Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

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The way I see land value tax and taxes in general is different.

Tax is someone taking money by force. Supposedly this tax is then used to protect the land / assets from being seized. Over time every country seemingly has increased taxes as stability increased (not the other way around), so in reality — it’s extortion. Give us money or we take your stuff, your “protector” takes more because you don’t have other options.

Back to the land value tax, why bother? It’s the same fundamental issue; why are we paying these taxes?

And before we get into “but the services”. I moved somewhere that has approximately zero taxes and zero services. It’s great - safer, cheaper, better run. A lot of community stuff is ran by parents or churches, people tend to just “figure it out”.

The idea of a land value tax is insane because it robs you of assets faster the more valuable it is. We had this in the past, feudal Europe, it sucked. What it will end up being is just like Europe some random person will dictate what you owe and if you don’t pay it, then someone else is granted it at a discount. Probably the bureaucrats cousin.

"Tax is someone taking money by force" <--False, the entire ownership regime of land is an exercise in force. Land rent is either publicly collected or privately captured. When one has the (correct) philosophical position that everyone has an equal right to use land, it simply becomes a matter of 'who' receives the rent. As a matter of justice, the value of a free gift of nature should be shared. To believe otherwise is to believe that some people have less of a right to live, as land is required for all life and economic activity.

"Robs you of assets faster the more valuable it is" <--False, it collects the advantages that accrue to land (a free gift of nature) in exact proportion to the benefit that the land provides. Land value is a social surplus, not a charge.

"random person will dictate what you owe" <--False, assessments are made by observing the market according to well-established principles. See: https://www.iaao.org/ and just like today, you can establish multiple levels of oversight and include the option to appeal.

> why are we paying these taxes?

you can always try to build your own country in your own land and see how it goes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_(song)

It is inherently immoral to own land. Land belongs to the people of the society that controls it. No one in that society ever had the right to give it away. I agree that land owners should be reimbursed if we enter an LVT, but the idea that private ownership of land, an asset that can not be created and is inherently limited, should be allowed is frankly nonsensical. Land belongs to society, and thats why LVT is the best tax. Funding the government with the profit of the land makes the most sense.

On the Indian reservations in the US, the land isn't wholly owned by the individuals. It is kept in a tribal trust where a lot of people own slivers of the land (called land shares), and it cannot be used for things like securing loans and economic development if often redistributed through various means. There has been a lot of write ups on this over the years.

It is also the poorest and most corrupt parts of the country. Shit happens on the reservations that would even make Congress blush. If you want to see what happens when land is devalued and not ownable, look at the reservations.

I’m not buying the causation you seem to be selling with this correlation.

The libertarian notion that taxes are extortion is frankly childish in how overly simplistic it is.

You get all sorts of benefits in return for your taxes. You can't realistically opt out of them. You can't live without using roads or being defended by the military. You can't tell society at large that when you get hit by lightning that you want they to leave you to die and not call an ambulance

Since you can't opt out, a nontaxpayer ends up being a freeloader and social parasite. The only just option is to have to contribute to the imperfect system

The whole idea of extortion is premises that people can exist somehow outside of society which is disconnected from reality.. No man is an island

The alternative to the current model is not to have no services at all, as that makes no sense, agreed.

> The libertarian notion that taxes are extortion is frankly childish in how overly simplistic it is.

The argument is weak because you constructed a straw man. The libertarian notion is not to live without any of the services provided by a state, but to have different providers which are in competition. The issue is that the state / gov has a monopoly but is exempt from antitrust laws.

The implementation is tricky though because in reality, when functions of the state are privatized there is often a huge amount of lobbying and corruption involved and these functions are given to a small group of big companies which effectively form a cartel once again. Then they extract all the economic value left in the infrastructure, the privatization is declared failed and undone, effectively another channel of syphoning tax money into the hands of big companies.

> but to have different providers which are in competition

it never worked in practice though.

> has a monopoly but is exempt from antitrust laws

because it does a mediocre job at many things, making it quite easy to compete against it when and if it's worth it, but provides those things no private entity would, because it's anti-economical.

like, for example, the proverbial roads to nowhere.

I agree libertarianism is a tad silly, but really are those "benefits" you list not paid for by inflation rather than taxes.

> paid for by inflation rather than taxes

How does inflation pay for services and infrastructure?

Modern Monetary Theory, with the way it works it feels dishonest to claim taxes are paying for those things.

> nontaxpayer ends up being a freeloader and social parasite

And you say the libertarians are childish and simplistic

You just replied childish and simplistic comeback.

> The whole idea of extortion is premises that people can exist somehow outside of society which is disconnected from reality.

Or people can agree to collaborate (like a church or workers union) without extortion of citizens. There’s plenty of examples where extortion isn’t necessary.

I’m also not suggesting taxes shouldn’t be levied at all, I’m saying land and income taxes are particularly gross, as they misalign incentives. Like I said, the more civilized a civilization is, presumably the less protection people need, so we should pay less taxes. Similarly, the more civilized a civilization the more services can be provided by the private sector. The reverse trend is true for taxes, they charge more for less.

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