Re: Don't Forget Mises -- and Dump the Third Way!

royls_at_telus.net
Date: 10/03/04 

Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 20:55:01 GMT

On 22 Sep 2004 03:26:40 -0700, nini_pad@yahoo.com (michael price)
wrote:

>royls@telus.net wrote in message news:<413e1339.11504584@news.telus.net>...
>> On 6 Sep 2004 08:31:39 -0700, nini_pad@yahoo.com (michael price)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >royls@telus.net wrote in message news:<4134e19a.19476988@news.telus.net>...
>> >> On 31 Aug 2004 03:40:54 -0700, nini_pad@yahoo.com (michael price)
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >royls@telus.net wrote in message news:<412e3cca.9637554@news.telus.net>...
>> >> >> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:29:40 -0700, "Michael Price"
>> >> >> <nini_pad@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> >"Ron Allen" <rallen2@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>> >> >> >news:eYOWc.18310$cx.15800@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> In my opinion, the initial distribution of wealth
>> >> >> >> is itself a redistribution scheme, because those
>> >> >> >> who produce wealth are not the one's the wealth is
>> >> >> >> being distributed to.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Then you should be able to show an instance of people actually taking the
>> >> >> >wealth away, and you can't.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I certainly can: landowners demand wealth from producers in return for
>> >> >> access to what the producers would have had access to for free were it
>> >> >> not for the landowners.
>> >> >
>> >> > Absolute rot,
>> >>
>> >> It is fact.
>> >>
>> >> >nobody has the right to use whatever natural resources
>> >> >they want to without payment.
>> >>
>> >> Access to is not the same as right to use.
>> >>
>> > I fail the difference between access and right to use.
>>
>> Access is a matter of liberty. Right is a matter of morality.
>>
> So the practical difference is zero.

That depends on whether you regard the immoral as practical. If the
landowner simply does nothing, the user gets access for free. But he
is then just pocketing the rent in place of the landowner, and while
he is at least contributing something to the community by why of
production, he is not compensating the community for the benefits he
is receiving, and thus has no more _right_ than the landowner to deny
others use of the land.

>> >> People can obtain the _right_ to use natural resources by compensating
>> >> the community for the lost opportunity.
>> >
>> > So in other words you lied when you claimed that: "landowners demand
>> >wealth from producers in return for access to what the producers would
>> >have had access to for free were it not for the landowners."
>>
>> No. The community, through government, administers possession and use
>> of the land in any case, and is thus the ultimate landowner.
>
> And that means you lied. You claimed producers would not have to pay
>and they would.

??? Garbage. You asked for an example of non-producers taking wealth
under the current system. Under the current system, if the landowner
does not demand any money in return for his zero contribution, the
producer gets to use the land for free.

>> The only
>> significant difference between paying rent to a private landowner and
>> paying it to the community is that the services, infrastructure,
>> amenities and opportunities that give the land its rental value are
>> provided by the community, and not by the private landowner.
>>
> And that's good how?

Value for value is just. Some people getting something for nothing
while others get nothing for something is unjust. Justice is better
than injustice.

>> >> But everyone naturally has access to all natural resources, unless
>> >> they are forcibly denied it.
>>
>> Why do you choose to call me a liar rather than understand the above?
>>
> Because you are a liar and I understood it perfectly.

You are either a liar, or you still don't understand it.
  
>> >> >Even if you are a dedicated Georgist
>> >> >the user of natural resources still has to pay.
>> >>
>> >> The community always controls access to local resources as a matter of
>> >> fact.
>> >
>> > No they don't.
>>
>> Yes, they do.
>
> My knife says they don't.

You had better shut your knife up, before it gets you killed. And if
you do shut it up, that will prove you wrong just as much as your
death would: the community _does_ control access to natural resources.

>> >Those who happen to be there and willing to defend
>> >it control access.
>>
>> No. They have to also be _able_ to defend it to control access.
>> That's the community.
>
> So if a single man is able to defend a claim he's a "community"?

