I'm taking the liberty of posting a few paragraphs from Keith Gardner's blog post, which popped up on a Google alert today. He titles the post, Answering Criticism from Anarcho-Socialists « Liberty Revival.
Public wealth is unearned wealth, found wealth, wealth earned by the public rather than by an individual, or wealth held in common or shared by the public. Public wealth includes rent, monetary expansion, often necessary to prevent deflation caused by population growth or economic growth, and interest charged on rent or monetary expansion. Rent includes wealth found through land value and through the extraction and sale of natural resources. Land value destroyed through the extraction and consumption of non-renewable natural resources or waste disposal can also be considered negative rent.
Private wealth is wealth earned by an individual, either through labor, through the production and use of capital, such as tools, organization, technology, or education, or through interest charged through risking and loaning private wealth to another individual.
Public wealth is unearned wealth, found wealth, wealth earned by the public rather than by an individual, or wealth held in common or shared by the public. Public wealth includes rent, monetary expansion, often necessary to prevent deflation caused by population growth or economic growth, and interest charged on rent or monetary expansion. Rent includes wealth found through land value and through the extraction and sale of natural resources. Land value destroyed through the extraction and consumption of non-renewable natural resources or waste disposal can also be considered negative rent.
Private wealth is wealth earned by an individual, either through labor, through the production and use of capital, such as tools, organization, technology, or education, or through interest charged through risking and loaning private wealth to another individual.
This struck me as a short and clear delineation between what is rightly our common treasure and what is rightly the private property of individuals and corporations.
It seems clear what we ought to be taxing -- collecting -- to fund education, to fund infrastructure, to fund all the services which are best funded by all of us. Tax public wealth to the extent that policies give individuals and corporations title to it. Stop taxing private wealth, until we have collected all the public wealth sitting in private pockets. End that free lunch, that windfall.
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