard to respond to a set of meaningless decontextualised snippets.

I know, it's annoying that the site doesn't support multiple levels of quoting, as some other forums do, but IMO a sentence-by-sentence response makes it clearer where the issues are and what I am responding to.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

How so?

Gee whiz, don't go Roy L. on me now and start replying to messages without reading them first. The rest of your reply makes it clear that you understand exactly "how so".

So what difference would it make if I was a Mexican peasant in the 19th century forced to work for a wealthy landlord? Whether its government or a landlord, in the end there is no difference, I live and work under their rules.

For one thing, you're not forced to work for the landlord. Of course, we are not usually forced to work for the state, either. But anyway, I went through some differences I see as important (no mass slavery permitted, no mass robbery, no mass murder), but you didn't see those differences as impressive. So be it!

The "rulers" would be elected and have limited terms under a geolibertarian micro-nation. Same cannot be said about a landlord who rules a chunk of land til the day he dies and passes it on to an heir.

Bingo! So you do see it! The rulers are ruling over the land, and are thus the de-facto and de-jure lords of that land. They are landlords. Now as you say, there are differences between them and typical free-market landlords. The rulers might be term-limited, for instance. Think about the incentives that gives them, by the way. The king who can pass on his land to his heirs, will he want to preserve and enhance its value? The geo-libertarian demagogue who will only be in charge for 4 years, will he want to run his land into the ground, extracting every penny he can from it during his few available years of exploitation?

In any case, a short-term (and short-sighted) time horizon is but one potential difference between political landlords and market landlords. The market landlord gets his land through homesteading and success at productive voluntary trade. The political landlord gets his through military conquests and success at being a master politician -- that is, being a master conniver, manipulator, and deceiver. I'd rather reward the adventurous, clever, and wealth-generating, rather they who excel at violence and lying. that's just me!

Natural resources ("land") are initially unowned. Then humans come along and start to make decisions about said resources. At that point, someone is going to make the ultimate decisions over natural resources. That's the reality. That ultimate decision-making is what defines ownership. Someone is going to be the "owner". Fantasies to the contrary have nothing to recommend them but utter impossibility.

I submit that you do not want to end landownership, redbluepill. That would be impossible (without ending humanity). We both understand this. What you want is to limit landownership in certain ways, to put certain checks and balances, limits and leashes, onto your landowners so that their ownership will be a boon to society rather than a bane. I personally think that my proposed checks and balances -- those of competition and the free market -- will be more effective at limiting any tyrannical impulses of landlords than yours -- those of democratic pressures, constitutional provisions, and other incentives native to the political realm. But we both do want kind of sort of the same end result: a diverse and non-agressive society, with each individual at liberty to go about his life as he chooses.

Under geolibertarianism, governments do not decide what the tax will be, the market does. The government does not dictate who, when or how its used.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have reason to believe that governments, having a monopoly on final violence in a given area, will on occasion abuse this power and perhaps somewhat exceed the bounds laid down for them by their people's wills or by their Constitution. You do not share this skepticism?

Can't be much of an "owner" if you cant do any of those things.

If each micro-state is truly independent, it could decide to stop being strictly Georgist at any time, and start imposing certain "reasonable restrictions" like zoning, permits, licensure, seizing land for the state's use, etc., etc. Most of which Georgist deviants like Roy L. would wholeheartedly support.

You say landowning is a right. If that is the case then there is logically no right to life. In order to live we must have a right to access resources (food, water, shelter, etc). If we must ask permission for such things then there are no rights. There are only the "rights" of the landowners.

To me, the right to life is the right to not have your life aggressively ended by another person. It is not the right to have your life maintained. It's up to you to secure whatever resources you need to stay alive, should you choose to exercise this right to live (you don't have to exercise it). It's like the right to bear arms. The right does not actually depend upon the real availability of arms to you, or even their existence. If you want to exercise the right, it's up to you to make it happen. People have the right to speech, the right to education, and the right to health care in the same sense. No one's right are violated should they lack communicative faculties, lack funds to hire tutelage, or lack nearby doctors. These are lacks, or privations, not aggressions and oppressions.

 

[Roy L]

See, helmuth? Told you different words would be used, and that would make it indisputably and self-evidently different.

Different words are used because it IS different.

OK, Not-land-owner State, want to go out and charge some Not-rents? The other-than-ownership-power to charge other-than-rent for occupancy of other-than-ownable-land will be appraised at a "fair market value" by an other-than-landlord-state.

<sigh> A trustee charges market rent -- is indeed normally required to -- but does not own the asset. You just have to refuse to know that fact, and pretend I have not already informed you of it multiple times.

Of course, forget that the net effect would be exactly the same as if the land was said to be collectively owned, but that is only if you want to quibble with words and paradigms from some other planet.

Wrong AGAIN. If the land were collectively owned, the collective could rightly decide to sell it. They can't.

Under a Georgist LVT regime, exclusive tenure will no longer constitute a welfare subsidy giveaway to "the exclusive landholders" (the Georgist Bourgeois), at the expense of "the productive" (the Georgist Proletariat). Not sure how the distinction is made, since exclusive landholders who are paying the highest LVT are also presumed to be "the most productive".

Right: you are not sure, because you permanently refuse to know the fact that LVT removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner that makes him unjustly privileged.

Hence, in many cases, Bourgeois=Proletariat, which means they will not be given a welfare subsidy at their own expense(?).

Right. It is merely inconceivable to you that under LVT, no one is privileged at others' expense. Having never seen justice, and refusing to know all relevant facts, you are as incapable of conceiving of justice as the aboriginal Americans were of conceiving private landowning.

Leaseholds will be valued such that the "presumably most productive" entities (as evidenced by rent payments alone) will be forced to return only the "publicly created value" that was magically infused into the land, as provided for by society and government.

LVT is a voluntary value-for-value transaction, not "force." It is the private landowner who initiates force to remove the liberty rights of others.

This is why it cannot be considered a relinquishing of "the fruits of their labor". This in turn will fund "the mechanism" for securing the equal liberty rights of all to use land (not sure what "the mechanism" is, or exactly how it secures equal liberty rights to use all land, but that's what Roy wrote).

The mechanism is the LVT system, obviously.

The only other thing I'm not quite sure about:

Clearly, an ad valorem land value tax places land-value-dependent commerce at a disadvantage from all other commerce, as leaseholders bear all the costs of government (at least under the idealized Georgist "single tax" system).

The only commerce that is "land-value-dependent" is the parasitic rent-seeking activity of landowners and land speculators. Actual productive USE of land does not depend on land value in the least, as the user does not care if he pays the rent to a public land administration to fund desired services and infrastructure or a private landowner in return for nothing -- except that in the former case, he would of course not be liable to pay taxes as well. Indeed, the most productive producers using the most advantageous land would likely gain the most from LVT, as they are the ones currently shouldering most of the tax burden ON TOP OF PAYING RENT.

