right of self-ownership

[Lex]

#3 worries me. What if everyone in town excludes me from their land and I have no place to stand??? 

Did you get kicked out of the commons? You poor poor bastard.

[JonM]

Did you get kicked out of the commons? You poor poor bastard.

Everybody knows that "not having a place to stand" is a very serious problem. Frank's system does absolutely nothing to remedy it. 

In Frank's system you get paid money simply for existing.  That's the economic rent.  With that money you can go off and buy yourself some land so you can join the people excluding, but then you pay economic rent to everyone else.

[FrankChodorov]

So you concede that we cannot give everyone an 1/Nth piece of the earth yet you think that we can create an economic tax that will preserve self-ownership?

the general principle is that everything in the material universe that precedes human labor (the basis of property rights as the natural extension of self) is owned in common as an individual equal access opportunity right so long as use does not infringe on the equal access rights of any other individual to the same...

- land
- air
- water
- electro-mgnetic spectrum
- minerals
- oil

so I don't think we can "create a tax" the so-called "tax" or economic rent is naturally created as two or more people compete for access to scarce locations - this is part of natural law.

all we have a choice over is who gets the economic rent and who pays it and this has everything to do with whether or not a right to self-ownership is preserved for the landed (excluders to the commons) and not for landless (the exclued).

Why do you not think we can give everyone a 1/Nth piece of the earth? You just take the earth, divide it by the number of people on it and assign a lot to each person. Much simpler than all that stuff you are proposing with asessing property value, tax collecting, redistribution of economic rent, figuring out what to do with non-payers, etc.

and continually divide it up as people die and are born?
when the quality of it is highly variable?
when it is efficient for people to live in cities to trade?

[president]

Sorry that I don't keep you entertained as much as I used to but now that I'm in NH i'm trying to do things, go to events, etc. I also have a part time job now in addition to my full time job and I also volunteer at the Grafton fire department so my time online is limited. And I have a daughter who needs me.

Lex, you don't seem to be busy any more.

You should add "Debating with FrankChodorov" to your list of excuses 

[FrankChodorov]

I believe my right of self-ownership includes the right for an opportunity to survive, it does not include the right to survive.  If I am denied to chance to work for my survival, then I have been wronged.  Beyond that the world owes me nothing.

once again you're drawing a distinction between 3D space to occupy being somehow seperate from human existence.

they are not - they are one in the same...so a place to stand is not a "need" like food, clothing, shelter which is required for continued human existence and are all produced via human labor.

so I agree with you that once the right of self-ownership has been upheld by not being economically disadvantaged by the exclusive use of what is part of the natural commons that no man labors to create that we only have an opportunity right to attempt to survive by voluntary action (anything else would violate the right of self-ownership)...the world owes you nothing.

[FrankChodorov]

Everybody knows that "not having a place to stand" is a very serious problem. Frank's system does absolutely nothing to remedy it.

the best we can do is to make wherever anyone else chooses to exclusively locate no one will be economically harmed.

also, there would be no purchase price to land...

[FrankChodorov]

Did you get kicked out of the commons? You poor poor bastard.

Everybody knows that "not having a place to stand" is a very serious problem. Frank's system does absolutely nothing to remedy it. 

In Frank's system you get paid money simply for existing.  That's the economic rent.  With that money you can go off and buy yourself some land so you can join the people excluding, but then you pay economic rent to everyone else.

you get a share of the economic rent to compensate you for being kept from what you have a right to occupy in a perfect state of nature (the natural commons) and to preserve your absolute right to the fruits of your labor and thus to the absolute right of self-ownership itself...

[Lex]

You should add "Debating with FrankChodorov" to your list of excuses 

Excuses for what?

[Kat Kanning]

I wish to thank FrankC. for posting this in Endless debate and whining and not forcing me to move it there 

[FrankChodorov]

I wish to thank FrankC. for posting this in Endless debate and whining and not forcing me to move it there 

I can only afford the low rent district...

[Marcy]

Pardon me for happening in on this thread....

You could take every single human being on the Planet Earth, give them each their very own acre of land and fit them ALL into North America.  I'm not saying some wouldn't have to live in Florida swamps or in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, but there is enough land.   

