Re: Eminent Domain Abuse
royls_at_telus.net
Date: 03/15/05
- Next message: johnny_at_.: "Re: Bill would deny U.S. citizenship to children of illegal aliens! HOORAY!"
- Previous message: Duncan Patton: "Re: Questions about Community Currency."
- In reply to: David Schwartz: "Re: Eminent Domain Abuse"
- Next in thread: robert j. kolker: "Re: Eminent Domain Abuse"
- Reply: robert j. kolker: "Re: Eminent Domain Abuse"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:43:47 GMT
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 23:57:59 -0800, "David Schwartz"
<davids@webmaster.com> wrote:
><royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:4233b438.42856624@news.telus.net...
>
>>> All land started out in the same state that land on the moon is in
>>>today.
>
>> ?? So what? That was before there was any life on earth, let alone
>> any people. There are no moral or economic issues to discuss about
>> that time. We are talking about once human beings are on the scene.
>> All human beings require the use of natural resources to live, and
>> they have a _right_ to use them, or they have no rights at all. Even
>> the right of property in the products of one's labor is derivative of
>> the right to have something to labor _on_.
>
> Precisely. And this is precisely the right you wish to take away.
?? Lie. The denial of that right is _your_ position.
>>>It is part of existence, but it would be impossible to deprive anyone
>>>of it because they are unable to use it.
>>
>> If there are no people, these questions are all moot. If there _are_
>> people, then of course it is possible to deprive them of land. People
>> have been using, contending over, and depriving each other of land for
>> millions of years.
>
> Sure, just as they have fought over anything of value.
You continue to chant the Marxist mantra that there is no difference
between denying someone else access to the products of one's own labor
and denying them access to pre-existing natural resources.
>>>All value in land is created by
>>>human effort just as the value of a car is.
>>
>> No, the process is entirely different, because the value of land is an
>> externality. The value of a car is produced by those who labor on it.
>> The value of land is almost all produced by those who labor on _other_
>> land.
>
> You are just being shortsighted. Building roads also increases the value
>of a car.
I have already demonstrated the falsity of that claim. It may
increase the _utility_ of a car for some people, but has no
predictable effect on the _value_. It may even reduce it.
>And what good is a car if there's no place to drive *to*? Everyone
>who opens a restaurant or an attraction increases the value of other
>peoples' cars.
The problem with your claim is that as a matter of objective fact,
they don't, because the supply of cars increases likewise. The
restaurants and attractions _do_ increase the value of land, though,
because its supply is fixed.
>And what of the people who invented the technologies that
>make cars possible, many long dead? How much of the value of a car is due to
>their labor?
It's impossible to say. But it is possible to say that none of its
value is due to the labor of landowners, because landowning is not a
form of labor, and contributes nothing whatever of value.
>>>>> So their ownership of their
>>>>>_products_ does not _deprive_ anyone of anything they would
>>>>>otherwise have been able to use.
>>>
>>> It is the same with land.
>>
>> ?? That is of course just a flat-out lie, like most of your claims.
>> When I produce something, denying it to others deprives them of
>> nothing they would otherwise have: if I hadn't produced it, they would
>> not have had access to it anyway. But when you claim to own land, you
>> deprive everyone who might want to use that land of an opportunity
>> they would otherwise have had. You are producing nothing. You are
>> only _taking_away_ an opportunity that was previously available to
>> others.
>
> The same is true when you claim to own a car.
That is of course a lie.
>You deprive everyone who
>might want to use that car of an oppurtunity they would otherwise have had.
You are dropping the context, and evading the fact that if no one paid
the car's producers, it would not be created, and nobody would have
the opportunity to use it.
You are destroyed.
>You are producing nothing, qua car owner.
Wrong. Directly or indirectly, you have _paid_ those who _did_
produce it for adding it to the total in existence, exchanging your
products for theirs. The landowner, OTOH, does not exchange his
product, because the land is not his product or anyone else's.
Private ownership of land, therefore, unlike ownership of a car,
ultimately does not trace to an act of production, but to an act of
appropriation -- i.e., theft.
>So long as you just imagine that a
>person starts out owning land,
That is the only way land can become private property in the first
place, as people cannot produce it.
>you conclude that they are not entitled to
>any benefit from it.
Lie. They are entitled to the benefit they obtain by their own
productive effort, and to the benefit for which they pay the community
that creates it.
>But if you start out by assuming someone starts out
>owning a car, you reach the same conclusion.
Your argument rests on a false claim: either that like cars, land is
produced by labor, or that like land, cars are not.
>> I'm not sure what you think you gain by denying such self-evident
>> facts.
>
> You are simply being selective in the facts you choose to pay attention
>to.
No. I am merely distinguishing the facts from your false claims.
>>>Someone taking ownership of the entire moon
>>>would not deprive you of anything you would otherwise have been able to
>>>use.
