@Fred, What you seem to be saying is that the law of gravity requires logic. I’m not saying that it doesn’t. I’m saying that logic doesn’t require the law of gravity (that the existence of gravity is not an a priori fact). For instance, we can conceive of a possible world where all existing natural laws apply, except that the gravitational constant is zero and therefore matter floats freely (or rather, constrained by forces other than gravity) . There’s no logical contradiction in that (at least, there is no known scientific reason why the gravitational constant must be what it is), so logic by itself does not necessitate the existence of gravity.
Homesteading may not be the question but ‘property’ is. And I think I have an objective form of “property” except for the subjective assumption of equal freedom. But it is also a truism that unequal freedom is the state. So subjective as that assumption is, I think in this congress its a fair one. This particular point about equal and unequal freedom comes in my line up after the myth of absolute freedom is addressed. So I’ll be happy to offer more support and address questions. But I would like at least some agreement that absolute freedom is not possible for the reasons expressed.
So technically yes, there is no objective definition for property. However in the assumed (subjective) context of denying the state there is a tautological (objective) concept for property. The derived qualifiers can make it impractical, so more assumptions are needed but it does exist.
The economic concerns of freedom, I believe we all agree, more freedom is better. So lets not bypass what freedom means. And then when that is agreed on, all the economic corralaries of subsidy will be more clear.
You defy the laws of physics often then, do you?
Defeasible reasoning is not deductive reasoning but it certainly is logical reasoning. Do you believe that science is not logical? All scientific knowledge is defeasible, since as Chisholm argued, our sense perceptions provide only defeasible justification for believing something to be true about the physical world.
What right did B have to sell his work in advance to A if it was never his in the first place?
I only assert that production is sufficient to determine property. I do not assert that it is necessary (for now I suspend judgment on this, since it is not required for my argument), but I also do not assert that anything other than production is sufficient to guarantee property. I am willing to consider that there may be other determinants of property, but will only accept them if they are at least defeasibly warranted.
It is not necessary for the implementation of LVT that it be determined in advance.
I’m saying that, although the language of economics unfortunately makes it sound contradictory, the Georgist LVT ‘system’ is a system with no taxation, since it negates an actual tax, which is only nominally “no tax”, on producers of economic surplus at the benefit of owners of economic land.
I don’t see why I’m committing the continuum fallacy. It’s only an “obvious contradiction” if, as per the numerous statements I have already made, you are ignoring the fact that LVT is a tax in name only. Though nominally a tax, LVT is in fact the removal of a tax.
But you claimed that “Providing one example does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT”, as if this were true merely by virtue of its being an example. Now you want to change this to “Providing one reason does not constitute a sufficient explanation for how land is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT”, but that’s a nonsense claim. If one reason will not suffice, how many will? You’re demanding infinite evidence.
Perhaps “highest (financial) value” would better reflect what I’m getting at here, since it is not necessary for a bid to actually take place.
Suppose there are n people who each value a piece of land at a different price xi (i.e., they are willing to bid that particular amount if a bid were to take place). Suppose the list of valuations is ordered such that x0 refers to the highest valuation and xn-1 refers to the lowest valuation and that Pxi refers to the person who values the piece of land at price xi. Supposing an auction was to take place and that the auction uses standard English auction rules, person Px0 would have the successful bid at a cost of x1.
Now, what I’m asserting here is that it does not follow from the fact that the landlord is not leasing his land, that x1 = 0.
Obviously.
Not sure what you mean by that last part. I’m using the terms “better” and “worse” allocation in the same way you are, just like you explained to Autolykos.
I don’t know why you only say “perhaps” here. How can you be so sure (certain?) that land being held less by speculators and more by “land appreciators” is a good thing in terms of land allocation, but not be sure of the same thing when it comes to Rembrandts, when your reason for believing the former (that supply is fixed) is undoubtedly true of the latter?
Understood. That’s why I didn’t ask whether you support it, just about what effects you think it would have in terms of efficiency of allocation.
Welcome Jerry, this post does move the conversation on, thank you.
