You know, stealing from wage earners, that’s very ethical.
GilesStratton, If you wish to pretend that my denouncement of anarchy is in any way a promotion of the current state of government, then there is no point in me wasting my time on you. Individuals have the right to their life, liberty, and property. Under anarchy, the definition of rights become arbitrary. Please explain the reason why plunderers will “quickly go out of business,” under anarchy, as you have stated.
And states violate them by their very existence, no matter how they are arranged. If states are required to protect rights, then rights are impossible.
No they don’t. Why do you think we need a state to tell us what rights are? If rights exist, then they preexist governments, and are superior to them. If you believe in instituting a compulsory monopoly over coercion - whose income is made through taxation (legalized theft) for the protection of rights - then I suggest it is your idea of rights which is arbitrary.
Because nobody will be assumed to have the right to plunder, as the state is assumed to have. All acts of theft will be resisted. Nobody will be prohibited by law from defending themselves. When there is no institution of legal plunder available, all but the very worst pathological cases will find that cooperation and peaceful trade is more profitable than theft, and those few criminally parasitic or violent individuals who remain will be removed from society by one means or another.
Am I correct that the Austrian School advocates free-market capitalism? Is it not true that under a system of free-market capitalism, a natural monopoly can emerge where a business is offering the best product for best price in a market, and therefore has no competition? If the product that this business is selling is the ability to coerce, then by default it becomes government. Is it impossible for an anarchist to consider the possibility that under a system of anarchy, one business could eventually emerge as gaining the monopoly on the power to coerce, and therefore become government by default? Would you necessarily be against this government, and if so what makes the market for the ability to coerce so unique that capitalism would be declared a failure?
Yes.
That is theoretically possible, in the same way that it is theoretically possible for a tornado to rip through a junkyard and accidentally assemble a working lawnmower. But in reality, it is extremely unrealistic to expect a monopoly to provide a quality product at a low price. A monopoly, whether “natural” or political, suffers from the same calculation problem as a socialist commonwealth.
That would be the definition of a “monopoly”, yep. But because a free market, by definition, entails unlimited competition, such a thing cannot exist in a free market. It is true that a single company can gain a lot of control in a particular area, for a while. But their peers in other areas will always be in competition with them, and if they ever begin to act like a monopoly (which, if they get big enough, they will because of the calculation problem), they will also have to deal with innumerable smaller, more efficient firms popping up in their own “territory”.
You keep making assertions, but haven’t yet bothered to prove one of them.
A person, having become an anarchist, will have already considered this problem and realized that it’s not at all likely.
First, your ideas about natural monopolies are erroneous, as I explained above. Second, would a people, after living in a society in which they are able to choose the most efficient, polite, inexpensive, and unobtrusive protectors from a roster of - who knows, hundreds? - faced with a company who would abolish such free choice and establish a compulsory monopoly, just throw up their hands and say “well golly gee damn, I guess we’re slaves again. Pity.”
No, such an institution would be fought bitterly. And since in such a society there would be no restrictions on private arms ownership, it wouldn’t last long.
Will they tax, regulate, pass laws against non-aggressive activities, and/or forbid people from opting out of their “service”? If so, you’re damn right I would.
Because it wouldn’t be “capitalism” (as you call it) that would bring about such a situation. It would happen through a widespread, simultaneous, successful violation of everyone’s rights - by definintion, the opposite of a market process. And such a successful violation in a completely free market, in the absence of a political apparatus already in existence, is pretty much an economic impossiblity.
See the Yeager article on the similarities between the academic and ideological approaches of the Austrian school and Henry George as well as this one below:
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/johannsen-oscar_austrian-economists-and-henry-george.html
“While the individualism of Henry George may not be quite as apparent as the Austrians’, his life’s work was directed toward creating conditions which would enable the individual to lead the kind of life he wished, qualified only by his not interfering with the right of another individual to live as he wished. And George was only too aware that it was people who created the institutions which he believed were not only the cause of poverty amidst plenty, but were also largely responsible for inhibiting the freedom of the individual…”
So, they can to some degree be described as “Austrian” as leading Austrian economists like Yeager observed!
