Marc,
Economic rent is meant in a specific way. It is a technical term used by economists and differs significantly from what the layperson understands rent to be.
By means of example - I currently pay rent to live in a three bed maisonette on the outskirts of London. Let’s say I pay £2,000 pcm. The layperson would say I pay £2,000 in rent.
The economic rent is not £2,000. The £2,000 is separable into wages (to the landlord for providing services), interest (to the landlord for providing the home - the asset - his capital) and economic rent (to the landowner to buy his permission to live in that location). Let’s say the wages are £250, the interest is £300 meaning the economic rent is £1,450 pcm. Georgists object to the landowner collecting this £1,450 pcm. They have no issue with the collection of the other £550 is this would be the result of a trade - the individual-as-service-provider and capital-renter has a moral entitlement to it. Georgists object to the individual-as-landowner collecting the £1,450 pcm as the only reason they can collect it, is the fact they can forcibly prevent someone from using the land unless they do pay it. It is therefore coercive and immoral.
Now I imagine you will claim “but a tenant voluntarily agrees to pay the economic rent, they enter into a contract!”
The logic behind such a claim would be utterly flawed.
Consider someone who is looking for land in order to produce material values, through their own effort directed by their own intelligence. Landowners demand economic rent on all of the land in the location they want to work. The more valuable the location, the more economic rent they will pay. The producer voluntarily accepts one plot of land knowing full well the value of their production will be reduced by economic rent. Does this mean that the economic rent is uncoerced? Of course it doesn’t.
Consider someone who is looking for work. There are four jobs on offer. The government deducts taxes from all four jobs via an income tax. The individual voluntarily accepts one of those jobs knowing full well that their earnings will be reduced by income taxes. Does this mean that the tax is uncoerced? Of course it doesn’t. You could not call yourself an Objectivist if you argued otherwise. The logic is the same in both instances, but in one case you argue that the coercion is just, in the other unjust. This is a contradiction - I am drawing your attention to it. How will you resolve it?
Let’s explore the Georgist and Objectivist arguments. I wrote before they are more similar than you think.
Rand reasons that “The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life”.
George reasons "What constitutes the rightful basis of property? What allows someone to justly say, “This is mine!”? Is it not, primarily, the right of a person to one’s own self? To the use of one’s own powers? To enjoy the fruits of one’s own labor? Each person is a definite, coherent, independent whole. Each particular pair of hands obeys a particular brain and is related to a particular body. And this alone justifies individual ownership.
As each person belongs to himself or herself, so labor belongs to the individual when put in concrete form. For this reason, what someone makes or produces belongs to that person — even against the claim of the whole world. It is that person’s property, to use or enjoy, give or exchange, or even destroy. No one else can rightfully claim it. And this right to the exclusive possession and enjoyment wrongs no one else. Thus, there is a clear and indisputable title to everything produced by human exertion."
The two lines of reasoning seem in agreement so far. Both Rand and George argue that the individual’s right to his own life is the source of all other rights. Both Rand and George argue that a person has a right to what he has produced by his own effort, led by his own mind.
Rand stated “Man has to work and produce in order to support his life. He has to support his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind. If he cannot dispose of the product of his effort, he cannot dispose of his effort; if he cannot dispose of his effort, he cannot dispose of his life. Without property rights, no other rights can be practiced.”
George argued: "This right of ownership springing from labor excludes the possibility of any other right of ownership. A person is rightfully entitled to the product of his or her labor (or the labor of someone else from whom the right has been received).
It is production that gives the producer the right to exclusive possession and enjoyment. If so, there can be no right to exclusive possession of anything that is not the product of labor. Therefore, private property in land is wrong.
The right to the product of labor cannot be enjoyed without the right to free use of the opportunities offered by nature. To admit a right to property in nature is to deny the right of property as the product of labor. When non-producers can claim a portion of the wealth created by producers — as rent — then the right of producers to the fruits of their labor is denied to that extent."
Rand stated: “If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.”
She also stated:
"A right is the sanction of independent action. A right is that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission.
If you exist only because society permits you to exist—you have no right to your own life. A permission can be revoked at any time.
If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society—you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right."
Are these two positions as fundamentally opposed as you claim them to be? Both George and Rand argue against anyone being admitted a right to dispose of the product of producers. Neither Rand nor George thought producers needed permission to produce. Rand has identified the Government as the main culprit of coercion (via taxation) - George also identified Landowners as main culprits (via economic rent). George seems to have identified that both landowners and governments apply coercion to take away the product of producers. I am not therefore claiming Rand’s reasoning was wrong but it appears she did not identify the full implications of her line of reasoning.
You said above the Objectivist positions I set out were not Objectivist positions. I believe you are incorrect. Can you point me to your sources of what the Objectivist position on land ownership is?
Finally, you wrote:
"Rights and ownership are two different things. Yes, I have a right to work, to earn money, but nobody owes me a job and they have not violated my rights if they don’t hire me. But if I earn the money, then it is mine, I own it. Then I further have the right to trade that money for an iphone, but only if someone voluntarily sells it to me. If they do, then I own it and I own the aluminum atoms of which it is comprised. I can keep them and let them sit unused, I can use them and be productive with them, I can dispose of them by throwing the phone in the ocean, or I can trade them to someone else, and then they will own them.
If land and aluminum atoms cannot be owned, then nothing can be owned. We all know what a system of no private property leads to: stagnation and death."
In my judgement, you have not understood what I was arguing.
I agree with the first paragraph above. There is no discrepancy with what I was arguing in the previous post. The final sentence (if land and aluminium…) shows you have not understood the argument. I’ll explain it again.
Aluminium can be owned but what is a property right? It is not a right to the object - the aluminium - but a right to action. That is Rand’s reasoning - which I agree with. That means you have no right to aluminium. You do have a right to gain aluminium, keep it, use it or dispose of it through the act of producing or earning it. Through becoming your wages you gain property rights to the aluminium you produced, as per my previous post.
It also means you have no right to land, which includes aluminium atoms. You do have a right to gain land, keep it, use it or dispose of it through the act of producing or earning it. If that were possible. Land both pre-exists and is a pre-requisite of production so it is not possible. It is not therefore possible to own land under Rand’s and George’s criteria.
This does not mean it is impossible to own anything. Anything made by man, can be owned as private property.