Byzantine: Brainpolice:No, you have to justify a uniform law for an entire community that bans non-violence cultural practises to begin with. You move there, you've agreed to it. You don't like it, don't move there. Just like your parents' house, your parents' rules, etc. Your ideological musings are irrelevant.
Brainpolice:No, you have to justify a uniform law for an entire community that bans non-violence cultural practises to begin with.
You move there, you've agreed to it. You don't like it, don't move there. Just like your parents' house, your parents' rules, etc. Your ideological musings are irrelevant.
That argument is not consistant with libertarianism, it's the love it or leave it argument all over again. You need to prove the initial legitimacy of authority over the entire community, which you cannot do on a libertarian basis. Furthermore, even assuming the legitimacy of land ownership in the scenario, you need to prove that by virtue of being a land owner that you can make whoever is on your land your defacto slave, which you cannot do without putting property before life and liberty.
Once again, this line of argument you are making justifies the state, and it isn't even a valid arguement in any other context. Just because someone lives in their parents home does not give their parents the right to beat or kill them. Likewise, just because someone lives in a particular area claimed by a state does not give the state the right to do as it pleases with them. Yet that is precisely what you are argueing for: that as soon as I live within the territory claimed by your state (and yes, you are essentially advocating a state), I somehow must abide by absolutely limitless authority over my life or leave. The problem is that people's rights don't completely dissapear as soon as they enter your property, and an entire community isn't anyone's property.
Statists always use these arguments. You don't like taxes? Go away. You don't agree to infringing your liberties? Go away.
However you may put it, there's nothing stopping such a community from placing more restrictions on your freedom. How is this different from the state? Or perhaps you guys are minarchists, but that's a whole another discussion. But if you're anarchists, this conservatism is hypocritical and self-refuting.
It also justifies shopping malls, resorts, gated communities, corporations, and other forms of private property and free association.
No it does not. You are being disingenous. Your arguement justifies the state and any kind of arbitrary authority so long as someone is assumed to be an owner. You've yet to actually responding to my debunking of your argument.
What you are arguing for is the permanent levelling of society to that of the basest individual.
No I am not, that is a misrepresentation. I can draw out the implications of your arguments, but you don't even seem to comprehend what my position is.
This is convenient, since it allows you to make putative arguments for free society, confident in the fact that the central state persists to enforce political correctness and the exercise of all sorts of extruded, rococco "rights" that otherwise people would have zero incentive to honor.
I don't favor state-enforced political correctness, political correctness is not only on the political left, and it is in fact your argument that is based on a conservative variant of political correctness in the attempt to justify a communitarian law against vices. Watching child pornography is certainly not politically correct, and you are justifying what amounts to the state prohibition of victimless crimes. You misuse libertarian concepts as ammo for your conservative agenda.
Joe Garceau: I have recently read Walter Block's book "Defending the Undefendable". It is a book that presents an argument to vindicate the supposedly criminal, immoral, and exploitative members of society. If we accept that in a free society it is not a legitimate function of government to legislate morality, what would be the postiion of a libertarian /minarchist /anarchist on the ethics of allowing someone to view child pornography? Many of us can agree that Child Pornography is an immoral act. It is clear that the individual who manipulates a minor into engaging in such acts is commiting an act of aggression and coercion. Can this also be said for the individual who purchases such materials? This is the question that I ask. Can we in a free society allow consumers the freedom to purchase child pornography even though the product purchased was produced in what many would feel is an illegal, immoral, coercive, and exploitative way? Is the consumer to be restricted in purchasing this material because it was fraudulently produced?
I have recently read Walter Block's book "Defending the Undefendable". It is a book that presents an argument to vindicate the supposedly criminal, immoral, and exploitative members of society. If we accept that in a free society it is not a legitimate function of government to legislate morality, what would be the postiion of a libertarian /minarchist /anarchist on the ethics of allowing someone to view child pornography? Many of us can agree that Child Pornography is an immoral act. It is clear that the individual who manipulates a minor into engaging in such acts is commiting an act of aggression and coercion. Can this also be said for the individual who purchases such materials? This is the question that I ask. Can we in a free society allow consumers the freedom to purchase child pornography even though the product purchased was produced in what many would feel is an illegal, immoral, coercive, and exploitative way? Is the consumer to be restricted in purchasing this material because it was fraudulently produced?
Byzantine:You move there, you've agreed to it. You don't like it, don't move there. Just like your parents' house, your parents' rules, etc. Your ideological musings are irrelevant.
