What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

different states have different taxes. here in texas we have a statewide sales tax. i wanna say its 7.25% without looking it up, but it could be 8. why doesnt the federal gov't tax the state gov'ts directly instead of taxing the people in any form?

The newborn United States of America tried that under the Articles of Confederation: the states were to collect a land value tax from landowners and remit it to the federal government. But the big landowners refused to repay what they were being given, and threatened to start and finance a civil war if the states tried to recover it. So the Articles of Confederation were abolished, and a Constitution written to enable rich, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowners to rob everyone else, and ensure they would never be asked to repay what they stole.

 

[Zippyjuan]

different states have different taxes. here in texas we have a statewide sales tax. i wanna say its 7.25% without looking it up, but it could be 8. why doesnt the federal gov't tax the state gov'ts directly instead of taxing the people in any form?

Where did the State get its revenue? From taxing the people. Collecting it straight from the people simply eliminates the middle man of the states to have to collect it and forward the money to Washington. It doesn't change who pays the taxes.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

It is evident that your goal is to sacrifice the right to life on the altar of the Great God Property.

Of course this is just a complete lie.

You again dishonestly try to change the subject from land to products of labor. You don't have a right to live on someone else's shoulders, either. So? How does that extinguish your right to live wherever you want that isn't a human being or a product of human labor?

More stupid, evil lies.

That is an example of the absurdity that prepares to compel atrocities.

The only thing absurd that I see is the lengths you will go to lie in the face of plain truth.

Like all apologists for landowner privilege, you will do, say, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.

You are just so totally blind and brainwashed you are willing to spew whatever lies you think will enable you to continue in your delusions. This is just another one of those lies you use to shield you from the truth.

Humans must of course use parts of the universe to exist, same as any other life form. But forcibly violating others' rights by monopolizing or claiming to own what nature provided for all, by contrast, is NOT something inherent in human existence, but is rather the act of a greedy, evil, thieving parasite.

We see here yet another one of your lies. Will you never tire of your duplicity?

Only when greedy, evil, thieving parasites steal them from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them.

Obviously false, as I have proved conclusively upteen times in this thread.

Yes, well, slavery had its fans, too...

Yet another lie about what I have clearly written. You just refuse to understand plain English!

Right: you do not believe in equal human rights to life and liberty. You believe that those who are born too late to get in on the grabbing are rightly made the slaves of those who grabbed first.

And you lie yet again about what I believe, despite the fact I have clearly explained it many times to you.

Nope. Wrong. Commons only have tragedies when greedy, evil, thieving parasites forcibly violate others' rights by taking limited resources from the common without making just compensation to those whom they deprive of them. It's theft that has tragedies.

I am starting to think you are absolutely constitutionally incapable of telling the truth about anything.

Because you REFUSE to see the reasons, and when you can't refuse, you lie about them.

Once again, you write a stupid and evil lie.

See? See how quickly you have to try to change the subject from "land" to "property"? See how quickly you have to resort to lying that there is no difference between property in land and property in products of labor? It seems not even to be under your conscious control any more, but almost a form of incontinence.

You just keep piling lies upon lies! Stop while you're ahead... or... OK, too late for that, but at least before further embarrassing yourself.

The landless of the world are ALREADY in a bad situation, in the ABSENCE of any such collusion. Millions of them DIE from being stripped of their liberty to use land EVERY YEAR. Their remote ancestors had rights to liberty, and thus never had to labor for decades to fill the pockets of idle landowners and/or mortgage lenders just to have a space to exist in and the opportunity to work to sustain their own lives.

You tell one lie, it leads to another,
So you tell two lies, to cover each other.

So? How could that be relevant? It is also unlikely that all the electoral officers in a state would collude to keep a black man from casting his vote. Does that somehow make it not a violation of his rights if ANY of them do it?

Then you tell three lies, and -- oh, brother!
You're in trouble up to your ears.

No, that's just more stupid garbage from you. Friday's rights are being violated in any case. Maybe there is some unowned land Friday can live on -- but Crusoe owns the fresh water supply, so Friday is again enslaved. Or Crusoe owns the only land where food can be grown, so Friday is again enslaved. Or maybe there are one or two (or two million) other landowners on the island who are willing to let Friday work to feed himself -- for a price. It doesn't matter. Friday must use natural resources to live, to survive, and he has been stripped of his right to do so.

So you tell four lies, so folks won't suspect you,
Then you tell five lies, to try to protect you,

He is enslaved in effect, if not in law

Then you tell six lies, and, you collect
A life full of worries and fear.

No, that is just stupid garbage refuted above. It doesn't matter if one person owns all of it or many people merely own all the good and useful parts. The land market ACTS LIKE a monopoly because the supply is fixed. Each landowner can't do better than to pocket the full rent of the land, and that is the same if there is one landowner or a billion of them. Friday has been stripped of his right to liberty and must labor to feed a parasite or die, like the "freed" negro slaves of the American South -- who never got the mule, and for damn sure never got the forty acres.

More blind and reprehensible lies from our friend Roy L., a seemingly endless source of them.

If you were landless, and living in a country where the government had made no provision for your well-being through minimum wage laws, public education and health care, welfare and pension programs, etc., you might be singing a rather different tune -- if you were not already dead of poverty.

A complete and utter lie, from someone unwilling to understand the plain and simple words coming out of my keyboard.

