Pro The land value tax (LVT) is a tax on the value of economic land.

Some definitions:

Land: for the purpose of this debate, 'land' will mean economic land which is any resource used to create wealth that exists regardless of whether labor or capital are applied to it. It is in fixed supply.

Site: To differentiate between economic land and the earth under a building, I will refer to the earth under a building as a 'site'.

Capital: Wealth gained from applying labor to land. Labor: Actions to produce wealth from land or capital.

Citizen's Dividend: Compensation paid to a citizen for his/her lack of access to the commons.

From these definitions, it can be seen that land is that which exists prior to and without human input. While that includes the layman definition of land (the space of earth on which your house sits), it also includes portions of the electromagnetic spectrum (Verizon owns a piece of invisible light), and natural resources like unrefined oil.

Note: the land under your house would be taxed, but not your house itself. One argument against this taxation at first glance is that it may be difficult to separate the value of the home from the site on which it sits; however, upon further research, one will learn that real estate agencies already separate those values quite easily- it is also done in places where site location is taxed at a different rate than the building on the site. I will be focusing mainly on the site value tax over other types of land just because there are a whole lot more sites than other types of land.



A. Land Value Tax

There are several benefits to taxing land over other things that are commonly taxed:



1. First and foremost, taxation on income and/or sales is backwards. Income and sales are both generated by the private sector and with those tax systems, their work is harvested by the public sector. Site taxation is more logical. A site's value goes up not because of a building put on it, but because of the community growing up around it. If in 1796 one purchased a site in the middle of what is today known as Times Square for $100 and did nothing to improve that land, but just slept and ate, the site would have increased to $10M dollars today without one having done ANYTHING to contribute to that increased price. That is to say, site values are created publicly. Under the common system of taxing labor (income) and sales (voluntary exchange) while allowing some landowner to harvest the increased value of the site, the public harvests the work of the private and the private harvests the work of the public. With LVT, the site's publicly created value would be harvested by the public while labor and exchange would remain in private.



2. LVT doesn't distort the economy. Sales, income, and general property taxes change the decision making processes of the people in a given economy.



Sales tax is particularly bad because it raises the cost of goods. In a given percentage of sales tax, it is likely that the producer will pay less than half of the total cost of the tax by passing the tax on to the consumer.



The income tax is also detrimental because it means that, similar to the sales tax, the supplier (the worker) and the demander (the employer) won't meet at their normal equilibrium point. Where a worker might have accepted X per year to be happy at a job, the employer (as a consumer in this case) would have to raise the amount he/she is willing to pay to X+1 in order to get that worker.



Property tax is perhaps the worst of all. The property tax encourages run-down neighborhoods and subsidizes unimproved sites. Under normal economic conditions, a landlord/landlady might decide to improve the building which they rent out to tenants, however these are not normal economic conditions and the property tax exists. Every dollar he/she puts toward improving the property will increase the amount he/she pays in taxes when the collector comes around. The obvious incentive, then, is not to improve property. The lower the value of the property, the lower the taxes. For the same reason, it subsidizes unimproved sites and encourages the use of sites as a store of value. Since the site has no improvements, the property tax taxes that site at a lower rate than it does even the landlord/landlady who doesn't improve the property. With our current system, we are telling people not to build. Because of this, a site tax would also decrease urban sprawl. The incentive of the site tax is to put one's land to the highest economic use or to sell it. So, one would choose to buy a site in the city instead of in the suburb. Unlike other taxes which raise the cost of goods, site tax actually lowers the cost of sites because it would cause entities hoarding sites to sell them or pay high taxes, thereby increasing the number of sites in the market.



3. At present, big real estate companies have a huge monopoly on sites. Because land is in fixed supply (as is stated in the definition), the incentive to real estate companies is to NOT sell land. I recommend a movie called "Real Estate for Ransom" (the sound quality isn't great) The US mortgage crisis was really just a land crisis. The big real estate companies will hold 200 sites. Their incentive is not to sell sites, but to make profit, so it follows that the most profit would be had by selling 100 sites while holding 100 off the market to artificially create scarcity. This drove up the prices of homes and the number and amount of mortgages along with them. Banks couldn't see the unsustainability of that system any more than the common buyer could.



4. Philosophically, the land value tax checks out better than other taxes, also. Land is in the commons. Since no one created it, if it weren't for governments allowing it, no one could own it. Absent the government, owning land is tantamount to stealing from everyone who could have gained use from that land. So, while some feel that all taxation is theft, LVT is actually the opposite. NOT taxing land is theft. This brings me to



5. Site values increase with the addition of public infrastructure nearby. A site value tax would make public infrastructure self-financing. At present, the private landowner captures totally the increase in value that comes from taxes. People who labor to improve their life are taxed to pay for improvements that a landowner receives the benefits of without having had to work a single hour.



