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

  1. #811
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    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.
    I don't understand why you say this. Under your system, people would be free to go to Mars and use its resources, but they would have to compensate other Martians to the extent that their use of the resources deprives those other Martians, and this compensation would be specifically in the form of LVT paid to a government which uses the tax money to provide public services, and the tax would be negligible (or maybe even zero) for land which there's no competition to use. My system does exactly the same thing! The major difference is that I offer secure tenure only for 50 years, while you offer secure tenure for eternity.

    And what are the privileges which the landowners enjoy in my system? Remember, all the land is jointly owned by all of the citizens (which are all the people who have signed the founding contract, which is effectively the Constitution of the Government of Mars), administration of the land is done exclusively by the government, and everybody is free to be a citizen (and thus a joint owner of all the land) in exchange for simply acknowledging the legitimacy of the government and its authority over the land. For all practical purposes, the land is only "owned" in my system in the same sense in which it's "owned" by the government in your system. A "privileged" class which consists of everybody isn't a problem, and the only people who aren't in that class are the ones who voluntarily exclude themselves by denying the legitimacy of the government.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    The system privileges landowners to pocket both publicly created land rent
    If by "landowners" you mean the planetary landlord, remember that everybody, except those who deny the legitimacy of the government, is a member of the class which constitutes that landlord. All of the land rent is spent on government services, the same as in your system, with any surplus rent distributed as a citizen's dividend, which you've said is a reasonable thing to do with the surplus. If by "landowners" you mean people who have rented parcels of land for 50-year terms from the planetary landlord and then subleased it, the same pocketing of some of the rent would occur in your system too; the only difference is that you prefer to officially revalue the land somewhat more frequently than every 50 years.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    and some privately created improvement value.
    You already agree that justice is satisfactorily served by compensating people for their infringed rights, such as providing government services to people in exchange for excluding them from use of certain parcels of land. In my system, people who improve land are compensated for the loss of private ownership of those improvements by the reduced pre-improvement rental value of the land, and they themselves decide what the just compensation is, by bidding less for the land than they would if their future improvements would remain perpetually their own. How is that unfair?
    If that still doesn't satisfy you, then think of it another way: during the auction, people aren't just bidding money; they're bidding money _plus improvements_. Money is paid to the government every year, and improvements are paid to the government every 50 years.

    My system has another benefit: by auctioning rental privilege and offering secure tenure only for 50 years, my system more effectively accomplishes the geoist goal of preventing perpetual concentration of control over land than does the traditional geoist mechanism of eternal security. After all, under the traditional geoist system, if the government is taxing a landlord no more than what he can recover by renting his land out to the highest bidder, then he can still acquire and keep an arbitrarily large amount of land without losing money on the enterprise, so if many other people are foolish enough to sell to him, then he and his descendants can hold the land forever, and discriminate against particular members of the landless class at their whim, or discriminate against particular uses of the land, by rejecting their high bids to rent parcels of land, and pay only a relatively minor monetary price (the difference between the high and next-highest bids) for the privilege to sporadically discriminate like this. In contrast, under my system, such a landowning dynasty would be economically unfeasible, because the dynasty would have to defend each parcel of land in an auction every 50 years, which makes it impossible to break even by renting it for the purpose of subleasing it, because the high bidder by definition pays more than anybody else was willing to pay; if nobody else was willing to pay that much to rent directly from the planetary landlord, then nobody will pay that much to sublease the land either.
    Ironically, eternal security of tenure in the last vestige of the concept of land ownership, and the traditional geoist system fails to abolish it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    It's more moral in securing the equality of human rights,
    What do you say would be the right way to establish a legitimate government for the Martian colony?

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    and more practical in stimulating more productive use of land.
    Do you say this just because my system officially revalues each parcel of land only once every 50 years (which requires bidders to predict value that far in advance), whereas your system revalues it more frequently, or is there some other reason?



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  3. #812
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Congratulations on finding the courage not to lie about that. There may be hope for you yet.
    Well, at least there's hope for someone, that should be encouraging. And with that one brass ring tenuously plucked, I'll step off this merry-go-round of ad hominem pronouncements which are not disputed by anyone that you deem intelligent, let alone any economist that you deem competent.

  4. #813
    Quote Originally Posted by jascott View Post
    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....
    To Helmuth, what substantial improvement (in morality or practicality) would be made by the landlord selling land rather than leasing it?
    First of all, they have not, to my mind, established a claim over the entire planet just by carving "No Trespassing" signs. I think it would be very difficult to established this claim. Of course, in Roy L.'s system, all I have to do is nudge Mars into a little different orbit with a well-placed nuclear blast on nearby asteroid which causes it to collide with Mars. Whee! It's all mine!

    Under my system, the ownership is ultimately established by the claim, but there are all sorts of mitigating factors to what kind of claim will be recognized. For practical purposes, it is really not any different than the traditional Lockean system wherein applying labor to natural resources makes them products of your labor and thus your legitimate property, with a few small exceptions in edge cases, which you understand if you've read the rest of my posts in this thread.