The absurd scenario you concocted is not scary because it is absurd. The problem is not your absurd scenario but the ACTUAL CONDITIONS that landowner privilege has ALREADY CREATED. Why do you refuse to know the fact that where government has made no provision to save them from it, landlessness DOES condemn people to a condition effectively indistinguishable from slavery? Why do you refuse to know the fact that even where government HAS saved the landless from effective enslavement by landowners, the productive must pay taxes to government to fund services and infrastructure, and must then pay landowners full market value for access to the same services and infrastructure their taxes just paid for? Why do you refuse to know the fact that FREE people would never consent to labor for 30 or 40 years filling the pockets of idle, parasitic landowners and mortgage lenders just to have a space to exist in?

I find it amazing you can concentrate and amalgamate such a cacophony of lies in a single paragraph. Astounding!

No, that is just another stupid, evil lie from you. The land monopoly monster has ALREADY taken over everything, and the proof is staring you in the face: a people most of whose lives revolve around making their rent or mortgage payments, and most of the rest of whose lives revolve around trying to avoid paying the taxes that government gives to landowners. You just refuse to see it.

On the contrary, this is another sick and pathetic lie from you. You simply will not open your eyes to the reality hitting you in the face. You'd rather close your eyes tightly as you sit there and continue to get punched.

Because your collusion scenario is an absurdity that you made up.

This is a total lie. Try to follow the conversation for just a second.

That is EXACTLY what the state has done for landowners.

False. Lie. Seriously, is this the best you've got?

There can be no free market where a privileged group is subsidized by the forcible violation of everyone else's rights.

You have been reduced to merely repeating the same lies over and over and over again. It's quite sad, really. Are you a grown man? I hope for your sake not, for to see a grown man in such a impotent and irrational state would be tragic indeed.

Of course evil, greedy, privileged parasites do not fear privilege. Why would they? They are always too consumed with greed to notice the peril it constitutes until it is too late. History is unanimous on that score. The privileged will always prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than relinquish any material part of their privilege of taking from others and contributing nothing in return.

Obviously evil, greedy, grasping taxation advocates do not care about truth or justice. These looters are too deranged and foaming at the mouth with desire to steal the goods of others to care about anything else. They will resort to any absurdity, such as inventing an imaginary right of every infant to the entire Universe, in order to jsutify their mad thirst for theft and power, as well as their desparate need to escape full responsibility for their lives. They need a "safety net" to absolve them from the self-responsibility that so terrifies them. They are willing to lie and lie and lie until the world runs out of paper, their lungs run out of breath, or the forum runs out of pages.

Your stupidity is epic, your dishonesty as constant as the Polar Star. I have utterly demolished everything you have ever written and ever thought, yet you continue to insist on being stupid and lying. Why you are such a stupid liar, we may never know. It's a mystery and wonder of the modern world.


~~~


Wasn't that productive? What fun it must be to be Roy L.


~~~


Edit: This post is a parody, of course, in case anyone missed that. I do not actually think Roy L. is a liar, nor stupid.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

How did they lose their right to live wherever they want on the land [they didn't do anything to create]?

They never had any such right.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

The newborn United States of America tried that under the Articles of Confederation: the states were to collect a land value tax from landowners and remit it to the federal government. But the big landowners refused to repay what they were being given, and threatened to start and finance a civil war if the states tried to recover it. So the Articles of Confederation were abolished, and a Constitution written to enable rich, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowners to rob everyone else, and ensure they would never be asked to repay what they stole.

Having read the Articles of Confederation, I do not remember a Land Value Tax anywhere in that document. Could you quote the relevant section of the AoC? Thank you!

 

[helmuth_hubener]

So maybe it isn’t scary for you because you have not seen the truly devastating impact land-grabbing can have.

Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me. While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you. So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement. Would you agree?

You believe that in a free land market (according to my definition: private ownership and trading of land), large and powerful monopolies will arise. I, in contrast, believe no such monopolies will evince. If you did not believe monopolies would take over, you would be open to agreeing with the (non-geo)libertarians, perhaps?

But here’s my take on your ideal world: We remove government completely from the picture. If there is any government at all it is funded voluntarily. Corporations are free to do business as they please. This results in bigger/stronger corporations buying out the competition. Within a few decades (maybe several) you have oligarchies controlling almost every aspect of society. They are the land renters. And since there is practically no competition then they can charge high rent for the land you live on and pay you minimally for your labor. I may sound paranoid (hey, what libertarian is not? Haha), but this is not the ‘libertarian’ society I wish to live in. You only replace one master for another. As The Who song goes, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market. I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies. People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them. They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless. They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless. I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs. Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers. People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.

So I just don't share the concern about monopolies that you do.

Here’s my take on my ideal world: We remove income tax, capital/improvement tax, and any taxes that hinder entrepreneurship and productivity. Have government funded through a land value tax. Since the LVT (and the removal of all other taxes) encourage landholders to be productive with their land we see landholding and government become decentralized. Within a few decades we see hundreds (if not thousands) of small governments within what was once the United States. We will have more freedom to choose what society best suites our ideals. Libertarianism will finally take hold since poverty would be dramatically reduced (if not eliminated) and big government would become history.

You support decentralization! Secession! Wonderful. Your ideal North America, with thousands of independent governments, would be sensational. Would you go so far as to allow secession on even the neighborhood, family, and finally the individual level?

The nice thing about your plan is that it would "let a thousand flowers bloom", if you will. If Kalamazooistan decides they want to try not charging any land value tax and be voluntarist instead, they'd be free to try it, and I would be free to move there. And then we'd fail and the land monopolists would take over and totally dominate and oppress us, but hey, we gave it a shot! We wouldn't have failed miserably, we'd fail happily, following our crazy Rothbardian dreams.

