The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

I think a prerequisite disclosure for this thread should be whether you own real estate or are getting angry cutting that check to your landlord every month.

Me? Home owner.

I have been a landlord in the past, but I still think it is a bad time to own in my area.

[Zippyjuan]

So basically owning anything is "stealing?" If I stole it, you can't tax me on it.

No. I said nothing of the sort. Please do not lie about what I have plainly written. It makes you look like you are trying to rationalize privilege and justify injustice.

Really?

No, $200K. But you paid the previous owner $100K for the privilege of taking the first $100K from society, so from your perspective that was a wash, while the previous owner got $100K and society had $100K stolen from it. Now you expect to take another $100K from society.

and:

Just like the gold dust you stole. But you still stole it, and the value of what you took is still $100K.

I traded my labor for money which in turn I exchanged for in one case land and in the second case gold. You called both stealing.

Who did I steal from? Who lost out? How did I steal the second $100k on my property if I only paid $100k for it? When the value of it goes to $200k how did I take another $100k? I didn't ask for it, I didn't take it from anybody and I certainly don't have it. I only get the $100k extra by selling the property.

As LVT is a voluntary, beneficiary-pay, market-based, value-for-value transaction, it is naturally self-limiting.

Ah. A voluntary system. If I choose not to participate in the LVT I don't have to pay.

Can you try please to give examples of how society gives a landowner benefits he can be taxed on? Say my neighbor buys a vacant lot next to mine, cleans it up, and puts a big, fancy house on it. The value of his land has increased because of the use he put his property to. That makes properties next to his, like mine, more desirable and thus may have a higher perceived value than before his actions. What benefits have I personally received which are taxable? I did nothing to my land and his building a house offers me no other benefit than perhaps a nice view instead of a cluttered one.

How about a second example. Instead of building a house, he starts a gold mine. He is producing lots of value to society with all the gold he digs up so they are better off. But the mining activities cause noise and pollution and make my land less valuable to live on though I could sell it to him to expand his mining operation. I have been harmed by his actions but society benefited. Should I be paying higher taxes in either example than I was before any changes were made to the lot next to me? If so, why?


How is owning land taking anything from society? A land owner is more likely to take care of their property and maintain its value while land everybody (or in turn nobody) owns is more likely to be abused and misused (look up "Tragedy of the Commons").

Yes, I have read a few economics texts in my time- I have a degree in it actually. If you add a tax to something, you are correct that the underlying price may go down- or it may not- but it will not go down by a significant amount and it will not fall by as much as the tax. It does depend on the elasticity of demand and what my costs are. I certainly can't lower the price below my costs or I go out of business. The tax becomes one of the costs of the final item and it gets added to my costs. It may reduce my profits somewhat but I still need to be profitable. I may be forced to absorb some of the tax but I am going to pass along to the consumer as much of that tax as I can.

[Roy L]

Really?

Yes.

No, $200K. But you paid the previous owner $100K for the privilege of taking the first $100K from society, so from your perspective that was a wash, while the previous owner got $100K and society had $100K stolen from it. Now you expect to take another $100K from society.

and:

Just like the gold dust you stole. But you still stole it, and the value of what you took is still $100K.

Land is not "anything," as "anything" includes everything, not just land. Owning some things -- like land, or slaves -- is inherently stealing, because it violates others' rights without just compensation. In such cases, what is owned is the PRIVILEGE of stealing, and having government be on your side rather than your victims' side: a legal "right" to take value from others while not contributing any value in return. Other things -- products of labor -- have been contributed, adding to the sum of wealth, so owning them does not inherently violate others' rights: they have lost nothing.

I traded my labor for money which in turn I exchanged for in one case land and in the second case gold. You called both stealing.

No, that is a lie. In post #435 I wrote:

Same thing as if you take 600 oz of gold dust out of the police evidence warehouse. It's not money. You can't take it to a store and spend it. But it is value -- wealth -- that you have stolen.

In the example I gave, you did not pay for the gold dust. If you had, that would not be stealing because the gold dust is a product of labor, not a privilege of taking value without contributing anything in return. Having paid for land does make owning it any less a theft, just as having paid for a slave does not make owning him any less a theft. In both cases, you simply paid the previous owner for the legal PRIVILEGE of stealing, because the deed to the slave or the land is not something that has been added to the sum of wealth. It just legally entitles you to take what already existed.

Who did I steal from? Who lost out?

All who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land.

How did I steal the second $100k on my property if I only paid $100k for it?

By depriving others of more valuable advantages than you paid for.

