Eminent domain. As implemented in the US, the government needs to pay for something if it takes it using eminent domain, so it’s not really a mechanism to move wealth around.
You’d normally use it when the value to the public of something is much higher than to the individual. Like, say someone has a piece of property that they don’t want to sell, but it’s blocking an interstate highway that a ton of people need to use. The value of the one piece of property is limited, but blocking the construction of the highway is a big deal; it lets the government say “you don’t get to choose not to sell”. The government still pays for the property.
And conveniently they get to tell YOU what its value is. Million dollar property? Nah. Not according to THEIR records. Best they can do is $37k and a huge thank you.
It’s not just arbitrarily setting a number. There’s a valuation process of some form. This isn’t a new problem; if, for example, someone destroys something else, you need to have some way to determine the value of the thing that was destroyed.
No governments don’t get to cheap out on property values with eminent domain, it often happens that the value gets disputed and a court decides the value. And the governments often lose that battle.
eminent domain doesn’t actually repossess wealth, as another commenter (tal) pointed out, they just exchange it for other wealth of some form. however, taxes do repossess wealth.
Use imminent domain to repossess wealth
Eminent domain. As implemented in the US, the government needs to pay for something if it takes it using eminent domain, so it’s not really a mechanism to move wealth around.
You’d normally use it when the value to the public of something is much higher than to the individual. Like, say someone has a piece of property that they don’t want to sell, but it’s blocking an interstate highway that a ton of people need to use. The value of the one piece of property is limited, but blocking the construction of the highway is a big deal; it lets the government say “you don’t get to choose not to sell”. The government still pays for the property.
And conveniently they get to tell YOU what its value is. Million dollar property? Nah. Not according to THEIR records. Best they can do is $37k and a huge thank you.
It’s not just arbitrarily setting a number. There’s a valuation process of some form. This isn’t a new problem; if, for example, someone destroys something else, you need to have some way to determine the value of the thing that was destroyed.
No governments don’t get to cheap out on property values with eminent domain, it often happens that the value gets disputed and a court decides the value. And the governments often lose that battle.
eminent domain doesn’t actually repossess wealth, as another commenter (tal) pointed out, they just exchange it for other wealth of some form. however, taxes do repossess wealth.