Geoists are they nuts or what?

If Joe owes me compensation for denying me access to his land, why does the government get that money to build schools? Why don't I get it?

EDIT - Also, feel free to call me sweetheart.

 

Under the system which I support, you would get some of the rent that government collects, as compensation, for the part of rent created by nature. But public infrastructure and services also increase land rent, above what nature provided. So that part of rent that government creates should remain in governments hands, so that government has the funds necessary to continue providing that infrastructure and those services that make the land more productive and desirable.

 

I also believe that holding some land that you can call your own is important to freedom … and the land value tax is a tool that can provide every individual with some land to call their own. If government collected all land rent and returned that equally to the population in the form of a citizens dividend, then every human being on earth could afford to hold, for their exclusive pleasure, around 4.92 acres of average quality land. Of course not all land is of average quality, so some people would get less acreage but higher quality, while others would get more acreage but lower quality. While this is not the way I would prefer the system operate, it is theoretically possible to use a land value tax to give every individual the equivalent of nearly 5 acres of average quality land, for their exclusive enjoyment.

The problem you have with the geoist system is that you don't care about the freedom of others. You want more than your share of freedom, and if that leaves other with no freedom at all, that doesn't even register into your philosophy of greed.

 

"More productive and desirable" are subjective terms. Who are these perfect and omnipotent humans you trust to define such terms? How can a human who has no ties to land be more true to such terminology than a human who has worked his butt off to obtain the land under the current structure? Centralizing decisions has always been a disaster vs its alternative. And there is ZERO in human history you can point to as an example to prove the contrary.

 

No, not really. For crop land, it is easier to get the crop to market if the roads are paved with asphalt, as compared roads that are knee-deep mud. The same is true for factory workers, or anyone else who needs to get to a job. Good roads mean more time for production and more profits.

When government provides beneficial infrastructure and services the market objectively measures those benefits and relays that information to the market in terms of prices or rents offered. Therefore, more "productive and desirable" are objectively measured by land prices and rents.

When government activities increase land rents, as they most often do, then government has the moral obligation to tax away the financial advantages that those activities confer to the landowner. To let the landowner keep the rewards of increased rents caused by government spending is unfair to the remaining population who would be put at a competitive disadvantage.

 

Good God, man. You missed the entire point. Who decides what crops are best for that land, as surely two farmers might disagree. A cattleman would disagree with both of them. An apartment investor would disagree with all of the above. And an environmentalist who wanted a national park in that location would disagree with all. Those terms are the definition of subjective. This blindness to reality is why you'll always be some fringe element spewing vague notions from the sideline. When someone asks for details, you fall back on the nobility of the vagueness and hope they move on. Let me tell you what would decide. MONEY. Only instead of the money to purchase the land, the money it took to bride the committee who decides. Move on to a different hobby. What you want is no different than what plagues the areas of society we've already let it infest.

 

No, you are missing the point. The two farmers, the cattleman, the apartment investor and even the national park would all benefit from a good asphalt road. The market value of the land (price or rent) is the objective final result of just who would benefit most from that public infrastructure and who would be best suited to put that land to good use.


But, if government does provide infrastructure (such as roads) and services (such as snowplows) that increase the value of nearby land, as is almost always the case, then the only fair thing for government to do is to tax away the advantages that government spending is GIVING the landowners at those locations. Otherwise, everyone else is put at a financial disadvantage, and government can dictate who loses and who wins. Under the current system government can say: “well, I like Peter better than Paul, so we will put asphalt on the road to Peters land, and we will plow the snow that falls on that road”. And the result is that these government activities make Peter richer than Paul.

Land value taxation prevents this type of government favoritism, by taxing away the advantages that government spending (on the asphalt road and snow plows) gives Peter over Paul, and returns the playing field to level.

 

I'm not trying to convince you. I am simply making my case to all who are reading. I think it is fairly obvious how oblivious you are to reality. If the public needs an asphalt road through private property, there are already means to that end. If it isn't beneficial to the public, just to the owner, than the owner can pay for it his damn self. All you are suggesting is to create another avenue of a bureaucratic red tape nightmare in a day in age where everyone outside of the bureaucracy with a brain is trying to move away from such. Get a real job, sir. It won't happen. You are fighting for the icebox in the day of the refrigerator. You need to have success with centralized power to encourage centralized power. And there is none to be found.

