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Taxes on land have been popular forever. Adam smith talked about it, then Ricardo formalized why rent is what it is, to which Marx barely made an addition and H
by conanbatt 9y ago
Taxes on land have been popular forever. Adam smith talked about it, then Ricardo formalized why rent is what it is, to which Marx barely made an addition and Henry George made an economic and moral argument for Land Value Tax in California. That was over 100 years ago.
Today, Krugman, Stiglitz and Milton Friedman agree on land value taxes.
The economic consensus on this topic was achieved long ago. Its a political issue , not an economic one.
- saosebastiao 9y ago> The economic consensus on this topic was achieved long ago. Its a political issue , not an economic one. Shamefully true, and now it has been exacerbated several fold by subsidizing single family homeownership for several decades.
- tim333 9y agoPopular with economists maybe. What has worked well in practice is the government owning much of the land and raising money by renting or selling it which is how Monaco gets by with zero tax and how HK raised quite a lot of money while keeping tax <17% on income, zero on gains.
- conanbatt 9y agoI cant speak for the details of your examples, but taxing land or owning it and renting it out are economically identical. High Land value taxes really does mean that the land is not owned by a private individual. But Im perfectly fine with that, definitely better than taxing work or consumption.
- hjiiuhv677 9y agoAll hail the word of unaccountable economists! I’m sure they’re pure of motivation when approving of a system they know how to game inside and out!