On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:07:35 -0700 (PDT), Shrikeback@
gmail.com wrote:
>On Jul 13, 11:33=A0am, Bret Cahill
aol.com> wrote:>>>>>> The important thing is to separate land and other geo resources fr=
>om
>>>>>> improvements.
>>>>> The interesting thing is that the price of the land without
>>>>> improvements is generally a tiny fraction of the value
>>>>> with improvements,
>>
>> Like a Saudi well field?
>
>The oil is not the land.
Oil in the ground is land in the economic sense.
>There is really no choice
>but to own such expensive resources in common.
Garbage. They can be stolen and given away to private interests, as
is now being done in Iraq, and has been done with land all over the
world.
>>>>> so this argument is like over a tiny
>>>>> fraction of a market.
>>
>> Then why bother fighting LVT?
>
>Because in order to get there, you have to steal
>from those who have acquired their land through
>just means.
You mean, the way slave owners acquired their slaves by "just
means"?
It is impossible to acquire land by just means, as land can never have
justly become private property in the first place.
>Their ownership of the land was
>made possible by storing up the proceeds of their
>labor.
Bull$#!+. You have no way of knowing how they acquired the land,
liar. One thing is certain: labor earns its product. As land is not
produced by labor, no amount of storing up the proceeds of labor can
ever earn rightful ownership of any land. Case closed.
>Your excuse for doing so is that at some
>point in the past some State stole the land from
>someone.
No, because no one could ever rightly have owned it in the first
place.
>Somehow, that, too, feels like a reductio
>ad absurdum. Either theft is okay, or its not.
Bingo. And there is no way to privatize land but by theft.
>Anyway, since those who conducted the theft
>are long dead, why would we punish those who
>acquired their land through just means?
Pirates like Captain Kidd are also long dead. If he sold his
piracy "business" to someone, the way landowners sell their landowning
"business," do we then have to allow the piracy to go on, on the
grounds that the business was acquired through just means?
Give your head a shake, and tell us what flavor of jelly beans fall
out.
>> Land taxers agree with [true] free marketeers that _some_ private
>> individualists must control at least _some_ land. =A0(The looneytarian
>> believes all land should be both owned and controlled by
>> individualists.)
>
>No, land taxers believe that there should be only one
>landlord, and everyone's land should be stolen to
>accomplish this.
Recovering stolen items from thieves (or the customers of thieves) is
not stealing. Hello?
>We saw how well a parallel mechanism
>for the monopolization of agriculture went in the famines
>of Stalin and the Great Leap Forward. Why would
>anyone expect a different outcome.
Because the supply of land is fixed, while capital and crops are
produced by labor. Because the outcome was different -- VERY
different -- in Hong Kong.
>A.A. defines
>insanity as doing the same thing over and over and
>expecting a different result.
Land is not capital.
-- Roy L
