What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Steven Douglas]

You are equivocating. A disagreement over what particular examples satisfy a dictionary definition is not a disagreement over what that definition objectively says.

Well, let's take just one definition and actually examine it, shall we? And rather than deal with broad, sweeping generalities, wherein you merely assert that "...they are all objective, and defined by good dictionaries...", or, "The market is what it is," as if that actually made a point, let alone meant anything at all, how about you actually argue your point instead? Specifically, I mean.

For example, deprivation, from the root deprive, meaning (Webster) "...to withhold something from..."

Well, I can agree that to "own" land is to "withhold" it from everyone else, just as to eat a cookie is to deprive everyone (forever) of that same cookie. So yes, if I have title to land, I have deprived everyone else of that land. In that sense, a "deprivation", in the strictest sense of the word, has occurred.

I am trying to get to the more explicable roots of your position. You seem to believe that everybody holds an equal "natural liberty right" to all land at all times, regardless of who occupies or holds title to any land at any given time. Is that correct? In other words, someone's title to land does not, in your mind, bring an end to literally everyone's simultaneous right to a claim on that same land - even if it means remuneration for not owning it themselves.

So that I can understand further, let's put this in terms of an auction, just to explore the differences as a matter of principle. 100 farmers are bidding on the same object; the only backhoe in existence. One man, who is not a farmer, prevails in the auction, as he outbids everyone (far beyond even their collective ability to bid) and takes possession/ownership of the backhoe. The point at which he prevailed in the auction is the point at which the right of ownership is assigned to him only, to the permanent exclusion of all others. Everyone else is deprived of their ability to own the backhoe, but they also retain their funds.

Before going on, is that man the rightful owner, to the exclusion of all others, even to the point where he owes none of them anything - forever?

Now, going further, the man who now owns the backhoe never needed it for himself. He only bought it so that he could rent it out to all the farmers who wanted to buy it. He won't sell it, but he will rent it out, at a premium. He does this for many years, as does his son who later inherits it (just go with it). Furthermore, he only maintains the backhoe to original working condition. No improvements are ever made; just minor repairs as needed. And, for the sake of discussion, let us stipulate that NO other backhoes are available for sale anywhere. His is the only one, and while the farmers do have other trenching options available to them, they really do consider it worth renting.

I'm trying to distinguish between land and private property that is not fixed. Under your system, have the farmers not been deprived what you call a "natural liberty right" which must be repaid by the owner of the backhoe? If so, why, and if not, why not? What is the principle difference between, say, a backhoe and a tiny plot of land that is owned with a storage shed; one that is rented out but never sold?


Also - I'm genuinely making an attempt to understand your position. Saying "False. Like yours", calling people liars, evil, not courageous, etc., is all that ad hominem really necessary?

 

[jascott]

Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and penalties commensurate with deprivations. That's how we know that appropriation of land as private property is objectively unjust.

Two investors roll dice to decide which stocks to buy. One gets rich; the other goes broke.
Two businessmen make equivalent entrepreneurial contributions at the same time. One gets rich, and the other goes broke, by pure blind luck.
In both of those examples, rewards are not commensurate with contributions. Are those injustices? If so, do we correct the injustice by taking from the rich man and giving to the poor? I don't think anybody in this thread would say that.
Think of another example: you enjoy relatively inexpensive oil. Consider one of your descendants, born 200 years from now, and all of the economically extractable oil has already long since been extracted and burned. It was his bad luck to be born after the oil was gone (assuming nothing better has replaced it).
Or, a man is intensely attracted to the beauty of a landscape which everybody else values only as farmland, and he would be willing to pay ten times the market rate (or ten times the levied LVT in a geoist system) for a plot of land to build a house there, but his bad luck is that a farmer already has eternal security of tenure there and would rather keep farming it.
Randomness plays a very large role in our lives, and has nothing to do with our contributions and deprivations. Will you qualify your statement, and say, "Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and good luck, and penalties commensurate with deprivations and bad luck"? But in that case, remember that the argument of the anti-geoists is that it's simply your bad luck that you were born after all the land was already claimed as private property.

