The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

I love how you just reply totally randomly to every line, trying to sound as contradictory as you possibly can even when you don't disagree with me at all.

Sniping is so much easier than composing an entire series of coherent paragraphs, following a logical line of thought.

From long and bitter experience, I have found it is necessary to examine minutely and correct insistently all assertions by lying apologists for greed, privilege and injustice, as they will seize on the slightest inaccuracy of expression -- usually initiated by them and attributed to me -- and construct on it a tower of fallacy.

These ten people are all hanging out around the wild tree, jointly taking the apples and enjoying them somehow, and jointly making decisions about the tree, such as whether to chop it down? Sounds like joint ownership to me.

No one said anything about chopping it down. That's something you just made up, and have by implication now attributed to me.

See above.

[MattintheCrown]

No question about it. That's pretty much how I thought of control. Not physical control, per se, but having the ultimate decision-making power over the disposition or disposal - use or non-use of land that is owned, including rights of transfer.

The word for me is Sovereignty - full allodial title, with sole despotic dominion over privately held lands -- which is another way of saying ultimate decision-making. I am, in principle, steadfastly against anything or anyone that seeks to dilute, abridge or erode the concept of individual sovereignty. That distinction strikes at the heart at what I believe is the only possible nature of the purest, most honest form of government conceivable on Earth.

For me, live individuals are the States. The original State. In my eyes, every individual is a fully fledged government (the ONLY GOVERNMENT that is sacred and truly matters to me, each and every one), and a community in his or herself. Not a couple. Not a family. Not a community. A person; singular. Their kingdom, their sovereignty, is WITHIN THEM. Inherent, intrinsic, unalienable.

There is NO greater form of government on Earth than the individual. NONE. And the extent to which any government dilutes the sovereign power of the individual is the extent to which that government is corrupt. The individual is the first order community which should have far and away the most concentrated power and authority, not over others, but over their own lives, their own destiny. Each and every one. And that necessarily includes borders (which we call fences) and State Capitols (or Castles, which we call houses and homes), and sole despotic dominion over those borders, their own lands, which they must have a right to acquire for themselves. Hence, my neighbors are no different to me, fundamentally speaking, than Turkey and Greece, or France and Germany -- or any other neighboring states are to one another globally.

The only distinction, as a matter of principle, I would make between the sovereignty of individuals and the sovereignty of the State would be that ultimate sovereignty becomes more and more concentrated the smaller you go. Thus, the individual trumps the community, the community of individuals trumps the State, and the States trump the conglomerations of States, even as conglomerations of States Trump the World. That is exactly backwards from the way most people see it, and from the way OUR government has devolved and became corrupted over time. The pyramid is upside-down everywhere you look. The global is all powerful, the federal is next in line, the states have been watered down, forced in line, and diluted into subjects, even as the communities are left to feed on themselves. The individuals - the People Themselves - are at the mercy of it all, with no real control, like so much political flotsam and jetsam.

I want nothing to do with the concept of being a "subject" of some kind of collectivized sovereignty, wherein everyone is presumed to have given up, rather than individually and always temporarily delegated A SMALL PART of their sovereign powers. That is no different than a Crown, or kingdom by any other name. I see all of us in the ideal sense as actual sovereigns, who ourselves are governed according to our individual, not collective, consent. Without the individual - as in EACH - as a check and balance on political power at all times, tyranny will always be the ultimate result.

Meeza doesn't hates gubmint - meeza lubs the only government that is truly sacred, and truly matters. The Sovereign Individual. Not ALL. EACH.

We have what I consider to be some truly nasty people in the world who have little to no wisdom as to the importance of individual sovereignty, including rights in land, and our ability to secure life, liberty and property, including private sovereign land. ULTIMATELY, when you listen to them, you will find that they have a very secondary, little or highly diluted regard for individuals, and individual dissent (over their own lives and property, no less). They move people around like so many disposable pawns on political chess boards (or, like Roy says, F#@! Granny). Individual sovereignty is always trumped by some form of collectivized assent, like "the greater good", or Star Trek's completely evil "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one". The individual is only important to their schemes, but they do not serve as a real check and balance except through some collective mechanism.

This post has almost nothing to do with the thread, but man, what a sociopathic screed it is.

The truth about individuality is this: the individual is nothing. Individuals simply aren't equipped to survive in this world. That's not how humans evolved. We're only capable of surviving in societies. This is not an opinion or outlook, but a simple fact about human nature. To say that the individual trumps society is simply wrong. The only way the individual can exist is by getting on with society. Literally, we must work together. This includes sharing the common providential resources.