B. The Citizen's Dividend (CD)

1. I argue that since the thing being taxed doesn't legitimately belong to any one person or exclusive group of people (it wasn't made by anyone), we should view the taxation of land as a rent paid to the community in exchange for using the commons. This is what is done in Alaska where the oil belongs to the State. They allow the extraction of the oil, but only in exchange for money. This money is given to the citizens of Alaska and has paid out everywhere from ~$300 to ~$3000 per person per year. This year's amount is $900: http://pfd.alaska.gov......

You can read more about previous payouts on the wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org......

If it works for Alaska, why not every state? Sure, not every state has oil, but every state has land of other types. And we could auction off carbon permits and the electromagnetic spectrum and other things that nobody can own because they're in the commons. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

~Thomas Paine (Who first talked about the CD in his pamphlet Agrarian Justice)



2. The replacement of welfare maladies

At present, the welfare system is "means-tested" i.e. the government has made a bureaucracy in order to determine whether or not a person deserves financial assistance. They do this to cut down on fraud. This bureaucracy is made in every program the government sets up. The government even sets up a program to provide phones for the poor in the United States. I sell phones and phone plans on a regular basis. It is silly when I help these people buy their subsidized plans. The plans wouldn't cost more than $35 even without government intervention, but because of means-testing, the government is spending MORE than $35 to give these people a $35 equivalent.

It's nonsense. Surely it is better to just give them $35 and let the market work.

The same can be said of food stamps and subsidized college loans and grants and any other system wherein the government gives $X only after checking whether the person is poor enough to merit it.

People aren't poor because they don't have food. People aren't poor because they don't have phones. People are poor because they don't have MONEY.



Another problem of welfare is the social stigma associated with it. A person who would help out himself/herself (and the economy) by going on these programs might decide not to because they feel like a burden because of how much our society demonizes welfare recipients as parasites.

No such stigma would exist in a system where everyone received a check in the mail.



I look forward to this debate. I'm excited to see Con's response. Report this Argument Con



The claim that 'Land' should be considered as 'ANY resource used to create wealth that exists regardless of whether labor or capital are applied to it' kind of robs any meaningful distinction from land, labor & capital, but for the sake of this argument I take it Pro meant 'ANY natural resource'.



To avoid any confusion I will refer to LVT tax as 'Site tax' as this seems to be in keeping with Pro's argument. To put the argument in perspective I understand Pro to mean that the purpose for which the specific site is employed will not be factored into the calculation of the value of the site, and thus does not contribute to the tax derived from aforementioned value. The problem is this leaves us with one conclusion, we will need to have a flat tax on all land, so that the single mother will pay the same for her site (per square foot) as the multimillion dollar company would. Pro alludes to the difficulty in separating the value of the site from value of the building, but unfortunately holds that this has been done successfully for some time by estate agencies. While it might be true that an agency might value the site it cannot be anything other than an arbitrary assessment when considered in isolation.



If you disagree with the conclusion drawn above then you must acknowledge, as does Pro, that valuations will be required to determine value. This brings me to the crux of this problem; valuations of the land cannot be done without considering what the sites are most efficiently being used for. Therefore if the single mother has a small holding on a site which contains gold, platinum or some yet to be adequately valued commodity, she will be forced to knock down the swing set and replace it with a mine shaft. This is admittedly a playful bit of tongue in cheek, but I believe it makes the point that labor (to which I include the most important kind of labor, mental labor), must inevitably be brought into consideration when determining the value of the site, by virtue of what it is being used for, or for it's perceived future potential (mental application of labor).



Not only must labor come into the calculation but so must capital. Pro uses the argument that if one had purchased a plot of land in Time Square in 1796 for $100 (of course adjusted for 217 years of inflation) it would be worth over $10M today. Obviously there is nothing special about the soil beneath Time Square, that would otherwise cause us to value the property at that price, except of course it's location to the commercial epicentre of New York. The question is, would this site be valued somewhat more proportionately to its intrinsic potential for being in the said epicentre or for what the community around it is doing on it or to it?



This exemplifies the importance of free market economy in land. In the yin and yang of market interplay, wherever there is an artificial (ie. non-market driven) pressure exerted the consequences will squeeze out where you least expect it. In this case the phenomenon of urban sprawl might be curtailed but it's benefits will also be curtailed. The land in Time Square is worth what it is worth because of the free movement of capital. What would be the situation if Time Squares 'rental' had to be determined by the state? I will explain below why I refer to it as a rental but for now let's consider this question.



With the very best will in the world the state would never be able to value the sites in Time Square for what they are worth, as each site is worth what it gets sold for, each time they get sold. Each site is sold, is sold for the price the seller is happy to receive foe the site and that the buyer is willing to pay it. The buyer pays for the site an amount that it in proportion to the potential or pleasure the buyer sees himself gaining by owning the site. When the state starts deciding what the value of the site is, it effects that transaction like Schr"dinger's cat.



