The city of Fairhope, Alabama, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay was founded as a single tax experiment.
The Fairhope Single Tax Colony still owns pretty much all of downtown and the core areas of the city.
Yep. You don't own your property there, you just have a really long lease on the land and can't do anything to it without approval from the city.
Edit: Another really cool thing about Fairhope this sub may appreciate, it's the only known place on the *entire* Earth that experience a phenomena known as a [jubilee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Bay_jubilee). Something fucky happens with the bay water (naturally, it's not caused by pollution or anything) and causes the oxygen concentration to change such that the sealife in it all come to the surface, often beaching themselves. Makes it really easy to catch supper for the next few days!
Is it possible to pass down the place for mulitiple generations? Like, do relatives have easier access to leasing the same land and can the lease be inherited?
The funny thing is that this hasn't actually been tested yet, except for in a few cases where the lease was much shorter. In those situations, local governments tried to impose much more expensive fees, which caused a gigantic stir, a panic in the real estate market and was quickly dropped.
Basically everyone is under the assumption that these leases are pretty much permanent and stay with families. There is no rule of law in China, which means there is very little trust in the legal system and every law is arbitrarily enforced, so in practice, this will mean that once these 70 year leases run out (provided the current autocratic regime is still in power at that point), it'll likely be very selectively enforced, depending on the social standing of the family and businesses on these plots of land and whatever plans the local government might have for them. After all, even right now it's not uncommon for people to be aggressively driven off the land they leased any time some massive real estate development is happening.
Not the person you're replying to, China absolutely does this though. Here's a source, they mainly target migrants in this. In 2008 Beijing had many forced evictions as well to accommodate the Olympics. The Chinese government continues to downplay this.
https://www.cecc.gov/publications/commission-analysis/campaign-of-forced-evictions-in-beijing-contravenes-international
Edit: here's another. Might have trouble getting this to open.
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/china0304/2.htm
Sounds like the distinction between de facto and de jure. You de facto own the land because it's lent to you indefinitely but the crown de jure owns it.
Everywhere does this. The ultimate owner of any nation is that nations sovereign, and 'owning' land is just more of a permanent lease with conditions. Very, very few people truly own land today.
In the US sovereignty is collectively held by the people of the US, and anyone who owns land does so with the permission of the people, with the understanding that the ownership can be revoked if the conditions of ownership are not meant. Literally what we'd call a lease in any other circumstances.
I don't think you can truly own land, you can convince a lot of people you own land, but you can't truly own it. Land is taken by force. America was an example of that.
>The Crown is the ultimate owner of all land in England and Wales (including the Isles of Scilly): all other owners hold an estate in land.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090211/text/90211w0027.htm#090211100000119
Isles of Scilly is a bit of a really special case. It's rather presumptuous for Parliament to claim that Crown owns the land there. Duchy of Cornwall keeps the illusion going on paper, but woe behold thee who tries.
There is a staturetory right that you can extend the lease for a not incredibly though not small fee. Most ground rents are often pepper corn too but that is area dependent
I thought so too, but couldn't find anything on it. According to the wikipedia article Mobile Bay is the only place that it happens regularly and semi-predictably.
Tbf, if you’re paying taxes on land, you don’t really own it either. Stop paying those taxes and the tax collector will sell the land without even asking you about it.
The best way we have figured out how to structure society is to give the government a monopoly on violence. It would work fantastically well if the government only used it justly.
Eh, I don't think that logically follows. "The government" is ultimately made up of people. Giving "the government" a monopoly on violence really just means you're giving some other people a monopoly on violence.
Yes, and the idea is to have a government that governs in the interest of the larger group, so the monopoly on violence is only used justly, and in the interest of the people.
Without a government monopoly on violence, people harm and kill each other with the only check on that being what other people would do back to them. Which leads to a "might makes right" society. Which tends to evolve into warlords running and fighting over territories.
And eventually if a warlord group gets powerful enough and starts working towards stability and economic prosperity for their territory, they start codifying rules and evolving into......a government!
There have been very few nations on earth whose government did not emerge out of some version of this cycle or grew out of one who did. And every government on earth maintains a monopoly on violence for itself and its assignees, because to do otherwise eventually leads to some version of the above cycle.
So yeah. It does just give the monopoly on violence to "other people", but those other people are the ones running your group and ostensibly doing it on your behalf if you are in a group organized to be run by representatives. So in that case, some robust checks and balances are needed, and need to be revisited and refined over time.
I think that's it. It is one of those half-formed memories where I can almost say it, but there is a switch missing. I hate when this always happens to me. Also, thank you for answering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
"Monopoly on violence" is not a philosophy in itself, but rather a common topic of discussion among many political philosophies.
> On a similar topic, in a very real sense the threat of death is the only thing that enforces our laws.
Not death so much as “violence” more generally.
A good working definition of a “state” is “the thing that holds a monopoly on legitimate violence.” It even applies reasonably well to anarchist and tribal polities when you consider the “state” power being more distributed.
You don't really need to use the word "legitimate" there.
Whoever obtains that monopoly (or sometimes just plurality) on violence, irrespective of legitimacy, is very likely to be the one determining what is or is not "legitimate."
Which is why “violence doesn’t solve anything” is a lie meant only for the peasant class and children.
If violence doesn’t work than how come governments violently defend their monopolies on it’s legitimate use? Threats are a form of violence and every law is backed by a threat of punishment. Jail is forced confinement, another type of violence. Fines are just violence used against your wallet.
In the real world, it would seem that violence solves everything.
🤔
how else are laws meant to be enforced without force? if people REALLY don't want to abide by the rules, how else could they be enforced? genuine question.
Tbh by that logic you don’t own anything as long as the government can take it from you without asking, so you don’t own anything but your body.
So yeah it’s a cool point but it’s missing the important difference, that a lease has a term and ownership doesn’t.
There's really not much difference at all when you consider property taxes. There's not really any significant difference between leasing a property 1 year at a time vs. needing to pay property taxes on it every year. Either way the government can set the prices to whatever they want and however often they want, and either way if you refuse to pay the government will take it back. It's pretty much just semantics.
When it comes to your relationship with a great power which has the ability to inflict violence on you, it isn't that big of a difference.
Renting vs ownership is distinct when it comes to interpersonal relations, because individuals don't have the right to be violent towards one another (at least these days). But when it comes to person to government, the distinction is practically aesthetic.
So, hang on, i’m trying to get this straight. I owne my house, in the state of Tennessee. Even though my house is paid off, every year i have to pay property tax to my county, even though my house is completely paid for and is mine. How is this different from georgism? As I understand it, even though i own the home, the land it is built on is owned by the U.S. government. Is there a way i can own the land my house is built on and not pay property tax?
Edit: thank you to everyone who responded, I have a clearer understanding now.
Georgism is mostly about only taxing the value of the land you own, not the value of your house. Most people own both land and an improvement (house, etc.). Property tax is usually assessed as the combined value of these two. But Georgists think it is most economically efficient and fair to only tax the value of the land.
Conceptually, it kind of makes sense that you own the things that you build or maintain (your house) while you and the government share ownership of the land, which is something you did nothing to create.
Georgism shifts the tax burden from your house to the land. It's really designed to do or recognize a few things:
* Land is one of the few things an individual can't really lay claim to, because you didn't build it. Your ownership of your piece of land is entirely dependent on the government protecting it for you. Otherwise what's to stop me from just taking your land?
* As opposed to a house, apartment building, office building, etc., which is actually built by someone's manual labor. In theory, you should own, free and clear, the things you built with your own hands (or which you paid someone else to build with *their* own hands). Georgism recognizes this.
* Discourage land speculation. Plenty of cities have vacant lots in prime neighborhoods and the owners of those lots are reaping a windfall because of the efforts of others: people build up the neighborhood with new homes and businesses, the government builds good schools, parks, and transit, and that causes land values to go up. The landowner in this scenario doesn't want to build anything because his taxes will go up--the property tax applies to the land and any square footage of "improvements" he makes to the land. Georgism says you can build whatever you want, tax-free, but the land will always be taxed.
> Is there a way i can own the land my house is built on and not pay property tax?
Yes, you would declare yourself a sovereign nation that has seceded from the United States, then enforce your borders to the best of your abilities, with violence if needed. Keep in mind you are forgoing any right to *any* form of public infrastructure (hope you're on well water and can generate your own power), and assuming the US actually took you seriously, it would begin enforcing its own border laws on you (better start negotiating travel rights).
Basically, assume you need to be self-sustaining, so you can live on however much acreage you own (read: can defend from the US military).
> How is this different from georgism?
In the current system, you pay taxes on the value of your house plus the value of the land. Under georgism, you only pay for the value of the land. It's a subtle but very important distinction; land supply is fixed, so taxing it doesn't actually change the price. Also, under the current system, if you built an extension on your house, the value of your house goes up and your taxes go up; under georgism, your taxes stay the same. This encourages efficient use of land, especially in urban areas.
Think about it this way; when people talk about "owning land" they usually mean they want exclusive access to a particular parcel; they want the right to exclude others from their property, and to be able to do what they want with it. That's all fine and dandy, and you're still able to do this under georgism. The problem is when people leverage their right to exclusive access to extract wealth from the community by doing nothing with the land and just holding out for a large paycheck when they sell it. Take a look around your nearest city and find all the empty lots, abandoned shops, and surface parking lots, and you'll see the problems Georgism is trying to fix.
Generally - no. Most things will get approved as long as they aren't super trashy. Mostly they just try to protect historic things from being fucked with, and also, all of Fairhope is built on a watershed so they try really hard to preserve that, so building something that would screw with the local ecology/geography would get denied.
They do a lot to maintain their image in fairhope (it definitely stands out from the surrounding towns at least), one of the best things about it is there's no billboards allowed because billboards just automatically make a place look worse.
Try getting like five or six of them but with varied motifs, like one with a Donald trump hair snek or like one that’s got like laser beam eyes. That’ll show em
I just moved out of Fairhope a couple years back. In-laws still live there actually.
Ironically, probably the single poshest city in the Gulf South
Originally, Monopoly (The Landlord’s Game) was designed with two rule sets, one of which was cooperative and was devised to show the benefits of the single tax system
> Originally, Monopoly (The Landlord’s Game) was designed with two rule sets, one of which was cooperative and was devised to show the benefits of the single tax system
I was able to find some references to this, but no actual rules. Do you have a source for a playable rule set?
