How to tell if you are a Geolibertarian or a Neolibertarian

[Freedom_1st]

Let's say the whole world consisted of a tiny island. On this island lived a man and a woman. Within 9 months time, this happy couple had a child. Approximately 18 years after that, they decided it was time to teach their teenage punk a lesson in life so they kicked him out of their home. Where is this kid going to go? The parents own all the land. He could pay "rent" to them to live on part of it. But is this fair? Why do the parents get rights to the land simply for getting there first? It was out of the teenager's control that he was born later then his parents. Do the parents own the land and can they make profit off of it having only lived there first If you say "yes," you are a neolibertarian. If you say "no," you are a geolibertarian.

Short answers to common questions about Geolibertarianism
1) People have raw talents such as a tremendous voice that they use to make money. Should they be allowed to capitalize on this? Or is it a "free gift" hence they cannot make money off of it?

Yes, they should be allowed to make money off their great voice without penalty. Someone with a great voice adds value to the world, someone selling land does not. A person who capitalizes on their great voice cannot hurt you, they can only benefit you, their profit is not done at your loss -- the same does not apply to the person "capitalizing" on the value of land.

2) How do you decide how much the rent is?

The free market decides. To go into further detail, please refer to anyone who is more interested in the economics of gelibertarianism as opposed to the philosophy that underlies it.

3). Shouldn't other things that are limited like coal or iron have a "rent" on them too?

See this

http://www.amberpawlik.com/FreeGifts.htm

4). So the more people who live on earth, the more I pay?

Short answer: yes. Again, it comes down to the moral question -- do the parent on the island have unquestionable right to the land or do new people who come along also have it?

5). How can you call it geo"libertarianism" -- doesn't it fail the initiation of force test?

Before you could commit "force" against someone, you had to establish that the person had rights to said thing. If it is decided that land is a free gift of nature and all people should have equal rights to it, then it is not an initation of force. The person who took land, a free gift, is the one who intiated force, not the geolibertarian.

6). This sounds a lot like Marxism.

It isn't. Indeed, Marxists and neolibertarians have more in common than Marxists and geolibertarians -- both Marxists and neolibertarians advocate people get profits for nothing.

Geolibertarian philosophy simply recognizes the difference between metaphysical and man-made wealth-- something which both Marxists and currently, Objectivists, fail to do.

7). People who own land now already bought it. It's not fair you are not going to let them sell it again.

People who owned slaves also bought them with their hard earned money. Was it fair we freed the slaves and wasted the money they invested?

Indeed, if you want to get into the logistics of the conversion, I recommend you go study what Max Hirsh, an Austrian (i.e. pro-free market) economist who got the LVT implemented in Australia, did.

8). This system is unfair to farmers who have to use more land.

No matter what, farmers are going to have to pay for more land. The question is, do they pay for it right away in a huge lump sum or over a period of time?

The sympathy lies more properly with the young aspiring farmer, who, in order to even exist, must pay his ancestors more money as he was a latecomer.

9) Where would the money go?

I personally think it should all go towards paying for a military, the protector of land. If you want to talk about this further, email me, and we can chat.

10) What about giving gifts? No one "earned" the gift they are receiving. Should this be outlawed?

No. Again, if someone gives you a fruit basket, it doesn't mean someone else had to be without a fruit basket. If I give you $5, it doesn't mean someone else had to go without $5. If nature gives you a free gift, and you make a profit off of it, it means someone will have to suffer without land. People can give gifts, reality cannot.

Quotes from great Free-Market Advocates about Land

"The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on."~Thomas Jefferson

"Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right." ~Thomas Jefferson

"It is a postition not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land, owes to the community a ground-rent." ~Thomas Paine

"When the 'sacredness of property' is talked of, it should always be remembered, that any such sacredness dos not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land. It is the orginal inheritance of the whole species.. It is no hardship to any one to be excluded from what others have produced ... But it is some hardship to be born into the world and to find all nature's gifts previously engrossed, and no place left for the new-comer ... To me it seems almost an axiom that property in land should be interpreted strictly, and that the balance in all cases of doubt should incline against the properitor."~John Stuart Mill

"To be allowed any exclusive right at all, over a portion of the common inheritance, while there are others who have no portion, is already a *privelage*."~John Stuart Mill.

