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Comment by brc | Hacker News Reader

In practice, though, it's not that different to property taxes, just that the land is owned by some lord instead of the central government. The effect is just the same. Nobody really owns their land, whether leasehold or freehold. Ownership is really just a right to exclusive use in the best case.

As the old saying goes, if you want to know who really owns your land, stop paying taxes and find out.

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The cornerstone of democratic philosophy is that there's a huge difference between a central democratic government and some lord.

In theory, yes. In practice, not so sure. As a little guy I still owe someone money even though I "own" the property. There is also mineral rights and such that make it complicated. Then zoning. At the end of the end of the day someone comes and slaps me for not paying them "rent".

Not to mention eminent domain - where if your property makes sense for a freeway, pipeline, or, in a new twist, a shopping mall if doing so will improve the "Public Good" - someone can basically just pay you what they calculate as fair market value and tell you to move.

The significant difference is that taxes are assessed on an impartial basis - usually a percentage of current market value. The classic problem with landlords is that tenants have no incentive to increase productivity when the landlord captures all of the gains by increasing rent. Even today, businesses often end up in situations where the landlord sees that they're doing well and jacks up the rent in the belief that moving to another location will be too disruptive. My municipal government can demand property tax, but it doesn't hike it every time I get a raise at work.

Referring to 'lord' here is actual lords, like the Lord of Westminster. When I lived there, I paid something like 55 pounds a year into the lords pocket for use of the land.

Landlord in your usage is a different terminology. In the UK a lord with lands either doesn't have the ability, or in practice, does not raise the land rents arbitrarily. Perhaps someone knowledgeable in UK properly law could weigh in.

As other have said, in theory it is different. In practice it isn't. A single property owner has about as much chance of swaying the central government as they have of swaying the earl of whatever.

There is no direct connection between being a landlord and being a Lord - you don't become a Lord by selling someone a leasehold neither are you required to be a Lord to do this (it's just a contract).

Of course, a number of famous landowners are Lords - notably the Duke of Westminster who owns vast amounts of London:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Westminster

Any country that actually believed that would have true allodial title.

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