What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[furface]

Helmuth, thanks for replying. I'd like to clear something up if you don't mind.

Who exactly benefits by not taxing QEII's land?

1. Does everybody benefit?

2. Does QEII benefit?

3. Is the question irrelevant?

 

[eduardo89]

Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here. The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time. For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the Queen of England uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land. This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me. It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.

There is no "Queen of England". England has not had its own crown since 1707. She is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of 16 other countries (all separate crowns).

 

[furface]

There is no "Queen of England".

Thanks for pointing that out. You learn something new every day, I guess.

 

[eduardo89]

Thanks for pointing that out. You learn something new every day, I guess.

Glad you learned something from my nitpicking

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Helmuth, thanks for replying. I'd like to clear something up if you don't mind.

Who exactly benefits by not taxing QEII's land?

I had to think about this for a while trying to craft the perfect and most accurate answer, partly because I am not British. So let's change the scenario to one more familiar and American.

The Queen is part of the government apparatus in Great Britain, correct? So, this question is equivalent to asking "who exactly benefits by not taxing Barack Obama?". In the end, the question is irrelevant, option 3. 100% of Obama's salary comes from the government -- from tax revenues. Likewise, all the Queen's land and other wealth came from taxation. For Obama to tax himself is just taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other. If Obama pays a 50% tax, it's the same as if he just took a 50% pay cut. The government still has the same amount of money either way, whether it spends it on Obama's hamburger or a new toilet seat in Baghdad. So while I am absolutely opposed to taxation, it's impossible for me to care whether the taxers themselves are taxed. It's just a fiction and an irrelevancy. People whose sole subsistence is taxation cannot pay taxes. The Queen absolutely cannot, by the rules of logic, pay any taxes. 100% of her wealth came from taxes. Even to give 100% of it back would just make her a net break-even -- no longer a tax-eater. To be a tax payer, she'd have to give all of it back, then go get a real job, then pay taxes on that.

To answer 2.: Obviously the Queen benefits from owning vast tracts of land. To answer 1.: It is not clear that anyone would benefit from taxing that land, other than the other parasites in the government, which would have that much more money and power directed to themselves rather than the Queen.

The right thing to do would be an attempt at redress of grievances of some kind. The people whose land was stolen, or whose property was stolen to pay for land, they or their heirs should be allowed to bring suit against the Queen and be compensated.

 

[Roy L]

My home since I haven't paid my LVT

Why even bother saying something so stupid and dishonest? If you couldn't afford to compensate the community for what you take from others by violating their rights to liberty, you would just sell your house and seek accommodation better suited to your needs and means, much as people do now if they find they can't afford to continue paying their mortgage, credit card bills, alimony, medical insurance, property taxes, etc.

 

[Steven Douglas]

The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land. It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources. Neither is the "community value" concept. Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.

It would be more precise to say that Rare Earth metals are worthless without a technologically-based infrastructure. Not community-based. This is proved by the fact that Rare-Earth metals processing does not require the existence of artisans, barbers, antique dealers, blacksmiths, and a whole host of entities that might belong to a surrounding "community". The value of the final Rare Earth metals product cannot be increased by the existence of such entities, which are completely incidental.

Words like "related" and "based" (e.g., "alcohol related" or "community based") are generalities that attempt to impute CAUSAL relevance or value where none may exist. For example, a statistic on "alcohol related" deaths (rather than the more intellectually honest "alcohol caused") may include an automobile accident that involved someone who was driving home from a bar, even though no alcohol was consumed or involved in any way -- which makes the "related" statistic, to that degree, meaningless.

Likewise, the Georgist/Geoist concept of "community based" value of land attempts (what I consider a logical impossibility) to view land rent independent and irrespective of "land improvements", or anything that is produced on that land. In other words, what "nature, government and the community" provides is the value of the land rent, completely separate and independent from the value of whatever you do to/on the land, which is seen only as "taking benefit" from what nature, government and the community provided.

Along with the fundamental tenet that all "community members" have a natural liberty right of access to all that nature provides - nature, government and community are combined, Vulcan-like mind-melded together, as one interrelated, land value-causing entity. Thus, anyone making exclusive use of land is "taking" (stealing, if taken without compensation) value that has been "provided" by this singularized/collectivized NatureGovernmentCommunity entity.

To me, that's not just a pretzel of convoluted reasoning - it's more like a funnel cake. A web spun by funnel cake spiders.

