I do not believe Austrian deduction that 1 equals 2. I do not believe money is gold. I do not believe land is human toil nor the fruits of human toil.

According to Austrian deduction (reduction), 1 equals 2. The Austrian School of Economics is the same junk political economics as Karl Marx. It was used to setup the false neo-liberal left/right paradigm. Austrian Economics is Marxism with a pretty ribbon to attract those looking to steal a free lunch with gold and land.

I’m a Libertarian. I believe in the separation of commodity markets and state.

In a post below you talk about corporations being a fictional person, who do you think creates that fiction, the state? In an anarcho-capitalism world that doesn’t believe in the state, what makes you think there would be corporations?

My problem with georgism/geoism/geolibertarianism (whatever flavour you want to call youself) is who would truly own anything? My house is built with wood and other natural materials, clearly I could pay for the labour involved to put those materials together but under geo I would have no claim on the wood or the metal nails holding it together, etc. Even if you restrict it to just unimproved land use fees at market value, who would ever build anything? Even if I owned the building (which is still in doubt), I have no guarantee that I would control the land it sits on next year.

More intelligent things have come out of the local bum’s tea party convention.

if you believe in your premise of anarcho-capitalism and want to use it for your arguments, take it all the way. don’t stop at the point where the state gives you the right steal a free lunch and force people to be homeless because they can’t afford to put their feet on the ground. you’re not a classical liberal. you never will be because you’re funded by the bankers who want to monopolize the money supply and the planet. the founding fathers agreed with henry george. they didn’t agree with the rockefeller foundation libertarians. you are a tyrant. classical liberalism was about liberty versus tyranny, not anarchism vs. statism.

A bit of a doofus in sober reality.

” Did Stephen Hawking earn his genius?”

Seldom talks about anything real.

” Did Micheal Jordan earn the natural talent…”

Now you are talking.

Surely its possible to meet Henry part-way here? Everyones model is of necessity a simplification of reality. I read Rothbards refutation of Georgism, and I accept it as a refutation of 100% Georgism. I don’t accept it as a refutation of meeting Henry halfway. Or perhaps one eighth of the way. I think some of the observations Henry made, have to be taken into account.

It may be that we accept the land tax in the medium-term on our way to anarcho-capitalism. It may be that we don’t accept the land-tax at all, and find a better way around Georgist realities.

As I stress, Rothbards refutation, to me didn’t seem total. It only appeared to be a total refutation of the fullest application of Georgism.

As a matter of practical politics and economic policy we might take account of Georgism by prioritizing that there be no vertical restrictions on land-use. We might stress to the laity that whereas horizontal restrictions are one thing, but that vertical restrictions are always anti-social.

In my country you have these first-home-owner buyers grants. Now of course you’d want to get rid of them. But an appreciation of Georgism might have us at least cutting them back on low-rise. We have capital gains tax on house sales, but maybe that could be waved, if the person is selling out to the neighbor, to consolidate the property, such that high-rise might be plausibly built on the consolidated block.

You work from where you are now. And there is many ways to appreciate Georgist observations, without going the whole way or even without instituting the land tax. I think the important point would be that if tax reform isn’t strongly revenue negative it must be avoided like the plague. I think that reform ought to try to avoid destroying a fellows cash-flow and capital value at the same time.

Georgists must realise that sound money reform may collapse many asset values by as much as two-thirds. Bearing that in mind, even if they are partially right, the Georgist realities may be taken into account, without recourse to any new land tax, any time in the next few decades.

Only in the short term, and only in opportunity cost. Long term, land is the absolute best investment. At some point, *somebody* is going to want or need it enough to pay you whatever you want for it, and in the meantime you have no obligations to it once you own it. It’s free money.

The anarchist dream can, even in theory, only work until all land is owned. (In practice, it happens sooner because of the non-uniform way land value accrues, and because land is considered owned in perpituity on the flimsiest of bases, it’s easy to reach the point of total ownership even if there appears to huge tracts of unused land – that’s certainly the case in the UK, and from what I can tell it’s the case in the US also) At that point, you immediately have the creation of 2 classes, the landed and the landless and because the landless must pay the landed to exist, they become slaves. That that is the inevitable result of allowing eternal rights to land via a single, one-time act or payment, is the lesson of Henry George.

Anarchy is just another flavour of tyranny. Take your pick. They all suck.

You’re right. I don’t understand that. But I do understand the communist dogma that
“Property is theft.” Is that what you mean?

But then if land title is theft, how can “the community” own land and demand rent?
I think what you must mean is that it is theft for some but not for others. You also must
mean that demanding rent under threat of violence by several people is not theft
but NOT demanding rent under threat of violence by one person is!

Do you know what a contradiction is?

“Land is an alienabled right for all people.”

I think you mean “inalienable”. But that doesn’t help me understand what you mean either.
Which land is an inalienable right to which people for what reason? I do not own any land.
Do you? If you do, may I claim my right? If you don’t, maybe a friend or family member of
yours is hoarding what is rightfully mine? Can you put me in contact with them or with
georgists on some internet forum who are eager to see justice done by divesting themselves
of the land they have stolen from me?

And I know other people who do not own any land. They would also be interested in claiming
their rightful property from the evil land-hoarding hordes of your acquaintance.

They can’t charge a price for it either since it’s my right, so I’m eager to sign the paperwork
asap. Let me know the details.

If you or your friends balk at the idea, then I might start to doubt your sincerity just like I
doubt the sincerity of every other something-for-nothing scheme pushed by people who
claim to have rights and powers that others don’t.