I think Hayek answered non-added value land tax provided it was able to dissociate added value from non-added value. Thus, he says:
If the factual assumptions on which it [LVT] is based were correct, i.e., if it were possible to distinguish clearly between the value of the “permanent and indestructible powers” of the soil . . . and . . . the value due to . . . improvement . . . the argument for its adoption would be very strong"
(F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty [ Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960], pp. 352-53)
This is not really a major issue - Riccardo’s law says location determines rent so its equitable in that sense and there are various models of ex post pricing in determining the tax - obviously, a parchment of land in the city will cost more than a dry parchment out in the country; obviously, a piece of land with Sydney Harbour views would cost a little bit more than a piece of land in that same area which did not have those views). So, there is a “reality”. Furthermore, often, people before they sell there home would ask a (private) valuator to assess the value of the land -a similar process would occur under LVT. If the valuation process was meaningless, why do it, why get someone to tell you the worth of your home if the price is so “indistinguishable”? I certainly think there are ways to go about it.
Rothbard also makes similar mistakes - he says LVT would drive land prices down to zero (i.e. even, shock horror, the poorest of the poor can own land) - but this is not actually true - he confuses land value with land prices - do some research on the two. Rothbard also forgets Georgists are NOT taxing the property, but the land. He also assumes that: “The owner of ground land performs a very important productive service. He finds, brings into use, and then allocates, land sites to the most value-productive bidders” - as we will see below, land tax makes this the case (i.e. to pay for the tax it must be put into productive use) - also under a Georgist system you still have buyers and sellers - in fact, more buyers and sellers as speculative advances would relinquish idle or speculative land purchases - LVT lubcricates the land market.
Anyways, even if I am wrong above the two propositions above regarding Rothbard, land tax has several interesting benefits which no other system has, as it:
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encourages activity over idleness - it forces land in inner-city regions and at the margin, which are run down and not being put into productive use, to be used to pay for the tax, this increasing output i.e. labour applied over land (e.g. in Pittsburgh there were 4000 vacant sites before land tax was introduced, that dropped to 400 - imagine the extra demand injected into that area, causing the GLP -gross local product - to almost double) - the abolition of all other taxes would also increase labour supply and general demand;
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in addition to increasing the supply of useable sites, LVT promotes lower rents so business people and entrenpeunrs - essential to Austrian theory - can implement their new ideas and set up shop without other taxes - i.e. promotes competition because people are not locked out of the market due to high rent or monopolies (which hold sites idle for competitive purposes);
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increases private land ownership as demand for speculative land decreases (e.g. in Pittsburgh house prices only increases 6% in the last decade - compare that to the national rate in the double digits, in some cases triple digit) - more families would be able to afford their own home (see, for example, the geolibertarian “I want to live here” report which showed in just one suburb of Melbourne there were 1000 homes which were idle - that could house as much as 3000 people - i.e. assuming there were a family of three - as idle land would be relinquished);
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reduces government spending as it limits urban sprawl (provided there is green zoning) - the further a city expands (due to speculation e.g. consider how Toyko expanded rapidly during their asset bubble) government has to spend more to provide basic services further out of the center - luckily, as Vickery shows marginal rent equals marginal transportional costs (also it means people don’t have to travel to work as far);
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enhances private property - land disputes over pieces of land could be more easily resolved if we determine who was paying land tax or defend the individual from government (McClelland v Queen); here, the judge concluded, given the private individual was paying the tax, the Crown had no right to take it away
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limits government spending as a single tax would return what is owed to the community (i.e. windfalls) (although the need for government handouts would be less - no income tax etc would mean a greater incentive to work and active land sites would means greater likeihood to find work);
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makes both the free and private banking system more stable (bank runs and land values plummeting often go hand in hand - Australia had free banking in the 1890s, with a 100% gold standard, yet we managed to get our biggest depression ever due to the Melbourne Land Boom);
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cannot be avoided the way income tax is (thus, less tax evasion departments being set up and less money spent trying to find tax dodgers) - it seems like the only option in a digital age.
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fund, through such windfalls (e.g. subdivison and zoning can double land values by a stroke of a pen) - government would consist of basic services - education vouchers, building roads, perhaps a few schools which are left to the private sector and a defence force. The vouchers and roads would, of course, be built by local government i.e. there would be a very limited role for Federal government (e.g. defence and perhaps setting basic educational standards).
I regard greater home ownership, stronger families, more market competition, a unshakeable belief in free trade and decentralisation as hardly being "socialist’ - Georgism and Austrian economists make a good mix even in accounting major economic downturns: http://www.foldvary.net/works/geoaus.html
These are some benefits and most of the cited disadvantages are often wrong (and poorly thought out). But I’m sure we’ll hear some in reply to this post 
Oh and here is an interesting article: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_2_63/ai_n6141843
“It was a lay enthusiasm for Henry George which led me to economics.” So wrote Friedrich August yon Hayek in a letter to Peter K. Minton in 1962. Elsewhere, he explained that this enthusiasm came about as the result of his having been “exposed to a group of single-taxers” as a first-year law student at the University of Vienna just after World War I.
