Re: LVT, more arguments against---again

>Well, some of the antebellum Free Soil candidates did propose compensated
>emancipation. Which probably would have been cheaper than the Civil War
>was.

Maybe we should compensate rapists for preventing them from raping too.

>In any event, I think you have to distinguish between a claimed property
>right in human beings and property rights in everything else.

How about we just distinguish between rightful property (the product of
one's labor) and appropriated property (everything else). That would
make far more sense.

>Human autonomy
>is one of the few "categorical imperatives"; a property claim over another
>person infringes fundamental ethical concerns in a way that no other
>property right does.

I'm sure a slave owner would have disagreed with that. And as Henry
George pointed out in _Social_Problems_, the slavery that exists due to
the private ownership of land is in many ways worse than chattel
slavery.

>Government has the power to tax, but not to confiscate without paying just
>compensation. I would argue that the government, having once granted title
>to land in exchange for consideration, may not justly raise taxes so high as
>to amount to a re-taking of the entire rent that was part of the land's
>bundle of rights.

I see, when the government taxes the unearned income of the idle
wealthy, that's a "taking"; when the government taxes the earned income
of the productive, that's "good policy".

>I disagree that land's future rent was discounted entirely by the sovereigns
>who granted title to land. Often, land was granted with the expectation that
>it would be made productive and command rent. That consideration was
>factored into the sovereign's decision to grant title.

You really need to look into the way land titles were historically
granted in the US. It typically did not involve considerations of
future productivity. Google on "Georgia land lottery" for an example.

>Now, you may argue that it's illogical for the present government to be
>bound by transactions in which the long-ago consideration consisted of King
>Charles of Spain getting some soldiers to settle Alta California and
>discourage Russian incursions from Alaska. But how far back do you go, in
>repudiating the debts a government owes to its predecessors in interest?
>Could President Bush's administration disavow debts incurred by the Clinton
>administration?

Silliness.

Sinister - Why don't you send these blogging fools directly to this
newsgroup? Demolishing feeble arguments directly rather than via
correspondence is much more fun.

.

Relevant Pages

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