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> If so, question of my own. The landlord worked and spent resources (time, money) to increase his assets (develop the property). You, at your job, worked and s

> If so, question of my own. The landlord worked and spent resources (time, money) to increase his assets (develop the property). You, at your job, worked and spent resources (time, etc.) to increase your assets (e.g. size of your bank account). Do you think you should have indefinite ownership of your bank account? The landlord earns rent from his property. I earn a salary from my job. The landlord and I are on equal footing as far as being able to keep the proceeds of our labor - nobody is threatening to take rent he has already collected, and nobody is threatening to take the cash from my bank account. So far we are even, and our bank accounts are safe. However, my employment at my job depends on me continually adding value to society. The moment I quit working, I stop collecting salary. The landlord here has an advantage that has no analogy in labor. He can quit improving the property and continue to collect rent. In fact, he can just rent out just the land with no improvements (for example if it's farmland) and collect rent forever with no labor. So your analogy fails. Land and a job are nothing alike. In fact, I can lose my job at any time, due to employment at will, with no recourse. Yet if someone inherits a large quantity of land and rents it out (not directly using it themselves), I am supposed to think it is some grevious evil if their control of that land is limited? You'll forgive me if I don't see the outrage in saying that maybe society should look into whether that ownership should be perpetual.

ColanR 8y ago
You've distilled your claim: the right to ownership of an asset is dependent on whether or not you keep improving it ("my employment at my job depends on me continually adding value to society"). There are a lot of people on here who built their own SaaS businesses. In a lot of cases, those are just websites that provide some simple service. And, in a lot of cases, once its built there isn't really much to do except "collect forever with no labor". I do consider it a "grievous evil" if you look over at one of those entrepreneurs, see the money they're making -- with no current labor expenditure from themselves -- and decide that you want some of what they earned for themselves, that their ownership should not be perpetual.
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  > There are a lot of people on here who built their own SaaS businesses. In a lot of cases, those are just websites that provide some simple service. And, in a lot of cases, once its built there isn't really much to do except "collect forever with no labor". The Government usually doesn't stop other people from making websites with similar functionality via threat of violence. SaaS website owners don't have a meaningful monopoly in most cases. > I do consider it a "grievous evil" if you look over at one of those entrepreneurs, see the money they're making -- with no current labor expenditure from themselves -- and decide that you want some of what they earned for themselves, that their ownership should not be perpetual. Then sleep easy, for I have no such desire. Software Engineers have no monopoly. We're really just highly paid tradesmen, kind of like how blacksmiths were in the 1800s. Monopoly ownership over land only exists by government decree. If man actually has any kind of "natural state" aside from government, land ownership doesn't exist in that world just as it doesn't exist for animals. On Earth in the 21st century, no human being ever creates land. So it's really just us collectively deciding who gets to use it. It seems perfectly fair if society decides that land ownership rules should be changed.
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  P.S. I am not arguing that people should have their land confiscated by the government, btw. I think something as simple as higher property taxes, or higher taxes on land that isn't directly occupied by the owner is pretty equitable.

ColanR 8y ago

You've distilled your claim: the right to ownership of an asset is dependent on whether or not you keep improving it ("my employment at my job depends on me continually adding value to society"). There are a lot of people on here who built their own SaaS businesses. In a lot of cases, those are just websites that provide some simple service. And, in a lot of cases, once its built there isn't really much to do except "collect forever with no labor". I do consider it a "grievous evil" if you look over at one of those entrepreneurs, see the money they're making -- with no current labor expenditure from themselves -- and decide that you want some of what they earned for themselves, that their ownership should not be perpetual.

landryraccoon 8y ago
> There are a lot of people on here who built their own SaaS businesses. In a lot of cases, those are just websites that provide some simple service. And, in a lot of cases, once its built there isn't really much to do except "collect forever with no labor". The Government usually doesn't stop other people from making websites with similar functionality via threat of violence. SaaS website owners don't have a meaningful monopoly in most cases. > I do consider it a "grievous evil" if you look over at one of those entrepreneurs, see the money they're making -- with no current labor expenditure from themselves -- and decide that you want some of what they earned for themselves, that their ownership should not be perpetual. Then sleep easy, for I have no such desire. Software Engineers have no monopoly. We're really just highly paid tradesmen, kind of like how blacksmiths were in the 1800s. Monopoly ownership over land only exists by government decree. If man actually has any kind of "natural state" aside from government, land ownership doesn't exist in that world just as it doesn't exist for animals. On Earth in the 21st century, no human being ever creates land. So it's really just us collectively deciding who gets to use it. It seems perfectly fair if society decides that land ownership rules should be changed.
landryraccoon 8y ago
P.S. I am not arguing that people should have their land confiscated by the government, btw. I think something as simple as higher property taxes, or higher taxes on land that isn't directly occupied by the owner is pretty equitable.