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Isn't the main thing that if a person derives wealth it's because they created it and took a fair share? My main beef is between people adding real value and pe

Isn't the main thing that if a person derives wealth it's because they created it and took a fair share? My main beef is between people adding real value and people using the system to appropriate value added by others. I think if we fixed the above most of the inequality of opportunity would melt away. It's the rentiers who are the problem. That rentier activity could be being a large-scale landlord and extracting labour due to a monopoly on housing. It could be by being a banker and having the state build a system where if you win you win and if you lose everyone else pays (and let you build a system for the landlords). It could be by making an incremental improvement to a technology and then claiming a monopoly via patents over all knowledge since Faraday. Let the rich kid who became a dentist and works for 50 years fixing people's teeth do his thing. Rentier activity is what is hurting poor people.

smallnamespace 10y ago
The problem is that wealth is socially generated, e.g. when people work in a factory, profit is created because it's more efficient for people to work in a factory than in their own homes. The fair division of that profit is a deeply political question. One could argue that the workers generated the value, because without them the factory would not run. One could also argue that the owners generated the value, because they paid to have that factory built. In practice though, all the generated value goes to the party with the most bargaining power, which usually happens to be the owners of capital, because wealth and power beget wealth and power. Just look at all the rhetoric of the campaign and the right wing -- corporations and the wealthy are 'job creators' and so they deserve all the credit for people having jobs, even though capitalists need labor in order to exist.
- branchless 10y ago
  The land should be what breaks this loop. Land is required, nobody created the land, it is the common wealth. If we taxed land we would see living costs suppressed and a return back to the days when we could choose if we wanted to work rather than being a wage slave, forced to work by high rent costs due to land speculation and infinitely elastic fiat money supply. We've seen what happens when we near-double labour supply (women working), bankers extend twice the credit and house prices double, allowing them to cream off the labour of both parents where before women's value was not available for seizure by the bankers. The current system forces labourers to sell the one thing they have: themselves. And they are bidding into an oversupplied market. It's a complete disaster that begins at the door of the goverbankment. If we don't have reform the west is going down. We can surely see that from the precipitous drop in real living standards over the past 30 years. Now we have both parents slaving all hours for the banks. Think of the yawning gap between wages and value produced, which has widened. This is because labour has less power to push back. Traditionally this was unions, but I'd like to see that power distributed to the bottom level: the worker. By being able to refuse to work like a dog and handed back subsistence wages. We need land value tax to fund universal basic income. Companies need to be forced to hand over most of the value labour adds, so there is an equilibrium. And by forced I don't mean by the state I mean because workers have a choice and won't work for peanuts. Right now the decks are stacked against the worker and banks are extending credit / selling off the country to keep the plates spinning.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    Taxing land only works if the distribution of land is equitable, except that value-generating uses of land (factories, cities, and farms) aren't distributed uniformly throughout the country. If you wanted to make that equitable, then you'd need small slices of land to be uniformly distributed to people, but that becomes more or less equivalent to just redistributing equity in companies. And then you'd have to redistribute the equity from time to time, or else you'd need to prevent people from buying and selling equity. Otherwise, the rich will just buy up all the equity again.
    - branchless 10y ago
      > Taxing land only works if the distribution of land is equitable Why? I don't see why land value tax cannot exist within the modern world we have of "capitalism" (it's corpratism right now!). Nor do many, many economists. Never ever heard anyone say this before. The whole point of LVT is to stop unproductive hoarding and to capture the rentier aspect for the common wealth. Have a read up.
    - lordnacho 10y ago
      No, taxing land would cause redistribution. If you're sitting on land that suddenly costs you money, you will try to sell it. The guy who buys it will be someone with an idea of how to use it to generate enough wealth to pay the tax.
      - branchless 10y ago
        Exactly. When land is taxed correctly you can no longer sit on it and demand rent from others for access. Unlike our current insane system.
        AstralStorm 10y ago
        What would prevent you from building a skyscraper then renting it out? Tax is still suppressed. And only rich can afford such an investment.
- lordnacho 10y ago
  > The problem is that wealth is socially generated... You seem to have missed out society in your answer, having only mentioned the capitalist and the worker. There's a legal system that helps people trust each other when forming a contract, there's infrastructure like roads, sewers, and schools. There's cultural institutions like marriage, membership of various societies, and so on that enable work to be apportioned in novel ways. Wasn't that what was meant by "socially generated"? That there's a load of people other than the main characters doing things of value?

