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Author Topic: Geolibertarianism  (Read 24065 times)

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Richard Garner

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Geolibertarianism
« on: April 15, 2009, 05:46:13 AM »

I think Ziggy explained Geolibertarianism wrongly on the show. Without advocating it myself, here is a different explaination: To have a right to do anything, you have to have a right to exclusively control the physical location of that action. So all rights are property rights, or property rights are the only rights. So far, so Rothbard, OK? This means that if anybody has any rights, they must be self-owners, because any action we have a right to do must involve some use of at least ourselves, so we cannot have any rights without being self-owners.

However, just about any action we can perform also involves use of, for want of a better term, external resources - those not just of ourselves. Some external resources are the products of labour, of course. The traditional Lockean theory is that we can mix our labour with the land, and thereby get to own some of it. Now we can accept that if I mix my X with my Y, then I own the composite, XY, because I own the component parts. So, if I use my planks to make a bench, I mix my labour with the planks, and produce a bench. However, what if they are your planks, and I, without your permission, mix my labour with them to make a bench? Now, surely, I do not own the bench. The reason, some Geolibertarians have said, is because the planks were not mine: I own X, but not Y, so I don't get to own the composite XY. By analogy, then, mixing my labour with the land would not mean I get to own the resultant farm land or whatever, because whilst I owned the labour, nobody initially owned the land, so I didn't.

Meanwhile, because all rights we have imply rights to control ourselves and some parts of the external world, it is the case that if people are to have any rights at all, they must have a right to land. And rights being initially equal, this must be an initially equal right to land. Look at it this way: Suppose that all land was appropriated, but not by you. You could not possibly act without violating the rights of others, since you would have to be acting on their land. But if any action you perform violates the rights of others, that would mean any right you have would be a right to violate the rights of others. But there cannot possibly be a right to violate rights: This generates an incompossibility - your rights, and the rights of others whilst both being logically possible, but are not simultaneously possible.

So for everybody to have a compossible set of equal rights, everybody would have to have an equal right to land. But if people appropriate so much land themselves that there is not enough left for an equal share to others, then they violate the rights of those others, and those others are entitled to compensation, this compensation being an equal share of the value of the land.

In this way, the Land Value Tax is not aggression, it is defense: It reclaims for people compensation for the violation of their rights.
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BonerJoe

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2009, 08:40:36 AM »

ECONOMIC RENT!
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Richard Garner

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2009, 09:07:04 AM »

ECONOMIC RENT!

I know, taboo subject.
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Santiago Johimbe

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2009, 11:17:24 AM »

I think I read a few threads about this. First question would be...

Who gets to go around collecting this tax? And are they going to use violence to do it?
Don't bother responding if you haven't used the search function. It'd be pretty redundant
as this has been discussed in depth. Look for BenTucker.
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Ecolitan

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2009, 02:43:19 PM »

I think I read a few threads about this. First question would be...

Who gets to go around collecting this tax? And are they going to use violence to do it?
Don't bother responding if you haven't used the search function. It'd be pretty redundant
as this has been discussed in depth. Look for BenTucker.


I'll bite.  Since I recently got an objectivist to admit you don't own property the same way you own your pocket it must be meant to be.

Yes, they would use violence if necessary, however, if it is stipulated that:
Quote
if people appropriate so much land themselves that there is not enough left for an equal share to others, then they violate the rights of those others, and those others are entitled to compensation, this compensation being an equal share of the value of the land.
than it is not an initiation of force but defensive force against the guy who had initiated force against all those people he is depriving of equal use of land.
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Santiago Johimbe

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2009, 03:24:18 PM »

I think I read a few threads about this. First question would be...

Who gets to go around collecting this tax? And are they going to use violence to do it?
Don't bother responding if you haven't used the search function. It'd be pretty redundant
as this has been discussed in depth. Look for BenTucker.


I'll bite.  Since I recently got an objectivist to admit you don't own property the same way you own your pocket it must be meant to be.

Yes, they would use violence if necessary, however, if it is stipulated that:
Quote
if people appropriate so much land themselves that there is not enough left for an equal share to others, then they violate the rights of those others, and those others are entitled to compensation, this compensation being an equal share of the value of the land.
than it is not an initiation of force but defensive force against the guy who had initiated force against all those people he is depriving of equal use of land.

..which, as I mentioned, has all been discussed ad nauseum here.
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Richard Garner

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2009, 04:28:03 PM »

I think I read a few threads about this. First question would be...

Who gets to go around collecting this tax? And are they going to use violence to do it?
Don't bother responding if you haven't used the search function. It'd be pretty redundant
as this has been discussed in depth. Look for BenTucker.

Yeah, I saw Ben Tucker's posts, but they seemed pretty incoherent to me. As I said, I am not defending this position, but merely explaining it.

