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Thread: What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

  1. #541
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    It's true that Locke was wrong about the "commons". However, Locke (chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government") clearly explains that his view of "the commons" stems from his belief that God gave the world to man in common-which man later improved upon and privatized. In no. 34 of chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government", Locke writes "...God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate. And the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions." Locke, like most everyone else, could be contradictory-but to spin him as anti-land ownership or anti-property is just bull$#@!.
    I never stated that John Locke opposed land ownership or was anti-property. I made that clear in one of the excerpts Locke recognized the benefits of private ownership of land and the right of individuals to possess land — a right he contended came about when an individual mixed his labor with the land. But Locke, in his famous “proviso,” stipulated that such private ownership would be held on the condition “where there is enough and as good left in common for others.” Locke was on the right path, but the pieces never completely fell into place for him on this topic. But he was in opposition to holding land without making use of it. When you consider this, it is clear Locke believed land was not like other property. If a landowner left his field untended Locke believed this was a crime against the community. I highly doubt he would express the same sentiment if you built a boat and left it unused in a shed.
    http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
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  3. #542
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Surely you understand that this is the crux of our disagreement! Yes?

    You say: Man didn't create the universe, so it must be held in common for all humanity.

    I say: OK, maybe we didn't create it. Let's privitize it anyway.

    If you, Explorer Redbluepill, ramble along into a vast uninhabited wilderness and claim some of it, there's no one there whom you are ripping off. No one's rights have been violated. Other people show up later, you're not ripping them off either. They didn't create the universe! They have no right to it! You found it, you claimed it, it's yours.

    Perhaps that's the root disagreement from a moral perspective: You think "OK, here's a universe, here's human beings, the human beings didn't create the universe, so we all have a equal right to the whole universe." I, on the other hand, think "OK, here's this universe, none of us can show any proof we created it, so nobody has a right to any of it." Then it just becomes a practical matter of splitting it all up in a way that doesn't violate anyone's rights. That's an easy fix: homesteading. Just go claim and use stuff no one else is claiming. Since nobody has a right to any of it, no foul. In your philosophy, big foul, against all humanity no less, because everybody owned, owns, and will always own, whatever stuff you just claimed.

    You say everybody has just claim on the empty universe, I say nobody does.
    Then nobody has a right to their own life. How could one have a right to life if they have no right to access the source of life? Sigh, I already addressed a very similar analogy several pages back. Here is the link to the article itself: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/h...er/000387.html
    http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
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  4. #543
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Georgism, as I understand it, and as you have yourself presented it,
    I neither call nor consider myself a Georgist.
    does not advocate abolishing land ownership/monopolization/appropriation.
    Those are all different things. What I don't advocate abolishing is most accurately called "exclusive tenure" to land. You don't have to own something to have an exclusive right to it.
    All it does is say "OK, we're going to let you landowners keep owning land, but you have to pay a fee to do it".
    Full recovery of land rent for public purposes renders ownership of land a mere legal form, like marrying to get a green card. It's not a real marriage, and it's not real ownership. Real ownership includes a right to benefit from the owned item. Land rent recovery means the "owner" no longer has a right to any such benefit.
    You indeed have said many nasty things about land ownership and made it clear you think that to monopolize land is to enslave the non-monopolists. That stridency and flaming rhetoric just makes it all the more shocking that you do not want to abolish this allegedly horrible injustice. You instead want to "correct" it by having a Land Value Tax.
    To correct an injustice is indeed to abolish it. Leaving its legal form intact is irrelevant to that fact.

    Consider marijuana prohibition, which I consider not only an injustice but an atrocity. Suppose we leave it a criminal offense to possess or sell marijuana, but make the maximum penalty a fine of $1/oz. for those who sell it, converting prohibition, effectively, into a modest tax. You know that leaving the criminal statute in place would not affect the fact that marijuana would then effectively have been legalized.
    Once again:

    Wrong solution:
    [Landowner (enslaver)]...........................--> [Money] -->......................................[non-landowner (slave)]

    Actually just solution, assuming Georgism to be true:
    [non-landowner (normal human)]..............<<[Justice & Mutual Harmony between them]>>..............[also-non-landowner (normal human)]
    Once again: payment of sufficient money fully to compensate the injustice, and elimination of the landowner's unjust advantage and the landless's unjust disadvantage, renders the first formula functionally equivalent to the second. You know this.
    That movement of money in the Wrong Solution does not erase the Existential Injustice of enabling land monopolization.
    Yes, it does, just as leaving slave deeds in place but eliminating the legal power of the owner over the slave would erase slavery. The slave deeds would just no longer have any value, like land titles in a land rent recovery system.
    You may now concede that I was 100% correct in stating that you do not want to abolish land ownership, and thus do not want to abolish the slavery that land ownership is. You just want to pay off the slaves.
    Lie, as proved above.

