Political Theory

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jargon — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:46:09 GMT

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Student — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:30:02 GMT

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jargon — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:27:49 GMT

Jon Irenicus:

Yes, complementary goods increase the value of land, but this is not limited to land. Those providing the goods made the choice to provide them ultimately, whether or not they could fully capture the 'value' arising from them. Again, I do not see how this differs from complementary consumer goods increasing the value of other goods. Capital does exactly the same with human labour, although there are pre-defined contracts in that case which make the apportionment of funds cleaner.

Capital and consumer goods: can be produced

Land: can not be produced

The price of capital and consumer goods is determined by supply and demand. The former of the two is enacted by the producers of said good. But with land the case is simply not so. The supply is affected by any human. It is fixed.

It follows, that the landowners had no part in determining the quality or quantity of the land, as opposed to capitalists and laborers who do. Part of the product of capitalists and laborers gets soaked up in rising land rents, thanks to no effort on part of the landowners but on part of the capitalists/laborers.

I cannot agree that it is just to tax one good and not the other simply because one or the other would be discouraged. So what? Both enjoy the addition of value due to complementary goods.

Put labor taxes and people will labor less. Put capital taxes and people will invest less. Put a corporate tax and less businesses will sprout. Put savings taxes and people will save less. Put international trade taxes and people will trade less. Put a land tax and people will... be economically released from the tax that would have taken its place; no less goods will be produced as a consequence of this tax. On the contrary, more will be, because the only good whose 'production it punishes' is that good which is not produced by man. I think that increasing the stock of societal wealth, whilst making land available, driving demand for labor, etc. is a just measure. At least incomparison with others.

I realise that, I am not saying it's incompatible with the STV. I am pointing more to the conclusions of the theory. The LTV by itself also did not suffice to justify the expropriation of the capitalists.

I suppose there is a villifying element to Georgism. Is it wrong?

It does, or else what justification do they have to try and force others to fork up for the "value" they provided?

That property, not value, follows labor. Their justification is that the fruit of labor and capital is property, and if it is partially sealed away in a plot of land, whose owner did nothing to improve it, but the surrounding individuals did, then they would be obligated to collect their property in the form of the rent

That's a second-best type argument, and I can accept it in the case of landowners under a state because the state also taxes for and provides a bevy of monopolised 'services', which benefit them the most.

With LVT, there likely wouldn't be a lot of big landowners. People would likely take the land that they lived and worked on and leave the rest. The price of land would fall as its availability rose and more people could find their own plots.

I think I see where the disagreement is arising. You are proceeding on the assumption of a utilitarian arrangement (or perhaps Locke's original theory of appropriation.) Lockean libertarians (like Hoppe and Kinsella) tend to argue on the basis of conflict minimisation.

*shrug*

So is there a difference between No-Proviso Type Lockeans besides the disagreement with the proviso? I know that Kinsella is hard anti-proviso, and I expect Hoppe to be the same considering he is somewhat of a Royalist.

It amounts to the same thing. You are ineligible precisely because you exercise direct control over your body. You could put it in intuitionist or utilitarian terms as well, but especially on the latter theory, there would be nothing to preclude the ownership of the human body just because it is human, so again the argument would there be relevant. It could be rephrased as "body-you-directly-control-ownership" but that'd be clumsy.

How does it?

If direct control is the condition for property, then doesn't that open the door to things like socialist homesteading of capital?

I'll probably be a bit slow with any further replies, back to work tomorrow.

Aight.

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jon Irenicus — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:21:38 GMT

Because the constructive or destructive behavior of individuals in the locality of a site, determine part of its value. An excellent surgeon's labor at the hospital drives up the price of the land in the locality by improving its quality in the sense that it is nearer to an excellent service: himself.

So when the landowner keeps all of the rent of his land, what is he keeping? It was the activities of the individuals in the locale which determined the rent! Had they not been there, the rent would be much lower. The source of increasing land values is the effect of productive individuals in the aggregate.

Dishing out rent to X, Y, and Z precisely according to their contributions is near impossible, which is why George proposed that rents be publicized in the state.

Yes, complementary goods increase the value of land, but this is not limited to land. Those providing the goods made the choice to provide them ultimately, whether or not they could fully capture the 'value' arising from them. Again, I do not see how this differs from complementary consumer goods increasing the value of other goods. Capital does exactly the same with human labour, although there are pre-defined contracts in that case which make the apportionment of funds cleaner.

