We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics

[Steven Douglas]

It is correct, and you and everyone else reading this knows it.

Now we know that you are lying, predictably, as evidenced by your single red bar.

Lie. You know my statement was correct.

Absolute lie on your part. You absolutely know that your statement was incorrect, but you chose to lie anyway.

My statement was objectively correct, and you know it and are simply lying.

Lie, as proved. You only have to refuse to know that fact.

[Roy L]

If that is true then I can still purchase land and not have to pay the LVT unless I want to.

No, because despite "purchasing" the land from the previous "owner," you still haven't paid the right party for it yet. Whomever you purchased it from did not have the right to sell you an unencumbered title because he didn't have one. He owed the community for what he took, and so do you. The fact that he may have been getting away with not paying for it is irelevant to the fact that he owed it, and you do, too.

You can't buy a house with a lien on it and then tell the lien holder, "I already paid for the house, so the transaction with you is only voluntary if I don't have to pay you unless I want to." Sorry, no. The title was encumbered by the lien, just as land titles are encumbered by the holder's obligation to repay the community for what he takes. You can't just take something from the community and then claim the obligation to repay it isn't voluntary on the grounds that you already paid a third party for the privilege of taking it. The third party had no right to sell that privilege. You might as well have paid some con man for the Brooklyn Bridge. The fact that the community hasn't been requiring you to repay what you have been taking up to now doesn't mean it has no right ever to require payment.

Think of a baker who has been in the habit of giving away day-old baked goods to customers who buy more than $10 worth of fresh goods. You have been a steady customer, getting some day-old goods for free, so you erroneously imagine you are entitled to them, just as you erroneously imagine you are entitled not to pay LVT. One day, the baker says to himself, "Wait a minute, people should be paying me fair value for those day-old things," and starts charging people half price for them. You go into the bakery, spend your $10 on fresh goods, and try to walk out with some day-old goods without paying for them, claiming that having to pay for them wouldn't be voluntary.

That is the "logic" you are using to claim LVT is not voluntary.

Otherwise, it is not voluntary.

Wrong, as proved above. You are just used to not paying for what you are taking, and consequently imagine that paying for it would not be voluntary. But someone else is willing to pay, just as some other customer is willing to pay half price for the day-old baked goods. If you don't want to pay, fine. It's voluntary. But don't expect to walk out of the store with the goods.

[Zippyjuan]

, just as you erroneously imagine you are entitled not to pay LVT

and yet,

If you don't want to pay, fine. It's voluntary.

and from the earier post:

But unlike all our current taxes, it is voluntary.

Ok. So then if as you say, it was erroneous of me to imagine that I can avoid paying LVT if I want to, then LVT is not voluntary as you claimed earlier. Which of your two statments was the correct one? Voluntary tax or not voluntary? They cannot both be true. It is a very simple question. If it is voluntary, I don't have to pay it unless I want to. If I cannot avoid it when I buy property, then it is not a voluntary tax.

(ignoring the irrelevant side track of claiming I had somehow not properly purchased the property).

It's voluntary. Then it isn't. Then it is again.

[Len Larson]

Can't we just put a stake in this tax vampire already?

[redbluepill]

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",

Collective property does not equal common property. Another point of confusion for the anti-geoists.

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.

What we should be addressing is private property vs common property vs collective property. Geoists are clear on the difference between the three. Private property = The fruits of one's labor. Common property = That which is created by nature which we all have an equal right to. Collective property = That which the state claims.
Marxists and most Anti-Marxists are not so clear (article for that topic posted a couple times). Private property in capital is simple. You create it, its yours. When asking a typical royal libertarian on private property in land they simply say "Well its theirs because they bought it from the "original owner." How do we determine who is the owner of the land? Since it is not created we must make arbitrary requirements, like "if you homestead for an x number of years" or "if you have this title issued by x." Some royal libertarians will go so far as to say whoever steps on the land first has rightful ownership over everything to the horizon (and beyond).