This isn’t really an argument. You just seem bitter that some people receive more income than you for what you see as doing less than you. If taxing landowners out of envy is an argument for improving efficiency, it would presumably apply to any wealthy person. After all, all most of them do is hire people to make allocation decisions about their property for them. That’s not “real work” is it? $1million/year is not a “just price” for anyone’s effort, is it?
It’s good that you recognize that land allocation is an important, non-trivial task that must be performed by a human being (not by a goldfish, for example). I just have a few questions:
Who, exactly, decides which employee to hire for this task, the terms on which he is hired, and who has the power to fire him?
Since he is a mere employee, do you recognize that the allocation decisions he is making are at a lower level than the allocation decisions being made by his employer?
In other words, if the employee makes decisions about land usage, but the employer can decide which employee to hire and can fire him at any time, do you recognize that it is the employer who is still making the allocation decisions that count, i.e. the ultimate decisions?
(So even in your example, you would not be “hiring someone to make allocation decisions for you” in any sense more meaningful than when I hire a gardener to decide what plants to have in my garden. I remain the ultimate allocator because if I don’t like what my gardener does, I can just fire him.)
I mentioned this in my first post. Alas, it didn’t prevent the predictable semantic debate from occurring.
You blur the lines between coercive exchanges and non-coercive exchanges/actions with this sentence. A tariff is coercive; a boycott is not coercive, it is not even an exchange. The distinction between coercive and non-coercive exchanges is a crucial one to make for libertarians and geolibertarians alike, as well as other philosophies.
Can you explain more about this?
I believe I can, and my argument involves comparing how decisions about land usage are made in geolibertarianism vis-a-vis libertarianism, who is making them, what information they have available to them, and what incentives they face. Hence my questions to you above.
Do you reject Locke’s principle entirely now, then? Am I wrong to characterize the ethical debate as being about whether the Proviso ought to be retained or ditched?
This is irrelevant because we’re comparing two ideals here. How close historically we have come to each ideal makes no difference.
Nonsense. Unless you consider State’s claims, their mere verbal decrees over vast tracts of open land, as legitimate ownership. Which none of us here do, because mere verbal claims are not a sufficient basis for legitimate ownership in libertarianism.
Dan, we covered some of this on the other board, but for the benefit of everyone else can you explain more about this bidding process?
What is being bidded for, exactly, and who currently owns that thing? Who is the person who bangs the hammer down, i.e. who makes the final decision about whose bid is accepted and at what price? Who decides when an auction is to take place, how often does it happen, or what triggers it, etc? What are the consequences for the owners of the improvements on the land, and the users/possessors of the land, if a bid is successful (i.e. the thing being bidded for changes hands)?
First of all, I’m saying that there are both normative and positive bases for taxing land. The normative basis is that it seems unfair that a select few individuals should be allowed to appropriate economic rent that they did not ultimately produce. Also, the moral claim to outright ownership of land is highly dubious unless supported by something like the Lockean proviso. The positive basis is that wealth that is currently being used to hold and acquire land would be made available for production the of capital.
To answer your question “why are you so sure in the case of land, but not in the case of Rembrandts?” you simply have to look at why these statements fail to transfer from land to Rembrandts. Perhaps if you think about it you will find other reasons why the analogy fails, but these are some of the reasons that come to mind as I’m writing.
Let’s look at the normative basis first. First, is it unfair that Rembrandts are acquired by a select few investors in order to make a profit from them? Perhaps some people think so. Personally, I don’t lose sleep over it. I need land to live and work on, otherwise I am a slave. But I have no need for a Rembrandt, and I’m no slave if I don’t have one. Second, obviously, the question of morality does not apply to Rembrandts since, being originally created by Rembrandt, a non-dubious claim to ownership can be made.