As for self-ownership requiring one to be grounded on a bit of the planet, I thought the inalienable rights were life and liberty....you get to be alive (assuming you don't break a death-penalty law) and you get to go where you want to go (as long as you don't want to fly in a plane without ID).  You also can pursue happiness, and if standing in the square in front of the State House or any other public place for the rest of your life is your idea of fun, there's nothing says you can't do it.  Beyond that, there aren't too many guarantees.  In NYC, there are hordes of people who stay grounded on the planet without paying any rent or owning any land whatsoever.  Locals call them "homeless".

If anyone ever decides to divvy up North America and give everyone an acre, I'm taking Frank's.  Right now I live in a condo and I don't have any land.    (Just kidding, Frank).

[FrankChodorov]

You could take every single human being on the Planet Earth, give them each their very own acre of land and fit them ALL into North America.... there is enough land

hey we could do alot of things but in the case of land ownership it is already all legally occupied (although not physically)...so it is not a question of whether or not there is "enough land" but rather whether or not having to purchase or be gifted a place to stand violates our absolute right of self-ownership.

As for self-ownership requiring one to be grounded on a bit of the planet, I thought the inalienable rights were life and liberty....you get to be alive (assuming you don't break a death-penalty law) and you get to go where you want to go (as long as you don't want to fly in a plane without ID).

the concept of self-ownership is the fundamental tenet of libertarianism...

    "Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself." -- John Locke, 2nd Treatise of Government, Ch. 5

    "The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk 1, Ch. 10, Pt 2

    "The property rights that each citizen has in himself are the foundation of a free society." -- James Bovard, Freedom In Chains, p. 86

    "Libertarianism begins with self ownership." -- David Bergland, Libertarianism In One Lesson, p. 35

    "There is only one fundamental right (all others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action--which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life?Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life." -- Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, pp. 321-2

    "The right of life and liberty--that is to say, the right of the man to himself--is not really one right and the right of property another right.  They are two aspects of the same perception--the right of property being but another side, a differently stated expression, of the right of man to himself.  The right of life and liberty, and the right of the individual to himself, presupposes and involves the right of property, which is the exclusive right of the individual to the things his exertion has produced." -- Henry George, A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 210

You also can pursue happiness, and if standing in the square in front of the State House or any other public place for the rest of your life is your idea of fun, there's nothing says you can't do it.  Beyond that, there aren't too many guarantees.  In NYC, there are hordes of people who stay grounded on the planet without paying any rent or owning any land whatsoever.  Locals call them "homeless".

the homeless have no legal right to stand anywhere - it is being gifted by the state.

If anyone ever decides to divvy up North America and give everyone an acre, I'm taking Frank's.  Right now I live in a condo and I don't have any land.    (Just kidding, Frank).

are you sure you want my $10K/year property tax bill?

[tracysaboe]

Where the hell do you get this arbitrary $10,000/year tax bill from?

There are parts of NH the currently go for $500/acre if you purchase a big enough plot of it. $1,000 is more typically.

Even if you're right. And you think the landed should be forced to pay the apreciation value of the property to the unlanded, it wouldn't be near that much.

If you adjust for inflation $500/acre relaly isn't that much more then property was worth 100 years ago.

Go back to your communist collective wanabes in Vermont.

Tracy

[AlanM]

if one take as a basic premise that a right is universal to human beings and therefore does not need to be purchased (rent or bought) or gifted then the only question remaining as to whether the right of self-ownership includes a place to stand without having to pay or be gifted is whether or not a place to stand is a condition of human existence or one in the same as human existence (to be alive is to occupying 3D space touching the ground someplace).

and therefore.....
Conditions, again. One does not logically follow the other. It is merely a leap of faith.
A right exists. Period. No conditions. Self-ownership has nothing to do with your coveted place to stand, along with your attached conditions.

the salient question that you keep dodging Alan is whether or not occupying 3D space is a condition of self (human existence) or synonomous with self (one in the same).

How am I dodging? I have stated that we all take up space beginning with birth.
It is a condition of human existence, as we all take up space. I'm not sure what you mean by the difference between 'condition of self' and 'synonomous with self'

[AlanM]

If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there, does it make a noise?
As with all things, it depends upon careful definitions. What is noise? (for instance), or, more to the point, what is sound?