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> You treat it as a strange mystic unnatural phenomenon unlike anything that has ever existed. No, I’m treating a taxation scheme as an arbitrary invention bec
by teakettle42 4y ago
> You treat it as a strange mystic unnatural phenomenon unlike anything that has ever existed.
No, I’m treating a taxation scheme as an arbitrary invention because that’s what it it is.
Nothing mystical or unnatural about it. Just, in this case, grossly immoral.
> If there is a moral basis for rent increases in response to land value increases there is a moral basis for increasing the amount of tax charged for land value increases.
You’re rather breezily glossing over the fundamental difference — property rights.
I get that you dislike property rights and want to steal them from people living contrary to how you believe they should, but your wanting to steal what other people have isn’t a position I’m going to agree with.
> Property rights aren't magic that tears down the very fabric of reality.
Your invented scheme to force people out of their homes so you can redevelop their land isn’t “the fabric of reality”.
- TimPC 4y agoI see. So you’re just one of these fringe libertarians who thinks property rights are so strong they admit no basis for taxation and you want to call all taxation to be both arbitrary and theft. I consider it a privilege for my thoughts to be immoral according to your warped and twisted worldview. People arguing for higher taxes on property are arguing an admissible public policy. The right to private property in land is contingent on taxation and there is a long-established moral basis for either property tax or land tax. I’m very curious for you to provide a definition of property rights that is more concrete than whatever you want them to be.
- teakettle42 4y agoNo, I just think the current model of property taxation is immoral; the government shouldn’t be inducing gentrification and the destruction of communities. The model you’re proposing (LVT) is more sinister, in that the taxation rates would be set with the intention of directly coercing behavior and socially engineering other people’s lives according to your preferences. Of course, I think you’d very quickly find that, thanks to corruption and regulatory capture, it would not be your preferences being prioritized, and you’d have simply handed a huge hammer to exploitative developers.
- TimPC 4y agoI think our current system is the one that hands developers a huge hammer. It lets them capture all of land rents. I think that’s unjust bs. But if you need to live in fantasy-land where NIMBYs are the ones saving the world instead of poisoning it, I guess you have every right to remain deluded. I’m not advocating for an LVT to force my preferences on anyone. I advocate for an LVT because I think it’s a far better form of taxation than income tax. Left and right wing economists both agree. You want to capture your own land rents so you don’t care how many developers do so as well or how harmful it is for society. Your position is basically “screw you, got mine” and it’s showing.
- teakettle42 4y agoYour position is “screw you, I want yours”, and it’s showing. Surprised it took you this long to trot out “NIMBY”. It’s pretty clear from the sudden uptick of people like you parroting the “Georgist” line that’s it’s a new (or, newly repurposed, anyway) faddish reframing of the same old ideas from the same old “give me yours” crowd.
- imtringued 4y agoIt is actually a widely accepted model by many economists to increase the efficiency of the land market. The reason why it is rarely adopted is plain corruption.
- imtringued 4y ago>The model you’re proposing (LVT) is more sinister, in that the taxation rates would be set with the intention of directly coercing behavior and socially engineering other people’s lives according to your preferences. You mean the preferences of every single human that wants to live on that plot of land. The fact that you can't even see the fact that you personally as a single person want to override the wishes of countless of people and deny them the ability to fulfill their basic need of housing is what is truly sinister. You complain about corruption yet you cannot see your own corrupt behaviour. An LVT is inherently an anti corruption policy.