Because those would be taxes on labor or capital. Both of which can be produced by men. Doing so would be both injust (along Georgist lines) and non-productive, as it would discourage the production and employment of productive goods.

Ok, I guess they are arguing from a utiltiarian point of view then? I cannot agree that it is just to tax one good and not the other simply because one or the other would be discouraged. So what? Both enjoy the addition of value due to complementary goods.

No. It's compatible with STV.

I realise that, I am not saying it's incompatible with the STV. I am pointing more to the conclusions of the theory. The LTV by itself also did not suffice to justify the expropriation of the capitalists.

Doesn't really change the matter anyways.

It does, or else what justification do they have to try and force others to fork up for the "value" they provided?

Don't get me wrong. I don't love LVT, I just like it. If government is necessary, then you have to choose a way to tax, find a way which is more just and economically sane than others. Income Tax is filth. Tariffs and duties are morally kind but economically unsound. LVT is pretty damn good, all said and done.

That's a second-best type argument, and I can accept it in the case of landowners under a state because the state also taxes for and provides a bevy of monopolised 'services', which benefit them the most.

There's a leap of faith.

It's a prediction but if it benefits them more to provide complementary services that increase the value of their property, they may well do so, especially in the case of roads, which will likely be governed by homeowners' associations.

But private property enables a greater productivity of scarce goods. Except in land. Which is necessary to every living being and fixed in supply. We can grow the wealth pie, but never the land one. And living as a tenant rhymes with living in a state. Wouldn't a libertarian advocate a property standard which helps the individual be free and prosperous? The only thing to be lost in addressing the land question somehow (whether via Tuckerite Land Rights or Single-Taxing) is the ill-gotten gains of owners whose titles help only themselves.

I think I see where the disagreement is arising. You are proceeding on the assumption of a utilitarian arrangement (or perhaps Locke's original theory of appropriation.) Lockean libertarians (like Hoppe and Kinsella) tend to argue on the basis of conflict minimisation.

Do I have to be my own property to not be a slave? Why am I not simply an ineligible candidate for property?

It amounts to the same thing. You are ineligible precisely because you exercise direct control over your body. You could put it in intuitionist or utilitarian terms as well, but especially on the latter theory, there would be nothing to preclude the ownership of the human body just because it is human, so again the argument would there be relevant. It could be rephrased as "body-you-directly-control-ownership" but that'd be clumsy.

I'll probably be a bit slow with any further replies, back to work tomorrow.

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jargon — Mon, 06 May 2013 18:54:33 GMT

Jon Irenicus:

Then what does it matter who contributes what to the value of land? Or its price? You're not entitled to particular configurations of value anyway, and I know of no libertarian who argues you are entitled to own something because you increased its value, anymore. Value is subjective and exists in the minds of people. Much like reputation. I don't think you can take a position of moral agnosticism here, as the creation of value seems to be pivotal to the whole theory.

I'm talking about objective exchange value. I know about subjective value and that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

But what is it which drives the price of land up? The supply is fixed, so we can forget about that. We need to consider what determines up or down movements in the demand for land. Firstly, everyone needs land in some measure. Even those who are living in apartment buildings 20 floors up still need the land that the building stands on. It is in those places where land is the most dear, that people have to live in apartments, because actually occupying groundspace is far too expensive.

Why? The more populated the area, the dearer the land is. In rural areas, where the ratio of man to land is much lower, the site-value of a plot of land is accordingly lower. In urban areas, where the ratio of man to land is much higher, the site-value of a plot of land is accordingly higher. Where men wish to put capital and labor to use, or where they wish to make their dwelling, they require the land to stand them/it on.

That's only the first half of it though. Yes population growth affects rent, but why should that make landowners owe the newborn anything. It doesn't really. It's only the new existence of those humans which will drive up the demand for that land, as everyone needs it. The second half of the equation points us towards the Georgist conclusion.

Why are houses that are near excellent elementary schools more expensive? Why are houses that are near excellent hospitals more expensive? Why are houses near golf courses expensive and houses near crime-ridden areas inexpensive?

