Publius
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 Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 8:34 am Post subject: Re: If You Don>t Like Wealth Spread Your Way, Just Send It T |
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royls@telus.net wrote in news:4924ad0b.173785@news.telus.net:
[quote]The US Constitution, for example,
confers no power on Congress to "administer" anybody>s land.
yawn> Congress is not the executive or judiciary, sunshine, and the
Constitution explicitly reserves all powers it does not assign to the
federal government to the state _governments_ or the people. As the
states were all administering possession and use of land before the
Constitution was written, that is one of the powers it delegates to
them.
State
governments may regulate land use in the interests of public health
and safety.
Or for pretty much any other reason.
But it may not deny all economic use, or take possession of
anyone>s land, without paying for it.
OK, so you agree that I am absolutely and indisputably correct that
government administers possession and use of land, notwithstanding
that in some cases it may compensate private owners for notional
"losses" resulting from its exercise of that power. Good.
[/quote]
Roy, Roy, Roy. You are playing games with the word "administer." No
government except those of collectivist states "administers" anybody>s
land (except their own). They *govern* the territory, i.e., they make
and enforce laws within the territory. They don>t decide who owns land,
manage it, decide for what purposes it will be used, or use it for those
purposes. They don>t water the lawns, plant or tend the crops, mend the
fences, select tenants, or collect the rent. They may *restrict* some
uses for various (and often absurd or nefarious) reasons. That falls far
short of "administering" it.
Moreover, the restrictions government imposes on land use are no more or
less extensive than those it imposes on all other classes of property.
It also regulates buildings, factories, machinery, automobiles,
restaurants, schools, hospitals, and virtually everything else under the
sun. It dictates how loudly and during what hours you can play your
stereo and where you can smoke your cigar. Government>s powers over
private land are no greater, and no different in kind, than its powers
over any other property.
[quote]Government grants
titles only to lands it has already acquired by first possession.
No, that is just another lie on your part. It grants titles to all
the land over which it exercises sovereign authority, no matter how it
came to have that authority -- which was normally via military
conquest, not first possession.
[/quote]
Well, Roy, we>ll just have to let the evidence there speak for itself.
No government, neither state nor federal, appears as the grantor in the
title chain for my house. Nor to tens of thousands of other land titles
in the US (and Canada too, I>m sure). In cases where some gummint was
the original grantor, such as lands it sold or gave away, as via the
Homestead Acts, it has appeared as a grantor in no transfers of title
since, and had no voice whatsoever in them. The world you are describing
is imaginary.
[quote]In all
other cases the first settlers upon a tract of land staked claims,
No, that is just another lie on your part. They just started using
the land, and in most cases the land has subsequently been
appropriated by force so many times that the current title bears no
relationship to the first settlers' actions.
[/quote]
No, Roy. Most land in the US west has never been transferred by force
since its settlement. Some lands were seized by force from Indians, but
most weren>t.
[quote]and when
enough people had settled in the area to justify a local government,
they created one and recorded the claims.
No, that is just another lie on your part. Governments are created
primarily to secure property rights, but also to secure a modus
vivendi. In many cases this has meant that private claims to own
natural resources -- e.g., watercourses -- have been voided
unilaterally to secure the rights of the rest of the community.
[/quote]
No, Roy. Riparian rights are either attached to the adjoining land, and
apportioned by frontage or acreage, or are allocated by first possession
(most of the western US). First users have first claims. If they are
reapportioned and early users lose some water rights, that is a taking,
and the gummint must compensate. Likewise with grazing rights on gummint
land. If the use existed prior to the gummint>s claiming of the land
(i.e., by the BLM, Forest Service, etc.), then it must allow the use to
continue or pay compensation (it has committed a taking).
"Doctrine of Prior Appropriation
"The use of water in many of the states in the western U.S. is governed
by the doctrine of prior appropriation, also known as the "Colorado
Doctrine" of water law. The essence of the doctrine of prior
appropriation is that, while no one may own the water in a stream, all
persons, corporations, and municipalities have the right to use the
water for beneficial purposes. The allocation of water rests upon the
fundamental maxim "first in time, first in right." The first person to
use water (called a "senior appropriator") acquires the right (called a
"priority") to its future use as against later users (called "junior
appropriators"). In order to assure protection of senior water right
priorities and to maximize the use of this scarce and valuable resource,
many states have adopted detailed schemes for the determination and
administration of water rights. These state regimens define to a large
extent just what a water right is.
"Acquisition of Water Rights
"To create a water right, one must make an appropriation. The essential
elements of an appropriation are the diversion of water and its
application to a beneficial use. A diversion is made simply by removing
water from its natural course or location, or by controlling water that
remains in its natural course. The requirement of application to
beneficial use is satisfied by irrigation, mining and industrial
application, stock watering, domestic and municipal use, and other
non-wasteful economic activities."
---http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241492.html
The good 'ol first possession principle again, Roy.
[quote]You have reversed the order of precedence, Roy. Settlers come first,
land claims come next, and gummint a distant third. Even after gummint
is in place it does not "grant" any land titles.
??? Of course it does. You are just stupid, lying garbage, as I have
already proved on many occcasions. Here>s another proof:
http://www.landgrant.org/history.html
[/quote]
I meant it does not grant titles to lands already claimed and occupied.
Gummints in the New World granted many titles to lands otherwise
unoccupied, for the purpose of getting them into beneficial use. It is,
in effect, claiming the lands for itself and then conveying to private
parties.
[quote]The settler "grants" himself
??? Oh? By what authority?
[/quote]
Ah, this is the best one! They claim them by their own "authority," Roy.
I.e., by the exercise of their unfettered wills. They are all
full-fledged, autonomous moral agents, Roy, and thus quite capable of
doing that. They aren>t serfs, slaves, indentured servants, or subjects
of a monarch annointed by Divine Right. They are not cells in a social
organism, subject to the will or direction of central nervous system,
nor children in need of parental supervision. They are not acting as
agents of "society" or anyone else, and are not employees contractually
obligated to carry out the boss>s wishes. They need no one>s permission
to act, and no one has any "authority" to interfere with those free acts
of will. No one has any more "authority" to grant them titles to unowned
land than they do, and in fact, everyone else has less.
[quote]By what authority does he extinguish others' rights to use the land?
[/quote]
Others have no rights to any lands (or anything else) they have not
occupied or otherwise used (or acquired via a chain of consent from
their first possessors, of course). Rights begin with first possession.
You>re question-begging again, Roy.
[quote]In theory you have agreed to the taxes also, by voting.
No, that claim is of course also flat false, just like all your other
claims, as not voting has no effect on your tax liabilities.
However, when you buy real estate you _do_ agree to either pay
whatever property taxes are levied or relinquish the title, as that is
a known condition government imposes in return for granting and
securing the title.
[/quote]
Yes. The gummint may seize your land for nonpayment of taxes. It may
also seize title to a merchant>s inventory for nonpayment of sales
taxes, and title to your house, car, boat, family jewels, and stock
portfolio for nonpayment of income taxes. Gummint>s "latent claims" to
your land are no different than its latent claims to any other property
of yours. Or different from those of any other creditor, BTW.
[quote]Democracy, majority rule, etc. Right?
Wrong. Democracy is to secure people>s rights to a voice in decisions
that affect their rights, not to legitimize theft of the products of
their labor.
[/quote]
Oh, certainly not. People have no "rights to a voice in decisions which
affect their rights." They only have a voice in decisions which violate
their rights. You may have your eye on a nice wooded lot upon which to
build a house. You have every right to buy that lot. If I buy it first,
that right of yours will be significantly affected. But, tough luck for
you; you have no voice whatever in my decision to buy it or the seller>s
decision to sell it to me.
[quote]Nobody
inquires and nobody cares what labor was invested in them, or whether
there was any.
