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Owning Land?

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Jon Southall

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Labour (physical/mental) + Land (natural resources) = Capital

 

But nope, apparently the schools he went to taught him those three concepts are somehow mutually exclusive by some arbitrary division, and the hilarity we are witnessing here ensues.

 

If someone gathers wood, he gets to use that wood for his own purposes, just as a person would with land.

 

But here is where it gets interesting: if he is going to rent that wood out (or even sell it for that matter), that's when all hell breaks lose. Jon's logic here would only allow this man to charge a fee approximately equivalent to the labour cost of him collecting the wood. Any portion of a fee outside of labour cost is Jon's economic rent, aka fee charged for permission to use natural resources, aka immoral because natural resources (e.g. wood molecules) are not made by men and cannot be owned.

 

This logic is not noticeable for capitals with low raw materials cost. But just imagine when this logic is been applied to gold:

Since you can't own the gold atoms, you can only charge your labour cost of digging the gold out when you rent bullions out as financial instruments.

 

Now, THAT, would be hilarious.

Edited by VECT
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Wages are a return to labour - if you chop wood, pick apples or fish for instance, then you gain these things.

What would you do to land in order to gain it?

Picking an apple from a tree in the wilderness gives you ownership of the apple but not the tree. Fishing entitles you to the fish you catch, not all the fish that swim through the river. Collecting water from a lake entitles you to the water you have taken but not the lake. If you improve the land, you own the improvements but not the land (though you occupy it). If you mine materials from the land, then you own those materials and not the land.

I'm interested to know what you think gaining land involves.

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Vect,

There is no economic rent to be paid on wood that is rented out. Can you stop making things up, it's very dishonest of you. Economic rent is a return to land only, it does not apply to the results of labour or capital. You would understand why, but you admit to being ignorant on the concepts we are discussing.

Well let me help you. I've referred you to chapter 2 of Progress & Poverty - the definitions are given there. If you disagree then state your own definitions. I will submit them to the highest scrutiny.

Read George's arguments. If you are going to continue adding 'excrement' to this thread but refuse to find out what the argument is, then this tells me everything I need to know about your character.

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Vect,

There is no economic rent to be paid on wood that is rented out. Can you stop making things up, it's very dishonest of you. Economic rent is a return to land only, it does not apply to the results of labour or capital.

 

Are you for real?

 

According to your own words, naturally occurring atoms/molecules cannot be owned by man as property, AND IS PART OF LAND. Let me quote the very quote from you I just quoted:

 

Aluminium atoms are not man-made. If I produce aluminium for use in production, then my exertion is the basis for my claim to have a right to gain, keep, use or dispose of the aluminium I produced (the aluminium being my wage). I was the cause of earning that aluminium by means of my exertion. It is not a right to the object I have- the aluminium atoms (which cannot be owned), but a right to action with regards to the aluminium atoms. This is consistent with Rand's and George's definitions. Can you see now why I asked why Rand specifically stated a right is a right to action with regards to the object, and not to the object. How could you own the aluminium atoms - they are not man-made - they are Land

 

 

One more quote:

 

Land is defined not just as space but all materials, forces and opportunities occurring in nature.

 

That's right, ALL MATERIALS.

 

That means every time you rent anything made up of physical matter to another, you in essence charge that economic rent of yours, because you are asking them to pay a fee for permission to use naturally occurring matter, aka your so-called LAND.

 

The only thing I care to understand is logic. This whole arbitrary division of yours between Labour/Capital/Land is completely screwed. Now either you have no idea what this George is talking about, or this George himself doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

Either way, I don't have a duty to untangle the ball of string which is YOUR own creation by bothering to read whatever chapters you got your ridiculous ideas from.

Edited by VECT
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tadmjones,

My thought is the Galt Criteria is all about production and the law of causality. An apple on a tree in the wilderness belongs to nobody. Say you and I go apple picking. I pick five apples, you pick three apples. We have eight apples. The effort, the exertion was picking apples. The wages for picking the apples are the apples. The distribution of apples should be based on who picked what. I would say that the five apples I picked are mine, and the three apples you picked are yours. Someone who comes along as tells us they own the wilderness and demands we each have to give them some of our apples or we will be forced to move on, has no right to do so. Whether they are dressed up as robin hood, a government lackie or a holder of a landownership deed makes no difference to me.

Of course where you have an individual in isolation he will not need to care about property rights. Well, unless there are wild animals who try to steal his kills or food he has gathered. Then the concept of what is his property will come to mind and I'm sure he will defend it forcefully.

Edited by Jon Southall
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"Lackie"? That seems like an odd spelling mistake for a Brit.

Animal psychology notwithstanding, a man in isolation would need to consider how to obtain and keep values in order to survive. The point is that a man in isolation is a wholly separate context from individuals living in a presumably moral , division of labor society. Do you see that your argument about the morality of land ownership conflates the two ?

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I wasn't talking to you, I was talking with these other guys; you are the one who replied me.

 

The contradiction of your arbitrary concepts is just way too hilarious to not be discussed and enjoyed at length here.

 

Think about it, you defined Land as all naturally occurring materials. Yet the fact stares at you in the face that the vast majority of Capitals in existence (other than intellectual property and financial instruments) are made of naturally occurring material (aka your land).

 

So anyone renting these out, would be in fact, as a portion of their rent, collecting a return to land, your economic rent, a fee for permission to use atoms they do not own. And these renters should, as you advocate, pay a compensation, for this collection of immoral economic rent.

 

Now you won't admit that because you saw how ridiculous it would be.

 

But you have no choice, you are bound by the law of non-contradiction.

 

Now either labour can claim land (aka naturally materials) as property, or it can't.