    If slave owners were willing to give up legal power over their slaves, but keep the valueless legal deeds to their slaves, and even swap them around as if they had meaning other than as legal forms, I would consider slavery to have been abolished -- and so would you. You know this. Of course you do. You are just lying about it.
    I await your concession.
    Why would I concede when I have again comprehensively and conclusively demolished your claims?

  5. #544
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Correct. And as something that no more than one person wants has no value, such land would not be subject to LVT.
    You don't even know what "value" is, so please stop pretending that you have all the answers and listen to what the other posters are saying.
    "You cannot solve these problems with war." - Ron Paul



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  7. #545
    Quote Originally Posted by mczerone View Post
    You don't even know what "value" is,
    <yawn> Value is what a thing would exchange for.
    so please stop pretending that you have all the answers and listen to what the other posters are saying.
    I've read what they are saying. It is uniformly ignorant and dishonest.

  8. #546
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    It's true that Locke was wrong about the "commons".
    LOL! He was only wrong when he proved you wrong, huh?
    However, Locke (chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government") clearly explains that his view of "the commons" stems from his belief that God gave the world to man in common-which man later improved upon and privatized. In no. 34 of chapter V, "Concerning Civil Government", Locke writes "...God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate..."
    IMO invoking God is not much of an argument. Suicide bombers do as much. If you are going to cite an argument from Locke, and hope to be taken seriously, it'll have to be a better one than that.

  9. #547
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    Because it's not for all. It's for whomever can claim it. It is an extension of self-ownership. You clearly don't understand Locke or any other Natural Rights philosophers. Go do some reading.
    And who are these other natural rights philosophers? If you speak of Adam Smith he was actually in favor of ground rent.

    Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent. — Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter 2, Article I: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses

    "Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land, are, therefore, perhaps, the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them."
    - Adam Smith



    As was Thomas Paine:

    "Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." --Tom Paine, "Agrarian Justice," paragraphs 11 to 15



    And Thomas Jefferson:

    Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

    Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.
    The earth is given as a commonstock for man to labour and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.
    It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small land holders are the most precious part of a state.
    - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, dated October 28, 1785

    In 1797, he suggested “a land tax supply the means by which the individual States were to contribute their quotas of revenue to the Federal Government.”



    And the French Physiocrats (the same ones who coined the term Laissez-Faire):

    "Taxes ... should be laid directly on the net product of landed property, and not on men’s wages, or on produce, where they would increase the cost of collection, operate to the detriment of trade, and destroy every year a portion of the nation’s wealth." - François Quesnay




    Albert Jay Nock was a huge supporter of Henry George!

    http://wealthandwant.com/docs/Nock_HGUA.htm




    And even Milton Friedman was a sympathizer!

    "Land should be taxed as much as possible and improvements as little as possible."
    http://www.answersanswers.com/land_rent_proof.html



    And I could bring up several other natural rights thinkers (David Ricardo and Benjamin Franklin immediately come to mind. So no, you do not hold a monopoly view when it comes to land.
    Last edited by redbluepill; 10-05-2011 at 06:37 PM.
    http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
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  10. #548
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    A chainsaw does, in fact, contain raw matter.
    It indisputably does not, and you know it. You have merely decided to lie about it.
    Without raw matter, no chainsaw can you have.
    <yawn> Without apple trees, no apple pie can you have. So? That does not mean apple pies have apple trees in them.
    Every molecule most certainly has not been refined, processed, nor shaped by labor.
    It most certainly has. You know this. Of course you do. You have merely decided you had better lie about it.
    Many of the molecules are still exactly as nature provided them.
    Not one is, because they have all, at a minimum, been removed from WHERE nature provided them. You know this. Of course you do. You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.
    And certainly the space which the chainsaw occupies exists just as nature provided it.
    The space it occupies is not part of the chainsaw, as it can be moved away from that space and occupy another. You know this. Of course you do. You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.
    A skyscraper must use raw matter, space, and other resources (in economics, we generally call these natural resources "land").
    A skyscraper occupies and encloses a fixed space which is land, and natural resources must be used up to produce it. But no constituent particle of a skyscraper consists of natural resources, as all have been removed from where nature provided them. You know this. Of course you do. You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.
    A chainsaw likewise must use raw matter, space, and other resources (in economics, we generally call these natural resources "land").
    Natural resources are used up to produce a chainsaw, but it contains no "raw matter." Every molecule has been removed from where nature provided it. The space it occupies is not a part of it, as it can be moved to occupy another space. You know this. Of course you do. You have merely decided deliberately to lie about it.
    If you want to tax all land, you must tax the land of the chainsaw just as you tax the land of the skyscraper.
    There is no land in a chainsaw, it occupies no fixed space, and the space it does occupy would be taxed just the same were it occupied by the chainsaw, apple pies, or anything else.
    What's more, for the skyscraper you must tax not only the "land" which is the surface area of the planet which it occupies (as Georgists propose to do) but also the vertical area it occupies, also the raw matter extracted to form its beams and windows, etc., etc.
    The natural resources used to make it were presumably taxed when they were depleted. A right to occupancy of a ground area usually confers a right to occupy the vertical space above it (though not always).
    Redbluepill addressed this by saying he would like a one-time extraction fee for matter removed from nature and made into goods. You, on the other hand, Roy L., have thus far been silent on this matter, apparently not grasping the dilemma, instead being satisfied with accussing everyone who disagrees with you of lying.
    In post #379 of this thread, I wrote:

