Second Vermont Republic revises principles...

[FrankChodorov]

you will be happy to note Jane now no mention of UN but rather we seek membership to UNPO (see below)...

http://www.vermontrepublic.org/writings/JUNE12/SVR_principles.htm

The Second Vermont Republic is a peaceful, decentralist, voluntary association opposed to the tyranny of Corporate America and the U.S. government, and committed to the return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic and more broadly to the dissolution of the Union.  Members of the Second Vermont Republic subscribe to the following set of principles:

1. Political Independence. Our primary objectives are political independence for Vermont and the peaceful dissolution of the Union.

2. Human Scale.  We believe life should be lived on a human scale.  Small is still beautiful.

3. Sustainability.  We celebrate and support Vermont's small, clean, green, sustainable, socially responsible towns, farms, businesses, schools, and churches. We encourage family-owned farms and businesses to produce innovative, premium-quality, healthy products.  We also believe that energy independence is an essential goal towards which to strive.

4. Economic Solidarity.  We encourage Vermonters to buy locally produced products from small local merchants rather than purchase from giant, out-of-state megastores.  We support trade with nearby states and provinces.

5. Power Sharing.  Vermont's strong democratic tradition is grounded in its town meetings . We favor devolution of political power from the state back to local communities, making the governing structure for towns, schools, hospitals, and social services much like that of Switzerland.  Shared power also underlies our approach to international relations.

6. Equal Access.  We support equal access for all Vermont citizens to quality education, health care, housing, and employment.

7. Tension Reduction.  Consistent with Vermont's long tradition of "live and let live" and nonviolence, we do not condone state-sponsored violence inflicted either by the military or law enforcement officials.  We support a voluntary citizens' brigade to reduce tension and restore order in the event of political unrest and to provide assistance when natural disasters occur.  We are opposed to any form of military conscription.  Tension reduction is the bedrock principle on which all international conflicts are to be resolved.

8. Mutuality.  Both our citizens and our neighbors should be treated with mutual respect.

--------------------------------

http://www.vermontrepublic.org/writings/JUNE12/SVR_UNPO_MEMBERSHIP.htm

SVR SEEKS MEMBERSHIP IN THE UNREPRESENTED NATIONS AND PEOPLES ORGANIZATION (UNPO)

At the Vermont Independence Convention held in the State House on October 28, 2005, over 300 members of the Second Vermont Republic (SVR) approved a resolution proposing that SVR apply for membership in the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).  On June 8th SVR submitted its membership application to UNPO.

UNPO is a 65-member international membership organization located in The Hague which is dedicated to nonviolence, human rights, self-determination and democracy, environmental protection, and tolerance. Its members are indigenous peoples, occupied nations, minorities, and independent states or territories.  They include aboriginals of Australia, Acheh, Chechen Republic, the Hungarian minority in Romania, indigenous Hawaiians, Lakota Indians, and Taiwan.

The Second Vermont Republic is committed to the return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic as it once was between 1777 and 1791. A recent public opinion survey of registered voters conducted by the University of Vermont found that 8 percent of Vermont voters favor secession from the United States. This means that as many as 37,000 voters are sympathetic to the objective of SVR.  There is reason to believe that Vermont has the highest percentage of voters committed to secession of any state in the U.S.A.

About SVR's application for membership in UNPO Thomas H. Naylor said, "Membership in UNPO would enhance our international credibility and put us in contact with other independence movements worldwide."

[tracysaboe]

But why would you want to be confederated with anybody. If this is truly an indipendence movement, why not be truly independent?

<Shakes head>

Tracy

[AlanM]

6. Equal Access.  We support equal access for all Vermont citizens to quality education, health care, housing, and employment.

Ah, socialism..................

[FrankChodorov]

6. Equal Access.  We support equal access for all Vermont citizens to quality education, health care, housing, and employment.

Ah, socialism..................

equal access says nothing about who is to pay...

[AlanM]

6. Equal Access.  We support equal access for all Vermont citizens to quality education, health care, housing, and employment.

Ah, socialism..................

equal access says nothing about who is to pay...

Just ambiguous enough, isn't it. OK, how will "equal access" be achieved?

[FrankChodorov]

6. Equal Access.  We support equal access for all Vermont citizens to quality education, health care, housing, and employment.