But there is a much more pernicious effect to LVT, and that is the moral one. Pro is quite right when he says all taxes are theft, I argue this tax is not only NOT an exception but seems to reflect the rule. When all sites draw a tax they cannot be said to owned, thus all such sites are effectively rented from the state. When Pro declares that if there is oil on a site it does not belong to anyone, he assumes that the technological process of extraction of the oil is somehow open to us all to intuit. This is the problem, and it is a common Marxian error, to assume that everyone is equal shareholder to everyone else's ideas brings tyranny as personal advantage is thus eliminated. Someone had to come up with the technology for finding and extracting oil first before the site on which it can be found could taxed.



But can one say that the innovation becomes public property simply because the land on which it is employed is in fixed supply? I say No, the fact is that by setting any value to a site whether it has a building constructed on it or not cannot be done without taking into consideration the innovative & creative potential envisaged by the individual through their mental and physical labor. Therefore any payment demanded by the state for holding ransom the resources required for human ingenuity is extortionate and coercive. The state is best left to protecting private property and individual liberties, the only ceteris paribus properties required for a functional society.



Saying that you have a title deed for a property or site but having never completely paid for it is not owning the property by any means other than name alone, it becomes nothing more than a rental property. When the government gets into the business of land tax it gets into the business of commons and as game theory has made quite clear as has any public facility, the 'Tragedy of the commons' is an inescapable fact.



As for the Citizen Dividend I believe that land cannot be owned falls into disrepair and ruin. Then there is the moral case, where any land that is improved by the labor of the land owner or those that freely trade with her, should be kept by the land owner and thus should not be distributed to anyone, lest we call it what it is...theft. Report this Argument Pro makes a compelling case for LVT, however I will use my time to show that when you scratch a little deeper there are some unpleasant consequences lurking beneath the surface.The claim that 'Land' should be considered as 'ANY resource used to create wealth that exists regardless of whether labor or capital are applied to it' kind of robs any meaningful distinction from land, labor & capital, but for the sake of this argument I take it Pro meant 'ANY natural resource'.To avoid any confusion I will refer to LVT tax as 'Site tax' as this seems to be in keeping with Pro's argument. To put the argument in perspective I understand Pro to mean that the purpose for which the specific site is employed will not be factored into the calculation of the value of the site, and thus does not contribute to the tax derived from aforementioned value. The problem is this leaves us with one conclusion, we will need to have a flat tax on all land, so that the single mother will pay the same for her site (per square foot) as the multimillion dollar company would. Pro alludes to the difficulty in separating the value of the site from value of the building, but unfortunately holds that this has been done successfully for some time by estate agencies. While it might be true that an agency might value the site it cannot be anything other than an arbitrary assessment when considered in isolation.If you disagree with the conclusion drawn above then you must acknowledge, as does Pro, that valuations will be required to determine value. This brings me to the crux of this problem; valuations of the land cannot be done without considering what the sites are most efficiently being used for. Therefore if the single mother has a small holding on a site which contains gold, platinum or some yet to be adequately valued commodity, she will be forced to knock down the swing set and replace it with a mine shaft. This is admittedly a playful bit of tongue in cheek, but I believe it makes the point that labor (to which I include the most important kind of labor, mental labor), must inevitably be brought into consideration when determining the value of the site, by virtue of what it is being used for, or for it's perceived future potential (mental application of labor).Not only must labor come into the calculation but so must capital. Pro uses the argument that if one had purchased a plot of land in Time Square in 1796 for $100 (of course adjusted for 217 years of inflation) it would be worth over $10M today. Obviously there is nothing special about the soil beneath Time Square, that would otherwise cause us to value the property at that price, except of course it's location to the commercial epicentre of New York. The question is, would this site be valued somewhat more proportionately to its intrinsic potential for being in the said epicentre or for what the community around it is doing on it or to it?This exemplifies the importance of free market economy in land. In the yin and yang of market interplay, wherever there is an artificial (ie. non-market driven) pressure exerted the consequences will squeeze out where you least expect it. In this case the phenomenon of urban sprawl might be curtailed but it's benefits will also be curtailed. The land in Time Square is worth what it is worth because of the free movement of capital. What would be the situation if Time Squares 'rental' had to be determined by the state? I will explain below why I refer to it as a rental but for now let's consider this question.With the very best will in the world the state would never be able to value the sites in Time Square for what they are worth, as each site is worth what it gets sold for, each time they get sold. Each site is sold, is sold for the price the seller is happy to receive foe the site and that the buyer is willing to pay it. The buyer pays for the site an amount that it in proportion to the potential or pleasure the buyer sees himself gaining by owning the site. When the state starts deciding what the value of the site is, it effects that transaction like Schr"dinger's cat.But there is a much more pernicious effect to LVT, and that is the moral one. Pro is quite right when he says all taxes are theft, I argue this tax is not only NOT an exception but seems to reflect the rule. When all sites draw a tax they cannot be said to owned, thus all such sites are effectively rented from the state. When Pro declares that if there is oil on a site it does not belong to anyone, he assumes that the technological process of extraction of the oil is somehow open to us all to intuit. This is the problem, and it is a common Marxian error, to assume that everyone is equal shareholder to everyone else's ideas brings tyranny as personal advantage is thus eliminated. Someone had to come up with the technology for finding and extracting oil first before the site on which it can be found could taxed.But can one say that the innovation becomes public property simply because the land on which it is employed is in fixed supply? I say No, the fact is that by setting any value to a site whether it has a building constructed on it or not cannot be done without taking into consideration the innovative & creative potential envisaged by the individual through their mental and physical labor. Therefore any payment demanded by the state for holding ransom the resources required for human ingenuity is extortionate and coercive. The state is best left to protecting private property and individual liberties, the only ceteris paribus properties required for a functional society.Saying that you have a title deed for a property or site but having never completely paid for it is not owning the property by any means other than name alone, it becomes nothing more than a rental property. When the government gets into the business of land tax it gets into the business of commons and as game theory has made quite clear as has any public facility, the 'Tragedy of the commons' is an inescapable fact. http://en.wikipedia.org... As for the Citizen Dividend I believe that land cannot be owned falls into disrepair and ruin. Then there is the moral case, where any land that is improved by the labor of the land owner or those that freely trade with her, should be kept by the land owner and thus should not be distributed to anyone, lest we call it what it is...theft.