 

[therealjjj77]

There is an inevitable problem with a property tax or income tax that places a tax on a human's right(s). You have an inherent right to own property as a sovereign and you have an inherent right to exchange your property(i.e. labor or time) for other things such as money. The power to tax is the power to destroy, or so the Supreme Court has said. Thus, the power to tax a thing, means that government can destroy it. Government ought to be instituted in a way to secure our rights, and not destroy them.

So how does government go about paying for the cost of securing our rights while not violating them? Simple. First, we need to identify the two threats to our rights:

1. Foreign

2. Domestic

How we pay for each of these is quite simple:

1. Foreign: The citizenry ought to be armed and ready to defend our nation and the compensation for such services rendered off the spoils acquired from the aggressor nation. When we are attacked, we don't just fend off attacks, but we decimate and plunder the aggressor nation recapturing the costs.

2. Domestic: The cost of domestic crime(violation of others rights, i.e. theft, murder, rape) is charged, upon prosecution by a jury, as a tax on a per instance basis to first reclaim the losses of the offended party and second to cover the costs of this domestic system that provides such protection and process. Terms of involuntary servitude until the costs are paid off are of option and in extreme cases of dangerous individuals, exile or execution can relieve society of the threat of recurrent abuses.

Problem solved, we're protected from without and within. The lower crime is, the smaller government is. However, no legislative fiat can make something a crime that is not a mala in se crime. (No crimes of mala prohibita.)

 

[redbluepill]

Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me. While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you. So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement. Would you agree?

In a lot of ways we share identical goals. We want decentralization of government and power. We want to be self-sufficient. But yes, it is the land that is central to our disagreement. The way I see it, if you control the land you are the government of that land, whether it be 1 acre or a thousand acres. Think about it, anyone who steps onto that land must have permission from the landlord. Anyone who settles on that land must pay a tax/rent to the owner. You must abide by the landlords rules/laws or you could be kicked out. Sounds like a government doesn't it? If we remove government before we enact land reforms I believe there will be a power vacuum that must be filled. That is why I worry about corporate monopolies. So yes, land monopolization (along with what constitutes a 'government') are the roots of our disagreement.

This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.

It is a common objection to the free market by the statist Left, but not geolibertarians and other left libertarians. We believe the free market is necessary for true liberty. Many of them, like Kevin Carson, oppose what they call capitalism but support the free market. This may seem like a contradiction but when they say capitalism they mean the very corporatism/state capitalism that nearly all libertarians oppose.

I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies. People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them. They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless. They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless. I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs. Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers. People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.

There's a saying that goes, "If I had all the land and you had all the money, how much do you think I charge you on your first night's rent?" Control the land, control the people. Yes, the consumer has a tremendous amount of influence over businesses, but that influence is dramatically reduced/eliminated under monopolies.

You support decentralization! Secession! Wonderful. Your ideal North America, with thousands of independent governments, would be sensational. Would you go so far as to allow secession on even the neighborhood, family, and finally the individual level?

The nice thing about your plan is that it would "let a thousand flowers bloom", if you will. If Kalamazooistan decides they want to try not charging any land value tax and be voluntarist instead, they'd be free to try it, and I would be free to move there. And then we'd fail and the land monopolists would take over and totally dominate and oppress us, but hey, we gave it a shot! We wouldn't have failed miserably, we'd fail happily, following our crazy Rothbardian dreams.

I believe when people see the impact of the LVT on communities it will be quickly adopted. Of course it has to start in the smaller communities because that is where the people have a bigger influence. The elites just have too much power in Washington to have such a reform pass.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

In a lot of ways we share identical goals.

Yes, we agree on many things and probably have the same pro-liberty outlook on life, we have just read different books and thus approach things from the perspective of different traditions. "You are what you read"!

There's a saying that goes, "If I had all the land and you had all the money, how much do you think I charge you on your first night's rent?" Control the land, control the people. Yes, the consumer has a tremendous amount of influence over businesses, but that influence is dramatically reduced/eliminated under monopolies.

Could you not make the same argument for "If you own all the water pipes..." or "If you own all the food" or, to a lesser extent, "If you own all the electricity companies", "If you own all the roads", "If you own all the grocery stores", "If you own all the housing developments", and "If you own all the car companies"? Food and water are just as essential to life as a place to stand. Water is not (usually) manufactured and thus is land, OK, but food is, as are the distribution systems for both. Shelter, electricity, and transportation are also essential to the continued survival of many, though not all, people. Yet you are not worried about a monopoly in grocery stores, right? The statist left worries about monopolies in all products, just as you say, but you worry only about land.

Yet, it would be far easier for me to become the only grocer in town than the only landowner in town. I could then charge whatever outrageous prices I wanted for my food, so the story goes -- even more so if I can become the only grocer in the whole state, forcing you to drive more and more unrealistic distances to have any hope of avoiding my high prices. I could probably buy every grocery store in Wyoming for only, oh I don't know, 1 billion dollars. All the land in Wyoming? I can't even guess. Maybe ten trillion.

Anyway, I understand that land (as in land-land, layman land, surface area of Earth land) has some qualities different than other goods, and that some of these qualities would seem to lend themselves to monopolization. However, as I've tried, ever so clumsily, in previous posts to express: there may be some gray area between "land" and "product of labor". Not conceptually, no, but practically. As more and more of the Earth becomes more and more dramatically altered to our liking by human intervention, at some point there's not anything left that's pure "land". Like terraforming, we will have altered and improved every square inch of the planet. So, when everything is an "improvement", when all soil has been enhanced, or moved from one place to another, or infused with nanobots, what's left that's in a "state of nature"? Nothing! Nothing except location, and yet-to-be discovered/made-useful abstractions. So at that point you're just taxing the square footage of the surface area of Earth. But if I build a huge blimp, or launch an asteroid as I described earlier, I can get around that, and that doesn't seem fair. Or can I? I'm still using up 3-dimensional space in the Universe. If technology progresses to the point where locations at the surface of the Earth are no longer so vastly more valuable than locations far separated from that surface, then does LVT start to be charged on a more 3-dimensional basis? If the space my blimp occupies is even more desirable and expensive than space in Manhattan, shouldn't I pay tax on that?