Separating land from capital is important to geoists for obvious reasons, because they don't want land to be treated as capital,

And you can easily replace geoist with classical liberal in that sentence. Separating land from capital was not some radical idea started by George.

which then begs the question of whether it can/ought/should be considered "property".

For the hundredth time: THE FRUITS OF LABOR

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.

Well that empty lot some landowner holds smack dab in the middle of the city isn't rising in value because of any productivity of his own.

And there is another basis: The fact that land (unlike labor and capital) cannot be traced back to an original creator.

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!

Even the Austrian economists believe there is in fact common property and that it is distinguishable from private property or property of the government.

"Libertarian scholar Roderick Long of Auburn University has argued that public (as opposed
to government) property is entirely legitimate:
Consider a village near a lake. It is common for the villagers to walk down to the lake to go fishing. In the early days of the community it’s hard to get to the lake because of all the bushes and fallen branches in the way. But over time, the way is cleared and a path forms–not through any centrally coordinated effort, but simply as a result of all the individuals walking that way day after day.
The cleared path is the product of labor–not any individual’s labor, but all of them together. If one villager decided to take advantage of the now-created path by setting up a gate and charging tolls, he would be violating the collective property right that the villagers together have earned."
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/feat...ment-property/

Kevin Carson (Mutualist not an Austrian): "Ostrom’s contributions, and Stiglitz’s attempted summary of them, point to an unfortunate tendency among many libertarians: the tendency to conflate the individual-commons distinction with the private-State distinction, and to equate common property to State property."

At least a landlord is honest about it. "I'm the ruler and god of this fucking land. It's my land, my rules, so pay up."

Fixed that for you ;-)

I don't give a shit what Albert Jay Nock or any of the classical liberals believed about any tax.

Why don't you just step up and say Nock was a socialist/statist (the very man who was a major influence on Rothbard). You've gone so far as to call the rest of us those very names.

We have minds of our own, and a lot more hindsight than any of them did.

I take it you don't read very much then (at least anything older than a decade, they were all ignoramuses).

Oh? No, as in, not one? I guess you missed THIS ONE, among others, huh?

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.
That's a geoist/LVT proponent who advocates "handing it out". Strategically.

All those tools already exist. The writer is saying if we have them they should supplement an LVT program.

Paul Krugman believes that more spending can solve every problem.

Krugman is a fool.

LVT proponents want LVT added in, on the believe 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.

No stateless civilization has ever existed. I guess its time for you to give up on that crusade.

There are smaller communities that have in fact fully shifted their taxation. Altoona, Pennsylvania did so just last year. It is difficult to change the system. You Paulites should be fully aware of that fact. But nearly everywhere the LVT has been adopted (perfectly or imperfectly), it came away with great results.

[redbluepill]

LVT is a Tax by definition. That Is What It Means! LVT is an acronym for Land Value Tax. Enough with the Bullshit, boys.

If you actually read the threads you would have seen this has been addressed a dozen times. "Tax" is a misnomer like how a peanut isn't really a nut or a koala bear isn't really a bear. But we say LVT or Single Tax because that is what its called historically. I, like many geoists, prefer the term "ground rent" like what Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, the French Physiocrats and JS Mill called it. In reality you are renting what was originally common property for private use.

And on whether it is voluntary:

Land value taxes need not even be strictly mandatory. If you as a landholder decline to return to our community the ground rent you appropriate from us, then we could simply disconnect you from our wires and pipes, and while you’re in arrears we could publish your name, address, and photo as someone whose property and person are excluded from the protections of our LVT-financed police and courts.
http://blog.knowinghumans.net/2010/0...and-value.html

[Roy L]

Ok. So then if as you say, it was erroneous of me to imagine that I can avoid paying LVT if I want to,

I didn't say that. I said you can avoid paying LVT by not taking more than your share of the benefits government and the community provide (land value up to the UIE). But if you want to take more than your share, then you have to pay for what you are taking, just as you have to pay for the baked goods you take from the bakery.

