smithaa02 wrote:
>
> "David Friedman" <ddfr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:ddfr-DF7328.09545328022004@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > As I see it, there are three basic arguments involved.
> >
> > 1. An argument about justice--the claim that landowners are getting an
> > unearned income which ought to go to people in general. There are some
> > problems with this:
> >
> > A. If at some point in time you inaugurate a single tax, the money is
> > coming from present land owners. But they bought their land at a price
> > which capitalized future rents, so you are, in effect, expropriating
> > them in order to "punish" the original landowner a few centuries back
> > who, on this theory, unjustly appropriated the site value of the land.
>
> LVT is but a possible remedy to the problem of landowner****p.
What "problem"? Because...
Just because
> a cure doesn't work, doesn't mean there isn't cancer, to which you've
> implied, as you've confused your opening statement with your point A,
which
> just misdirects valid critiques of the lack of equalities surrounding
the
> land issue.
.... you similarly can't assume that there IS a problem, at least of this
nature. For instance, the possibility of cancer shouldn't blind you to the
possibility of NO disease, or maybe some other disease like a bladder
infection. The wrong cure is likely to be far worse than the disease.
>
> Another point is that landowner****p does not lose its exploititive
> tendancies, when the initial land grant is completed. There then exist
> inequalities of op****tunity not of owning the land, but to sell it for
> profit. This profit and its inheritance forms a new tool of
exploitation.
How so, given that a fair system does offer many a realistic access to
these
op****tunities? Failures do not require restructure but better access. It's
the wrong disease thing.
> Also, the ability to buy land is not equal. Those with money, in
certain
> times and context variables, can more likely do this then others,
Not only is that a special case...
meaning
> just because you bought it, doesn't mean it should be yours.
.... also that does not follow.
An example to
> illustrate: ****pwreck victom A lands on an island and claims it his. B
> lands and A sells B a large plot for lots of debt. C lands, and since
land
> is more scarce, B can sell land to C for more then he acquired from A.
Notice that in this case C does not face the costs of pioneering that A
did.
The
> transactors and inheritors of land or land derived wealth form a new
class
> as favored pets of the initial land barons, to which they can then
exploit
> the landless as well.
Observation shows that a locked in monopolising class is rare. When that
does
occur, the disease and the remedy are those of monopoly, not of property
in
land.
Also to consider is new information that can increase
> land value such as a discovery of a mineral vein. Did the landbuyer
truely
> labor for that market value increase? What about the increment of
> association? If a railroad is going to buy in your back alley, you can
jack
> up the price big time, even though, like the mineral veins, you didn't
work
> for the increase in land rent/capital gains.
Er... you can't, in general. In fact, developments of this sort generally
disrupt other people's plans. Net benefits vary a lot more than that, and
can
even be negative.
>
> > B. It is true that none of the landowners created the original land,
> > which is an argument against their being entitled to the revenue
stream
> > from it. But other people didn't create the land either. Nor did
mankind
> > as a whole. So, from the "creation justifies owner****p" standpoint,
the
> > state has no more right to the rent than the current landowner does.
>
> If the state does not have rights to the land, then how can it give it
away
> with land grants?
Legalisms like this are quite common. What non-owners can do is commit to
non-owner****p - quit claims.
If this is wrong, such a land grant is theft,
No - only if there is some other owner. Of its nature, theft is not a
victimless crime, so a lack of victims shows a lack of crime.
and a
> tenant of contract law is that property if stolen can't be considered
legit,
> regardless of the number of subsequent transactions and derivitive
wealth
> ac***ulations.
There are several things wrong here. First off, contract doesn't come into
it. Second, there actually IS case history where precisely that happened.
In
Britain, when a stolen car is discovered after a series of good faith
transactions that built up a paper trail indicating title, the final
holder
frequently DOES have good title. Or if you want you can chase through the
arguments that people like Grotius went through, and look up terms like
"desuetude", "encroachment", "usucaption" and "prescription". It simply
isn't
true, in the sense it is trying to extrapolate!
This is bad as when Americans try to justify a financial proposal by
saying
that the USA has never defaulted. The historical record clearly shows
otherwise, but they suppose it so sincerely that they never think to
check.
>
> If the state has no objective right to land, then why is it, it's to
resolve
> land issues and to exclude others with the court of equity?