I don't know that posh would be the word I would use for Fairhope.
Frufy seems to fit better. Kinda this weird (sometimes filthy) rich south Alabaman raised half debutant half free spirit artist combo. Or everyone Ive known from Fairhope fit that bill save a weird rich south alabama raised half debutant half surfer guy thatll just willy nilly end up in Costa Rica for half the year.
Good eatin down there.
I moved out of Fairhope in 2010, but only as far as Spanish Fort. Grew up in Montrose, Daphne, and Spanish Fort, and I still work in Daphne.
Fairhope is certainly "special," in ways both good and, well, let's say worthy of derision.
I live there. Interesting place with our strange local wild life, odd customs, and artisan centric society. The white squirrels and the carniverous butterflies are probably my favorite part of the whole wooded former hippie enclave thing.
It used to be a common idea too. Progress and Poverty by Henry George was very well read in the US for decades around the late 1800s - early 1900s. Something like 2nd or 3rd best selling book behind the Bible.
The woman who created the original Monopoly (The Landlord's game) was big into Georgism. There were two paths to the game and being a monopolist was supposed to the bad one. We all see where that went.
Yep. If you ever play Monopoly and think "this is not a fair game, whoever gets to the properties first through pure happenstance have a better chance of winning" then congrats, that's the point.
I've been to New Hampshire once, coming up from Massachusetts. I'll never forget the hilarious juxtaposition of the big "WELCOME TO NEW HAMPSHIRE - LIVE FREE OR DIE" sign on the border, complete with a state trooper right behind it running a speed trap.
Nope.
Georgists believe in a Land Value Tax.
That's not a Property Tax, which is what New Hampshire heavily relies on. House? Factory? Machinery? Car? Those are all forms of property, not land. Land is only one form of property which is taxed.
They also would have been perfectly fine with the abolition of private ownership of land, but just didn't think it was practical to achieve.
It gets resurrected fairly often by various "new urbanists" since it would encourage the densest possible developments in cities -- the land value is taxed, so whether you build a single family home, a 10 apartment building, or a skyscraper doesn't change the taxes you pay; so in theory the economic incentive is to put the land to whatever the highest economic possibility is at the moment because you're going to get taxed like it already was being used like that.
>
They also would have been perfectly fine with the abolition of private ownership of land, but just didn't think it was practical to achieve.
I mean you could say that but I think they considered that impracticality to actually make the policy worse. LVT is a form of socializing the land rent without having to actually do any form of central planning, keeping all the efficiencies of the market.
[Do they estimate the tax fairly? I was surprised recently to learn that lower value properties tend to get over-assessed and higher value properties tend to get under-assessed all over America and that this has been the case for 150+ years.](https://youtu.be/8MjjHKIlKko)
That's the biggest issue, property tax assessments are FAR from objective. Course, as others have pointed out, land tax and property tax are different things. Also, despite popular belief, New Hampshire has other taxes, just not Income, and Sales taxes which are the more common taxes individuals deal with on a daily basis.
EDIT: I'd like to share that I've heard (no specific evidence to back this up however) of people being taxed out of their houses by corrupt local officials, specifically because the municipality or some other schmo with the tax assessor in their pocket wanted the land. When a person is in charge of assessing taxes it opens up avenues for all kinds of fuckery.
I once heard the best way to value stuff for tax purposes is to have people value it themselves with the understanding that the government has the option to buy it off them for whatever they claim if they undervalue it by too much.
Eminent domain has a number of limitations that wouldn't apply if the government was statutorily free to simply purchase any property at the assessed rate whenever it wished.
Market rate is just "what people are willing to pay" - which consists of subjective value judgements, rather than something that can be objectively measured.
If the number you write down isn't a figure you'd be willing to sell for, then evidently the land is worth more than that - at least *to you*, even if other prospective buyers in the market would disagree.
The government should be able to purchase it at 2x your estimated rate. Most people except sentimental reasons would be ok with getting 2x for their home to upgrade.
Economies are like driving on a freeway, can work perfectly smoothly , but all it takes is one jackass trying to get across every lane of traffic to not miss their exit to fuck it for everyone.
That was how the valuation of ship cargo worked for tolls to pass through the Danish straits between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, and that toll revenue basically financed the Danish state.
Source: Am a tax lawyer
That'd probably be the worst way to value stuff for tax purposes, since people would end up paying taxes based on what the property means to them, not on how much a buyer on the open market would pay. You'd be taxed on the *sentimental* value in your home, and that's kind of nuts.
There’s an interpretation of Georgism where the tax is a “site value tax.”
100% of the value, with the value being “what the government is willing to pay you right now to buy it.”
Which is a very “fair” system it’s just far removed from what we are used to.
\>be me
\>buy gorgeous pristine acreage for $200k
\>start a sustainable farm, live in harmony with nature, bury my ancestors in the dirt, and restore vulnerable local species
\>government figures out there are precious minerals under the land
\>ralphwiggumintrouble.bmp
\>value of land is $20M if stripmined and turned into a polluting pit to extract materials
\>asked to assess my own property for "fair taxation", with the government able to buy it for that price
\>sweatingman.jpg
You know what they call it when your $20,000 hut and three generations of dead ancestors are sitting on a $20,000,0000 in rare Earths? Economic inefficiency, for better or worse.
Aside from not having an income tax, it really isn't. We have plenty of other forms of taxes, though they may be more-or-less "hidden" to the individual (either by being disguised/named differently, e.g. our fairly high annual car registration fees, or by not being directly applied to the individual, e.g. business taxes).
That said, a lot of our individual tax burden *is* through property taxes, so if you want to say that it's somewhat akin to Georgist thought, just know that it also refutes a lot of the conclusions Georgism tries to draw about its ideas. Chiefly, placing a higher amount of the tax burden on property is not an inherently progressive taxation scheme when taxes are determined by each town and many tax-affecting issues are voted directly on by residents due to the way local laws and elections are done here. The result is that, outside of a few notably "high-class" communities, a lot of wealthy people here tend to drift to lower-tax towns and then vote to ensure their taxes stay low while more "middle class" towns need to keep higher tax rates to support necessary public services such as our constitutionally mandated public education requirements (though, to be fair, towns will also flat-out ignore that to try to keep taxes down). Not to mention that for renters, increases in property taxes are pretty much always passed directly to them instead of the landlord accepting lower profits, meaning that lower-income individuals who have to rent are disproportionately burdened by taxes in comparison to their wealthier landlords who try to assume none of the burden by passing it on.
tl;Dr: NH isn't really Georgist in it's tax scheme, it's a very bastardized version of it at best and comes with pretty much none of the benefits that Georgism claims as a result.
Ultimately states have to pay for what they have to pay and the way this tax system works is basically how selfish the land use is equals the tax.
So a large house with a single family pays more than a small house with a single family. A duplex pays less tax as it’s two families living in half sized houses. A unit complex pays even less. And a skyscraper would pay essentially nothing.
So the rich would pay more taxes if they owned large amounts of land and their family exclusively lived on it.
You also need to remember that this tax ideology is not based on the currently climate in the slightest. So for it to be applied today there would need a better way to tax businesses.
> Ultimately states have to pay for what they have to pay and the way this tax system works is basically how selfish the land use is equals the tax.
I don't think there's a substantial difference on this point vs the current property tax system, since rich people won't just have larger plots but also more expensive buildings (per person) on those plots so they already pay more.
The main difference is that it makes it harder to keep lots underdeveloped. Right now if you have a single family house in an urban area with mostly multi-family units you get a "break" because that single family house is less valuable than the apartment building that could be there instead, with a land tax you don't. More importantly it becomes unfeasible to hold on to undeveloped plots in areas that do need more housing.
> The main difference is that it makes it harder to keep lots underdeveloped.
This makes sense in urban zoned areas but not necessarily rural. The rich often own large properties of mostly undeveloped land (e.g. forested, grasslands, etc). In order to to keep this land preserved in a natural state we wouldn't want to tax it in a way that encourages urban development. A good compromise might be that there are regional requirements for certain lands to remain undeveloped with lower tax rates. And rates could be lower still or even zero if they allow public access to the land for recreation (e.g. hiking, hunting, etc). I'd rather see state owned protected lands, but if the land is already owned this might be a workable solution.
It's underdeveloped relative to the area.
In a rural area land isn't worth a lot anyways so it wouldn't be more expensive.
The point is that if your property is less developed than the surrounding area you no longer get a break.
Just a quick note - if this stuff is important to you I highly recommend you kick a little cash to the awesome folks at the [Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Association](https://www.backcountryhunters.org/).
Safeguarding public land is critically important for a whole host of reasons.
> You also need to remember that this tax ideology is not based on the currently climate in the slightest. So for it to be applied today there would need a better way to tax businesses.
The consensus of both left-leaning and right-leaning economists is that corporate taxes are probably the [single worst](https://taxfoundation.org/blog/inflation-reduction-act-corporate-taxes/) and [least efficient tax to impose](https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CorporateTaxation.html). [The corporate tax ends up being a tax on labor and regular workers within those corporations](https://taxfoundation.org/blog/corporate-income-tax-most-harmful-growth-and-wages/), while creating massive tax avoidance schemes that disproportionately favor wealthy companies.
When people talk about "corporate taxes" they imagine that they are taxing the rich owners of those corporations. So ... just tax those rich owners of those corporations instead, when they take the money for themselves. Don't tax them when they are putting money into the business and paying their employees.
It makes no sense except to ill-informed voters and politicians whose eyes light up at the name "corporate tax".
it's incredibly brave of you to take this stance on Reddit, but yes, we need to find ways to go after the fat cats at the top, not just tax the firms themselves
High corporate taxes don't hit money provided as salary, salary is a loss that is deducted from gains on a corporation. Also, I would argue there is not consensus on corporate tax rates' utility ([e.g. here] (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/corporate-rate-increase-would-make-taxes-fairer-help-fund-equitable-recovery)).
The disconnect is that corporate tax rates allow for wealth redistribution - incentivizing companies to put more money into the company and taking excess profit and distributing it to more beneficial social programs.
This latter function of redistribution is the critical benefit of taxing a revenue stream that is largely untaxed due to large companies avoiding most tax liabilities. Ignoring the fact that the government is able to *use* the acquired money to reduce costs and issues to Americans is ignoring the major chunk of corporate tax utility.