The community could easily dispossess him. His defense of his claim
depends on the acquiescence of the community -- effectively, the
delegation of its authority to him.
 
>> >How can the "community" control something when it
>> >can't even be defined?
>>
>> For the purposes of allocating possession and use of land, the
>> community is the set of all people living under the same land
>> allocation authority (geographic sovereign).
>>
> So in other words it's not the community at all it's the
>residents of a political State which presumably defines
>itself.

That is the practical reality of community. There are certainly many
places where people who live across the street from one another are
members of different communities, and consider themselves so.

>> >What makes one person part of the community
>> >and another not.
>>
>> Whether they live under the same land allocating authority.
>>
> And what makes them under the same land allocating authority?

Where they live, and the geographic boundaries of the relevant
authorities.

>> >> In a Georgist community, that control is exercised in the
>> >> community's interest, making the community in effect the landowner
>> >> that exacts payment from resource users (producers and consumers
>> >> both).
>> >
>> > And how is this "community" different from the State?
>>
>> The State is somewhat abstract:
>
> Real guns real murder, not all that abstract.

Guns and murder don't define states. You are just spouting garbage.

>> the community is the set of actual people the state, as an
>> institution, exercises its authority over.
>>
> And those people vary with time and place.

Of course.

>> >I mean why would the community behave better than a private landowner?
>>
>> When the community recovers rent, it is recovering the value of what
>> _it_ provides.
>
> No it isn't.

Yes, it is. You are just spouting garbage.

>God or chance provided the land.

And the land had no value until the community came along.

>> When the private landowner captures and retains rent,
>> he is appropriating the value of what the community provides.
>> Community recovery of rent is thus a value-for-value transaction,
>> while private capture of rent is parasitism.
>>
> So it's "valuable" when a community charges insists on a fee
>by force by not when a landowner does it?

?? No, it's valuable either way, of course. I'm not sure how you are
managing to deceive yourself on this point. The issue is, who _gets_
that value. Land value is land value no matter whether the community
that creates it or a prasitic landowner gets it, just as blood is
blood, whether it circulates to support the body's own life functions
or is sucked out by a parasite.

>> >Why is
>> >it better that the rent on natural resources go to those who hold a
>> >monopoly of force over the community than people who only control
>> >those resources?
>>
>> Because the use value of those resources (rent) comes from the
>> community.
>
> No it doesn't, not if you define "the community" as "the set of
>all people living under the same land allocation authority
>(geographic sovereign)."

Yes, it just flat-out _does_, certainly incomparably more so than it
comes from the owner. There is admittedly some contribution by other
communities based on the existence of recognized terms of trade,
diplomatic resources, a broad industrial infrastructure, etc., but
such inter-community contributions to land value are partly or wholly
offset by each local community's spending on foreign embassies, mutual
defense arrangements, trade dispute resolution mechanisms, etc.

>The people who make the land useful
>may be entirely, partly, or not at all the set of people living
>under one State. It would be rare indeed for all of the value
>of Australian agricultural or mining land to come from serving
>Australians.

The value does not come from "serving Australians." It is the
_economic_advantage_ conferred by use that determines value. And that
advantage _does_ come from the Australian people and government.

>> >> In the current system that control is exercised, at taxpayer
>> >> expense, for the unearned benefit of private landowners who exact the
>> >> payments. The user in a Georgist community has to pay the community
>> >> that gives the resource its value, not a parasite who contributes
>> >> nothing.
>> >
>> > And what community is that? The community of Liechhardt? The
>> >community of Sydney? The community of New South Wales? Or the
>> >community of Australia?
>>
>> Australia is the sovereign. There is no higher land-allocating
>> authority in Australia, and the land allocating powers exercised by
>> the states, cities and towns are delegated ones.
>
> *** you, Leichhardt independence forever! We will resist the
>tyranical hell of Canberra!

Liar.
  
>> >Actually Australia is a very export oriented
>> >country so natuarally the whole world contributes to it's value.
>>
>> No. If that were the case, land in places that have no government
>> would be just as valuable as land in plces that do.
>
> Non sequitur.