“you also don’t understand that commodity-based fiat corrupts and distorts the free market”

You’re right again. I don’t understand, first of all, what “commodity-based fiat” is, nor that it
distorts the free market. I never heard of such a thing. What is it? It sounds like it should be
banned immediately lest it harm the children.

“you also don’t understand that deflation is theft.”

Sure. Well, everything is theft, right? Except when it’s not, right? Yeah, I know the routine.

“Currency is very distinct from commodities. Currency should maintain value so it doesn’t distort commodity markets. Commodities should change in value in response to supply and demand.”

You have a currency which is not a commodity and not tied to commodities and
never changes “value” because it is not subject to supply and demand? How is that possible?
What is it?

How are you going to implement it? By force, right? Which sorts of punishments do you have
in mind for people who refuse to use it? Perhaps the same punishments designed for those
who refuse to pay the tribute?

How did you come to the conclusion that money is an edict you can pronounce over others
against their will? Do you understand that that is the only way such an absurdity can exist?

You should spend some time learning about what money is. It will help if you can remember
that trade means voluntary trade and not force. If you’re against voluntary trade then there’s
really no use in discussing money since everything in the make-makes-right philosophy
simply boils down to which gang can exercise the most control over its intended victims. So
therefore, whatever gang this happens to be then defines what money and property are.
And if you don’t like it, you will be punished, and that’s the end of it.

And I assume by the propaganda you consume that you also don’t understand that commodity-based fiat corrupts and distorts the free market, in both the commodity in which the currency is based and across all commodity markets. And I also assume by the propaganda you consume that you also don’t understand that deflation is theft.

Currency is very distinct from commodities. Currency should maintain value so it doesn’t distort commodity markets. Commodities should change in value in response to supply and demand.

There ya go. There’s your communist blather that underlies all this nonsense.

Tell me, how did “the community” come to own the land? Did 1,000,000 people rush out into
the wilderness together at one time and claim their future city collectively? Or did individual
human beings venture out into the wilderness by ones and twos and families, with no
guarantee of success or safety, to stake a claim on land which NOBODY OWNED? And didn’t those
individuals make the trails, the roads, and all the other improvements? And didn’t they also
sell parts of their land after creating something worth buying to the second wave of settlers
who would willingly PAY for what others before them had given value to?

The countless interactions of people buying and selling, even while under the burden of the
state and its criminal banking system, is what created all these places that people want to
live in. How does a latecomer to “the community” have a claim against all the property owners
there (for how long?) who PAID for their property (for how long?) and don’t know him from
Adam?

While we’re at it, how large is this “community”? Does some bum in NJ have a claim on
landowners in CA? Does some dude living in a shack in the mountains have a claim against
some dude living in a nice apartment in the city?

How can you define this supposed community which apparently owns all the land? How did
they come to own the land if individuals cannot own the land and the community is nothing
more than a group of individuals? What sort of magic leap of logic gets you from “no one
can own land” to “everyone owns the land together”? Don’t you see that you destroy the
meaning of ownership with this sleight of hand? Which land? Which people? If indeed each
parcel is settled by an individual and not some amorphous group of people who don’t even
exist yet or are thousands, hundreds, or even tens of miles away from the land in question,
what is the basis for saying that the undefined amorphous group (how do you gain membership
into this racket?) OWNS land that its members CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY had NOTHING TO
DO WITH in the first place???

If you say that all people own all land on the planet collectively, how is that any different than
communism? This is an axiom which is self-contradictory and not derived from any rational
premise concerning self-ownership, homesteading, free trade, free association, non-aggression.
It seems to negate liberty at its root – property. And, of course, the contradiction being that
as it negates property it claims to affirm it!

So you turn everyone supposedly into owners, but they are not, are they? No, the actual
people (individual human beings in the flesh) are RENTERS who OWE a continual TRIBUTE to
some group (which group? how did they acquire this right? who can be a member?) in perpetuity, without a contract, subject to violence for refusal to pay said tribute. And if you say something
stupid like, “Well, they owe the rent to themselves,” that’s just another absurdity. You can’t
owe yourself something (in a legal sense). These are just transfer payments from one group
to another.

It fails, like every other tax argument, on numerous grounds. If I pay rent to the “community”
so that the “community” can pay me a “dividend,” then why don’t I just keep my money in
the first place and save on transaction costs? Clearly it is the taking which is the purpose, not
the giving since you can only “give” this money back to people after you take it. And, naturally,
none of this is by voluntary contract, is it? For no one in their right mind would agree to it
if they didn’t have a gun to their head. Well, a few might, just as a few might agree to live
under any conceivable scheme.

Can the beneficiary of this scheme show that he or she owned the land for which they
are receiving rent by the continual threat of force? Obviously they cannot show that they
owned the land, that they have a right to collect rent (I thought rent was evil, right? Ha!), that
they have the right to imprison or fine or kill any victims who refuse to submit to this robbery.
They cannot show a contract or a history of documentation or testimony from neighbors saying
that they owned the land. This is nothing but FICTION.

There’s no point to listening to statist arguments for new tax schemes of any stripe since
it is the state, as an institution of violence and monopoly, which rules by force and will
write the rules as they go along for anything which can be dreamed up by social planners.
Since the individual property owner is a mere pawn in this game, why would anyone even
consider this or any other statist garbage like the “Fair Tax” or VAT or the Glorious Majestic
Oneness Tax of the True Equality? It’s all the same. It’s just different flavors of tyranny.
Take your pick. They all suck.