Second Vermont Republic revises principles...

[FrankChodorov]

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.

strawman.

in this case being against competition is like being against gravity - it is naturally occuring and thus a nonsensical statement on your part because there is no choice in the matter.

besides I am a free market, anti-capitalist and thus FOR competition.

I know you are going to post your land ownership definition crap

crap?

bundled ownership rights is a standard economic idea...

if we don't own our land what incentive do we have to take care of it?

it doesn't seem to be a problem in Hong Kong...

This is why the environment is being destroyed

the environment is being destroyed because of the neo-classical paradigm that treats the natural commons as either private capital or unowned.

[FrankChodorov]

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

Lex - isn't citing and appealing to an authority rather than making your own argument a logical fallacy and a big libertarian no-no?

[FrankChodorov]

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.

Mr. Heinrich then goes on to name inherent human qualities found in specific individuals (Ghandi, Jordan, Hawkings) granted in highly developed form which can only be thought of as inherently possessed by the individual in question as the result of a georgist's belief in self-ownership, which was a given.

but it will be hard to argue with Mr. Heinrich since he is not here to defend his argument.

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.

the first part is true as natural opportunities are provided by nature outside of the context of self-ownership and exist prior to human labor.

the second sentence is false because labor is the natural extension of self-ownership.

the third sentence is false because we don't "earn" these things they are inherent to the individual that attains or possesses them and thus included in the concept of self-ownership.

but it will be hard to argue with Mr. Heinrich since he is not here to defend his argument.

The value I attribute to something can only be objectively defined by a market transaction

Mr. Heinrich makes a common mistake of confusing market value with personal utility value (he does this over and over and over)...we are only trying to determine the unimproved value as it relates to the opportunity cost to other members of the community not being able to occupy the specific location...thus he is correct that it is impossible to determine what that would be for one specific individual but none the less it is posssible to accurately do so in the aggregate which is what market value means.

but it will be hard to argue with Mr. Heinrich since he is not here to defend his argument.

[AlanM]

but it will be hard to argue with Mr. Heinrich since he is not here to defend his argument.

Neither is Mr. George, yet that hasn't stopped you.

[FrankChodorov]

but it will be hard to argue with Mr. Heinrich since he is not here to defend his argument.

Neither is Mr. George, yet that hasn't stopped you.

I am making the case based on my own words, not his...

Lex is free to make Heinrich's argument via his own words...

[AlanM]

but it will be hard to argue with Mr. Heinrich since he is not here to defend his argument.

Neither is Mr. George, yet that hasn't stopped you.

I am making the case based on my own words, not his...

Lex is free to make Heinrich's argument via his own words...

This is assinine. You have gone totally wacko Frank, or Bill, or whatever. So, Lex can't point to something written by someone other than himself to bolster his argument. You get to set all the rules, or so you think, as a means of avoiding questions you have no answer for. You are a phony Frank.

[FrankChodorov]

but it will be hard to argue with Mr. Heinrich since he is not here to defend his argument.

Neither is Mr. George, yet that hasn't stopped you.

I am making the case based on my own words, not his...

Lex is free to make Heinrich's argument via his own words...

This is assinine. You have gone totally wacko Frank, or Bill, or whatever. So, Lex can't point to something written by someone other than himself to bolster his argument. You get to set all the rules, or so you think, as a means of avoiding questions you have no answer for. You are a phony Frank.

how is Lex going to respond to my criticism of Mr. Heinrich's comments since he didn't write the words?

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

An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy: authorities can be wrong, both in their own field and in other fields; therefore referencing authority does not automatically imply truth.

[FrankChodorov]

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?

I asked Frank C. about this twice and he ignored the question both times. 

unfortunate there is confusion promulgated by the Austrian school of economics around the two meanings in the study of economics for the term "value." One is personal value, or utility, which is entirely subjective, and the other is exchange or market value, which can almost always be determined objectively.

clearly, it is market value that is being taxed under the land value portion of our property tax system in NH, not personal utility...when the objection arises that nobody can know how much the owner personally values a property, the proper response is that it is nobody's business in the first place, and that nobody is suggesting a tax on personal utility.

market value is the subject of taxation...when land value is substantially taxed and the owner continues to hold the property, it is safe to assume that the land's utility to that person is either greater than or roughly equal to the market value...otherwise, he would sell it.

however, none of that is any of our business as our business is to levy a charge that reflects the community member's loss of access to that land, for it is the community that would either use that land or rent it out to
another if the title holder were not holding it exclusively.

this makes market value, rather than personal utility, the appropriate measure for tax purposes...the market, the public and the community are all the same thing.

we just call it the market when it expresses itself economically, the public when it expresses itself politically, and the community (or society) when it expresses itself socially.

in all cases, it is the aggregate effect of individual actions...while each individual action is subjective and unpredictable, the aggregate effects are easily and accurately measured.