No, it is a perfectly valid inference. If the whole world was
contributing the value, land in Australia would be worth no more than
land in Somalia.

>The whole world contributes to the value of Australian
>land by buying things produced with and on it. The presence or absence
>of government has nothing to do with it.

That is just stupidity. It is the government that makes it _possible_
to produce the things at all. That is why land in Australia is more
productive (and commensurately more valuable) than very similar land
in somalia, West Africa, etc. where governments are incompetent or
non-existent.

>> But it isn't. It's worthless.
>>
> And your evidence for that would be.

The actual lack of land value in anarchic places like Somalia, West
Africa, Afghanistan, etc.

>> >So basically rent would be a tax paid to a global government.
>>
>> If there were one, it would be the highest land allocating authority.
>>
> If there is not one then the "community that creates the value" isn't
>getting the rent and that would be wrong...

True, recovering land rent in one community does not mitigate the
injustice of landowner privilege elsewhere.

>> >> But in both cases access would be free if not for the
>> >> landowner, public or private.
>>
>> Please read the above. If you understand it, you will of course
>> retract your false accusation that I lied.
>
> No you lied.

No, actually you are the liar, as I have proved repeatedly.
  
>> >> >> And then government takes wealth from the producers and spends it
>> >> >> in ways that make the land more desirable, so the productive have
>> >> >> to pay the landowners even more for doing nothing.
>> >> >
>> >> > That's not what the government generally does.
>> >>
>> >> Yes, of course it is, at least the reasonably honest and competent
>> >> governments of democratic countries.
>> >
>> > No it isn't.
>>
>> Yes, it just flat-out _is_.
>>
> No evidence.

The evidence is all around you. You simply refuse to know the facts
that your eyes already perceive.

>> >What does the right of eminent domain do to make the
>> >land more attractive?
>>
>> It ensures that needed infrastructure, etc. will not be blocked by the
>> privileges of private landowners.
>
> Oh so the violations of private property rights

There were no violations of private property rights, lying filth. The
community's right of eminent domain was an explicit condition of the
original grant of title to the land.

You are destroyed. As always.

>were solely made to
>enhance the value of private property rights?

There is little doubt that for the most part, exercise of eminent
domain increases total land value.

>Sorry but they aren't.

<yawn> You are just wrong. As usual.

> "Needed" infrastructure isn't that hard to construct without eminent
>domain.

Yes, actually, it is. You are just wrong.

>Railroads were constructed without it and so were sewers etc.

Examples? Thought not.

>I fail to see how a General Motors plant or a parking lot is either
>"needed" or "infrastructure".

Those are certainly not typical uses of eminent domain. But they
could fall under "etc."

>> But in any case, exercise of
>> eminent domain is such a tiny fraction of government activity that it
>> is at best misleading to claim that it represents what government
>> "generally" does.
>>
> It is extortion to give stuff to it's friends, that's what
>government generally does.

Infantile propaganda.

>> >In fact it makes it a lot less attractive to
>> >own land or to improve it.
>>
>> Garbage. The infrastructure made possible by exercise of eminent
>> domain adds far more to the value of other land than it takes from the
>> land it is applied to.
>
> Then private enterprise could simply buy the surrounding land and
>build the infrastructure.

Nope. Wrong. Private interests couldn't afford to meet the demands
of all private landowners any more than the community can, and even if
they could, without the power to levy a tax on the resulting increased
land value, they would have no way to recover it. Your false and
silly claims merely prove your imperviousness to fact and logic.
 
>> >> There are exceptions, like the War on Drugs and foreign military
>> >> adventures, but they are few and generally unimportant.
>> >
>> > The war on drugs is generally unimportant?
>>
>> Well, it is important in the places where the dishonest and
>> incompetent US government wages it.
>
> Which is basically the entire world.

Garbage. It wages it noticeably in the USA and a few places in Latin
America.

>> But it is not what government per
>> se is about, and is not a major factor in the governments of most
>> countries.
>>
> The hell it aint.

