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

  1. #781
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Rights are in principle empirically discoverable: they are the constraints on individual action that foster the healthiest and most prosperous society -- i.e., the society that will out-compete all others in the arena of evolution.
    Suppose that communism, with no individual legal right to property in the fruit of one's labor, actually resulted in healthier people, more material prosperity, and greater evolutionary competitive advantage than a free market with individual legal right to such property does; in that case, would you say that individuals don't have the natural right to such property?



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  3. #782
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    No, that's correct.
    Ok, let's change the scenario slightly. Instead of bidding for two plots of land, I only bid for one plot, and its size is ten miles square. The LVT is something trivial, maybe even still just $1/year. Then I build the town in the center of the land. I collect and pocket all the rent. I even sublease unimproved land within my plot, and pocket the rent money, which will be a lot, due to the proximity to the town. The LVT never goes above my initial token bid, because none of the wilderness outside my plot of land is ever improved, because the only people who want to develop anything in this area want to be within my town, or at least within a mile or two of it (which is still on my plot of land). My town is the magnet; without it, nobody wanted to build in this wilderness.
    Now it's true that I had to make an initial investment to build the town, so it's reasonable that the created value belongs to me. But that was just seed money; now I'm pocketing rent money which is due to land values caused by the work of other people, including their improvement of unimproved land which I'm subleasing to them. Other than my token LVT payments, haven't I effectively become the parasitic landlord and land speculator which your system is supposed to prevent?

  4. #783
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    He robs them of their property just as surely as the bandit does. It makes absolutely no difference to them that he has a piece of paper legally entitling him to take the loot
    Consider a mountain pass which is occasionally used by caravans, within a single country (to avoid international complications). There are no man-made improvements. Nobody has requested privilege of exclusive use, so nobody pays LVT for it. Caravans pass for free, though they would be willing to pay a large amount of money if necessary.
    Now, I offer the government $1/year for exclusive privilege. Of course, assuming the government accepts my bid, it'll open an auction, and grant privilege to the highest bidder. But how does the government decide whether to do the auction, or to reject my bid and leave the land open to public use for free? Does some bureaucrat or judge make the decision? Or is all public land (or at least all public unimproved land, so man-made roads are excluded) unconditionally up for auction?
    Assuming the auction proceeds, the land will be bid up nearly to the price which the bidders expect the caravans are willing to pay for passage, i.e. so the annual LVT will be slightly under the annual caravan payments, with the difference going to pay for toll collection costs, and some profit for bothering with the whole enterprise. This could be done with any unimproved public land anywhere, which any entrepreneuring wannabe-landlord thinks anybody would be willing to pay to access.

    What do you do about this? Do you allow me, as the winning bidder, to be a perpetual leech, profiting by fleecing the caravans? Suppose I don't publish the price for passage, and before telling approaching caravans what the price is, I require their signature on a nondisclosure agreement. I also announce that I'll refuse passage to anybody who has ever publicly announced, or revealed directly or indirectly to the government, what he would be willing to pay for passage, and prior to passage I require a signed oath that no such disclosure has ever been made (he could merely decide deliberately to lie about it, but let's be optimistic and assume he won't). I set the price to maximize my profits. Some approaching caravans will turn back rather than pay, after learning what my price is, but I earn money from the rest. Now the government knows only how much I initially guessed the mountain pass is worth, but doesn't know how much I've experimentally determined it to actually be worth. Since the government doesn't tax my sales or income, it can't learn the value of the pass that way either. The next time the government reassesses the value, how does it do it? It doesn't have the necessary information. Yet if it leaves the assessed value unchanged, then I get to remain a permanent parasite. If the assessor decides that my business model is parasitic, and raises the assessed value extremely high so that the LVT will be far beyond what I could possibly be earning, so that I'll be forced to relinquish my exclusive privilege and go out of business, then that causes a chilling effect throughout the economy; how will even legitimate business owners, especially ones who publicly speak against the assessor's judgment, know that they'll be safe from the assessor's wrath?

    Suppose that the assessor somehow gets the valuation exactly right, so that my profit is exactly zero. Even in this case, I would still choose to keep the privilege, even though I'm earning no money from it, because I'm causing an increase in government revenue, and it doesn't cost me anything. Since there's no need for government services at the mountain pass, the increased revenue is spent on improved government services elsewhere, including the town where I live. Thus, I'm benefiting for free at the expense of the caravans, who would be able to use the pass for free if I weren't interfering.

  5. #784
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    It is the landowner who is guilty of theft, as already proved...
    I saw a lot of passionate assertions, and the rationale for those assertions, but I must have missed the part where "guilt" and "theft" were actually proved.

    One thing I have noticed, Roy, in reading through your responses throughout this entire thread, is that you are answering in earnest, quite honestly - albeit using your own set of definitions for nearly every word, every concept, every term employed.

    Here is but one example:

    "...whenever humans are intelligent, they understand that the rights of generations unborn cannot rightly be divvied up among those currently alive."

    From that I can get a rough idea of your definition of the word intelligent (and its implied opposite by contrast, based on a specific understanding, as outlined by you).

    I can only understand and interpret your definitions, the intending meanings of which seem to be unique to you (i.e., "free market", "good", "honest", "wise", "theft", etc.,) only by weighing them as circular references within the contexts in which you have used them. Likewise, when you "refute" what someone else is saying, you are weighing their words, not by their definitions or intended meanings, but by those same definitions which seem to be unique to you.

    As such, your responses seem more like edicts than arguments; not "normative" (stating the way you believe things should/ought to be), but positive assertions, as you argue from your own premises, as if your understanding of things is the way things actually are (and they really are, albeit in your own mind, as you have decided and declared), all deviations from which are the abnormalities, the lies, etc.,.

    I don't know how we "get there from here", or how any of these discussions can have any meaning whatsoever, without at least a common definition of terms - without circular references of any kind.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 11-17-2011 at 05:16 AM.



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  7. #785
    By the way, Matt, I wish that when you popped in you would reply to the actually interesting posts, instead of nitpicking about boring stuff.

    This post in particular was a reply to you, and I am still waiting for a response to it:
    http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post3698271

    Particularly this part:

    I think it is wrong of you to call it pressure. Incentive maybe, yes, but not pressure. As for calling it theft, I think that is unfair.
    I think that land is a legitimate subject of ownership, so it is unavoidable for me to believe taxing it would be theft. Just so, you would believe that taxing me for using a computer would be theft, I think.
    This is not an uncompensated taking of land.
    I have lower standard of theft than that: involuntary taking is theft, compensated or not. One man's "need" doesn't cancel another man's right. I don't agree with so-called eminent domain. Do you?
    If the tax is high and the farmer can’t afford it there is good reason. We can assume there are a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price for the land. The owner is lucky to be in such a position! With the money earned he can double his acreage at a different site and farm even more.
    True. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But neither would it be the worst thing if you had this same set-up for capital goods. You charge a CVT (capital value tax) on capital goods, determined based on assessors, market prices, and some sophisticated computer model Roy L. has. Just like LVT. The owners of injection molds and CNC lathes would then pay an annual tax. Normally, as long as they were putting them to reasonably good use they'd be able to afford the tax. If the tax is high and the factory can't afford the tax, there is some reason. We can assume there are many buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price of the machines. Perhaps society needs every available unit of a specialized machine the factory has, in order to produce the new iPhone which is in a desperate shortage. The owner is lucky to be in such a position! With the money, he can buy even better machines and twice as many, and manufacture to his heart's delight.