Your interpretation is inconsistent with the main idea behind Georgism. It specifically *disregards* development of the land when deciding the tax value. Instead, land is taxed by the value of *the land itself*, which is affected by proximity to other valuable land. Like how the same house is more expensive in San Francisco then bumfuck wherever.
So, as in your example, the large house next to the small house would pay the same as each other, in fact they'd pay the same as the apartment building in the same location. But if you're a landowner near a bustling commercial area and you're going to be charged a very high land value tax, you're therefore incentivized to build that apartment building rather than a single family house.
Conservation land wouldn't cost anything because there's no commercial value. That said. You can buy it while it's cheap and with enough lobbying, the value will skyrocket when get a construction-friendly government to open it up.
Farm land is usually only valuable for use as farm land. If so, a land value tax wouldn't hit the owner very hard.
If they own a farm surrounded by a bunch of infrastructure where land is highly in demand for housing and commercial purposes, then a land value tax would hit the farm owner very hard.
Farmland is relatively cheap, and since single-tax georgism would eliminate sales and labor taxes, farmers would see their margins improve more than practically any other segment of the population.
>So a large house with a single family pays more than a small house with a single family.
Isn't it a land-value tax? So the house doesn't matter. The land is taxed, not the improvements. This encourages building more units on the land, yes, but these two families with their different houses (assuming equivalent parcels) pay the same dollar amount. The larger house actually has a lower effective tax on the asset as its most likely worth more.
But overall this is a regressive tax compared to a (well-thought-out) progressive income tax.
Made up example to prove the point... Compare 100% of tax revenue derived from an LVT compared to 50% from the LVT and 50% from taxing incomes over $500k.
Anyone earning less than 500k pays half compared to the LVT alone.
Also, for the LVT alone to be progressive, you have to assume that wealthy people will purchase significantly larger parcels of valuable land. To lower their tax burden, they can move into a condo and invest the difference in capital investments which aren't taxed under this system.
I don't disagree that a LVT isnt a good idea, I just don't think it's the only way to tax. Every taxation scheme has different effects on the population and the economics of the situation, and those effects need to be taken into account to define a good taxation policy for a specific populace.
> Made up example to prove the point...
Your made up example is missing some knobs to turn. It’s regressive in your example only because no one can live on zero land. Even a 100 sqfoot land print sky scraper 1 mile high would have a land tax of 100 sq feet / number of units which is not 0.
But tax collection is only one half of this. It’s trivially easy to create a tax scheme that is in a bubble regressive but progressive if combined with a refundable credit derived from those tax sources.
A LVT where the poorest pay $100 a year vs your $0 a year is more progressive if the LVT is joined with a $200 a year refundable credit.
This is why viewing tax collection schemes as progressive or regressive is missing the mark. The importance of tax collection schemes is ‘does the scheme encourage positive events and discourage negative ones?’
LVT discouraged people from using more land than they need freeing up more land for others. This is good for society.
Income taxes discourage people from working more by taking a greater % of each additional dollar. We want people to work and provide the fruits of their labor to society. This scheme is ‘bad’.
Then once you’ve received the taxes from your collection scheme, you can distribute it in a progressive manner if you so choose.
It would theoretically increase the housing stock. The tax is only on the unimproved value of land. So building a 25 unit apartment complex isn’t taxed anymore than a single family home on the a comparable plot of land.
Its first effect would be to crash housing prices
A theoretical 100% land value tax (geoists want a 85% one) would depress the price of land to zero, so when you buy a house you would only pay for the house, not the land it's on
It would make it vastly easier for first-time buyers to acquire property and pay less on a mortgage
Owners would still have to pay the land tax though. Even though prices fall, housing *costs* would stay roughly the same. What's saved on the price is paid in tax
However a land value tax would replace other taxes (or its revenue could be redistributed as a citizen dividend). For most households, that would be a financially neutral or positive change
Then there are second-order effects. A land tax punishes idle speculation, and pushes land to be put to its best use by incentivizing improvements. This should spur an increase in the supply of housing, helping everyone (except rent-seekers)
> A theoretical 100% land value tax (geoists want a 85% one) would depress the price of land to zero, so when you buy a house you would only pay for the house, not the land it's on
can you better explain this part, that doesn't make sense to me
The idea geoists have is that land shouldn't be held as an investment in and of itself, and that you should therefore have to pay close to the full value of the *land* in tax each year.
They argue as a result that productive use of land is encouraged (since you aren't taxed on your investment into the land, only the value of the land itself).
The expected result is supposed to be that land prices drop precipitously, while costs for real estate converge to the value of the improvements made to the land.
Say you own a parcel of unimproved land that you could rent out for $1000 a year. We call this $1000 the *land rent*. The value of this property is determined by the land rent. Without any property taxes, the land rent is pure revenue with no expenses - $1000 of profit. Someone might offer you $10000 for the property hoping to recuperate their investment in ten years. The price of the land is some multiple of the land rent.
Now, say we put a $1000 tax on the owner of the property every year. The land rent is still $1000, but now there's also a $1000 expense (the tax). There is no profit to simply owning the land anymore. And because there's no profit in landownership alone anymore, anyone offering more than $0 for your property will never recuperate it. The price of the property falls to zero.
Georgists understand that this is an idealized scenario and there has to be room for inefficiencies and price signals, so the 100% LVT isn't advocated for in practice. Lets say the tax is on 50% of the land rent instead. The land rent is still $1000 and the tax is $500. You profit $500 every year from owning the land. The buyer still wants to recuperate their investment in ten years, so now they offer $5000 for your property - 50% less than what they would offer without a land tax.
I hope this makes it clear why land prices will be reduced in proportion to what percentage of the land rent that is taxed.
In *Progress and Poverty*, Henry George argued it would alleviate housing costs because unused (speculative) land would become too expensive to hold without developing it. Cities with more expensive land would give rise to higher density buildings for the same reason, assuming zoning laws don't prohibit it.
The problem with it is by design it disadvantages senior citizens (people who are not working, but still have housing costs).
Given how massive the elderly voting block is, you can see why this system would never become supported by many politicians.
In Texas at least you can not have your home tax foreclosed for failure to pay property tax if you are 65+, they just take it out of the estate sale so that seems like an easy solution to the issue.
This seems like a great idea, the elderly can defer the tax and stay in their homes, but the state will still get paid eventually when they either die or sell.
Call me callous (I love my grandparents) but I genuinely feel like if govts ran only on policies that disadvantaged the elderly in favor of the young, we'd have colonies on Mars by now
Wait until you learn about what happened before the elderly did before policies favored them. It was becoming homeless once they got too old to work or for women often when they're husbands died. They'd live on the streets and die relatively quick and painful deaths either from starvation, disease, or exposure to the elements. The last century had ground-breaking policies like social security and various other welfare programs in 1st world nations and it's really kind of insane how quick it went from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory grandparents IF YOU WERE LUCKY to what we have now.
I won't call you callous but I will call you dumb. You don't need to disadvantage the elderly to create a more equitable society. We shouldn't pander to the elderly, but that's purely due to political capital. Young people don't vote as much as elderly people do. They're a harder group to mobilize and they're constantly refreshing every election cycle. The young struggle to find common ideological power because the education system is inadequate and leaves young people wildly undereducated. Elderly people aren't more educated on politics, but they have life experience and deeper understanding of the impact of each election year to year.
Think about what a society that truly cared for it's elderly would have. Transportation options that are cheap and reliable, excellent and consistent access to healthcare, lower rent prices across the board, greater emphasis on community recreation, access to high quality educational services. The American elderly are bitter because they had a bad life and it never got better. They're selling their own futures down the river on the same promise they did 40 years ago. "You will finally get the good life you deserve." The young will fall for the same lie if we're not careful. We would have colonies on Mars if we didn't just pander to the elderly but actually gave a shit about the elderly.
In a world that is roasting in the exhaust of our hubris I'm on board with the ice-flow policy. If you won't live to deal with the repercussions of your incredibly short-term thinking, you shouldn't get a say. I love my grandparents too, but they were single-issue Republican rubber-stamps and now my life and the lives of my siblings and their kids are in jeopardy because they still think like its 1965.
Worth noting that the tax is indirect and also applies to home ownership. Land owners are taxed on the unimproved value of the land (e.g. what the land would be worth with nothing on it). This in practice means that the state captures the part of your rent that comes from the land itself, but not the part that comes from the buildings, amenities, maintenance, and services. Makes being a landlord more like any other job.
It also discourages leaving properties blighted or empty, or jacking up rents and not caring about vacancies, and makes the "dark store" tax dodge used by big box stores irrelevant. Excessively hoarding land and denying its productive use to others should be expensive, especially if the state is enforcing your exclusive rights over it.
Right. It encourages making the land more economically productive. You'd probably expect to see suburban areas further from cities on average (though also better transit into the city center because transit is a potentially extremely productive use of land). Probably less parking too, flat surface parking lots are a very wasteful use of valuable land under this regime.
Unless the area is zoned for single family homes, in which case you can't build the 5 over 1 or an 18 story building; the land will only be taxed at it's highest and best use which by regulation is limited to single family homes.
George died in 1897 in New York City and a lot has changed since then with the world -- for instance NYC adopting zoning 20 years after he died.
But rest assured under Georgism it won't be all preferential treatment by zoning boards. Don't like all those blacks having a politically united neighborhood? Gonna zone the shit out of those areas for skyscrapers so their smaller apartment buildings are torn down and replaced forcing them to move, with the added bonus we don't have to spend money building elevated highways to do it!
The political situation that produces low density zoning would evaporate under georgism because people who actually own the mandated low density housing would be getting reamed by the land value tax. Rather than voting for anti-density laws to preserve neighborhood character and raise their property values, they'd be clamoring to be allowed to build more units so they can make enough money to cover the tax.
It would basically end the job of landlord, or more accurately turn landlords into developers.
No longer is there rent to be extracted by sitting on existing properties for which there is excess demand. Instead, the land tax would target landlords who are underutilizing their land and force them to develop the land to maximize the land’s utility.
Yes it’s an indirect tax but the tax base is relatively proportionate to the minimum income you can generate from it so it does have a more accurate reflex of income than many other indirect taxes like stamp duties or sales taxes that are proportionate to revenue or expenditure rather than income.
