Jim Henry - comments on TC#253-255

Reply to Filthy Pierre on cities and suburbs (TC#254, p45)

You may be right in your historical analysis asserting that cohesive
neighborhoods lead to corrupt city governments.  But I think most
libertarians would agree that costs of city infrastructure improvement
should not be unfairly settled on the people whose property is
confiscated or made less useful in the process.  Strong neighborhood
organizations would seem to be a useful way of making that just
principle a political reality.  They can, at best, force politicians
to face the real costs of their projects and not just shift them to
people whose property they condemn and their tenants.

Automobile suburbs have adverse environmental impact that's worse in
some ways than that of concentrated cities; people are dispersed
enough that much automobile travel is necessary, so there's a lot of
internal combustion releasing both heat and pollutants.  The prevalent
short-trimmed lawns and extensive paved areas (necessary for parking)
contribute to drought, because they can't absorb much rainwater; it
tends to evaporate off or drain into sewers and thence to rivers
rather than soaking into the ground as with thicker ground cover.  We
shouldn't be allowed to shift the costs of our activities to our
neighbors; so I would support higher gasoline taxes, congestion
pricing of road use, and property taxes that are significantly higher
on lawns and paved areas than on meadow and woods.  If people face the
real cost of their actions, they will tend to act more rationally - at
least in theory, in the long term.



Reply to Jim Stumm on rich people and ownership of land (TC#255,
pp. 23-24)

It cheers me to reflect, as you point out, that many people who don't
have to work choose to work anyway.  But it remains true that people
who own much capital and (improved, rentable) land have other people
working for their benefit, while those who own none are largely
working for the benefit of others.  I'm not happy with this, but the
socialistic solution would be worse than the initial problem.
Distributism, associated mainly with G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire
Belloc, could be a lot better; it involves trying to break up large
land holdings and ensure that many people own some land.  The
Distributist League in England and Ireland collected donations and
used the money to help small tenants buy their home and farm from
their landlords.  Habitat for Humanity does similar work today.
I would support a progressive property tax structure that would
gradually tend to break up large land holdings to many small owners.
I would also support a 100% homestead exmption for everyone, as some
TCer proposed.  But I'm not entirely satisfied with Chesterton and
Belloc's Distributism (still less with Henry George's superficially
similar proposals); unmodified, they might cause an increase in the
destruction of wilderness.  Property tax valuations ought to be based
on actual, not potential, land use.  So someone who leaves their land
wild would pay nominal property taxes, or none at all.


Reply to Jim Stumm on housing and education (TC#255, pp. 23-24)

Jane Jacobs says a lot more about housing projects than I may have
implied in my review.  You would probably agree with most of it, as
did I.  I agree with you on abolishing government schools, though not
on education subsidies.  One can argue that the state should ensure
that everyone has some minimal level of education and minimally safe
and sanitary housing.  But it is immoral to require those things, and
not be willing to either provide or pay for them. We've plenty of
evidence that government directly providing education and housing is a
bad idea.  So let's consider direct subsidy of privately provided
housing: it would require some investigation of people's financial
circumstances, to ensure the money isn't being spent on people who can
well afford to pay for their own housing, and some regulation of the
housing providers; but not any more than is presently applied to every
house-builder, whether the buildings are for rich people or poor.

But state regulation and inspection of education is a lot more
dangerous than state regulation and inspection of house-builders and
landlords.  Direct subsidy of education without such inspection would
waste a lot of money.  But requiring such inspection could have bad
effects similar to licensing of newspapers; educators, like
journalists, could be pressured to be quiet rather than criticize
government policy, or encourage their students/readers to think for
themselves about politics.

So, as I said in my article in TC#254, I would prefer a negative
income tax to separate food, housing, education, etc. subsidies.  
If you ensure that everyone has some minimal income, you can rationally
require housing standards that would be immoral if you failed to
ensure that everyone can afford the housing you consider to be minimally
safe and sanitary.

As for zoning, I agree that coercive schemes that absolutely require
or forbid certain land use or density are bad.  But one's land use
does have external effects, good and bad, on one's neighbors; and
property tax levels should be adjusted to compensate for that.


Comments for Jim Stumm and Filthy Pierre on coordinate systems (TC#255)

For a cosmic positional system, I think you would want to make the
center of mass of the galaxy your reference point, and use at least
four numbers: azimuth, declination, distance, and time when the
position was reported.  You would also report the direction an object
was travelling, at what speed (relative to the center of the galaxy),
and the direction and rate of acceleration (maybe a vector sum of
gravitational forces plus any self-propelled acceleration), for twelve
numbers altogether.  Those receiving the position signal would use its
red or blue shift to correct the time, speed, and acceleration rate
for their own reference frame.



Comments for Thersites, Ynza Morgan Star, and others on 
banking and credit

When you buy a CD player for $100 with a credit card, the store gets
about $95 from their bank, which in turn gets about $97.50 from your
bank, which eventually gets $100 (at least) from you.  These
percentages are from memory, based on a training class offered by
MasterCard which my employer sent me to a couple of years ago.  So
your bank makes money on your credit card use even if you pay off your
bill every month.  But I've heard (not from a source directly
connected with the industry, however) that some credit card issuers
talk of people who pay off their bill every month as "deadbeats."

I used to use my credit card only for hotel rooms, air travel tickets,
and online purchases.  Lately I've been using it more extensively; I
find it's easier to balance my checkbook if I use a credit card for
small purchases such as I used to put on a debit card, so there are
far fewer small transactions on which I can make math mistakes.  Also,
postponing payment on stuff for up to a month may earn a little more
interest in my money market account.  But I'm not totally easy in my
conscience about using a credit card and working for a company that
develops credit card processing software.  Banks could probably make a
small profit if everyone paid off their card every month - using it
only for convenience, security, etc. - but they make the level of
profits they do partly by encouraging people to go deep into debt and
pay it off only gradually, or just make continual payments on the
interest.

On the philosophy of credit I have found Ludwig von Mises (Theory of
Money and Credit) and Hilaire Belloc (his essays on usury; I don't
have them handy, or I would cite titles) helpful.


Comments for Ynza Morgan Star (TC#253, p. 51) and Abigail Bosworth (TC#255,
p. 16) on basic rules of conduct

Ynza, I can't quite accept the rule you discuss: Do whatever you want
as long as you don't hurt anyone (including yourself).  It's good as
far as it goes, and a fairly good compromise morality for basing the
common laws of a pluralistic society upon; but it leaves out some important
things.

Abigail, your "3 rules" simply bewilder me.  I have heard somewhat
plausible anarchist arguments against voting and private ownership of
land, but the rule against marriage I don't understand.  But what I
understand even less is how you came up with these three rules as the
basis of your morality.  They look to me like pragmatic day-to-day
rules, not fundamental principles of conduct; and I don't see what
fundamental principles you base them on.

I would say the most basic rules are those Jesus talked about when
someone asked him what was the most important part of the Jewish law:
	
   The first is this: "Hear, O Israel!  The Lord our God is Lord
   alone!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
   all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."
   The second is this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

   (Mark 12:29-31, New American Bible; citing Deuteronomy 6:4 and
   Leviticus 19:18)

I would say that the latter rule covers everything covered by the the
rule Ynza cites, but also tells us about our positive duty to do good
to other people, not just refrain from harming them.  These are
fundamental principles; but a lot of other sources are helpful in
figuring out what it means, in day-to-day conduct, to love God and our
fellow humans.

Jim Henry
Lilburn, Georgia
February, 2002