    But if you believe in an absolute property right in capital goods, such a CVT would still be theft.

  8. #786
    Quote Originally Posted by AquaBuddha2010 View Post
    LoL
    +10000 lololololololol!!!!
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
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  9. #787
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt
    If the tax is high and the farmer can’t afford it there is good reason. We can assume there are a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price for the land. The owner is lucky to be in such a position! With the money earned he can double his acreage at a different site and farm even more.
    Regardless of the size of the tax, without such a tax "a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price" - that would have been the same position the farmer was in anyway. And if he's not selling, despite this long, wonderful line of buyers willing to pay more (a position someone standing on the outside might insist he should feel lucky about!), there must also be good reason for that as well -- a reason that isn't even speculated, let alone regarded as somehow important.

    A similar problem shows up here:

    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    We can assume there are many buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price of the machines. Perhaps society needs every available unit of a specialized machine the factory has, in order to produce the new iPhone which is in a desperate shortage.
    This is a good example, actually, because when Apple releases any of its iPhones, nobody really knows the answer to the real-world demand - including Apple or any other megacorp with its geniuses making market projections - until the consumers actual vote. With their pocketbooks only. Individually. That is the only way we can know, which also makes the concept of "aggregate demand", and all projections based on such, worse than a very bad joke.

    And I also agree: LVT or CVT, when levied on individuals, it's all a form of theft. Where I differ in principle, and agree completely with Roy, is on how it could apply to collectives only (as a matter of privilege and not right). An LVT or CVT on corporations and other strictly commercial collectives - that's a check and balance and potentially huge advantage for individuals, should any collective be taxed out of existence. Which they can be. I wouldn't consider that theft at all. All collectives should consider themselves lucky and privileged to be in the position to operate alongside individuals, who exist and produce as a matter of absolute right.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 11-17-2011 at 12:22 PM.

  10. #788
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Regardless of the size of the tax, without such a tax "a number of buyers waiting in line to pay the higher price" - that would have been the same position the farmer was in anyway. And if he's not selling, despite this long, wonderful line of buyers willing to pay more (a position someone standing on the outside might insist he should feel lucky about!), there must also be good reason for that as well -- a reason that isn't even speculated, let alone regarded as somehow important.
    On the practical end, it's the double-whammy I was talking about in post #650. As you say, Steven, they already have incentive to sell, because they could make a lot of money doing so. Giving them further incentive to sell by taxing them just throws things out of balance.

    On the moral end, yes, you've got it here too, Steven: he doesn't want to sell. That should be the end of the argument. For whatever reason, it does not matter: he does not want to sell. We need to respect other people's wishes when it comes to their property. That desire not to sell is part of the market. By thwarting it, we thwart the market, and we then no longer have a free market.

    This is a good example, actually, because when Apple releases any of its iPhones, nobody really knows the answer to the real-world demand - including Apple or any other megacorp with its geniuses making market projections - until the consumers actual vote. With their pocketbooks only. Individually. That is the only way we can know, which also makes the concept of "aggregate demand", and all projections based on such, worse than a very bad joke.
    Right. The factory owner's dissenting opinion is also part of the market. He may think iPhones are a passing fad and he'd rather keep making Beanie Baby accessories because he's convinced they're going to make a comeback and make him a fortune to dwarf what he could get by selling out to Apple. The CVT says, "Nope, give it. Society knows what's best. Our assessors know what's best. And what's best ain't you, pal. It ain't you." The LVT says the same thing, but with natural resources.

    And I also agree: LVT or CVT, when levied on individuals, it's all a form of theft. Where I differ in principle, and agree completely with Roy, is on how it could apply to collectives only (as a matter of privilege and not right). An LVT or CVT on corporations and other strictly commercial collectives - that's a check and balance and potentially huge advantage for individuals, should any collective be taxed out of existence. Which they can be. I wouldn't consider that theft at all. All collectives should consider themselves lucky and privileged to be in the position to operate alongside individuals, who exist and produce as a matter of absolute right.
    OK, what if I form a partnership with another man (no, not that kind!)? Is that a collective? I guess it is, but my question is: do you think it's alright to tax this partnership which our contract has formed? We are still two individuals, after all. What about if we make a three-person partnership, 33% ownership each. Is it OK to tax it then? What if we have a one-million-person partnership? You see what I'm saying?

    So if corporations were just very large partnerships with ownership shares publicly traded, would you be OK with joining me in saying that to tax such a collection of individuals would be to rob them?
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 11-17-2011 at 01:14 PM.

  11. #789
    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.3D View Post
    I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land. It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it. All property taxes should be abandoned.
    How do you propose to support your local schools, police officers, fire fighters?
    "I am, therefore I'll think" - Ayn Rand

  12. #790
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    OK, what if I form a partnership with another man (no, not that kind!)? Is that a collective? I guess it is, but my question is: do you think it's alright to tax this partnership which our contract has formed? We are still two individuals, after all. What about if we make a three-person partnership, 33% ownership each. Is it OK to tax it then? What if we have a one-million-person partnership? You see what I'm saying?

    So if corporations were just very large partnerships with ownership shares publicly traded, would you be OK with joining me in saying that to tax such a collection of individuals would be to rob them?
    The real difference is whether or not a veil is involved, and whether individual liability is transparent. A collective of individuals, like a limited partnership, each with a name on the line, all retain their rights as individuals, regardless of their pooled resources. However, any collective that is owned and controlled by individuals, but viewed as a single artificial "person" in eyes of the law (i.e., a corporation with a corporate veil), with liability that is not tied to the personal liability of the owners/shareholders, is the "collective" I'm referring to. With a corporation, only criminal activity could cause a piercing of the veil (i.e., personal accountability and liability kicks in, with everyone's personal assets on the line) - otherwise, corporations operate as a fictitious "person" (immortal, no less) in the eyes of the law. So they exist as a matter of privilege, and not right.

    However, as a matter of principle, there is NO collective - even a collective of two - which I believe should receive any kind of artificial advantage from the law. A perfect example of that is a marriage, and laws that give tax or any other artificial advantages to married people that two single individuals cannot enjoy alone. Collectives already have natural advantages over individuals. I don't deny them that. That is the power of association as a matter of right. However, no collective of more than one person should ever enjoy an ARTIFICIAL advantage that is not automatically enjoyed by any one person.

    While I do not believe that collectives comprised of individuals (real persons facing real risks and individual consequences) should ever be penalized for pooling resources, neither should they be given artificial preference over individuals. Corporations, on the other hand, and other collectives which "shield" their owners, are fair game, as they do not/should not, exist as a matter of right, but privilege only.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 11-17-2011 at 01:43 PM.

  13. #791
    Quote Originally Posted by No Free Beer View Post
    How do you propose to support your local schools, police officers, fire fighters?
    The same way I support my local casinos, bars, and jewelry stores: I don't. Or my local grocery, hardware store, and thrift store: I give them money (some of them, sometimes). So I either would or would not give these things money, depending on my own preferences and judgement, relying upon my own reason, and not upon another man's gun (Ayn Rand would be proud). Local schools would get no support from me... though they might get money, in a way: I might be willing to pay to buy them just to blow them up, rip them down, and sow salt on the ruins. Police likewise would not get my support, not initially. Fire fighters might.

