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I've always found it interesting HN is so focused on Georgism given it's leanings. It works out fine for hyper capitalists who eek out highly efficient use of

I've always found it interesting HN is so focused on Georgism given it's leanings. It works out fine for hyper capitalists who eek out highly efficient use of land for stuff like a steel mill but is arguably devastating to the average joe who uses it for economically unprofitable uses like a place to let his toddler or dog play. Property tax is definitely more preferable to the prol and even programmer wage slave, who can eek out low taxes on a larger leisure plot by not improving it and won't be forced to drill for oil or something to pay the George tax like it held a higher averaged common value. In many senses property tax is progressivism while Georgism land tax is a hyper capitalist steamroller that cares not you've barely been able to improve the land with a decrepit mobile home and meanwhile taxes the baron with the gold plated loan shark palace the same.

waihtis 3y ago
A classic case of theory vs reality. Some things that look good on paper in a limited scope are devastating when used in more complex contexts. See also: communism and all it's other variants.
- soundarana 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - onionisafruit 3y ago
    I tried free markets last weekend. It works great. Roger Clinton was right, “free the market and the booty will follow”.
  - benterix 3y ago
    I'm not sure if you are being serious or not, but just in case: many versions of communism and socialism have been tried. When introduced at a country level, not only didn't they eradicate mass poverty or class inequalities (they just got other names), but for some reason they came with totalitarianism, violence, restricting freedom of speech, prosecuting enemies and other side-effects. The cases where it (kind of) worked were local communes like Longo Mai (but even in these cases people argue because they receive donations, use external medical care etc.). The key difference in my opinion is that for any ideology to succeed, all members need to believe in it and actively engage towards its success. It's pretty much feasible at a local level but extremely difficult at a state level.
- at_compile_time 3y ago
  Communism only looks good on paper if you know nothing about human behavior. Georgism aims to take the best aspects of capitalism (market-driven optimization) while restraining some of its worst qualities (speculative bubbles driving higher prices and rents which in turn strangle the economy).
  - waihtis 3y ago
    > Communism only looks good on paper if you know nothing about human behavior. Yet even HN is full of people dreaming of the proletariat revolution
nerdponx 3y ago
> I've always found it interesting HN is so focused on Georgism given it's leanings. It works out fine for hyper capitalists That seems pretty much right on target for HN.
epistasis 3y ago
This is absolutely wrong, the average person owning a home would be far better off with a land value tax than property tax, it's typically a tax cut. Gen the increased economic efficiency helps a ton. The only people who "lose" are speculative land bankers and exploitive landlords.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jjav 3y ago
  > This is absolutely wrong, the average person owning a home would be far better off with a land value tax than property tax Everything I've read about LVT is that it would indeed hurt individual regular people home owners the most. With LVT the tax assessor is free to declare that your plot of land would be a lot more profitable with a highrise apartment building on it, so now you're going to get taxed as if one existed there. Even if all you own is an old shack.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Most people do not live on a plot of land where a highrise is economically feasible. Those who do already have homes worth astonishingly high values. Check out ant actual evaluation of LVT, such as Lars' Doucet's. Or places where it has been implemented (Vancouver pre 1970s, parts of Pittsburgh, etc.).
    - beaeglebeach 3y ago
      The LVT was relaxed in Vancouver in part because of the grandparent noted concerns of the democratic vote of the average joe in small non-profit-seeking property holdings that can't bear the (functionally regressive) tax the same as the ibanker overlords squeezing a skyscraper of tenants in faux-luxury studios dry.
      - epistasis 3y ago
        I think your last sentence there bears out that you have enough bias on the issue that perhaps the real concern is that it allows sky scrapers. Since dropping the LVT, Vancouver has used restrictive permitting and extreme downzoning to keep homeowners very wealthy, but also keep a far larger number of people from having access to land in Vancouver. In a normal city, you don't go from sprawl of single family homes to sky shapers, you have gradual addition of duplexes, then triplexes, then a smattering of small apartment buildings, and finally, only then perhaps, taller towers in a very tiny number of locations. This is the reality of normal development that has not been restricted by zoning. That Vancouver has so restricts housing that a skyscraper is tenable in so many locations next to sprawl homes is an indictment of the lack of so many other options in between. Certainly not a problem for a land value tax, that's a societal problem is a city ruined by exclusionary planning.
refurb 3y ago
I think Georgism has three main pitfalls: - Under the premise that a land tax should extract all value from the land leaving the improvements to the owner, it would expectedly be very high land tax near urban centers and very low taxes in rural areas. In order to maximize the return on urban plots, the builder is incentivize to build the smallest units possible in the greatest quantity. This is great for young professionals who dig living in studios, but would make family-sized housing of multiple bedrooms extremely expensive. - What do you do for all the people who will see a massive increase in taxes? Force them to sell? I'm pretty sure that's political suicide for any politician. Or do some sort of exemption like Prop 19 al la California? Now we're back at square one. - Who decides what the productive value of the land is? Presumably someone will need to set it, as there is no objective way to determine it (like there is with the value of raw land). Nor would it stay static over time, since improvements around a property, increase the productive value of the land. That's a huge opportunity for politics to come into play to game the valuations, and create special exclusions to buy votes. And if you think about it, we have a quasi-land tax already in place. In CA, the tax rate is static, and most of the value of a house is in the land anyways. So owners (ignoring Prop 19) are paying a property tax based on the value of the land. I do recognize it's the market value of the land, which is different than Georgism which is the productive value of the land.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  A land value tax is not on the “productive value of the land.” It’s on the unimproved value of the land, I.e. raw land value. And no, Prop 19 is not effectively a land tax, it in fact yields the exact opposite effect which is appreciation in the land does not impact a landowner’s tax bill. Under LVT, fluctuations in land price directly affect the landowner’s tax bill.
solatic 3y ago
The deeper question is whether society should subsidize inefficiency for the sake of social stability. You're making the claim that social stability is always preferable, but this is more widely considered to be debatable at best. * Should healthcare payers (whether private, through regulations on private insurance, or public, e.g. Medicare) be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for life-extending care for the terminally ill in great pain, thus inflicting responsibility for those rising costs on the rest of society? * Should the elderly be spared from rising property taxes on the mostly-empty houses where they raised their families, so that they won't be forced to move, thus making housing shortages worse? * Should we prevent employers from firing people from jobs which are no longer needed, like gas station attendants, so that those workers will have guaranteed employment, thus preventing consumer prices from falling? At the very least, it's debatable, and not obviously a good thing.
- beaeglebeach 3y ago
  As an ancap you're the first to ever accuse me of this, and my mere ability to view outcomes from perspective of others is in no way the claim you've accused me of making.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

