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I agree that land has to some extent been widely redistributed in the United States because of the frontier, which continued to exist and distribute land owners

I agree that land has to some extent been widely redistributed in the United States because of the frontier, which continued to exist and distribute land ownership up until the 1880s. However, since the frontier died, land ownership distribution has stayed more or less the same. Compare the coasts to England, where land mobility is even more limited because the frontier died even longer ago. What Georgism and a Land Value Tax would do is to re-create the frontier at the margin of production, where land is free and there is no tax to be paid, but the land itself is still workable without profit. Recreating the frontier would re-introduce land mobility and make land more liquid, while also countering NIMBY desires to keep their land and neighborhoods the way they were fifty or a hundred years ago. Companies are arguably not very widely distributed. The stock market is ownership of companies by those who do not work for it, so the distance between the worker and the owner is still greater than in small businesses, family businesses, worker cooperatives, or even traditional corporations with Employee Stock Ownership Plans. Trust-busting is one way to decrease that distance, although true anti-monopoly policies like a land-value tax or a tax on intellectual property enforcement would truly remove the privileges these big companies have and allow smaller ones to truly compete.

skybrian 4y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "recreating the frontier?" Are you talking about cities, suburbs, or rural areas? Changing property tax rates doesn't change cities or suburbs into something else, at least not at first. All the property is still owned by the same people. People still live in the same houses.
- brightly-salty 4y ago
  Perhaps I'm explaining it poorly, that's entirely possible. The frontier is where land value is zero, at the margin of production. It is possible to get value out of the land, but only with hard work. Currently this land may be held without using it for production, but it largely doesn't exist. This is because the lack of a land value tax incentivizes landholders to own all land for the purpose of speculation rather than production, even if it's economic rent value is low. With a land value tax, people who hold land purely for speculative sales prices would sell it because the sales price would drop to zero, therefore freeing up those pieces of land for families to move to and work upon. The frontier, the margin of production, where only hard work would make the land valuable, reopens and other land also becomes more mobile because there is a disincentive to holding land for speculative purposes, reducing the price of housing in general and contributing to housing liquidity.
  - skybrian 4y ago
    It seems like the idea is to increase property taxes so much that the land value is zero. However, the tax isn't zero. You are effectively paying rent, but to the government. In desirable areas like cities, the rent on the land may be quite high, because the land is desirable. A Manhattan where the property owners pay huge taxes to the government (because that's what it would take the drive the land value to zero) would still be an extremely expensive place to own property. This might be a good way for the government to raise revenue, but it's not really a "cheap land" situation. It's one where the government is effectively the landlord and everyone pays high "rents" to the government. It's plausible that such a scheme would lower the cost of living in some places when it's due to speculation, by popping the bubble. But it doesn't lower the cost of living when it's due to the fundamental value of owning property there.
    - brightly-salty 4y ago
      Yes, I agree with you on what will happen in big cities where the land value is already high. The idea is more that in the Montana's and the Kansas's - where they already give land away free to people who promise to build improvements - there will be even more of an economic incentive to move to underdeveloped states, giving more families economic opportunities, which will then cause network effects as more families move out, causing housing prices to fall in the big cities. Housing prices will become more equal across the nation, and vertical development will be incentivized over urban sprawl.
      - skybrian 4y ago
        If people move out of bigger cities to rural areas, why isn't that increasing sprawl? (That is, there is more low-density development in those places.) To some extent this already happening. Many people moved out of the city during the pandemic. The people in desirable rural areas aren't necessarily happy about it. They are often upset about all the outsiders with more money moving in. They probably wouldn't be very happy with their property taxes going up either? When there's increased demand for land in a certain town from newcomers, there should be higher land taxes for everyone according to Georgist theory, to keep the price of land zero.

skybrian 4y ago

I'm not sure what you mean by "recreating the frontier?" Are you talking about cities, suburbs, or rural areas? Changing property tax rates doesn't change cities or suburbs into something else, at least not at first. All the property is still owned by the same people. People still live in the same houses.

brightly-salty 4y ago
Perhaps I'm explaining it poorly, that's entirely possible. The frontier is where land value is zero, at the margin of production. It is possible to get value out of the land, but only with hard work. Currently this land may be held without using it for production, but it largely doesn't exist. This is because the lack of a land value tax incentivizes landholders to own all land for the purpose of speculation rather than production, even if it's economic rent value is low. With a land value tax, people who hold land purely for speculative sales prices would sell it because the sales price would drop to zero, therefore freeing up those pieces of land for families to move to and work upon. The frontier, the margin of production, where only hard work would make the land valuable, reopens and other land also becomes more mobile because there is a disincentive to holding land for speculative purposes, reducing the price of housing in general and contributing to housing liquidity.
- skybrian 4y ago
  It seems like the idea is to increase property taxes so much that the land value is zero. However, the tax isn't zero. You are effectively paying rent, but to the government. In desirable areas like cities, the rent on the land may be quite high, because the land is desirable. A Manhattan where the property owners pay huge taxes to the government (because that's what it would take the drive the land value to zero) would still be an extremely expensive place to own property. This might be a good way for the government to raise revenue, but it's not really a "cheap land" situation. It's one where the government is effectively the landlord and everyone pays high "rents" to the government. It's plausible that such a scheme would lower the cost of living in some places when it's due to speculation, by popping the bubble. But it doesn't lower the cost of living when it's due to the fundamental value of owning property there.
  - brightly-salty 4y ago
    Yes, I agree with you on what will happen in big cities where the land value is already high. The idea is more that in the Montana's and the Kansas's - where they already give land away free to people who promise to build improvements - there will be even more of an economic incentive to move to underdeveloped states, giving more families economic opportunities, which will then cause network effects as more families move out, causing housing prices to fall in the big cities. Housing prices will become more equal across the nation, and vertical development will be incentivized over urban sprawl.
    - skybrian 4y ago
      If people move out of bigger cities to rural areas, why isn't that increasing sprawl? (That is, there is more low-density development in those places.) To some extent this already happening. Many people moved out of the city during the pandemic. The people in desirable rural areas aren't necessarily happy about it. They are often upset about all the outsiders with more money moving in. They probably wouldn't be very happy with their property taxes going up either? When there's increased demand for land in a certain town from newcomers, there should be higher land taxes for everyone according to Georgist theory, to keep the price of land zero.