However, is it even accurate to say that land-value-dependent commerce is "bearing" those costs, given that the "productive" leaseholders, who are paying all the highest costs for their exclusive land use, would simply continue, as they always have, to pass those costs on to the end-of-line consumers, who ultimately pay all bills, including all the taxes?

Again, that claim is just pure economic ignorance. Land rent is not a cost that is passed on to consumers whether it is paid to landowners or to a public land administration, because it is the measure of the ADVANTAGE the land user obtains. IOW, a store does not charge higher prices in order to pay higher rent for its good location; it has to pay higher rent for its good location because it is able to sell things for higher prices there. Please take a few months off work to think about what this means, as you clearly haven't the foggiest notion.

However, CURRENT TAXES (other than the land value portion of property taxes), which the productive pay to fund the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners, ARE passed on to consumers in various degrees (probably averaging around half) depending on the type of tax. That is why LVT both reduces consumer prices and increases producers' wages.

It would seem that an LVT is really tantamount to a complex internal tariff on all goods and services that are highly land-use and land-value dependent (read=most of the basic needs that all humans require for basic survival, which comes from the land itself).

Yes, it would seem that way -- but only to an economic ignoramus or lying apologist for landowner privilege. Market land rent is exactly the same whether it is paid to a private landowner or a public land administration, so LVT does not increase the cost of using land, only of owning land. Land rent is also exactly the same whether the land is used at its most productive or not used at all, so it is not a cost of production whether it is paid to a private landowner or to a public land administration. Try to find a willingness to know those two facts, as they prove you have no idea what you are talking about.

If that really is the case, how does land, via land-dependent commerce, not remain a mere channel through which basic needs are taxed, and consumer productivity (individual wealth) is really and ultimately siphoned?

Only the landowner loses by LVT, as only the landowner is made worse off; and he only loses the privilege of pocketing unearned wealth, not a return to productivity.

Lastly, the "Henry George Theorem" states that under certain ideal conditions, aggregate spending by government will be equal to aggregate rent based on land value (land rent).

You can see where the intent lies for LVT proponents. Here are two enormous, but roughly equal, amounts of wealth siphoned from the public. Simply divert that nice, juicy revenue stream away from the landowners, and channel it to government, and you can eliminate other taxes altogether at the expense of both destructive taxes and equally destructive "landowner privilege". Sounds simple enough.

And it is. Simple choice: pay for government twice so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing, or pay for government only once, cutting out the something-for-nothing payment to the landowner. It really is just that simple.

First and foremost, the Georgist paradigm identifies renters as productive, and landowners as parasites, even when they are owner-occupiers.

Which they are, as such. It is economic roles we are talking about, not actual persons who often fulfill a number of different roles. A working person who also owns land is productive by working, and a parasite by owning land. If he also happens to sit on the town council, he is part of the government, too. That doesn't mean the government also does the productive work and owns the land, any more than it means owning land also involves doing productive work.

So it's plain enough to me why government cannot be referred to as a "collective landowner", as that could be like saying "collective parasite". No, the state, in combination with "society", provides a "publicly created value", and "access to all that nature provides", once it is recognized as the right of everyone, means that a collection of land value rents is not parasitic, but merely a mechanism for recovering what was "deprived" of others "by force". And the state is not collecting for itself, but rather, ostensibly, on behalf of those who were "otherwise at liberty" but dispossessed.

By George, he's got it!

With an absolute state-controlled monopoly on leaseholds,

Land is always a monopoly. It is a canonical example of monopoly.

however, and no competing interests with which to compare real "market value",

Wrong AGAIN. It is land users who compete for the land, and that is what establishes its market value.

what would stop LVT rents from multiplying to many times what they otherwise might have been under a strictly landowner market - such that the aggregate LVT/government spending exceeds the prior aggregate of both rents and government expenditures combined?

The Law of Rent. People will not bid more for land than the difference between the return they can obtain on good land and what they can obtain on marginal land.

And how, PRECISELY, would you know this with any certainty?

By comparing aggregate rents with GDP. In general, a given percent increase in GDP implies a slightly greater percent increase in aggregate land rent.

Do you trust that government is capable of fair and proper valuation of anything at all? I don't. Never will, in fact.

<sigh> The market values land, and the government can't get more revenue from LVT than by charging the market rent on each site. People are radically unpredictable, so no one can guarantee what any government will do in practice, but LVT ALIGNS GOVERNMENT'S FINANCIAL INCENTIVES with the public interest.

Roy has what he believes is a formula (which I'll call the Georgist Roy Standard). But why would the state be trusted to follow that when it can't even be trusted with following and protecting something as truly simple as a gold standard (i.e., one UNIT of currency = one WEIGHT/PURITY of metal)?

WHAT ARE THE INCENTIVES? In fact, the Roman (later Byzantine) empire maintained a very reliable gold standard -- the aureus -- for over 700 years.

Even if I accepted the Georgist liberty rights of-everything-to-everyone premise, which I do not, the extent that government overvalues and otherwise manipulates land to artificially increase its value (through special zoning, artificial scarcity, etc.,)

<sigh> IT DOES THAT NOW AT THE BEHEST OF POLITICALLY CONNECTED LANDOWNERS. Hello?

would be the extent to which I viewed (as I do now our current government) as little more than a presumptuous, self-serving, winner choosing and wealth-redistributing parasite.

Well, "meeza hatesa gubmint" types might still think of an LVT government that way, but it would not in fact be that way.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Under geolibertarianism, governments do not decide what the tax will be, the market does. The government does not dictate who, when or how its used.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have reason to believe that governments, having a monopoly on final violence in a given area, will on occasion abuse this power and perhaps somewhat exceed the bounds laid down for them by their people's wills or by their Constitution. You do not share this skepticism?

I think that is a matter of absolute certainty and historical fact, which you answered well enough with your very next line:

If each micro-state is truly independent, it could decide to stop being strictly Georgist at any time, and start imposing certain "reasonable restrictions" like zoning, permits, licensure, seizing land for the state's use, etc., etc. Most of which Georgist deviants like Roy L. would wholeheartedly support.

I have yet to see a response to this other than dismissive form of "Well, that can happen anyway under any system".

Most of the Georgists/Geoists I've read, and I've read a lot from other sites since jumping into this thread, fall into the same category of believing that Geoism would work well, if only their particular version, with their preferred constraints, or formulas, were applied - which would make it "pure". This implies a kind of belief in some kind of restraint and altruistic purity on the side of the state, while completely ignoring the history of states, and state-side "market" dynamics, which always exist. States have agendas, and budgets, which are only limited (as an ever-rising, never-falling ceiling) by markets - not dictated by them.

Geoists give formulas, and intents, with implied assurances that somehow only "the market" will dictate. That reminds me of Roosevelt's first Fireside chat, as he assured the American public:

Remember that the essential accomplishment of the new legislation is that it makes it possible for banks more readily to convert their assets into cash than was the case before. More liberal provision has been made for banks to borrow on these assets at the Reserve Banks and more liberal provision has also been made for issuing currency on the security of these good assets. This currency is not fiat currency. It is issued only on adequate security, and every good bank has an abundance of such security.

