What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

I agree. I remember being uneasy about Medina wanting to replace a property tax with a sales tax, as though property taxes were uniquely bad in a way that sales taxes weren't. But most people around here seemed to agree with her reasoning.

Advocacy of reduced property taxes is a reliable indicator of dishonesty. Reducing property tax rates simply increases the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners. The effect this has had in California since Proposition 13 passed in 1978 is too obvious to require explanation. Prop 13 has proven to be the greatest public policy blunder committed by any state since the Civil War.

 

[wizardwatson]

I agree. I remember being uneasy about Medina wanting to replace a property tax with a sales tax, as though property taxes were uniquely bad in a way that sales taxes weren't. But most people around here seemed to agree with her reasoning.

Yeah, consumption tax doesn't make sense to me.

A wealth tax seems to me the easiest way to do it. The total net worth of households in US is around 50 Trillion. If we could shrink federal government back to what the budget was in 2003 (approx. 2.5 trillion) that would mean a yearly wealth tax of 5%. Sounds good to me.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Doesn't sound fun to me,

The errors of Hans-Herman Hoppe
Or take the famous paragraph from his Democracy book: “There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.”

Does to me! The nice thing about freedom is that it will allow those who do think that hedonism, nature-worship, homosexuality, etc. are feasible elements to base a successful society on will be free to buy up land and have their way of life as well. Amish Paradise, Greenwich Village (anything goes), Gay City, and Family-First Traditional Land can all exist in peace and may the most successful society win!

 

[Dr.3D]

Gold ore in the ground is land. The gold people use is a product of labor and thus rightly property.

All the good land is certainly taken.

"Why, you are not a slave, Uncle Tom! You are at liberty to go out and earn money to buy your freedom any time you like!"

Sorry, but being nominally "at liberty" to buy your right to liberty is not the same as actually having a right to liberty.

Except landowners....?

The way people rightly pay to live on this planet is by labor: using what nature provided to produce what they need to sustain themselves. Please explain why they should have to pay a landowner for doing nothing in order to have the liberty to sustain themselves by their own labor.

Rights are something people have WITHOUT having to pay for them. If you have to pay to exercise your right to liberty, you are a slave.

The original owner didn't. He got it by stealing it from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it.

Wrong again. People lived on the land for thousands of years without seed and implements. People can survive without paying others for the opportunity. But they can't survive without access to land.

I can see why people have to work to provide a livelihood for themselves. But, explain for me again why they should also have to work to provide a livelihood to idle landowners.

Like a landowner, you mean.

How will they work for a living without access to land?

Unlike commodities, land is not a product of labor. Please try to find a willingness to know that fact.

?? ROTFL! "I am not keeping your liberty from you, Uncle Tom. You need only work to get money to buy it from me!"

Of course you do know there are other jobs besides farming right?

When I first started out, I didn't own any land, I rented. I went to work in a factory and earned money. I save the money and finally had enough to make a down payment on a mortgage to buy a piece of land with a house on it. I then worked another 30 years to pay off the mortgage.

Good luck at going back to the way it was here before white man came to this continent. Of course back then, there were tribal wars in years when game became scarce. There was also a lot fewer people on this continent at the time too. If everyone who is on this continent were to try to live like the native Americans did, there would be mass starvation and fighting like you never saw before.

You have to pull your own load through life. Nobody is going to give you a free ride.

 

[osan]

It is private appropriation of land that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Land value taxation redresses that theft.

Because you say so? You will have to do a whole lot better than that.

When has that ever happened? We see this claim over and over again, but where is the documented case? People who can't afford their property taxes just sell and move to a less affluent neighborhood. It's not rocket science.

What planet are you on? Bizarro? Do a search for tax lien sales - thousands of property tax sales every year. Those people lose the properties. Read the law.

If you were really concerned about people losing their homes, you would support HIGHER property taxes.

Your powers of reason are truly staggering.

The proof is in California, which passed Proposition 13 for the purported purpose of ensuring people would not lose their homes. But what happened? Lower and relentlessly declining property taxes inflated a huge housing bubble; so now, instead of a handful of Californians each year deciding to sell up for a nice profit and move, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Californians really are LOSING their homes, and their savings, and have been financially destroyed.

