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Here is the crux of the article, beginning with the father of the inventor, Elizabeth Magie: "Travelling around America in the 1870s, George had witnessed pers
by dr_dshiv 7y ago
Here is the crux of the article, beginning with the father of the inventor, Elizabeth Magie:
"Travelling around America in the 1870s, George had witnessed persistent destitution amid growing wealth, and he believed it was largely the inequity of land ownership that bound these two forces – poverty and progress – together. So instead of following Twain by encouraging his fellow citizens to buy land, he called on the state to tax it. On what grounds? Because much of land’s value comes not from what is built on the plot but from nature’s gift of water or minerals that might lie beneath its surface, or from the communally created value of its surroundings: nearby roads and railways; a thriving economy, a safe neighbourhood; good local schools and hospitals. And he argued that the tax receipts should be invested on behalf of all.
Determined to prove the merit of George’s proposal, Magie invented and in 1904 patented what she called the Landlord’s Game. Laid out on the board as a circuit (which was a novelty at the time), it was populated with streets and landmarks for sale. The key innovation of her game, however, lay in the two sets of rules that she wrote for playing it.
Under the ‘Prosperity’ set of rules, every player gained each time someone acquired a new property (designed to reflect George’s policy of taxing the value of land), and the game was won (by all!) when the player who had started out with the least money had doubled it. Under the ‘Monopolist’ set of rules, in contrast, players got ahead by acquiring properties and collecting rent from all those who were unfortunate enough to land there – and whoever managed to bankrupt the rest emerged as the sole winner (sound a little familiar?)"
- vondur 7y agoI believe that there has always been land taxes here in the US. I'd love for the US to break up some of these huge overpowering companies today though.
- naravara 7y agoUS mostly has a Property Tax for state or local governments, which is different from a Land Value Tax. The property tax is levied based on the value of your property, which includes all improvements made to the property. A land value tax is specifically levied against the value of the land itself, and ignores the value of any buildings and improvements or the use value of the land you're on.
- WalterBright 7y agoThere have been many games that purport to demonstrate that free markets are a failure, all of them had to rig the rules to make that happen. Monopoly, for example, is a zero sum game. There is no possibility of increasing the supply nor making more efficient use of existing supply. Win-win solutions are pretty much impossible.
- mr_toad 7y ago> There is no possibility of increasing the supply nor making more efficient use of existing supply. Sounds pretty much like the housing market where I live.
- WalterBright 7y agoOnes where government zoning and regulation prevent any change, sure. But you can't really blame the marketplace for that.
- fzeroracer 7y agoThere is no such thing as a free market for housing, because the only thing stopping someone else from squatting in your house and telling you to get bent at any time is the government. Land is inherently limited, and becomes more limited the higher the population concentration. Eventually this can lead to things like AirBnB and other rent seeking behaviors in the absence of government intervention leading to gentrification.
- WalterBright 7y ago> because the only thing stopping someone else from squatting in your house and telling you to get bent at any time is the government. You're suggesting the government is anti-ethical to the free market. On the contrary, the government is required for a free market. The role of government is protection of property rights and contract enforcement. > Land is inherently limited Land use, however, is not limited. For example, building a 10 story building increases the amount of usable "land" by a factor of 10.
- chuniverse 7y ago“Under the ‘Prosperity’ set of rules, every player gained each time someone acquired a new property (designed to reflect George’s policy of taxing the value of land), and the game was won (by all!) when the player who had started out with the least money had doubled it.” This seems like an arbitrary cut-off point. How do we know that if the game were to continue the result wouldn’t end up being the same, with one player still controlling a monopoly of all the properties?