Re: Economic Rent in Terms of Risk Free Interest Rate

>> It is important to understand that the imposition of an LVT system
>> absolutely would _NOT_ eliminate land rent. It would only change the
>> _RECIPIENT_ of the rent. Attempts to eliminate or reduce rents (e.g.,
>> rent control laws) most certainly would have the effects you cite. An
>> LVT system makes no such attempt and simply redirects the rents away
>> from those who have appropriated it and to those who have created it.


>It would remove it as stored capital, and "redistribute" it
>( relative to the status quo ) as income. I rather doubt
>the economy would have the ability to cause that kind
>of accumulation of capital again.

Land is not capital and capital is not land. Nothing is being
"removed". The land will still exist. It's not as if a factory were
destroyed and the capital stock reduced a commensurate amount.

>> This would only occur if an LVT system were imposed suddenly. A
>> gradual imposition over a sufficiently long transition period need not
>> cause deflation.

>Deflation is psychological - you'll never engineer
>it to be un-sudden enough not to cause a panic.

Tax policy changes that reduce the value of certain assets are
implemented all of the time; the economy does not collapse into
deflationary depressions because of it.

>> I believe the assumption should be that "labor is a morally correct
>> font of legitimate property rights".


>I know. But we can't really say why, can we? It's
>habit, not founded in anything empirical.

It's founded in the notion that man is entitled to the fruits of his
labor. Sure, that's just an assertion, but without it, we devolve into
a Kolker-esque world where might makes right.

>Labor is becoming "shrinkingly" marginally
>important as a factor in production.

That position is contradicted by the objective _fact_ that there is no
historical downward trend in employment rates. Capital makes labor
more productive, it doesn't eliminate the need for it.

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