[orthecreedence]

The justification is that people are hoarding limited resources from others and not consuming them. They can still exercise whatever property rights they want. They just have to pay a fee for taking up space and not using it. If they want to participate in a real-estate pump and dump, that's fine, but the voters have decided to penalize such activity.

> You don't own the market and the extent to which you have a right to influence it is limited to whatever influence your own offers, bids, purchases and sales have.

...and to the extent that the government can influence it with taxes and tariffs, which is a perfectly acceptable form of market intervention.

[aminok]

>The justification is that people are hoarding limited resources from others and not consuming them.

All resources are limited. That doesn't justify robbing people of their property rights, by dictating how they shall use their own resources.

The only justification I can see for such a tax is that it involves the usage of land, and the moral arguments for absolute ownership of land being much weaker than for other types of property.

>...and to the extent that the government can influence it with taxes and tariffs, which is a perfectly acceptable form of market intervention.

Politically acceptable, morally totally unacceptable. A tax on private transactions is just extortion that has the support of the majority. Something doesn't stop being authoritarian just because it gets the stamp of political approval or majority support.

[orthecreedence]

> That doesn't justify robbing people of their property rights, by dictating how they shall use their own resources.

Yes, it does, if the voters decide it does. Republic beats market.

> morally totally unacceptable

Ah, yes, beating the "taxes are rape" drum. Since when is the market "moral?!" Also, this isn't a private transaction, it's a property tax. You are paying the government a fee for the protection of your property from bandits, raiders, fire, invading armies, and other malicious actors as well as gaining access to electricity, roads, water, waste management, etc.

If you don't like it, sell your luxury $3M house that you don't live in and buy a house in some other rich coastal town that values property rights. Let the market decide.

EDIT:

A thought experiment: is it within your property rights to dump toxic industrial waste chemicals on your own property? Let's say it is. What about when your chemicals that you have every right to dump on your own property start leaking onto your neighbor's property? Is it still within your property rights when it starts adversely affecting the people around you? Is it still your own personal decision to do what you want on your property even though it is now affecting the people around you?

Having an empty $3M house sitting around invites theft. It invites disrepair. It affects the market value of the homes around it. If your neighbor's house is affecting the market value of your house, is that neighbor within their property rights?

Where do you draw the line?

[aminok]

>Yes, it does, if the voters decide it does. Republic beats market.

No it doesn't. People's rights are inalienable. Rights would be meaningless if they're merely created at the whim of the majority.

>Ah, yes, beating the "taxes are rape" drum.

The prisons you send tax evaders to have a problem with rape. You're endorsing doing this to people who don't pay a share of the currency they receive in private trade.

>Also, this isn't a private transaction, it's a property tax.

I was referring to your comment that tariffs and the like are justifiable.

> Is it still within your property rights when it starts adversely affecting the people around you?

No of course it isn't within your rights. At this point you're engaging in an action that is causing toxic chemicals to violate the property of your neighbours.

[hhw]

This is Canada. The fundamental tenet of our constitution (Charter of Right and Freedoms) is to balance the rights of the individual with the interests of society as a whole. These rights that you personally feel are inalienable are not so here, and this is the way most of us would have it.

[aminok]

Rights are not country specific. They're inalienable or the entire concept of rights is meaningless (lest you agree that a Constitution that allows torture of innocent people means that people in that country have no right to not be tortured).

[orthecreedence]

Rights are privileges. Absent modern society, there are no rights. The strongest and the most influential make the rules.

The governing bodies that enforce these so-called inalienable rights are the ones that grant them as well, and it is up to them, and in many cases the people who comprise them, which rights are granted. Rights are not some absolute concept defined by Ayn Rand. They are an artifact of civilized society.

The property rights you describe are not as binary as you wish them to be.