Topic: Fair Tax and black markets - page 5. (Read 9019 times)

Um, recall that I'm advancing the geoist perspective.  I'm still developing my ideas, so I'm not quite a fanatical geoist, but that's kind of been my role in the thread so far.

As such, my answer would be, "Whichever one of us has been paying the tax."

Well, let's suppose you stake out, in winter, the site of your future home. you leave, intending to build that home after the thaw. It is, after all, difficult to build a foundation in frozen soil. Before you can return, I come in and plow about half of those markers under, and plant a field. Just as the first shoots break the surface, You show up with the construction crew, ready to build your house.

Who is in the right, here? Is the land rightfully my farm, or your house?

It's going to take more than shoving a few stakes in the ground to convince me that a person "has" a piece of land.  If that person says "If you work here without paying me, I'll kill you." I'll consider it extortion, nothing more.

I do understand your point of view and I think you raised a number of very good points that really made me think.  I think our philosophies are more similar than different.  Echoing Explodicle's sentiment, while you may not have convinced me, it was a good discussion regardless.

One point in particular you raised that was fairly thought-provoking is that I am, in fact, implying that governments/communities should have the power that I say landlords have not earned.  Leaving this power in the hands of landlords is not an acceptable solution to me either, but I do acknowledge the dissonance and will keep my mind open to a solution that solves both problems.

I am an eternal optimist. Perhaps, you will prove me wrong. That would be a refreshing change.

Why do you want me to think about anything relating to private law if you're certain I can't be convinced?

Thank you for the series of thought-provoking discussions, at least. As obnoxious as I am, it has still been very informative.

I guess you'll just have to figure out a way to get the person who has it to give it peacefully, then, huh?

I won't be able to convince you. I definitely won't be able to convince Explodicle. It's like Ron White said, You can't fix stupid.

Oh, and Explodicle,


You should probably think about what the concept of "free market" means when applied to the justice and law industries.

Let us consider three more scenarios.

First there are anarcho-communists. They share resources, but do so in an inefficient manner by penalizing constructive activity.

Then there are geoists who share resources efficiently with natural resource taxes.

Finally we have "strong land rights" market anarchists, who privatize everyone else's land. Clearing forests and leaving trash all over the place isn't just tolerated, it's considered "leaving a mark" and grants monopoly ownership.

In the first two scenarios no one is stealing a shared resource for private gain, although the anarcho-communists are still wasting it somewhat. When group #3 leaves their desolate wasteland behind for a new one, everyone else is free to homestead it.

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I was actually surprised to hear that market anarchists believe in subjective property rights, considering how much they complain about "invading MY property!" As defined by a loose affiliation of sometimes-contradicting judges, but of course not the ones who actually exist in the real world.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all lived in fully formed philosophically unified tribes isolated from each other, and there was always somewhere else to go when we encountered another tribe with an incompatible philosophy?  I live in a world of high population densities where ideologically, ethnically, and religiously fragmented peoples are forced into close proximity, personally.  There's still wilderness left out there, but not all of it is usable for every purpose.  When we need something, there isn't always somewhere else to get it.

What you've basically done there is restate the homestead/AnCap position.  Not really sure what your point is.  What you've written is what the AnCaps would believe, but the two other groups would be no less sincere in their beliefs, and in their eyes the AnCaps would be the aggressors for trying to drive them away from something that they're entitled to, and may need to live.

I guess you're basically saying that in the cases where the AnCap society is defending themselves from outside invasion, they're in the right?  But it's not that clean cut in the real world.  Ideological conflict can occur within a society, and societies are not homogenous in the first place.

There is a world of difference, both philosophical and practical, between imposing that definition of ownership on someone and defending that definition of ownership from someone.

Let's posit two groups, one of which recognizes ownership of land, and one which does not. On the one side, we have a group of AnCaps, who recognize sticky ownership of property, and homesteading. On the other, we have a group of anarcho-communists, who do not recognize homesteading as a valid way to own land, or indeed owning land at all. they only recognize use. Let us further assume that the AnCaps have the best weapons and training, and can, if they choose, impose their order on anyone they come up against.

Our first scenario has the communists occupying a plot of land. Amongst themselves, they peaceably share the land, and all use it as needed. The group of AnCaps comes along, sees that they have already occupied and altered the land they are using, and moves along, looking for un-homesteaded land.

Our second scenario has the AnCaps occupying a plot of land. There is one plot which is owned, but kept pristine for reasons left to the owner. The communists come along, and seeing this unused plot of land, decide to set up shop. The owner of that land, assuming he didn't keep it unused for the purpose of dirty commies setting up a campground, will desire them off the land. So, off they go, by force if necessary.

Now, let's posit a third scenario, where a group of geo-libertarians come along and start telling the AnCaps that because they own land, they owe the geo-libertarians a land tax. They would correctly view this as an attempt to steal from them, and defend their property, with force if necessary.

While we're at it, Let's posit that a group of AnCaps come across a group of geo-libertarians who have already set up shop on a piece of land. They have all agreed that in order to fund their community, they should all pay a land tax to whatever agency they have deemed rightful to collect it. Since the situation is voluntary, the AnCaps shrug, and move along, looking for less crazy neighbors.