    But let's just add the information to your scenario that the man and woman were trillionaires and they terraformed the entire planet while everyone else, other than their employees, was back on Earth twiddling their thumbs. Then I think we could say they have legitimately established ownership over the whole planet. And what a breathtaking achievement! This couple should be hailed through all the ages! They gave us again what God gave us at first -- they have created a second Earth.

    And then they just keep the whole thing and refuse to sell it, only leasing it. So your question for me is whether I see any moral or practical problem with that.

    Morally, no. They made a planet. What an outlandish thing to do. They are certainly justified in getting an outlandish reward. They could even refuse to lease it and just be Adam and Eve, keeping the whole thing for themselves and their progeny. Or they could blow it up, ala Francisco d'Anconia. It's theirs. They can do whatever they want with it.

    Practically, there's a big problem. One single firm controlling the whole economy faces the same problem as a socialist government: the calculation problem discovered by Mises. The larger a firm becomes, the more they run up against the calculation problem. Let's say you're a grocery store with vertical integration. You own all your supply chain -- your own trucking system, your own food packaging and processing plants, everything, going all the way back to the farms, which you also own. How do you know how much to pay your farmers? You kind of have to peek over the fence at your competitors, or else long-term you might (nay, you will) get way off, just as the Soviets had to peek over the fence at market economies to know what prices to set all their stuff at.

    So if one firm owns all the resources and space of an entire planet, this is a big calculation problem. They can look over the fence at Earth, but Earth is very, very different and it doesn't help them a whole lot. Everyone's bidding at the auctions, yes, but there's only one supply. This firm has total horizontal integration over a fundamental part of the economy.

    Peter Klein has done good work in this area of the theory of the firm.

    http://blog.mises.org/12799/on-chapt...eins-new-book/
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 11-19-2011 at 10:05 AM.

  5. #814
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Well, at least there's hope for someone, that should be encouraging. And with that one brass ring tenuously plucked, I'll step off this merry-go-round of ad hominem pronouncements which are not disputed by anyone that you deem intelligent, let alone any economist that you deem competent.
    Sorry! At least he moderated himself somewhat with you, not being sure, I guess, initially, whether you were a totally reprehensible sub-human lie generator. Now that that's been established....

    I was not trying to use ad hominem on you, by the way, I hope you don't think that. I just see some of these legalistic things as kind of pointless and detached from reality. I do agree with you on Lincoln, and I can see where your proposed Constitutional amendment would be a good thing. I would just repeal the whole commerce clause and replace it with "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade, and by that we mean they shall not make any law respecting production and trade at all." I still recommend you read the Wikipedia page on David Wynn Miller for a good hardy laugh.

  6. #815
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    I was not trying to use ad hominem on you, by the way, I hope you don't think that.
    Nope, never even crossed my mind. Aside from the fact that you are just a pawn for the Bilderburgers (and don't lie, evil minion, or attempt to deny it), you have been logical, concise, inquisitive, respectful, considerate, polite, and not the slightest bit condescending. All the stuff of good discourse and mutual inquiry into ideas. I enjoy reading your posts, and following your ideas. I have already learned from you, and look forward to whatever else you have to say.

  7. #816
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Well, at least there's hope for someone, that should be encouraging. And with that one brass ring tenuously plucked, I'll step off this merry-go-round of ad hominem pronouncements which are not disputed by anyone that you deem intelligent, let alone any economist that you deem competent.
    You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.

    As I hypothesized, you are able to see the cat, but refuse to do so. Simple.

    You CHOOSE not to know facts that you have already realized prove your beliefs are false and evil.

    You and Helmuth may now return to your mutual snog-fest.



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  9. #817
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    At least he moderated himself somewhat with you, not being sure, I guess, initially, whether you were a totally reprehensible sub-human lie generator. Now that that's been established....
    If you will recall, Helmuth, I extended you the same courtesy until you started lying about what I had plainly written -- which didn't take long. Your first response to me (post #148) was to claim I was a looter when I had already proved it is landowners who are the looters. The remainder of that post was a spew of sneers, derision, fallacies and dismissals lacking any factual or logical merit.
    I still recommend you read the Wikipedia page on David Wynn Miller for a good hardy laugh.
    Thanks for the chuckle. Now you know how I feel about your absurdities -- except that his aren't to rationalize and justify the greatest evil in the history of the world.

  10. #818
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.
    Orkay! You are the king of your own private feast now, bon apetit!

  11. #819
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    First of all, they have not, to my mind, established a claim over the entire planet just by carving "No Trespassing" signs. I think it would be very difficult to established this claim. Of course, in Roy L.'s system, all I have to do is nudge Mars into a little different orbit with a well-placed nuclear blast on nearby asteroid which causes it to collide with Mars. Whee! It's all mine!
    Well, in defense of Roy's system, he wouldn't let you have the planet just like that. You'd first have to pay a severance tax on it in order to own it, assuming the government (I'm not sure which government this would be) even authorized the whole planet to be taken as private property in the first place, which presumably it wouldn't (some stuff, including a planet's core, is kept as public property and not available to be taken as private property or for exclusive use at any price).
    If you're not going to let me have the planet just for carving "No trespassing" signs on it, then it's reasonable for Roy to refuse to let you have it just for slamming an asteroid into it.