 

[Roy L]

For example, deprivation, from the root deprive, meaning (Webster) "...to withhold something from..."

Well, I can agree that to "own" land is to "withhold" it from everyone else, just as to eat a cookie is to deprive everyone (forever) of that same cookie. So yes, if I have title to land, I have deprived everyone else of that land. In that sense, a "deprivation", in the strictest sense of the word, has occurred.

I am trying to get to the more explicable roots of your position. You seem to believe that everybody holds an equal "natural liberty right" to all land at all times, regardless of who occupies or holds title to any land at any given time. Is that correct? In other words, someone's title to land does not, in your mind, bring an end to literally everyone's simultaneous right to a claim on that same land

A right to liberty is not a claim to the land or a share of the land. How many times do I have to repeat this? It is the physical liberty -- the physical ability under one's own direct will, unconstrained by others -- to use the land. You need to get all that stupid propertarian bull$#!+ out of your head. Rights are not all just various ways of owning property. The fact that people have a right to get married is a liberty right, not a property right. It does not give them a "claim on" anyone else to be their spouse.

- even if it means remuneration for not owning it themselves.

Dishonest garbage. Compensation is due the excluded for being deprived of their liberty, not "for not owning it themselves."

So that I can understand further, let's put this in terms of an auction, just to explore the differences as a matter of principle. 100 farmers are bidding on the same object; the only backhoe in existence.

Where did it come from? Why is it the only one?

It is obvious that you are trying to pretend to talk about a product of labor, while also pretending that product of labor is in fixed supply, like land.

Stop pretending! Stop LYING!

One man, who is not a farmer, prevails in the auction, as he outbids everyone (far beyond even their collective ability to bid) and takes possession/ownership of the backhoe. The point at which he prevailed in the auction is the point at which the right of ownership is assigned to him only, to the permanent exclusion of all others. Everyone else is deprived of their ability to own the backhoe, but they also retain their funds.

Unlike those being deprived of their liberty to use land, the farmers are not being deprived of anything they would otherwise have had. The liberty to use the backhoe was not something they were born with, because someone had to produce it.

Before going on, is that man the rightful owner, to the exclusion of all others, even to the point where he owes none of them anything - forever?

Assuming the backhoe was not stolen from its producer or a rightful owner who paid its producer to produce it, etc., yes.

Now, going further, the man who now owns the backhoe never needed it for himself. He only bought it so that he could rent it out to all the farmers who wanted to buy it. He won't sell it, but he will rent it out, at a premium. He does this for many years, as does his son who later inherits it (just go with it). Furthermore, he only maintains the backhoe to original working condition. No improvements are ever made; just minor repairs as needed. And, for the sake of discussion, let us stipulate that NO other backhoes are available for sale anywhere. His is the only one, and while the farmers do have other trenching options available to them, they really do consider it worth renting.

I'm trying to distinguish between land and private property that is not fixed.

No, you are trying to contrive a rationalization for embracing Marx's error of conflating capital and land, the same error apologists for capitalism make. You are pretending that a backhoe is land, and that land is a product of labor, like a backhoe. That is the same mistake socialists like Marx and capitalists like Rothbard make; though they make it for opposite purposes, both purposes are deceitful and evil.

Under your system, have the farmers not been deprived what you call a "natural liberty right" which must be repaid by the owner of the backhoe? If so, why, and if not, why not?

The backhoe is not natural. It was not already there with no help from anyone. The land was. I can identify that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality for you from now till kingdom come, but I have no power to make you willing to know it. That must be your decision.

What is the principle difference between, say, a backhoe and a tiny plot of land that is owned with a storage shed; one that is rented out but never sold?

The land was already there, available to use, with no help from its "owner" or anyone else. The backhoe was not. You will apparently say and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.

Also - I'm genuinely making an attempt to understand your position. Saying "False. Like yours", calling people liars, evil, not courageous, etc., is all that ad hominem really necessary?