Because the constructive or destructive behavior of individuals in the locality of a site, determine part of its value. An excellent surgeon's labor at the hospital drives up the price of the land in the locality by improving its quality in the sense that it is nearer to an excellent service: himself.

So when the landowner keeps all of the rent of his land, what is he keeping? It was the activities of the individuals in the locale which determined the rent! Had they not been there, the rent would be much lower. The source of increasing land values is the effect of productive individuals in the aggregate.

Dishing out rent to X, Y, and Z precisely according to their contributions is near impossible, which is why George proposed that rents be publicized in the state.

This is the point where I lose my ability to understand it if it is not predicated on ownership of value. As is the case with a consumer good's value being increased via complementary goods being produced for it. Why would no tax be applied then? Or indeed for a factor of production, like labour?

Because those would be taxes on labor or capital. Both of which can be produced by men. Doing so would be both injust (along Georgist lines) and non-productive, as it would discourage the production and employment of productive goods.

Is this an effort along the lines of the labour theory of value to argue that the landowner is somehow contributing nothing to the productive process and simply skimming off the value?

No. It's compatible with STV.

Is this an effort to argue that the landowner is somehow contributing nothing to the productive process and simply skimming off the value?

Yes.

Even if we accept this argument, it is a leap to say they ought, therefore, to pay some manner of tax, particularly to individuals who provide services that improve their property's value, even in the knowledge that they may not necessarily be able to recoup those costs - it's their choice to provide the service.

Doesn't really change the matter anyways.

Don't get me wrong. I don't love LVT, I just like it. If government is necessary, then you have to choose a way to tax, find a way which is more just and economically sane than others. Income Tax is filth. Tariffs and duties are morally kind but economically unsound. LVT is pretty damn good, all said and done.

Absent government subsidies, it is most likely landlords, or to use a better term, landowners who would benefit the most from financing such services, anyway.

There's a leap of faith.

No, the goods would not have to be owned, that isn't quite the idea behind the statement; he is echoing the sentiment that private property is only required for scarce goods, because it is over them that conflict arises; non-scarce goods are a non-issue from this point of view.

But private property enables a greater productivity of scarce goods. Except in land. Which is necessary to every living being and fixed in supply. We can grow the wealth pie, but never the land one. And living as a tenant rhymes with living in a state. Wouldn't a libertarian advocate a property standard which helps the individual be free and prosperous? The only thing to be lost in addressing the land question somehow (whether via Tuckerite Land Rights or Single-Taxing) is the ill-gotten gains of owners whose titles help only themselves.

If you say so

I don't see any other way.

Choose wisely based on what criterion?

What he wants the world to be. That's the problem. The ends have to be chosen wisely as well. Whose to say. We all have different ends. Hopefully they intersect often enough.

Or more likely, it is because your body is itself a resource and can be subject to legal disputes, e.g. between you and a slaver. If Georgism tries to derive ownership of your labour, it has to begin with the position that you are a self-owner too. The term makes sense, legally speaking, once you realise that you can be someone else's property.

Do I have to be my own property to not be a slave? Why am I not simply an ineligible candidate for property?

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jon Irenicus — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:54:07 GMT

Who knows whether one owns this or that? These are social constructs.

Then what does it matter who contributes what to the value of land? Or its price? You're not entitled to particular configurations of value anyway, and I know of no libertarian who argues you are entitled to own something because you increased its value, anymore. Value is subjective and exists in the minds of people. Much like reputation. I don't think you can take a position of moral agnosticism here, as the creation of value seems to be pivotal to the whole theory.

George explains how it is not the landowner who is responsible for the increase in the rent of a land-site in his book Progress and Poverty, hosted on the Mises website here:

This is the point where I lose my ability to understand it if it is not predicated on ownership of value. As is the case with a consumer good's value being increased via complementary goods being produced for it. Why would no tax be applied then? Or indeed for a factor of production, like labour? Is this an effort along the lines of the labour theory of value to argue that the landowner is somehow contributing nothing to the productive process and simply skimming off the value? Even if we accept this argument, it is a leap to say they ought, therefore, to pay some manner of tax, particularly to individuals who provide services that improve their property's value, even in the knowledge that they may not necessarily be able to recoup those costs - it's their choice to provide the service. Absent government subsidies, it is most likely landlords, or to use a better term, landowners who would benefit the most from financing such services, anyway.