Well, of course it wasn't a fiat currency. Why, even Roosevelt knew that would be bad(?), else why give assurances to the contrary? And of course the "good" banks had an abundance of security, else why the need for a bank holiday? That was just the "bad" banks. THAT is the recorded history, and track record, of the state. And now the camel, with his nose even more firmly in the tent, need only confiscate all gold, and later start playing with its value -- and even later recognize the need for a fiat currency after all, as it dips farther and deeper into a collectivized well that is now thoroughly debased.

Oh no, not a "pure" Georgist LVT system. Why, it would only be a single tax, because no other tax would be needed!

And of course, as a massive social experiment, this particular one cannot even be tried without completely abolishing what many, including myself, consider a fundamental right. And once you cede rights to the state, the state is never inclined to acknowledge, recognize, or give them back. Not without spilling a lot of blood, and even then, more not than often.

 

[Roy L]

For one thing, you're not forced to work for the landlord.

If you are not a landowner, and government does not intercede on your behalf, you work for a landlord or you die. Please re-read the case of the Quakers in India.

Of course, we are not usually forced to work for the state, either. But anyway, I went through some differences I see as important (no mass slavery permitted, no mass robbery, no mass murder), but you didn't see those differences as impressive.

Absent government intervention on behalf of the landless, private landowning reliably results in mass slavery, mass robbery and mass murder.

The geo-libertarian demagogue who will only be in charge for 4 years, will he want to run his land into the ground, extracting every penny he can from it during his few available years of exploitation?

Unlike the king, he doesn't get to keep the money, duh.

The market landlord gets his land through homesteading

No, that has never happened, stop lying. Land is never initially obtained by any means but forcible appropriation. You just want to legitimize all current land titles by PRETENDING they might have been obtained other than by violation of rights.

and success at productive voluntary trade.

No, we have already established that as land is not a product of labor, it can never be earned by labor.

The political landlord gets his through military conquests and success at being a master politician -- that is, being a master conniver, manipulator, and deceiver.

No, that's just another stupid lie from you. It is actual current land titles that are always based on deceit, manipulation, theft and slaughter. The geolibertarian "landlord," by contrast, is selected by the people whose interests he is to serve on the basis of their confidence in his competence and honesty.

I'd rather reward the adventurous, clever, and wealth-generating, rather they who excel at violence and lying. that's just me!

No, more accurately, that's just another evil, vicious, despicable lie from you. The private ownership of land that you demand be rewarded and subsidized by forcible, violent theft from the productive has always initially been obtained by violence, lying and/or butchery, and that is what you wish to reward: the maximum possible level of parasitism and evil. Ownership of land has never initially been obtained by being adventurous or clever (other than in the practice of violence, lying and butchery), and certainly never by wealth generation. We have already established that that is logically impossible.

Natural resources ("land") are initially unowned. Then humans come along and start to make decisions about said resources.

And they are still unowned.

At that point, someone is going to make the ultimate decisions over natural resources. That's the reality.

No, it isn't, as hunter-gatherers use and make decisions about natural resources without anyone owning them or "making ultimate decisions" about them.

That ultimate decision-making is what defines ownership.

<sigh> Nope. Already disproved: a trustee makes ultimate decisions regarding trust assets, but does not own them. Ownership is a bundle of four rights, of which decision making (control) is only one.

Someone is going to be the "owner". Fantasies to the contrary have nothing to recommend them but utter impossibility.

ROTFL!! Already disproved. And speaking of utter impossibility, who owns the earth's atmosphere, hmmmm? We all seem to use it just fine without anyone owning it.

You just always have to tell absurd lies. Always.

I submit that you do not want to end landownership, redbluepill.

I submit that you intend always to lie about what rbp and I say, Helmuth.

That would be impossible (without ending humanity).

Nonsense. Our ancestors lived just fine without anyone owning the land.

What you want is to limit landownership in certain ways, to put certain checks and balances, limits and leashes, onto your landowners so that their ownership will be a boon to society rather than a bane.

Right.

I personally think that my proposed checks and balances -- those of competition and the free market -- will be more effective at limiting any tyrannical impulses of landlords than yours -- those of democratic pressures, constitutional provisions, and other incentives native to the political realm.

But in fact, all of history and the established facts of economics prove you are objectively wrong about that (not that being proved objectively wrong could ever stimulate you to reconsider your proved-wrong beliefs).

But we both do want kind of sort of the same end result: a diverse and non-agressive society, with each individual at liberty to go about his life as he chooses.

Which is inherently impossible under your private landowning model.

I have reason to believe that governments, having a monopoly on final violence in a given area, will on occasion abuse this power and perhaps somewhat exceed the bounds laid down for them by their people's wills or by their Constitution. You do not share this skepticism?

Certainly. Just as cars will occasionally break down. That doesn't mean having a car is a bad idea.

If each micro-state is truly independent, it could decide to stop being strictly Georgist at any time, and start imposing certain "reasonable restrictions" like zoning, permits, licensure, seizing land for the state's use, etc., etc. Most of which Georgist deviants like Roy L. would wholeheartedly support.

I neither call nor consider myself a Georgist, deviant or otherwise. I don't think permits and licensure are particularly necessary, but zoning and eminent domain probably are.

It's up to you to secure whatever resources you need to stay alive, should you choose to exercise this right to live (you don't have to exercise it).

No. It is not up to people to "secure" the resources they need to stay alive by laboring for the unearned profit of those who have forcibly removed their liberty right to access and use said resources. To impose such a burden of involuntary servitude in place of the right to liberty would simply be to enable extortion and parasitism by the greedy, evil filth who are privileged to own everyone else's rights -- which is what you obviously want to enable.

It's like the right to bear arms. The right does not actually depend upon the real availability of arms to you, or even their existence. If you want to exercise the right, it's up to you to make it happen. People have the right to speech, the right to education, and the right to health care in the same sense. No one's right are violated should they lack communicative faculties, lack funds to hire tutelage, or lack nearby doctors. These are lacks, or privations, not aggressions and oppressions.

True. But it is oppression and aggression when Dirtowner Harry demands a lifetime of servitude for Thirsty's access to the water nature provided. It is oppression and aggression when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and tells him to choose between a lifetime of servitude and getting back in the water. It is oppression and aggression when the bandit/toll taker/landowner demands loot/tolls/rent from the merchants for use of the pass nature provided. You just always have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

 

[Steven Douglas]

If the land were collectively owned, the collective could rightly decide to sell it. They can't.

Remember those sourced definitions which you asked for, which I provided and you never responded to? Here they are again:

own·er·ship - noun

1. the state or fact of being an owner
2. legal right of possession; lawful title (to something); proprietorship

own·er - noun

• possessor

own - transitive verb

• to possess
• to hold as personal property
• to have

SOURCE: Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

own·er·ship - noun

1. the state or fact of being an owner.
2. legal right of possession; proprietorship.

own·er - noun

• a person who owns
• possessor
• proprietor

own - verb (used with object)

• to have or hold as one's own
• possess

SOURCE: Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2011.