Now let’s look at the positive basis. Would taxing Rembrandts free up wealth to be made available for production of capital? I answer no for two reasons. First, Rembrandts do not produce anything. This means that the simple act of their being held “out of use” (whatever “use” might be) by speculators makes no difference to economic output, unlike the holding of land out of use. It also means that Rembrandts, unlike land, do not have an economic return. This makes them less attractive as an investment relative to land or capital (and therefore does not draw so aggressively from the pool of wealth available for investment). Second, Rembrandts are a minute proportion of the economy as a whole, and so, unlike land (which is anywhere between a tenth and half of the economy, depending on who you ask and where you are) its taxation will have no detectable effect on the wealth made available for production of capital.
Yes, and you’re right to separate those two because they deal with completely different disciplines: the normative is political philosophy, the positive is economics. I’m just going to respond to your economic (positive) arguments.
Yes they do. Combined with a museum, they produce satisfaction for visitors. Even hanging on a wall in a mansion they are producing satisfaction for the people that get to enjoy them.
Yes it does make a difference. If a speculator is hoarding Rembrandts in his basement, economic output is not the same as it would be if those paintings are on display in a museum for all to enjoy. One of these arrangements is better than the other: which is it?
Yes they do. Museum owners pay Rembrandt owners for the use of them. That is their economic return.
Are you implying Rembrandts are not a capital good? They surely are to many of their owners, and to the museums who display them.
That’s not an argument based on any principle.
I was agreeing with these sentiments. I’m agnostic about the rest. Though I definitely agree that you can’t expect to fully escape the influence of others.
I prefer to focus on the economic arguments, as they are more concrete. Besides, the land has all been claimed, the lines have been drawn, rights established, and the game is already afoot. We’re not likely to get a do-over.
What does Graham say about property rights? “inter-subjectively ascertainable?” Sounds kind of like the price mechanism to me.
@Graham, since it’s ultimately not the economics of collectibles that we’re interested in here (and we could always choose examples other than Rembrandts to which the positive basis is stronger), I will accept what you are saying. I already acknowledged the conceivability of a positive basis for its taxation when I said something along the lines of “Supposing that a positive basis could be made…”. Nevertheless, as I said previously, on moral grounds I would not endorse its taxation.
Let’s drop the pretense about the terms and structure of formal logic. I’m not here to debate about that.
What is the labour market value of this allocation service minus the land title? The market says it’s around $60,000 per year for FULL TIME allocation. You imply that 1 million is a “just price” for a single allocation?
The real deal is that skyscrapers in Manhattan built on leased ground typically carry 99 year leases. After drawing up the lease, or paying a lawyer to do it, the only annual decision made by the title holder is whether to raise the rent by the amount allowed in the lease or under New York City law, whichever is less. Since they can’t be bothered to do it themselves, the landowner makes a phone call to their real estate lawyer once a year and the lawyer sends a letter to the tenant describing the rent due. The fee for that legal service might be $1000.
One phone call a year telling a lawyer to raise the rent garners the title holder just under a million a year. If there is such a thing as economic rent, I think we’ve just found it.
(if anyone has references to court cases where landowners have refused to renew the lease in an attempt to repossess the improvements, I would be interested to read about it)
Yes, if goldfish could own land titles and make phone calls they would be swimming in money.
The title holder is deferring to the market to build the skyscraper and stock it with competent service providers. The allocation and all the value created therein is coming from the market and being taxed by the landholder at a rate of 1 million per acre per year.
Well, good. We’re just further qualifying the LVT in front of an audience that bristles at the idea taxes. But this point of view goes further…
A voluntary, self identifying trade group can impose tariffs. It’s not exclusive to states, whose constituents may or may not be under coercion. Often cooperative merchantiles do not extend member pricing to non-members. That’s a tariff.
Like yourself, Georgists tend to see the state as corrupt, unnecessary, harmful. I do think the state LVT would be a rational policy that would benefit me and most other people immensely, and I support it. However, I think a free market, corporate approach to implementing the LVT where investments are directed by communities into developing a better distribution of land equity is more likely to succeed. Similar to what the Rochdale cooperative has done in England.
I think the proviso is an excellent shorthand for pitching the state LVT to the public. But the distinction of asset classes in terms of investment potential is not really an ethical debate. It’s just a matter of getting the public to recognize the value – or starting companies that can package it and sell it to them.