When the value of it goes to $200k how did I take another $100k? ]I didn't ask for it, I didn't take it from anybody and I certainly don't have it. I only get the $100k extra by selling the property.

Consider a slave who learns how to be more productive, so that his value is doubled. The wages you are stealing from him have likewise doubled. You don't have to sell him to be taking that additional value from him.

GET IT??

Ah. A voluntary system. If I choose not to participate in the LVT I don't have to pay.

That is correct. But government will not help you exclude others from more than your equal share of the good land. And in fact, if you are occupying land that someone is willing to pay the tax on while you are not, government will dispossess you of that land and secure legal possession to the one who is willing to pay for what he takes.

Can you try please to give examples of how society gives a landowner benefits he can be taxed on?

I have done so, several times: roads, water and sewer systems, schools, sanitation services, hospitals and free medical care, port and airport facilities, police and fire protection, the list goes on and on.

Say my neighbor buys a vacant lot next to mine, cleans it up, and puts a big, fancy house on it. The value of his land has increased because of the use he put his property to.

No, it has not. The unimproved value is the same (assuming nothing else has happened).

That makes properties next to his, like mine, more desirable and thus may have a higher perceived value than before his actions.

Right. The unimproved value of YOUR lot has probably increased a bit, not his.

What benefits have I personally received which are taxable?

The more desirable aspect of the land you occupy.

I did nothing to my land and his building a house offers me no other benefit than perhaps a nice view instead of a cluttered one.

Bingo. You are now forcibly depriving others of an opportunity that is more valuable that it was before.

How about a second example. Instead of building a house, he starts a gold mine. He is producing lots of value to society with all the gold he digs up so they are better off.

He is presumably charging full market value for the gold. Society as a whole is wealthier, so he is not stealing, but neither is he running a charity. His employees are better off, etc., but that is a matter of increased surplus through voluntary exchange, not increased land value.

But the mining activities cause noise and pollution and make my land less valuable to live on though I could sell it to him to expand his mining operation.

Land value is based on its most productive permitted use, not the existing use.

I have been harmed by his actions but society benefited. Should I be paying higher taxes in either example than I was before any changes were made to the lot next to me? If so, why?

The value of what you are depriving others of is greater. You may have been harmed (the value of your improvements has declined) but you are harming society even more by blocking the more productive use.

How is owning land taking anything from society?

You deprive others of the opportunity to use it. That is self-evident and indisputable.

A land owner is more likely to take care of their property and maintain its value

Land does not need maintenance to stay in its natural state or retain its unimproved value (it may need to be defended against vandals, but that is actually the police's job, not the owner's, and is mainly a symptom of dysfunctional city government).
[

while land everybody (or in turn nobody) owns is more likely to be abused and misused

Nope. Publicly owned land in Hong Kong does not seem to be abused and misused. It is used very productively.

(look up "Tragedy of the Commons").

I know it far better than you. Garrett Hardin, the author of "The Tragedy of the Commons," said later that his work had been misappropriated and misinterpreted by the right, and he wished he had called it, "The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons," because what he was arguing for was intelligent public stewardship of commons, not their privatization. Historically, ACTUAL village commons were managed to prevent abuse that would impair their productivity.

Yes, I have read a few economics texts in my time- I have a degree in it actually.

No, you don't, or you could not be making such economically ignorant comments.

If you add a tax to something, you are correct that the underlying price may go down- or it may not- but it will not go down by a significant amount and it will not fall by as much as the tax.

Depending on the relevant elasticities, it may go down by almost as much as the tax. Consider a good for which there are close but untaxed substitutes and elastic demand, like imported booze subject to a tariff.

It does depend on the elasticity of demand and what my costs are. I certainly can't lower the price below my costs or I go out of business.

Other producers may be more efficient. That is why you can't just pass on tax costs and expect consumers to pay them, any more than you can just pass on any other cost you incur. The difference with tax costs is that all the other producers presumably incur the same cost; but with land that is not the case, as there is no producer of land, only "consumers."

The tax becomes one of the costs of the final item and it gets added to my costs.

No, you are mistaking land's ACQUISITION cost for a PRODUCTION cost. Two entirely different things. There is no production cost of land, as its supply is fixed. Such elementary errors are how I know you cannot possibly have a degree in economics.

It may reduce my profits somewhat but I still need to be profitable. I may be forced to absorb some of the tax but I am going to pass along to the consumer as much of that tax as I can.

Which in the case of land is zero, as the supply is fixed.