 

No, it is you who are oblivious to reality. Almost everything the government spends money on increases land values. If government increased welfare payments to all who live within 5 miles of swampland, then land within 5 miles of a swamp would increase in value. If government builds a new school then land values near that school increase. If government gives farmers subsidies, then farmland increases in value. Just look at Las Vegas. Take away Hoover Dam (government spending) and interstate 15 (more government spending) and Las Vegas would never have existed, and land there would sell at a small fraction of what it currently sells for.

Again, I tell you, the only way to prevent government from GIVING landowners at specific locations huge financial advantages is for government to tax away the value of those advantages. Government funding must come from land value taxes or else government can dictate who wins and who loses by where it spends that money.

Almost every landowner wants government to spend more money at their location, on welfare payments, schools, roads, digging for dinosaur bones, anything whatever, because they know that that increased government spending at their location can make them rich (if they own enough land). Letting landowners keep the rent of land is a sure-fire way to completely corrupt the government.

 

Because you are not the only one that needs to be compensated, society as a whole does. Hence why we are building things like schools and infrastructure with it...that benefits all of us.

 

Right. I and everyone else needs to be compensated for being prevented access to Joe's land. So why do certain people (i.e. the government) get our money and use it to build schools when I and everyone else ought to be getting that compensation?

 

Public schooling benefits us all. A more educated, literate society is beneficial to all. So putting that money into schools, infrastructure, and so on would be the compensation.

 

It doesn't sound very libertarian for one group of people to simply keep our money and decide they're going to give us schools instead, as if they know that that's what each of us would actually prefer. Some people might just want their money.

 

But not all of the land rent comes from nature. Government spending also creates land rent and government should be compensated for what it contributes. From a letter signed by four Nobel prize winning economists:

“The rental value of land arises from three sources. The first is the inherent natural productivity of land, combined with the fact that land is limited. The second source of land value is the growth of communities; the third is the provision of public services. All citizens have equal claims on the component of land value that arises from nature. The component of land value that arises from community growth and provision of services is the most sensible source of revenue for financing public services that raise the rental value of surrounding land.” -- http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Open_letter_to_Mikhail_Gorbachev_%281990%29

Furthermore, the children should also get compensation for being deprived of what nature provided, and their compensation could come in the form of an education.

 

I thought the whole premise was that if someone wishes to exlude people from a piece of land then every other person in the community ought to be compensated for that. So how does the government somehow acquire the right to my compensation and then get to spend my compenstation on infrastructure?

Why does someone other than them decide how they will be given their compenstation. What if they just want their money?

 

I did a little reading on George out of respect for all ideas.

He thought railroads would lead the population to poverty. This of course never happened, and was a major reason for one of our booms.

He was pro free trade, as he wanted competition for national companies and didn't think rising prices = higher wages. Much like Smith, all suspicions have been proven completely wrong, as all free trade has done has lead to wages turning stagnant, a middle class disappearing, a wealth gap as wide as the roaring 20s, and the dreaded national conglomerates are now global ones. Not to mention, tariffs were the number 1 source of revenue for the federal government, and the great majority of taxes, from income tax on, were established to make up the difference. There is no idea that has burned the working class more in the history of America than that of free trade.

Much like Marx I think he was good at spotting problems, but his solutions would be steered by other humans who aren't as noble and would take them directions he never intended. With Marx, 100s of millions murdered worldwide, while to this day we have to hear leftists scream, "that's not real communism", or "that's not real socialism". You think all the other taxes would be abolished while the land tax was implemented, when in all actuality, they would just add it on top, like they always do.

The government is already a "please give to starving kids of Africa" type of organization, where you have to give them 10 dollars to see 10 cents actually get allocated to where you want it. Outside of obvious services, any argument to give the government more money is to screw the common man. Americans already get taxed at the same level of social democracies, through a plethora of hidden taxes to guise the total number, while we don't get half of the return back as the citizens of those nations, as Americans have to pay taxes on the mother central bank and the world's police force that no other nation must contribute to.