There are no taxes in a free society.
Henry George had it about half right. Land taxes really were the most efficient form of taxation so long as the taxes were spent to create and improve land. It may be that producing security improves land, but spending that tax money in education or health care would not.
You have to pay for what you consume. If you consume land, you pay for land. Under a free market for security people would pay “land taxes” in the sense that they would have to pay to secure their land in proportion to the value of the land.
This is precisely what a philistine would say, Spideynw. LVT isn’t really a “tax” - as tax implies attacking something that is produced - it is best described as a rent i.e. a surplus -
Y = R + L + I (rent, labour as wages, interest) - rent being a “surplus” from wages and interest. As I pointed out, you use the word “free society” so broadly that your statement is not wrong, but simply meaningless.
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Is a free society where labour is locked out from production due to high rents and vacant land free (note: the conflict is not between labour and capital, but between labour and capital v land)? I go on to show in my book that areas of high unemployment have alot of vacant idle commerical sites as do most run down areas. Essentially, structural unemployment is a “lock out of labour by landowners”. I also gave you the example above where there were 1000 idle houses in just one small suburb of Melbourne - I challenge you to show me
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Is a free society where families have to pay exoberant mortgages and work all day at the expense of speculators, who, btw, rely on MY LABOUR and MY enterprise to give themselves windfall gains most of the time? My family recently built a shopping complex, but it gave adjacent properties a huge windfall - yet they did nothing themselves - I rather than windfall go into building roads etc . Also, here is a fact: the Germans are more happier than the Americans - based on surveys etc - because Americans are hit with a double whamy - higher mortgages and high taxes - while Germany has high taxes (and therefore expect better public services) it hardly has exoberant mortgages compared to America. I suppose “depression” and “foreclosures” are also part of a “free” society, eh, Spideynw.
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Is a free society where a capitalist, who wants to start up a business, but cannot due to monopolies and high rents is locked out of the market?
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Is a free society one where people have to travel further distances to go to work?
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Is a free society where people cannot put food on the table and have to turn to depravity to make ends meet? (anyways, my view is that economic liberty brings social conservatism - i.e. stronger families, more stable relationships and lives - what I call a first order of freedom).
All the above propositions have logical and empirical justifications (some of which were cited above)
Nevertheless, you are somewhat right Spideynw, a free society has no taxes - luckily, I don’t regard LVT as a tax in practice, only in name. And if it is a tax, clearly a tax that would deliever results that you could ever begin to touch: more homeownership, lower unemployment and real production, not just speculation (as we saw above abolishing a central bank does not eliminate speculation or the boom bust cycle - as you forget that most malinvestments occur in real estate - see above http://www.progress.org/2004/fold364.htm).
A free society involves people reaching their full potential and doing what they want to do without limiting others (including self-respect and personal growth).
As such, Spideynw, your views are dismissed. The fact is you are like Marx: about intentions, not outcomes.
I agree with you stranger - as long as the money is spent improving the land (which in most instances it would). In some US States LVT is used to fund education vouchers. As for healthcare, I do think there needs to be some safety net (by local goverment, not federal - remember I am a fan of decentralisation) - but I do predict the need for universal education and healthcare would drop - remember part of the Georgist program is the abolition of all taxes (i.e. on employment thus reducing dependecies on welfare), increasing demand and bringing idle land into use, increasing output and therefore the demand for labour. It is both a supply and demand side stimulator. It would also mean people can afford to investment in private health insurances and the like with more money around. Less is being spent on rent and more on actual services.
It is also logical (as identified by JS Mill and Adam Smith) that land values are reflective on others - i.e. most, but not all, value of land (but not the propert) comes from the work of either private enterprise or the government - “incremental value”. Most of this should fund basic services like building roads and a voucher system.
“Nevertheless, you are somewhat right Spideynw, a free society has no taxes - luckily, I don’t regard LVT as a tax in practice, only in name.”
Who collects this ‘tax in name only’? Gee, the state perhaps?
“And if it is a tax, clearly a tax that would deliever results that you could ever begin to touch: more homeownership, lower unemployment and real production, not just speculation”
Says who? And maybe I dont want more home ownership, maybe I want more farms. Maybe I want idle land and speculation. Who are you, oh benevolet overlord of the Georgist socialist state to decide for me?
The central thesis of Georgism is uncompatiable with libertarianism.
Here’s what I don’t get about Georgism; how does a very minor reform of tax policy get turned into a utopian cult?
And why exactly would you want to abolish speculation? any entrepreneurial activity is speculative by definition.
