Response to The Importance of Property in Land
I wanted to post this directly to Mr. Stolyarov's page, but his submission system is currently broken. Below is my preliminary response to The Vital Importance of Property in Land. Update: posting works now and I posted a link to this page.
Clarifications and Qualifiers
I am a geopanarchist/geoanarchist and believe that land should and must be owned, but that such ownership cannot be truly free and clear of any encumbrances All property has encumbrances in that, ignoring further qualifications listed by the non-aggression principle, such property may not be used to harm others and the right to use it ends where harm to the person or property of others begins.
Ownership of property harms no one, excluding others from certain forms of property on which their survival, ability to make property, and flourishing depend can be said to harm those others inasmuch as they would be better off if such exclusion didn't exist. Thus it is not necessarily violative of the NAP to place restrictions on excluding others from certain forms of property in those cases.
Before I continue, I would like to clarify the position I'll be arguing from which is not the standard geoist position.
Ownership of property harms no one, excluding others from certain forms of property on which their survival, ability to make property, and flourishing depend can be said to harm those others inasmuch as they would be better off if such exclusion didn't exist. Thus it is not necessarily violative of the NAP to place restrictions on excluding others from certain forms of property in those cases.
Before I continue, I would like to clarify the position I'll be arguing from which is not the standard geoist position.
- All property rights are conditional. Functional rights are respect.
- No landlords or governments are de facto legitimate. This makes me an anarchist. However, I believe that governments can and would be voluntarily instituted among people even if they become involuntary over time, thus I am a panarchist who treats governments as any other landlord in competition for resources.
- Value is expressed by cost - there is no other standard which expresses value accurately.
- From #3 - the best system to determine property rights in that which is not created is by bidding.
- Human actualization / self-ownership / etc. should be a moral right
- Reduction of opportunity for others which is violative of the NAP (not getting into some of the problems I have with the NAP) is a moral wrong.
- The harm test is of primary importance for determining property rights - if another isn't making you worse off then you would be by removing them and their effects, then they're not harming you.
Argument 1: Use of Personal Property
Spot on. The use of one's personal property, including that of their body, must occur at some location. If one is taxed on land, then they cannot use their life or property without the permission of another. However, this is the exact same situation that occurs when a landlord demands rent or a landowner excludes others from a parcel or resource. Such a problem will exist in either system, the question is how to deal with it.
The form of geoism which I espouse says that you have a right to use as much unclaimed/uncontested land as you want. Beyond that, you have a right to certain value-amount of land with the value being determined by the market. Beyond that, exclusive use of land must be a privilege if equal human rights are to remain.
At least in that view, you can have a right to some land and thus some personal property. Furthermore, everyone can (unless the Earth were to become so populated that it'd be standing room only). The alternative is for only some people to have a right to land and thus personal property. If you doubt this, ask how others who don't already own property can obtain it without working on land which is owned by others to obtain land (and thus be privileged to work, not have a right to it).
The form of geoism which I espouse says that you have a right to use as much unclaimed/uncontested land as you want. Beyond that, you have a right to certain value-amount of land with the value being determined by the market. Beyond that, exclusive use of land must be a privilege if equal human rights are to remain.
At least in that view, you can have a right to some land and thus some personal property. Furthermore, everyone can (unless the Earth were to become so populated that it'd be standing room only). The alternative is for only some people to have a right to land and thus personal property. If you doubt this, ask how others who don't already own property can obtain it without working on land which is owned by others to obtain land (and thus be privileged to work, not have a right to it).
Argument 2: Complete Ownership
The second argument is true if there is no exclusive access to land. Again this argument also applies to those currently excluded. Again, I do not argue that land should be collectively owned or that all individual ownership be removed. I support a contingent right to exclude (not merely to use). If one is using less than the "fair share" value-amount of land then they would owe no other anything and may actually be owed by others. If you have a 5 acre homestead which isn't in the center of a city, then great, keep it free and clear. If you're Ted Turner excluding others from hundreds of thousands of acres, then you'll probably need to be paying them.
Your argument does touch upon what I see as the biggest problem with land value tax: that which is taxed is illiquid. With income and sales taxes, currency is taxed as it moves and all liabilities are paid. Of course, this ignores that all currency carries future tax liabilities when one goes to pay with it and it's either inflated or has sales and income tax passed through thus diminishing its purchasing power, however at least it's liquid. I will delve into this problem further later on in my response.
