Fred Foldvary: dsyddall wrote that inevitable in practice but not necessitated by logic are the fundamental laws and constants of physics. But where would the law of gravitation (that two particles attract each other with forces directly proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them) come from it not from logic? This physical law could not operate in any other way, hence there is a logical necessity for this relationship betrween mass and distance. If mass is attracted to mass, there must be some inherent reason. Ultimately the universe is ruled by logic: eternal, deterministic, invisible yet real, never changing, present everywhere - the perfect god.
dsyddall wrote that inevitable in practice but not necessitated by logic are the fundamental laws and constants of physics. But where would the law of gravitation (that two particles attract each other with forces directly proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them) come from it not from logic? This physical law could not operate in any other way, hence there is a logical necessity for this relationship betrween mass and distance. If mass is attracted to mass, there must be some inherent reason. Ultimately the universe is ruled by logic: eternal, deterministic, invisible yet real, never changing, present everywhere - the perfect god.
@Fred, What you seem to be saying is that the law of gravity requires logic. I'm not saying that it doesn't. I'm saying that logic doesn't require the law of gravity (that the existence of gravity is not an a priori fact). For instance, we can conceive of a possible world where all existing natural laws apply, except that the gravitational constant is zero and therefore matter floats freely (or rather, constrained by forces other than gravity) . There's no logical contradiction in that (at least, there is no known scientific reason why the gravitational constant must be what it is), so logic by itself does not necessitate the existence of gravity.
Homesteading may not be the question but 'property' is. And I think I have an objective form of "property" except for the subjective assumption of equal freedom. But it is also a truism that unequal freedom is the state. So subjective as that assumption is, I think in this congress its a fair one. This particular point about equal and unequal freedom comes in my line up after the myth of absolute freedom is addressed. So I'll be happy to offer more support and address questions. But I would like at least some agreement that absolute freedom is not possible for the reasons expressed. So technically yes, there is no objective definition for property. However in the assumed (subjective) context of denying the state there is a tautological (objective) concept for property. The derived qualifiers can make it impractical, so more assumptions are needed but it does exist. The economic concerns of freedom, I believe we all agree, more freedom is better. So lets not bypass what freedom means. And then when that is agreed on, all the economic corralaries of subsidy will be more clear.
Autolykos: dsyddall:There are many examples of things that are inevitable in practice but are not necessitated by logic. The existence of the universe, the existence of consciousness, the fundamental laws and constants of physics, the actions of a stubborn person, etc. None of those are inevitable.
dsyddall:There are many examples of things that are inevitable in practice but are not necessitated by logic. The existence of the universe, the existence of consciousness, the fundamental laws and constants of physics, the actions of a stubborn person, etc.
None of those are inevitable.
You defy the laws of physics often then, do you?
Autolykos: Defeasible argumentation is certainly not logical argumentation, if one considers it to be a form of argumentation at all.
Defeasible argumentation is certainly not logical argumentation, if one considers it to be a form of argumentation at all.
Defeasible reasoning is not deductive reasoning but it certainly is logical reasoning. Do you believe that science is not logical? All scientific knowledge is defeasible, since as Chisholm argued, our sense perceptions provide only defeasible justification for believing something to be true about the physical world.
Autolykos: Anyway, I actually don't think that we own everything that we produce. For example, A may hire B to produce things for A that A then sells. I'd say that B never owns what he produces while working for A.
Anyway, I actually don't think that we own everything that we produce. For example, A may hire B to produce things for A that A then sells. I'd say that B never owns what he produces while working for A.
What right did B have to sell his work in advance to A if it was never his in the first place?
Autolykos: If you don't think production alone determines property, then what else do you think determines property?
If you don't think production alone determines property, then what else do you think determines property?
I only assert that production is sufficient to determine property. I do not assert that it is necessary (for now I suspend judgment on this, since it is not required for my argument), but I also do not assert that anything other than production is sufficient to guarantee property. I am willing to consider that there may be other determinants of property, but will only accept them if they are at least defeasibly warranted.
Autolykos: The point is to show that "highest bidder" is context-dependent and thus cannot be determined in advance (e.g. mathematically).
The point is to show that "highest bidder" is context-dependent and thus cannot be determined in advance (e.g. mathematically).
It is not necessary for the implementation of LVT that it be determined in advance.
Autolykos: How exactly can there be taxation in the absence of taxation? Are you now claiming that it's impossible for there to be no taxation whatsoever?
How exactly can there be taxation in the absence of taxation? Are you now claiming that it's impossible for there to be no taxation whatsoever?
I'm saying that, although the language of economics unfortunately makes it sound contradictory, the Georgist LVT 'system' is a system with no taxation, since it negates an actual tax, which is only nominally "no tax", on producers of economic surplus at the benefit of owners of economic land.
Autolykos: Ironically, you seem to be doing the very thing you're accusing me of doing, although it's not making the fallacy of composition. Rather, it's making the continuum fallacy. Furthermore, it's an obvious contradiction to equate a system that is not free from taxation, which a system with an LVT surely is, with a system that is free from taxation. Here I appeal to the law of excluded middle. I don't see why I'm committing the continuum fallacy. It's only an "obvious contradiction" if, as per the numerous statements I have already made, you are ignoring the fact that LVT is a tax in name only. Though nominally a tax, LVT is in fact the removal of a tax. Autolykos: dsyddall:I have not provided an example, I have given the reason why, in any particular example a landlord may choose a particular action over another action. You started off with "One reason is..." which implies that there's more than one reason. So the one reason you provided is an example among the set of multiple reasons. Otherwise you would've started off with something like "The reason is..." But you claimed that "Providing one example does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT", as if this were true merely by virtue of its being an example. Now you want to change this to "Providing one reason does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT", but that's a nonsense claim. If one reason will not suffice, how many will? You're demanding infinite evidence. Autolykos: dsyddall:Not necessarily. Consider the case where a landowner is not leasing his/her land at all. Is the highest bid zero because there are no bids and the landowner receives no income from its lease? Clearly not. Yes, in that case, the highest bid is zero. To claim otherwise is to claim that the notion of "highest bid" is not context-dependent. Perhaps "highest (financial) value" would better reflect what I'm getting at here, since it is not necessary for a bid to actually take place. Suppose there are n people who each value a piece of land at a different price xi (i.e., they are willing to bid that particular amount if a bid were to take place). Suppose the list of valuations is ordered such that x0 refers to the highest valuation and xn-1 refers to the lowest valuation and that Pxi refers to the person who values the piece of land at price xi. Supposing an auction was to take place and that the auction uses standard English auction rules, person Px0 would have the successful bid at a cost of x1. Now, what I'm asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0. | Post Points: 35
Autolykos: dsyddall:I have not provided an example, I have given the reason why, in any particular example a landlord may choose a particular action over another action. You started off with "One reason is..." which implies that there's more than one reason. So the one reason you provided is an example among the set of multiple reasons. Otherwise you would've started off with something like "The reason is..."
dsyddall:I have not provided an example, I have given the reason why, in any particular example a landlord may choose a particular action over another action.
You started off with "One reason is..." which implies that there's more than one reason. So the one reason you provided is an example among the set of multiple reasons. Otherwise you would've started off with something like "The reason is..."
But you claimed that "Providing one example does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT", as if this were true merely by virtue of its being an example. Now you want to change this to "Providing one reason does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT", but that's a nonsense claim. If one reason will not suffice, how many will? You're demanding infinite evidence.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Not necessarily. Consider the case where a landowner is not leasing his/her land at all. Is the highest bid zero because there are no bids and the landowner receives no income from its lease? Clearly not. Yes, in that case, the highest bid is zero. To claim otherwise is to claim that the notion of "highest bid" is not context-dependent. Perhaps "highest (financial) value" would better reflect what I'm getting at here, since it is not necessary for a bid to actually take place. Suppose there are n people who each value a piece of land at a different price xi (i.e., they are willing to bid that particular amount if a bid were to take place). Suppose the list of valuations is ordered such that x0 refers to the highest valuation and xn-1 refers to the lowest valuation and that Pxi refers to the person who values the piece of land at price xi. Supposing an auction was to take place and that the auction uses standard English auction rules, person Px0 would have the successful bid at a cost of x1. Now, what I'm asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0. | Post Points: 35
dsyddall:Not necessarily. Consider the case where a landowner is not leasing his/her land at all. Is the highest bid zero because there are no bids and the landowner receives no income from its lease? Clearly not.
Yes, in that case, the highest bid is zero. To claim otherwise is to claim that the notion of "highest bid" is not context-dependent.
dsyddall: Graham Wright: Econ Amateur: Would the allocation of rembrandts imporve the allocation if they were taxed at 80%.? Yes. @Fred, dsyddall, do you agree with this? I believe the following is the case: 1) The production of Rembrandts would not be affected (since production is already zero and cannot be lowered from there).
Graham Wright: Econ Amateur: Would the allocation of rembrandts imporve the allocation if they were taxed at 80%.? Yes. @Fred, dsyddall, do you agree with this?
Econ Amateur: Would the allocation of rembrandts imporve the allocation if they were taxed at 80%.? Yes.
Would the allocation of rembrandts imporve the allocation if they were taxed at 80%.? Yes.
@Fred, dsyddall,
do you agree with this?
I believe the following is the case:
1) The production of Rembrandts would not be affected (since production is already zero and cannot be lowered from there).
Obviously.
dsyddall:2) EA's stated effect would occur, i.e. Rembrandts would be held less by speculators and more by art appreciators. Does this mean that the allocation is improved? Perhaps, but that's a normative statement.
Does this mean that the allocation is improved? Perhaps, but that's a normative statement.
Not sure what you mean by that last part. I'm using the terms "better" and "worse" allocation in the same way you are, just like you explained to Autolykos.
I don't know why you only say "perhaps" here. How can you be so sure (certain?) that land being held less by speculators and more by "land appreciators" is a good thing in terms of land allocation, but not be sure of the same thing when it comes to Rembrandts, when your reason for believing the former (that supply is fixed) is undoubtedly true of the latter?
dsyddall:Supposing there was a positive basis for saying that allocation was improved, does this mean that I would support taxation of Rembrandts? No, because I believe that there is a moral distinction between taxing land and taxing a human work. You have a right to keep what you have produced, and taxing Rembrandts would violate this right.
Understood. That's why I didn't ask whether you support it, just about what effects you think it would have in terms of efficiency of allocation.
Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper
Law without Government
Jerry Payton:Let me continue the Georgist pile on and try and steer the conversation in what will hopefully be a more useful direction.... which is the one I think Graham had in mind when he invited us here.
Welcome Jerry, this post does move the conversation on, thank you.
Jerry Payton:1) Ground rent in Manhattan is around 1 million per acre per anum. That's a pretty hefty salary for landowners that aren't actually doing any allocating, and are in fact just lounging in the Hamptons or in Palm Beach, collecting rent. 2) I would consider this economic rent in the sense that if I were to hire someone to allocate my property for me, I would offer them more like 60 thousand a year -- and only If I owned enough property to keep them busy full time!
This isn't really an argument. You just seem bitter that some people receive more income than you for what you see as doing less than you. If taxing landowners out of envy is an argument for improving efficiency, it would presumably apply to any wealthy person. After all, all most of them do is hire people to make allocation decisions about their property for them. That's not "real work" is it? $1million/year is not a "just price" for anyone's effort, is it?
Jerry Payton:So you can think of it as grossly overpaying for the service of allocation. Instead of paying millions in subsidies to many landowners, we could be paying a very modest salary to a single employee, and the difference would be distributed as a dividend to "some relevant community," thereby greatly lowering the overall price structure of the economy.
It's good that you recognize that land allocation is an important, non-trivial task that must be performed by a human being (not by a goldfish, for example). I just have a few questions:
Who, exactly, decides which employee to hire for this task, the terms on which he is hired, and who has the power to fire him?
Since he is a mere employee, do you recognize that the allocation decisions he is making are at a lower level than the allocation decisions being made by his employer?
In other words, if the employee makes decisions about land usage, but the employer can decide which employee to hire and can fire him at any time, do you recognize that it is the employer who is still making the allocation decisions that count, i.e. the ultimate decisions?
(So even in your example, you would not be "hiring someone to make allocation decisions for you" in any sense more meaningful than when I hire a gardener to decide what plants to have in my garden. I remain the ultimate allocator because if I don't like what my gardener does, I can just fire him.)
Jerry Payton:As Dan Syddall mentioned earlier, LVT is a kind of misnomer as it's not a tax so much as an avoidance of subsidy.
I mentioned this in my first post. Alas, it didn't prevent the predictable semantic debate from occurring.
Jerry Payton:It can also be expressed as an embargo, a tariff, a boycott or a strike.
You blur the lines between coercive exchanges and non-coercive exchanges/actions with this sentence. A tariff is coercive; a boycott is not coercive, it is not even an exchange. The distinction between coercive and non-coercive exchanges is a crucial one to make for libertarians and geolibertarians alike, as well as other philosophies.
Jerry Payton:I don't argue for the state LVT (many of goergists don't) because the subsidies are now so large and the interests so vested that it just isn't a realistic possibilty anymore.
Can you explain more about this?
Jerry Payton:I prefer to think of it as a financial matter where you have two very distinct assett classes: one that tends to appreciate with no cost of production, and another that tends to depreciate, require maintenance and DOES have a cost of production. That's why they're assessed and appraised separately. You will have a very hard time getting a job and being successful in real estate or finance without understanding this. To me it is simply a task to communities to direct their own investments and gain more equity in the land values they themselves are creating. Can anyone show that this would NOT be a cost savings to the broader economy?
Can anyone show that this would NOT be a cost savings to the broader economy?
I believe I can, and my argument involves comparing how decisions about land usage are made in geolibertarianism vis-a-vis libertarianism, who is making them, what information they have available to them, and what incentives they face. Hence my questions to you above.
Jerry Payton:And just to echo what EconAm just pointed out, homesteading is really not the issue here and trying to find an objective definition of property rights is a waste of effort.
Do you reject Locke's principle entirely now, then? Am I wrong to characterize the ethical debate as being about whether the Proviso ought to be retained or ditched?
Jerry Payton:Nevermind that most homesteads were not actually homesteaded (at least here in America).
This is irrelevant because we're comparing two ideals here. How close historically we have come to each ideal makes no difference.
Jerry Payton:And these days all the land with any utility is already owned.
Nonsense. Unless you consider State's claims, their mere verbal decrees over vast tracts of open land, as legitimate ownership. Which none of us here do, because mere verbal claims are not a sufficient basis for legitimate ownership in libertarianism.
dsyddall:Suppose there are n people who each value a piece of land at a different price xi (i.e., they are willing to bid that particular amount if a bid were to take place). Suppose the list of valuations is ordered such that x0 refers to the highest valuation and xn-1 refers to the lowest valuation and that Pxi refers to the person who values the piece of land at price xi. Supposing an auction was to take place and that the auction uses standard English auction rules, person Px0 would have the successful bid at a cost of x1. Now, what I'm asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0.
Dan, we covered some of this on the other board, but for the benefit of everyone else can you explain more about this bidding process?
What is being bidded for, exactly, and who currently owns that thing? Who is the person who bangs the hammer down, i.e. who makes the final decision about whose bid is accepted and at what price? Who decides when an auction is to take place, how often does it happen, or what triggers it, etc? What are the consequences for the owners of the improvements on the land, and the users/possessors of the land, if a bid is successful (i.e. the thing being bidded for changes hands)?
Graham Wright: How can you be so sure (certain?) that land being held less by speculators and more by "land appreciators" is a good thing in terms of land allocation, but not be sure of the same thing when it comes to Rembrandts, when your reason for believing the former (that supply is fixed) is undoubtedly true of the latter?
