Average Land Rent - Free Land for the average person.

[Spendulus]

I just don't understand homesteading.  We start from the axiom that each individual owns himself, and therefore his labor, and therefore the products thereof.

You can't own labor. Thankfully, you don't have to in order to homestead something. You just have to be there first, and do something to mark your claim. It's the fact that you were there first that establishes your first, best claim.

Georgism is the flawed concept that everyone has a claim to all land, and therefore, when someone stakes a personal claim, they are taking from everyone else. The problem is, they don't have a claim to that land, because they were never there, they're not losing anything, because they never had it.

I don't know anything about all that complicated talk, but I do know something I like about communism. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_qm3Ym8-k

She could talk me into doing some redistributing...

You know Russia's not communist anymore, right?

Sounds okay with me.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Air is not a "good", because it is not scarce. Land is.

Exactly.  If one lived on a lunar colony or orbital station one better believe someone would be charging for air.  Maybe it would be rolled in with your rent, maybe it would be simplified to a standard fee per person but air would be scarce and the delivery of air a service.

[myrkul]

Air is not a "good", because it is not scarce. Land is.

Exactly.  If one lived on a lunar colony or orbital station one better believe someone would be charging for air.  Maybe it would be rolled in with your rent, maybe it would be simplified to a standard fee per person but air would be scarce and the delivery of air a service.

Or it might be priced into your veggies - farming would produce a lot of O₂, and suck up a lot of CO₂.

[steelhouse]

Land is no more free than bitcoins are. You have two means of acquiring bitcoins: mining, or buying. You have two means of acquiring land: first appropriation, or buying. The means of first appropriation are analogous to mining bitcoins: You use your property (your body, tools, etc) to mark out the land as yours. This proves that you are the first appropriator, much like using your hashpower to form a block before the other miners do proves that you mined those coins first.

But with Bitcoin they are just imaginary tokens like pokemon cards.  Land is what is required for life, food, and shelter.  Those that control the land can control ones life.  If you owned 1000 acres of Iowan farmland, you could lease the land for about $250 per acre.  Thus, you could be on the beach in California with $250,000 a year stipend.  Since land is scarce, you can survive by solely owning land.

[hawkeye]

The reason we own anything is not because of fundamental axioms or any other crazy stefan juju. It's because sometimes certain objects can not be used by two different people at the same time. If there is a single apple you and i can not both eat it. So assuming we would both like to eat it we must find a way of determining who gets to eat it and who does not. We could use violence but this tends to be costly so inorder to economize we invent rules. These rules comprise what we think of as property. So for example with the apple we may create a rule that says the person who planted the apple tree gets to decide who gets to eat it.

there is nothing philosophical about this, property is just a tool. if you have a bolt that needs to be loosened you use a tool called a wrench, if you have resources that need to be distributed equitably and non violently you use a tool called a property rule.

so then making land into property is the same thing. We all need a place to stand, we cant both stand in the same place at the same time so we need a way to determine who gets to stand in a given spot. If we dont want to be forced to rely on violence to settle the dispute than we ought to invent a property rule.

I like this explanation much better.  Simple, pragmatic, easy to understand and matches the physical world we live in.

[Elwar]

If someone does not voluntarily pay, what should happen to them?

[Anon136]

So what makes homesteading a better rule than Georgism?

From wikipedia:
"Georgism (also called Geoism[1] or Geonomics[2]) is an economic philosophy and ideology which holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all."

Because georgism doesnt solve the aforementioned problem. If the same space belongs equally to more than one person how do we determine who gets to occupy that space if more than one person wishes to occupy that space? you are back to needing to invent a property rule to solve this problem.

[Topazan]

Because georgism doesnt solve the aforementioned problem. If the same space belongs equally to more than one person how do we determine who gets to occupy that space if more than one person wishes to occupy that space? you are back to needing to invent a property rule to solve this problem.

The idea is the one who occupies the land rents it from those who don't.  People still own land in a sense, but they pay a "land value tax" on it, which goes to compensate those who do not occupy as much or as valuable land.

[Anon136]

Because georgism doesnt solve the aforementioned problem. If the same space belongs equally to more than one person how do we determine who gets to occupy that space if more than one person wishes to occupy that space? you are back to needing to invent a property rule to solve this problem.