Ah, socialism..................

equal access says nothing about who is to pay...

Just ambiguous enough, isn't it. OK, how will "equal access" be achieved?

dunno - we are kinda like the FSP in that way...we are for secession and then the folks of Vermont will decide these things together within the Vermont constitutional framework with power devolved to the most local and appropriate level.

[AlanM]

Well, Frank, your statement of principles is quite specific in its goals, yet you dunno how it will be achieved. Sounds like evasion to me.

[FrankChodorov]

Well, Frank, your statement of principles is quite specific in its goals, yet you dunno how it will be achieved. Sounds like evasion to me.

Our primary objectives are...political independence and peaceful dissolution of the union.

we specifically know how that will be achieved.

beyond that:

We believe..., We celebrate and support..., We encourage..., We also believe..., We encourage..., We support..., We favor..., ...also underlies our approach, We support..., we do not condone..., We support..., We are opposed to..., should be...

[Lex]

Frank, I'm sure you have been asked this many times before but why do you hang out on this forum? We are obviously all completely against socialism and that is all you have been trying to promote here (albeit under different names). Just because you don't use the same terminology as other communists and socialists does not mean that you are not trying to spread the same concepts and ideas. There is no way to provide "equal" services for all without someone being forced to pay for it. You can establish the most elaborate freedom sounding version of property taxes you want but it's just too easy to see past your smoke and mirrors. If it's not a voluntary payment it's not going to fly, period, end of story. Do you understand that? You can call it economic rent or whatever the heck you want but as long as you are going to force people into your taxation system you will not have freedom and thus our support. 

[AlanM]

Frank, I'm sure you have been asked this many times before but why do you hang out on this forum? We are obviously all completely against socialism and that is all you have been trying to promote here (albeit under different names). Just because you don't use the same terminology as other communists and socialists does not mean that you are not trying to spread the same concepts and ideas. There is no way to provide "equal" services for all without someone being forced to pay for it. You can establish the most elaborate freedom sounding version of property taxes you want but it's just too easy to see past your smoke and mirrors. If it's not a voluntary payment it's not going to fly, period, end of story. Do you understand that? You can call it economic rent or whatever the heck you want but as long as you are going to force people into your taxation system you will not have freedom and thus our support. 

Well said, Lex. 

[FrankChodorov]

We are obviously all completely against socialism

socialism is generally thought of as the collective ownership of the means of production (land, labor, capital)

that is all you have been trying to promote here

can you show me exactly where I have ever promoted the collective ownership of anything (if you can I will leave the forum)?

There is no way to provide "equal" services for all without someone being forced to pay for it

not "equal services"... supporting equal ACCESS to services say nothing about how it is to be provided or by whom...I would prefer to say equal access opportunity rights so long as one does not infringe on the equal rights to the same of all others and restrict it to the natural (land, water, air, minerals, oil, electro-magnetic spectrum, etc) and social (scientific knowledge, IP, currency, constitutional democratic republic, etc) commons.

You can establish the most elaborate freedom sounding version of property taxes you want but it's just too easy to see past your smoke and mirrors. If it's not a voluntary payment it's not going to fly, period, end of story. Do you understand that? You can call it economic rent or whatever the heck you want but as long as you are going to force people into your taxation system you will not have freedom and thus our support.

but even in an anarchy if all locations are legally occupied and thus two or more people will have to naturally compete for access, those being excluded by the private enclosure of land (as part of the commons) will be forced to pay a tax (called economic rent) to the owners of land at the expense of their absolute right to their labor products...this fact is irrefutable and there is no choice in the matter but you seem to disagree - why?

the only choice we have is who will pay and who will receive the "tax" (economic rent)...and the answer to that question determines whether we have a system of freedom for the landowners and slavery for everyone else (landlord receives the economic rent as they do today) or the greatest amount of equal liberty for the greatest number of people (the excluded receive the economic rent).

where exactly is the flaw in my argument? if you can show me I will leave the forum...

[Lex]

but even in an anarchy if all locations are legally occupied and thus two or more people will have to naturally compete for access, those being excluded by the private enclosure of land (as part of the commons) will be forced to pay a tax (called economic rent) to the owners of land at the expense of their absolute right to their labor products...this fact is irrefutable and there is no choice in the matter but you seem to disagree - why?