    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Practically, there's a big problem. One single firm controlling the whole economy faces the same problem as a socialist government: the calculation problem discovered by Mises.
    I don't understand why you think Mises's economic calculation problem applies to my system. I don't have one firm controlling the whole economy; I just have one firm owning the entire planet (except for stuff which people declare to be mobile, except in the case that they fail to move the declared stuff when they lose auctions), and unconditionally renting out each piece of the planet to the highest bidder. I don't have any bureaucrats setting prices or allocating stuff; land prices are determined exclusively by bids in the free market, and allocation is determined exclusively by the winning bidders. My firm doesn't even produce anything, besides defensive services. The calculation problem doesn't apply here.

    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Everyone's bidding at the auctions, yes, but there's only one supply. This firm has total horizontal integration over a fundamental part of the economy.
    Let's divide Mars into hemispheres, or even divide it steradially into a thousand pieces, with each piece independently owned and governed, but each piece independently using the same quasi-geoist system which I originally proposed for a unified planet. Now, the rent money goes just to the local government, and each citizen gets a dividend only from his local government; no planet-wide landlord or government exists. All of the governments have treaties for no tariffs, no restrictions on the movement of goods or people (except that people must acknowledge a government's legitimacy before entering its territory), and no restrictions on anybody in any place bidding on and renting parcels of land at any other place on the planet. How does that solve the problem which you claim my unified planet has?

  12. #820
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Yes, I have [read all of Rothbard's arguments against Georgism].
    Would you recognize one, you think, if you were to read one?

  13. #821
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Would you recognize one, you think, if you were to read one?
    Maybe. Most of them are chestnuts other apologists for landowner privilege had tried before, or have tried since, so it's not easy to keep all the authorships straight in my memory.

  14. #822
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Translation: facts of objective reality that prove you wrong.
    Oh! Could you list them?

    I don't recall Matt saying resources would be taxed except insofar as they yield unearned, publicly created rent to their owners, but if he did, he was wrong.
    And, you don't even care enough to look back and check what he said. You don't really care what he said -- and he's your "good buddy"! You cannot even be bothered to take the effort to comprehend his sentences correctly. What does that say about how much you care about comprehending anyone else on the thread?

    If someone can build a factory with resources no one else wants enough to be willing to pay for access to, he can build it without paying any tax, and own and operate it without paying any tax.
    In theory. Generally that will not happen. Generally, the resources will have been LVTed somehow.

    The stuff that makes concrete is land.
    No, what makes concrete is labor. There is no land in concrete any more than in a chainsaw.
    So concrete is just pure labor. Got it.

    No, you were obviously just lying. Again.
    Oh. Could you explain how?

    No, it can't, because land value approaches zero as the rate approaches infinity and the tax amount approaches the market rent. Because of that fact, LVT CANNOT be made excessive. It can't be made to extract more from the landowner than he rightly owes for what he takes from society. The only way to make the land tax amount greater than the market rent is to stop taxing land value and tax by something else -- in which case the state risks forcing abandonment of the land and declining revenue.
    Except for by "infinity" you mean "100%". Those are two different rates. A rate of infinity, of course, means that in order to occupy the space one must pay the state an infinite amount of wealth each lease period -- which is impossible unless you allow an installment plan . Even then I think it's impossible. Finite land value X times infinity equals infinity.

    So you mean 100%, and taxing over 100% of the value does indeed create the risk of land being abandoned. It would indeed decrease the state's revenue. The state does sometimes do things which are irrational, even for a parasite, because they kill the host. Why? What can I say: they have a high time preference.

    It's more than irrational: it's not LVT. So your "objection" to LVT is that it might not be LVT.
    Any tax based on land value is a land value tax. If the tax charges 10% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax. If the tax charges 100% of the value of the land, that's a land value tax. If the tax charges 1,000% of the value of the land, that is a land value tax.

    And you call the state irrational....
    I call the state a group of people. All people might do things from time to time which are not in their best long-term interests.

    But you would be lying. But I repeat myself.
    That's true.

    No, that's plainly a lie, as already proved. It is self-evident and indisputable that others would be at liberty to use the land if the landowner did not initiate force against them. He therefore forcibly deprives them of liberty they would otherwise have. By contrast, they would not otherwise be at liberty to use the factory, because it was not already there. The owner or a previous owner had to create it. The landowner did not create the land, and neither did any previous owner. All your bull$#!+ cannot make that fact disappear.
    By drinking water, I deprive others of their inalienable right to drink the same water. I am a sinner. Life is a sin. Let's all suicide, since that's the only way to avoid depriving others of their inalienable rights.

    Only the rearranged soil has been removed from nature, not the land under it.
    OK, so if I can prove that the soil down to 100 feet underground has been rearranged by the tamping, I then own that cube of soil. People can still tunnel under me, provided they go deep enough that it doesn't affect my cube, but that particular cube of matter is now mine, I may monopolize it freely, after paying a severance tax. Is that correct?

