[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
Natural resources -- including land -- are, by definition, completely useless until somebody takes first ownership and makes something of them. Try a little thought exercise: "David Hillary" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [big snip] The right to exclude other's from nature's benefits is a government granted right and it has economic value. Land titles are government created legal rights to the exclusive use of natural resources. Land and natural resources are prior to human employment and use and to economic production. The human community uses nature as a source of raw materials and a sink for the holding and/or absorbing and breaking down waste and byproducts of production. [...] Nature supples an inelastic natural resource, human communities are the demand only. Re-read this carefully, but substitute "iron ore." The right to exclude other's [sic] from nature's benefits is a government granted right and it has economic value. Ownership of iron ore is a government-created legal right to the exclusive use of this ore in the production of steel. Iron ore and other natural resources are prior to human employment and use and to economic production. The human community uses nature as a source of raw materials... [...] Nature supples an inelastic natural resource, human communities are the demand only. [...] Therefore, a tax on steel production is not a tax, but an "iron ore rent." A tax on automobiles is not a tax, but merely continued rent on the iron ore, fuel oil, and other raw materials required to build them; the land required for the factory; and the government's protection and enforcement of these (Hegelian) "property" rights. A protective tariff on automobile and raw material importation is not out of the question, either, since it secures the value of domestic natural resources and property rights. Q.E.D., in full accordance with Mr. Hillary's logic. Now try it with: Water, *gold*, silicon, coal, oil, copper, and every other "natural resource" that you can think of. And realize that, since one of the government's proclaimed duties is to protect my own person -- the most sacred and valued piece of my property! -- then why can it not tax *me* as well, and all the labor that I do? Do you think that that is justified? Or has this argument, when fully extended to its logical conclusion, just turned into attempt to undermine the very concept of "property?" [...] Thus the human community is the source of ground rent. [...] I am not a part of the "human community" beyond the extent to which I *choose* to participate! If I want to retreat back onto ***my*** land and abstain from human society, then that is my *right* -- a right prior to the existence of government, indeed, one form of the primary right upon which the existence of government is predicated. And nobody can charge me "rent" for that right without being a thief. In other words: Not on - ***MY*** - land! I *own* it. One does not pay rent on things that he *owns.* I avoid politics nowadays, since it has proven itself by and large to be a useless pursuit. Indeed, I could pour the next six hours or so into building a full rebuttal for Mr. Hillary; but what's the point? I'll sit on the sidelines, and *live free* as I always do. -- Some sort-of-anonymous person out on the Big Big Internet [EMAIL PROTECTED] "A well-educated electorate being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed." IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are not using HushMail, this message could have been read easily by the many people who have access to your open personal email messages. Get your FREE, totally secure email address at http://www.hushmail.com. --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation (fishing)
"Bob" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Efficiency? You think a criminal enterprise can enforce efficiency? They can't even do that in the Military. Show me one government operation that is efficient. Just one! Easy! How about their hiring offices for shiny new bureaucrats? Those seem to be pretty damned efficient, both at pulling in new slack^H^H^H^H^Hworkers by the gazillions and at weeding out applicants who possess any degree of intelligence, ethics, common sense, or courtesy. And how about the super-duper-propaganda-spinmeistering machines? Those are efficient at pulling wool over the public's eyes. And waste! They're exceedingly efficient at getting rid of money and destroying capital. And I bet you have no idea how much efficiency it takes to churn out bazillions of pages of new laws, edicts, e.o's, statutes, regulations, specifications, precedents, decisions, and codes every year. I tell you, the government can be efficient when it wants to be... [EMAIL PROTECTED] IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are not using HushMail, this message could have been read easily by the many people who have access to your open personal email messages. Get your FREE, totally secure email address at http://www.hushmail.com. --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
CCS wrote: Good serious thinking. The only public revenue that is truly just and justified is that which is associated with and derived from the government's proper role in creating and allocating property rights in natural resources, But I would argue that the government does not "create" property rights. Such rights preceed and are independent of government and originate in production. Even the right to the use of raw land is created by those individuals who made it humanly useful. Government may, by protecting those rights, make them more valuable. The right to exclude other's from nature's benefits is a government granted right and it has economic value. Land titles are government created legal rights to the exclusive use of natural resources. Land and natural resources are prior to human employment and use and to economic production. The human community uses nature as a source of raw materials and a sink for the holding and/or absorbing and breaking down waste and byproducts of production. When nature's supply of raw materials (including geographic area of land) is