waihtis 3y ago

A classic case of theory vs reality. Some things that look good on paper in a limited scope are devastating when used in more complex contexts. See also: communism and all it's other variants.

soundarana 3y ago
[flagged]
- onionisafruit 3y ago
  I tried free markets last weekend. It works great. Roger Clinton was right, “free the market and the booty will follow”.
- benterix 3y ago
  I'm not sure if you are being serious or not, but just in case: many versions of communism and socialism have been tried. When introduced at a country level, not only didn't they eradicate mass poverty or class inequalities (they just got other names), but for some reason they came with totalitarianism, violence, restricting freedom of speech, prosecuting enemies and other side-effects. The cases where it (kind of) worked were local communes like Longo Mai (but even in these cases people argue because they receive donations, use external medical care etc.). The key difference in my opinion is that for any ideology to succeed, all members need to believe in it and actively engage towards its success. It's pretty much feasible at a local level but extremely difficult at a state level.
at_compile_time 3y ago
Communism only looks good on paper if you know nothing about human behavior. Georgism aims to take the best aspects of capitalism (market-driven optimization) while restraining some of its worst qualities (speculative bubbles driving higher prices and rents which in turn strangle the economy).
- waihtis 3y ago
  > Communism only looks good on paper if you know nothing about human behavior. Yet even HN is full of people dreaming of the proletariat revolution

nerdponx 3y ago

> I've always found it interesting HN is so focused on Georgism given it's leanings. It works out fine for hyper capitalists That seems pretty much right on target for HN.