Possession, not the ability to sell, is all that is required for a fact of ownership. A right of possession (aka right of control) is all that is required for a legal right of ownership. The option to sell or not is not required at all. That is only one quality of one expanded version of ownership in your mind. Not base ownership, factual or legal.

Hypothetically, Congress could grant me title to a million acres of BLM land as allodial or fee simple land - in my name alone. It could allocate this land to me personally under the Necessary and Proper clause, with a proviso that prohibited title transfer to anyone else. You might split hairs and want to refer to it as a trust, or something else, but if Congress did that, I would become the legal owner of the land, inasmuch as I would have a full right of possession and control. I could rent it out, lease it out, and otherwise dispose of it in any way that I wished, so long as there was no title transfer in the process. The fact that I couldn't sell or otherwise transfer ownership by law is a stickler in your own mind only, Roy (i.e., "Bah! It's not real ownership if you can't sell or dispose of it!"). But that would not be based on any fundamental or root definition of ownership, but your own personal rules for what "ought to" constitute ownership, in your mind only.

You honestly think the inability for the state to sell land has somehow magically disposed of the concept of ownership itself? It has not, as a fact of ownership is possession only, and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control). Which the state would have under an LVT, making the state, "the collective" the "OWNER".

WORSE YET - you are in serious error, Roy, confusing intent with a capacity, or power. The state, of all entities, DOES RETAIN both the right and ability to sell the land - to create and transfer titles, regardless of its initial intent. Just pass yet another law, a Constitutional Amendment even, and POOF! all that land that was FULLY under state "right of forcible possession" control can go right onto the market. So much for the state's (the collectives') inability to "rightly decide" to sell. The collective (the state) can "rightly decide" (that is "lawfully and legally" decide - having NOTHING to do with moral rights) to pass a Constitutional Amendment that legalizes murder if it wanted.

(emphasis added)
Again, that claim is just pure economic ignorance. Land rent is not a cost that is passed on to consumers whether it is paid to landowners or to a public land administration, because it is the measure of the ADVANTAGE the land user obtains. IOW, a store does not charge higher prices in order to pay higher rent for its good location; it has to pay higher rent for its good location because it is able to sell things for higher prices there. Please take a few months off work to think about what this means, as you clearly haven't the foggiest notion.

That is one of the foggiest-headed, mush-brained things I have ever read! Talk about economic ignorance, Roy. Blithering nonsense of the most pathetic kind. I run businesses, Roy. Rent may be a "measure of advantage" in your mind, in the context of your economy theories, but to most businesses rents is nothing more than an EXPENSE - an integral part of my "manufacturing overhead", which I (AND MOST OTHER) businesses factor into our total costs, which in turn dictates our prices.

So you are, once again, wrong in the absolute. Rent, like any other expense, is factored in as overhead cost, which is ALWAYS passed onto the consumer. Even if we did nothing but break even, not taking a profit of any kind, I don't have, nor do I know of any accountant, or accounting program, that has a category for rents or any other expenses paid called "MEASURE OF ADVANTAGE". We kinda tend to more think of rent as a "Measure of One Kind Of Expense". Even if I put myself into a Monty Python song called, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Rent" (whistle along), and I convinced myself that it was indeed a "Measure of Advantage", it would not make it any less of an EXPENSE - AKA MEASURE OF COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE (to an equivalent manufacturer of the same widget next door who owns his property outright and does not have rent or mortgage to factor in as overhead).

That was priceless, Roy.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Remember those sourced definitions which you asked for, which I provided and you never responded to? Here they are again:



Possession, not the ability to sell, is all that is required for a fact of ownership. A right of possession (aka right of control) is all that is required for a legal right of ownership. The option to sell or not is not required at all. That is only one quality of one expanded version of ownership in your mind. Not base ownership, factual or legal.

Hypothetically, Congress could grant me title to a million acres of BLM land as allodial or fee simple land - in my name alone. It could allocate this land to me personally under the Necessary and Proper clause, with a proviso that prohibited title transfer to anyone else. You might split hairs and want to refer to it as a trust, or something else, but if Congress did that, I would become the legal owner of the land, inasmuch as I would have a full right of possession and control. I could rent it out, lease it out, and otherwise dispose of it in any way that I wished, so long as there was no title transfer in the process. The fact that I couldn't sell or otherwise transfer ownership by law is a stickler in your own mind only, Roy (i.e., "Bah! It's not real ownership if you can't sell or dispose of it!"). But that would not be based on any fundamental or root definition of ownership, but your own personal rules for what "ought to" constitute ownership, in your mind only.

You honestly think the inability for the state to sell land has somehow magically disposed of the concept of ownership itself? It has not, as a fact of ownership is possession only, and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control). Which the state would have under an LVT, making the state, "the collective" the "OWNER".

WORSE YET - you are in serious error, Roy, confusing intent with a capacity, or power. The state, of all entities, DOES RETAIN both the right and ability to sell the land - to create and transfer titles, regardless of its initial intent. Just pass yet another law, a Constitutional Amendment even, and POOF! all that land that was FULLY under state "right of forcible possession" control can go right onto the market. So much for the state's (the collectives') inability to "rightly decide" to sell. The collective (the state) can "rightly decide" (that is "lawfully and legally" decide - having NOTHING to do with moral rights) to pass a Constitutional Amendment that legalizes murder if it wanted.



That is one of the foggiest-headed, mush-brained things I have ever read! Talk about economic ignorance, Roy. Blithering nonsense of the most pathetic kind. I run businesses, Roy. Rent may be a "measure of advantage" in your mind, in the context of your economy theories, but to most businesses rents is nothing more than an EXPENSE - an integral part of my "manufacturing overhead", which I (AND MOST OTHER) businesses factor into our total costs, which in turn dictates our prices.

So you are, once again, wrong in the absolute. Rent, like any other expense, is factored in as overhead cost, which is ALWAYS passed onto the consumer. Even if we did nothing but break even, not taking a profit of any kind, I don't have, nor do I know of any accountant, or accounting program, that has a category for rents or any other expenses paid called "MEASURE OF ADVANTAGE". We kinda tend to more think of rent as a "Measure of One Kind Of Expense". Even if I put myself into a Monty Python song called, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Rent" (whistle along), and I convinced myself that it was indeed a "Measure of Advantage", it would not make it any less of an EXPENSE - AKA MEASURE OF COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE (to an equivalent manufacturer of the same widget next door who owns his property outright and does not have rent or mortgage to factor in as overhead).

That was priceless, Roy.

I tried explaining this to Roy earlier, but he dismissed it. Maybe your explanation will be more satisfactory.

