Site Information
About Us
- RonPaulForums.com is an independent grassroots outfit not officially connected to Ron Paul but dedicated to his mission. For more information see our Mission Statement.
At least address the article directly.
Common Property vs. Collective Property
A parallel confusion exists between common property and collective property, and the classical liberal concept of common property has been all but obliterated. An open park perhaps comes closest to the idea of common property, for anyone has an equal right of access to the park. However, restrictions on what one may do in a park, to the degree that they are arbitrary, render the park a collective property.
A government maintenance building, on the other hand, is truly a collective property. Nobody is granted a right to trespass except on government-sanctioned business. This is another distinction blurred by socialists, who refer to "common property," but who propose to put that property under the control of governments, collectives, and majorities.
Common Property and Common Law
Prior to the degeneration of common-law communities into feudalism, land other than royal estates (government property) was held, not collectively, but "in common." This meant that any person had a right to take up land and use it, and in so doing, hold it in his exclusive possession for as long as he continued using it. The limit to this right was that he could not hold land out of use, nor take up so much as to deprive others their own right to similarly take up land. "Lords" (literally "great people") were given responsibility to serve as land stewards, and to settle disputes over access to land. (The royal family name "Stuart" is an early spelling of "steward.")
http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commonrights.html
Last edited by redbluepill; 08-09-2012 at 01:06 PM.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
http://www.wealthandwant.com/
http://freeliberal.com/
Which kind of tax is levied is certainly relevant.
Nope. Land value taxation is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction, not extortion.rack·et
noun
1. […]
2. A dishonest business or practice, especially one that obtains money through fraud or extortion.
Since taxation is extortion, collecting tax is a racket. Regardless of the brand of statism.
The services and infrastructure that make land valuable are publicly provided.
It is therefore indisputably the private landowner who engages in a racket, obtaining money through extortion, as I already proved in post #6 in this thread. The value of land is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to extort from society and not repay in taxes. To claim that requiring the landowner to pay for what he is taking is "extortion" is nothing but a bald lie, and a stupid one.
Stop telling such stupid lies.
Lie. It belongs to no one, but everyone has equal rights to use it. You just permanently refuse to know that fact. You just won't permit that fact to enter your brain, no matter how clearly or how many times it is explained to you.
And a severance tax if they are depletable.Other scarce resources, like ore, fossil fuels, water, and even bandwidth in the electromagnetic spectrum, would also be considered common wealth, and part of the definition of "land" subject to a Land Value Tax.
Wrong. It is more like a non-profit charitable trust that spends all its revenue on mandated endeavors. There is revenue, and spending, but no one pocketing any profits.Under LVT, the state, or taxing jurisdiction, behaves as a for-profit, profit-maximizing land-owning corporation,
It administers them as a trustee would, in the interests of the trust beneficiaries (i.e., all resident citizens).which is in the business of renting out titles to parcels of land within its jurisdiction.
No, individuals simply have equal human rights, which the trust is mandated to secure and reconcile. They are not part-owners of a corporation, have no right to its revenue, profits or assets, etc.Every individual citizen is considered an equal shareholder (of a single share which may not be bought or sold) of this incorporated entity.
...by the honest and informed...LVT rental fees (LVT levied) which are paid to the state are said
No, the rents are recovered on behalf of every INDIVIDUAL whose rights the landowners have abrogated. It's no more "collective" than any trust.to recapture "community created value", or economic land rents, which are collected by the state on behalf of the everyone -- collectively only -- in the community.
More or less. Congratulations on not lying for a whole paragraph.The Universal Individual Exemption (if actually provided for), would be considered a Community Shareholder Privilege - a mechanism for providing "just compensation" that is owed to each individual who has been deprived of their natural liberty rights to use land which they are excluded from using in common. The Universal Individual Exemption acts as an LVT Credit, which each individual can apply toward any land, but which is sufficient in itself for "enough good land to live on". Also, like any corporation, dividends might also be paid out directly to community shareholders from the land rent profits.
No, of course it doesn't, so you are lying again, as usual. You just got through explaining how it is like a corporation, not a commune. You are merely using the word, "commune" dishonestly, as a way to fabricate a spurious, false connotation that LVT resembles communism. Most readers understand a "commune" to be a group of people who live together, hold land and capital in common ownership, and share the fruits of their labor in common, like the Israeli kibbutzim. But as you are fully aware of the fact that LVT implies no such arrangement, you are just being dishonest again. As usual.Sounds like a Collectivist Land Rental Commune to me.