Pro I thank Con for accepting the debate. I will be responding to Con's rebuttals using quotes from his argument so the reader doesn't have to scroll back up and try to decipher what I'm referring to.



"The claim that 'Land' should be considered as 'ANY resource … kind of robs any meaningful distinction from land, labor & capital"

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I don't see how it robs meaningful distinction from land, labor, and capital. It adds distinction in my mind. The definition allows you to see that:

land + labor = capital And

capital + labor = capital So my basic argument can be summed up thus: "You are entitled to the fruits of your labor. Capital is the fruit of your labor. You are entitled to your capital. Land is not the fruit of your labor. In fact, land is the fruit of no one's labor, but the value of land is the fruit of the community's labor, so you are not entitled to land and the community is entitled to any increased value of land".

And yes, that means ANY natural resource.

Hopefully that clears it up.



"… the purpose for which the specific site is employed will not be factored into the calculation of the value of the site, and thus does not contribute to the tax derived from aforementioned value..."

That is somewhat correct. There's not necessarily an authority determining what each piece of land is for in this hypothetical. The site's value is determined by the market. So if a landowner owns a site in some area where businesses have decided to congregate, the value of that site will be priced accordingly regardless of how he/she decides to use that site. Once again, that's not the effect of the land value tax, that's the effect of the market.



So to the next point "we will need to have a flat tax on all land, so that the single mother will pay the same for her site (per square foot) as the multimillion dollar company would."

That's not correct. A flat tax on land is not 'every square foot will be charged $X', it's 'landowners must pay X% of the value of the sites which they own'.

A landowner is not charged per square foot. They are charged per the value of the site(s) that they own. A single mother who owns $1M of land would surely be able to afford to sell it or pay the tax. The same woman with $100 of land would be able to afford it.



" While it might be true that an agency might value the site it cannot be anything other than an arbitrary assessment when considered in isolation."

It would be no more arbitrary than what the market already determines. It's pretty mathematically consistent.

Consider persons A and B.

A lives near a school and has a two-bedroom, one-bathroom, brick house with a fireplace and no need for repairs.

B lives near a sewage plant and has a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a fireplace and no need for repairs.

Their houses are identical, but when A sells her property to move to another town, she will sell her house for $100,000 and when B sells her property to move to another town, she will sell her house for $50,000.

It can be reasonably deduced that the site value of A is at least $50,000 higher than that of B. The more properties that can be analyzed, the more accurate a reading can be got.

If one looks at similar properties in different areas, one can deduce the value of a site.

There are a number of other ways, also.

Houses depreciate over time, sites do not. One can see the relative difference in the rate of change of the values of properties to determine land values, as well. And an assessor could do all of them to ensure that the value was accurate. Multiple methods coming to similar results indicate that the results are more likely to be accurate.



"Therefore if the single mother has a small holding on a site which contains gold… she will be forced to…"

She will not be forced to do anything; she will simply have the incentive to do the most economically efficient thing. That's where the citizen's dividend comes in. She would be able to ignore that bit of the taxes except in the most extreme of cases by using her citizen's dividend to pay for the land. LVT encourages the economically efficient use of land- CD protects the right of the individual NOT to have to follow that incentive.



"The question is, would this site be valued … to its intrinsic potential …or for what the community around it is doing…?"

