The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[redbluepill]

Tithe? As in tenth part of all your gain?

That's the common belief today. But...

Leviticus 27:30 states, "'A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD."

Once again, we weren't alive during the time this takes place so we can only go on what evidence we have. I believe the evidence is strong that the tithe was a form of land rent.

As in, has nothing whatsoever to do with LVT, renting land from a collective, or being evicted because someone stepped forward with an offer of a greater tithe in return for exclusive possession?

I take it you didn't read the article.

Oh, and the parts I put in red and bold - that wasn't to make myself "more right". It was just to make sure you didn't miss and dismiss it as so much "blah blah". Which you did anyway.

I know how to read. And you can bold words without being condescending.

And, incidentally, while I happen to believe in God, I am not the slightest bit religious. I only quoted scripture because you seemed to think you had some kind of LVT lock on Judeo-Christian scripture.

Well I was raised Christian but I only discuss religious arguments concerning politics and economics with other Christians.

Not to mention a false guilting of others based on your narrow interpretations of certain passages. Which don't really hold any weight at all with me (it really is some 'blah blah blah' for me).

Crow calling the raven black?

[Steven Douglas]

Well I was raised Christian but I only discuss religious arguments concerning politics and economics with other Christians.

I didn't say I wasn't a Christian. I said I'm not the slightest bit religious.

[ProIndividual]

Tax is extortion by the mafia (state) on the threat of kidnapping (prison). If you try to escape the kidnapping they'll send thugs (cops) to murder you.

No tax is preferable. All tax makes you a property renter, not owner. I'm not into renting from the state.

I used to try to come up with the best tax system too...and I also thought property tax was the best (as it was the only tax without Deadweight Loss). But in the end, I was wrong. I was being pragmatic and ignoring ethics. If tax is extortion, the only "best" tax is no tax.

The sooner you face this, the better off you'll be. All the state's coerced monopolies can be privatized. Afterall, if the services are necessary and desirable, the market will provide them (and do so cheaper, more efficiently, and with accountability). The tragedy of the commons, the free-rider problem, and market failure apply more to the state than anywhere else (hence using those criticisms of privatization makes no sense logically).

[Roy L]

Tax is extortion by the mafia (state) on the threat of kidnapping (prison). If you try to escape the kidnapping they'll send thugs (cops) to murder you.

Nope. Wrong. That describes current taxes, but not a land value tax. If you don't want to pay a land value tax, government just doesn't help you exclude others from the land -- and if someone else does want to pay it, government will help them exclude you from the land. There is no kidnapping, no prison, and no murder involved. You simply do not get the benefit that you do not pay for, same as not getting to take stuff home from the grocery store without paying for it. And before you whine that government would then be using force to exclude you from "your" land, be aware that that is just hypocritical bull$#!+: there is no way it could ever rightly have become "your" land in the first place, as there is no way to "own" land other than by excluding others from it by force. It is inherently impossible.

No tax is preferable.

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

There is no such thing as civilization without taxes. There is no such thing as security of human rights to life, liberty and property in the fruits of one's labor without taxes. Never has been, never will be. Learn it, or continue to talk nonsense on the subject permanently.

All tax makes you a property renter, not owner.

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?

I'm not into renting from the state.

If you are not into renting natural resources from the state, then you are into stealing them from your fellow man. There is no third alternative. Do you want to be a "renter" or a thief? Most people want to be thieves.

I used to try to come up with the best tax system too...and I also thought property tax was the best (as it was the only tax without Deadweight Loss).

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

But in the end, I was wrong. I was being pragmatic and ignoring ethics.

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

If tax is extortion, the only "best" tax is no tax.

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.

The sooner you face this, the better off you'll be.

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

All the state's coerced monopolies can be privatized.

If you want to live in Somalia.

Afterall, if the services are necessary and desirable, the market will provide them (and do so cheaper, more efficiently, and with accountability).

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. When Margaret Thatcher privatized many public water supply systems in Britain, costs rose and service worsened. The private market CANNOT provide an efficient level of investment in public goods. It is impossible, because essentially all the value of services and infrastructure -- whether publicly or privately provided -- is simply taken by landowners who charge everyone else full market value for access to them. The history of privately built roads is very instructive in this regard: the road building companies almost all went bankrupt, but the people who owned the land alongside the roads got rich. The same happened with most privately built railroads, unless they got huge government subsidies.

The tragedy of the commons, the free-rider problem, and market failure apply more to the state than anywhere else (hence using those criticisms of privatization makes no sense logically).

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. 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."

Free-rider and market failure problems apply equally to private and public enterprises; the difference is that government can use its power to counteract and compensate for them, while private firms can't.

[Roy L]

I didn't say I wasn't a Christian. I said I'm not the slightest bit religious.

Which neatly expresses the level of logic demonstrated in your posts on LVT (other than the honest ones, #481 and #483 in this thread).

[Steven Douglas]

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

Let's be even more clear: The only way that could be true is if there were no measures in place by the State to artificially reduce or control the amount of available land (e.g., zoning laws, land preserves, etc.,), and only if the free market through competition, and not the State by any formula, determined all land values. Otherwise the LVT will be fraught with deadweight loss to that extent.

Causes of deadweight loss can include monopoly pricing (in the case of artificial scarcity), externalities, taxes or subsidies, and binding price ceilings or floors. The term deadweight loss may also be referred to as the "excess burden" of monopoly or taxation.