    The evidence has long been conclusive that you have nothing to offer but lies, strawmen, name calling, lies, equivocations, fallacies, lies, absurdities and lies.
    I see only occasional evidence that you actually know what those terms mean, along with occasional evidence that you in fact do not.

    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.
    I am shocked! Shocked! Who would say such things?

    It is not Smith who was a moron, sunshine. It is not Smith who was wrong about almost everything. It is not Smith whom it would be self-torture to read even one more word by. It is not Smith who is a fruitcake.
    Well that's a relief. I thought he was for a second there. But now you've proven me wrong. Point taken.

    the bandit
    You know, all your little scenarios have one thing in common: one supplier. Only one. Robinson Crusoe? There's just one island, and no hope of getting to another one. The Bandit? He's staked out the one and only possible road; as you said: "There is no other road". Dirtowner Harry? He's got the only water, with no hope of getting to some other water source. So all these scenarios really only work if there's a total monopoly, no alternatives no competition.

    So I guess you're arguing against the problems that could be created if we didn't have competition in natural resource ownership. Indeed, I agree that if we were living in a world where instead of just going down the block to a different landlord, the whole country was owned by one landlord, there could be potential for abuse. Of course, the whole country being one big land monopoly, all owned by one owner -- the state -- is exactly what you propose. And what if the state decided it didn't like redheads and wasn't going to let them drink any of the water without paying a 100,000% tax on the value of that water? Obviously it could do that, and they would have to pay. There's no alternative sources.

    Another thing all your stories have in common: the victim is hapless. They have either had extreme misfortune or extreme stupidity. Either way, they have failed to prepare for and deal with the world around them in an effective manner. What is the bozo doing out in the desert with no water when he knows none of the oasis owners are going to let him drink? He didn't know? Well he should have known! It's his job to know! If he can't take reality by the reins even to the minimal extent of making sure he will be able to supply himself with water, he is not fit to survive. This caravan should have planned ahead and secured all the land for their route. Honestly, all these "victims" are pathetic and I have very little sympathy for them.

    It is very accurate. In fact, it is exactly what happened when the Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution.
    No. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress had no real taxing power. None. It's questionable whether the central government could even be considered a government in the normal sense, given that they had no taxing power. Essentially all the states made donations. If they didn't, there was nothing Congress was authorized to do. Send letters begging them to reconsider, maybe. But really, nothing.

    But they don't have liberty to use everything in the Universe.
    Everything nature provided, they most certainly do. What would stop them, other than a vicious, evil, greedy parasite like you initiating force against them?
    Their own laziness, prodigality, stupidity, sickliness, or profligacy. Natural resources take a lot of intelligence and labor to obtain and use. Nature is not a vending machine.

    No, you are a despicable, evil, greedy, thieving, murdering, vicious parasite.
    Thanks!

  15. #823
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Maybe. Most of them are chestnuts other apologists for landowner privilege had tried before, or have tried since, so it's not easy to keep all the authorships straight in my memory.
    I ask because I have hidden somewhere in this thread one somewhat lengthy post which I copied almost exactly from Rothbard (I'm sure if he were still alive he would have been converted away from believing in copyrights by now, so no harm, no foul). I did it just to see if you could tell the difference between him and me; apparently you couldn't. Big prize for the first one to guess which post! (The big prize is to know that you're awesome).

    The stuff that you "refuted" on your email list or whatever which you repeatedly linked to is not, it turns out, all he ever wrote on the subject.

  16. #824
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    I ask because I have hidden somewhere in this thread one somewhat lengthy post which I copied almost exactly from Rothbard (I'm sure if he were still alive he would have been converted away from believing in copyrights by now, so no harm, no foul). I did it just to see if you could tell the difference between him and me; apparently you couldn't.
    ?? And...? What is that supposed to prove? That you are somehow clever? Apologists for landowner privilege copy fallacious, absurd and dishonest crap from each other all the time. It doesn't matter how many times or how conclusively it has been refuted, they'll just make the same self-evidently stupid claims over and over again, just as you have in this thread.
    Big prize for the first one to guess which post! (The big prize is to know that you're awesome).
    Sure, some of your posts have had a vaguely familiar ring. ISTR there was one where you basically just chanted, "Property rights, right or wrong," more or less as a non sequitur, and that kinda reminded me of Rothbard. I of course demolished it. Was that the one?
    The stuff that you "refuted" on your email list or whatever which you repeatedly linked to is not, it turns out, all he ever wrote on the subject.
    So? The absurdity and dishonesty of his anti-LVT "arguments" did not change. Whichever post it was where you reiterated Rothbard's stupid and dishonest garbage, you will see that I demolished it as easily as I have demolished all your stupid and dishonest garbage.



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  18. #825
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Sure, some of your posts have had a vaguely familiar ring. ISTR there was one where you basically just chanted, "Property rights, right or wrong," more or less as a non sequitur, and that kinda reminded me of Rothbard. I of course demolished it. Was that the one?
    I don't know which one you're talking about! Wouldn't that describe all my posts here?

  19. #826
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    No, it isn't. Most US taxes before income tax were levied on land and real property.
    Federal taxes have never really been levied on land. Land isn't even under jurisdiction of the Federal Government, but States - and property tax is a bad new idea like income taxes (but usually implemented on the State level), but that's a different post.

