3 ms·

Taxing land is definitely not a revolutionary concept. What made George famous is that he wrote a manifesto that blamed the "rich" land owners for all the ills

Taxing land is definitely not a revolutionary concept. What made George famous is that he wrote a manifesto that blamed the "rich" land owners for all the ills of society, and proposed that solving the problem would be as simple as levying another tax. It sounds good but has little substance or relation to actual economics.

slwvx 2y ago
I'd prefer a more substantive critique than an ad-hominem statement
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  That is not an ad hominem statement. It is an opinion about how overblown the idea is and why George is famous for it. Some property tax is probably a good idea. Does this dude deserve credit for the idea? No. Is he right in asserting that all poverty results from a lack of access to land? No. Will property tax make the economy go brrr? No. The idea of choosing the uses of land by taxing the hell out of random entities just because you think have the money to pay for it is tantamount to communism. I'm not about to read a whole book on the supposed revolutionary merits of property tax, thank you very much.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Oh yeah, now that I got to this comment of yours… it’s very evident you haven’t read it by your (honestly, I don’t say this just to be insulting) downright cartoonish misunderstanding of its contents. Even more impressive, it’s obvious you haven’t even read a decent critique or summary of it. You should consider it! There’s a reason for its stature :)
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      I disagree. I listened to an hour long, glowing summary of it and read about it on Wikipedia. It is just not convincing to me. The only thing cartoonish is how hard people praise it, considering we already have property taxes much like George wanted, which are often quite high and don't add to the economy. Property taxes like that are very close to communism, especially if you take it to an extreme. The higher the taxes, the less you actually own anything. I have also had the displeasure of arguing with someone who thinks Henry George had the right idea. The dude was literally defending the communist Chinese "property" model which is just a 70 year lease from the government. Calling my view extreme is like saying that an atheist is religious. Just because I don't accept this idea and all the ensuing conclusions, does not make my views extreme or unreasonable, much less "cartoonish"...
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        Sorry, I didn’t mean cartoonish in the sense of extreme (quite the opposite), I meant it in the sense of not understanding what you’re talking about. You’ve stuffed an impressive number of misunderstandings into these few comments, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to help you unwind them except to say you should read the book.
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        Well, perhaps the people glorifying this book are the ones who have misunderstood it. They certainly did not convey anything about it to me besides what I have said and criticized here. I don't feel the need to read it one way or another. If the main idea is simply that property tax can be good, I already think that. If the main idea is that property tax is likely to fix poverty and inequality (as I have been led to believe), nothing in it can possibly convince me of that. On a similar note, I don't think that reading a Bible will make me doubt the theory of evolution, or the laws of physics. And you can't convince me that the Bible is not contrary to those principles, because I know better than that.
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        That’s not the main idea. In fact it’s the opposite of the main idea. You do not understand what you’re arguing against, and it’s not a subtle misunderstanding either. You are wrong on the very core of the idea.
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        So, again, if I misunderstand the ideas and nature of the book, it is because fans of the book do not understand it either. I think we are disagreeing about definitions. I looked at a wiki page about Georgism and I am even more convinced that this is the case and it is being co-opted by communist/socialist influencers. Anyway, it does not matter. This whole thread is going nowhere.
        2y ago
  - RockyRoads 2y ago
    As a bystander, I am baffled. You are clearly misunderstanding the core ideas of the book, yet adamant that you wouldn’t learn anything from reading it. Your reduction of the ideas to communism is juvenile. In fact, the alternative tax system proposed would keep value produced from labor in the private hands of the laborer — in essence the exact opposite of communism. Taxation can take many forms, and the details matter quite a lot. Until you open your mind to realize this, even if you still disagreed with the proposals, I think you’ll continue failing to understand why Progress and Poverty is globally one of the most widely distributed political economy books in history.
llamaimperative 2y ago
I suspect you don’t know what you’re talking about based on your subsequent conflation of property tax with a land value tax. That’s a good shibboleth for “never have actually engaged this idea.”
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  Property tax is a land value tax. You literally pay a percentage of some notional value of your property every year, largely based on how you use it. The fact you don't recognize that is a good shibboleth for "never have engaged with the real world."
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    A portion of a property tax is a land value tax, but 1) it’s only one portion of it and 2) it’s the opposite of the portion that you just described. It’s very specifically not based on how you use the land. And that’s literally the core fact of the system. The two calculations yield entirely different incentives. It’s clear you misunderstood it. I recommend reading the book itself as it will be clearer than you’ve apparently had it explained.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      >It’s very specifically not based on how you use the land. Sorry but you are wrong. Farmers and homeowners pay less than investors. If you build expensive stuff on the property (put another way, if you USE it to do something expensive) you generally pay more. Again, I don't need to read a whole book, much less one based on pure idealism and with no thought given to real economic data and real human nature, to know that it is generally wrong. I don't need to read the whole book here any more than I need to read the whole bible to doubt it. You need to learn about the real world and stop assuming you know better than everyone just because you read an old book. Sometimes a book review is actually enough to get the gist. I even got reviews from people who thought highly of the book, and I was unconvinced.
      - 2y ago