The business cycle is not produced by speculation, but by misguided speculation as a result of the artificial interest rates that central banks provide.
- “Who collects this ‘tax in name only’? Gee, the state perhaps?”
Firstly, there is nothing, a priori, wrong with the State - provided it works with you, not over you. Yes, the state (or rather local government in the model I expounded - as there will be little for a federal government) collects this “tax” (surplus rather - land is not something that is produced - it can be subdivided, but not produced) to provide services like roads and things like education vouchers (Mills calls this “the unearned increment” for obvious reasons). I have yet to see an argument for the complete removal of government which avoids (1) corruption and still has some degree of accountability and (2) does not fall apart into militia’s (e.g. a military) or ensures people have adequate skills. As such, you clearly forget what Hayek said: government does have a role, but a minor role in providing basic services (e.g. police and a defence force). LVT does that.
- Says who?
Well look at Hong Kong, what Friedman described as a “capitalist utopia” - i.e. 40% of their revenue is via LVT. They can improve, but they are as close to a free market economy as one can achieve at this point in history. Paul Samuelson. Dozens of Nobel Economists (e.g. look at the letter they wrote to the Russians after the cold war ended, advising the government that LVT would make them a capitalist power house: and several other libertarian thinkers were also supporters (e.g. Hayek). Other supporters, from the spectrum include: Herbert Simon, William Buckley and libertarians like Stephen Moore and Fred Foldvary and Albert Jay Nock. Oh and btw, you know the board game, Monopoly, that was actually created by Henry George indirectly - Lizzie Maggie created the game “the Landlords game” in 1904 to demonstrate his theories when turned into the game monopoly.
Also, if you think speculation is great, lets look at the human reality. I refer you above to the empirical data in Australia where housing became more affordable with LVT as well as the fact that in America when LVT was introduced 4000 vacant buildings dropped down to 300 vacant buildings, thus increasing demand for local services and more output and commerce, but reducing rents - genuine competition and what capitalism ought to be - all about competition, easy market entry and REAL production - not speculation.
- And maybe I dont want more home ownership, maybe I want more farms.
Excellent. If you are serious, I can tell you right now you can have it. That is exactly what happened in Australia - you got more farms (thanks to Riccardo’s law of rent - it allows marginal land to be brought into production and supramarginal land to be put in ful use). LVT has the ability to ensure you have farms OR homes - it ensures the city is productive, not rundown and that farmers beyond the city margin set up farms. So, there is efficient resource allocation - you are taxing something that cannot be produced (i.e. land).
- Maybe I want idle land and speculation.
I am not deciding for you. Indeed, I am in fact ADVANCING your capacities. I am saying that you, a businessmen, can have the land and do whatever the hell you want with it - not locked out of the market by monopoly or high rents. Given land is a scare resource (i.e. an “inelastic” good), it must be allocated efficiently and given most, but not all, of its value is determined by the activity of others (e.g. access to transport, infrastructure, location) then the incremental value is all you pay for. The person who wants to pay most for its marginal use, gets it (hell, I’ve heard people say banks, not the state should allocate land - but I wouldn’t got that far). Furthermore, the libertarian philosophy states that IF you are a market player you can claim over the land - However, given you are NOT a marker player (i.e. a producer) then you are wasting, no raping, a scare resource - you simply increase costs of rent (eating away at business profits due to higher rents - see Fred Harrison’s Riccardo’s Law he applied this to London businesses - theft hath I ever saw it), produce sprawl (depending where the land is) increasing government costs and making people travel longer hours to get to work and increasing the conflict between labour and land - idle land equals idle labour (see my discussion above on the relationship betwene high levels of unemployment, high rents and idle land and my discussion below). I also show how land speculation is different to OTHER types of speculation below (next post).
For now let me say the empirical evidence refutes your claim: in Australia, for example, high prices have gone up by 70% - yet there is so much idle land within city regions - clearly, knowing the Australian people, I would say the Australian dream (i.e. homeownership) is what most FAMILIES want (especially those renting) - but the dream is falling out of sight. To those that do want to rent, they can - in fact, rents would probably go down (Austrians love logic - perhaps, sicempertyrannis, you should use some logic t- personally people want to pay less, not more for the same thing). However, given you are NOT a marker player (i.e. a producer), a parasite waiting for others to do work, then you are wasting a resource - but if you want to farm, then sure thing.
- Who are you, oh benevolet overlord of the Georgist socialist state to decide for me?
