Re: Lucas: Shame on the redistributionists
royls_at_telus.net
Date: 06/13/04
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Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 20:22:55 GMT
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 06:07:16 GMT, Grinch <oldnasty@mindspring.com>
wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 10:57:56 GMT, "sinister" <sinister@nospam.invalid>
>wrote:
>
>>In the case of land, it's not just some abstract economic rent---it's
>>*scarcity* rent.
>
>Can you name *any* rent that isn't scarcity rent?
Yes, well, rent does arise from scarcity, in the sense that it is
obtained by denying others access to what would otherwise be
accessible.
>>The land you give your kids is a scarce resource
>
>And it is just like everything else that isn't free in that regard.
>
>>---if your kids have privileged claim to it,
>
>"Privileged" meaning you paid for it,
No, "privileged" meaning artificially unequal.
>(And, yes, I know the purportedly "moral" if rather strange argument
>that since land was never created by anyone [overlooking all that was]
None was, liar. I have exposed and refuted your lies on this topic
before.
>it can't morally be owned by anyone, and so initially must have come
>under ownership in some immoral way, and thus must be removed from
>private ownership and returned to the government for administration.
Government administers possession and use of the land within its
borders in any case. That's what government _is_. The only question
is, will it do so in the general interest, or only in the interests of
landowners?
>Although, being that the "someone" that indeed obtained it highly
>immorally by killing off the Indians (and killing off a lot of
>Mexicans who had already killed off the Indians) was the US
>government,
Yes, it is unfortunate that the aboriginal Americans did not
understand what was happening (their culture being too different from
the European culture then overwhelming them); but the US government
was perhaps scarcely more conscious of the underlying facts of the
matter: government administers possession and use of the land within
its borders by force. The normal way governments establish and extend
those borders is also by force. There is no other way possession and
use of land can be administered. The aboriginal communities
themselves competed for access to land by application of military
force against competing communities. The fact that the US government
was a far stronger competitor than any of its predecessors in North
America in no sense makes its victories any less moral or legitimate
than those of its predecessors (though it is easy to see why people
might regard the competition as having been too unequal to be "fair"
or "moral").
>the "moral" argument for returning land *from* honest
>people who never killed anyone but simply and honesty paid full market
>value for it, *to* the murderous, property-stealing
Wrong. The land was never the "property" of the aboriginal people,
and they knew it full well.
>wrongdoing source
>of this evil, seems rather bizarre to me.
<yawn> Why is the US government only "wrongdoing" when its actions
prove you wrong?
>Anyhow, however the US government and its predecessors got the land in
>the first place, through the great chain of title since then it has
>been bought and sold in fair market transactions at full market prices
>repeatedly -- just like government bonds, houses, stamp collections,
>and every other scarce item purchased for a full fair-market price.
Government bonds that do not finance spending that will generate
sufficient revenue to pay their principal and interest are also
privileges. Houses and stamps are made by labor. Land is not.
>So the *moral* argument for discriminating against such fair market
>purchasers of land alone does indeed remain elusive to some.]
As it does to all those who refuse to know that natural resources by
definition cannot be produced by labor.
>> that means someone else is *not* allowed
>>any access to it.
>
>Just the same as with your house, driveway, car, bonds, stamp
>collection ....
Houses, etc. can be made. Land cannot.
>>Your position, at least on that of land, is feudalistic.
>
>Feudal land was purchased and sold continuously in a free market open
>to all by a democratic citizenry at full fair market prices? With
>mortgage financing and all?
That's more or less what David Friedman has argued (except the
democratic part)....
>> You're not
>>conceding rent to "everyone else"; you're conceding it to those that already
>>have title to scarce resources.
>>
>>As for "We should all have to play the game by the same rules, and we pretty
>>much do," that's a meaningless statement from a moral perspective. The
>>institution of slavery was also built on a system of rules.
>
>Geeze, they way you guys keep invoking "slavery" and comparing others
>to slave owners ... it's too amusing.
It's too accurate, you mean.
>It's just like the dimwits who in political arguments can't help
>comparing the other side to Nazis. Godwin's Law II.
Well sometimes, people _are_ like Nazis. The Nazis were not a unique
historical phenomenon, totally unrelated to everything that went
before and after. Godwin's Law is amusing enough, but if overapplied,
it could be used to stop people understanding the nature of political
events. Would Saddam's Iraq have been possible if the Iraqi people
had been more aware of the Nazis' history? Should drawing comparisons
between the Baathists and Nazis, Saddam and Hitler have been banned
from the Iraqi media out of respect for Godwin's Law?