I like those large tracts of open land! And I definitely respect the state’s claims and usually try to avoid direct confrontations with authority. But if you’re able to generate enough revenue, I think you’ll find that everything is for sale…
Just another silly attack on private property.
Is the sandwich you eat ‘owned by the community’? If you don’t have an individual right to monopolistic ownership of a sandwich, you will starve.
Simple as that. Land is necessary for existence and thus has a broader appeal versus Rembrandts. Which is to say that when shareholder equity in land is properly valued, pure speculation becomes too expensive.
I haven’t defied them so far. That doesn’t mean I never will.
Science is logical in the sense that its conclusions follow logically from the premises given. However, in science, the set of premises is forever open. Hence science uses (deductive) logic but is not the same thing as (deductive) logic.
I assumed it would be clear that by “logical argumentation” I was referring to deductive logic only. But even inductive of defeasible logic relies upon deduction to consistently derive conclusions from the current set of premises.
In other words, to say that a conclusion follows defeasibly from one or more premises simply means that the deduction of the conclusion from the premise(s) is sound, but the possibility remains for other, currently unknown, premises to exist that would render the deduction unsound.
I don’t understand this question. Could you please clarify?
Okay, so in other words, you’re saying that production implies property, but property does not imply production. However, production as a sufficient but not necessary determinant of property implies that one or more other determinants of property exist. Do you have any thoughts as to what they are?
That’s not my point. My point is that it’s impossible to prove that presence of LVT encourages allocation of land to the highest bidder over its absence.
Okay, at this point, I have no idea what definition you’re actually using for “tax”.
See above.
One reason among multiple is an example reason, isn’t it? I’m not demanding any evidence at all - I’m demanding proof.
How do you expect “highest (financial) value” to be determined in the absence of anyone bidding (either because no one wants to bid or because the “land” in question isn’t up for bid)?
In that last sentence, do you mean x0 instead of x1? Your assertion doesn’t make sense otherwise, so I’ll assume you’ll answer my question affirmatively. My response then is, so what? What difference does it make that there are people willing to buy “land” at a given price, but the “land” isn’t for sale? Indeed, wouldn’t the fact that the “land” isn’t for sale suggest that the owner of the “land” considers its value (to him) to be above any and all would-be bidders?
If I own “land”, and you come to me and offer to buy my “land” for $1 million, and I refuse, that means I prefer owning the “land” to owning the $1 million, doesn’t it? So the “land” is apparently already allocated to the person who considers it the most valuable - me.
You are quite an optimist!
Well, presumably, A’s right to sell his work to B derives from the fact that he is the legitimate owner of his work. If he is selling something that legitimately belongs to somebody else, or already belongs to the person to whom it is being sold, isn’t that fraudulent?
That’s indeed what I’m saying. Another form of property besides that which I have created might be the right to prevent others from accessing my body.
Yes, it can’t be deductively proved that LVT will improve allocation in any given instance, since it’s always possible that in that instance the land is already allocated to the highest bidder - but that’s not what I’m saying. My point is that since the holding costs of land are so low, and the rewards so high (regardless of who the land is leased to, since the greater part of the return is through asset price rises), it makes sense to own land even if you aren’t going allocate it to the highest bidder. During “boom” years, even poorly allocated (or even unallocated) land can be much more profitable than the same investment in capital goods.
A tax is an extra-economic obligation. That is, an obligation that results from privilege or coercion rather than the voluntary activity of the market.
If you don’t think the reason is a good reason, then provide a rebuttal. So far all you are doing is asking for more reasons.
I don’t need to determine the highest value in order to make the claim that LVT encourages land to go to the highest bidder.
I mean x1, since under standard competitive open bidding rules, the winning bidder pays the second highest bid. Think about the way eBay works - you can enter any amount as your highest bid, but you’ll only pay what the second highest bidder bids.
The difference it makes is that the difference between the highest bid and the current bid, if positive, represents a loss of production to the economy as a whole.
