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It's quite possible that I'm misunderstanding your points, because I can't come up with a definition of land that is consistent with what you are asserting here

It's quite possible that I'm misunderstanding your points, because I can't come up with a definition of land that is consistent with what you are asserting here. There are a couple of ways to define land, for example, 1) ownership of land confers rights in a society, and 2) an economic factor that has finite supply. I'm not sure if I can reconcile any definition I know, with what you say here: > the value of being present in Palo Alto isn't part of the value of the land. It's a development on the land These two things are inextricably intertwined. The value of the land is partially what can be developed on the land, but nearly all of it comes from what is nearby. There's a reason that the real estate motto is "location, location, location" and that's all about what having that piece of land give one access too. > There's no shortage of land in San Francisco. There's a shortage of floor space. You can't have a shortage of floor space without that shortage of land, because they are linked by law. And even if there was no limit on floor space in law, the value of the land is still linked to floor space because it costs both time and money to change the amount of floor space. > In the absence of development, the land under San Francisco would have inherent value as a port. It only has value as a port if there is development elsewhere around San Francisco that makes San Francisco a valuable location for a port. This is a fundamental Georgist point: development and access to what the amenities of the developments are what makes land valuable. >By contrast, the land under Los Angeles would have no inherent value of any kind. Los Angeles has lots of value as a port because of the rail lines that connect it to so much development. And the initial value may have come from the developments on top of land that made Los Angeles a good port, but now there's lots of additional value from the networks of labor and skills that have concentrated in LA. You seem to be making extremely skeptical mention of Georgism, but at the same time, I think that you are making extremist Georgist points. In most cities, the value of the land isn't from the land itself. Rather, the value of the land is in getting access to all the development around that piece of land. And that gap, between the development on a particular piece of land, and all the development around a piece of land, is what Georgists point to as both a fundamental economic inefficiency and as a way that workers get exploited.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> There are a couple of ways to define land, for example, 1) ownership of land confers rights in a society, and 2) an economic factor that has finite supply. No. All economic factors have finite supply. Many of them are more tightly restricted than land is. Gold would be a paradigm of a "non-land" good, but it is not known for its elastic supply. > You can't have a shortage of floor space without that shortage of land, because they are linked by law. I don't think this says what you wanted to say. Your sentence states that, by law, there is a minimum amount of floorage buildable on any given area of land. This is most certainly not the case in California, where the state will go to great efforts to prevent even one story from being built on much of the land. >> In the absence of development, the land under San Francisco would have inherent value as a port. > It only has value as a port if there is development elsewhere around San Francisco that makes San Francisco a valuable location for a port. This is incorrect. San Francisco has a lot of value as a port, regardless of whether there is a port or any other development there, because the location of ports, like the location of farms, is not arbitrary. Denver has no value as a port. This is (part of) the "land value" that Georgism proposes to tax. San Francisco is on better land. More generally, agricultural, logistical, and military value often inhere in a particular plot of land, but "proximity" value doesn't. > Los Angeles has lots of value as a port because of the rail lines that connect it to so much development. Nope. It is a matter of record why the port in Los Angeles (technically, Long Beach) was built - the longshoremen's union in the (then significant, now dead) port of San Francisco objected to container shipping, so the shipping companies paid for the construction of a new port in an area with no longshoremen. That was the value of being in Los Angeles. > This is a fundamental Georgist point: development and access to what the amenities of the developments are what makes land valuable. Except that the Georgist proposal is to assess no taxes on developments. People say that access to developments will still be taxed, but this is logically incoherent. Access to developments is itself a development. Consider the appropriate taxes on the Bay Area. A small plot of land in San Francisco has access to many nearby amenities, and we can assess an imputed value based on that access without needing to take account of anything that might or might not exist on the plot. But when we analyze the Bay Area all at once, our small plot of land in San Francisco has access to nothing. (Nothing, that is, that we haven't pledged to ignore while we assess land value.) Now it's nearly worthless. So is the rest of the land in our (very large) plot. The assessed value of the Bay Area is probably outright less than the assessed value of the small plot in San Francisco. This means that implementing a land value tax will inexorably cause intense concentration of landownership, because owning more land lowers your property taxes. Do you see that as a goal of Georgism? > In most cities, the value of the land isn't from the land itself. Which means that a land value tax will raise almost no revenue. > Rather, the value of the land is in getting access to all the development around that piece of land. And that gap, between the development on a particular piece of land, and all the development around a piece of land, is what Georgists point to as both a fundamental economic inefficiency Again, the inefficiency will be solved by large-scale ownership, so that there is nothing of significance around the plot being assessed. It will all be internal.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> There are a couple of ways to define land, for example, 1) ownership of land confers rights in a society, and 2) an economic factor that has finite supply. No. All economic factors have finite supply. Many of them are more tightly restricted than land is. Gold would be a paradigm of a "non-land" good, but it is not known for its elastic supply. > You can't have a shortage of floor space without that shortage of land, because they are linked by law. I don't think this says what you wanted to say. Your sentence states that, by law, there is a minimum amount of floorage buildable on any given area of land. This is most certainly not the case in California, where the state will go to great efforts to prevent even one story from being built on much of the land. >> In the absence of development, the land under San Francisco would have inherent value as a port. > It only has value as a port if there is development elsewhere around San Francisco that makes San Francisco a valuable location for a port. This is incorrect. San Francisco has a lot of value as a port, regardless of whether there is a port or any other development there, because the location of ports, like the location of farms, is not arbitrary. Denver has no value as a port. This is (part of) the "land value" that Georgism proposes to tax. San Francisco is on better land. More generally, agricultural, logistical, and military value often inhere in a particular plot of land, but "proximity" value doesn't. > Los Angeles has lots of value as a port because of the rail lines that connect it to so much development. Nope. It is a matter of record why the port in Los Angeles (technically, Long Beach) was built - the longshoremen's union in the (then significant, now dead) port of San Francisco objected to container shipping, so the shipping companies paid for the construction of a new port in an area with no longshoremen. That was the value of being in Los Angeles. > This is a fundamental Georgist point: development and access to what the amenities of the developments are what makes land valuable. Except that the Georgist proposal is to assess no taxes on developments. People say that access to developments will still be taxed, but this is logically incoherent. Access to developments is itself a development. Consider the appropriate taxes on the Bay Area. A small plot of land in San Francisco has access to many nearby amenities, and we can assess an imputed value based on that access without needing to take account of anything that might or might not exist on the plot. But when we analyze the Bay Area all at once, our small plot of land in San Francisco has access to nothing. (Nothing, that is, that we haven't pledged to ignore while we assess land value.) Now it's nearly worthless. So is the rest of the land in our (very large) plot. The assessed value of the Bay Area is probably outright less than the assessed value of the small plot in San Francisco. This means that implementing a land value tax will inexorably cause intense concentration of landownership, because owning more land lowers your property taxes. Do you see that as a goal of Georgism? > In most cities, the value of the land isn't from the land itself. Which means that a land value tax will raise almost no revenue. > Rather, the value of the land is in getting access to all the development around that piece of land. And that gap, between the development on a particular piece of land, and all the development around a piece of land, is what Georgists point to as both a fundamental economic inefficiency Again, the inefficiency will be solved by large-scale ownership, so that there is nothing of significance around the plot being assessed. It will all be internal.