Relevant section: “A Georgist, Congressman Warren Worth Bailey of Pennsylvania, drafted the first Federal personal income tax law on Georgist lines: falling mainly on very high incomes from property. … The federal income tax, which once targeted unearned income from land, now devolves steadily into a payroll tax.” In case your question was partly grounded in disbelief, recall that the Robert Schalkenbach foundation is a Georgist organization, so you can trust them on this; if they want to take credit for the origin of the federal income tax, let them.

could you cite a link to this information for me?

“A monopoly is a market for a certain good containing a single producer or seller.”

BillG responds:

mine was a dictionary definition too…

Uh, no. A monopoly is a market for a certain good containing a single producer or seller.

As for the rest of your comments, you have memorized your catechism quite well. I lost count after you repeated it for the twelfth time.

I’d mention that repeating a proposition does not make it any more true than the first time you said it, but I would then be repeating myself.

“what you are describing is not a monopoly”

BillG responds

monopolization – to dominate by excluding others.

landowners are entitled to a legal and monetary claim on the wages of those they exclude violating their rights of self-ownership.

George Gaskell wrote:

“to justify your proposal to take some measure of value from them by force.”

BillG responds:

the force is justified to prevent a theft of the superior property rights claim of those being excluded.

George Gaskell wrote:

“keeping what has voluntarily been given to you is not a form of “harm.” ”

BillG responds:

there are no examples in the plant or animal world were force is not used initially to establish dominion over a specific territory or subsequently for continued dominion…in the case of humans, beyond Locke’s proviso as the very act of continued enclosure FORCES a legal and monetary obligation on those being excluded which can only be realized by violating their rights to the fruits of their labor.

Only the ones rattling around in your mind.

Here are a few quotes by Mises himself for your consideration:

“On the market it is not mankind, the state, or the corporative unit that acts, but individual men.”

“Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”

“In the unhampered market economy there are no privileges, no protection of vested interests, no barriers preventing anybody from striving after any prize.”

“Entrance into the ranks of the entrepreneurs in a market society, not sabotaged by the interference of government or other agencies resorting to violence, is open to everybody.”

“Under capitalism, everybody is the architect of his own fortune.”

There are so many errors in this statement, I don’t know where to begin.

First, landowners are not a class. The term ‘class’ has a very specific meaning, derived largely from Marxist and related lines of thought, and it has no relevance or significance in explaining or analyzing actual economic behavior. It is a political or rhetorical term, not an economic or scientific one.

Second, I do not think that anything should be “backed by the state.” The modern notion of the nation-state is simply a concept that was invented and used to rationalize theft and violence. I reject all forms of collectivism across the board.

Third, as I will say for the third and final time, what you are describing is not a monopoly, even as you are misusing and abusing the term. A monopoly is where there is only one seller for a particular type of good. There are over a hundred million landowners in America, not to mention the entire world. They each act in their own interests, thus ending any monopoly-type behavior. The good in question is bought and sold all the time, more so in a free market than under any other type of system, thus ending any idea that there is an artificial barrier to entry or other kind of exclusionary cartel at work. It is therefore ridiculous to metaphorically collectivize them all into a single, giant mass of The Landowner Class in an attempt to justify your proposal to take some measure of value from them by force.

Fourth, as for “bundled rights,” I believe that ownership in fee simple ought to be recognized for the absolute right that it is (subject only to the non-aggression principles that are applicable to everyone in a civilized society, that one cannot use one’s land in a manner that harms others or their property). And, no, keeping what has voluntarily been given to you is not a form of “harm.”

“As I have already explained, there is no monopoly, nor is there even a cartel, in this situation”

BillG responds:

what you explained is that no one landowner has a monopoly on land…and I agree but that is not my claim.

I am claiming that our laws codify that the landowner is the rightful owner of the economic rent thus have been granted a monopoly by the state on this bundled right of land ownership to the detriment of the superior property rights claim to the fruits of one’s labor of those been excluded.

do you deny that the landowners as a class are entitled to the economic rent backed by the force of the state thus have a monopoly on this bundled right?

Then what classes do exist?

As I have already explained, there is no monopoly, nor is there even a cartel, in this situation. Therefore, this proposition, which you seem to feel will become more persuasive the more often you repeat it, is based on false assumptions. Your conclusion must therefore be false as well.

“No one has ever been able to point to a single example of a monopoly that was not the creation of a government.”

BillG responds:

no argument there…government granted privilege creates the landowners’ monopolization of the economic rent at the expense of the excluded’s labor-based property rights thus denying the right of self-ownership.

I suggest a true flat tax. A head tax of $60 or so per person. This would provide the Feds with the same inflation adjusted revenue thay had in 1800.

That’s even worse. Economic classes do not exist. They are a fiction invented by people who design such concepts in order to justify the use of aggression, the most prominent proponent of the “economic class” idea, of course, being Karl Marx himself. They have no relevance in describing economic systems or processes.

Furthermore, private monopolies simply do not exist. The individual members, without resort to the kind of coercion that only the state can provide, always compete with one another, thus breaking any attempted cartel agreements. No one has ever been able to point to a single example of a monopoly that was not the creation of a government.

“There is no land monopoly by a landowner, any more than I am the one monopolizing my car.”

BillG responds:

sorry that should have been landowners’ not landowner’s…I am referring to landowners as an economic class.

the landowner’s monopolizing the economic rent at the expense of labor-based property rights of those being excluded

You can keep saying the same thing over and over, but it doesn’t mean that you are making an argument.

Also, you cannot expect to throw around a few scary terms like “monopoly” and expect them to carry the day for you. There is no land monopoly by a landowner, any more than I am the one monopolizing my car.