As an aside, both this and the first view appear to presume that the collection agency is a government which it doesn't have to be. The presence of numerous rent collection agencies which work on behalf of others proves that collection agencies do not have to be owners. Unlike some other geoists, I reject that any collective, public or private, has an ultimate ownership right in land. Governments are just another landlord and landlords are just small governments. Both are only as legitimate as others believe them to be and I reject their de facto legitimacy. I believe that any land value taxes should be distributed per capita to compensate others for exclusion and help them, through respect, to grant a right of exclusive ownership to the one paying the land value tax.
Your argument does touch upon what I see as the biggest problem with land value tax: that which is taxed is illiquid. With income and sales taxes, currency is taxed as it moves and all liabilities are paid. Of course, this ignores that all currency carries future tax liabilities when one goes to pay with it and it's either inflated or has sales and income tax passed through thus diminishing its purchasing power, however at least it's liquid. I will delve into this problem further later on in my response.
As an aside, both this and the first view appear to presume that the collection agency is a government which it doesn't have to be. The presence of numerous rent collection agencies which work on behalf of others proves that collection agencies do not have to be owners. Unlike some other geoists, I reject that any collective, public or private, has an ultimate ownership right in land. Governments are just another landlord and landlords are just small governments. Both are only as legitimate as others believe them to be and I reject their de facto legitimacy. I believe that any land value taxes should be distributed per capita to compensate others for exclusion and help them, through respect, to grant a right of exclusive ownership to the one paying the land value tax.
Argument 3: Opportunity to Choose Leisure or Work
This argument again applies to those who are currently excluded as much as it does to those who are paying a tax. The two non-communal land ownership options are either:
1. some people exclusively own all the land or
2. all people exclusively own some of the land
I choose the latter because it's the only way to have actual equal human rights to actualization and property - even if those rights are not unbounded.
Those who own no land are not allowed to work for themselves or choose the maximum leisure that nature-imposed survival requirements allow. They must work to pay rent or to pay capitalized rent in the form of a purchase price. To do so, they must labor... somewhere. To do so they must pay rent out of their paychecks when their employer pays rent instead of wages or paid capitalized rent when they purchased the land to build the factory or office or what have you.
1. some people exclusively own all the land or
2. all people exclusively own some of the land
I choose the latter because it's the only way to have actual equal human rights to actualization and property - even if those rights are not unbounded.
Those who own no land are not allowed to work for themselves or choose the maximum leisure that nature-imposed survival requirements allow. They must work to pay rent or to pay capitalized rent in the form of a purchase price. To do so, they must labor... somewhere. To do so they must pay rent out of their paychecks when their employer pays rent instead of wages or paid capitalized rent when they purchased the land to build the factory or office or what have you.
Argument 4: Incentives for Improvement
This argument is the most troubling of the six for geoists and the one which I feel needs the most critical discussion. Ownership itself is not what induces people to produce, security of improvements is. Unfortunately, many improvements are difficult or impossible to move and very difficult if not impossible to separate perfectly from the value of the land. Every proposal I've heard to address this has at least one aspect which seems unsatisfactory to me.
I don't hear complaints about people who make improvements to the yards of rented property and then lose such investments when they move on. It appears that expectation of keeping the improvements plays a central role in those improvements being made, as is suspected and as bolsters the strength of the fourth argument.
The best I can do at this point is to handwave and say that the market will take care of it. The following potential solutions come to mind:
This list is not exhaustive and I'm not smart enough to determine every possible solution. I firmly believe that Coasian Bargaining will take care of it and reach a new equilibrium. My overriding goal is that of human actualization. If growth or wealth or other considerations need to take a back seat, so be it.
I can turn the argument around and ask how much incentives people are improving when they are induced to speculate and fuel geoaustrian bubbles with get rich scams. At a certain point, what is unsustainable stops and, if it was an overshoot, a period of suffering and reduced human actualization must follow.
I don't hear complaints about people who make improvements to the yards of rented property and then lose such investments when they move on. It appears that expectation of keeping the improvements plays a central role in those improvements being made, as is suspected and as bolsters the strength of the fourth argument.