Yes, I believe it is. I have advised Helmuth several times to watch, "Judgment at Nuremberg," as it very clearly illustrates the process by which apparently decent people try to rationalize and justify even the most horrific evil. I advise you to watch it, too.

Private property in land and natural resources is the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that impoverishes all humanity, condemns billions of people to perpetual, grinding, undeserved poverty, and inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, starvation, suffering, despair and death on innocent humanity EVERY YEAR. You are trying to rationalize and justify that evil. Stop it.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

A right to liberty is not a claim to the land or a share of the land. How many times do I have to repeat this? It is the physical liberty -- the physical ability under one's own direct will, unconstrained by others -- to use the land. You need to get all that stupid propertarian bull$#!+ out of your head. Rights are not all just various ways of owning property. The fact that people have a right to get married is a liberty right, not a property right. It does not give them a "claim on" anyone else to be their spouse.

Dishonest garbage. Compensation is due the excluded for being deprived of their liberty, not "for not owning it themselves."

Where did it come from? Why is it the only one?

It is obvious that you are trying to pretend to talk about a product of labor, while also pretending that product of labor is in fixed supply, like land.

Stop pretending! Stop LYING!

Unlike those being deprived of their liberty to use land, the farmers are not being deprived of anything they would otherwise have had. The liberty to use the backhoe was not something they were born with, because someone had to produce it.

Assuming the backhoe was not stolen from its producer or a rightful owner who paid its producer to produce it, etc., yes.

No, you are trying to contrive a rationalization for embracing Marx's error of conflating capital and land, the same error apologists for capitalism make. You are pretending that a backhoe is land, and that land is a product of labor, like a backhoe. That is the same mistake socialists like Marx and capitalists like Rothbard make; though they make it for opposite purposes, both purposes are deceitful and evil.

The backhoe is not natural. It was not already there with no help from anyone. The land was. I can identify that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality for you from now till kingdom come, but I have no power to make you willing to know it. That must be your decision.

The land was already there, available to use, with no help from its "owner" or anyone else. The backhoe was not. You will apparently say and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality.

Yes, I believe it is. I have advised Helmuth several times to watch, "Judgment at Nuremberg," as it very clearly illustrates the process by which apparently decent people try to rationalize and justify even the most horrific evil. I advise you to watch it, too.

Private property in land and natural resources is the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that impoverishes all humanity, condemns billions of people to perpetual, grinding, undeserved poverty, and inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, starvation, suffering, despair and death on innocent humanity EVERY YEAR. You are trying to rationalize and justify that evil. Stop it.

Another load of rubbish. Compare the rate of poverty, typical lifespan, and standard of living between societies that acknowledge private property in land to those that don't. You will then realize your folly.

 

[Roy L]

Two investors roll dice to decide which stocks to buy. One gets rich; the other goes broke.
Two businessmen make equivalent entrepreneurial contributions at the same time. One gets rich, and the other goes broke, by pure blind luck.

Or whose patent application the post office delivered first...

In both of those examples, rewards are not commensurate with contributions. Are those injustices? If so, do we correct the injustice by taking from the rich man and giving to the poor?

No, because they are injustices both the beneficiaries and victims explicitly volunteered for. More broadly, we know chance events make life inherently unjust, but that's not something we can usefully do anything about. People initiating force to impose injustice on others for their own unearned profit -- i.e., greed and its result, evil -- is something we CAN usefully do something about.

Think of another example: you enjoy relatively inexpensive oil. Consider one of your descendants, born 200 years from now, and all of the economically extractable oil has already long since been extracted and burned. It was his bad luck to be born after the oil was gone (assuming nothing better has replaced it).

Like our bad luck of being born in a time when all the cheap whale oil has already been extracted...?

The date of one's birth cannot be an injustice. The institutional environment one is born into, however, can. If there is no oil left, that is not a deprivation of liberty, nor is it an injustice. It is just a fact of reality, and cannot be altered. By contrast, if the oil nature provided is still there but is owned by rich, greedy, privileged parasites who charge others for access to what nature provided, and do not compensate them justly for initiating force to remove their liberty, that IS a deprivation of liberty and an injustice. The injustice is not being born in a time when the oil is all gone. The injustice is being born in a world where the oil is still there, but others already own your right to use it.

