What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[helmuth_hubener]

No one here claims the land should be owned by the government. No one here claims the government should confiscate land.

Henry George does. You guys, his disciples, basically do too. Taxing the land at the confiscatory rate you advocate is essentially seizure by what St. Henry (patron Saint of Envy) thought would be a more politically feasible guise.

 

[Roy L]

Nice nonsensical fallacy of composition on your part, Roy.

Uh, that's YOUR fallacy, Steven:

I didn't anthropomorphize a building, because that truly would be absurd (to even think of it). The state capital building is not the state. It is just a building. And I didn't claim the state could be anthropomorphized because it was created by humans, but rather because it was comprised of humans.

See?

What do you think a state is, Roy? It is nothing but a collection of people.

Wrong. A state is a geographically bounded society under unitary political administration. So it includes not only people but land and institutions.

People who act. That's it! All the rest is stuff and fluff and bother. All human collectives, including a "state", can rightly be anthropomorphized because they are comprised of humans - the very "anthro" of anthropomorphism.

That's the fallacy of composition.

Oh yeah? When you vote for a politician to represent you in the state, you "entrust" that politician - else it wouldn't get your vote. And even though I "entrust" a politician with my vote, that does not necessarily mean that I "trust" that politician (that person who runs that part of "the state"). I am usually voting for what I consider the lesser of evils in most elections.

But to the extent that you are placing trust by voting for a politician, it is in a person, not the state. Even when you vote on a referendum, your trust is in those determining and administering the result, not in the state.

My conception of a state, and why trust is a concept which very much applies to all of them, is dead on the mark and fits with reality. The fact that you believe otherwise is fascinating to me, as it causes me to wonder what kind of bizarre concept you have about what states really are.

States are neither politicians nor appointed officials nor their populations.

Likewise the non-Marxist but every bit as socialist geoists,

No, you are just lying again, Steven. You know that geoists oppose collective ownership of products of labor (capital). You are just lying about it.

who also desire unearned wealth or power

No, you are lying, Steven. LYING. It is indisputably the landowner who both desires and obtains unearned wealth and power under the CURRENT system, and it is the apologist for landowner privilege who rationalizes and justifies this redistribution of wealth and power to landowners in return for zero (0) contribution. The geoist, by contrast, is totally committed to wealth and power going only to those who have earned them by commensurate productive contribution.

by simply redefining ownership and fabricating prior claims of liberty with regard to certain kinds of wealth

As the abolitionists did regarding slavery...? There is nothing "fabricated" about the fact that all people are naturally at liberty to use what nature provided, Steven. It is self-evident and indisputable. Apologists for slavery tried to pretend property in slaves was rightful and its abolition would be immoral and disastrous:

“When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. Worse than all, private property was to be invaded (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects.”

–Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850

But we now know that the exact opposite was the case. And though apologists for landowning likewise try to pretend that property in land is rightful, and its abolition would be immoral and disastrous, I have proved the exact opposite is the case.

- flipping definitions such that a landowner becomes a thief,

I have proved irrefutably that the landowner is a thief, and no flipping of definitions is involved, so stop lying:

THE BANDIT

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them. The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force. How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?

and a would be thief becomes a collective landowner

No, that's another lie from you. He simply has his natural right to liberty restored, and is justly compensated for its forcible violation by landowners.

- the landownership essence of which is negated and dismissed through philosophical sophistry and etymological sleight-of-hand,

Lies.

which changes the very definitions of owner and ownership, such that land becomes not owned, but "unownable", even when it is collectively something-which-shall-be-called-other-than-owned.

Is the earth's atmosphere or the ocean owned? Is it ownable? Does government administer its use to safeguard the equal rights of all? Why could not similar logic apply to land?

 

[Roy L]

Right, he did! Labored hard to get it, that is.

No, he didn't. He mainly profited from government-issued and -enforced privileges.

Change your word "on" to "for". He had to earn a lot of wealth to be able to trade for all that land.

And change your word "land" to "slaves," and the irrelevance of his having "traded" for it is made clear: trading for something that was never rightly property in the first place cannot make it rightly your property.

Now he was not the original homesteader, of course, which is what we were talking about, but hey, I'm easy! Move the goal posts all you want, I'll roll with it.