[Steven Douglas]

Owning some things -- like land, or slaves -- is inherently stealing, because it violates others' rights without just compensation.

There's part of your lunacy in a nutbag shell. Can't violate others' rights "without just compensation"? No, Roy, if it is indeed a right, you shouldn't violate it PERIOD. There is no "just compensation" to it. Assuming we are talking about an actual right, and not "otherwise would be at liberty capacity" logic stretched to absurd extremes and force-molded into what you think ought to be a right.

And conflating land with slaves? That has always been your geolib (read="Free The Land!", or "Let my people land go...") gibberish.

GET IT??

"Forcibly depriving others of an opportunity that is more valuable that it was before" is stupid because opportunities abound elsewhere. It's the "specific place" from which they are forcibly prevented/deprived. Nothing wrong with that, they didn't have a "right", and the deprivation is just. Go get your own place. Don't go crying to gov-Mommy that so-and-so won't "justly compensate you" for your well-deserved deprivation.

Land value is based on its most productive permitted use, not the existing use.

No, remember? The community soaks land value magically into the ground. The value has nothing to do with how it's used, or even how it could be used. All that nature, community and government "provided" infrastructure gives the land its value - not existing or "most productive permitted" use. I remember that pretzel well.

You may have been harmed (the value of your improvements has declined) but you are harming society even more by blocking the more productive use.

Get out of your aggregate thinking nutshell, and stop anthropomorphizing collectives. "Society" isn't harmed or helped by anything. INDIVIDUALS ONLY are harmed and helped - at all times. You would do well to learn that, and remember it.

[helmuth_hubener]

There we go. See? This is the right thread to talk about this in.

Actually, the old one was the right thread, I think. No, there is no database problem with long threads. One LVT thread is enough, that's how I feel. But, I suppose one at a time is a reasonable compromise.

LVT has perhaps not been tried fully. There are example places where it's been put into place to a greater or lesser extent, but nothing decisive. One can look at these partial examples and argue that it shows LVT would work, or that it shows that it wouldn't.

An-cap/Voluntaryism/radical libertarianism is in much the same boat. There has never been a society which intentionally and fully designed itself to be completely voluntary with the necessary intellectual framework and institutions to make it resilient, certainly not in modern times.

Let's have NH be pure an-cap, Vermont be pure Georgist, and come back in 30 years to see what happened.

[Roy L]

No, there is no database problem with long threads.

That was the reason given for limiting thread size on another forum. I don't know enough about how this forum works to know if the same reasoning applies.

LVT has perhaps not been tried fully. There are example places where it's been put into place to a greater or lesser extent, but nothing decisive. One can look at these partial examples and argue that it shows LVT would work, or that it shows that it wouldn't.

No, one can't argue that any of the examples show LVT wouldn't work, because all the examples show it does work.

An-cap/Voluntaryism/radical libertarianism is in much the same boat. There has never been a society which intentionally and fully designed itself to be completely voluntary with the necessary intellectual framework and institutions to make it resilient, certainly not in modern times.

Let's have NH be pure an-cap, Vermont be pure Georgist, and come back in 30 years to see what happened.

How do you recommend VT handle the flood of refugees from NH?

[Roy L]

Can't violate others' rights "without just compensation"? No, Roy, if it is indeed a right, you shouldn't violate it PERIOD. There is no "just compensation" to it.

Of course there is. That's what civil courts are for, for one thing. Are you really that ignorant of such basic facts of social existence?

Assuming we are talking about an actual right, and not "otherwise would be at liberty capacity" logic stretched to absurd extremes and force-molded into what you think ought to be a right.

Freedom to do what one would "otherwise would be at liberty" to do is exactly what a right to liberty IS. Your absurd and evil notion of rights says that slaves had no rights to liberty because "Oh, look, they have fetters on their ankles, if they had a right to liberty they wouldn't be fettered."

One could not possibly overstate the stupidity and dishonesty of such "arguments."

And conflating land with slaves? That has always been your geolib (read="Free The Land!", or "Let my people land go...") gibberish.

I have proved it is not gibberish. The only difference between owning land and owning slaves is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's rights, while when you own land, you remove one of all persons' rights.

"Forcibly depriving others of an opportunity that is more valuable that it was before" is stupid because opportunities abound elsewhere.

