In Racine County, houses are being designated ‘blighted’ to make way for Foxconn
beltmag.com
beltmag.com
I'm not saying it's right or good, but I am saying that America's success in the 20th century was in part due to these exact tactics used on other countries around the world. And based on history, I would say you need to stand up and fight this sort of thing because it only gets worse.
From there you can look for US based corporations that have mines, factories, etc, in foreign nations.
I don't know anything about this particular situation. But personally, as long as there's a reasonably justified need (a new factory seems like it would qualify) and the evicted are appropriately compensated ("fair" can be hard to quantify, of course), I don't see that this is something we need to be outraged about.
I'm sympathetic to the idea of using eminent domain to take land for public projects, but for a private company? Nope. That's simply insane.
There is a balance, but I favor the use of eminent domain to expand economic opportunities to rural areas, as long as the buyouts are above market rate. Those that are affected are often the wealthier and older homeowners, not the struggling young families that most need help.
Second, can we please agree this is NOT eminent domain. This is about government corruption to lower the cost of the eminent domain action to follow. Eminent domain would be that the government buys the house at market price, so that the people can buy a reasonably similar house somewhere else. That would, of course, satisfy all your objections.
The government is working to destroy these houses without compensation, so they can save something like perhaps $5 million (maybe not even that) while throwing these people into the street.
People are not opposed to this because their opinion is that these homeowners should be allowed to block economic development of a large area. People are opposed to this because they do not believe throwing these people into the street to save the government and the biggest corporation on the planet a small amount of money is acceptable. The government should be forced to pay as normal under eminent domain rules, and it should extract that money from the company wishing to settle there.
The reality: the government is attempting to take these peoples' property, ultimately under threat of force, in order to transfer it to a for-profit corporation in violation of state law. It does not meet the legal requirements for blight or for eminent domain under Wisconsin law. It is illegal.
Watch someone try to illegally bulldoze your own home you paid for and built, making you incur substantial moving expenses and disruption, destroying a place where you've built memories – all in exchange for a bunch of Foxconn temp agency jobs – and then tell me how you feel.
I’m not looking from afar - my sentiment is shared by many, if not most, in those communities.
In theory, anyway.
Do you really think that people will benefit under a government/company combination that finds these actions acceptable ?
Because ... they won't. No way.
>on their properties. Many brought pictures. “We spent our life savings on this thing, and now we gotta move,” said Alfredo Ortiz, an 18-year resident. “It’s an insult,” he added, reflecting the general mood of the testimonies. It was extremely personal for these residents; having your carefully maintained residence, or in at least one case, recently built dream home, designated as blighted.
It’s weird though because republicans are normally the defenders of propert rights, but I guess they always do default to favoring the rich over the poor so this is still consistent. Just compare the quality of life and wages from Wisconsin (republican stronghold) to Minnesota (democrat controlled) and it’s obvious which is better run...
It's easier for communist countries, though, because the government already confiscated everything.
Something that comes to mind are the bondholder holdouts that objected to Venezuela's debt restructuring. You may side with the people being bullied by the rich and powerful in any circumstance, but that doesn't uniformly lead to defending holdouts.
My point is, no, paying any price is not how things work in capitalist societies or anywhere, because it's not practical, regardless of how unfair this particular instance is.
Edit: Wow, fastest downvote ever. Wonder if it is automated somehow. I don't think the ability (and prevalence) of downvoting opinions you disagree with contributes to the professed goals of HN. I appreciate strict moderation for civility, but given the ability to downvote rather than engage with (or ignore) a polite comment, people tend to abuse it.
I just can't see how that is comparable to bondholder holdouts.
Coordination problems preventing people from making collective progress are real, and mechanisms for eminent domain exist to deal with those real problems, is all I'm saying.
That is independent of whether some holdouts are righteous or not in particular circumstances.
To repeat, please interpret my comments in the context of what I am responding to, not just the article link.
It's dressed up with fancy words and paperwork, but when the State has a better use for it than you having it, they will find a way.
I think there are times when eminent domain should be used, but building a stadium, or a mall, is not one of them.
"Last October I posted[1] on Eric Posner and Glen Weyl’s proposal to generalize self-assessed property taxes. For many items, such as land and buildings, you’d pay an annual tax that is a standard percentage of your self-set sale-offer price for the item. This would avoid administrative property valuations, discourage people from sitting on stuff they don’t use, and make it much easier to assemble property into large units. Eminent domain would no longer be needed. They have a new book, Radical Markets, coming out in a few weeks, that I will review soon.