I'm still curious as to whether you'd go so far in decentralization to allow secession right down to the individual level.

 

[Roy L]

Of course this is just a complete lie.

More stupid, evil lies.

The only thing absurd that I see is the lengths you will go to lie in the face of plain truth.

You are just so totally blind and brainwashed you are willing to spew whatever lies you think will enable you to continue in your delusions. This is just another one of those lies you use to shield you from the truth.

We see here yet another one of your lies. Will you never tire of your duplicity?

Obviously false, as I have proved conclusively upteen times in this thread.

Yet another lie about what I have clearly written. You just refuse to understand plain English!

And you lie yet again about what I believe, despite the fact I have clearly explained it many times to you.

I am starting to think you are absolutely constitutionally incapable of telling the truth about anything.

Once again, you write a stupid and evil lie.

You just keep piling lies upon lies! Stop while you're ahead... or... OK, too late for that, but at least before further embarrassing yourself.

You tell one lie, it leads to another,
So you tell two lies, to cover each other.

Then you tell three lies, and -- oh, brother!
You're in trouble up to your ears.

So you tell four lies, so folks won't suspect you,
Then you tell five lies, to try to protect you,

Then you tell six lies, and, you collect
A life full of worries and fear.

More blind and reprehensible lies from our friend Roy L., a seemingly endless source of them.

A complete and utter lie, from someone unwilling to understand the plain and simple words coming out of my keyboard.

I find it amazing you can concentrate and amalgamate such a cacophony of lies in a single paragraph. Astounding!

On the contrary, this is another sick and pathetic lie from you. You simply will not open your eyes to the reality hitting you in the face. You'd rather close your eyes tightly as you sit there and continue to get punched.

This is a total lie. Try to follow the conversation for just a second.

False. Lie. Seriously, is this the best you've got?

You have been reduced to merely repeating the same lies over and over and over again. It's quite sad, really. Are you a grown man? I hope for your sake not, for to see a grown man in such a impotent and irrational state would be tragic indeed.

Content = 0. You have been demolished, you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.

Obviously evil, greedy, grasping taxation advocates do not care about truth or justice.

LVT advocates are not "taxation advocates," because we propose to abolish other taxes and reduce total taxation. This only becomes possible if the tax-funded welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners is reduced.

But thanks for proving you have nothing to say that isn't a lie.

These looters are too deranged and foaming at the mouth with desire to steal the goods of others to care about anything else.

Taxes go to government, not to the advocates of liberty, justice and truth who support LVT, so that is just another lie from you. It is landowners who actually ARE stealing the goods of others, as the bandit example proves.

They will resort to any absurdity, such as inventing an imaginary right of every infant to the entire Universe,

The right to liberty is not defined as "whatever landowners choose to permit others to do."

in order to jsutify their mad thirst for theft and power, as well as their desparate need to escape full responsibility for their lives.

It is self-evidently and indisputably the landowner who thirsts madly after power and unearned wealth, and lives by the labor of others.

They need a "safety net" to absolve them from the self-responsibility that so terrifies them.

LVT advocates are perhaps merely willing to know the fact that the poverty-stricken landless millions of Bangladesh, Haiti, the Philippines, Guatemala, Pakistan, etc., etc. did not get that way by not being self-responsible -- they work 60 hours a week and more, from the age of 10 -- but by being stripped of their rights without just compensation in the absence of a safety net.

They are willing to lie and lie and lie until the world runs out of paper, their lungs run out of breath, or the forum runs out of pages.

Your stupidity is epic, your dishonesty as constant as the Polar Star. I have utterly demolished everything you have ever written and ever thought, yet you continue to insist on being stupid and lying. Why you are such a stupid liar, we may never know. It's a mystery and wonder of the modern world.

<yawn>

Wasn't that productive?

No.

What fun it must be to be Roy L.

When I can suppress the nausea.

Edit: This post is a parody, of course, in case anyone missed that. I do not actually think Roy L. is a liar, nor stupid.

Wish I could say the same of you.

 

[Roy L]

They never had any such right.

Like the children of slaves never had a right to liberty...?

Before land was appropriated by thieves, who would have stopped people from living wherever they wanted?

 

[Roy L]

Having read the Articles of Confederation, I do not remember a Land Value Tax anywhere in that document. Could you quote the relevant section of the AoC? Thank you!

"Article VIII. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the united States in congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to the value of all land within each State, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the united States in congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint."

Now, first it says "the value of all land," then it says, "as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated," so it's not clear exactly what is meant by "land" or how it would be estimated. The remainder of the paragraph seems to indicate that the basis of valuation was not yet agreed at the time the Articles were written.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Content = 0.

That was, of course, the point of the joke. So much of your posts I see as just noise, Roy L. Now I generally believe in just ignoring the noise and replying to anything interesting or substantive. But at some point (after repetition #100 or so of the same vitriolic accusations) your behavior became a running gag.