limited, often human demand for these resources cannot be met at a zero price, so unrestricted exploitation of the resource results in a shortage. The allocation of natural resources in these circumstances is characterised by inefficiency and imprudent use (e.g. a fishery will by inefficiently over-harvested if many fishers can access it without restriction). In order to use the price mechanism to ration the limited supply of natural resources efficiently, normally it requires government to establish exclusive rights in natural resources, which are government created property rights. Examples include fishing quota and land titles. The economic value these exclusive rights confer on their holders is called economic rent or ground rent. Holders of these exclusive rights generally also engage in economic production, so that the value of their economic production consists of two parts: 1. the value added by the use of the natural resource and 2. the additional value added by the use of labour, capital and risk-bearing. The suppliers of labour, capital and risk-bearing should keep the full wages, interest and profit they earn by their supply, the government can take the economic rent of the natural resources for public revenue. The fact of adding some value to the production process, and employing natural resources to add the balance of value, does not create a property right, either legally or morally, to the balance of the value added. Nature supples an inelastic natural resource, human communities are the demand only. The market clearing price is determined by the intersection of the supply and demand curves. In the absence of demand the value of natural resources is zero. Thus the human community is the source of ground rent. The governments of human communities have sovereignty over the natural resources in a defined geographic area, and their policies for the allocation of natural resources, and for human interaction generally in their community, determine the demand for natural resources and therefore the rent. The more hospitible are public policies to human production and welfare, the greater the demand and therefore the greater the rent. Public expenditures, if they add value in net terms, create their own funding in the increases in the rent of land (in an open economy where there is a common world interest rate and wage rate). The sovereign's public policy in a geographic area makes that area hospitable or inhospitable for human use, and in demand. Thus the public policies, and public expenditure of the sovereign are responsible for the demand for land and thus ground rents. It is responsible for SOME of the demand and SOME of the ground rents. But the same is true for all other productive activity. By protecting other types of property rights derived from production, the government also makes them more valuable than they otherwise would be. Land and ground rents are not unique in this regard. In all cases, the only way to measure how much of the value is due to government protection of rights is by the marketplace. Human demand is responsible for all economic/ground rent, as the supply of land is inelastic. Government could theoretically make its jurisdiction a wasteland and all its land sub-marginal, by adopting policies to make land inhospitable to labour and capital, no ground rent would arise because the demand for land would be less than the supply at a price of zero. Any improvement in government of the area could result in an increase in demand so that it exceeded supply at a price of zero. There is no baseline of government activity that can be used to measure what rent is due to an improvement of government over the baseline and what rent is baseline rent. Every jurisdiction and government is unique. The only way to accurately measure rent is the marketplace. This is
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
David Hillary wrote: The govt can get revenue from gaming because it regulates and monopolises and taxes the industry, and believe me gaming taxes are not voluntary! Well, there's still these book makers in town doing a *big* business. There's The Gold Casino on line. There are gambling options besides the government of Massachusetts' games. Plus some take a week off from work to go to Las Vegas. I've talked to some of them. It's a choice they make knowing they are voluntarily supporting the government that's giving them a royal screwing. They don't care as they don't have *hope of getting* ahead, the cost of government being so high in the US. They play government games, private games *and* go to Las Vegas. Russia and the other countries that made up the former USSR are a great example. They're still great examples. No body is being threatened with violence for not playing a government game. Same goes for whale tails on your license plate. Same goes for importing. The government would not be threatening somebody for not importing. Importing would be a voluntary act. By contrast national/state lotteries, personalised and special number plates, seinorarge revenues and similar 'non-tax' revenues are trivial by comparison, and inadequate to fund a defence force (commonly 1-4% of GDP), a police force (0.5% GDP), jails (0.5% GDP), core government services (1% GDP), conservation and similar functions. Mostly *real* crime (immoral acts, not illegal acts which mostly are a joke) is an economic event. If the world was mostly a highly free market you could cut the above percentages down a lot. A government does very little that the private sector can't do, including police. Private police forces in the US is a growth industry. Governmet police can not be sued for *not* protecting your life and property because that's not their legal abligation in the US. Some large percentage of national defense in the US is private interprise already. On top of that, some huge amount of US military activity has nothing to do with national defense. "Elizabeth IQueen of England (reigned 1558 - 1603). When she ascended to the throne, Elizabeth inherited numerous debts. Her genius was in the method she chose to raise revenue to pay those debts, which was unique in tax policy: she made taxation voluntary! Her words: "To tax and to be loved is not given to man. I will end as I began with my subjects, with love." Within 15 years she had a surplus, and was loved deeply." - from Victor Sperandeo's dedication of his book 'Trader Vic II - Principles of Professional Speculation' nice quote of someone's opinion, but a poor argument. I'll go so far as to say that it's not even an argument. Just a statement of fact. What I have to do now is find out just how Elizabeth did it. Good arguments, David. Best, Bob --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