Your ignorance is showing.

>> >The thousands or wars
>> >the State fights are unimportant?
>>
>> Honest and competent democratic governments do not start wars.
>
> Yeah right, except with bad people.

How many wars has the Australian government started, lying fool?

>> >That is such a fucking insult to
>> >the millions who died in them I can't begin to think how to answer
>> >it politely, dickweed!
>>
>> <yawn> You have already forgotten the context: the reasonably honest
>> and competent governments of democratic countries. Not aggressive
>> dictatorships and despotisms.
>
> I have not forgotten anything.

Then as I thought but did not say, you were lying.

>Name these "reasonably honest and
>competent governments of democratic countries" that are so peaceful.

The Australian government, for one.

>My bet is you don't live in one.

You lose. I'm Canadian.
 
>> >In fact the
>> >State does lots of things that make land less valuable like
>> >protectionism, arbitary arrest, censorship, racial laws prohibiting
>> >people from certain professions or trade and many others.
>>
>> True, unlike fantasized libertarian utopias, no state is perfect;
>
> The low standards of statists, sigh...

Unlike you, I do not refuse to know how much better my life is than
the lives of people living in libertarian utopias like Somalia, West
Africa, Afghanistan, etc.

>> and
>> not _everything_ the state does enhances land value. But the great
>> bulk of state activity does increase land value, as proved by the
>> vastly higher land values where there is a state than where there
>> isn't.
>
> And where is there not a State?

Many areas on the southern fringe of the Sahara have no effective
government, and the "states" there are little more than lines on a
map.

>Nowhere, and if the lack of a State
>was threatened a State would jump in immediately with violence.

States (especially neighboring ones) "jump in immediately with
violence" where there is no state because of the danger anarchy poses
to their own citizens. When rival gangs are constantly shooting it
out, innocent bystanders are going to get hit.
 
>> >> However, you are correct in that extremely corrupt and tyrannical
>> >> governments may not make the land within their borders more desirable
>> >> than land where there is no government, but that is a rare case
>> >> indeed.
>> >
>> > Then name a government that doesn't!
>>
>> ?? Doesn't what?
>
> Make land less valuable.

Almost all of them, except maybe North Korea's. Certainly all the
governments of OECD countries make the land within their borders far
more valuable.
 
>> >> Is land in North Korea, Myanmar or Zimbabwe really worth less than
>> >> land in the anarchic areas of Somalia, Western Sahara, etc.?
>> >
>> > There are no anarchic areas of Somalia or Western Sahara.
>>
>> Yes, of course there are. Your ignorance is showing.
>>
> No there is no anarchic areas of Somalia or Western Sahara,

ROTFL!! Your ignorance is showing again.

>there
>are areas where the State in charge changes daily, but no true anarchies.

Where the gang in charge changes daily, that _is_ true anarchy. There
is no other way to have anarchy.

>In any case paid agents of the State are daily committing violence there.

?? You think anarchy means no one will accept money for doing
violence?

>> > Goverments intrude in those countries all the time and where they
>> > don't terrorists backed by governments do.
>>
>> That is what anarchy is: the rule of a thousand tyrants.
>
> He claims without evidence.

ROTFL!! The evidence of all human history is unanimous:
no government = too many would-be governors.

>> An _intrusion_ by government or government-backed thugs is not
>> _establishment_ of government.
>
> What else is it?

State power applied outside the state.

>> A power that hasn't the power to allocate land within a given
>> geographic area over a period of years is not a government.
>>
> Killing people is a fairly easy way to reallocate the land.

But if you can't make that reallocation stick, you haven't established
a government. All you've done is add to the anarchy.

>> >> >> >> Instead, the producers do all the producing, and the proprietors
>> >> >> >> do the all the appropriating.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Proprietors are producers Ron, there is such a thing as indirect
>> >> >> >production.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Some proprietors are producers. Some do nothing.
>> >> >
>> >> > All proprietors are producers
>> >>
>> >> Like your other claims, that is just flat false.
>> >
>> > Assertion is not evidence.
>>
>> ?? ROTFL!! What is your claim but bald assertion?
>
> I have backed that claim up repeatedly.

