The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[ProIndividual]

Nope. Wrong. That describes current taxes, but not a land value tax.

Tax is still extortion...you pay agianst your will. If you don't pay against your will, Roy L, you are donating or relinquishing payment for service rendered. Tax is by definition compulsory, not voluntary.

Oh, really? How's that Somalia thingy workin' for ya?

Actually Somalia now is better than before the state collapsed in nearly every measurable category. You have to be logical, which is to say comparing Somalia under the state to Somalia without the state...you can't compare Somalia to another country and get a logical conclusion. Please watch:





As you can see in the presentation, your red herring is a failure.

By what right would you ever be an owner of what neither you nor anyone else ever produced, and which everyone would otherwise be at liberty to use?

This was in response to :

"All tax makes you a property renter, not owner. "

This is simply logical fact. If you do not pay taxes on your land you are evicted from it and it is taken from you and sold to pay the taxes. If you do not pay rent you are evicted by the landlord and are sued for the owed money, which can result in your property being sold to pay the difference. Hence, it is illogical to consider yourself an owner of any property being taxed. It is clearly rented from the state. This also ignores imminent domain laws....which further make you a renter.

If you are not into renting natural resources from the state, then you are into stealing them from your fellow man.

Collectives and species do not own natural resources. Individuals own property and all natural resources on it. All this geoism nonsense is anti-property. Proof?:

Do you want to be a "renter" or a thief? Most people want to be thieves.

That's you saying property is theft...congratualtions.

Let's be clear: only the land value portion of the property tax is without deadweight loss.

Any part of a tax that has DWL will cause distortions in the market with consequences...so if you have DWL the tax is even worse.

See above. Maybe it was just your ethics that were wrong.

No, they aren't wrong. Deontological ethics hold until extreme circumstances where consequentialist ethics overrule them in an attempt to limit harm in a situation where no non-coercive choice exists. You want to coerce, with or without extreme circumstance. And even in extremes, coercion is a crime...it's just punished differently when there are mitigating and corroborating circumstances.

Extortion is a demand for an unearned benefit, backed by a threat to deprive you of what you would otherwise have. Exclusive tenure to land is not something you would otherwise have, and land rent is a benefit government and the community have earned, but you haven't.

Again, this is anti-property collectivism. No community owns my land, I do. And no state is benefiting me. Property rights preceed states in history; see anthropology.

The sooner you and everyone else face the facts identified above, the better off we will all be.

No one is better off in your anti-property collectivist statist society. If you want anti-propertry collectivist social contracts among willing participants, have at it...but this precludes tax from existing (again, at that point, voluntary government not a state, all payments by the willing are donation or payment for service rendered).

If you want to live in Somalia.

Again you make a false comparison. As surely as stateless Somalia is better and improved w/o the state, stateless America would be better and improved w/o the state. You compare apples to oranges and call that logic. I compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Nice try. Please look up "informal logical fallacies" to continue argumentation while simultaneously having logic on your side.

Nope. There is no credible empirical evidence for this claim, which is essentially nothing but an article of religious faith, and considerable evidence against it.

LOL!!!! So let me get this straight...your understanding of modern economics is that coerced monopolies that aren't subject to competition DON'T cause higher prices, lower quality services, and no accountability? That's some interesting economic understanding you have there...LOL.

Every bit of empirical evidence exists and shows that in the absence of coerced monopolies (not to be confused with voluntary monopolies) and monopsonies lower prices prevail, higher quality goods and services prevail, and more accountability exists than in the coerced monopolizaed situation. Simply pick up a few books and you'd know this. Georgism isn't modern economics my friend.

Wrong again. The Tragedy of the Commons only applies to commons that aren't managed to secure the equal rights of all to benefit by them -- and historically, the commons typically were managed, and managed quite effectively.

