Distribution of natural resources

The number who own more than the little postage stamp of land under their principal residence is in the single digit percentages.

I think you know that a roof is not a natural resource but a product of labor.

So, just as rightful as buying a slave when slavery is legal. Check.

 

Justice. Not a concept you are apparently familiar with.

Just as slave owners wanted to be compensated for emancipation -- but never dreamed that perhaps it was the SLAVES who had a right to compensation...

Property taxes are in fact two opposite taxes: a tax on improvement value, which measures what the owner contributes to the wealth of the community, and a tax on land value, which measures what the community contributes to the wealth of the landowner.

 

Are you an interplanetary explorer? New here? I'll alert the property appraisers and tax assessors........they're gonna be ecstatic!

 

The do not come from the Enterprise replicator.

Buy a rain barrel. The potable water that comes out of my spigot isn't potable when it comes out of nature's river. Somebody has to clorox that stuff.

 

http://inequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/USDARes.jpg

Depends on what your roof is made out of.

That is how rights work. The government defines them. If the government says slavery is legal, then buying the slave would be a right of yours if you are in the class of people the government says has that right.

 

The way it works is that government taxes the general population (income and sales taxes) in order to provide services and infrastructure (such as roadways) that drastically increase the value of nearby land. This way the working people who are forced to pay those taxes can be kept poor, while the beneficiaries of that government spending – the nearby landowners – can idly sit back and watch as their land values increase by 20 fold or more, at practically no cost to them.

It is a well known and long established fact of economics that beneficial government spending makes nearby land more valuable, by at least the amount of that public spending.

So if a new public roadway makes a piece of land more valuable, then why should anyone else but that landowner have to contribute a dime toward the construction of that roadway? The simple answer is: they shouldn't. This is why intelligent economists advocate switching from the current tax systems to a land value based tax; because land value taxation allows governments to recoup the cost of providing infrastructure from those who are enriched by that infrastructure, which in turn, allows the new roadway to be financed without placing a tax burden on the multitudes of people who don't benefit in any way from that new roadway.

The land value tax is the best and fairest tax, because it targets only those who are enriched by public spending. Land value tax was the best tax when Adam Smith advocated using it (calling it a tax on “ground rent”) over two hundred years ago in his book 'The Wealth of Nations; Land value tax was the best tax when the founding fathers established it as the only tax to be used to fund the United States Government; and it is still the best tax today.

 

But then they would own the roadway, charging a toll to use their portion.

Everything in life is about investment.

 

You aren't here to enter the discussion. You're here to argue. Your comments are irrelevant to the meanings of the discussion.

 

At this point I'm wondering whether you really want understanding or whether you actually want to invent descriptions and characterizations.

America is not communist and is nowhere near being communist. It's in the late stages of monopoly capitalism. And capitalist try to profit from anything and everything they can, including resources. Water is free as is air, but that's about it.

Buy land from whom? -from the owner of course. Most of the land is privately owned.

What's your game?

 

So you believe land should be privately owned? Why?
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"The fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to no one." – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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"The fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all, to which each man has equal right." – Voltaire
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"Men did not make the earth…. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property…. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." – Tom Paine
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"The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." – John Stuart Mill
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"The user of land should not be allowed to acquire rights of indefinite duration for single payments. For efficiency, for adequate revenue and for justice, every user of land should be required to make an annual payment to the local government equal to the current rental value of the land that he or she prevents others from using." — Robert Solow, Nobel laureate in Economics, 1987
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"Ownership of natural resources like land or oil does not 'create' or 'supply' anything. The profit from such ownership is a direct transfer from the rest of society." – Michael Kinsley

 

To begin with I wanted to separate natural resources from products of human labor.

So most land with exception of the federal is owned in the form of fee simple. How did it all start? If we assume that initially all of it was property of capitalists and none of workers, and then as a result of being employed workers were able to get permanent ownership of lots, at some point it should reach equilibrium when no more land is purchased by workers (unless there's a population expansion). So it looks like a blunder on the capitalists's side, as they can only benefit by leasing the existing of it they own (maybe at higher prices due to infrastructure built with tax money payed by workers) or extracting minerals from under it. Do capitalists have mechanisms to get land rights back and resell it to workers again?

 

Were you under an erroneous impression that such a comment could be relevant?

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I'm here to correct errors. You are here to promulgate them. Simple.

No, I am clarifying the meanings so that readers will not be confused by erroneous terminology.

 

Good start. What went wrong?

Initially it was not property, and it could never rightly have become property. I thought you were keen to distinguish products of labor from natural resources. Why are you now calling landowners "capitalists"?

You're not thinking deeply enough.

Again, think deeper. It's not a blunder. It's a deception to make the victims think they are in on the racket. By letting the workers assume lifelong debts to get ownership of 1/4 of the land, the parasites solidify their grip on the other 3/4.

Of course. It's called debt.

 

Well, as they are ALREADY charging tolls for use of "their" portion in the form of land rent, it would be better if they paid for it. And of course, you are quite wrong about them owning it. People are sometimes required to pay for things they benefit from but don't consequently get to own, like public services and infrastructure.

Nope. Landowning is about stealing.

 

They are also not natural resources.

I don't want to have to pay to exercise my rights to liberty. Having an "opportunity" to pay for permission to exercise a right is not the same as actually having that right.

Sure it is. How do you think our ancestors lived for millions of years before people started polluting the rivers?

They have to NOW, because the river is not natural any more.

 

In the past, we had lots of resources that were free to everybody with a spine and a penchant for hard work.

This is not the case now, so... deal with it.

That's the best we can do.

 

So, a low single-digit percent. As I said.

No it doesn't.

Nonsense. That's just question begging. If rights are just what government says they are, then on what basis could it ever have been argued that slavery should be abolished? Your claim is just a statement of your refusal to know the obvious.

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It most certainly is not.

 

Then you disagree with reality.

A trademark of leftists, so I'm not surprised. But do carry on. Empirical evidence be damned, eh? lol!!!!!

 

What reality would that be?

I'm not a leftist.

I haven't seen any empirical evidence for your claim, and I don't expect to.

 

empirical evidence that people with resources (my forefathers were here before you, which is why I'm richer than you) are capable of using those resources they inherited in order to race right past those who had to start from scratch?

You really don't buy that, eh? So much for the unequal distribution of resources.

as well as everything the left holds dear to their heart.

even if I agree with you, I win.

 

Try harder to think. Did I say land "should be privately owned"? Or did I answer "biojial"'s question as to who one can buy land from? I leave you to figure it out.

 

When I find myself agreeing with Kode, I'm going to guess you are an alien from another galaxy. What solar system do you hail from?

 

Or, more often, just charging others for permission to use them.

Your claim was that we could not improve on such an unjust system. Remember? You won't be providing any empirical evidence for that claim.

I don't buy your claim that we can't do better. The unequal distribution of resources is exactly what you claim you have a right to benefit from.

Whatever you incorrectly imagine that means...

Sure you do, Belch. Sure you do.

 

So capitalists cannot allow workers to own in fee simple more than 1/4 of all land (doesn't matter whether it was purchased with credit or not). At the same time they need to continue to make profits. Could you explain the mechanism in detail?