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isn't the most efficient land use just letting the free market work without taxation? if land is best used as a store of value for someones money then thats wha

isn't the most efficient land use just letting the free market work without taxation? if land is best used as a store of value for someones money then thats what it is.

khuey 9y ago
Land is required for things necessary to human existence and it's not really possible to make more of it so if the market determines that the "best" use of it is for storing money society should probably step in and overrule the market.
- Nrsolis 9y ago
  Uh huh. That's all well and good until someone decides to apply that reasoning to something else, like, say....the Internet. You really think all that wireless spectrum is finding it's best use sharing cat videos? High-bandwidth video emojis? They aren't making any more RF spectrum either. One man's "common sense solution" is another man's "free market distortion". And there is PLENTY of land to go around....so.....bad example. You could give nearly every single person on the planet plenty of room to live in Texas. That's without going vertical into multi-story buildings. Ultimately the best use of people's labor is whatever they want to do with it. If that's buying houses, great. Beanie babies, faberge eggs, gold ingots, whatever. Do you really need all that crap you own?
  - Cretin2 9y ago
    Sure you can "nearly every single person on the planet plenty of room to live in Texas" but they would be devoid of infrastructure and it would be incredibly expensive to service people's homes if they're spread out across the states. It's a cop out to say 'there is plenty of land' when it requires a hell of a lot of work to bring it modern services. If you think your simplistic land argument is a good one you should revisit other beliefs as well.
  - kunimu 9y ago
    Ignoring some arguments about whether the Internet is a "human right", it's not on the same level as land, land is a prerequisite for shelter, which is a vital human need. The creation of false needs does not overrule the necessity of satisfying true needs. "The Internet" is not a commodity; access to the Internet is a commodity. Although by some definitions undeveloped land isn't a commodity either, the fact that it is in fixed supply and humans need it. The usage of that land and even habitable but uninhabited houses for the whims of speculators is in my view such an egregiously horrible fact, so divorced from any notion of rationality of moral standing, that I would advocate it should not be used for such a purpose at all. It is on the same level as pollution - the squandering of resources that can be used here and now (homes and land) or in the future (stable climate, natural resources, atmospheric purity) for profit, exchange, trade which caters not to any human needs, vital or not, false or true, is a truly horrible system that deserves to be opposed. I don't understand why you support such a system with so many unable to meet even their basic needs.
  - khuey 9y ago
    I am not aware of any ways in which wireless RF spectrum is required for humans to survive. The rest of your post is non-sequiturs that I'm not going to bother engaging.
    - petre 9y ago
      Radio announcements of hurricane warnings and other natural disasters for example.
      - imtringued 9y ago
        Does the amount of required spectrum for this rise with a higher population or does it remain constant?
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    RF spectrum is highly regulated, by the way.
    - Nrsolis 9y ago
      Less than you might think. It's treated like real-estate with RF "zoning rules". But very wide swaths of the RF spectrum are essentially a free -for-all. You could argue that the most valuable parts (UHF) are used for stuff that could only be described as "non-essential" e.g. cat videos.
Gustomaximus 9y ago
A main issue of leaving these things to market is capital accumulates and centralises. We see this today with the ongoing mega merges and in days of old where (in many countries) a handful of people owned all land. Whether or not you care about this is your political ideology but this is the long term history and likely future of unregulated markets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation
tomc1985 9y ago
Well, we have this whole problem with free-market speculation and its fairly dramatic impact on peoples' ability to buy a home.
smileysteve 9y ago
"free market" is the most efficient land use for capitalism (value). There are precedents that suggests the free market might maximize value while minimizing human life.
0xB31B1B 9y ago
Not necessarily. The problem with land is that you can’t make more of it, and owning it allows monopolistic use, and thus rent seeing behavior from landlords and deadweight loss. The LVT if properly implemented will capture the dead weight loss given to landlords.

isn't the most efficient land use just letting the free market work without taxation? if land is best used as a store of value for someones money then thats what it is.

khuey 9y ago

Land is required for things necessary to human existence and it's not really possible to make more of it so if the market determines that the "best" use of it is for storing money society should probably step in and overrule the market.

Nrsolis 9y ago
Uh huh. That's all well and good until someone decides to apply that reasoning to something else, like, say....the Internet. You really think all that wireless spectrum is finding it's best use sharing cat videos? High-bandwidth video emojis? They aren't making any more RF spectrum either. One man's "common sense solution" is another man's "free market distortion". And there is PLENTY of land to go around....so.....bad example. You could give nearly every single person on the planet plenty of room to live in Texas. That's without going vertical into multi-story buildings. Ultimately the best use of people's labor is whatever they want to do with it. If that's buying houses, great. Beanie babies, faberge eggs, gold ingots, whatever. Do you really need all that crap you own?
- Cretin2 9y ago
  Sure you can "nearly every single person on the planet plenty of room to live in Texas" but they would be devoid of infrastructure and it would be incredibly expensive to service people's homes if they're spread out across the states. It's a cop out to say 'there is plenty of land' when it requires a hell of a lot of work to bring it modern services. If you think your simplistic land argument is a good one you should revisit other beliefs as well.
- kunimu 9y ago
  Ignoring some arguments about whether the Internet is a "human right", it's not on the same level as land, land is a prerequisite for shelter, which is a vital human need. The creation of false needs does not overrule the necessity of satisfying true needs. "The Internet" is not a commodity; access to the Internet is a commodity. Although by some definitions undeveloped land isn't a commodity either, the fact that it is in fixed supply and humans need it. The usage of that land and even habitable but uninhabited houses for the whims of speculators is in my view such an egregiously horrible fact, so divorced from any notion of rationality of moral standing, that I would advocate it should not be used for such a purpose at all. It is on the same level as pollution - the squandering of resources that can be used here and now (homes and land) or in the future (stable climate, natural resources, atmospheric purity) for profit, exchange, trade which caters not to any human needs, vital or not, false or true, is a truly horrible system that deserves to be opposed. I don't understand why you support such a system with so many unable to meet even their basic needs.
- khuey 9y ago
  I am not aware of any ways in which wireless RF spectrum is required for humans to survive. The rest of your post is non-sequiturs that I'm not going to bother engaging.
  - petre 9y ago
    Radio announcements of hurricane warnings and other natural disasters for example.
    - imtringued 9y ago
      Does the amount of required spectrum for this rise with a higher population or does it remain constant?
- heavenlyblue 9y ago
  RF spectrum is highly regulated, by the way.
  - Nrsolis 9y ago
    Less than you might think. It's treated like real-estate with RF "zoning rules". But very wide swaths of the RF spectrum are essentially a free -for-all. You could argue that the most valuable parts (UHF) are used for stuff that could only be described as "non-essential" e.g. cat videos.

Gustomaximus 9y ago

A main issue of leaving these things to market is capital accumulates and centralises. We see this today with the ongoing mega merges and in days of old where (in many countries) a handful of people owned all land. Whether or not you care about this is your political ideology but this is the long term history and likely future of unregulated markets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation

tomc1985 9y ago

Well, we have this whole problem with free-market speculation and its fairly dramatic impact on peoples' ability to buy a home.

smileysteve 9y ago

"free market" is the most efficient land use for capitalism (value). There are precedents that suggests the free market might maximize value while minimizing human life.

0xB31B1B 9y ago

Not necessarily. The problem with land is that you can’t make more of it, and owning it allows monopolistic use, and thus rent seeing behavior from landlords and deadweight loss. The LVT if properly implemented will capture the dead weight loss given to landlords.