Are you not clear on the fact that although you have to pay the baker for what you take, the transaction is still voluntary?

then LVT is not voluntary as you claimed earlier.

<sigh> Is the transaction with the baker voluntary? If you say it isn't, and consensual transactions in the market are not voluntary because you have to pay for what you take, then fine, LVT isn't voluntary either.

Which of your two statments was the correct one? Voluntary tax or not voluntary?

I never said it was not voluntary. It is voluntary the same way paying the baker for the goods you take home is voluntary.

They cannot both be true. It is a very simple question. If it is voluntary, I don't have to pay it unless I want to.

Do you want to pay the baker for the goods you take home, or get them for free? Is that transaction voluntary? The fact that you have to pay for what you take, and can't just take it for free, does not make the payment involuntary.

If I cannot avoid it when I buy property, then it is not a voluntary tax.

Yes, it is, just as paying for the baked goods you take is voluntary even though you can't avoid it when you leave the store with them.

(ignoring the irrelevant side track of claiming I had somehow not properly purchased the property).

You "purchased" it from the wrong party, and thus have not discharged your obligations. That is the crucial point. The privilege you purchased included the obligation to pay LVT, just as purchasing a slave includes an obligation to pay him market wages for his labor. The fact that you paid his previous owner for the privilege of compelling the slave's labor by force does not alter your obligation to pay the slave, too. You paid the wrong party for the slave's labor, just as you paid the wrong party for the publicly created economic advantages of the land.

It's voluntary. Then it isn't. Then it is again.

It is. Do you understand that buying goods from the baker is voluntary, even though you have to pay if you leave the store with his product? Do you understand that paying wages for labor is voluntary, even though you may think you have purchased a right to compel "your" slave's labor by force, and not pay him wages?

[Roy L]

Now we know that you are lying, predictably, as evidenced by your single red bar.

The single red bar means I have identified others' lies as such, and they didn't like it.

Absolute lie on your part. You absolutely know that your statement was incorrect, but you chose to lie anyway.
Lie, as proved. You only have to refuse to know that fact.

<yawn>

[Roy L]

Can't we just put a stake in this tax vampire already?

It is the landowner who drains the lifeblood from the throats of the productive; and many of the victims are in turn themselves recruited as evil, predatory, parasitic vampires by buying land in order to avoid being victimized permanently.

What an amazingly accurate analogy. Thank you.

[Roy L]

Your objectively flawed reasoning is that because the basis for the tax (title to good land) can be voluntarily abstained from (i.e., just don't get any good land), that somehow makes the tax itself voluntary.

That is not my argument. That is just another dishonest strawman fallacy from you.

But that would be true of all taxes. Abstain from income, no income tax, abstain from retail purchases, no sale tax. Abstain from ownership of any estate, no estate tax. You can "voluntarily" own precious metals, but that doesn't mean the compulsory capital gains tax that comes later is somehow voluntary.

Right. Which, if you had been interested in honest discussion, would have been your clue that that was not my argument.

LVT is not a tax because it is used as a source of public revenue. It is a tax because it is both imposed by the state as well as mandatory and compulsory, regardless whether the activity upon which it was based was voluntary.

Question begging fallacy. If you define any "mandatory and compulsory" payment "imposed by the state" as taxation, then you have just dishonestly (surprise!) redefined many voluntary, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value payments such as tolls on public bridges and roads, passport application processing fees, etc. as taxes. You have also dishonestly (and absurdly) redefined mandatory and compulsory payments to third parties imposed by the state, like alimony and auto insurance, as taxes.

And that's true, which is why LVT is a tax - because it is both mandatory and compulsory, regardless of its basis.

Affirming the consequent fallacy. If you claim a voluntary payment is not a tax, then LVT is not a tax.

If your definition of a tax is "mandatory and compulsory payments imposed by the state," then alimony is a tax, bridge tolls are a tax, public liability auto insurance is a tax, the application processing fees for passports, state college admissions, etc. are taxes, and on and on. Is that really what you want to claim? Because most people do not think those payments are taxes, and will consider you dishonest for claiming they are.