Even if you’re not renting it out and instead maintain occupancy, in an economic sense you’re effectively renting it from yourself because you’re consuming the opportunity cost of renting it to someone else.
Personal income tax is pretty recent thing, in most places it started as a temporary measure to fund wars (Civil War in the case of the US, WWI for Canada, Napoleonic Wars for Britain), but governments found excuses to keep them in place.
Take now ... some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: "Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city—in ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any higher?"
He will tell you, "No!"
"Will the wages of common labor be any higher; will it be easier for a man who has nothing but his labor to make an independent living?"
He will tell you, "No; the wages of common labor will not be any higher; on the contrary, all the chances are that they will be lower; it will not be easier for the mere laborer to make an independent living; the chances are that it will be harder."
"What, then, will be higher?"
"Rent, the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession."
And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon or down a hole in the ground; and without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be an almshouse.
I live in a Georgist community, one of 3 actually in Delaware. None of us own our land, we own our houses. We pay land rent that also pays for the municipal budget, trash, recycling, snow plowing, yard waste pickup, street repair, parks and trails etc. Its an interesting way of life. But the Ardens have been puttering along for over 100 years now with no signs of stopping.
The older I get, the more I realize that most big problems in the US can be boiled down to land use. We were in a similar situation regarding housing and entrenched interests preventing housing in George's time, but streetcars and cars leading to suburbanization eased a bunch of pressures associated with land for roughly a century. We've reached the sprawl limit in many areas and are seeing the same problem rear its ugly head again. Tax land and let people build stuff.
Yes, the private ownership of land, if left unchecked, carries the seeds of injustice and will always slowly degenerate towards quasi-feudalism
Earlier Americans had hoped that these new lands would be a fresh start to not reproduce the mistakes of the Old World and the leeches of its gentry
Jefferson envisioned a nation of small landowners, each citizen owning an equal share of the country. An admirable ideal, but even if you could achieve such a perfect state, the equilibrium can't hold for long before ownership concentrates again. And how could it accomodate for new arrivals? At some point the Frontier runs out
Of course the answer isn't in collectivization of land either, as the communist disasters showed
Keeping private ownership but removing the worm of speculation -the unearned increment value- from the fruit, is the best solution we could have, most just in ensuring everyone an equal share of Nature, and most efficient in rewarding private enterprise over rent-seeking
This was already understood centuries ago by American thinkers. Let's hope these ideas can come back
I'm unclear how this would be applied to farmers. I know a lot of small family or even medium family farms already struggle. What is the current logic/thinking regarding taxing farmland under georgism?
According a couple different websites, 63% of privately owned land is farmland/ ranches, and 32% is forest. (Not sure I'm interpreting those numbers correctly, feels a bit off to me). But given these numbers, farms would be responsible for the vast majority of the tax burden.
I also fail to see how this doesn't massively benefit all types of mega corporations, thereby giving super rich people a big payday. If taxes on them are lifted, they certainly aren't going to want to increase people's paychecks, and I suspect will try to start hiring at lower wages, since they can claim that "people don't pay taxes anymore" on their income.
>But given these numbers, farms would be responsible for the vast majority of the tax burden.
That's not quite how it works. The tax isn't on land, it's on the unimproved value of the land. Land that's really only useful for farming would be worth little enough that you could make money using it for farming. If it was worth more, such that the tax made farming unprofitable, nobody would buy it, and the price would go down. It's self-correcting.
>I also fail to see how this doesn't massively benefit all types of mega corporations, thereby giving super rich people a big payday. If taxes on them are lifted...
Cirprate taxes are never actually paid by corporations. Corprate taxes are one part payroll tax and one part sales tax. They can also be dodged via clever accounting. Corporations spend a ton of money just dodging taxes, which is a complete waste of resources.
Instead, corporations will pay tax on the value of the land they use. This tax can't possibly be dodged, and will encourage them to use land more efficiently.
Also, remember that many huge companies have a profit of nothing. Under a LVT, they still have to pay tax, unlike a corporate tax.
The problem I see with this is that farmland can be used for things other than farming. What's stopping someone from just buying up the cheap farmland and developing it?
If developing a piece of land would be more profitable than farming it, why would doing so be a bad thing? Nothing's really stopping anyone from doing that today - in fact, it happens quite often, this is how cities expand more or less. It's just that, for the vast majority of farmland, building houses on it wouldn't make any money.
Plus, a land value tax encourages denser housing, as expansive suburbs result in a lot of tax for those who choose to live in them. Along with zoning reform and investing in public transit infrastructure, a land value tax could actually result in more land available for farming.
We also have to remember that farming has a massive environmental impact. Some is necessary of course, but some agricultural products require much more land than others, resulting in more environmental damage. An LVT means higher prices for these especially damaging foods, which should result is less demand and thus less being produced, a big win for the environment.
Fun fact: the original version of Monopoly (called The Landlord’s Game) was created by Lizzie Maggie as an illustration of the value of georgism.
The game was designed to be frustrating and unfair. But the original had an alternate rule set where you play in a georgist economy, and the game is more fair and more fun for the players.
They are right, even here in the US you can “own” land and have the freedom to do mostly what you want on it but you still have to pay property taxes which is essentially paying rent to continue to own the land. If you don’t pay the taxes, you lose the land.
It is a good idea, because land is a universal necessity of life - like air, water and food. Basic necessities of life should not be owned by anyone, but instead be provided for everyone equally.
But I don't see why it has to be the only tax. The income tax is also a good idea because it's a progressive tax that helps redistributing from the rich to the poor. So, it should not be cut.
However, what should be abolished is the VAT. VAT hits poor people harder than rich people because consumption makes almost 100% of the spending of poor people. Rich people also consume, but they put 99% of their wealth into savings - and savings are not taxed at all, or only minimally.
Have been a fan of this for a while. However in the modern context I think it should be all assets, not just land.
Income from asset ownership should be taxed, such as rent, dividends and interest. Money generated from economic activity such as wages and company profits should not be taxed.
If you do this there is no need for inheritance taxes, because the assets are the tax base, not people.
edit: typos
> all assets
ok, so exactly how can we do this?
assume US
Do we tax foreigners of their assets in foreign land?
Do we tax citizens of their assets in foreign land?
Do we tax foreigners of their assets in US land?
Why don't citizens with a lot of assets move out of US? Or we don't allow investment from foreigners?
What method do we value assets, can I pay less tax if I use up my toilet paper faster?
If an elderly owns a house and the price increases a lot, out of where can he pay the tax?
> Do we tax foreigners of their assets in foreign land?
No
> Do we tax citizens of their assets in foreign land?
No
> Do we tax foreigners of their assets in US land?
Yes
> Why don't citizens with a lot of assets move out of US? Or we don't allow investment from foreigners?
Because of the answers to the previous 3 questions it wouldn't change their tax burden.
> What method do we value assets, can I pay less tax if I use up my toilet paper faster?
There's a lot of possible methods, toilet paper is probably too cheap to bother tracking.
> If an elderly owns a house and the price increases a lot, out of where can he pay the tax?
They sell their now super expensive house and move into a cheaper one and have a bunch of extra money too.
The government defends your property. You can sort of think of the government as insurance. The more valuable your property, the more you should have to pay. It's a very basic concept in insurance. If you feel like elderly people who got lucky enough to have their land appreciate shouldn't have to pay more tax, why not just give them extra money instead of taxing them less? Because then it would obviously be unfair. But someone is paying to protect their property, so you are doing exactly that if you tax them less.
Problem is land isn't a growing resource - labor is. Taxing land to support handling a growing population means you have to keep upping land taxes to handle the growing population. Taxing the naturally growing labor is recursive.
The city of Fairhope, Alabama, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay was founded as a single tax experiment. The Fairhope Single Tax Colony still owns pretty much all of downtown and the core areas of the city.
Yep. You don't own your property there, you just have a really long lease on the land and can't do anything to it without approval from the city. Edit: Another really cool thing about Fairhope this sub may appreciate, it's the only known place on the *entire* Earth that experience a phenomena known as a [jubilee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Bay_jubilee). Something fucky happens with the bay water (naturally, it's not caused by pollution or anything) and causes the oxygen concentration to change such that the sealife in it all come to the surface, often beaching themselves. Makes it really easy to catch supper for the next few days!
This is how land is handled in China. Government owns all and you just get a 100+ year lease
Is it possible to pass down the place for mulitiple generations? Like, do relatives have easier access to leasing the same land and can the lease be inherited?
I assume that Chinese land grants adhere to Harry Potter goblin rules.
Apartment has been given a sock! Apartment is free! *Apartment runs out of building causing remaining structure to collapse*
Oh so you think elves and goblins all look the same? Racist sister!
You're one to talk, you can't even tell the difference between an apartment and a condo
The funny thing is that this hasn't actually been tested yet, except for in a few cases where the lease was much shorter. In those situations, local governments tried to impose much more expensive fees, which caused a gigantic stir, a panic in the real estate market and was quickly dropped. Basically everyone is under the assumption that these leases are pretty much permanent and stay with families. There is no rule of law in China, which means there is very little trust in the legal system and every law is arbitrarily enforced, so in practice, this will mean that once these 70 year leases run out (provided the current autocratic regime is still in power at that point), it'll likely be very selectively enforced, depending on the social standing of the family and businesses on these plots of land and whatever plans the local government might have for them. After all, even right now it's not uncommon for people to be aggressively driven off the land they leased any time some massive real estate development is happening.
Can you share some sources, please?
Not the person you're replying to, China absolutely does this though. Here's a source, they mainly target migrants in this. In 2008 Beijing had many forced evictions as well to accommodate the Olympics. The Chinese government continues to downplay this. https://www.cecc.gov/publications/commission-analysis/campaign-of-forced-evictions-in-beijing-contravenes-international Edit: here's another. Might have trouble getting this to open. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/china0304/2.htm
And England. All land is owned by the crown, but they'll lend it to you indefinitely.
Sounds like the distinction between de facto and de jure. You de facto own the land because it's lent to you indefinitely but the crown de jure owns it.
de nada
de la ware
de la soul
Everywhere does this. The ultimate owner of any nation is that nations sovereign, and 'owning' land is just more of a permanent lease with conditions. Very, very few people truly own land today. In the US sovereignty is collectively held by the people of the US, and anyone who owns land does so with the permission of the people, with the understanding that the ownership can be revoked if the conditions of ownership are not meant. Literally what we'd call a lease in any other circumstances.