[Lex]

So, in summary:

1. The collection, distribution and assessment of economic rent would require a bureaucratic behemoth. And like all bureaucracies it will grow and infringe on more of our liberties until we end up where we are today.
2. Property taxes destroy property ownership and if people do not truely own their property they will have less of an incentive to take good care of it. Pollution meet economic rent Economic rent meet pollution.
3. In order to determine the market value of your property or to show that the tax is too high Frank suggests that you should sell your property, "when land value is substantially taxed and the owner continues to hold the property, it is safe to assume that the land's utility to that person is either greater than or roughly equal to the market value...otherwise, he would sell it." So if you your family has lived in your home for several generations and suddenly your taxes go up Frank would recommend that you either sell your home or bend over and take it up the ass. I'm not a violent person but Frank sure makes my blood boil.
4. Economic rent would subsidize renters (those who do not own land) at the expense of the land owners.
5. As was explained in the article I posted, fair assessments of property would be impractical if not simply impossible.

[FrankChodorov]

1. The collection, distribution and assessment of economic rent would require a bureaucratic behemoth. And like all bureaucracies it will grow and infringe on more of our liberties until we end up where we are today.

it could all be contracted out to private industry and thus free market competition will be kept to a minimum.

if the state keeps any of the economic rent for anything other than administration then they have conflated a right held in common by individuals for a collective group right which I don't recognize.

2. Property taxes destroy property ownership and if people do not truely own their property they will have less of an incentive to take good care of it. Pollution meet economic rent Economic rent meet pollution.

you've actually got it backwards (as usual)...economic rent being positive externalities is the flip side of pollution being negative externalities.

so the use of the sky as a sink beyond the sustainable yield (Locke's proviso) allows some to privatize the economic rent/deriving an economic benefit which then shift costs in the form of negative externalities on society - a third party is being subject to a cost created by a transaction between a buyer and a seller...the way to address this is to require a title to use the sky as a sink beyond the sustainable yield and then capture the economic rent and rebate it directly to all of the owners of the sky sink commons rather than subjecting everyone to negative externalities.

this way the absolute property rights individuals have to their labor products (wages) are not being taxed by the negative externalities.

3. In order to determine the market value of your property or to show that the tax is too high Frank suggests that you should sell your property, "when land value is substantially taxed and the owner continues to hold the property, it is safe to assume that the land's utility to that person is either greater than or roughly equal to the market value...otherwise, he would sell it." So if you your family has lived in your home for several generations and suddenly your taxes go up Frank would recommend that you either sell your home or bend over and take it up the ass. I'm not a violent person but Frank sure makes my blood boil.

I've already given two different scenarios inwhich no one would be forced to sell.

but I'll make a deal with you - no one will be forced to sell if no tenant is orcefully evicted for not paying the economic rent portion of their lease payment...deal?

4. Economic rent would subsidize renters (those who do not own land) at the expense of the land owners.

today the landowners are taxing the wages of the landless with no good or service exchanged violating their right of self-ownership.

the opposite can not be said if the landowners pay the economic rent (unimproved land value) to the landless because no labor is expended by the landowner to reate it.

5. As was explained in the article I posted, fair assessments of property would be impractical if not simply impossible.

and as I said in my response - he makes the same error over and over confusing personal utility value for market value.

personal utility value is subjective while in the aggregate market value is objective.

[Ron Helwig]

5. As was explained in the article I posted, fair assessments of property would be impractical if not simply impossible.

I didn't buy the argument in that article. The fact that you can't determine a perfectly accurate and exact value doesn't mean that you can't determine a value that is close enough.

The fact is, his argument ignores the fact that these or very similar determinations are made all the time. Most of us landowners have recently received a property tax notice. Mine lists the assessed value of the land and the assessed value of the building. Apparently, somebody has determined a value that they consider sufficiently accurate. (The fact that these assessed values are significantly lower than the actual amounts I recently paid for these, separately I might add, seems fair to me  )

I still want to hear a moral justification for ownership of land in an anarchy. (and not "because I 'need' it to exist" - that one doesn't fly)

[Lex]

I still want to hear a moral justification for ownership of land in an anarchy. (and not "because I 'need' it to exist" - that one doesn't fly)

But the "I 'need' it." is the argument that the georgists use as well.

Basically just as the georgists claim that we all need land to live thus landowners must compensate the nonlandowners, I'm saying that you aren't really a landowner if you are in a system of government where you can be kicked off your land if you do not pay your dues.

It is a philosophical debate and I think one that cannot be proven either way so I resort to practicality. And to me property taxes sound like a bad idea and not very practical to implement fairly.

[FrankChodorov]

just as the georgists claim that we all need land to live thus landowners must compensate the nonlandowners

needing land to exist proves that there is no choice as to whether or not to purchase or rent.

the compensation is to preserve their right of self-ownership (absolute right to wages)

if the landless pays then they have no right of self-ownership because a right is not purchased or gifted - you are born with rights.

[tracysaboe]

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

Includes a spat between myselt and our resident socialist Billg(not-gates) currently known as FrankChodorov for all of History to see.

TRacy

[tracysaboe]

Neither is Mr. George, yet that hasn't stopped you.

I am making the case based on my own words, not his...

Since when

tRacy