Geoists are they nuts or what?

what is this "natural wealth" you speak of? more gobbledigook and pipe dreams? nature gives up nothing without a fight. the land itself is nothing more than a place to stand until someone puts in the effort to make something happen. people have been doing just that since mankind began. now you want to erase the fruits of all their labor simply because you weren't there when it all began and weren't able to get in on the ground floor?

 

I never understood: if we can not trust the government with monopoly of force, then how is Georgism any different? To me, the end game is the same as communism: government controls the land. Government will benefit unfairly from the land. We can not trust government in any other aspect, so how are we going to trust government with this?

Georgism has the same great failure as any other system: people. It is built upon the same basic failing as any another ,government, and thus will fail the same. Putting control of all land in the hands of a few elitist government officials seems to involve far to much risk.

 

Yes, that is one of the major downsides of Georgism.
Land value taxes have the potential to be the most fair type of system, but they also have potential for far reaching abuse. It is very important to consider that before implementing any type of Georgist system, especially when approaching it from a Libertarian perspective.

 

Who determines this "fair share"? Whole idea sounds rather Marxist to me.

Well that's just ignorant, to believe it's possible that a cost to land owners wouldn't effect the rent for that land.

But the improvements I've made to the land don't count?

What is a natural form of wealth?

No one is compelled to work for anyone else anyway? Again this natural wealth thing? How does someone determine the unimproved value of land, whatever that is?

 

I think you are conflating rent (as in renting an apartment) with the economic term rent:

source

 

And we pay property taxes in the US and that money goes to support the government. Again it is difference lacking any real distinction.

 

The club, the spear, the axe, the sword. Bow and arrow, crossbow. Pottery. Weaving. Sewing, Carving. Language, writing. Tanning. Musical scales. Aspirin, penicillin, canning. The telescope. Paint. Shellac. Post hole diggers. Dogs. Glass windows. Beer. Mead. Whiskey. Canoes.

Apparently none of these exist, since there was no incentive to invent them.

 

I'm not the one who wants to leave publicly created land rent in the hands of the landowner for contributing absolutely nothing to the economy, you are.

So, who's the nut?

 

Who owns the government?

 

Notice how many thousands of years developing then took?

 

Below is a link to a letter signed by economic professors at Yale University, Harvard University, Columbia University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, etc., and the Senior Agricultural Economist, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. This letter also carries the signatures of four (4) Nobel prize winning economists. It is a letter which advocates for the geoist method of funding government, as well as “allocating the part of rent derived from nature to all citizens equally” as a citizens dividend. The letter also calls for government agencies which use land to pay the land tax just as individuals would. The letter advocates for the exact same plan that I support, a plan which I supported before I even knew this letter existed.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Open_letter_to_Mikhail_Gorbachev_%281990%29

You claim the plan is not workable, but the best and brightest economists in the world say that it is not only workable, but that it is the most desirable and fair plan for financing government and allocating natural resources. Sorry, but there are just too many great economists that say it is a workable plan to believe your claim otherwise.

 

I guess I don't interpret it that way, although I geofree and I have had some differences in how the best way to implement a geoist society would be. I don't like the idea of land taxation simply because taxation denotes the existence of the state. I would rather each individual take the liability of defending and maintaining their land on themselves, and I would like direct democratic action to replace statist taxation as the means of ensuring that the land and its natural resources are not unjustly horded by a particular group or individual. My conception of it would be somewhat similar to how the native Americans lived and labored on the land. They had no land taxes and no state; they simply operated under the assumption that the land belonged to all in common and that each individual has just as much a right to cultivate the land and its bounty as the next.

 

The biased school systems have supplied you with all the propaganda in support of intellectual property. Chances are you have not heard a peep about the harm they cause, at least from those propaganda sources. I suggest you learn about the other side of the story. About the harm that intellectual property causes. Then you can weigh the good with the bad, and come to a more informed conclusion. This *free* book will give you the other side of the story:

http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

If you don't have time for a book, then perhaps just a chapter about:

Creation Under Competition

I hope you can afford the time to read about the harm that intellectual monopolies are causing. There are other ways besides monopolies to stimulate innovation.

 

IMO geoist are very little more than socialist that expect to share in what actually belongs to others. Like so many liberals simply want something for nothing. The are back sliding drones that want to leach off people that work for what they have.

 

Why would I spend millions of dollars developing a new technology if all my work can be immediately stolen, copied, and sold by other people who didn't have to incur any of the development costs nor put any effort towards its creation?