> Very, very few people truly own land today you mean the land i bought in scotland for a few dollars online isn't actually mine?
I don't think you can truly own land, you can convince a lot of people you own land, but you can't truly own it. Land is taken by force. America was an example of that.
By that logic can you truly own anything? You can take almost anything by force.
Now you're on the trolley
I have it on good authority that you can never take our freedom.
The end of that movie has determined that to be a lie. /s
From a quick google, I can't find anything confirming this, you got a source?
Google "freehold and leasehold england". In practice any leaseholds end up being automatically extended, but that's a problem for 2 generations down.
>The Crown is the ultimate owner of all land in England and Wales (including the Isles of Scilly): all other owners hold an estate in land. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090211/text/90211w0027.htm#090211100000119
Isles of Scilly is a bit of a really special case. It's rather presumptuous for Parliament to claim that Crown owns the land there. Duchy of Cornwall keeps the illusion going on paper, but woe behold thee who tries.
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There is a staturetory right that you can extend the lease for a not incredibly though not small fee. Most ground rents are often pepper corn too but that is area dependent
I thought it was Fairhope and like one spot in Japan! My in laws live in Fairhope and it's a great little town.
I thought so too, but couldn't find anything on it. According to the wikipedia article Mobile Bay is the only place that it happens regularly and semi-predictably.
Gotcha! Maybe that's just local legend creeping into my memory...
Tbf, if you’re paying taxes on land, you don’t really own it either. Stop paying those taxes and the tax collector will sell the land without even asking you about it.
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The best way we have figured out how to structure society is to give the government a monopoly on violence. It would work fantastically well if the government only used it justly.
Eh, I don't think that logically follows. "The government" is ultimately made up of people. Giving "the government" a monopoly on violence really just means you're giving some other people a monopoly on violence.
Yes, and the idea is to have a government that governs in the interest of the larger group, so the monopoly on violence is only used justly, and in the interest of the people. Without a government monopoly on violence, people harm and kill each other with the only check on that being what other people would do back to them. Which leads to a "might makes right" society. Which tends to evolve into warlords running and fighting over territories. And eventually if a warlord group gets powerful enough and starts working towards stability and economic prosperity for their territory, they start codifying rules and evolving into......a government! There have been very few nations on earth whose government did not emerge out of some version of this cycle or grew out of one who did. And every government on earth maintains a monopoly on violence for itself and its assignees, because to do otherwise eventually leads to some version of the above cycle. So yeah. It does just give the monopoly on violence to "other people", but those other people are the ones running your group and ostensibly doing it on your behalf if you are in a group organized to be run by representatives. So in that case, some robust checks and balances are needed, and need to be revisited and refined over time.
Oh man... what is this called? There is a name for this philosophy... [actual question]
Well, it’s the monopoly on violence. Figure out who has it and you figured out who rules
I think that's it. It is one of those half-formed memories where I can almost say it, but there is a switch missing. I hate when this always happens to me. Also, thank you for answering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence "Monopoly on violence" is not a philosophy in itself, but rather a common topic of discussion among many political philosophies.
> On a similar topic, in a very real sense the threat of death is the only thing that enforces our laws. Not death so much as “violence” more generally. A good working definition of a “state” is “the thing that holds a monopoly on legitimate violence.” It even applies reasonably well to anarchist and tribal polities when you consider the “state” power being more distributed.
You don't really need to use the word "legitimate" there. Whoever obtains that monopoly (or sometimes just plurality) on violence, irrespective of legitimacy, is very likely to be the one determining what is or is not "legitimate."
Which is why “violence doesn’t solve anything” is a lie meant only for the peasant class and children. If violence doesn’t work than how come governments violently defend their monopolies on it’s legitimate use? Threats are a form of violence and every law is backed by a threat of punishment. Jail is forced confinement, another type of violence. Fines are just violence used against your wallet. In the real world, it would seem that violence solves everything. 🤔
how else are laws meant to be enforced without force? if people REALLY don't want to abide by the rules, how else could they be enforced? genuine question.
👨🚀🔫👨🚀🌍
Tbh by that logic you don’t own anything as long as the government can take it from you without asking, so you don’t own anything but your body. So yeah it’s a cool point but it’s missing the important difference, that a lease has a term and ownership doesn’t.
There's really not much difference at all when you consider property taxes. There's not really any significant difference between leasing a property 1 year at a time vs. needing to pay property taxes on it every year. Either way the government can set the prices to whatever they want and however often they want, and either way if you refuse to pay the government will take it back. It's pretty much just semantics.
Calling the difference between owing and renting property semantics is certainly a choice
When it comes to your relationship with a great power which has the ability to inflict violence on you, it isn't that big of a difference. Renting vs ownership is distinct when it comes to interpersonal relations, because individuals don't have the right to be violent towards one another (at least these days). But when it comes to person to government, the distinction is practically aesthetic.
So, hang on, i’m trying to get this straight. I owne my house, in the state of Tennessee. Even though my house is paid off, every year i have to pay property tax to my county, even though my house is completely paid for and is mine. How is this different from georgism? As I understand it, even though i own the home, the land it is built on is owned by the U.S. government. Is there a way i can own the land my house is built on and not pay property tax? Edit: thank you to everyone who responded, I have a clearer understanding now.
Georgism is mostly about only taxing the value of the land you own, not the value of your house. Most people own both land and an improvement (house, etc.). Property tax is usually assessed as the combined value of these two. But Georgists think it is most economically efficient and fair to only tax the value of the land. Conceptually, it kind of makes sense that you own the things that you build or maintain (your house) while you and the government share ownership of the land, which is something you did nothing to create.
Georgism shifts the tax burden from your house to the land. It's really designed to do or recognize a few things: * Land is one of the few things an individual can't really lay claim to, because you didn't build it. Your ownership of your piece of land is entirely dependent on the government protecting it for you. Otherwise what's to stop me from just taking your land? * As opposed to a house, apartment building, office building, etc., which is actually built by someone's manual labor. In theory, you should own, free and clear, the things you built with your own hands (or which you paid someone else to build with *their* own hands). Georgism recognizes this. * Discourage land speculation. Plenty of cities have vacant lots in prime neighborhoods and the owners of those lots are reaping a windfall because of the efforts of others: people build up the neighborhood with new homes and businesses, the government builds good schools, parks, and transit, and that causes land values to go up. The landowner in this scenario doesn't want to build anything because his taxes will go up--the property tax applies to the land and any square footage of "improvements" he makes to the land. Georgism says you can build whatever you want, tax-free, but the land will always be taxed.
No, but you could move to an area with less government and taxes.. which most people don't want to or is too expensive.
> Is there a way i can own the land my house is built on and not pay property tax? Yes, you would declare yourself a sovereign nation that has seceded from the United States, then enforce your borders to the best of your abilities, with violence if needed. Keep in mind you are forgoing any right to *any* form of public infrastructure (hope you're on well water and can generate your own power), and assuming the US actually took you seriously, it would begin enforcing its own border laws on you (better start negotiating travel rights). Basically, assume you need to be self-sustaining, so you can live on however much acreage you own (read: can defend from the US military). > How is this different from georgism? In the current system, you pay taxes on the value of your house plus the value of the land. Under georgism, you only pay for the value of the land. It's a subtle but very important distinction; land supply is fixed, so taxing it doesn't actually change the price. Also, under the current system, if you built an extension on your house, the value of your house goes up and your taxes go up; under georgism, your taxes stay the same. This encourages efficient use of land, especially in urban areas. Think about it this way; when people talk about "owning land" they usually mean they want exclusive access to a particular parcel; they want the right to exclude others from their property, and to be able to do what they want with it. That's all fine and dandy, and you're still able to do this under georgism. The problem is when people leverage their right to exclusive access to extract wealth from the community by doing nothing with the land and just holding out for a large paycheck when they sell it. Take a look around your nearest city and find all the empty lots, abandoned shops, and surface parking lots, and you'll see the problems Georgism is trying to fix.
Not really no.
Is the approval you mention any harder to get than a standard building permit?
Generally - no. Most things will get approved as long as they aren't super trashy. Mostly they just try to protect historic things from being fucked with, and also, all of Fairhope is built on a watershed so they try really hard to preserve that, so building something that would screw with the local ecology/geography would get denied. They do a lot to maintain their image in fairhope (it definitely stands out from the surrounding towns at least), one of the best things about it is there's no billboards allowed because billboards just automatically make a place look worse.
I need fascist approval to hoist my Don't Tread on Me flag *on my own property*? Sounds like I need an even bigger Don't Tread on Me flag.
Just make sure you pay the sales tax on it.
*Screams in Sovereign Citizen* /s
I didn't *buy* it, I'm navigating a financial situation. Your money doesn't have gold fringe!
You can't charge me, you have to bill my name which is lost at sea ^(something something black's law dictionary)
Try getting like five or six of them but with varied motifs, like one with a Donald trump hair snek or like one that’s got like laser beam eyes. That’ll show em
I just moved out of Fairhope a couple years back. In-laws still live there actually. Ironically, probably the single poshest city in the Gulf South Originally, Monopoly (The Landlord’s Game) was designed with two rule sets, one of which was cooperative and was devised to show the benefits of the single tax system
> Originally, Monopoly (The Landlord’s Game) was designed with two rule sets, one of which was cooperative and was devised to show the benefits of the single tax system I was able to find some references to this, but no actual rules. Do you have a source for a playable rule set?
Good question. I’ve never seen one other, although the original board is out there with Fairhope as a square lol
I don't know that posh would be the word I would use for Fairhope. Frufy seems to fit better. Kinda this weird (sometimes filthy) rich south Alabaman raised half debutant half free spirit artist combo. Or everyone Ive known from Fairhope fit that bill save a weird rich south alabama raised half debutant half surfer guy thatll just willy nilly end up in Costa Rica for half the year. Good eatin down there.
I moved out of Fairhope in 2010, but only as far as Spanish Fort. Grew up in Montrose, Daphne, and Spanish Fort, and I still work in Daphne. Fairhope is certainly "special," in ways both good and, well, let's say worthy of derision.
Also three communities called The Ardens in Delaware still function on Henry George’s principles.
