The Georgists

[BillG]

a title to land is a land patent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_patent

A wood-framed house is an abode, a teepee is an abode. but a wood-framed house is not a teepee.
A land patent is not an IP patent. Do not equate them unless you can prove it.

the NH land grants (Vermont) were patents.

the principle is the same - state granted privilege that shifts costs distorting the market and violating labor-based property rights.

I am saying if you are against monopoly privilege of copyright laws to be consistent you should be against monopoly privilege of economic rent even though one is rivalrous while the other is not.

[BillG]

This thread has been officially hijacked.  I think we were done fighting anyway.

All right!!!! Hankster, eat your heart out! 

I agree with Scott...

quote:
Any other way of looking at it proves that you're just another ideological idiot, and frankly, New Hampshire doesn't need any more of those.!  We can't just eliminate schools all together, and I haven't seen anyone come up with a plan that would work otherwise.

Tracy is an ideological idiot!

[BillG]

What is the common concensus on what to do if bird flu hits the US and is air-vectored?

I sure as hell am going to drop out of society and hole up someplace.  You won't find me at work or anywhere near a hospital.

1 in 5 dead is the number they are throwing around.  Look back at the influenza epidemics of the early 20th century and it is very scarry.  People live in bigger cities and closer together today. 

Just in time delivery of foodstuffs and other vital materials will just about rip apart the fabric of society.  Back then localities were more self-suffecient.

This scares me  just a little bit here folks.

Is this the real Y2K?

welcome to the benefits of globalization...

[AlanM]

This is for Hankster. It is from Murray Rothbard's "For a New Liberty"

    If every man owns his own person and therefore his own labor, and if by extension he owns whatever property he has "created" or gathered out of the previously unused, unowned, "state of nature," then what of the last great question the right to own or control the earth itself? In short, if the gatherer has the right to own the acorns or berries he picks, or the farmer the right to own his crop of wheat or peaches, [p. 34] who has the right to own the land on which these things have grown? It is at this point that Henry George and his followers, who have gone all the way so far with the libertarians, leave the track and deny the individual's right to own the piece of land itself, the ground on which these activities have taken place. The Georgists argue that, while every man should own the goods which he produces or creates, since Nature or God created the land itself, no individual has the right to assume ownership of that land. Yet, if the land is to be used at all as a resource in any sort of efficient manner, it must be owned or controlled by someone or some group, and we are again faced with our three alternatives: either the land belongs to the first user, the man who first brings it into production; or it belongs to a group of others; or it belongs to the world as a whole, with every individual owning a quotal part of every acre of land. George's option for the last solution hardly solves his moral problem: If the land itself should belong to God or Nature, then why is it more moral for every acre in the world to be owned by the world as a whole, than to concede individual ownership? In practice, again, it is obviously impossible for every person in the world to exercise effective ownership of his four-billionth portion (if the world population is, say, four billion) of every piece of the world's land surface. In practice, of course, a small oligarchy would do the controlling and owning, and not the world as a whole.

      But apart from these difficulties in the Georgist position, the natural-rights justification for the ownership of ground land is the same as the justification for the original ownership of all other property. For, as we have seen, no producer really "creates" matter; he takes nature-given matter and transforms it by his labor energy in accordance with his ideas and vision. But this is precisely what the pioneer?the "homesteader"?does when he brings previously unused land into his own private ownership. Just as the man who makes steel out of iron ore transforms that ore out of his know-how and with his energy, and just as the man who takes the iron out of the ground does the same, so does the homesteader who clears, fences, cultivates, or builds upon the land. The homesteader, too, has transformed the character of the nature-given soil by his labor and his personality. The homesteader is just as legitimately the owner of the property as the sculptor or the manufacturer; he is just as much a "producer" as the others.

[polyanarch]

Burn the land, boil the sea -you can't take the sky from me.

