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Natural resources that are scarce can be justifiably taxed, but the argument the parent comment paraphrased is not a Georgist one of taxing only land and other
by aminok 10y ago
Natural resources that are scarce can be justifiably taxed, but the argument the parent comment paraphrased is not a Georgist one of taxing only land and other natural resources. It is claiming that no form of property rights are legitimate, and that all enforcement of property rights is a violation others' rights.
- vidarh 10y agoNo, I did not claim that no form of property rights are legitimate at all. If you think that, then read again. What I did claim is property rights over any scarce resource inherently reduces the liberty of others. That does not mean it can not be legitimate - we reduce the liberty of others for various legitimate reasons all the time. It does mean that whenever we enforce property rights we are making a tradeoff between the liberties of differents sets of people.
- aminok 10y agoYou quoted Proudhon who considered none-natural-resource classes of property theft as well. But your argument is also absurd: >What I did claim is property rights over any scarce resource inherently reduces the liberty of others. All property is scarce, which is why it has market value. You're saying people have no right to the property they create, if it happens to be scarce (which it always is). Maybe you have some vague arbitrary definition of "scarce" that allows you to claim that the property rights you exercise over your possessions are legitimate, while the property rights of those with much more than you are not.