Potential Alternatives to the Capitalist System

So how is this different than what you said I support? You know, the situation where landowners could throw a little baby girl into the sea?

 

of course a communist wants libNazi govt to control land and everything else. Remember when Barry said "you didn't build that."

and then of course Nazi govt would have a monopoly and charge more than the free market rent so land would cost consumers more in higher prices not less..

 

The only fair tax burden is no tax burden. Anything short of that is slavery to government. Mixing my labor with a peice of wood and producing a chair is no different than mixing my labor with a plot of land and making a house or a crop.

You advocate government as a means of land distribution but no distribution scheme in government has ever turned out different: those who seek power find such positions and manipulate it to their benefit. This always happens, whether democracy, communism or heroism. It turns out the same in the end. It is a shame you don't see that.

 

This is very true. Common ownership always leads to tragedy like when 120 million human soups slowly starved to death i the USSR and Red China. We have seen a minor version if this tragedy in Cuba/Florida and 132 other places.

 

It's also TrueSocialism or TrueGeorgism until the power is corrupted, then it's no longer true.
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/

 

It is capitalism that is prone to corruption because it creates the incentives to be corrupt. Landowners can get rich by getting government to build infrastructure (at the expense of others) that will make their land more desirable/valuable. That is why landowners spend so much lobbying government, and carry so much political influence. YOU KNOW THIS HAPPENS.

It is the poverty that results from this corruption that allows socialism to become accepted. People begin to not even care about government corruption because they know that they cannot get ahead no matter how hard they work or honest the government is, because anything that puts more money in their pocket just gives landowners an excuse to raise their rents. Thus it is that capitalism causes socialism … it creates the attitudes that allow socialism or communism to happen. Capitalism is the root from which socialism grows.

Geoism is a fight against socialism by striking at its roots. Those roots are capitalism.

 

If Barry had been pointing down at the ground, the earth, then his statement would have been 100% true. Landowners did not build the earth … so why are we paying them for it?

Government cannot charge more than the free market rent because it would result in people abandoning land, which would result in a sharp drop in government revenue. The governments own greed will ensure that land rents are affordable to the market. Furthermore, the government must pay the rent (citizens dividend) on any land that is not privately held, which would drain governments revenues even more if they priced land taxes out of the markets reach. What you are claiming will happen simply cannot happen, because the incentives simply are not there for it to happen.

 

Geoism is an attempt to rein in the power of government. To truly make the government a servant to the people.

"It is obvious that if rent were socialized - that is, publicly collected and used for social purposes - the power of the State would decline, and eventually disappear. The governing body could not hide its inefficiency or corruption behind tax levies. Rent would be the barometer of government's value to the citizenry, and the readings would be quite visible. The producers would be buying social services just as they buy private services or goods. The price would be rent. Government would come into the market. […] The socialization of rent would destroy taxes. The State (as we know it) would disappear; and such government as we would have would be always subject to the economic instrument of rent." – Frank Chodorov

 

How does imposing a LVT on landowners make a capitalist system somehow not capitalist? The means of production, including land, are still privately owned.

 

A company can be internally corrupt but it won't last long. Only the state, which is not capitalism, can maintain a high level of corruption. To get your way will require a leviathan state. In fact, you've already argued that under your plan, the leviathan state that exists today will be financially supported. In other words, you support the massive corruption and march to totalitarianism that is happening right now.

What I know is that those with political influence to sell will sell it. It doesn't matter what system we are talking about. Your system doesn't limit power, it just changes some of the currency.

By essentially making government the owner of all the land and praying that what the state takes from landowners will feed it's enormous appetite for wealth consumption. Not buying it.

 

Chodorov takes a swing and a miss. States would not limit themselves to just rent collection. They would find other ways to tax. He seems to think that people will find government to be any less legitimate for it's corruption or inefficiency, when, in fact, if they are getting their social needs met by taxation or rent collection, it's in their interest to increase the power of the state. And now it's "rent" rather than "land value tax"? You'll have to get your terms straight.

 

government is only corrupt when rich capitalists pay for special favors to its elected leaders.

what the people need is a government who pays them not to work.

 

Because corruption never occurred in the USSR or Venezuela, amirite?

 

It's unclear whether [MENTION=13235]geofree[/MENTION] is advocating just some new tax on landowners or whether he's advocating government ownership of all land.

 

First of all I will tell you that I don't like the banking system, it is corrupt; I don't like the patent and copyright system, it is corrupt; I don't like the occupational licensing system, it is corrupt; but more then any of these, I don't like landowners getting rich off of public infrastructure and services, and then passing the bill to pay for these public goods to producers and consumers. That is what I consider to be the biggest crock of crap on the table at the moment, and that is why I have made that issue my priority. Should we find a satisfactory solution to this problem then I will turn my attention to other abuses of power … banking is #2 on my list of evil things I want to see changed.