    You don't know history very well. What I said is just as true as when I said it the first time. Tariffs and other indirect taxes were the preferred method of taxing for our founders and Adam Smith, and were almost the exclusive method of revenuing generation for a long time. During that time, there was an economic boom the like of which the world has never seen.

    Progessives want income taxes and property taxes because they don't like the idea of property - as in Life, Liberty, and Property. Futhermore, direct taxes are harder for the federal government to levy under the US Constitution.

    http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/14/tax...w-changes.html

    Why tariffs and duties were more common for most of our history - because they are indirect taxes and easier to pass under the Constitution. I posted this article, but I had a better article several weeks ago on the amount of revenue generated by various taxes, and yes, the largest % during our boom period was collected from tariffs.

    Tariffs and duties are by their nature a function of the Federal Government. Only the Federal Government can collect them, and they don't interfere within States when they collected. Futhermore, as other countries sometimes try to manipulate their trade goods, as well as go to war with us, they are natural parts of the defense mechanism as well, and pay to defend ourselves against those countries as well - ie the nastier you are, the more military we need, so the more we need to raise taxes.

    Futhermore, although mis-used in definition now, excise taxes are also suppose to be a type of indirect duty, but specifically on luxary goods as opposed to all goods. They aren't sales taxes on goods, or luxury goods.
    Last edited by SpiritOf1776_J4; 11-20-2011 at 03:02 AM.

  20. #827
    1792 $4.4 95.0%
    1795 $5.6 91.6%
    1800 $9.1 83.7%
    1805 $12.9 95.4%
    1810 $8.6 91.5%
    1815 $7.3 46.4%
    1820 $15.0 83.9%
    1825 $20.1 97.9%
    1830 $21.9 88.2%
    1835 $19.4 54.1%
    1840 $12.5 64.2%
    1845 $27.5 91.9%
    1850 $39.7 91.0%
    1855 $53.0 81.2%
    1860 $53.2 94.9%

    With the Civil War, the first attempt to introduce an income tax, as well as fiat money, occurs.

  21. #828
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    Has anyone else listened to this lecture who can confirm I'm not going crazy or been dropped into an alternate Universe? Raico claimed the exact same thing I did, to wit: the decentralization and balances on power achieved under Western feudalism were a major factor (there were other factors, too), probably the major factor, which made the West what it became. Any difference whatsoever between what I said and what he said would be due to imperfection in my paraphrasing.

    Listen and see for yourself: http://mises.org/media/1263/The-European-Miracle

    Anyway, enough of that.
    Raico talks about how states have historically acted like the Mafia and engaged in predatory taxation, and says the Roman Empire killed itself via excessive taxation and regulation, then says (at lecture time 12:50-16:28),
    What does the decentralization of Europe have to do with this? It created the indispensable condition for what we're calling "The European Miracle". And that is the possibility of exit.
    (Inaudible) by these scholars.
    To take an example, supposing you're a successful businessman in Antwerp or Amsterdam, and this did not happen historically because the rulers of these areas engaged in what was from the state's point of view rational behavior, that is, relatively light taxation and a relatively light hand, and respect for private property. But supposing that you were oppressed by the state, that the state was confiscating or heavily taxing your assets, you could exit within the whole cultural area of Christian Europe. You didn't have to go to a totally different civilization. You could go across the North Sea to England. You could go down the Rhine River to Cologne. And this held generally. Among the Italian city-states it certainly held. Since it was very easy to go from one to another depending on how the state was treating you there. Now this did not hold in every case but it was a constant factor, and the possibility of exit created limitations to what the state could do to its productive citizens.
    Now, this story goes back many centuries. It goes back into the Middle Ages.
    By the way, this historical interpretation I'm giving you has also been the basis of works of other scholars. Peter Bauer, for instance, the great, uh, Peter Bauer, who died a few months ago, in his work on economic development, the economic development of Europe, economic development of the Third World, simply assumes this basic interpretation of why Europe grew rich. Paul Kennedy of Yale in that book on the rise and decline of the great empires assumes as his basis this interpretation. Or William McNeal of Chicago in his other synthetic works on European history assumes this as a correct interpretation.
    And Peter Bauer said in one of his essays this economic development goes back at least 7-8 centuries, which means into the heart of the Middle Ages. So we have to examine something about the Middle Ages to explain why Europe was different.
    And in fact it is in the Middle Ages that what we call "Europe", not the geographical continent, but Europe the civilization, came into existence. Here, there are a number of important factors. Feudalism, that is, the European version of feudalism, played a role.
    At 19:08-19:24 he says,
    Perhaps more crucial than anything else in the whole distinctive development of Europe was the existence of a powerful international church whose interests were not synonymous, or often really compatible, with the interests of the state.
    He then clarifies that he's talking about the period from the first centuries of the church through the Middle Ages, excluding the Reformation onward.