 

[Roy L]

You still haven't insulted my family members, decrying them as disgustingly evil and vile.

Post the evidence that they are, and I might oblige.

There are also a few third-world tin pot dictators who have yet to be lauded by you as heroes.

Which third world tin pot dictator have I lauded? Or are you just deliberately lying again?

If you're going to crush evil and celebrate good, you should be thorough. Don't just pick off the relatives of a single poster -- crush them all! I want to hear about my great-grandparents' reprehensibility. Otherwise, you lose all credibility in my eyes.

Were you under an erroneous impression that you were contributing something worthwhile to the discussion?

 

[Roy L]

Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here.

There are indeed. The founders of neoclassical economics changed the definition of "capital" to include land, and changed the definition of "rent" to denote how MUCH a factor payment is, rather than how it is obtained.

The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time. For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the Queen of England uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land. This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me. It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.

Others here will be quick to inform you that identifying such facts only proves that you are envious of those who are more successful than you.

The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land. It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources.

The difference is that excluding others from using natural resources deprives them of liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have. Excluding them from using a product of labor doesn't, as the product did not otherwise exist.

Neither is the "community value" concept. Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.

They are also, unlike land and other natural resources, worthless without the labor and investment of those who extract them from the earth, refine them, etc.

In general all economic markets are community based, so LVT seems to be an argument for pure socialism by claiming that communities create wealth, therefore all wealth should be collectivized.

No. Please try to find a willingness to know the fact that the value of rare earth elements in the ground, as natural ore, is created by the community, but the DIFFERENCE in value between that ore and the REEs when mined, refined and ready to use is produced by the folks who invested to create the mining machinery and infrastructure, performed the labor, etc. Those who are willing to know that fact are good, honest and virtuous champions of liberty, justice and truth. Those who are not willing to know it are vile, evil, despicable filth who lie to rationalize privilege and justify injustice.

Back to my semantic argument. I think that a better way of looking at natural resource ownership is the concept of equitable natural resource ownership in another thread I started here. Queen Elizabeth II's land should be taxed. People with one family residence & perhaps a plot of land to do business on should not be taxed.

Modern LVT proposals typically include a flat, universal individual exemption for secure tenure on sufficient land for a normal person to live on (or, second best, an equivalent citizens' dividend). In practice, most people would pay little or no net LVT, and would be far better off than under the current system.

This is getting down to the core of what private property & ownership is and why societies have a vested interest in protecting it.

That is exactly correct.

 

[Roy L]

You can't help the little guy by setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution and instructing it to be on the side of the little guy. Think about it for TWO SECONDS!

No one has suggested "setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution," so you can stop lying.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: you can't.

The LVT authority would be microscopically small compared to current taxing authorities, and would have one (1) power: to secure the tenure of those who paid the tax.

Why are the powerful going to be hurting themselves?

Why is Queen Elizabeth II going to tax her own land?

You have a very peculiar notion of how democratic government works.

It makes no sense!

No objection to LVT ever makes any sense.

That is an delusion which is really, really common and really, really important for us to point out as naive.

"Justice? Liberty? Fuggettaboutit!" is not a new objection to LVT. But it remains a pretty amusing one.

It's one of the LVters' and other pro-tax pro-collectivism anti-market people's most favoritest and closely-held delusions.

LVT is a voluntary, market-based, value-for-value transaction; LVT with a universal individual exemption is the only way to restore the equal individual right to liberty; and LVT would render much current government spending unnecessary, REDUCING TOTAL TAXES, so STOP LYING.

Government is of the little people, by the little people. It protects us and watches out for our interests.

Only when we, as voters, watch out for our own interests. The absence of LVT shows how poorly we have been doing that so far. It doesn't show we can never do any better.

Private men, in contrast, care only about their private interests and are devoted to furthering their own wealth by crushing the little people and maiming their children in coal mines.

More accurately, the incentive structure of a privilege-based economy makes private interests rob, starve, enslave and kill others for profit whether they intend to do so or not.

Governments aren't perfect, they have problems, sure. When we see those problems, we vote in new people to fix the problems and things are fixed. After all that's what I learned in Social Studies in 5th grade. I don't need to think any further than that, right?

Well, at any rate you haven't thought any further...