You demolished Rothbard by placing a "ROTFL" or "<yawn>" after each of his paragraphs. Now you demolish me even easier, by simply stating it: "You have been demolished". I only dream that someday, my intellectual weight will become such that I, like Rothbard, will require a ROTFL or two in order to thoroughly refute my points.

I do thank you for looking up the AoC.

 

[Roy L]

There is an inevitable problem with a property tax or income tax that places a tax on a human's right(s).

You erroneously believe there is a human right to violate others' rights to liberty without making just compensation.

You have an inherent right to own property

In the products of your labor. Not in a privilege of violating others' rights.

as a sovereign

Does Crusoe have a right as a "sovereign" to order Friday to get back in the water? How can there be a right to violate others' rights?

and you have an inherent right to exchange your property(i.e. labor or time) for other things such as money.

Are you willing to know the fact that some property, such as slaves and land, has never rightly been property in the first place?

The power to tax is the power to destroy, or so the Supreme Court has said.

The Supreme Court is evidently unaware that taxing land does not cause erosion.

Thus, the power to tax a thing, means that government can destroy it.

Taxing a factor in fixed supply CANNOT destroy it: the supply is fixed.

Government ought to be instituted in a way to secure our rights, and not destroy them.

That is what land value taxation does. Any other tax inherently violates the rights of producers to provide a welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.

So how does government go about paying for the cost of securing our rights while not violating them? Simple.

Right: require those who benefit from government and the community to pay in proportion as they benefit.

First, we need to identify the two threats to our rights:

1. Foreign

2. Domestic

How we pay for each of these is quite simple:

1. Foreign: The citizenry ought to be armed and ready to defend our nation and the compensation for such services rendered off the spoils acquired from the aggressor nation. When we are attacked, we don't just fend off attacks, but we decimate and plunder the aggressor nation recapturing the costs.

Silliness.

2. Domestic: The cost of domestic crime(violation of others rights, i.e. theft, murder, rape) is charged, upon prosecution by a jury, as a tax on a per instance basis to first reclaim the losses of the offended party and second to cover the costs of this domestic system that provides such protection and process. Terms of involuntary servitude until the costs are paid off are of option and in extreme cases of dangerous individuals, exile or execution can relieve society of the threat of recurrent abuses.

You actually think thieves will be deterred by fines. Remarkable.

 

[Roy L]

So much of your posts I see as just noise, Roy L.

No, you are aware of the fact that I make substantive factual and logical arguments, and that you cannot refute them.

You demolished Rothbard by placing a "ROTFL" or "<yawn>" after each of his paragraphs.

That is a flat-out lie, and you know it. Readers are invited to verify that fact for themselves:
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2007-05/msg00098.html

Now you demolish me even easier, by simply stating it: "You have been demolished".

Lie. I provided fact and logic.

You just lie and lie and lie. After hilariously claiming you "never lie"!

All apologists for landowner privilege lie. That is a natural law of the universe. There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

 

[Roy L]

Well, whatever the reason, it is indeed non-scary for me.

Because you believe you are one of the beneficiaries rather than the victims. And you may be, if you own a lot of land and don't do much of anything productive.

While on the other hand, land-monopolization seems to be a very real concern for you. So I think that I have, indeed, hit upon the root, crux, and core of our disagreement. Would you agree?

All landowning is inherently monopolization because supply is fixed and each site is unique. It makes no difference if there is one landowner or a million, because each landowner can't do better than to pocket the full rent of the land. That is implied by land's fixity of supply. It also makes no difference to the fact that a million landowners violate the rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land just as surely as one landowner would.

You believe that in a free land market (according to my definition: private ownership and trading of land), large and powerful monopolies will arise.

No, he is merely, unlike you, willing to know the fact that they have.

I, in contrast, believe no such monopolies will evince.

I.e., you refuse to know the fact that they already have.

If you did not believe monopolies would take over, you would be open to agreeing with the (non-geo)libertarians, perhaps?

Monopolies as you (mis)understand them have nothing whatever to do with the issue. Nothing.

This fear of monopoly is a very very common objection to the completely free market.

We are the ones ADVOCATING a free market: a market free of the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.

I personally think it comes about due to a grossly inflated view of the power of companies. People see the "big corporations" as monolithically powerful; the consumers as hopelessly powerless against them. They see management as powerful, laborers as powerless.

All irrelevant.

They see landlords as powerful, tenants as powerless.

The landowner has power over the tenant's exercise of his right to liberty. That is indisputable.

I, on the other hand, see the big corporations as completely dependant on the whims of the consumers -- their customers wield the ultimate power, not their CEOs.

I guess that must be why the customers toil their lives away on the treadmill while the CEOs pocket billions....

Likewise the landlord is totally dependant on the continued patronage of his customers the rent payers.

Of course, that is an idiotic lie. Is Crusoe dependent on Friday, when he orders him back into the water? The landowner controls access to the means of survival. He is perfectly at liberty to use what nature provides (though only on his own land, of course) to sustain himself. The tenant, by contrast, must serve a landowner or die.

People move off his land, due to his mismanagement, high prices, bad location, whatever, and he will quickly go out of business.

He doesn't need to be "in business." He has the land. He has a place he can live on and if by some miracle he chooses to exert a modicum of productive effort rather than live strictly as a parasite on his tenants, he can survive by his own labor. His tenants cannot. They must find a landowner to serve, or die.

So I just don't share the concern about monopolies that you do.

You are just not willing to know facts that we know.

If Kalamazooistan decides they want to try not charging any land value tax and be voluntarist instead, they'd be free to try it, and I would be free to move there.

You are contradicting yourself. Only a land rent recovery community can be voluntarist.