How can you be so sure (certain?) that land being held less by speculators and more by "land appreciators" is a good thing in terms of land allocation, but not be sure of the same thing when it comes to Rembrandts, when your reason for believing the former (that supply is fixed) is undoubtedly true of the latter?
First of all, I'm saying that there are both normative and positive bases for taxing land. The normative basis is that it seems unfair that a select few individuals should be allowed to appropriate economic rent that they did not ultimately produce. Also, the moral claim to outright ownership of land is highly dubious unless supported by something like the Lockean proviso. The positive basis is that wealth that is currently being used to hold and acquire land would be made available for production the of capital.
To answer your question "why are you so sure in the case of land, but not in the case of Rembrandts?" you simply have to look at why these statements fail to transfer from land to Rembrandts. Perhaps if you think about it you will find other reasons why the analogy fails, but these are some of the reasons that come to mind as I'm writing.
Let's look at the normative basis first. First, is it unfair that Rembrandts are acquired by a select few investors in order to make a profit from them? Perhaps some people think so. Personally, I don't lose sleep over it. I need land to live and work on, otherwise I am a slave. But I have no need for a Rembrandt, and I'm no slave if I don't have one. Second, obviously, the question of morality does not apply to Rembrandts since, being originally created by Rembrandt, a non-dubious claim to ownership can be made.
Now let's look at the positive basis. Would taxing Rembrandts free up wealth to be made available for production of capital? I answer no for two reasons. First, Rembrandts do not produce anything. This means that the simple act of their being held "out of use" (whatever "use" might be) by speculators makes no difference to economic output, unlike the holding of land out of use. It also means that Rembrandts, unlike land, do not have an economic return. This makes them less attractive as an investment relative to land or capital (and therefore does not draw so aggressively from the pool of wealth available for investment). Second, Rembrandts are a minute proportion of the economy as a whole, and so, unlike land (which is anywhere between a tenth and half of the economy, depending on who you ask and where you are) its taxation will have no detectable effect on the wealth made available for production of capital.
dsyddall: Graham Wright: How can you be so sure (certain?) that land being held less by speculators and more by "land appreciators" is a good thing in terms of land allocation, but not be sure of the same thing when it comes to Rembrandts, when your reason for believing the former (that supply is fixed) is undoubtedly true of the latter? First of all, I'm saying that there are both normative and positive bases for taxing land.
First of all, I'm saying that there are both normative and positive bases for taxing land.
Yes, and you're right to separate those two because they deal with completely different disciplines: the normative is political philosophy, the positive is economics. I'm just going to respond to your economic (positive) arguments.
dsyddall:The positive basis is that wealth that is currently being used to hold and acquire land would be made available for production the of capital. ... Now let's look at the positive basis. Would taxing Rembrandts free up wealth to be made available for production of capital? I answer no for two reasons. First, Rembrandts do not produce anything.
...
Now let's look at the positive basis. Would taxing Rembrandts free up wealth to be made available for production of capital? I answer no for two reasons. First, Rembrandts do not produce anything.
Yes they do. Combined with a museum, they produce satisfaction for visitors. Even hanging on a wall in a mansion they are producing satisfaction for the people that get to enjoy them.
dsyddall:This means that the simple act of their being held "out of use" (whatever "use" might be) by speculators makes no difference to economic output,
Yes it does make a difference. If a speculator is hoarding Rembrandts in his basement, economic output is not the same as it would be if those paintings are on display in a museum for all to enjoy. One of these arrangements is better than the other: which is it?
dsyddall:It also means that Rembrandts, unlike land, do not have an economic return.
Yes they do. Museum owners pay Rembrandt owners for the use of them. That is their economic return.
dsyddall:This makes them less attractive as an investment relative to land or capital (and therefore does not draw so aggressively from the pool of wealth available for investment).
Are you implying Rembrandts are not a capital good? They surely are to many of their owners, and to the museums who display them.
dsyddall:Second, Rembrandts are a minute proportion of the economy as a whole, and so, unlike land (which is anywhere between a tenth and half of the economy, depending on who you ask and where you are) its taxation will have no detectable effect on the wealth made available for production of capital.
That's not an argument based on any principle.
Econ Amateur: ...... the notion of homestead is useless bunk. There is no principle that can take an event in the past between different people and then apply to people today. Freedom is a present tense condition. A key to any argument protecting privilege as somehow "fair" is to introduce an irrelevancy. And homestead is by that legerdemain a perfect example. Freedom and property are social concepts they exist solely in the social dimension, events like pulling swords from stones, planting flags, and ancient tilings are outside and irrelevant of that dimension. ........... "Homestead" like "rights" is a useless concept. A bogyman to confuse and conceal privilege. Georgists are not deploying a version, some modification, because there is nothing there. Its a fetish to an event that only has momentary relevence. Minus any principle not already independently derivable, its all rubbish. There is only that which is consistent with respect for freedom and that which is not. And since Austrian economics focuses on freedom the bulk is going to be perfectly applicable. What Austrians say about the state, and privilege, and subsidy, central planning, political (force based) distribution, is all true. Fine work!
...... the notion of homestead is useless bunk. There is no principle that can take an event in the past between different people and then apply to people today. Freedom is a present tense condition. A key to any argument protecting privilege as somehow "fair" is to introduce an irrelevancy. And homestead is by that legerdemain a perfect example. Freedom and property are social concepts they exist solely in the social dimension, events like pulling swords from stones, planting flags, and ancient tilings are outside and irrelevant of that dimension.
...........
"Homestead" like "rights" is a useless concept. A bogyman to confuse and conceal privilege. Georgists are not deploying a version, some modification, because there is nothing there. Its a fetish to an event that only has momentary relevence. Minus any principle not already independently derivable, its all rubbish. There is only that which is consistent with respect for freedom and that which is not. And since Austrian economics focuses on freedom the bulk is going to be perfectly applicable. What Austrians say about the state, and privilege, and subsidy, central planning, political (force based) distribution, is all true. Fine work!
I was agreeing with these sentiments. I'm agnostic about the rest. Though I definitely agree that you can't expect to fully escape the influence of others.
I prefer to focus on the economic arguments, as they are more concrete. Besides, the land has all been claimed, the lines have been drawn, rights established, and the game is already afoot. We're not likely to get a do-over.
What does Graham say about property rights? "inter-subjectively ascertainable?" Sounds kind of like the price mechanism to me.
@Graham, since it's ultimately not the economics of collectibles that we're interested in here (and we could always choose examples other than Rembrandts to which the positive basis is stronger), I will accept what you are saying. I already acknowledged the conceivability of a positive basis for its taxation when I said something along the lines of "Supposing that a positive basis could be made...". Nevertheless, as I said previously, on moral grounds I would not endorse its taxation.
Graham Wright: Jerry Payton:1) Ground rent in Manhattan is around 1 million per acre per anum. That's a pretty hefty salary for landowners that aren't actually doing any allocating, and are in fact just lounging in the Hamptons or in Palm Beach, collecting rent. 2) I would consider this economic rent in the sense that if I were to hire someone to allocate my property for me, I would offer them more like 60 thousand a year -- and only If I owned enough property to keep them busy full time! This isn't really an argument. You just seem bitter that some people receive more income than you for what you see as doing less than you. If taxing landowners out of envy is an argument for improving efficiency, it would presumably apply to any wealthy person. After all, all most of them do is hire people to make allocation decisions about their property for them. That's not "real work" is it? $1million/year is not a "just price" for anyone's effort, is it?
Let's drop the pretense about the terms and structure of formal logic. I'm not here to debate about that.
What is the labour market value of this allocation service minus the land title? The market says it's around $60,000 per year for FULL TIME allocation. You imply that 1 million is a "just price" for a single allocation?
The real deal is that skyscrapers in Manhattan built on leased ground typically carry 99 year leases. After drawing up the lease, or paying a lawyer to do it, the only annual decision made by the title holder is whether to raise the rent by the amount allowed in the lease or under New York City law, whichever is less. Since they can't be bothered to do it themselves, the landowner makes a phone call to their real estate lawyer once a year and the lawyer sends a letter to the tenant describing the rent due. The fee for that legal service might be $1000.
One phone call a year telling a lawyer to raise the rent garners the title holder just under a million a year. If there is such a thing as economic rent, I think we've just found it.
(if anyone has references to court cases where landowners have refused to renew the lease in an attempt to repossess the improvements, I would be interested to read about it)
Graham Wright: It's good that you recognize that land allocation is an important, non-trivial task that must be performed by a human being (not by a goldfish, for example). I just have a few questions: Who, exactly, decides which employee to hire for this task, the terms on which he is hired, and who has the power to fire him? Since he is a mere employee, do you recognize that the allocation decisions he is making are at a lower level than the allocation decisions being made by his employer? In other words, if the employee makes decisions about land usage, but the employer can decide which employee to hire and can fire him at any time, do you recognize that it is the employer who is still making the allocation decisions that count, i.e. the ultimate decisions? (So even in your example, you would not be "hiring someone to make allocation decisions for you" in any sense more meaningful than when I hire a gardener to decide what plants to have in my garden. I remain the ultimate allocator because if I don't like what my gardener does, I can just fire him.)
Yes, if goldfish could own land titles and make phone calls they would be swimming in money.
The title holder is deferring to the market to build the skyscraper and stock it with competent service providers. The allocation and all the value created therein is coming from the market and being taxed by the landholder at a rate of 1 million per acre per year.
Graham Wright: Jerry Payton:As Dan Syddall mentioned earlier, LVT is a kind of misnomer as it's not a tax so much as an avoidance of subsidy. I mentioned this in my first post. Alas, it didn't prevent the predictable semantic debate from occurring.
Well, good. We're just further qualifying the LVT in front of an audience that bristles at the idea taxes. But this point of view goes further......
Graham Wright: Jerry Payton:It can also be expressed as an embargo, a tariff, a boycott or a strike. You blur the lines between coercive exchanges and non-coercive exchanges/actions with this sentence. A tariff is coercive; a boycott is not coercive, it is not even an exchange. The distinction between coercive and non-coercive exchanges is a crucial one to make for libertarians and geolibertarians alike, as well as other philosophies.
A voluntary, self identifying trade group can impose tariffs. It's not exclusive to states, whose constituents may or may not be under coercion. Often cooperative merchantiles do not extend member pricing to non-members. That's a tariff.
Graham Wright: Jerry Payton:I don't argue for the state LVT (many of goergists don't) because the subsidies are now so large and the interests so vested that it just isn't a realistic possibilty anymore. Can you explain more about this?
Like yourself, Georgists tend to see the state as corrupt, unnecessary, harmful. I do think the state LVT would be a rational policy that would benefit me and most other people immensely, and I support it. However, I think a free market, corporate approach to implementing the LVT where investments are directed by communities into developing a better distribution of land equity is more likely to succeed. Similar to what the Rochdale cooperative has done in England.
Graham Wright: Jerry Payton:And just to echo what EconAm just pointed out, homesteading is really not the issue here and trying to find an objective definition of property rights is a waste of effort. Do you reject Locke's principle entirely now, then? Am I wrong to characterize the ethical debate as being about whether the Proviso ought to be retained or ditched?
I think the proviso is an excellent shorthand for pitching the state LVT to the public. But the distinction of asset classes in terms of investment potential is not really an ethical debate. It's just a matter of getting the public to recognize the value -- or starting companies that can package it and sell it to them.
Graham Wright: Jerry Payton:And these days all the land with any utility is already owned. Nonsense. Unless you consider State's claims, their mere verbal decrees over vast tracts of open land, as legitimate ownership. Which none of us here do, because mere verbal claims are not a sufficient basis for legitimate ownership in libertarianism.
I like those large tracts of open land! And I definitely respect the state's claims and usually try to avoid direct confrontations with authority. But if you're able to generate enough revenue, I think you'll find that everything is for sale.....
Just another silly attack on private property.
Is the sandwich you eat 'owned by the community'? If you don't have an individual right to monopolistic ownership of a sandwich, you will starve.
dsyddall: Graham Wright: How can you be so sure (certain?) that land being held less by speculators and more by "land appreciators" is a good thing in terms of land allocation, but not be sure of the same thing when it comes to Rembrandts, when your reason for believing the former (that supply is fixed) is undoubtedly true of the latter? ... I need land to live and work on, otherwise I am a slave. But I have no need for a Rembrandt, and I'm no slave if I don't have one.
Simple as that. Land is necessary for existence and thus has a broader appeal versus Rembrandts. Which is to say that when shareholder equity in land is properly valued, pure speculation becomes too expensive.
dsyddall:You defy the laws of physics often then, do you?
I haven't defied them so far. That doesn't mean I never will.
dsyddall:Defeasible reasoning is not deductive reasoning but it certainly is logical reasoning. Do you believe that science is not logical? All scientific knowledge is defeasible, since as Chisholm argued, our sense perceptions provide only defeasible justification for believing something to be true about the physical world.
Science is logical in the sense that its conclusions follow logically from the premises given. However, in science, the set of premises is forever open. Hence science uses (deductive) logic but is not the same thing as (deductive) logic.
I assumed it would be clear that by "logical argumentation" I was referring to deductive logic only. But even inductive of defeasible logic relies upon deduction to consistently derive conclusions from the current set of premises.
In other words, to say that a conclusion follows defeasibly from one or more premises simply means that the deduction of the conclusion from the premise(s) is sound, but the possibility remains for other, currently unknown, premises to exist that would render the deduction unsound.
dsyddall:What right did B have to sell his work in advance to A if it was never his in the first place?
I don't understand this question. Could you please clarify?
dsyddall:I only assert that production is sufficient to determine property. I do not assert that it is necessary (for now I suspend judgment on this, since it is not required for my argument), but I also do not assert that anything other than production is sufficient to guarantee property. I am willing to consider that there may be other determinants of property, but will only accept them if they are at least defeasibly warranted.
Okay, so in other words, you're saying that production implies property, but property does not imply production. However, production as a sufficient but not necessary determinant of property implies that one or more other determinants of property exist. Do you have any thoughts as to what they are?
dsyddall:It is not necessary for the implementation of LVT that it be determined in advance.
That's not my point. My point is that it's impossible to prove that presence of LVT encourages allocation of land to the highest bidder over its absence.
dsyddall:I'm saying that, although the language of economics unfortunately makes it sound contradictory, the Georgist LVT 'system' is a system with no taxation, since it negates an actual tax, which is only nominally "no tax", on producers of economic surplus at the benefit of owners of economic land.
Okay, at this point, I have no idea what definition you're actually using for "tax".
dsyddall:I don't see why I'm committing the continuum fallacy. It's only an "obvious contradiction" if, as per the numerous statements I have already made, you are ignoring the fact that LVT is a tax in name only. Though nominally a tax, LVT is in fact the removal of a tax.
See above.
dsyddall:But you claimed that "Providing one example does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT", as if this were true merely by virtue of its being an example. Now you want to change this to "Providing one reason does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT", but that's a nonsense claim. If one reason will not suffice, how many will? You're demanding infinite evidence.
One reason among multiple is an example reason, isn't it? I'm not demanding any evidence at all - I'm demanding proof.
dsyddall:Perhaps "highest (financial) value" would better reflect what I'm getting at here, since it is not necessary for a bid to actually take place.
How do you expect "highest (financial) value" to be determined in the absence of anyone bidding (either because no one wants to bid or because the "land" in question isn't up for bid)?
Now, what I'm asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0.
In that last sentence, do you mean x0 instead of x1? Your assertion doesn't make sense otherwise, so I'll assume you'll answer my question affirmatively. My response then is, so what? What difference does it make that there are people willing to buy "land" at a given price, but the "land" isn't for sale? Indeed, wouldn't the fact that the "land" isn't for sale suggest that the owner of the "land" considers its value (to him) to be above any and all would-be bidders?