- - - Updated - - -

Why does land suddenly belong to someone just because they stand there and say it does?

 

Actually this is a perfect description of what landowners do.

 

If what "belongs to others" is a license to steal like a land title, then I do not consider it valid property.

Wrong. We expect nothing for nothing. That is why we oppose the ultimate something for nothing: private appropriation of publicly created land rent.

LOL!

 

The person who things something other than techtonic forces create land...

 

The idea isn't so crazy, the problem is that they fail to recognize that in the majority of cases the government did at one point own the land but gave it (or sold it) to separate entities, and those entities traded the product of their labor for it. That is, the problem which they (geoists) have is that they have no good system for going into such a system. There are three ways they have

1) we can just take all the land
2) we can tax the land at such a rate as if the government already owned all of it, thereby negating the value of the land, or
3) we can raise exorbitant taxes on everyone to rebut all the land

All of which h are incredibly unjust and involve the violation of property rights which have been attained legitimately, MOSTLY through the exchange of some labor (direct or indirect). Such policies would essentially reward those who never invested in land and cruelly punish those who have. It is a gross injustice, and I see no just way to come to such a system. I say go ahead, rent public land in such a way - but where land is private it is and should remain so.

 

Hong Kong is no more an example of what you propose than New York, which is far wealthier and has a far higher higher median quality of loving achieved, is the counterpart. Hong Kong was a great commercial hub long before it was a part of China, and was already built up before any sense of such land value taxation was put in place. Furthermore, the land taxation that exists there does not resemble what your propose - it resembles an extremely light tax contract.

And it is hardly reproducable. Sure, pick any place which ALREADY a center of finance and trade and try such a system which only vaguely resembles what you propose and you might see similar results. But try it in the middle of no where, Wyoming? It will still look like the middle of no where, Wyoming.

Also, this idea that "the government pays taxes" is a silly idea. Please tell me what work the government must do to pay taxes. If I as a private individual could pay my taxes under such a system by just forwarding the bill to everyone else, what kind of system would that be?

 

When government does the wrong thing, and implements policy that violates the rights of any part of the people, there are always causalities. So, what about the labor that bought the slave and paid for his fetters? “That poor fellow, he worked hard for his money, paid a good price for his slave, and now the government wants to free his property … the gross injustice of it all”.

Actually you left the forth way to implement the land value tax.

4) we can gradually increase land taxes over a 30 year period while proportionally phasing out taxes on income and trade.

The injustice of taxing away unearned land rent from landowners is far less than the injustice of taxing away the earned wealth of producers and consumers … especially when we know that government spending just makes land owners richer anyway. Furthermore, you need to stop pretending that other forms of taxation are less painful. Land value taxation is the most efficient form of taxation and that makes it the least painful. A few large landowners will feel a lot of pain (they will suddenly become like the rest of us) but the amount of pain that is being spread to productive working people will be alleviated, completely. The landowner is like a parasitic mosquito, who (perhaps) worked very hard to find a host. I say swat the mosquito … while you say, let the mosquito have a drink … he earned it. Whatever … it is hard to know what goes through your mind … I'm just guessing.

 

Still speaking truth to the deaf and blind...

 

Given that by an large there is no difference. I fail to see how one is worse than the other. In the US in 90% of the cases the one owning the land is the one living on it or working it or both.

 

All this gobbledygook aside even if geoist are completely right, which they aren't it's impossible to implement. Maybe if starting from scratch, new land, something, but not now, not in the US. Why not put the effort into something that might be accomplishable.

Maybe trading property taxes for income taxes. Frankly this geoist or tax trade thing would be good for me, I don't own or rent much. It would save me many thousands in income taxes. I don't know of any federal property taxes so that would be an uphill climb. Do all states have property taxes, I don't know.

 

I think they're so focused on the big picture of their vision, they never take time to work out the details of who would decide what. Idealists. The problem isn't any particular system, but human nature. You can't get around it, and so far capitalism has produced the best results. If one thinks a board of a few humans deciding "who has more value" as to the land 2 parties are contesting couldn't be as fallible as the current system, one would have to be hooked on a belief to the point of insanity. And they are by far the most dangerous types. Even in this time of globalist traitors and crony capitalists in bed with market socialists, I would still prefer land to operate as is. Though, it would be nice to see the government open up more of the west that it has swallowed. And for the record, I'm a working class person who hasn't bought my slice of heaven, yet. But I would never trade my ability to do so because I am so disgruntled I would rather give up on the notion for free rent in a Russian shoe box apartment. I promise you that.