>And you can't see it. ;-)
It's _you_ who can't -- or more accurately, won't -- see it.
>But here's a bit of helpful clarification:
>
>The morally noxious thing about slavery was that it involved buying
>and owning and selling people *against their human will.*
Wrong. More clearly (and accurately), the morally noxious thing about
slavery was that it made into property what could never rightly be
property. You will note that people cannot even _voluntarily_ give or
sell themselves as property: the state will not recognize them as
such, no matter what.
I trust you don't mind my pointing out why your putative
"clarification" was actually neither helpful nor accurate, but merely
an attempt to obscure and deceive.
>Land is not bought and owned and sold *against its human will*.
>Is that too difficult?
Land is made the property of some against the human will of others who
want to use it, and who also, _against_their_human_will_, are
compelled to pay taxes that pay for the government services and
infrastructure that allow the landowner to charge more for use of the
land, which neither he nor any previous owner created.
Is that too difficult? Never mind. I already know it is.
>And voluntarily negotiating a fair market rent for a scarce item --
>and *all* rented and purchased items are scarce -- is *nothing* like
>slavery, in which the slave got to voluntarily negotiate *nothing*
>about being owned.
More deception. The state does not recognize property in human beings
even if they _do_ get to voluntarily negotiate fair market terms,
prices, etc. about being owned, because the state recognizes that
human beings _cannot_rightly_be_property_.
>Frankly, you morally demean the real tragic victims of slavery with
>such sophomoric rhetorical shots
Does comparing Saddam to Hitler morally demean the real tragic victims
of Naziism? IMO it would be far more morally demeaning to them to
forget the lesson their victimization teaches, and try to pretend that
their story cannot be relevant to any other people's victimization.
While the individual victims of slavery lost far more, on average,
than the individual victims of landowner privilege, the latter
outnumber the former by at least as great a multiple. The really
morally demeaning and sophomoric rhetoric is that which pretends the
billions of innocent human beings robbed, oppressed, starved, tortured
and killed by the institution of landowner privilege were just willing
participants in a free market.
>-- the way 'artists' who claim they
>are censored and suppressed when they don't get a government subsidy
>demean the tragedy of artists who died in the gulag.
The fact that there are invalid comparisons does not mean there are no
valid ones.
>So if you were really so concerned about morality as you claim, I'd
>think you'd drop such cheap and dubious rhetoric and look for
>substantive economic reasoning that might support your case.
??? Been there, done that, 200 years ago and more. It's not our
fault that you refuse to know the relevant facts, even after they have
been explained for you multiple times.
I _know_ you have seen these quotes before, Grinch:
"Pure ground rent is in the nature of a 'surplus,' which can be taxed
heavily without distorting production incentives or reducing
efficiency."
-- Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate in Economics
"In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved
value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago."
-- Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in Economics
"It is important that the rent of land be retained as a source of
government revenue."
-- Franco Modigliani, Nobel laureate in Economics
"For efficiency, for adequate revenue, and for justice, every user of
land should be required to make an annual payment to the local
government equal to the current rental value of the land he or she
prevents others from using."
-- Robert Solow, Nobel laureate in Economics
"While the governments of developed nations with market economies
collect some of the rent of land, they do not collect nearly as much
as they could, and they therefore make unnecessarily great use of
taxes that impede their economies -- taxes on such things as incomes,
sales, and the value of capital goods."
-- William Vickrey, Nobel laureate in Economics and past
president of the American Economics Association
What makes you think five (count 'em, _five_) Nobel laureates in
economics could come to the same conclusion _without_ having any
substantive economic reasoning to back it up?
>Like, maybe, proof and explanation of a market failure that causes
>land to produce systematically above-market risk-adjusted returns --
Though I don't know that I would consider it a "market failure," I
have provided both proof and explanation of this phenomenon to you
multiple times already.
>so that voluntary investments in it at fair market prices have a more
>deleterious effect on the income and wealth distribution than
>investments in T-bills.
It's not the "investments" that have the deleterious effect. It's the
welfare subsidy privilege giveaway to landowners that makes the
investments such profitable (even while totally unproductive) ones.
-- Roy L
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