Re: novel argument against taxing rents

On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 04:49:02 GMT, Les Cargill <lNOcargill@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

The argument *for* rents is quite simple.

Once somebody establishes rents, non-rent is simply no
longer possible.

?? Sure it is. Taxi medallion owners collect rents that could
clearly be abolished by government just ignoring the medallions.

As you have so clearly demonstrated.
It's quite exclusive-or.

Irrevocably so.

See above. I don't know what you are talking about, and I suspect
others reading this are in the same situation.

The system then latches to the support
of rent, so none dare call it treason.

Those who collect rents always call opposition to their privileges
treason of one sort or another.

This system is clearly reducible to exactly two states, and
can be reduced no further. The first state (un-rent) is
unstable.

I see no reason to think lack of artificial rent collection privileges
such as taxi medallions, IP monopolies, trade quotas, etc. would be
unstable. The rent of natural resources, OTOH, arises naturally from
differential productivity, as Ricardo showed. The only way to
eliminate it is to eliminate so much productivity that the
differential disappears. That is neither feasible nor desirable, so
yes, resource rents are here to stay.

The second (with rent) is stable and
persistent. There can be no return to the previous state
without... significant distress. Effectively, with
the destruction of the system. Guillotines, yadda
yadda yadda.

There is no return to the rent-free state. Even the most violent and
destructive revolutions, invasions and collapses have not eliminated
resource rents entirely, except locally where they have entirely
depopulated a whole region. As a general rule, the greater the
resource rents, the more prosperous the society, and vice versa. The
problem is not resource rents. The problem is who gets them.

You're not in favor of significant distress, are you? Or
perhaps you are in favor of the destruction of the system?

I know you are not.

The system of resource owner privilege is going to be destroyed,
permanently. There is no doubt about that, because it is evil and
based on falsehoods that will eventually be consigned to the same
dustbin as phlogiston theory. It's just a question of when, and how
that happens. It would be better to do it sooner and peacefully,
rather than later and violently. But history does not provide much
room for optimism on that score.

Opposing inevitability is really harsh work.

I do not oppose the existence of natural resource rents. I just think
they should be recovered for the purposes and benefit of the public
that creates them.

Opposing the inevitable elimination of resource owner privilege does
not seem to be harsh work for those engaged in it. It seems to be
pretty easy, and in some cases no doubt is lucrative. It's just evil
and ultimately futile.

-- Roy L
.