And then we'd fail and the land monopolists would take over and totally dominate and oppress us, but hey, we gave it a shot! We wouldn't have failed miserably, we'd fail happily, following our crazy Rothbardian dreams.

You appear to be unaware that that is exactly what has happened, over and over again, all over the world, throughout human history.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

All landowning[aka slaveholding] is inherently monopolization because supply is fixed and each site is unique.

If land, as an economic term, is all raw (not human-changed) matter and space in existence, as I think all agree that it is, then actually much land is homogenous. The water from Clint Eastwood's spring, for instance, is fairly homogenous to water from anywhere else. So that land (his water) is not, comparatively, unique from all other land. Heterogeneity is a factor claimed above to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned. A huge amount, in fact a preponderance of the land in the universe is not heterogenous, but homogenous -- water, oil, dirt, vast empty spaces betwen stars, stray cosmic hydrogen, (relatively speaking -- nothing is perfectly purely homogenous). Thus, the vast preponderance of land is not inherently monopolized merely by being owned, because each unit of it is not meaningfully unique.

The second factor claimed to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned is that its supply is fixed. To determine whether this is true, we would have to know whether the amount of raw matter and space in existence is fixed, or not. Authorities disagree on this matter, and all thinking regarding it is rather speculative. For example, Steven Hawking's thinking has gone back and forth on the subject over his career -- is the Universe bounded or unbounded, and is it finite or infinite. Last I read, he thought it is finite yet unbounded. Also, of course, it may be expanding or collapsing. In any case, it is very much an unsettled question as to whether our Universe's supply of land is fixed or not. Also, there reportedly may be who knows how many other Universes, and should we include them also in the total supply of land?

But this may be getting too far afield and outside the realm of the practical. If we wish to talk about the practical, the near-term, the supply of valuable land as we currently know it, virtually all of which is at or near the surface of the planet Earth, then could we say the supply is fixed? No, then we can definitely not say that it is fixed, whereas in the absolute theoretical sense on the scale of the Universe(s) we can at least entertain the possibility of its being fixed. For in a practical sense, the amount of valuable land, the land actually at hand and available for us to use, is all the time increasing. Oil was always there, in an absolute sense, but it did not become valuable land until humans devised a way to make it valuable. In so doing, we clever humans have created a huge amount of valuable land where none was before. And we continue to do so with oil exploration, for a pool of oil, be it ever so vast and easy to drill to, is nevertheless completely worthless and might as well not exist until someone expends the labor and capital needed to find it. Same thing with dykes pushing back the sea, irrigation making the desert blossom, artificial islands, and all these type of examples that I gave in some of my early posts in this thread. So it is in the practical real-life consideration that any claim to there being a fixed supply of land is the weakest. For even today, there are vast amounts of the space and matter at or near the surface of the Earth which are unused and non-useful to humans. As our technology and wealth progresses, we will make a greater and greater precentage of it become useful. We will also expand the domain of useful land beyond the confines of the surface of Earth. So in a very real way, we have, and will continue to, constantly increase the amount of natural resources at our disposal. In other words, to increase the amount of land. In no way could our land supply, that is, our supply of natural resources, be said to be "fixed" in any sense which will be practical or meaningful in the slightest during our lifetimes, nor for thousands, nay billions, of years to come.

It is only if you want to talk about massive intergalactic colonizations and human populations of googleplex-plex-plexes that land supply might run up against an absolute limit. Until then, we will just keep creating more and more valuable land.

 

[Roy L]

If land, as an economic term, is all raw (not human-changed) matter and space in existence, as I think all agree that it is, then actually much land is homogenous. The water from Clint Eastwood's spring, for instance, is fairly homogenous to water from anywhere else. So that land (his water) is not, comparatively, unique from all other land.

The Pacific Ocean is not much use to the guy dying of thirst. So you are wrong. You will continue to be wrong, and to make stupid and fallacious arguments, as long as you oppose liberty, justice and truth: i.e., recovery of the publicly created rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it.

Heterogeneity is a factor claimed above to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned.

No, only goods that are unique and not interchangeable.

A huge amount, in fact a preponderance of the land in the universe is not heterogenous, but homogenous -- water, oil, dirt,

All three vary greatly in quality, and in value due to their condition and advantages of location. You continue to be indisputably wrong, and to make false and stupid claims.

vast empty spaces betwen stars, stray cosmic hydrogen, (relatively speaking -- nothing is perfectly purely homogenous).

Except the dishonesty of apologists for landowner privilege. That is always 100% pure.

Thus, the vast preponderance of land is not inherently monopolized merely by being owned, because each unit of it is not meaningfully unique.

<sigh> So now, in addition to being indisputably wrong as a matter of objective fact, you try an equivocation fallacy. How predictable. The context was land in the layman's sense -- the earth's solid surface -- as established in your exchange with redbluepill, of which this is a continuation. I remind you of the context YOU ESTABLISHED for the discussion in post #569:

"Anyway, I understand that land (as in land-land, layman land, surface area of Earth land) has some qualities different than other goods, and that some of these qualities would seem to lend themselves to monopolization."

GET IT??

The second factor claimed to make a good inherently monopolized whenever it is owned is that its supply is fixed. To determine whether this is true, we would have to know whether the amount of raw matter and space in existence is fixed, or not.

No. Fixed supply has nothing to do with physical quantities. It describes an economic condition: supply that cannot be increased by labor and does not respond to price. The canonical example of fixed supply is the paintings of a dead artist. The fixity of their supply does not mean the paintings can't be burned.

