[extropy-chat] Redistribution of wealth

[Brian Lee]

You already pay property taxes and fund public schools by way way of rent. 
Ultimately, the person you rent from is paying property taxes on your 
dwelling.

BAL

>From: Trend Ologist <trendologist at yahoo.co.uk>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Redistribution of wealth
>Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 06:09:51 +0100 (BST)
>
>So what alternatives could Hoover have chosen after
>'29 to avoid Keynesianism? What could Hoover and FDR
>have done for free-market agriculture?
>Incidentally, I'm one of the city peasants you refer
>to. However by being miserly I've got almost enough to
>purchase an urban dwelling. But doing so would merely
>make one into a lumpen prole who pays property taxes
>to fund public schools, correct?
>
>
> > Okay, here goes: the US has such vast agricultural
> > capacity that were
> > it all let loose, food would be grown at such little
> > profit that nobody
> > would make any money at it, and consequently the
> > government would earn
> > no tax revinues from the activity.
> >
> >  Since the 30's, in the interests of keeping the
> > 'American family
> > farm', a cultural icon, intact, the government
> > established a system of
> > land banking whereby farmers got paid to put their
> > land in the land
> > bank and not farm it. The money they were paid was
> > supposedly paid by
> > taxes paid on agricultural commerce that did
> > actually take place at
> > higher prices thanks to reduced supply of produce.
> > This artificial
> > scarcity helps create an artificial tax base that
> > keeps the government
> > supplied with revinues by which it can pay out
> > subsidies. Confused yet?
> >
> > It is a rather cynical Georgist plot, is all. Henry
> > George, a 19th
> > century socialist economist and philosopher
> > pioneered the idea of
> > lifeboat rules as socio-economic policy,
> > particularly in the area of
> > land ownership, use, and taxation. A firm believer
> > in zero sum
> > economics and agrarian mysticism, George did accept
> > the concept of
> > Natural Rights, but tried to claim the absurd notion
> > that to be
> > naturally free, you had to have some place of your
> > own to be free at,
> > otherwise you were on someone else's property and
> > therefore unfree as
> > you were subject to their rules. The idea of earning
> > and saving one's
> > earnings to buy a place to be free apparently never
> > occured to him as a
> > natural consequence, but he did acknowledge that
> > while people, if they
> > are free, should be able to invest their earnings in
> > private property,
> > but should also pay rent to the un-landed population
> > for fencing that
> > land off from everyone else (especially those too
> > unproductive and
> > parasitical to save money). This 'economic scarcity
> > rent' has come to
> > be known as 'property taxes'.
> >
> > With agriculture, though, a totally free market
> > experiences no
> > scarcity, at least not within the bounds of the
> > utility value of the
> > collective population. This reduction to commodity
> > and even fire-sale
> > pricing makes for low value (i.e. peasant) economic
> > activity and little
> > government revinue to pay economic scarcity rent to
> > those who are not
> > dumb enough to get stuck working on a farm their
> > entire lives. So,
> > therefore, artificial scarcity and subsequently
> > artificial prices, need
> > to be established to enhance government revinue.
> > Still with me?
> >
> > Once this artificial scarcity is established, via
> > land banking, land
> > trusts, current use property tax rates, and other
> > mechanisms, then the
> > lumpen proletariat in the cities who can no longer
> > afford expensive
> > rural land can complain and elect politicians who
> > will perpetuate the
> > system while extracting more money from the
> > remaining middle class to
> > pay danegeld to the city peasant.
> >
> > In a similar way, communities pass zoning, planning,
> > and building
> > ordinances in order to reduce the amount of acrage
> > in a community which
> > can be developed for specific uses. Again, this is
> > artificially created
> > scarcity that raises prices and thus inflates (er,
> > 'enhances') tax
> > revinues.
> >
> > So, tell me something: why is it that city dwellers
> > are so enamored of
> > supporting environmental groups that drive people
> > off the land (and
> > into the cities) while rural people just believe in
> > self-responsibility, i.e. stewardship, in taking
> > care of the land they own?
>
>
>
>
>
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