I'm trying to get my head around mortgages... It appears that the current western model of home "ownership" is based upon paying a continuous stream of our money to banks. How did we end up in this situation? Was it always like that? Does it make sense? If we lived in a minarchist state, how would people pay for their accommodation?
What Went Wrong with Economics
ChroMattic: I don't think he said they'd get more land, but more assets, and why it is so important they own this land? The poor cannot get more land than there is.
I don't think he said they'd get more land, but more assets, and why it is so important they own this land? The poor cannot get more land than there is.
Well at the moment the poor have almost none. And they would struggle to buy any because they are so tied up paying rent to rich landowners (that includes banks).
I notice that so far nobody has disputed the logic of my thought experiment. So presumably you all agree that my "free market" solution is the fairest system of all.
mickanomics: ChroMattic: I don't think he said they'd get more land, but more assets, and why it is so important they own this land? The poor cannot get more land than there is. Well at the moment the poor have almost none. And they would struggle to buy any because they are so tied up paying rent to rich landowners (that includes banks). I notice that so far nobody has disputed the logic of my thought experiment. So presumably you all agree that my "free market" solution is the fairest system of all.
Maybe? But there is no way to prove that all land was acquired through theft, and we'd be unable replicate your method without causing massive harm to all parties who happen to own land. You may "redistributing" property people came to own through neither force nor violence, in which case you are doing harm. Even if someone's ancestors forcefully took land, why is it that their descendants should pay for this transgression?
"It has been well said that, while we used to suffer from social evils, we now suffer from the remedies for them."
F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
ChroMattic:Even if someone's ancestors forcefully took land, why is it that their descendants should pay for this transgression?
You could just as well ask why should I (a non-landowner) lose out because of the transgressions of somebody else's ancestors. It cuts both ways.
I'm sure a mechanism could be devised to make a not-too-painful transition from the status quo to something along the lines I proposed, perhaps over several generations.
How about saying that you are not allowed to give 100% of your land to your offspring when you die. Perhaps only 90%? 80%?... this way a continuous flow of new land will gradually come up in the market. All new land shall be deemed as belonging to the nation. Then anyone who wants to rent this land has to pay the rest of society for the privilege. Over the coming generations all the land will eventually be rented in this manner. Ie people who want a lot of land pay a continuous stream of money to those willing to put up with owning only a small amount of land.
Why should you not allowed to be?
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Jon Irenicus: Why should you not allowed to be?
The 10% or so that you are not allowed to pass on is a small compensation for the fact that the land was originally stolen from the rest of the nation. Its not all your fault, hence the small figure of 10%.
Until there's actual proof of it, and also that it was a recent action and not something that occured centuries ago, why?
Jon Irenicus: Until there's actual proof of it, and also that it was a recent action and not something that occured centuries ago, why?
Because you end up in a situation where poor people have to pay rich people for land. And the rich people never did anything to deserve their position. This is clearly unfair.
If someone has great wealth because they worked hard - that's fine. I don't begrudge them anything.
If someone has great wealth because they had some clever ideas - that's fine. I don't begrudge them anything.
If someone has great wealth because their ancestors were thieves, then I am pissed off.
It'd help to first prove that they stole it, you know.
Jon Irenicus: It'd help to first prove that they stole it, you know.
Just for arguments sake, let us imagine I'm only talking about land which is known by all to have been stolen.
mickanomics:Just for arguments sake, let us imagine I'm only talking about land which is known by all to have been stolen.
Even if it were "known" to be stolen, that doesn't mean that it was stolen from everyone. It means that it was stolen from the original owner (who did not steal it).
Thus, the "nation" would have no claim to the land. Only someone directly descended from the individual who the land was stolen from would have a claim to the land, and only if he had a way to prove it.
It's nonsense to say that someone has to give part of his land to everyone.
BobT: It means that it was stolen from the original owner (who did not steal it).
How could/should anyone legitimately come to be the original owner of some land?
Think Mick, How could/should anyone legitimately come to be the original owner of anything?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
mickanomics: BobT: It means that it was stolen from the original owner (who did not steal it). How could/should anyone legitimately come to be the original owner of some land?
I'm not convinced there is such a good as "land" in the first place.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
I don't have a certain answer... but thinking out loud... I guess that goods tend to be comprised from two components (in widely varying proportions):
1. The skill and labor of the "maker".
2. Mother nature.
I guess there is a continuum of ratio's from at, one extreme, a banana that was plucked form a tree that had been growing naturally for years without any help from man, to at the other extreme, an exquisite and detailed carving, painstakingly made from a lump of rock.
If I saw the sculptor selling his artwork, I would not feel very inclined to complain about the fact that he's used up a rock that could perhaps be said to belong to everyone. Rocks are a dime a dozen, I don't care about rocks. But if I saw someone standing under the tree, claiming to be the tree's owner, selling the bananas to passers by (at a high price because it is the only banana tree for miles around), then I may be thinking, "hang on, that guys contribution to the banana is almost nothing, he's just pulling it off the tree", I fancy a banana myself - I don't want to pay him (a fight may break out at this point).
Maybe all natural resources should be considered as belonging to everyone and the benefits of them should be distributed amongst the population via a free market mechanism. i.e. the people who want the most of the resource pay compensation (in labor) to those that are willing to use/consume less of it.
Stranger:I'm not convinced there is such a good as "land" in the first place.
You'll have to explain that one to me.