Wrong again, as usual. If I shoot a game animal, and you happen to be
closer when it expires and thus first take possession of it, the fact
that my labor killed it trumps your claim based on first possession.
You know this. You have merely realized that it proves your belief
system is false and evil, so you have decided not to know it.
[/quote]
You perfectly well know better, Roy. Killing the animal establishes the
control which brings the animal into possession. The labor is utterly
irrelevant. Indeed, in the controlling case, Pierson v. Post, Post
complained that he had been pursuing the fox for several hours, and that
his labor should entitle him to the animal, since Pierson only appeared
at the last minute and got a lucky shot. Post lost. Possession talks,
labor walks. And possession occurs when control is established.
[quote]If you are in possession of them, and have not stolen them from
anyone else, then they are yours, whether they represent 1 hour of
labor, 1000 hours of labor, or 0 hours of labor.
Nope. A product of labor by definition cannot represent 0 hours of
labor. That is just another of your attempts to smuggle in your false
conclusions on false premises.
[/quote]
No one cares whether they are products of labor or not, and for many
goods it is impossible to tell. A coconut that falls in your lap looks
the same as one you spent an afternoon looking for and climbing a tree
to pick. A spear you found in the woods could look the same as one you
made yourself. Nobody will care where it came from (as long as no one is
complaining you stole it from them).
[quote]Anything that can be stolen, has been stolen.
No, that is obviously just another lie. My car can be stolen, but
hasn>t been. My land, by contrast, _has_ been stolen (in fact,
"aboriginal title" to it is claimed by more than one aboriginal
group), and so has all other privately owned land. Which proves that
your "first possession principle" is nothing but a fabrication, a
rationalization concocted to justify privilege, injustice and
parasitism.
[/quote]
Ah, gonna try another 4-termer, eh? The subject was classes of property,
Roy, not particular items.
[quote]"Inherently"? I didn>t realize gummints had any "inherent" powers.
Yes, well, that would barely scratch the surface of the things you
don>t realize.
I thought they contingent institutions created for a specific purpose
and granted specific powers, i.e., protecting life, liberty, and
property (which concepts would have to be understood before any
institution could be designed to protect them).
No. Governments have typically emerged as pragmatic necessities
rather than being designed. It can take a few decades, as we>re
seeing in Somalia.
[/quote]
Ah, no. They have typically emerged when the stronger warlord defeats
his rivals. The only "necessity" is the need of the warlord to maintain
his power.
See, e.g.,
http://mason.gmu.edu/~trustici/archive/ORIGIN.pdf
Modern states, in this presumed age of political enlightenment, are
conceived to be institutions voluntarily created to perform a few
important functions, i.e., protecting their constituents' rights: "That
to secure these rights governments are instituted among men . . . " The
US government, all the state gummints, the French gummint, the Canadian
gummint, et al, were quite deliberately designed. So were the gummints
of Japan and Germany after WWII. Numerous other countries have
re-designed their historic gummints to comply with Enlightenment notions
of the proper structure and function of gummint.
[quote]There is no such thing as automobile rent. You are just showing
your ignorance of economics.
Huh? Then what keeps Hertz in business?
As I said, you are just proving your comprehensive ignorance of
economics. Rent in the vernacular sense that gives Hertz its revenue
is not what economists mean by rent:
http://www.economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?ETTER=R#rent
[/quote]
I know what it means. It is a distinction without a difference, a
distinction inherited from 18th and 19th century economic theories which
implicitly adopted the misguided Labor Theory of Value. Rent is the price
paid for temporary use of another>s property, whether it be his land,
labor, or a machine. So-called "economic rent" is merely the increase in
that price which occurs when the supply of a good cannot be increased, and
thus approaches the subjective value placed on the good by consumers. It
applies to land in certain locations, collectibles, anything unique or
prestigious (e.g., Lamborghinis), even labor for skills in short supply. It
is not peculiar to land, not in any sense a "market failure," and is not
unjustified, unless the shortage of supply is due to interference in the
market by gummint (or unless you subscribe to the Labor Theory of Value, of
course).
Local gummints often create spurious economic rents in land by restricting
the supply available for various uses, such as anti-growth laws which
prohibit conversion of farmland to subdivisions or commercial use. That of
course drives up the price of existing land in those uses, thus creating
*artificial* economic rents. Those are indeed "gifts from gummint." Merely
enforcing land titles, or titles to any other scarce goods, is not.
[quote]The landlord contributes his asset in exactly the same sense
as the factory owner and the laborer contribute theirs,
No, that is simply another lie on your part. Proof: If the factory
owner did not pay for its construction, there would be no factory for
the producer to use. If the laborer did not work, there would be no
labor to produce the product. But if the landowner did nothing, or
did not even exist, the land would still be there, ready to use.
Therefore, the landowner>s only function is to act as a receptacle for
the unearned share of production economists call "rent."
[/quote]
Irrelevant, because the landlord *is* there. And had he and neighboring
landowners, or their predecessors in title, not come there and settled that
land, platted a townsite, created some infrastructure and launched some
kind of economy, then the capitalists and laborers would likely not be
there either.
You beg the question by assuming the landowner is not entitled to the
returns from his land because he did not "create the land." But how the
land was created has nothing to do either with its status as property or
its value. It is irrelevant both morally and economically.
[quote]But the rent would be the same.
Indeed. But if there were no landowner, the rent would go to the
user, the producer.
[/quote]
There will always be a landowner, because the land has value and will not
go unclaimed, and because it is scarce it will command a price. The only
question is who gets that rent. The only alternative to multiple private
owners is the gummint.
[quote]It is only to reconcile the equal claims of all
prospective users to that advantage that land rent should be recovered
from its initial recipients -- land users -- for the purposes and
benefit of the public that creates it.
[/quote]
The public no more created the land than the landlord did. And they do not
have "equal claims," not having discovered, pioneered, or originally
developed that land so as to make it valuable. They have no claims to it
whatsoever. They *do* create its value, of course, by desiring it, just as
they create the value of everything else.
[quote]If landowners were not
empowered to extort money from the productive, marginal land that
yields no rent -- i.e., that confers no such advantage -- would be
available to use for free.
[/quote]
That makes no sense. If it yields no rent, how does the landlord manage to
"extort money" from it?
[more on rents snipped, repetitive]
[quote]yawn> You claim _all_ facts are irrelevant. But in fact, economics
is at the core of why people evolved property rights at all: they
preserve both capital and accurate incentives to produce it, to the
general benefit of all.
[/quote]
Economics, capital formation, production incentives, and "general
benefits" had nothing to do with the emergence of property rights. The
concept, and the criterion for assigning them, emerged and became
ubiquitous, via adaptive consensus, in order to reduce the prospect of
being killed when trying to satisfy one>s desires. The benefits expected
from observing others' rights were purely personal.
[quote]Economics is indifferent to ownership.
No, it isn>t, which is why economic results are better in places where
more land rent is recovered for public purposes.
[/quote]
I agree that LVTs can yield more public revenues with fewer economic
distortions than other methods of taxing. Whether the results are
"better," however, depends on the moral and economic criteria applied. If
more public goodies are delivered at the expense of one class of property
owners, just because they can>t pack up their assets and flee with them (or
burn them down ala the kulaks), then some justification of those increased
public benefits is in order. The justifications typically offered rely on
the Labor Theory of Value, which is palpably false.
[quote]The rents and
prices will be the same regardless of who owns them (unless they all
have a monopoly owner, i.e., the gummint).
Wrong again. Rent is unaffected even by monopoly ownership.
[/quote]
That is a popular georgist myth. Monopoly ownership distorts the price of
land just as it distorts the price of any other good. The myth rests on the
dictum that landlords cannot charge more in rent "than the market will
bear." And that is perfectly true. But in fact, in competitive markets,
consumers pay *less* than the market will bear, because suppliers are
competing on price. That competition constrains prices, regardless of the
supply of the good. "The market" is comprised of consumers *and* competing
suppliers. If one person owned all the extant Picassos, you may be sure
museums would be forced to pay more to rent them for exhibits.