    These things can be supported voluntarily, by anyone who wishes to support them, in the same way as any other human enterprise. There is no reason to believe that funding them by stealing from landowners is a superior method, that it will improve the results in any way.

  14. #792
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    The real difference is whether or not a veil is involved, and whether individual liability is transparent. A collective of individuals, like a limited partnership, each with a name on the line, all retain their rights as individuals, regardless of their pooled resources. However, any collective that is owned and controlled by individuals, but viewed as a single artificial "person" in eyes of the law (i.e., a corporation with a corporate veil), with liability that is not tied to the personal liability of the owners/shareholders, is the "collective" I'm referring to. With a corporation, only criminal activity could cause a piercing of the veil (i.e., personal accountability and liability kicks in, with everyone's personal assets on the line) - otherwise, corporations operate as a fictitious "person" (immortal, no less) in the eyes of the law. So they exist as a matter of privilege, and not right.

    However, as a matter of principle, there is NO collective - even a collective of two - which I believe should receive any kind of artificial advantage from the law. A perfect example of that is a marriage, and laws that give tax or any other artificial advantages to married people that two single individuals cannot enjoy alone. Collectives already have natural advantages over individuals. I don't deny them that. That is the power of association as a matter of right. However, no collective of more than one person should ever enjoy an ARTIFICIAL advantage that is not automatically enjoyed by any one person.

    While I do not believe that collectives comprised of individuals (real persons facing real risks and individual consequences) should ever be penalized for pooling resources, neither should they be given artificial preference over individuals. Corporations, on the other hand, and other collectives which "shield" their owners, are fair game, as they do not/should not, exist as a matter of right, but privilege only.
    We're definitely on the same page. So the ultimate solution would be to abolish the limited liability and the artificial personhood, not to tax it, right? In the mean time, OK, tax it, but in the end getting rid of the injustice would be the right thing to do, I would think, given these assumptions. Yes?



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  16. #793
    Quote Originally Posted by jascott View Post
    Suppose that communism, with no individual legal right to property in the fruit of one's labor, actually resulted in healthier people, more material prosperity, and greater evolutionary competitive advantage than a free market with individual legal right to such property does; in that case, would you say that individuals don't have the natural right to such property?
    Yes. Rights arise from human nature. If human beings were as you describe, as ants are, then like ants we would not have individual rights. It doesn't matter if an individual ant disagrees: evolution removes his opinion.

  17. #794
    Quote Originally Posted by jascott View Post
    Ok, let's change the scenario slightly. Instead of bidding for two plots of land, I only bid for one plot, and its size is ten miles square. The LVT is something trivial, maybe even still just $1/year. Then I build the town in the center of the land. I collect and pocket all the rent. I even sublease unimproved land within my plot, and pocket the rent money, which will be a lot, due to the proximity to the town. The LVT never goes above my initial token bid, because none of the wilderness outside my plot of land is ever improved, because the only people who want to develop anything in this area want to be within my town, or at least within a mile or two of it (which is still on my plot of land). My town is the magnet; without it, nobody wanted to build in this wilderness.
    Now it's true that I had to make an initial investment to build the town, so it's reasonable that the created value belongs to me. But that was just seed money; now I'm pocketing rent money which is due to land values caused by the work of other people, including their improvement of unimproved land which I'm subleasing to them. Other than my token LVT payments, haven't I effectively become the parasitic landlord and land speculator which your system is supposed to prevent?
    This is the issue of appropriate size of plots. Normally that will depend on expected use, local infrastructure such as road grids, etc. The initial ten mile square was pretty big, but let's go with it. Once the land use is so drastically changed, that's not the appropriate plot size any more, and the land use authority will start to look at subdivision to allow more flexible use.

  18. #795
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    We're definitely on the same page. So the ultimate solution would be to abolish the limited liability and the artificial personhood, not to tax it, right? In the mean time, OK, tax it, but in the end getting rid of the injustice would be the right thing to do, I would think, given these assumptions. Yes?
    Yes, I'll answer that with a response I gave in a thread on Mises.org. I was asked:

    “I agree with the idea of competing currencies and deplore fractional reserve banking. You mention not having taxes on commodities when used as money. I believe the taxes you speak of are “capital gains” taxes, is that right? I’m curious as to your rationale for not just abolishing capital gains taxes all together. Any thoughts on that?”
    My answer, which might surprise you:

    Yes, I am in favor of capital gains taxes. On corporations. Acting as a matter of privilege. That provides a needed check and balance on the power of the individual vs. the economic power of fictitious “persons” like corporations, ALL of whom I consider foreigners – guests in our land. That goes for ANY law that we both might otherwise find repugnant when applied to individuals who act as a matter of right, wherein personal risk and liability is transparent.

    Labor unions vs. Corporations? Minimum wage against corporations? Bash it out, baby. Even if it destroys them. Make Roy L. the Senator in charge of them even, and whatever he imagines or concocts and passes, so let it be written, so let it be done. Just don’t EVER mistake a real person for a corporation – that includes not treating partnerships as fictitious, where real persons have merely pooled resources and are bound by mutual consent, but otherwise face liabilities and risks as individuals who are acting as a matter of right.

    That’s one of the problems with conflating real and fictitious persons. It gets us arguing on THEIR BEHALF. That should never, ever have been, and is one of the original, heinous, even treasonous, crimes in this country.

    There should be nothing “free market” about corporations, except as they serve, not threaten, our interests as individuals. Allowing the law to allow these fictitious persons to hold up individuals as human shields (i.e., you hurt us, we’ll hurt their jobs) looks like an act of terrorism to me. It should never be at issue under the law, nor should their existence ever be considered “necessary” to the trumping of individual rights. Free and natural persons should always enjoy fundamental, natural advantages (e.g., can NOT be taxed out of existence) over corporations and other fictitious persons, which are nothing more than shielded individuals, legally “veiled” shareholders that manipulate markets by collective proxy. You said it right – they really are, and always were, the original welfare queens.

    Imminent Domain, LVT, CVT, minimum wage laws, labor union laws, and anything else you can think of - lay it on the backs of every fictitious person in the country that acts as a matter of privilege - and when they "ship the jobs overseas" - good. The individuals that remain here never faced the same constraints, and would be free and happy to fill the void. And if the labor unions that put too much weight on them long for their return - let it be a lesson to them, not to be too hard on "our foreign guests" (I view all corporations as foreign guests, regardless of ownership).

    And with that one broad line drawn - that enormous check and balance in place - you even have a revenue source that can be tapped...if you're careful, and don't chase them away. But we are not "all in it together", and corporations are not "people", and do not have "rights", but privileges only.

  19. #796
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    The same way I support my local casinos, bars, and jewelry stores: I don't. Or my local grocery, hardware store, and thrift store: I give them money (some of them, sometimes). So I either would or would not give these things money, depending on my own preferences and judgement, relying upon my own reason, and not upon another man's gun (Ayn Rand would be proud). Local schools would get no support from me... though they might get money, in a way: I might be willing to pay to buy them just to blow them up, rip them down, and sow salt on the ruins. Police likewise would not get my support, not initially. Fire fighters might.


    These things can be supported voluntarily, by anyone who wishes to support them, in the same way as any other human enterprise. There is no reason to believe that funding them by stealing from landowners is a superior method, that it will improve the results in any way.


