Land Value Tax: The only tax the Bible supports
Land Value Tax: More jobs per acre
Land Value Tax: The only tax with a fan club
Land Value Tax: The only tax which promotes production and development and reduces the cost of living
Land Value Tax: Better than a property tax
Income Tax: The trade tariff we pay on American labor, sending jobs overseas
Usury: Every major religion condemns it
Fractional Reserve Banking: Ponzi scheme that leads to the boom/bust cycle, compounded interest, and unpayable debt, whereby private banks profiteer on the issuance of the nation’s legal tender and have too much unaccountable power over the economy. This is our current monetary and banking system.
Gold Standard: Artificially increasing the value of gold and looting economies from 50 BC to 1935 AD
Greenback / Continental / Debt-Free Legal Tender: The only sound and honest legal tender, which can prevent the boom/bust cycle, national debt, and the special interest of government wasteful spending. If managed, the origination of such legal tender can also fund government without taxation while the economy grows without causing inflation.
Full Reserve Banking: The only sound and honest banking system. Banks would no longer be able to create and destroy the nation’s legal tender. They would have to provide honest credit and investment services.
Greenback + Full Reserve Banking: The end of national debt and welfare for the rich, freeing up trillions of national debt for better things
National Debt: Welfare for the lazy and idle rich
National Debt: The taxes we pay to give foreign aid to China, other governments, and the unproductive rich
Hypocrite: Libertarians who love free markets and hate government so much that they believe the government should intervene in free markets and become commodity traders by making legal tender backed by gold, artificially increasing the demand and value of their gold holdings
Hypocrite: Libertarians who love free markets and hate government so much that they believe government should enforce the state fiction of privatized land ownership with the coercion of the gun
Campaign finance reform that might work: Ban corporations, especially banks, from lobbying and making political contributions
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/2012/02/positive-money-pamphlet/
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/2012/04/how-does-current-banking-system-affect-you-new-video/
Only economists speak of ending fractional reserve banking because the banks own the television news, magazines, and newspapers.
“It may appear that Positive Money’s proposal for banking reform is somehow too radical or too marginal, since mainstream media are rather silent about it.
But despite the fact that this information rarely makes it into current news, the fact is that many very well-known, important, respected and famous economists were or are calling for a full reserve banking system. Their proposals differ from each other, however the 100% reserve requirements is common to all of them.”
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/2011/10/economists-supporting-full-reserve-banking/
Keith,
I would appreciate the Bible verses supporting a land tax.
I appreciate the good work you do.
Thanks.
lvt and the public land lease are essentially the same thing, though lvt is generally considered a more aggressive method. the subtle details of differences can apply to a land lease or lvt, such as method of assessment, time of collection, time of reassessment, and exceptions for things like type of land or type of owner. the quote i provided from leviticus calls it a “redemption,” which could be considered an lvt or public land lease. likewise, “the profit of the earth is for all” could be considered a collection of land rents either as a lvt or public land lease, and expenditure being a citizen dividend or the funding of the public needs. ecc also went on to say that toil is fully your own, which means the bible supports a lvt or public land lease as a means to fund government but does not support funding government with a tax levied upon toil. the bible very much expresses a geolibertarian view of political economy.
The passage you mentioned does not support or advocate a “land tax” in any way. The writer is simply pointing out that whether one is a peasant or a king they get their sustenance from the same place – the field or earth and ultimately from God.
The “redemption,” in Lev isn’t a tax either. It is the redemption that the land gets from leaving it rest in the 7th year
leviticus was a code of laws of which allowed the levites to retain rights to the land while allowing them to trade it with others, under particular terms. such a system is a land lease, which is like a land value tax. the land can only be leased/rented from the levites under particular terms. the difference is that the process is paying land rents to the levites themselves rather than say a government entity. the land rents act more like a geolibertarian land value tax and citizen dividend or thomas paine agrarian justice, where land rents are collected by the government and distributed to the citizens as a citizen dividend.
do you believe leviticus allows giant corporations to buy the land from the levites, own it forever, and use and transfer it as they please? the bible was written by intelligent people, and i assume they got it right. their advice is generally on target, especially if you take it in full context with the teaching of the new testament.
unfortunately, there are people who take things out of context. for example, someone might believe since leviticus condemns tattoos that they can murder people because they have tattos, ignoring the full context that teach not to judge others and not to murder others. the bible is no longer the teaching of the bible but a theology. there are many theologies out there.
it is generally helpful when interpretating the bible to have a firm understanding of right and wrong. it would be hard for me to understand the economics of the bible if my economic understanding was limited to the teachings of say ludwig von mises. i would likely ignore certain passages and only look for things which seem to confirm the economics of ludwig von mises rather than try to take the whole passage in context.
the 7th year was a sabbath for the land, not a redemption for the land. the sabbath is described in the following passages.
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Si’nai, saying,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD.
3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
4 but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5 That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,
7 and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. Ex. 23.10, 11
8 ¶ And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.
the 50th year is the jubilee, which is part of the redemption process.
9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
11 A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.
12 For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.
13 ¶ In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession.
14 And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest aught of thy neighbor’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another:
15 according to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:
16 according to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.
17 Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God.
18 ¶ Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.
19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.
20 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:
21 then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.
22 And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.
the redemption process is described as follows.
23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
24 And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.
If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.
26 And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it;
27 then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession.
28 But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.
29 ¶ And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it.
30 And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubilee.
31 But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee.
32 Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
33 And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubilee: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.
34 But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.
35 ¶ And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Deut. 15.7, 8
36 Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.
37 Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, Ex. 22.25 · Deut. 23.19, 20 nor lend him thy victuals for increase.
38 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 ¶ And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant:
40 but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee:
41 and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return.
42 For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.
43 Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor; but shalt fear thy God.
44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
45 Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor. Ex. 21.2-6 · Deut. 15.12-18
47 ¶ And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family:
48 after that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him:
49 either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.
50 And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of a hired servant shall it be with him.
51 If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.
52 And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption.
53 And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight.
54 And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he, and his children with him.
55 For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
the redemption is about keeping with terms of the land lease, the jubilee, providing for the poor, banning usury, and treating servants fairly, etc. the redemption is a process which acts like a land value tax, in that rents from the land are counted by how long the land is held. it is furthermore like a land value tax in that closed buildings are treated differently than land. a building in the city can be sold if held for longer than a year.
the redemption is part of the terms of a lease and a whole complex code of laws. land is definitely not treated like capital and labor. it is not governed by property law or laissez-faire. land is not treated like a commodity. it is treated with it’s own set of laws.
the code of laws is in keeping with the book of ecc and in the teachings of george and the classical liberals. the profit of the earth is for all, and your labor is your own.
you probably learned a theology so i don’t blame you for being confused where context doesn’t agree with your theology, like the theologies which teach that jesus loves people more if they monopolize land, own servants, and are wealthy.
it also seems like you only read the first few lines where it spoke about a sabbath in the 7th year for the land, rather than the whole passage, and it was enough for you to conclude the bible was talking about something else and that it was in keeping with the theology of ludwig von mises.
you shouldn’t assume. part of the scientific process is welcoming the challenge of your own core beliefs with a eagerness to adapt your core beliefs when new understanding is found. you should look for anolomies in your beliefs and use those anomolies to adapt your beliefs. i don’t even believe purely in land value tax and the citizen dividend. i believe there are more complexities which should be considered in the treatment of land and ownership of land.