[quote]Wrong again. You obviously have not read "Progress and Poverty," or
you could not still be so ignorant of the relevant facts of economics.
The numer of bidders is completely irrelevant, as none will bid any
more than the economic advantage obtainable by using the land.
[/quote]
Oh, rubbish. The "economic advantage" varies with the particular use (the
types of products or services) the bidder contemplates, his own methodology
for producing or supplying them, and his prospective market. A particular
location may yield a greater economic advantage to someone planning a
Lamborghini dealership than someone planning a beauty salon. If the market
is larger, it will more be more likely to attract the Lamborghini dealer.
[quote]No, they will not, as Ricardo proved nearly 200 years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Rent
[/quote]
Heh. You mean as Ricardo *claimed* 200 years ago (I realize you have a
problem with the concept of "proof"). A claim amply refuted by everyday
experience. If landowners were able to grab all the profits, the
stockholders of Starbucks, and of all the other chain stores dominating
malls and occupying other leased spaces, would be starving and all the
landlords rich. Not to mention all the doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc.,
plying their trades in leased space. Ricardo>s "law" was nonsense when it
was penned and it remains nonsense.
[quote]Really? What is the relationship between labor input and value output?
No labor in --> no product value out.
[/quote]
Ooops -- "product value" -- is that some kind of Royism? Obviously a
downtown lot in a bustling city will have a value. Does it lack "product
value" because it is not a "product"?
[quote]I.e., how much labor input (in some unit --- hours, ergs, etc.) is
required to produce n dollars of value?
There is no "unit of labor," any more than there is a unit of
groceries, sports, or beauty.
[/quote]
Well, value surely has a unit, i.e., dollars. How can you possibly
establish a relationship between labor in vs. value out if you cannot
measure the former?
[quote]That said, as Jevons and Wicksteed demonstrated over a century ago,
entrepreneurs will tend to increase expenditure on labor until its
marginal cost is equal to its marginal product.
[/quote]
So will they for any other factor.
[more snipped, tedious and too long]
[quote]The land does not "contribute" anything, any more than its owner does.
It is just used by labor. If a greater product is due to the worker>s
use of better land, is a lesser product due to his being consigned to
worse land? That would certainly argue for compensation.
[/quote]
Er, no. He is not being "consigned" by anyone to worse land. We>re not
speaking of serfs here. He "consigns" himself to any land he chooses to
work.
[quote]And what is the objective baseline that defines how much labor
produces with no contribution from land? As there is no product
without land, does land contribute everything and labor nothing? How
can such silliness be reconciled with the fact that there is also no
product without labor, and labor therefore contributes everything?
[/quote]
False dilemma. No product is produced without all the necessary factors.
The question is one of allocating the value of each factor>s contribution
to that product. You do that (as I explained) by comparing outputs from
different lands when worked by workers with different levels of competence
and motivation. That allows you to establish baselines.
[quote]Labor improves its productivity when it increases its skills, acquires
experience, improves its techniques, etc.
And capital investment improves labor>s productivity by providing
better tools. So?
[/quote]
No, Roy. The capital investment produces more *product*. The contribution
of *labor* to that increased product remains the same, and in fact, becomes
a smaller proportion of the product value. The capital will displace labor.
It is an *error* to attribute an increase in product resulting from capital
investment to labor, by describing it as an "increase in labor
productivity." The laborer is no more productive than he has ever been. The
*process* is more productive, but that increase is not due to labor.
[quote]Yes, but its productivity is not the same as its contribution to
production. If a trapper sets out his traps and gets 10 animals one
week, then sets the same traps and gets 20 animals the next week, his
contribution to production is unaltered, but his productivity has
doubled.
[/quote]
That is only because he is the only contributor to the product. So he can
claim all the value with impunity.
[quote]However, your claim that increased returns due to better technology or
machinery belong to those who provide them is just false. Such
increased returns, to the extent that they exceed depreciation and
interest and accentuate the advantages enjoyed by those using
supermarginal land, are simply appropriated by landowners.
[/quote]
LOL. So how does Kinko>s manage to eat their competitors' lunch with
cutting-edge technology in their leased spaces? Why don>t their landlords
get rich instead?
I>ll explain why: the landlord leases the space to Kinko>s at the "going
rate" per square foot, because he knows that is all he can get. Kinko>s can
make a killing in that upscale space, where a mom-n'-pop print shop would
go broke. The landlord will get only his lease payments, regardless how
much Kinko>s makes.
[quote]The State is merely the recorder of those titles, in both cases.
No, that is just a bald lie, as proved by all the land titles that
have simply been voided and reassigned by government fiat throughout
history. You even refuse to know the fact that eminent domain exists.
[/quote]
This may come as a surprise to you, Roy, but eminent domain extends to
property of every kind, not only to land. If the gummint wanted to condemn
your house, barn, cattle, crops, horses, factory, it could so just as
easily, and via the same mechanisms, as condemning your land. The gummint
acquired by condemnation the rifle uses to assassinate JFK. It will have to
pay "just compensation" in all cases, of course.
If the power of eminent domain makes the gummint the "grantor" or titles to
land, then it also makes it the "grantor" of titles to everything else, and
your "labor basis" for titles is out the window. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:32 am Post subject: Re: If You Don>t Like Wealth Spread Your Way, Just Send It T |
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On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:30:38 GMT, Publius
<m.publius@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
[quote]royls@telus.net wrote in news:4924ad0b.173785@news.telus.net:
The US Constitution, for example,
confers no power on Congress to "administer" anybody>s land.
yawn> Congress is not the executive or judiciary, sunshine, and the
Constitution explicitly reserves all powers it does not assign to the
federal government to the state _governments_ or the people. As the
states were all administering possession and use of land before the
Constitution was written, that is one of the powers it delegates to
them.
State
governments may regulate land use in the interests of public health
and safety.
Or for pretty much any other reason.
But it may not deny all economic use, or take possession of
anyone>s land, without paying for it.
OK, so you agree that I am absolutely and indisputably correct that
government administers possession and use of land, notwithstanding
that in some cases it may compensate private owners for notional
"losses" resulting from its exercise of that power. Good.
Roy, Roy, Roy. You are playing games with the word "administer."
[/quote]
No, you are just lying about what I have plainly written. As usual.
[quote]No
government except those of collectivist states "administers" anybody>s
land (except their own).
[/quote]
<yawn> I didn>t _say_ they administered the _land_, though, did I,
lying garbage? I identified the fact that they administer its
_possession_ and _use_. They say who gets to possess it, and how it
can and can>t be used. The need for an authority to perform that
function is why pre-agricultural societies typically have chiefs and
leaders but not governments, and agricultural societies do have
governments, and why frontier societies with plentiful free land can
make do with minimal governments, while settled societies where land
is scarce need government if they want to avoid continuous civil wars
over land.
[quote]They *govern* the territory, i.e., they make
and enforce laws within the territory.
[/quote]
Among the most fundamental of which are the laws governing possession
and use of land.
[quote]They don>t decide who owns land,
manage it, decide for what purposes it will be used, or use it for those
purposes.
[/quote]
They do decide who owns it, and they do decide for what purposes it
can and can>t be used. You are just wrong.
[quote]They don>t water the lawns, plant or tend the crops, mend the
fences, select tenants, or collect the rent.
[/quote]
Another of your typical dishonest strawman fallacies.
[quote]They may *restrict* some
uses for various (and often absurd or nefarious) reasons. That falls far
short of "administering" it.
[/quote]
No, it doesn>t.
[quote]Moreover, the restrictions government imposes on land use are no more or
less extensive than those it imposes on all other classes of property.