Liar. You have _never_ produced _one_single_ fact or logical argument
to back up that assertion. Not one.
 
>> >> >because contributing capital to production
>> >> >is prodcutive
>> >>
>> >> Land and other natural resources are not capital in the economic
>> >> sense, and are not contributed by the proprietor because they would
>> >> have been there, just the same, even had neither the proprietor nor
>> >> any previous proprietor ever existed.
>> >
>> > But someone would have to decide to contribute them or not.
>>
>> No. No one can possibly contribute natural resources because they are
>> there without any help, and do not originate with anyone. They can
>> only be allocated, not contributed.
>
> But if someone owns them they can contribute them, whether or not they
>created them.

No. The owner does not contribute a natural resource to production,
any more than a government bureacrat "contributes" to construction by
granting a building permit.

>If noone owns them then allocation is violently chaotic.

Only if there is no government.
 
>> >Otherwise whoever grabs it first gets it and is in effect the
>> >proprietor.
>>
>> But still not the contributor. It should be obvious (but of course is
>> not, at least to you) that simply grabbing something that was already
>> there does not make one a contributor to production.
>
> It's not obvious because the act of grabbing means that you get to
>decide what to contribute it to, and that's valuable because it ends
>violent dispute over it.

?? Nonsense. Grabbing doesn't end violent disputes. It's just one
more instance of violence. It's only when the grab is _legitimized_
by government and the community that the violent disputes end. But of
course, that legitimation is a contribution by the community, not the
grabber, so the grabber still contributes nothing.
  
>> >> Claims such as money, stocks, and debt instruments are also not
>> >> capital;
>> >
>> > They are stored value and the value was produced, such value is one
>> >thing needed to produced,
>>
>> No. That is why economists do not recognize debts and such as factors
>> of production: if A agrees to pay B $x in the future, it does nothing
>> to increase production. He could just as well agree to pay $10x, and
>> the effect on production would be the same. So you are just wrong.
>
> Learn to read, they are stored value.

Learn to think: that is irrelevant. A diamond necklace is also stored
value. Is it a factor of production?

>Such value is required to produce.

No, it just flat isn't.

>> >it is therefore capital, the means of
>> >production.
>>
>> No. That is definitely false. Paper money is not a store of wealth
>> and does nothing to increase production. And "the means of
>> production" includes both capital and land.
>>
> The value that backs paper money is a store of wealth,

No, it most definitely is not. The value of paper money is based on
legal tender laws and taxation, not any sort of "store of wealth."

>otherwise why would you want the paper money?

Ultimately, just to pay taxes with.

>> >> and in any case, owning capital is not the same as contributing
>> >> capital,
>> >
>> > But it is a neccesary first step.
>>
>> No, the necessary first step is production of the capital by labor.
>>
> Ok, then a neccesary second step, but a step neccesary and prior to
>contributing capital.
>
>> >Those who own it contribute it
>> >because they have the authority to make the decision.
>>
>> No. Having power over a production factor does not make one a
>> contributor to production. It makes one a rent seeker.
>>
> Yes it does make you a contributor to production because someone
>has to make the decision.

Wrong. By that "logic" a government bureaucrat who issues a building
permit is just as much a contributor to production as the guy who
pounds the nails. Such claims are self-evidently false and
ridiculous.

>> >> especially if the capital is already productively employed when
>> >> the proprietor comes into ownership of it:
>> >
>> > If it was then why did they sell it?
>>
>> ??? How should I know? Ask the seller.
>
> The answer kinda destroys your point.

No, it proves that you have no point.

>> Or maybe there was no seller, and the capital was a gift or bequest.
>
> Fine then the reciever contributes by not changing the capital use
>to a less useful productive path.

?? He contributes by not getting in the way? Then how is he doing
any more than the bureaucrat issuing the permit?

>Avoiding this decision is valuable,
>and someone has to do it because someone has to have the power to decide
>how the capital is used.