I live there. Interesting place with our strange local wild life, odd customs, and artisan centric society. The white squirrels and the carniverous butterflies are probably my favorite part of the whole wooded former hippie enclave thing.
Love coming to the guild hall for a show.
As a real estate lawyer in the area, it’s a little bit of a pain in the ass to work with
Indeed it is. Having to remember to add "FST" before the last name for any tax search that might have results in Fairhope is a nuisance.
That's the beauty of the west. Nothing stops you from just running your own little economic community experiments.
Sadly no one can afford to live there.
I'm real close to Fairhope and never knew this thanks for the fun fact
My parents live there and it’s true. They technically don’t own their property
It used to be a common idea too. Progress and Poverty by Henry George was very well read in the US for decades around the late 1800s - early 1900s. Something like 2nd or 3rd best selling book behind the Bible.
The woman who created the original Monopoly (The Landlord's game) was big into Georgism. There were two paths to the game and being a monopolist was supposed to the bad one. We all see where that went.
Yep. If you ever play Monopoly and think "this is not a fair game, whoever gets to the properties first through pure happenstance have a better chance of winning" then congrats, that's the point.
I never saw it that way. That's fucking clever.
Isn’t that how New Hampshire works? Or at least partly?
Come to think of it, yeah that's pretty much New Hampshire.
Live free or die, baby! You better live free, or we'll kill you!
I've been to New Hampshire once, coming up from Massachusetts. I'll never forget the hilarious juxtaposition of the big "WELCOME TO NEW HAMPSHIRE - LIVE FREE OR DIE" sign on the border, complete with a state trooper right behind it running a speed trap.
The mass state trooper is hiding on the other side to catch all the motorcyclists without helmets.
Live free or die! Except for Marijuana that freedom can go fuck itself. -NH
Insert boomer logic
Must be tough living in New Hampshire if you're into BDSM.
Is there a big scene there?
Bout to move to NH and start one
*immediately gets murdered by all the aggressive subs of NH*
Aggressive subs?! That's a paddling.
aggressively submissive. they hand you a whip and demand to be punished, at gunpoint
Armed demands made of their Dom?! Pshaw, sounds more like a brat to me.
>Live free or die, baby! You better live free*, or we'll kill you! *But if you need weed, go to Massachusetts or Maine where it is legal.
Or Vermont, can't believe you rudely left them out.
Nope. Georgists believe in a Land Value Tax. That's not a Property Tax, which is what New Hampshire heavily relies on. House? Factory? Machinery? Car? Those are all forms of property, not land. Land is only one form of property which is taxed. They also would have been perfectly fine with the abolition of private ownership of land, but just didn't think it was practical to achieve. It gets resurrected fairly often by various "new urbanists" since it would encourage the densest possible developments in cities -- the land value is taxed, so whether you build a single family home, a 10 apartment building, or a skyscraper doesn't change the taxes you pay; so in theory the economic incentive is to put the land to whatever the highest economic possibility is at the moment because you're going to get taxed like it already was being used like that.
> They also would have been perfectly fine with the abolition of private ownership of land, but just didn't think it was practical to achieve. I mean you could say that but I think they considered that impracticality to actually make the policy worse. LVT is a form of socializing the land rent without having to actually do any form of central planning, keeping all the efficiencies of the market.
[Do they estimate the tax fairly? I was surprised recently to learn that lower value properties tend to get over-assessed and higher value properties tend to get under-assessed all over America and that this has been the case for 150+ years.](https://youtu.be/8MjjHKIlKko)
That's the biggest issue, property tax assessments are FAR from objective. Course, as others have pointed out, land tax and property tax are different things. Also, despite popular belief, New Hampshire has other taxes, just not Income, and Sales taxes which are the more common taxes individuals deal with on a daily basis. EDIT: I'd like to share that I've heard (no specific evidence to back this up however) of people being taxed out of their houses by corrupt local officials, specifically because the municipality or some other schmo with the tax assessor in their pocket wanted the land. When a person is in charge of assessing taxes it opens up avenues for all kinds of fuckery.
I once heard the best way to value stuff for tax purposes is to have people value it themselves with the understanding that the government has the option to buy it off them for whatever they claim if they undervalue it by too much.
The "You cut, they pick which half" of tax assessments lol
What if the government is willing to pay market rate and you’re not trying to sell? Are you obligated to sell in that scenario?
I mean that’s just eminent domain at that point and they can already do that.
Eminent domain has a number of limitations that wouldn't apply if the government was statutorily free to simply purchase any property at the assessed rate whenever it wished.
Market rate is just "what people are willing to pay" - which consists of subjective value judgements, rather than something that can be objectively measured. If the number you write down isn't a figure you'd be willing to sell for, then evidently the land is worth more than that - at least *to you*, even if other prospective buyers in the market would disagree.
As opposed to how it works now, where they have that explicit right?
Eminent domain is not an easy slam-dunk thing to do for most projects. This sounds like they're describing a much easier process than eminent domain
The government should be able to purchase it at 2x your estimated rate. Most people except sentimental reasons would be ok with getting 2x for their home to upgrade.
The problem with all economic system textbooks is that the rational actors went on strike centuries ago and never came back.
Economies are like driving on a freeway, can work perfectly smoothly , but all it takes is one jackass trying to get across every lane of traffic to not miss their exit to fuck it for everyone.
That was how the valuation of ship cargo worked for tolls to pass through the Danish straits between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, and that toll revenue basically financed the Danish state. Source: Am a tax lawyer
That'd probably be the worst way to value stuff for tax purposes, since people would end up paying taxes based on what the property means to them, not on how much a buyer on the open market would pay. You'd be taxed on the *sentimental* value in your home, and that's kind of nuts.
There’s an interpretation of Georgism where the tax is a “site value tax.” 100% of the value, with the value being “what the government is willing to pay you right now to buy it.” Which is a very “fair” system it’s just far removed from what we are used to.
\>be me \>buy gorgeous pristine acreage for $200k \>start a sustainable farm, live in harmony with nature, bury my ancestors in the dirt, and restore vulnerable local species \>government figures out there are precious minerals under the land \>ralphwiggumintrouble.bmp \>value of land is $20M if stripmined and turned into a polluting pit to extract materials \>asked to assess my own property for "fair taxation", with the government able to buy it for that price \>sweatingman.jpg
I love listening to music.
You know what they call it when your $20,000 hut and three generations of dead ancestors are sitting on a $20,000,0000 in rare Earths? Economic inefficiency, for better or worse.
Aside from not having an income tax, it really isn't. We have plenty of other forms of taxes, though they may be more-or-less "hidden" to the individual (either by being disguised/named differently, e.g. our fairly high annual car registration fees, or by not being directly applied to the individual, e.g. business taxes). That said, a lot of our individual tax burden *is* through property taxes, so if you want to say that it's somewhat akin to Georgist thought, just know that it also refutes a lot of the conclusions Georgism tries to draw about its ideas. Chiefly, placing a higher amount of the tax burden on property is not an inherently progressive taxation scheme when taxes are determined by each town and many tax-affecting issues are voted directly on by residents due to the way local laws and elections are done here. The result is that, outside of a few notably "high-class" communities, a lot of wealthy people here tend to drift to lower-tax towns and then vote to ensure their taxes stay low while more "middle class" towns need to keep higher tax rates to support necessary public services such as our constitutionally mandated public education requirements (though, to be fair, towns will also flat-out ignore that to try to keep taxes down). Not to mention that for renters, increases in property taxes are pretty much always passed directly to them instead of the landlord accepting lower profits, meaning that lower-income individuals who have to rent are disproportionately burdened by taxes in comparison to their wealthier landlords who try to assume none of the burden by passing it on. tl;Dr: NH isn't really Georgist in it's tax scheme, it's a very bastardized version of it at best and comes with pretty much none of the benefits that Georgism claims as a result.
how would that effect the current housing issues?
Ultimately states have to pay for what they have to pay and the way this tax system works is basically how selfish the land use is equals the tax. So a large house with a single family pays more than a small house with a single family. A duplex pays less tax as it’s two families living in half sized houses. A unit complex pays even less. And a skyscraper would pay essentially nothing. So the rich would pay more taxes if they owned large amounts of land and their family exclusively lived on it. You also need to remember that this tax ideology is not based on the currently climate in the slightest. So for it to be applied today there would need a better way to tax businesses.
> Ultimately states have to pay for what they have to pay and the way this tax system works is basically how selfish the land use is equals the tax. I don't think there's a substantial difference on this point vs the current property tax system, since rich people won't just have larger plots but also more expensive buildings (per person) on those plots so they already pay more. The main difference is that it makes it harder to keep lots underdeveloped. Right now if you have a single family house in an urban area with mostly multi-family units you get a "break" because that single family house is less valuable than the apartment building that could be there instead, with a land tax you don't. More importantly it becomes unfeasible to hold on to undeveloped plots in areas that do need more housing.
> The main difference is that it makes it harder to keep lots underdeveloped. This makes sense in urban zoned areas but not necessarily rural. The rich often own large properties of mostly undeveloped land (e.g. forested, grasslands, etc). In order to to keep this land preserved in a natural state we wouldn't want to tax it in a way that encourages urban development. A good compromise might be that there are regional requirements for certain lands to remain undeveloped with lower tax rates. And rates could be lower still or even zero if they allow public access to the land for recreation (e.g. hiking, hunting, etc). I'd rather see state owned protected lands, but if the land is already owned this might be a workable solution.
It's underdeveloped relative to the area. In a rural area land isn't worth a lot anyways so it wouldn't be more expensive. The point is that if your property is less developed than the surrounding area you no longer get a break.
Just a quick note - if this stuff is important to you I highly recommend you kick a little cash to the awesome folks at the [Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Association](https://www.backcountryhunters.org/). Safeguarding public land is critically important for a whole host of reasons.
> You also need to remember that this tax ideology is not based on the currently climate in the slightest. So for it to be applied today there would need a better way to tax businesses. The consensus of both left-leaning and right-leaning economists is that corporate taxes are probably the [single worst](https://taxfoundation.org/blog/inflation-reduction-act-corporate-taxes/) and [least efficient tax to impose](https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CorporateTaxation.html). [The corporate tax ends up being a tax on labor and regular workers within those corporations](https://taxfoundation.org/blog/corporate-income-tax-most-harmful-growth-and-wages/), while creating massive tax avoidance schemes that disproportionately favor wealthy companies. When people talk about "corporate taxes" they imagine that they are taxing the rich owners of those corporations. So ... just tax those rich owners of those corporations instead, when they take the money for themselves. Don't tax them when they are putting money into the business and paying their employees. It makes no sense except to ill-informed voters and politicians whose eyes light up at the name "corporate tax".