Is simply an assertion. If men did not exist, would the goods have to be owned by the deer? There's no explanation as for how private property in all things, a prescribed law, follows from a descriptive observation.

No, the goods would not have to be owned, that isn't quite the idea behind the statement; he is echoing the sentiment that private property is only required for scarce goods, because it is over them that conflict arises; non-scarce goods are a non-issue from this point of view.

these attempts to make private property into a logical implication of human existence are absurd.

If you say so.

It is up to men to choose wisely, not to 'prove' a law.

Choose wisely based on what criterion?

If you want private property just say so, in order for you to own your body, which you are, there would have to be law which preceded man. And man is the creator of law. So it's nonsense.

Or more likely, it is because your body is itself a resource and can be subject to legal disputes, e.g. between you and a slaver. If Georgism tries to derive ownership of your labour, it has to begin with the position that you are a self-owner too. The term makes sense, legally speaking, once you realise that you can be someone else's property.

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jargon — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:38:39 GMT

Jon Irenicus:

So this ideology's entire position hinges on whether you own value or not? Well, you don't.

Who knows whether one owns this or that? These are social constructs.

Georgism proposes that men own unconditionally the product of their labor. Acknowledging capital as an outgrowth of labor + abstention, they reduce the factors of production to a dichotomy of labor vs. land. The product of labor/capital goes to the laborer/capitalists (most everyone is a mix of the two), and the product of land (rent), goes to those who are responsible for its increase.

George explains how it is not the landowner who is responsible for the increase in the rent of a land-site in his book Progress and Poverty, hosted on the Mises website here:

http://mises.org/books/progress_poverty_george.pdf

Which, precisely, and why?

This one: "Two people cannot consume the same apple."

Is obviously true and irrelevant.

And this one: "Because goods are scarce, they must be privately owned."

Is simply an assertion. If men did not exist, would the goods have to be owned by the deer? There's no explanation as for how private property in all things, a prescribed law, follows from a descriptive observation.

Yes, you are. So what?

The "so what?" is this: these attempts to make private property into a logical implication of human existence are absurd. They attempt to bridge the is/ought gap, and all fail. The solution to choosing a standard of ownership isn't "Private property exists because it is private property." but, "What is the most just law?" And as long as we don't share the same ends in asking that question, we won't have the same answer. It doesn't follow from this, that each law is equal, but that no law is a necessary or natural outgrowth of the human condition. It is up to men to choose wisely, not to 'prove' a law.

Many Libertarians try to 'prove' private property through self-ownership. I say "meh". If you want private property just say so, in order for you to own your body, which you are, there would have to be law which preceded man. And man is the creator of law. So it's nonsense.

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jon Irenicus — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:16:43 GMT

So this ideology's entire position hinges on whether you own value or not? Well, you don't. Nor is ownership predicated on it. Why would you own value? If I were to create complementary goods that increase the value, say, of a PS3, should I get to tax Sony for this additional value they have now acquired through no effort of their own? And if not, why not?

A handful of assertions.

Which, precisely, and why?

Self-ownership is unnecessary. You are yourself.

Yes, you are. So what?

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jargon — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:07:38 GMT

Lincoln:

Geolibertarians consider "land" to be the common property of all mankind.

Source? I am unaware of this position as a plank of Single Taxers' platform.

Private property is derived from an individual's right to the fruits of their labour.

Or through gifting and exchange for other justly acquired forms of property.

Land is not property since it was not created by anyone's labour.

A person can privately possess land on the condition that rent is paid

I'd ammend the last point to say "...on the condition that rent is publicized"

To an extent there is a misperception in the way we think of 'land'. There is no such thing as 'land'.

Pure nonsense. Land is that floor of the earth which would exist without human existence.

Land is a block of three-dimensional space (which there is plenty around us).

Clever, but how much? Any honest Austrian must say that the oxygen on earth is scarce, but if we push them they will have to concede that it is not so scarce as to necessitate economization. It is scarce, but not so scarce that enough conflicts of access have occurred, to this day, to necessitate amelioration via legal systems, arisen by purposive agents.

What makes the land underneath my feet different to the laptop I am using? It so happens that gravitational forces have created a circular planet and it's because of gravity that we are bound to it. But does that circular planet have anything different to my laptop? No, of course not.