Your position amounts to nothing more than greed: whether you admit it or not, society is greatly beneficial to you. But you don't want to have any duties to society. You want a one-way relationship: you taking, but giving nothing in return. You want to claim an area of the earth and have others respect the claim simply because you say so. I won't guess what motivates such an antisocial outlook, but you should seriously stop and consider your beliefs. Quite literally, it's not healthy.

[MattintheCrown]

On this matter of production bestowing just ownership:

What is production? Production is mere transformation, taking matter, space, and perhaps other abstractions, and forming them into something different and presumably more to your liking. When one produces a chainsaw, he transforms ores, oils, and fibers, into this finely-tuned tree-massacre machine. So how is it different to take and transform an empty prairie into a parking lot? One takes a location, transforms the matter there to be more smoothly perpendicular to the direction of gravitation, tamps it down to make it harder and better able to support weight, and perhaps adds in matter from other locations to create phenomenon like pavement, paint, and lighting. Both the chainsaw and the parking lot are produced from the raw resources of the Universe. Those raw resources have been transformed into something greater, or at least different, than their original form. The chainsaw, the Georgist will say, has been produced, while the land on which the parking lot sits has not. But my friend, it has! That land has been transformed, just as assuredly as the raw resources in the chainsaw.

Nope. The location is unalterable. Consider a site in Manhattan. Whether it was bare land, or had a parking lot on it, it will command the same rent regardless. That's because the location itself is valuable; what's in it is irrelevant. If you build a parking lot, that's yours. But the site itself isn't. Your use of that site prevents others using the site, and if there are others who want to use it, and are willing to pay to do so, you should compensate society for its loss.

Why should Londoners pay millions each year to the Duke of Westminster? He provides them with nothing, and in return they pay him millions each year. That's the result of your nonsense homesteading "principle." The Duke of Westminster simply acts as a toll-booth: people pay him for the right to live and work in Westminster. If that money was collected by the government instead, there wouldn't be a need for the government to steal people's income.

If one can appropriate for one's self some pieces of the raw Universe by building a chainsaw with them, one can just as justly appropriate some pieces of it by building a parking lot with them. The raw ores were there all along. The surface of the Earth was there all along. Fine. But you changed it. You produced something with it. Matter is matter. Location is location. If you accept that the chainsaw owner can have absolute ownership over the matter composing the chainsaw, and the three-dimensional space which it monopolizes, you should at least be able to understand why I think it possible for the parking lot owner to have absolute ownership over the matter composing the parking lot and the three-dimensional space which it happens to occupy.

Nope. Just the lot, not the space it occupies. If you don't upkeep your lot, and it returns to nature, why would your claim to the site remain? That's the gist of your position. You want a one-time use of an area of the earth to confer an eternal claim to that site. But there's no reason it should.

[helmuth_hubener]

That's the gist of your position. You want a one-time use of an area of the earth to confer an eternal claim to that site. But there's no reason it should.

I am so thrilled that you know my position so fully, even better than myself, for I had no idea I wanted such a thing. One might refer to my previous essay wherein I said:

Now we libertarians do not believe that all current land claims and titles should be continued. This is a false characterization which has nevertheless been constantly thrown and bandied about by the Georgists with careless abandon. No, we believe only in just titles, based on homesteading.

And also refer to my thoughts on abandonment, in the context of ancient peoples who once lived in SW Utah. Definitely if one abandons a property it eventually becomes open for homesteading again.

Ah, ah, ah, but, but, but, you do the same thing to Mr. Roy L., you may accuse. Turn-about is fair play. And indeed in this very thread I have said to Mr. L. "your position is such-and-such." And then it always tells me I'm wrong, of course, and that such-and-such is in fact not its position. The difference is that, having read many hundreds of its posts and gone back and forth with it at length, occasionally even extracting from it sincere and actual answers to questions about what its programmer believed, I am in a position that I actually know what it believes regarding LVT and related issues, to a significant degree. Yes, Mr. L. always tells me I'm wrong and lying about its beliefs, but this always turns out to be a technical issue of jargon, to be a meaningless issue wherein the program has been made to draw distinctions where none exist (no no, that's not a 'just claim to use', it's a 'right to liberty'), to be due to an inherent internal conflict of his position (I am lying when I say Roy must believe everyone has a claim to the Earth's resources, and I am lying when I say that it must believe that no one has such a claim), or to be a case where what the lie was is never even explained, the lie is just stipulated. Plus, Roy is just a Turing machine anyway, so I don't really care.

[MattintheCrown]

I am so thrilled that you know my position so fully, even better than myself, for I had no idea I wanted such a thing. One might refer to my previous essay wherein I said:

Now we libertarians do not believe that all current land claims and titles should be continued. This is a false characterization which has nevertheless been constantly thrown and bandied about by the Georgists with careless abandon. No, we believe only in just titles, based on homesteading.