I mean, what could be more sophisticated than the truths I learned in my 5th grade education camp? And no one can tell me that it was biased just because it was run by interested parties. That's loony conspiracy talk. When a private man has a problem, we have no recourse. We can't vote in a new landlord or new mine owner. We're just stuck. that's the difference between the responsive, caring, accountable government and the callous, out-of-control, hegemonic Business-Man or Land-Lord.

<yawn> It's not like much smarter people than you have never thought about these things, Steven.

The Nation-State: Our Friend. Our happy friend. Our loyal friend. The only one protecting us from the voracious and deadly predations of the evil private interests.

Bingo, as Somalia proves.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

There are indeed. The founders of neoclassical economics changed the definition of "capital" to include land, and changed the definition of "rent" to denote how MUCH a factor payment is, rather than how it is obtained.

Land is a factor of production in neoclassical (and classical) economics, not capital.

 

[furface]

Helmuth, the reason I asked the question is that in my view there has to be some sort of equation that optimizes something for some group of people when deciding to levy taxes or not. If you claim the Queen benefits from not being taxed, I believe that it is easy to prove that ultimately she would benefit from paying taxes. The reason is that market driven economies require markets. If all the money is tied up in within a small group of people, there are no markets. If you're not trying to optimize well being for everybody, and like to just see people suffer, I guess it would make sense that the Queen not pay taxes.

Steven, property values are indeed a combination of a lot of things. Land is one of the best examples of that. I would argue that land in Manhattan for instance is not naturally valuable. It's valuable because of a State driven monetary monopoly that creates artificial demand for property on Wall Street, Madison Ave, etc. The same would go for some place like London, although I think London is a pretty cool place regardless of the fact that the remnants of the British Empire uses it as its base.

I think that pure "community" has very little to do with it in a broad sense. OWNERSHIP makes communities valuable, and communities that have low ownership rates tend to be very depressed. Governments can mess with this rule for a while if they are allowed to print money arbitrarily and hand it out, but eventually it will catch up like it's doing in the US and all over Europe.

Better to give people zero interest loans and encourage true ownership, which is mortgage free ownership on property, than to have this nutty system of taxation, bureaucratic mayhem, and then redistribution. Empower people with ownership and then leave them alone. If they can't make things work, at that point they deserve to be slaves, but at least give them the chance.

I have a problem with excessive resource driven wealth without taxation, though. That has nothing to do with the benefits of one's labor. It has to do with governments protecting a privileged class of people to the detriment of the working class. I also have a problem with taxing anybody people merely to hand over to government unions. Put money into the hands of individual people, not government.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Please try to find a willingness to know the fact that the value of rare earth elements in the ground, as natural ore, is created by the community...

furface, you can expect a lot of that ("find a willingness to know") on Roy's part. Know that your "unwillingness to know" can and will be used against you in a court of Roy, as evidence that you are LYING.

Note that no distinction is ever made with reference to those actual do value the ore, or which community members are bona fide parties of interest in that ore. They are all considered parties of interest, all having "provided value" which is not attributed to any specific community members, but rather a nebulous collective blob that is simply labeled "community", which fully encompasses all members therein, equally, and without regard to individual contributions. In other words, the "community value" portion of land value, as provided by "the community" is entirely collectivized/socialized.

One of the tenets of geolibertarianism (at least as espoused by Roy), is the premise that exclusive use of land means that ALL OTHERS (jointly and severally in that community) have been excluded from using natural resources, which deprives them of liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have. In this context, liberty and opportunity means nothing more than OPTIONS to access and usage, not the resources themselves.

In a functioning economy (of any type), it is possible to identify those who actually DO use a resource, in contrast with those who merely had an option, but did not exercise it. In Roy's hypothetical framework of "liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have", EVERYONE in a community is identified as someone who has been deprived. This is true, in that they have been deprived of what otherwise would have been an OPTION for them. However, the only ones who could be said to have been deprived of the resource itself would be those who would otherwise would have exercised their option, had it existed. And that is not everyone.

A farmer and a barber, for example, each of whom might otherwise have had no intention of becoming a miner, cannot be said to have been deprived of a resource, but only of the option to common access to a resource, whether or not it was available, valued or wanted. And what value, in the real world, is an option that is freely available, but not otherwise exercised? Zero. Hence, what value deprivation can there be for something you otherwise would not have wanted anyway? Again, zero.