Bob wrote: David Hillary wrote: The govt can get revenue from gaming because it regulates and monopolises and taxes the industry, and believe me gaming taxes are not voluntary! Well, there's still these book makers in town doing a *big* business. There's The Gold Casino on line. There are gambling options besides the government of Massachusetts' games. Plus some take a week off from work to go to Las Vegas. I've talked to some of them. It's a choice they make knowing they are voluntarily supporting the government that's giving them a royal screwing. They don't care as they don't have *hope of getting* ahead, the cost of government being so high in the US. They play government games, private games *and* go to Las Vegas. Russia and the other countries that made up the former USSR are a great example. They're still great examples. [of course gambling is not popular in the world's most free market, Hong Kong, is it Bob? BTW The state of New South Wales (where I live in Sydney), which has Australia's lowest unemployment rate (around 5.5%), happens to have 50% of the world's poker machines!] No body is being threatened with violence for not playing a government game. Same goes for whale tails on your license plate. Same goes for importing. The government would not be threatening somebody for not importing. Importing would be a voluntary act. Taxation of exchange between persons is involuntary even though all exchange is (should be) voluntary. Similarly regulation of exchange between persons is involuntary and an intervention even though choise to participate in a regulated sector is voluntary. The difference between taxation of exchange between persons and taxation of the rent of natural resources is that it is the government that issues the rights to use natural resources exclusively and so it is the government's perogative to charge for this benefit. Holders of land titles are dealing with the government itself, importers are dealing with foreign persons. The latter is none of the government's business, unless the two come to the government seeking resoultion of a dispute. By contrast national/state lotteries, personalised and special number plates, seinorarge revenues and similar 'non-tax' revenues are trivial by comparison, and inadequate to fund a defence force (commonly 1-4% of GDP), a police force (0.5% GDP), jails (0.5% GDP), core government services (1% GDP), conservation and similar functions. Mostly *real* crime (immoral acts, not illegal acts which mostly are a joke) is an economic event. If the world was mostly a highly free market you could cut the above percentages down a lot. A government does very little that the private sector can't do, including police. Private police forces in the US is a growth industry. Governmet police can not be sued for *not* protecting your life and property because that's not their legal abligation in the US. Some large percentage of national defense in the US is private interprise already. On top of that, some huge amount of US military activity has nothing to do with national defense. I fully agree that that private sector and private individuals can do almost all that the government does now without taxation or government involvement. Including police, courts, jails and security. However, economic public goods are quite a delema without the insights provided by analysis of land rent and the geographic distribution of their benefits. This would have to include national defence, foreign relations, many core governent services, conservation and environmental public goods, local access roads and footpaths and streetlights, suburb security, public health (meaning contagious disease control, not heart operations), statistics, and many more. Analysis of land rent and public goods leads me to believe that large scale competing and co-operating proprietary communities can provide/procure almost all public goods efficiently, because most public good benefits are excludable over the area of a suburb or community, thus allowing suppliers to charge communities if communities are prepared to pay. And the benefits of publc goods become capitalised into the immobile factor of production, i.e. land, which communities can use as a fund for public goods, without taxing human production. A federal government may still be needed, but its citizens and taxpayers and voters would be communities rather than individuals. David Hillary --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
Well, there's still these book makers in town doing a *big* business. There's The Gold Casino on line. There are gambling options besides the government of Massachusetts' games. Yes, but Massachusetts excludes competition IN Massachusetts for the type of gambling it offers. This is a coercive monopoly. No body is being threatened with violence for not playing a government game. People are threatened with violence if they complete with the government games by offering the same kind of game in the same state. Same goes for whale tails on your license plate. People are forced to have the plates. And other people are threatened with violence if they make and sell license plates (whether or not they have whale tails on them). Same goes for importing. The government would not be threatening somebody for not importing. Importing would be a voluntary act. People are threatened with violence if they do what they have a right to do (import) and don't pay the duties. You might as well say that the income tax is voluntary because the government does not force people to earn an income. CCS --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation (fishing)