[/quote]
That is of course just another bald lie on your part.
[quote]It also regulates buildings,
[/quote]
Uh, stupid?
Buildings are a use of land.
[quote]factories,
[/quote]
Uh, stupid, lying garbage?
Factories are also a use of land.
[quote]machinery,
[/quote]
Government does not administer possession and use of machinery, other
than safety regulations.
[quote]automobiles,
[/quote]
Because they are used on public roads.
[quote]restaurants, schools, hospitals,
[/quote]
It only regulates their operation for public health and safety
reasons, not their possession.
[quote]and virtually everything else under the sun.
[/quote]
No, that is just another bald lie.
[quote]It dictates how loudly and during what hours you can play your
stereo
[/quote]
Lie. It only enjoins you from making a nuisance of yourself. You can
play your stereo quietly at any time, and you can play it as loud as
you like as long as it doesn>t disturb your neighbors -- e.g., in a
sound-proofed basement room.
[quote]and where you can smoke your cigar. Government>s powers over
private land are no greater, and no different in kind, than its powers
over any other property.
[/quote]
Another bald lie.
[quote]Government grants
titles only to lands it has already acquired by first possession.
No, that is just another lie on your part. It grants titles to all
the land over which it exercises sovereign authority, no matter how it
came to have that authority -- which was normally via military
conquest, not first possession.
Well, Roy, we>ll just have to let the evidence there speak for itself.
No government, neither state nor federal, appears as the grantor in the
title chain for my house.
[/quote]
Please describe the original title document so I can demonstrate why
you are wrong. Almost all land in the USA is covered by original
"land patents" granted by government. Here, try to at least minimally
inform yourself of the facts, of which you are so obviously and so
absolutely ignorant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_patent
[quote]Nor to tens of thousands of other land titles
in the US (and Canada too, I>m sure).
[/quote]
That government might not appear in a given title chain is of course
irrelevant: it simply shows that some title chains are incomplete.
[quote]In cases where some gummint was
the original grantor, such as lands it sold or gave away, as via the
Homestead Acts, it has appeared as a grantor in no transfers of title
since, and had no voice whatsoever in them.
[/quote]
ROTFL! It _compelled_ the transfers of title resulting from tax
sales, lying garbage.
[quote]The world you are describing is imaginary.
[/quote]
Mirror time, sunshine.
[quote]In all
other cases the first settlers upon a tract of land staked claims,
No, that is just another lie on your part. They just started using
the land, and in most cases the land has subsequently been
appropriated by force so many times that the current title bears no
relationship to the first settlers' actions.
No, Roy.
[/quote]
Yes, Puby.
[quote]Most land in the US west has never been transferred by force
since its settlement.
[/quote]
<yawn> Its settlement by _whites_ was itself a transfer by force from
the previous settlers, lying garbage, and it was typically transferred
by force multiple times before that. You simply define settlement by
people who didn>t subscribe to your legal model of private land titles
as "not settlement." It>s nothing but more question begging.
[quote]Some lands were seized by force from Indians, but most weren>t.
[/quote]
No, almost all were seized; some by force, most of the rest by
stealth, fraud, or the incremental process of displacement and
dispossession already described.
[quote]and when
enough people had settled in the area to justify a local government,
they created one and recorded the claims.
No, that is just another lie on your part. Governments are created
primarily to secure property rights, but also to secure a modus
vivendi. In many cases this has meant that private claims to own
natural resources -- e.g., watercourses -- have been voided
unilaterally to secure the rights of the rest of the community.
No, Roy.
[/quote]
Yes, Puby.
[quote]Riparian rights are either attached to the adjoining land, and
apportioned by frontage or acreage, or are allocated by first possession
(most of the western US).
[/quote]
Nope. They are defined and allocated by government in the public
interest. Private claims to own rivers, etc. on the basis of first
possession are simply ignored as the silly fantasies they are.
[quote]First users have first claims.
[/quote]
But the first users' claims are often subsequently voided by
government in the public interest.
[quote]If they are
reapportioned and early users lose some water rights, that is a taking,
and the gummint must compensate.
[/quote]
But only if it is a servant of unjust privilege.
[quote]Likewise with grazing rights on gummint
land. If the use existed prior to the gummint>s claiming of the land
(i.e., by the BLM, Forest Service, etc.), then it must allow the use to
continue or pay compensation (it has committed a taking).
[/quote]
It may decide to compensate, but there is no reason to do so other
than political expediency or corruption (i.e., a government that
serves private greed rather than the public interest).
[quote]"Doctrine of Prior Appropriation
"The use of water in many of the states in the western U.S. is governed
by the doctrine of prior appropriation, also known as the "Colorado
Doctrine" of water law. The essence of the doctrine of prior
appropriation is that, while no one may own the water in a stream,
all persons, corporations, and municipalities have the right to use the
water for beneficial purposes.
[/quote]
OK, so _your_own_source_ proves me right and you wrong. No surprise.
[quote]The allocation of water rests upon the
fundamental maxim "first in time, first in right." The first person to
use water (called a "senior appropriator") acquires the right (called a
"priority") to its future use as against later users (called "junior
appropriators"). In order to assure protection of senior water right
priorities and to maximize the use of this scarce and valuable resource,
many states have adopted detailed schemes for the determination and
administration of water rights. These state regimens define to a large
extent just what a water right is.
[/quote]
Well, what do you know. The _state_ determines and administers water
rights, not some fantasized "first possessor." Just as I told you,
and you so stupidly denied.
[quote]"Acquisition of Water Rights
"To create a water right, one must make an appropriation. The essential
elements of an appropriation are the diversion of water and its
application to a beneficial use. A diversion is made simply by removing
water from its natural course or location, or by controlling water that
remains in its natural course.
[/quote]
I.e., one acquires a property right in the water by producing a
product by labor, not just by claiming to own it.
I am again proved right and you wrong.
[quote]The requirement of application to
beneficial use is satisfied by irrigation, mining and industrial
application, stock watering, domestic and municipal use, and other
non-wasteful economic activities."
---http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241492.html
The good 'ol first possession principle again, Roy.
[/quote]
??? ROTFL!! Except that of course it _isn>t_ first possession at
all, but rather _production_, as proved above.
Stick a fork in yourself, fool. You>re done.
[quote]You have reversed the order of precedence, Roy. Settlers come first,
land claims come next, and gummint a distant third. Even after gummint
is in place it does not "grant" any land titles.
??? Of course it does. You are just stupid, lying garbage, as I have
already proved on many occcasions. Here>s another proof:
http://www.landgrant.org/history.html
I meant it does not grant titles to lands already claimed and occupied.
[/quote]
But of course, that is just another bald lie. Quite often it does,
and to people other than those who occupy it:
"When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the
missionaries had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes
closed. When we opened our eyes, we had the Bible and they had the
land." -- Jomo Kenyatta
The same sort of scam has been repeated many times, all over the
world.
[quote]Gummints in the New World granted many titles to lands otherwise
unoccupied,
[/quote]
And also to lands otherwise occupied. Google "Trail of Tears" and try
to at least minimally inform yourself of the facts.
[quote]for the purpose of getting them into beneficial use.
[/quote]
<yawn> Use by the current occupants being defined as "not
beneficial," as the only good current occupant is a dead current
occupant...
[quote]It is,
in effect, claiming the lands for itself and then conveying to private
parties.
[/quote]
Which is pretty much what all governments do.
[quote]The settler "grants" himself
??? Oh? By what authority?
Ah, this is the best one! They claim them by their own "authority," Roy.
[/quote]
Who gave them the authority to extinguish others' rights to liberty?
[quote]I.e., by the exercise of their unfettered wills.
[/quote]
I.e., by violating others' rights.
[quote]They are all
full-fledged, autonomous moral agents, Roy, and thus quite capable of
doing that.
[/quote]
Also of robbing, enslaving, starving, torturing and killing. True.