    I must disagree with you. This is why I am not a libertarian.
    "I am, therefore I'll think" - Ayn Rand

  20. #797
    Quote Originally Posted by No Free Beer View Post
    I must disagree with you. This is why I am not a libertarian.
    Read my response above re: corporations vs. individuals - all revenue coming from 'fictitious' persons acting as a matter of privilege in this country. Would that make any difference in your mind?

    Remember, everything you listed existed and was funded prior to the establishment of personal income taxes in this country. That is not the only source of revenue possible - even if every single individual "opted out".

  21. #798
    I have a question primarily for helmuth_hubener, but also for Roy L.

    Suppose a man and woman colonize Mars. They're the first people there. They claim joint ownership of the entire planet. They carve giant "No trespassing" signs in the dirt at the poles and several places around the equator, visible from space, to stake their claim. All robots which people had sent there before have long since failed and been abandoned. The man and woman make a contract for how to manage their joint ownership of the planet. The contract says that all decisions regarding the jointly owned land are made democratically, by majority vote of all parties to the contract (hereafter called "citizens of Mars"), with ties broken by coin toss, except that no land may ever be sold or given away (and this rule may only be changed by unanimous vote), only leased for terms of 50 Earth-years, with 1/50 of the lease price due annually, payable to a democratically elected treasurer. The contract says that all citizens jointly own all the land, and that each citizen forfeits joint ownership when he dies, and while he lives allows his joint ownership to be diluted by the granting of citizenship to new people, and agrees to be subject to the jurisdiction of a government, the formation of which is mandated by the contract, and to be imprisoned if he commits the crime of murder, assault, theft, vandalism, or trespass, and to be judged in the government's courts.

    The rent money pays for services provided by the government, including domestic police protection, and military defense against invasion by governments from Earth, and any surplus is distributed as a citizen's dividend. Government decisions are made democratically. The contract also says that all adult native-born Martian people have the option to become citizens, and immigrants and visitors are authorized to land on Mars only if they agree to become citizens or at least agree to be subject to the government's jurisdiction for the duration of their stay. All people, regardless of being citizens or not, have the right to rent land from the planetary landlord (which is the group of citizens), and sublease it as they want, if they agree to be subject to the government's jurisdiction. The terms of the contract also say that all citizens agree to allow the government to assert power over all criminals, even the ones who claim that the government has no jurisdiction over them (who can only be native-born Martians who refuse to become citizens, and foreigners who land on Mars without authorization).

    All leases are done by auction, and re-auction is done one month prior to the expiration of a lease term. Before re-auction for a new term, the current lessee declares which buildings and other improvements, and which natural resources, are part of the land, and therefore already owned by or given for free to the planetary landlord and included in the new auction; everything else currently on the land, and everything which the lessee has already mined and removed from the land, is the lessee's private property. If he loses the new auction, then he may not remove or modify anything which is part of the land, and before the expiration of his current term (one month after the auction) he must remove everything which is not part of the land (and if he fails to remove it, then he not only forfeits it to the landlord, but also must pay the full 50-year land rent for the new lessee; this provides incentive to not declare mobility for things which he can't actually move). Plots of land may be auctioned only in sizes ranging from one acre to one square mile, square in shape except where overlapping preexisting plots, with the vertical dimension up to a quarter mile into the sky above the surface, and arbitrarily deep toward the center of the planet, as decided by the first bidder. If a lessee hasn't subleased his land, then he may terminate his lease from the planetary landlord at will (and forfeit to the landlord everything on the land), which subjects the land to re-auction one month later. He may also declare early termination for a date not less than two months in the future, and the re-auction will be held one month prior to the declared termination date; this makes it possible for a lessee to quickly split off parts of land which he no longer wants, or to combine adjacent parcels (to ensure all-or-nothing lease renewal), at the cost of having improvements on the land effectively incorporated into the rental value of the land early due to the early re-auction, while still allowing other bidders time to evaluate properties (but only by external observation) prior to upcoming auctions.

    This seems to solve all of the moral and practical problems of geoism (including the problem of needing a bureaucrat to officially assess land values) while retaining its benefits, though the system is significantly different from what Roy proposes.

    Note that neither morality nor practicality require the landlord to pay lessees for immobile improvements which they make and then declare to be part of the land and therefore property of the landlord, because prospective lessees know in advance that they'll have to donate such improvements, so in the preceding auction they'll reduce their bids to compensate. This does mean that people will only invest in improvements on which they can earn a full return within 50 years, but in practice this isn't a big limitation because it's most of a human lifetime, and human history has already shown that people generally only make investments on which they anticipate full return in significantly less than 50 years.

    Now suppose that some generations pass, and Mars becomes terraformed, well-developed, and covered by people living under this system, most of whom chose to become citizens, some due to a sense of the system's righteousness, and some just to receive the citizen's dividend. My question to both of you is: at this point, what's evil or impractical about this system? Whose natural rights are violated? To Roy, how is your system more moral or practical?
    To Helmuth, what substantial improvement (in morality or practicality) would be made by the landlord selling land rather than leasing it?

  22. #799
    I can't answer for Roy L.

    In my system, we do not rent land from the govt or lease it. There's none of this going to the govt. every year and applying for a leasehold. No. We own the land and we trade it. The Govt. always taxes land based on the price at which it last changed hands, there are no govt. appraisers of the land value pining about to raise your LVT. If you want to own someone's land than you go to the owner and propose to buy it. If a prospective buyer wants the land and the owner refuses to sell except at a significant premium, there is a judicial mechanism available to force a sale. The buyer must post to bond equal to the next years anticipated higher tax amount. He must be willing to pay more above the current level than just a bare scintilla, otherwise the judicial mechanism would become subject to abuse. Of course the owner can offer to pay the higher tax and then keep the land, but that is the only way he can keep it once the judicial proceeding is initiated. Buyer pays all proceeding fees and court costs.

    If land falls in value should we allow the owner to pay less tax even if he does not sell it or engage in transaction? Yes. The owner may initiate a judicial proceeding, and upon proper showing that the value has in fact fallen, he may be taxed at the lower rate.

    So there is two ways land may be assessed a higher value (either free exchange or judicial procedure). And two ways it may be assessed lower (either free exchange or judicial procedure.)

    No administrators. No assessors. We need a filing office to keep track of when land changes hands and at what price and who owns it. Everything else follows.

  23. #800
    Quote Originally Posted by jascott View Post
    Consider a mountain pass which is occasionally used by caravans, within a single country (to avoid international complications). There are no man-made improvements. Nobody has requested privilege of exclusive use, so nobody pays LVT for it. Caravans pass for free, though they would be willing to pay a large amount of money if necessary.
    Now, I offer the government $1/year for exclusive privilege. Of course, assuming the government accepts my bid, it'll open an auction, and grant privilege to the highest bidder. But how does the government decide whether to do the auction, or to reject my bid and leave the land open to public use for free? Does some bureaucrat or judge make the decision? Or is all public land (or at least all public unimproved land, so man-made roads are excluded) unconditionally up for auction?
    Presumably the land authority that runs the LVT system and is generally in charge of administering possession and use of land, as all governments do, has some procedure for deciding when exclusive tenure is in the public interest. Normally that would be if a more productive use than the current open use requires exclusive tenure. Unless there were some reason to think exclusive tenure in the pass would serve the public interest, it would be kept open, like navigable waterways, etc. Using the pass simply as a source of revenue is also possible, of course, but lack of open access to the pass might well reduce the rents of land the caravans pass through by even more than the rent of the pass.
    What do you do about this? Do you allow me, as the winning bidder, to be a perpetual leech, profiting by fleecing the caravans?
    The open market bidding should ensure that as you are functioning solely as a landowner -- not producing anything or providing any service of value -- you end up with no profit. You are essentially just functioning as a tax collector, collecting revenue from the caravans and remitting it to the government in LVT, less your collection costs.