LOL! Such "arguments" are just cretinous. Yes, there are opportunities elsewhere: opportunities to waste your labor and capital where they cannot be productive; to starve or die of exposure on worthless, uninhabitable land while a greedy, idle, privileged, parasitic landowner hoards good land out of use, blah, blah. The fact that opportunities abound elsewhere is completely irrelevant to the fact that the landowner is forcibly depriving others of the opportunities he controls, just as the opportunity to expound one's political opinions out in the wilderness is irrelevant to the fact that stopping people from criticizing the government in ANY public place is a violation of their rights to freedom of speech.

It's the "specific place" from which they are forcibly prevented/deprived.

And all the opportunities associated with it.

Nothing wrong with that,

Wrong. As I have proved, it violates people's rights without just compensation.

they didn't have a "right",

I have proved they did.

and the deprivation is just.

No, it's pure evil.

Go get your own place.

"Go get your own liberty. Just save up your money and buy it from your owner."

Such "arguments" are infinitely evil.

Don't go crying to gov-Mommy that so-and-so won't "justly compensate you" for your well-deserved deprivation.

"Don't go crying to gov-Mommy that so-and-so won't "justly compensate you" for your well-deserved enslavement."

It is government's JOB to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor. When your rights are being violated without just compensation, it is the mark of a civilized human being (nothing you would know anything about, to be sure) to petition government for relief and redress, not to take matters into your own hands like some sort of feudal libertarian vigilante.

No, remember?

I remember your claims are never based on facts.

The community soaks land value magically into the ground. The value has nothing to do with how it's used,

True. Unimproved land value is exactly that: that value the bare land would have, independently of anything that is being done on it or improvements that are sitting on it.

or even how it could be used.

No, you are just telling stupid lies again, Steven. The value is ENTIRELY dependent on how it could be used, as proved by the fact that a simple zoning change can make it worth many times more than it was.

All that nature, community and government "provided" infrastructure gives the land its value - not existing or "most productive permitted" use.

The advantages government, the community and nature provide DEFINE what the most productive use is, given the limits of what is legally permitted.

Get out of your aggregate thinking nutshell, and stop anthropomorphizing collectives.

I have not done that. Stop lying about what I have plainly written.

"Society" isn't harmed or helped by anything.

No, such claims are just stupid. Societies emerge, exist for a time, and die, much as any organism does. To claim that defeat in war, for example, does not harm a society is simply idiotic.

INDIVIDUALS ONLY are harmed and helped - at all times. You would do well to learn that, and remember it.

I won't be learning any such cretinous, quasi-autistic drivel, thanks. You would do well to learn that societies do in fact exist, and remember it.

[sailingaway]

Kindly refrain from personal attacks. 'Stupid, cretinous, quasi-autistic drivil' counts as an attack.

[heavenlyboy34]

Of course there is. That's what civil courts are for, for one thing. Are you really that ignorant of such basic facts of social existence?

Are you ignorant of the fact that this^^ is a false fact?

It is government's JOB to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor. When your rights are being violated without just compensation, it is the mark of a civilized human being (nothing you would know anything about, to be sure) to petitiongovernment for relief and redress, not to take matters into your own hands like some sort of feudal libertarian vigilante.

This is just wishful thinking. This has never been and never will be the purpose of government. It's just a lie perpetuated by State-run indoctrination centers (aka "public schools"). The State is always and everywhere the greatest violator of rights.

[Steven Douglas]

Freedom to do what one would "otherwise would be at liberty" to do is exactly what a right to liberty IS.

False, and certainly not according to your intended meaning.

Example 1 (pass)

I am kidnapped, or otherwise unlawfully detained, I would "otherwise have been at liberty" to choose my own path. However, I have been deprived of my "rightful" liberty (already established as a right) in the process. Thus, I have a "cause of action".

Example 2 (fail)

I am walking along, exercising my right to liberty, and encounter a brick wall and a locked door - the exterior that encloses the vault area of a bank. Had the bank not existed, I would "otherwise have been at liberty" to enter that space. That is indisputable. It is also indisputable that I am "deprived" of my liberty (my capacity and ability, but not my right) to enter and occupy that space. Because no right is established, I have no cause of action.

Example 3 (fail)

I am prevented, both physically and legally, from taking a piece of gold that someone finds on public ground (National Park, whatever), and is now in their possession.

I could truthfully say that:

a) I have "suffered" a deprivation, and that
b) I would "otherwise be at liberty" to have that gold (i.e., if that person had not found it, did not possess it, or had not even existed)

Those are undeniable indisputable facts, and yet there is no right of possession on my part, no unjustified deprivation, and no cause of action.

So, no, your "'otherwise would be at liberty' to do is exactly what a right to liberty IS" fails as any kind of definitive or axiomatic statement.