Doesn't matter to Roy, it all constitutes a deprivation, as even the un-exercised "otherwise" options are valued as if that option would otherwise have been exercised - by anyone and everyone.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Afterthought, using Disneyland as an example: Out of all the value of all the land upon which Disneyland rests, in Roy's mind ZERO LAND VALUE can be attributed to Disney for anything built or done on that particular 17 acres of Magic Kingdom land. Everything Disney built above ground, yes, but the land value itself: it is Disney who is TAKING value that, in Roy's mind, was "provided by" Nature-Government-Community alone.

Now, as a MEMBER of the community of that time, Disney, by virtue of the creation of Disneyland and its mere existence, did, in fact, DIRECTLY cause an increase in the value of immediate surrounding lands, which did skyrocket in price by virtue of that fact alone, even before Disneyland opened. Now, does Disney get any proportional credit whatsoever for "Community Provided Value" for this? No. Not at all under Roy's LVT regime. Disneyland is only a TAKER OF PROVIDED VALUE - not a giver in any way; a DEPRIVER of liberty and access to resources that others would otherwise have" (if Disney/Disneyland did not exist). And Walt Disney himself - why, he was just one more community member, like anyone else, whose "community contribution" could be counted no differently than any minimum wage employee working on the outskirts of town.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

LVT is voluntary

See definition voluntary.

 

[eduardo89]

See definition voluntary.

Thread winner.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Helmuth, the reason I asked the question is that in my view there has to be some sort of equation that optimizes something for some group of people when deciding to levy taxes or not.

My view differs. I look out on the world and ask myself, "Self, ought people to take other people's stuff without permission?"

And I answer myself: "No, self, they ought not to do that."

So then I ask: "Is taxation an act which is defined as taking other people's stuff without permission?"

"Yes, yes, it definitely is; no avoiding that," comes the reply.

"So," my selves agree in unison, "Taxation ought not to exist."

As you can see, my view is colored by bright, bold, and unapologetic hues of morality. You may or may not be able to relate to that. Your own glasses may tint the world differently. Morality has rather gone out of style the last few decades; few believers in it are left, and I expect practitioners may dwindle soon as well unless the belief is shored up.

I have a problem with excessive resource driven wealth without taxation, though.

I don't. But even if I did, because such wealth is not immoral I would find it immoral and thus unacceptable to take these people's "excessive" stuff without their permission in an attempt to solve the problem. It is immoral to take other people's stuff without permission. It is also uncivilized. It also shows bad breeding. To engage in or advocate such behavior should be a shame and a reproach among decent society.

furface, you can expect a lot of that ("find a willingness to know") on Roy's part. Know that your "unwillingness to know" can and will be used against you in a court of Roy, as evidence that you are LYING.

I have already proven to my own satisfaction that "Roy" is merely an obnoxiously-programmed Turing machine -- able to emulate human-like interaction, yes, but only in a very narrow scope. It provides a fun, hilarious, and useful foil. But I have already found all of its forks. The programmer was obnoxious, but also lazy -- all the forks are pretty brief, curving back to the main "You're lying! I hate you!" trunk in short order.

 

[Roy L]

I had to think about this for a while trying to craft the perfect and most accurate answer,

You misspelled, "a suitably cretinous lie."

partly because I am not British. So let's change the scenario to one more familiar and American.

Without reading any further, I know that Helmuth will now say something fallacious, absurd and dishonest.

The Queen is part of the government apparatus in Great Britain, correct? So, this question is equivalent to asking "who exactly benefits by not taxing Barack Obama?".

No, such a claim is of course fallacious, absurd, and dishonest. And stupid. Thank you for proving my prophecy correct.

In the end, the question is irrelevant, option 3.

You have to pretend it is irrelevant, because the objectively true answer proves that your belief system is false, vicious, and evil.

100% of Obama's salary comes from the government -- from tax revenues. Likewise, all the Queen's land and other wealth came from taxation.

Obviously, that's just another bald lie from you. The land was there before there were any taxes, and it was obtained by forcible military conquest, not taxation. Everything you say to rationalize and justify landowner privilege always has to be a lie.

For Obama to tax himself is just taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other.

Obama does not levy taxes. That is purely another stupid lie from you.

If Obama pays a 50% tax, it's the same as if he just took a 50% pay cut. The government still has the same amount of money either way, whether it spends it on Obama's hamburger or a new toilet seat in Baghdad. So while I am absolutely opposed to taxation, it's impossible for me to care whether the taxers themselves are taxed. It's just a fiction and an irrelevancy. People whose sole subsistence is taxation cannot pay taxes.