[quote]They aren>t serfs, slaves, indentured servants, or subjects
of a monarch annointed by Divine Right.
[/quote]
True. That description applies specifically to their victims, whom
they, "on their own authority," dispossess of their rights to life and
liberty.
[quote]They are not cells in a social
organism, subject to the will or direction of central nervous system,
nor children in need of parental supervision. They are not acting as
agents of "society" or anyone else, and are not employees contractually
obligated to carry out the boss>s wishes. They need no one>s permission
to act, and no one has any "authority" to interfere with those free acts
of will.
[/quote]
All true; and all most especially true of those whom land thieves seek
to rob and enslave. Let>s see the instant replay: "They need no one>s
permission to act, and no one has any "authority" to interfere with
those free acts of will."
Including soi-disant land "owners."
_GET_IT_??
[quote]No one has any more "authority" to grant them titles to unowned
land than they do, and in fact, everyone else has less.
[/quote]
No, society has the authority because property is a relation that
depends on societal support, and has no content outside society.
[quote]By what authority does he extinguish others' rights to use the land?
Others have no rights to any lands (or anything else) they have not
occupied or otherwise used (or acquired via a chain of consent from
their first possessors, of course).
[/quote]
?? Huh? Sure they do. That>s what having rights to life and liberty
_means_: others are enjoined from physically interfering with your
access to and use of what nature provided. If you don>t have that
right, you have no rights.
[quote]Rights begin with first possession.
You>re question-begging again, Roy.
[/quote]
?? ROTFLMAO!!!
As they say in Japan, "It>s mirror time!"
[quote]In theory you have agreed to the taxes also, by voting.
No, that claim is of course also flat false, just like all your other
claims, as not voting has no effect on your tax liabilities.
However, when you buy real estate you _do_ agree to either pay
whatever property taxes are levied or relinquish the title, as that is
a known condition government imposes in return for granting and
securing the title.
Yes. The gummint may seize your land for nonpayment of taxes. It may
also seize title to a merchant>s inventory for nonpayment of sales
taxes, and title to your house, car, boat, family jewels, and stock
portfolio for nonpayment of income taxes. Gummint>s "latent claims" to
your land are no different than its latent claims to any other property
of yours. Or different from those of any other creditor, BTW.
[/quote]
Wrong. The property tax liabilities that result in vacating your land
title if you don>t pay are themselves _based_on_ the value of the
property. Sales tax liabilities are not based on inventory, and
income tax liabilities are not based on assets.
[quote]Democracy, majority rule, etc. Right?
Wrong. Democracy is to secure people>s rights to a voice in decisions
that affect their rights, not to legitimize theft of the products of
their labor.
Oh, certainly not. People have no "rights to a voice in decisions which
affect their rights."
[/quote]
Yes, they obviously do.
[quote]They only have a voice in decisions which violate their rights.
[/quote]
That is just more of your "me hate gubmint" nonsense.
[quote]You may have your eye on a nice wooded lot upon which to
build a house. You have every right to buy that lot. If I buy it first,
that right of yours will be significantly affected.
[/quote]
How? I>m just as "free" to buy it from you as from the previous
owner, same as a slave is just as free to buy his freedom from his new
owner after being sold by his former owner.
[quote]But, tough luck for
you; you have no voice whatever in my decision to buy it or the seller>s
decision to sell it to me.
[/quote]
?? So? How is that relevant to democracy?
[quote]Nobody
inquires and nobody cares what labor was invested in them, or whether
there was any.
Wrong again, as usual. If I shoot a game animal, and you happen to be
closer when it expires and thus first take possession of it, the fact
that my labor killed it trumps your claim based on first possession.
You know this. You have merely realized that it proves your belief
system is false and evil, so you have decided not to know it.
You perfectly well know better, Roy. Killing the animal establishes the
control which brings the animal into possession.
[/quote]
No, in fact it doesn>t. That is the point. I might or might not ever
have been able to track the animal to the place of its death and then
taken it into my control and possession.
[quote]The labor is utterly irrelevant.
[/quote]
The relevance of the labor is proved by the fact that when the
producer>s claim trumps the first possessor>s claim as a matter of
self-evident and indisputable justice, the court finds it necessary to
_redefine_ production as possession in order to bring justice into
line with the spurious "first possession principle."
[quote]Indeed, in the controlling case, Pierson v. Post, Post
complained that he had been pursuing the fox for several hours, and that
his labor should entitle him to the animal, since Pierson only appeared
at the last minute and got a lucky shot.
[/quote]
But in fact, Post>s "labor" had no product. Effort without valuable
result is not labor. It>s just play, or exercise, or a waste of time.
[quote]Post lost. Possession talks, labor walks.
[/quote]
But in fact, it was labor that talked in Pierson vs Post, as I have
explained to you before. Whose bullet ended up in the fox? The court
simply redefined the labor of production as possession.
[quote]And possession occurs when control is established.
[/quote]
Which proves that production trumps possession, as production need not
always result in first possession.
[quote]If you are in possession of them, and have not stolen them from
anyone else, then they are yours, whether they represent 1 hour of
labor, 1000 hours of labor, or 0 hours of labor.
Nope. A product of labor by definition cannot represent 0 hours of
labor. That is just another of your attempts to smuggle in your false
conclusions on false premises.
No one cares whether they are products of labor or not,
[/quote]
??? Their producers sure do!
[quote]and with many goods
it is impossible to tell. A coconut that falls in your lap looks
the same as one you spent an afternoon looking for and climbing a tree
to pick. A spear you found in the woods could look the same as one you
made yourself. Nobody will care where it came from (as long as no one is
complaining you stole it from them).
[/quote]
Wrong. A spear that isn>t yours will raise questions.
[quote]Anything that can be stolen, has been stolen.
No, that is obviously just another lie. My car can be stolen, but
hasn>t been. My land, by contrast, _has_ been stolen (in fact,
"aboriginal title" to it is claimed by more than one aboriginal
group), and so has all other privately owned land. Which proves that
your "first possession principle" is nothing but a fabrication, a
rationalization concocted to justify privilege, injustice and
parasitism.
Ah, gonna try another 4-termer, eh?
[/quote]
No, just identifying the facts.
[quote]I thought they contingent institutions created for a specific purpose
and granted specific powers, i.e., protecting life, liberty, and
property (which concepts would have to be understood before any
institution could be designed to protect them).
No. Governments have typically emerged as pragmatic necessities
rather than being designed. It can take a few decades, as we>re
seeing in Somalia.
Ah, no. They have typically emerged when the stronger warlord defeats
his rivals.
[/quote]
No, that is mere chieftainship, not government. Government is an
_institution_.
[quote]Modern states, in this presumed age of political enlightenment, are
conceived to be institutions voluntarily created to perform a few
important functions, i.e., protecting their constituents' rights: "That
to secure these rights governments are instituted among men . . . " The
US government, all the state gummints, the French gummint, the Canadian
gummint, et al, were quite deliberately designed. So were the gummints
of Japan and Germany after WWII. Numerous other countries have
re-designed their historic gummints to comply with Enlightenment notions
of the proper structure and function of gummint.
[/quote]
All true, and there are even a few older examples as well, such as
Solon and Lycurgus designing the governments of Athens and Sparta.
But it is mainly a modern phenomenon that dates from the American
Revolution.
[quote]There is no such thing as automobile rent. You are just showing
your ignorance of economics.
Huh? Then what keeps Hertz in business?
As I said, you are just proving your comprehensive ignorance of
economics. Rent in the vernacular sense that gives Hertz its revenue
is not what economists mean by rent:
http://www.economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?ETTER=R#rent
I know what it means. It is a distinction without a difference,
[/quote]
??? Which only proves you _don>t_ know what it means.
[quote]a distinction inherited from 18th and 19th century economic theories which
implicitly adopted the misguided Labor Theory of Value.