Authorities disagree on this matter, and all thinking regarding it is rather speculative. For example, Steven Hawking's thinking has gone back and forth on the subject over his career -- is the Universe bounded or unbounded, and is it finite or infinite. Last I read, he thought it is finite yet unbounded. Also, of course, it may be expanding or collapsing. In any case, it is very much an unsettled question as to whether our Universe's supply of land is fixed or not. Also, there reportedly may be who knows how many other Universes, and should we include them also in the total supply of land?

All irrelevant, as proved above.

If we wish to talk about the practical, the near-term, the supply of valuable land as we currently know it, virtually all of which is at or near the surface of the planet Earth, then could we say the supply is fixed? No, then we can definitely not say that it is fixed, whereas in the absolute theoretical sense on the scale of the Universe(s) we can at least entertain the possibility of its being fixed.

It is fixed by definition.

For in a practical sense, the amount of valuable land, the land actually at hand and available for us to use, is all the time increasing.

Increased value is not increased supply, as the paintings example would have informed you, had you been willing to be informed.

Oil was always there, in an absolute sense, but it did not become valuable land until humans devised a way to make it valuable. In so doing, we clever humans have created a huge amount of valuable land where none was before.

Lie. It was always there. It just wasn't valuable. So we did not create it. You know this. Of course you do. You just decided deliberately to lie about it.

All apologists for landowner privilege lie. That is a natural law of the universe. There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

And we continue to do so with oil exploration, for a pool of oil, be it ever so vast and easy to drill to, is nevertheless completely worthless and might as well not exist until someone expends the labor and capital needed to find it.

But it nevertheless does exist, and thus has not been created by labor.

Same thing with dykes pushing back the sea, irrigation making the desert blossom, artificial islands, and all these type of examples that I gave in some of my early posts in this thread.

All of which were duly refuted, being examples of improvements just as much as a building is an improvement. You know this. Of course you do. You just decided deliberately to lie about it.

So it is in the practical real-life consideration that any claim to there being a fixed supply of land is the weakest.

The supply of land is fixed by definition. You will nevertheless continue to lie about it.

For even today, there are vast amounts of the space and matter at or near the surface of the Earth which are unused and non-useful to humans. As our technology and wealth progresses, we will make a greater and greater precentage of it become useful.

I.e., it will become more and more valuable, augmenting its owners' wealth despite no contribution whatever on their part, just as has been happening for thousands of years. That is kinda the point.

We will also expand the domain of useful land beyond the confines of the surface of Earth. So in a very real way, we have, and will continue to, constantly increase the amount of natural resources at our disposal.

Better access is not creation. A road gives better access to a site. It increases the value of the site for the unearned profit of its idle, parasitic owner. It does not create the site.

In other words, to increase the amount of land.

That is self-evidently and indisputably a stupid lie. Stop telling such stupid lies.

In no way could our land supply, that is, our supply of natural resources, be said to be "fixed" in any sense which will be practical or meaningful in the slightest during our lifetimes, nor for thousands, nay billions, of years to come.

It is fixed by definition. You will continue to lie about that fact.

It is only if you want to talk about massive intergalactic colonizations and human populations of googleplex-plex-plexes that land supply might run up against an absolute limit. Until then, we will just keep creating more and more valuable land.

You know that you are lying. You know that technological advances and capital investments that make pre-existing land more accessible do not create that land. You KNOW this. Of course you do. You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.

It is an unfortunate fact that the apologist for landowner privilege always chooses to lie. But then, as there is no way to rationalize evil but by lying, he has no choice.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

The Pacific Ocean is not much use to the guy dying of thirst [unless he in on or near the Pacific Ocean and has a desalinizer].

Another claim that has sometimes been made to counter the alleged homogeniety of most land, aka natural resources, is that these resources are indeed heterogeous due merely to their existence in different locations. For example, in my explanation above I used water as a natural resource very high on the homogeniety scale. Water, however, must be transported to where the people are in order to be a good. Water, then, it is alleged, we must always consider to be monopolized whenever it is owned. By owning any water, one automatically monopolizes said water, due to the "proved objective fact" that each unit of it is unique and not interchangeable by virtue of its unique location in the Universe.

This position necessarily leads us to recall that, so far as we understand the physical Universe, matter cannot generally occupy the same space at the same time. No matter will ever possess the same locational characteristics as any other matter, at any given instant in time. Under the above expansive definition of heterogeniety, then, no good can ever be considered homogenous; all goods everywhere and always are heterogenous. Logically, not only is water in the Sahara a different good than water in the Amazon (and thus, allegedly, a natural monopoly), but a chainsaw in the Sahara vs. a chainsaw in the Amazon, and also water in one place in the Sahara vs. water 1/2 mile way, or even water 2 feet away. Although perhaps the water supplies 2 feet away from each other are heterogenous to a lesser degree than those across the planet, degrees do not seem to be relevant to those who make the claim that all land is heterogenous. This, of course, makes any attempted distinction between homogenous and heterogenous impossible: everything is just heterogenous by deninition. Grain in one silo is heterogenous to grain in another, chainsaws in one place to chainsaws in another, and thus we come inexorably to the conclusion that all property ownership is inherently a monopolization, and thus any attempted distinction between monopoly and non-monopoly becomes imnpossible as well: all property ownership is a monopoly by definition.

But what is one were to want to talk about not economic land but land in the layman's sense -- dry parts of the surface area of the Earth. Is that land inherently heterogeous? As a matter of fact, even that land is homogenous to a remarkable degree until human intervention comes along. One acre plot in uninhabited Nebraska is often quite similar to and interchangeable with another. It is once humans show up and start to congregate, build cities, etc., that the land values become more tremendously disparate. It would be much more difficult to find an acre plot in New York City even roughly equivalent to one in rural Vermont. What about proximity to other natural resources, such as rivers, mineral deposits, and fertile soil?