Excuse me while I destroy your argument here...when buffalo were communally owned they were slaughtered to near extinction. When they are owned privately they are brought back from the brink of extinction. When streams natives fished were collectively owned they were depleted and the fish got smaller and smaller because people always took the largest fish for themselves. When the tribes owned the fish individually as opposed to all tribes equally claiming ownership, the streams were managed so that everyone was only permitted to fish small fish so the breeding selectively tended to make the fish larger and more plentiful. Soon taking the smallest fish was equal to the past of taking the largest fish, as the entire stock got larger. The stock uof the natural resources got MORE plentiful under property rights, and less plentiful and more polluted under collective ownership. When collectives own property, the smaller the collective the better managed the resources. Why? Because the closer you get to individual property rights the better management occurs, and the farther you get from individuals (the closer you get to larger and larger collective groups) the worse the management becomes. Why? Because not having any percieved individual stake in the common property leads to market failure.

Market failure is when individual rational pursuits result in collectively irrational outcomes...like when everyone has this thing called a state and they all push for "free" goodies on someone elses dime...this naturally results in deficits and debts, and when the debt grows to say, idk, 15 trillion dollars, no one wants to give up their goodies (rationally) but the end result is collapse of the economy (collectively irrational. Hence nothing is more susceptible to market failure than the state. Why? Precisely because of it's extortion powers (tax). This is no different in practice than the fish and stream example among natives.

Lastly, the free-rider problem is obvious. Around 50% of citizens in the state curently pay 0$ in net income tax, but recieve a disproprtionate amount of the servies...essentially free. So about half of people under the state are free-riders. So how is it you can use the 'free-rider problem' criticism to suggest in anarchy this problem would be a cataclysmic aspect that would lead to the collapse of such a stateless system? Of course, this is logical nonsense. It no more collapses the state now on it's own than it would anarchy. In fact, w/o legalized extortion (tax) the free-rider problem would DECREASE logically because no one could get "free" goodies at their neighbors expense w/o their neighbors consent. Everyoe would have to at least show to others they were attempting to pull their own weight, or no one would hand them anything.

So all three of these economic criticisms effect the state far more than anarchy, logically.

Garrett Hardin, who wrote "The Tragedy of the Commons," protested later that his work was intended as a plea for better public stewardship of commons, not their privatization; that it had been misconstrued and misappropriated by the right; and that he wished he had called it, "The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons."

I don't care what his intention was...his intention was wrong. The fact stands that collective stewardship is far less efficient and far more detrimental to "commons" than private ownership. BTW, I was aware that a commonly used leftist criticism of markets was in fact anti-privatization...I simply show how it's a bad argument.

Also, Orwell intended 1984 to be a story about showing one world government was preferable to multiple nations. Unfortunately for him (but fortunaely for mankind) people saw the point as "wow, the state can be scary". It's now considered a great work of fiction that was intended to be statist, but ended up resulting in the best argument for libertarianism (anarchism).

[Czolgosz]

It's insane, isn't it, but fun!

PS: point taken

We may need an intervention for the poster above. Lol

[ProIndividual]

Aside from all the psychotic noise, an LVT is superior to taxation on economic activity including not only income, capital gains, inheritance and sales taxes but value added and anything else you can think of.

Blither away about how evil it may be for whatever reasons, valid or invalid, but it stands as superior to all of those options.

If you say "all taxation is theft" then you need to come up with some alternative means of supporting the FORCE that stands behind all property rights claims.

Again, anthropology has proven property rights existed before states. The idea that the very some thing that destroys property rights by extorting (taxing) and essentially making you a renter on your own land is also the entity that protects your property rights is as illogical as it gets.

The answer is end the state to have strong property rights. Law would be done through panarchism and private legal firms (watch videos at the bottom of this page). Economics and organization would be done through panarchist synthesis.

The two main memes of statism:

1. That which destroys property rights is the only reason we have property rights.

2. That which initiates force against us is that which protects us from initiations of force.

Both of these monopolized services, law and defense, are in existence without said monopolies. In fact, logically, they'd have lower costs for those services, higher quality services, and more accountability (all a result of competition). Once you watch the videos I linked you to, you should have most if not all of your reservations answered. The answer is clearly not believing in memes that fail upon their own premises.

[AllBeliefsRfalse]

Again, anthropology has proven property rights existed before states.

Before states, what then was guaranteeing property rights? Perhaps it was not called a state as we know it today, but there had to exist an outside entity with the means of enforcement.