>>
>> ?? How do you know?
>
> I know because right now the moon has no value,
Then you are proved wrong right away. Air also has no value. That
doesn't mean that someone taking ownership of all the air would not
deprive you of something you would otherwise have been able to use.
You are destroyed.
>and I plan to add no value to it.
Others _do_ plan to add value to it.
You are destroyed again.
>So nobody could take anything from me by owning the moon.
And even if that were true _now_, that in no way argues that it will
always be true. And even if it would currently take nothing from
_you_, that in no way argues it would _never_ take _anything_ from
_anybody_.
>> And anyway, I am not the only potential user,
>> and this is not the only moment of time we need to consider.
>
> No, this *is* the only moment we need to consider.
OK, so your consciousness extends no farther than the range of the
moment. Others reading this are human beings, and are neither able
nor willing to obliterate their consciousnesses as you are yours.
>If you jump to the
>future, when the moon has value, you get to ignore the effort it took to
>create that value and pretend it is just there.
?? Liar. Rue explicitly identified the effort it would take to
create that value. But what productive "effort" is expended, and what
value is created, by an idle, greedy parasite just "taking ownership"
of the moon in order to place himself in the path of others' value
creation efforts and extort money from them for not blocking them??
> If you do the same thing with a car, jump to a point in time after the
>car is created, you can easily pretend that nobody is entitled to benefit
>from the car.
Right. And that is exactly what you try to do when you claim that
ownership of a car deprives others of their "right" to use it.
>Because you get to ignore the labor that created the car and
>the market process that resulted in some particular person owning it.
?? That is what _you_ have been trying to do. Hello?
> If you want to question ownership rights to the moon, you have to go
>back to before that value existed.
And it would be just as questionable then as after the fact. There
are lots of historical cases where land ownership has been granted
when the land was worthless, and then rescinded when it wasn't.
>If you want to question someone's right
>to do with the moon as they see fit, you must look at how they got that
>right in the first place.
?? You already said how they got it: they just _took_ it. Same as
the way all private ownership of land is ultimately obtained.
>After all, a car thief has no right to the benefit
>of a car because of the particulars of what happened *before* they owned the
>car.
They don't own the car, and the particulars of what happened before
they stole it are irrelevant. The relevant point is that he paid
neither the car's producers nor anyone who directly or indirectly paid
the car's producers for bringing it into existence. _That_ is why he
has no right to it. It doesn't matter if the car was previously
bought, or given away, or hand-built by the owner.
>> It is
>> true that land only commands rent when more than one person will pay
>> to use it, and maybe no one at all will pay to use land on the moon
>> right _now_. That doesn't mean it can rightly be appropriated by some
>> idle greed robot as a source of future unearned income.
>
> That's correct. It means it is impossible to appropriate it, literally.
Wrong. That sort of thing has often been done here on earth, as when
explorers claimed whole continents for their kings.
>In other words, nobody can appropriate the value of lunar land now. It
>simply cannot be done.
Wrong again. If the US government decided to claim the moon as US
territory and sell plots of land there, it would probably get away
with it. Who's going to stop them? And I guarantee you those plots
of moon land would have market value.
> You said before that lunar land was on the market, in some sense.
Nope.
>But this is not true.
It is not true _only_ because there is no recognized property right to
lunar land.
>Nobody can buy land on the moon now because there is no
>market for such land.
That is false. There is certainly a "market" for it in the sense that
there are people who would be willing to pay for it. But there is no
"market" for it in another sense, because no one has any right to sell
it.
>There is no way to control it, improve it, or for
>that matter, to do anything with it.
That is also false. It's simply a question of how much such efforts
would cost.
> Whoever creates a way to do these
>things will create a market for lunar land.
No, they will just increase its value. For the unearned profit of
anyone who happens to own it at the time. That's the point. Hello?
>Just as whoever builds the first
>car creates a market for cars.
Garbage. The market for cars was there already, as proved by the fact
that so many people were independently working on making cars. The
first car maker just began to _serve_ that market.
>> Such a claim, if allowed to stand, would foreclose an entire world of
>> future opportunities to the whole of humanity forever, allowing one
>> rapacious parasite to demand payment for what he never produced, and
>> would have been available for others' use if not for his extortion
>> racket. _By_what_right_ could he possibly "take ownership" of the
>> entire moon?? Anyway, Rue has already demolished this lunatic
>> "argument" of yours, so I won't belabor the point.
>
> The question is not just by what right but by what *method*.
No. The method is irrelevant. You hypothesized that someone "took
ownership" of the moon, by whatever method.
>You can
>argue "by what right could I take ownership of a car?"
And unless you produced it or paid its producers, either directly or
indirectly, that would be a perfectly good question.
>And certainly there
>are just and unjust ways of taking ownership of a car.
But there is no just way of taking ownership of natural resources,
other than by paying the rent to those who are thus denied the right
to use them.