In a free society, an exchange or property is just an exchange of property unless there is something expressly stated in the contract of sale. The "community" has no say what is in the contract of sale, unless the owner had previously agreed to it in the first place.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Spideynw:In a free society, an exchange or property is just an exchange of property unless there is something expressly stated in the contract of sale. The "community" has no say what is in the contract of sale, unless the owner had previously agreed to it in the first place.
How insightful.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Marko:Viewing of child pornography films should be illegal. It should be illegal because there is a victim, the child. A child can not consent to take part in it. And every further viewing is invading his privacy and assaulting his dignity further and victimising him further even if the child is already an old man now... Viewing of child pornography cartoons however should not be illegal because there is no victim.
As I have already shown, this argument is completely inconsistent. A child cannot consent to anything. As such, anything a parent does to a child is violating the child. The only conclusion is to throw them out on the street and let them fend for themselves.
Also, animals cannot consent, so killing them would be wrong as well, if your only criteria for violating rights is that one did not consent to it. Hell, picking up a rock would be violating its "rights" using this logic, because it did not consent!
Not consenting is not the only thing relevant to determining if rights have been violated. One has to have the ability to consent first.
Spideynw: As I have already shown, this argument is completely inconsistent. A child cannot consent to anything. As such, anything a parent does to a child is violating the child. The only conclusion is to throw them out on the street and let them fend for themselves.
I agree a child can not consent to anything that is harmful or degrading for him. Even if a child "consented" to something inhumane like this his "consent" is not valid.
By the same measure a child can not object to anything that is not harmful or degrading for him. So even if a child "objected" to being spanked for good reason his "objection" is not valid.I do not know how you follow it up that the child must therefore be thrown on thee street. Throwing him out would obviously be against parental obligation. Which is a positive obligation that is voluntarily self-inflicted.
The debate between BrainPolice and Giles makes no sense to me. I've read through the whole thing, and both of you seem to be arguing against positions that neither of you hold. I don't see how a homeowner's association(which is what Giles is advocating, or at least, I believe he's advocating), is any way a violation of libertarianism. It's nothing more than a contract you sign before purchasing land. The contract simply stipulates things that you cannot do on said land, or in the community surrounding the land. If you did not like these terms or agree with them, you did not have to sign the contract, but the owner would not agree to sell you the land. BrainPolice is arguing against monarchy, but Giles isn't advocating monarchy. If you want to live in a community that outlaws child pornography, then by all means, form a Homeowners Association and get everyone in the community to sign a contract that outlaws child pornography.
It would seem to me that there is no actual difference between Left-Libertarians and...well...whatever Giles would characterize himself as.
While it is theoretically possible to have a single person own enough properties to constitute a privately-owned town, the practical reality is that the free market tends to create abundance out of scarcity - so rentership is not likely to be very common at all. People will own their own properties for the most part, as the supply of houses will rise to meet demand. This includes some people who may not like certain activities owning a house right next to a house owned by people enthusiastic about those same activities. So the formation of homeowner's associations with restrictive covenants are really the only way to control what your neighbor does.
The fact is that if you want to be free, you have to let others be free also. If you want to live in an environment of control, you'll need surrender partial ownership of your property to other people. If you want that, you han have it. There's plenty of room for that in the market. As for me, I prefer liberty.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Marko:I agree a child can not consent to anything that is harmful or degrading for him.
Nor can a child withold consent. As such, the child's rights have not been violated.
Marko:Even if a child "consented" to something inhumane like this his "consent" is not valid.
Of course it would be. That would constitute an ability to consent, which is what all rights are based on.
Marko:By the same measure a child can not object to anything that is not harmful or degrading for him.
Nor can a child consent. As such, a child's rights have not been violated.
Marko:So even if a child "objected" to being spanked for good reason his "objection" is not valid.
If a child does not consent, and has the ability to consent, then his objection is completely valid. That is the only way we know that someone's rights have been violated.
Marko:I do not know how you follow it up that the child must therefore be thrown on thee street.
If you claim that a child's rights have been violated because his parent made him engage in sex, then anything a parent does to a child would be considered violating a child's rights. As such, the only way to ensure a child's rights are not violated is to stick them out in the street.
Marko:Throwing him out would obviously be against parental obligation.