You don't impose it on anyone who has a different idea of land ownership, only on those who try to impose that different idea of land ownership upon you.

FairTax is mistaken in the whole "we can tax black markets thing". Compare two societies, one with income tax at 20% and one with sales tax at 20%. You have a person A buying a black market item from person B who then uses the profits to pay rent to a legitimate person C. Person C spends his money on legitimate sources. Person A then uses the rest of their money on legitimate sources.

In the income tax scenario. Person A makes $10,000 and pays $2,000 in taxes. They pay $100 for a black market item to person B. Person B pays no taxes and pays $100 rent to Person C. Person C pays $20 in taxes. Total taxes: $2020.

In the sales tax scenario. Person A makes $10,000. They spend $9900 on legal things and thus pay $1980 in taxes. They spend $100 with person B and pay no taxes. Person B spends $100 on rent to person C and pays $20 in taxes. Person C spends that $100 and pays $20 in taxes. Total taxes: $2020.

The thing is that everyone's spending in is another person's income. It doesn't matter which side you put the taxation on, it is equivalent. So the taxation you gain from black market dealers now buying legitimate items is lost from the income of customers who are buying black market items.

That's what it's going to come down to in the end.  Your hypothetical AnCap community can have homesteading, if and only if your security agencies are willing and able to impose it on everyone who has a different idea of land ownership.  Any philosophical justification you can give for taking land is bound to be questioned by people with different values.  Violence is just about the only thing that's beyond question.

We live in a world where the rewards of killing are great, and often the only practical way to stop a killer is to kill them.  I'm not saying the greatest killers SHOULD have the ability to impose their will on other people, I am stating the simple fact that they DO have it.

Legitimate or not, it's the literal truth.

For definitions of "safe" which may mean "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". What governments are generally protecting is their ability to shake down the people who are living on the land. The allegiance of the people living on the land is often real but arbitrary.

Yes, exactly Though I think there are ranches in Texas and Monsanto is probably in there too. Though Texan ranches are probably (maybe) justifiable.

I believe in the future no Land Tax will be necessary.
It's funny but the solution might come from how Bitcoin ownership is protected.

Do you pay taxes to a central authority to protect your claim on bitcoins? No!
What you do is keep the secret key from a record in the distributed database protected by all the participants' computing power.

I'm not trying to pretend that it solves the initial distribution problem for the entirety of land, but once the initial distribution is settled (it can even be derived from the current setup) maintaining the ownership to a piece of land shouldn't incur any costs.
So in brief the solution is to create an open distributed database with pieces of land represented by coordinates of their boundaries (pieces mustn't overlap) and have unique addresses attached to them with private keys kept by the their respective land owners. The transfer of ownership would be as easy as signing and broadcasting the transaction [1].
LandCoin anyone? If there isn't any reasonable concept behind LandCoin mining then the land database in question should be protected by merge-mining it with monetary blockchain (whatever that ends up being).

Now if your land is under attack, then you can hire a defense agency to which you can easily prove to be a land owner and everybody can easily verify that. So you only pay when you're under attack and unable to defend yourself by your own means. It's much different from just paying for the ability to be defended even if you don't need it.

[1]: It would be even possible to sell part of the land in that way. For example if Alice has a private key from the address A which has piece of land defined by boundary L attached to it, then she can form a transaction which says that subset of L defined by L1 now belongs to address B (owned by Bob) while subset L2 (normally the remainder of L after subtracting L1) now belongs to address A1 owned by Alice.
The network only needs to validate that pieces of land in transaction don't violate a simple rules for transaction to be accepted.

Let me see if I get this right:

You think "I own it because I was the first one there, and marked it" (however that marking gets done) is not legitimate, but "I own it because I killed the fuckers who lived there, and anyone else who tried to move in" is?

I would perhaps change that to "as far as the ear can hear", because quiet solitude is a very valid reason for wanting large properties.

It may slightly slow down the rate at which land is claimed.  Less and less as people developed better 'marking technology' (I'm picturing jets carpetbombing a field with some brightly colored dye), but it would slow it down.  That still doesn't address the fundamental arbitrariness of it, nor provide any compensation for the people who have their options diminished by the act of claiming.  Besides, there's only so much land in the world, and no matter how long it takes eventually it will all be claimed, creating a landed class with a permanent advantage over the rest.



Put simply: they conquered the land.  They proved that they are able to defeat anyone who would challenge their power.  They reached an understanding with the foreign governments of the world that they alone are sovereign within its borders, and it's this understanding and fear of war that keeps their territory safe from those foreign governments.  It is by their fiat that you are named the owner of a piece of land, and they have the means to enforce it.  I'll freely admit it's more a matter of might than right.

I know you're going to find this objectionable, and I don't think I'll ever be able to convince you it isn't, so I leave you with this: If and when private security agencies start providing a genuine alternative to governments, I'll rethink my position.

The only entities I know of that own that much land are governments. Possible exception: the Catholic Church (which counts as a government, in my book).

I think the main issue is that the only real reason to own lots and lots of land is to control the people who wish to use it. I don't have solid answers and don't claim to be drawing lines but if you own more than "as far as the eye can see", you possibly have more than you should.