Because competition is good whether it's for customers, products or land, etc. As an anti-Capitalist you would never understand this. Hence I suggested that you are wasting your time on this forum.

the only choice we have is who will pay and who will receive the "tax" (economic rent)...and the answer to that question determines whether we have a system of freedom for the landowners and slavery for everyone else (landlord receives the economic rent as they do today) or the greatest amount of equal liberty for the greatest number of people (the excluded receive the economic rent).

If I have to pay regularly for my land to a group of strangers so that I may keep the land then I am not a landowner but a renter. You want to eliminate ownership of property so that instead of some people renting in an apartment building EVERYONE would be renting. Destroying the human instinct of owning and defending your home/land is one of the tennets of the Communist Menifesto. Essentially that is what you are proposing: if everyone can't own property, nobody will. I know you are going to post your land ownership definition crap but the point is that if you are paying dues to keep your home you do not own it no matter what argument you provide otherwise.

where exactly is the flaw in my argument? if you can show me I will leave the forum...

I will reiterate: If you have to regularly pay a fee to keep your home then you are not owning it but renting it just like the folks in an apartment building. And if we don't own our land what incentive do we have to take care of it? We can always just pollute, stop paying the economic rent, get forced off and go somewhere else and do the same thing. This is why the environment is being destroyed today by companies that rent land from the government. Nobody in their right mind would rather be a renter of land instead of an outright owner (unless you indent to decrease the value of the land by dumping trash on it or polluting it).

[Lex]

Murray Rothbard and Henry George
David J. Heinrich

Both Austrian economics and Georgist economics stem from studying the nature of man, from individual actions, from praxeology. However, they arrive at different conclusions regarding the cause of the business cycle. Both the geolibertarians (Georgists) and the Austrian libertarians start from the same axiom of self-ownership, yet arrive at different conceptions of property. The argument between these two factions has been largely ignored, which is unfortuante. Rothbard, however, dealt with it.

Rothbard criticized the Georgists in The Single Tax: Economic and Moral Implications and Power and Market. One Georgist response is provided in The Geolibertarian FAQ by Todd Altman.

I believe that Altman is right when he says Rothbard took a wrong turn in saying that "since all right would be siphoned off to the government, there would be no incentive for owners to charge any rent at all." Here, Rothbard's assuming that the land value tax " would be set by an actual ground-rent charged by the landlord, rather than being an assessed value that would have to be recouped." I see no reason why the land value tax would necessarily be equal to the rent. From there on, due to his methodical nature, I believe Rothbard continues on the wrong path (with respect to that point).

However, there is a counter-point to the challenge to Rothbard's assumption. The socialists say that rent is unearned income, and thus theft, making no distinction between the value of land as is and the value added to it by man's labor. The Georgists refine this socialist argument, saying that the portion of rent earned because of the inherent value of the land is unearned, while the portion earned because of the improvements the landlords have made on the land due to their labor (or those they acquired the land from) is earned. This Georgist assertion has both theoretical and practical problems*.

The theoretical problem is that, from a certain point of view, we receive many benefits due to things we did not earn, both good and bad. Does anyone deserve have the type of mentality that causes him to want to rape women? Did Ghandi earn his natural gift of being an extremely kind and wise man? Did Stephen Hawking earn his genius? Did Micheal Jordan earn the natural talent, the mental strength, that made him into arguably the best basketball player ever? Did the heirs to the Rockefeller fortune earn that fortune? I am not a cripple, but did I earn the fortunate luck of not being a cripple? Did the cripple earn his or her unfortunate disability? Does the child born into a loving family earn that blessing? Did St. Lucifer earn his evil soul which caused him to be cast from heaven and set about as the epitome of evilness, did he deserve to come into existence evil? Did God earn Hiis existence as a perfect entity, free of any flaws?

I can go on and on, but the point is obvious. There are many things in life that we neither earn nor don't earn, neither desrve nor don't deserve -- they simply are. To follow the logic of the Georgists to it's completion opens the door to socialism, because we didn't earn the benefit that the underlying untransformed land provides; and we didn't earn the improved value we brought to the land by transforming it with our labor, as we didn't earn the skills, talents, and physical abilities necessary to transform the land. This logic does not necessarily lead to socialism, as it does not follow from the assertion that "I haven't earned anything that constitutes me and my work" that "everyone else deserves what constitutes me and my work". But the door is still wide open.