Yes, but since the value he assigns is an imputed cost, he can assign any value he likes to it, even if it is not necessarily representative of the value he would assign if he actually bore the cost of his decision. In other words, while the economic cost of his action may be high, the accounting cost may be low.
Correct. Let’s suppose that you value the land at $2 million and I value it at $1 million, and that apart from yourself I have the highest bid. Under an open bid LVT (which would be my preferred implementation), the site would be assigned the taxable value of $1 million.
I am not sure you got my point. You said on page 1 that LVT (i.e. recapturing 80-90% of the geo-rent) “doesn’t distort prices” and “encourages land owners to put land to the best possible use”. The obvious question is what’s so special about land… why wouldn’t a “Labor Value Tax” or a “Tractor Value Tax” have the same beneficial effects? The response was that land is special because “the quantity available is fixed”. So I brought up another example of something for which that is true: Rembrandts. To be consistent, then, you would have to say that recapturing 80% of the Rembrandt-rent “doesn’t distort prices” and “encourages Rembrandt owner to put the paintings to best possible use”, because the economic argument is the same as that for LVT.
The response I was expecting from you was that, in fact, a Rembrandt Value Tax WOULD NOT encourage Rembrandt owners to put them to best possible use, and that it would actually worsen allocation. I thought as a free marketer you would understand why a Rembrandt Value Tax would be economically destructive. I expected you to explain that some other attribute of land (NOT that “supply is fixed”) is the crucial thing that’s special about land, hence why LVT would be good, but RVT would be bad, in terms of economic consequences, even though “supply is fixed” applies to both.
Instead you seem to be saying that a RVT could have good economic consequences, and you hint there are many other examples of taxes that you reject for ethical reasons but admit could have good economic consequences. This is surprising to me because it suggests there is a significant disconnect between the system implied by your ethical values and the system you expect to have the best economic consequences. You choose not to support RVT for ethical reasons, even though you would expect it to have good consequences.
If I were to convince you that a RVT would be economically destructive, would you then concede that LVT would be economically destructive? (You may still support it for ethical reasons, of course, regardless of this concession).
Optimism has nothing to do with it. The future is inherently uncertain. I can assume that I’ll never defy the laws of physics, but that in no way is the same as knowing that I never will.
I’m sorry but I still don’t understand. Here’s how I understand the situation: A owns raw materials which B is hired to rearrange per A’s instructions. A pays B for the rearrangement. B does not own the raw materials, and I don’t consider him to gain any share of ownership in their rearranged form simply because he, not A, was the one who rearranged them.
“Might be”? Either you think it is or you think it isn’t. Which is it? If you think it is, then what would you say determines property in one’s own body?
On the other hand, since people are naturally produced, doesn’t that mean Georgists must consider people to be a form of “(economic) land”?
How do you know that the costs of holding “land” are always and necessarily “so low”? How do you know that the rewards of holding “land” are always and necessarily “so high”? And again, if someone who owns “land” decides not to lease it to anyone else, doesn’t that make him effectively the highest bidder?
In that case (i.e. under that definition of “tax”), tax is a universal aspect of property, as all property involves both privilege (ownership is by definition a privilege for the owner) and coercion (e.g. using force against a would-be thief).
That’s a red herring. I said earlier that I fail to see how “land” is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Providing “one reason” implies that more than one reason exists. So providing only one of those multiple reasons does not provide a sufficient explanation for the necessity of “land” not being encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT. Yes, I’m asking for more reasons, because I still fail to see how “land” is necessarily not encouraged to be allocated to the highest bidder in the absence of LVT.
No, you don’t need to do that in order to make the claim - in the sense of typing out the claim and posting it in this forum. But as far as I’m concerned, that claim means nothing if you can’t show how LVT encourages “land” to go to the highest bidder.
I see. This entire time, I’ve assumed you meant “bidding” in the sense of an auction, where the highest bid - not the second-highest bid - wins. But how is the second-highest bid the same thing as the highest bid?
How can it be positive? How can you even know whether it’s positive?
