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I remember reading an article about how a large proportion of tech venture capital ultimately makes its way into the pockets of Silicon Valley landlords. Georg
by klipt 5y ago
I remember reading an article about how a large proportion of tech venture capital ultimately makes its way into the pockets of Silicon Valley landlords.
Georgism posits as a general principle that a lot of money is captured as land rent.
- jka 5y agoYep, that's exactly the kind of possible and believable explanation (not perfect of course, but a generalisation) that I think would be useful to examine and prove/disprove. (separately: perhaps Georgism would require some upgrades for today's digital economy where land isn't necessarily required for production)
- klipt 5y agoWell Georgism says land deserves special treatment because "downtown San Francisco land" is a finite resource you can't make more of. Perhaps that would also apply to tech "real estate" like, 3 letter .com domains? But I think a lot of big tech's expenses are engineer salaries in High Cost of Living areas, which really does come down to landowners preventing housing construction there.
- jka 5y agoIncreasingly, I'd guess that the equivalent of land is "pure mind-stuff", as someone whose name I forget described it. (and companies absolutely do not pay their taxes on that: quite the opposite, they pay exorbitant compensation in order to convince people that no such taxes are required of them as corporations, and indeed to help persuade the owners of the mind-stuff that taxes themselves are problematic) (.com, ipv4 addresses - yes, examples of similar circumstances, but not the core)
- truffdog 5y agoIronically a lot of that land was made, we just quit doing it.
- trylfthsk 5y agoTo quote P&P: "The term land embraces, in short, all natural materials, forces, and opportunities..." (in the context of contrast with "capital") So I don't think any upgrades are required; just perspective.