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Yes. The commons morally shouldn't be owned by anyone. They can own the building on top of the commons, because they built it, but not the commons (land) itself
by hackerlight 4y ago
Yes. The commons morally shouldn't be owned by anyone. They can own the building on top of the commons, because they built it, but not the commons (land) itself, which they had no role in creating. If we want to invent the concept of land ownership, then people should pay rent to society for the privilege of monopolizing a slice of the commons (and the privilege of soaking up a larger proportion of the benefit of public investment in the armed forces, police and public infrastructure such as roads).
- IX-103 4y agoGeorge is that you?
- nemo44x 4y agoWe do - it’s called property tax. How do you think local police, firefighters, schools, parks, services are funded? By land taxes.
- hackerlight 4y agoI have no idea what country you're in, maybe wherever you live has that (albeit most likely it's woefully insufficient). I'd just add that a property tax isn't that, because it also taxes the building.
- nemo44x 4y agoIt’s property value + land value. Even if I make 0 improvements to my property my tax seems to go up every year. It’s because the property value has gone up even if the improvements haven’t.
- hackerlight 4y agoYeah that's a property tax, not a land tax. Far from ideal because it punishes people for improving the land that they're occupying, which is the opposite of what we want to be doing.
- nemo44x 4y agoI guess the affect really depends on where you live. Where I am land is really expensive. So even if you owned an undeveloped piece of land, your taxes would still be significant. But I see what you’re saying. In a lot of places the land and taxes are relatively cheap.