How is he not bearing the cost of his decision?
Why should you or anyone else be entitled to get anything from what I own? The “land” has already been allocated to the highest bidder (me). You agree with this. So now you’re apparently changing your meaning of “highest bidder” to be “second-highest bidder”. In other words, Georgists consider people who own “land” to owe a subsidy to people who don’t own “land”, because… they say so? Or is it because the people who don’t own “land” presumably can’t afford it? But why is that necessarily my problem, as an owner of “land”?
B is selling the service of rearrangement, produced by his labor, to A. What right does he have to do this if he does not own the products of his labor?
Well I don’t think that other people have the right to interfere with my body. That means it’s acceptable for me to use force against someone who attempts to do that. If you consider this to be ownership, then I own my body. (By this I don’t mean to insinuate that your definition of ownership is at fault, only to recognise that we have not, so far as I’m aware, agreed on a definition of ownership.)
Humans are the subject not the object of economics.
Because one can “homestead” land at the margin for free, forget about it for 50 years until a town has grown up around it, then return (evicting any squatters who may have settled in the meantime) to what is almost certainly a substantially more valuable plot (in that it will sell for a higher price). Here the only costs are the initial act of homesteading and the final act of enforcing any eviction, and these aren’t dependent on the holding duration, while the corresponding rewards are proportional to the holding duration.
In common parlance yes, but not in the sense of “privilege” and “coercion” used by libertarians/anarchists. Property in this case refers to rightful property, not a privilege, and coercion is suggestive of the initiation of force rather than force per se.
No. The fact that there are multiple reasons for something doesn’t imply that no single reason can be a sufficient reason, or that all reasons together are necessary to prove sufficiency. For instance, it might be necessary for me to leave my house because I have to go to work. It might also be necessary because I need to purchase food, which I will do on the way to work. Either reason alone is sufficient to prove the necessity of my leaving the house.
Then what are you claiming requires further support? I have already given my argument. Before we can proceed, you must either accept the argument or find the flaw. If the above is not the flaw, then what is?
The highest bidder does win. But the highest bidder pays the second highest price. This is how a standard open auction works.
Because it is not necessarily the case that the landowner will allocate to the highest bidder.
If you know the highest bid (which will be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser) and you know the current return, then calculating the difference is a trivial mathematical operation.
See above in the example of the person who homesteads marginal land. There is no initial investment (apart from whatever “labor mixing” we decide is necessary for homesteading, which isn’t well-defined), and no holding cost (since the landowner can then walk away and forget about the land), and possibly no cost to reclaim the land when he returns if others have respected his homesteading. So there is virtually no accounting cost. Yet what costs him nothing (i.e., holding land out of use) is costing the economy as a whole much (whatever would have been produced if the land had not been held out of use). Others, who would have used the land or benefitted from trading with those who would have used the land, end up paying the cost instead. Therefore he is not bearing the true economic cost of his decision.
Well, the point of this discussion is to determine, hopefully, whether or not that (unconditional) ownership (of economic land) is legitimate. To assert it at this stage is circular.
No I’m not. It is standard and reasonable to charge the highest bidder the second highest bid, because that is the price that represents the degree to which others have been excluded.
You have it precisely backwards. Georgists consider people who produce things not to owe a subsidy to people who own land.
Suppose this question was taken to its logical extreme and that one person owned the entire planet. Now, suppose this owner of land started to impose certain conditions to any prospective tenants.
You are of course free to leave, but if you decide to stay, you will be required to pay 40% of your income yearly. In addition, you will have to apply for a license to work and you must carry identification at all times. There will be no smoking or drinking, and you are not permitted more than two children. Security issues can be a problem, with many cases of aggravated trespass, so naturally you will be required to serve at least two years in the Global Security Force. Breakfast is served at 5AM every day (you may choose porridge or muesli), lunch at noon (potatoes) and dinner at 6PM (bread), but all other trade in food is highly restricted. You will undergo regular fitness checks and if it is decided that you are not of a suitable fitness then your tenancy contract may be terminated subject to a one month notice, at which time you must find an alternative place of residence to Earth. If you fail to find an alternative place of residence then you will be considered an aggravated trespasser and will be suitably disposed of by the Global Security Force.