Your evidence that the "original homesteaders" of that land did not obtain it through the forcible dispossession of its previous occupants, as historical fact plainly shows?

Thought not.

 

[Roy L]

No one here claims the land should be owned by the government.

True, although legal formulas might require something of the sort if there can't be a land trust administered by government.

No one here claims the government should confiscate land.

IMO it would be more accurate to say no one here claims the government should nationalize land. I definitely claim government should confiscate land from those who do not justly compensate those whom they deprive of it.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Your evidence that the "original homesteaders" of that land did not obtain it through the forcible dispossession of its previous occupants, as historical fact plainly shows?

Thought not.

The Mormons didn't. I'll bet Turner owns at least some land in Utah, Idaho, or Arizona.

 

[Roy L]

The Mormons didn't.

Which Mormons? Where?

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Which Mormons? Where?

Any Mormons. Anywhere. But we're talking about the American West, the settling of which the Mormons played a big part in.

 

[Steven Douglas]

No one here claims the land should be owned by the government. No one here claims the government should confiscate land.

No, just the rent value in the form of a perpetual confiscatory tax on land rents.*

Yeah, you just redefine terms, and what you wrote becomes true. Abolish all "propertarian" language, so that all the force and effect of public/collective landownership exists, but is referred to as something else, such that a rose any other name magically becomes something else entirely. No more "landownership", and no "confiscation", because that would imply that "ownership" was even possible. With that verbal slight of hand, you're in like Flynn. But you're not really "confiscating" value -- so much as "recovering value" that was otherwise confiscated by the "exclusive landholder", who interfered with everyone's natural liberty right to equal use of that same land, which value must be compensated to the collectivized landlord-which-shall-not-be-referred-to-as-a-landowner.

Yeah, there is no government-owned land and no confiscation that I can see, besides a geo-liberation of lands, and a confiscatory tax on land rents*, and a return of value to all community and state comrades who contributed value to the land, and therefore have a self-evident, just, rightful, indisputable and equal claim in common.

* Geoist/LVT Propoenents, and Henry George theorem author Richard Arnott, along with Kenneth Arrow, Anthony B. Atkinson and Jacques H. Dreze, editors, Public Economics: Selected Papers by William Vickrey. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

From the introduction to the section on Urban Economics, p. 336.:

"One of the most celebrated results in urban economics is the Henry George Theorem. The best-known variant of the Theorem states that in a city of optimal population size, where the source of agglomeration is a localized pure public good, urban (differential) land rents equal expenditure on the public good. Thus, a confiscatory tax on land rents is the single tax necessary to finance the public good."

 

[Steven Douglas]

Wrong. A state is a geographically bounded society under unitary political administration. So it includes not only people but land and institutions.

You committed the fallacy of composition by pointing to objects not in question or at issue, ignoring those which are at issue, and judging the whole based on those select factors alone.

A) The parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
B) Therefore the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C.

"I don't trust the state."
A. States are made up of things that include geographical boundaries, land, and buildings, for which the concept of trust does not apply.
C. Therefore, the concept of trust does not apply to the state.

"The gunman shot me with a bullet."
A. The gunman wore jeans.
B. Jeans are incapable of shooting bullets.
C. Therefore, the gunman was incapable of shooting bullets.

I pointed to the only parts for which I do have a problem. You committed the fallacy of composition (and simultaneous red herring) by throwing up parts of the composition which are not at issue. You are the one who wants to say that "[The state] includes not only people but land and institutions..." so as to draw attention away from the people - for which trust is very much at issue.

That's the fallacy of composition, Roy. And it's all yours.

But to the extent that you are placing trust by voting for a politician, it is in a person, not the state. Even when you vote on a referendum, your trust is in those determining and administering the result, not in the state.

Yeah, and the Constitution has a clause which was supposed to "determine and administer" the result of "No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."

It's just a document, after all. An inanimate object with mere words scribbled thereon -- supposedly The Law of the Land, and an integral part of "the state". How is that one working out for us? Does trust apply there, Roy? Is there any trust betrayed there that you can see? Why is that not being followed? Was it due to improper geographical boundaries, or did it perhaps have something to do with building construction? Or, could it, perhaps, have had something to do with that little, insignificant part of the state that you want to ignore, referred to as "unitary political administration" (aka PEOPLE ACTING)?