Only in your world. Parents have no obligations to children. They are their property.
nibbler491: The debate between BrainPolice and Giles makes no sense to me. I've read through the whole thing, and both of you seem to be arguing against positions that neither of you hold. I don't see how a homeowner's association(which is what Giles is advocating, or at least, I believe he's advocating), is any way a violation of libertarianism. It's nothing more than a contract you sign before purchasing land. The contract simply stipulates things that you cannot do on said land, or in the community surrounding the land. If you did not like these terms or agree with them, you did not have to sign the contract, but the owner would not agree to sell you the land. BrainPolice is arguing against monarchy, but Giles isn't advocating monarchy. If you want to live in a community that outlaws child pornography, then by all means, form a Homeowners Association and get everyone in the community to sign a contract that outlaws child pornography. It would seem to me that there is no actual difference between Left-Libertarians and...well...whatever Giles would characterize himself as.
I agree completely, which is why I said what I said. They seem to be talking past each other, but hold the same ideas.
MacFall: While it is theoretically possible to have a single person own enough properties to constitute a privately-owned town, the practical reality is that the free market tends to create abundance out of scarcity - so rentership is not likely to be very common at all. People will own their own properties for the most part, as the supply of houses will rise to meet demand. This includes some people who may not like certain activities owning a house right next to a house owned by people enthusiastic about those same activities. So the formation of homeowner's associations with restrictive covenants are really the only way to control what your neighbor does. The fact is that if you want to be free, you have to let others be free also. If you want to live in an environment of control, you'll need surrender partial ownership of your property to other people. If you want that, you han have it. There's plenty of room for that in the market. As for me, I prefer liberty.
I mean really, I don't care about whatever non-violent behavior the people on my street engage in within the privacy of their own homes, it doesn't affect me. I really don't care to know what they are doing to begin with.
Spideynw: If you claim that a child's rights have been violated because his parent made him engage in sex, then anything a parent does to a child would be considered violating a child's rights. As such, the only way to ensure a child's rights are not violated is to stick them out in the street.
Spideynw: Marko:Throwing him out would obviously be against parental obligation. Only in your world. Parents have no obligations to children. They are their property.
The fact of the matter is, I don't see how 2 anarchists(who are truly anarchists) can argue with each other. Anarchism is by it's very definition a lack of a system...so what's there to argue about? Since nothing is being implemented(except the lack of implementation), then society will just be the result of the voluntary interactions of free people. Whether this is a bunch of labor syndicates or a ton of big corporations with a lot of "wage slaves", what is the difference?
If Giles wants to live in a (voluntary)conservative community where women are not allowed to show skin above their knees(I'm not saying that this is what Giles actually wants, it's just an extreme example of a conservative community that could arise in a free society *cough* Amish *cough*), then who am I or any other anarchist to stop him? If I were to try to stop him, then I would cease to be an anarchist.
Conversely, if BrainPolice did not want to live in this society, then he is free to do that. If he wants to join a labor syndicate, then he is free to do that. To say otherwise, again, would invalidate my position as an anarchist.
nibbler491: The fact of the matter is, I don't see how 2 anarchists(who are truly anarchists) can argue with each other.
The fact of the matter is, I don't see how 2 anarchists(who are truly anarchists) can argue with each other.
The thing about libertarian theory is that there's always a point to be refined. I have an untested theory that if you put two or more libertarians in a room together, you could power a small town just with the energy generated by their hair-splitting. This is of particular interest to me as an agorist.
Speaking of which, I'm still working on answering the question you asked me about libertarianism and Christianity. I'm not ignoring you; I'm just lazy.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
MacFall:While it is theoretically possible to have a single person own enough properties to constitute a privately-owned town, the practical reality is that the free market tends to create abundance out of scarcity - so rentership is not likely to be very common at all. People will own their own properties for the most part, as the supply of houses will rise to meet demand.
And yet you haven't met the objection that there is no incentive for people to own their own land.
MacFall:The fact is that if you want to be free, you have to let others be free also. If you want to live in an environment of control, you'll need surrender partial ownership of your property to other people. If you want that, you han have it. There's plenty of room for that in the market. As for me, I prefer liberty.
I really wish people would stop this silly notion that lack of a coercive state entails a lack of all rules entirely.
Spideynw:I agree completely, which is why I said what I said. They seem to be talking past each other, but hold the same ideas.
Nonsense, BP is an intellectually bankrupt fool. Who attempts to refute economic analysis with a silly appeal to voluntaryism.
Marko: Spideynw: If you claim that a child's rights have been violated because his parent made him engage in sex, then anything a parent does to a child would be considered violating a child's rights. As such, the only way to ensure a child's rights are not violated is to stick them out in the street.No, that does not follow. There is a big difference between destructive, anti-child actions and those that are not such.