    Removal of depletable resources from nature in fact triggers not a land tax but a once-and-for-all "severance" tax, which recognizes the difference between violating others' rights by permanently depleting a natural resource and by merely temporarily occupying it.

    Your multiple-times-overjustified and long overdue apology for lying about what I have plainly written is spurned.

  11. #549
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    See post #505. To whom were you referring as "us" that did not include you?
    Reading comprehension is key to written communication. You are in danger of failing the reading comprehension test, but let me give you one more try:

    1. Many of us in the United States own Playstations.

    2. I do not own a Playstation.

    3. I own a Playstation.

    Does statement 1 contradict statement 2? By making statement 1, would I be making statement 3? If I were to make statement 1, would you be correct in claiming that I made statement 3, or would you, rather, be a lying liar lairface?

  12. #550
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    In post #379 of this thread, I wrote:

    Removal of depletable resources from nature in fact triggers not a land tax but a once-and-for-all "severance" tax, which recognizes the difference between violating others' rights by permanently depleting a natural resource and by merely temporarily occupying it.
    Ah, it was you, not redbluepill; I remembered incorrectly.

    Of course, the rest of your post is obviously just deliberate and despicable lies.

  13. #551
    Quote Originally Posted by redbluepill View Post
    Then nobody has a right to their own life. How could one have a right to life if they have no right to access the source of life?
    Right, exactly: they don't have a right to live -- not wherever they want. Not in someone else's house, not in someone else's Universe. If the creator of the Universe showed up with a moving van and demanded that we all leave, we'd have to get on board and go set up shop somewhere else in the Pluriverse.

    This seems unlikely to happen. Thus, as it is, the Universe is to start with either virgin territory or abandoned property. Then, humans start living and using/monopolizing/owning parts of the Universe. Pieces of the Universe thus become property. I think that's an awesome way to do it. I see no moral reason to hold the whole Universe in some universal trust fund for All Humanity forever and ever. Certainly no practical reason -- commons have tragedies. So I see just no reason at all.

    So yes, if all the landowners, aka Universe-owners, aka property-owners of the world colluded to forbid one guy from using any of their property, yes, that guy would be in a bad situation -- he would have to separate himself from their owned matter and locations and go instead to some unowned part of the Universe.

    It seems unlikely that all property-owners would unanimously collude to kick a guy out like that, just as it's unlikely the Universe-creator will show up and kick him out. That's what your Crusoe and Friday story ultimately boils down to. It only works if there's no exit. One guy has to own the whole Universe, or all the owners must act as one. I'm just not at all afraid of that scenario. It's not scary to me. I guess it's scary to you. You think it's plausible, so you believe we need this whole elaborate LVT system to stop the Big Scary Land Monopoly Monster from taking over everything. I think it's totally paranoid and ridiculous to fear that. I think that monopolies, real monopolies, only are sustainable when the gang we call the state sets them up or backs them up. On the free market, monopolies are no problem. So, perhaps that fear/lack-of is the crux of our disagreement? What say you, redbluepill?

  14. #552
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Reading comprehension is key to written communication. You are in danger of failing the reading comprehension test,
    ROTFL!! My clients pay me well for my expertise in the English language, sunshine, whereas it appears to be your second language....
    but let me give you one more try:

    1. Many of us in the United States own Playstations.

    2. I do not own a Playstation.

    3. I own a Playstation.

    Does statement 1 contradict statement 2?
    Probably; but it is an awkward, unnatural and ambiguous construction.
    By making statement 1, would I be making statement 3?
    That is a logical implication.
    If I were to make statement 1, would you be correct in claiming that I made statement 3, or would you, rather, be a lying liar lairface?
    A lie is a falsehood uttered with intent to deceive. You need to go back to your ESL class. Or just try to find a little honesty, somehow.