Well, I am a uni student, who like Hayek, after reading Henry George, became interested in economics. Having reviewed 200 years of evidence across four continents, I have concluded the boom-bust cycle can be eliminated by a fusion of a private banking system and a LVT (or at least a Mills tax - look that up). I weave together the Austrian theory of capital goods with real estate and the bank cycle, to reveal that my mathematical theory can account for 80% of all downturns and 95% of downturns where GDP fell by more than 3%. Consider the economic events in these years: 1819, 1837, 1854, 1874, 1892, 1907, 1929, 1973, 1983, 1991, 2008. You will conclude that most malinvestments occured in real estate, which damages banking stability as well as investment and consumption in the long run - circulating capital gravitates toward fixed capaital (land) and when fixed capitals margin of returns fall, you get a downturn - who buildings things when property prices start to plummet? Hardly anyone.
As for the “socialist state” - I would describe your views as socialist - socialism wants (1) end of private ownership of land, (2) prefers centralisation over decentralisation, (3) anti-free trade and in favour of protectionism, (4) the end of the family. As I explained above (if you had bother to read it) - Georgism enhances private land ownership (I cited two legal cases where LVT defended ones property first from the state, second from another individual). (2) Georgism promotes decentralised fiscal and monetary policy. (3) George was 100% in favour of free trade. (4) I believe families want to spend time together, not having mum or dad take on two jobs to pay the mortgage and pay taxes - life wasn’t made just to work.
The reality is Georgism is beyond left and right: it synthesised collectivism and individualism, forming co-operative individualism. Again, you are about intentions, I am about outcomes.
As such, your views are dismissed.
Goodbye.
ps Ah, sicsempertyrannis you fall into the classic trap: “critics don’t argue with Henry George, they simply misunderstand him”.
Not a utopian cult, but “utopian realism” really - one cannot but feel happiness when you look at Hong Kong and parts of the US that use LVT to fund education vouchers or Japan in the 19th century as it boomed it ways with a LVT system, allowing it to become an industrial giant (ah, if only it had LVT before the 1980s/early 90s bubble!).
Also when one sees the mathematical models AND empirical evidence one notices higher rates of home ownership, less urban sprawl, higher rates of employment, higher GDP growth and less to no cyclical downturns. Also, the “single tax” is hardly “minor” - it calls for the abolition for all taxes (while that may be minor to us, not to the general public) -
Yes. efficiency and equality are not mutually exclusive forces.
Like the right honourable gentlemen above you, you do not argue with Henry George, you misunderstand him. Perhaps you should consult the empirical data and use some logic before rendering it an “utopian cult”.
Ah, CorporateGhost - how many times do you think I have heard this: “And why exactly would you want to abolish speculation? any entrepreneurial activity is speculative by definition.”
Let me give you ten reasons why land speculation is different from other types of speculation (I’ve got a rough list of 400, but 5 will do for now).
1. Land speculation is fuelled by MY tax money - Proof: I am a hardworking labourer, I pay taxes, that builds roads and schools, that gives a windfall to landowners, I rent out - MY tax money bits me through HIGER rents through projects I or fellow workers built - in other words, MARX WAS WRONG - labour and capital are NOT in conflict, but land and labour are: my labour means higher rents. Someone else enjoys the FRUITS of my labour. Thus, as John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith CONCEDE, increase in land values are really a “surplus” - it does not distort economic activity but in fact makes it more efficient. Hence, the formula Y = R plus W plus I (rent, wages, interest respectively). Transposing the equation we have: Y plus rent = interest plus wages. Thus, interest and wages are kept in tact - genuine production can take place without deadweight loss. Other forms of speculation GENERALLY go toward output (e.g. investment in a stock or company) - my intention may be to speculate, but the outcome is that it at least produces some degree of output (as most forms of speculation are co-operative - although I reap the rewards the funds, I provide contribute to the growth - with land speculation its more parasitic - I am waiting for population growth and infrastructure to give me a windfall gain). Winston Churchill summarises:
“…Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains – and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived…”
In other words, you shoot workers and you don’t get labor, you destroy capital and you don’t get machines - if shoot landowners, the land is still there.
2. Land speculation increases unemployment - Proof: we saw above that idle sites and areas of high unemployment go hand in hand - an increase in the supply of land and the removal of all other taxes, means a supply and demand side increase in labour and capital.
3. Only 20% of stock market crashes have an effect on the REAL economy (and most of them coincide with land speculation) while 65% of real estate bubbles have an effect on the real economy - but effect we mean lowering GDP and unemployment rising by more than 4%.