Sounds like an anarchist utopia, right? This is not your problem as an owner of land. It’s your problem as someone who claims to be anti-state.
A tax on Rembrandts would only be economically destructive if it affected economic production (by definition). Since Rembrandts aren’t being produced any more, there will be no effect on the production of Rembrandts. Since also a tax on Rembrandts will not raise prices (by the law of supply of demand) it will not reduce their use. Since neither the production or use of Rembrandts is adversely affected by the tax, the tax is not economically destructive.
However, if the tax was to be applied on all collectible works of art, then there is production of the thing being taxed, so production will be disincentivised. The tax will also raise prices (by the law as the supply and demand) since supply is no longer inelastic. Therefore, the tax would be economically destructive.
While the tax may have “good” consequences for the economy as a whole, it has harmful consequences on at least one individual. But in the long term, there are also harmful consequences for the economy from following a “greater good” or “ends justify means” policy, in that it becomes difficult for individuals to know with certainty which of their rights will be respected, which ultimately increases perceptions of risk, distorting interest rates.
Only if you were to also explain why it would be inconsistent to accept the former but not the latter.
I still don’t understand the question. B is providing a service to A, which A pays him for. How does B not have the right to sell a service to A?
As I said before, I define “ownership” as “legitimate control”. I presume that a person’s control of his body is legitimate - that is, I presume that he owns himself.
Irrelevant. Do you agree that humans are naturally produced? Yes or no?
Presenting an extreme hypothetical example doesn’t answer my questions, sorry. Try again.
How do you think libertarians/anarchists use “privilege” and “coercion”? I personally define “privilege” as “non-universal right” and “coercion” as “the use or threat of physical force”.
Does the phrase “one reason is…” imply to you that more than one reason exists? Yes or no? If yes, then if only one reason is provided, that doesn’t cover all the reasons, does it? So it’s an insufficient explanation, isn’t it?
I’m saying that you haven’t given your argument. It may look like an argument to you, but it doesn’t to me. So I’m still waiting on an actual argument from you.
Not according to Wikipedia:
What you’re talking about is known as the Vickrey auction, and it’s rarely used in real life (eBay is a notable example of where it is used).
Then again, that’s up to the landowner, isn’t it?
I’d like to attack your notion that not allocating land to the highest bidder will represent a loss of production to the economy as a whole. This seems to be based on a notion of “optimality” that can be objectively determined. This notion, in turn, depends upon an objective theory of value. But value is subjective, hence “optimality” can’t be objectively determined.
Wait a minute. You’re not saying that the highest bid will necessarily be roughly equivalent to a valuation performed by a real-estate appraiser? Really?
In other words, you imagine a state of affairs that’s more to your liking and that you presume would’ve occurred without this terrible landowner. Then you hold it against him for (presumably) standing in the way of your dreams coming true. But in order to persuade others to your way of thinking, you must twist your subjective self-interest into an objective (“true”) cost imposed on everyone (but the landowner). If anyone calls you out on this, just deny, change the subject, launch personal attacks, etc.
This is akin to a gambler thinking that he’s lost money because he didn’t win as big as he’d hoped. No one is entitled to what could have been, but isn’t.
I see the debate as you trying to prove your position and me trying to disprove it.
However, I’ll note that, even with holding to unconditional ownership of economic land, there can exist a notion of “abandonment”. That would involve a landowner relinquishing control of the land.
It’s certainly not standard, as I’ve noted above. Why shouldn’t the highest bidder be charged the price that he said he’s willing to pay (i.e. his bid, not the second-highest bid)?
… They don’t. Goods that aren’t produced can’t be paid by people as a subsidy.
No. I won’t entertain crazy hypotheticals like that. Complain all you want - I don’t care.
Oh, nice attempt at a guilt-trip. Sorry it didn’t work though. Let’s stick to argumentation, shall we?