And you have yet to posit how we know the difference. Except to be perhaps you do not like it.
Marko:Only in your world are children property. Children are human and thus can not be property.
Whether something can or cannot be property has nothing to do with whether something is a human or not.
Marko:Children do not have the capacity needed to wield their self-ownership, thus until they develop that capacity their custodians are entitled, even required to make their decisions for them, but they are stil a seperate human being so the custodians can not in child`s place make any decisions that are harmful or degrading for the child.
Sure they can. The child has no rights until the child claims them.
Marko:It is similar to a person who rents a car and then proceeds to damage it on purpose. He is not the owner, he has only been given the right to drive the car. Thus by purposedly damaging the car, instead of taking proper care of it for the duration that it has been entrusted to his control, he has breeched a pact.
It is nothing like a rented car. The rented car belongs to someone who has rational thought. A child does not have rational thought.
GilesStratton:And yet you haven't met the objection that there is no incentive for people to own their own land.
In an unlibertarian society in which land ownership is a state privilege, you're right. But in a libertarian world those barriers to entry don't exist, and it is simply common sense that it is more beneficial for me to own a home than to rent one. Why you seem to envision a libertarian society in which land ownership is even more restricted than it is now, or that this is in some way preferable, is beyond me, when the theory would seem to indicate a general increase in the availability of such things. The general trend of a free market over time is generally more resources available for more people, not the creation of an even more exclusive land monopoly than what we have now.
That's a non-sequitor, it doesn't follow from the arguments that anyone has made. The point is that you can't make rules for people outside of your property boundaries, and the mere fact that you have property boundaries does not give you completely arbitrary authority over other people (I.E. a property right does not negate other people's right to life and liberty). To my knowledge, you can't dictate rules for non-violent social conduct on other people's property according to any libertarian theory of rights that I am aware of. There is simply no way to reconcile a uniform law for an entire community requiring or banning a particular cultural practise in the absence of unanimous consent among the owners, which simply isn't likely at all. The practical nature of the matter is that different owners have different standards, and free markets generally do not allow for the level of standardization in this regaurd that conservative-communitarianism advocates.
GilesStratton: Spideynw:I agree completely, which is why I said what I said. They seem to be talking past each other, but hold the same ideas. Nonsense, BP is an intellectually bankrupt fool. Who attempts to refute economic analysis with a silly appeal to voluntaryism.
It'd be wise for you to drop the crude attitude and stop making wild claims. I have not attempted to refute economic analysis, you have not made a valid economic analysis, and simply brushing off libertarian social theory wholesale in the name of utilitarian economics is a mistake. This is a point I've butted heads with multiple people here over before: this akward tendency to act as if libertarian social theory is irrelevant and to reduce everything to a dry utilitarian economic analysis, without the context of a libertarian social theory. My point in this regaurd is merely an extension on Rothbard's criticism of utilitarian free market economists, namely that they tend to ignore social theory and disingenous pretend to be making value-free arguments in the attempt to defend a value that they've assumed.
Juan:Not paying rent and not being bound to terms set by a landlord sound like incentives to NOT rent...
These terms set by the landlords are what stops the value of your property to decrease. Which is a danger that a renter isn't exposed to.
Brainpolice:In an unlibertarian society in which land ownership is a state privilege, you're right
Actually the state does everything to stop renting. See Spencer MacCallum on this.
Brainpolice:Why you seem to envision a libertarian society in which land ownership is even more restricted than it is now, or that this is in some way preferable, is beyond me, when the theory would seem to indicate a general increase in the availability of such things.
Because in a free market a land would be far more expensive. Basic economic theory informs us that uncertainty about land (that results from eminent domain etc.) will lead to a decline in prices, as will the countless restrictions that the state imposes on the use of land. With an increase in the cost of land, ownership will become more difficult and renting will seem more attractive. Especially since feudal like land arrangements would lead to higher property prices.
Brainpolice:There is simply no way to reconcile a uniform law for an entire community requiring or banning a particular cultural practise in the absence of unanimous consent among the owners, which simply isn't likely at all.
If it's my property. I can, if I rent out rooms in my house and forbid smoking in these rooms, that's my right. If the owner of a mall bans shops that sell heroin, he's very entitled and wise to do. Same applies for the situation I've described.