I don't know what you are smoking, but you need to stop. I was living in CA when 13 passed. Properties were already well on the way up for years before it passed.

Then you support anarchy. How's that Somalia thing workin' for ya?

Is that the best you have? Really? Nothing more?

Sad.

 

[Roy L]

I'm not sure where I said this. Can you provide the quote?

You said it more as a rhetorical question, in post #114:

"Do you really believe that there are no circumstances where I, by natural law, can claim some plot of ground as specially mine to the exclusion of others?"

Is that not what Crusoe could do, and tell Friday to get back in the water?

OK. So then why did you mention Robinson Crusoe?

I was alluding to post #100.

The home occupied land. All homes do.

So do cars. So do people's feet. So...? The only relevant fact about homes is that they are normally FIXED to the land and can't easily be moved to another location.

You keep saying I'm changing the subject. Is there some reason you are so zealously avoiding any question about owning homes? Seems like it might be something you recognize as a weak spot.

How could it be a weak spot? Homes are not land. Why do you keep trying to change the subject from land to homes?

Who? I want to read more about these people.

I already told you: people who lived as hunter-gatherers, before any land was ever appropriated as private property. But you do not want to read about them, so don't pretend you do. You refuse even to know the fact that all land was once unowned.

Can you tell me about any specific ones, along with primary sources I can read that describe how they lived?

?? There are any number of primary sources on e.g., aboriginal Americans, as you know very well. Here are a few:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/indiancaptivitynarratives/a/indian_captivity_narratives_3.htm

I admit that I haven't asked any squatters about this.

And you won't, because you already know that I am right.

But if I were to be a squatter, one of the things I would use the walls of the house I'm squatting in would be to keep other people out of it. Do you have a reason to think otherwise?

The walls didn't keep YOU out, did they?

How do I determine which of the 6 billion people on the planet count as ones who could actually use the land?

You don't have to. Government administers possession and use of land, and has no such authority outside its borders.

 

[Seraphim]

This post takes the cake for most retarted statement to ever hit these forums.

Gold does not get its value from government and society. Land does. Try to find a willingness to know that fact.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

What could make it "your" asteroid, other than your having stolen it (with or without government's help) from everyone else who would otherwise be at liberty to use it?

Ding, Ding, Ding! Looter exposed. Now let's see if BillG will come back and also advocate theft.

And Smith certainly appears to have been right.

Oh yeah, obviously. That's why all our wages have been inexorably pushed down to subsistence levels, the richest men in the world are all landlords, and we're all dying in the streets from their rampant exploitation.

The state tilts the playing field by giving landowners their privilege of parasitism. The state can therefore level the playing field by rescinding it.

Private property in land happens in the absence of the state. Historically, repeatedly. So.... yeah. Kind of baffling, that, eh?

But Marx was clearly wrong, as unlike ownership of land, ownership of capital (in the economic, not the accounting sense) rarely results in significant accumulation of wealth.

Those poor paupers the Rockefellers. If only John would've been smart and gone into land speculation!

Right. The difference being that capitalists contribute to production while landowners do not.

Oh, yeah, definitely. Allocating scarce land, making sure land is arranged and divvied up according to it's highest productive use? Coming and fixing the plumbing when it breaks? These guys are completely worthless! Kill the bums! Spill their blood! Kill the bums! Spill their blood!

There is no such thing as a "Marxo-georgist."

Sure there is. You just advocate smashing both landlords and capitalists. Pretty simple. There's plenty of people who are all for this program of smashing.

 

[erowe1]

Is that not what Crusoe could do, and tell Friday to get back in the water?

No. By the reasoning I used in that quote, Crusoe could only exclude Friday from the land he was using, such as his home and garden.

So do cars. So do people's feet. So...? The only relevant fact about homes is that they are normally FIXED to the land and can't easily be moved to another location.

I don't see how that is a relevant fact. You're right, I could also have mentioned one's ownership of one's own car or feet as a way of making the same argument. To say that a person has no right to exclude others from any land is not only to prohibit the ownership of land, but also of houses, cars, and feet.