States are neither politicians nor appointed officials nor their populations.

Again with a variation on the composition fallacy, and also a flagrant self-contradiction.

YOU:
1. States include not only people but land and institutions.
2. States are neither politicians (people) nor appointed officials (people) nor their populations (people).

Ergo, as a tautology, and according to you, Roy: States are not people, but states include (are comprised of) people.

Hmm...OK. As long as we are clarifying, it's the people running the state that I have a problem with, as they have proved, historically and in my humble personal estimation, to be COMPLETELY UNTRUSTWORTHY ON THE WHOLE. Not the buildings. Not the geographical boundaries or lands they describe. Just THE PEOPLE in the state - the vast majority of them. Not the barrel itself - just the hundreds of rotten apples that have cycled in and out of that barrel since long before I was born. But meeza lubs barrels, and meeza lubs fresh apples.

You want the state to take on magical properties by way of composition, as we meld the constituent parts together as a composition, in such a way that it takes on characteristics that can no longer be examined individually.

Likewise the non-Marxist but every bit as socialist geoists,

No, you are just lying again, Steven. You know that geoists oppose collective ownership of products of labor (capital). You are just lying about it.

I said "non-Marxist", Roy, what more do you want? I didn't say a thing about labor, or the rationale or mechanism used by a collectivist who looks to redistribute wealth for the good of the whole. I just lumped your ideology in as a variation on socialism, in much the same way that I see fascism and socialism, not as opposites, but having too much in common with each other - despite their diametrically opposed reasoning and mechanisms.

There is nothing "fabricated" about the fact that all people are naturally at liberty to use what nature provided, Steven. It is self-evident and indisputable.

By that same logic, I am every bit as much "naturally at liberty" (self-evidently and indisputably, no less) to apply that to some of your personal wealth. It does not matter whether it is right or wrong in anyone's mind. If we both spy the same chunk of gold on the ground, but you beat me to it and pick it up first - I am as "naturally at liberty" to use that chunk of gold as you are. I would also be "otherwise at liberty" to find and use that same gold had you not existed. You want land to be somehow special, the lone exception to the rule, and for your own narrow reasons.

I have proved irrefutably that the landowner is a thief, and no flipping of definitions is involved, so stop lying:

You did nothing of the sort. You used verbal slight of hand to make would-be thieves owners, and owners thieves. That's all you did, Roy.

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Yes, even when that thief promises to share the loot with every other parasite who inhabits that mountain pass, and even when that thief wears a badge and steals on behalf of everyone under color of law. A consortium of thieves are still filthy rotten thieves nonetheless, right down to each individual who accepts stolen goods.

Is the earth's atmosphere or the ocean owned? Is it ownable? Does government administer its use to safeguard the equal rights of all? Why could not similar logic apply to land?

Non-sequitur. If the state could (and it is trying) it would behave every bit as much as the AIRLORD and OCEANLORD (and I wouldn't put it past them to want to be SUNLORDS and SPACELORDS if they thought they could get away with it), as you want it to act as a LANDLORD - collecting rents for which none is due. A carbon tax is an example of AIR RENT collected from the AIRLORD. Not as an "administrator". That's your disingenuous, intellectually dishonest, anti-propertarian sleight-of-hand double-talk for COLLECTIVE OWNER.

 

[Roy L]

St. Henry (patron Saint of Envy)

Evil, despicable filth.

One of the most evil moral crimes any human being can commit is to accuse those who oppose injustice of envy for its beneficiaries. For an apologist for landowner privilege to accuse geoists of envy for landowners is as deeply evil as it was for apologists for slavery to accuse the abolitionists of envy for slave owners. The evil of such an act is so staggering, so monumental, so utterly satanic, that one can almost smell the reek of sulfur through the computer monitor when reading the words.

 

[Roy L]

You committed the fallacy of composition by pointing to objects not in question or at issue, ignoring those which are at issue, and judging the whole based on those select factors alone.

Lie.

A) The parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
B) Therefore the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C.

"I don't trust the state."
A. States are made up of things that include geographical boundaries, land, and buildings, for which the concept of trust does not apply.
C. Therefore, the concept of trust does not apply to the state.