More nonsense. There are infinite differences between the earth and your laptop, and the question is phrased so vaguely as to be useless.

Libertarians (and their geolibertarian neighbours) today derive their understanding of what "makes" private property from the works of John Locke. John Locke was struggling to solve the earlier Grotius-Pufendorf problem of how property could be justified, if God gave Earth to mankind in common. Grotius and Pufendorf postulated that consent justified private property. However, John Locke advanced that appropriation of those goods is justified by labouring on them. The Earth belongs to all, John Locke asserts (by appealing to natural law which he argues is knowable by reason).

Underlining all these notions is a communist assertion that people have "rights" by simply existing – and not through human action (a point I will return to later).

...Yet it is the constructive actions of humans of humans which cause a raise in site value and destructive actions which cause a lowering in site value... No communistic assertions in the Georgist platform.

People have these entitlements to scarce goods out-of-nothing other than existing! Geolibertarians proudly claim that people have "equal rights of access".

How? Seeing as under the Georgist system, paying a land tax grants the payer the right of exclusion...

But this presupposes that all people already have a positive claim to everything.

If Lincoln is referring to Single Taxation + Citizen's Dividend (a government check in the mail, guaranteed no matter what), his accusations of communistic elements aren't unfounded. That is indeed the state granting an entitlement at the expense of another's labor.

You can only "access" that which you own. It is a necessary condition of ownership. This creates a positive obligation on every human on the planet to ensure they are not breaching the entitlements of others.

This is just Georgism on top of the Classical Private Property standard. It assumes the Classical Private Property standard, no-proviso Lockeanism before the race even starts. The sense of entitlement in regards to land can only exist if land is a qualified candidate for unconditional individual ownership.

One can't help but noticed that geolibertarians (or commonists) also invoke the "… when there was only one man on earth …" state of nature to explain that "we would have a right to the use of the whole earth." Anyone, with even the vaguest concept of evolution, should dismiss this nonsense. But even if you are the only man on Earth, you don't have any more entitlement to resources – than sheep or horses. You're free to do as you please. But you have no entitlements. Indeed, planet Earth has been in existence for billions-of-years. What about all the animals and our primate ancestors? Do they not have an equal 'entitlement' to resources? Should chimpanzees, therefore, be locked-up in zoos? When did homo sapiens decide that they have a unique positive entitlement to everything on the planet. Notice the sophistry when the say that the first human (Adam from the bible, of course) would have been able to go anywhere and do anything. But this is obviously not true. He couldn't, for instance, march into a lion's den to snatch a cub – not for long. With a big gasp, geolibertarians should be asserting that the lions are preventing Adam's "right" to access! Further, they would say, shouldn't the lions compensate Adam's 'right'? Perhaps the pride ought to give Adam one of their cubs as payment. But, for some strange reason, this hysteria is directed at homo sapiens and their activity. Geolibertarianism suffers from a grand confusion of positive entitlements (or 'right') to land and the freedom to act. (Not forgetting the notion that Earth was given to mankind)

Should they? In what sense do laws apply across species if the two are incapable of communicating such abstractions as law?

Again, Geolibertarianism only proposes that land is the positive birthright of each born baby if we assume from the start that land was a qualified candidate for property to begin with to even be common or collective property. If we don't assume that land can be property, then the privatization of rent which ensues under no-proviso Lockeanism would be just as much an infringement of a Georgist conception of property rights as taxation under Georgism is an infringement of a n.-p. L. conception of property rights.

Ultimately it doesn't come down to the earth being 'common property' or whatever other mudslinging. It comes down to whether unconditional property rights can be created or acquired by means other than labor. Speaking of which...

Myth 2: Private Property is the Product of Human Labour

This is my favourite part of the geolibertarian Lockean mantra, because it doesn't take a lot to shoot-down.

Geolibertarians assert that since man did not create land (i.e. it is not the result of human labour), man is not entitled to own land. But there are no resources on the planet that have been created by humans. The First Law of Thermodynamics asserts that matter (or its energy equivalent) can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms. Fundamentally, nobody "creates" anything. Land, like everything else, is a "product of labor" to the extent that it is initially transformed. According to the Lockean proviso, man is no more entitled to a house than a mountain. He happens to have taken some wood of the floor, and re-arranged it. But the wood is not the product of his labour. Thus, the "man didn't create land" is an utter strawman.

