The Best Tax is a Tax on Land and Some of that Revenue should be Divided Equally to all Citizens

I’m glad to have a well-informed contender to test the mettle of my ideology. I’m fond of many of the central tenants of Con’s objections in this debate, but I have just come to a different conclusion. I’ll just respond to the last round and wrap it up after that. “… like an arbitrary formulation… an often ignored factor of production; entrepreneurship” Even if it were its own factor of production, that doesn’t mean land+labor is not what creates capital. The equation might be more accurate as land + labor + (coefficient of entrepreneurialism) = capital, but that coefficient could easily be zero. Land must be there, labor must be there. “…the value of land is the fruit of the stored…” Con is ignoring the fact that it would reduce EVERYONE’S site values. Not just that of the builder. If a landowner builds a tourist attraction that brings in lots of money, his/her own land value will go up, but so will everyone’s. Anything they do will also affect his/her site value. “…it only limits the value of the land for residential purposes…” If it doesn’t limit the value of the land for non-residential purposes, then the point is moot. If it’s built in a residential area, everyone gets a tax break. If it’s built in a factory district, no one is sacrificing, and no one pays less. “…a piece of land must necessarily…” A site is valued based on its purchase price and/or on an assessment done in a general area based on changes in property value. If it is done by general area, then it is NOT based on whatever the purchaser wants- it’s based on what the area around it is worth. So, if a sewage tycoon decides to build a plant in the middle of a residential district *assuming there are no zoning laws (which would be weird)* then the cost of the residential land is paid. “…if gold or platinum is discovered…” With a 95% site tax, she would still be able to sell it and $500K. If a site would increase that rapidly because of the material benefit it would produce for the economy, she SHOULD sell the land. And that’s why the LVT is not charged at 100%. If there’s ever a massive increase in site value, the landowner could sell it. The difference is that she won’t be able to sell it at $10M because she didn’t create that value. We allow her to take 5% because With a massive increase in property value, she deserves compensation for being economically forced into doing something. The larger the incentive for her to leave that land, the greater her reward. It’s self-correcting. That’s how sites are valued- the market price. It appears Con is self-contradicting. In a previous post, the argument was that if someone finds oil under their land, the value of the oil belongs to him/her (whereas my argument was that only added value does). Now Con’s argument appears to be that if someone finds gold underneath a property, the owner of the property is entitled to that gold’s value. “…and this is truly freedom. ” It appears Con’s definition of freedom is being able to ignore economic incentives. If that’s the case, communism is freedom. Whether or not land values are collected to fund the government, her land will still rise to $10M and her marginal benefit to sell/build a mine will be greater. “. .. driving low income citizens… to migrate to slums…” The incentive of landlords would be to build up and increase the number of tenants because the number of tenants on one property would not increase the tax paid by the landlord. That would decrease rent by increasing rentable area (supply and demand) Slums=absentee landlords. Slums are discouraged by LVT because it encourages the most efficient use of land. This is the example of the society without LVT and CD. When a local boom in values happens, the poor would normally be relegated to the slums, but the CD allows them to stay. And when a boom happens, it will increase the tax and the CD. A poor person might still migrate, but that’s the case with or without the CD. The CD just makes it less likely. “Pro seems to have misunderstood . .. ” It is my opinion that the lack of LVT leads to that set of problems Smith referred to with landed aristocracy. “He is referring to land rental” As am I. We know that rent of land is charged at the highest possible gain that can be got from the land. Earth provides, workers create- landlords take. That is Ricardo’s Law of Rent: “The Law of Rent states that the rent of a land site is equal to the economic advantage obtained by using the site in its most productive use, relative to the advantage obtained by using marginal (i. e. , the best rent-free) land for the same purpose, given the same inputs of labor and capital” Source: . https://en.wikipedia.org...... “I'm not sure … having a right to exist…” If one has the right to the product of one’s labor, one must have a place to labor. If one is not allowed a place to labor, one is not allowed to labor. If one is not allowed to labor, one does