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  16. #553
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Of course, the rest of your post is obviously just deliberate and despicable lies.
    That is a falsehood uttered with intent to deceive. Inevitably.

    In fact, you have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted -- as usual -- you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.

  17. #554
    Quote Originally Posted by Mahkato View Post
    Seems to go nicely with Marx's abolition of private property. If I was a Marxist, I'd love it.
    "The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." - J. Edgar Hoover

  18. #555
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Right, exactly: they don't have a right to live -- not wherever they want.
    How did they lose their right to live wherever they want on the land nature provided? Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were at liberty to live wherever they wanted. How were our rights to do so extinguished?

    It is evident that your goal is to sacrifice the right to life on the altar of the Great God Property.
    Not in someone else's house,
    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?
    not in someone else's Universe.
    That is an example of the absurdity that prepares to compel atrocities.

    "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire
    If the creator of the Universe showed up with a moving van and demanded that we all leave, we'd have to get on board and go set up shop somewhere else in the Pluriverse.
    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.
    Thus, as it is, the Universe is to start with either virgin territory or abandoned property. Then, humans start living and using/monopolizing/owning parts of the Universe.
    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.
    Pieces of the Universe thus become property.
    Only when greedy, evil, thieving parasites steal them from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use them.
    I think that's an awesome way to do it.
    Yes, well, slavery had its fans, too...
    I see no moral reason to hold the whole Universe in some universal trust fund for All Humanity forever and ever.
    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.
    Certainly no practical reason -- commons have tragedies.
    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.
    So I see just no reason at all.
    Because you REFUSE to see the reasons, and when you can't refuse, you lie about them.
    So yes, if all the landowners, aka Universe-owners, aka property-owners
    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.
    of the world colluded to forbid one guy from using any of their property, yes, that guy would be in a bad situation -- he would have to separate himself from their owned matter and locations and go instead to some unowned part of the Universe.
    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.
    It seems unlikely that all property-owners would unanimously collude to kick a guy out like that, just as it's unlikely the Universe-creator will show up and kick him out.
    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?
    That's what your Crusoe and Friday story ultimately boils down to. It only works if there's no exit.
    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. He is enslaved in effect, if not in law:

    "During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war
    broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky home
    for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old
    negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God,
    I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.' The planters, on the other hand,
    are contented with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in
    us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper now than when we owned the slaves.'
    How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents they take more of the labor of
    the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled to return him
    sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were compelled
    by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he could no longer
    work. Now their interest and responsibility cease when they have got all the
    work out of him they can."

    From a letter by George M. Jackson, St. Louis. Dated August 15, 1885.
    Reprinted in Social Problems, by Henry George.
    One guy has to own the whole Universe, or all the owners must act as one.
    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.
    I'm just not at all afraid of that scenario.
    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.
    It's not scary to me. I guess it's scary to you.
    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?
    You think it's plausible, so you believe we need this whole elaborate LVT system to stop the Big Scary Land Monopoly Monster from taking over everything.
    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.
    I think it's totally paranoid and ridiculous to fear that.
    Because your collusion scenario is an absurdity that you made up.
    I think that monopolies, real monopolies, only are sustainable when the gang we call the state sets them up or backs them up.
    That is EXACTLY what the state has done for landowners.
    On the free market, monopolies are no problem.
    There can be no free market where a privileged group is subsidized by the forcible violation of everyone else's rights.
    So, perhaps that fear/lack-of is the crux of our disagreement?
    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.

  19. #556
    Not in someone else's house,
    Houses are capital, not land.

    If the creator of the Universe showed up with a moving van and demanded that we all leave, we'd have to get on board and go set up shop somewhere else in the Pluriverse.
    No point in God placing us on this Earth if he doesn’t want us on it in the first place. I have plenty of Biblical quotes to support land as a commons, but I agree with Roy this discussion shouldn’t go down the religious route.