The idea is the one who occupies the land rents it from those who don't.

ah ok then. who ever wrote that wikipedia article has a very different definition for the word ownership than i do.

In principal i quite like this idea. I would be lying if i said that i hadn't explored this line of reasoning myself. It matches with my idea of social justice more than homesteading. (obviously homesteading still applies 100% to things you actually create but its difficult to justify the ownership of 3d space on philosophical grounds)

and i should also add that this would probably work quite well in a small community where individuals could gather togather once a year and conduct some sort of ceremony where the money exchanged hands infront of everyone. So it would be like bitcoin in that way, everyone would be auditing everyone. But as your society becomes larger this would quickly become uneconomical. You would soon find yourself needing an agency to conduct this business. As soon as you did that you would face some serious principal agent problems.

If you could think of a way to allow georgism to work without the need of a central authority. A way where the redistribution could be handled in a distributed fashion, possibly with a technology similar in some ways to bitcoin, than i think i could definitely be convinced to prefer georgism to homesteading.

keep following this path there is a lot of merit to this idea but be very careful. If improperly implemented it would likely lead to the development of a state and it may very well be the case that there is no way to implement it with out leading to the development of a state.

*edit* oh also a better rule than renting from society would be buying from society. This would be just or unjust for the same reasons that georgism is just or unjust but it would lead to much better outcomes. Imagine a person rents a bit of land from society and builds a house on it then a year later he is outbid and he loses his house.

[myrkul]

Land is no more free than bitcoins are. You have two means of acquiring bitcoins: mining, or buying. You have two means of acquiring land: first appropriation, or buying. The means of first appropriation are analogous to mining bitcoins: You use your property (your body, tools, etc) to mark out the land as yours. This proves that you are the first appropriator, much like using your hashpower to form a block before the other miners do proves that you mined those coins first.

But with Bitcoin they are just imaginary tokens like pokemon cards.  Land is what is required for life, food, and shelter.  Those that control the land can control ones life.  If you owned 1000 acres of Iowan farmland, you could lease the land for about $250 per acre.  Thus, you could be on the beach in California with $250,000 a year stipend.  Since land is scarce, you can survive by solely owning land.

You can survive solely by owning Bitcoins, as well. What you can't buy directly with bitcoins, you can buy with currencies you can buy with Bitcoins. It sounds like your problem is with rent... Fine, don't rent, buy land. Problem solved.

[Spendulus]

Land is no more free than bitcoins are. You have two means of acquiring bitcoins: mining, or buying. You have two means of acquiring land: first appropriation, or buying. The means of first appropriation are analogous to mining bitcoins: You use your property (your body, tools, etc) to mark out the land as yours. This proves that you are the first appropriator, much like using your hashpower to form a block before the other miners do proves that you mined those coins first.

But with Bitcoin they are just imaginary tokens like pokemon cards.  Land is what is required for life, food, and shelter.  Those that control the land can control ones life.  If you owned 1000 acres of Iowan farmland, you could lease the land for about $250 per acre.  Thus, you could be on the beach in California with $250,000 a year stipend.  Since land is scarce, you can survive by solely owning land.

You can survive solely by owning Bitcoins, as well. What you can't buy directly with bitcoins, you can buy with currencies you can buy with Bitcoins. It sounds like your problem is with rent... Fine, don't rent, buy land. Problem solved.

Look, you need to get with the program.  We need to create elaborate groups of words, then build on top of them a secondary layer of words with derived meanings, then build a set of reasonable,just, justifications on top of that for taking peoples' stuff away from them.  You can have some of their stuff, too.  There's a lot of it out there to be taken.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Land is no more free than bitcoins are. You have two means of acquiring bitcoins: mining, or buying. You have two means of acquiring land: first appropriation, or buying. The means of first appropriation are analogous to mining bitcoins: You use your property (your body, tools, etc) to mark out the land as yours. This proves that you are the first appropriator, much like using your hashpower to form a block before the other miners do proves that you mined those coins first.

But with Bitcoin they are just imaginary tokens like pokemon cards.  Land is what is required for life, food, and shelter.  Those that control the land can control ones life.  If you owned 1000 acres of Iowan farmland, you could lease the land for about $250 per acre.  Thus, you could be on the beach in California with $250,000 a year stipend.  Since land is scarce, you can survive by solely owning land.