You just got through saying it was like a corporation. Are you saying that corporations are socialistic monopolistic rackets? That will be news to Austrian School capitalists.A socialistic monopolistic racket.
No, what will probably happen is that someone else will be willing to pay for the privilege of excluding others from the land, and you will then be among the others who are excluded, rather than the one doing the excluding. You would be well advised to sell off any fixed improvements before that happens.
It will decay, land rents will decline, and the economy will stagnate and decline as private interests cannot invest efficient amounts in public goods.Also what happens if we abolish public funding for infrastructure.
Last edited by Roy L; 08-09-2012 at 03:55 PM.
If infrastructure could easily be done by individuals, it would be. It isn't.
A lot of the wealth that crystallizes as land value comes from services like police and fire protection, public education and health care, courts and security of contracts, supervision of corporate governance and the monetary system, maintenance of public trust and confidence, etc. Think of it as social rather than physical infrastructure.
Only when a private landowner does it, as proved in post #6.
Who would pay the private landowner the exact same amount of money for the exact same publicly provided benefits??Who would pay if it weren't for the threat of force?
Yes. Speaking of being silly.Speaking of being silly!
Aha I see so gang will control a territory, extract money from people for protection and if they do not pay they will just bring the ones that can. In other words what we have now with a different flavor.
I also find it cute that you think like a socialist as far as infrastructure goes. You also lied there, funny how you accuse everyone else of lying but do it your self so easily. Private individuals are not allowed to build a lot of infrastructure you boast only government can make.
In other words I am done here. I will only resume this conversation when you admit to being a statist. I may suggest for you to go to Obama forums, there are people more likely to agree with your WRONG and IMMORAL premises.
Nope. Private individuals have NEVER been able to provide efficient investment in infrastructure because it has too much of the character of a public good. The history of privately built roads and railroads is replete with examples: the builders go broke, while the landowners along the route get rich for doing nothing.
Garbage. We don't have any government "taking over" infrastructure building in Somalia. Yet how many roads are private individuals building there? How many water or sewer systems? How many ports, airports, or canals? Where have private individuals EVER built significant infrastructure without government help?If the government took over shopping malls, you'd use this argument to say that shopping malls wouldn't exist if the government didn't run them.
Freedom Project Europe. It's the FSP gone Euro. Show your fellow European liberty-lovers support: give us a "Like"
No, it will be entirely different, as the "gang" controlling the territory will be accountable to the people and constituted to secure and reconcile their equal individual human rights, and to spend the money in the public interest, not their own, rather than what we have now, which is just government doing the dirty work for private bandits out for their own profit.
Lie. I think like a realist and an economist, not like an economic ignoramus and buffoon.I also find it cute that you think like a socialist as far as infrastructure goes.
Lie.You also lied there,
Lie.funny how you accuse everyone else of lying but do it your self so easily.
Lie.Private individuals are not allowed to build a lot of infrastructure you boast only government can make.
You've been done for a while.In other words I am done here.
Define it and I might.I will only resume this conversation when you admit to being a statist.
I'm not the one whose false and evil beliefs inflict two Holocausts worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, starvation, suffering, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR, pumpkin. You are.I may suggest for you to go to Obama forums, there are people more likely to agree with your WRONG and IMMORAL premises.
My guess: equivocation fallacies.
Fine, don't call it a tax. But Webster's New Universal Unabridged says a tax is, "a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities, services, etc." Nothing about it being involuntary. A baker also "demands" money in return for a loaf of bread. That doesn't make the transaction involuntary.If it's voluntary, it is not a tax.
It was not proved in that post. You make an arbitrary, incorrect assumption that State initiation of force is legitimate while private initiation is not.
Taxes (in particular, direct and unapportioned) don't serve public interest. To claim otherwise is wishful thinking.
Don't forget to mention telephone lines.
Lots of times. Plenty has been written about lighthouses alone, and more has been said about other examples.
But let's say we conceded that point. Let's say we still needed the state to manage infrastructure. That makes up, what, 10% of what is presently subsumed under government authority? And let's throw out all the government infrastructure projects that are really just excuses for make-work jobs and political payoffs. And let's say we were still left with the need for a government that costs as much as 5% of what we have now.
After fully funding that infrastructure, are we really to believe that we would be better off giving more money to politicians to spend on their own politically motivated ventures, just because we have some religious dogma that we need to give the politicians as much as the full rental value of the land?
Last edited by erowe1; 08-09-2012 at 04:33 PM.
Lies! Filthy lies!