How could it be a weak spot? Homes are not land. Why do you keep trying to change the subject from land to homes?

If it's not a weak spot then why not just answer the question? If you have an answer then you could have spared yourself 4 or 5 times of saying something about how you think I'm changing the subject just by saying whatever your answer is.

I already told you: people who lived as hunter-gatherers, before any land was ever appropriated as private property. But you do not want to read about them, so don't pretend you do. You refuse even to know the fact that all land was once unowned.

I have read about people who lived as hunters and gatherers, but only ones that believed in owning property. What are some specific ones that didn't? Do you know of any at all?

?? There are any number of primary sources on e.g., aboriginal Americans, as you know very well. Here are a few:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/indiancaptivitynarratives/a/indian_captivity_narratives_3.htm

Which of those sources talk about how they didn't own land?

The walls didn't keep YOU out, did they?

Apparently not in the hypothetical you're making up. No. But so what? Do squatters not use walls the way the rest of us do? Do you imagine squatters saying to themselves, "Since I'm a squatter, I must not believe in owning land. Therefore, I won't lock this door."?

You don't have to. Government administers possession and use of land, and has no such authority outside its borders.

Where does this group of people you call "government" get any authority at all? Who sets these borders and tells some group of people that you're calling "government" that they own all the land in those borders and have a right to charge taxes to anyone else to use it? And how does this government's ownership of all that land not violate the anti-land ownership dictum you say you believe in?

 

[redbluepill]

There has never been any such thing as a free market wherein people can buy or own land, and there never can be. Owning land is inherently a privilege of violating others' rights to liberty -- a welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner -- and by definition, no such privilege can exist in a free market.

Only a corrupt government can possibly privilege anyone to buy or own land, as proved above.

Bingo. Property in land inherently violates people's rights to liberty, so the only way to stop government from applying ever greater violence and force for the benefit of landowners is to require landowners to repay more of what they take from society with government's help. That is what LVT does.

*Thumbs up*

 

[redbluepill]

I said, high birth rate. That's the scenario, love it or leave it. Are you going to force me to pay land tax in exchange for the "privilege" of keeping the asteroid monopolized all to myself and the teeming rock-less hordes at bay? Also, are you BillG?

There would never be such a high birth rate, especially since people would probably be living in spaceships anyways under your scenario. If you want to claim a section of outerspace and not allow people to go through your part of space without paying a toll then yeah I think that's a bit ludicrous.

But to humor you lets assume there was such a population of humans in outer space. You have no more right to claim the asteroid as 'yours' anymore than you did on Earth. As Thomas Paine said, "There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity on any part of it."

What do you think of the scenario of the astronaut crashlanding on someone's asteroid? What about the island scenario I posted?

No idea who BillG is. This is the only username I've ever used on this site.

 

[redbluepill]

Some people take both paths, becoming Marxo-georgists.

Type in 'Marxo-georgist' in Google and no links pop up. Marxism and Georgism are nowhere close to being the same. Henry George referred to Marx as the king of all muddleheads. Marx considered George's ideas as 'capitalism's last ditch'. Unlike Marx, George vehemently opposed collectivism and strongly supported the free market.

 

[Athan]

The tax penalizes and discourages home beautification and estate growth. A young couple that suddenly needs to make room for children tend to decide not to add improvements to the home as it will increase their taxes. Further, well maintained homes and neighborhoods are the ones that deal with higher tax values. While those who allow their homes to be run down and go without maintenance are rewarded with less taxes due to their homes of "lower value".

I used to be a real estate appraiser. I have seen the system personally from the inside and on the ground. Anyone who is against such a system should be aware that Debra Medina has created the website "We Texans" to combat this form of tax.

 

[Seraphim]

A sympton of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Don't tell the Marxist Commies though - they may start twitching and frothing at the mouth as they know deep down inside their philosophy is writ with illogical nonsense, denies human nature and extends power to a select few to "bitchify" the rest of us.

You and I will always be wrong though (to them) as we are not the type to stand idly by while a few ideologues make claims that it is FOR ZE GRETA GOOD!!!!

Nazi/communist/socialist ideology needs to be systematically destroyed. It is our only hope. If these ideas are allowed to permeate unchallenged, we will continue to feed on our own host (OURSELEVES).