Or, a man is intensely attracted to the beauty of a landscape which everybody else values only as farmland, and he would be willing to pay ten times the market rate (or ten times the levied LVT in a geoist system) for a plot of land to build a house there, but his bad luck is that a farmer already has eternal security of tenure there and would rather keep farming it.

His bid will make it hard for the farmer to keep it all.

Randomness plays a very large role in our lives, and has nothing to do with our contributions and deprivations. Will you qualify your statement, and say, "Objectively, justice consists in rewards commensurate with contributions and good luck, and penalties commensurate with deprivations and bad luck"?

No. Luck results in injustice, period, but that is part of nature we can't do anything about, so we accept it. Some even seek it out, deliberately leaving their outcomes to chance.

You are trying to claim something quite different: that if one person smokes and does not get lung cancer, while another who lives a similar lifestyle but does not smoke does get lung cancer, that is an injustice of the same type as the injustice of a non-smoker who lives downwind of a factory that emits airborne carcinogens getting lung cancer.

But in that case, remember that the argument of the anti-geoists is that it's simply your bad luck that you were born after all the land was already claimed as private property.

ROTFL!! As you surely know, such "arguments" are just fatuous and dishonest. By that "logic," a child born into slavery is not a victim of his parents' enslavers but merely of "bad luck." But it is not "bad luck" that the child of slaves is born a slave. It is the unjust institution of slavery that has made him a slave. To pretend otherwise is outrageous and evil. One could with equal "logic" claim that if government issued literal licenses to steal, those born after all the licenses were issued would be the victims not of thieves, but of "bad luck" in the dates of their birth!

The fault lies not in our stars, jascott, but in the evil institutions that rob and enslave us for the unearned profit of rich, greedy, privileged, evil parasites.

 

[BattleFlag1776]

The fault lies not in our stars, but in the evil institutions that rob and enslave us for the unearned profit of rich, greedy, privileged, evil parasites.

I've been reading your posts with some interest and I think that the above quote sums up your overall position quite well. If you agree, then please answer me this: What do you advocate be done to counter these institutions?

 

[Roy L]

Another load of rubbish. Compare the rate of poverty, typical lifespan, and standard of living between societies that acknowledge private property in land to those that don't. You will then realize your folly.

<yawn> No, that is just another load of stupid, evil garbage from you. I note that private property in land is the established rule in some of the most desperately poor countries in the world, like Haiti, Guatemala, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Paraguay, Pakistan and Burma, which proves YOUR folly. I note also that historical examples of countries crushed into poverty by private landowning are numerous and obvious: pre-revolutionary China, Raj India, pre-revolutionary France and Russia, Ireland, Mexico, etc. By contrast, Hong Kong, one of the richest countries in the world and routinely deemed the freest economically, has had no private landowning for over 160 years. And China, which has enjoyed double-digit economic growth and massive increases in standard of living and life expectancy in the 30 years since it began using a Hong Kong-style land lease system also has no private landowning.

You are destroyed.

 

[Roy L]

I've been reading your posts with some interest and I think that the above quote sums up your overall position quite well. If you agree, then please answer me this: What do you advocate be done to counter these institutions?

Abolish gratuitous privileges like private banks' debt money issuance, intellectual property monopolies, corporate personhood and limited liability, union monopolies, subsidies and bailouts to business, etc., and tax away the value of privileges that can't be abolished, like land titles, broadcast spectrum allocations, etc.

 

[Steven Douglas]

A right to liberty is not a claim to the land or a share of the land. How many times do I have to repeat this? It is the physical liberty -- the physical ability under one's own direct will, unconstrained by others -- to use the land. You need to get all that stupid propertarian bull$#!+ out of your head.