    The scenario you describe has a close parallel in some actual historical privileges. Some European monarchs (notoriously in France's ancien regime) issued toll privileges for public roads to their friends and supporters at court. The toll takers didn't do anything to build the roads (some of which were Roman, and nearly 2000 years old) and often did as little as possible to maintain them (that was done mainly by corvee labor in lieu of taxes). One of Turgot's reforms was to abolish as many of these toll taking privileges as he could. This naturally earned the enmity of the privilege holders, who agitated against him at court and eventually got him dismissed. One wonders if those evil, greedy, privileged parasites spared any thought for Turgot 20 years later, as they were led up the steps to the guillotine...
    Suppose I don't publish the price for passage, and before telling approaching caravans what the price is, I require their signature on a nondisclosure agreement. I also announce that I'll refuse passage to anybody who has ever publicly announced, or revealed directly or indirectly to the government, what he would be willing to pay for passage, and prior to passage I require a signed oath that no such disclosure has ever been made (he could merely decide deliberately to lie about it, but let's be optimistic and assume he won't). I set the price to maximize my profits. Some approaching caravans will turn back rather than pay, after learning what my price is, but I earn money from the rest.
    I doubt that such a system could recover as much rent as just charging the market rent openly. Merchants aren't stupid. They know that if you are preventing people from knowing how much you charge, there is only one possible reason: it is too much.
    Now the government knows only how much I initially guessed the mountain pass is worth, but doesn't know how much I've experimentally determined it to actually be worth. Since the government doesn't tax my sales or income, it can't learn the value of the pass that way either. The next time the government reassesses the value, how does it do it? It doesn't have the necessary information.
    It can ask the merchants who don't use the pass how much they are spending to circumvent your odd little racket. Remember, rent is determined by reference to the alternatives.
    Yet if it leaves the assessed value unchanged, then I get to remain a permanent parasite. If the assessor decides that my business model is parasitic, and raises the assessed value extremely high so that the LVT will be far beyond what I could possibly be earning, so that I'll be forced to relinquish my exclusive privilege and go out of business, then that causes a chilling effect throughout the economy; how will even legitimate business owners, especially ones who publicly speak against the assessor's judgment, know that they'll be safe from the assessor's wrath?
    The assessor's job is just to measure the market rent, not to set a rent. If he doesn't have enough information to measure it, he will have to find a way to get more information. There are always ways.
    Suppose that the assessor somehow gets the valuation exactly right, so that my profit is exactly zero. Even in this case, I would still choose to keep the privilege, even though I'm earning no money from it, because I'm causing an increase in government revenue, and it doesn't cost me anything. Since there's no need for government services at the mountain pass, the increased revenue is spent on improved government services elsewhere, including the town where I live. Thus, I'm benefiting for free at the expense of the caravans, who would be able to use the pass for free if I weren't interfering.
    All true. That's where government and ultimately voters have to exercise some judgment. Does charging tolls through the pass make the economy as a whole more prosperous or not? This is a complicated question and may be very difficult to resolve. But if questions were all easy, you wouldn't need me, would you?



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  25. #801
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    My answer, which might surprise you:

    [C]orporations are not "people", and do not have "rights", but privileges only.
    I don't know why that would surprise me. It certainly didn't! It's just a restatement of what you said before, that these fictitious persons called corporations, which are invented by the state out of whole cloth and then given special privileges, that they don't have any rights (they are not, after all, actual persons).

    But that actually doesn't answer my question, which is whether the arguably non-libertarian aspects of corporationhood -- limited liability and fictional personhood -- should be abolished. That would turn them into legitimate organizations, created by contractual arrangements among individuals, not by state fiat. Then those individuals would not be fair game for robbery any more, am I right?

  26. #802
    Quote Originally Posted by No Free Beer View Post
    I must disagree with you. This is why I am not a libertarian.
    Hey, that's cool! What fun would life be if we couldn't disagree? Unanimity is highly suspect.

  27. #803
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    I don't know why that would surprise me. It certainly didn't! It's just a restatement of what you said before, that these fictitious persons called corporations, which are invented by the state out of whole cloth and then given special privileges, that they don't have any rights (they are not, after all, actual persons).
    No, I meant the part about capital gains, minimum wage, etc., but only as applied to corporations.

    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    But that actually doesn't answer my question, which is whether the arguably non-libertarian aspects of corporationhood -- limited liability and fictional personhood -- should be abolished. That would turn them into legitimate organizations, created by contractual arrangements among individuals, not by state fiat. Then those individuals would not be fair game for robbery any more, am I right?
    No, the other way around - all those things should remain in place, with a distinction that such entities, like corporations, exist only as a matter of privilege, not right, with an entirely separate set of laws (statutes, penal codes, etc.,) that apply ONLY to them. The Interstate Commerce clause is the ONLY way that all three branches of our government have been able to rope us into laws that never should have applied to free and natural persons in the first place - and it is all because of the conflation of the term "person". It's actually one of the reasons even the Constitutionality of the Fed has been adjudicated the way it has been in the past - because fiat money CAN apply to fictitious persons. The way they get around the Constitutionality is by making ALL OF US fictitious persons in the eyes of the law - all no longer subject to Constitutional and Common Law, but to Admiralty Law (statutes, penal codes, administrative tax court, etc.), much of which is administered by the Executive branch, NOT the judicial.

    When a free and natural citizen challenges a particular statute, the judicial branch adjudicates this (or the executive under administrative law) and upholds the law itself, because it really can apply to "some persons". So the wrong challenge is issued, the wrong question is put before the court, because the question that should be before the court is not one of the law itself, but of jurisdiction. If you issue a jurisdictional challenge, stating that you are a free and natural person to whom a particular law does not apply, the courts can point to your implied consent of the law, and subjugation thereto, based on documents you have signed (driver license, business license, marriage license, birth certificate, etc.,) - all of which are interpreted as evidence of of your willingness to be place yourself under the jurisdiction of admiralty law, and not common law. In other words, you are, in the eyes of the law, the same as a corporation -- by default.

    This is little different than early decisions that caused all deposits to be considered title transfers and not bailments - again, by default.

    The solution, therefore, is one simple law, preferably a Constitutional Amendment, that draws a clear distinction between fictitious persons and free and natural citizens - and a presumption of free and natural status for ALL free and natural persons, absent an EXPLICIT waiver of rights under the law, with completely informed, and express, consent. One ramification of this: it would not be possible to issue any but a voluntary tax on individuals - because the entire tax code is "administered" by the Executive branch - with oversight by the judicial in the case of appeals.

    There is much more to it than that, but as it is now, we are all treated as corporations - that is the default presumption which has been our Libertarian undoing for some time now. We were all sold into admiralty law without our knowledge or consent.

  28. #804
    Mr. Douglas,

    I have read through some of your posts on Mises.org, and I will just say that you are one of the most intelligent and respectable people I have ever heard propound these kinds of legal theories.

    And believe me, I have heard many of them.

