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Henry George's single tax[1] is criminally excluded from the Overton window. Tax rent-seeking, not productivity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism htt

Henry George's single tax[1] is criminally excluded from the Overton window. Tax rent-seeking, not productivity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

centimeter 6y ago
Georgism is not socially efficient, but LVT (which is similar, in that it's a single tax on land) is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, what do you perceive as the difference here? Progress & Poverty, George’s own book, proposes the LVT. In any case, not to let the narcissism of small differences derail this too much: LVT is the right thing.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    Georgism proposes to tax the value derived from land, whereas LVT proposes to tax the market value of the land itself. The primary problem with the Georgist proposal is that it involves a lot of arbitrary determinations of value. The goal is the same, but the much simpler mechanism of LVT can actually be implemented with reasonable accuracy and efficiency. It's not totally trivial - it's kind of hard to figure out the value of land if you were to counterfactually remove all the improvements, but it's simpler than determining something as abstract as the value derived from it.
    - sooheon 6y ago
      The single tax, LVT, and Georgism are synonymous. > Georgism proposes to tax the value derived from land Incorrect, it's almost completely the opposite. The Georgist proposal is rather to tax the economic rent on land, not the value derived from it. Recall the classic example of the landlord leaving his lot in downtown Manhattan undeveloped. No value is derived from the land, the upside for the owner is purely in speculation (benefitting only from improvements to neighboring land).
      - ethanbond 6y ago
        This was my read as well^ In any case, by whatever name we wish to call it, LVT is the path forward.
      - centimeter 6y ago
        > The Georgist proposal is rather to tax the economic rent on land How do you determine that? Also, here’s the wiki description, which matches what I said very closely: “ economic value derived from land (often including natural resources and natural opportunities) should belong equally to all members of society.[3][4][5]” This is not the same as LVT. LVT doesn’t try to determine the source or type of value, and Georgism does.
        bhupy 6y ago
        Every single LVT proposal includes an extremely important stipulation: deducting improvements from the total value, and only taxing the resulting amount. The core thesis is that you don't want to dis-incentivize productive economic activity, and simply holding onto land is unproductive. LVT (and Georgism writ large) propose to tax the unimproved value of land. This is a form of discriminating the source/type of value.
ethanbond 6y ago
The foundational text of this view, Progress & Poverty, is an absolute masterpiece. No book has shifted my thinking so radically, and I know I’m not an outlier. Fun fact: It was written in San Francisco after the gold rush when there was obscene wealth around but horrible wealth inequality. This yielded awful urban living conditions, which George set out to investigate. Sounds familiar...
- sooheon 6y ago
  Agreed on both, it is a masterpiece and it is newly relevant. What I love most about it is the elegance: the economics behind optimizing for minimum deadweight loss and the morality underlying taxation of monopoly power over enterprise are aligned beautifully.

Henry George's single tax[1] is criminally excluded from the Overton window. Tax rent-seeking, not productivity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

centimeter 6y ago

Georgism is not socially efficient, but LVT (which is similar, in that it's a single tax on land) is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

ethanbond 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what do you perceive as the difference here? Progress & Poverty, George’s own book, proposes the LVT. In any case, not to let the narcissism of small differences derail this too much: LVT is the right thing.
- centimeter 6y ago
  Georgism proposes to tax the value derived from land, whereas LVT proposes to tax the market value of the land itself. The primary problem with the Georgist proposal is that it involves a lot of arbitrary determinations of value. The goal is the same, but the much simpler mechanism of LVT can actually be implemented with reasonable accuracy and efficiency. It's not totally trivial - it's kind of hard to figure out the value of land if you were to counterfactually remove all the improvements, but it's simpler than determining something as abstract as the value derived from it.
  - sooheon 6y ago
    The single tax, LVT, and Georgism are synonymous. > Georgism proposes to tax the value derived from land Incorrect, it's almost completely the opposite. The Georgist proposal is rather to tax the economic rent on land, not the value derived from it. Recall the classic example of the landlord leaving his lot in downtown Manhattan undeveloped. No value is derived from the land, the upside for the owner is purely in speculation (benefitting only from improvements to neighboring land).
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      This was my read as well^ In any case, by whatever name we wish to call it, LVT is the path forward.
    - centimeter 6y ago
      > The Georgist proposal is rather to tax the economic rent on land How do you determine that? Also, here’s the wiki description, which matches what I said very closely: “ economic value derived from land (often including natural resources and natural opportunities) should belong equally to all members of society.[3][4][5]” This is not the same as LVT. LVT doesn’t try to determine the source or type of value, and Georgism does.
      - bhupy 6y ago
        Every single LVT proposal includes an extremely important stipulation: deducting improvements from the total value, and only taxing the resulting amount. The core thesis is that you don't want to dis-incentivize productive economic activity, and simply holding onto land is unproductive. LVT (and Georgism writ large) propose to tax the unimproved value of land. This is a form of discriminating the source/type of value.

ethanbond 6y ago

The foundational text of this view, Progress & Poverty, is an absolute masterpiece. No book has shifted my thinking so radically, and I know I’m not an outlier. Fun fact: It was written in San Francisco after the gold rush when there was obscene wealth around but horrible wealth inequality. This yielded awful urban living conditions, which George set out to investigate. Sounds familiar...

sooheon 6y ago
Agreed on both, it is a masterpiece and it is newly relevant. What I love most about it is the elegance: the economics behind optimizing for minimum deadweight loss and the morality underlying taxation of monopoly power over enterprise are aligned beautifully.