not have the right to the products of one’s labor. Also, one cannot labor without first existing. Since existing is a prerequisite to labor, existing is a right. One may not have the right to continued existence, but one certainly has the right to begin to exist. A rationally functional society, therefore, would be one in which everyone either has access to a place to exist or compensation for the lack of that place being provided. “Pro assumes that the cash used to purchase…” I assume no such thing. Cash earned through labor is cash to which the laborer is entitled. “…the value of the land is solely attributable …” Providing cause for revaluation is not the same as creating the valuation. A person who finds metal under his/her land may sell that metal at whatever price with the cost of finding it included. If the price of the land goes up afterwards he/she was getting a break. Before the metals were found, they were still there, if it was known that they were there, the land value would have been higher in the first place. “Thus my mental labor is worth $9,900,000…” No, the value of the land was simply found to be higher because of that labor. If a supermarket finds out that tomatoes are actually worth $50 instead of $0.50, it hasn’t been cheated. The increased value is not attributable to the worker who found out. It is attributable to the market. “This experiment … has been shown to be a dismal failure …Land Policy in Vietnam” That was never tried in Russia or North Korea and the second paragraph of the study linked by Con states “distortions result from too much central control over the use of agricultural land (rice land in particular), too little public investment in support of agriculture” A little further down we find “Chapter II, Article 17 asserts that land is subject to ‘‘ownership by the entire people’’ while Chapter II, Article 18 affirms that the ‘‘State manages all the land. .. ’” I encourage the voters to actually read through the link that Con posted because it has nothing to do with the ideas I have been presenting. That is not even close to the same thing as renting out the land. I have never made an argument for central control over the use of agricultural land. No one is managing the land. It’s just rent being paid for the use of land. Russia and North Korea did not lease the land out. they just said “the land is everyone’s” it was never rented. That’s the opposite of true. “I argue, as does he, that there is no one who is capable of managing vast resources…” I’m not arguing for a central management of the commons. I’m essentially arguing for a charge for the use of the commons. If you take something out of the commons, you must pay the fee. In the example given in Hardin’s essay, there’s a pasture with multiple cows. If we said it costs $10/per head per week to graze cattle here, then the farmer would be less likely to exploit the pasture past its ability to recoup. “…costs… hundreds of millions in repairs each year. ” I am not arguing for the government owning and operating rental homes. I’m arguing that the use of land should be charged. This will encourage the efficient use of land. “… the land is …observed to improve in upkeep and appearance. .. ” Land does not fall into disuse. It’s just land. If I am charged based on how much land I use, I will use as little as possible for as much gain as possible. That means I will build and rent out as many rooms as possible in as small a plot as possible. “I will take care of …better. .. ” That’s why we implement it in the form of a tax and not in the form of the nationalization followed by leases. One can’t fail to take care of land. It takes care of itself. One can damage it, but it won’t be damaged by lack of attending to it. “…since I do not believe LVT to be effective …” It may be immoral, but it won’t necessarily be equally detrimental. If I kill a man and steal his money to give that money to a starving man, the money will still buy food regardless of how bad my means of getting it are. Con has made no argument against the CD. The argument from morality was merely carried over from Con’s opinion that the source of revenue for the CD is immoral, so the CD itself must be immoral. I leave it to the voters to determine if that’s sufficient. I also would like to remind voters that I didn’t say LVT is a cure-all for every economic woe, I merely stated that it’s the best form of taxation. In closing, LVT doesn’t punish businesses, landlords, or homeowners for fixing up, expanding, renovating or repurposing. It makes city infrastructure self-financing. It decreases urban sprawl and site prices and therefore rent. It encourages affordable housing because multi-unit construction uses less land. It raises the carrying-cost of holding land off the market which lowers site prices and rent, again. And finally, if your site’s value goes down, you pay a lower tax for your sacrifice. I sincerely appreciate Con agreeing to engage me on this subject. Thank you for reading.