    I've even fell in with this crowd: http://dev.republicoftheunitedstates...ublic/history/ , because one of my pro-freedom friends was a part of it. So I'm now an official Grand Juror for the Republic, I guess, although after that first meeting I haven't got any further calls or e-mails from them; I think this is because I did not express, umm, total agreement with the leader's theory (held to by them all) that alien lizards are ruling the world and every President since Truman has been cloned, in a science fiction sense -- a full grown person with the same memories and personality as the original person pops out of the machine.

    I am quite serious.

    They were quite serious, as they explained all this to me at their Most High Grand Official Meeting of the Republic, at Perkins.

    So anyway, I must admit that I am not as interested in these legalistic theories as I could be. Perhaps Congress really hasn't legally reconvened since Abraham Lincoln and so we're all living under martial law. Perhaps there's a secret Constitution "for" the united States as opposed to the one "OF" THE UNITED STATES. Perhaps there's a shadow United States where all the state names are capitalized. Perhaps if I could just get the judge to take down that darn gold-fringed flag, I'd be scot-free. Perhaps lizards really do rule the world. Perhaps my former neighbor is right about David Wynn Miller being able to solve all our legal problems and make us Sovereign Citizens. OK, actually, there's no perhaps about that last one; David Wynn Miller (oh dear, I should probably be capitalizing his name) is hilariously ludicris. More hilarious than Roy L. by about 10 times. But the rest of them, well let's just say all of them are a lot more plausible than David Wynn Miller.

    Even the LVT is more plausible than that.
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 11-18-2011 at 02:07 AM.

  29. #805
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    LOL! So says the guy who has claimed, "natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence," "feudalism created an economic miracle of prosperity," "a chainsaw contains raw matter," "a million dollars a year doesn't make up for even an hour a week of compulsory labor," and too many other idiotic howlers to mention.
    And here's the thing: I'm totally proud of all those stands! Perhaps I should briefly explain them again?

    "natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence" -- Natural resources have to be discovered. Their usefulness has to be discovered. They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual. Robinson Crusoe can take a bunch of vines and make a net to catch fish, but only if he knows about nets or can invent the concept himself, otherwise the vines are of no value. If he never took the time to look around and find the vines, likewise then they are of no value. They might as well not be there. Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.

    "feudalism created an economic miracle of prosperity" -- Yes, the decentralization of power of all the tiny little polities and all the tiny little fiefdoms within those polities, all within an overarching religious and cultural mileu, created opportunities for liberty to flourish. The small size of the polities and religious, language, and cultural similarities throughout Western Europe enabled easy exit to other polities, which was a check on excessive power. Also, all three levels -- fiefdoms, polities, and Church -- were in tension and so acted as checks on each other, and most importantly on the power of the polities.

    "a chainsaw contains raw matter" -- This is so self-evident, I have never really known what to say about your rejection of this idea. Everything material is made of matter. A chainsaw is material. A chainsaw thus contains matter. One can see, touch, disassemble, lick, and otherwise experience a chainsaw sensorily in order to confirm this theory for oneself. All this matter was once "raw". It all came from nature, or the Universe. That is the only source we have for matter. If you come up with another source, let me know. Thus a chainsaw, and all material goods, are built from what the economists call "land". Land, labor, capital -- you combine them together and make goods. Every economic good requires at least some land as a component. The case would seem to be pretty air tight. One takes raw matter, and makes a chainsaw. Raw matter is what composes the chainsaw.

    Now where we differed is that you said the whole chainsaw has been removed from nature. None of it is in its natural state anymore. But that's not true. It all just depends on how far from its natural state you must make it to qualify for your Holy delandifying absolution. The atoms are still intact. None of them have been split. They're still in their natural state. Their location has been changed. But is that really enough change? What if I were to place a large heater on the ground somewhere that would heat up the Earth for miles around. Dirt would be melting in the immediate viscinity. Matter even hundreds of miles deep would be heated a few degrees. Physics tells us that the temperature will rise for the matter even all the way down to the earth's core. By changing the matter's nature in this way, have I removed it from nature and made it a product of my labor? I doubt that Roy L. would say so.

    More and more evidence is mounting that the only thing that is permanently land in his world view is location. All you have to do to get to own something is shuffle it around a bit. Move that huge boulder 10 feet to the right and BAM! it's mine. So this leads to the conclusion that evil viscious parasites should be able to own absolutely anything and everything in the Universe, except for those types of property that are by their nature very difficult to move like parking lots and farms. So Georgism boils down to really nothing but size-ism: prejudice in favor of those who want to own small, mobile property, and against those who want to own large, immobile property.

    "a million dollars a year doesn't make up for even an hour a week of compulsory labor" -- Of the four, this is the stand I am the most proud of. You know, earlier Peewee Herman taught us about the principle of "I know you are but what am I?", although not as comprehensively and tenaciously as Roy L. has, I will admit that. But he also taught another important principle, that of: "The bike's not for sale, Francis". Some things are simply not for sale. At any price. No matter what. My liberty is one of those things. Injustice cannot be made to be just by merely giving payouts or bribes to the victims. Your misosophy says that rape can be made morally acceptable by merely agreeing to pay the victims a million dollars each time you do it. No problem there. Just roam the streets raping whoever you want and as long as you compensate them, justice has been served and you're good to go. My philosophy says otherwise. I guess you just have to choose which one seems better to you. As for me, I will stand with absolute moral principles. You can stand for the rich serial rapist. To each his own.
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 11-18-2011 at 02:21 PM.

  30. #806
    Helmuth,

    The appreciation is mutual. I think every theory and ideological cake that is baked on our planet will be iced, decorated, and even co-opted at times by its decidedly nuttier fringes. Billions of lenses out there to see through. The irony of so many differing fantasy versions of reality, I think, is that reality itself is often no less fantastic, and no less perceived as the nuttiest of fringes (given enough time or differing perspective).

    Our little "Honest Abe" Lincoln, for example, was a war mongering, currency debauching, nationalist ideologue, and it is no wonder that he was not a proponent of so-called "states rights", given his lack of a principled stance on individual rights, including slavery (as he stated so plainly). That unprincipled scoundrel plundered with self-impunity the basic fundamental principles that others held sacred, and upon which the Republic was founded - and based solely on his own marginal utility for each, which could be traded, sold or abolished in his impatient willfulness and determination to "keep the union together at all costs". That plunged this country into a bloody civil war that never, ever needed to be fought, and for which not a single shot ever needed to be fired. What he did really did end America as originally designed. All that was left was for the vacuum of plundered principles to be filled by self-interest, as the nation's corpse was taken over and reanimated from there. It is also no wonder to me that Obama holds him up as a role model, including his very Linconesque vision of "keep the union together at all costs", which he takes to unprecedented levels.

    Reality changes while the primary labels we cling to remain the same. From the United States lens, a liberal is now a leftist, Lincoln was a savior of the union and a freer of slaves, a debauched currency is still called "a dollar"; debt is money; an intensely capitalist, oligarchy-led China is still called "communist", while a very collectivist, socialized, corporatized, protectionist, equally oligarchy-controlled U.S., with all its statutory layers of fear-based micro-control of individual lives is still called "the land of the free and the home of the brave". It's all in the labeling. Our Tommy Boys learned that they really can take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed. That's what we wanted, after all, and they have time.