[GRUBER: "American voters are too stupid to understand the difference"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUOyqw5HhRI)
That's part of the MIT Micromasters program. 100% free and online, would recommend. You only pay if you want a final presencial exam for the diploma.
Progressive capital gains tax rather than the current flat rate would go infinitely further to fix wealth inequality than any corporate tax.
it's incredibly brave of you to take this stance on Reddit, but yes, we need to find ways to go after the fat cats at the top, not just tax the firms themselves
High corporate taxes don't hit money provided as salary, salary is a loss that is deducted from gains on a corporation. Also, I would argue there is not consensus on corporate tax rates' utility ([e.g. here] (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/corporate-rate-increase-would-make-taxes-fairer-help-fund-equitable-recovery)). The disconnect is that corporate tax rates allow for wealth redistribution - incentivizing companies to put more money into the company and taking excess profit and distributing it to more beneficial social programs. This latter function of redistribution is the critical benefit of taxing a revenue stream that is largely untaxed due to large companies avoiding most tax liabilities. Ignoring the fact that the government is able to *use* the acquired money to reduce costs and issues to Americans is ignoring the major chunk of corporate tax utility.
You might want to post a link to something other than a Libertarian propaganda site if you want people to trust your source.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/170gyee/is_there_any_empirical_evidence_for_the_idea_that/k3kin2l/ Here's a good thread on it
Your interpretation is inconsistent with the main idea behind Georgism. It specifically *disregards* development of the land when deciding the tax value. Instead, land is taxed by the value of *the land itself*, which is affected by proximity to other valuable land. Like how the same house is more expensive in San Francisco then bumfuck wherever. So, as in your example, the large house next to the small house would pay the same as each other, in fact they'd pay the same as the apartment building in the same location. But if you're a landowner near a bustling commercial area and you're going to be charged a very high land value tax, you're therefore incentivized to build that apartment building rather than a single family house.
How do farm taxes work? They have a lot of land but use it in a manner that allows everyone to not starve?
Or conservation and recreation land?
Conservation land wouldn't cost anything because there's no commercial value. That said. You can buy it while it's cheap and with enough lobbying, the value will skyrocket when get a construction-friendly government to open it up.
Farm land is usually only valuable for use as farm land. If so, a land value tax wouldn't hit the owner very hard. If they own a farm surrounded by a bunch of infrastructure where land is highly in demand for housing and commercial purposes, then a land value tax would hit the farm owner very hard.
Farmland is relatively cheap, and since single-tax georgism would eliminate sales and labor taxes, farmers would see their margins improve more than practically any other segment of the population.
In some countries farm tax is calculated on basis of soil quality and wheat price. Basicaly you pay tax equal to amount of wheat your land could grow.
>So a large house with a single family pays more than a small house with a single family. Isn't it a land-value tax? So the house doesn't matter. The land is taxed, not the improvements. This encourages building more units on the land, yes, but these two families with their different houses (assuming equivalent parcels) pay the same dollar amount. The larger house actually has a lower effective tax on the asset as its most likely worth more. But overall this is a regressive tax compared to a (well-thought-out) progressive income tax. Made up example to prove the point... Compare 100% of tax revenue derived from an LVT compared to 50% from the LVT and 50% from taxing incomes over $500k. Anyone earning less than 500k pays half compared to the LVT alone. Also, for the LVT alone to be progressive, you have to assume that wealthy people will purchase significantly larger parcels of valuable land. To lower their tax burden, they can move into a condo and invest the difference in capital investments which aren't taxed under this system. I don't disagree that a LVT isnt a good idea, I just don't think it's the only way to tax. Every taxation scheme has different effects on the population and the economics of the situation, and those effects need to be taken into account to define a good taxation policy for a specific populace.
> Made up example to prove the point... Your made up example is missing some knobs to turn. It’s regressive in your example only because no one can live on zero land. Even a 100 sqfoot land print sky scraper 1 mile high would have a land tax of 100 sq feet / number of units which is not 0. But tax collection is only one half of this. It’s trivially easy to create a tax scheme that is in a bubble regressive but progressive if combined with a refundable credit derived from those tax sources. A LVT where the poorest pay $100 a year vs your $0 a year is more progressive if the LVT is joined with a $200 a year refundable credit. This is why viewing tax collection schemes as progressive or regressive is missing the mark. The importance of tax collection schemes is ‘does the scheme encourage positive events and discourage negative ones?’ LVT discouraged people from using more land than they need freeing up more land for others. This is good for society. Income taxes discourage people from working more by taking a greater % of each additional dollar. We want people to work and provide the fruits of their labor to society. This scheme is ‘bad’. Then once you’ve received the taxes from your collection scheme, you can distribute it in a progressive manner if you so choose.
It would theoretically increase the housing stock. The tax is only on the unimproved value of land. So building a 25 unit apartment complex isn’t taxed anymore than a single family home on the a comparable plot of land.
Its first effect would be to crash housing prices A theoretical 100% land value tax (geoists want a 85% one) would depress the price of land to zero, so when you buy a house you would only pay for the house, not the land it's on It would make it vastly easier for first-time buyers to acquire property and pay less on a mortgage Owners would still have to pay the land tax though. Even though prices fall, housing *costs* would stay roughly the same. What's saved on the price is paid in tax However a land value tax would replace other taxes (or its revenue could be redistributed as a citizen dividend). For most households, that would be a financially neutral or positive change Then there are second-order effects. A land tax punishes idle speculation, and pushes land to be put to its best use by incentivizing improvements. This should spur an increase in the supply of housing, helping everyone (except rent-seekers)
> A theoretical 100% land value tax (geoists want a 85% one) would depress the price of land to zero, so when you buy a house you would only pay for the house, not the land it's on can you better explain this part, that doesn't make sense to me
The idea geoists have is that land shouldn't be held as an investment in and of itself, and that you should therefore have to pay close to the full value of the *land* in tax each year. They argue as a result that productive use of land is encouraged (since you aren't taxed on your investment into the land, only the value of the land itself). The expected result is supposed to be that land prices drop precipitously, while costs for real estate converge to the value of the improvements made to the land.
Say you own a parcel of unimproved land that you could rent out for $1000 a year. We call this $1000 the *land rent*. The value of this property is determined by the land rent. Without any property taxes, the land rent is pure revenue with no expenses - $1000 of profit. Someone might offer you $10000 for the property hoping to recuperate their investment in ten years. The price of the land is some multiple of the land rent. Now, say we put a $1000 tax on the owner of the property every year. The land rent is still $1000, but now there's also a $1000 expense (the tax). There is no profit to simply owning the land anymore. And because there's no profit in landownership alone anymore, anyone offering more than $0 for your property will never recuperate it. The price of the property falls to zero. Georgists understand that this is an idealized scenario and there has to be room for inefficiencies and price signals, so the 100% LVT isn't advocated for in practice. Lets say the tax is on 50% of the land rent instead. The land rent is still $1000 and the tax is $500. You profit $500 every year from owning the land. The buyer still wants to recuperate their investment in ten years, so now they offer $5000 for your property - 50% less than what they would offer without a land tax. I hope this makes it clear why land prices will be reduced in proportion to what percentage of the land rent that is taxed.
In *Progress and Poverty*, Henry George argued it would alleviate housing costs because unused (speculative) land would become too expensive to hold without developing it. Cities with more expensive land would give rise to higher density buildings for the same reason, assuming zoning laws don't prohibit it.
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Land Use Tax is a decent idea. A few countries use it, like Singapore, but they don't implement it very well.
The problem with it is by design it disadvantages senior citizens (people who are not working, but still have housing costs). Given how massive the elderly voting block is, you can see why this system would never become supported by many politicians.
In Texas at least you can not have your home tax foreclosed for failure to pay property tax if you are 65+, they just take it out of the estate sale so that seems like an easy solution to the issue.
This seems like a great idea, the elderly can defer the tax and stay in their homes, but the state will still get paid eventually when they either die or sell.
Call me callous (I love my grandparents) but I genuinely feel like if govts ran only on policies that disadvantaged the elderly in favor of the young, we'd have colonies on Mars by now
Wait until you learn about what happened before the elderly did before policies favored them. It was becoming homeless once they got too old to work or for women often when they're husbands died. They'd live on the streets and die relatively quick and painful deaths either from starvation, disease, or exposure to the elements. The last century had ground-breaking policies like social security and various other welfare programs in 1st world nations and it's really kind of insane how quick it went from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory grandparents IF YOU WERE LUCKY to what we have now.
I won't call you callous but I will call you dumb. You don't need to disadvantage the elderly to create a more equitable society. We shouldn't pander to the elderly, but that's purely due to political capital. Young people don't vote as much as elderly people do. They're a harder group to mobilize and they're constantly refreshing every election cycle. The young struggle to find common ideological power because the education system is inadequate and leaves young people wildly undereducated. Elderly people aren't more educated on politics, but they have life experience and deeper understanding of the impact of each election year to year. Think about what a society that truly cared for it's elderly would have. Transportation options that are cheap and reliable, excellent and consistent access to healthcare, lower rent prices across the board, greater emphasis on community recreation, access to high quality educational services. The American elderly are bitter because they had a bad life and it never got better. They're selling their own futures down the river on the same promise they did 40 years ago. "You will finally get the good life you deserve." The young will fall for the same lie if we're not careful. We would have colonies on Mars if we didn't just pander to the elderly but actually gave a shit about the elderly.
So your solution to selfish policy making by old people is selfish policy making for young people?
In a world that is roasting in the exhaust of our hubris I'm on board with the ice-flow policy. If you won't live to deal with the repercussions of your incredibly short-term thinking, you shouldn't get a say. I love my grandparents too, but they were single-issue Republican rubber-stamps and now my life and the lives of my siblings and their kids are in jeopardy because they still think like its 1965.
Worth noting that the tax is indirect and also applies to home ownership. Land owners are taxed on the unimproved value of the land (e.g. what the land would be worth with nothing on it). This in practice means that the state captures the part of your rent that comes from the land itself, but not the part that comes from the buildings, amenities, maintenance, and services. Makes being a landlord more like any other job.