Utterly false. Refer to the earlier definition of Land: what the floor of the earth would be if man did not exist. Everything that is created by man yes, does come from the earth but from more than the floor; from it's flora and fauna, minerals, steam and energy. These can be tapped, cultivated, grown, etc. Land however, the floor-area of the earth cannot be changed.

Aside from this, Lincoln has merely altered the definition of creation to the point of meaninglessness. In doing so not only does he strike down P.L. (proviso Lockeanism) but N.P.L as well. So now, according from the First Law of Thermodynamics no man under any condition is master of anything, because he can create nothing. But it is obvious to us that creation is merely a rearranging and reshaping of matter. What man cannot reshape into greater plenty is land, floor-area. He can cut trees and wait for them to regrow, but he cannot cut the floor-area of Texas from the crust, haul it out to the Pacific Ocean and wait for Texas to regrow, any less than he can do the same and then seek for another Texas beneath where it once laid (as one can do with minerals).

Private property is a result of a natural phenomenon – scarcity.

Humans act as a means to an end.

A human institution the result of a natural phenomenon? I'll assume that this was a slip up.

Those means involve scarce goods, and since they are scarce, they must become private owned (i.e. exclusive). Two people cannot consume the same apple.

A handful of assertions.

A new argument, a by-product of the previous one, states that man must not be entitled to the value of that which he did not create. But the value of something arises out of its demand – which is determined subjectively.

The man's title to the land did nothing to increase its supply, as is catallactically predictable in all the property-hoods of goods of an unfixed nature. A man produces 10 wooden toys, which are all bought up within half an hour in an unpopulated area. Apparently they are quite valuable, and predictably, he makes more.

A man sits on a title to land, and its value increases with the increase of population and productive capacity (if we can assume civilization as we know it).

It's not necessary to make the case for a man's title to the value in an Austrian sense, because that case was never made. The case for the man's title to the objective exchange value, however, was. And that objective exchange value is determined by supply and demand, the former of the two is no owing in any sense whatsoever to the owner of the land.

Moreover, how on Earth (excuse the pun!) does someone separate the "original" value from the value added by human labour?

This is a different and technical question. Many Georgists claim that real estate agents already have the methods available to calculate improvements to land as separate from site value. Though I don't honestly know myself.

There is another argument that needs to be addressed here. Private property is sometimes involves the production of security (risk-taking) and information. In other words, land has to be discovered. Christopher Columbus was sent by the King of Spain to find new lands. This was a carefully planned & operated and financially-backed venture that wasn't even sure to produce any results! Shouldn't the King of Spain be entitled to claim the Americas as being under his dominion? If not, there are no incentives to discover new resources.

Shouldn't the armed robber be rewarded for all his bold and daring?

Lastly, how can individuals claim that they have ownership over themselves if they didn't create themselves? Since the geolibertarian position is that one can only claim private property over that which one labours. By that account, man doesn't 'own' himself. I hardly think any libertarian would assert we're not entitled to our own bodies, since we didn't create them.

Self-ownership is unnecessary. You are yourself.

In many ways, John Locke paved the way to the Marxist trap that ownership is harmful (and thus, bad). But appropriation and private property is NOT a zero-sum-game.

Did the writer of this consider for a moment his opponents position?

First of all that doesn't make sense: how can an abstraction of a legal system be any kind of game at all?

Secondly, Wealth is not a zero-sum-game because wealth can be produced and land cannot be produced, thus land is a zero-sum-game. If it is not, please create some land for me and I will pay you for it.

When we imagine first appropriation, we imagine a race in which first-come-first-serve are the lucky ones. The unpalatable reality is that life was very harsh for those first appropriators. Consider the first settlers to England. If given a choice, would you rather live in primitive bronze-age England or today? The most we have to wake-up to in the night is a wet dream. They didn't have long-distance travel done in the matter of hours, or a microwave to cook food, or a Sainsbury's to do one's shopping. Original appropriation benefits latecomers infinitely more than the appropriators. The poorest in today's society enjoy life-expectancy several decades above the original appropriators. This is a fact. The state of the commons before appropriation is a negative-sum-game. It is only when private property comes into fruition that economic standards improve and human existence is extended to more favourable circumstances.