GilesStratton: Brainpolice:There is simply no way to reconcile a uniform law for an entire community requiring or banning a particular cultural practise in the absence of unanimous consent among the owners, which simply isn't likely at all. If it's my property. I can, if I rent out rooms in my house and forbid smoking in these rooms, that's my right. If the owner of a mall bans shops that sell heroin, he's very entitled and wise to do. Same applies for the situation I've described.
If you only said so from the beginning, we wouldn't have had this long controversy. I agree, however you can't speculate or imply that this would lead to a general, community-wide ban on the viewing of child pornography. Many don't actually care who they sell their property to. Making such a ban reliable would only be possible if there was a state-like organisation that would enforce non-contractual rules.
GilesStratton: Juan: Not paying rent and not being bound to terms set by a landlord sound like incentives to NOT rent... These terms set by the landlords are what stops the value of your property to decrease.
Juan: Not paying rent and not being bound to terms set by a landlord sound like incentives to NOT rent...
Which is a danger that a renter isn't exposed to.
GilesStratton:Because in a free market a land would be far more expensive.
Because in a free market a land would be far more expensive.
To my knowledge, free market economics proves the exact opposite. There currently are massive barriers to entry. The ability of an individual to own land is restricted by law. The state law on land ownership artificially restricts supply, which artificially raises property values. I think what you really mean is that you DESIRE land to be more expensive.
Especially since feudal like land arrangements would lead to higher property prices.
Feudal like land arrangements don't exist in a free society, as they are the result of arbitrary state privilege. Why are you confirming my accusations about conservative-libertarian's tendency to slip into defenses of feudalism?
If it's my property.
As I've pointed out to you ad nauseum, an entire community isn't a single person's property.
I can, if I rent out rooms in my house and forbid smoking in these rooms, that's my right. If the owner of a mall bans shops that sell heroin, he's very entitled and wise to do. Same applies for the situation I've described.
It is misleading for you to make analogies to small-scale individual ownership to justify a conservative communitarian law for an entire community. These are bunk arguments. The situation you describe, in which an individual has arbitrary decision-making power over an entire community that they clearly do not own according to any libertarian property theory, isn't consistant with a libertarian society to begin with. For all intents and purposes, that is a monarchal state, as a single person claims arbitary authority over a land monopoly that they did not homestead or voluntarily exchange for.
Byzantine: Brainpolice:For all intents and purposes, that is a monarchal state, as a single person claims arbitary authority over a land monopoly that they did not homestead or voluntarily exchange for. You seem to have this hippy-dippy vision of anarchy where individuals will all live on their own one acre plots, enjoying complete freedom of movement of course. It is easy to foresee businesses buying whole cities in order to generate economies of scale for the infrastructure that supports high living standards. Such communities will naturally have various covenants with which you'll have to abide or you'll just have to shop for a place more in line with your personal ethics. This is a model that is followed everywhere government withdraws from dictating public access. If you don't like that sort of outcome, then you should work to strengthen the central state, which is the only entity willing to protect highly marginal activities.
Brainpolice:For all intents and purposes, that is a monarchal state, as a single person claims arbitary authority over a land monopoly that they did not homestead or voluntarily exchange for.
You seem to have this hippy-dippy vision of anarchy where individuals will all live on their own one acre plots, enjoying complete freedom of movement of course. It is easy to foresee businesses buying whole cities in order to generate economies of scale for the infrastructure that supports high living standards. Such communities will naturally have various covenants with which you'll have to abide or you'll just have to shop for a place more in line with your personal ethics. This is a model that is followed everywhere government withdraws from dictating public access. If you don't like that sort of outcome, then you should work to strengthen the central state, which is the only entity willing to protect highly marginal activities.
My vision of anarchy is not "hippy dippy" (actually, my position is much more consistant with individualism than yours is, as you selectively lapse into communitarianism), but I certainly know that a vision of feudalism isn't a vision of anarchy to begin with and that communitarianism and libertarianism are not reconconcilable as social theories. I also know that it makes no sense to nominally oppose the state and then have a vision of anarchy that is identical to a state, in which a single person claims absolute authority over an entire region of people. Hence, you don't even seem to have a vision of anarchy, and only appear to oppose the current state because it's in competition with the authorities that you would prefer to be the new state.