The increased value of the site is attributable to both. A site increases in value because many people want it; supply and demand, however, a new site in the same spot cannot be created. It is the spot that is valuable. So while supply and demand determine the price, they do not determine the supply. Site values operate differently than most of the free market. That's why Adam Smith said that every landowner acts, in his role as a landowner, as a monopolist. Landownership is monopoly.





"What would be the situation if Time Squares 'rental' had to be determined by the state? … the state would never be able to value the sites in Time Square for what they are worth, as each site is worth what it gets sold for..."

It's interesting that Con brings up rentals. Another possibility of collecting the value of land is to have a "single landlord" in the form of nationalized land. Then landlords would merely be renting from the government. With that system, you could have a society run with no taxes whatsoever. If your land value goes down, you pay less per month, if they go up, you pay more per month. A valuation could be done every-so-often by leasing some piece of land to the highest bidder.



"Each site is sold… for the price the seller is happy to receive foe the site and that the buyer is willing to pay it. "

The problem with this idea is that, in regards to sites, a buyer has no choice. Every being must exist somewhere. One cannot simultaneously believe in the right to exist and not believe in the right to exist in some place because existing requires a place to exist. The buyer may choose to go to some other seller, but ultimately, he/she must accept the offer of someone. This is tantamount to slavery. In a truly free market, the buyer and the seller can choose to walk away from the offers presented by either side.

The standard assumptions of supply and demand do not apply with landownership because the supply of land doesn't increase with price.

Landownership is government-granted monopoly.



"When Pro declares … he assumes that the technological process of extraction of the oil is … open..."

That is not the case. The oil in the earth does not belong to anyone. The value an oil tycoon adds by extracting that oil belongs to the oil tycoon. The original value, however, does not. This is not a Marxian error. This is capitalist.

"Someone had to come up with the technology for finding and extracting oil ..."

Yes and that person would be wholly entitled to sell that oil at whatever price. The oil before it is removed from the commons though, is still in the commons- he/she did not create the oil; therefore he/she is not entitled to the whole value of the oil. He/she is only entitled to the value he/she adds to the oil. The removal of the oil from the commons comes at a price. That price could be determined any number of ways and would be arbitrary. However, the person who wants to extract the oil would be the buyer and the State would be the seller. If the State sets the price too high, it will be lowering revenue. The State doing it would no more distort the economy than a private entity selling his/her oil rights.

This system restricts government to earn money the same way as everyone else: buying and selling.



"But can one say that the innovation becomes public property simply because the land on which it is employed is in fixed supply? I say No"

I also say no. I believe Con has accidentally created a straw man to argue against.

"…any payment demanded by the state for … the resources required for human ingenuity is extortionate and coercive."

If we follow that logic to its natural conclusion, a private entity holding resources required for human ingenuity is also extortionate and coercive. What difference does it make who the extorter is?



"Saying that you have a title deed for … site but having never …paid for it is not owning the property … it becomes nothing more than a rental property.”

Yes. That's the goal. I want land not to be owned. I want it to be rented from the community.





"When the government gets into the business of land tax it gets into … the 'Tragedy of the commons' … an inescapable fact. http://en.wikipedia.org...;

Further study into the so-called 'Tragedy of the Commons' will show that the man who wrote it, Garrett Hardin lamented not calling it "the Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons" because managed commons actually work. Therefore the tragedy of the commons is TOTALLY escapable. The reader can see the 'Unmanaged' bit by the same author in the references of the Wikipedia entry Con linked.

Here is the link to the author: https://en.wikipedia.org... {See the comments for a somewhat irrelevant post about game theory- I didn't think it was relevant enough for it to be a part of my main argument, so I'll post it there.}



"As for the Citizen Dividend I believe that land cannot be owned falls into disrepair and ruin."

One can't repair land. One's HOUSE can fall into disrepair, but land can't... it's land. The CD has nothing to do with the effects of the tax. It is the distribution of the tax. The distribution of the tax doesn’t create the non-ownership of land, so I don't see how Con thinks that a CD would lead to land disrepair and ruin.



It appears that Con has let the CD go through uncontested. Con has made no argument against the distribution of the revenue, which is half of my argument.

I urge voters to remember that.



In conclusion, to not collect the value of land for the public is to allow private entities to gain value they didn't create. THAT is theft. Report this Argument Con



Pro:"Perhaps I wasn't clear enough."

It's not so much that Pro was not clear enough, it's just that I needed clarification before I set off down a rabbit hole. 'ANY resource' could just as easily be construed as labor or capital. This was not a criticism, just clarification.



