Tax the Land • Hacker News Board

Re: Tax the Land

#451

Post by pandaman » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

ubercow13 wrote: post #415

alex_sf wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no right to anything that people don't stand together to say they have a right to. This is ignoring the point: positive rights should not exist. They require taking rights from others, through violence, to enforce. > People shouldn't have to commute for hours so other people can live there because that impacts their health and opportunities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness Ok. Then don't.

> This is ignoring the point: positive rights should not exist I’m confused by this statement. You don’t have an inalienable right to keep the area around your home exactly how you want it either. That’s a positive right and requires taking the rights of others, for example by enforcement of zoning laws that affect land owned by other people.

Positive right: somebody has to do something for me.

Negative right: nobody must do something to me.

The right of self-governance is a negative right. I can see how it can be confusing since you can re-phrase anything as either positive or a negative action e.g. "you must stop stealing my stuff so property is a positive right" and "you should not deny my need for healthcare ergo it's a negative right" so here is a trick you can use to distinguish one from another: a negative right will remain even in the absence of all other people while a positive right will disappear in such a case.

So, for this case, the right of self-governance will remain if everyone else disappears since you can still make laws, obey them and enforce them on yourself thus it's a negative right.

Re: Tax the Land

#452

Post by ItsMonkk » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #115

ItsMonkk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we're starting occasionally to use the term "location value" instead of "land value". When we are taxing the land, what we are really accomplishing most of the time is taxing the positive externalities that your city is providing, as well as that or your neighbors and businesses. Building the aqueduct, or a city building a train terminal, both provide positive externalities for the entire region. Those ex…

This all assumes that it is moral and just to try to capture the value of positive externalities. I fundamentally disagree on grounds of consent and equity. It is one thing to recoup costs and upkeep for a collectively endorsed project. It is entirely different to claim and capture perpetual dividends on the positive externalities. If a city builds a train terminal, the citizens pay for it once in taxes and bonds. Th…

That's preposterous and I can easily prove why. Do you think it is just and fair that once a factory makes back its cost that it should then go profit free? Of course not. So there must be something different between public and private organizations. But train stations need not be public only - Japanese train stations are owned by companies. Just because something is done by the public does not fundamentally change anything about it. It's just a different source of funds.

The true unjust behavior is the monopolization of land, land that through many inheritences and sales ultimately comes from force and violence. Us Georgists understand that monopolization of land is a good thing, and allows much further uses that an anarchist model would allow, but you need to pay your fair share.

After investments are covered, the entirety of the benefit DOES belong to the people. Ultimately those taxes are coming back to the citizens the way that the citizens decide is the best use of them.

And this is before we get into how the bad incentives produce all sorts of car-centric and SFH-centric developments, as those waste the most amount of land, and the more the land is wasted the more it costs. Rising costs allow the speculator to buy even more land to waste. This eventually makes those train stations unviable, which hurts everyone.

Re: Tax the Land

#453

Post by car_analogy » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

liveoneggs wrote: post #436

car_analogy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't need a house after you die. Perhaps these are just my European sensibilities talking, but a house is not a hamburger, that you consume and then discard when you're done with it. It is your home , and your children's, and possibly their children's too. It's part of the link to your community, your memories, your history. Not a market good like any other, measured only in dollars. You despair why communitie…

here they call that "pulling up the ladder"; you are missing the sentiment -- one side sees it as "leaving my family a secure home" and the other sees it as "tax dodging generational wealth transfer"

To sell constant growth and population addition, rhetoric is developed where merely staying in place is vilified.

Re: Tax the Land

#454

Post by belorn » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

CryptoPunk wrote: post #431

belorn wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time distinguish between people owning gold and people owning land, and in this discussion, we are not just talking about owning land but people owning a house on that land. Similar in how gold is turned into a jewelry that people form emotional attachment to, a home is built on land which people form emotional attachments to. In both cases we have a man-made resource, ie a jewelry and homes, and in bot…

Gold rarely appears in its valuable form in accessible natural settings. It is acquired through the costly process of mining, which increases its supply. So it is not like land with respect to either supply elasticity or the cost of initial acquisition. >>a home is built on land which people form emotional attachments to I would argue people should be encouraged to not form an emotional attachment to a house, because…

Gold is a finite resource, like any other natural resource. The cost of gold is partially formed by the land purchase of the mining company paid. One can not just start digging and increase the supply of gold. You need land first and it need to be one of a few special locations on earth where such mining is profitable.

I don't think the distinction being present are convinceing me. I can agree that undeveloped natural resources might need to be treated differently than developed resources, on that ground that undeveloped natural resources are inherently limited, scares and in general useless unless developed. Undeveloped land don't serve anyone except as an investment, and thus special rules might be needed.

I will also say that while I can agree that people should not form emotional attachments to objects, and I will include here any object, it is part of human behavior to do so. Be that a house, car, boat, jewelry, guitar, a sport players T-shirt, or what have you. For most people a house is just a house. For others it a family heirloom, built and maintained for hundred of years by the same family. We don't generally repurpose objects in order to benefit the greatest number of people, and I doubt there is a very strong support for that.

Re: Tax the Land

#455

Post by belorn » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

yohannparis wrote: post #422

belorn wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish. There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas,…

Concentrated metro areas are better for the environment that sprawl. I'm not even talking about suburbia, but even rural living. I'm not saying people should stop living there, but stopping densification will not help curb climate change and sustainable environment. Also, not everyone wants to live in non-dense places.