This notion you have of buisinesses buying whole cities makes no practical sense and doesn't follow from libertarianism. Who currently owns the city to buy it from? Currently, the city is occupied by a whole bunch of different people, most of whom either own or rent homes, and the state claims dejure ownership over the entire thing. And your solution is to transfer dejure ownership over the whole thing to some individual who clearly is incapable of voluntarily aquiring the entire thing by themself? How does this differ from the state, and what advantage is there in transfering from a monopoly to a monopoly? How would this not consititute a gigantic coercive property redistribution scheme? The logical implication of what you're advocating is that this individual becomes the defacto monarch, and their monopoly becomes the defacto state.
The idea that the state actually protects marginal activities (wtf is prohibition then?) and the actual best interest of minority groups is absurd. Throughout most of history, the state has had laws against them. The state has been used to create and enforce plenty of culturally conservative laws that compel or prohibit a particular non-violent behavior. The state did not invent or cause "alternative lifestyles". Your entire theory is blatantly tainted by your traditionalist cultural preferances. It does not follow from the disestablishment of the state that your cultural preferances become the law of the land, and there is no libertarian basis for justifying making your cultural preferances the law of the land.
What's amusing is that I've already debunked these claims of yours and others months ago, and yet you still repeat the same bunk arguments trying to justify authoritarianism, despite the fact that it blatantly contradicts fudamental libertarian principles. In the case of you and a few others, I have no problem claiming that you're just using libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism as sugar-coating for a conservative ideology and as a rationale for the establishment of your own prefered forms of authoritarianism, because it's become blatantly obvious given a consistant attempt to defend authoritarianism in a libertarian context. This is instructive of the fact that a mere nominal opposition to the current state is not sufficient enough for libertarianism.
Juan:a) wholly unfounded claim
Not really, seeing as I supported it. As I said, without state restrictions on property use it will be far more valuable. The lack of eminent domain etc. will also mean less uncertainty regarding the future of the land, ergo it is more expensive.
Juan:b) granting for argument's sake that land would be far more expensive it follows that rent would also be far more expensive, so at the end of the day the relative price of land is irrelevant.
Now, what does economics teach us about time preference? The answer to this question is the same as answering the question regarding why workers would work for a company as opposed to making their own.
Juan: I am renting, THEN I'm not a property owner SO there's no such thing as the "value of my property".
Notice, I'm talking about land, not property.
Juan: If Smith lives in a rented house and the value of the property Smith is renting goes up, the rent Smith has to pay goes up as well, so actually you're providing an argument AGAINST your case.
The above point applies here also, the house of the owner goes up in value.
Your argument is warped. Without state restrictions on land ownership, I.E. by removing barriers to entry, access to land and the general oppurtunity to aquire it is initially INCREASED. It also is erroneous to assume that all of the land in question must be sold, because some of it is simply unowned and open to be homesteaded. Likewise, without eminent domain, it is harder for a single person or organization to arbitrarily obtain vast swaths of land property, which means no land theft from current occupants. The effect of removing monopoly and opening up competition is more choices for people, not less choices.
GilesStratton:The lack of eminent domain
The idea of eminent domain has a negligble impact on the value of property in the U.S. since it is applicable to all property.
GilesStratton:Now, what does economics teach us about time preference?
How about you tell us where you are going with this? Otherwise, his answer seems far superior to yours, given that as property values go up, so will rent.
Brainpolice:To my knowledge, free market economics proves the exact opposite. There currently are massive barriers to entry. The ability of an individual to own land is restricted by law. The state law on land ownership artificially restricts supply, which artificially raises property values. I think what you really mean is that you DESIRE land to be more expensive.
Yes, free market economics does prove that things will, as a result of decreasing time preference, all things being equal, become less expensive. And yet, you ignore the uncertainty that the state creates in regard to land ownership. A quick look at Africa will prove this. Why do you think land is so much more expensive in Switzerland than it is in say, Kenya?
And as I stated, the state restricts the use of land in many ways. Which once again depresses the price.
Furthermore, if you'd done your homework and read the piece I suggested you to, you'd know that the state does everything to discourage renting in various forms such as outright promoting ownership, taxes on rentings and various other restrictions.
Brainpolice:Feudal like land arrangements don't exist in a free society, as they are the result of arbitrary state privilege.
Really? I don't see too many feudal land arrangements now.
That's the point, the difference is as Byzantine said they have to compete capital as opposed to stealing it.
Spideynw:The idea of eminent domain has a negligble impact on the value of property in the U.S. since it is applicable to all property.
The income tax is applicable to all tax, ergo it is neglible. Right?
Spideynw:How about you tell us where you are going with this? Otherwise, his answer seems far superior to yours, given that as property values go up, so will rent.
I've said where I'm going.