[/quote]
Wrong. You obviously know nothing of the history of economic thought.
[quote]Rent is the price
paid for temporary use of another>s property, whether it be his land,
labor, or a machine.
[/quote]
No. Rent in the vernacular sense is a periodic payment for use of
another>s property. Labor is not property, and the payment for it is
wages, not rent. Rent in the classical economic sense is payment for
use of natural resources. Modern economics has a number of broader
and generally confused definitions of rent.
[quote]So-called "economic rent" is merely the increase in
that price which occurs when the supply of a good cannot be increased, and
thus approaches the subjective value placed on the good by consumers.
[/quote]
I.e., it is a return obtained not by any contribution to production,
but by being on the right side of a barrier to entry. The difference
between that and payment for use of others' property when there are no
such barriers to entry, as in the car rental industry, is clear and
indisputable.
[quote]It applies to land in certain locations, collectibles, anything unique or
prestigious (e.g., Lamborghinis), even labor for skills in short supply.
[/quote]
No. It is not the scarcity of supply that gives rise to rent, but the
impossibility of increasing it.
[quote]It is not peculiar to land, not in any sense a "market failure," and is not
unjustified, unless the shortage of supply is due to interference in the
market by gummint (or unless you subscribe to the Labor Theory of Value, of
course).
[/quote]
True, economic rent per se is not unjustified, and it serves market
efficiency as an allocative mechanism. What is unjustified is its
appropriation by private landowners in return for no contribution.
[quote]Local gummints often create spurious economic rents in land by restricting
the supply available for various uses, such as anti-growth laws which
prohibit conversion of farmland to subdivisions or commercial use. That of
course drives up the price of existing land in those uses, thus creating
*artificial* economic rents. Those are indeed "gifts from gummint." Merely
enforcing land titles, or titles to any other scarce goods, is not.
[/quote]
As the land was already there anyway, with no help from any owner, and
its rent is created by the services and infrastructure government
provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and
the physical qualities nature provides, rather than to anything the
landowner provides, land rent is a gift from government and the
community to the landowner.
[quote]The landlord contributes his asset in exactly the same sense
as the factory owner and the laborer contribute theirs,
No, that is simply another lie on your part. Proof: If the factory
owner did not pay for its construction, there would be no factory for
the producer to use. If the laborer did not work, there would be no
labor to produce the product. But if the landowner did nothing, or
did not even exist, the land would still be there, ready to use.
Therefore, the landowner>s only function is to act as a receptacle for
the unearned share of production economists call "rent."
Irrelevant, because the landlord *is* there.
[/quote]
?? So what? The protection racketeer is also "there." That doesn>t
mean he is rightly owed any extortion money.
[quote]And had he and neighboring
landowners, or their predecessors in title, not come there and settled that
land, platted a townsite, created some infrastructure and launched some
kind of economy, then the capitalists and laborers would likely not be
there either.
[/quote]
That is a claim without evidence. The laudable activities you
describe that actually contributed to production, created the
community, and made the land more valuable -- settling, planning,
building, trading -- are all _labor_, and completely independent of
the idle, parasitic, non-contributory non-activity of landowning.
Those activities could have been (and on occasion were) performed by
slaves, with the landowner doing absolutely nothing but appropriate
and pocket the value others created.
The fact that the same person might be a productive working person and
a landowner does not justify landowning any more than the fact that
the same person might be a police officer and a protection racketeer
justifies protection rackets. Give your head a shake.
[quote]You beg the question by assuming the landowner is not entitled to the
returns from his land because he did not "create the land."
[/quote]
??? Qua landowner, he didn>t do _anything_, and that is not just an
assumption. It is self-evident and indisputable fact. He does not
deserve the return to "his" land because he contributes no more to
that return than a protection racketeer contributes to his victims'
businesses: production would be just the same if he had never existed.
[quote]But how the
land was created has nothing to do either with its status as property
[/quote]
Wrong. The fact that land was not produced by labor proves that it
cannot be property without depriving others of what they would
otherwise have: the liberty to use it. It therefore cannot be
property without violating others' rights, and thus cannot rightly be
property.
[quote]or its value.
[/quote]
Wrong again. Land>s fixity of supply has _everything_ to do with its
value:
"Buy land. They ain>t makin' any more." -- Mark Twain
[quote]It is irrelevant both morally and economically.
[/quote]
It is central both morally and economically.
[quote]But the rent would be the same.
Indeed. But if there were no landowner, the rent would go to the
user, the producer.
There will always be a landowner,
[/quote]
Obviously false, as proved by the existence of unowned land -- and the
fact that until quite recently in human existence, there were _no_
landowners.
[quote]because the land has value and will not
go unclaimed, and because it is scarce it will command a price.
[/quote]
It can be "claimed" and administered in trust for the people, and have
a price, without being owned.
[quote]The only
question is who gets that rent. The only alternative to multiple private
owners is the gummint.
[/quote]
Wrong again. Land can be allocated to users without charge, as in the
old European system of village commons, and they will get the rent
without owning the land. However, that does not produce as efficient
an allocation as recovering the rent for the purposes and benefit of
the public that creates it.
[quote]It is only to reconcile the equal claims of all
prospective users to that advantage that land rent should be recovered
from its initial recipients -- land users -- for the purposes and
benefit of the public that creates it.
The public no more created the land than the landlord did.
[/quote]
It created the land>s _value_, which the landowner _didn>t_. It is
therefore self-evidently unjust that the landowner should be
privileged to pocket that value in return for contributing nothing,
and the community be obliged to pay him for access to the advantages
they themselves created.
[quote]And they do not have "equal claims,"
[/quote]
Wrong. They have equal claims because they have equal rights to life
and liberty.
[quote]not having discovered, pioneered, or originally
developed that land so as to make it valuable.
[/quote]
?? Uh, yes, actually, it _was_ the community that originally
discovered and pioneered the land, not the original landowner, who
only grabbed it after others had already discovered, pioneered and
used it. And it is simply a bald, flat-out lie to claim that the land
is only valuable because it has been developed: by definition, the
unimproved value of land is its value _without_ any development.
[quote]They have no claims to it whatsoever.
[/quote]
Other than in the trivial legal sense (which you like to pretend is a
factual sense) they have as much claim as any soi-disant owner.
[quote]They *do* create its value, of course, by desiring it, just as
they create the value of everything else.
[/quote]
??? ROTFL!!
No, stupid. I have already proved to you that desiring something
creates no value. Desire is not a causal primary. It is merely a
_response_ to qualities present in the object of desire, qualities put
there by the object>s producer, which give the object its utility. It
is only _production_ that creates value. And it is _government_ that
_produces_ the services and infrastructure that _make_ land more
advantageous to the user, and thus more desirable. It is the
_community_ that _produces_ the opportunities and amenities that make
land more advantageous to the user, and thus more desirable.
The notion that the value of an object is created by desire for it,
and not the desire for it by the utility attendant on the qualities
its producer gave it, is just deliberate refusal to know self-evident
fact.
[quote]If landowners were not
empowered to extort money from the productive, marginal land that
yields no rent -- i.e., that confers no such advantage -- would be
available to use for free.
That makes no sense. If it yields no rent, how does the landlord manage to
"extort money" from it?
[/quote]
By forcibly depriving users of it unless they pay him. Landowners
holding land out of use for speculation pushes the margin outward,
forcing up the rents of all lands in use. If marginal land yields 2
bushels, and it is then appropriated by landowners who demand rent
from users for it, the margin moves out to even worse land that yields
only 1 bushel. Presto change-o! The formerly marginal land now
yields a bushel of rent! The landowner has made his land more
productive!
....if you are too stupid and dishonest to understand what has actually
happened, that is.
[quote]yawn> You claim _all_ facts are irrelevant. But in fact, economics
is at the core of why people evolved property rights at all: they
preserve both capital and accurate incentives to produce it, to the
general benefit of all.
