5 ms·

This comment is a bit surprising to me. Your point seems to be that strong policies which impose significant good will face significant resistance and so there'

This comment is a bit surprising to me. Your point seems to be that strong policies which impose significant good will face significant resistance and so there's no point doing them. I don't think that makes any sense. Workers rights, regulations around dumping waste, capital gains taxes... There are a lot of things that we already have which some people with power have a strong incentive to remove. We had to fight to implement and to keep these, but goddamnit is it worth it! I don't see why we shouldn't be optimistic here because historically speaking things have gotten much much better! To me, a gradual and consistent ramping up lvt would be probably the most progressive policy a country could pass at this point :D

HPsquared 2y ago
Not everyone shares the same value judgements of what is good and bad.
- adverbly 2y ago
  Are you trying to say that any kind of discussion around ethics or values is pointless because it's possible for people to disagree? I think it's much better to discuss actual policies rather than to question the point of even being able to have discussions around what people think would make for a better world.
  - whythre 2y ago
    I think they are pointing out that if the first principles are completely different, everything that follows after will be different also. What is good/bad determines what policies should be pursued, and those actual real-world police’s may be as different as night and day.
mwigdahl 2y ago
The problem (and for the record I favor LVT myself) is that many of the other things you mention -- the 8 hour workday, environmental regs, etc. -- have clear positive effects that an average person doesn't have to take action to benefit from. If you tried to take them away, people would notice and object. For a typical homeowner, the effect of LVT would be pretty neutral, by design. Proposals I've seen advocate changing the _distribution_ of single-family home taxes between land and improvements, but not the _total_. Yes, LVT would discourage speculators from buying land as an investment without improving it, which is a societal good. But it's not direct and short term like many of your other examples. I think GP's point stands that rolling back LVT would be highly desired by big landowners (who could then return to do-nothing land appreciation and rents for their profits rather than be required to actually _do something_ with the land to earn over its taxed value), while the average Jane couldn't care less, because it wouldn't really impact her tax bill. That sort of situation is not stable long term. To make it more stable, you'd need to set it up so that LVT lowered the average voter's tax bill. I'm not sure how feasible that is.
- alexb_ 2y ago
  > I think GP's point stands that rolling back LVT would be highly desired by big landowners (who could then return to do-nothing land appreciation for their profits rather than be required to actually _do something_ with the land to earn over its taxed value), while the average Jane couldn't care less, because it wouldn't really impact her tax bill. I think the average person actually cares an incredible amount about property taxes, especially when it comes to local politics. Local news stations talk all the time about "property tax relief", and there's a general sentiment from just about everyone involved in local politics that property taxes are a useless drain. Which in some cases they are - property taxes really only "work" when they roughly approximate LVT, but it leaves suburbanites feeling overtaxed (because they are, compared to the value of their land) and they have massive political power. I think that if LVT was simply touted as a "Property Tax Relief Plan", you could make it have massive, massive support. It wouldn't be perfect, but you could give eveyr single person a massive tax credit based on what LVT revenues would bring in, and make up for that tax credit with the LVT. For example - if you lived in a city of 100,000, and total LVTs bring in $200,000,000, you could give every single person a $2000 "Tax Relief Credit" deductible from all city taxes. You change nothing about how much money is raised, only the distribution, and in a way where 95% of people visibly see their tax bill go down. Good luck getting rid of that!
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    >Local news stations talk all the time about "property tax relief", and there's a general sentiment from just about everyone involved in local politics that property taxes are a useless drain. That is because they are not marginal, and they are not land value taxes. You basically get rewarded for leaving a large piece of land undeveloped in the middle of an urban area. You do no work, and reap all the gains of appreciation while society around you does the work of making the place desirable to live, hence making the land desirable to buy. You also get armed protection via military, police, and courts, and all of their salaries are disproportionately paid by everyone else doing work. Earned income instead of property tax is the biggest and most perverse subsidy from working people (especially young) to non working asset owners (and older people) and hence collect rent. On top of that, we give lower tax rates to capital gains, and on top of that, we let land owners indefinitely defer taxes via 1031 exchanges. Exactly the opposite of what a just society would want to incentivize. We take from laborers and give to owners (and their descendants). And then dream about becoming owners ourselves.
ducttapecrown 2y ago
I don't think you should read the above comment as a lack of optimism, but instead as warning that conviction is required to enact the optimistic vision. Yes, strong policies which impose significant good will always face significant resistance because finite resources cause many to see the world as a zero-sum game. This is the progressive vs reactionary battle.
- at_compile_time 2y ago
  You've read it correctly.
ls-lah_33 2y ago
> I don't see why we shouldn't be optimistic here because historically speaking things have gotten much much better! To me, a gradual and consistent ramping up lvt would be probably the most progressive policy a country could pass at this point :D This is probably more feasible than you think. A hybrid or split rate combining both land and property taxes is not only possible but apparently exists in practice in some cities, for example Pittsburgh. https://www.chicagofed.org/-/media/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2023/cfl489.pdf https://www.chicagofed.org/-/media/publications/chicago-fed-...