slwvx 2y ago

I'd prefer a more substantive critique than an ad-hominem statement

wakawaka28 2y ago
That is not an ad hominem statement. It is an opinion about how overblown the idea is and why George is famous for it. Some property tax is probably a good idea. Does this dude deserve credit for the idea? No. Is he right in asserting that all poverty results from a lack of access to land? No. Will property tax make the economy go brrr? No. The idea of choosing the uses of land by taxing the hell out of random entities just because you think have the money to pay for it is tantamount to communism. I'm not about to read a whole book on the supposed revolutionary merits of property tax, thank you very much.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Oh yeah, now that I got to this comment of yours… it’s very evident you haven’t read it by your (honestly, I don’t say this just to be insulting) downright cartoonish misunderstanding of its contents. Even more impressive, it’s obvious you haven’t even read a decent critique or summary of it. You should consider it! There’s a reason for its stature :)
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    I disagree. I listened to an hour long, glowing summary of it and read about it on Wikipedia. It is just not convincing to me. The only thing cartoonish is how hard people praise it, considering we already have property taxes much like George wanted, which are often quite high and don't add to the economy. Property taxes like that are very close to communism, especially if you take it to an extreme. The higher the taxes, the less you actually own anything. I have also had the displeasure of arguing with someone who thinks Henry George had the right idea. The dude was literally defending the communist Chinese "property" model which is just a 70 year lease from the government. Calling my view extreme is like saying that an atheist is religious. Just because I don't accept this idea and all the ensuing conclusions, does not make my views extreme or unreasonable, much less "cartoonish"...
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      Sorry, I didn’t mean cartoonish in the sense of extreme (quite the opposite), I meant it in the sense of not understanding what you’re talking about. You’ve stuffed an impressive number of misunderstandings into these few comments, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to help you unwind them except to say you should read the book.
      - wakawaka28 2y ago
        Well, perhaps the people glorifying this book are the ones who have misunderstood it. They certainly did not convey anything about it to me besides what I have said and criticized here. I don't feel the need to read it one way or another. If the main idea is simply that property tax can be good, I already think that. If the main idea is that property tax is likely to fix poverty and inequality (as I have been led to believe), nothing in it can possibly convince me of that. On a similar note, I don't think that reading a Bible will make me doubt the theory of evolution, or the laws of physics. And you can't convince me that the Bible is not contrary to those principles, because I know better than that.
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        That’s not the main idea. In fact it’s the opposite of the main idea. You do not understand what you’re arguing against, and it’s not a subtle misunderstanding either. You are wrong on the very core of the idea.
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        So, again, if I misunderstand the ideas and nature of the book, it is because fans of the book do not understand it either. I think we are disagreeing about definitions. I looked at a wiki page about Georgism and I am even more convinced that this is the case and it is being co-opted by communist/socialist influencers. Anyway, it does not matter. This whole thread is going nowhere.
        2y ago
- RockyRoads 2y ago
  As a bystander, I am baffled. You are clearly misunderstanding the core ideas of the book, yet adamant that you wouldn’t learn anything from reading it. Your reduction of the ideas to communism is juvenile. In fact, the alternative tax system proposed would keep value produced from labor in the private hands of the laborer — in essence the exact opposite of communism. Taxation can take many forms, and the details matter quite a lot. Until you open your mind to realize this, even if you still disagreed with the proposals, I think you’ll continue failing to understand why Progress and Poverty is globally one of the most widely distributed political economy books in history.

llamaimperative 2y ago

I suspect you don’t know what you’re talking about based on your subsequent conflation of property tax with a land value tax. That’s a good shibboleth for “never have actually engaged this idea.”

wakawaka28 2y ago
Property tax is a land value tax. You literally pay a percentage of some notional value of your property every year, largely based on how you use it. The fact you don't recognize that is a good shibboleth for "never have engaged with the real world."
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  A portion of a property tax is a land value tax, but 1) it’s only one portion of it and 2) it’s the opposite of the portion that you just described. It’s very specifically not based on how you use the land. And that’s literally the core fact of the system. The two calculations yield entirely different incentives. It’s clear you misunderstood it. I recommend reading the book itself as it will be clearer than you’ve apparently had it explained.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    >It’s very specifically not based on how you use the land. Sorry but you are wrong. Farmers and homeowners pay less than investors. If you build expensive stuff on the property (put another way, if you USE it to do something expensive) you generally pay more. Again, I don't need to read a whole book, much less one based on pure idealism and with no thought given to real economic data and real human nature, to know that it is generally wrong. I don't need to read the whole book here any more than I need to read the whole bible to doubt it. You need to learn about the real world and stop assuming you know better than everyone just because you read an old book. Sometimes a book review is actually enough to get the gist. I even got reviews from people who thought highly of the book, and I was unconvinced.
    - 2y ago