    So, the church prevents the rise of a European mega-state, the lack of a mega-state gives rise to many small states, which enables people to exit confiscatory and high-tax states and go to better ones, and this ability to exit forces states to tax and regulate lightly and respect private property, which makes Europe grow rich.
    But notice that when you exit, you can't take your land with you. You arrive in the new state landless. Does your ability to prosper in the new state, and in general the ability of Europe as a whole to prosper, depend on your ability to buy land, and your prosperity will suffer if you can only rent land? Raico didn't say that.
    I don't know of any history which would support the claim that you need to be able to buy land. Peter Schiff recommends renting instead of buying, and he does quite well by just renting. And if you're going to rent land, why do you care whom you rent it from? Why do you care if a government rather than a private person owns it?

    In feudalism, as a serf, you don't own the land. You pay for the privilege to use the land. In exchange, you receive defensive services from the rent collector.
    In one view of Georgism, you don't own the land. You pay for the privilege to use the land. In exchange, you receive defensive services from the rent collector.
    Remind me again, what are we all arguing about? Oh right, we're arguing about how big the fief should be, and whether the serfs get to elect the lord.

    EDIT: on second thought, Schiff's advice isn't relevant to my argument, because he doesn't specifically advise that you should still only rent the land even if you're going to build on it.
    Last edited by jascott; 11-20-2011 at 02:25 PM. Reason: retraction of part of my argument

  22. #829
    Quote Originally Posted by SpiritOf1776_J4 View Post
    Federal taxes have never really been levied on land.
    But state and local governments have, and for most of the history of the USA they were doing most of the government spending.
    Land isn't even under jurisdiction of the Federal Government,
    Federal and territorial land is, and for long periods in the early history of the USA, a large part of federal government revenue was from land sales.
    but States - and property tax is a bad new idea like income taxes (but usually implemented on the State level), but that's a different post.
    Land taxes are among the most ancient taxes known, and have proved to be a very good idea.
    You don't know history very well.
    Wrong. I know it quite well. More, I understand its economic underpinnings, which are far more important than dates and legal details.
    What I said is just as true as when I said it the first time. Tariffs and other indirect taxes were the preferred method of taxing for our founders and Adam Smith, and were almost the exclusive method of revenuing generation for a long time.
    Wrong again. Adam SMith favored taxation of land rent, and the American Founders wrote the Articles of Confederation, which made a land tax the sole source of federal revenue. The Constitution was written because powerful landed interests refused to repay what they were stealing from the community, and threatened to start and finance a civil war if the federal government tried to collect it.
    During that time, there was an economic boom the like of which the world has never seen.
    Wrong AGAIN. Japan boomed faster during the Meiji period by funding the great majority of its government spending with a land value tax. Moreover, the early USA boomed largely on population growth, while Meiji Japan boomed on increasing productivity.
    Progessives want income taxes and property taxes because they don't like the idea of property - as in Life, Liberty, and Property.
    Garbage. I oppose both income tax and property tax.
    I posted this article, but I had a better article several weeks ago on the amount of revenue generated by various taxes, and yes, the largest % during our boom period was collected from tariffs.
    But the federal government was spending far less than state and local governments, so that is not very relevant to the economic effects of taxes.

  23. #830
    Quote Originally Posted by jascott View Post
    My system does exactly the same thing! The major difference is that I offer secure tenure only for 50 years, while you offer secure tenure for eternity.
    But the rent is often updated in my system, while it becomes very outdated in yours.
    A "privileged" class which consists of everybody isn't a problem, and the only people who aren't in that class are the ones who voluntarily exclude themselves by denying the legitimacy of the government.
    The privileged in your system lease land early, then benefit from the added land value later arrivals create.
    If by "landowners" you mean people who have rented parcels of land for 50-year terms from the planetary landlord and then subleased it, the same pocketing of some of the rent would occur in your system too; the only difference is that you prefer to officially revalue the land somewhat more frequently than every 50 years.
    50 years is a long time. In most cases land rent will rise by about an order of magnitude in that time. If population grows rapidly, as it might on a frontier, rent could rise much more rapidly.
    If that still doesn't satisfy you, then think of it another way: during the auction, people aren't just bidding money; they're bidding money _plus improvements_. Money is paid to the government every year, and improvements are paid to the government every 50 years.
    Clearly such barter is not as efficient as continuous market pricing.
    My system has another benefit: by auctioning rental privilege and offering secure tenure only for 50 years, my system more effectively accomplishes the geoist goal of preventing perpetual concentration of control over land than does the traditional geoist mechanism of eternal security. After all, under the traditional geoist system, if the government is taxing a landlord no more than what he can recover by renting his land out to the highest bidder, then he can still acquire and keep an arbitrarily large amount of land without losing money on the enterprise, so if many other people are foolish enough to sell to him, then he and his descendants can hold the land forever, and discriminate against particular members of the landless class at their whim, or discriminate against particular uses of the land, by rejecting their high bids to rent parcels of land, and pay only a relatively minor monetary price (the difference between the high and next-highest bids) for the privilege to sporadically discriminate like this.
    But they can't make any significant profit by holding land under my system, while they can under yours. If they can't, it's just a very expensive way to indulge a propensity to discriminate.
    In contrast, under my system, such a landowning dynasty would be economically unfeasible, because the dynasty would have to defend each parcel of land in an auction every 50 years, which makes it impossible to break even by renting it for the purpose of subleasing it, because the high bidder by definition pays more than anybody else was willing to pay; if nobody else was willing to pay that much to rent directly from the planetary landlord, then nobody will pay that much to sublease the land either.
    It's more economically unfeasible under my system, because the rent recovery is more accurate.
    What do you say would be the right way to establish a legitimate government for the Martian colony?
    Assuming it is not founded by a government, I'd say a democratic government exercising authority over the local area it controls. A lot would depend on circumstances, the level of technology involved, etc.
    Do you say this just because my system officially revalues each parcel of land only once every 50 years (which requires bidders to predict value that far in advance), whereas your system revalues it more frequently, or is there some other reason?
    Strictly in terms of the practical differences, IMO that's the most important one.