If I own "land", and you come to me and offer to buy my "land" for $1 million, and I refuse, that means I prefer owning the "land" to owning the $1 million, doesn't it? So the "land" is apparently already allocated to the person who considers it the most valuable - me.
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Voluntaryism Forum
Autolykos: dsyddall:You defy the laws of physics often then, do you? I haven't defied them so far. That doesn't mean I never will.
You are quite an optimist!
Autolykos: dsyddall:What right did B have to sell his work in advance to A if it was never his in the first place? I don't understand this question. Could you please clarify?
Well, presumably, A's right to sell his work to B derives from the fact that he is the legitimate owner of his work. If he is selling something that legitimately belongs to somebody else, or already belongs to the person to whom it is being sold, isn't that fraudulent?
Autolykos: Okay, so in other words, you're saying that production implies property, but property does not imply production. However, production as a sufficient but not necessary determinant of property implies that one or more other determinants of property exist. Do you have any thoughts as to what they are?
That's indeed what I'm saying. Another form of property besides that which I have created might be the right to prevent others from accessing my body.
Autolykos:That's not my point. My point is that it's impossible to prove that presence of LVT encourages allocation of land to the highest bidder over its absence.
Yes, it can't be deductively proved that LVT will improve allocation in any given instance, since it's always possible that in that instance the land is already allocated to the highest bidder - but that's not what I'm saying. My point is that since the holding costs of land are so low, and the rewards so high (regardless of who the land is leased to, since the greater part of the return is through asset price rises), it makes sense to own land even if you aren't going allocate it to the highest bidder. During "boom" years, even poorly allocated (or even unallocated) land can be much more profitable than the same investment in capital goods.
Autolykos:Okay, at this point, I have no idea what definition you're actually using for "tax".
A tax is an extra-economic obligation. That is, an obligation that results from privilege or coercion rather than the voluntary activity of the market.
Autolykos:One reason among multiple is an example reason, isn't it? I'm not demanding any evidence at all - I'm demanding proof.
If you don't think the reason is a good reason, then provide a rebuttal. So far all you are doing is asking for more reasons.
Autolykos: How do you expect "highest (financial) value" to be determined in the absence of anyone bidding (either because no one wants to bid or because the "land" in question isn't up for bid)?
I don't need to determine the highest value in order to make the claim that LVT encourages land to go to the highest bidder.
Autolykos: Autolykos: dsyddall: Suppose there are n people who each value a piece of land at a different price xi (i.e., they are willing to bid that particular amount if a bid were to take place). Suppose the list of valuations is ordered such that x0 refers to the highest valuation and xn-1 refers to the lowest valuation and that Pxi refers to the person who values the piece of land at price xi. Supposing an auction was to take place and that the auction uses standard English auction rules, person Px0 would have the successful bid at a cost of x1. Now, what I'm asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0. In that last sentence, do you mean x0 instead of x1? Your assertion doesn't make sense otherwise, so I'll assume you'll answer my question affirmatively.
Autolykos: dsyddall: Suppose there are n people who each value a piece of land at a different price xi (i.e., they are willing to bid that particular amount if a bid were to take place). Suppose the list of valuations is ordered such that x0 refers to the highest valuation and xn-1 refers to the lowest valuation and that Pxi refers to the person who values the piece of land at price xi. Supposing an auction was to take place and that the auction uses standard English auction rules, person Px0 would have the successful bid at a cost of x1. Now, what I'm asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0. In that last sentence, do you mean x0 instead of x1? Your assertion doesn't make sense otherwise, so I'll assume you'll answer my question affirmatively.
dsyddall: Suppose there are n people who each value a piece of land at a different price xi (i.e., they are willing to bid that particular amount if a bid were to take place). Suppose the list of valuations is ordered such that x0 refers to the highest valuation and xn-1 refers to the lowest valuation and that Pxi refers to the person who values the piece of land at price xi. Supposing an auction was to take place and that the auction uses standard English auction rules, person Px0 would have the successful bid at a cost of x1. Now, what I'm asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0.
In that last sentence, do you mean x0 instead of x1? Your assertion doesn't make sense otherwise, so I'll assume you'll answer my question affirmatively.
I mean x1, since under standard competitive open bidding rules, the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. Think about the way eBay works - you can enter any amount as your highest bid, but you'll only pay what the second highest bidder bids.
Autolykos:What difference does it make that there are people willing to buy "land" at a given price, but the "land" isn't for sale?
The difference it makes is that the difference between the highest bid and the current bid, if positive, represents a loss of production to the economy as a whole.
Autolykos:Indeed, wouldn't the fact that the "land" isn't for sale suggest that the owner of the "land" considers its value (to him) to be above any and all would-be bidders?
Yes, but since the value he assigns is an imputed cost, he can assign any value he likes to it, even if it is not necessarily representative of the value he would assign if he actually bore the cost of his decision. In other words, while the economic cost of his action may be high, the accounting cost may be low.
Autolykos:If I own "land", and you come to me and offer to buy my "land" for $1 million, and I refuse, that means I prefer owning the "land" to owning the $1 million, doesn't it? So the "land" is apparently already allocated to the person who considers it the most valuable - me.
dsyddall: @Graham, since it's ultimately not the economics of collectibles that we're interested in here (and we could always choose examples other than Rembrandts to which the positive basis is stronger), I will accept what you are saying. I already acknowledged the conceivability of a positive basis for its taxation when I said something along the lines of "Supposing that a positive basis could be made...". Nevertheless, as I said previously, on moral grounds I would not endorse its taxation.
I am not sure you got my point. You said on page 1 that LVT (i.e. recapturing 80-90% of the geo-rent) "doesn't distort prices" and "encourages land owners to put land to the best possible use". The obvious question is what's so special about land... why wouldn't a "Labor Value Tax" or a "Tractor Value Tax" have the same beneficial effects? The response was that land is special because "the quantity available is fixed". So I brought up another example of something for which that is true: Rembrandts. To be consistent, then, you would have to say that recapturing 80% of the Rembrandt-rent "doesn't distort prices" and "encourages Rembrandt owner to put the paintings to best possible use", because the economic argument is the same as that for LVT.
The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use, and that it would actually worsen allocation. I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive. I expected you to explain that some other attribute of land (NOT that "supply is fixed") is the crucial thing that's special about land, hence why LVT would be good, but RVT would be bad, in terms of economic consequences, even though "supply is fixed" applies to both.
Instead you seem to be saying that a RVT could have good economic consequences, and you hint there are many other examples of taxes that you reject for ethical reasons but admit could have good economic consequences. This is surprising to me because it suggests there is a significant disconnect between the system implied by your ethical values and the system you expect to have the best economic consequences. You choose not to support RVT for ethical reasons, even though you would expect it to have good consequences.
If I were to convince you that a RVT would be economically destructive, would you then concede that LVT would be economically destructive? (You may still support it for ethical reasons, of course, regardless of this concession).
dsyddall:You are quite an optimist!
Optimism has nothing to do with it. The future is inherently uncertain. I can assume that I'll never defy the laws of physics, but that in no way is the same as knowing that I never will.
dsyddall:Well, presumably, A's right to sell his work to B derives from the fact that he is the legitimate owner of his work. If he is selling something that legitimately belongs to somebody else, or already belongs to the person to whom it is being sold, isn't that fraudulent?
I'm sorry but I still don't understand. Here's how I understand the situation: A owns raw materials which B is hired to rearrange per A's instructions. A pays B for the rearrangement. B does not own the raw materials, and I don't consider him to gain any share of ownership in their rearranged form simply because he, not A, was the one who rearranged them.
dsyddall:That's indeed what I'm saying. Another form of property besides that which I have created might be the right to prevent others from accessing my body.
"Might be"? Either you think it is or you think it isn't. Which is it? If you think it is, then what would you say determines property in one's own body?
On the other hand, since people are naturally produced, doesn't that mean Georgists must consider people to be a form of "(economic) land"?
dsyddall:Yes, it can't be deductively proved that LVT will improve allocation in any given instance, since it's always possible that in that instance the land is already allocated to the highest bidder - but that's not what I'm saying. My point is that since the holding costs of land are so low, and the rewards so high (regardless of who the land is leased to, since the greater part of the return is through asset price rises), it makes sense to own land even if you aren't going allocate it to the highest bidder. During "boom" years, even poorly allocated (or even unallocated) land can be much more profitable than the same investment in capital goods.
How do you know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low"? How do you know that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high"? And again, if someone who owns "land" decides not to lease it to anyone else, doesn't that make him effectively the highest bidder?
dsyddall:A tax is I'm defining "tax" as an extra-economic obligation. That is, an obligation that results from privilege or coercion rather than the voluntary activity of the market.
In that case (i.e. under that definition of "tax"), tax is a universal aspect of property, as all property involves both privilege (ownership is by definition a privilege for the owner) and coercion (e.g. using force against a would-be thief).
dsyddall:If you don't think the reason is a good reason, then provide a rebuttal. So far all you are doing is asking for more reasons.
That's a red herring. I said earlier that I fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Providing "one reason" implies that more than one reason exists. So providing only one of those multiple reasons does not provide a sufficient explanation for the necessity of "land" not being encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Yes, I'm asking for more reasons, because I still fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT.
dsyddall:I don't need to determine the highest value in order to make the claim that LVT encourages land to go to the highest bidder.
No, you don't need to do that in order to make the claim - in the sense of typing out the claim and posting it in this forum. But as far as I'm concerned, that claim means nothing if you can't show how LVT encourages "land" to go to the highest bidder.
dsyddall:I mean x1, since under standard competitive open bidding rules, the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. Think about the way eBay works - you can enter any amount as your highest bid, but you'll only pay what the second highest bidder bids.
I see. This entire time, I've assumed you meant "bidding" in the sense of an auction, where the highest bid - not the second-highest bid - wins. But how is the second-highest bid the same thing as the highest bid?
dsyddall:The difference it makes is that the difference between the highest bid and the current bid, if positive, represents a loss of production to the economy as a whole.
How can it be positive? How can you even know whether it's positive?
dsyddall:Yes, but since the value he assigns is an imputed cost, he can assign any value he likes to it, even if it is not necessarily representative of the value he would assign if he actually bore the cost of his decision. In other words, while the economic cost of his action may be high, the accounting cost may be low.
How is he not bearing the cost of his decision?
dsyddall:Correct. Let's suppose that you value the land at $2 million and I value it at $1 million, and that apart from yourself I have the highest bid. Under an open bid LVT (which would be my preferred implementation), the site would be assigned the taxable value of $1 million.
Why should you or anyone else be entitled to get anything from what I own? The "land" has already been allocated to the highest bidder (me). You agree with this. So now you're apparently changing your meaning of "highest bidder" to be "second-highest bidder". In other words, Georgists consider people who own "land" to owe a subsidy to people who don't own "land", because... they say so? Or is it because the people who don't own "land" presumably can't afford it? But why is that necessarily my problem, as an owner of "land"?
Autolykos: Here's how I understand the situation: A owns raw materials which B is hired to rearrange per A's instructions. A pays B for the rearrangement. B does not own the raw materials, and I don't consider him to gain any share of ownership in their rearranged form simply because he, not A, was the one who rearranged them.
Here's how I understand the situation: A owns raw materials which B is hired to rearrange per A's instructions. A pays B for the rearrangement. B does not own the raw materials, and I don't consider him to gain any share of ownership in their rearranged form simply because he, not A, was the one who rearranged them.
B is selling the service of rearrangement, produced by his labor, to A. What right does he have to do this if he does not own the products of his labor?