Don't get your stupid anti-propertarian mind in a knee-jerk fizzle. Unscrew yourself, Roy, we're just having a conversation. I'm trying to understand, not misstate, your position. Don't be an evil, self-centric blithering moron and pretend that you don't know that your ideas are an unusual way of looking at things. (this ad hominem stuff that you feel is so necessary is kinda fun, kinda catchy)

Dishonest garbage. Compensation is due the excluded for being deprived of their liberty, not "for not owning it themselves."

Hey, righteously indignant liar with an evil cherry on top, it was only a statement intended for clarification, not a "lie". It was like a police artist drawing a sketch and asking, "Is this it?", to which you respond, "No, that looks like an elephant. The one who hit me over the head and gave me a noogie and a wedgie looked way more like a man to me." My "sketch" did not not reflect your position, and was clarified. See how simple that is? Not a "lie" - you utterly evil buggering bearer of false witness you (snicker snicker).

It is obvious that you are trying to pretend to talk about a product of labor, while also pretending that product of labor is in fixed supply, like land.

Stop pretending! Stop LYING!

Nah, that wasn't it at all. Stop pretending and lying yourself about my position, which you don't bother clarifying, and that you won't bother to understand. I am at least trying to understand your position - which is good! While you are busy jumping to your own false, evil, self-deceitful conclusions about my position, without ONCE asking for clarification - which is really quite a nasty load of evilness on your part.

The distinction I was trying to make had nothing to do with labor, or conflating capital with land, and everything to do with portable versus fixed, but I understand your position on that now (because I was righteously thoughtful and considerate and smart enough to ask).

Unlike those being deprived of their liberty to use land, the farmers are not being deprived of anything they would otherwise have had. The liberty to use the backhoe was not something they were born with, because someone had to produce it.

OK, and another piece of the puzzle that is Roy's mind falls into place. You won't directly argue your position, Roy, except by dismissive and vague generalities (e.g., "The market is what it is", whatever that means), but I can ascertain your position anyway, by stating it as I think I see it, and watching you go off, half-cocked blitzo, like Rainman's brother who sees a book out of place and rushes over - "UH OH! V-E-R-N!" - to correct it. Are you autistic, btw? If so, I'll lay off the ad hominem retorts to your ad hominem nonsense, and let you have a corner on all the pointless and meaningless derision.

The backhoe is not natural. It was not already there with no help from anyone. The land was. I can identify that self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality for you from now till kingdom come, but I have no power to make you willing to know it. That must be your decision.

OK, just clarifying. And I do see the difference - as you meant it - now that you clarified.

So, just to further clarify - "resources" that are extracted from the land which are made both useful and portable (since nearly all solid matter starts out as "land", including the backhoe, and, for that matter, each of us), no longer qualifies as land. And, so long as it was not stolen from its producer or a rightful owner who paid its producer to produce it, etc., a rightful ownership in perpetuity can be established...of materials taken from the land...shaped into something useful...and 'movable'.

So far so good?

 

[Roy L]

(this ad hominem stuff that you feel is so necessary is kinda fun, kinda catchy)

Enjoy. I think it helps to identify evil for what it is, and IMO most of the greatest evils in the history of the world could have been prevented from the outset if someone had had the courage to identify them as such, loudly and publicly, when they were first proposed.

Also, I find it relieves some of the stress of being constantly exposed to evil, so it doesn't make me ill as quickly.

While you are busy jumping to your own false, evil, self-deceitful conclusions about my position, without ONCE asking for clarification - which is really quite a nasty load of evilness on your part.

If you are truly trying to understand, then I am truly sorry for coming down so hard on you. But please try to understand: I have been doing this for a long time, and I have seen all the dishonest crap many, many times before. I recognize the patterns.

The distinction I was trying to make had nothing to do with labor, or conflating capital with land, and everything to do with portable versus fixed, but I understand your position on that now (because I was righteously thoughtful and considerate and smart enough to ask).

