Re: Eminent Domain Abuse

royls_at_telus.net
Date: 03/09/05 

Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 23:04:49 GMT

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:43:01 -0800, "David Schwartz"
<davids@webmaster.com> wrote:

><royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:422e4414.28549974@news.telus.net...
>
>>> Consider a person working at Burger King. Think about the value of
>>> their
>>>labor. Their labor may make it possible for someone else to avoid cooking
>>>dinner and do something tremendously productive in that time.
>
>> ?? That's not value created by the Burger King cook but by the
>> individual who actually performs the labor. You are spouting
>> nonsense.
>
> The difference between the value of the cooking and the value of the
>something else *is* created by the Burger King cook.

No, it is not. Such a claim is nonsensical on its face.

>>>Their labor
>>>will make some money for the company they work for. They most likely
>>>cannot
>>>fully extract all of this value. The situation is no different from a case
>>>where labor improves land values.
>
>> Garbage. The labor that improves land value does so through
>> externalities that cannot, repeat, _cannot_ be recovered by contracts.
>
> You keep saying this and everytime it's refuted,

It has never yet been refuted, certainly not by you.

>you pretend the
>refutation doesn't matter. You equivocate between whether none of it can be
>recovered or whether some of it can. (You have yet to take a consistent
>position.)

The question is easily resolved by appeal to objective reality: how
much of it actually _is_ recovered?

But of course, you will not allow mere facts of objective reality to
color your views...

>>>Every form of labor creates value
>>>that other people enjoy and that the laborer cannot extract the true value
>>>of. A sequence of even exchanges leaves everyone better off.
>
>> That has _nothing_ to do with the problem of externalities affecting
>> land value.
>
> It has everything to do with the problem of externalities.

No, it doesn't.

>People won't
>do things unless it's in their interest.

Wrong. They buy lottery tickets.

You can cash in your shattered arguments at the door as you leave.
Scrap electrons don't have a lot of market value, though.

>If they benefit others in the
>process, they can try to extract the benefit to others by contract. If they
>can't, then they're not entitled to it.

Fine. Every goverment-issued land title (i.e., all of them) is a
contract that says the owner will keep the taxes current or give up
the land. So the public that creates the value in land _already_has_
every right to recover it. _By_contract_.

>>> The point is that people have the right to use contracts to extract as
>>>much of the value of their labor as possible. That they cannot extract in
>>>this manner, they are not entitled to.
>
>> ?? But the beneficiary is entitled to pocket it? Why?
>
> I am not trying to defend a taking, you are.

No, you are.

>So I don't have to argue
>entitlement.

You have done nothing else.

>One child is born to Bill Gates and another child is born to a
>bum, I don't have to defend one child's entitlement to a life of wealth and
>privilege. You, however, would have to defend an attempt to take from one to
>give to the other.

That is what you have done.

>>>I am not entitled to bill you for
>>>making your life better, but I am entitled to bill you for the things you
>>>agree to buy from me.
>
>> And landowners are entitled to bill others for the benefits their
>> taxes already paid for.
>
> This has what to do with an LVT?!

Only everything. Land value _is_ the discounted present value of the
income the owner can get by charging others for the services and
infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities
the community provides, and the resources nature provides.

You will notice that conspicuous by its absence from this list is
anything the _landowner_ provides.

-- Roy L

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