    Anton Chekhov once wrote, "When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured." So if you want something, anything, to be unfixable/incurable - whether it be a computer virus, or an entire economy, dismiss the root cause of its dysfunction as normal, and focus instead on complex and ill-defined terms of multiple symptoms and infinite remedies. For example, define inflation as "rising costs" rather than dilution of the money supply, and the root cause will be just one consideration. We don't even have a single word for "watering down the money supply" so "inflation" is conflated in a way that gets us all nicely pointing fingers and scapegoating in all directions, as we muddle about and fight over the causes for "rising costs".

    While many look at concepts like society, government, economy, etc., as the all-important proxy behemoths, just itching to be programmed at the macro-design and macro-control level, most of us are not on that level, and never will be. And what does it matter? We are not a Constitutional Congress, let alone economic power-brokers, convening to decide how things ought to be, and looking for ratification. Even what I wrote in my last post is little more than a case of "that was then, this is now". If that. I fully accept that. I don't point it out to imply that we must reverse course and attempt to return to what might have been. That is gone forever, and exists only as a lesson for a very different present, and possibly different future.

    It doesn't matter whether what we say is true or not, historically accurate or not. We may end up changing nothing at all, save a better grounding and a clearer vision for ourselves, as we attempt to see things as they actually are. In the end, that may only affect our individual choices, and that brings me to why we are here in the first place (or at least why I am here).

    I believe in the power of seeds, life, individual cells and their scalability. The seed of a single vine can dislodge a stone roof over time, but who cares, when that is not the seed's objective. For it to lift a roof it had to live, and that's the most important part. The core of all government is seeded by individuals, and thus, the most fundamental of ALL government is within each of us. I hold that individual government is far more powerful, more sacred even, than any large scale collective-controlling machination that was ever devised by humans, who are constantly trying to out-clever themselves, and even their own stated principles, as they out-maneuver the "other". They all look silly to me. Clownish - even the ones that succeed. So before I ask what I can do for my country, or what use it is to me, or even what I think it ought to be, I first want to understand what it actually is now...without a single sentiment used to describe it, and with every a priori assumption fodder for examination.

    In the words of Gandhi (in the movie) "I want to document, coldly, rationally, what is being done here."

    From a strategy standpoint, we can only grow or change from where we really are - not where we think we are, or should have been, or ought to be by now. Just...core reality. Get clear bearings. What is it now.

    I want to take that further. I don't want to waste time debating and battling the usual leaves and branches of things that are described with circular references, while the basic premises go unchallenged. That is, for me, a waste of time. I want to distill it all down to the seeds. Even Austrian economics, for all its relative simplicity or complexity, is something I value as but one operating system (regardless of different versions). Our current economy is now running on an entirely different operating system, with a different set of governing assumptions. Nothing more or less. What do I care about the accuracy or intricacy of millions of iterations of formulae that so-called positivists use to "describe" what happens to an operating system in a computer and hardware that must be fueled by a debauched currency before it could even work! At the very least, describe it accurately, and in positive terms that are clear, concise, and irrefutable. From there alone we can have a clear view from which to navigate - if but our own individual ships, if that is all we can do.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 11-18-2011 at 02:32 PM.

  31. #807
    Quote Originally Posted by jascott View Post
    Suppose a man and woman colonize Mars. They're the first people there. They claim joint ownership of the entire planet. They carve giant "No trespassing" signs in the dirt at the poles and several places around the equator, visible from space, to stake their claim.
    OK, so this is different from "homesteading" only in that actual homesteaders are never actually the first people there. The absence of any validity to the ownership claim is the same.

    <long description elided>
    This seems to solve all of the moral and practical problems of geoism (including the problem of needing a bureaucrat to officially assess land values) while retaining its benefits, though the system is significantly different from what Roy proposes.
    It does not retain the benefits of full land rent recovery because the landowner gets to pocket some publicly created value, while the improver is deprived of the full right to own his improvements.
    My question to both of you is: at this point, what's evil or impractical about this system?
    It deprives people of their liberty to go to Mars and use its resources without making just compensation for the loss. Offering them the option of "citizenship" doesn't make up for the privileged position the landowners (starting with the first couple) enjoy. The system privileges landowners to pocket both publicly created land rent and some privately created improvement value.
    Whose natural rights are violated?
    Everyone's.
    To Roy, how is your system more moral or practical?
    It's more moral in securing the equality of human rights, and more practical in stimulating more productive use of land.

  32. #808
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    I saw a lot of passionate assertions, and the rationale for those assertions, but I must have missed the part where "guilt" and "theft" were actually proved.
    How is the landowner different from the bandit? What does he contribute in return for the loot he exacts from the caravans?
    One thing I have noticed, Roy, in reading through your responses throughout this entire thread, is that you are answering in earnest, quite honestly - albeit using your own set of definitions for nearly every word, every concept, every term employed.
    My definitions are standard and supported by dictionaries; however, I do use some technical terms, and my understanding of the concepts -- especially rights -- is deeper than you are probably accustomed to. This may help you understand our relative positions:

    http://www.henrygeorge.org/catsup.htm

    I see the cat. You do not. The cat, moreover, is objectively there. IMO you, Helmuth, and the others here who try to rationalize landowner privilege are probably able to see it, but have simply decided not to, as the preservation of your false and evil beliefs is more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth.
    Here is but one example:

    "...whenever humans are intelligent, they understand that the rights of generations unborn cannot rightly be divvied up among those currently alive."

    From that I can get a rough idea of your definition of the word intelligent (and its implied opposite by contrast, based on a specific understanding, as outlined by you).
    I don't understand how that is an example of using idiosyncratic definitions. What part of that sentence are you having trouble understanding? It seems plain enough to me. It is a direct refutation of Helmuth's false and evil claim that private property in land is somehow required by human intelligence -- a claim he already knew was refuted by the example of Hong Kong.
    I can only understand and interpret your definitions, the intending meanings of which seem to be unique to you (i.e., "free market", "good", "honest", "wise", "theft", etc.,) only by weighing them as circular references within the contexts in which you have used them. Likewise, when you "refute" what someone else is saying, you are weighing their words, not by their definitions or intended meanings, but by those same definitions which seem to be unique to you.
    Please give examples. I find it is the apologists for landowner privilege who use words in ways that are blatantly incorrect -- i.e., who just tell flat-out lies -- such as claiming that land is a product of labor, or that there is raw matter in a chainsaw, or that Crusoe pointing a gun at Friday and giving him the choice of lifelong slavery or getting back in the water is somehow a voluntary, free market transaction with no initiation of force involved.
    As such, your responses seem more like edicts than arguments; not "normative" (stating the way you believe things should/ought to be), but positive assertions, as you argue from your own premises, as if your understanding of things is the way things actually are (and they really are, albeit in your own mind, as you have decided and declared), all deviations from which are the abnormalities, the lies, etc.,.
    In fact, you are correct. I do identify the facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications. In most cases, these facts are self-evident and indisputable (e.g., land is not a product of human labor). Anyone who denies such facts is self-evidently just lying. In other cases, they may be established facts of economics (taxing a factor in fixed supply creates no distortion and imposes no excess burden) or history (feudalism was a system characterized by oppression, poverty, ignorance, injustice, stagnation, treachery and warfare, not liberty, prosperity and progress) that require a certain level of education to know and a minimal level of honesty not to deny.
    I don't know how we "get there from here", or how any of these discussions can have any meaning whatsoever, without at least a common definition of terms - without circular references of any kind.
    It is the apologists for privilege and injustice who rely on question begging and circular reasoning, as you have seen with Helmuth.