>But this is exactly
>what you wish to ignore.
See above, liar.
>Nobody owns the moon now, and you just want to
>somehow fast forward to a future when the moon is valuable *and* someone
>owns it without looking at how *both* of these things would come to be.
Lie. Rue specifically described how the value would be created, and
you described how it would come to be owned: by taking it. And except
for paying rent to those thus denied the right to use it, that is the
only way anyone could come to own the moon, or any other natural
resource.
>Well, you do the same things with cars and you get the same result. Qua car
>owner, you have created none of the value of the car.
Lie. You have paid for the creation of its value. The landowner pays
neither a producer of the land nor the creators of its value.
>But look at how you
>came to be a car owner, ...
Exactly. Directly or indirectly, you paid the car's _producers_ for
adding it to the total in existence. The landowner _never_ pays the
land's producer, not directly, indirectly, or any other way. And he
only pays those who create its value if he pays the rent to the
government and community.
>>>>>By contrast, claiming ownership of
>>>>>pre-existing natural resources such as land deprives people of what
>>>>>they would otherwise have been able to use, baldly violating their
>>>>>right to liberty.
>>>
>>> The problem is that in order to produce a car, you need steel. In
>>> order
>>>to produce steel, you need iron. At some point, you can only produce
>>>something by claiming ownership of natural resources.
>
>> More lies. You can just claim ownership of the _product_ of your
>> labor, which is no longer a natural resource, having been transformed
>> by human effort.
>
> I'm puzzled how that works. How do I claim ownership of the house I
>built without claiming ownership of the wood I built it out of?
The lumber is also not a natural resource but a product. You "claim"
ownership of it by producing it, or paying its producer.
>And if
>someone could transform the moon, you would have no objection to them
>claiming ownership of it?
As long as they paid the rent to all the people whom they deprived of
the opportunity to use it themselves.
>Not only is this philosophically total crud, but I
>doubt you even believe its conclusions.
Non-argument noted.
>> A tenant of a private landowner manages to produce
>> things just fine without claiming ownership of any natural resources:
>> he just pays rent to the resources' owner (who produces nothing
>> whatever), and claims owhership of his _products_. There is no reason
>> a productive tenant could not pay the community that creates the value
>> he benefits by instead of the landowner that doesn't. Your claim is
>> jsut stupid.
>
> If you put it that way, then there's no difference between paying the
>community and paying a land owner.
>From the tenant's point of view as a producer, there isn't, except
that in the former case, the rent will used in ways that benefit him
as a citizen (and others' rent payments will likewise substitute for
taxes that would otherwise burden him and other productive people),
rather than just to satisfy the personal desires and greed of the
landowner. That is what refutes all your false and stupid claims
about how evil and disastrous LVT would be in practice (aside from all
the historical evidence for its beneficial effects in cases where it
has actually been used, of course).
But from the community's point of view, there is a _huge_ difference
between:
a) giving away the value that government and the community create in
the land to idle landowners for doing nothing, and consequently having
to finance public expenditures by imposing unjust and economically and
socially destructive taxes that burden production, and
b) recovering the publicly created value of land for the purposes and
benefit of the public that creates it, while securing the equal right
of all to benefit by pre-existing natural opportunities.
>So there is no philosophical difference
>between us.
ROTFL!! That's like saying that because there is no difference to a
car buyer between buying a car from its rightful owner and buying it
from a thief, there is no difference between rightful ownership and
stealing.
>If you assume the land owner bought the land from the community
>(which is certainly not impossible) there is no difference at all between
>our positions.
The community hasn't the authority to sell the land to a private owner
in perpetuity. It only administers possession and use of the land in
trust for future generations, which is why government-granted land
titles (the only kind that have any force) always specify that the
landholder must satisfy certain conditions in order to retain title to
the land -- one of which is keeping the taxes current.
However, if you were willing to know the fact that landowners have all
already _agreed_ to pay whatever land taxes the community decides to
levy, our differences would be merely differences of opinion on how
desirable a certain form and magnitude of such tax would be, and not a
case of you being consistently wrong (and me being right) as a matter
of objective fact.
>In other words, you have to look at how the land owner got
>the land even by your moral principles.
There are only two possible ways to _first_ get land: by appropriating
it, or by paying rent to the community that administers it. Anything
that happens after an initial appropriation is of no more moral or
economic significance than any other dealings in the proceeds of
theft.
-- Roy L
- Next message: johnny_at_.: "Re: Bill would deny U.S. citizenship to children of illegal aliens! HOORAY!"
- Previous message: Duncan Patton: "Re: Questions about Community Currency."
- In reply to: David Schwartz: "Re: Eminent Domain Abuse"
- Next in thread: robert j. kolker: "Re: Eminent Domain Abuse"
- Reply: robert j. kolker: "Re: Eminent Domain Abuse"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