Well, I am out of time for now. To be continued, perhaps.

 

[Roy L]

Another claim that has sometimes been made to counter the alleged homogeniety of most land, aka natural resources, is that these resources are indeed heterogeous due merely to their existence in different locations.

That is not a "claim." It is an indisputable fact that proves you are lying.

You are also continuing your dishonest and deceitful attempt to change the context from land SITES -- a context that YOU ESTABLISHED, remember -- to natural resources that might be more substitutable. That is an attempt to evade the meaning of the real estate maxim, "Location, location, location." Let me save you some trouble, Helmuth: just talk about air.

For example, in my explanation above I used water as a natural resource very high on the homogeniety scale.

Which it isn't. Almost all water is sea water, and although it is chemically similar all over the planet -- and for that reason useless for most human purposes -- it occurs at widely varying temperatures, depths, biological content, etc. You just refuse to know such facts, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

Water, however, must be transported to where the people are in order to be a good. Water, then, it is alleged, we must always consider to be monopolized whenever it is owned.

No, a natural SOURCE of water is a monopoly. Water can also be a product of labor, as all water that has been transported out of its natural location is. Distilled water, for example, is the same everywhere, and is not a monopoly. You know this. Of course you do. You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.

You just always have to lie. Always. There is no way to rationalize evil and justify injustice but by lying.

By owning any water, one automatically monopolizes said water, due to the "proved objective fact" that each unit of it is unique and not interchangeable by virtue of its unique location in the Universe.

You are just lying about what I have plainly written. Inevitably. You HAVE to lie. You have no choice. And so you lie. That is why you lie. Because you lie, and so you lie.

This position necessarily leads us to recall that, so far as we understand the physical Universe, matter cannot generally occupy the same space at the same time. No matter will ever possess the same locational characteristics as any other matter, at any given instant in time. Under the above expansive definition of heterogeniety, then, no good can ever be considered homogenous; all goods everywhere and always are heterogenous.

<yawn> You are trying to change the subject again. Monopoly is not defined by "heterogeneity" but by substitutability. Dirtowner Harry is not a monopolist because his water is so very different from other potable water, but because the next waterhole is 44 miles away, and therefore not a substitute for the man dying of thirst.

You know this. Of course you do. You are just deliberately lying about it.

Logically,

That is a warning that what follows will be an atrocity committed against logic.

not only is water in the Sahara a different good than water in the Amazon (and thus, allegedly, a natural monopoly),

Every water SOURCE in the Sahara is a natural monopoly, as any inhabitant of the place could inform you, if you were willing to be informed.

but a chainsaw in the Sahara vs. a chainsaw in the Amazon,

There is indeed a geographical element to most monopolies, as location affects substitution. The only grocery store in a small town may be considered a monopoly, if the next nearest one is too far away to be a feasible substitute.

and also water in one place in the Sahara vs. water 1/2 mile way, or even water 2 feet away.

Water 2 feet away may be a substitute, if it is of similar quality. 1/2 mile away, not so much (especially if it is 1/2 mile straight down).

Why always be so dishonest, Helmuth? As if we both don't know very well why: you have to be dishonest, because there is no honest way to serve evil. I strongly suggest that you watch, "Judgment at Nuremberg." It has a lesson that you need to learn, for the sake of your immortal soul.

Although perhaps the water supplies 2 feet away from each other are heterogenous to a lesser degree than those across the planet, degrees do not seem to be relevant to those who make the claim that all land is heterogenous.

"Heterogenous" is a criterion you made up. It is a dishonest strawman fallacy.

This, of course, makes any attempted distinction between homogenous and heterogenous impossible: everything is just heterogenous by deninition.

Congratulations on contriving an excuse not to know the relevant facts.

Grain in one silo is heterogenous to grain in another, chainsaws in one place to chainsaws in another, and thus we come inexorably to the conclusion that all property ownership is inherently a monopolization, and thus any attempted distinction between monopoly and non-monopoly becomes imnpossible as well: all property ownership is a monopoly by definition.

Completing the aforementioned atrocity against logic...

But what is one were to want to talk about not economic land but land in the layman's sense -- dry parts of the surface area of the Earth. Is that land inherently heterogeous? As a matter of fact, even that land is homogenous to a remarkable degree until human intervention comes along.

No, it is not, as any hunter-gatherer living there could inform you if you were willing to be informed. Each location has distinct characteristics that make it unique: climate, elevation, soil type, distance to fresh and salt water, prevailing winds, natural vegetation and game animals, slope, drainage, exposure, etc.

One acre plot in uninhabited Nebraska is often quite similar to and interchangeable with another.

For most purposes, perhaps. Every monopoly has substitutes with varying degrees of substitutability.

It is once humans show up and start to congregate, build cities, etc., that the land values become more tremendously disparate.

So of course, laws should be crafted to enable the increased land value created by the whole community to be appropriated and pocketed by greedy, idle parasites who did nothing to contribute to it...?

It would be much more difficult to find an acre plot in New York City even roughly equivalent to one in rural Vermont. What about proximity to other natural resources, such as rivers, mineral deposits, and fertile soil?

They contribute to the uniqueness of each site. But you will concoct some rationalization for refusing to know the relevant facts, I'm sure.

To be continued, perhaps.

No doubt. How utterly tiresome your relentless dishonesty is.