Autolykos: "Might be"? Either you think it is or you think it isn't. Which is it? If you think it is, then what would you say determines property in one's own body? Well I don't think that other people have the right to interfere with my body. That means it's acceptable for me to use force against someone who attempts to do that. If you consider this to be ownership, then I own my body. (By this I don't mean to insinuate that your definition of ownership is at fault, only to recognise that we have not, so far as I'm aware, agreed on a definition of ownership.) Autolykos: On the other hand, since people are naturally produced, doesn't that mean Georgists must consider people to be a form of "(economic) land"? Humans are the subject not the object of economics. Autolykos: How do you know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low"? How do you know that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high"? Because one can "homestead" land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren't dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration. Autolykos: In that case (i.e. under that definition of "tax"), tax is a universal aspect of property, as all property involves both privilege (ownership is by definition a privilege for the owner) and coercion (e.g. using force against a would-be thief). In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of "privilege" and "coercion" used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se. Autolykos: That's a red herring. I said earlier that I fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Providing "one reason" implies that more than one reason exists. So providing only one of those multiple reasons does not provide a sufficient explanation for the necessity of "land" not being encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Yes, I'm asking for more reasons, because I still fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. No. The fact that there are multiple reasons for something doesn't imply that no single reason can be a sufficient reason, or that all reasons together are necessary to prove sufficiency. For instance, it might be necessary for me to leave my house because I have to go to work. It might also be necessary because I need to purchase food, which I will do on the way to work. Either reason alone is sufficient to prove the necessity of my leaving the house. Autolykos: dsyddall:I don't need to determine the highest value in order to make the claim that LVT encourages land to go to the highest bidder. No, you don't need to do that in order to make the claim - in the sense of typing out the claim and posting it in this forum. But as far as I'm concerned, that claim means nothing if you can't show how LVT encourages "land" to go to the highest bidder. Then what are you claiming requires further support? I have already given my argument. Before we can proceed, you must either accept the argument or find the flaw. If the above is not the flaw, then what is? Autolykos: dsyddall:I mean x1, since under standard competitive open bidding rules, the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. Think about the way eBay works - you can enter any amount as your highest bid, but you'll only pay what the second highest bidder bids. I see. This entire time, I've assumed you meant "bidding" in the sense of an auction, where the highest bid - not the second-highest bid - wins. But how is the second-highest bid the same thing as the highest bid? The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Autolykos: dsyddall:The difference it makes is that the difference between the highest bid and the current bid, if positive, represents a loss of production to the economy as a whole. How can it be positive? How can you even know whether it's positive? Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, but since the value he assigns is an imputed cost, he can assign any value he likes to it, even if it is not necessarily representative of the value he would assign if he actually bore the cost of his decision. In other words, while the economic cost of his action may be high, the accounting cost may be low. How is he not bearing the cost of his decision? See above in the example of the person who homesteads marginal land. There is no initial investment (apart from whatever "labor mixing" we decide is necessary for homesteading, which isn't well-defined), and no holding cost (since the landowner can then walk away and forget about the land), and possibly no cost to reclaim the land when he returns if others have respected his homesteading. So there is virtually no accounting cost. Yet what costs him nothing (i.e., holding land out of use) is costing the economy as a whole much (whatever would have been produced if the land had not been held out of use). Others, who would have used the land or benefitted from trading with those who would have used the land, end up paying the cost instead. Therefore he is not bearing the true economic cost of his decision. Autolykos: Why should you or anyone else be entitled to get anything from what I own? Well, the point of this discussion is to determine, hopefully, whether or not that (unconditional) ownership (of economic land) is legitimate. To assert it at this stage is circular. Autolykos: The "land" has already been allocated to the highest bidder (me). You agree with this. So now you're apparently changing your meaning of "highest bidder" to be "second-highest bidder". No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. Autolykos: In other words, Georgists consider people who own "land" to owe a subsidy to people who don't own "land", because... they say so? You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. Autolykos: Or is it because the people who don't own "land" presumably can't afford it? But why is that necessarily my problem, as an owner of "land"? Suppose this question was taken to its logical extreme and that one person owned the entire planet. Now, suppose this owner of land started to impose certain conditions to any prospective tenants. You are of course free to leave, but if you decide to stay, you will be required to pay 40% of your income yearly. In addition, you will have to apply for a license to work and you must carry identification at all times. There will be no smoking or drinking, and you are not permitted more than two children. Security issues can be a problem, with many cases of aggravated trespass, so naturally you will be required to serve at least two years in the Global Security Force. Breakfast is served at 5AM every day (you may choose porridge or muesli), lunch at noon (potatoes) and dinner at 6PM (bread), but all other trade in food is highly restricted. You will undergo regular fitness checks and if it is decided that you are not of a suitable fitness then your tenancy contract may be terminated subject to a one month notice, at which time you must find an alternative place of residence to Earth. If you fail to find an alternative place of residence then you will be considered an aggravated trespasser and will be suitably disposed of by the Global Security Force. Sounds like an anarchist utopia, right? This is not your problem as an owner of land. It's your problem as someone who claims to be anti-state. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: On the other hand, since people are naturally produced, doesn't that mean Georgists must consider people to be a form of "(economic) land"? Humans are the subject not the object of economics. Autolykos: How do you know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low"? How do you know that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high"? Because one can "homestead" land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren't dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration. Autolykos: In that case (i.e. under that definition of "tax"), tax is a universal aspect of property, as all property involves both privilege (ownership is by definition a privilege for the owner) and coercion (e.g. using force against a would-be thief). In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of "privilege" and "coercion" used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se. Autolykos: That's a red herring. I said earlier that I fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Providing "one reason" implies that more than one reason exists. So providing only one of those multiple reasons does not provide a sufficient explanation for the necessity of "land" not being encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Yes, I'm asking for more reasons, because I still fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. No. The fact that there are multiple reasons for something doesn't imply that no single reason can be a sufficient reason, or that all reasons together are necessary to prove sufficiency. For instance, it might be necessary for me to leave my house because I have to go to work. It might also be necessary because I need to purchase food, which I will do on the way to work. Either reason alone is sufficient to prove the necessity of my leaving the house. Autolykos: dsyddall:I don't need to determine the highest value in order to make the claim that LVT encourages land to go to the highest bidder. No, you don't need to do that in order to make the claim - in the sense of typing out the claim and posting it in this forum. But as far as I'm concerned, that claim means nothing if you can't show how LVT encourages "land" to go to the highest bidder. Then what are you claiming requires further support? I have already given my argument. Before we can proceed, you must either accept the argument or find the flaw. If the above is not the flaw, then what is? Autolykos: dsyddall:I mean x1, since under standard competitive open bidding rules, the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. Think about the way eBay works - you can enter any amount as your highest bid, but you'll only pay what the second highest bidder bids. I see. This entire time, I've assumed you meant "bidding" in the sense of an auction, where the highest bid - not the second-highest bid - wins. But how is the second-highest bid the same thing as the highest bid? The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Autolykos: dsyddall:The difference it makes is that the difference between the highest bid and the current bid, if positive, represents a loss of production to the economy as a whole. How can it be positive? How can you even know whether it's positive? Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, but since the value he assigns is an imputed cost, he can assign any value he likes to it, even if it is not necessarily representative of the value he would assign if he actually bore the cost of his decision. In other words, while the economic cost of his action may be high, the accounting cost may be low. How is he not bearing the cost of his decision? See above in the example of the person who homesteads marginal land. There is no initial investment (apart from whatever "labor mixing" we decide is necessary for homesteading, which isn't well-defined), and no holding cost (since the landowner can then walk away and forget about the land), and possibly no cost to reclaim the land when he returns if others have respected his homesteading. So there is virtually no accounting cost. Yet what costs him nothing (i.e., holding land out of use) is costing the economy as a whole much (whatever would have been produced if the land had not been held out of use). Others, who would have used the land or benefitted from trading with those who would have used the land, end up paying the cost instead. Therefore he is not bearing the true economic cost of his decision. Autolykos: Why should you or anyone else be entitled to get anything from what I own? Well, the point of this discussion is to determine, hopefully, whether or not that (unconditional) ownership (of economic land) is legitimate. To assert it at this stage is circular. Autolykos: The "land" has already been allocated to the highest bidder (me). You agree with this. So now you're apparently changing your meaning of "highest bidder" to be "second-highest bidder". No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. Autolykos: In other words, Georgists consider people who own "land" to owe a subsidy to people who don't own "land", because... they say so? You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. Autolykos: Or is it because the people who don't own "land" presumably can't afford it? But why is that necessarily my problem, as an owner of "land"? Suppose this question was taken to its logical extreme and that one person owned the entire planet. Now, suppose this owner of land started to impose certain conditions to any prospective tenants. You are of course free to leave, but if you decide to stay, you will be required to pay 40% of your income yearly. In addition, you will have to apply for a license to work and you must carry identification at all times. There will be no smoking or drinking, and you are not permitted more than two children. Security issues can be a problem, with many cases of aggravated trespass, so naturally you will be required to serve at least two years in the Global Security Force. Breakfast is served at 5AM every day (you may choose porridge or muesli), lunch at noon (potatoes) and dinner at 6PM (bread), but all other trade in food is highly restricted. You will undergo regular fitness checks and if it is decided that you are not of a suitable fitness then your tenancy contract may be terminated subject to a one month notice, at which time you must find an alternative place of residence to Earth. If you fail to find an alternative place of residence then you will be considered an aggravated trespasser and will be suitably disposed of by the Global Security Force. Sounds like an anarchist utopia, right? This is not your problem as an owner of land. It's your problem as someone who claims to be anti-state. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: How do you know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low"? How do you know that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high"?
How do you know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low"? How do you know that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high"?
Because one can "homestead" land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren't dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration.
Autolykos: In that case (i.e. under that definition of "tax"), tax is a universal aspect of property, as all property involves both privilege (ownership is by definition a privilege for the owner) and coercion (e.g. using force against a would-be thief). In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of "privilege" and "coercion" used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se. Autolykos: That's a red herring. I said earlier that I fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Providing "one reason" implies that more than one reason exists. So providing only one of those multiple reasons does not provide a sufficient explanation for the necessity of "land" not being encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Yes, I'm asking for more reasons, because I still fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. No. The fact that there are multiple reasons for something doesn't imply that no single reason can be a sufficient reason, or that all reasons together are necessary to prove sufficiency. For instance, it might be necessary for me to leave my house because I have to go to work. It might also be necessary because I need to purchase food, which I will do on the way to work. Either reason alone is sufficient to prove the necessity of my leaving the house. Autolykos: dsyddall:I don't need to determine the highest value in order to make the claim that LVT encourages land to go to the highest bidder. No, you don't need to do that in order to make the claim - in the sense of typing out the claim and posting it in this forum. But as far as I'm concerned, that claim means nothing if you can't show how LVT encourages "land" to go to the highest bidder. Then what are you claiming requires further support? I have already given my argument. Before we can proceed, you must either accept the argument or find the flaw. If the above is not the flaw, then what is? Autolykos: dsyddall:I mean x1, since under standard competitive open bidding rules, the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. Think about the way eBay works - you can enter any amount as your highest bid, but you'll only pay what the second highest bidder bids. I see. This entire time, I've assumed you meant "bidding" in the sense of an auction, where the highest bid - not the second-highest bid - wins. But how is the second-highest bid the same thing as the highest bid? The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Autolykos: dsyddall:The difference it makes is that the difference between the highest bid and the current bid, if positive, represents a loss of production to the economy as a whole. How can it be positive? How can you even know whether it's positive? Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, but since the value he assigns is an imputed cost, he can assign any value he likes to it, even if it is not necessarily representative of the value he would assign if he actually bore the cost of his decision. In other words, while the economic cost of his action may be high, the accounting cost may be low. How is he not bearing the cost of his decision? See above in the example of the person who homesteads marginal land. There is no initial investment (apart from whatever "labor mixing" we decide is necessary for homesteading, which isn't well-defined), and no holding cost (since the landowner can then walk away and forget about the land), and possibly no cost to reclaim the land when he returns if others have respected his homesteading. So there is virtually no accounting cost. Yet what costs him nothing (i.e., holding land out of use) is costing the economy as a whole much (whatever would have been produced if the land had not been held out of use). Others, who would have used the land or benefitted from trading with those who would have used the land, end up paying the cost instead. Therefore he is not bearing the true economic cost of his decision. Autolykos: Why should you or anyone else be entitled to get anything from what I own? Well, the point of this discussion is to determine, hopefully, whether or not that (unconditional) ownership (of economic land) is legitimate. To assert it at this stage is circular. Autolykos: The "land" has already been allocated to the highest bidder (me). You agree with this. So now you're apparently changing your meaning of "highest bidder" to be "second-highest bidder". No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. Autolykos: In other words, Georgists consider people who own "land" to owe a subsidy to people who don't own "land", because... they say so? You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. Autolykos: Or is it because the people who don't own "land" presumably can't afford it? But why is that necessarily my problem, as an owner of "land"? Suppose this question was taken to its logical extreme and that one person owned the entire planet. Now, suppose this owner of land started to impose certain conditions to any prospective tenants. You are of course free to leave, but if you decide to stay, you will be required to pay 40% of your income yearly. In addition, you will have to apply for a license to work and you must carry identification at all times. There will be no smoking or drinking, and you are not permitted more than two children. Security issues can be a problem, with many cases of aggravated trespass, so naturally you will be required to serve at least two years in the Global Security Force. Breakfast is served at 5AM every day (you may choose porridge or muesli), lunch at noon (potatoes) and dinner at 6PM (bread), but all other trade in food is highly restricted. You will undergo regular fitness checks and if it is decided that you are not of a suitable fitness then your tenancy contract may be terminated subject to a one month notice, at which time you must find an alternative place of residence to Earth. If you fail to find an alternative place of residence then you will be considered an aggravated trespasser and will be suitably disposed of by the Global Security Force. Sounds like an anarchist utopia, right? This is not your problem as an owner of land. It's your problem as someone who claims to be anti-state. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: That's a red herring. I said earlier that I fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Providing "one reason" implies that more than one reason exists. So providing only one of those multiple reasons does not provide a sufficient explanation for the necessity of "land" not being encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Yes, I'm asking for more reasons, because I still fail to see how "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT.
No. The fact that there are multiple reasons for something doesn't imply that no single reason can be a sufficient reason, or that all reasons together are necessary to prove sufficiency. For instance, it might be necessary for me to leave my house because I have to go to work. It might also be necessary because I need to purchase food, which I will do on the way to work. Either reason alone is sufficient to prove the necessity of my leaving the house.
Autolykos: dsyddall:I don't need to determine the highest value in order to make the claim that LVT encourages land to go to the highest bidder. No, you don't need to do that in order to make the claim - in the sense of typing out the claim and posting it in this forum. But as far as I'm concerned, that claim means nothing if you can't show how LVT encourages "land" to go to the highest bidder.
Then what are you claiming requires further support? I have already given my argument. Before we can proceed, you must either accept the argument or find the flaw. If the above is not the flaw, then what is?
Autolykos: dsyddall:I mean x1, since under standard competitive open bidding rules, the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. Think about the way eBay works - you can enter any amount as your highest bid, but you'll only pay what the second highest bidder bids. I see. This entire time, I've assumed you meant "bidding" in the sense of an auction, where the highest bid - not the second-highest bid - wins. But how is the second-highest bid the same thing as the highest bid?
The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works.
Autolykos: dsyddall:The difference it makes is that the difference between the highest bid and the current bid, if positive, represents a loss of production to the economy as a whole. How can it be positive? How can you even know whether it's positive?
Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder.
If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, but since the value he assigns is an imputed cost, he can assign any value he likes to it, even if it is not necessarily representative of the value he would assign if he actually bore the cost of his decision. In other words, while the economic cost of his action may be high, the accounting cost may be low. How is he not bearing the cost of his decision?
See above in the example of the person who homesteads marginal land. There is no initial investment (apart from whatever "labor mixing" we decide is necessary for homesteading, which isn't well-defined), and no holding cost (since the landowner can then walk away and forget about the land), and possibly no cost to reclaim the land when he returns if others have respected his homesteading. So there is virtually no accounting cost. Yet what costs him nothing (i.e., holding land out of use) is costing the economy as a whole much (whatever would have been produced if the land had not been held out of use). Others, who would have used the land or benefitted from trading with those who would have used the land, end up paying the cost instead. Therefore he is not bearing the true economic cost of his decision.
Autolykos: Why should you or anyone else be entitled to get anything from what I own?
Why should you or anyone else be entitled to get anything from what I own?
Well, the point of this discussion is to determine, hopefully, whether or not that (unconditional) ownership (of economic land) is legitimate. To assert it at this stage is circular.
Autolykos: The "land" has already been allocated to the highest bidder (me). You agree with this. So now you're apparently changing your meaning of "highest bidder" to be "second-highest bidder".
The "land" has already been allocated to the highest bidder (me). You agree with this. So now you're apparently changing your meaning of "highest bidder" to be "second-highest bidder".
No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded.
Autolykos: In other words, Georgists consider people who own "land" to owe a subsidy to people who don't own "land", because... they say so? You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. Autolykos: Or is it because the people who don't own "land" presumably can't afford it? But why is that necessarily my problem, as an owner of "land"? Suppose this question was taken to its logical extreme and that one person owned the entire planet. Now, suppose this owner of land started to impose certain conditions to any prospective tenants. You are of course free to leave, but if you decide to stay, you will be required to pay 40% of your income yearly. In addition, you will have to apply for a license to work and you must carry identification at all times. There will be no smoking or drinking, and you are not permitted more than two children. Security issues can be a problem, with many cases of aggravated trespass, so naturally you will be required to serve at least two years in the Global Security Force. Breakfast is served at 5AM every day (you may choose porridge or muesli), lunch at noon (potatoes) and dinner at 6PM (bread), but all other trade in food is highly restricted. You will undergo regular fitness checks and if it is decided that you are not of a suitable fitness then your tenancy contract may be terminated subject to a one month notice, at which time you must find an alternative place of residence to Earth. If you fail to find an alternative place of residence then you will be considered an aggravated trespasser and will be suitably disposed of by the Global Security Force. Sounds like an anarchist utopia, right? This is not your problem as an owner of land. It's your problem as someone who claims to be anti-state. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: Or is it because the people who don't own "land" presumably can't afford it? But why is that necessarily my problem, as an owner of "land"?
Graham Wright: The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use, and that it would actually worsen allocation. I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive. A tax on Rembrandts would only be economically destructive if it affected economic production (by definition). Since Rembrandts aren't being produced any more, there will be no effect on the production of Rembrandts. Since also a tax on Rembrandts will not raise prices (by the law of supply of demand) it will not reduce their use. Since neither the production or use of Rembrandts is adversely affected by the tax, the tax is not economically destructive. However, if the tax was to be applied on all collectible works of art, then there is production of the thing being taxed, so production will be disincentivised. The tax will also raise prices (by the law as the supply and demand) since supply is no longer inelastic. Therefore, the tax would be economically destructive. Graham Wright: You choose not to support RVT for ethical reasons, even though you would expect it to have good consequences. While the tax may have "good" consequences for the economy as a whole, it has harmful consequences on at least one individual. But in the long term, there are also harmful consequences for the economy from following a "greater good" or "ends justify means" policy, in that it becomes difficult for individuals to know with certainty which of their rights will be respected, which ultimately increases perceptions of risk, distorting interest rates. Graham Wright: If I were to convince you that a RVT would be economically destructive, would you then concede that LVT would be economically destructive? (You may still support it for ethical reasons, of course, regardless of this concession).
The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use, and that it would actually worsen allocation. I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive.
Graham Wright: You choose not to support RVT for ethical reasons, even though you would expect it to have good consequences.
