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Explain how this post of yours I quoted and this post of mine from a few days ago I quoted are any different.
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Am I A Libertarian?
- Thread starter RetiredUSN
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Fenton
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Yep, you're views on legalization and drug enforcement alone are Libertarian.
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There is no need to reconcile the views of anarchists and mainstream liberals. They are completely different animals.
The idea of anarchism started with anti-state socialists of the left. I suggest reading up on the history of anarchism and libertarianism (which also began on the left) before we continue this discussion.
A left anarchist society existed in Spain before Franco's forces quashed it, so to say it doesn't exist in the real world is just plain false.
Depends on what you mean by "private property." If you are talking about land, air, water, and natural resources, then I strongly disagree. How could one have anarchy when you live in a feudal state where a few powerful landlords hold everything in nature? Anarchism rejects hierarchy and landlordism automatically creates hierarchies. However, what you create is your rightful property and so we agree on that, at least.
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Anarchism is simply the continuation of the libertarian philosophy which began in America prior to the War for Independence. Libertarians believe government is evil and must be kept to a minimum while Anarchists believe that man can never be free so long as any other man can have power over him. The final evolution of man as a civilized being would be as a sovereign individual with the same rights and powers as any other man. To have that, you cannot have government.
Unless a man has property that is truly his own possession, he has no place to really be free. Any time you are in a "community owned environment" then you must limit your freedom as must everyone else to prevent imposing on the freedoms of others.
On your own property were no one else is allowed to be without your permission, you are free to do as you please, and to experience the ultimate freedom obtainable.
The lie that only the wealth can own land is a socialist fallacy perpetrated by those who want to be given what they are not willing to work and earn for themselves.
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I would say no. Stick with the slight con. What I read says conservative.
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Libertarianism did not begin in America during the Revolutionary War. The term came about in the late 1700s to describe the French revolutionaries and was not used to describe a specific political ideology until the mid-1800s (which was leftist).
Now, if you are just speaking of the ideals of libertarianism beginning in the USA/colonies, that is not true either. The Founders were influenced by Enlightenment thinkers from Europe.
While nature can be possessed, it cannot be 'owned' in the same way a house or a car can be owned. The natural world (land) is different from capital in at least a couple ways: 1. Unlike capital, land (including water, natural resources, air, soil, etc) had no original human creator. 2. Unlike capital, land is fixed in supply. You cannot make more of it to meet demands. Because of land's unique nature, it must be treated different from capital. This is not to say we should have some dictator or oligarchy control it. Far from it. Some land ought to be held in common for all (we all have a right to its access). But private possession is necessary for a civilization to function. Many left libertarians, like myself, argue for the ground rent our Founding Father Thomas Paine wanted. A landholder should pay ground rent and have it divied equally to all in the local community. This rent is meant to reimburse everyone else for the denial of access. The amount for the ground rent would not be determined by some statesmen, but simply by the fair market value of the site.
And how does one obtain this property?
Nowhere did I say only the wealthy own land. The wealthy do however tend to control the vast majority of land, particularly the best land/resources.
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It is the ideals that I am speaking of. And the formation of the United States of America was the first practical implementation of libertarianism. NO country prior to the formation of the United States of America recognized the sovereignty of the individual. Every government prior to the USA was a feudal system in which only one Citizen existed and that was the King or Queen who was the owner of all lands and all subjects.
The Declaration of Independence signified that all men are created equal in legal stature and that no man was superior to another. Of course they poisoned their own ideology and set the foundation of the downfall of the Republic when they sacrificed those ideals to accept the institution of slavery.
Of course land can be owned. It is owned and has been for ever, it is simply a matter of WHO owns it. Land is plentiful, and even with the world as overpopulated as it is there is plenty of land for everyone to have some. You do not need to make more because we have more than we can use. Ground rent is ridiculous, you have not deprived anyone else by owning land.
In the beginning of the country, the land belonged to the people. You simply staked a claim, and then worked it. The Federal Government was not able to own land except for certain purpose and those were listed in the Constitution. Any property gained by the US such as the acquisitions outside of the 13 colonies were to be held in trust for the people and given to the people as Congress dictated. We saw this in practice during the opening of the territories and the homesteading throughout the Midwest. Property taxes should be illegal except in cases where property is being used commercially for profit. In addition, any resources removed from commercial land should be taxed heavily and redistributed as the resources of the country belong to all the Citizens.
The problem is that the laws are made by the wealthy to benefit the wealthy. I know people who have tens of thousands of acres which the government pays them NOT to farm. That is criminal. NO property under a 5 acre homestead should be taxed unless it is commercial. Commercial land taxes should be progressive to eliminate land hording. The more land you own above a set amount the tax rates increase.
It is the ideals that I am speaking of. And the formation of the United States of America was the first practical implementation of libertarianism. NO country prior to the formation of the United States of America recognized the sovereignty of the individual. Every government prior to the USA was a feudal system in which only one Citizen existed and that was the King or Queen who was the owner of all lands and all subjects.
The Declaration of Independence signified that all men are created equal in legal stature and that no man was superior to another. Of course they poisoned their own ideology and set the foundation of the downfall of the Republic when they sacrificed those ideals to accept the institution of slavery.
