tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6756434140794129886.post2086761815113814534..comments2023-07-13T20:45:46.860-07:00Comments on Knowing Humans: Appropriating Ground Rent Is AggressionBrian Holtzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18284822676116941984noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6756434140794129886.post-32759095161608655582014-09-05T09:14:11.005-07:002014-09-05T09:14:11.005-07:00Thomas Paine's last writing, "Agrarian Ju...Thomas Paine's last writing, "Agrarian Justice," incorporated the notion of"ground rent." (1797)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12722997648787772687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6756434140794129886.post-72934352893184438852009-03-18T23:32:00.000-07:002009-03-18T23:32:00.000-07:00If this isn't a sly ad-homonym attack then the ref...If this isn't a sly ad-homonym attack then the reference to Marx is completely irrelevant. Since he admits the irrelevance, one can conclude the sly ad-homonym was the point.<BR/><BR/> <BR/><BR/>However that being said, not even Marx was wrong 100% of the time.<BR/><BR/> <BR/><BR/>We all agree that payment for scarce resources at market rates is needed to best allocate them. But there is no purpose served in having these payments collected privately. A small percentage can be left available to drive market evaluations. But since the condition for rent collection comes from initiated exclusionary force, those values belong to the people whose freedom has been restricted. Thus the demands of equal freedom and prohibiting the postive feedback to aggression, drive a need to minimize that market available rent to the smallest practical amount.<BR/><BR/> <BR/><BR/>The point that Locke's proviso makes no sense in practice, is valid. But the practice of Lockes proviso is not its salient point. Locke was pointing out that not leaving as good for others is aggression. And this is true. It would take the Physiocrats, Thomas Paine, and finally Henry Goerge to point out that a payment for this aggression is sufficient to meet the needs of "as good for others".Econ Amateurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14951481203194791704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6756434140794129886.post-79223460901191407082008-11-26T20:58:00.000-08:002008-11-26T20:58:00.000-08:00Locke also wrote: "He that had as good left for hi...Locke also wrote: "He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour: if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him in common with others to labour on, and whereof there was as good left, as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to."<BR/><BR/>For more on this topic, see "Common Rights and Collective Rights" by Dan Sullivan at http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commonrights.html<BR/><BR/>The Summers criticism is trivially rebutted. See the hint labeled "Resource Severance" at http://ecolibertarian.org/manifestoBrian Holtzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18284822676116941984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6756434140794129886.post-66008067534750484692008-11-26T19:32:00.000-08:002008-11-26T19:32:00.000-08:00The quote from John Locke's from 1689 Second Trea...The quote from John Locke's from 1689 Second Treatise of<BR/>Government, paragraph 27 is: "Though the earth, and all inferior creatures<BR/>be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person.<BR/>This nobody has a right to but himself. The labor of his body, and the<BR/>work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he<BR/>removes out of the state that nature has provided, and left it in, he<BR/>has mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own,<BR/>and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the<BR/>common state nature placed it in, it has by this labor something annexed<BR/>to it, that excludes the common right of other men. For this labor being<BR/>the unquestionable property of the laborer, no man but he can have a<BR/>right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough,<BR/>and as good left in common for others."<BR/><BR/>You will neither be the first nor the last to grasp on to a<BR/>sentence here or there from Locke. Like Karl Marx and his discussion of<BR/>exploitation, it is easy to ignore the subsequent works that evolved the<BR/>ideas discussed by Locke, instead grabbing onto words out discussions of<BR/>much broader topics. Recall that Locke sought to avoid any conclusion<BR/>that property existed at the consent of society and that consent could<BR/>be withdrawn or modified by the society which sanctioned it originally.<BR/>Locke would also emphasize that the activity by which private property<BR/>is acquired is the very same activity which makes the earth more<BR/>supportive of human life.<BR/><BR/>It is Marx that adds the claims relating to rent being evidence of<BR/>surplus value created by the worker its expropriation by the property<BR/>owner. To Locke, interest and rents were market means of allocating<BR/>resources from less enterprising to the more enterprising. (See, e.g.,<BR/>Locke's "Some Considerations," p. 57) While it is not necessary to<BR/>equate the view of Locke's writings by Marx to yours, it is<BR/>plain that it is perilous to ignore the 300 years of discussion that has<BR/>occurred since Locke's words were penned while gripping tightly on a<BR/>single phrase.<BR/><BR/>And even if it is taken as true that the Lockean Proviso justifies<BR/>private ownership only to the point "where there is enough and as good<BR/>left in common for others," the proviso is easily revealed as an<BR/>absurdity. As explained by Brian Summers in 1981, if oil companies must<BR/>leave "enough and as good oil in the ground for others," where should<BR/>they stop? If the last barrel of oil must be left in the ground for our<BR/>children, then our children must - leave the last barrel for their<BR/>children, and so on. No one may ever take the last barrel. But if the<BR/>last barrel is permanently off limits, then anyone taking the next to<BR/>last barrel, would not be leaving "enough and as good in common for<BR/>others." No one may ever take the next to last barrel. Similarly with<BR/>all other barrels of oil. Pushed to its limits, the Lockean proviso<BR/>prohibits anyone from ever taking any nonrenewable scarce natural<BR/>resource.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com