    It seems unlikely that all property-owners would unanimously collude to kick a guy out like that, just as it's unlikely the Universe-creator will show up and kick him out. That's what your Crusoe and Friday story ultimately boils down to. It only works if there's no exit. One guy has to own the whole Universe, or all the owners must act as one. I'm just not at all afraid of that scenario. It's not scary to me. I guess it's scary to you. You think it's plausible, so you believe we need this whole elaborate LVT system to stop the Big Scary Land Monopoly Monster from taking over everything.
    The Robinson Crusoe article is an analogy of how land ownership conflicts with self ownership. All individuals must have access to the land in order to exercise their right to sustain their own lives. And if you think there is enough land that this isn’t even an issue then you must not know much about South America’s history and current state. Land-grabbers were practically unfettered throughout the continent and we see the result today: Rampant poverty for many and immense wealth for a few.
    “Other American companies, too, gained control of natural resources and thus monopolized trade. This monopoly of land created an atmosphere where many landless peasants had little choice but to work for American companies.” http://www.landandfreedom.org/ushistory/us16.htm

    So maybe it isn’t scary for you because you have not seen the truly devastating impact land-grabbing can have. Many of the Founding Fathers took several measures to ensure this. But it still has an impact that affects our liberties. Adam Smith stated, "As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed." The payment of land rent to a few at the expense of the many forces artificially higher costs of living and artificially lower wages. Landholding as it is today does have a negative influence on the economy and liberties whether it is on a larger scale like in South America or a ‘smaller’ scale like in North America. Geolibertarian economist Fred Foldvary explains it here: http://www.progress.org/archive/fold239.htm

    I think it's totally paranoid and ridiculous to fear that. I think that monopolies, real monopolies, only are sustainable when the gang we call the state sets them up or backs them up.
    And these land monopolies are being sustained by the state.

    On the free market, monopolies are no problem. So, perhaps that fear/lack-of is the crux of our disagreement? What say you, redbluepill?
    You cannot have a truly free market while allowing our current system of land ownership. The wealthy know that the land is the source of wealth. Control the source and you control it all, including the people.

    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.”

    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.

    Economist Mason Gaffney said this about land and the free market:

    “Not only can you have both common land and free markets, you can't have one without the other. They go together, like love and marriage. You need market prices to help identify land's taxable surplus, which is the net product of land after deducting the human costs of using it. At the same time, you must support government from land revenues to have a truly free market, because otherwise you will raise taxes from production, trade, and capital formation, interfering with free markets. If you learn this second point, and act on it, you will have a much freer market than any of the OECD nations that now presume to instruct you, and that are campaigning vigorously to make all nations in the world "harmonize" their taxes to conform with their own abysmal systems.” http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Free_Market.html
    Last edited by redbluepill; 10-06-2011 at 04:08 PM.
    http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
    http://www.wealthandwant.com/
    http://freeliberal.com/

  20. #557
    Quote Originally Posted by mconder View Post
    Seems to go nicely with Marx's abolition of private property
    No, it just distinguishes rightful from wrongful private property, and redresses the current injustice of taxing rightful property to subsidize the owners of wrongful property. Socialists pretend capital is land to justify stealing capital; capitalists pretend land is capital to justify stealing land.
    If I was a Marxist, I'd love it.
    BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT. Wrong. Marx himself called it "capitalism's last ditch."

    It's OK if you feel stupid right now.

  21. #558
    Quote Originally Posted by mconder View Post
    Seems to go nicely with Marx's abolition of private property. If I was a Marxist, I'd love it.
    No, you would not because the LVT is only promoted through a free market. http://www.cooperativeindividualism....e-markets.html

    In fact, that was why Karl Marx despised George.
    http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
    http://www.wealthandwant.com/
    http://freeliberal.com/

  22. #559
    Even the Henry George Archive under mises.org states, A prolific author who was a strong defender of free trade and an advocate of the idea of a single tax on land.

    http://mises.org/literature.aspx?Id=169&action=author
    http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
    http://www.wealthandwant.com/
    http://freeliberal.com/

  23. #560
    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?



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  25. #561
    Quote Originally Posted by rp713 View Post
    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.

  26. #562
    Quote Originally Posted by rp713 View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 10-06-2011 at 07:45 PM.

  27. #563
    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.
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 10-07-2011 at 01:35 PM.

  28. #564
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    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.

  29. #565
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    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!

  30. #566
    Quote Originally Posted by redbluepill View Post
    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.
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 10-07-2011 at 12:34 PM.

  31. #567
    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.)
    Last edited by therealjjj77; 10-07-2011 at 01:38 PM.

  32. #568
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    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.
    Last edited by redbluepill; 10-07-2011 at 02:27 PM.
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    http://www.wealthandwant.com/
    http://freeliberal.com/



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  34. #569
    Quote Originally Posted by redbluepill View Post
    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.
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 10-07-2011 at 03:13 PM.

  35. #570
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    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.

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