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Land Ownership Makes No Sense
11–20 of 73 posts
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#12The alternative is assignment of space by government appointment. We all know the government is corrupt and the best spaces will go to the best connected people. Purchasing the rights to the land in a free market is imperfect, but it's certainly an efficient and tamper resistant mechanism.
There are other alternatives. For instance land held in common by small communities that care for and live on the land.
Not everything needs to be individually owned or owned by some large central government.
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#13Posting articles behind paywalls makes no sense.
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#14I grew up in Oregon, where all the beaches are public. Later I discovered that some people in different places owned beaches, which blew my mind. How can you own a beach?
I then wondered why I felt that way about beaches, but not about other lands.
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#15The ideal is having the right checks and balances in place. Power tends to corrupt. Having government owning all the land is problematic, but so is allowing individuals to own all the land. As the article implies, in the US, individuals have gained a bit too much power, IMHO. Locations with water access or places with unique geographical characteristics should not be controlled by individuals who we can't trust will do the right thing. Americans' freedom to traverse the land has been eroded. It is no wonder why we live more in our virtual spaces where we are more free to roam.
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#16It makes no sense in a world where collectives of people can make sane decisions in a timely manner. We don't live in that world - for anything to get done, there must be a very small group of people with authority to decide what color to paint the bike shed. Land ownership is important exactly because it gives responsibility over what happens in a geographic area to a single entity, and excludes most people from pro…
Don’t collectives of people still need to decide how property rights work and how they’re enforced?
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#17The Georgian model of land taxation is interesting.
Not sure i agree with the moralist approach that land isn’t something we should fight and war over. It’s a resource like anything else, and if when it comes down to it, people will fight. It would be a luxury to implement a Georgian taxation system because that’s only viable because the nation doing so has fought and defended that very land. It doesn’t scale endlessly, but even so, it’s something that should be looked at as something a nation could do to improve its internal quality of life!
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#18> In New York City, 46 percent of a typical home’s value is just the cost of the land it’s built on. In San Francisco its 52 percent; in Los Angeles, 61 percent. In my neighborhood, it's > Similarly, on planet Earth at least, occupying space necessarily implies occupying land. > The problem with the right to land is that it’s all been taken. > Economists call this “rent seeking,” and most of us call it “immoral.” Thi…
Rent seeking is a real and cogent issue. The morality isn't in the rent seeking, but in the rules around it. Taxless inheritance and corporate perpetuities may be part of the increasing financialization of the housing market. Free COVID money handed out to stabilize the equities markets might be another part.
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#19It makes no sense in a world where collectives of people can make sane decisions in a timely manner. We don't live in that world - for anything to get done, there must be a very small group of people with authority to decide what color to paint the bike shed. Land ownership is important exactly because it gives responsibility over what happens in a geographic area to a single entity, and excludes most people from pro…
Don’t collectives of people still need to decide how property rights work and how they’re enforced?
Indeed - but it's much easier to get a collective of people to discuss something once in general terms ("property rights") than every little decision ("we can't build the factory until we agree on the color of the paint in the breakroom")
Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense
#20Posting articles behind paywalls makes no sense.
It makes complete sense.
HN is a technical audience…usually.
The posters assume that you are technical as well and that you are using a paywall bypass extension for your browser.
They are literally a Google, Reddit or GitHub search away.