Pro:"land + labor = capital And capital + labor = capital"

The above seems like an arbitrary formulation, as it cannot be meant to be as formulaic as it is presented, it also leaves off an often ignored factor of production; entrepreneurship. Without this labor + land = land + labor. Entrepreneurship is the dynamic which drives the process as together with the concept of ownership regulates the relation between risk and reward. Entrepreneurship provides the impetus and ownership the incentive for thinking beings to apply themselves to the resources. This is what the 'Tragedy of Commons' deals with. I will explore this phenomenon in more detail later as I believe Pro has too quickly dismissed it as being a 'manageable' and thus irrelevant complication.



Pro: "land is the fruit of no one's labor, but the value of land is the fruit of the community's labor"

Pro arrives at my conclusion here, but in my view uses the wrong word in applying 'community' to his formulation. Land is given commodity and thus I agree it is the fruit of no one's labor, but the value of land is the fruit of the stored up labor (capital) applied by the investor who thus imbues in the land with the potential that his mental labor intended for it. I might be able to move onto a plot of land that is vacant and pay a tax for it at $100 per sq ft, but the moment I convert the property to a sewage farm, I reduce the value of the land to $10 per sq ft for residential purposes, and while I applaud the would-be homeowner for having smelling a rat, it only limits the value of the land for residential purposes. I know of a few heavy industrial plants that have sewage farms on them, are they to get a tax break for sniffing a bargain?



Pro:"That's not correct. A flat tax on land is not 'every square foot will be charged $X', it's 'landowners must pay X% of the value of the sites which they own'."

This is meant to point to the fact that if there is no contribution to the value of site to be drawn from it's utility potential, it has no basis for being valued differently to any other piece of land. That is to say that a piece of land must necessarily be valued based on what potential it is estimated to have by it's purchaser, whomever that might be, sewage tycoon or homeowner.



As regards the valuation per square foot vs %, I'm not sure Pro and I disagree as a site valued at $100,000 will draw a tax at 10% of $10,000, which if it was 100 square foot would equate to $100 per sq ft. A proportionately smaller holding of say 10 sq ft, valued at the same level would also draw a tax of $100 per sq ft as $100,000 / 100 x 10 = $10,000 in value draws $1,000 in tax which equates to $100 per sq ft. Therefore if gold or platinum is discovered on the lot worth $100,000 and raises the value of the land to $10,000,000 (tax = 1,000,000 = $10,000 per sq ft), the small holder would not have the choice to keep her 10 sq ft holding (say a small farm"very small it seems) to do with as she pleased as she would not be able to afford the $100,000 tax bill. In reality she might decide to sell it to make a profit and engage in some other venture, but in reality due to ownership and no LVT she would still have that choice".and this is truly freedom.



Pro:"...by using her citizen's dividend to pay for the land. LVT encourages the economically efficient use of land- CD protects the right of the individual NOT to have to follow that incentive."

This is of course assuming the CD, which over a large population will smooth out all regional fluctuations, will be enough to cover disproportionately large local value increases, potentially driving low income citizens to live off the CDs while having to migrate to slums where the value will be consistently low, drawing consistently low taxes.



Pro:"That's why Adam Smith said that every landowner acts, in his role as a landowner, as a monopolist. Landownership is monopoly."

Pro seems to have misunderstood the context in which Adam Smith speaks of a landowner. Here Smith is dealing with the prickly issue of Land rental as it was applied during the times of stifling regulations regarding such peculiarities as primogeniture and the like, where aristocrats were the only legal landlords. He is referring to land rental: "The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price."



Smith seems to be making the point here that when land is not free on the market is becomes a burden to progress as emphasised by "In Europe, the law of primogeniture, and perpetuities of different kinds, prevent the division of great estates, and thereby hinder the multiplication of small proprietors. A small proprietor, however, who knows every part of his little territory, views it with all the affection which property, especially small property, naturally in- spires, and who upon that account takes pleasure, not only in cultivating, but in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the most successful.""



Pro:The problem with this idea is that, in regards to sites, a buyer has no choice. Every being must exist somewhere. One cannot simultaneously believe in the right to exist and not believe in the right to exist in some place because existing requires a place to exist. The buyer may choose to go to some other seller, but ultimately, he/she must accept the offer ofsomeone.

I'm not sure what Pro means by having a right to exist, and more particularly that one should have a right to exist somewhere. In a rationally functional society the only right I should expect is the right to the product of my labor, if that is not sufficient to sustain my existence I have no right to demand the surplus required to survive from my neighbour. If he is willing to donate such surplus, all the better for me, but to force my neighbour to surrender any product of his labor to me is forced labor or slavery.



We are thinking beings that must be made to shoulder the responsibility for our own actions, that includes finding, acquiring ang holding onto the resources required to survive. Further to this, Pro assumes that the cash used to purchase a piece of land also belongs to the community and was not derived by means of labor.



Pro:"Yes and that person would be wholly entitled to sell that oil at whatever price."