"Supposing the entire habitable globe to be ... enclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid right to its surface, all who are not landowners have no right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by sufferance only. They are all trespassers."~Herbert Spencer.

"Undeserved increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit, but they are the principal form of unearned increment, and they are derived from precesses which are not merely not beneficial, but positively detrimental to the general public."~Winston Churchill

"In my opinion, the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument..."~Milton Friedman

"What kind of taxation is least harmful?....My own preference is for a single tax on land, with landholders doing their own valuation."~David Nolan

"A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent."~Adam Smith

And, finally, Austrian economist Max Hirsh also supported the single tax. He even led the implementation of the Single Tax in Australia and New Zealand in the early part of the 20th century.

http://www.amberpawlik.com/Fun_facts.htm

[Wildalaska]

Have you read Marx or Hirsch so you can critically analyze whether this article esposes their doctrines correctly?

WildifnotwhynotAlaska

[209]

I think I can add a comment from The Government Employees Insurance Company:

What???

My property is mine. I know it is because I pay a mortgage and have a deed to said property. Should my son decide it's his, we're goin have a problem.

[nate45]

Private property rights are one of the corner stones of our free market economy.

[Freedom_1st]

Have you read Marx or Hirsch so you can critically analyze whether this article esposes their doctrines correctly?

WildifnotwhynotAlaska

nope, as i am not concerned with marxism

[Freedom_1st]

My property is mine. I know it is because I pay a mortgage and have a deed to said property. Should my son decide it's his, we're goin have a problem.

Not really, stop paying your property tax and see how long the government allows you to continue to "own" your property, in reality you are "renting" the land from the government.

Its the government that gives you the land title and protects your property with its courts and police.

[Manedwolf]

6). This sounds a lot like Marxism.

It isn't. Indeed, Marxists and neolibertarians have more in common than Marxists and geolibertarians -- both Marxists and neolibertarians advocate people get profits for nothing.

Quote:
Have you read Marx or Hirsch so you can critically analyze whether this article esposes their doctrines correctly?

WildifnotwhynotAlaska
nope, as i am not concerned with marxism

You're not concerned with it, but you define what something advocates without having read it?

[Freedom_1st]

Private property rights are one of the corner stones of our free market economy.

I agree, but private property rights can be overextended, I mean did you agree with slavery?

What about privatising water or the atmosphere?

How is land any different? What did anyone do to create land we walk on to deserve the exclusive control over it?

Geolibertarianism (also geoanarchism) is a libertarian political philosophy that holds, like other forms of libertarian individualism, that each individual has an exclusive right to the fruits of his or her labor, as opposed to this product being owned collectively by society or the community. In other words, geolibertarians support private property. However, unlike "royalist" forms of libertarianism, geolibertarianism holds that all land is owned in common by society, and therefore if individuals claim the land as their property they must pay rent to the community for doing so. Geolibertarians generally advocate distributing the land rent to the community via a land value tax, as proposed by Henry George and others before him. For this reason, they are often called "single taxers".

[Musketeer]

Back to the model presented. The parents own it and can do as they please.

Te kid is also free not to do any work to assist his parents as they grow older, leaving them to die of starvation or exposure. The free market will decide on a fair excange of goods and services.

[Freedom_1st]

You're not concerned with it, but you define what something advocates without having read it?

Well we all know the every political/economic philosophy adovocates "freedom, abundance, etc", however when put into practice, some of them fail miserably.

Marxism has failed miserably wherever it has been tried.

LVT tax communities do exist and where it has been implemented have been very economically successfuly.

Hong Kong and Taiwan being good examples.

[Manedwolf]

Freedom_1st, unless you've read Marx, you don't know what it is, and you really aren't qualified to argue for or against it or compare it to anything else in any way, I'm sorry.

You're not qualified to review a movie if you haven't seen it, you're not qualified to praise or attack a gun you haven't shot, handled, or at least read the plans and design specs of it, and you can't compare things to a political philosophy you've never read.