In the purest sense there is no such thing as a "right" nor is there such thing as "ownership", these are both abstractions. In the real world, I suggest it is more clear way to say what is actually happening as the ability to possess/use property over time.

There are several strategies humans use to maintain possession of property, most of which involve some type of collective agreement among a group that has recourse to a cooperative use of force.

However, even in the most simple case, I alone could assume responsibility for maintaining possession of property. If another person attempts to possess this property, I would have no outside authority to appeal to enforce a "right" to possession. In this case I must pay the entire cost of maintaining possession of the property. Providing for this defense would certainly have some cost associated with it, probably in proportion to how much others sought to possess the property. If I don't provide resources to defend my possession of the property, I will eventually lose my possession of it to someone else with greater means. Therefore, maintaining possession of property AWAYS has a cost associated with it. The cost of maintaining possession is generally in proportion to its value. Depending on the construct, this cost is either guns, soldiers, rent, taxes or whatever, but there is a cost.

I've read several posts that seem to ignore that there is a perpetual and unavoidable cost to possessing property. Ironically, many of those who are advocating an inherent "property right" are unwittingly asserting that this "right" and its costs should be subsidized at no cost to the possessor.

[Steven Douglas]

I've read several posts that seem to ignore that there is a perpetual and unavoidable cost to possessing property. Ironically, many of those who are advocating an inherent "property right" are unwittingly asserting that this "right" and its costs should be subsidized at no cost to the possessor.

False choice, as that presumes that there is no other way to pay for property rights enforcement and protection except through an ad valorem tax of some kind.

You slipped in "the cost of maintaining possession is generally in proportion to its value", as if it was a priori correct, or axiomatic, when it is not. For example, property value for property value, a store owner out in the boondocks is far more vulnerable and at risk to losses than an entire mall with a few door rattlers patrolling, and an entire police force that covers a broad area. Police forces don't increase proportionately with the population, and if anything, they increase according to the risks associated with a given population. Which is why banana republics and run down cities, the property values of which are lower, have a greater cost of protection. Likewise, small towns have a much greater per capita cost for their police forces than do major metropolitan cities, and yet the property values themselves are inversely proportionate -- often many times greater in the densely populated areas.

Back to the original point, the question is not one of an ad valorem tax versus "no funding for protection". A rejection of an ad valorem tax is not tantamount to a rejection of all means of paying for protection.

[ProIndividual]

Before states, what then was guaranteeing property rights?

By private law enforcement. Who protects the ATM money? Brinks private security. Who protects the mall directly? Private security. A state is an enforced and coercive monopoly over these services with regard to geographic area. To think these services did not, or would not, exist in the market if that coercive monopoly was lifted (and with it, the extortion that funds it) is ahistorical and a logical leap.

Also, more times than not, property rights are guaranteed not by enforcement, but by virtue of the fact most people aren't sociopaths themselves (although most of them lend creedence to it by cheerleading for sociopathy by proxy - the state). Since only 2-4% of the population are sociopaths who go around violating each other's rights constantly, 96-98% of us don't even require enforcement to stay within the realm of universally preferable behavior regarding all individual rights. I mean, normal people don't walk around murdering, raping, and pillaging just because they could get away with it. The fact they aren't mentally deficient in terms of empathy makes them largely incapable of these actions even when utility to do so is present. Only in extreme conditions (like hunger, homelessness, etc.) do most people without sociopathic traits act purely on utility.

In the end, for the 2-4% of us that need constantly governed by others (after having sacrificed and compromised their individual sovereignty via aggressive actions) are the vast minority. In no way does this suggest we need a monopoly on law enforcement. Do we require law enforcement? Yes. Does it need to be a state monopoly? No.

I'm not arguing against policing, I'm arguing against monopolies on it. I'd personally fund police via payment or donation if there were no state monopoly on the service, and I'd do so happily...because it'd be cheaper than being extorted (taxed) to fund a monopoly which had no competition and therefore higher costs, lower quality service, and very little accountability (if any). The same can be said of roads, fire service, courts, military, first class mail, welfare, etc.

