The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Xerographica]

Maybe. But that's not the point. When you have paid the supermarket for the groceries you took home, it is not your money any more. It's the supermarket's money, because they earned it by providing you with commensurate value, for which you voluntarily exchanged your money. In exactly the same way, when you voluntarily choose to take land and the associated advantages from the community of those who would otherwise be at liberty to use them, and compensate them justly for taking it from them, the money you paid in compensation is not your money any more.

What is happening here is very simple, Xero: government and the community have been giving the landowner a welfare subsidy, financed by taxes that rob the productive. I have identified the fact that this system is unjust and economically destructive, and propose that instead, those who get the benefit of government spending should be the ones who pay for it. You oppose this idea because you are accustomed to getting your welfare subsidy giveaway, and do not want to pay for it. You oppose justice and economic efficiency, and are in favor of injustice and inefficiency, as long as you benefit by them. You do not care that others' rights are violated, that they are forced into poverty, that millions of them are killed every year by the system you profit from. Considerations of right and justice and simple human decency are of no more interest to you than they are to Steven or Helmuth or Eduardo or any other apologist for greed, privilege, injustice and evil.

The landowner has a magic button that puts a dollar into his bank account and kills a random poor person he doesn't know every time he presses it. He is happy to press that button all day long, and to scream stupid lies about socialism, statism, collectivism, property rights, blah, blah, blah if anyone suggests his magic button is an evil thing that no one should be pressing, or even possess.

You don't know if I can spend your money "better" than you can? The thing is...time is money and here you are spending your time promoting the LVT. Can I spend your time "better" than you can?

[Roy L]

There are many of your posts, however, which are just over-the-top with rage, epithets, and fury. Righteous fury, of course, at my ceaseless lies and stupidity, but certainly fury.

How angry would it be appropriate to be over two Holocausts a year, year after year?

[Roy L]

You don't know if I can spend your money "better" than you can?

I'm pretty sure you can't, or you would make more sense, and your posts would be more honest. But you never know, and in any case I have identified the fact that the money in question is not yours, so you are just repeating a previously refuted red herring.

The thing is...time is money and here you are spending your time promoting the LVT.

Overactive conscience.

Can I spend your time "better" than you can?

No, but I can spend my time better than by answering such puerile drivel.

[rpwi]

Have not read the entire thread but the premise is interesting.

Government can indeed create unjust privilege in how it allocates and delegates private land. If a government had say awarded the entire continent of North America (to use an extreme) to one single landowner...this surely would be tyrannical as the dependency from the landless to the single landowner would create economic serfdom. 2 owners of North America would be almost as bad...as would say 4, 8, 16 and so forth... It would be statistically impossible to say that land and it's derivative benefits have been equally delegated from government to the people.

The benefit of private land is stronger though than from politician managed land ...it allows diverse and creative means in which the land can be used, subdivided and supported by long term contracts.

In an ideal world...if 10 shipwreck sailers arrive on island X...they would each get 1/10th the island and none of them would pay taxes to the other. If the land is errantly allocated such that 1 sailor got 70% and the rest had to split the remaining 30% this would be unjust...but I'm not sure a land tax is the best way to rectify this. For starters the 30% would have to pay a land tax...and even if they the islanders somehow manged to over-time re-equally allocate the island...they would still be paying the tax.

I've always liked the idea that you could escape to a cabin in the woods and as long as you kept care of yourself...you shouldn't be pestered to support the local pet causes of the month that politicians have invented. In this way a land tax is invasive.

But certainly I understand Henry George's point that land ownership can create privilege and false dependency. The problem is finding a right balance. Perhaps a LVT but in which there is an exemption for the first xyz of property's worth might strike the right balance. The individualist can leave simply but tax-free on his small bit of land...while the large land owners would pay the land value taxes.

[Sola_Fide]

.Economics and Sound Money thread?

Donate to THOMAS MASSIE!!!

[helmuth_hubener]

Have not read the entire thread but the premise is interesting.

Government can indeed create unjust privilege in how it allocates and delegates private land. If a government had say awarded the entire continent of North America (to use an extreme) to one single landowner...this surely would be tyrannical as the dependency from the landless to the single landowner would create economic serfdom. 2 owners of North America would be almost as bad...as would say 4, 8, 16 and so forth... It would be statistically impossible to say that land and it's derivative benefits have been equally delegated from government to the people.

Myself, I would say why have gov't allocating it at all? Homesteading should allocate it.

The problem is finding a right balance. Perhaps a LVT but in which there is an exemption for the first xyz of property's worth might strike the right balance. The individualist can leave simply but tax-free on his small bit of land...while the large land owners would pay the land value taxes.

That is, in fact, exactly what Roy L. proposes. It is also more or less what Steven Douglas proposes, interestingly enough.

[helmuth_hubener]

How angry would it be appropriate to be over two Holocausts a year, year after year?

Oh yes, exactly, I knew you'd say that. Like I say, I was just setting the record straight on who was figuratively "screaming" and who was not.

[Steven Douglas]

How angry would it be appropriate to be over two Holocausts a year, year after year?