- Land speculation hurts capitalist and labourers alike. Proof: as one commentator put it: “No matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream for himself, and everywhere today the man or the public body that wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior one, and in some cases to no use at all. All comes back to land value, and its owner is able to levy toll upon all other forms of wealth and every form of industry. A portion, in some cases the whole, of every benefit which is laboriously acquired by the community increases the land value and finds its way automatically into the landlord’s pocket. If there is a rise in wages, rents are able to move forward, because the workers can afford to pay a little more. If the opening of a new railway or new tramway, or the institution of improved services of a lowering of fares, or of a new invention, or any other public convenience affords a benefit to workers in any particular district, it becomes easier for them to live, and therefore the ground landlord is able to charge them more for the privilege of living there…”
5. Beside land, particularly productive land is a scare, natural resource - the first FACTOR OF PRODUCTION, land speculation and monopoly reduces competition. Several Austrians have written on this topic, particularly, Kriztner and Yeager. As George observed, “The manufacturer proposing to start a new industry, proposing to erect a great factory offering employment to thousands of hands, is made to pay such a price for his land that the purchase price hangs around the neck of his whole business, hampering his competitive power in every market, clogging him far more than any foreign tariff in his export competition, and the land price strikes down through the profits of the manufacturer on to the wages of the worker…”
Clearly, land speculation and other forms of speculation have different ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL impact.
As for your premise that all enterprise is speculation, I reply:
"They talk of the increased profits of a doctor or lawyer from the growth of population in the town in which they live. They talk of the profits of a railway, from the growing wealth and activity in the districts through which it runs. They talk of the profits from a rise in stocks and even the profits derived from the sale of works of art. But see how misleading and false all those analogies are. The windfalls from the sale of a picture – a Van Dyke or a Holbein – may be very considerable. But pictures do not get in anybody’s way. They do not lay a toll on anybody’s labor; they do not touch enterprise and production; they do not affect the creative processes on which the material well-being of millions depends.
If a rise in stocks confers profits on the fortunate holders far beyond what they expected or indeed deserved, nevertheless that profit was not reaped by withholding from the community the land which it needs; on the contrary, it was reaped by supplying industry with the capital without which it could not be carried on.
If a railway makes greater profits it is usually because it carries more goods and more passengers.
If a doctor or a lawyer enjoys a better practice, it is because the doctor attends more patients and more exacting patients, and because the lawyer pleads more suits in the courts and more important suits. At every stage the doctor or the lawyer is giving service in return for his fees.
Fancy comparing these healthy processes with the enrichment which comes to the landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts of a great city, who watches the busy population around him making the city larger, richer, more convenient, more famous every day, and all the while sits still and does nothing. "
As such, your first premise is DISMISSED.
As for your second proposition, you too, have clearly NOT read my above post, which proves it is NOT the case that “The business cycle is not produced by speculation, but by misguided speculation as a result of the artificial interest rates that central banks set…”
Again - Australia. 1890. 100% gold standard. No central bank. 35% deflation rate. HUGE LAND BUBBLE. In one year prices went up by 100%. Bubble burst. 30% unemployment. Austrian remedies are not immune from the bust cycle - they simply reduce their chances of happening, but can, in fact, advance their severity as the above case shows.
Again, I implore you, no I beg of you, please, please, for both your sanity and mine consult the empirical data and history itself.
Your second premise is therefore also dismissed.
If the three donkeys above want economic downturns, increasing poverty and less market competition, then come on down - tell us, tell the world, that you are closet socialists who want to make capitalism look bad, when really, all it needs to a private banking system and LVT.
“Firstly, there is nothing, a priori, wrong with the State - provided it works with you, not over you.”
Why try what has failed again and again throughout history? By definition, the state is over me - it can steal from me and kill me and get away with it.
“Yes, the state (or rather local government in the model I expounded - as there will be little for a federal government) collects this “tax” (surplus rather - land is not something that is produced - it can be subdivided, but not produced) to provide services like roads and things like education vouchers (Mills calls this “the unearned increment” for obvious reasons).”
OoooOO boy state, thank you for giving me some of my own money back in the form of services I dont need or want. I have a better idea - why not let me keep my own money and allow me to spend it as I see fit?
“Well look at Hong Kong, what Friedman described as a “capitalist utopia” - i.e. 40% of their revenue is via LVT.”
Friedman (I assume you mean daddy Milton) is hardly the best example of a libertarian. While there are some nice things about Hong Kong, it IS a state. Can I buy a firearm there whenever I please? I doubt it.
“Oh and btw, you know the board game, Monopoly, that was actually created by Henry George indirectly - Lizzie Maggie created the game “the Landlords game” in 1904 to demonstrate his theories when turned into the game monopoly.”