The practical problem is that, while you can divide the value of land between the portion due to it's natural state and the portion due to labor exerted on it, you can only arguably do this in theory and not practice. Since I as the rent-seeker don't have the option of specifying what I'd pay the landlord to live on his land were it an untransformed mess, there's no way to determine the untransformed value of the land, even from one individuals subjective standpoint. The value I attribute to something can only be objectively defined by a market transaction; thus, the value I ascribe to the untransformed land I am now sitting on simply cannot be determined, not even by myself. Sitting iin my house right now, it is a truism for me to say I value the land I own more in it's transformed, as opposed to untransformed, state. If I was typign this from laptop in a nuclear fallout are of the desert, it would be a truism to say that I would value that same land more if it were untransformed b y man's actions (unless I wanted to die). However, those are qualitative, not quantitative, statements. To tax the "unearned value of the land" we would need to determine what the value of the untransformed land is to the current landlord, which I have already shown is impossible, as determining value in monetary units requires a free-market transaction, and we cannot alternate between a transformed and untransformed state.

Even if we could magically alternate, we still could not determine at what price an individual values the untransformed land, as we would need a market transaction know anything about the value individuals place on something, which would require him to sell it to someone else. However, even a sale does not necessarily tell us how much the seller valued the property in monetary terms. It merely tells us that that price was one price in a range of prices at which the seller was willing to sell. The seller will not sell at any price below that, and will, according to neoclassicals, sell at any price above that. Of course, the neoclassicals err there in assuming a homo economus; the Austrians make no such assumptions, and allow for both economic and moral considerations on the part of sellers and buyers. Considering the economic side of man alone, there is no reason why a man wouldn't sell a candy-bar for $1,000,000 to a mentally retarded rich heir who really wanted it. Only when considering the moral dimension of man as well as the economic dimension can we allow for the possibility that a seller may refuse to sell at that high bid price (or will give it to the buyer for less than that absurd bid). The value the seller ascribed to his property would necessarily be the lowest price at which he would be willing to sell the untransformed property. So, the only way the Georgist tax-collector could determine what to peg the LVT at would be to read the mind of the current land-owner, in never-never-land where we can alternate between transformed and untransformed land.

The other problem is that now that we've forced the landowner to sell the land (which creates a disturbing coercion problem for libertarians in-and-of itself), he no-longer owns the land. The new buyer owns the land. Yet, the price at which the new buyer bought the land does not necessarily represent the monetary value he ascribed to the magically untransformed land (again, assuming never-never-land, where we can alternate between transformed and untransformed land). It only represents one price in a range of prices at which the buyer was willing to buy the land. The monetary value that the buyer subjectively ascribes to the land is the highest price at which he is willing to pay to obtain that land.

Again, if we succumb to the neoclassical fallacy of assuming homo economus there is no price so low that a buyer would not be willing to buy the land for it. According to the neoclassical delusions, I could not possibly refuse an offer by a prospective buyer to sell me his wife as a prostitute in exchange for $2; indeed, I could not even object to the idea that women could be used as units of monetary exchange. I would simply calculate that this I was buying sex with the man's wife for a very cheap price, and did not have to "buy" the possibility of sex for the very expensive price for which one normally has to pay for that consideration in a person's mind (namely, the "price" of love, sacrafice, devotion, respect, and so-on and so-forth). But I digress far from my criticism of Georgians (that criticism was aimed at neoclassical economists, not Georgian economists).