Economics, capital formation, production incentives, and "general
benefits" had nothing to do with the emergence of property rights.
[/quote]
Wrong, as already explained.
[quote]The concept, and the criterion for assigning them,
[/quote]
<yawn> More question begging.
[quote]emerged and became
ubiquitous, via adaptive consensus, in order to reduce the prospect of
being killed when trying to satisfy one>s desires. The benefits expected
from observing others' rights were purely personal.
[/quote]
Nope. If that were the case, wolves, ants, and other social animals
would also have property rights. And they don>t. The absolutely
crucial fact, which your belief system cannot admit even as a
possibility, is that we have property rights as well as other rights
because not only does C gain from having his rights respected, and not
only does B gain from respecting C>s rights, but _A_ gains from _B_
respecting C>s rights.
[quote]Economics is indifferent to ownership.
No, it isn>t, which is why economic results are better in places where
more land rent is recovered for public purposes.
I agree that LVTs can yield more public revenues with fewer economic
distortions than other methods of taxing.
[/quote]
If you understand that, then you have just admitted that there _is_ a
substantive difference between economic rent and vernacular rent.
[quote]Whether the results are
"better," however, depends on the moral and economic criteria applied.
[/quote]
True. If you value privilege, injustice, poverty, inequality, fascism
and stagnation, LVT is probably not for you. But if you value
liberty, justice, prosperity, equality, democracy and progress, LVT is
unambiguously better than the alternatives.
[quote]If more public goodies are delivered at the expense of one class of
property owners, just because they can>t pack up their assets and flee
with them (or burn them down ala the kulaks), then some justification
of those increased public benefits is in order.
[/quote]
It is exactly such public benefits that create land rent in the first
place, as the Henry George Theorem proves, because people must pay
landowners full market value for access to the benefits. Paying for
public expenditures by recovering the additional land rents they
create can therefore hardly be called delivering them "at the expense"
of one class of property owners. Not without lying, that is. Rather,
_not_ recovering the additional rent to fund the expenditures is
self-evidently a flat-out, free-lunch, welfare subsidy giveaway to
landowners.
[quote]The justifications
typically offered rely on the Labor Theory of Value, which is palpably
false.
[/quote]
No, they don>t. Or perhaps you can identify and quote such a
justification...?
[quote]The rents and
prices will be the same regardless of who owns them (unless they all
have a monopoly owner, i.e., the gummint).
Wrong again. Rent is unaffected even by monopoly ownership.
That is a popular georgist myth.
[/quote]
No, it is fact.
[quote]Monopoly ownership distorts the price of
land just as it distorts the price of any other good.
[/quote]
No, it doesn>t.
[quote]The myth rests on the
dictum that landlords cannot charge more in rent "than the market will
bear." And that is perfectly true.
[/quote]
OK, so your disproof of the "myth" is that it rests on a perfectly
true fact.
That fits.
[quote]But in fact, in competitive markets,
[/quote]
Which the land market isn>t. As its supply is fixed, land is a
canonical example of monopoly.
[quote]consumers pay *less* than the market will bear, because suppliers are
competing on price.
[/quote]
Except in the case of goods such as land, which are in fixed supply.
In such cases, suppliers _cannot_ compete, on price or anything else,
because they cannot alter supply; price is consequently determined
solely by demand.
[quote]That competition constrains prices, regardless of the
supply of the good.
[/quote]
Nope. When supply is fixed, prices are governed solely by demand.
You are just completely, stone ignorant of all aspects of economics,
economic history, and economic thought.
[quote]"The market" is comprised of consumers *and* competing
suppliers. If one person owned all the extant Picassos, you may be sure
museums would be forced to pay more to rent them for exhibits.
[/quote]
No, in fact they wouldn>t. Supply is fixed, so price is governed
solely by demand. They are already being charged all the traffic will
bear.
[quote]Wrong again. You obviously have not read "Progress and Poverty," or
you could not still be so ignorant of the relevant facts of economics.
The number of bidders is completely irrelevant, as none will bid any
more than the economic advantage obtainable by using the land.
Oh, rubbish. The "economic advantage" varies with the particular use (the
types of products or services) the bidder contemplates, his own methodology
for producing or supplying them, and his prospective market.
[/quote]
So the high bidders will be the ones who expect to obtain the greatest
advantage. That advantage is not affected by any number of additional
bidders expecting lesser advantages.
You just know nothing whatever of economics. I don>t know any clearer
way to explain that to you.
[quote]A particular
location may yield a greater economic advantage to someone planning a
Lamborghini dealership than someone planning a beauty salon. If the market
is larger, it will more be more likely to attract the Lamborghini dealer.
[/quote]
Nope. The number of bidders has no effect on whether the Lambo
dealership is the most advantageous use for the site. The population
and wealth of the community, however, will. Which is why land rent is
created by the communty, not the landowner.
[quote]No, they will not, as Ricardo proved nearly 200 years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Rent
Heh. You mean as Ricardo *claimed* 200 years ago (I realize you have a
problem with the concept of "proof").
[/quote]
No, he proved it, and no competent economist disputes that fact.
[quote]A claim amply refuted by everyday experience.
[/quote]
Nope. Lie. Never happened.
[quote]If landowners were able to grab all the profits,
[/quote]
Strawman. They can only appropriate additional production to the
extent that it represents an increase in the differential productivity
between their land and marginal land. In fact, most additional
production resulting from improvements to labor and capital is of that
character, but not all.
[quote]the
stockholders of Starbucks, and of all the other chain stores dominating
malls and occupying other leased spaces, would be starving and all the
landlords rich.
[/quote]
Nope. Wrong again. You just don>t know any economics.
First of all, the stores that lease their spaces often _are_ starving,
and the ones who own land as part of their spaces are typically rich.
The single best objective predictor of business success or failure is
ownership of the land under the business>s premises.
Secondly, you are ignoring the mass of government interventions on
behalf of non-landowners -- welfare, minimum wages, union monopoly
laws, Medicare, Social Security, property taxes, etc. -- to try to
mitigate what would otherwise be the catastrophic social conditions
consequent on landowner privilege that we see in countries like
Mexico, Bangladesh or the Philippines, where strict enforcement of
private land titles and entrenched landowner privilege is not
mitigated by a social safety net. Some of these interventions -- like
roads through empty lands, regulation of electricity rates to
subsidize rural users, uniform postal rates, etc, -- tend to reduce
the differential productivity of good and marginal land, reducing
rents and the disadvantage to non-landowners.
Thirdly, you are ignoring the fact that landlords are rent seekers,
and unproductive rent-seeking behavior tends to increase to absorb all
rent. The landlord is often not rich because he borrowed money at
double-digit interest rates to buy the land. So the rent is going to
the mortgage lender as interest. The landlord only gets rich when
government and the community increase the land>s value for him faster
than he has to pay interest to the mortgage lender.
In addition, there is always some variation in landlords' competence
(and luck) as rent seekers, so some will succeed and become obscenely
rich, while others will fail, just as occurs in any other parasitic
criminal enterprise.
[quote]Not to mention all the doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc.,
plying their trades in leased space.
[/quote]
LOL! Ignoratio elenchi. You are also permanently ignorant of the
fact that doctors, dentists and lawyers don>t typically rent land
directly, but rather office space -- which, unlike land, _can_ be
produced, and is therefore priced competitively. It is the building
owner or developer who must pay for the land, and he is charged the
full value of the advantages government and the community provide to
the doctors, lawyers and dentists.
[quote]Ricardo>s "law" was nonsense when it
was penned and it remains nonsense.
[/quote]
Idiocy. It remains fact; you have merely chosen never to know that
fact. This is proved by the fact that you don>t even understand why
office space is priced in a competitive market and land is not, and
why the landowner therefore gets rich without effort or productive
contribution, while the office building owner just makes ends meet.