I would leave out of this discussion any author, philosophy or works you've not read, because you don't know them, and are going on third-party hearsay.

Marxism is an idealistic political philosophy on paper. Flawed as all hell, but just a philosophy. Communism as implemented in the real world in various regimes actually had very little to do with what Marx wrote...and you'd know that if you'd read it.

Which you said you haven't. Because you're not concerned with it. Yet you use it as an example in your discussion.

See the problem there?

[nate45]

I agree, but private property rights can be overextended, I mean did you agree with slavery?

Is the owning of another human being vs real estate a good analogy?

What about privatising water or the atmosphere?

I would put forth the idea that the private ownership of lakes,streams and rivers would most likely result in their being better managed and more pristine than they currently are.

As far as private ownership of the atmosphere I don't see how that would be feasible.

[Freedom_1st]

Back to the model presented. The parents own it and can do as they please.

Te kid is also free not to do any work to assist his parents as they grow older, leaving them to die of starvation or exposure. The free market will decide on a fair excange of goods and services.

So according to you the kid must pay rent to his parents simply for the right to walk on the earth?

Since according to this hypothetical, the island is the only known land and the parents "own" it.

So if the kid decides not to pay rent, the parents have the right to force him into the ocean?

How is a monopoly of land a "free market"?

[Freedom_1st]

Freedom_1st, unless you've read Marx, you don't know what it is, and you really aren't qualified to argue for or against it or compare it to anything else in any way, I'm sorry.

I have read Marx, FYI, but not his entire works or anything, which is what I thought you were implying

Marxism is an idealistic political philosophy on paper. Flawed as all hell, but just a philosophy. Communism as implemented in the real world in various regimes actually had very little to do with what Marx wrote...and you'd know that if you'd read it.

I agree 100%, Marxism was a just another failed utopian dream. Marx thought the state would eventually wither away, in reality it never happened.

[Freedom_1st]

Is the owning of another human being vs real estate a good analogy?

Yes, I would say so because both involve the ownership of something of which nobody did anything to create, no human created the earth or the dna which is the building block of life.

Land, that is, the entire universe outside of man and his products, cannot be produced. It was here before man first strode on the surface of the globe, and it will be here after man finally disappears into the nothingness of oblivion.

I would put forth the idea that the private ownership of lakes,streams and rivers would most likely result in their being better managed and more pristine than they currently are.

.

I would tend to agree, howerver I am not argueing against private ownership, I am just argueing to repeal all taxes (sales, income, capital gains) and for a single tax to be levied against equal to the rental value of land and other resources to fund the necessary functions of government.

So say you buy a unimproved lot for $5000, with a annual rental value of say $500, and then build a house upon it which is valued at $100000. Now the rental value of the home is say $12000 a year.

Under a LVT system you would only be taxed $500 a year, the rental value of the unimproved land, not the rental value of the home, which you could live in or rent out, whatever.

You are essentially reimbursing the community at large for the monopolization of a piece of the earth, not the improvements you made to the earth.

[Musketeer]

So according to you the kid must pay rent to his parents simply for the right to walk on the earth?

You created the absurd situation, not me, but yes.

Since according to this hypothetical, the island is the only known land and the parents "own" it.

See above.

So if the kid decides not to pay rent, the parents have the right to force him into the ocean?

again see above. He of course can, and almost certainly would choose to resist. There is no system of laws present in your model. It would be to everyone's clear advantage to find a solution that benifits all.

How is a monopoly of land a "free market"?

The child has something the parents do not and never can have. Youth. Those parents are going to get old. They are not going to be able to gather or grow food, upkeep their shelter or otherwise care for themselves. They can either strike a deal now with their child or they can die from starvation later.

Hey, it is an absurd situation to begin with. I would also attest that in such a situation the land is only yours so long as you could defend it.

[Musketeer]

You are essentially reimbursing the community at large for the monopolization of a piece of the earth, not the improvements you made to the earth.