This doesn't contradict what I wrote. If someone uses an area of land, to you that constitutes an act of "homesteading." In your mind, that makes that area into property, permanently. From that point on, the owner can "use" the site however he likes, including simply charging others for its use. Thus, an act of labor somehow turns into a right to charge others for access to the earth, in perpetuity. What a scheme!

And also refer to my thoughts on abandonment, in the context of ancient peoples who once lived in SW Utah. Definitely if one abandons a property it eventually becomes open for homesteading again.

Define "abandons."

Ah, ah, ah, but, but, but, you do the same thing to Mr. Roy L., you may accuse. Turn-about is fair play. And indeed in this very thread I have said to Mr. L. "your position is such-and-such." And then it always tells me I'm wrong, of course, and that such-and-such is in fact not its position. The difference is that, having read many hundreds of its posts and gone back and forth with it at length, occasionally even extracting from it sincere and actual answers to questions about what its programmer believed, I am in a position that I actually know what it believes regarding LVT and related issues, to a significant degree. Yes, Mr. L. always tells me I'm wrong and lying about its beliefs, but this always turns out to be a technical issue of jargon, to be a meaningless issue wherein the program has been made to draw distinctions where none exist (no no, that's not a 'just claim to use', it's a 'right to liberty'), to be due to an inherent internal conflict of his position (I am lying when I say Roy must believe everyone has a claim to the Earth's resources, and I am lying when I say that it must believe that no one has such a claim), or to be a case where what the lie was is never even explained, the lie is just stipulated. Plus, Roy is just a Turing machine anyway, so I don't really care.

[helmuth_hubener]

This doesn't contradict what I wrote.
...
Define "abandons."

vvv

If you don't upkeep your lot, and it returns to nature, why would your claim to the site remain? That's the gist of your position.

[MattintheCrown]

vvv

So you have to maintain fixed improvements for the claim to remain valid?

[Steven Douglas]

This post has almost nothing to do with the thread, but man, what a sociopathic screed it is.

It had everything to do with the thread, because the power geolibs want for groups completely evaporates at the level of the individual. The moment two or more gather together and occupy land exclusively near one another, you have them immediately and artificially at odds with each other, with a de facto presumption that without LVT they are actually stealing from each other.

"...the individual is nothing."

Hate to break it to you, Matt, but it is the sociopaths who have no empathy, no regard for individuals. In fact, that is a defining characteristic of a sociopath.

Your position amounts to nothing more than greed: whether you admit it or not, society is greatly beneficial to you.

And whether you want to admit it or not, every individual benefits differently from that nebulous thing called "society", just as every individual brings a different benefit to that same society.

But you don't want to have any duties to society. You want a one-way relationship: you taking, but giving nothing in return.

Wrong - straw man and a false choice. It's not "LVT or nothing". You also don't comprehend how a truly free society and a truly free market even works; namely, how voluntary actions of those acting in their own self-interest benefit others who are acting in theirs in different ways.

You want to claim an area of the earth and have others respect the claim simply because you say so.

It goes a little further than that. It's a little thing called 'mutual', even universal, respect. My expectation for the respect for the ability to do that extends to literally everyone else. See that, Matt? Respect for everyone. All individuals in their pursuit of the same thing.

I won't guess what motivates such an antisocial outlook, but you should seriously stop and consider your beliefs. Quite literally, it's not healthy.

You see the word "antisocial" and think "society" or "groups" - always in general, always in the abstract. But while people are social within groups, they are never social with groups. Only each other. Individuals. You want the abstract to trump the individual - which I consider worse than unhealthy.

[MattintheCrown]

It had everything to do with the thread, because the power geolibs want for groups completely evaporates at the level of the individual. The moment two or more gather together and occupy land exclusively near one another, you have them immediately and artificially at odds with each other, with a de facto presumption that without LVT they are actually stealing from each other.

No, that's just false. They're only at odds with each other if they're at odds with each other. There's nothing artificial about it. If it's just you and me, there's no problem if we each want to use separate areas. The problem arises when we both want to use a given area. These "a few men" examples aren't worth much but to confuse the issue, however; in virtually all cases, there's a large number of people who belong to some society, and the issue of land becomes the right of the individual v. the right of society. In the case of land, even the most elementary of investigations shows how the system of private land ownership unfairly benefits landowners at the expense of society. The case of the Duke of Westminster makes it clear enough, but the reductio ad absurdum of a single owner of the world makes it crystal clear.

Hate to break it to you, Matt, but it is the sociopaths who have no empathy, no regard for individuals. In fact, that is a defining characteristic of a sociopath.

