Re: Is there an (objective) definition of wealth?

From: smithaa02 (asdf_at_asdf.net)
Date: 07/22/04 

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:26:49 -0500

<royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:40fcdf77.11248648@news.telus.net...
> On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:14:45 -0500, "smithaa02" <asdf@asdf.net> wrote:
>
> ><royls@telus.net> wrote in message
news:40fc2fa5.15687496@news.telus.net...
> >> On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 20:43:00 -0500, "smithaa02" <asdf@asdf.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Mark Monson <m_monson@ztech.com> wrote in message
> >> >news:hZEKc.175$C77.166@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
> >> >> Improved land is taxed, but the improvements are exempt from the
tax.
> >> >
> >> >So is the gold in a gold ring taxed? The trees in a house made with
> >lumber?
> >> >Etc...?
> >>
> >> Only when the resources are extracted.
> >
> >But a land tax would take place after significant extraction had already
> >take place.
>
> Sure. So? It's not retroactive.

To stress that land is important, but not once it has been mixed with labor
is a significant contradiction.

> >> >> as well there would exist vast amounts of derivitive land wealth
> >> >> > (stolen booty from labor) in the forms of capital and credit. LVT
> >> >> > acknowledges the injustice of present land-owership, but fails to
> >> >address
> >> >> > the injustices of past land-ownership.
> >> >>
> >> >> Correct. LVT does not address past injustice. LVT is not a
> >reparations
> >> >scheme.
> >> >> LVT reforms the present system.
> >> >
> >> >That logic justifies landownership.
> >>
> >> ??? No, it doesn't. Everything you say is wrong.
> >
> >Landowners say, 'who cares how government got the land'. But then they
> >justify their landownership with a long string of historical transactions
> >proving that they own the land they claim to (courts take this very
> >seriously!) You take the same attitude toward non-land components that
> >haven't been justly acquired just like land.
>
> Wrong. I don't presume to judge the legitimacy of titles to assets
> whose provenance is unknown and often unknowable.

You defend the status quo distribution of ownership on non-land assets, so
you do indeed make judgement on assets with questionable provenance.

> >> >To critisize the flaws of one aspect of
> >> >landownership while ignoring (but acknowledging) the other flaws of
> >private
> >> >land ownership is a contradiction.
> >>
> >> No, it is not. Everything you say is wrong.
> >
> >Yes it is. You can't use the same criteria (flaws) to defend and
critique
> >claims on differing assets.
>
> Of course you can. The assets are different, so the criteria apply in
> different ways.

'Criteria' as you put it applies in only one way.

> >> >> This is important because we live
> >> >> > with the past and the past justifies present property rights.
> >> >>
> >> >> To some extent, yes. The ill gotten consumable gains will not be
> >> >recovered, but
> >> >> they will soon be consumed or rot away.
> >> >
> >> >Wrong as wrong can be.
> >>
> >> Fact.
> >
> >It's called economic growth.
>
> No, it isn't. Everything you say is wrong.

If one generation of stored labor were depleted or depreciated away such
that the next had no access to such, then we would still be in the
stone-age.

> >> >The owners of this ill-gotten wealth will not let it
> >> >'rot', but will invest it to make themselves rich at others' expense.
> >>
> >> First, consumable gains typically cannot be invested, they can only be
> >> sold and the proceeds invested. Whoever buys them will either consume
> >> them, let them rot, or sell them to someone else who will consume
> >> them, let them rot, or sell them, etc. So you are wrong about that.
> >
> >Consumables are but one sub-component of stored labor.
>
> There is no such thing as stored labor, and consumables are
> _what_he_was_talking_about_.

Stored labor is the positive effects left by human actions. Perhaps he was
talking about consumables, but I was referring to all stored labor.

> >The likes of rail
> >track labor is another. With consumables, they can (and frequently do)
> >create more investment.
>
> No, they are just consumed.

Nope. If the stored labor is a means of production, then it will produce
economic growth in that regard, for one does not usually consume productive
capital (like railroads). If the stored labor is consumable, then the land
exploition of such will cause the landowner to obtain consumables above what
he would naturally, thus allowing him to concentrate his resources on
investment.

> >If one has more consumables, then they can invest
> >more. If a slaveowner has his slaves pick all his food, then the
slaveowner
> >can build a nice mansion.
>
> We don't have any slave owners now.

We have exploitation, where certain entities trade their inequality of
opportunity for labor. Close enough to slavery for me.

> >Just because he built this mansion, doesn't mean
> >it should be his.
>
> Yes, it should. It's the slaves that shouldn't.

He couldn't build that house without slave efforts. Say the slaves are
freed...then what?

> >> Second, in contrast to landowning, investment in the economic sense
> >> enhances production of goods and services, to the _benefit_ of others,
> >> not at the _expense_ of others. So you are also wrong about that.
> >
> >Not to get off track, but that is debatable.
>
> No, actually, it isn't.

One trades on the increment of assocition and the subdivision on that
increment. The bargainning power for the poor on that increment is their
ability to abstain from production. If the rich (through their newly
created robots) can be independent of the peasents, then the peasents lose
their ability to abstain from production, for the owner of the means of
production can better do likewhise. They then lose bargainning power and
with it labor.

> >If there exists land A, serf A
> >and landbaron B, then should if A creates a robot for the landbaron to
also
> >work the fields, then the serf will have to work extra hard, for robot is
> >competing for him with his labor. An artificial overpopulation to
consume
> >scarce resources... That the serf did not pursue the post-robot era work
to
> >start with testifies to its lessor economic worth, which means the serf
will
> >have to work extra hard. It gets real fun when the robots start making
more
> >robots, thus making the peasent insignificant in the eyes of the
landlord.
>
> Incomprehensible.