 

[Roy L]

I have yet to see a response to this other than dismissive form of "Well, that can happen anyway under any system".

Do you think that the ever-present threat of food poisoning is a good reason to stop eating food?

Most of the Georgists/Geoists I've read, and I've read a lot from other sites since jumping into this thread, fall into the same category of believing that Geoism would work well, if only their particular version, with their preferred constraints, or formulas, were applied - which would make it "pure".

So? You can also go to a bunch of different exercise sites, or diet sites, and find disagreements about what is "just right." It depends to some extent on your goals, and to some extent on where you are starting from. Just because there are disagreements about details of implementation doesn't mean there is not agreement on the principles, or that the principles are not true and valid. Recovery of publicly created land rent for public purposes and benefit would work to the extent that it is actually applied, just as it always has.

However, like Henry George, some Georgists have not yet appreciated the necessity of restoring the individual right to liberty through a uniform, universal individual land tax exemption (or, second best, an equivalent citizens' dividend). That is one reason I prefer to call myself a "geoist": one who considers the equal human rights to life and liberty to imply an equal right to the liberty to access and use what nature provides -- the earth's resources -- to sustain one's life.

This implies a kind of belief in some kind of restraint and altruistic purity on the side of the state, while completely ignoring the history of states, and state-side "market" dynamics, which always exist. States have agendas, and budgets, which are only limited (as an ever-rising, never-falling ceiling) by markets - not dictated by them.

Except LVT, which is automatically limited to recovering the land rent government and society create. Any attempt to take more just results in reduced revenue as land is left unused.

Geoists give formulas, and intents, with implied assurances that somehow only "the market" will dictate.

Only the market CAN say what people are willing to pay.

That reminds me of Roosevelt's first Fireside chat, as he assured the American public:

But facts of economics aren't determined by what various things happen to remind you of.

Well, of course it wasn't a fiat currency. Why, even Roosevelt knew that would be bad(?), else why give assurances to the contrary? And of course the "good" banks had an abundance of security, else why the need for a bank holiday? That was just the "bad" banks. THAT is the recorded history, and track record, of the state.

No, it's just one incident in the history of one state. Give your head a shake.

Oh no, not a "pure" Georgist LVT system. Why, it would only be a single tax, because no other tax would be needed!

The advantages of replacing as many taxes as possible with LVT revenue do not depend on whether additional revenue is thought to be needed. It is simply beneficial to the extent that it is used. It does not guarantee that all other government policies will also be beneficial.

And of course, as a massive social experiment, this particular one cannot even be tried without completely abolishing what many, including myself, consider a fundamental right.

But which Hong Kong proves is actually not -- and I have proved can never be -- a fundamental right.

In any case, it is quite possible to try LVT without first abolishing private landowning. Just remove the property tax on improvements and gradually increase the rate, and see how it improves the economy and solves social problems.

And once you cede rights to the state, the state is never inclined to acknowledge, recognize, or give them back. Not without spilling a lot of blood, and even then, more not than often.

Private landowners never had a right to own land. They only had a state-issued and -enforced privilege.

 

[Steven Douglas]

I tried explaining this to Roy earlier, but he dismissed it. Maybe your explanation will be more satisfactory.

The fact that he didn't understand something as simple as rent as a "measure of expense" tells me he won't get it at all. Way too disconnected from reality. I see what Roy means, and where his confusion lies. He is thinking in terms of a location advantage, without realizing that it's also being nullified by rents charged in the case of the existence of a landlord.

If I have a hotel on a beachfront, I have a measurable advantage over a hotel that is two blocks away from the beach -- ASSUMING we both owned our properties outright. My more desirable (to the public) location does make it more valuable, because people will be willing to pay more to rent a room from me. But that is the rents I CHARGE! If both I and the hotel owner down the street do not own our properties, but are paying unequal rents for our respective lands, that can amount to a zero-sum gain, or even a slight profit/balance sheet advantage to my competitor down the sheet, as the entire Measure of Advantage goes to the landlord only (public or private)!

 

[Roy L]

Primary definitions only:

And therefore equivocations:

own·er·ship - noun

1. the state or fact of being an owner
2. legal right of possession; lawful title (to something); proprietorship

own·er - noun

• possessor

own - transitive verb

• to possess
• to hold as personal property
• to have

SOURCE: Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

own·er·ship - noun

1. the state or fact of being an owner.
2. legal right of possession; proprietorship.

own·er - noun

• a person who owns
• possessor
• proprietor

own - verb (used with object)

• to have or hold as one's own
• possess

SOURCE: Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2011.

You have mixed irrelevant with relevant senses. That's equivocation, and it is fallacious. I don't know any other way to explain that to you.

 

[eduardo89]

How is an LVT fair to homeowners whose land goes up in value (and therefore their tax as well) but their wages remain stagnant?

As the supporters of LVT claim, the tax should be levied on the intrinsic value of a site. But it turns out that such values often depend on the surroundings of the plot and not only on the plot itself. There is no purely intrinsic value, especially when it comes to land in the cities. In other words, changes made by your neighbours will affect the value of your property. If your neighbour builds a polluting factory, your land value and thus your LVT will fall. If your neighbour, however, opens a theme park or if a new tube line stops in front of your door, your land value will increase and with it the tax you would have to pay on it. So in other words, the tax one has to pay does not actually depend solely on one’s own property positions, let alone one’s financial situation, but on the consequences of other people’s actions. Surely, such a system of taxation cannot be regarded as fair or just.

 

[Roy L]

The fact that he didn't understand something as simple as rent as a "measure of expense" tells me he won't get it at all.

Land rent is not a measure of expense. Period. The fact that you think it is just shows you aren't talking about land rent but something else.

Way too disconnected from reality. I see what Roy means, and where his confusion lies.

The confusion is yours. Trying to correct it is apparently a waste of my time.

He is thinking in terms of a location advantage, without realizing that it's also being nullified by rents charged in the case of the existence of a landlord.

The location advantage (land rent) is the same no matter if it is being paid to a private landlord or to a public land tax administration, or is being pocketed by the user, or is simply being wasted if the land is unused.

If I have a hotel on a beachfront, I have a measurable advantage over a hotel that is two blocks away from the beach -- ASSUMING we both owned our properties outright.

The locational advantage does not depend on who owns the hotel, or whether they owe money on it, or anything else related to the user, or how much the tax is, or even if the land is vacant. You are confusing the locational advantage with WHO GETS that advantage.

My more desirable (to the public) location does make it more valuable, because people will be willing to pay more to rent a room from me. But that is the rents I CHARGE!

Which is the point. You don't charge those higher room rates because you have more rent to pay. You charge them because people are willing to pay them, and you have no reason to forego that additional revenue.

If both I and the hotel owner down the street do not own our properties, but are paying unequal rents for our respective lands, that can amount to a zero-sum gain, or even a slight profit/balance sheet advantage to my competitor down the sheet, as the entire Measure of Advantage goes to the landlord only (public or private)!