Maybe you didn't read the whole thread, but I think I had made it clear that products of labor are rightly property, and the problem of land arises because products of labor can be permanently affixed to the land: i.e., not portable. The problem, therefore, is to reconcile the liberty rights of those who want to use the land with the property rights of those who make fixed improvements to it. Landowning was a quick and dirty solution to that problem; but as with slavery, we have better solutions now, and like slavery, landowning has consequently BECOME the problem.

So, just to further clarify - "resources" that are extracted from the land which are made both useful and portable (since nearly all solid matter starts out as "land", including the backhoe, and, for that matter, each of us), no longer qualifies as land.

They are not land once they have been removed from nature and made into products/property. It doesn't matter if they are portable or not, which is why fixed improvements are at the core of the land problem.

And, so long as it was not stolen from its producer or a rightful owner who paid its producer to produce it, etc., a rightful ownership in perpetuity can be established...of materials taken from the land...shaped into something useful...and 'movable'.

Or not movable.

So far so good?

Close.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

<yawn> No, that is just another load of stupid, evil garbage from you. I note that private property in land is the established rule in some of the most desperately poor countries in the world, like Haiti, Guatemala, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Paraguay, Pakistan and Burma, which proves YOUR folly. I note also that historical examples of countries crushed into poverty by private landowning are numerous and obvious: pre-revolutionary China, Raj India, pre-revolutionary France and Russia, Ireland, Mexico, etc. By contrast, Hong Kong, one of the richest countries in the world and routinely deemed the freest economically, has had no private landowning for over 160 years. And China, which has enjoyed double-digit economic growth and massive increases in standard of living and life expectancy in the 30 years since it began using a Hong Kong-style land lease system also has no private landowning.

You are destroyed.

You're dead wrong about China. Private property came to be there in 2007.[h=1]China approves law that protects private property[/h]
Hong Kong has had private land ownership for a long time. You can buy some here. You're just pulling a bunch of false facts out of thin air. On top of that, you ignore that macroeconomic situation-that is, a long period of the first world exporting labor to the third world. They produced and sold to the debt-laden, fascistic West while the West wasted money on numerous useless things like toys and useless college degrees and speculation. You are destroyed, not I.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Roy, the idea that nothing is as it seems, or that reality can be quite different from what is commonly taught (e.g., "Lincoln freed the slaves"), is not new to me. I consider myself extremely open-minded, and only tend to clamp up when valid concerns are not addressed (e.g., how is any Ponzi scheme defensible by otherwise seemingly intelligent people?).

Furthermore, Ron Paul supporters, of all people, should know firsthand the frustration of having a minority point of view, even in light of simple knowledge that is daily obfuscated, the historical facts of which, at the very least, are readily and commonly available to anyone who is really interested in knowing. But you can't talk "sound money" to someone who has absolutely no concept of what money even is - but think they do, because they can pull paper out of their pocket and show it plainly to you.

I personally believe that fractional reserve lending is EVIL - criminal in ways that I believe are highly explicable. But I am also aware that many Ron Paul supporters, and even Miseans, do not see it as a major concern. OK, I accept that as the uphill battle that it really is, and recognize that I have to hone my ability to make a more persuasive case against, rather than content myself that "I am right and they are wrong". That accomplishes very little and gets me nowhere (that I want to be anyway).

Your idea of property ownership as an evil concept, and not from a Marxian standpoint either, is something very new to me. BUT...it is not the first time I have run the concept of land ownership through my mind, as a concept on the theoretical chopping block, albeit for my own reasons, for what I see as contradictions in applied principles.

So yes, if you can make a case, and not just by declaring it evil and being satisfied to declare everyone else a pack of lying and deceitful peddlers of evil, given only that they see it otherwise, or have a differing view - I do want to hear it, I do want to understand it, and will fight to understand, even as I appreciate whatever patience is extended in the process. I can be convinced, and am willing to set aside every preconceived notion I have - assuming I can spot it as such - if but to play it all out as a thought experiment in my mind, and weigh it against other principles which I hold in the process (very few of which qualify as Truly Sacred Cows).

Having said that, I do have more questions - a lot more, in fact, but sleep calls.

