Re: Quick Before It Melts!

On Nov 22, 4:32 pm, ro...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Lying anti-LVT disinformation artist Paul Birch has made another
feeble, doomed attempt to rescue his oft-demolished anti-Georgist
"critique." And he has been duly destroyed yet again:

http://www.libertarianunderground.com/Forum/index.php/topic,198.20.html

But readers will have to be quick to see Birch's renewed humiliation,
as he has proved he is quite wiling to use his power as moderator of
the LU forum to simply edit others' arguments after the fact, deleting
those he finds distressing or unanswerable. Given his penchant for
strawmen, one can only await with interest the time when he actually
changes others' words to something sufficiently brain-dead for him to
refute.

-- Roy L

I posted a response to his critique of my critique of his original
Critique of Georgism.

His position seems to be that since it is not possible to EXACTLY
differentiate the component of market value due to land versus
improvement and that it is impossible to EXACTLY calculate externality
contributed versus externality received, that the entire LVT proposal
must be discarded and we must instead go with radical
propertarianism. This is akin to arguing that since it is impossible
to EXACTLY separate the wheat from the chaff, that we must also eat
the manure along with the grain.

I haven't quite figured this Birch fellow out. Reading some of his
essays, he makes it clear that he opposes Rothbardian style anarcho-
capitalism, yet he simultaneously condemns Nozick for allowing too
much of a role for the state. On his own web page, he describes
himself as a "ultraminimal monarchist". This reminds me of Hayek's
comment to a pro-Pinochet Chilean newspaper that "personally I prefer
a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism". Or,
loosely speaking, "wouldn't it be great if we had an authoritarian
government that ruthlessly enforced our beliefs (the supremacy of
property rights and contracts over everything else) while otherwise
remaining neutral and disinterested with regard to his own power". No
thanks.
.