[quote]Really? What is the relationship between labor input and value output?
No labor in --> no product value out.
Ooops -- "product value" -- is that some kind of Royism?
[/quote]
It>s perfectly good and clear English. You just have to refuse to
read it.
[quote]Obviously a
downtown lot in a bustling city will have a value. Does it lack "product
value" because it is not a "product"?
[/quote]
Right. Products get their value directly from the labor that produces
them. Assets that are not products get their value indirectly, mainly
by how advantageous it is to own or use them. The source of such
advantages may be labor, obligation, privilege, etc.
[quote]I.e., how much labor input (in some unit --- hours, ergs, etc.) is
required to produce n dollars of value?
There is no "unit of labor," any more than there is a unit of
groceries, sports, or beauty.
Well, value surely has a unit, i.e., dollars. How can you possibly
establish a relationship between labor in vs. value out if you cannot
measure the former?
[/quote]
Same way I can establish the relationship between food in and body
weight out: no food in --> no body weight out. If the food is
measured in pounds, the relationship doesn>t go much beyond that, like
the relationship of labor hours to product value. If it is measured
in calories, there is some empirical relationship, just as there is
between cost of labor in and value of product out.
Obviously, you are just not honest enough to consent to know such
facts.
[quote]That said, as Jevons and Wicksteed demonstrated over a century ago,
entrepreneurs will tend to increase expenditure on labor until its
marginal cost is equal to its marginal product.
So will they for any other factor.
[/quote]
Exactly. And as capital also has a labor cost component, the Labor
Theory of Value has a prima facie plausibility.
[quote]The land does not "contribute" anything, any more than its owner does.
It is just used by labor. If a greater product is due to the worker>s
use of better land, is a lesser product due to his being consigned to
worse land? That would certainly argue for compensation.
Er, no.
[/quote]
Er, yes.
[quote]He is not being "consigned" by anyone to worse land.
[/quote]
??? Yes, of course he is. He is forcibly deprived of access to the
better land by its owners. Where else can he go? Stop lying.
[quote]We>re not speaking of serfs here.
[/quote]
We are speaking of the productive, who are in some respects
effectively the serfs of idle landowners.
[quote]He "consigns" himself to any land he chooses to work.
[/quote]
He chooses to work the best land, but is forcibly deprived of that
opportunity.
You know this fact. Of course you do. You have merely realized that
it proves your whole belief system is false and evil, and so you have
consequently decided not to know it.
[quote]And what is the objective baseline that defines how much labor
produces with no contribution from land? As there is no product
without land, does land contribute everything and labor nothing? How
can such silliness be reconciled with the fact that there is also no
product without labor, and labor therefore contributes everything?
False dilemma.
[/quote]
No, stupid, it is a reductio ad absurdum.
[quote]No product is produced without all the necessary factors.
The question is one of allocating the value of each factor>s contribution
to that product.
[/quote]
The market already does that: labor gets its wages; capital gets its
interest; and land gets its rent. The point is, labor gets no wages
without doing the work; capital gets no interest without providing the
buildings, tools, etc.; but land yields rent whether there is any
landowner or not. The non-contributory nature of the landowner>s
participation in economic activity is therefore proved.
[quote]You do that (as I explained) by comparing outputs from
different lands when worked by workers with different levels of competence
and motivation. That allows you to establish baselines.
[/quote]
Nonsense. No such baseline is possible.
[quote]Labor improves its productivity when it increases its skills, acquires
experience, improves its techniques, etc.
And capital investment improves labor>s productivity by providing
better tools. So?
No, Roy.
[/quote]
Yes, stupid.
[quote]The capital investment produces more *product*.
[/quote]
No, it doesn>t, as any factory owner faced with a strike could inform
you, if you were willing to be informed.
[quote]The contribution
of *labor* to that increased product remains the same, and in fact, becomes
a smaller proportion of the product value.
[/quote]
Contribution to production is not productivity. You just don>t know
enough economics to use such terms correctly.
[quote]The capital will displace labor.
[/quote]
Wrong. It will typically change the requirements for labor. It might
mean less labor is required, it might mean more. Which might be why
enormous investments in capital have resulted in more people being
employed, not fewer.
[quote]It is an *error* to attribute an increase in product resulting from capital
investment to labor, by describing it as an "increase in labor
productivity."
[/quote]
That accurate description does not attribute the increase to labor.
You are just such a pro-privilege, anti-worker bigot, you can>t stand
to see correct usage of terms you erroneously believe to be
pro-worker.
[quote]The laborer is no more productive than he has ever been.
[/quote]
Wrong.
[quote]The *process* is more productive, but that increase is not due to labor.
[/quote]
There is no implication that it is "due to" labor. It is simply a
description of the situation.
[quote]Yes, but its productivity is not the same as its contribution to
production. If a trapper sets out his traps and gets 10 animals one
week, then sets the same traps and gets 20 animals the next week, his
contribution to production is unaltered, but his productivity has
doubled.
That is only because he is the only contributor to the product. So he can
claim all the value with impunity.
[/quote]
No, the land was also necessary to his product. You just don>t
understand, and refuse to learn, the difference between productivity
and contribution to production.
[quote]However, your claim that increased returns due to better technology or
machinery belong to those who provide them is just false. Such
increased returns, to the extent that they exceed depreciation and
interest and accentuate the advantages enjoyed by those using
supermarginal land, are simply appropriated by landowners.
LOL. So how does Kinko>s manage to eat their competitors' lunch with
cutting-edge technology in their leased spaces?
[/quote]
By outcompeting them. Commercial space is not land. It is produced
by labor and is provided in a competitive market.
[quote]Why don>t their landlords get rich instead?
[/quote]
Their landlords get rich too. Richer than Kinko>s, in fact.
[quote]I>ll explain why: the landlord leases the space to Kinko>s at the "going
rate" per square foot, because he knows that is all he can get.
[/quote]
Correct. But you are now equivocating on the term, "landlord" to mean
a provider of labor-built commercial space, not the idle owner of the
ground nature provided. The fact that both roles may be played by the
same person does not make them the same role. I have explained this
to you before.
[quote]Kinko>s can
make a killing in that upscale space, where a mom-n'-pop print shop would
go broke. The landlord will get only his lease payments, regardless how
much Kinko>s makes.
[/quote]
Because commercial space is a product of labor.
[quote]The State is merely the recorder of those titles, in both cases.
No, that is just a bald lie, as proved by all the land titles that
have simply been voided and reassigned by government fiat throughout
history. You even refuse to know the fact that eminent domain exists.
This may come as a surprise to you, Roy, but eminent domain extends to
property of every kind, not only to land. If the gummint wanted to condemn
your house, barn, cattle, crops, horses, factory, it could so just as
easily, and via the same mechanisms, as condemning your land.
[/quote]
Except that government>s duty to administer possession and use of land
in the public interest makes it much more likely that it will take
private land than a house, car, crops, factory or Beanie Baby.
[quote]The gummint
acquired by condemnation the rifle uses to assassinate JFK. It will have to
pay "just compensation" in all cases, of course.
[/quote]
If it decides to go the eminent domain route. Many governments have
of course just vacated private land titles and reassigned them without
compensation or with token compensation. That kind of mass government
reassignment of private land titles was what allowed Japan to rise
from a poor and stagnant feudal backwater to a major world industrial
and military power in a single generation.
There>s no reason for government not to just void private land titles:
any title that rests on nothing more than forciable appropriation is
just as validly overturned by forcible appropriation.
[quote]If the power of eminent domain makes the gummint the "grantor" or titles to
land, then it also makes it the "grantor" of titles to everything else, and
your "labor basis" for titles is out the window.
[/quote]
Government was the grantor of titles to land long before eminent
domain existed.
-- Roy L |
|
