I’m not against replacing other taxes with LVT. I’m against the misapplication of tax authority for purposes which are not subordinate to covering the cost of governance.
> The private ownership of land is itself theft from the commons, and is itself the product of state power and authority.
No.
Yes. Or do you believe land titles to be magical artifacts that the rest of society obeys for the hell of it? Land ownership would not exist (and therefore wouldn't need taxed) if not for the state using its monopoly on violence to enforce your piece of paper; given that state-issued privilege, it should be entirely unsurprising that you might be called upon to pay accordingly.
Yes it is. Any attempt to enforce private property ownership itself entails the attempted creation of a monopoly of violence in respect to that land - also known as "a state".
> try something more akin to a cross between Europe in the Middle Ages and drug cartels
Both feudal lordships and drug cartels (well, the ones that are actually worth fearing, at least) entail the creation and enforcement of a monopoly of violence over a given geographic area (a.k.a. "land"). That would make them states. They collect(ed) taxes, they raise(d) armies, and they generally control(led) the local populace under threat of violence. The latter case is only exceptional due to it competing with another state over control of a given geographic area; that hardly precludes a cartel from being a state, for the same reason that two states at war continue to be states even when they're being invaded by each other.
> private property rights are recognized by the State by custom (or “common law” if you prefer), not derived from the State, even though they can be deprived from you by the State by due process per the compromises we made in our Constitutional order.
If the State can deprive you of your "private" property, then how does that not in and of itself demonstrate rather plainly that the State is the thing from which said property derives? By what authority do you get to claim a piece of land as your own except with the State giving you a piece of paper saying it's yours?
So in that case would a drug cartel that excludes the government from enforcing its sovereignty over a piece of land be recognizable as a state? I won’t argue, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest to you that maybe while a fiefdom could in modern parlance be considered a “state” if it were large enough or managed to make it into the present day with internationally recognized borders (like Liechtenstein), not all fiefdoms were states. I’ve made that mistake too so I won’t knock you for it, but a State as you and I know it is a very very recent invention that entails a bit more than Capitol Hill in lieu of a lord. France prior to their revolution and France post-Napoleon provide the starkest contrast between a feudal Kingdom and a State (in both Kingdom and Republic flavors because they’re restless like that).
> If the State can deprive you of your "private" property, then how does that not in and of itself demonstrate rather plainly that the State is the thing from which said property derives? By what authority do you get to claim a piece of land as your own except with the State giving you a piece of paper saying it's yours?
Well you dropped the due process provision I put in there. Did you know for example that Bills of Attainder are illegal under the Constitution? This would be a legislative instrument where a parliamentary body can simply vote to declare someone guilty of a crime, and simply take their property and even life by majority vote. Those have existed at various points in time, but they are off-limits to Congress (and the States too).
But also a title is not just a piece of paper from the State. Think of a title as a record or evidence of the transaction. It is the agreement between buyer and seller that transfers property rights over a piece of land between two parties, but there isn’t a step where the State steps in and says “I approve this transfer”. The contract is between two parties, not two parties plus the State (unless the State is actually one of the parties to the transaction). Where did the buyer get the rights from? There’s a record of that too, and the State’s role is to keep a record. Maybe it was originally a State grant, but the State forfeited it’s rights with the transfer.
That said, yes, there are ways for the state to take property, so long as due process is followed. This might follow a criminal conviction, or maybe someone died without next of kin and it was determined there was no one to inherit the land, or it was debt collateral, or it was compensated for after an eminent domain action. It isn’t arbitrary.
It ain't a matter of recognizability. It's a matter of function and action - and in both of those senses, a drug cartel is a state.
> not all fiefdoms were states
All landed fiefdoms entailed a monopoly on violence over their geographic territories a.k.a. land, be it directly (by raising their own armies) or indirectly (by relying on a superior lord to whom they swore fealty). All such fiefdoms were either states outright or parts of larger states. You're literally the first person I've encountered who claims otherwise - and I've met a lot of people with very diverse perspectives on European medieval history.
> Well you dropped the due process provision I put in there.
Because it's irrelevant. That the State has constrained its own powers to revoke land deeds does not change the rather basic fact that private ownership of land is fundamentally derived from and dependent upon the state and its monopoly on violence.
You still haven't answered my question: in the absence of the state, who enforces your piece of paper claiming some portion of land to be yours? By what obligation do I have to respect it?
> there isn’t a step where the State steps in and says “I approve this transfer”.
There are actually many such steps. At the bare minimum, the local courthouse usually needs to sign and notarize the new deed. There's also typically a rather hefty stack of documents for (among other things) various state and local requirements.
> Maybe it was originally a State grant, but the State forfeited it’s rights with the transfer.
No, the State pinky-promised that it wouldn't revoke the privilege of land "ownership" except under certain conditions. Laws can and do change.
You're ignoring the reductions/eliminations of other taxes. For example, replacing property taxes with LVT is the usual "first step", and would reduce costs for most homeowners (whose land is typically less valuable than the house sitting on it). Same with sales tax, or income tax, or any other non-LVT tax; non-LVT taxes are less efficient than LVT, so replacing them with LVT would maximize tax revenue while reducing individual tax burdens for all but the largest landowners (namely: landlords, be they residential or commercial/industrial).
> taxation is a taking of assets from its owners
The private ownership of land is itself theft from the commons, and is itself the product of state power and authority. A tax on the value of that land is therefore compensation for that theft, and is more than fair.
Modern society has gone on long enough letting land owners have their cake and eat it too. If land owners expect society to respect their exclusive claims over land, then it's on them to compensate society accordingly.