Sorry, Steven, but that is GIBBERISH. And as with all your other gibberish, I will not be responding to it because I cannot figure out what it means.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Do you think that the ever-present threat of food poisoning is a good reason to stop eating food?

Not all foods, but I would certainly avoid foods that are known to be contaminated. Well, for example, I would avoid having anything to do with a known-contaminated Federal Reserve dollar wherever possible, looking instead for much healthier alternatives.

Only the market CAN say what people are willing to pay.

NOT in the case of a monopoly, especially on something that is absolutely essential to life itself. What are you "willing" to pay for water if I am the only source, and you are dying of thirst? A monopoly owner can dictate price, and the market participants who are forced to deal with the Only Market Owner In Town, can only dictate what they are ABLE, not "willing", to pay. A universe of difference, and there lies the rub.

But which Hong Kong proves is actually not -- and I have proved can never be -- a fundamental right.

You're confusing fundamental with universal, and further giving it a mush-factor when you talk about rights. When I say "fundamental right", or even "unalienable right" I am not talking universal, or even legal rights. I am referring to a normative - not what can be proved or disproved (rights exist only as human constructs, and cannot be proved or disproved outside of these constructs) - only what I believe "OUGHT" to be recognized by society as fundamental, and codified as law.

Hong Kong neither proves or disproves anything with regard to rights. The fact that rights can be recognized, acknowledged, agreed upon or declared, and the fact that these can take on virtually ANY form - only proves what we as humans are capable of conjuring and manifesting as normatives.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Land rent is not a measure of expense. Period. The fact that you think it is just shows you aren't talking about land rent but something else.

See, heavenlyboy34? Told you he wouldn't get it.

(corrections added)
The location advantage (increased land rent) is the same no matter if it is being paid to a private landlord or to a public land tax administration, or is being pocketed by the user, or is simply being wasted if the land is unused.

Wrong. The ultimate controller (owner/landlord) can exploit the location advantage such that there is really no economic competitive advantage to the leaseholder. In the case of the End Renter (the customer of the hotel) this is acknowledged up front. They will simply pay more for a preferred location, or go down the street if they want to save some money. The landlord (public or private), meanwhile, is EVER-AWARE of location advantage, and can merely siphon this "Measure of Advantage" off as his own. Then, all things being artificially equalized by those who control the base rents, or leaseholds, there might be no "Measure of Advantage" to the leaseholders in terms of profits earned.

The locational advantage does not depend on who owns the hotel, or whether they owe money on it, or anything else related to the user, or how much the tax is, or even if the land is vacant. You are confusing the locational advantage with WHO GETS that advantage.

You are confused, as usual, since if nobody GETS the advantage, there IS NO advantage.

If I own a hotel and its beachfront land outright, I do have a Measurable Advantage over someone who owns a hotel and land of equal size and quality down the street, away from the beach. Advantage Me, as I can earn more based on my location alone, all other things being equal. Enter an LVT, and that Measurable Advantage can easily be siphoned completely away, as it is taxed by the LVT landlord - who ALONE takes the advantage.

Which is the point. You don't charge those higher room rates because you have more rent to pay. You charge them because people are willing to pay them, and you have no reason to forego that additional revenue.

It's not a case of either/or. It depends on my competition. If I have a competitor who is forced to keep his prices high because he is burdened by a high rent, high mortgage, debts, high interest payments, etc., then I have the choice of whether to undercut his prices, possibly forcing him into bankruptcy, or I can keep my prices higher and pocket the difference. That also depends on my supply, and what the market really is willing to bear. But the idea that someone does not charge higher prices based on higher expenses, especially if it makes a difference between solvency and insolvency, is ludicrous on its face.

Sorry, Steven, but that is GIBBERISH. And as with all your other gibberish, I will not be responding to it because I cannot figure out what it means.

I know you cannot figure out what it means, Roy. I've realized that for some time now. It really is gibberish to you. I see that.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

The geo-libertarian demagogue who will only be in charge for 4 years, will he want to run his land into the ground, extracting every penny he can from it during his few available years of exploitation?

Unlike the king, he doesn't get to keep the money, duh.

The political landlord gets his through military conquests and success at being a master politician -- that is, being a master conniver, manipulator, and deceiver.

No, that's just another stupid lie from you. The geolibertarian "landlord" is selected by the people whose interests he is to serve on the basis of their confidence in his competence and honesty.

Wow! Roy, I perceive this to be astoundingly naive. Well, always nice to have faith in something. I hope your faith gives some cheeriness to your otherwise dreary life.

True. But it is oppression and aggression when Dirtowner Harry demands a lifetime of servitude for Thirsty's access to the water nature provided. It is oppression and aggression when Crusoe points his musket at Friday and tells him to choose between a lifetime of servitude and getting back in the water. It is oppression and aggression when the bandit/toll taker/landowner demands loot/tolls/rent from the merchants for use of the pass nature provided. You just always have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

And I, of course, disagree and say it is not aggression nor oppression. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree!

Oh, by the way, I've been forgetting (sorry!): Mr. Roy L., you are right about everything you have ever written. I wish someday to be as right as you. I should do as you advise and re-read the case of the Quakers in India. I feel that if I re-read it enough times, I will surely be convinced. It will just take time. Be patient with me!

Also, could you keep posting the quote from Slavey the ex (but not really ex) slave Jones so I can re-read it several more times? Thank you so much.

 

[Steven Douglas]

You have mixed irrelevant with relevant senses. That's equivocation, and it is fallacious. I don't know any other way to explain that to you.

That's Roy-centeredness at play. Which ones are relevant, and which are irrelevant, and why? Those are answerable questions, Roy. You made a big deal about relying on standard definitions, but that fell apart when sourced definitions were provided, based on whatever you considered relevant or irrelevant to your theories, wants and desires concerning the way you want the world to operate. You didn't even come back at me with other standard definitions to make your case. You can't articulate why it's an equivocation, you merely assert that it is fallacious, and even call this a "way to explain" it (while explaining nothing), and leaving it at that.

Truth is, you were proved wrong, Roy - as not merely asserted, but also articulated and meticulously argued, in ways you could not refute but only dismissed out of "ignore"-ance. The possibility that you were indeed proved wrong is so unspeakably ugly to you that it cannot possible be the truth.

 

[Roy L]

Remember those sourced definitions which you asked for, which I provided and you never responded to? Here they are again:

How many times are you going to post the same fallacious crap after I have proved it is fallacious?

Possession, not the ability to sell, is all that is required for a fact of ownership.

You are wasting my time with repetition of claims I have already refuted. Try selling a stolen car that is in your possession and see how far your "fact of ownership" gets you. My guess: prison.

A right of possession (aka right of control) is all that is required for a legal right of ownership.

Absurd. Trustees control and have a right to possess trust assets, but do not own them. I have explained this to you multiple times, and you just keep repeating the same stupid garbage I have already proved wrong.

The option to sell or not is not required at all. That is only one quality of one expanded version of ownership in your mind. Not base ownership, factual or legal.

