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RE: Beyond the Capitalism/Socialism Dichotomy

in #capitalism6 years ago

A tax on property isn't theft when property is theft. The Earth belongs to everyone. Hoarding a part of it exclusively for yourself is theft, because you didn't produce the Earth. You are only entitled to the product of your own labor, not to natural wealth. Private property in land is theft. Land value tax is not theft, but merely a way of making private property in land acceptable. I.e. Land value tax makes private property not theft. If you oppose land value tax because it's "theft," then you logically also need to oppose private property in land altogether, because that's also theft.

https://steemit.com/anarchism/@ekklesiagora/property-as-theft-the-libertarian-socialist-critique-of-property-part-1

Also, beyond private property entailing theft now, the institution was historically rooted in theft in other ways too:
https://steemit.com/anarchism/@ekklesiagora/property-as-theft-the-libertarian-socialist-critique-of-property-part-2

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Taxation IS theft.

Hoarding part of earth for yourself may be theft, but you have to tie some very interesting knots to show it so.

In your critiques you go pretty deep in some areas, and very shallow in others. You rarely got to the actual core of the problems.
i.e. A corporation externalizes costs while internalizing profits only happens because of the state. The state is the problem. Or the corporation as the state is even more of a problem.

Land ownership is a necessity for farming and manufacturing.
There is enough land for everyone.
So, the only case is who gets the most desired land for their use?
And in the near future, the desired land is about to be flipped on its head.
(even worse than that land in Hawaii that was very expensive last year is now a lava flow today)

Would love to see some better ideas on land ownership

https://steemit.com/taxes/@builderofcastles/property-tax-is-the-most-evil-tax-of-our-time

You should check out "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George, which makes the case for land value tax. Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley, George Bernard Shaw, and Michael Hudson, theorists and experts from both sides, have advocated LVT. Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, the American Founding Fathers supported the idea, and the original U. S. Constitution (Articles of Confederation) would have made land value tax the only tax (no income tax, no tariffs, no corporate tax).
You can even get a free copy of "Progress and Poverty" here: http://schalkenbach.org/freebook/

Property is not theft.

I mix my labor with the land, build my house, make my garden, make goods. Even animals claim their territory.
Try sleeping in the cave of a bear :)
How is living life freely theft?

Taxation on the other hand is theft.
What is theft, if not the coercive transaction of property?

But I want to extend a hand to you libertarian socialist ( even though that term always makes me think of a vegan butchers):

Unused land, in my view, can be claimed by someone actually using it.

This is a difficult problem, no doubt, but it can be solved.

Taxation and other violent redistribution, on the other hand, can never be turned into something good.

If the tree is rotten, so will be the fruit.

Without universal ethics there will be totalitarianism.

That sort of property is just usufruct. That's not what libertarian socialists oppose. I am not a libertarian socialist. Libertarian socialism is an anarchist school of thought. I am a Georgist, social democrat, and neo-republican. What libertarian socialists oppose is the artificial sort of property known as fee-simple or allodial property, upon which modern capitalism is based. Personally, my position (Georgism) upholds fee-simple but uses tax policy to mitigate the negative consequences.

Check out my series on libertarian socialism (I used to identify with anarchism/libertarian socialism, but I do not anymore, but their critique of property is still valid):
https://steemit.com/anarchism/@ekklesiagora/property-as-theft-the-libertarian-socialist-critique-of-property-summary-anthology

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