<snicker> Don't look now, but you just said that government
bureaucrats who tell people what to do with their capital are just as
productive as the owners.
 
>> >> that capital has already been contributed, with no help from the new
>> >> owner.
>> >
>> > But buying capital makes it more profitable to produce capital and
>> >thus contributes to the production of both capital and consumer goods.
>>
>> The inheritor of capital does nothing to make capital either more
>> abundant or more productive.
>
> Sure he does, he continues exercising the power to decide how to use
>it, without which it's useless.

Lie. The people who are using it are already exercising that power.
He is just a parasite, demanding payment for fulfilling an entirely
spurious role.

>> Indeed, it takes an act of willful
>> refusal to prevent oneself from knowing that inherited capital is very
>> often promptly misallocated by its new owners, _reducing_ total
>> production.
>
> Very often meaning of course that you heard it happened at least
>twice.

I appreciate your admission that you do refuse to know any of the
facts that prove you wrong.
 
>> > Contributing capital is an expensive process and therefore workers
>> > might not want to do it, particularly if someone else can do it
>> > cheaper. This is quite likely if that person buys the capital. In
>> > any case the use they are putting it to might not be the most
>> > productive use. A proprietor is neccesary to make the change.
>>
>> ??? A new proprietor might just as easily allocate the capital to a
>> less productive use. Why should he be rewarded for that?
>>
> He isn't fool, he's punished with lower profits.

?? That is a lie. He isn't punished. He loses nothing. He still
gets money for what he does, just less than if he had continued to do
nothing.

>> >> >and to do that you need someone who owns capital.
>> >>
>> >> Normally, that would be the capital's producer or someone who paid him
>> >> for producing it.
>> >
>> > Yes and what of it?
>>
>> Sometimes it isn't.
>
> So if he stole arrest him.

You're refusing to know the facts again. The owner of land is _never_
the land's producer or someone who paid its producer, because no one
produced it. That is very much the point.
 
>> >> Does a thief or landowner who got the capital in return for no
>> >> contribution also count as a "productive proprietor" in your world?
>> >>
>> > And who says that landowner got anything in return for no
>> >contribution?
>>
>> I say he got capital in return for no contribution. He charged rent
>> for use of resources that would have been there anyway,
>
> But without a landowner nobody could use it exclusively and thus
>more usefully than in hunter/gatherer mode.

??? ROTFL!! More lies. The landowner doesn't secure the tenant's
tenure. Government does. The landowner is just a pure parasite.

>> and used it to
>> buy capital that would have been used productively anyway.
>
> If he had not bought it would as much capital have been produced?

Probably more, as the money would have been left in the hands of
producers instead of being appropriated by a parasite. The point is,
the landowner who devotes money to buying capital is no more
productive than the thief who does so. Both are parasites who take
money from producers; and producers are most certainly more likely to
use that money productively than are thieves or landowners.

>> contributed exactly nothing, but got something. That means others who
>> were contributing something were getting nothing.
>>
>> >The act of establishing rights to a natural
>> >resources is a contribution
>>
>> But the landowner does not do that. The community does.
>
> No the community just goes along with it.

No, that is just another of your stupid lies with no foundation
whatever in fact.

>> The landowner just takes advantage of it.
>>
> No the landowner establishes the rights,

Utter garbage. Your claim has no basis in historical fact.

>we know this because
>why would anyone else establish rights for another to own land?

Because that is government's job: to secure peoples' rights.

Your whole argument is thereby obliterated -- permanently, totally,
and irredeemably.

>> >because it makes it possible for those
>> >resources to be used in the most useful way rather than the first
>> >way that's convenient, regardless of whether it's the best use.
>>
>> Community recovery of land rent stimulates more productive use of land
>> than private landowner privilege.
>>
> How?

By ensuring that one can only profit by productive use, and not by
holding land idle for speculative gain. This is not a mystery. It is
a fact well known to economists -- though not, of course, to lying
ignoramuses like you.

-- Roy L