<sigh> Ownership of property consists of four basic rights. If any of them are missing, it is not ownership. I have already proved this to you.

Hypothetically, Congress could grant me title to a million acres of BLM land as allodial or fee simple land - in my name alone. It could allocate this land to me personally under the Necessary and Proper clause, with a proviso that prohibited title transfer to anyone else. You might split hairs and want to refer to it as a trust, or something else, but if Congress did that, I would become the legal owner of the land, inasmuch as I would have a full right of possession and control.

Legal ownership is not rightful ownership, as slavery proved. Why can't you ever remember that, Steven?

I could rent it out, lease it out, and otherwise dispose of it in any way that I wished, so long as there was no title transfer in the process. The fact that I couldn't sell or otherwise transfer ownership by law is a stickler in your own mind only, Roy (i.e., "Bah! It's not real ownership if you can't sell or dispose of it!"). But that would not be based on any fundamental or root definition of ownership, but your own personal rules for what "ought to" constitute ownership, in your mind only.

Wrong, as already proved.

You honestly think the inability for the state to sell land has somehow magically disposed of the concept of ownership itself?

No, because that's just something you made up.

It has not, as a fact of ownership is possession only,

Stupid garbage, as you will learn if you take someone else's car into your possession without their permission.

and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control).

A RIGHT of forcible possession. Not just forcible possession.

GET IT?

Which the state would have under an LVT, making the state, "the collective" the "OWNER".

<yawn>

WORSE YET - you are in serious error, Roy, confusing intent with a capacity, or power.

No, you are in serious error, confusing your silly and dishonest fabrications with my views.

The state, of all entities, DOES RETAIN both the right and ability to sell the land - to create and transfer titles, regardless of its initial intent. Just pass yet another law, a Constitutional Amendment even, and POOF! all that land that was FULLY under state "right of forcible possession" control can go right onto the market. So much for the state's (the collectives') inability to "rightly decide" to sell.

You just explicitly confused power with right. Why am I wasting my time on you?

The collective (the state) can "rightly decide" (that is "lawfully and legally" decide - having NOTHING to do with moral rights) to pass a Constitutional Amendment that legalizes murder if it wanted.

Blatant self-contradiction.

That is one of the foggiest-headed, mush-brained things I have ever read! Talk about economic ignorance, Roy. Blithering nonsense of the most pathetic kind.

It is fact.

I run businesses, Roy.

That's a claim I find more and more dubious the more I read of your anti-economic nonsense -- although my brother, who is an accountant, does say the business owners he works for often have no idea what they are doing, and those who get the most money from a business have often contributed the least to its success, or have even impeded its success. They are simply very good at taking credit for what others have done, and convincing others that they are entitled to things they have not earned and don't deserve. I have also seen this phenomenon in the firms I have worked for and done business with.

Rent may be a "measure of advantage" in your mind, in the context of your economy theories, but to most businesses rents is nothing more than an EXPENSE - an integral part of my "manufacturing overhead", which I (AND MOST OTHER) businesses factor into our total costs, which in turn dictates our prices.

Your costs do not dictate your prices, stop lying. If rent is merely an expense to you, which you pass on in higher prices, why not locate your business out in the wilderness where you don't have to pay any rent, and gain a competitive edge through offering lower prices?

So you are, once again, wrong in the absolute.

No, you are just making a fool of yourself, and wasting my time with nonsense.

Rent, like any other expense, is factored in as overhead cost, which is ALWAYS passed onto the consumer.

No, that's just a flat-out, stupid lie. If firms could just pass on their expenses to consumers, no firm would ever go bankrupt.

Do you ever READ what you write before posting it?

Even if we did nothing but break even, not taking a profit of any kind, I don't have, nor do I know of any accountant, or accounting program, that has a category for rents or any other expenses paid called "MEASURE OF ADVANTAGE".

And you might even consider that relevant. Remarkable.

We kinda tend to more think of rent as a "Measure of One Kind Of Expense". Even if I put myself into a Monty Python song called, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Rent" (whistle along), and I convinced myself that it was indeed a "Measure of Advantage", it would not make it any less of an EXPENSE - AKA MEASURE OF COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE

If it is not a measure of advantage, what makes you willing to pay it? Why are you willing to pay to be disadvantaged?

See how easily I prove your claims are false, absurd, and dishonest?

(to an equivalent manufacturer of the same widget next door who owns his property outright and does not have rent or mortgage to factor in as overhead).

<sigh> His advantage is that as a landowner he is privileged to pocket the rent. Do you think he will reduce his prices to compensate for that, undercutting you by foregoing the rent of his land?

That was priceless, Roy.

<sigh> You are like a child lecturing an adult on how to pay off his credit card bills by taking money from the bank machine.

 

[Roy L]

How is an LVT fair to homeowners whose land goes up in value (and therefore their tax as well) but their wages remain stagnant?

It is fair because a fair tax is based not on the value one CONTRIBUTES TO society (wages), but on the value one TAKES FROM society (land rent).

As the supporters of LVT claim, the tax should be levied on the intrinsic value of a site.

There is no such thing as intrinsic value of land. Value is determined in the market, and changes with market conditions. We say the tax should be on the UNIMPROVED value of the land, not "intrinsic" value.

But it turns out that such values often depend on the surroundings of the plot and not only on the plot itself. There is no purely intrinsic value, especially when it comes to land in the cities.

So why fabricate a claim that we advocate taxation of something that doesn't exist?

Oh. Right.

In other words, changes made by your neighbours will affect the value of your property.

Right. Land value is PUBLICLY CREATED.

If your neighbour builds a polluting factory, your land value and thus your LVT will fall.

Which seems fair, does it not? You are getting less benefit from holding the site.

If your neighbour, however, opens a theme park or if a new tube line stops in front of your door, your land value will increase and with it the tax you would have to pay on it.

Yes, public investment in transportation infrastructure increases land value. So, explain for me again why this increased value, paid for by other people's taxes, should be given away to the landowner in return for nothing...?

So in other words, the tax one has to pay does not actually depend solely on one’s own property positions,

It depends entirely on one's LAND positions, as their value measures what one is taking from society.

let alone one’s financial situation, but on the consequences of other people’s actions.

It depends on the value of what YOU DECIDE to take from society.

Similarly, the prices of items in the grocery store depend on the consequences of other people's actions. But what you have to pay when you leave the store depends on what YOU CHOOSE to take home.

I'm not sure there is any clearer or simpler way to explain this to you.

Surely, such a system of taxation cannot be regarded as fair or just.

Is it fair or just that you pay for the groceries you take home, and not an amount depending on your wages or financial situation?

 

[Steven Douglas]

Try selling a stolen car that is in your possession and see how far your "fact of ownership" gets you. My guess: prison.

It all boils down to the chain of events that lead to successful forcible possession. So no, you don't try selling a stolen car. You can own it by disguising it, or else by keeping it out of sight. You won't be the rightful owner, but you will be the owner.