 

[Sola_Fide]

RoyL,

This is the passage I quoted:

Deuteronomy 27:17-19 NASB

'Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary mark.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who misleads a blind person on the road.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

In response to this, you said:

Wrong. Boundary stones were used to mark field boundaries on common land, too. There is absolutely no implication that the land consequently had to be private property.

And...

Wrong. Boundary stones were also routinely used to demarcate fields and pastures on land held in common. A land tenure right is not property in the land. You are making claims that are not supported by scripture.

That was your response. You said these are common lands with no implication that they are privately owned. Now let's look at the passage again:

Deuteronomy 27:17-19 NASB

'Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary mark.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who misleads a blind person on the road.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

Like I said in another thread, the communists and others who deny private ownership always stumble over the text. There is no getting around it.

You cannot move YOUR NEIGHBOR'S boundary mark. Why? Because your neighbor owns his land and owns his boundaries. And because your neighbor owns his land, he can lawfully give it as an inheritance or sell it to who he wants....just as God gave Adam property.

You are in direct opposition to Scripture. Your position is based on theft and covetousness. It is evil and wrong. Moving boundaries is theft:

Job 24:2

Men move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen.

 

[Sola_Fide]

I post this for the sake of other people reading this thread. It is a couple excerpts from a paper that John Robbins wrote several years ago. It has great little nuggets of truth about property ownership:

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=99

He begins by saying:

The first thing the Christian must do is to realize that his property is his.

Then explains why government charity is contradictory:

This is an axiom of giving: One cannot legally or morally give away that which one does not own. Giving is the voluntary transfer of a property title by one party to another, without receiving title to other property in return. (That is why government charity is a contradiction in terms: Government forces taxpayers to fund the welfare programs. There is no voluntary transfer of property titles.) If one receives title to property in return, one has traded; one has not donated. (If one takes property from the person who possesses title to it without his consent, one is stealing.) When a person shops at Wal-mart, he gives title to X number of dollars to the store (by signing a credit card agreement, by writing a check, or by actually handing over cash), and Wal-mart gives title (in the form of a receipt) to certain property to him. But when he gives a gift, he gives title to property to the recipient, without receiving title to property in return. All of this (and all of society) assumes a framework of law and justice, without which it is impossible to speak of property titles, giving, trading, and stealing.

He then talks about the legal title of property that God gave to Adam:

God is indeed the creator and owner of everything. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. And God has indeed entrusted his property to men. In fact, God has entrusted his property to specific human beings who morally and legally own that property, to the exclusion of all other human beings. In the beginning God entrusted the Garden, indeed, the whole Earth (excepting one tree), to Adam. That is the legal meaning of Genesis 1:26-30. Those verses are a conveyance of trust from God to Adam. True, Adam lost the privilege of living in the lush Garden that God had prepared, for Adam stole fruit from God’s tree. He did not respect God's property. But Adam did not lose his ownership of the Earth. That legal title passed from him to his children, as Adam determined.

He concludes this part by refuting all forms of collectivism:

"Trust" in this context is a legal concept, and as trustees of God, property owners enjoy the right and responsibility of using their property as they, and not other human beings, see fit. That also is the legal meaning of Genesis 1:26-30 and Acts 2. To own something means that one controls it. Peter put it this way: "Was it not in your own control?" The collectivist (Communist, Fascist, Environmentalist, Liberal) notion that a person holds property in trust for others - for society, for the state, for the race, for the people, for Mother Nature, or for the poor - has no support in Scripture. A property owner owns his property. A property owner is in fact, in law, and in ethics a property owner.

 

[Roy L]

You're dead wrong about China.

No, I am of course indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact.

Private property came to be there in 2007.[h=1]China approves law that protects private property[/h]

But not private property in land. From YOUR OWN SOURCE:

"China's urban middle class has fueled a real estate boom, even though all land is owned by the state and purchasers trade only the right to use property on the land for up to 70 years."

You are again destroyed.

Hong Kong has had private land ownership for a long time.

No, that is just another flat-out lie from you.

You can buy some here.

