Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
09 April 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
An Informed Atheist Re-Addresses Christianity
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
A Progressive Reform Program for America
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Supply Side and Libertarians Are Wrong and Not Supported by the Data
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
How Income Inequality Injures People and the Economy
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
A Democratic Reform Program for America
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Supply Side Libertarians Are Wrong and Not Supported by the Data
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Economic Ignorance
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part VI)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part V)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part IV)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part III)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part II)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part I)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Racial Hatred Is Confused
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
What To Do About North Korea
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Neoliberalism
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Ban Hate Marches and Assemblies
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Miss Piggy and Mr. Pork
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Demise of the Democratic Party
09 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Elitism

In Defense of Private Property

29 May 2016 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kimball Corson
Private property, as opposed to land owned in common, is necessary for economic development. Land that is owned by everyone is in fact land that is owned by no one. As such, that land is not protected nor preserved as private land would be. It can easily be over used in various locals, depleted of firewood, timber, over grazed and otherwise not preserved. Like over fished oceans, there are no restraints. Cooperative pacts in a region of necessity are voluntary and there is always the problem of lawful free riders which brings us to a second problem with all land being owned in common by all.

How can it be developed -- mined, used for constructing homes, forested for lumber, etc? Must permission be successful be gotten from everyone in the world? Even if the commons are by legislative fiat only regionally owned in common, so only all local permissions and compensations must be made, hold outs can destroyed economic development, and pressure mounts for a legislative majoritarian rule, any of which can leave minorities opposed and possibly reactive about it. Without government any development of note is virtually impossible for the commons. Economic progress and the capital formation for it is essentially halted.

Capital formation by an entrepreneurial class is also rendered impossible because there is little possibility, except for intellectual advances and innovation, for businessmen for accumulate enough wealth or capital that does not derive from land. Different land uses are the source of wealth and for land to be used and developed in any manner requires capital investment. Economic progress is shut down without private property.

Some might find this desirable, to see nature so preserved, but as I explain, it is often not preserved. It can be quite overused and ravaged as common land with no one to protect it. Pacts and agreements always have free rider holdouts and are compromised if not doomed. Private or governmental ownership is needed.

Ideally, what we should want is development of commons land by private enterprise and amassed capital, with compensation to all common owners by developers, but the impracticalities of that abound, as indicated. The historical solution of expropriation to private ownership of the few by political and physical force and fiat deprives most all of everything and is the basis historically of all income inequality, some of which, but not all or so much, is necessary for meaningful capital formation and an entrepreneurial class needed to have any commons development with private property.

To be sure history has been unfair to the overwhelming majority of people, but that history was not the only one that was possible. It is certainly not the fault of the idea of private property. Commoners could have been, by region of residence, paid for their losses or bought off at fair prices. But again, how private property came to be is not the fault per se of the concept.

So what, if anything, can be done now is the question. Isn't the horse already out of the barn and the wealth wrongfully acquired, dispersed and dissipated off into other uses and forms. To be sure. But little land is exhausted of all such prospects and value so a land tax, such as that suggest by Henry George, can well be used to garner a share for the populace or commoners of what they lost by force and fiat. And that is what should happen.

Virtually all wealth existent, except for intellectually developed wealth (think Gates, Ellison), as been derived from land. A wealth tax on wealth not held as land, as a supplement to a land tax, could complete the compensation to the common populace if government used the revenues for them in suitable fashions. Hope remains.
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Vessel Name: Altaira
Vessel Make/Model: A Fair Weather Mariner 39 is a fast (PHRF 132), heavily ballasted (43%), high-aspect (6:1), stiff, comfortable, offshore performance cruiser by Bob Perry that goes to wind well (30 deg w/ good headway) and is also good up and down the Beaufort scale.
Hailing Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
Crew: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
About:
Kimball Corson: I am a 75 year old solo sailor, by choice. However, I did take on a personable, but high maintenance female kitten, now a full grown cat, named KiKiPoo when she is sweet, or KatKatPo after she has just killed something like a bird or bat. [...]
Extra:
Although I was a lawyer and practiced law with good success for thirty years, creating significant new law, I never really believed in the law, the politics of law or in the over reaching self-interest of most lawyers I met. Too much exposure to Nietzsche and other good and seriously thoughtful [...]
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Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