Re: Distribution & Redistribution

royls_at_telus.net
Date: 11/22/04 

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 21:33:53 GMT

On 21 Nov 2004 05:16:09 -0800, chriscoll@panola.com (William C Colley)
wrote:

>William C Colley
>
>royls@telus.net wrote in message news:<419fc050.22938510@news.telus.net>...
>> On 19 Nov 2004 13:45:54 -0800, chriscoll@panola.com (William C Colley)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Greetings All,
>> >
>> >royls@telus.net wrote in message news:<419d2003.21339134@news.telus.net>...
>> >> On 16 Nov 2004 10:56:22 -0800, chriscoll@panola.com (William C Colley)
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >Seems to me so long as
>> >> >land titles can only be owned by individuals, all of us who are mortal
>> >> >and can't take it with us, then a land value tax based on the amount
>> >> >of land one actually owns, collected by local county or possibly State
>> >> >governments, could be a bearable tax so long as it was assessed and
>> >> >collected without attempt to punish those who, for whatever motives,
>> >> >had accumlated land legally in the past.
>> >>
>> >> It is normal for those who have been the beneficiaries of an injustice
>> >> to claim that its amelioration would "punish" them, while studiously
>> >> ignoring all the punishment _already_inflicted_ and
>> >> _still_being_inflicted_ on its victims.
>> >
>> >Your underscoring notwithstanding, how specifically in the USA can
>> >currently living individuals be said to have unjustly acquired land,
>> >so long as the acquisition was legal by the laws they lived under?
>>
>> It's not any given acquisition of land that is unjust (although that
>> can happen with land as with anything else), any more than it is a
>> given purchase of a slave that is unujust.
>
>My apologies Mr. Roy, but any analogy you make regarding land
>ownership and slavery is absurd.

No, it is not. I just made one that is perfectly valid and accurate:
like the injustice of slavery, the injustice of land ownership does
not lie in the nature of any given transaction or transactions, but in
the system that makes such transactions possible in the first place.

>Humans are not land, and owning land
>as property is in no way equivalent to owning humans as property.

<sigh> The point is, your defenses of private landownership rest on
the _assumption_ that property per se is always rightful. I have
proved that it is not. Therefore, _all_ defenses of private
landownership that rest on that assumption are _already_known_ to be
invalid.

You said:

"how specifically in the USA can
currently living individuals be said to have unjustly acquired land,
so long as the acquisition was legal by the laws they lived under?"

Substitute 1860 for now, and slaves for land:

"how specifically in the USA can
currently living individuals be said to have unjustly acquired slaves,
so long as the acquisition was legal by the laws they lived under?"

The "logic" of that argument -- _your_ logic -- is the same in both
cases. But the legal environment has _nothing_to_do_ with the justice
of acquiring either slaves or land, because justice is not defined by
the law. Law is an _attempt_ to codify justice. Justice is the
standard of judgment, not law, and the justice of any given
acquisition of property is not dependent only on the conditions of
that acquisition, but on the justice of the _system_ by which it
occurred.
 
_Get_it_?

>As much agreement as I can find with a Georgist tax system administered
>by a libertarian government, as soon as you equate my owning my land
>and property with owing slaves you have just lost whatever credibility
>you may have.

<sigh> "As soon as you equate my owning my niggers with owning white
people, you have just lost whatever credibility you may have."

Stop using slave owner "logic," and I will stop identifying you as a
defender of slavery.

>Land is Not Human, therefore any arguments to be made
>against owning humans do not apply to owning land.

Wrong. _You_ are the one who is _constantly_ making arguments for
private property in land that are _logically_equivalent_ to arguments
that were made for ownership of slaves. Because we _already_know_
that what those arguments imply -- that slavery is rightful -- is
false, we also _already_know_ that those arguemnts are invalid in the
case of land.