The criticism of the LVT which Rothbard levies is even more broad, which is that you cannot determine the value of the untransformed land, as the Georgians describe it. Their terminology discusses that as some absolutely determinable number. Yet, the value of untransformed land will be subjective, and will vary from people to people, and even from person A in situation X to person A in situation Y, or time X and time Y. As a vacationer, I will say that the value of the untransformed land in Antactica is zero -- I wouldn't pay anything for it. Indeed, it has negative value, from my pov -- you'd ahve to pay me to go there. As a researcher, it may have some value, as the cold temperatures could be used to store samples, without paying freezors. And that is only how the untransformed value varies for the same person, depending on the time and situation. What about between persons? To me, the value of the untransformed land at the crator of a volcano, where lava is getting ready to flow out, is zero. In fact, it has infinite negative value -- you couldn't pay me enough moeny to go anywhere near a volcano that's going to explode at some uncertain point in the near future. However, to a vulcanologist, this untransformed land would have great value. As Rothbard rightly notes, any attempt to to peg the value of the untransformed land would be arbitrary. Thus, Rothbard's assumption that the land value tax would be set to the rent rate is not as unjustified as it first seems -- why not? An army of arbitrary tax assessors could arbitrarily deem it that high.

The Georgist response to this, I anticipate, would be that you don't have to determine the value of the untransformed land to the landlord. You just have to determine it's highest value anywhere. For example, I may not personally attribute any value to an active volcano, but may still buy it, so as to sell it's use to a vulcanologist, who does value it. Yet, this runs into my earlier criticism that even in the case of completely untransformed land, you cannot determine how much an individual values it unless you can read his or her mind (that is, you can't tell the absolute lowest price at which he'd be willing to sell, or the absolute highest price at which he'd be willing to buy). And you also run into the practical problem of determining the highest value placed on the property by any individual (thus, it's highest valued use).

Of course, the Georgists can always say that all they mean is the value (price) at which the untransformed land is sold in the free market. To that, I will step back one step and say that you can't do that, because you can't magically alternate between transformed and untransformed land. I will also say that it's immoral to do that, as it would require forcing a sale of property by the owner, which constitutes the initiation of aggression. Also, by forcing the owner to sell, you've changed what would otherwise be the price of the magically untransformed land on the free market, because you've created a pressure on him to sell, which will drive the price down. Thus, you have defeated your own objective, and will almost necessarily underestimate the price at which the untransformed land sells on a free market without coercsion (by coercing the owner to sell, you've lowered the price). Thus, you have under-estimated the land-value tax.

Of course, Georgians could just ignore all of these difficulties and arbitrarily declare, by State fiat, what the untransformed value of the land is, thus what the unearned income is. This would be transparent and easily demolished. It would also be incorrect. Or they could bend over backwards trying to deal with all of the nuances by armies of tax assessors and philosopher kings. They would still be just as incorrect, though they would have bamboozled the public into thinking there's some merit to the process; however, in going through all of this, they will have eliminated a large portion (possibly all) of the wonderful taxes funds they claim would be provided by the LVT.

What good is it differentiating between earned rent due to your transformation of land, and unearned rent due to the "value fo the land" if you can't determine the point of that differentiation in practice?

[Lex]

Original link to the above article, includes lots of comments: http://blog.mises.org/archives/001610.asp

[Pat McCotter]

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) is a democratic, international membership organization. Its members are indigenous peoples, occupied nations, minorities and independent states or territories who have joined together to protect their human and cultural rights, preserve their environments, and to find non-violent solutions to conflicts which affect them. UNPO provides a legitimate and established international forum for member aspirations and assists its members in effective participation at an international level.

Although UNPO members have different goals and aspirations, they share one condition ? they are not represented in major international fora, such as the United Nations. As a result, their ability to participate in the international community and to have their concerns addressed by the global bodies mandated to protect human rights and address conflict, is limited.

In today?s world, over 90 percent of conflicts are intrastate. UNPO was founded and designed to fill the gap left by today?s international system and its institutions. Notably, it is the members of the organization, the peoples who are most affected by the shortcomings of the international system, who have created the organization.

UNPO is dedicated to the five principles enshrined in its Charter:

• Nonviolence: Nonviolence aims to end injustice by making the perpetrator of injustice see reason and undo the wrong done by him.


• Human rights: Human rights are international moral and legal norms that aspire to protect all people everywhere from severe political, legal, and social abuses.


• Self-determination: All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.


• Democracy: Democracy is a form of government by and for the people.


• Environmental protection: Environmental protection means to protect and preserve (indigenous) peoples? natural habitat and resources in order to safeguard the unique and independent cultures from threats posed by ?development?, oppressive regimes and environmental degradation.


• Tolerance: Political tolerance is the willingness to extend basic rights and civil liberties to persons and groups whose viewpoints differ from one's own.