Just the phrase "monopolization of a piece of the earth" makes me think of people spiking trees marked for processing, destroying new homes under construction and vandalizing Hummer dealerships.

[Pat H]

The first example in the initial post sounds like Georgism which has been pretty much thrown on the philosophical dung heap.

Capitalism has been proven the only economic system that works; limited by the degree it's controlled or restricted by various governments.

See: http://www.mises.org/studyguide.aspx...=author&Id=299

[Freedom_1st]

Just the phrase "monopolization of a piece of the earth" makes me think of people spiking trees marked for processing, destroying new homes under construction and vandalizing Hummer dealerships.

strawman

I never mentioned anything of the sort.

[Freedom_1st]

You created the absurd situation, not me, but yes.

It was a hypothetical situation, and if you believe the kid should have to pay rent, then I guess the US owes native americans a ton of money as according to you, whoever occupies a piece of land first is the rightful owner.

again see above. He of course can, and almost certainly would choose to resist. There is no system of laws present in your model. It would be to everyone's clear advantage to find a solution that benifits all.

Well if you believe that he has a right to resist being charged rent, then clearly you do not believe they have a right to charge him rent.

The child has something the parents do not and never can have. Youth. Those parents are going to get old. They are not going to be able to gather or grow food, upkeep their shelter or otherwise care for themselves. They can either strike a deal now with their child or they can die from starvation later.

How is any of this relevant to the parents being justified to charge the child rent simply to walk upon the island?

[Wildalaska]

nope, as i am not concerned with marxism

Hmmmm so you espouse positions/opinion in which a knowledge of Marxist thought has a place, yet have no knowledge of what that thought is.

Nice.

Hey look at me! I'm joining a message Board for Nuerosurgeons! I can offer my opinion on glioblastomas in the area of the Islet of Lagerhans AND KNOW NOTHING AOUT IT.

I rock!

WildlolAlaska

[Freedom_1st]

The first example in the initial post sounds like Georgism which has been pretty much thrown on the philosophical dung heap.

Um, not really, LVT has been partially implemented in many places with great success.

In reality, every jurisdiction that has a real estate property tax has a land value tax, because part of the ad valorem basis for real estate is, in fact, the locational or land value in addition to the improvement value.[2]

Pure LVT, apart from real estate or generic property taxation, is used in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Estonia. It is currently being introduced in Namibia, and there are campaigns for its introduction to South Korea and Scotland. Many more countries have used it in the past, particularly Denmark[3] and Japan. Many pre-modern societies used land tax systems that were not based on the land's value, but nevertheless approximated a limited LVT by taxing agricultural land according to its yield or expected yield.

Several cities around the world also use LVT, including Sydney, Canberra, and many other Australian cities; Mexicali and Fairhope, Alabama.

Nearly 20 Pennsylvania cities in the USA employ a two-rate or split-rate property tax: taxing the value of land at a higher rate and the value of the buildings and improvements at a lower one. This can be seen as a compromise between pure LVT and an ordinary property tax falling on real estate (land value plus improvement value). Alternatively, two-rate taxation may be seen as a form that allows gradual transformation of the traditional real estate property tax into a pure land value tax.


[edit] LVT in Pennsylvania and the "Two-Rate" Experiments
Pittsburgh used the two-rate system from 1913 to 2001[4] when an ineffective property assessment system led to a drastic increase in assessed land values during 2001 after years of underassessment, and the system was abandoned in favor of the traditional single-rate property tax. Pittsburgh's tax on land was about 5.77 times the tax on improvements. Notwithstanding the change in 2001, the Pittsburgh Improvement District still employs a pure land value taxation as a surcharge on the regular property tax.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has taxed land at a rate six times that on improvements since 1975, and this policy is credited with reducing the number of vacant structures in downtown Harrisburg from about 4,200 in 1982 to less than 500.