You choose not to support RVT for ethical reasons, even though you would expect it to have good consequences.
While the tax may have "good" consequences for the economy as a whole, it has harmful consequences on at least one individual. But in the long term, there are also harmful consequences for the economy from following a "greater good" or "ends justify means" policy, in that it becomes difficult for individuals to know with certainty which of their rights will be respected, which ultimately increases perceptions of risk, distorting interest rates.
Graham Wright: If I were to convince you that a RVT would be economically destructive, would you then concede that LVT would be economically destructive? (You may still support it for ethical reasons, of course, regardless of this concession).
Only if you were to also explain why it would be inconsistent to accept the former but not the latter.
dsyddall:B is selling the service of rearrangement, produced by his labor, to A. What right does he have to do this if he does not own the products of his labor?
I still don't understand the question. B is providing a service to A, which A pays him for. How does B not have the right to sell a service to A?
dsyddall:Well I don't think that other people have the right to interfere with my body. That means it's acceptable for me to use force against someone who attempts to do that. If you consider this to be ownership, then I own my body. (By this I don't mean to insinuate that your definition of ownership is at fault, only to recognise that we have not, so far as I'm aware, agreed on a definition of ownership.)
As I said before, I define "ownership" as "legitimate control". I presume that a person's control of his body is legitimate - that is, I presume that he owns himself.
dsyddall:Humans are the subject not the object of economics.
Irrelevant. Do you agree that humans are naturally produced? Yes or no?
dsyddall:Because one can "homestead" land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren't dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration.
Presenting an extreme hypothetical example doesn't answer my questions, sorry. Try again.
dsyddall:In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of "privilege" and "coercion" used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se.
How do you think libertarians/anarchists use "privilege" and "coercion"? I personally define "privilege" as "non-universal right" and "coercion" as "the use or threat of physical force".
dsyddall:No. The fact that there are multiple reasons for something doesn't imply that no single reason can be a sufficient reason, or that all reasons together are necessary to prove sufficiency. For instance, it might be necessary for me to leave my house because I have to go to work. It might also be necessary because I need to purchase food, which I will do on the way to work. Either reason alone is sufficient to prove the necessity of my leaving the house.
Does the phrase "one reason is..." imply to you that more than one reason exists? Yes or no? If yes, then if only one reason is provided, that doesn't cover all the reasons, does it? So it's an insufficient explanation, isn't it?
dsyddall:Then what are you claiming requires further support? I have already given my argument. Before we can proceed, you must either accept the argument or find the flaw. If the above is not the flaw, then what is?
I'm saying that you haven't given your argument. It may look like an argument to you, but it doesn't to me. So I'm still waiting on an actual argument from you.
dsyddall:The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works.
Not according to Wikipedia:
Wikipedia:English auction, also known as an open ascending price auction. This type of auction is arguably the most common form of auction in use today.[4] Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid higher than the previous bid.[14] An auctioneer may announce prices, bidders may call out their bids themselves (or have a proxy call out a bid on their behalf), or bids may be submitted electronically with the highest current bid publicly displayed.[14] In some cases a maximum bid might be left with the auctioneer, who may bid on behalf of the bidder according to the bidder's instructions.[14] The auction ends when no participant is willing to bid further, at which point the highest bidder pays their bid.[14]
What you're talking about is known as the Vickrey auction, and it's rarely used in real life (eBay is a notable example of where it is used).
dsyddall:Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder.
Then again, that's up to the landowner, isn't it?
I'd like to attack your notion that not allocating land to the highest bidder will represent a loss of production to the economy as a whole. This seems to be based on a notion of "optimality" that can be objectively determined. This notion, in turn, depends upon an objective theory of value. But value is subjective, hence "optimality" can't be objectively determined.
dsyddall:If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation.
Wait a minute. You're not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really?
dsyddall:See above in the example of the person who homesteads marginal land. There is no initial investment (apart from whatever "labor mixing" we decide is necessary for homesteading, which isn't well-defined), and no holding cost (since the landowner can then walk away and forget about the land), and possibly no cost to reclaim the land when he returns if others have respected his homesteading. So there is virtually no accounting cost. Yet what costs him nothing (i.e., holding land out of use) is costing the economy as a whole much (whatever would have been produced if the land had not been held out of use). Others, who would have used the land or benefitted from trading with those who would have used the land, end up paying the cost instead. Therefore he is not bearing the true economic cost of his decision.
In other words, you imagine a state of affairs that's more to your liking and that you presume would've occurred without this terrible landowner. Then you hold it against him for (presumably) standing in the way of your dreams coming true. But in order to persuade others to your way of thinking, you must twist your subjective self-interest into an objective ("true") cost imposed on everyone (but the landowner). If anyone calls you out on this, just deny, change the subject, launch personal attacks, etc.
This is akin to a gambler thinking that he's lost money because he didn't win as big as he'd hoped. No one is entitled to what could have been, but isn't.
dsyddall:Well, the point of this discussion is to determine, hopefully, whether or not that (unconditional) ownership (of economic land) is legitimate. To assert it at this stage is circular.
I see the debate as you trying to prove your position and me trying to disprove it.
However, I'll note that, even with holding to unconditional ownership of economic land, there can exist a notion of "abandonment". That would involve a landowner relinquishing control of the land.
dsyddall:No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded.
It's certainly not standard, as I've noted above. Why shouldn't the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he's willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)?
dsyddall:You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land.
... They don't. Goods that aren't produced can't be paid by people as a subsidy.
dsyddall:Suppose this question was taken to its logical extreme and that one person owned the entire planet.
No. I won't entertain crazy hypotheticals like that. Complain all you want - I don't care.
dsyddall:Sounds like an anarchist utopia, right? This is not your problem as an owner of land. It's your problem as someone who claims to be anti-state.
Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn't work though. Let's stick to argumentation, shall we?
Autolykos: dsyddall:B is selling the service of rearrangement, produced by his labor, to A. What right does he have to do this if he does not own the products of his labor? I still don't understand the question. B is providing a service to A, which A pays him for. How does B not have the right to sell a service to A?
Because in order to sell the service B must own the service B is selling. If A already owns B's service (since you already claimed that at no point does B own the service in this case - to quote: "For example, A may hire B to produce things for A that A then sells. I'd say that B never owns what he produces while working for A."), then it's fraudulent for B to sell something to A that already belongs to A.
Autolykos: As I said before, I define "ownership" as "legitimate control". I presume that a person's control of his body is legitimate - that is, I presume that he owns himself. I would prefix that with the word exclusive, since "legitimate control" alone suggests the possibility that others might also have legitimate control. Would you agree that a person has exclusive legitimate control over his body? Autolykos: Irrelevant. Do you agree that humans are naturally produced? Yes or no? Yes. I did not create myself. And I believe it's equivocation over the word "create" to say that my parents "created" me. Does that mean I'm owned by nature? No, nature is not something that can own anything. Nor does nature own land. Why must I have exclusive legitimate control over myself? It follows from a simple reductio ad absurdum. To deny exclusive legitimate control over one's body is to deny the right of life, since if another person can legitimately control you, they can legitimately direct you to commit suicide. It is also true that exclusive legitimate control of land follows from a reductio ad absurdum. If I cannot have exclusive legitimate control of land, then no work that I produce can be secure and I lose the right to sustain myself and my right to life. However, my right of exclusive legitimate control of land must be balanced against other people's equal rights to exclusive legitimate control of land, which follows from their equal right to life. This is the difference between land and my body - no-one else has an equal right to my body, they only have a right to their own body. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because one can "homestead" land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren't dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration. Presenting an extreme hypothetical example doesn't answer my questions, sorry. Try again. This is a plain refusal to face the issue. Moreover it is common, not extreme. Autolykos: dsyddall:In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of "privilege" and "coercion" used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se. How do you think libertarians/anarchists use "privilege" and "coercion"? I personally define "privilege" as "non-universal right" and "coercion" as "the use or threat of physical force". I prefer to reserve "privilege" to mean things such as state-granted privileges, and "coercion" to mean aggressive force (i.e., I would not call responding to aggressive force in self-defence coercion). Autolykos: Does the phrase "one reason is..." imply to you that more than one reason exists? Yes or no? If yes, then if only one reason is provided, that doesn't cover all the reasons, does it? So it's an insufficient explanation, isn't it? It's insufficient, perhaps, if you were creating an encyclopedia. But it's not logically insufficient to provide only one of several logically sufficient reasons. Autolykos: I'm saying that you haven't given your argument. It may look like an argument to you, but it doesn't to me. So I'm still waiting on an actual argument from you. We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either. Autolykos: dsyddall:The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Not according to Wikipedia: Wikipedia:English auction, also known as an open ascending price auction. This type of auction is arguably the most common form of auction in use today.[4] Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid higher than the previous bid.[14] An auctioneer may announce prices, bidders may call out their bids themselves (or have a proxy call out a bid on their behalf), or bids may be submitted electronically with the highest current bid publicly displayed.[14] In some cases a maximum bid might be left with the auctioneer, who may bid on behalf of the bidder according to the bidder's instructions.[14] The auction ends when no participant is willing to bid further, at which point the highest bidder pays their bid.[14] What you're talking about is known as the Vickrey auction, and it's rarely used in real life (eBay is a notable example of where it is used). My apologies, you are correct, I referred you to the wrong type of auction. In my defense I had the same conversation with Graham about a month ago and pointed him to the right type of auction then, so I was not being intentionally misleading. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. Then again, that's up to the landowner, isn't it? Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others. Autolykos: I'd like to attack your notion that not allocating land to the highest bidder will represent a loss of production to the economy as a whole. This seems to be based on a notion of "optimality" that can be objectively determined. This notion, in turn, depends upon an objective theory of value. But value is subjective, hence "optimality" can't be objectively determined. We can talk about the numerical quantity of goods produced without referring to value at all. In any case, I think you're overstating the case to say that there's no way to talk about objective value. Autolykos: dsyddall:If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Wait a minute. You're not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really? In practice, real-estate valuations are usually quite accurate. Autolykos: dsyddall:No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. It's certainly not standard, as I've noted above. Why shouldn't the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he's willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)? Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. Autolykos: dsyddall:You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. ... They don't. Goods that aren't produced can't be paid by people as a subsidy. What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Autolykos: Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn't work though. Let's stick to argumentation, shall we? I'm not asking you to feel guilty. I'm asking you to consider the logical consequences of your position. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: Irrelevant. Do you agree that humans are naturally produced? Yes or no? Yes. I did not create myself. And I believe it's equivocation over the word "create" to say that my parents "created" me. Does that mean I'm owned by nature? No, nature is not something that can own anything. Nor does nature own land. Why must I have exclusive legitimate control over myself? It follows from a simple reductio ad absurdum. To deny exclusive legitimate control over one's body is to deny the right of life, since if another person can legitimately control you, they can legitimately direct you to commit suicide. It is also true that exclusive legitimate control of land follows from a reductio ad absurdum. If I cannot have exclusive legitimate control of land, then no work that I produce can be secure and I lose the right to sustain myself and my right to life. However, my right of exclusive legitimate control of land must be balanced against other people's equal rights to exclusive legitimate control of land, which follows from their equal right to life. This is the difference between land and my body - no-one else has an equal right to my body, they only have a right to their own body. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because one can "homestead" land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren't dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration. Presenting an extreme hypothetical example doesn't answer my questions, sorry. Try again. This is a plain refusal to face the issue. Moreover it is common, not extreme. Autolykos: dsyddall:In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of "privilege" and "coercion" used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se. How do you think libertarians/anarchists use "privilege" and "coercion"? I personally define "privilege" as "non-universal right" and "coercion" as "the use or threat of physical force". I prefer to reserve "privilege" to mean things such as state-granted privileges, and "coercion" to mean aggressive force (i.e., I would not call responding to aggressive force in self-defence coercion). Autolykos: Does the phrase "one reason is..." imply to you that more than one reason exists? Yes or no? If yes, then if only one reason is provided, that doesn't cover all the reasons, does it? So it's an insufficient explanation, isn't it? It's insufficient, perhaps, if you were creating an encyclopedia. But it's not logically insufficient to provide only one of several logically sufficient reasons. Autolykos: I'm saying that you haven't given your argument. It may look like an argument to you, but it doesn't to me. So I'm still waiting on an actual argument from you. We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either. Autolykos: dsyddall:The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Not according to Wikipedia: Wikipedia:English auction, also known as an open ascending price auction. This type of auction is arguably the most common form of auction in use today.[4] Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid higher than the previous bid.[14] An auctioneer may announce prices, bidders may call out their bids themselves (or have a proxy call out a bid on their behalf), or bids may be submitted electronically with the highest current bid publicly displayed.[14] In some cases a maximum bid might be left with the auctioneer, who may bid on behalf of the bidder according to the bidder's instructions.[14] The auction ends when no participant is willing to bid further, at which point the highest bidder pays their bid.[14] What you're talking about is known as the Vickrey auction, and it's rarely used in real life (eBay is a notable example of where it is used). My apologies, you are correct, I referred you to the wrong type of auction. In my defense I had the same conversation with Graham about a month ago and pointed him to the right type of auction then, so I was not being intentionally misleading. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. Then again, that's up to the landowner, isn't it? Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others. Autolykos: I'd like to attack your notion that not allocating land to the highest bidder will represent a loss of production to the economy as a whole. This seems to be based on a notion of "optimality" that can be objectively determined. This notion, in turn, depends upon an objective theory of value. But value is subjective, hence "optimality" can't be objectively determined. We can talk about the numerical quantity of goods produced without referring to value at all. In any case, I think you're overstating the case to say that there's no way to talk about objective value. Autolykos: dsyddall:If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Wait a minute. You're not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really? In practice, real-estate valuations are usually quite accurate. Autolykos: dsyddall:No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. It's certainly not standard, as I've noted above. Why shouldn't the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he's willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)? Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. Autolykos: dsyddall:You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. ... They don't. Goods that aren't produced can't be paid by people as a subsidy. What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Autolykos: Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn't work though. Let's stick to argumentation, shall we? I'm not asking you to feel guilty. I'm asking you to consider the logical consequences of your position. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: dsyddall:Because one can "homestead" land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren't dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration. Presenting an extreme hypothetical example doesn't answer my questions, sorry. Try again.
This is a plain refusal to face the issue. Moreover it is common, not extreme.
Autolykos: dsyddall:In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of "privilege" and "coercion" used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se. How do you think libertarians/anarchists use "privilege" and "coercion"? I personally define "privilege" as "non-universal right" and "coercion" as "the use or threat of physical force".
I prefer to reserve "privilege" to mean things such as state-granted privileges, and "coercion" to mean aggressive force (i.e., I would not call responding to aggressive force in self-defence coercion).