That has more to do with who has the muscle to crowd others out and shove
them around, than with who has the right.
Without torts,
> the land system collaspes, because it is only government that is
propping up
> this private property deal to began with.
That is only true to the extent that the government ITSELF cleared other
things away. It can no more take credit for that than (say) the USA can
take
credit for eliminating an Iraqi dictator whom it created in the first
place.
Desirable and improvement though that was, it was largely the USA's mess
in
the first place (the mess preceded that particular dictator).
Landowners, if you think about
> this because of the courts of equity, are nothing more then favored
nobles
> of the government engine, and but exist to carry out government's vision
and
> will of land distribution.
That's what the government wants, just as a farmer wants cows for milk or
meat or maybe leather. But it's not what the cows want, and it's not what
the
land owners want - and it's not what non-land owners want, when they want
to
be able to get their own. Their difficulty getting their own is no
justification for making it impossible.
>
> > C. It can be (and sometimes is) argued that, while the land was not
> > created by other people, its value was, since that's the result of the
> > existence of people to buy stuff, rent land, etc. Georgists who
consider
> > themselves libertarians, however, might want to consider further
> > implications of this line of argument.
>
> You unwittingly imply that a market is needed in order for land to have
> value.
No - he is describing a common argument used by others. (This is
dangerous.
If you aren't careful doing that gives you a straw man argument.)
..
..
..
> > 2. An argument about dead weight loss in taxation. This is the
classical
> > argument for taxing land--an inelastic supply means low dead weight
> > loss. But it is not an argument for taxing all of site value, just for
> > using site value as a basis of taxation--roughly speaking, Adam
Smith's
> > position. How good an argument it is depends in large part on how well
> > one can measure site value and untangle it from other elements of land
> > value which do depend on human actions.
>
> Again, you confusing a possible solution to the problem with the problem
> itself.
No, he is describing something more general about taxation. It's
approaching
land tax not from the perspective of things Georgism is supposed to
deliver
but from the perspective of things taxes are supposed to deliver. That is,
he's asking about where government money comes from and pointing out that
if
you have to get it, it's better not to have other costs on top as well.
The private land issue and the possible LVT solution are separate
> animals, and critques of the latter shouldn't necesarily be associated
with
> the former..
And the same goes for mixing those up with the government funding issue.
>
> > Suppose we have a thousand plots of unused land. Further suppose that
at
> > some point in the future, say twenty years from now, it will become
> > obvious to everyone that some of them are going to be valuable for
> > building houses on (because the nearest city is expanding--but until
> > twenty years from now it won't be obvious exactly how fast and in what
> > direction) and some will not. This will happen before any actual
> > building occurs.
>
> The land issue is subdivided into the instrinsic value of the land, and
the
> value obtained from mixing one's share of land with another's thus
creating
> an increment of assocation. What you describe is the latter, and the
> problems of subdividing the benifits from multiple people living close
> together is not easy. Best would be some solution formulated on
equality of
> access and op****tunity, that doesn't reward game playing colluding gangs
> (AKA cor****ations).
No problem need arise at all, if only you have a functioning property
system.
(However, that doesn't clear any problems that do ac***ulate, even if the
failures were isolated.)
..
..
..
> > To see why this introduces a problem, I now consider a different
> > hypothetical. This time the thousand plots of land are far from a city
> > and their actual value is not going to change in any
> > predictable-but-hard-to-predict way for a very long time. They are,
say,
> > wheat fields in Iowa.
> >
> > The previous basis for inefficient speculation is gone--there is no
way
> > I can invest in research that will let me gain by better predicting
the
> > rent that different plots will bring in. But there is now a new basis
> > for inefficient speculation.
>
> The difference is that the Iowa topsoil and local groundwater form more
of
> an intrinsic land value, then does say a Michagon Ave. Street corner
that
> finds its value more from the increment of association.
I think the point was that the example was simplified and stable, suitable
for the thought experiment. PML.
--
GST+NPT=JOBS
I.e., a Goods and Services Tax (or almost any other broad based production
tax), with a Negative Payroll Tax, promotes employment.
See http://users.netlink.com.au/~peterl/publicns.html#AFRLET2
and the
other
items on that page for some reasons why.
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