Primarily as a result of technical assistance from the Henry George Foundation of America and the Center for the Study of Economics,[5] nearly two dozen local Pennsylvania jurisdictions use two-rate property taxation in which the tax on land value is higher and the tax on improvement value is lower. Local governments in Pennsylvania which use the two-rate tax system as of 2006 include:

Aliquippa, Allentown (since 1996),[6] Altoona, Clairton, DuBois, Duquesne, Ebensburg, Harrisburg (since 1975),[7] Lock Haven, McKeesport, New Castle ,Oil City, Pittsburgh Improvement District, Scranton, Steelton, Titusville, Washington, Pennsylvania

The following sites sponsored by The Henry George Foundation use actual assessment data and have tax calculators showing how two-rate taxation (lower on improvements and higher on land value) might actually be implemented and the effect on parcel by parcel basis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_va...Implementation

[Freedom_1st]

Capitalism has been proven the only economic system that works; limited by the degree it's controlled or restricted by various governments.

See: http://www.mises.org/studyguide.aspx...=author&Id=299

6. Didn't Austrian economist Murray Rothbard refute the LVT?
No, but not for lack of trying. Rothbard's argument against the LVT is fatally flawed for at least two reasons -- one moral, the other economic. From a moral perspective, it completely ignores the unjust interference that the overextension of law-made property imposes on man-made property. From an economic perspective, it is based on a false understanding of what conditions are necessary for land to have rental value.

In Libertarian Party at Sea on Land, LP activist Dr. Harold Kyriazi explains why Rothbard's attack on the LVT was misguided at best. The following is from pages 57-61 of that book:

###################################

The only well-known libertarian writer whom I know to have explicitly, and at great length, opposed the idea of community collected user fees for natural resources is Murray Rothbard, which is odd, given his admiration for Albert Jay Nock and Frank Chodorov, who, in turn, revered Henry George. Rothbard apparently had extensive discussions with Georgists:

If every man owns his own person and therefore his own labor, and if by extension he owns whatever property he has "created" or gathered out of the previously unused, unowned "state of nature," then what of the last great question: the right to own or control the earth itself? ... It is at this point that Henry George and his followers, who have gone all the way so far with the libertarians, leave the track and deny the individual right to own the piece of land itself, the ground on which these activities have taken place. (pp. 33-34, For a New Liberty.)

The following is taken from his The Ethics of Liberty.

(p. 50, footnote 2): A modified variant of this "Columbus Complex" holds that the first discoverer of a new island or continent could properly lay claim to the entire continent by himself walking around it (or hiring others to do so), and thereby laying out a boundary for the area. In our view, however, their claim would still be no more than to the boundary itself, and not to any of the land within it, for only the boundary will have been transformed and used by man.

With this statement, Rothbard may seem to have carried the "first use" doctrine to its illogical extreme. (If walking over some land constitutes transformation and use, then is it just one's footprints that one owns? Or does one's rightful claim extend out to all the underbrush one has cleared away? Or, can one claim land as far as the eye can see? This is the very definition of the word "arbitrary.") But in his defense, to convert the claim into actual ownership would, Rothbard would say, require actual use (though we're again faced with the question of what constitutes "use" -- see p. 79, "Anti-Rothbard..."). For example, earlier, in a Robinson Crusoe paradigm, he stated that Crusoe's "true property--his actual control over material goods--would extend only so far as his actual labor brought them into production. His true ownership could not extend beyond the power of his own reach."

What, then, would Rothbard say about large American corporations owning, but not using, millions of acres of land, as some now do? He gives us his answer in an essay he wrote on Henry George's Land Value Tax idea, entitled "The Single Tax: Economic and Moral Implications" (FEE "Special Essay Series," 1957). Here are a few examples from that work:

Well, what about idle land? Should the sight of it alarm us? On the contrary, we should thank our stars for one of the great economic facts of nature: that labor is scarce relative to land...Since labor is scarce relative to land, and much land must therefore remain idle, any attempt to force all land into production would bring economic disaster. Forcing all land into use would take labor and capital away from more productive uses, and compel their wasteful employment on land, a disservice to consumers. [Emphasis Rothbard's.]