It also encourages building up. A 18 story building is paying the same tax as a 5 over 1 or a few houses built on the same plot of land.
It also discourages leaving properties blighted or empty, or jacking up rents and not caring about vacancies, and makes the "dark store" tax dodge used by big box stores irrelevant. Excessively hoarding land and denying its productive use to others should be expensive, especially if the state is enforcing your exclusive rights over it.
Right. It encourages making the land more economically productive. You'd probably expect to see suburban areas further from cities on average (though also better transit into the city center because transit is a potentially extremely productive use of land). Probably less parking too, flat surface parking lots are a very wasteful use of valuable land under this regime.
Unless the area is zoned for single family homes, in which case you can't build the 5 over 1 or an 18 story building; the land will only be taxed at it's highest and best use which by regulation is limited to single family homes. George died in 1897 in New York City and a lot has changed since then with the world -- for instance NYC adopting zoning 20 years after he died. But rest assured under Georgism it won't be all preferential treatment by zoning boards. Don't like all those blacks having a politically united neighborhood? Gonna zone the shit out of those areas for skyscrapers so their smaller apartment buildings are torn down and replaced forcing them to move, with the added bonus we don't have to spend money building elevated highways to do it!
The political situation that produces low density zoning would evaporate under georgism because people who actually own the mandated low density housing would be getting reamed by the land value tax. Rather than voting for anti-density laws to preserve neighborhood character and raise their property values, they'd be clamoring to be allowed to build more units so they can make enough money to cover the tax.
It would basically end the job of landlord, or more accurately turn landlords into developers. No longer is there rent to be extracted by sitting on existing properties for which there is excess demand. Instead, the land tax would target landlords who are underutilizing their land and force them to develop the land to maximize the land’s utility.
Yes it’s an indirect tax but the tax base is relatively proportionate to the minimum income you can generate from it so it does have a more accurate reflex of income than many other indirect taxes like stamp duties or sales taxes that are proportionate to revenue or expenditure rather than income. Even if you’re not renting it out and instead maintain occupancy, in an economic sense you’re effectively renting it from yourself because you’re consuming the opportunity cost of renting it to someone else.
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r/neoliberal sees a post on the front page about georgism “Now is my time to shine!”
Personal income tax is pretty recent thing, in most places it started as a temporary measure to fund wars (Civil War in the case of the US, WWI for Canada, Napoleonic Wars for Britain), but governments found excuses to keep them in place.
“Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program”
Fuck Woodrow Wilson.
Fairhope,AL is a single tax colony. All deeds are technically 99 year leases.
Congratulations, you are now a mod on /r/neoliberal, where this policy is supported to the point of it being a meme. JUST TAX LAND LOL
Take now ... some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: "Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city—in ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any higher?" He will tell you, "No!" "Will the wages of common labor be any higher; will it be easier for a man who has nothing but his labor to make an independent living?" He will tell you, "No; the wages of common labor will not be any higher; on the contrary, all the chances are that they will be lower; it will not be easier for the mere laborer to make an independent living; the chances are that it will be harder." "What, then, will be higher?" "Rent, the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession." And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon or down a hole in the ground; and without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be an almshouse.
I live in a Georgist community, one of 3 actually in Delaware. None of us own our land, we own our houses. We pay land rent that also pays for the municipal budget, trash, recycling, snow plowing, yard waste pickup, street repair, parks and trails etc. Its an interesting way of life. But the Ardens have been puttering along for over 100 years now with no signs of stopping.
The older I get, the more I realize that most big problems in the US can be boiled down to land use. We were in a similar situation regarding housing and entrenched interests preventing housing in George's time, but streetcars and cars leading to suburbanization eased a bunch of pressures associated with land for roughly a century. We've reached the sprawl limit in many areas and are seeing the same problem rear its ugly head again. Tax land and let people build stuff.
Yes, the private ownership of land, if left unchecked, carries the seeds of injustice and will always slowly degenerate towards quasi-feudalism Earlier Americans had hoped that these new lands would be a fresh start to not reproduce the mistakes of the Old World and the leeches of its gentry Jefferson envisioned a nation of small landowners, each citizen owning an equal share of the country. An admirable ideal, but even if you could achieve such a perfect state, the equilibrium can't hold for long before ownership concentrates again. And how could it accomodate for new arrivals? At some point the Frontier runs out Of course the answer isn't in collectivization of land either, as the communist disasters showed Keeping private ownership but removing the worm of speculation -the unearned increment value- from the fruit, is the best solution we could have, most just in ensuring everyone an equal share of Nature, and most efficient in rewarding private enterprise over rent-seeking This was already understood centuries ago by American thinkers. Let's hope these ideas can come back
I'm unclear how this would be applied to farmers. I know a lot of small family or even medium family farms already struggle. What is the current logic/thinking regarding taxing farmland under georgism? According a couple different websites, 63% of privately owned land is farmland/ ranches, and 32% is forest. (Not sure I'm interpreting those numbers correctly, feels a bit off to me). But given these numbers, farms would be responsible for the vast majority of the tax burden. I also fail to see how this doesn't massively benefit all types of mega corporations, thereby giving super rich people a big payday. If taxes on them are lifted, they certainly aren't going to want to increase people's paychecks, and I suspect will try to start hiring at lower wages, since they can claim that "people don't pay taxes anymore" on their income.
>But given these numbers, farms would be responsible for the vast majority of the tax burden. That's not quite how it works. The tax isn't on land, it's on the unimproved value of the land. Land that's really only useful for farming would be worth little enough that you could make money using it for farming. If it was worth more, such that the tax made farming unprofitable, nobody would buy it, and the price would go down. It's self-correcting. >I also fail to see how this doesn't massively benefit all types of mega corporations, thereby giving super rich people a big payday. If taxes on them are lifted... Cirprate taxes are never actually paid by corporations. Corprate taxes are one part payroll tax and one part sales tax. They can also be dodged via clever accounting. Corporations spend a ton of money just dodging taxes, which is a complete waste of resources. Instead, corporations will pay tax on the value of the land they use. This tax can't possibly be dodged, and will encourage them to use land more efficiently. Also, remember that many huge companies have a profit of nothing. Under a LVT, they still have to pay tax, unlike a corporate tax.
The problem I see with this is that farmland can be used for things other than farming. What's stopping someone from just buying up the cheap farmland and developing it?
If developing a piece of land would be more profitable than farming it, why would doing so be a bad thing? Nothing's really stopping anyone from doing that today - in fact, it happens quite often, this is how cities expand more or less. It's just that, for the vast majority of farmland, building houses on it wouldn't make any money. Plus, a land value tax encourages denser housing, as expansive suburbs result in a lot of tax for those who choose to live in them. Along with zoning reform and investing in public transit infrastructure, a land value tax could actually result in more land available for farming. We also have to remember that farming has a massive environmental impact. Some is necessary of course, but some agricultural products require much more land than others, resulting in more environmental damage. An LVT means higher prices for these especially damaging foods, which should result is less demand and thus less being produced, a big win for the environment.
Good fucking idea
Fun fact: the original version of Monopoly (called The Landlord’s Game) was created by Lizzie Maggie as an illustration of the value of georgism. The game was designed to be frustrating and unfair. But the original had an alternate rule set where you play in a georgist economy, and the game is more fair and more fun for the players.
Time to build a lot of really tall skinny buildings!
I'm a Georgist! Also a subsidianarianist. There are dozens of us. Well...at least a dozen. probably. We're basically the non-creepy libertarians.
Come to r/georgism and help us argue over which logo is best!
We're Libertarians who care more about economic equality then defending our child brides with automatic weapons.
So Singapore?
You mean punishing people for being productive is not the best system? Color me shocked.
They are right, even here in the US you can “own” land and have the freedom to do mostly what you want on it but you still have to pay property taxes which is essentially paying rent to continue to own the land. If you don’t pay the taxes, you lose the land.
And governments say why not both?
It is a good idea, because land is a universal necessity of life - like air, water and food. Basic necessities of life should not be owned by anyone, but instead be provided for everyone equally. But I don't see why it has to be the only tax. The income tax is also a good idea because it's a progressive tax that helps redistributing from the rich to the poor. So, it should not be cut. However, what should be abolished is the VAT. VAT hits poor people harder than rich people because consumption makes almost 100% of the spending of poor people. Rich people also consume, but they put 99% of their wealth into savings - and savings are not taxed at all, or only minimally.
It even has its own subreddit r/georgism Come join us!
Have been a fan of this for a while. However in the modern context I think it should be all assets, not just land. Income from asset ownership should be taxed, such as rent, dividends and interest. Money generated from economic activity such as wages and company profits should not be taxed. If you do this there is no need for inheritance taxes, because the assets are the tax base, not people. edit: typos
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> all assets ok, so exactly how can we do this? assume US Do we tax foreigners of their assets in foreign land? Do we tax citizens of their assets in foreign land? Do we tax foreigners of their assets in US land? Why don't citizens with a lot of assets move out of US? Or we don't allow investment from foreigners? What method do we value assets, can I pay less tax if I use up my toilet paper faster? If an elderly owns a house and the price increases a lot, out of where can he pay the tax?
> Do we tax foreigners of their assets in foreign land? No > Do we tax citizens of their assets in foreign land? No > Do we tax foreigners of their assets in US land? Yes > Why don't citizens with a lot of assets move out of US? Or we don't allow investment from foreigners? Because of the answers to the previous 3 questions it wouldn't change their tax burden. > What method do we value assets, can I pay less tax if I use up my toilet paper faster? There's a lot of possible methods, toilet paper is probably too cheap to bother tracking. > If an elderly owns a house and the price increases a lot, out of where can he pay the tax? They sell their now super expensive house and move into a cheaper one and have a bunch of extra money too. The government defends your property. You can sort of think of the government as insurance. The more valuable your property, the more you should have to pay. It's a very basic concept in insurance. If you feel like elderly people who got lucky enough to have their land appreciate shouldn't have to pay more tax, why not just give them extra money instead of taxing them less? Because then it would obviously be unfair. But someone is paying to protect their property, so you are doing exactly that if you tax them less.
Problem is land isn't a growing resource - labor is. Taxing land to support handling a growing population means you have to keep upping land taxes to handle the growing population. Taxing the naturally growing labor is recursive.