As for who collects this "tax." Firstly, why call it a tax? The justification of it is not to enforce some positive right, but to compensate for the violation of rights. It is not a "tax," it is restitution. You calculate the value of the land, and divide it by everybody in existence, to find out what an equal share is. Anybody that has more than this amount owes the excess to those that have less.

Secondly, I don't see why, in theory at least, it requires a state to collect it. A state is an institution of that monopolises the legitimate use of force. The legitimate use of force, in this argument, includes collecting compensation from people, and providing it to those it is owed to. A state does not exist, and so anarchy does exist, when there is no monopoly of the legitimate use of force, but, instead, competition in providing legitimate force. The question of whether collecting and distributing compensation for excessive appropriation is a legitimate use of force is an entirely different question from the question of who gets to use legitimate force, whether it should be monopolised by a single agency, or whether their should be free entry into the service of providing it.
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Richard Garner

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2009, 04:29:41 PM »

than it is not an initiation of force but defensive force against the guy who had initiated force against all those people he is depriving of equal use of land.

Exactly.
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BonerJoe

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2009, 04:48:02 PM »

lol ben tucker
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Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2009, 11:37:16 PM »

I think I read a few threads about this. First question would be...

Who gets to go around collecting this tax? And are they going to use violence to do it?
Don't bother responding if you haven't used the search function. It'd be pretty redundant
as this has been discussed in depth. Look for BenTucker.

Yeah, I saw Ben Tucker's posts, but they seemed pretty incoherent to me. As I said, I am not defending this position, but merely explaining it.

As for who collects this "tax." Firstly, why call it a tax? The justification of it is not to enforce some positive right, but to compensate for the violation of rights. It is not a "tax," it is restitution. You calculate the value of the land, and divide it by everybody in existence, to find out what an equal share is. Anybody that has more than this amount owes the excess to those that have less.

Secondly, I don't see why, in theory at least, it requires a state to collect it. A state is an institution of that monopolises the legitimate use of force. The legitimate use of force, in this argument, includes collecting compensation from people, and providing it to those it is owed to. A state does not exist, and so anarchy does exist, when there is no monopoly of the legitimate use of force, but, instead, competition in providing legitimate force. The question of whether collecting and distributing compensation for excessive appropriation is a legitimate use of force is an entirely different question from the question of who gets to use legitimate force, whether it should be monopolised by a single agency, or whether their should be free entry into the service of providing it.
Property tax is restitution?!?!?
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MacFall

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2009, 11:45:16 PM »

If you don't own the space you occupy you don't own yourself. As the libertarian ethical system is derived from the axiom of self-ownership, there's absolutely nothing libertarian about Geolibertarianism.
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fatcat

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2009, 01:04:52 PM »

If you don't own the space you occupy you don't own yourself. As the libertarian ethical system is derived from the axiom of self-ownership, there's absolutely nothing libertarian about Geolibertarianism.

So if I take a pair of rocket pants to Juipiter, since I'm the only one on Jupiter, do I own all of jupiter? Do I own 1 metre radius around my body? 10 metres?

Or do i just own whatever proportion of the population is, so if there were 2 people on jupiter, I would on half, etc.

Self ownership is no kind of proof or support for land ownership.

I have not heard one decent explanation for how land ownership.

Sure, trading your wealth for land is logically consistent with self ownership, but that assumes there is some logical manner for land to be owned in the first place.

All I've heard is finders-keepers, and people who think no land can be owned, only some sort of using rights.

Although finders-keepers is arbitrary as shit, I'll go with it till I come across a better way of dealing with land ownership.

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Richard Garner

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #12 on: April 16, 2009, 01:22:54 PM »

Property tax is restitution?!?!?
[/quote]

No, a tax is revenue for a government. This theory is saying that those who appropriate a more than equal share of land should be forced to pay restitution to those who thus have a less than equal share.
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Santiago Johimbe

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #13 on: April 16, 2009, 02:39:04 PM »

Property tax is restitution?!?!?

No, a tax is revenue for a government. This theory is saying that those who appropriate a more than equal share of land should be forced to pay restitution to those who thus have a less than equal share.
[/quote]

Of course, you'll need a large, powerful government to enforce this scheme. Oh, wait. We're there already!
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Alex Libman

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #14 on: April 16, 2009, 03:12:42 PM »

We've been over this a million times: bringing something into the human economy is an act of labor, even if all it involves is pointing at an asteroid and saying:  "No one claimed it yet?  Well then, this is mine!"  In order to own anything substantial in a free society, your ownership claim must be clearly defined and publicly announced, which in of itself is a valuable service for the economy.  Now an asteroid mining company can learn of this asteroid and consider buying it from you, and going forward they would be the most likely market entity to look for new asteroids themselves - they're paying you for their failure to do so.  Reasonable industry standards can be established for what does and does not constitute a legitimate claim.  Etc.

Go peddle your Georgist communism somewhere else, m'kay?
« Last Edit: April 16, 2009, 03:24:00 PM by Alex Libman »
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