smallnamespace 10y ago

The problem is that wealth is socially generated, e.g. when people work in a factory, profit is created because it's more efficient for people to work in a factory than in their own homes. The fair division of that profit is a deeply political question. One could argue that the workers generated the value, because without them the factory would not run. One could also argue that the owners generated the value, because they paid to have that factory built. In practice though, all the generated value goes to the party with the most bargaining power, which usually happens to be the owners of capital, because wealth and power beget wealth and power. Just look at all the rhetoric of the campaign and the right wing -- corporations and the wealthy are 'job creators' and so they deserve all the credit for people having jobs, even though capitalists need labor in order to exist.

branchless 10y ago
The land should be what breaks this loop. Land is required, nobody created the land, it is the common wealth. If we taxed land we would see living costs suppressed and a return back to the days when we could choose if we wanted to work rather than being a wage slave, forced to work by high rent costs due to land speculation and infinitely elastic fiat money supply. We've seen what happens when we near-double labour supply (women working), bankers extend twice the credit and house prices double, allowing them to cream off the labour of both parents where before women's value was not available for seizure by the bankers. The current system forces labourers to sell the one thing they have: themselves. And they are bidding into an oversupplied market. It's a complete disaster that begins at the door of the goverbankment. If we don't have reform the west is going down. We can surely see that from the precipitous drop in real living standards over the past 30 years. Now we have both parents slaving all hours for the banks. Think of the yawning gap between wages and value produced, which has widened. This is because labour has less power to push back. Traditionally this was unions, but I'd like to see that power distributed to the bottom level: the worker. By being able to refuse to work like a dog and handed back subsistence wages. We need land value tax to fund universal basic income. Companies need to be forced to hand over most of the value labour adds, so there is an equilibrium. And by forced I don't mean by the state I mean because workers have a choice and won't work for peanuts. Right now the decks are stacked against the worker and banks are extending credit / selling off the country to keep the plates spinning.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  Taxing land only works if the distribution of land is equitable, except that value-generating uses of land (factories, cities, and farms) aren't distributed uniformly throughout the country. If you wanted to make that equitable, then you'd need small slices of land to be uniformly distributed to people, but that becomes more or less equivalent to just redistributing equity in companies. And then you'd have to redistribute the equity from time to time, or else you'd need to prevent people from buying and selling equity. Otherwise, the rich will just buy up all the equity again.
  - branchless 10y ago
    > Taxing land only works if the distribution of land is equitable Why? I don't see why land value tax cannot exist within the modern world we have of "capitalism" (it's corpratism right now!). Nor do many, many economists. Never ever heard anyone say this before. The whole point of LVT is to stop unproductive hoarding and to capture the rentier aspect for the common wealth. Have a read up.
  - lordnacho 10y ago
    No, taxing land would cause redistribution. If you're sitting on land that suddenly costs you money, you will try to sell it. The guy who buys it will be someone with an idea of how to use it to generate enough wealth to pay the tax.
    - branchless 10y ago
      Exactly. When land is taxed correctly you can no longer sit on it and demand rent from others for access. Unlike our current insane system.
      - AstralStorm 10y ago
        What would prevent you from building a skyscraper then renting it out? Tax is still suppressed. And only rich can afford such an investment.
lordnacho 10y ago
> The problem is that wealth is socially generated... You seem to have missed out society in your answer, having only mentioned the capitalist and the worker. There's a legal system that helps people trust each other when forming a contract, there's infrastructure like roads, sewers, and schools. There's cultural institutions like marriage, membership of various societies, and so on that enable work to be apportioned in novel ways. Wasn't that what was meant by "socially generated"? That there's a load of people other than the main characters doing things of value?