I have been.
And, you don't even care enough to look back and check what he said. You don't really care what he said -- and he's your "good buddy"!
I don't recall saying he is my good buddy, but you are correct: I don't really care what he said, because his views aren't mine and I have no intention of defending them.
You cannot even be bothered to take the effort to comprehend his sentences correctly.
I have had no trouble comprehending his sentences. I just haven't committed them to memory.
What does that say about how much you care about comprehending anyone else on the thread?
I comprehend
you well enough, compadre. And that is your problem.
In theory. Generally that will not happen. Generally, the resources will have been LVTed somehow.
Which only means that instead of going to an idle private owner in return for nothing, that portion of the rent will have gone to government, offsetting harmful and unfair taxes.
So concrete is just pure labor. Got it.
It's a product of labor. It is not land.
Except for by "infinity" you mean "100%". Those are two different rates.
No, they refer to two different things: the ad valorem tax rate and the fraction of land rent recovered.
A rate of infinity, of course, means that in order to occupy the space one must pay the state an infinite amount of wealth each lease period -- which is impossible unless you allow an installment plan
. Even then I think it's impossible. Finite land value X times infinity equals infinity.
Not if the land value X is 0. But obviously it is not possible to apply an infinite tax rate, as it is impossible to calculate. The point is that however high the ad valorem rate, as long as it is applied to land value it can't exceed the land rent. LVT is therefore inherently limited to the just recovery of publicly created value.
So you mean 100%, and taxing over 100% of the value does indeed create the risk of land being abandoned.
No, because exchange value just declines to less than the rent. You can tax it at 1000% or 1M%, and the land's value just gets smaller and smaller while the tax amount asymptotically approaches the rent. Remember the Net Present Value Equation:
V = r / (t + d - g)
Where V is the land value, r is the rent, t is the tax rate expressed as a fraction, D is the discount rate, and g is the rent growth rate. You will note that no matter how high you make t, V x t can't exceed r.
It would indeed decrease the state's revenue.
Only if the tax amount were more than the rent, which the Net Present Value Equation says can't happen with real numbers.
Any tax based on land value is a land value tax.
No, to be a land value tax in the relevant sense for the purposes of this thread, the tax AMOUNT must be more or less PROPORTIONAL TO the land's value. No other mathematical or other relation is valid as a land value tax.
If the tax charges 10% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax. If the tax charges 100% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax. If the tax charges 1,000% of the value of the land, that is a land value tax.
Right. But even if the tax charges 1000% of the value of the land, that just means the land's value will be so small that the tax
amount will still be less than the rent. That's what you haven't figured out yet.
I call the state a group of people. All people might do things from time to time which are not in their best long-term interests.
Especially apologists for privilege and injustice, who don't realize they are dooming their society.
By drinking water, I deprive others of their inalienable right to drink the same water.
And if water were scarce, and they were consequently suffering a deprivation, that would be a problem. You just refuse to know the fact that my breathing this air does not violate your rights, but depriving you of the air you would otherwise be at liberty to breathe where you are WOULD violate your rights.
Let's all suicide, since that's the only way to avoid depriving others of their inalienable rights.
A "deprivation" that imposes no deprivation is no deprivation.
OK, so if I can prove that the soil down to 100 feet underground has been rearranged by the tamping, I then own that cube of soil. People can still tunnel under me, provided they go deep enough that it doesn't affect my cube, but that particular cube of matter is now mine, I may monopolize it freely, after paying a severance tax. Is that correct?
In principle, yes. In practice, such a trivial "improvement" might be disregarded as vexatious. De minima non curiat lex.
You know, all your little scenarios have one thing in common: one supplier. Only one.
No, there's no supplier at all, as the land was already there, supplied in full, with no help from the landowner or anyone else. That is why it doesn't matter how many parasites there are claiming to own how many different resources.
Robinson Crusoe? There's just one island, and no hope of getting to another one.