Overpopulation with fixed land causes problems right? Each person will
compete out each other for limited land. Now what if 90% of the
overpopulated people were really robots? Do you see?

> >> >> Land, the enduring factor of production
> >> >> will be accessible to all on equal terms as a result of LVT.
> >> >
> >> >No it won't.
> >>
> >> Yes, it will. Everything you say is wrong.
> >
> >How does your system determine between those who are landless and those
who
> >have land?
>
> By a secret, complicated method you cannot possibly understand:
> looking at whether they have land or not.
....some odd minutes later then responds:
>>How do you own land then?
>
>You don't.

Eh?

> >> >Your situation would defend the status quo for the landowners.
> >>
> >> ??? They'd have to pay to keep the land. That's not the status quo.
> >> Everything you say is wrong.
> >
> >You either charge them too little, to protect the little land owner and
thus
> >undercharge them (the big landowners), or you charge them too much, thus
> >punishing the little landowner.
>
> No, I don't. Why do you imagine I am as stupid as you, when I have
> demolished you repeatedly?

Soo... How much do you charge these 'land-owners'?

> >> >Landownership would still be justified by quant tradition at the
expense
> >of
> >> >the landless.
> >>
> >> Nope. Everything you say is wrong.
> >
> >A still goes to the court and defends his claim on land against C because
he
> >bought it up from B.
>
> The court wouldn't care. Who's paying the tax?

The landowner (supposedly)...so how does that help the judge?

> >> >What you propose is private ownership of assets
> >>
> >> Not land. Everything you say is wrong.
> >
> >If there is no private ownership of land, then who do you tax?
>
> Those who want to _use_ the land.

So if there is no private ownership, there then therefore are no land sales,
no land for rent, no tresspassing restrictions, etc...? What if there is a
dispute over who gets to pay taxes?

> >> >and
> >> >yet the impossibility for those assets to earn a positive return.
> >>
> >> Nauseatingly wrong, stupid, and dishonest. The return to assets would
> >> depend on how productively they were employed.
> >
> >So how much of that production do you determine to be taxable?
>
> The rent.

What rent?

> >>If there
> >> >is no gain to be gotten from landownership, there will be NO
> >landownership.
> >>
> >> Bingo. Except by the community, which gets the rent.
> >
> >So the community will pay taxes to itself?
>
> The users will pay taxes to the community.

Won't the community raise land prices, by their having more money?

> >> >This is the contradiction of LVT and why it will fail.
> >>
> >> <yawn> Except that wherever it has been tried, it has always worked
> >> in proportion to the extent that it has been tried.
> >
> >Let me guess...these LVT examples are just like your non-taxed
gold-standard
> >examples?
>
> Historical facts I identified for you and you ignored. Right.

Please name one state that used gold as a store of value, and didn't have
the option of exchanging it for debts to government:

> >> What you refuse to permit yourself to know is that land _owning_ is
> >> something quite different from land _using_. _Using_ land would still
> >> be profitable with LVT. It's just idle _owning_ of land that would
> >> not.
> >
> >What's the difference?
>
> Go to a kindergarten class and ask the stupidest-looking boy the
> difference between a tenant and a landlord. He will be able to
> enlighten you.

That's not the difference between paying rent on idle land and paying rent
on productive land.

> >> >> > Additionally, LVT advocates argue the status quo distrubtion of
> >> >> > landownership is not relevant, for LVT will take care of any
> >injustices,
> >> >> > which is false. That is like saying LVT will have the exact same
> >effect
> >> >and
> >> >> > outcome on the economy, where ownership is held by 1, 1% of the
> >> >population,
> >> >> > 50% of the population or if land is evenly held.
> >> >>
> >> >> That's not what I said. I said LVT indirectly redistributes land.
> >This
> >> >happens
> >> >> because one, there is no longer incentive to hold land for
investment
> >> >purposes and
> >> >> two, because using land at less than market potential is a losing
> >> >proposition. LVT
> >> >> will reallocate land from land investors to land users.
> >> >
> >> >You don't seem to think it is important the status quo disbursment of
> >land
> >> >before the tax occurs, which is not right.
> >>
> >> Of course he knows it is important. There are usually immovable
> >> improvements to the land, which are in almost all cases owned by the
> >> current landowners. LVT does not address any injustice involved in
> >> how those improvements came to be owned by the landowner. That is a
> >> matter for other measures. LVT can't do everything, nor can it do
> >> what it does do perfectly or instantaneously. What measure can?
> >
> >If LVT can't do anything, then why does it bother?
>
> I say LVT can't do everything, an obvious truism, you say it can't do
> anything, an obvious lie.
>
> So the better question is, why do _I_ bother?

So you accept your perfect solution is flawed?

> >> >On the incentive part, why would a poor landless person buy the land,
if
> >> >they have to pay horrendous taxes on it (taxes that forced the rich
owner
> >to
> >> >sell it).
> >>
> >> They wouldn't "buy" it.
> >
> >How do you own land then?
>
> You don't.

Roy of ~10 minutes ago disagrees.

> >>They'd just pay to use it, assuming they were
> >> the most productive prospective user. And the taxes would not be
> >> "horrendous." They'd be just fractionally more than the second-most
> >> productive user would _willingly_ pay for use of the land.
> >
> >What determines who is the most productive user?
>
> The rent they are willing and able to pay.

Does government hold some kind of auction for the land then? What if the
auction is fixed?

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