Any monopoly the state holds over a service is unnecessary for one of two reasons:

1. The service isn't demanded by the market, so it shouldn't exist to begin with.

2. (More likely) the service is demnaded by the market and would therefore exist because of demand in the absence of the state.

In the purest sense there is no such thing as a "right" nor is there such thing as "ownership", these are both abstractions.

This is a Max Stirner approach to ethics; "rights are spooks ion the mind". As utilitarianism and ethical egoism have their validity, I won't argue with your consequentialist approach to ethics...but I will say that it's purely a matter of semantics to debate how someone rhetorically justifies "rights" or "utilitarian outcomes". Deontological ethics will arrive at the same result more times than not using the language of rights, which I personally prefer for ease of use. I think both deontological and consequentialist ethics are incomplete in defining universally prefered human behavior in society, and equally incomplete in predicting human behavior in moderate and extreme circumstances (given which theory you use for which situation).

The main point is this: whether you believe rights exist or not is a matter of semantics, not mechanism. Rights did not (anthropology) and do not exist because of a monopoly on law enforcement. This is like saying food didn't exist in Russia until the Soviet Union monopolized it's distribution and manufacture. Notice, when that monopoly ended on food, many Russians feared they would starve to death...but instead the market provided the food at low cost, with widespread distribution, and with no long lines for days to get meager rations. Just as you cannot imagine property existing without a monopoly on law enforcement, the Russian in Soviet Russia couldn't imagine food being distributed properly (or better) in a non-monopolized siutation. It can be very difficult to break free of our bias of experience. I often quip this problem as such:

"I saw a monkey ride a bicycle. I never saw a human or bear ride a bicycle. Therefore only a monkey can ride a bicycle."

See why this is completely illogical?

In the real world, I suggest it is more clear way to say what is actually happening as the ability to possess/use property over time.

I wouldn't disagree totally. For instance, I think it is a harm according to natural law, utilitarianism, and the non-aggression principle to bury car batteries by the hundreds on your land, given when you die it will be an expense passed on to the next owner (even if related to you) that will require an expensive clean-up. For simplicity I also ignore the ground water contamination aspect here. But, in this way "property" is simply "possession that can be transfered via voluntary contract", such as inheritance or sale. This is demonstrated in natura law via the distinction of unalienable natural rights versus alienable natural rights...where life, speech, religion are unalienable (cannot be transfered, sold, and are not subect to border), but property is alienable (can be transfered, sold, and is subject to border).

But none of this, again, precludes competition form providing this service of possession/property protection from agression in the market.

There are several strategies humans use to maintain possession of property, most of which involve some type of collective agreement among a group that has recourse to a cooperative use of force.

And this agreemnet can be voluntary and contractual as opposed to coerced and monopolized. I ask you to look up panarchism and panarchist synthesis for details...or watch the videos linked to in the post you quoted above.

However, even in the most simple case, I alone could assume responsibility for maintaining possession of property.

Well, in fact, you are the first line of defense. The extemporaneous defense provided by law enforcment are just deterents ultimately. Well that, and they settle disputes via the court (another monopoly that can be ended).

If another person attempts to possess this property, I would have no outside authority to appeal to enforce a "right" to possession. In this case I must pay the entire cost of maintaining possession of the property.

You already do pay this cost...it's called tax. Those who pay no net tax in society are free riders. That would likely occur with or without a state...but rest assured that because of competition in absence of a monopoly on this service, it would be affordable to many more people than it is now, therefore decreasing the free rider problem. Also, all law in panarchism is contractual (an actual social contract, not simply a coerced thing we are told is a social "contract", even though you can never withdraw from it without moving geographically, cannot void it when the other party, the state, breaks the agrreed terms and conditions, not to mention the fact YOU never consented to it, some dead dudes did a long time ago on behalf of everyone accidentally born in their gang tuf (geographic monopoly) thereafter). Because all law in panarchism is contractual, you can either pay for your law (and choose what laws you and other willing participants will follow) or you can form non-profit social contracts with payed enforcers or volunteer enforcement. Any number of things might exist in the absence of monopoly and uniformity.