Trustees control and have a right to possess trust assets, but do not own them.

That is correct. Trustees are not owners, any more than the leaseholders and renters are. They only have a limited license to possess, control, or administrate, which can be traced back to the ultimate owner(s) who issued the license or otherwise gave permission, or delegated THEIR "ownership" power. The only actual owners are those who have the ultimate forcible right of possession. In any conflict of possession or right of possession, the victor is your owner - in the case of the LVT, that would be the state. If I pulled secessionist act, barricaded myself and went to war over a piece of land, whomever was the victor in the war would go the spoils - including ownership (aka ultimate forcible possession).

<sigh> Ownership of property consists of four basic rights. If any of them are missing, it is not ownership. I have already proved this to you.

Sources, Roy. I don't give a tiny rat's butt about your personal philosophy of ownership (or anyone else's), or what it proves to you, or your redefinitions of what are already commonly used and well defined terms. Show me your sources.

Legal ownership is not rightful ownership, as slavery proved. Why can't you ever remember that, Steven?

In the case of slavery there were conflicting rights of ownership - legal versus moral. The states enforced the only legal right of ownership, while the slaves themselves held a moral right of ownership over themselves. The slaves' moral right of ownership was in conflict, however, with what some slave owners felt was a moral right to own slaves even in the absence of a legal right.

The same was true of our own Founders. They had no legal right to declare independence and rebel against King George - only a moral one that they felt. That created a conflict between two separate rights of possession, which was ultimately resolved by war - the fact of ownership by mere possession became the new legal ownership by virtue of victory, as the spoils of war, including a new legal right of possession, went to the victors.

Strictly speaking, from a point of view of English law only, the American War of Independence resulted in an ownership transfer by virtue of theft. It was only right, wrong, just, unjust, depending on whose point of view you considered. But it is a point of fact that a "legal right of [absentee] ownership" that was retained by a sovereign crown, conflicted with a later claim to that same right of ownership.

I never said legal ownership was "rightful" ownership (right of possession). Legal right of possession, moral right of possession and a fact of possession can all constitute ownership. All of them relate to possession and control, regardless how it is delegated.

and a legal right of ownership requires only a "right of forcible possession" (aka control).

A RIGHT of forcible possession. Not just forcible possession.

GET IT?

Oh yes, I get it. Better than you do, Roy. A LEGAL right of possession (legal "ownership") does require more than just forcible possession. A "legal" right of possession is, after all, not a mere fact of possession, or ownership, but a "legal right" thereto. However, that does not mean that ownership cannot transfer by theft (as already proved in the case of MF Global, and Roosevelt's gold confiscation, in a post which you did not bother refute).

I can STEAL your car, Roy, and become the new OWNER. Not the moral ("rightful") owner, but the owner in fact nonetheless. All it requires is that I retain forcible possession, and that you never recover possession. FURTHERMORE - I can become the LEGAL owner of what is otherwise LEGALLY your car - by counterfeiting VIN numbers and such, placing a mechanic's lien on the vehicle, and duly registering it. I would then be the OWNER, the LEGAL OWNER (absent yours or anyone else's conflicting claim, of course), but not the RIGHTFUL owner (morally speaking).

Your costs do not dictate your prices, stop lying. If rent is merely an expense to you, which you pass on in higher prices, why not locate your business out in the wilderness where you don't have to pay any rent, and gain a competitive edge through offering lower prices?

Because it would not be "cost" effective, you dolt. The amount saved in rents would indeed be an advantage, but that advantage would be quickly eaten up in many other ways.

Costs ALWAYS dictate profits, and are factored into prices in ANY truly free market competitive environment. The fact that you don't comprehend this tells me that there is a high likelihood that a) you have never been in business, or b) you have tried to go into business but failed miserably.

Rent, like any other expense, is factored in as overhead cost, which is ALWAYS passed onto the consumer.

No, that's just a flat-out, stupid lie. If firms could just pass on their expenses to consumers, no firm would ever go bankrupt.

That is why you should NEVER be in charge of ANYTHING, Roy. I can see that you're keyed in on the word ALWAYS, but that aside, you have no comprehension of overhead, and how it relates to profits and solvency. I'm not a "gubmint", Roy. My customers are not my captives, and I don't have a monopoly on anything. I don't have the arrogant, disconnected, sociopathic presumption that whatever I charge must be paid simply because I "passed it on". However, every business that operates in the black DOES pass their costs onto the consumer. Those which are unable to do so, as often happens, operate at a loss. And some of them do go bankrupt. Indeed, it is only without costs of any kind, including rent, that no firm could ever go bankrupt. Indeed, profit is revenue minus their costs, which includes direct expenses like RENT. If there was no rent expense, the profit margin, and therefore solvency, would increase by that much.

(to an equivalent manufacturer of the same widget next door who owns his property outright and does not have rent or mortgage to factor in as overhead).

<sigh> His advantage is that as a landowner he is privileged to pocket the rent. Do you think he will reduce his prices to compensate for that, undercutting you by foregoing the rent of his land?

No, you idiot, he pockets the profit -- the difference between the aggregate of what he pays out and what he receives, which does not include the rent-that-does-not-exist given that he isn't charging himself rent. There is no rent due or owing, because he actually owns the land. He might play an accounting game for tax purposes, where one of his companies pays his other, landholding company rent - but it is not a net rent payment to him.

That is a very tough one for you, Roy, because you truly want to cling to rent as one of those undeniable and universal facts of existence - so that the only question remaining is whether its revenues should be publicly or privately enjoyed. Landowners do not pay themselves rent, Roy. They don't "pocket their rents", because those rents DO NOT EXIST as expenses. That is the advantage of paying off a mortgage. No more rent. They don't have that need, so it would be silly. They would be shuffling numbers from one side of a ledger and back to the other, putting money from their right pocket into their left, with no net payment of any kind. Free of rent.

The company that has more expenses, like rent, inefficiency and waste, insurance, interest, legal fees, repairs, supplies, taxes, etc., can be at a decided disadvantage from ALL OF THESE expenses, because it won't have as much profit margin to play with. If I fire my lawyer I don't "pocket the lawyers fees". Those fees that otherwise would have been paid just don't leave my pocket to begin with! I am not "pocketing" what I was "otherwise at liberty to pay". When I decide not to spend a million dollars, I don't "pocket" a million dollars. Assuming I had that money to begin with, it would just stay in my pocket. Every business that is running in the black that cuts one of these expenses gains the ability to either cut prices or pocket the profit.

In accounting terms, Rent is an expense, Roy. Part of overhead cost. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether what they received (or not) in return for these expenses was advantageous or not is incidental.

 

[Roy L]

And I, of course, disagree and say it is not aggression nor oppression.

But objectively, it self-evidently and indisputably is.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree!

Right. I don't agree with you that forcibly robbing and enslaving people can be a right, and neither of us is willing to consider that we might be wrong.