Heinlein played with this idea in Number of the Beast in an interesting way, but it is obviously unworkable in the real world. In on universe they settled in for a while:
This state derives most of its revenue from real estate taxes. (. . .) The surprise lies in this: the owner appraises his own property.
There is a sting in the tail. Anyone can buy property against the owners wishes at the appraisal the owner placed on it. The owner can only hold onto the property by raising the appraisal at once to a figure so high that no buyer wants it — and pay three years back taxes at his new appraisal.
I note that Heinlein immediately has one character point out that this seems somewhat iniquitous, and of course in the real world this would result in a few wealthy institutions or individuals owning everything of value very quickly. Still, it is an interesting idea.
Oh, and I note that in the paragraph before describing this tax system, it is pointed out that just a few years beforehand in that universe was “The year they killed all the lawyers” and that there was no category “Lawyer” in the telephone book. A bit anvilicious, but still an interesting concept.
There would be no additional work needed on the part of the town, except to make some forms available for people to file how much their home is worth.
The average homeowner has a mortgage, and would be required to say the home was worth at least as much as the price of the mortgage. Yes, they’d have to update it every few years. I think that would add some work, but also there are lots of ways to mitigate that easily. For example, you could scan Zillow for recent sales. Your bank could provide you an estimate (they already know how to do this, that’s why they’ll sometimes offer you a home equity loan based on a higher value with no explicit appraisal). Your town could do its mass appraisal process and send you a notice of their estimate (they’d want to do some version of this anyway to catch obvious cheaters downplaying home value, and to make sure a little old lady doesn’t accidentally add a zero and bankrupt herself).
Like communism, I don’t think humans are actually capable of making a truly libertarian society work. You’re 100% right on that, it ends terribly.
On the margin, though, I think policy changes that harness human choices to mechanisms that tend to near-automatically reward people for doing things we want and punish them for doing things we don’t want, with as light a touch but as few exceptions as possible, make us better off over time.
I’m not sure I understand this reply? I think it’s tautological that whatever problems you’re seeing with a hypothetical “libertarian society that works” is actually just a demonstration that what you’re imagining is one more way in which we would predictably fail to make it work.
Because the modern variant of libertarianism is essentially just fascism with a new face. It’s no longer connected to it’s original definition, which is along the spectrum of anarchist thought.
Have you lived through the past 40 years? Because that is patently untrue. Deregulation, along the model suggested by many Libertarian economists have led to an explosion of wealth inequality and exploitation of workers and natural resources that has led us to this present, fucked up moment. Profit motives is a terrible way to structure a society, as it only benefits a few, and fucks over the rest.
The hypothetical, never-actually-realized ideal of Marxist communism is “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
The hypothetical, never-actually-realized ideal of libertarianism is “maximum freedom, including freedom of obligation to our fellow man.”
So even on paper, a perfectly well-implemented libertarian society would be a system that allowed unfettered accumulation of wealth and left the starving masses to fend for themselves.
You also mention them catching obvious cheaters and folks who make mistakes, which means additional work. Either way, adding individual assessments to the mix is going to make predicting the estimated return on any property tax levy less accurate. I need those estimates to be accurate to do my job.
I don’t care how much you don’t trust the government, but suggesting that banks are a more responsible party when it comes to the value of the housing market seems unwise.
How about No Celebrities for any political role! Public service isn’t for everyone and to do it properly requires expertise and experience. And the role is critically important for a properly functioning society.
Really? What legislation have they passed? How many times have they successfully run for office? Have they ever maintained a public department budget? How are they at hiring staff for public policy and administration positions?
Oh, you don’t mean political track record, you mean laugh track record.
“Communism” failed because the Marxist-Leninists killed off any alternative views of how to do communism in the early days of the Soviet Union. We don’t know if anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, council communism, communalism, De Leonism or impossiblism would work or not, and that isn’t including adjacent socialism like mutualism or libertarian Marxism. They were never given a chance because they questioned the authority of the increasingly centralised Supreme Soviet.
Maybe every political system is doomed to be killed by authoritarianism, but that isn’t a good reason to give in and let authoritarianism win.
Are you forgetting the Apprentice? I doubt he would have won had he not done that show, and yes, that’s “the media”…
Of what? Being funny and talking good? You are aware that being President is more than just smiling and showing up to places. it’s a REAL administrative job that is running one of the largest organizations in the world… Trump was extraordinarily bad at it, in fact. Biden is much better, as he understands how the administrative work happens.
But if they do believe you and give you a loan based on that valuation, then you have defrauded the bank into taking on more risk than they otherwise would have. That’s why you’re not allowed to do that. Sure, banks should do more due diligence, but their failure to do so does not erase the fact of the fraud.
