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0 pointsyellowapple4y ago0 comments

> by increasing the cost of owning it by fiat

You're ignoring the reductions/eliminations of other taxes. For example, replacing property taxes with LVT is the usual "first step", and would reduce costs for most homeowners (whose land is typically less valuable than the house sitting on it). Same with sales tax, or income tax, or any other non-LVT tax; non-LVT taxes are less efficient than LVT, so replacing them with LVT would maximize tax revenue while reducing individual tax burdens for all but the largest landowners (namely: landlords, be they residential or commercial/industrial).

> taxation is a taking of assets from its owners

The private ownership of land is itself theft from the commons, and is itself the product of state power and authority. A tax on the value of that land is therefore compensation for that theft, and is more than fair.

Modern society has gone on long enough letting land owners have their cake and eat it too. If land owners expect society to respect their exclusive claims over land, then it's on them to compensate society accordingly.

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SllX4y ago· 2 in thread

> You're ignoring the reductions/eliminations of other taxes. For example, replacing property taxes with LVT is the usual "first step"

I’m not against replacing other taxes with LVT. I’m against the misapplication of tax authority for purposes which are not subordinate to covering the cost of governance.

> The private ownership of land is itself theft from the commons, and is itself the product of state power and authority.

No.

yellowappleOP4y ago

> No.

Yes. Or do you believe land titles to be magical artifacts that the rest of society obeys for the hell of it? Land ownership would not exist (and therefore wouldn't need taxed) if not for the state using its monopoly on violence to enforce your piece of paper; given that state-issued privilege, it should be entirely unsurprising that you might be called upon to pay accordingly.

SllX4y ago

You only need society and weapons and as it turns out, the thing we build most is societies with the intent of providing for our posterity, closely closely seconded by weapons. The absence of the State as we know it isn’t the absence of private property. If you want to imagine life without the State but with modern technology, try something more akin to a cross between Europe in the Middle Ages and drug cartels. I think Neal Stephenson wrote a book about it, but in any case private property rights are recognized by the State by custom (or “common law” if you prefer), not derived from the State, even though they can be deprived from you by the State by due process per the compromises we made in our Constitutional order.

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