Of course, LVT would and could do no such thing, as those who strive to put idle land into productive use would have to bid against other land users for labor, and only the best uses of labor and land would win out. Thus, rather than forcing all land into use, LVT would discourage all but the most productive use of land, just as any market tends to allocate resources most wisely. Another thing that would happen is that the earnings of labor would increase due to increased competition for it, and (ideally) none of the produced wealth would go to landowners qua landowners. Let me rephrase Rothbard's last sentence in a way that makes sense: Forcing land users to pass over ideal idle land and utilize marginal land instead, is wasteful of human labor and natural opportunities, a disservice to all mankind and a boon only to landlords and land speculators.

But here's the most embarrassing passage:

A 100% tax on rent would cause the capital value of all land to fall promptly to zero.

Correct.

Since owners could not obtain any net rent, the sites would become valueless on the market.

False! They'd be valueless only to those market participants who wish only to speculate in land, not to those who wish to use land in some productive endeavor.

From that point on, sites, in short, would be free.

Wrong again. While it's true there'd be no sale price for vacant land, one would still have to pay the ground-rent to use it.

Further, since all rent would be siphoned off to the government, there would be no incentive for owners to charge any rent at all.

Wrong yet again. He's assuming the LVT would be set by an actual ground-rent charged by the landlord, rather than being an assessed value that would have to be recouped. And, I might add, total rental costs would tend to decrease as additional units come on the market as the monopoly stranglehold on land loses its grip.

Rent would be zero as well, and rentals would thus be free.

He continues to pound a straw man.

The first consequence of the single tax, then, is that no revenue would accrue from it.

He took a wrong turn, and just keeps going!

Far from supplying all the revenue of government, the single tax would yield no revenue at all! For if rents are zero, a 100% tax on rents will also yield nothing.

Rothbard then goes on to state,

Compelling any economic goods to be free wreaks economic havoc...the result is to introduce complete chaos in land sites.

Completely false. Even if LVT were applied at a national level, and there were no competition among municipalities for residents, people would still bid on the leases of occupied property, providing price information. (For more on this, see p. 97, "How would LVT work?")

In Power and Market: Government and the Economy (second edition, 1977), Rothbard went even further into the realm of irrationality in his attempt to refute Georgist land theory (p. 131):

Contrary to Georgist doctrine, however, the land problem does not stem from free-market ownership of ground land.

I know of no Georgist who would ever use the phrase "free-market" in conjunction with our current, individual monopoly market in land.

It stems from failure to live up to a prime condition of free-market property rights, namely, that new, unowned land be first owned by its first user, and that from then on, it become the full private property of the first user or those who receive or buy the land from him. [my emphasis]

It is an obvious fiction that any use, however small or large the effort, should grant full private ownership for all time, unless we're talking about a make-believe world with unlimited land where access to all of it is instantaneous (i.e., where travel time is zero). This fiction ignores the fact that someone who, for example, puts up a fence and lets a cow graze, is much less the rightful "owner" of land than one who builds an industrial plant or a shopping mall. (For more on this, see p. 79, "Anti-Rothbard...")

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geo-faq.htm#rothbard

[Freedom_1st]

Hmmmm so you espouse positions/opinion in which a knowledge of Marxist thought has a place, yet have no knowledge of what that thought is.

Nice.

Hey look at me! I'm joining a message Board for Nuerosurgeons! I can offer my opinion on glioblastomas in the area of the Islet of Lagerhans AND KNOW NOTHING AOUT IT.

I rock!

WildlolAlaska

Did you read post #14 in this thread before you responded with your typical hysterical trolling post?

I have read Marx, FYI, but not his entire works or anything, which is what I thought you were implying.

I agree 100%, Marxism was a just another failed utopian dream. Marx thought the state would eventually wither away, in reality it never happened.

I have read Marx, but not his entire works, which is what I thought was being implied, and in no way to I claim to be an expert on Marx.

Why does someone have to be an expert on a topic to have an opinion on it?

I am not an expert on the law (attourney), but that does not mean I can observe the effects of certain laws and offer opinions on them? Say gun control for instance.

[Wildalaska]

I agree 100%, Marxism was a just another failed utopian dream. Marx thought the state would eventually wither away, in reality it never happened.

Why? Does Marxist thought explain that?

WildowaitimjustatrollAlaska