People 200 years further into the future have better standards of living. Who would have thought?

People tend to place the highest value on things that they own. They have an individual responsibility to maintain and increase its value. Equally, they have the least incentive to maintain resources they can get for nothing. Why else was the bison almost exterminated, whereas cattle are never in danger of extinction?

Is there a point here?

The geolibertarian-Lockean position that one is free to act as long as one doesn't infringe on another's right is the source of the problem.

Then it is the problem of Private Property as well. What problem is it?

My taking X, means that someone else cannot. That is a simple fact of scarcity, which I deal with above and below.

Tautology all of it.

I don't own land. Lots of people I know don't own land. What is wrong with working and saving (other than the fact I am a capitalist)?

Absolutely nothing.

Human labour is necessary for survival – not land. Wealth is created by the productive efforts of man in the division of labour – simply owning goods is no guarantee to anything.

Please go into outer space with an Oxygen tank on, and harrow the soil while your comrade-in-the-division germinates turnip seeds. And don't starve.

Even if one is designated a certain space, you can't live long without trade or working the land. By all accounts, therefore, one still isn't free since one has to work.

Who ever said otherwise?

Therefore, we need to revise what freedom really means.

Not necessary.

The state is the institution which wants to get a cut of whatever you've got if you're on his land.

The landlord is the institution which wants to get a cut of whatever you've got if you're on his land.

Granted, you can get your own land and be rid of the landlord, and you can live in anarchy and be rid of the taxation.

But living on a man's land is little different than living in a state, and just as evil if said landlord's titles prevent his sharecroppers from living on their own land. As long as his titles are law, he can prohibit them from drinking beer.

"Hey it's his property!" Cries the Rothbardian, whilst advocating the legalization of marijuana.

Myth 5: A Difference Between the State and the Community

If it is true that humans need land to survive (which it is not)

Where does your food come from?

, then surely – to geolibertarians – taxing land is tantamount to taxing existence.

As we see above, it isn't.

There are two ways to tax. You either tax humans for action, or you tax humans for the resources by which they act. It is perceived that there is a difference between the two. Resources are scarce, and man needs resources to act. Either way, man is being taxed for acting. It is not his fault that he lives with scarcity. But, geolibertarians claim that private property is unjust and that man must pay to rectify the unjustness. This is the basis of the LVT (and, thus, it is dealt with above).

No and no. They claim that man live under different law. A man under Georgist law is not paying for the original sin of Non-Proviso Lockeanism, cleansed in the holy fire of a land tax. He is living under different law, a different set of ethics, where a man's title is only pure insofar as it rewards him what he creates. Accordingly, as the site-value of a plot of land consists of the efforts of the surrounding population, the rewards of labor go to the laborers (as George would have it). The privatization of rent of Plot A is the expropriation of value created by laborers and capitalists B, C, D, and E. Just as the privatization of the rent of Plots B, C, D, and E is an expropriation of the value created by laborer/capitalist A (assuming they live near each other).

Some choose to call it a rent or tax. The question becomes how does one pay it? How does the assessment, calculation, collection and distribution take place without an institution with the monopoly on the use of force that cannot be retaliated against?

http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html

Though I can't say it's plausible at all...

Government's, as well as being the monopolists of force, are the monopolists of ideology, and there's no reason for geoanarchism to be a prevailing ideology in statelessness. More likely the AnarchoCommunists would flood the place and, under the black-and-red, seize not only the rent but the capital too.

What happens if I decide I don't want to pay this tax, and that may land is indeed justly acquired.

Jailtime, but you knew that.

But how is the LVT 'calculated'? The fact that the quasi-government would have to be involved in this process makes that government inherently political. And the nature of government (or the seductiveness of the monopoly on force) is such that it can only expand. But the LVT can only be calculated by either: (1) an arbitrary figure and/or (2) whenever the lease on a given land is up, the new one is auctioned off to the highest bidder with government approval.

True.

The reality is that the people in the market determine the value of a given stretch of land. Land is still scarce as it was 100 years ago. And if the market-place is the most efficient way to ensure an optimal supply of a scarce good (elastic or inelastic), then it holds that land – on the free-market – would tend to an optimal supply too.