Right. Which you lack. For you, it's to hell with everyone else, the individual is all. You want yours, full stop.

And whether you want to admit it or not, every individual benefits differently from that nebulous thing called "society", just as every individual brings a different benefit to that same society.

So what? We're all a part of a greater social being. If anything, the beauty of the LVT is it allows individuals to choose how much they benefit from, and how much they give to society. I think the true hermit has mental issues, but I also believe society ought to leave him alone, as long as he's willing to reciprocate.

Wrong - straw man and a false choice. It's not "LVT or nothing". You also don't comprehend how a truly free society and a truly free market even works; namely, how voluntary actions of those acting in their own self-interest benefit others who are acting in theirs in different ways.

On the contrary: you don't. Your idea of a free society is self-refuting, as you believe the very area in which society is forced by it's nature to exist can be owned by some portion of society. You aren't interested in a free society. You want privileges for some, and slavery for others. Moreover, again and again, you sneer at the very idea of people congregating for mutual benefit, decrying it as "hive mentality." Simply put, your outlook on human nature is counter-factual and diseased.

It goes a little further than that. It's a little thing called 'mutual', even universal, respect. My expectation for the respect for the ability to do that extends to literally everyone else. See that, Matt? Respect for everyone. All individuals in their pursuit of the same thing.

Nope. Because you refuse to acknowledge that society is owed compensation when the right of liberty of its constituent members is diminished by private land ownership. Even though making areas of the earth into private property manifestly deprives humanity of what it would otherwise have, you see no reason why the beneficiary of that arrangement should pay restitution.

You see the word "antisocial" and think "society" or "groups" - always in general, always in the abstract. But while people are social within groups, they are never social with groups. Only each other. Individuals. You want the abstract to trump the individual - which I consider worse than unhealthy.

This is just nonsense. Being social means getting along not only with other individuals, but also other groups. That's mankind's survival strategy, as evidenced by all of human history. There's simply no point in fighting that fact. We're a species that gets on by having successful societies. The path to the greatest benefit to the individual, then, is the path to a beneficent society. Geoist society reconciles rights, yours doesn't. Time to adapt your beliefs.

[Steven Douglas]

Why should Londoners pay millions each year to the Duke of Westminster? He provides them with nothing, and in return they pay him millions each year. That's the result of your nonsense homesteading "principle." The Duke of Westminster simply acts as a toll-booth: people pay him for the right to live and work in Westminster. If that money was collected by the government instead, there wouldn't be a need for the government to steal people's income.

Beautiful. Originally a military title for a ruling class, the Duke of Westminster is an extension of the Crown, or State. The title itself (Duke of Westminster) was created by Queen Victoria in 1874. My great grandfather was a Cockney "magic lantern" maker in London who lived on the original Duke's land. So it's like saying, "If that money was collected by the government instead of the government...".

Your criticism of the Duke is that he "provides them with nothing" while collecting money, but that's not what makes his position and the money he collects truly insidious in my mind, nor is it any kind of reflection of the American "homesteading principle". Grosvenor's particular holdover from European feudalism was monopolistic hereditary STATE titles (House of Lords) of VAST all-encompassing land areas, along with the prohibition on landownership by any but the nobility or ruling classes (which were in turn exclusive of anybody not born into them).

What made titled landowning by nobility in England truly oppressive:

1) Vast areas of land (WHOLE COMMUNITIES) designated by the states as belonging to an extension of the State/Crown.
2) Perpetual rents paid in exchange for nothing but the privilege of using land, AND
3) No avenue available without a political title (no landownership possible) for freedom from such rent payments.

Geolibs LOVE the concepts of:

1) Sequestering vast areas of land (whole communities), designated as belonging to extensions of the larger state, and
2) Perpetual rent payments paid to the subdivision/taxing jurisdiction of the state as a wealth redistribution mechanism, and
3) No avenue available to anyone except an extension of the state for landownership that would facilitate freedom from such rent payments.

They like the ENTIRE CONCEPT of what happened in England - they just don't like WHO those rent payments are going to, and the fact that those rents aren't the sole revenue source of the State.

The homesteading concept in England is in profound contrast to the homesteading principle in America. In America the landownership became a right to all Citizens by virtue of their (very different) titles, to wit:

"...at the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects...with none to govern but themselves; the citizens of America are equal as fellow citizens, and as joint tenants in the sovereignty."
CHISHOLM v. GEORGIA (US) 2 Dall 419, 454, 1 L Ed 440, 455 @DALL 1793 pp471-472

That was our Supreme Court. Congress moved quickly to water down that sovereignty with the Eleventh Amendment, but the principle still stands.