HPsquared 2y ago

Not everyone shares the same value judgements of what is good and bad.

adverbly 2y ago
Are you trying to say that any kind of discussion around ethics or values is pointless because it's possible for people to disagree? I think it's much better to discuss actual policies rather than to question the point of even being able to have discussions around what people think would make for a better world.
- whythre 2y ago
  I think they are pointing out that if the first principles are completely different, everything that follows after will be different also. What is good/bad determines what policies should be pursued, and those actual real-world police’s may be as different as night and day.

mwigdahl 2y ago

The problem (and for the record I favor LVT myself) is that many of the other things you mention -- the 8 hour workday, environmental regs, etc. -- have clear positive effects that an average person doesn't have to take action to benefit from. If you tried to take them away, people would notice and object. For a typical homeowner, the effect of LVT would be pretty neutral, by design. Proposals I've seen advocate changing the _distribution_ of single-family home taxes between land and improvements, but not the _total_. Yes, LVT would discourage speculators from buying land as an investment without improving it, which is a societal good. But it's not direct and short term like many of your other examples. I think GP's point stands that rolling back LVT would be highly desired by big landowners (who could then return to do-nothing land appreciation and rents for their profits rather than be required to actually _do something_ with the land to earn over its taxed value), while the average Jane couldn't care less, because it wouldn't really impact her tax bill. That sort of situation is not stable long term. To make it more stable, you'd need to set it up so that LVT lowered the average voter's tax bill. I'm not sure how feasible that is.

alexb_ 2y ago
> I think GP's point stands that rolling back LVT would be highly desired by big landowners (who could then return to do-nothing land appreciation for their profits rather than be required to actually _do something_ with the land to earn over its taxed value), while the average Jane couldn't care less, because it wouldn't really impact her tax bill. I think the average person actually cares an incredible amount about property taxes, especially when it comes to local politics. Local news stations talk all the time about "property tax relief", and there's a general sentiment from just about everyone involved in local politics that property taxes are a useless drain. Which in some cases they are - property taxes really only "work" when they roughly approximate LVT, but it leaves suburbanites feeling overtaxed (because they are, compared to the value of their land) and they have massive political power. I think that if LVT was simply touted as a "Property Tax Relief Plan", you could make it have massive, massive support. It wouldn't be perfect, but you could give eveyr single person a massive tax credit based on what LVT revenues would bring in, and make up for that tax credit with the LVT. For example - if you lived in a city of 100,000, and total LVTs bring in $200,000,000, you could give every single person a $2000 "Tax Relief Credit" deductible from all city taxes. You change nothing about how much money is raised, only the distribution, and in a way where 95% of people visibly see their tax bill go down. Good luck getting rid of that!
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  >Local news stations talk all the time about "property tax relief", and there's a general sentiment from just about everyone involved in local politics that property taxes are a useless drain. That is because they are not marginal, and they are not land value taxes. You basically get rewarded for leaving a large piece of land undeveloped in the middle of an urban area. You do no work, and reap all the gains of appreciation while society around you does the work of making the place desirable to live, hence making the land desirable to buy. You also get armed protection via military, police, and courts, and all of their salaries are disproportionately paid by everyone else doing work. Earned income instead of property tax is the biggest and most perverse subsidy from working people (especially young) to non working asset owners (and older people) and hence collect rent. On top of that, we give lower tax rates to capital gains, and on top of that, we let land owners indefinitely defer taxes via 1031 exchanges. Exactly the opposite of what a just society would want to incentivize. We take from laborers and give to owners (and their descendants). And then dream about becoming owners ourselves.

ducttapecrown 2y ago

I don't think you should read the above comment as a lack of optimism, but instead as warning that conviction is required to enact the optimistic vision. Yes, strong policies which impose significant good will always face significant resistance because finite resources cause many to see the world as a zero-sum game. This is the progressive vs reactionary battle.

at_compile_time 2y ago
You've read it correctly.

ls-lah_33 2y ago

> I don't see why we shouldn't be optimistic here because historically speaking things have gotten much much better! To me, a gradual and consistent ramping up lvt would be probably the most progressive policy a country could pass at this point :D This is probably more feasible than you think. A hybrid or split rate combining both land and property taxes is not only possible but apparently exists in practice in some cities, for example Pittsburgh. https://www.chicagofed.org/-/media/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2023/cfl489.pdf https://www.chicagofed.org/-/media/publications/chicago-fed-...