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  34. #809
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    My definitions are standard and supported by dictionaries; however, I do use some technical terms, and my understanding of the concepts -- especially rights -- is deeper than you are probably accustomed to.
    Well, I never claimed to be deep, and I'm certainly open to widening my understanding. Here's a montage of snippets from your last post, just to illustrate my lack of understanding of your definitions:

    "....the preservation of your false and evil beliefs..."

    Sounds pretty subjective to me.

    "...more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth..."

    All undefined, of course, based on your private definition of each term.

    "...Helmuth's false and evil claim..."

    Once again, the use of "evil" - entirely subjective

    "...flat-out lies -- such as claiming that [improvements to] land is a product of labor, or that there is raw matter in a chainsaw..."

    Note that I added "[improvements to]" just to clarify your paraphrase to reflect more accurately the essence of what was actually stated. I did not see a single reference to a claim that raw land by itself was a product of anyone's labor. I don't think you were "lying" - unless, of course, you knew that is what they meant, but deliberately left that part out. Land itself is not a product of labor. However, improvements to land certainly can be, and is, a product of capital and/or labor. And raw matter is not in a chainsaw? I did not understand that. A chainsaw is matter, so that leaves me not knowing your definition of "raw", let alone understanding your point.

    "...I do identify the facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications..."

    I don't know about your identification of the facts of physical reality, but "their inescapable logical implications" are products of your conclusions and your beliefs. They are not inescapable unless someone is locked into your mind and your reasoning with no way out. I don't see that as being the case.

    "...these facts are self-evident and indisputable (e.g., [improvement of] land is not a product of human labor)."

    Again, did you mean to leave out "improvement of", or can you give me a direct quote of someone who claims that raw, unimproved land is a product of human labor?

    "...established facts of economics (taxing a factor in fixed supply creates no distortion and imposes no excess burden)..."

    That seems self-contradictory to me. Forget the "creates no distortion" part, which is unclear, and may be technically correct if you mean only "can be accounted for". It is the "imposes no excess burden" claim that I found bizarre, unless "excess" is the operative word (in which case it is entirely subjective, based on your definition of "excess").

    However, regardless whether a tax is justified or not, any tax imposes a "burden"...unless, once again, you are employing some special definition of the word burden, like "how you personally feel about the weight of the tax", or how you have justified that tax based on how it is offset in your own mind by something else.

    "...apologists for privilege and injustice..."

    Two extremely subjective terms, your definitions of which are entirely unclear - but which appear to be synonymous in the context in which you use them.

  35. #810
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Here's a montage of snippets from your last post, just to illustrate my lack of understanding of your definitions:

    "....the preservation of your false and evil beliefs..."

    Sounds pretty subjective to me.
    No. Falsity is an objective fact, and evil is a matter of understanding, not opinion: deliberate violation of others' rights without just compensation. An evil belief is one that encourages evil action by those who hold it.
    "...more important to you than liberty, justice, or the truth..."

    All undefined, of course, based on your private definition of each term.
    Nonsense. I am using the dictionary definitions.
    "...Helmuth's false and evil claim..."

    Once again, the use of "evil" - entirely subjective
    No, it is not. There is disagreement about it, as about many things, but it is in principle a discoverable empirical fact. Does it involve deliberate violation of others' rights without just compensation? Then it is evil.
    "...flat-out lies -- such as claiming that [improvements to] land is a product of labor, or that there is raw matter in a chainsaw..."

    Note that I added "[improvements to]" just to clarify your paraphrase to reflect more accurately the essence of what was actually stated.
    No, that is just a flat-out lie on your part. You are LYING. You KNOW there is nothing controversial about improvements being products of labor, and you know I did not say that is a lie. You KNOW this. Of course you do. You simply decided deliberately to lie about it. The essence of what was stated was that land is a product of labor, and Helmuth has repeated that claim, and stated that he is proud of it, in post #805. It was a stupid lie when he said it, it is still a stupid lie when he rationalizes it, and it is a stupid lie to claim its meaning is other than what it plainly is.

    You will note that on a number of occasions, I have identified the fact that all apologists for landowner privilege lie. That is a natural law of the universe. There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be. You have decided to rationalize landowner privilege, and you consequently now have no choice but to lie. You just lied about what I wrote, and you lied about what Helmuth wrote.
    I did not see a single reference to a claim that raw land by itself was a product of anyone's labor.
    See post #805.
    I don't think you were "lying" -
    Of course you don't. You know very well I was telling the truth, just as Helmuth does.
    unless, of course, you knew that is what they meant, but deliberately left that part out.
    I know that when Helmuth said, "natural resources" he meant "natural resources," and not "improvements," "chainsaws," or "dry martinis."
    Land itself is not a product of labor.
    Congratulations on finding the courage not to lie about that. There may be hope for you yet.
    However, improvements to land certainly can be, and is, a product of capital and/or labor.
    Improvements are always products of labor, which may or may not employ capital.
    And raw matter is not in a chainsaw? I did not understand that. A chainsaw is matter, so that leaves me not knowing your definition of "raw", let alone understanding your point.
    "Raw" means what it says: natural and unprocessed.
    "...I do identify the facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications..."

    I don't know about your identification of the facts of physical reality, but "their inescapable logical implications" are products of your conclusions and your beliefs.
    No, they are products of factual premises and logical analysis.
    They are not inescapable unless someone is locked into your mind and your reasoning with no way out. I don't see that as being the case.
    They are inescapable to anyone who respects objective fact and logical reasoning.
    "...these facts are self-evident and indisputable (e.g., [improvement of] land is not a product of human labor)."

    Again, did you mean to leave out "improvement of", or can you give me a direct quote of someone who claims that raw, unimproved land is a product of human labor?
    See post #805. And it is certainly not the first time Helmuth has made such blatantly false claims.
    "...established facts of economics (taxing a factor in fixed supply creates no distortion and imposes no excess burden)..."

    That seems self-contradictory to me.
    It is a fact of economics that has been known for 200 years, and is not disputed by any competent economist. It is merely a fact that is not known to you because you do not know any economics.
    Forget the "creates no distortion" part, which is unclear, and may be technically correct if you mean only "can be accounted for".
    It means that people's production and consumption decisions are unaffected.
    It is the "imposes no excess burden" claim that I found bizarre, unless "excess" is the operative word (in which case it is entirely subjective, based on your definition of "excess").
    The "excess burden" of a tax is the amount of its cost to the economy in excess of the amount of net revenue it raises.
    However, regardless whether a tax is justified or not, any tax imposes a "burden"...unless, once again, you are employing some special definition of the word burden, like "how you personally feel about the weight of the tax", or how you have justified that tax based on how it is offset in your own mind by something else.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_burden_of_taxation

    From the wikipedia article:

    "In fact almost any tax measure will distort the economy from the path or process that would have prevailed in its absence (land value taxes are a notable exception)."
    "...apologists for privilege and injustice..."

    Two extremely subjective terms, your definitions of which are entirely unclear - but which appear to be synonymous in the context in which you use them.
    No. Privilege (from the Latin for "private law") is a legal entitlement to benefit from the uncompensated violation of others' rights. Injustice is rewards not commensurate with contributions made and penalties not commensurate with deprivations imposed on others.

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