I wish I had a firefly-class freighter and could break atmo from this socialist hell-hole and find a little asteroid to call home.  I own myself.  I own everything I've made or traded for.  It's hard to hold onto what you own and what you have paid for when governments of men come to take it in the name of some ideal that you don't hold for yourself.  Involuntary taxation and theft are the same things to me.

Life free or die!

NH is the place for me until I can get off this socialist rock.  It ain't perfect but it's our last best hope.

[BillG]

The Georgists argue that, while every man should own the goods which he produces or creates, since Nature or God created the land itself, no individual has the right to assume ownership of that land

I am sorry to inform you that Murray is wrong - this is just not true...

Georgists - being true Lockeans on labor-based property rights as Rothbard suggests - believe that ownership of land is not a single right but rather a bundle of five rights any of which can be alienated by the owner.

1. use
2. exclusion
3. transferability
4. possession

Up until Locke's Proviso - private enclosure of the commons is just so long as "enough and as good are left for others - the private ownership of these four bundled law-based property rights (land ownership enforced via a state title) is just because ABSOLUTE labor-based property rights are preserved for everyone, everywhere.

It is only when one goes beyond Locke's Proviso that we have the appearance of the fifth bundled right of land ownership called:

5. economic rent

If the state is used to enforce the monopolization of economic rent by the landowner it can ONLY come at the expense of the ASBSOLUTE labor-based property rights of the excluded to the fruits of their labors - wages. The excluded have no other way to pay the economic rent to the landowner but out of their wages.

So you see that via logic and reason - beyond Locke's Proviso (why would I pay someone rent if there was equal land that could be homesteaded for free??) private enclosure of the commons creates a monetary and legal obligation (an involuntary tax enforced by the state) on those being excluded that VIOLATES their right to self-ownership by sacrificing their right to the full fruits of their labor.

The solution is obvious - the landowners must voluntarily share the economic rent directly and equally with their neighbors (and the neighbors with him) inorder to uphold everyone's self-ownership rights and if not voluntarily then the state has an obligation to a just use of force to compel them in order to protect their ABSOLUTE ownership rights to the fruits of their labor.

The labor-based property rights of the landowner are preserved.

1. they did not produce the land via labor
2. they did not produce the unimproved land value (economic rent) their neighbors' labor did
3. in a 100% pure rent sharing scenario - there would be no purchase price to land (which is just capitalized economic rent at the time of sale).

Hope that helps!

[AlanM]

So Hankster, why is land different than other property in regards to ownership? I have never heard you use the "as good or better" argument concerning say, diamonds, which are scarce? Property is property. You conveniently like to separate items for your Georgist philosophy.

[AlanM]

Hankster, you are trying to claim a natural right that does not exist. Your theories are flawed. You always invoke Locke's Proviso as if it were the Gospel handed down to us. It is inconsistent.

[BillG]

why is land different than other property in regards to ownership?

because property rights are based on labor as the natural extension of self-ownership.

one can only exist if one occupies some land - not a problem when there is free land to occupy that does not materially disadvantage someone by a tax on their labor.

I have never heard you use the "as good or better" argument concerning say, diamonds, which are scarce?

I have elsewhere as minerals and oil are part of the natural commons but because one can not physically exist without actually occupying space (whereas one has to expend labor to "discover" diamonds and oil) most rational people will be able to readily understand the inconsistency that I am pointing out.

Property is property. You conveniently like to separate items for your Georgist philosophy.

since most rational people understand that libertarianism is a derivative of classical liberalism I thought being able to point out that classical liberals are in alignment with my view of property rights might be an intereting point of discussion.

I obviously am not dealing with a rational person.

you are trying to claim a natural right that does not exist.

what?

you do agree that we have an inalienable right to self-ownership - no?
you do agree that we have an inalienable right to the fruits of labor - no?
you do agree that neither land itself nor the unimproved land values that attach beyond Locke's Proviso is the product of the owner;s labor - no?

