4 ms·
It's hard to define "just compensation" as anything other than a market price, meaning the price that a buyer and seller agree upon when the buyer isn't "negoti
by baddox 10y ago
It's hard to define "just compensation" as anything other than a market price, meaning the price that a buyer and seller agree upon when the buyer isn't "negotiating" using the threat of force.
- jacobolus 10y agoI have no dog in this fight. I’m just responding to the comment “If you want the land, pay for it.” which makes it sound like land is seized with no compensation.
- zeroer 10y agoAlmost by definition, eminent domain is seized at under-market rates, because if it was the market rate, you wouldn't need eminent domain.
- Certhas 10y agoWhat makes you think market prices are just? This might not be an easy problem to solve, but it's not an impossible one either. ED would be used when people are unwilling to sell. If you can buy 20 plots of land from people willing to sell for price X and then the two hold outs who are unwilling to sell have to EDed, you know perfectly well what just compensation is. This is a perfect case where leaving it to the market does not generate the most welfare or the most just outcomes. A form of rent seeking behaviour.
- shostack 10y agoExcept in a fair market, if a developer managed to get all but a couple holdouts, those remaining would likely be able to command higher prices as they would have leverage. ED robs then of the extra money they could have made, and it can be considerable.
- Spooky23 10y agoThere's an obvious defect in that approach. The incentive there is to delay the transaction as long as possible. Worst case scenario, the public project fails and you keep your stuff.
- shostack 10y agoIf you are someone being forced out by ED, that seems like a pretty positive outcome if you didn't want to move in the first place. Not all public projects are desired by all people, and it is far from a black and white issue.
- Spooky23 10y agoI didn't intend to portray it that way. It's certainly imperfect, especially when it's used for stadiums or other private purposes. But even then -- At least it's an open, public process and not some secretive thing that puts neighbor against neighbor.
- baddox 10y agoI don't mean to make some grand moral claim about markets always being "just." My point is that a buyer who gets to force someone to sell AND gets to choose the price they must sell at is VERY far from my intuitive (yet admittedly ill-defined) feelings about justice. In your example, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that one person may value their land much more than their 20 neighbors value their own lands. Perhaps the one plot of land has been in the family for generations and has immense sentimental value. Perhaps the one landowner doesn't approve of the development project being pursued.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoThe value of my house to me is higher than what I could get for it on the market in part because I simply do not want to be bothered moving anytime soon.