David Hillary wrote: The allocation of natural resources in these circumstances is characterised by inefficiency and imprudent use (e.g. a fishery will by inefficiently over-harvested if many fishers can access it without restriction). In order to use the price mechanism to ration the limited supply of natural resources efficiently, normally it requires government to establish exclusive rights in natural resources, which are government created property rights. Examples include fishing quota and land titles. This presupposes that government employees that don't fish know more about the fish than the fisherman that fish. That ain't never going to happen. Necessary government quotas are a myth promoted by government, and tree huggers that are making a killing off of federal and state tax revenues. You'd be amazed at the number of non-profits in the US getting federal and state tax dollars. Talk about a growth industry in the US. High Tech, move over. A number of years ago, IBD did an article about the number of and growth rates of .org offices opening (and moving existing offices to) in DC to be closer to where the money is. There's a sword fisher that runs out of New Bedford. To stay profitable it has to spread it's fishing over a large area. It runs down to the Canaries off of the NW corner of Africa, then west to the Dominican Republic, then north and home. About a month and a half. Try sending out a USD 2,000,000 hunk of steel to the Grand Banks and meet it's fixed operating costs and it's mortgage. Remember, the owners labor costs are zeroe if it comes back with an empty hole. Despite that, a round trip is very very expensive. If it comes back 1/2 full the owner has to decide if it is the fish or the skipper. He gives the skipper a second chance. It comes back 1/2 full again. Now the owner is sweating bullets. By this time if it's the fish he'll have a good sense for that. He now has to sell it or spend a lot of money (if he has it to spend) to re-rig it for for other fishing or other use. It's a high risk, tough business to consistently make money in. Boat ownership turnover is high. You have to have some cowboy in you to play. Tree huggers and government employees are clueless. The reason they don't go away is that they can *afford* to remain clueless. A free market will conserve the fish just fine. Now *government* subsidized fishing boats is another whole story that doesn't get told. When, when one looks close enough, is government *not* the problem? Bob --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
David Hillary wrote: [of course gambling is not popular in the world's most free market, Hong Kong, is it Bob? Good point David. I didn't think that one out. Gambling seems to be very popular in a lot of places. At least in Hong Kong one pretty much has the freedom to dig your own grave or become a multi-millioniare. Bob --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
The right to exclude other's from nature's benefits is a government
granted right and it has economic value. Land titles are government
created legal rights to the exclusive use of natural resources. Land
and natural resources are prior to human employment and use and to
economic production.
Land and "natural resources" are prior to human employment but they have
no human value prior to human employment. All value is a consequence of
production; nature by itself has no benefits. When the value produced
by one individual is or would be destroyed by the actions of another
then the producer has an inherent right to prevent the destruction. In
origin this right is prior to government.
If you were right that "land titles are government created rights" then
Proudon ("property is theft") would be right. But Proudon is wrong.
The right to "exclusive use of natural resources" derives from the fact
that sometimes (tho not always) the enjoyment by one individual of what
he has produced requires such exclusive use. Land titles etc. are not
primary; they are derivative of and originate in production. In this
way they are not arbitrary and they are not creations of government.
... In order to use the price mechanism to ration the limited supply
of natural resources efficiently, normally it requires government to
establish exclusive rights in natural resources, which are government
created property rights.
Yes, the market requires property. But as I have argued above property
is not arbitrary but originates naturally prior to government. You
don't need a government to make trade possible!
The economic value these exclusive rights confer on their holders is
called economic rent or ground rent. Holders of these exclusive rights
generally also engage in economic production, so that the value of
their economic production consists of two parts: 1. the value added
by the use of the natural resource and 2. the additional value added
by the use of labour, capital and risk-bearing.
I would describe this differently. Producers generally make use of
resources in the process of production and their right to the enjoyment
of their production thereby excludes others from the use of those
resources.
When those resources can be better employed otherwise then other people
will be willing to pay the producer more than the value of his product
to stop, vacate and allow the better use. When this happens the
original productive activity may derive some extra value from the
ingenuity of others. But in no case do natural resources by themselves
have value. All value derives from (someone's) production.
The suppliers of labour, capital and risk-bearing should keep the
full wages, interest and profit they earn by their supply,
In that we are in agreement.
the government can take the economic rent of the natural resources
for public revenue.
But I do not agree that this is legitimate. Even if I granted (which
I do not) that there was an unproduced economic rent there is no
reason to accept the legitimacy of its expropriation by government.
The fact of adding some value to the production process, and employing
natural resources to add the balance of value, does not create a
property right, either legally or morally, to the balance of the value
added.
I have explained above why I think this is wrong.