The main point is, you do pay for it now, and it's more expensive when it's monopolized (not to mention, the service is worse and the accountability for the enforcers is low or non-existent). It's also uniform according to geography instead of uniform according to willing participants only. If someone wants to steal, and another signs that contract with them, they can be both free to steal...from ONLY those who willing agree to it. If they steal from those not in that contract, they face penalties of the law enforcement provider of the victim. To see how disputes are settled by different law enforcement groups in the same geographic area, again, go to the link provided and watch the videos I left in the post you quoted above.

Providing for this defense would certainly have some cost associated with it, probably in proportion to how much others sought to possess the property.

Yes, this is generally how market insurance (even legal insurance) would work.

If I don't provide resources to defend my possession of the property, I will eventually lose my possession of it to someone else with greater means.

No, because regardless of the contract, only people willing to be agressed against can legally be agressed against. Since you obviously do not wish to be agressed against, you will be compensated by your insurer anytime you are. They will have a great market incentive to limit the ability of others to agress against you, and to bring those to justice who do. You not paying as much as a rich person pays is proportional to the value of your property and the risks associated with where it is kept (or resides). You pay a high rate in a ghetto, but based upon the relatively small amount of land you own...whereas the rich man will pay a lower rate, but in total more because he has so much more to insure. In the end, you both have protection against unwilling agression. The state agresses, they are the only body legally allowed to do it. Once the state is abolished, no one will accept any institution agressing against unwilling people and their property/possessions. Without the state created barriers to entry into the market (via their monopolies on police, courts, and laws via social contracts) no one will be able to stay in business after agressing against innocent victims. People will switch social contracts and law enforcement providers (as shown in the videos) like they switch internet service providers or cable TV companies. Without the funding coming in, the agressive company will wither and go bankrupt as quickly as it became rich. It's expensive to fund agression...it takes taxes (against people's wills) to accumulate the kind of capital needed to fight wars. No one company, no matter how rich, has trillions of dollars to find wars of agression...only states who fund themselves through compulsory extortion (tax) can have theose resources ad infinitum.

Therefore, maintaining possession of property AWAYS has a cost associated with it. The cost of maintaining possession is generally in proportion to its value. Depending on the construct, this cost is either guns, soldiers, rent, taxes or whatever, but there is a cost.

Again, we're not talking about anything for free here...we're talking about more efficient, less expensive, better quality, more accountability, and less tyranny in those services you pay for.

I've read several posts that seem to ignore that there is a perpetual and unavoidable cost to possessing property. Ironically, many of those who are advocating an inherent "property right" are unwittingly asserting that this "right" and its costs should be subsidized at no cost to the possessor.

I don't know of any serious anarchist who suggests there is no cost to maintaining property, or law, or roads, or any other service the government monopolizes coercively out of the market. I would say though that no right is granted by government, it's yours by virtue of your humanity....so the state can only agress against that right, like any other thug who might agress against it.

Also see Steven Douglas's argument above.

[Roy L]

Again, anthropology has proven property rights existed before states.

But only justifiable property rights in products of labor, not the unjust privilege of property in land.

The idea that the very some thing that destroys property rights by extorting (taxing)

Government does not destroy property rights, that is just an absurd fabrication on your part. Government is the only agent capable of securing and reconciling property rights, and it has to be paid for somehow. That somehow is taxes. You just want the productive to be robbed to pay for the service that benefits property owners.

and essentially making you a renter on your own land

Blatant question-begging fallacy. What would make it "your own" land any more than "your own" river, "your own" ocean, "your own" atmosphere or "your own" sun? And try to think of something more plausible than, "I paid for it," or, "the law," as those would also justify slavery, and are thus known in advance to be fallacious, with no further argument needed.

is also the entity that protects your property rights is as illogical as it gets.

No, claiming that all the evidence of world history is wrong is as illogical as it gets.

The answer is end the state to have strong property rights. Law would be done through panarchism and private legal firms (watch videos at the bottom of this page). Economics and organization would be done through panarchist synthesis.

That is absurd garbage that has never happened in the whole history of the world, and never will. Somalia does not have strong property rights. It has property "rights" for the strong.