You want "volunteering" to own land to be synonymous with volunteering to pay the attendant/required/compulsory LVT, the CONDITION upon which landownership would be based. Torture logic all you want, you can't have it both ways.

No, I am saying that LVT is voluntary because it is a payment to the provider of benefits FOR the benefits provided, just like any other voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction.

Do you really not understand how grotesquely dishonest you are being, Roy?

You have never met anyone more honest than me.

The REASON (stated or actual) for a tax is NOT why it's a tax. The state could give the revenue away or flush it down the toilet and it would still be a tax.

Then which of the payments mentioned above are taxes?

alimony?
bridge tolls?
public liability auto insurance?
application processing fees for passports, state college admissions, etc.?

A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the state on the basis of activity, ownership, or value increases, for which there are negative repercussions to the one levied for nonpayment.

OK, so that lets out alimony and auto insurance, but you still claim bridge tolls and application processing fees are taxes.

You just want to claim that because you might happily "volunteer" LVT that it "can" be voluntary (on your part alone), or worse yet, the sickeningly dishonest rationale that because someone is "choosing" to own land, they are also "volunteering" for the tax (as if land and the requirement for a tax were synonymous).

I have made neither of those arguments, and you know it.

That is sickeningly irrational and dishonest, as that same rationale can used to show that all taxes are "voluntary", and by that same dishonest reasoning.

Which might have been your clue that I was not making those arguments, if you had been honest.

No, a PAYMENT THAT IS NOT COMPULSORY -- not obtained under threat, duress or coercion (read=you don't stand to lose something) is not a tax, REGARDLESS to whom it goes, or what it is spent on.

Then LVT is not a tax.

Try not to lie and say that LVT is not obtained under threat, duress or coercion -- that the one being levied does not stand to lose something if payment is not made.

By that fallacious and dishonest definition, bridge tolls and application processing fees are taxes, as not making the payment loses the benefit of access to the bridge, having the application processed, etc.

In fact, your definition is so fallacious and dishonest that if a state-owned bakery charged you the market price for bread, you would call that a tax rather than a voluntary payment for benefits received: you would lose the bread you were carrying out the door if you didn't pay for it first.

You are trying to condemn the anti-LVT side not on the basis of what they are saying, or what they say it does or does not do, but purely through an exercise in name calling.

Lie.

LVT has never succeeded anywhere that it has ever been tried.

Lie.

It always ends up just another tax, supported by other taxes.

Lie.

More accurately, you believe that "LVT is a good thing for collectivists who want to take the wealth others produce

Evil filth. It is indisputably the landowner who takes the wealth others produce, and contributes nothing in return. By contrast, government and the community are indisputably the ones that CREATE the economic advantage the land user enjoys, and he should rightly repay them for taking it from everyone else.

and enslave everyone to a life of perpetual rent payments to a collective,

Outrageously, despicably dishonest and evil lie. It is the CURRENT system of perpetually paying for government TWICE -- first the taxes to pay for services and infrastructure, and then rent payments to landowners for access to the services and infrastructure the taxes just paid for -- that enslaves people, consigning them to the treadmill that powers the landowners' escalator.

With LVT, by contrast, many people would pay no land rent or taxes, and people's total payments for land (including interest on the land portion of mortgage debt) and government services and infrastructure would be less than half what they are now, LIBERATING them from both perpetual rent payments AND perpetual tax payments. Everyone but the top few percent of least productive and most privileged landowners would be FREED from most of the perpetual payments they have to make NOW to finance the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners.

Your claim is the absolute opposite of the truth.

by pretending that there is such a thing as "community created wealth" that needs to be reclaimed.

There is no need for any such pretense, you are just lying. It is indisputable that land value measures the economic advantage created by the services and infrastructure government provides and the opportunities and amenities the community provides, combined with the physical qualities nature provides, at a given location. Land value is therefore INDISPUTABLY community created wealth. You just want to be privileged to steal it.