Nature supples an inelastic natural resource, human communities
are the demand only.
The fallacy in this idea is dealt with in detail the a book by Julian
Simon (sorry I can't provide the title right now). Humans both
produce and consume all values.
Thus the human community is the source of ground rent.
The ingenuity of other specific persons creates better uses for
resources than those of their present users. Other than these
interested parties the rest of the "human community" are at best
just customers or at worst envious thieves.
The governments of human communities have sovereignty over the natural
resources in a defined geographic area,
That may be a fact. But so is the fact that a thief possesses his
loot. This confers no moral legitimacy.
and their policies for the allocation of natural resources, and
for human interaction generally in their community, determine the
demand for natural resources and therefore the rent. The more
hospitible are public policies to human production and welfare, the
greater the demand
There is truth in this. In the same way that you are better off if
a mugger does not beat you. But that does not make it legitimate
for the mugger to take your money.
Public expenditures, if they add value in net terms,
There is truth to this also. In the same way that you may derive
some "benefit" if a crook gives you some of his loot. But that
doesn't make crime legitimate either.
The *one* legitimate thing that government might do is to prevent crime
by others (which entails enforcing rights to property that
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation (fishing)
Bob wrote: David Hillary wrote: The allocation of natural resources in these circumstances is characterised by inefficiency and imprudent use (e.g. a fishery will by inefficiently over-harvested if many fishers can access it without restriction). In order to use the price mechanism to ration the limited supply of natural resources efficiently, normally it requires government to establish exclusive rights in natural resources, which are government created property rights. Examples include fishing quota and land titles. This presupposes that government employees that don't fish know more about the fish than the fisherman that fish. That ain't never going to happen. Government need not know more than the fishers, it only needs to know how to establish property rights in natural resources and auction them to the highest bidder, leaving the business of fisheing to fishers, and concerning itself with the development of effective institutions for natural resources. Government does harm when it rations natural resources without using the price mechanism, because the alternative is have a 'beauty contest' or allocate natural resources to the biggest contributor to campaign finance. The price mechanism allocates resources efficiently and without encouraging corruption. A deregulated and unsupported fishing industry and rational fisheries policies with an emphasis on using the price mechanism to ration natural resource scarcity will be efficient. The New Zealand system of fishing quotas come very close to the ideal of perfection. The allocation of 20% of fishing quota to Maori by political rationing, rather than by auction, is the problematic part. Necessary government quotas are a myth promoted by government, and tree huggers that are making a killing off of federal and state tax revenues. where is the argument here? You'd be amazed at the number of non-profits in the US getting federal and state tax dollars. Talk about a growth industry in the US. High Tech, move over. A number of years ago, IBD did an article about the number of and growth rates of .org offices opening (and moving existing offices to) in DC to be closer to where the money is. Only in America There's a sword fisher that runs out of New Bedford. To stay profitable it has to spread it's fishing over a large area. It runs down to the Canaries off of the NW corner of Africa, then west to the Dominican Republic, then north and home. About a month and a half. point being? Try sending out a USD 2,000,000 hunk of steel to the Grand Banks and meet it's fixed operating costs and it's mortgage. Remember, the owners labor costs are zeroe if it comes back with an empty hole. Despite that, a round trip is very very expensive. If it comes back 1/2 full the owner has to decide if it is the fish or the skipper. He gives the skipper a second chance. It comes back 1/2 full again. Now the owner is sweating bullets. By this time if it's the fish he'll have a good sense for that. He now has to sell it or spend a lot of money (if he has it to spend) to re-rig it for for other fishing or other use. It's a high risk, tough business to consistently make money in. Boat ownership turnover is high. You have to have some cowboy in you to play. Tree huggers and government employees are clueless. The reason they don't go away is that they can *afford* to remain clueless. Fishing is a competitive industry, its rate of return will not involve risk adjusted economic profit, and if fish stocks have been over-fished, so that their rate of growth has been diminished, the industry will be making economic losses. The growth of fish stocks is a function of the size of the fish stocks. For example the rate of growth of fish stocks might be described by the function G(S)=-S*(S-a)*(S-b) [NB ba0]. Each period the fish stock grows by G-H where H is the harvest of fish. If H=G(S) the harvest can be sustained, if HG the fish stock will fall over time and if HG(S) the fish stock will grow over time. The maximum sustainable H is therefore where G(S) is maximised, which is calculated by differenting and setting the first derivative to zero and the second derivative less than zero. (This is (2*(a+b) + sqrt((4*(a+b)^2)-12*a*b))/6.) Fish stocks can be manipulated to this level only if the overall rate of harvesting is controlled so that the stock can be grown or depleated by under-harvesting or excess harvesting respectively. However this point may not be the optimal use of the resource because the cost of harvesting per unit may vary with the size of the stock and the economic resources allocated to building the stock (a form of savings or capital accumulation) must also be accounted for. The economic return on the fishery is equal to the quantity of fish produced (G(S)), multiplied the the price of fish at the market (P), less the harvesting cost(H*C), less the opportunity cost of capital(S*i). As a formula the return is