Some libertarian types disapprove on the grounds that this weakens property rights. Which it can, relative to a simple absolute property right. But simple property and liability have long been two quite different, and extreme, solutions to legal problems. Neither one is always best. In this post I want to point out that this alternate approach can be used not only to change traditional property to be more like liability, it can also be used to change traditional liability to be more like property. It is an interesting intermediate form between traditional property and liability. One I expect libertarian types to look on more favorably when applied to liability."
[0] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/04/between-property-and-l...
[1] https://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/10/for-stability-rents.h...
And so the idea is that anyone can then buy the property from you at that price at anytime and you must sell? Or just the state?
Of course, capital is used to bend the rules, and that becomes unfair, but that’s a whole other topic...
There are places where there is no presumption of rules uniformly applied.
If Oakland were in China, for example, they might decide that East Oakland is a little shabby and has a crime problem, and so they’re just going to raze the whole area and build a new high density eco-city to provide housing for San Francisco offices.
Heck, they might do that to the Sunset!
But that’s not how America works. The people in East Oakland bought the rights to that land. They own it, and so long as they obey the statutes of the city it doesn’t matter how valuable the driving-out of those people might be, if it’s less than the buy-out cost it’s not legally feasible.
The entire system relies on this principle. If I can’t rely on my land being sold at a price I set then I can’t make complex plans based on land use and prices. I have to add in a “government force” slush factor to every calculation and many delicate plans become too risky to try.
oh right. https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/texas-business-report-...
But instead of a sports team, it's a manufacturing company that had to build nets around its buildings to catch people attempting suicide.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2018/02/20/emi...
Still, though, I think it's disgusting to use eminent domain in order to turn land over to a private company.
In the country I live in the ruling party is actively destroying high level education so that we may give even cheaper work force in the future to the foreign (mostly Chinese) companies (along with huge tax cuts) - we also have a program where we decrease unemployment by forced governmental employment (for something much much lower than the minimum wage), but the system is abused in a way that people are fired and then taken back to their original workplace for the lowest possible wage.
And my friends don't understand why I feel totally disgusted by politics and why I think politicians are worse than criminals.
What we see in the article is the most healthy, highest functioning form of government -- disparate interests working through the system to resolve their interests. If the pervasive and infectious apathy your posts contains were more widespread, the whole system would break down, as one party dominates an apathetic counterpart. This is why they must fight, if not to promote the highest form of government, then to protect their homes.
That being said, not sure where ya live, so maybe it's different around there.
I live in one country of the Visegrad Four and our whole region is shifting to right wing populism with an unstoppable acceleration; if you mix this political climate with the resurgence of "wild capitalism" the end result is either hatred and fear or apathy on a massive scale.
I'm not sure if Trump is making America great - to me it seems that he's unchaining a capitalist machine and kicking Iustitia to the curb in the process, feigning stupidity and ignorance.
Recommended reading: Property Rights and Eminent Domain by Ellen Frankel Paul [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Property-Rights-Eminent-Domain-Franke...
oh but you don't understand. The jobs will be so plentiful. We sacrifice you at the altar of our corporate overlords and the jobs will just rain down from the heavens and fix everything.
They should buy nearby land and relocate the actual houses if families want to keep their house.
Judges do whatever they want, and even when things are blatantly corrupt nobody seems to care. Laws are twisted to suit their purposes and a Judges decision can't be questioned.
Since there would be no government to enforce this right, the latter category is strongly in favor of the right to bear arms.
I can't possibly imagine how the right to bear arms could prevent Foxconn from taking their land, as Foxconn could definitely afford to violently remove anyone resisting, no matter how much arms they could realistically have; and it would be the cost-efficient (and thus preferrable) way to solve this issue - e.g. as an alternative of offering $50000/acre for 420 acres, you can hire a lot of mercenaries with heavy hardware for half that amount and simply take the land for free.
What??? Libertarians in the US at least are merely Classical Liberals. You're thinking of some sort of crazy Laissez-faire anarchist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(United_Stat...
>We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
>Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.
>We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life—accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action—accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property—accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.
>Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.
- The American Libertarian Party Statement of Principles