The two main memes of statism:

1. That which destroys property rights is the only reason we have property rights.

2. That which initiates force against us is that which protects us from initiations of force.

No; more accurately, those are the two puerile strawman fallacies you have just made up.

Both of these monopolized services, law and defense, are in existence without said monopolies.

No, they are not.

In fact, logically, they'd have lower costs for those services, higher quality services, and more accountability (all a result of competition).

Competition only stimulates efficiency when rules are already in place to eliminate violent aggression between competitors. If you want to see the efficiency of competing protection services, look at feudal Europe, an anarcho-capitalist society where even kings were poor.

Once you watch the videos I linked you to, you should have most if not all of your reservations answered. The answer is clearly not believing in memes that fail upon their own premises.

Your videos are ridiculous, anti-rational garbage.

[helmuth_hubener]

That is absurd garbage that has never happened in the whole history of the world, and never will....Your videos are ridiculous, anti-rational garbage.

You know, whenever you bring up Georgist ideas we could easily just reject them by saying they're ridiculous and absurd. (Virtual Roy [typing Roy's response so he doesn't have to!], patent pending: "Yeah, except they aren't, they're self-evidently true") Instead, we address them on their own terms, with real arguments. ("That is a vicious, sickening lie. When your arguments have not been puerile and infantile, they have been blatantly false") We deal much more intelligently and respectfully with your ideas than you do with ours. ("ROFL. You're trying to lecture me about intelligence and respect? As they say in Japan: it's mirror time!") I wonder why that is? ("Perhaps it is because the land value tax is an actual idea worth discussing, whereas your incoherent childish fantasies are just that: fantasies and nothing more.")

[Steven Douglas]

It is tiring, given that most of his post content is not actual arguments or debates most of the time. Instead he negates, dismisses, swats and otherwise bats away, even as he regurgitates his own assertions. Ad nauseam. As if it all passed for arguments.

Take a sweeping statement like this:

Government does not destroy property rights, that is just an absurd fabrication on your part.

The above statement is absurd, as it is self-conflicting - and here's why: Roy himself believes that property rights (his version) are indeed being CURRENTLY being destroyed by the State -- via landownership. Can't have it both ways. Saying "government does not destroy property rights" is like saying "carpenters do not kill using hammers". There is nothing inherent in carpenters or hammers that make them incapable of destruction, or solely capable of construction.

Likewise, governments can reconcile property rights (by whatever definition, positive or normative, "rights" are reckoned), just as they can destroy them (again, by anybody's individual definition). That's not absurd garbage, nor was it made up. It's true on its face, as evinced by hundreds of different governments on Earth that currently deal with the subject of property rights in different, often mutually exclusive ways - defensive and/or destructive of property rights to varying degrees.

Government is the only agent capable of securing and reconciling property rights...

And yet if government secured exclusive landownership, and codified and recognized it as a right (not subject to ad valorem tax), I would state that government has indeed secured and reconciled property rights (as I view them - in the normative), while Roy would state (from his own premise, using his own normative rationale) that property rights, as he defines them, were neither secured nor reconciled.

Whenever Roy uses the term "property rights" without qualification he means only the collectivist geolib LVT definition of property rights as he views them (normative/should/ought only, since they are not recognized or codified by the state). Meanwhile, the actual property rights that do exist (positive/IS), which are now recognized and codified by the state are referred to by Roy as "landowner privileges". Not objective reality in either case.

Thus, neither of Roy's views can be positive statements (i.e., accurate statements of what actually is now) - both are normative. It is only positive if we all stand in Roy's head and acknowledge that landscape as "reality". As it is. But within his head only. He's saying what "ought to be" as if it already was - taking his own rationale and trying to pass it off as if it was already fact. This is argument FROM (not to) the premise.

Too bad, because you can't have a rational discussion with anyone on that basis - not without at least a willingness to accurately state what is, however distasteful it might be to the one communicating.

[ProIndividual]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Steven Douglas again.

Good post ^

And good luck Roy...I'm not going to keep responding to such an insulting person. I've clearly made my arguments, and others can obviously more than handle you and your Georgism/statism from here.