Autolykos: Does the phrase "one reason is..." imply to you that more than one reason exists? Yes or no? If yes, then if only one reason is provided, that doesn't cover all the reasons, does it? So it's an insufficient explanation, isn't it? It's insufficient, perhaps, if you were creating an encyclopedia. But it's not logically insufficient to provide only one of several logically sufficient reasons. Autolykos: I'm saying that you haven't given your argument. It may look like an argument to you, but it doesn't to me. So I'm still waiting on an actual argument from you. We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either. Autolykos: dsyddall:The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Not according to Wikipedia: Wikipedia:English auction, also known as an open ascending price auction. This type of auction is arguably the most common form of auction in use today.[4] Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid higher than the previous bid.[14] An auctioneer may announce prices, bidders may call out their bids themselves (or have a proxy call out a bid on their behalf), or bids may be submitted electronically with the highest current bid publicly displayed.[14] In some cases a maximum bid might be left with the auctioneer, who may bid on behalf of the bidder according to the bidder's instructions.[14] The auction ends when no participant is willing to bid further, at which point the highest bidder pays their bid.[14] What you're talking about is known as the Vickrey auction, and it's rarely used in real life (eBay is a notable example of where it is used). My apologies, you are correct, I referred you to the wrong type of auction. In my defense I had the same conversation with Graham about a month ago and pointed him to the right type of auction then, so I was not being intentionally misleading. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. Then again, that's up to the landowner, isn't it? Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others. Autolykos: I'd like to attack your notion that not allocating land to the highest bidder will represent a loss of production to the economy as a whole. This seems to be based on a notion of "optimality" that can be objectively determined. This notion, in turn, depends upon an objective theory of value. But value is subjective, hence "optimality" can't be objectively determined. We can talk about the numerical quantity of goods produced without referring to value at all. In any case, I think you're overstating the case to say that there's no way to talk about objective value. Autolykos: dsyddall:If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Wait a minute. You're not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really? In practice, real-estate valuations are usually quite accurate. Autolykos: dsyddall:No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. It's certainly not standard, as I've noted above. Why shouldn't the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he's willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)? Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. Autolykos: dsyddall:You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. ... They don't. Goods that aren't produced can't be paid by people as a subsidy. What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Autolykos: Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn't work though. Let's stick to argumentation, shall we? I'm not asking you to feel guilty. I'm asking you to consider the logical consequences of your position. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: I'm saying that you haven't given your argument. It may look like an argument to you, but it doesn't to me. So I'm still waiting on an actual argument from you. We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either. Autolykos: dsyddall:The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Not according to Wikipedia: Wikipedia:English auction, also known as an open ascending price auction. This type of auction is arguably the most common form of auction in use today.[4] Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid higher than the previous bid.[14] An auctioneer may announce prices, bidders may call out their bids themselves (or have a proxy call out a bid on their behalf), or bids may be submitted electronically with the highest current bid publicly displayed.[14] In some cases a maximum bid might be left with the auctioneer, who may bid on behalf of the bidder according to the bidder's instructions.[14] The auction ends when no participant is willing to bid further, at which point the highest bidder pays their bid.[14] What you're talking about is known as the Vickrey auction, and it's rarely used in real life (eBay is a notable example of where it is used). My apologies, you are correct, I referred you to the wrong type of auction. In my defense I had the same conversation with Graham about a month ago and pointed him to the right type of auction then, so I was not being intentionally misleading. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. Then again, that's up to the landowner, isn't it? Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others. Autolykos: I'd like to attack your notion that not allocating land to the highest bidder will represent a loss of production to the economy as a whole. This seems to be based on a notion of "optimality" that can be objectively determined. This notion, in turn, depends upon an objective theory of value. But value is subjective, hence "optimality" can't be objectively determined. We can talk about the numerical quantity of goods produced without referring to value at all. In any case, I think you're overstating the case to say that there's no way to talk about objective value. Autolykos: dsyddall:If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Wait a minute. You're not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really? In practice, real-estate valuations are usually quite accurate. Autolykos: dsyddall:No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. It's certainly not standard, as I've noted above. Why shouldn't the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he's willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)? Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. Autolykos: dsyddall:You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. ... They don't. Goods that aren't produced can't be paid by people as a subsidy. What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Autolykos: Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn't work though. Let's stick to argumentation, shall we? I'm not asking you to feel guilty. I'm asking you to consider the logical consequences of your position. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: dsyddall:The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works. Not according to Wikipedia: Wikipedia:English auction, also known as an open ascending price auction. This type of auction is arguably the most common form of auction in use today.[4] Participants bid openly against one another, with each subsequent bid higher than the previous bid.[14] An auctioneer may announce prices, bidders may call out their bids themselves (or have a proxy call out a bid on their behalf), or bids may be submitted electronically with the highest current bid publicly displayed.[14] In some cases a maximum bid might be left with the auctioneer, who may bid on behalf of the bidder according to the bidder's instructions.[14] The auction ends when no participant is willing to bid further, at which point the highest bidder pays their bid.[14] What you're talking about is known as the Vickrey auction, and it's rarely used in real life (eBay is a notable example of where it is used).
My apologies, you are correct, I referred you to the wrong type of auction. In my defense I had the same conversation with Graham about a month ago and pointed him to the right type of auction then, so I was not being intentionally misleading.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder. Then again, that's up to the landowner, isn't it?
Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others.
Autolykos: I'd like to attack your notion that not allocating land to the highest bidder will represent a loss of production to the economy as a whole. This seems to be based on a notion of "optimality" that can be objectively determined. This notion, in turn, depends upon an objective theory of value. But value is subjective, hence "optimality" can't be objectively determined. We can talk about the numerical quantity of goods produced without referring to value at all. In any case, I think you're overstating the case to say that there's no way to talk about objective value. Autolykos: dsyddall:If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Wait a minute. You're not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really? In practice, real-estate valuations are usually quite accurate. Autolykos: dsyddall:No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. It's certainly not standard, as I've noted above. Why shouldn't the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he's willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)? Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. Autolykos: dsyddall:You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. ... They don't. Goods that aren't produced can't be paid by people as a subsidy. What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Autolykos: Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn't work though. Let's stick to argumentation, shall we? I'm not asking you to feel guilty. I'm asking you to consider the logical consequences of your position. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: dsyddall:If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation. Wait a minute. You're not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really?
In practice, real-estate valuations are usually quite accurate.
Autolykos: dsyddall:No I'm not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded. It's certainly not standard, as I've noted above. Why shouldn't the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he's willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)?
Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid.
Autolykos: dsyddall:You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land. ... They don't. Goods that aren't produced can't be paid by people as a subsidy.
What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by?
Autolykos: Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn't work though. Let's stick to argumentation, shall we? I'm not asking you to feel guilty. I'm asking you to consider the logical consequences of your position. | Post Points: 20
dsyddall:Because in order to sell the service B must own the service B is selling. If A already owns B's service (since you already claimed that at no point does B own the service in this case - to quote: "For example, A may hire B to produce things for A that A then sells. I'd say that B never owns what he produces while working for A."), then it's fraudulent for B to sell something to A that already belongs to A.
B does own the service that he's selling. I said that B never owns what he produces, because what he produces is simply a rearrangement of things already owned by A.
dsyddall:I would prefix that with the word exclusive, since "legitimate control" alone suggests the possibility that others might also have legitimate control. Would you agree that a person has exclusive legitimate control over his body?
I wouldn't, because I don't consider all ownership to be exclusive to single individuals. Some things can be jointly owned. But I agree that a person has exclusive ownership over his body.
dsyddall:Yes. I did not create myself. And I believe it's equivocation over the word "create" to say that my parents "created" me. Does that mean I'm owned by nature? No, nature is not something that can own anything. Nor does nature own land.
Another false dichotomy and strawman, all in one. My counter-argument was that, since people are produced by nature, then people count as "(economic) land", and therefore LVT should also apply to people.
dsyddall:Why must I have exclusive legitimate control over myself? It follows from a simple reductio ad absurdum. To deny exclusive legitimate control over one's body is to deny the right of life, since if another person can legitimately control you, they can legitimately direct you to commit suicide. It is also true that exclusive legitimate control of land follows from a reductio ad absurdum. If I cannot have exclusive legitimate control of land, then no work that I produce can be secure and I lose the right to sustain myself and my right to life. However, my right of exclusive legitimate control of land must be balanced against other people's equal rights to exclusive legitimate control of land, which follows from their equal right to life. This is the difference between land and my body - no-one else has an equal right to my body, they only have a right to their own body.
What do you think is the basis for the right to life? Otherwise, you're using it as a premise. If so, then no one is obligated to accept it as such.
dsyddall:This is a plain refusal to face the issue. Moreover it is common, not extreme.
No it isn't. I asked you a question which you did not answer to my satisfaction. That is, I still don't know how you (allegedly) know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low", and that that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high". The words "always and necessarily" are very important there. So either you'll ultimately answer it to my satisfaction or I'll conclude that you cannot, and therefore that your claims here are baseless.
dsyddall:I prefer to reserve "privilege" to mean things such as state-granted privileges, and "coercion" to mean aggressive force (i.e., I would not call responding to aggressive force in self-defence coercion).
I have no problem accepting arguendo your definition of "coercion" as "aggressive force", but I don't think your definition of "privilege" is sufficiently clear.
dsyddall:It's insufficient, perhaps, if you were creating an encyclopedia. But it's not logically insufficient to provide only one of several logically sufficient reasons.
... Do I need to repeat myself? Answer my questions directly, or I'll conclude that you're evading the issue and that therefore your claim that "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT is baseless.
dsyddall:We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either.
Whether we're at an impasse is entirely up to you, because the burden of proof rests with you. What I wrote isn't an argument and isn't supposed to be - it's just supposed to point out that I'm still waiting on your argument. Do you understand?
dsyddall:My apologies, you are correct, I referred you to the wrong type of auction. In my defense I had the same conversation with Graham about a month ago and pointed him to the right type of auction then, so I was not being intentionally misleading.
So where do you think that leaves us on the issue of " the highest bidder"?
dsyddall:Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others.
Those "costs" are imaginary. How can one pay for something with things he doesn't have and don't exist?
dsyddall:We can talk about the numerical quantity of goods produced without referring to value at all. In any case, I think you're overstating the case to say that there's no way to talk about objective value.
... Perhaps you'd like to clarify how exactly I'm "overstating the case". But it sounds to me like here you're implicitly admitting to believing in some sort of objective theory of value.
dsyddall:In practice, real-estate valuations are usually quite accurate.
Accurate to what, exactly? And I didn't ask about "in practice", did I? No. I asked about necessity. Did you overlook the word "necessarily" in my question? If so, was it intentional?
dsyddall:Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid.
... Perhaps you'd like to clarify yourself here too, because I'm at a loss to understand your point. I fail to see why the amount at which others have allegedly been excluded should factor at all into the price that the highest bidder pays for an item at auction.
dsyddall:What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by?
Weren't you the one who said that the "cost" borne by those who don't own "land" is that of goods that aren't produced? I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything here.
dsyddall:I'm not asking you to feel guilty. I'm asking you to consider the logical consequences of your position.
You have in no way convinced me that such a crazy hypothetical situation is a logical consequence of my position. Understand? That doesn't mean you never will - it just means you'll have to try harder.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Because in order to sell the service B must own the service B is selling. If A already owns B's service (since you already claimed that at no point does B own the service in this case - to quote: "For example, A may hire B to produce things for A that A then sells. I'd say that B never owns what he produces while working for A."), then it's fraudulent for B to sell something to A that already belongs to A. B does own the service that he's selling. I said that B never owns what he produces, because what he produces is simply a rearrangement of things already owned by A.
B's rearrangement is the service he is selling. He has produced this and owns it.
Autolykos: dsyddall:I would prefix that with the word exclusive, since "legitimate control" alone suggests the possibility that others might also have legitimate control. Would you agree that a person has exclusive legitimate control over his body? I wouldn't, because I don't consider all ownership to be exclusive to single individuals. Some things can be jointly owned. But I agree that a person has exclusive ownership over his body.
Good. Then we are in complete agreement on this.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes. I did not create myself. And I believe it's equivocation over the word "create" to say that my parents "created" me. Does that mean I'm owned by nature? No, nature is not something that can own anything. Nor does nature own land. Another false dichotomy and strawman, all in one. My counter-argument was that, since people are produced by nature, then people count as "(economic) land", and therefore LVT should also apply to people.
I was not attributing this line of argument to you, only exploring possible consequences.
Autolykos: What do you think is the basis for the right to life? Otherwise, you're using it as a premise. If so, then no one is obligated to accept it as such. If your logic has caused you to dismiss the right to life, perhaps it is time to re-examine your position. Autolykos: dsyddall:This is a plain refusal to face the issue. Moreover it is common, not extreme. No it isn't. I asked you a question which you did not answer to my satisfaction. That is, I still don't know how you (allegedly) know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low", and that that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high". The words "always and necessarily" are very important there. So either you'll ultimately answer it to my satisfaction or I'll conclude that you cannot, and therefore that your claims here are baseless. Those words are important to you because you want to dismiss a straw man. It is not necessary for my argument that land is always and necessarily low-cost and rewarding, only that at least some times it is. Autolykos: I have no problem accepting arguendo your definition of "coercion" as "aggressive force", but I don't think your definition of "privilege" is sufficiently clear. Agreed that the above was not a clear definition. To clarify, a privilege would be a benefit gained through coercive (aggressive) force rather than through economic exchange. Autolykos: dsyddall:It's insufficient, perhaps, if you were creating an encyclopedia. But it's not logically insufficient to provide only one of several logically sufficient reasons. ... Do I need to repeat myself? Answer my questions directly, or I'll conclude that you're evading the issue and that therefore your claim that "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT is baseless. I don't see why you're having trouble understanding this. I have already provided a sufficient reason that land is not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder - because the land owner does not bear the full economic cost of his decisions. You have yet to rebut this reason. Until you rebut this reason, my argument stands. Autolykos: dsyddall:We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either. Whether we're at an impasse is entirely up to you, because the burden of proof rests with you. What I wrote isn't an argument and isn't supposed to be - it's just supposed to point out that I'm still waiting on your argument. Do you understand? Frankly, I'm so lost in the argument about the argument that I don't even remember what this argument was even about. Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others. Those "costs" are imaginary. How can one pay for something with things he doesn't have and don't exist? If the land is not sub-marginal, yet is left unproductive, then there is an economic cost because the same production that would have occurred on productive land will have to occur on less productive land. Autolykos:... Perhaps you'd like to clarify how exactly I'm "overstating the case". But it sounds to me like here you're implicitly admitting to believing in some sort of objective theory of value. I think an objective theory of value can be descriptively helpful, even if we recognise it is ultimately a result of subjective values. Much like atoms are descriptively helpful to physics and chemistry, but in reality atoms are a reification. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. ... Perhaps you'd like to clarify yourself here too, because I'm at a loss to understand your point. I fail to see why the amount at which others have allegedly been excluded should factor at all into the price that the highest bidder pays for an item at auction. Anything that the highest bidder pays below the second highest bid is economic rent (according to the law of rent). Anything above is either wages or interest. Autolykos: dsyddall:What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Weren't you the one who said that the "cost" borne by those who don't own "land" is that of goods that aren't produced? I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything here. Yes, but that is only part of the subsidy received by the landowner, since economic rent is not produced by landowners qua landowners, yet is taken by landowners. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: dsyddall:This is a plain refusal to face the issue. Moreover it is common, not extreme. No it isn't. I asked you a question which you did not answer to my satisfaction. That is, I still don't know how you (allegedly) know that the costs of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so low", and that that the rewards of holding "land" are always and necessarily "so high". The words "always and necessarily" are very important there. So either you'll ultimately answer it to my satisfaction or I'll conclude that you cannot, and therefore that your claims here are baseless.
Those words are important to you because you want to dismiss a straw man. It is not necessary for my argument that land is always and necessarily low-cost and rewarding, only that at least some times it is.