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
Bob wrote: David Hillary wrote: Human demand is responsible for all economic/ground rent, as the supply of land is inelastic. Granted it's inelastic. But there's buko amounts of it. You can give all the people in the world a tiny house and fit 'em in the state of Texas. And, I can have a better job of having my real estate protected by private police than I can from depending on the local government's "F Troop" or "McHale's Navy". Bob sure thing there is enough land to support the human population, and much much more, without conditions becoming crowded. But the rent of land is a significant fraction of GDP and comes from demand for land in particular places being more than the supply of land in those particular places. Much land has only agricultural value, and, not surprisingly, is in agricultural use. and i support private police forces and citizens rights to bear arms and the means of self defence, and to defend themselves from imminent threats to their life, liberty and property, with the use of force. If citizens were to provide for their own security and the security of their property, crime would be a lot less. David Hillary --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation (fishing)
David Hillary wrote: Bob wrote: David Hillary wrote: The allocation of natural resources in these circumstances is characterised by inefficiency and imprudent use (e.g. a fishery will by inefficiently over-harvested if many fishers can access it without restriction). In order to use the price mechanism to ration the limited supply of natural resources efficiently, normally it requires government to establish exclusive rights in natural resources, which are government created property rights. Examples include fishing quota and land titles. This presupposes that government employees that don't fish know more about the fish than the fisherman that fish. That ain't never going to happen. Government need not know more than the fishers, it only needs to know how to establish property rights in natural resources and auction them to the highest bidder, Establishing property rights in a fishery goes like this: You go and get some fish. When you have them on board and off the decks (so you can't easily loose them), they are now your property. No government required here. The government auctioning the right to fish presupposes that the government owns the fish in the first place. How can it own the fish to begin with? By a simple declaration? Essentially what you are saying is that you think organized crime should "establish property rights in natural resources and auction them to the highest bidder" leaving the business of fisheing to fishers, and concerning itself with the development of effective institutions for natural resources. Government does harm when it rations natural resources without using the price mechanism, It shouldn't be rationing anything to begin with. because the alternative is have a 'beauty contest' or allocate natural resources to the biggest contributor to campaign finance. Now you are getting it. Government will change? The price mechanism allocates resources efficiently and without encouraging corruption. A deregulated and unsupported fishing industry and rational fisheries policies with an emphasis on using the price mechanism to ration natural resource scarcity will be efficient. You can't have "A deregulated and unsupported fishing industry" and "fisheries policies" that "ration natural resource scarcity". It's a contradiction. The New Zealand system of fishing quotas come very close to the ideal of perfection. The allocation of 20% of fishing quota to Maori by political rationing, rather than by auction, is the problematic part. Necessary government quotas are a myth promoted by government, and tree huggers that are making a killing off of federal and state tax revenues. where is the argument here? The quotas are not necessary. You'd be amazed at the number of non-profits in the US getting federal and state tax dollars. Talk about a growth industry in the US. High Tech, move over. A number of years ago, IBD did an article about the number of and growth rates of .org offices opening (and moving existing offices to) in DC to be closer to where the money is. Only in America There's a sword fisher that runs out of New Bedford. To stay profitable it has to spread it's fishing over a large area. It runs down to the Canaries off of the NW corner of Africa, then west to the Dominican Republic, then north and home. About a month and a half. point being? He spreads his fishing affect around, over a large area, the North Atlantic. Try sending out a USD 2,000,000 hunk of steel to the Grand Banks and meet it's fixed operating costs and it's mortgage. Remember, the owners labor costs are zeroe if it comes back with an empty hole. Despite that, a round trip is very very expensive. If it comes back 1/2 full the owner has to decide if it is the fish or the skipper. He gives the skipper a second chance. It comes back 1/2 full again. Now the owner is sweating bullets. By this time if it's the fish he'll have a good sense for that. He now has to sell it or spend a lot of money (if he has it to spend) to re-rig it for for other fishing or other use. It's a high risk, tough business to consistently make money in. Boat ownership turnover is high. You have to have some cowboy in you to play. Tree huggers and government employees are clueless. The reason they don't go away is that they can *afford* to remain clueless. Fishing is a competitive industry, its rate of return will not involve risk adjusted economic profit, and if fish stocks have been over-fished, so that their rate of growth has been diminished, the industry will be making economic losses. If I understand what you are saying, so what if the industry makes economic loses. The players can go find work in some other industry if they can't afford to keep fishing. The growth of fish stocks is a function of the size of the fish stocks. Ok. So how do you go about counting the fish so you
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
Craig Spencer wrote:
The right to exclude other's from nature's benefits is a government
granted right and it has economic value. Land titles are government
created legal rights to the exclusive use of natural resources. Land and
natural resources are prior to human employment and use and to economic
production.