Would it make any difference if there was another island 100m away, with an equally greedy parasite claiming to own it? Would it matter if two parasites each owned half of the island, or two million each owned a two millionth? Friday still has no choice but to serve one of them or get back in the water.
The Bandit? He's staked out the one and only possible road; as you said: "There is no other road".
It doesn't matter if there is another pass, as long as his is the best route for some of the caravans, and they are consequently willing to be robbed to use it.
Dirtowner Harry? He's got the only water, with no hope of getting to some other water source.
Is Thirsty any better off if there are other spring owners all just as greedy as Harry?
So all these scenarios really only work if there's a total monopoly, no alternatives no competition.
No, the absence of alternatives just makes the issue clearer. Adding other parasites just means the victim might be able to get a better deal, like adding competing protection rackets means a business owner might be able to play them off against each other to get a better deal. But he's still going to end up paying a parasite for doing nothing.
So I guess you're arguing against the problems that could be created if we didn't have competition in natural resource ownership.
Natural resource ownership is inherently a monopoly.
Indeed, I agree that if we were living in a world where instead of just going down the block to a different landlord, the whole country was owned by one landlord, there could be potential for abuse.
There
is abuse, because it doesn't matter how many landlords there are: none of them can do better than by charging the full market rent, which is exactly the same as if there were only one landlord.
Of course, the whole country being one big land monopoly, all owned by one owner -- the state -- is exactly what you propose.
Land is inherently a monopoly.
And what if the state decided it didn't like redheads and wasn't going to let them drink any of the water without paying a 100,000% tax on the value of that water? Obviously it could do that, and they would have to pay. There's no alternative sources.
"What if the state decided to cut off everyone's feet as payment of their land tax? You see? LVT would put everyone in a wheelchair!!""
Another thing all your stories have in common: the victim is hapless. They have either had extreme misfortune or extreme stupidity. Either way, they have failed to prepare for and deal with the world around them in an effective manner.
Yeah, like all those stupid slaves trying to run away instead of buckling down and getting to work! Why couldn't they just prepare for their lack of liberty and deal with the world around them in an effective manner?
What is the bozo doing out in the desert with no water when he knows none of the oasis owners are going to let him drink?
"Oasis owners"?? How could anyone become an "oasis owner"?
Oh, no, wait a minute, I get it: you mean he should have been prepared to encounter greedy, violent, thieving parasites, and made sure he was well armed and able to deal with them -- preferably terminally, and at a safe distance. Well, maybe you are right.
He didn't know? Well he should have known! It's his job to know! If he can't take reality by the reins even to the minimal extent of making sure he will be able to supply himself with water, he is not fit to survive.
Oh, he was fully prepared to supply himself with water from natural sources, same as people have been doing for millions of years. He just wasn't prepared to be threatened by a greedy, violent, thieving parasite when he was in the process of supplying himself with water.
This caravan should have planned ahead and secured all the land for their route.
That is an idiotic claim. They are productive merchants providing value for money, not greedy, thieving, parasitic landowners. They do have
some pride.
Honestly, all these "victims" are pathetic and I have very little sympathy for them.
Classic "blame the victim" bull$#!+.
No. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress had no real taxing power.
That does not alter the fact that the American Founders prescribed a land value tax as the sole source of federal government revenue.
Their own laziness, prodigality, stupidity, sickliness, or profligacy.
Nope. That's a lie. If any of those things were going to stop them, you wouldn't need to initiate force against them, or have the state do so on your behalf, to extort wealth from them when, in their industry, diligence, wisdom, health and thrift, they purposed to put the land nature provided to productive use.
Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use.
Nonsense. Stupid, lazy landowners have often obtained natural resources without exercising any intelligence or doing any labor:
"The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive, way for a capitalist to increase his fortune is to put all his monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie
Nature is not a vending machine.
The difference between nature and a vending machine is that nature doesn't demand any money for her bounty. It's landowners who demand that others pay them for what government, the community and nature provide.