To deny property rights (INCLUDING LAND) is to deny humanity any chance of peace and longstanding survival (that we can control...I.e, excluding an asteroid).

The tax penalizes and discourages home beautification and estate growth. A young couple that suddenly needs to make room for children tend to decide not to add improvements to the home as it will increase their taxes. Further, well maintained homes and neighborhoods are the ones that deal with higher tax values. While those who allow their homes to be run down and go without maintenance are rewarded with less taxes due to their homes of "lower value".

I used to be a real estate appraiser. I have seen the system personally from the inside and on the ground. Anyone who is against such a system should be aware that Debra Medina has created the website "We Texans" to combat this form of tax.

 

[redbluepill]

The tax penalizes and discourages home beautification and estate growth. A young couple that suddenly needs to make room for children tend to decide not to add improvements to the home as it will increase their taxes. Further, well maintained homes and neighborhoods are the ones that deal with higher tax values. While those who allow their homes to be run down and go without maintenance are rewarded with less taxes due to their homes of "lower value".

I used to be a real estate appraiser. I have seen the system personally from the inside and on the ground. Anyone who is against such a system should be aware that Debra Medina has created the website "We Texans" to combat this form of tax.

You have clearly not read anything on what the land value tax is. If you did you would know that adding improvements to the land you occupy would not increase the tax you have to pay.

 

[redbluepill]

A sympton of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Don't tell the Marxist Commies though - they may start twitching and frothing at the mouth as they know deep down inside their philosophy is writ with illogical nonsense, denies human nature and extends power to a select few to "bitchify" the rest of us.

You and I will always be wrong though (to them) as we are not the type to stand idly by while a few ideologues make claims that it is FOR ZE GRETA GOOD!!!!

Nazi/communist/socialist ideology needs to be systematically destroyed. It is our only hope. If these ideas are allowed to permeate unchallenged, we will continue to feed on our own host (OURSELEVES).

To deny property rights (INCLUDING LAND) is to deny humanity any chance of peace and longstanding survival (that we can control...I.e, excluding an asteroid).

Are you including Frank Chodorov, Adam Smith, John Locke, David Nolan, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Jay Nock, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, David Ricardo... (and I could keep going) as some of those "marxist-commies"?

 

[Seraphim]

You seem to believe that land cannot be owned - these people most certainly believed in land as property.

Are you including Frank Chodorov, Adam Smith, John Locke, David Nolan, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Jay Nock, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, David Ricardo... (and I could keep going) as some of those "marxist-commies"?

 

[LibForestPaul]

It is private appropriation of land that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Land value taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of mineral resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Mineral resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of food stuff that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Food stuff resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of well water resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Well water resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of solar energy resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Solar energy resource taxation redresses that theft.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

You have no more right to claim the asteroid as 'yours' anymore than you did on Earth.

Ding, Ding, Ding! Looter exposed.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

It is private appropriation of mineral resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Mineral resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of food stuff that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Food stuff resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of well water resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Well water resource taxation redresses that theft.

It is private appropriation of solar energy resources that is theft and therefore criminal in nature, as it forcibly deprives others of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Solar energy resource taxation redresses that theft.

Bin-go.

Georgism is such a backwards agrarian philosophy (invented by a guy who was just bitter because he was never rich and landowners were as easy to blame as anyone else. The whole thing is just an elaborate excuse for his failure in life). If some matter must kept sacred as the Perpetual Common Heritage of All Mankind [SUP](TM)[/SUP], why allow other matter to slip into the evil grasping hands of Private Interests (shudder)? Why is a field of oats unproperty while a couch is property? Oh, one is raw and elemental, the other is manufactured. OK, fine. What about a rock? Why can a rock be property? What about new land created with big dykes, as in the Netherlands. Why can a boat be property but not a manufactured island? What if I carved a big chunk out of the earth and launched it up into space to create a manufactured asteroid. Then it would be created with labor, like a boat or like a gold coin extracted from the Earth. Would the manufactured asteroid then be ownable? The whole thing is utterly devoid of any consistency. I believe in consistency. Georgism fails the consistency test.