Purchasing land does not reduce the supply of land. If land starts to actually become really scarce, economic incentives would induce resources to be spent on building more land — either by building skyscrapper, or digging deeper into the earth — or to discover land on different planets (if things got really serious!).

Some declare that the LVT has no economic effects. This is bewildering! The LVT has about the same effects as the income tax.

A pretty goddamn dishonest polemic if I've seen one.

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Ben — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:36:12 GMT

I personally was a geolibertarian for a while. I was trying to find a way to justify tax, and after realising that the FairTax was an extremely regressive tax that involved a big wealth redistribution program if found the LVT. But again the citizen's dividend is huge wealth redistribution and the LVT seems like it would hurt those who live on the land. That's just what I think though.

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Jon Irenicus — Mon, 06 May 2013 11:15:27 GMT

LVT does not tax use of space. It taxes exclusion of unoccupied space. I have a right to stand on the earth. And I have a right to keep you from taking the space I occupy. But I don't have the right to point to a spot that I don't occupy and tell you that you can't occupy it either.

And since unoccupied land would be free for homesteading in an anarcho-capitalist society, there is little room for geolibertarianism to disagree with it.

As for Locke, perhaps the OP means the Lockean proviso?

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

HabbaBabba — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:05:34 GMT

I'd like to suggest that as an answer and point any other interested parties to another, more thorough thread highlighting these incompatibilities:
https://mises.org/community/forums/p/31194/488894.aspx

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

gotlucky — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:00:56 GMT

Thanks for posting any clarifications on geolibertarianism, though they are ultimately irrelevant to the matter of an anarcho-capitalist legal system. Most people here are anti-state and support a private legal system, and since geolibertarianism is not compatible with anarcho-capitalism, any debate about the merits or demerits of geolibertarianism versus anarcho-capitalism is just people disagreeing about their personal views of morality. Maybe that is what you are looking for.

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

Fred E Foldvary — Mon, 06 May 2013 03:23:58 GMT

As usual, those who oppose geolibertarianism fail to understand it. For example, the statement, "Geolibertarians consider "land" to be the common property of all mankind." is false. The true proposition is that geolibertarians consider the land RENT to belong to the individuals of the relevant community in equal shares. The community might be local or global, depending on the natural resource. Geolibertarians believe that the rights of possession in land can well be individual, and indeed the individual rights of possession, including use and transfer, facilitate a market for purchases and rentals. The second proposition is not accurate: "Private property is derived from an individual's right to the fruits of their labour." Geolibertarians recognize that land can be and should be private property. An equal ownership of the land rent is also the private property of each member receiving a share of the rent, just as the distribution of corporate profit to shareholders does not contradict private property. The third proposition is ridiculous: "Land is not property since it was not created by anyone's labour." No geolibertarian has ever stated this, that I am aware of. Land is of course property - its use can be controlled. The fourth proposition is true, and contradicts the other asserted ones. Lincoln states that there is no such thing as land, and then states that land is three-dimensional space. Does he mean that three-dimensional space does not exist? I will stop here, as the fallacies are too many to rebut. Fred Foldvary

Re: Myths of Geolibertarianism

genepool — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:42:12 GMT

To be frank, I kind of like geolibertarianism. To me, ideal is not necessarily freedom in a sense of lack of coercion. To me ideal means proper alignment between individual profit to society profit.

I think condemning and judging others are not useful. Think how all of us can be benefited. Some aspect of Henry George's opinion makes sense.

Currently government build roads and maintain peace. This improve land value. So it's normal that land tax should be high. In fact, it should slowly replace income tax. Income tax hurt far more than land tax.

I also like their idea of citizen dividend. The only thing that I don't agree is that people that breed more kids got more "citizenship". If those that don't have kids got dividend and those who breed more kids have to buy more citizenships, I would agree.

Ideally all governments should be governed like businesss and all citizens should behave like stock owners, that can vote, etc. Keep in mind that in addition to voting they can also rebel. So maybe one man one stock trade restriction should be enforced. Then voila, let's see what those democracy will come up with when every body has interest to improve their citizenship market value.

As long as we're getting more and more free, so what? What's important is not that government is perfectly like what we want. What's important is that we can be billionaires despite this. Can we? Sure. Be a billionaire then. Why complain?