The best I can do at this point is to handwave and say that the market will take care of it. The following potential solutions come to mind:
- Technological advances which make improvements more portable - things such as include vertical farming
- Insurance to compensate lost improvements due to forced buyouts
- Registries of improvements where people can shun or otherwise dissociate from those who fail to compensate others fairly (and also shun those who lie about the value of their improvements).
- A lifestyle which is less about certain types of improvements and which favors experiences more strongly than material growth.
This list is not exhaustive and I'm not smart enough to determine every possible solution. I firmly believe that Coasian Bargaining will take care of it and reach a new equilibrium. My overriding goal is that of human actualization. If growth or wealth or other considerations need to take a back seat, so be it.
I can turn the argument around and ask how much incentives people are improving when they are induced to speculate and fuel geoaustrian bubbles with get rich scams. At a certain point, what is unsustainable stops and, if it was an overshoot, a period of suffering and reduced human actualization must follow.
Argument 5: Individuality
This again applies to those who are excluded as they are forced to rent and cannot make certain types of modifications to the rented parcel to cause it to reflect their own personal tastes beyond what was offered. I don't here people howling about that.
Argument 6: Owned Land versus Land in the State of Nature
This argument discusses Lockean Ownership (though ignores The Lockean Proviso). What qualifies as mixing labor is arbitrary and there needs to be good reason to consider it legitimate. I understand that its the only way to have no property conflicts which can't be resolved in a black and white manner, but that ignore the reality that those situations can and do exist. As competition for resources increases, first use fails to scale and begins to result in certain forms of privilege and rent extraction - the opposite of equal rights.
Why shouldn't tribes who are using the land for the hunt or walkabout not have rights to it? Their survival is dependent on it after all. What about conquest? What about the continued costs to others of being excluded which would indicate that exclusive ownership is not a one time cost to others? How does mixing allow one to own the minerals below or the sky above (as it does in some countries like the U.S.)?
Homesteading is indeed a consistent and universalizable standard, but it's one which is not compatible with equal rights beyond a certain population size. This is not only a fault with homesteading; all systems of ownership have this problem and geoism fails at certain population extremes as well - however, I believe that homesteading fails both morally and practically at a lower population size than does the form of geoism I espouse.
All land is transformed by everyone constantly. It's impossible for someone to completely mix their labor contiguously anyways resulting, by that standard, in the possibility of microparcels mixed in with other parcels.
Ultimately, functional rights are whatever is respected. Ultimately, what is legitimate is whatever others agree meets their standards of legitimacy. People are more likely to respect one's exclusive ownership of land when they're getting something out of it (and not the abstract (and currently false) statement about "a rising tide raising all boats"). Here are the ways to get people to respect property rights:
Why shouldn't tribes who are using the land for the hunt or walkabout not have rights to it? Their survival is dependent on it after all. What about conquest? What about the continued costs to others of being excluded which would indicate that exclusive ownership is not a one time cost to others? How does mixing allow one to own the minerals below or the sky above (as it does in some countries like the U.S.)?
Homesteading is indeed a consistent and universalizable standard, but it's one which is not compatible with equal rights beyond a certain population size. This is not only a fault with homesteading; all systems of ownership have this problem and geoism fails at certain population extremes as well - however, I believe that homesteading fails both morally and practically at a lower population size than does the form of geoism I espouse.
All land is transformed by everyone constantly. It's impossible for someone to completely mix their labor contiguously anyways resulting, by that standard, in the possibility of microparcels mixed in with other parcels.
Ultimately, functional rights are whatever is respected. Ultimately, what is legitimate is whatever others agree meets their standards of legitimacy. People are more likely to respect one's exclusive ownership of land when they're getting something out of it (and not the abstract (and currently false) statement about "a rising tide raising all boats"). Here are the ways to get people to respect property rights:
- 1. Show that, without you, their standard of living would suck. This is why personal wealth should be protected: because it's created.
- Use force by establishing a state (or a DRO which would become a state).
- Use lies such as "we can all be millionaires" (the Horatio Alger flaw).
- Use more lies such as "some landlords called the state" are legitimate. "You can always earn the money to buy land" (without a right of access to land or a right to a job).
Conclusion of Part 1
Ultimately, what I said in one of the paragraphs above is true. There can be equal human libertarian rights with conditional ownership of land or there can be conditional human libertarian rights with absolute ownership of land. If someone decides that the latter is better for them or those they care about, then that's fine, but I require them to admit it.
Click here for part 2
Click here for part 2