You can survive solely by owning Bitcoins, as well. What you can't buy directly with bitcoins, you can buy with currencies you can buy with Bitcoins. It sounds like your problem is with rent... Fine, don't rent, buy land. Problem solved.

Exactly.  If an acre of this hypothetical land nets $250 per year in rent, then the present value (i.e. purchase price) is something like 20x annual rent cashflow or $5K per acre.  100 acres @ $5K ea = $5M.  If you have $5M in performing assets the reality is you likely don't need to work.  Land isn't special in that respect.

Of course once you redistribute land them people will store more of their wealth in other assets.  So what is next?  Free stocks & bonds for the average person?

[Spendulus]

Land is no more free than bitcoins are. You have two means of acquiring bitcoins: mining, or buying. You have two means of acquiring land: first appropriation, or buying. The means of first appropriation are analogous to mining bitcoins: You use your property (your body, tools, etc) to mark out the land as yours. This proves that you are the first appropriator, much like using your hashpower to form a block before the other miners do proves that you mined those coins first.

But with Bitcoin they are just imaginary tokens like pokemon cards.  Land is what is required for life, food, and shelter.  Those that control the land can control ones life.  If you owned 1000 acres of Iowan farmland, you could lease the land for about $250 per acre.  Thus, you could be on the beach in California with $250,000 a year stipend.  Since land is scarce, you can survive by solely owning land.

You can survive solely by owning Bitcoins, as well. What you can't buy directly with bitcoins, you can buy with currencies you can buy with Bitcoins. It sounds like your problem is with rent... Fine, don't rent, buy land. Problem solved.

Exactly.  If an acre of this hypothetical land nets $250 per year in rent, then the present value (i.e. purchase price) is something like 20x annual rent cashflow or $5K per acre.  100 acres @ $5K ea = $5M.  If you have $5M in performing assets the reality is you likely don't need to work.  Land isn't special in that respect....

I think something like this has been going on for a while in Ethiopia, and they are not, um, doing too well.  Something about not working that hard on land you rent versus land you own.

What could possibly be wrong here?

[Topazan]

Because georgism doesnt solve the aforementioned problem. If the same space belongs equally to more than one person how do we determine who gets to occupy that space if more than one person wishes to occupy that space? you are back to needing to invent a property rule to solve this problem.

The idea is the one who occupies the land rents it from those who don't.

ah ok then. who ever wrote that wikipedia article has a very different definition for the word ownership than i do.

In principal i quite like this idea. I would be lying if i said that i hadn't explored this line of reasoning myself. It matches with my idea of social justice more than homesteading. (obviously homesteading still applies 100% to things you actually create but its difficult to justify the ownership of 3d space on philosophical grounds)

and i should also add that this would probably work quite well in a small community where individuals could gather togather once a year and conduct some sort of ceremony where the money exchanged hands infront of everyone. So it would be like bitcoin in that way, everyone would be auditing everyone. But as your society becomes larger this would quickly become uneconomical. You would soon find yourself needing an agency to conduct this business. As soon as you did that you would face some serious principal agent problems.

If you could think of a way to allow georgism to work without the need of a central authority. A way where the redistribution could be handled in a distributed fashion, possibly with a technology similar in some ways to bitcoin, than i think i could definitely be convinced to prefer georgism to homesteading.

keep following this path there is a lot of merit to this idea but be very careful. If improperly implemented it would likely lead to the development of a state and it may very well be the case that there is no way to implement it with out leading to the development of a state.

*edit* oh also a better rule than renting from society would be buying from society. This would be just or unjust for the same reasons that georgism is just or unjust but it would lead to much better outcomes. Imagine a person rents a bit of land from society and builds a house on it then a year later he is outbid and he loses his house.

AnCap is an appealing idea, and I'm extremely open to it, but I take an "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude towards it for the time being.  I would say, though, that if it's possible to enforce traditional property rights without a state, I don't see why communal rights would be much different.  Anyways, there are anarchists who seem to think it's possible.

Actually, one tricky part I see would be determining who is and isn't a part of the community for purposes of determining who's owed a share of the rent.  I believe freedom of movement is an important one, and that there would be no such thing as citizenship in a free society.

"Buying from the community" would be a one time thing, and a short time later you're in the same situation you would have been without georgism, so it defeats the purpose.

To others: Land is distinct from capital.  Capital profits are made from creating things for others to use.  If you didn't exist, that capital would not have been made.  Land profits are made by selectively depriving people of something that existed before you were born. 