You know whenever I play monopoly I change the rules, meh.
“For now let me say the empirical evidence refutes your claim: in Australia, for example, high prices have gone up by 70% - yet there is so much idle land within city regions - clearly, knowing the Australian people, I would say the Australian dream (i.e. homeownership) is what most FAMILIES want (especially those renting) - but the dream is falling out of sight.”
High prices in what? May I see some examples? ‘High prices’ doesnt tell me anything. And on your second point, if the families want home ownership, they are free to attempt to purchase the idle land themselves without land owners forced to at Georgian gun point.
“As for the “socialist state” - I would describe your views as socialist - socialism wants (1) end of private ownership of land, (2) prefers centralisation over decentralisation, (3) anti-free trade and in favour of protectionism, (4) the end of the family.”
Where in my reply did I advocate end of private ownership of land, centralized power, protectionism, and the end of the family? Georgism in effect IS end of private ownership of land. I would say a mandatory 100% tax (or, nationalization, because thats what it is) with no if ands or buts is pretty centralized, since I guess under Georgism you could never lower it.
But let’s be clear. States, by definition are socialist. No matter how you slice it, Georgism is a tyrannical socialism the same as any. Rothbard already refuted it quite well.
I think I am inclined to agree with another replier - Georgism is a cult.
- Why try what has failed again and again throughout history? By definition, the state is over me - it can steal from me and kill me and get away with it.
I suppose you are from stateless Somalia or Comrade America. Anyways, Georgism has never been tried (while Marxism has and statelessness as in Somalia). Furthermore, don’t look at meaning look at purpose - yes, the State can do that -perhaps you should move to Switzerland and employ their direct democratic to change the world? And, to borrow your phrase, clearly the fact you recognise that the “state…can steal and kill” means it is working over you, not with you.
- OoooOO boy state, thank you for giving me some of my own money back in the form of services I dont need or want. I have a better idea - why not let me keep my own money and allow me to spend it as I see fit?
So for the record: you don’t own a car, you don’t go to work - i.e. you don’t use roads? I think this statement of yours is laughable. You want to be killed by an evading enemy. Anyways, I refer you to Ricardo’s Law of Rent - you pay based on where you are - so if you are a farmer in the middle of know where, you’ll probably be paying $1 worth of “rent” under a Georgist system. I assume the fact you didn’t know that is just your ignorance shining through. So, if you are not needing or using the services, then that is the case - you pay nothing. Guess what? You keep your money. However, I assume you do live in a city, and as such, do use transport, roads and would probably like a voucher system, so any “unearned increment” (discussed above) can fund these basic things.
- Friedman (I assume you mean daddy Milton) is hardly the best example of a libertarian. While there are some nice things about Hong Kong, it IS a state. Can I buy a firearm there whenever I please? I doubt it.
My point is Hong Kong is as close to a capitalist libertarian society in the world thus far - it has adopted a Georgist system - so I did not care what Milton said, I care about what is going on in HK. As for the firearm - I don’t know - but thats a moot point. As I pointed out earlier, I believe economic freedom brings responsible social conservatism - I, of course, am from a country where we don’t shoot each other. I also remind you that areas of high unemployment (often where “gangs” are) give gunowners bad names. Of course, a Georgist system would get these people employed - relinquishing the land that is held idle, as several empirical studies have shown (i.e. idle land, equals idle labour). Get them off the streets and into having jobs. Oh the irony - because in Japan when they had LVT for a decade unemployment was less than 1%. I’ll send you out a copy of my book - ironically, entitled The General Theory of Land, Interest and Unemployment: A GeoAustrian Synthesis (the title is deliberate as it discusses the paradoxes of Keynes’ economis i.e. public works cause land speculation which actually precipiates the sort of boom bust cycles Keynes envisaged).
Again you say “by definition” - don’t look at meaning, look at purpose.
- You know whenever I play monopoly I change the rules, meh.
Actually, capitalism is about competition - monopoly, actually, means you dictate the rules, competition means other peoples influence what the rules of the game are. No wonder you hate LVT. You want power to be centralised in your hands.
- High prices in what? May I see some examples? ‘High prices’ doesnt tell me anything. And on your second point, if the families want home ownership, they are free to attempt to purchase the idle land themselves without land owners forced to at Georgian gun point.
