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I suspect it is not someone that came and gave it for free. So I would say they should belong to the keeper right now. And if it was a gift, it would still be

I suspect it is not someone that came and gave it for free. So I would say they should belong to the keeper right now. And if it was a gift, it would still be a property transfer. So still his.

yellowapple 3y ago
> I suspect it is not someone that came and gave it for free. I suspect that whatever price was charged was a bargain compared to what it's actually worth - and thus the transfer was at the expense of the rest of society. > And if it was a gift, it would still be a property transfer. So still his. And if that "gift" was stolen from someone else beforehand?
- nobleach 3y ago
  Perhaps you should clarify what "stolen" means. Am I to assume that every piece of land has an "original owner"? Who is that?
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    > Perhaps you should clarify what "stolen" means. There are two senses of theft at issue: 1. Some government establishes (or expands) its sovereign territory through violent conquest. 2. Private parties obtain a service from said government and the society it ostensibly represents without paying in full for it (specifically: the issuance, recognition, and enforcement of land titles/boundaries, those being definitionally subsets of said government's sovereign territory - which, again, may or may not have been obtained through violent conquest) Here in the US, both of those sorts of theft are in play: 1. The entirety of US territory was obtained either by conquering it from other entities (e.g. Native American tribes, Mexico, Spain) or by purchasing it from other powers who had previously done so (e.g. France, Spain, Britain, Russia). 2. The US government (or state/local subdivisions thereof) issues and enforces deeds representing subsets of its sovereign territory to landowners, at the exclusion of the rest of its citizenry - yet the landowners do not pay anywhere near the full rental value of the land to said government or said citizenry. > Am I to assume that every piece of land has an "original owner"? Who is that? In the case of American land, that'd be the indigenous peoples thereof. In a more general/legal sense, the "original owner" would be the government of whose sovereign territory that land is a subset. If that government ostensibly represents its citizens, then said "original ownership" would rest with each and every individual citizen equally. As Locke explained in his Second Treatise of Government: > Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and as good left, and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself. For he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same. That is: every member of society is entitled to an equal share (by value) of the land on which that society exists. Those who own more than their equal share of that land value owe compensation to those who own less than their equal share. The lack of said compensation is theft.
- germandiago 3y ago
  > And if that "gift" was stolen from someone else beforehand? Then that would be theft and not legitimate property transfer. I was talking about cases where a gift is from someone who earned it and transferred something, a donation. Not from a government that gifts via regulations or a thief that steals something and donates after the fact. Though there is no difference in either IMHO.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    How about from a government that conquers land and sells it to profiteers on the cheap (who then rent it out and/or resell it for considerable profit)? How about from a government that - instead of taxing that aforementioned conquered land and the ownership thereof - shifts the tax burden onto the working class (via income and sales taxes), robbing us blind while subsidizing the owning class (who is then happy to rob the working class further via skyrocketing rents)? The vast majority of people "earning" tens of millions of dollars in this country are not doing so via their own hard work. They are doing so by rentseeking - by being parasites on local, national, and global economies. Their wealth derives from theft, plain and simple. And there just so happens to be a solution to that theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
    - germandiago 3y ago
      I am against taxes in general. For a tax to exist, there must be a justification. And even after that, I doubt it is fully legitimate: what if someone does not want or use the public schools system or health system? It must pay for it? So yes, a government that taxes people against their will for a service they do not use, from my perspective, is theft to tax payers. A different story is wether we want to support to some extent people who need it: in that case, it would not be theft against a person giving support, but it would not be a tax either. As for who earns and how, yes, crony capitalism is quite bad. What I support is mostly free market capitalism as much as it is feasible and realistic. I am not sure it is ideal, but as long as laws for damage are applied and the consumer is informed, it works way better than all this political cloud full of a system with favors, licenses, and excuses to avoid comptetition. I am even more against subsidizing than taxes themselves. That is the worst possible distortion of things. I am hopeful there are other ways, and I would like to put them in practice. But those come from our own beliefs. The land conquering is a difficult topic. I agree it is not a good thing. But the history of humanity is the history of conquer. A person that violently takes territoy in some way should not be the owner. I am not sure it is practical or even possible to fix that, though.