Land and "natural resources' are prior to human employment but they have
no human value prior to human employment. All value is a consequence of
production; nature by itself has no benefits.
Production gives produce which can be exchanged for non-produce, which
is not produced but has value. This is called land in economic terms and
the produce exchanged for the use of it is called rent. Natural supply,
human demand.
by one individual is or would be destroyed by the actions of another
then the producer has an inherent right to prevent the destruction. In
origin this right is prior to government.
producers have rights to their production, and to what they exchange for
it. The do not have the right to exclude others from natural resources
without payment of compensation.
If you were right that "land titles are government created rights" then
Proudon ("property is theft") would be right. But Proudon is wrong.
Property is land is differennt from property in production. Land is not
produced, produce is. Property rights in land differ from property
rights in produce.
The right to "exclusive use of natural resources" derives from the fact
that sometimes (tho not always) the enjoyment by one individual of what
he has produced requires such exclusive use. Land titles etc. are not
primary; they are derivative of and originate in production. In this
way they are not arbitrary and they are not creations of government.
Land rights/titles to not derive from production they derive from
government. Tresspass is a government created crime. a lot of
libertarians seem to want the government to establish new property
rights in natural resources and one does not get the impression these
would be given away, rather than they would be sold. So they seem to
want the government to get one off revenue from the state creation of
property right in natural resources which were previously commons.
Commons is unregulated and non-interventionist in the most individualist
fashion. It seems that the main difference between me and libertarians
is that I favour regular value charging on perpetual property rights in
natural resources, to avoid the creation of unstable high price rent
ratio assets, and to fund government/proprietary communities, and
libertarians favour the creation of perpetual property rights in natural
resources, for one off revenue, without any concern for nature of the
assets created or opportunities for public revenue.
... In order to use the price mechanism to ration the limited supply
of natural resources efficiently, normally it requires government to
establish exclusive rights in natural resources, which are government
created property rights.
Yes, the market requires property. But as I have argued above property
is not arbitrary but originates naturally prior to government.
"the market" requires "property"? meaning that a civilised capitalist
community of individuals requires property rights in land. Property in
land is exceptionally beneficial for human habitation and use, but it is
still government intervention, granting rights to use force to exclude
others from natural resources. One cannot pretend that the tresspasser
initiates force against the land holder, the land holder threatens state
initiation of force against individuals freedom of movement over 'his'
land. Placing improvements on land does not give the right to exclude
others from placing their improvements there. Rights to land must be
equal, or unequal by governent intervention. Pure libertarianism or
individualism based solely on the non-initiation of force criterion
would mean natural resources would be unmanaged commons.
The economic value these exclusive rights confer on their holders is
called economic rent or ground rent. Holders of these exclusive rights
generally also engage in economic production, so that the value of their
economic production consists of two parts: 1. the value added by the use
of the natural resource and 2. the additional value added by the use of
labour, capital and risk-bearing.