That claim is also, of course, dishonest and stupid. Both Obama the the Queen have other sources of income, and the Queen's landholdings were not obtained by taxation. You just always have to lie. ALWAYS.

The Queen absolutely cannot, by the rules of logic, pay any taxes.

That is, by the rules of logic, just another stupid lie.

100% of her wealth came from taxes.

That is, by the rules of logic, nothing but another stupid lie.

Even to give 100% of it back would just make her a net break-even -- no longer a tax-eater. To be a tax payer, she'd have to give all of it back, then go get a real job, then pay taxes on that.

No, that is just another stupid lie from you, Helmuth. People who pay taxes may pay on their consumption, on their real estate holdings, etc., not just on their "jobs" (actually their wages). Many people who pay taxes -- e.g., retirees -- have no job to pay taxes on. You know this. Of course you do. You are just vomiting stupid lie after stupid lie. Everyone reading this knows you are vomiting stupid lies, including you. There is no way for those who oppose LVT to say anything except to vomit stupid lies. And so you always have to vomit stupid lies.

To answer 2.: Obviously the Queen benefits from owning vast tracts of land. To answer 1.: It is not clear that anyone would benefit from taxing that land, other than the other parasites in the government, which would have that much more money and power directed to themselves rather than the Queen.

No, Helmuth, you know very well that that is just another stupid lie you are vomiting. The British government's tax revenue is not just given to those in the government to spend on their own personal priorities. It is devoted to public purposes and benefit according to rules of legal and democratic accountability. You know this. Of course you do. You are just telling stupid lies about it, because you have already realized that the truth proves your beliefs are false and evil.

The right thing to do would be an attempt at redress of grievances of some kind.

Like the people whose liberty to use the land -- and all other privately owned land -- was forcibly removed without just compensation.

The people whose land was stolen,

I.e., all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it. Right.

or whose property was stolen to pay for land, they or their heirs should be allowed to bring suit against the Queen and be compensated.

See? You have to pretend people never had any right to liberty whose loss must rightly be compensated, because that is the only way you can evade the fact that you are rationalizing and justifying theft and extortion on a massive, monstrous scale.

Two Holocausts a year, Helmuth. How proud the Fatherland must be of you.

 

[Roy L]

It would be more precise to say that Rare Earth metals are worthless without a technologically-based infrastructure.

No, it wouldn't.

Not community-based. This is proved by the fact that Rare-Earth metals processing does not require the existence of artisans, barbers, antique dealers, blacksmiths, and a whole host of entities that might belong to a surrounding "community". The value of the final Rare Earth metals product cannot be increased by the existence of such entities, which are completely incidental.

False. REEs are used in many products that such people want to buy. Their labor creates the purchasing power that boosts demand for and thus value of REEs.

Likewise, the Georgist/Geoist concept of "community based" value of land attempts (what I consider a logical impossibility) to view land rent independent and irrespective of "land improvements", or anything that is produced on that land.

All competent real estate appraisers are aware of the fact that land value is independent of what is produced on the land.

In other words, what "nature, government and the community" provides is the value of the land rent, completely separate and independent from the value of whatever you do to/on the land, which is seen only as "taking benefit" from what nature, government and the community provided.

Correct. And indisputable.

Along with the fundamental tenet that all "community members" have a natural liberty right of access to all that nature provides

That is not a "tenet" but an indisputable physical fact. Absent initiation of force by others, all are physically at liberty to access and use all that nature provides, just as our hunter-gatherer ancestors accessed and used it.

- nature, government and community are combined, Vulcan-like mind-melded together, as one interrelated, land value-causing entity.

No, they are quite distinct in how they produce land value, each contributing its own distinct type of advantage.

Thus, anyone making exclusive use of land is "taking" (stealing, if taken without compensation) value that has been "provided" by this singularized/collectivized NatureGovernmentCommunity entity.

There is no such entity. You are just lying about what I have plainly written. As usual.

To me, that's not just a pretzel of convoluted reasoning - it's more like a funnel cake. A web spun by funnel cake spiders.

It is a pretzel of funnel cake web spider convoluted unreason spinning because YOU MADE IT UP.

 

[Roy L]

Land is a factor of production in neoclassical (and classical) economics, not capital.

Wrong. Capital is a factor of production in both classical and neoclassical economics; but neoclassical economics generally considers land a type of capital.