It [Locke's Proviso] is inconsistent.

all it is saying is that at some point with a limited supply of land that pre-exists human labor (this is true - no?) that differs in quality (this is true - no?) and a growing demand thru increased populations (this is true - no?) a person will have to SUBJECTIVELY determine whether they will be materially advantaged or disadvantaged by choosing to locate somewhere that requires rent as it is already legally occupied by another because given a free choice people will locate first in the "best" land (this is true - no?) or homestead some less desirable in quality "free" land.

please point out exactly how this is "inconsistent"...it is perfectly logical and rational.

[BillG]

I own myself.  I own everything I've made or traded for.  It's hard to hold onto what you own and what you have paid for when governments of men come to take it in the name of some ideal that you don't hold for yourself.  Involuntary taxation and theft are the same things to me.

you literally can't own yourself or the products of your labor if you haven't been gifted or purchase a place to stand.

you do agree that a right is something you are born with that does not have to be gifted or purchased?

you do agree that land pre-exists labor?
you do agree that unimproved land value is the product of one's neighbors' labor not the landowner?
you do agree that if all unimproved land values were returned directly (not to the state to spend) and voluntarily to those that created it (your neighbors) there would be no purchase price to land?

you do understand that in Hong Kong no one owns their own land (the state does) yet they consistently rank the highest in the world on the economic freedom index?

how do you explain this?

[BillG]

the only reason the state was even created was so that it could protect you and your land.  Now, here it is, and it seems to be trying to steal land.  Well, if it does the opposite of its original function, it sounds like it has outlived its usefulness.

we all have an inalienable, individual equal opportunity right to access all of the natural world that pre-exists human labor like land to freely engage in self-generating activity to sustain ourselves so long as it does not infringe on anyone else's equal right .

the state's sole role is to ensure that this individul common right is not infringed upon and this is accomplished by granting an exclusive locational title backed by state force...thus land ownership is law-based property - a government granted privilege NOT labor-based property - an absolute right.

the only compelling reasons for granting privileges (private laws - making some more equal than others in the eyes of the law) is because it enhances the common good - people being exclusive occupiers of a specific location as part of the natural commons enhances the common good because they are much more productive when they are secure in the results of their labor and where they can securely labor based on it's subjective quality.  The resulting surplus is then trade with others enabling more people to continue living from our common assets then if their were no labor-property rights to the fruits of our eforts and law-based property rights to enclose the commons.

in this case the state has determined that the greater common good is served by constructing the access road and protecting the wetlands then the privilege of those individuals locating in those specific areas...since I don't know the particulars of the case I can't judge for myself the justness of the determination but I thought I would lay out the philosophical rational.

[polyanarch]

Hahaha

It's like one of those little wind-up toy soldiers!

[AlanM]

please point out exactly how this is "inconsistent"...it is perfectly logical and rational.

Treating different kinds of property differently, is incosistent. If you grant the existence of private property, it shouldn't matter what kind of property it is. Either private property exists, or it doesn't. Period. Placing public conditions on private property negates the very fact of its being private.

[tracysaboe]

Burn the land, boil the sea -you can't take the sky from me.

I wish I had a firefly-class freighter and could break atmo from this socialist hell-hole and find a little asteroid to call home.  I own myself.  I own everything I've made or traded for.  It's hard to hold onto what you own and what you have paid for when governments of men come to take it in the name of some ideal that you don't hold for yourself.  Involuntary taxation and theft are the same things to me.

Life free or die!

NH is the place for me until I can get off this socialist rock.  It ain't perfect but it's our last best hope.

That's the only thing I missed from that movie. The words to the theme-sogn weren't anywhere in it.  

Perhaps that'l be in the next one. Or perhaps Sci-Fi will pick it up for a new season.

Tracy

[tracysaboe]

because property rights are based on labor as the natural extension of self-ownership.

Apparently you didn't even read the quote of Rothbard's. The land that grows the orange has been labored on and hence the land itself is a labor-created property.

The very act of homesteading is "labor."

You're a moron. Always will be. At least untill you lose your retoric and start actually thinking.

Tracy