  24. #831
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Garbage.
    And repeated about ten plus times.

    I posted my links. I don't enjoy talking to you, I posted them for others. Just posting a bunch of noise on this group isn't going to keep the information getting out. The conservative tax protest movement has been going on a long time, and the information I posted is pretty well known.

    To repeat:

    Tariffs have been the traditional method of taxes for the federal government, and is perferred as they are indirect taxes on both people and are outside the States.

    Land taxes are bad, and have always been bad, but that is another message.
    Last edited by SpiritOf1776_J4; 11-20-2011 at 04:43 AM.

  25. #832
    Quote Originally Posted by SpiritOf1776_J4 View Post
    And repeated about ten plus times.
    I simply proved you wrong. Deal with it.
    I posted my links.
    I explained why they were irrelevant.
    I don't enjoy talking to you,
    You don't enjoy being caught.
    To repeat:
    And you complain about me repeating things?
    Tariffs have been the traditional method of taxes for the federal government, and is perferred as they are indirect taxes on both people and are outside the States.
    They are preferred because they shift the burden of taxation off the privileged landowning elite who actually pocket the value government spending creates and onto the productive working people who don't.
    Land taxes are bad, and have always been bad, but that is another message.
    Land taxes are good, have usually succeeded brilliantly, and I have demolished all claims to the contrary.



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  27. #833
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Land taxes are good, have usually succeeded brilliantly, and I have demolished all claims to the contrary.
    lolz ... If that is a fact, then why do you have one red bar?
    "Everyone who believes in freedom must work diligently for sound money, fully redeemable. Nothing else is compatible with the humanitarian goals of peace and prosperity." -- Ron Paul

    Brother Jonathan

  28. #834
    Quote Originally Posted by Travlyr View Post
    lolz ... If that is a fact, then why do you have one red bar?
    Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.

  29. #835
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.
    Perhaps you could try persuasion without insults. I know that I quit reading your posts a long time ago because your arguments were more about tearing down your opponent than the substance of discussion.
    "Everyone who believes in freedom must work diligently for sound money, fully redeemable. Nothing else is compatible with the humanitarian goals of peace and prosperity." -- Ron Paul

    Brother Jonathan

  30. #836
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.
    Yeah, that's the ticket, Don Quixote Roy - keep slaying those windmills evil lying giants.

    I heard you say bang, and very clearly, so they are quite obviously dead.

