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Land Ownership Makes No Sense

wired.com

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Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#51

Post by juancn »

Land ownership makes total sense, the article is like an apology of utopian socialism. The main issue with those approaches (socialist variants, communism) vs something like capitalism is that they are not robust.

Capitalism assumes ill-intentions (i.e. everyone for themselves trying to maximize wellbeing) and creates a distribution mechanism that is robust in the presence of bad actors while still allowing altruism.

Utopian socialism and it's variants assume everyone is perfectly altruistic, which makes it extremely fragile. So a single bad actor can abuse the system in detriment of everyone else.

Ownership is such a basic instinct (i.e. protecting your resources) that it's biological in nature and I doubt you can successfully thwart it.

Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#52

Post by now__what »

legitster wrote: post #42
now__what wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read the article? The statement about Paine is brief, and the author immediately moves on. In the full context of the article, it functions more to establish context than to bolster an argument. I have no horse in this race, but it's very weird that you've decided to cherry-pick this one statement so strongly.

The author is also heavily misquoting Henry George out of context to make their point.

Now that is a much more compelling critique. Thank you for sending me down this interesting rabbithole...

Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#53

Post by allturtles »

legitster wrote: post #31

In the broad context of history, I acknowledge that land ownership is kind of a myth. I kind of think of the little bit of land that I own as almost sort of a "lease" from the government. I really only get to "own" it so long as we have a functional government and market. While I broadly agree with the ideas of Georgism as well as LVT, I hate the framing of this article. It largely devolves into false moralisms and c…

Agreed that the premises (land ownership is a moral wrong) and conclusions (we should adopt a land-value tax) of this article are strangely disconnected. If land ownership is the problem, then Georgism is not the solution, it's just a different property tax regime, one that will only have a meaningful effect in urban areas where land values constitute the bulk of total property value.

Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#54

Post by legitster »

allturtles wrote: post #53
legitster wrote: post #31

In the broad context of history, I acknowledge that land ownership is kind of a myth. I kind of think of the little bit of land that I own as almost sort of a "lease" from the government. I really only get to "own" it so long as we have a functional government and market. While I broadly agree with the ideas of Georgism as well as LVT, I hate the framing of this article. It largely devolves into false moralisms and c…

Agreed that the premises (land ownership is a moral wrong) and conclusions (we should adopt a land-value tax) of this article are strangely disconnected. If land ownership is the problem, then Georgism is not the solution, it's just a different property tax regime, one that will only have a meaningful effect in urban areas where land values constitute the bulk of total property value.

Georgism is such an interesting rabbit hole to go down. It was a very popular political movement, his proposals had near universal endorsement from economists across the political spectrum... and then it just vanished.

Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#55

Post by xnx »

garrisonj wrote: post #14

I 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.

Sometimes the beaches are public, but the rich try to block access: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/califor...

Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#56

Post by knd775 »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #36
jollofricepeas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wish my iOS browser allowed extensions.

I guess you haven't updated iOS in a few years, then?

Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#58

Post by stocknoob »

WhatsTheBigIdea wrote: post #57

What is the viable alternative to land ownership? The Tragedy of The Commons is a well known and frequently repeated experiment in many areas of life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Land leasership. You are renting the land from the public at a rate that encourages you to improve it. (Not buying vacant land, hoping for your neighbors to improve theirs, so you can profit.)

Re: Land Ownership Makes No Sense

#59

Post by karaterobot »

now__what wrote: post #41
karaterobot wrote: post #28

> Yet by 1797, US founding father Thomas Paine was arguing that “the earth, in its natural uncultivated state” would always be “the common property of the human race," and so landowners owed non-landowners compensation “for the loss of his or her natural inheritance.” Paine also wrote a pamphlet about how the U.S. government actually owned all the territorial land the British thought they still owned after the revolu…

Did you actually read the article? The statement about Paine is brief, and the author immediately moves on. In the full context of the article, it functions more to establish context than to bolster an argument. I have no horse in this race, but it's very weird that you've decided to cherry-pick this one statement so strongly.

Yep, I read the article, thanks for your concern. The fact that the author begins and ends the article by talking about Thomas Paine's position on land ownership isn't an accident. The point is to say land ownership is some modern perversion, maybe even an un-American one, so it's fair to call that into question.
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