High prices in land - and here is a few graphs: http://www.lvrg.org.au/uploadedFiles/1220755956849-2005.pdf
http://www.lvrg.org.au/Text/1220923843319-2674/Property-leads
As to your second point, you misunderstand - (idle) land is purposely with-held from the market (http://www.earthsharing.org.au/2008/12/08/2008-i-want-to-live-here-report-release/), while landowners wait for it to increase. So, by definition, no they cannot purchase the land, it is off the market and even if they could, they have to take out a huge mortgage - when in reality, the bubble will eventually burst, and they will have negative equity. Furthermore, the gun point proposition is flawed: as I mentioned earlier (argh, I have to repeat myself) landowners here made a profit because they put the land in use (e.g. farming or buildings) - thus production, not speculation, was a source of income - so your gunpoint proposition, which implies landowners are somewhat worse off is flawed. Moreover, if the LVT is low then local government and landowners can split the incremental value - because, as we saw above, land (but NOT property) values are mostly the result of the community (infrastructure from government or the private sector) and population growth. Btw, I was wrong last time when I said 1000 idle sites. It’s actually:
- 2,317 vacant properties in inner Melbourne.
- 18,070 vacant properties in CityWest Water’s client base of Greater Melbourne.
- $1,044,967,000 worth of vacant property in the inner city.
So much for a “free” market.
- Where in my reply did I advocate end of private ownership of land, centralized power, protectionism, and the end of the family? Georgism in effect IS end of private ownership of land. I would say a mandatory 100% tax (or, nationalization, because thats what it is) with no if ands or buts is pretty centralized, since I guess under Georgism you could never lower it
When you rejected Georgism you accepted socialist outcomes: natural monopolies and his ideas (like free trade) and higher mortgages (because, y’know, families should work 3 jobs just to pay the rent, aye, mate? or turn to selling themselves - in short, our current tax system insults people’s dignity, making them do what they would not do in a truly free economic society) and thus the end of the family (i.e. disputes, less time together). See you are judging things by there intention, not there outcome: your intention might be to support the free market, but without LVT it seems difficult for easy market entry and the like. Of course, the 100% tax is different from nationalisation. As I showed above, 2 legal precedents which showed how LVT ENHANCES property rights- in the McCelland case the government wanted what was alleged to be Crown land, but the private citizen won because he was paying his LVT. Thus, the judge reasoned “well, if he was paying tax for the land, how can it be the governments?” - So again, empirically your views are flawed - it tells government to piss off. Likewise, disputes over who owns land is addressed by LVT - “who pays the resource rent?” And, initally, I am in support of a Mill taxs (JS Mill made it) as a transition - but the two do the same job. In fact, a Mills tax would probably make you slightly happier given “unearned increment” is a reality of the property market. Also, there is no FEDERAL government to administer things, but rather local governments (so your centralised point is flawed). For a mathematical model of decentralised fiscal and environmental policy under Georgism here: http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v65y2008i3p569-573.html or http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VDY-4PJ6BRP-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8821515c6ce8e1ec2c1144b27ada4419
Again, your points are appaulingly ignorant.
- States, by definition are socialist. No matter how you slice it, Georgism is a tyrannical socialism the same as any. Rothbard already refuted it quite well.
Again, don’t look at meaning, look at purpose. We need rules in society - as Wittgenstein points out, we cannot have a “private language” - we cannot have an individual as all thigns are governed by conventions, rules and signs. The trick is how to direct these signs into co-operative measures. What you have FAILED to show is how Georgism is a “tyrannical socialism” when in fact everything your ideas intend (free market access, self expression etc) actually occur under Georgism: easier market entry, increased output, production over speculation, lower levels of unemployment - With all respect, dear Sir, I would say your anarcho-capitalist views are unstable and represent the end of liberty just as the status quo - you have failed to show me how your model will remove the boom bust cycle, ensure society and the individual progress by positing resources into production not speculation, increase competition, take a massive whack out of poverty and won’t end up like Somalia. Furthermore, you cannot say Georgism is a tryannical socialism, as firstly it has never been tried, secondly it outrightly rejects socialism and thirdly - boosts private property ownership, boosts employment rates, market competition. Actually, you are all talk, but no delievery. Austrians and Libertarians want freedom, but geolibertarians are the ones that actually deliever it. Georgism may sound like socialism (I didn’t know free trade, stronger property ownership, less monopolies was socialism - wow), but when it comes to outcomes it is proliberty as it comes (both in the theory and logic of the system, and prima facie, the outcomes it has yielded when it has been employed).
- I think I am inclined to agree with another replier - Georgism is a cult.
Right, and your views, which allow you to make ignorant remarks, is not a “cult”. I sense hypocrisy.
Btw, I would appreciate, in future, an actual . You have not actually debated with me, simply told me you don’t like government -