I also want to take issue with comments made somewhere upriver about "fair market value" and the perversion of it in the eminent domain context. For capitalists, the fair market value of something is whatever it can sell for on the market. If a lone holdout doesn't want to sell his property, he doesn't "distort" the fair market value of his property by holding out. The fair market value of his property is defined by his very willingness to sell it. He (or she) *is* the market. It is hard to believe that there is no price at which any holdout wouldn't sell. *That* is the fair market value, if free markets mean anything at all.
In a normal eminent domain context (i.e., the taking of property for public uses), I have no problem distorting the concept of fair market value. With respect to the use of eminent domain for private benefit and exploitation, I do.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of andie nachgeborenen Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 12:12 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] When is private property NOT?
Really, they just kicked it back to the legislature to decide. OK, legislatures in capitalist societies are capitalist tools. Judges aren't? Some aren't, but elected judges are, mostly, and the federal judges are increasingly Reagan/Bush I&II appointees. And even the ones who aren't tools are not mostly especially qualified to make complex economic determinations about whether expected benefits will accrue.
As a former law clerk, I know how that determination would work. Someone like me, but probably 26 years old and straight out of law school, would write a memo for the judge. If the judge was a right wing Econ & Law type, the judge would likely come up with a theoretical justification for the project bearing no relation to empirical reality. If the judge wasa holdholder liberal without economic experitise, who knows how she'd decide and on what basis? So I don't think that putting judicial barriers to ED of the sort rejected in Kelo would be a very good idea.
The bodies that are competent to determine whether expected benefits will accruse are economic developing agencies with the expertise and resources to do the research and the analysis. And that's the truth. Sorry if that doesn't sound very revolutionary.
jks
--- joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> I don't think anyone has a problem with eminent
> domain. I think the
> problem has to do with the precedent set by this
> case with using eminent
> domain to justify increasing profit for capital. In
> other words, the
> case for "public benefit" is getting thinner and
> thinner.
>
> Joanna
>
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >No. I'm saying in practice most eminent domain is
> >pretty neutral stuff, it's not destroying whole neighborhoods for
> >factory construction (we should
> be
> >so lucky), highways or Wal-Marts. It's running
> >pipelines through remote farmland, getting
> easements,
> >and the like. You don't really want to block all
> use
> >of ED as practical matter. Nathan may be talking
> >democratic theory. I'm talking practical economics
> >mainly (as well). jks
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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