No, that is just a lie. You are lying. None of the properties listed includes title to the land. NONE. They are selling IMPROVEMENTS and LEASEHOLD TENURES on land, not property titles to the land.

You're just pulling a bunch of false facts out of thin air.

No, I am objectively correct, and you are flat-out LYING about what YOUR OWN SOURCES plainly state.

STOP LYING.

On top of that, you ignore that macroeconomic situation-that is, a long period of the first world exporting labor to the third world. They produced and sold to the debt-laden, fascistic West while the West wasted money on numerous useless things like toys and useless college degrees and speculation.

Ignoratio elenchi.

You are destroyed, not I.

No, I HAVE DESTROYED YOU.

YOU ARE DESTROYED.

DESTROYED, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

 

[Roy L]

I personally believe that fractional reserve lending is EVIL - criminal in ways that I believe are highly explicable.

I'm not sure you actually understand how banks create money by lending. It's not by maintaining fractional reserves. It's by creating demand deposits out of loan assets obtained by creating those very same demand deposits. Not one person in 1000 understands this process. Even Ron Paul doesn't seem to, and he at least wants to talk about the right things.

OK, I accept that as the uphill battle that it really is, and recognize that I have to hone my ability to make a more persuasive case against, rather than content myself that "I am right and they are wrong". That accomplishes very little and gets me nowhere (that I want to be anyway).

At least it's better than being wrong and serving evil.

Your idea of property ownership as an evil concept, and not from a Marxian standpoint either, is something very new to me.

<sigh> Please try not to misstate my position. I have no objection to ownership of property in products of labor. Clear? It is property in NATURAL RESOURCES that I have proved cannot be justified.

DO NOT SAY, "PROPERTY" WHEN YOU MEAN, "LAND."

So yes, if you can make a case, and not just by declaring it evil and being satisfied to declare everyone else a pack of lying and deceitful peddlers of evil, given only that they see it otherwise, or have a differing view - I do want to hear it, I do want to understand it, and will fight to understand, even as I appreciate whatever patience is extended in the process.

I have already proved it: appropriation of land as private property inherently violates the liberty rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land. It deprives them of something they would otherwise have, which is the fundamental form of all rights violations. Property in products of labor does not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have, because they would not otherwise have been at liberty to use the products: they didn't exist, and wouldn't have existed but for the labor of those who made them and possibly the investment of those who bought them.

 

[Roy L]

You said these are common lands with no implication that they are privately owned. Now let's look at the passage again:

Still no implication that the land is privately owned.

Like I said in another thread, the communists and others who deny private ownership always stumble over the text. There is no getting around it.

I am not a communist, and I did not stumble over the text.

You cannot move YOUR NEIGHBOR'S boundary mark. Why?

Because it demarcates the extent of his tenure, depriving him of what he would otherwise have.

Because your neighbor owns his land and owns his boundaries.

No, that is a fabrication on your part. The quoted passage says no such thing.

And because your neighbor owns his land,

Another fabrication.

he can lawfully give it as an inheritance or sell it to who he wants....

Fabrication.

just as God gave Adam property.

Lie. "The land shall not be sold forever." Remember? And if God gave the earth into Adam's hands as property, on what basis do you claim it became the property of some of Adam's descendants, but not of others?

You are in direct opposition to Scripture.

No, you are blasphemously misstating what scripture plainly says to try to justify your mammon worship.

Your position is based on theft and covetousness.

No, you are lying about God's Word to rationalize and justify stealing, parasitism, injustice, and the murder of the poor and disadvantaged of whose welfare the Lord was always solicitous.

It is evil and wrong.

It is evil and wrong to make false claims about God's Word to justify mammon worship.

Moving boundaries is theft:

But of a tenure right, not a property right.

 

[Cabal]

Taxation = theft

This.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

DESTROYED, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

Wishful thinking. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

 

[Roy L]

This.

<sigh> Land value taxation is NOT theft, for reasons amply proved in this thread. It is LACK of land value taxation that is theft, because land value is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes. Read the freakin' thread.