  31. #837
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    And here's the thing: I'm totally proud of all those stands!
    No doubt.
    Perhaps I should briefly explain them again?
    Why, so I can demolish them again?
    "natural resources are bequeathed to us by human labor and intelligence" -- Natural resources have to be discovered.
    Wrong. They are there, and useful, without being discovered. Even plants use natural resources without discovering them. And even when resources are discovered, that does not create or improve the resources. It only improves the discoverer's knowledge, better fitting him to use the pre-existing resources. You know this. How could better fitting himself to use resources, without altering them in any way, somehow extinguish others' rights to discover and use them?
    Their usefulness has to be discovered.
    Again, that is an improvement to the discoverer's knowledge, not the resource. It's self-improvement, not land or resource improvement. You know this.
    They have to be rearranged in order for that potential usefulness to become actual.
    Sometimes. And such rearrangement is improvement. It is production of products by labor, the result of which is not land, and thus cannot earn rightful ownership of any land.
    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.
    But they are there, ready for anyone else to use, whether he does anything with them or not. To deny this is self-evidently a lie.
    Without human intelligence and labor, nature isn't a resource at all, it's a deadly threat.
    Wrong AGAIN. Wild animals use nature just fine without any human intelligence and labor, so you are just indisputably wrong.
    "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.
    Thank you for agreeing that you LIED when you claimed that FEUDALISM, specifically, created a miracle of material PROSPERITY.
    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.
    But had nothing to do with feudalism, and did not create any economic miracle, contrary to your LIE.
    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.
    Which produced no prosperity and in fact, by any objective measure, led to lower production and a lower standard of living than had obtained hundreds of years earlier under Roman government, which at least kept the peace.
    "a chainsaw contains raw matter" -- This is so self-evident, I have never really known what to say about your rejection of this idea.
    It is self-evidently a lie.
    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.
    So your lie is that the word, "raw" is not there.
    All this matter was once "raw".
    But when incorporated into the chainsaw, is indisputably no longer raw. Thank you for agreeing that you LIED. AGAIN.
    It all came from nature, or the Universe.
    But is no longer in nature, and therefore no longer raw. Thank you for agreeing that you lied.
    That is the only source we have for matter. If you come up with another source, let me know.
    "Raw." Remember?
    Thus a chainsaw, and all material goods, are built from what the economists call "land".
    Ex-land. Stop lying.
    Land, labor, capital -- you combine them together and make goods.
    Wrong again. Labor USES land and capital to make goods. The goods contain no land or labor.
    Every economic good requires at least some land as a component.
    Nope. Wrong AGAIN. Production requires land as a location, but that is not a component of the good. And material goods require use of material resources, but once removed from nature they are no longer raw matter. You know this. Of course you do. You have merely decided that you had better deliberately lie about it.
    The case would seem to be pretty air tight.
    The case is airtight that you are lying.
    One takes raw matter, and makes a chainsaw.
    Which, being a chainsaw, is no longer raw matter, and contains no raw matter.
    Raw matter is what composes the chainsaw.
    That is a flat-out lie.
    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 is self-evidently and indisputably true, and you are just lying.
    It all just depends on how far from its natural state you must make it to qualify for your Holy delandifying absolution.
    No, it depends on how committed you are to lying in the service of greed, privilege, injustice and evil.
    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?
    Yes.
    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.
    Not for millions of years.
    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?
    A mere temperature change is temporary, and does not remove the matter from nature. Melting it, of course, does.
    More and more evidence is mounting that the only thing that is permanently land in his world view is location.
    Locations on the earth's surface are certainly one of the few really permanent resources, but they are not the only permanent resources. Broadcast spectrum is also permanent. The sun and the earth's atmosphere are permanent so far as we know. Maybe a few other things.
    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.
    Assuming you pay any severance tax owing.
    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.
    Self-contradiction: if it is property, it is already owned.
    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.
    As you know, that is just another stupid lie on your part. An oil tanker is much larger than a SFD building lot, but the former is rightly property while the latter is not, because the former was earned by labor, while the latter was not and could never possibly be.
    "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.
    Being perhaps the most absurd and dishonest of the four.
    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.
    Wrong AGAIN. You have already sold your liberty, your birthright, for a pot of message: your absurd Austrian-school rationalizations for the liberty-extinguishing injustice inherent in forcible appropriation of natural resources as private property.
    Injustice cannot be made to be just by merely giving payouts or bribes to the victims.
    But at least it is more just than NOT making any compensation for forcibly violating your victims' rights to liberty.
    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.
    Lie. Rape is not required to secure anyone's rights. Exclusive tenure to land IS required to secure producers' rights to their fixed improvements, even though that inherently violates others' rights to liberty. It is to reconcile this inherent conflict of rights that compensation from the privileged to their victims is required. Your "solution" is simply to tell the victims, "Tough $#!+ about your liberty. I have removed it by force; and when you are consequently enslaved, you will take it and like it. Now shut up and get back on the treadmill."
    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.
    Lie, as proved above.
    My philosophy says otherwise.
    Right: your "philosophy" applauds and worships the greedy, idle, privileged, parasitic, murdering, enslaving landowner as a hero.
    I guess you just have to choose which one seems better to you.
    Oh, I have, believe me.
    As for me, I will stand with absolute moral principles.
    Right: absolute servitude to greed, privilege, parasitism and injustice, no matter how many lies it takes, and no matter how many millions of human sacrifices it lays each year on the altar of your Great God Property.
    You can stand for the rich serial rapist. To each his own.
    Inevitably, a bald lie about what I have plainly written.

    Disgraceful.
    Last edited by Roy L; 11-20-2011 at 04:39 PM.

  32. #838
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Probably because I told the truth about a lying sack of $#!+.
    It couldn't be because YOU are promoting Theft.

    no ,, that wouldn't be it.
    Taxes are Theft. Period.
    Last edited by pcosmar; 11-20-2011 at 03:38 PM.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  33. #839
    Quote Originally Posted by Travlyr View Post
    Perhaps you could try persuasion without insults.
    Identifying the fact that someone is lying to serve privilege, greed, injustice and evil is always going to sound like an insult, sorry. But there is no other appropriate response. I firmly believe that most of the great evils of history could have been averted if just a few people had had the courage, at the critical moments, to stand up and say, "What you propose to do is evil, and your attempts to rationalize it are nothing but absurd lies."
    I know that I quit reading your posts a long time ago because your arguments were more about tearing down your opponent than the substance of discussion.
    There is no substance to a discussion where one side is doing nothing but lie about indisputable facts of objective physical reality and what the opposing side has plainly said.

  34. #840
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    It couldn't be because YOU are promoting Theft.
    No, you're right, it couldn't, because I am not.
    no ,, that wouldn't be it.
    Right.
    Taxes are Theft. Period.
    That is a lie. Period. It is private appropriation of publicly created value that is self-evidently and indisputably theft. You know this, because I have proved it:

    The Bandit

    Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

    A thief, right?

    Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them. The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force. How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

    But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

    And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?



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