Do you have any idea on how to get the people pimping us out of power? Why on earth would you think the current regime and its 2 pseudo parties, that are inherently corrupt and only serving of the top bracket, would not use Georgism to hurt the working class even more?

 

Yes. That even applies to government agencies which use land. If the local government has a lot which it parks road graders and snow plows on, then that government agency would pay the rent into the fund, same as everyone else, and a part of that fund would be paid to you as compensation.

It doesn't. The compensation you receive to guarantee your equal right to nature belong only to you, government doesn't get any of THAT compensation. But you don't get the increased land rent that is created from plowing the snow off public roads, because you don't do that, the government (or a contractor working for government) does.

If you don't want to pay the increased land taxes (rents) that exist where government provides these services, then move to a community where government doesn't provide services. Land values (rents) are low in these areas; maybe land would even be free (without rent). You might get snowed in for weeks at a time, drive on roads with knee-deep pot holes, and there might not be law enforcement officers to respond to your call – but if living tax free on low value land is worth more to you than having access to these services, then more power to you.

I would not be apposed to just giving them their money (compensation), but I would make their parents sign an agreement that the children will get an adequate private education. Still, if they don't want to pay for public schools, they would have to move to a community that didn't provide them, because public schools do increase land values (rents) in communities where those schools are provided.

 

Yeah sure, that's what communists have done everywhere it's been tried: given the means of production to the "working class." Chuckle, chortle. Tell us you don't really believe that! Mind numbing utopian theory. In reality the communist ruling class inevitably murders a large percentage of the working class and subjugates the rest.

 

The regimes you're referring to are all descended from Leninism, which, while allegedly socialist in economic policy, invented the idea of the vanguard party, which was just a new ruling class. Stalinism and Maoism are both descended from Leninism.

A communist society has no government. A communist government is a government established by communists for the purpose of shutting down once a socialist society is ready to transition to communism, but these are usually hijacked by authoritarians and used to prevent the society from actually becoming communist. To rephrase: Communist governments never rule over a communist society, and are soon purged of communists. Confusing, I know.

I'm personally disillusioned with communism though. It's a pipe dream. I'm a democratic socialist, one who wishes to use democratic reform to change society peacefully to become socialist.

 

And when that fails, no doubt the cries will be that yours wasn't real socialism.

Do you not see the pattern here?

 

I'm not claiming that Leninism based ideologies aren't socialist though. I'm pointing out that they aren't communist.

 

You live in a dream world that has no basis whatever in reality. There is (thank God) no communism and there never will be. Try to get grounded in the real world and leave hocus pocus utopian fantasy philosophies behind you. You will be a far better person for it. if you like socialism, go to Europe where it is failing virtually everywhere. American free enterprise is the only system that has ever brought millions out of poverty and provided opportunity and prosperity for those willing to work for it.

 

Okay, I need some clarification. I thought the idea was that every property owner needed to compensate every other person in the community for denying them access to his land. First question, how does the negotiation between any landowner and a person denied access to his land proceed? What if they can't agree on how much compensation is appropriate?

 

We're talking about philosophies here. Ideas. I'm explaining what other people's ideas are. I'm not saying that communism was a realistic ideology, you would have noticed that if you had better reading comprehension. Get off your (*)(*)(*)(*)ing high horse, there's no need to get that hostile over somebody explaining the ideas that we're talking about.

Europe is actually doing well, except for Greece and former Yugoslavia. Scandinavia, one of the most left leaning nations in Europe, is a fine place to be right now.

Furthermore, the "America saves the world" fantasy is, ironically, exactly the dream world you accused me of living in. America isn't the most prosperous nation in the world by any measure, though we're doing pretty okay economically.

 

I'm the one on the "high horse?" That's rich. I'm not the one praising failed economic systems, and denigrating the one system that since WWII has provided more opportunity and prosperity than all others combined.