Autolykos: I have no problem accepting arguendo your definition of "coercion" as "aggressive force", but I don't think your definition of "privilege" is sufficiently clear. Agreed that the above was not a clear definition. To clarify, a privilege would be a benefit gained through coercive (aggressive) force rather than through economic exchange. Autolykos: dsyddall:It's insufficient, perhaps, if you were creating an encyclopedia. But it's not logically insufficient to provide only one of several logically sufficient reasons. ... Do I need to repeat myself? Answer my questions directly, or I'll conclude that you're evading the issue and that therefore your claim that "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT is baseless. I don't see why you're having trouble understanding this. I have already provided a sufficient reason that land is not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder - because the land owner does not bear the full economic cost of his decisions. You have yet to rebut this reason. Until you rebut this reason, my argument stands. Autolykos: dsyddall:We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either. Whether we're at an impasse is entirely up to you, because the burden of proof rests with you. What I wrote isn't an argument and isn't supposed to be - it's just supposed to point out that I'm still waiting on your argument. Do you understand? Frankly, I'm so lost in the argument about the argument that I don't even remember what this argument was even about. Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others. Those "costs" are imaginary. How can one pay for something with things he doesn't have and don't exist? If the land is not sub-marginal, yet is left unproductive, then there is an economic cost because the same production that would have occurred on productive land will have to occur on less productive land. Autolykos:... Perhaps you'd like to clarify how exactly I'm "overstating the case". But it sounds to me like here you're implicitly admitting to believing in some sort of objective theory of value. I think an objective theory of value can be descriptively helpful, even if we recognise it is ultimately a result of subjective values. Much like atoms are descriptively helpful to physics and chemistry, but in reality atoms are a reification. Autolykos: dsyddall:Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. ... Perhaps you'd like to clarify yourself here too, because I'm at a loss to understand your point. I fail to see why the amount at which others have allegedly been excluded should factor at all into the price that the highest bidder pays for an item at auction. Anything that the highest bidder pays below the second highest bid is economic rent (according to the law of rent). Anything above is either wages or interest. Autolykos: dsyddall:What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Weren't you the one who said that the "cost" borne by those who don't own "land" is that of goods that aren't produced? I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything here. Yes, but that is only part of the subsidy received by the landowner, since economic rent is not produced by landowners qua landowners, yet is taken by landowners. | Post Points: 20
Autolykos: dsyddall:It's insufficient, perhaps, if you were creating an encyclopedia. But it's not logically insufficient to provide only one of several logically sufficient reasons. ... Do I need to repeat myself? Answer my questions directly, or I'll conclude that you're evading the issue and that therefore your claim that "land" is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT is baseless.
I don't see why you're having trouble understanding this. I have already provided a sufficient reason that land is not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder - because the land owner does not bear the full economic cost of his decisions. You have yet to rebut this reason. Until you rebut this reason, my argument stands.
Autolykos: dsyddall:We appear to be at an impasse, since that doesn't look much like an argument to me, either. Whether we're at an impasse is entirely up to you, because the burden of proof rests with you. What I wrote isn't an argument and isn't supposed to be - it's just supposed to point out that I'm still waiting on your argument. Do you understand?
Frankly, I'm so lost in the argument about the argument that I don't even remember what this argument was even about.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, it is. He has the right to allocate land to whoever he likes. But he does not have the right to push the costs of doing so onto others. Those "costs" are imaginary. How can one pay for something with things he doesn't have and don't exist?
If the land is not sub-marginal, yet is left unproductive, then there is an economic cost because the same production that would have occurred on productive land will have to occur on less productive land.
Autolykos:... Perhaps you'd like to clarify how exactly I'm "overstating the case". But it sounds to me like here you're implicitly admitting to believing in some sort of objective theory of value.
I think an objective theory of value can be descriptively helpful, even if we recognise it is ultimately a result of subjective values. Much like atoms are descriptively helpful to physics and chemistry, but in reality atoms are a reification.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Because others have not been excluded by that amount. The maximum by which others have been excluded is the second-highest bid. ... Perhaps you'd like to clarify yourself here too, because I'm at a loss to understand your point. I fail to see why the amount at which others have allegedly been excluded should factor at all into the price that the highest bidder pays for an item at auction.
Anything that the highest bidder pays below the second highest bid is economic rent (according to the law of rent). Anything above is either wages or interest.
Autolykos: dsyddall:What goods are you claiming are not produced? Economic rent has to be produced by somebody. Since it is not produced by the landowner, who is it produced by? Weren't you the one who said that the "cost" borne by those who don't own "land" is that of goods that aren't produced? I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything here.
Yes, but that is only part of the subsidy received by the landowner, since economic rent is not produced by landowners qua landowners, yet is taken by landowners.
dsyddall: Graham Wright:If I were to convince you that a RVT would be economically destructive, would you then concede that LVT would be economically destructive? (You may still support it for ethical reasons, of course, regardless of this concession). Only if you were to also explain why it would be inconsistent to accept the former but not the latter.
Graham Wright:If I were to convince you that a RVT would be economically destructive, would you then concede that LVT would be economically destructive? (You may still support it for ethical reasons, of course, regardless of this concession).
I thought I already explained this, so let me be clearer. As I understand it, this is your argument:
P1: A tax on a thing is not economically destructive (and is actually beneficial), if that thing is completely inelastic, or "in fixed supply", or "unable to be (further) produced".
P2: Land is a thing which is in fixed supply.
C: A tax on land is not economically destructive (and is actually beneficial).
Your logic is sound. But I have problems with both premises. I believe P1 is simply false. To test that, I substituted P2r for P2, resulting in conclusion Cr.
P2r: Rembrandts are in fixed supply.
Cr: A tax on Rembrandts is not economically destructive (and is actually beneficial).
You accepted this new minor premise, P2r. So if the major premise P1 is true, it follows that Cr is true. This is why I asked you if you thought Cr is true, since it follows logically from your belief that P1 is true.
If, however, I was to convince you that Cr is false, then either P1 is false or P2r is false. And since you accept P2r already, you must conclude that the problem lies with P1, i.e. P1 must be false.
So that's the argument. This why it's worth exploring whether Cr is really true or not.
dsyddall: Graham Wright:The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use, and that it would actually worsen allocation. I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive. A tax on Rembrandts would only be economically destructive if it affected economic production (by definition). No, that's not true. The tax might worsen how the good is allocated/used and that would be economically destructive by itself. dsyddall:Since Rembrandts aren't being produced any more, there will be no effect on the production of Rembrandts. Agreed. dsyddall:Since also a tax on Rembrandts will not raise prices (by the law of supply of demand) it will not reduce their use. I accept that it will not raise prices, as per Friedman. But I don't accept that the tax will have no consequences on usage. Consider a museum that right now faces the choice of owning/displaying a Rembrandt, or a Monet. Without the Rembrandt Value Tax, let's suppose they estimate that the Rembrandt will bring in slightly more revenue for them than the Monet. But with the tax, they may estimate the other way, since it will cost them nothing to hold the Monet and they keep all the income they get from it, whereas this isn't the case with the Rembrandt. This may tip the balance in favor of them getting a Monet. And there's (part of) the economic destruction caused by the RVT! Consumers would have prefered to see a Rembrandt, but because of the RVT, they now have to put up with a Monet, something they consider less valuable. There will be further distortions and negative consequences as well, but what these might be would depend on how the amount owed collected is to be worked out. This is why I asked you to explain the bidding process a bit more, since it seems quite different to the mechanism laid out by Fred in that paper you linked, and some of my (our) criticisms of Fred's mechanism may not apply to yours. I also think doing that will help your conversation with Autolykos. Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper Law without Government | Post Points: 20
Graham Wright:The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use, and that it would actually worsen allocation. I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive.
dsyddall:Since Rembrandts aren't being produced any more, there will be no effect on the production of Rembrandts.
dsyddall:Since also a tax on Rembrandts will not raise prices (by the law of supply of demand) it will not reduce their use.
By Graham Wright in General The obvious question is what's so special about land...
The obvious question is what's so special about land...
why wouldn't a "Labor Value Tax" or a "Tractor Value Tax" have the same beneficial effects?
I brought up another example of something for which that is true: Rembrandts. To be consistent, then, you would have to say that recapturing 80% of the Rembrandt-rent "doesn't distort prices" and "encourages Rembrandt owner to put the paintings to best possible use", because the economic argument is the same as that for LVT.
The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use
I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive.
it suggests there is a significant disconnect between the system implied by your ethical values and the system you expect to have the best economic consequences.
Did/do the landowners in question, actually mix their labor with the land/homestead, or was the land acquired via government intervention/redistribution(government doesn`t redistribute; top to bottom, in a regulated society the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer)?
The tax on Rembrandts will not reduce the revenue to the museum, as the visitors will pay a fee based on their desire to see the art, not on who receives the revenue. The tax would reduce the price of Rembrandts to the amount for which the profit from them is the same as before. The reduction in the purchase price, and thus also of the expllicit or implicit interest on the loan or equity offsets the tax payment.
"The supply of land can expand. It can also contract." autolikos.
I live in the County of Alamada, California. It has a jurisdictional boundary. Please explain how the acres of land in the country can expand or contract.
"I'll answer you after you answer my own questions." autolykos. I think I did. If not, please state your unanswered questions. I'm not going to slog thru the entries to look for them.
dsyddall, the Rembrandt tax has the problem of initial implementation. The users who have already paid the expected rent, are asked to pay yet again. Their second million dollars will likely come to them more dear then the first. So increasingly the discussion problem here is one of the change in ownership that happens. Owning the rent is not neccesary to appreciate the painting, but its duplicated cost can interfer. Suppose the Rembrandt paintings where of a magical quality that they would appear on the wall for whom the highest current rent is offered. Its important that the money be paid, so the bids are 'real' bu its not important that any being be able to spend that money as it incentivises nothing in this example. Now introduce the speculator, his means is to buy low and sell high. His operation is to have the paintings on a wall where no one enjoys them. Since viewing and ownership are now seperate, there is no subsidy to 'control' that he can exploit. The paintings will never be on the null wall. Now assuming that the highest bid at any moment is the best use, how is it that without even an owner, this painting is still finding its way to the best use, solely on the descretion of the users? If the rental 'tax' where structured consistant with that, then it does maximise best use. Even one second hanging on a speculators wall would be a second of use that can not be made up.
Johnny please explain the qualifiers of "actually mix their labor". How can one know how much labor is needed, and how far it mixes? I agree that in a regulated society the rich get richer. Espicially so when the rich have an open market in theft insturements that are supported by state action. "Theft" would depend on what "property" means and "property" would be best based on what the non aggression principle dictates. Would you agree that those three all follow?
Fred Foldvary: By Graham Wright in General The obvious question is what's so special about land... Morally, that land is not a human being, and was not produced by human action. Therefore self-ownership does not apply to land. Economically, that there is a fixed supply of land, that land is necessary for human action, and that much of the gains from economic expansion gets captured by land rent. Thanks. Let's put the moral question to one side for now and focus on the economic side. You give three reasons land is special. The first - land being in fixed supply - is certainly is true of Rembrandts, but I can see you think a Rembrandt Value Tax would have (qualititatively) similar economic consequences to a Land Value Tax, in that "more Rembrandts would be exhibited and fewer stored out of sight." So it seems like the first special thing about land - that it is in fixed supply - is alone a sufficient condition for your conclusion that taxing it would be beneficial. Is that right? If that is right, I'll put your two other special things about land aside for now, because it's this conclusion that I think is incorrect. In particular, I think the major premise - that a thing being in fixed supply can be taxed without negative consequences - is incorrect. Fred Foldvary: why wouldn't a "Labor Value Tax" or a "Tractor Value Tax" have the same beneficial effects? Labor has an opportunity cost in leisure. Not so with land. Tractors have a cost of production. Not so with land. Taxes on labor and capital goods have a deadweight loss, taxes on land have no DWL. Those questions were rhetorical. I was trying to pin down exactly what is special about land that means taxing it has net-positive effects. Fred Foldvary: I brought up another example of something for which that is true: Rembrandts. To be consistent, then, you would have to say that recapturing 80% of the Rembrandt-rent "doesn't distort prices" and "encourages Rembrandt owner to put the paintings to best possible use", because the economic argument is the same as that for LVT. Correct. Collecting that Rembrandt rent would reduce the purchase price of Rembrandts by 80 percent. More Rembrandts would be exhibited and fewer stored out of sight. Those who are not making productive use would sell to those who do. I don't think we can say for sure that more Rembrandts would be exhibited. The higher costs of holding them might mean museums are less likely to want them, relative to other goods which are not subject to the tax. Like Monets, for example. And even if this does turn out to be the case, I don't think we can say for sure that that would be a good consequence economically-speaking. Who's to say that we're not better off with some of the Rembrandts kept out of sight? If for some reason there is a series of fires in museums and the ones on display get destroyed, future generations will be extremely grateful to the speculators - who profited handsomely - keeping some of the paintings under wraps. Now you might say that land cannot be destroyed, so the analogy fails, but that's not the point. The point is that speculators play a useful role in the economy. Do you accept this? For example, take a wheat speculator. He buys at harvest time in the expectation that the price will be higher next spring when supplies are low. The wheat speculator makes a profit, and benefits the rest of us by making wheat available all year round, and making the price of it remarkably stable given the seasonal nature of the good. You could look at the situation in November and say 'Look at all this wheat that is being held out of use! If we distort economic incentives so that these wheat speculators release their wheat onto the market, prices will plummet! Everyone can have more wheat!'. Of course, depending on how successfully you achieved your goal, prices would plummet but then they would skyrocket in the spring, and the wheat may even completely run out. So if you accept that it would be economically destructive to 'induce' speculators of wheat to flood the wheat market, rather than hold out of use until a time it might be more demanded, I do not see how you can accept precisely the opposite conclusion when it comes to land: that it would be economically beneficial if land being speculated upon were 'induced' into being put to use now rather than being held out of use until a time it might be more demanded. Are there no conceivable circumstances under which the 'best possible use' of land is to 'hold it out of use' (or 'not make productive use of it' in your words), waiting for it's price to rise? Fred Foldvary: The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use What is the logic? See my post to Daniel that explains the logic carefully. Fred Foldvary: I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive. It is a matter of positive economics, not ideology. I agree. All I meant by 'free marketer' was that Dan has a good understanding of how markets work and why taxes are generally bad. Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper Law without Government | Post Points: 20
Fred Foldvary: why wouldn't a "Labor Value Tax" or a "Tractor Value Tax" have the same beneficial effects? Labor has an opportunity cost in leisure. Not so with land. Tractors have a cost of production. Not so with land. Taxes on labor and capital goods have a deadweight loss, taxes on land have no DWL.
Fred Foldvary: I brought up another example of something for which that is true: Rembrandts. To be consistent, then, you would have to say that recapturing 80% of the Rembrandt-rent "doesn't distort prices" and "encourages Rembrandt owner to put the paintings to best possible use", because the economic argument is the same as that for LVT. Correct. Collecting that Rembrandt rent would reduce the purchase price of Rembrandts by 80 percent. More Rembrandts would be exhibited and fewer stored out of sight. Those who are not making productive use would sell to those who do.
Fred Foldvary: The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use What is the logic?
Fred Foldvary: I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive. It is a matter of positive economics, not ideology.
Econ Amateur:Johnny please explain the qualifiers of "actually mix their labor". How can one know how much labor is needed, and how far it mixes?
The same way one knows how much labor is needed to acquire possession rights over land in your own philosophy. Got a problem with Locke? Take a look in the mirror.
Graham Wright: I don't think we can say for sure that more Rembrandts would be exhibited. The higher costs of holding them might mean museums are less likely to want them, relative to other goods which are not subject to the tax. Like Monets, for example.
I don't think we can say for sure that more Rembrandts would be exhibited. The higher costs of holding them might mean museums are less likely to want them, relative to other goods which are not subject to the tax. Like Monets, for example.