I am not saying and have not said that owning land is the same as
owning slaves. I am pointing out that _your_ arguments in defense of
private landownership _cannot_ be valid, because they are _the_same_
as arguments that were used to defend chattel slavery. I am not the
one who is trying to make an analogy between landownership and
slavery. _You_ are the one who is trying to use the logic of slavery
to defend private property in land.

>> The injustice is in the
>> fact that the slave _can_ be purchased at all, and likewise with land.
>
>You have yet to explain to me why owning land is inherently unjust.

It privileges the landowner to compel others to pay _him_ for access
to the services and infrastructure government provides, the
opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the resources
nature provides. How can such a privilege possibly be just?

>Owning another human (explicitly owning them against their will) is
>unjust because all humans are free-will individuals like you and I.
>Land is inert, inanimate, and usless without humans to give it value.

Right. And it is the _owner_ who gets to pocket -- for doing
absolutely nothing -- the additional value that others --
_government_and_the_community_ -- create in the land.

>Individuals create their own value simply by existing and desiring.

Equivocation. Value is a market phenomenon. You are talking about
utility.

>I do not doubt there are those who place little or no value on owing
>land and actually prefer to travel and "share the earth" as it were.
>But I also do not doubt that there are those who feel a sense of
>belonging to their land, and a sense of ownership. To deny that this
>is a legitimate or just desire is to deny human nature Mr. Roy.

Wrong. Some people felt the same way about their slaves. And in any
case, for over 99% of the time people have been on earth, there was no
such thing as private property in land. How can it possibly be part
of human nature?

>> >So
>> >long as you attempt to portray all current land owners as somehow
>> >being befeficiaries of injustice, even when they themselves have not
>> >committed an injustice,
>>
>> But that's what's happening! The injustice is committed by government
>> when it grants them the privilege of private landownership, and taxes
>> others to pay for the services, infrastructure, etc. that fill the
>> landowners' pockets with rent.
>
>Then stop putting the burden on private land owners who, at least in
>the USA where I live and about which I have direct personal knowledge,
>have by a vast majorty acquired their land legally from their local
>governments.

I'm not sure what you mean by "putting the burden on private
landowners." They are the beneficiaries of an unjust, evil and
destructive system. If that system is to be ended, they are the ones
who will lose the privileges they currently enjoy. There is no way to
eliminate an injustice without removing the benefits enjoyed by its
beneficiaries.

>If you want to argue for changing government, well that makes a lot of
>sense to me and from what I understand of georgism it could be a fair
>way to collect taxes, but the fair would be completely dependent on
>the government which instituted georgism.

That goes without saying. But unless you can identify some reason why
a Georgist taxation system _cannot_ be implemented as proposed, the
fact that governments often do not implement policies fairly or
efficiently is not an argument against Georgism, any more than it is
an argument against any other system. To throw up one's hands and
accept corruption is not an argument against a non-corrupt
alternative.

>Given an authoritarian
>geogrist government no one would be safe from eviction from their
>property if it was decided they weren't making the "best use" of it
>that day.

"Authoritarian Georgist" is an oxymoron.

>I think I understand your point of view
>that, for those who own deed or title to land and expect their local
>government to act as a provider of security for them, there may be
>granted to them unfair or unjust advantage power by the government,
>but I see that as a problem with government, not a problem with land
>ownership.

?? How can they be disentangled? Governments administer possession
and use of the land under their sovereign authority. _Always_.
That's what government _is_.

>You, however, seem to equate land ownership with slavery,
>but since humans and land are not in anyway the same I fail to find
>your analogy compelling.

It is you who are trying to use the same logic that was used to defend
slavery to defend private landownership. In effect, the analogy
originates with you, not me. I am simply identifying that fact.

Before you essay an argument in defense of private landownership, ask
yourself if it is logically equivalent to an argument that could be
(or was) used to defend slavery. If it is, you _already_know_ that it
is invalid. So don't make it.

-- Roy L

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