"The gunman shot me with a bullet."
A. The gunman wore jeans.
B. Jeans are incapable of shooting bullets.
C. Therefore, the gunman was incapable of shooting bullets.

I pointed to the only parts for which I do have a problem. You committed the fallacy of composition (and simultaneous red herring) by throwing up parts of the composition which are not at issue. You are the one who wants to say that "[The state] includes not only people but land and institutions..." so as to draw attention away from the people - for which trust is very much at issue.

That's the fallacy of composition, Roy. And it's all yours.

ROTFL!! No, it isn't the fallacy of composition, you indisputably don't know any logic and probably never will, and your above attempt to pretend to talk about logic is laughable gibberish so inane I can't even figure out what it means.

Yeah, and the Constitution has a clause which was supposed to "determine and administer" the result of "No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."

It's just a document, after all. An inanimate object with mere words scribbled thereon -- supposedly The Law of the Land, and an integral part of "the state". How is that one working out for us?

Pretty well, as these things go.

Does trust apply there, Roy? Is there any trust betrayed there that you can see?

Yes, and it started with a Constitution written specifically to relieve landowners of the rightful burden of taxation the Articles of Confederation laid on them.

Why is that not being followed?

That would not redound to the unearned profit of the privileged, especially landowners.

Was it due to improper geographical boundaries, or did it perhaps have something to do with building construction? Or, could it, perhaps, have had something to do with that little, insignificant part of the state that you want to ignore, referred to as "unitary political administration" (aka PEOPLE ACTING)?

It has to do with increasing the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.

Again with a variation on the composition fallacy, and also a flagrant self-contradiction.

YOU:
1. States include not only people but land and institutions.
2. States are neither politicians (people) nor appointed officials (people) nor their populations (people).

Ergo, as a tautology, and according to you, Roy: States are not people, but states include (are comprised of) people.

?? Just as people are not blood, but include blood. Sounds right to me.

Hmm...OK. As long as we are clarifying, it's the people running the state that I have a problem with, as they have proved, historically and in my humble personal estimation, to be COMPLETELY UNTRUSTWORTHY ON THE WHOLE.

Because unlike an LVT state, those states were SET UP FROM THE OUTSET to do evil: to steal from the productive and give the loot to landowners.

Not the buildings. Not the geographical boundaries or lands they describe. Just THE PEOPLE in the state - the vast majority of them. Not the barrel itself - just the hundreds of rotten apples that have cycled in and out of that barrel since long before I was born. But meeza lubs barrels, and meeza lubs fresh apples.

You only blame innocent people for the evil effects of evil institutions because you love and serve evil, and prefer it to good.

You want the state to take on magical properties by way of composition, as we meld the constituent parts together as a composition, in such a way that it takes on characteristics that can no longer be examined individually.

Incomprehensible gibberish.

I said "non-Marxist", Roy, what more do you want?

I want you to stop lying.

I didn't say a thing about labor, or the rationale or mechanism used by a collectivist who looks to redistribute wealth for the good of the whole.

At least that would be better than redistributing it to a small, idle, greedy, privileged minority at the expense of the whole, as you advocate.

I just lumped your ideology in as a variation on socialism, in much the same way that I see fascism and socialism, not as opposites, but having too much in common with each other - despite their diametrically opposed reasoning and mechanisms.

IOW, you just say and believe anything, no matter how inane, fallacious, absurd, and dishonest, like any other lying propertarian sack of $#!+. Thought so.

By that same logic, I am every bit as much "naturally at liberty" (self-evidently and indisputably, no less) to apply that to some of your personal wealth.

No, that's a lie, as already proved many times. Without me, my personal wealth would not exist, so you would NOT naturally be at liberty to use it. Without me, the land, by contrast, would still exist and be available for use, and you WOULD naturally be at liberty to use it. You know this. Of course you do. The facts are self-evident and indisputable; but because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil, you have to refuse to know them.

It does not matter whether it is right or wrong in anyone's mind. If we both spy the same chunk of gold on the ground, but you beat me to it and pick it up first - I am as "naturally at liberty" to use that chunk of gold as you are.[/qutoe]
No, you are not. The natural opportunity no longer exists.