Graham Wright: And even if this does turn out to be the case, I don't think we can say for sure that that would be a good consequence economically-speaking. Who's to say that we're not better off with some of the Rembrandts kept out of sight? If for some reason there is a series of fires in museums and the ones on display get destroyed, future generations will be extremely grateful to the speculators - who profited handsomely - keeping some of the paintings under wraps. The risk of loss is compensated for in the price paid by the museum to the owner. Graham Wright: Now you might say that land cannot be destroyed, so the analogy fails, but that's not the point. The point is that speculators play a useful role in the economy. Do you accept this? For example, take a wheat speculator. He buys at harvest time in the expectation that the price will be higher next spring when supplies are low. The wheat speculator makes a profit, and benefits the rest of us by making wheat available all year round, and making the price of it remarkably stable given the seasonal nature of the good. You could look at the situation in November and say 'Look at all this wheat that is being held out of use! If we distort economic incentives so that these wheat speculators release their wheat onto the market, prices will plummet! Everyone can have more wheat!'. Of course, depending on how successfully you achieved your goal, prices would plummet but then they would skyrocket in the spring, and the wheat may even completely run out. Yes, speculation in this case is useful, because it can help to stabilise production over time. But speculation can't have this effect in a good that is no longer being produced. Graham Wright: So if you accept that it would be economically destructive to 'induce' speculators of wheat to flood the wheat market, rather than hold out of use until a time it might be more demanded, I do not see how you can accept precisely the opposite conclusion when it comes to land: that it would be economically beneficial if land being speculated upon were 'induced' into being put to use now rather than being held out of use until a time it might be more demanded. 1. Wheat is a consumable good and is used up. Land is not. 2. Wheat can be withdrawn from the economy now and stored for later. Land cannot. Graham Wright: Are there no conceivable circumstances under which the 'best possible use' of land is to 'hold it out of use' (or 'not make productive use of it' in your words), waiting for it's price to rise? If a speculator is convinced that the most productive use of land is to hold it out of use, the LVT does not prevent him from doing so. What it does is ensure that he bears the economic cost (or, if his assessment is correct, keeps the gains) of him doing so. <-- By the way, any idea why my posts seem to keep breaking out to the side like this? | Post Points: 20
Graham Wright: Now you might say that land cannot be destroyed, so the analogy fails, but that's not the point. The point is that speculators play a useful role in the economy. Do you accept this? For example, take a wheat speculator. He buys at harvest time in the expectation that the price will be higher next spring when supplies are low. The wheat speculator makes a profit, and benefits the rest of us by making wheat available all year round, and making the price of it remarkably stable given the seasonal nature of the good. You could look at the situation in November and say 'Look at all this wheat that is being held out of use! If we distort economic incentives so that these wheat speculators release their wheat onto the market, prices will plummet! Everyone can have more wheat!'. Of course, depending on how successfully you achieved your goal, prices would plummet but then they would skyrocket in the spring, and the wheat may even completely run out. Yes, speculation in this case is useful, because it can help to stabilise production over time. But speculation can't have this effect in a good that is no longer being produced. Graham Wright: So if you accept that it would be economically destructive to 'induce' speculators of wheat to flood the wheat market, rather than hold out of use until a time it might be more demanded, I do not see how you can accept precisely the opposite conclusion when it comes to land: that it would be economically beneficial if land being speculated upon were 'induced' into being put to use now rather than being held out of use until a time it might be more demanded. 1. Wheat is a consumable good and is used up. Land is not. 2. Wheat can be withdrawn from the economy now and stored for later. Land cannot. Graham Wright: Are there no conceivable circumstances under which the 'best possible use' of land is to 'hold it out of use' (or 'not make productive use of it' in your words), waiting for it's price to rise? If a speculator is convinced that the most productive use of land is to hold it out of use, the LVT does not prevent him from doing so. What it does is ensure that he bears the economic cost (or, if his assessment is correct, keeps the gains) of him doing so. <-- By the way, any idea why my posts seem to keep breaking out to the side like this? | Post Points: 20
Graham Wright: So if you accept that it would be economically destructive to 'induce' speculators of wheat to flood the wheat market, rather than hold out of use until a time it might be more demanded, I do not see how you can accept precisely the opposite conclusion when it comes to land: that it would be economically beneficial if land being speculated upon were 'induced' into being put to use now rather than being held out of use until a time it might be more demanded.
Graham Wright: Are there no conceivable circumstances under which the 'best possible use' of land is to 'hold it out of use' (or 'not make productive use of it' in your words), waiting for it's price to rise? If a speculator is convinced that the most productive use of land is to hold it out of use, the LVT does not prevent him from doing so. What it does is ensure that he bears the economic cost (or, if his assessment is correct, keeps the gains) of him doing so. <-- By the way, any idea why my posts seem to keep breaking out to the side like this? | Post Points: 20
Graham Wright: Econ Amateur:Johnny please explain the qualifiers of "actually mix their labor". How can one know how much labor is needed, and how far it mixes? The same way one knows how much labor is needed to acquire possession rights over land in your own philosophy. Got a problem with Locke? Take a look in the mirror. No labour-mixing at all is needed in order to claim exclusive possession of land under Georgism. | Post Points: 5
dsyddall:B's rearrangement is the service he is selling. He has produced this and owns it.
This is one place where we fundamentally disagree. If A owns certain raw materials, hiring B to rearrange them into something else does not (IMHO) constitute selling or even giving away those raw materials to B. A retains ownership of the raw materials through to their rearranged form. Hence I don't consider B to ever acquire any ownership rights over them, either before or after their rearrangement.
dsyddall:Good. Then we are in complete agreement on this.
I don't see how. You want to include "exclusive" as part of the definition of "ownership"; I don't.
dsyddall:I was not attributing this line of argument to you, only exploring possible consequences.
That certainly wasn't clear to me. I was under the impression that you were paraphrasing what you thought my position was.
So what do you see as the flaw in my counter-argument about Georgists having to logically conclude that people are a form of "land", since they aren't produced by human labor?
dsyddall:If your logic has caused you to dismiss the right to life, perhaps it is time to re-examine your position.
Is this another example of you exploring possible consequences? Either way, I'd like you to answer my question - what do you think is the basis for the right to life, if any?
dsyddall:Those words are important to you because you want to dismiss a straw man. It is not necessary for my argument that land is always and necessarily low-cost and rewarding, only that at least some times it is.
In this post, you wrote the following: "the holding costs of land are so low, and the rewards so high". The syntax you used there is that of the gnomic aspect, which is used to assert universal truths. I added the words "always and necessarily" in paraphrasing your claim to make explicit that it's a claim of universal truth. If you meant to claim something other than a universal truth, then why didn't you say something like "the holding costs of land can be so low, and the rewards can be so high"?
dsyddall:Agreed that the above was not a clear definition. To clarify, a privilege would be a benefit gained through coercive (aggressive) force rather than through economic exchange.
Okay, I can accept that definition arguendo as well. So per your definitions of "coercion" and "privilege", I'd say that property involves neither.
dsyddall:I don't see why you're having trouble understanding this. I have already provided a sufficient reason that land is not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder - because the land owner does not bear the full economic cost of his decisions. You have yet to rebut this reason. Until you rebut this reason, my argument stands.
Simply telling me that you've already provided a sufficient reason is in no way going to make agree that you have done so.
Your original claim - that LVT encourages "land" to be allocated to the highest bidder - seemed to strongly imply an obverse, namely that LVT necessarily does not encourage "land" to be allocated to the highest bidder. If that is indeed the case, then proving one is the same as proving the other. I asked you to prove the obverse, but so far you've only provided a partial proof (at best). You haven't shown that it's impossible for "land" to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. If that's not your claim, then I suggest you clarify.
dsyddall:Frankly, I'm so lost in the argument about the argument that I don't even remember what this argument was even about.
The argument is about you showing how - that is, proving - LVT necessarily encourages "land" to go to the highest bidder. A logical proof is required here.
dsyddall:If the land is not sub-marginal, yet is left unproductive, then there is an economic cost because the same production that would have occurred on productive land will have to occur on less productive land.
That begs the question as to whether "the same production" necessarily would have occurred using the more productive "land".
dsyddall:I think an objective theory of value can be descriptively helpful, even if we recognise it is ultimately a result of subjective values. Much like atoms are descriptively helpful to physics and chemistry, but in reality atoms are a reification.
Either value is objective or it's subjective. It can't be both. So which do you think it is?
dsyddall:Anything that the highest bidder pays below the second highest bid is economic rent (according to the law of rent). Anything above is either wages or interest.
How can the highest bid be below the second-highest bid? I still don't see why the amount at which others have allegedly been excluded should factor at all into the price that the highest bidder pays for an item at auction.
dsyddall:Yes, but that is only part of the subsidy received by the landowner, since economic rent is not produced by landowners qua landowners, yet is taken by landowners.
How can a landowner receive goods that don't exist? What exactly do you think is taken by landowners?
Fred Foldvary:"The supply of land can expand. It can also contract." autolikos. I live in the County of Alamada, California. It has a jurisdictional boundary. Please explain how the acres of land in the country can expand or contract. You're changing the context, Fred. You know as well as I do that, when I said "the supply of land", I meant the total supply. The keyboard is mightier than the gun. Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem. Voluntaryism Forum | Post Points: 5
You're changing the context, Fred. You know as well as I do that, when I said "the supply of land", I meant the total supply.
Fred Foldvary:"I'll answer you after you answer my own questions." autolykos. I think I did. If not, please state your unanswered questions. I'm not going to slog thru the entries to look for them.
I refer you to this post.
My philosephy seperates form from substence, labor from force, freedom from privilge. Unilateral property only exists for created form. I find it dishonest to be misquoted and mischaracterized. There is no "mixing". ALL the form comes from labor. Is there any one who can produce a quote of mine that shows how I allocate land via labor? Because I do not. Or better yet, discard the personal attacks and return to the logic. Lets review. Jonny Doe asked a question: "Did/do the landowners in question, actually mix their labor with the land/homestead,...."
This implies to me that the question can be answered via following some principle. And for all my efforts to find out what "mixing" is it still seems mystical. Suppose there are two similar lands. In one a tree is blown over by the wind, and on another the tree is pushed over by a man with his wind machine. This quality called "mixed labor" would be in the one cleared land but not the other. What test might one perform on the cleared land to find this "mixed labor"? If ownership is to be determined on the cleared land, then it seems reasonable that any deciding quality be one that can be demonstrated. This would be espicially helpful in determining the radius of the claimed land. For one could just test various samples of land, until the region of mixed labor is plotted, and the extent of claimable land so known. Since Jonny implies the question can be answered because he asks it. And it is vital to knowing what control should be awarded, I wanted to know how the question gets answered. Because it seems to me that "control"/ "ownership" is not actually an economic action at all. Its only dimension is that of forceful exclusion, which may be consistant with freedom, inconsistant, or conditionally consistant with freedom. So my problem with Locke is that he is mixing the economic concept "labor" with a force based concept "control". Normally when dimensions mix there is a conversion constant. The constant here would have the dimension Lands/labors. And I just wanted to know how to measure the units of each. When I look in the mirror I see a guy who wants better then mystical reasons to start excluding people from freedom.
Autolykos: dsyddall:B's rearrangement is the service he is selling. He has produced this and owns it. This is one place where we fundamentally disagree. If A owns certain raw materials, hiring B to rearrange them into something else does not (IMHO) constitute selling or even giving away those raw materials to B. A retains ownership of the raw materials through to their rearranged form. Hence I don't consider B to ever acquire any ownership rights over them, either before or after their rearrangement.
I agree that B doesn't own the physical item he has performed his rearrangement on. What I'm saying is he owns the service of rearrangement, which is why he is entitled to sell it.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Good. Then we are in complete agreement on this. I don't see how. You want to include "exclusive" as part of the definition of "ownership"; I don't.
I'm not saying that "exclusive" should be inserted into the definition of ownership generally. Only in the case of ownership of one's body.
Autolykos: So what do you see as the flaw in my counter-argument about Georgists having to logically conclude that people are a form of "land", since they aren't produced by human labor?
The exclusion of humans from land is implicit in its definition. Land refers to naturally occurring resources, and humans aren't a resource.
Since I presume what you're really interested in is not the definition, but why Georgists don't consider humans to be owned in the same sense that land is owned, I believe I answered that when I said:
dsyddall: Why must I have exclusive legitimate control over myself? It follows from a simple reductio ad absurdum. To deny exclusive legitimate control over one's body is to deny the right of life, since if another person can legitimately control you, they can legitimately direct you to commit suicide. It is also true that exclusive legitimate control of land follows from a reductio ad absurdum. If I cannot have exclusive legitimate control of land, then no work that I produce can be secure and I lose the right to sustain myself and my right to life. However, my right of exclusive legitimate control of land must be balanced against other people's equal rights to exclusive legitimate control of land, which follows from their equal right to life. This is the difference between land and my body - no-one else has an equal right to my body, they only have a right to their own body.
Why must I have exclusive legitimate control over myself? It follows from a simple reductio ad absurdum. To deny exclusive legitimate control over one's body is to deny the right of life, since if another person can legitimately control you, they can legitimately direct you to commit suicide. It is also true that exclusive legitimate control of land follows from a reductio ad absurdum. If I cannot have exclusive legitimate control of land, then no work that I produce can be secure and I lose the right to sustain myself and my right to life. However, my right of exclusive legitimate control of land must be balanced against other people's equal rights to exclusive legitimate control of land, which follows from their equal right to life. This is the difference between land and my body - no-one else has an equal right to my body, they only have a right to their own body.
Autolykos:I'd like you to answer my question - what do you think is the basis for the right to life, if any?
As far as this discussion is concerned I'm content to assert it as a brute fact.
To answer your question more directly, I'm aware of various materialistic attempts to define "personhood", which supposedly grants the right to life, but so far I haven't heard an account that I consider satisfactory. But I don't think the failure to successfully account for the right to life warrants the conclusion that such a right doesn't exist.
Autolykos:You haven't shown that it's impossible for "land" to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. If that's not your claim, then I suggest you clarify.
That's not my claim. My claim is that since even poorly allocated or unallocated land is already profitable, the marginal incentive to allocate land to the highest bidder is reduced in the absence of LVT. Therefore, in any given instance, the likelihood of it being allocated to the highest bidder is reduced. This does not entail the impossibility of land being allocated to the highest bidder.
Autolykos: The argument is about you showing how - that is, proving - LVT necessarily encourages "land" to go to the highest bidder. A logical proof is required here.
LVT encourages land to be allocated to the highest bidder by increasing the marginal incentive of doing so.
Autolykos: That begs the question as to whether "the same production" necessarily would have occurred using the more productive "land".
Quite possibly not, but it remains the case that production is driven onto less productive land.
Autolykos: Either value is objective or it's subjective. It can't be both. So which do you think it is?
I think that economic values are subjective, but that talk of "objective values", such as "the market price" (which doesn't refer to any particular individual's subjective value) can nevertheless be meaningful and useful so should not be ruled out merely because it is a reification. (Similarly, all scientific theories are reifications, but that doesn't make science meaningless or useless.)
Autolykos: dsyddall:Anything that the highest bidder pays below the second highest bid is economic rent (according to the law of rent). Anything above is either wages or interest. How can the highest bid be below the second-highest bid? I still don't see why the amount at which others have allegedly been excluded should factor at all into the price that the highest bidder pays for an item at auction.
The highest bid can't be below the second-highest bid (clearly). What I meant was the highest bid can be divided into two parts. The first part has a value of the second highest bid and is economic rent, while the second part is the remainder and is wages or capital yield. The highest bidder is entitled to his wages and capital yield, but not the economic rent, since he produced the wages and capital yield but not the economic rent, which exists whether he produces anything or nothing.
Autolykos: dsyddall:Yes, but that is only part of the subsidy received by the landowner, since economic rent is not produced by landowners qua landowners, yet is taken by landowners. How can a landowner receive goods that don't exist? Economic rent does exist. Things like a good location and access to services provide value that people are willing to pay for, but a landowner receives them at no cost. Autolykos: What exactly do you think is taken by landowners? Economic rent. | Post Points: 20
How can a landowner receive goods that don't exist?
Autolykos: What exactly do you think is taken by landowners?