That's funny that you accuse me of supporting a “leviathan” state when one of the most common arguments against my proposals is that land value taxation cannot provide enough revenue to operate a leviathan state. Socialists hate geoism just as much as capitalists do, because it is a major impediment to state power.

I disagree with your assessment. Land value taxation would be collected by local governments and place those local governments in a competitive environment. Under this system, the only way the local government can increase revenue is to make the community a more desirable place to do business or live. In other words, local governments have to make it WORTH paying the taxes in order to draw populations to their jurisdiction, and thereby increase revenue.

Local governments that try to use their power to the advantage of parasites (either public or private) will lose population to those jurisdictions with less corruption. In a short period of time those local governments will learn that corruption can only drive people away, with less revenue as a direct result. I truly believe that this competition between local governments could drive some governments to near perfection in efficiency, and greatly improve the efficiency of the remaining.

 

now that's mostly insane!! given that big lib Nazi govt naturally draws rich capitalists into it as in Obamacare.
If govt owned land they would charge more for it than the free market, obviously, and of course a lib Nazi does not want kills millions just to steal their land, they would want to steal everything. This( soviet management) is how 120 million slowly starved to death.

 

For all intents and purposes, he's advocating government ownership of all land. Like I said in my previous post, no matter the concept giving any government that level of power is dangerous.

 

Geo is an open communist so you can be 100% positive that owning land would just be a baby step on route to his ultimate NaziCommie govt. This is exactly why our genius Founders gifted to us freedom from govt.

 

I'm not sure if [MENTION=13235]geofree[/MENTION] is an ultimate naziCommie or whether he simply wants to eliminate income and property taxes in favor of a LVT.

He does rail against property ownership. For example, he once said that property ownership would allow property owners to throw a baby girl into the ocean if they didn't want her on their property . Pretty extreme stuff. However, land taxes are fairly common. I pay tax on my land right now, and it would be nice to pay only for my land and not for my house and outbuildings.

 

There's no difference when the tax is essentially the full "value" (as determined by central planners) of the land. Presumably, the land owners exist only to make government to be more efficient in its tax farming.

 

I know politicians sell their influence in every political system. YOU KNOW THIS IS TRUE. Now, isn't that annoying?

Envy is the root of socialism, that and a belief that the state is the solution to all of mankind's problems. I don't see you where you get away from either of those things.

 

Didn't you claim earlier that the LVT in the US would provide the government with $4 trillion per year?

It is very rare to find a bureaucrat or politician who thinks in that manner. Have you ever tried to do business with local governments? I use to work with local county tax and assessment offices. Do you know who has the hardest time getting money? The office that brings in all of the revenue to a county. County supes rarely ever see the value of increasing the ability of tax collectors to actually do their job. They want to spend money, not find ways to get more of it and they are extremely short sighted in that endeavor. You put a lot of stock into central planners to do the right thing, and, oddly enough, act like capitalists.

They don't care. Your big, overarching government, such as the state or Federal government, will force the successful locales to pay for the failures of those that are unsuccessful.

 

BleedingHeadKenwrote (in post 796

<<<<Envy is the root of socialism>>>>

A breathtakingly simplistic view of the reality of human existence.

Karl Marx bothered to write his Communist Manifesto as a a direct result of the observed injustice, exploitation, and poor working conditions that characterised the industrial revolution.

Marx's theories, at least as far as they have been attempted in practice, violated the competitve, self-interested instincts of human nature, and therefore they ultimately failed, but exploitation and injustice is not a necessary condition of human economic activity.

Access to education and the right to participate in the economy (commensurate with ability), with above poverty level income - have nothing to do with envy, for most people.

<<<a belief that the state is the solution to all of mankind's problems.>>>>

No, but the state obviously has *a* role to play in ameliorating the negative effects of self-interested competition of private enterprise. A corruption-free public sector is an increasing possibilty if more people can experience an affirmative, self esteem enhancing, engagement in the economy.

Pure free market enterprise? Back to the drawing board!

Eg, In the present globalised economy, un/under-employment is typically around 15-20% in the so-called rich Western economies - a social disaster reflected in the crime-infested ghetto's observed in most large cities around the world.

A well-functioning trade-enhanced global economy needs an IMF that can fund certain defined, socially desirable public sector activity in all nations (while avoiding excessive call on resources).

Currently, the private sector is failing to employ available resources at anywhere near capacity, with overcapacity in manufacturing a reality everywhere including China, and stagnant wages ensuring continuing lack of demand.

 

1)you mean as a direct result of a perfect liberal ignorance that slowly killed 120 million human souls making it the most evil ignorance to ever visit this planet.

2) what characterized the beginning of the industrial revolution was the most rapid economic development in human history by far. If not people would have stayed on the farms living at or below subsistence. 1+1=2

 

if wages were stagnant we would not all have new smart phones and the Chinese economy would not be growing at 7% year. 1+1=2

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any evidence of this or is it pure 100% BS???? And, do you have any idea at all why you say lack of demand rather than lack of supply?????