I would also be "otherwise at liberty" to find and use that same gold had you not existed.

Because the natural opportunity would still be there. Right.
[qutoe]You want land to be somehow special, the lone exception to the rule, and for your own narrow reasons.

Nonsense. It's people and the products of their labor that are special, and comprise a microscopic fraction of all that exists. Land is everything else, so it can hardly be called special. It is the property status of products of labor that is special. The rest of the universe is not property, and thus not special.

You did nothing of the sort.

I most certainly did. Stop lying.

You used verbal slight of hand to make would-be thieves owners, and owners thieves. That's all you did, Roy.

You are lying. There was no verbal sleight of hand. I simply identified facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil, so you have to refuse to know them.

Yes, even when that thief promises to share the loot with every other parasite who inhabits that mountain pass,

Why always spew stupid lies, Steven? The only parasite in the case is the guy who demands a portion of production without making any contribution to production: the bandit/toll taker/landowner. There isn't anyone else in the pass; and if there were, they wouldn't be parasites because they would be herding their sheep or milking their yaks or whatever other productive contribution they were making to earn a living, not robbing the caravans like the bandit/landowner.

You always have to spew stupid lies. ALWAYS.

and even when that thief wears a badge and steals on behalf of everyone under color of law.

Recovering value taken by thieves in return for nothing is not stealing, Steven. It is REDRESSING a theft. You are simply claiming, with disgraceful evil and dishonesty, that when peace officers wearing badges secure the human rights of all by recovering stolen property and returning it to its rightful owners, it is they who are the thieves, and not the actual thief who took what he never earned.

A consortium of thieves are still filthy rotten thieves nonetheless, right down to each individual who accepts stolen goods.

It is the landowner who is doing the stealing, Steven. I already proved that to you. People who band together to defend their rights to liberty against forcible, violent, coercive landowner aggression are not thieves. They are virtuous people defending liberty, justice and truth against evil, lying apologists for landowner privilege.

Non-sequitur. If the state could (and it is trying) it would behave every bit as much as the AIRLORD and OCEANLORD (and I wouldn't put it past them to want to be SUNLORDS and SPACELORDS if they thought they could get away with it),

But in fact, it clearly ISN'T trying. You're just makin' $#!+ up, as usual.

as you want it to act as a LANDLORD - collecting rents for which none is due.

The rent is most certainly due to the government and community that create it.

A carbon tax is an example of AIR RENT collected from the AIRLORD. Not as an "administrator". That's your disingenuous, intellectually dishonest, anti-propertarian sleight-of-hand double-talk for COLLECTIVE OWNER.

The atmosphere clearly can't be owned. You're talking idiotic propertarian rubbish.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Wow, just a litany of repeated blanket denials, and a continuance of your overriding fallacy from the beginning of this thread and throughout: argumentum ad nauseam, the logical fallacy that something will be true if repeated often enough.

...your above attempt to pretend to talk about logic is laughable gibberish so inane I can't even figure out what it means.

I know you can't, Roy. And it was fun for me too.

 

[redbluepill]

Right, he did! Labored hard to get it, that is. Change your word "on" to "for". He had to earn a lot of wealth to be able to trade for all that land.

Now he was not the original homesteader, of course, which is what we were talking about, but hey, I'm easy! Move the goal posts all you want, I'll roll with it.

And those homesteaders marked off large chunks of land for themselves with minimal to no work at all.


A right of property in movable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands not till after that establishment.... He who plants a field keeps possession of it till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated and their owner protected in his possession. Till then the property is in the body of the nation.

--Thomas Jefferson

 

[redbluepill]

Henry George does.

Give me a quote from George.

You guys, his disciples, basically do too.

Show me where I said that.

Taxing the land at the confiscatory rate you advocate is essentially seizure by what St. Henry (patron Saint of Envy) thought would be a more politically feasible guise.

No, Georgists do not advocates confiscation of land and eliminating basic natural rights... but you do.

 

[redbluepill]

Right, he did! Labored hard to get it, that is

No, he didn't. He mainly profited from government-issued and -enforced privileges.

Its a perfect quote for the 'vulgar libertarianism' Kevin Carson warns about.

 

[redbluepill]

True, although legal formulas might require something of the sort if there can't be a land trust administered by government.