Let me provide another example to demonstrate the point a bit better"

In the example used above if I 'own' a piece of land subject to LVT and through my own inductive ingenuity I discover that the land I live on can by mined for a new metal I have synthesised. When the world finds out about this once I start taking the metal to the market, the value of the land on which I discovered the metal will increase from $100,000 to $10,000,000, with concomitant increase in tax from $10,000 to $100,000. The increase in the value of the land is solely attributable to my mental labor (in having provided the cause for the revaluation). Thus my mental labor is worth $9,900,000, but the state in its infinite wisdom sees my discovery as having been owned by the community when it confiscates $100,000 from me due to my site having increased in value.



Pro:"Yes. That's the goal. I want land not to be owned. I want it to be rented from the community."



This experiment has been tried and has been shown to be a dismal failure. Apart from the example of Russia and North Korea, here is a study that more broadly fits the mould specified above - Land Policy in Vietnam...



Pro:"Further study into the so-called 'Tragedy of the Commons' will show that the man who wrote it, Garrett Hardin lamented not calling it "the Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons" because managed commons actually work. Therefore the tragedy of the commons is TOTALLY escapable."



Garrett Hardin does in fact state that he laments not calling it the "Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons" as this is the interpretation which arises out of the formulation of the problem. I argue, as does he, that there is no one who is capable of managing vast resources to the extent to which it will be required to counter the effects of the natural inclination described by the problem. I can only use examples closer to home to make a better case. In the UK, where I live, the abuse of council houses (government owned and rented housing) by those that live in them is rife and costs local governments hundreds of millions in repairs each year. Yet the moment a council estate is provisioned for the resale of the land to the occupant, the land is automatically observed to improve in upkeep and appearance. This should not be a surprise as it makes perfect sense that I will take care of what is my own property much better than that owned by no one.



Pro:"It appears that Con has let the CD go through uncontested. Con has made no argument against the distribution of the revenue, which is half of my argument.



Pro:"I urge voters to remember that."



I do apologise for not making my position obvious; since I do not believe LVT to be effective in addressing the concerns it is designed to address, and that it is grossly immoral any redistribution of taxes from such a venture would be equally detrimental and probably more immoral.