You're lying. You can opt out of an LVT regime all you want: just use some land no one else wants to use (or use no more than the exempt amount of better land).
But as soon as more than one person wants to use the land, opting out simply is not an option. It's logically impossible. Someone's will is going to be enforced on someone else who can't "opt out." You just want to be the one enforcing your will on others who can't opt out.
And with that statement you bring everything full circle as you beg the fundamental question of ownership, with an a prior presumption in favor of your "common wealth" view. That's your position, your normative (should/ought) as you argue from that premise. And yet, far from being a settled question, it is the very matter which is ultimately in dispute.
The question of ultimate ownership of land cannot be resolved without a charge of theft on someone's part, with the victorious side considering legislative action favorable to their position "protection from theft".
Thus, it all centers around ultimate ownership rights, with a matter that can only be argued, fundamentally, on moral grounds from either side. Landowners who believe in property rights in land would see the state as the thief. This charge would naturally be dismissed by geoists, as they see landowners as the original thieves of land which they see as ultimately common wealth. For them, state arrogation of ultimate ownership (i.e., the power and authority to capture land rents) is seen merely a rescission of an odious contract. In other words, the state, once employed by landowners to enforce their "theft privileges", is now merely putting and taking things back so that the "rightful owners(s)" may finally receive just compensation.
Although Henry George and many LVT proponents will come right out and say that land and other scarce resources are "common wealth", or "belonging equally to all" or "collectively owned", many of the geoists I've encountered attempt to dodge the question of ownership, or obfuscate where the essence of ultimate ownership is concerned. They don't even want the question up for debate, so they frame their issues in a way that attempts to prevent anyone from even thinking in terms of ownership (property in land) in the first place. So you'll hear things like, "Stop thinking in propertarian language!" (Roy), or "Land can't be owned (is un-ownable)", or "The state doesn't own the land, but is merely an "administrator" of a tax on land", etc., as opposed to Ecowarrier(sic)'s more forthright, "The state owns the land. Period.", as if having it painted clearly onto one of his wooden LVT baby blocks somehow settled it.
Of course not, because in that case I'm assuming that it really IS the neighbor's car or house. But even if that very question is begged and vocally raised in court, it can be resolved. In the case of geoists and LVT, they want the question of state/common [ultimate] ownership of property in land to be merely PRESUMED, so that they can (as you just did) argue from that premise.I'm sure you would not consider it a violation of the free market when a court demands a citizen pay stealing his neighbor's car or setting fire to his house.
...are unnecessary. Separating land from capital is important to geoists for obvious reasons, because they don't want land to be treated as capital, which then begs the question of whether it can/ought/should be considered "property". I don't have a problem with the separation and consider the distinction valid for other reasons, only one of which is that it brings the question of land as property squarely to the forefront."...confusions between land and capital..."
Out of the three classically defined factors of production -- land, labor and capital -- geoists argue, for their own reasons, that only one of these should be subject to and targeted as the basis for a tax -- that basis being the changing values of the land, which they see as a manifestation of "community created" wealth which must be captured on behalf of the commons/state/people/community/collective.
Note that the author omits "private" altogether, as if the only question that needed to be settled was some philosophical confusion about "state" versus "common". He attempts to frame this "confusion" as being between between socialists and so-called "royal libertarians". However, the focus is on "state" versus "common" only, which is really about what the geoists believe distinguishes them from socialists! That distinction, between state property vs. common property, is wholly irrelevant to private landownership propertarians, because the net effect, as it affects ultimate private landownership, is IDENTICAL either way!"...and between state property and common property..."
At least a tyrant is honest about it. "I'm the ruler and god of this $#@!ing land. It's my country, my rules, so pay up."
I don't give a $#@! what Albert Jay Nock or any of the classical liberals believed about any tax. We have minds of our own, and a lot more hindsight than any of them did. To me it's not a question of which tax is preferable to another, or more "compatible" with a free market, but only to whom it should apply (and to whom it must never apply).Classical liberals did not simply prefer LVT to other forms of taxation, they believed it was perfectly compatible or even a requirement for a free market.
Paul Krugman believes that more spending can solve every problem. LVT proponents want LVT added in, on the belief that with enough LVT in place, people will somehow see the wisdom of eliminating other taxes. And yet history shows otherwise. Exactly the opposite, in fact, in every single case. Objectively and indisputably, as Roy would say. LVT becomes just another basis for a tax, and a minor one at that, often phased out entirely, as other taxes dominate. And yet the majority of geoists STILL believe that this pattern would somehow play out differently this time - if only it was "implemented correctly". They are happy to point to a list of what they THINK are LVT success stories, but I have yet to hear whether these were examples of LVT that were "implemented correctly". Because if they were, it's not a success story for LVT after all.Obviously you aren't going to end zoning laws, income taxes, and cronyism with the State as it is right now. You need a path towards deconstructing the State. I have stated several times that I believe the LVT can play a major role in putting us on the road towards freedom.