That's where I think you lose pretty much everyone, save the most unhinged, glassy-eyed and severely logically impaired.

[MattintheCrown]

Have not read the entire thread but the premise is interesting.

Government can indeed create unjust privilege in how it allocates and delegates private land. If a government had say awarded the entire continent of North America (to use an extreme) to one single landowner...this surely would be tyrannical as the dependency from the landless to the single landowner would create economic serfdom. 2 owners of North America would be almost as bad...as would say 4, 8, 16 and so forth... It would be statistically impossible to say that land and it's derivative benefits have been equally delegated from government to the people.

Close. Even as the number of owners gets larger, the fact remains: the liberty to use all of the land has been abrogated, without compensation. The degree to which that injustice inflicts suffering may be attenuated by having more landowners, but the nature of the problem remains. And while 1 single landowner may be able to make de facto slaves of the rest of the population, the amount of rent can never be greater than if any number of landowners collected the market rent from producers. If a single landowner looked to get as much wealth from the population as he could, the best strategy would be to issue short-term leases, at market rates.

The benefit of private land is stronger though than from politician managed land ...it allows diverse and creative means in which the land can be used, subdivided and supported by long term contracts.

Politician-managed land is a strawman. No geoist wants land allocation to be done by the government. You've created a sort of false dilemma: aside from having land be private property or being directly allocated by the government, you can have land be sold on temporary leases, or treated as private property, contingent upon payment of market rent. An allodial title would be land as private property; the system we have now is fee simple, which is ownership with contingencies. Geoists generally want one of the contingencies to be that 'owners' of land pay the full market rent of their land in taxes.

In an ideal world...if 10 shipwreck sailers arrive on island X...they would each get 1/10th the island and none of them would pay taxes to the other.

I disagree. Each part of the island is not the same as the other. More importantly, even if each of the shipwrecked agreed absolutely with the distribution, what of their children? Why are the children bound to such a contract? Keep in mind, we're not talking about a contract to use something the group created, but something that they found and chose to use in some manner, and more importantly, something which none of them can live without.

If the land is errantly allocated such that 1 sailor got 70% and the rest had to split the remaining 30% this would be unjust...but I'm not sure a land tax is the best way to rectify this. For starters the 30% would have to pay a land tax...and even if they the islanders somehow manged to over-time re-equally allocate the island...they would still be paying the tax.

Think of it as compensation. Here's an example I think you'll find instructive: once I rented a house with 2 of my friends. Problem was, it had three bedrooms, and each had a different size. This was before I'd heard of geoism, but even then, the answer was obvious: I suggested that we bid against one another, with the highest bidder getting the biggest bedroom, and the lowest bidder getting the smallest. In this manner, one person did get the use of the best bedroom, but he also paid the most rent each month.

Carry that over to your island and your concerns about tax. They could have theoretically allocated land use however they wanted, but if they were smart, they would have determined a system of compensation, with those with use of the most-desired land compensating those who got the least desirable land. If they did that, it wouldn't matter if children were born, or people died: in any event, the system would adapt, and secure equal benefits for all. Not by some government fiat, but by market action: the individuals bidding against one another for use of resources rightly owned by no one.

On a larger scale, it's impossible to have each individual bid against everyone else for the use of land. But what is possible is to have landowners pay the market rent in tax, and to use the taxes to fund services and infrastructure that are beneficial to everyone. It's silly to hand out privileges that enrich some small part of the population due mostly to accidents of history, and then levy taxes on production. In fact, it's madness.

I've always liked the idea that you could escape to a cabin in the woods and as long as you kept care of yourself...you shouldn't be pestered to support the local pet causes of the month that politicians have invented. In this way a land tax is invasive.

Yeah, but if you're on land no one else wants, you don't pay taxes. The LVT doesn't tax land use, it taxes the privilege the landowner enjoys. No privilege, no tax.

But really, who wants to live in such a way in the first place? No one, really. The fact that land near cities has such value is a proof as to the value individuals give to living proximate to society. I think the "lone man in the woods" scenario is instructive when considering theory: the LVT passes, because the man who takes nothing from society isn't forced to give anything to society. But, it's generally nothing more than a theoretical example, because the fact is that society is greatly beneficial to humans.

But certainly I understand Henry George's point that land ownership can create privilege and false dependency. The problem is finding a right balance. Perhaps a LVT but in which there is an exemption for the first xyz of property's worth might strike the right balance. The individualist can leave simply but tax-free on his small bit of land...while the large land owners would pay the land value taxes.

Roy's individual exemption is pretty good, IMO. By giving each individual a by-value exemption, you give him a bit of land to use anywhere in the tax jurisdiction which he can use rent-free.

[MattintheCrown]

That's where I think you lose pretty much everyone, save the most unhinged, glassy-eyed and severely logically impaired.

Heard of the Irish potato famine? Some examples are more obvious than others, but the grinding poverty that consigns millions to die each year is caused directly by landowner privilege. Private ownership of land denies individuals the product of their labor, and the inexorable consequent is poverty and death.