I look forward to Pro's closing remarks"it's been enjoyable! Report this Argument I thank Pro for his latest contribution. For the sake of consistency I will continue to employ Pro's method of rebuttal using quotes from his arguments and mine where a trail is necessary.Pro:"Perhaps I wasn't clear enough."It's not so much that Pro was not clear enough, it's just that I needed clarification before I set off down a rabbit hole. 'ANY resource' could just as easily be construed as labor or capital. This was not a criticism, just clarification.Pro:"land + labor = capital And capital + labor = capital"The above seems like an arbitrary formulation, as it cannot be meant to be as formulaic as it is presented, it also leaves off an often ignored factor of production; entrepreneurship. Without this labor + land = land + labor. Entrepreneurship is the dynamic which drives the process as together with the concept of ownership regulates the relation between risk and reward. Entrepreneurship provides the impetus and ownership the incentive for thinking beings to apply themselves to the resources. This is what the 'Tragedy of Commons' deals with. I will explore this phenomenon in more detail later as I believe Pro has too quickly dismissed it as being a 'manageable' and thus irrelevant complication.Pro: "land is the fruit of no one's labor, but the value of land is the fruit of the community's labor"Pro arrives at my conclusion here, but in my view uses the wrong word in applying 'community' to his formulation. Land is given commodity and thus I agree it is the fruit of no one's labor, but the value of land is the fruit of the stored up labor (capital) applied by the investor who thus imbues in the land with the potential that his mental labor intended for it. I might be able to move onto a plot of land that is vacant and pay a tax for it at $100 per sq ft, but the moment I convert the property to a sewage farm, I reduce the value of the land to $10 per sq ft for residential purposes, and while I applaud the would-be homeowner for having smelling a rat, it only limits the value of the land for residential purposes. I know of a few heavy industrial plants that have sewage farms on them, are they to get a tax break for sniffing a bargain?Pro:"That's not correct. A flat tax on land is not 'every square foot will be charged $X', it's 'landowners must pay X% of the value of the sites which they own'."This is meant to point to the fact that if there is no contribution to the value of site to be drawn from it's utility potential, it has no basis for being valued differently to any other piece of land. That is to say that a piece of land must necessarily be valued based on what potential it is estimated to have by it's purchaser, whomever that might be, sewage tycoon or homeowner.As regards the valuation per square foot vs %, I'm not sure Pro and I disagree as a site valued at $100,000 will draw a tax at 10% of $10,000, which if it was 100 square foot would equate to $100 per sq ft. A proportionately smaller holding of say 10 sq ft, valued at the same level would also draw a tax of $100 per sq ft as $100,000 / 100 x 10 = $10,000 in value draws $1,000 in tax which equates to $100 per sq ft. Therefore if gold or platinum is discovered on the lot worth $100,000 and raises the value of the land to $10,000,000 (tax = 1,000,000 = $10,000 per sq ft), the small holder would not have the choice to keep her 10 sq ft holding (say a small farm"very small it seems) to do with as she pleased as she would not be able to afford the $100,000 tax bill. In reality she might decide to sell it to make a profit and engage in some other venture, but in reality due to ownership and no LVT she would still have that choice".and this is truly freedom.Pro:"...by using her citizen's dividend to pay for the land. LVT encourages the economically efficient use of land- CD protects the right of the individual NOT to have to follow that incentive."This is of course assuming the CD, which over a large population will smooth out all regional fluctuations, will be enough to cover disproportionately large local value increases, potentially driving low income citizens to live off the CDs while having to migrate to slums where the value will be consistently low, drawing consistently low taxes.Pro:"That's why Adam Smith said that every landowner acts, in his role as a landowner, as a monopolist. Landownership is monopoly."Pro seems to have misunderstood the context in which Adam Smith speaks of a landowner. Here Smith is dealing with the prickly issue of Land rental as it was applied during the times of stifling regulations regarding such peculiarities as primogeniture and the like, where aristocrats were the only legal landlords. He is referring to land rental: "The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price."Smith seems to be making the point here that when land is not free on the market is becomes a burden to progress as emphasised by "In Europe, the law of primogeniture, and perpetuities of different kinds, prevent the division of great estates, and thereby hinder the multiplication of small proprietors. A small proprietor, however, who knows every part of his little territory, views it with all the affection which property, especially small property, naturally in- spires, and who upon that account takes pleasure, not only in cultivating, but in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the most successful."" http://www2.hn.psu.edu... Pro:The problem with this idea is that, in regards to sites, a buyer has no choice. Every being must exist somewhere. One cannot simultaneously believe in the right to exist and not believe in the right to exist in some place because existing requires a place to exist. The buyer may choose to go to some other seller, but ultimately, he/she must accept the offer ofsomeone.I'm not sure what Pro means by having a right to exist, and more particularly that one should have a right to exist somewhere. In a rationally functional society the only right I should expect is the right to the product of my labor, if that is not sufficient to sustain my existence I have no right to demand the surplus required to survive from my neighbour. If he is willing to donate such surplus, all the better for me, but to force my neighbour to surrender any product of his labor to me is forced labor or slavery.We are thinking beings that must be made to shoulder the responsibility for our own actions, that includes finding, acquiring ang holding onto the resources required to survive. Further to this, Pro assumes that the cash used to purchase a piece of land also belongs to the community and was not derived by means of labor.Pro:"Yes and that person would be wholly entitled to sell that oil at whatever price."Let me provide another example to demonstrate the point a bit better"In the example used above if I 'own' a piece of land subject to LVT and through my own inductive ingenuity I discover that the land I live on can by mined for a new metal I have synthesised. When the world finds out about this once I start taking the metal to the market, the value of the land on which I discovered the metal will increase from $100,000 to $10,000,000, with concomitant increase in tax from $10,000 to $100,000. The increase in the value of the land is solely attributable to my mental labor (in having provided the cause for the revaluation). Thus my mental labor is worth $9,900,000, but the state in its infinite wisdom sees my discovery as having been owned by the community when it confiscates $100,000 from me due to my site having increased in value.Pro:"Yes. That's the goal. I want land not to be owned. I want it to be rented from the community."This experiment has been tried and has been shown to be a dismal failure. Apart from the example of Russia and North Korea, here is a study that more broadly fits the mould specified above - Land Policy in Vietnam... http://jmk.sagepub.com... Pro:"Further study into the so-called 'Tragedy of the Commons' will show that the man who wrote it, Garrett Hardin lamented not calling it "the Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons" because managed commons actually work. Therefore the tragedy of the commons is TOTALLY escapable."Garrett Hardin does in fact state that he laments not calling it the "Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons" as this is the interpretation which arises out of the formulation of the problem. I argue, as does he, that there is no one who is capable of managing vast resources to the extent to which it will be required to counter the effects of the natural inclination described by the problem. I can only use examples closer to home to make a better case. In the UK, where I live, the abuse of council houses (government owned and rented housing) by those that live in them is rife and costs local governments hundreds of millions in repairs each year. Yet the moment a council estate is provisioned for the resale of the land to the occupant, the land is automatically observed to improve in upkeep and appearance. This should not be a surprise as it makes perfect sense that I will take care of what is my own property much better than that owned by no one.Pro:"It appears that Con has let the CD go through uncontested. Con has made no argument against the distribution of the revenue, which is half of my argument.Pro:"I urge voters to remember that."I do apologise for not making my position obvious; since I do not believe LVT to be effective in addressing the concerns it is designed to address, and that it is grossly immoral any redistribution of taxes from such a venture would be equally detrimental and probably more immoral.I look forward to Pro's closing remarks"it's been enjoyable!