I would describe this differently. Producers generally also make use of
resources and their right to the enjoyment of their production thereby
excludes others from the use of those resources. When those resources
can be better employed otherwise then other people will be willing to
pay the producer more than the value of his product to stop, vacate
and allow the better use. When this happens the original productive
activity may derive some extra value from the ingenuity of others. But
in no case do natural resources by themselves have value. All
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation (fishing)
Establishing property rights in a fishery goes like this: You go and get some fish. When you have them on board and off the decks (so you can't easily loose them), they are now your property. No government required here. The government auctioning the right to fish presupposes that the government owns the fish in the first place. How can it own the fish to begin with? By a simple declaration? Allowing people to fish in the manner you describe could deplete the fish in the local bays and lead to extinctions. The purpose of government is not to claim apriori rights, but to allow homesteaders to claim their rights by protecting these rights from others who might seek to invade their fishing territories once they are established. To do this, the government needs to allow claims for fishing rights in particular areas, for particular fish. Without such an organized recognition of fishing rights, then no such fishing rights could be claimed at all. If we continue to follow this line of reasoning, then what's the point of allowing people to homestead and own land. If owning land was as simple as putting a house on it and claiming it as yours, then how would someone secure 40 acres for farming in the following year? To live one's life requires the ability to plan ahead; to be able to know with some degree of certainty that others will respect one's plans and allow him or her to acquire capital to work the land, sow, and harvest, all of which takes time to establish. Ownership doesn't exist solely because you have a house on some land, or a fish in your boat. It exists because you've made the first claim to an unclaimed resource, with a plan to use and develop the resource. The government isn't claiming an apriori right; rather establishing a respect for the rights that you claim. Craig --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: voluntary taxation
The right to exclude other's from nature's benefits is a government
granted right and it has economic value. Land titles are government
created legal rights to the exclusive use of natural resources. Land and
natural resources are prior to human employment and use and to economic
production.
Land and "natural resources' are prior to human employment but they have
no human value prior to human employment. All value is a consequence of
production; nature by itself has no benefits. When the value produced
by one individual is or would be destroyed by the actions of another
then the producer has an inherent right to prevent the destruction. In
origin this right is prior to government.
If you were right that "land titles are government created rights" then
Proudon ("property is theft") would be right. But Proudon is wrong.
The right to "exclusive use of natural resources" derives from the fact
that sometimes (tho not always) the enjoyment by one individual of what
he has produced requires such exclusive use. Land titles etc. are not
primary; they are derivative of and originate in production. In this
way they are not arbitrary and they are not creations of government.
... In order to use the price mechanism to ration the limited supply
of natural resources efficiently, normally it requires government to
establish exclusive rights in natural resources, which are government
created property rights.
Yes, the market requires property. But as I have argued above property
is not arbitrary but originates naturally prior to government.
The economic value these exclusive rights confer on their holders is
called economic rent or ground rent. Holders of these exclusive rights
generally also engage in economic production, so that the value of their
economic production consists of two parts: 1. the value added by the use
of the natural resource and 2. the additional value added by the use of
labour, capital and risk-bearing.
I would describe this differently. Producers generally also make use of
resources and their right to the enjoyment of their production thereby
excludes others from the use of those resources. When those resources
can be better employed otherwise then other people will be willing to
pay the producer more than the value of his product to stop, vacate
and allow the better use. When this happens the original productive
activity may derive some extra value from the ingenuity of others. But
in no case do natural resources by themselves have value. All value
derives from (someone's) production.
The suppliers of labour, capital and risk-bearing should keep the
full wages, interest and profit they earn by their supply,
In that we are in agreement.
the government can take the economic rent of the natural resources
for public revenue.
But I do not agree that this is legitimate. Even if I granted (which
I do not) that there was an unproduced economic rent there is no
reason to accept the legitimacy of its expropriation by government.
The fact of adding some value to the production process, and employing
natural resources to add the balance of value, does not create a
property right, either legally or morally, to the balance of the value
added.
I have explained above why I think this is wrong.
Nature supples an inelastic natural resource, human communities
are the demand only.
The fallacy in this idea is dealt with in detail the a book by Julian
Simon (sorry I can't provide the title right now). Humans both
produce and consume all values.
Thus the human community is the source of ground rent.
The ingenuity of other specific persons creates better uses for
resources than those of their present users. Other than these
parties the rest of the "human community" are at best just
customers or at worst envious thieves.
The governments of human communities have sovereignty over the natural
resources in a defined geographic area,
That may be a fact. But so is the fact that a thief possesses his
loot. This confers no moral legitimacy.
and their policies for the allocation of natural resources, and
for human interaction generally in their community, determine the
demand for natural resources and therefore the rent. The more
hospitible are public policies to human production and welfare, the
greater the demand
There is truth in this. In the same way that you are better off if
a mugger does not beat you. But that does not make it legitimate
for the mugger to take your money.
Public expenditures, if they add value in net terms,
There is truth to this also. In the same way that you may derive
some "benefit" if a crook gives you some of his loot. But that
doesn't make crime legitimate either.
The *one* legitimate thing that government might do is to prevent crime
by others (which entails enforcing rights to property that are prior to
government) and thereby prevent the loss of value consequent to crime.
This would be