I actually have considered whether or not this applies to bitcoin, and ultimately I've concluded it doesn't.  Early investors helped bitcoin grow to where it is today, and miners help maintain the network, so in that sense it's created like capital.   Bitcoin is fungible, so holding bitcoin doesn't really deprive anyone of anything.  There is always the possibility of creating new cryptocurrencies.

[myrkul]

Actually, one tricky part I see would be determining who is and isn't a part of the community for purposes of determining who's owed a share of the rent.

More importantly, who is and isn't a part of the community for purposes of determining who owes a share of the rent.

To others: Land is distinct from capital. Capital profits are made from creating things for others to use.  If you didn't exist, that capital would not have been made.  Land profits are made by selectively depriving people of something that existed before you were born. 

Bullshit. If you didn't exist, that land would just have lain fallow and unused. Nobody would have benefited from it. Land profits are made by providing people something that you created on that land.

[Topazan]

More importantly, who is and isn't a part of the community for purposes of determining who owes a share of the rent.

Whoever occupies land that's within the community.

Bullshit. If you didn't exist, that land would just have lain fallow and unused. Nobody would have benefited from it. Land profits are made by providing people something that you created on that land.

Um, no someone else would have taken it.  Possibly your current tenants.

In what way were the sharecroppers in the post war south better off thanks to their landlords than they would have been if that land was fallow?  They'd still be doing the same work except they'd be able to keep their entire crop.

[myrkul]

More importantly, who is and isn't a part of the community for purposes of determining who owes a share of the rent.

Whoever occupies land that's within the community.

And who decides what is and is not "within" the community? Can I tell my neighbor that he's now within my community, and therefore owes me rent on the land he owns?

Bullshit. If you didn't exist, that land would just have lain fallow and unused. Nobody would have benefited from it. Land profits are made by providing people something that you created on that land.

Um, no someone else would have taken it.  Possibly your current tenants.

Possibly. But then you would be complaining how they, and not I, had "stolen from the community."

In what way were the sharecroppers in the post war south better off thanks to their landlords than they would have been if that land was fallow?  They'd still be doing the same work except they'd be able to keep their entire crop.

No, if the land was fallow, they'd be doing nothing and keeping 100% of that - which is to say, nothing.

[Topazan]

And who decides what is and is not "within" the community? Can I tell my neighbor that he's now within my community, and therefore owes me rent on the land he owns?

A homesteading system has that problem as well.  Who decides where homesteading is the law of the land and where it isn't?

No, if the land was fallow, they'd be doing nothing and keeping 100% of that - which is to say, nothing.

Why would they be doing nothing?  Is it impossible for them to till the soil without the blessings of a white-suited gentleman?

[myrkul]

And who decides what is and is not "within" the community? Can I tell my neighbor that he's now within my community, and therefore owes me rent on the land he owns?

A homesteading system has that problem as well.

No, it really doesn't.
Allow me to quote Stephan Kinsella:

Property rights must be demonstrably just, as well as visible, be­cause they cannot serve their function of preventing conflict unless they are acceptable as fair by those affected by the rules. If prop­erty rights are allocated unfairly, or simply grabbed by force, this is like having no property rights at all; it is merely might versus right again, i.e., the pre-property rights situation. But as libertarians rec­ognize, following Locke, it is only the first occupier or user of such property that can be its natural owner. Only the first-occupier home­steading rule provides an objective, ethical, and non-arbitrary allo­cation of ownership in scarce resources. When property rights in scarce means are allocated in accordance with first-occupier home­steading rules, property borders are visible, and the allocation is de­monstrably just. Conflict can be avoided with such property rights in place because third parties can see and, thus, sidestep the prop­erty borders, and be motivated to do so because the allocation is just and fair.

No, if the land was fallow, they'd be doing nothing and keeping 100% of that - which is to say, nothing.

Why would they be doing nothing?  Is it impossible for them to till the soil without the blessings of a white-suited gentleman?

Fallow means unused. If the land was unused, then by definition, they're not using it.

[Topazan]

Any property system is dependent on people accepting your rules.

Fallow means unused. If the land was unused, then by definition, they're not using it.

Sometimes, people cultivate fallow land, and then it's not fallow any more.     Lack of agricultural ability was not the reason sharecroppers were impoverished.