The difference of domestic emissions caused by city vs non-city residence is quite minor, about 10% per person looking at UK numbers. In comparison, a single flight by plane can double a person emission.

It also not clear if using existing numbers of rural living makes sense since most people do not work from home. If the norm is to travel to work, the further people live away from said employment the bigger the footprint will be. Existing numbers reflect that culture.

Looking at CO2 per capita, does the very high density cities of japan have better numbers than say India? No. Japan has 10 times higher than India. Of course we all likely know that that wealth influence emissions, which mean it not that simple to just say that concentrated metro areas are better for the environment than sprawl. Emission rates depend on multiple factors.

Re: Tax the Land

#456

Post by valenterry » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #446

valenterry wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the cost of living in their original city would be too high No! That's not what OP said. He talked about the problem of _a change_ in the height of the tax on the same land over time and this making it become too expensive. That's not the same thing, because while the land tax would not cause such a problem (as you correctly said) but rather improve the situation due to more efficient use, the problem of _c…

The absence of something like a land value tax, and/or the current zoning/tax regime, can cause distortions in the market when things change, also. San Fransisco is a good example, where new housing is not being built to satisfy demand, causing property values to increase, and property taxes are prevented from increasing. Children can't afford to live in the neighborhood where they grew up because housing costs too m…

So, how exactly does "the absence of something like a land value tax (...) cause distortions in the market when things change", all other factors being equal?

I fail do get that point and in your example, you don't explain how property value increases would have not happened in the existance of a land value tax.

Re: Tax the Land

#457

Post by bradknowles » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

bretthoerner wrote: post #420

bradknowles wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIMBYism is a thing. But the flip side of that coin is local authorities that have zoning laws that allow the big and powerful builders to build pretty much whatever they want, wherever they want. Which always turns out to be high-rise condos for multi-millionaires and billionaires, most of whom have them as investment properties and don't actually live there. You see that here in Austin, all along the river, especia…

What real estate do you think those people would buy if the condos weren't build?

If they were buying single family detached homes, at least those wouldn't block the views, ruin the skyline, and wipe out the natural areas near the river.

Re: Tax the Land

#458

Post by ubercow13 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #451

ubercow13 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is ignoring the point: positive rights should not exist I’m confused by this statement. You don’t have an inalienable right to keep the area around your home exactly how you want it either. That’s a positive right and requires taking the rights of others, for example by enforcement of zoning laws that affect land owned by other people.

Positive right: somebody has to do something for me. Negative right: nobody must do something to me. The right of self-governance is a negative right. I can see how it can be confusing since you can re-phrase anything as either positive or a negative action e.g. "you must stop stealing my stuff so property is a positive right" and "you should not deny my need for healthcare ergo it's a negative right" so here is a tr…

Calling changing the feeling of your neighbourhood, or indirectly reducing the market value of your land, 'doing something to you' in this context seems kind of stretching it.

Re: Tax the Land

#459

Post by mikem170 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

valenterry wrote: post #456

mikem170 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absence of something like a land value tax, and/or the current zoning/tax regime, can cause distortions in the market when things change, also. San Fransisco is a good example, where new housing is not being built to satisfy demand, causing property values to increase, and property taxes are prevented from increasing. Children can't afford to live in the neighborhood where they grew up because housing costs too m…

So, how exactly does "the absence of something like a land value tax (...) cause distortions in the market when things change", all other factors being equal? I fail do get that point and in your example, you don't explain how property value increases would have not happened in the existance of a land value tax.

My assumption was that density would be allowed to increase as part of a land value tax regime, since that is what it is meant to encourage. More supply of housing.

The OP mentioned concerns about changing to a land value tax. I was throwing out there the fact that there are also problems under the current zoning regime, like those I mentioned in San Fransisco, a drastic example.

Re: Tax the Land

#460

Post by solidsnack9000 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 4:47 PM UTC

teakettle42 wrote: post #337

Manuel_D wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no inalienable right to not be cripplingly impoverished. But any ethical countries would try to ameliorate that condition. Is it ethical for a select few to grow enormously wealthy by driving up the cost of living for the many by deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need? People need jobs to live. They also need a roof over their heads. The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro area…

> deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need There’s no housing shortage. There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable. People can and do live elsewhere, working local jobs or commuting. > The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas That’s just one of many problems of scale; the solution is not to keep scaling up. > … the home-owning class const…

The limited supply is due mostly to regulations and bureaucratic hurdles. Many cities have introduced lengthy approval processes for new developments, laws setting aside large areas for open space, and restrictive zoning policies. All of these kinds of rules prevent and delay new development.

Cities and states have no obligation to set urban policy in a way that is favorable to home owners -- a minority in most urban centers -- while frustrating the major economic benefit of cities. Growth and scale is what makes those places cool and what drives many of the benefits -- variety of restaurants, quality of goods, and so on -- that make them worth visiting and make them attractive to those who live in them. It is what makes them of value to the state and country. The idea that urban homeowners should be able to put brakes on the process is nuts; people who chose to own homes in significant or up-and-coming urban centers knew what they were getting into. It is just people trying to pull the ladder up after themselves, and this is not in the interest of most urban residents, of most people in any state, or of most people in the country. One does not have a "property right" to "the community just as it was when I got here".