So let's take your example:

If you don't want to pay a land value tax, government just doesn't help you exclude others from the land -- and if someone else does want to pay it, government will help them exclude you from the land. There is no kidnapping, no prison, and no murder involved. You simply do not get the benefit that you do not pay for, same as not getting to take stuff home from the grocery store without paying for it.

That assumes that all benefit from all land belongs to everyone/the state, and I'm still at a loss to understand something: The murders you believe are caused by forcibly excluding others from land where private landownership is involved somehow evaporate when that same forcible exclusion is exercised by the State under LVT. But let's go with it anyway, continuing within the geolib framework:

Land is one of the basic needs for life itself, a need which varies from person to person. The option to not exclusively use some land on Earth is an impossibility for literally everyone. I know, your particular version of LVT would carry with it individual exemptions - not on quantity of land, but a given value - established not by the market, but by the State.

Let's say, however, that someone wants to avoid paying outrageous LVT's associated with major metropolitan areas (e.g., not interested in living in someone else's version of a Hong Kong concrete paradise), and doesn't consider whatever "exemption" has been offered for that area to be of much value to them personally. They decide instead that they want to live where NOBODY ELSE wants to be -- in the mountains or countryside instead, far away from everyone and their collectivist madness. If all that "other land" is locked up by the State, such that they and everyone else are excluded from using it by force, such that their choices of where to live are artificially narrowed to communities already dominated by LVT - then whatever you are paying in LVT at that point is nearly 100% deadweight loss, making that particular version of LVT an hypocritical sham, given that all of the benefit of all that unused/reserved land, without any compensation to anyone by the State or anyone else, has been stolen from you.

[Keith and stuff]

[INDENT]How Harrisburg in Rust Belt PA, USA was transformed through a Land Value Tax
In 1982, before the change, Harrisburg, with a population of 52,000, was listed as the second most run-down city in the US. Since then, following the change, empty sites and buildings have been re-developed, with the number of vacant sites by 2004 down by 85 per cent. The city authorities have issued over 32,000 building permits, representing nearly $4 billion of new investment – nearly 2,000 were issued in 2004 alone. Over 5,000 housing units have been newly constructed or rehabilitated, and the number of businesses has jumped from 1,908 to 8,864, with unemployment down by 19 per cent. Furthermore, crime has fallen by 58 per cent, and the number of fires has been reduced by 76 per cent, which the authorities say is due to more employment opportunities, and the elimination of derelict sites, making vandalism less likely.

I love how he use of the worst run cities in the whole country as the example of his thoughts. Perhaps he were trying to prove that his theory doesn't work?

The government leaders of Harrisburg destroyed the city and then asked a judge to agree that the city could file for bankruptcy. The judge said no, no matter what the leaders of Harrisburg do, they will not be able to fix the city. The leaders of the city don't have the ability to do anything right except destroy things.

Judge dismisses Harrisburg, PA, bankruptcy filing
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7AM2IL20111123

[helmuth_hubener]

I just take comfort in the fact that Roy is incapable of saying anything convincing.

And in reply to that he will write "Were you under the delusional impression you were contributing something to the discussion?" or "On the contrary, I have demolished every point you have made and you have nothing left to say." or what-ever. It really is hard to believe that a real person would be as repetitive, redundant, and tiresome as he is perfectly satisfied in being. And in spending hours upon irreplaceable hours of his life being so! It's really pretty tragic. But, it's affirming and heartening to the denizens of liberty to see our opponents so bankrupt. So carry on! And remember, as everyone knows: homesteading doesn't use force against anyone. If you're the first person to appropriate something, obviously no one else had appropriated it, so they are no worse off than before. Yet you are better off, at least in your own opinion, or else you wouldn't have appropriated it. So, you are better off, no one is worse off, everyone wins. And obviously no one's rights have been violated, no one was around to be violated, just the homesteader by his lonesome, so again everyone wins. This is really elementary logic, it cannot be refuted, and I already know which talking points Roy will drag out of his copy-paste text file to claim to refute it all the same, so there's no need to even bother, old buddy. Just stipulate that you already refuted it umpteen times, which, according to your definition, you have.

[Steven Douglas]

I must spread some reputation around before giving it to helmuth_hubener again. I have been forcibly excluded, deprived of my right to liberty to otherwise give to him as I see fit, just as he has been deprived of his right to just compensation for reputation he would otherwise have. This indisputable fact of objective reality means that the rest of you bastards owe us something, and refusal to know this fact is no different than slavery and murder in the tens of millions poor forum denizens every year.

Honest posters who don't want to be guilty of stealing, among other evils, should PM us for PayPal addresses. Either that or give each of our posts some good reputation - which will go a long way toward keeping you from burning in Forum LVT Hell forever and ever amen.

[Roy L]

I love how he use of the worst run cities in the whole country as the example of his thoughts. Perhaps he were trying to prove that his theory doesn't work?

Actually, Harrisburg was doing fine with LVT until the totally unrelated incinerator problem emerged, and the incinerator problem is a creation of the EPA, not the government of Harrisburg. Harrisburg spent a fortune on the incinerator to meet EPA requirements, and then the EPA changed the requirements, leaving Harrisburg with an expensive incinerator it couldn't use.

The government leaders of Harrisburg destroyed the city

Flat false. The city's main problem is the incinerator debt, for which the EPA bears primary responsibility.

and then asked a judge to agree that the city could file for bankruptcy. The judge said no, no matter what the leaders of Harrisburg do, they will not be able to fix the city. The leaders of the city don't have the ability to do anything right except destroy things.

Your ignorance of the Harrisburg case appears to be quite comprehensive.