I suspect it is not someone that came and gave it for free. So I would say they should belong to the keeper right now. And if it was a gift, it would still be a property transfer. So still his.

yellowapple 3y ago

> I suspect it is not someone that came and gave it for free. I suspect that whatever price was charged was a bargain compared to what it's actually worth - and thus the transfer was at the expense of the rest of society. > And if it was a gift, it would still be a property transfer. So still his. And if that "gift" was stolen from someone else beforehand?

nobleach 3y ago
Perhaps you should clarify what "stolen" means. Am I to assume that every piece of land has an "original owner"? Who is that?
- yellowapple 3y ago
  > Perhaps you should clarify what "stolen" means. There are two senses of theft at issue: 1. Some government establishes (or expands) its sovereign territory through violent conquest. 2. Private parties obtain a service from said government and the society it ostensibly represents without paying in full for it (specifically: the issuance, recognition, and enforcement of land titles/boundaries, those being definitionally subsets of said government's sovereign territory - which, again, may or may not have been obtained through violent conquest) Here in the US, both of those sorts of theft are in play: 1. The entirety of US territory was obtained either by conquering it from other entities (e.g. Native American tribes, Mexico, Spain) or by purchasing it from other powers who had previously done so (e.g. France, Spain, Britain, Russia). 2. The US government (or state/local subdivisions thereof) issues and enforces deeds representing subsets of its sovereign territory to landowners, at the exclusion of the rest of its citizenry - yet the landowners do not pay anywhere near the full rental value of the land to said government or said citizenry. > Am I to assume that every piece of land has an "original owner"? Who is that? In the case of American land, that'd be the indigenous peoples thereof. In a more general/legal sense, the "original owner" would be the government of whose sovereign territory that land is a subset. If that government ostensibly represents its citizens, then said "original ownership" would rest with each and every individual citizen equally. As Locke explained in his Second Treatise of Government: > Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and as good left, and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself. For he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same. That is: every member of society is entitled to an equal share (by value) of the land on which that society exists. Those who own more than their equal share of that land value owe compensation to those who own less than their equal share. The lack of said compensation is theft.
germandiago 3y ago
> And if that "gift" was stolen from someone else beforehand? Then that would be theft and not legitimate property transfer. I was talking about cases where a gift is from someone who earned it and transferred something, a donation. Not from a government that gifts via regulations or a thief that steals something and donates after the fact. Though there is no difference in either IMHO.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  How about from a government that conquers land and sells it to profiteers on the cheap (who then rent it out and/or resell it for considerable profit)? How about from a government that - instead of taxing that aforementioned conquered land and the ownership thereof - shifts the tax burden onto the working class (via income and sales taxes), robbing us blind while subsidizing the owning class (who is then happy to rob the working class further via skyrocketing rents)? The vast majority of people "earning" tens of millions of dollars in this country are not doing so via their own hard work. They are doing so by rentseeking - by being parasites on local, national, and global economies. Their wealth derives from theft, plain and simple. And there just so happens to be a solution to that theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
  - germandiago 3y ago
    I am against taxes in general. For a tax to exist, there must be a justification. And even after that, I doubt it is fully legitimate: what if someone does not want or use the public schools system or health system? It must pay for it? So yes, a government that taxes people against their will for a service they do not use, from my perspective, is theft to tax payers. A different story is wether we want to support to some extent people who need it: in that case, it would not be theft against a person giving support, but it would not be a tax either. As for who earns and how, yes, crony capitalism is quite bad. What I support is mostly free market capitalism as much as it is feasible and realistic. I am not sure it is ideal, but as long as laws for damage are applied and the consumer is informed, it works way better than all this political cloud full of a system with favors, licenses, and excuses to avoid comptetition. I am even more against subsidizing than taxes themselves. That is the worst possible distortion of things. I am hopeful there are other ways, and I would like to put them in practice. But those come from our own beliefs. The land conquering is a difficult topic. I agree it is not a good thing. But the history of humanity is the history of conquer. A person that violently takes territoy in some way should not be the owner. I am not sure it is practical or even possible to fix that, though.