Lola's comment on Yesterday's post is worth a post in its own right:
I am not entirely sure that government actions like Schedule A taxation and council house buildings are 'interventions' as such.
The formation of the nation state comes about over time where a group of people evolve agreed values within a territorial boundary. By being finite those boundaries mean that land within them is limited. And the value of that land relates entirely to the work of all those citizens with those shared values.
Yes yes I know I know that history is a story of various warlords accreting ever larger territories, but without the help of the people they could not do that and make a success of it. So if we take the libertarian homesteading view what the nation state is is an assembly of lots of those homesteads with shared values.
This circumstance leads automatically onto the need for the two key functions of the 'state' - defence (of the Realm) and a system of justice (to keep one citizen safe from the predations of another). Both of these functions are essentially the defence of property rights, national and individual.
So what is the least worst way that these necessary two state functions can be funded. What tax regime works best?
Well, it is obvious that this is some form of land tax.
As this is a location tax it to a degree automatically taxes highest those who occupy the most desirable locations within the nation state it follows it must be a progressive tax.
Next since the land in this nation state is a de facto monopoly of the state - the ultimate owner of that monopoly being the citizens - how can it be acceptable that a few citizens are enabled to enjoy more benefits from the land monopoly than others?
If you take away the location premium then house builders (I am ignoring commercial buildings pro tem) will have to compete on the qualitative standards of what they build when they compete in similar locations. That might mean that the standard setting and price control function of council housing is not required - as it has been to provide competition for tenants and drive up standards.
These are not 'interventions' as such. Just logical responses to a requirement to fund the protection of property rights.
Of course, all this presupposes that the nation state - if it has a monopoly of money (which I would not support) - makes sure that sound money is available to the citizen. And that it does not engage in various subsidy programs to special interest groups where these subsidies always end up in rents, aka land prices.
Therefore these (non) interventions (LVT) lead to less interventions overall.
Debate Magazine