epistasis 3y ago

This is absolutely wrong, the average person owning a home would be far better off with a land value tax than property tax, it's typically a tax cut. Gen the increased economic efficiency helps a ton. The only people who "lose" are speculative land bankers and exploitive landlords.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jjav 3y ago
> This is absolutely wrong, the average person owning a home would be far better off with a land value tax than property tax Everything I've read about LVT is that it would indeed hurt individual regular people home owners the most. With LVT the tax assessor is free to declare that your plot of land would be a lot more profitable with a highrise apartment building on it, so now you're going to get taxed as if one existed there. Even if all you own is an old shack.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Most people do not live on a plot of land where a highrise is economically feasible. Those who do already have homes worth astonishingly high values. Check out ant actual evaluation of LVT, such as Lars' Doucet's. Or places where it has been implemented (Vancouver pre 1970s, parts of Pittsburgh, etc.).
  - beaeglebeach 3y ago
    The LVT was relaxed in Vancouver in part because of the grandparent noted concerns of the democratic vote of the average joe in small non-profit-seeking property holdings that can't bear the (functionally regressive) tax the same as the ibanker overlords squeezing a skyscraper of tenants in faux-luxury studios dry.
    - epistasis 3y ago
      I think your last sentence there bears out that you have enough bias on the issue that perhaps the real concern is that it allows sky scrapers. Since dropping the LVT, Vancouver has used restrictive permitting and extreme downzoning to keep homeowners very wealthy, but also keep a far larger number of people from having access to land in Vancouver. In a normal city, you don't go from sprawl of single family homes to sky shapers, you have gradual addition of duplexes, then triplexes, then a smattering of small apartment buildings, and finally, only then perhaps, taller towers in a very tiny number of locations. This is the reality of normal development that has not been restricted by zoning. That Vancouver has so restricts housing that a skyscraper is tenable in so many locations next to sprawl homes is an indictment of the lack of so many other options in between. Certainly not a problem for a land value tax, that's a societal problem is a city ruined by exclusionary planning.

refurb 3y ago

I think Georgism has three main pitfalls: - Under the premise that a land tax should extract all value from the land leaving the improvements to the owner, it would expectedly be very high land tax near urban centers and very low taxes in rural areas. In order to maximize the return on urban plots, the builder is incentivize to build the smallest units possible in the greatest quantity. This is great for young professionals who dig living in studios, but would make family-sized housing of multiple bedrooms extremely expensive. - What do you do for all the people who will see a massive increase in taxes? Force them to sell? I'm pretty sure that's political suicide for any politician. Or do some sort of exemption like Prop 19 al la California? Now we're back at square one. - Who decides what the productive value of the land is? Presumably someone will need to set it, as there is no objective way to determine it (like there is with the value of raw land). Nor would it stay static over time, since improvements around a property, increase the productive value of the land. That's a huge opportunity for politics to come into play to game the valuations, and create special exclusions to buy votes. And if you think about it, we have a quasi-land tax already in place. In CA, the tax rate is static, and most of the value of a house is in the land anyways. So owners (ignoring Prop 19) are paying a property tax based on the value of the land. I do recognize it's the market value of the land, which is different than Georgism which is the productive value of the land.

ethanbond 3y ago
A land value tax is not on the “productive value of the land.” It’s on the unimproved value of the land, I.e. raw land value. And no, Prop 19 is not effectively a land tax, it in fact yields the exact opposite effect which is appreciation in the land does not impact a landowner’s tax bill. Under LVT, fluctuations in land price directly affect the landowner’s tax bill.

solatic 3y ago

The deeper question is whether society should subsidize inefficiency for the sake of social stability. You're making the claim that social stability is always preferable, but this is more widely considered to be debatable at best. * Should healthcare payers (whether private, through regulations on private insurance, or public, e.g. Medicare) be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for life-extending care for the terminally ill in great pain, thus inflicting responsibility for those rising costs on the rest of society? * Should the elderly be spared from rising property taxes on the mostly-empty houses where they raised their families, so that they won't be forced to move, thus making housing shortages worse? * Should we prevent employers from firing people from jobs which are no longer needed, like gas station attendants, so that those workers will have guaranteed employment, thus preventing consumer prices from falling? At the very least, it's debatable, and not obviously a good thing.

beaeglebeach 3y ago
As an ancap you're the first to ever accuse me of this, and my mere ability to view outcomes from perspective of others is in no way the claim you've accused me of making.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]