IMO it would be more accurate to say no one here claims the government should nationalize land. I definitely claim government should confiscate land from those who do not justly compensate those whom they deprive of it.

My apologies if it appears I put words in your mouth. Believe me, I've debated this one in my head many times. This is how i currently see it: would confiscation through government force actually be necessary? If a landlord refused to pay the ground rent then the government simply has to stop enforcing his privilege and it becomes open for others to settle and use. If the landlord threatened or enacted force against new settlers then that is something that can be handled in the courts. I'm sure theres flaws to that idea but thats the conclusion I've made.

 

[redbluepill]

No, just the rent value in the form of a perpetual confiscatory tax on land rents.*

Yeah, you just redefine terms, and what you wrote becomes true. Abolish all "propertarian" language, so that all the force and effect of public/collective landownership exists, but is referred to as something else, such that a rose any other name magically becomes something else entirely.

I have not redefined any terms. Calling it 'rent' is perfectly acceptable terminology.

Many royal libertarians are perfectly comfortable with referring to land as 'capital' when it clearly is not.

Yeah, there is no government-owned land and no confiscation that I can see, besides a geo-liberation of lands, and a confiscatory tax on land rents*, and a return of value to all community and state comrades who contributed value to the land, and therefore have a self-evident, just, rightful, indisputable and equal claim in common.

State property and common property are not the same thing. In common property we all have inalienable rights. State property is controlled and distributed by the government. Georgists and classical liberals reject the right of the state to appropriate land as it sees fit. Royal libertarians are clearly okay with it because they recognize corporate and landlord privileges as 'legitimate'.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Give me a quote from George.

I begin to get inklings that you may never have actually read Henry George to apparently be unaware of his view on this, which he made so abundantly clear! So, satisfy my curiosity: what books by Henry George have you, redbluepill, actually read?

Anyway, here's one quote, pulled almost at random and with the greatest of ease, by myself, hardly a George scholar:

Deduction and induction have brought us to the same
truth: Unequal ownership of land causes unequal distribution
of wealth. And because unequal ownership of land
is inseperable from the recognition of individual property
in land, it necessarily follows that there is only one
remedy for the unjust distribution of wealth:

We must make land common property.

But this is a truth that will arouse the most bitter
antagonism, given the present state of society. It must
fight its way, inch by inch.​

Henry George obviously, blatantly, for his entire sorry career, advocated for the nationalization of land. He just thought that nationalizing it in the traditional way would be politically impractical, and thus his idea for a confiscatory land tax, to remove all benefits of ownership, and thus accomplish the same thing by different means, means which he felt would be more palatable to the British political establishment.

 

[Tim Calhoun]

I just finished reading every single post on this thread and, wow, I feel like shooting myself in the head. This Roy fellow is a blithering idiot if he really believes he has a right to use all land he wishes and that landowning deprives him on that liberty. The biggest flaw in his "plan" (if you can call such an idiocy that) is that he wants to transfer the landlord status from a private individual to a government who can only intervene into the market and coerce people through the threat of force. It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever seen. I swear Fire11 had more intelligent posts on this forum!

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I just finished reading every single post on this thread and, wow, I feel like shooting myself in the head.

Thank you, Mr. Calhoun, for joining us, and welcome to the Ron Paul forums.

The biggest flaw in his "plan" (if you can call such an idiocy that) is that he wants to transfer the landlord status from a private individual to a government who can only intervene into the market and coerce people through the threat of force. It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever seen.

Yep. LVT amounts to a massive centralization of landlord status. That's all it is, when it all boils down.

Roy's plan is to massively centralize landlord status, grabbing it away from millions of independent landlords and bestowing it instead on one continent-spanning hegemon: The American nation-state he knows and trusts so dearly.

Redbluepill's plan is to massively centralize landlord status, grabbing it away from millions of independent landlords and bestowing it instead on thousands of political entities which divvy up North America.

Redbluepill's plan is approximately ten thousand times better than Roy L.'s, but they're both pretty lousy. My millions of landlords are a thousand times superior to his thousands of landlords.

Decentralize! Dehegemonize! Detyrannize! These are the cries of the freedom-lover. The Georgists cry for the opposite. And they wonder why we just can't see the common ground.