 

Either by labour a man can claim a piece of land just as he can a piece of wood, or he can't.

 

You can't have your cake and eat it too pal. But it sure as hell is enjoyable watching you try.

Edited by VECT
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Jon said:

Plasmatic,

Still waiting for your reply:

"Tell me why you think ownership of people is wrong. I want to see your reasoning - let's see you do some work for a change.

Still being hostile? Do you need some help?"

Well let's see it then.

Well, you never answered my question. Nothing I'm arguing for depends on this. You might as well ask me arbitrarily to explain what my reasoning is for not voting democrat.....My initial post to you wasn't hostile but your first responses to me were. You are being judged by your actions. Edited by Plasmatic
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Vect posted:

"Think about it, you defined Land as all naturally occurring materials. Yet the fact stares at you in the face that the vast majority of Capitals in existence (other than intellectual property and financial instruments) are made of naturally occurring material (aka your land).

So anyone renting these out, would be in fact, as a portion of their rent, collecting a return to land, your economic rent, a fee for permission to use atoms they do not own. And these renters should, as you advocate, pay a compensation, for this collection of immoral economic rent.

Now you won't admit that because you saw how ridiculous it would be."

This is a repeated point made in this argument. If we were to set this out as an argument, it's logic would be as follows:

P1. Land is all naturally occurring material

P2. Capital contains land

P3. It is wrong for a landowner to forcibly collect and keep unearned income on unimproved land

C. Therefore it is wrong for a capitalist to collect unearned income for the unimproved land value of capital

The conclusion they arrive at doesn't follow from the premises because it assumes capital contains unimproved land. However capital contains only improved land - the capital is man-made. No element of it is unimproved. The fact land was improved to create capital - the fact it was produced by man makes it his property.

When someone rents out a house and that rent is split between wages, interest and economic rent, it is only the collection of economic rent by and for the landowner which is unjust. Our argument would be as follows:

P1. Land is all naturally occurring material

P2. It is wrong for a landowner to forcibly collect and keep unearned income on unimproved land

C. Therefore it is wrong for a landowner to collect unearned income for the unimproved value of land

This actually does follow. It all rests on the role of causality in this. Wasn't Rand's/Galt's criteria pretty clear on this?

Edited by Jon Southall
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You guys are wasting your time as you're approaching this wrong.  

 

The crux here is he is using the Law of Causality to create an epistomological justification for the Labor Theory of Value.  It's an interesting argument but like all such constructs you only need to see the result to get the purpose - A logical justification to either steal of dispose of someone else's life (property) by the simple expedient of pretending it's not property.  

 

You are not going to change his base argument since the construct is built to justify the end result.  Red 5 is going to stay on target no matter what, so to speak.  You'll need to make him see he has no right to force someone to obey him or steal the fruits of his labor before he reevaluates it.  

Edited by Spiral Architect
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The Georgist argument , or the presentation of here in this thread, is an example of rationalism. Denying the morality of title or land ownership is based on the improper use of the terms of method in economics as a school of thought. Terms like 'rent, 'wage' and 'interest' are being used as if the are entities , and subsequently given properties, apart from the abstractions on which they are based.

Apart from an entry on a ledger, how can rent received by divided into separate 'parts'? If I rent an apartment in my building and charge someone x amount and they pay me x amount , what are they paying me other than x amount?

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What if someone pretends something IS their property and obtains payment from you. Are they stealing or disposing of your life?

That is a good description of fraud. The fraudster is trying to obtaining a value by deceit. But does he obtain a value? Consider the following from Galt's Speech:

. . . an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee — that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling . . .

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When someone rents out a house and that rent is split between wages, interest and economic rent, ....

Jon,

This is not the case.  I've reviewed countless leases in the 20+ years that I've worked in architecture/construction - representing both tenants and developers - and leases are not split as you describe.  The terms "wages, interest and economic rent" are so disconnected from what developers, real estate agents, property managers, commercial tenants, architects, etc. use that it makes it very difficult to follow your line of thought.

Edited by New Buddha
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Dream_Weaver - thank you for that quote, which sums it up perfectly.

Now imagine you are trying to alert people who are being fooled in such a manner, but they resist it. They claim, forcefully, that they are not being fooled. Or perhaps they are accidentally living, in part, as dependents and when this is pointed out to them, they may not wish to accept it. How would you try to get through to them?

Edited by Jon Southall
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New Buddha,

You are familiar with leases. I work in leasehold management myself and I too am familiar with a wide variety of residential and commercial leases. However, our familiarity with leases is irrelevant.

The terms I am using are economic terms. You may be familiar with the term "human capital" for example. Does your contract of employment state that you are "human capital" or how you may somehow possess "human capital"? Does the fact that contracts usually make no reference to human capital make the concept of human capital meaningless or without application to reality?

To follow my line of thought you only have to be familiar with how I am using the terms. I have previously stated how they are being used, but if you wish me to repeat let me know.

Edited by Jon Southall
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What if someone pretends something IS their property and obtains payment from you. Are they stealing or disposing of your life?

 

That is Fraud.  

 

I'm obviously talking normal association here - Not case exceptions.  In a free society there is laws against force and fraud.  

 

But my comment was direct at the others.  I was trying to help them and you out of the treadmill your on - Figured it would save some frustration.  

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Dream_Weaver - thank you for that quote, which sums it up perfectly.

Now imagine you are trying to alert people who are being fooled in such a manner, but they resist it. They claim, forcefully, that they are not being fooled. Or perhaps they are accidentally living, in part, as dependents and when this is pointed out to them, they may not wish to accept it. How would you try to get through to them?

Get through to whom? The defrauder or the victim? The quote addressed how an act of fraud, affects the defrauder.

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