Of course land can be owned. It is owned and has been for ever, it is simply a matter of WHO owns it. Land is plentiful, and even with the world as overpopulated as it is there is plenty of land for everyone to have some. You do not need to make more because we have more than we can use. Ground rent is ridiculous, you have not deprived anyone else by owning land.
In the beginning of the country, the land belonged to the people. You simply staked a claim, and then worked it. The Federal Government was not able to own land except for certain purpose and those were listed in the Constitution. Any property gained by the US such as the acquisitions outside of the 13 colonies were to be held in trust for the people and given to the people as Congress dictated. We saw this in practice during the opening of the territories and the homesteading throughout the Midwest. Property taxes should be illegal except in cases where property is being used commercially for profit. In addition, any resources removed from commercial land should be taxed heavily and redistributed as the resources of the country belong to all the Citizens.
Property already owned must be purchased, government land should be available for homesteading in small amounts if improvements are made. Government should use taxes collected from commercial and resources to build infrastructure such as a National water grid and other infrastructure that makes much of the unused land usable.
The problem is that the laws are made by the wealthy to benefit the wealthy. I know people who have tens of thousands of acres which the government pays them NOT to farm. That is criminal. NO property under a 5 acre homestead should be taxed unless it is commercial. Commercial land taxes should be progressive to eliminate land hording. The more land you own above a set amount the tax rates increase.
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The ideas were somewhat there but there still was no real implementation of libertarianism with the formation of the USA. Unless you were a landowning white male you had no individual rights, or at most very few.
Yes.
Of course, legally. I was speaking more from a philosophical/moral perspective. I find the idea of me claiming ownership of something that has been around long before my existence kind of silly.
Land has really only been legally owned since the start of the agricultural revolution. For 99% of human existence there was no legal land ownership.
Break is over. I'll get back to the rest later.
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I agree there is enough, so long as it is not hoarded.
By owning land, you deprive others access to that land which we all have a right to.
The land didn't truly belong to the people, even before the country was founded:
Land preemption was a major element of colonial policy in early American history. Gary Nash, in Class and Society in Early America, described land grants in colonial America comparable to those of William I in England after the Conquest. In New York, for example, the largest estates granted by the British colonial administration (after the New Netherlands was acquired in the Dutch Wars) ranged from the hundreds of thousands to over a million acres. Governors continued to grant tracts of land in the hundreds of thousands of acres to their favorites, well into the eighteenth century. Under Governor Fletcher, some three-quarters of available land was granted to 30 persons.
Albert Jay Nock, in Our Enemy, the State, argued that “from the time of the first colonial settlement to the present day, America has been regarded as a practically limitless field for speculation in rental values.” Many leading figures in the late colonial and early republican period were prominent investors in the great land companies, including George Washington in the Ohio, Mississippi, and Potomac Companies; Patrick Henry in the Yazoo Company; Benjamin Franklin in the Vandalia Company, and so forth.
https://fee.org/articles/the-subsidy-of-history/
The Homesteading Act, too, favored the land speculators:
The Homestead Act of 1862, an apparent exception to this general trend, was really just another illustration of it. The majority of land, rather than being claimed under the terms of the Homestead Act, was auctioned to the highest bidder. Even for land covered by the Act, according to Howard Zinn, the $200 fee was beyond the reach of many. As a result, much of the land was not homesteaded on Lockean principles at all, but initially went to speculators before being partitioned and resold to homesteaders. And compared to the 50 million acres covered by homestead legislation, 100 million acres were given away as railroad land grants during the Civil War—free of charge! In other words, the privileged classes got the gravy, and ordinary homesteaders got the bone.
https://fee.org/articles/the-subsidy-of-history/
I can probably get behind the idea of land under a certain acreage or market value being tax-free. I really have no issue with it. But I do take issue with royal libertarians who see nothing wrong with landlords holding millions of acres out of use for the rest of the citizenry, just in the hopes of their neighbors driving up the values through their own work.
Unfortunately, that is not how homesteading turned out for the most part. In my opinion, it is unrealistic to void all the land titles we can consider illegitimate. Land value tax (aka ground rent) combined with a citizen's dividend is the fairest and most realistic way to deal with the injustice.
I agree.
Agreed.
I believe LVT would address these problems you bring up... and the tax for most 5 acre homesteads would be very low... almost negligible. But I could live with what you propose here.
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Go back and read the treaty between the King of England and America after the Revolution. The King who at that time was the only entity to truly own allodial property, surrendered his ownership of his holdings in America to the American People. The American land owners took title of the land directly from the King, giving them a perfect title just as the King had before them. They were in fact the new Kings of their land. All lands owned by the King that were not taken by private land owners, was held by the States in trust for the people. The States eventually stole the land from the people and claimed ownership of the land themselves, just as the Federal Government did later in the territories. The conditions in which the Federal Government (a corporation) may own land is specifically stated in the Constitution and limits that land to military forts, the District of Columbia, and territories outside the states for the purpose of being held in trust and "disposed of" by Congress.
This established the fact that American Citizens held property in perfect title based on their status as sovereign's and thereby proved that and American Citizen had all the rights and privilege's of a King.
The problem was, that it unfortunately included the right to own other humans in slavery and that was what set the stage for US Citizens to loose their own freedom and sovereignty. Approximately 90 years latter, all Americans began to lose their sovereignty under the guise of ending slavery. By 1913, the US citizens had lost their sovereignty all together.