DISCOVERY is only a problem for an ILLEGALLY dodged tax. No software assistance is even necessary for a tax dodge that is legally sanctioned -- even ENCOURAGED.There are several ways to ensure the LVT system is not taken advantage of. For example, there are software-assisted crosschecks.
...in one hand. I wonder what they could do in the other, and which would fill up quicker?On top of that, Geoists want...
Oh? No, as in, not one? I guess you missed THIS ONE, among others, huh?And no geoist advocates "handing it out".
That's a geoist/LVT proponent who advocates "handing it out". Strategically.With an effective LVT program in place, existing tools such as enterprise zones, abatements, grants and loans (when available) can be employed strategically to supplement an LVT program.
Last edited by Steven Douglas; 08-09-2012 at 05:05 PM.
By that strange logic, neither is the income, sales or most other taxes. They're all voluntary.
Want to pay less income tax? Easy! Just voluntarily refrain from income, and no tax will be due or owing! How about sales taxes? Simple! Anyone can LEGALLY avoid them! Just don't buy as much $#@!, and no sales tax will be due! Oh, still have to buy SOME things? You can still pay less. Just don't buy the expensive $#@!. You'll still have "enough good $#@! to live on", but you'll pay way less in sales taxes. It's all voluntary. Nobody's forcing you to earn an income, buy $#@! from the store, or any other voluntary activity which serves as the basis for a tax. Silly Billy.
Activities and ownership, including ownership of value increases, are only bases for various taxes. These activities or facts of ownership are the only voluntary parts -- not the taxes themselves, which are mandatory and compulsory. LVT proponents try to make this fact seem otherwise with some not-so-clever circular presumptions and some verbal sleight of hand. Their presumption is that landowners are merely voluntarily "shopping from the state land rental store" (with the state presumed to be the ultimate owner). Thus, it makes perfect sense (to them) that you shouldn't take something [that the 'community' is presumed to own] if you don't want to pay [the state, and by extension, the community] for it. Perpetually.
It all boils down to the question of ultimate ownership. Whomever has the power and authority to capture economic rents - THAT'S YOUR ONLY REAL OWNER.
Last edited by Steven Douglas; 08-09-2012 at 05:32 PM.
LVT is a Tax by definition. That Is What It Means! LVT is an acronym for Land Value Tax. Enough with the Bull$#@!, boys.
LVT advocates completely discredit themselves by claiming that Land Value Tax is NOT a Tax even though it is part of the definition while claiming that everyone but themselves are liars. Steven, Osan, and many others have clearly described why LVT fails for free people. Go back through the thread and read, or re-read, what they have written. They KNOW what they are talking about.
LVT people are not the only ones who understand what is a LIE and what is a TAX.
A TAX is a TAX and a LIE is a LIE. Nobody is lying Roy L. ... No Matter How Many Times You Make That False Claim.
And if you don't want to call it a tax then call it something like LVR. Land Value Rape by wise overlords. You LVT 'boys' are clinging to old ideas that are proven failures as evidenced by the failure of Mercantilism.
Owning land is a good thing for individuals for growing food, harvesting water, along with other valuable natural resources, and living individual prosperous free lives in privacy through homeownership. LVT people do not like that and want to RAPE their their brothers & sisters of their natural wealth while claiming the high-road ... all the while $#@!ing them out of their natural rights. LVT are collectivists of the highest order while promoting themselves as free-market free-loving saints. LVT advocates are Wolfs wearing Sheep Wool. "Caveat Emptor" .... this is the 21st Century.
"Everyone who believes in freedom must work diligently for sound money, fully redeemable. Nothing else is compatible with the humanitarian goals of peace and prosperity." -- Ron Paul
Brother Jonathan
Well, it would have been stupid, if he had ever written anything that implied or suggested that posting on forums would ensure that the evil government wouldn't kidnap your family and hold them for ransom. It's not stupid, however, because you DO imply that LVT is a panacea that will eliminate untold societal ills and evils, including millions of people starving to death and murdered each year (all for lack of a properly implemented LVT regime).
Now that is stupid.
Connect With Us