6 ms·

Man I wanted to write about georgism (see my comment on the parent's post where I talk about land parasites) I am such a big georgist. Seriously, I might genui

Man I wanted to write about georgism (see my comment on the parent's post where I talk about land parasites) I am such a big georgist. Seriously, I might genuinely cry seeing how georgism isn't being implemented. it is one of the most superior policy systems but the parasites own so much that we don't even discuss about it I was talking to my friend about georgism when he asked me if I was a capitalist/communist.. Basically in the end he just said, that he doesn't know about economics... so he doesn't know and they wanted to change the topic I feel like this might be a major hurdle where people think that economics is some huge mumbo jumbo when I feel like georgism and (index funds?) are two things that almost everyone should know given how simple they are.

mothballed 1y ago
Georgism is land communism. The 'community' or whoever is collecting the taxes (LVT) owns all land and rents it out. Ideal LVT puts the market value of all land at $0 after tax liabilities, so even if you could 'own' land under Georgism it would largely be economically meaningless. It's straight up marxism hidden as a capitalist market measure. Vacant land portion of property taxes are essentially georgism-light where the land capital is mostly under a capitalist model but with a % owned by the community (or more likely, a government that commonly works against community interests) and rented out in the form of property tax (in georgism the % is 100).
- tomrod 1y ago
  Georgism explicitly rejects Marx's class-based analysis and Marx's narrative of zero-sum class conflict. What symptoms Marx attributes to class conflict, George attributes to rent-seeking, something which both Georgists and capitalists agree is a corruption of capitalism, rather than an inherent element. Whereas Marxists conflate economic rent and return on capital - an economically unjustifiable leap in logic. Marxism explicitly rejects classical liberal principles such as the rule of law, limited government, free markets, and individual rights, Georgism not only functions within those principles, but requires them. Marxism is incompatible with individual rights due to its hostile position on private property and its insistence that all means of production be collective property. The most fundamental means of production of them all is an individual's labor. Without which, no amount of land would produce a farm, a mine, a house, or a city. And then we wonder why Marxist regimes consistently run slave labor camps. Henry George argues that society only has the right to lay claim to economic goods produced by society, rather than an individual. Marxism recognizes no such distinction. Georgism is fully defensible using classical economics and has been repeatedly endorsed by both classical and modern economists. Marxism is at best heterodox economics and at worst, pseudoscience. Georgism could be implemented tomorrow if sufficient political will existed. Marxism requires a violent overthrow of the state. Henry George himself rejected Marxism, famously predicting that if it was ever tried, the inevitable result would be a dictatorship. Unlike Marx's predictions, that prediction of George's has a 100% validation rate. And he made that prediction while Marx was still alive. Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value (Georgism/LVT) does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes. Suffices to say, you are not sharing a grounded opinion on Georgism.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    The Trojan Horse of Georgism does all the things you disdain, for land, which is the most vile of all because land creatures can't escape it. The genius is Georgism pretends like it's not Marxist by using market principles, but zeroing them out so you don't actually own it and you end back in land communism. >Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value (Georgism/LVT) does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes. This is not an accurate portrayal, there is an extensive list of problems with Georgism that destroys much of the important methods of allocating and using land, even if you could tax it accurately.[] [] https://cdn.mises.org/Single%20Tax%20Economic%20and%20Moral%20Implications_2.pdf https://cdn.mises.org/Single%20Tax%20Economic%20and%20Moral%...
    - tomrod 1y ago
      You're on a lonely island there, and despite the followup edit for a reference to the Mises Institute, your thoughts represents neither mainstream nor, especially recently, what their own Pete Boettke would declare, mainline economics. Thanks for your thoughts, I've reviewed them and found them inaccurate. Smith, Adam (1776). "Chapter 2, Article 1: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses". The Wealth of Nations, Book V. Tideman, Nicolaus; Gaffney, Mason (1994). Land and Taxation. Shepheard-Walwyn in association with Centre for Incentive Taxation. ISBN 978-0-85683-162-1.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        You're quoting how Adam Smith hated landlords/rent, yet you seek to enslave all of society by making the government the landlord of everyone. From Smith's citation you have here, you would seek to exacerbate the problem he identifies.
        tomrod 1y ago
        Thank you again for your thoughts, this will be my last response to you since, based on our interaction, I believe you want the last word. You are substantively incorrect in assertions. You have yet move beyond an assertion that "Georgism is Marxism." I have provided both justification why you assertion is invalid, and pointed out that leading economists of all stripes (orthodox and heterodox) consider a land value tax to both be minimally distortive. Thanks for the opportunity to present Georgism as a superior policy over the clamor in your prior comments.
- nostrademons 1y ago
  "Land communism" isn't a bad way to put it. But I think you need to make a pretty clear distinction between "land" communism and, well, communism. Communism is based on public ownership of the means of production: if you own a steel factory, you don't really "own" a steel factory, the people own the factory and the state appoints a bureaucrat or manager to run it. You can receive no profit from it, you can't sell it, really you have no rights to it other than the state's promise to let you manage it (and whatever they pay you for that). Georgism explicitly still admits private property: if you own a steel factory, you actually do own a steel factory, you can make decisions about the management of that factory, you can sell it, etc. In many ways it's more capitalist than today's capitalism, because single-tax Georgism also states that there should be no income or capital gains tax, and so you receive 100% of the profits from building that factory. You just have to pay a tax to the state for the land that the factory sits on, set in proportion to what others would be willing to rent the land for. The distinction is pretty key, because it gets at the heart of human agency and incentives. Georgism does not admit private ownership of the land because the land was here before any humans were; no human suddenly built the land, and no human can destroy it, they can only manage its use. Likewise for other common goods (like pollution, the electromagnetic spectrum, natural resources, etc.) which Georgism seeks to manage. Georgism does admit private property, because when you construct a machine or a factory or invent a new process, that came out of your own efforts. It could be summed up as "private persons own what they build or buy, the public owns what was here before".

mothballed 1y ago

Georgism is land communism. The 'community' or whoever is collecting the taxes (LVT) owns all land and rents it out. Ideal LVT puts the market value of all land at $0 after tax liabilities, so even if you could 'own' land under Georgism it would largely be economically meaningless. It's straight up marxism hidden as a capitalist market measure. Vacant land portion of property taxes are essentially georgism-light where the land capital is mostly under a capitalist model but with a % owned by the community (or more likely, a government that commonly works against community interests) and rented out in the form of property tax (in georgism the % is 100).

tomrod 1y ago
Georgism explicitly rejects Marx's class-based analysis and Marx's narrative of zero-sum class conflict. What symptoms Marx attributes to class conflict, George attributes to rent-seeking, something which both Georgists and capitalists agree is a corruption of capitalism, rather than an inherent element. Whereas Marxists conflate economic rent and return on capital - an economically unjustifiable leap in logic. Marxism explicitly rejects classical liberal principles such as the rule of law, limited government, free markets, and individual rights, Georgism not only functions within those principles, but requires them. Marxism is incompatible with individual rights due to its hostile position on private property and its insistence that all means of production be collective property. The most fundamental means of production of them all is an individual's labor. Without which, no amount of land would produce a farm, a mine, a house, or a city. And then we wonder why Marxist regimes consistently run slave labor camps. Henry George argues that society only has the right to lay claim to economic goods produced by society, rather than an individual. Marxism recognizes no such distinction. Georgism is fully defensible using classical economics and has been repeatedly endorsed by both classical and modern economists. Marxism is at best heterodox economics and at worst, pseudoscience. Georgism could be implemented tomorrow if sufficient political will existed. Marxism requires a violent overthrow of the state. Henry George himself rejected Marxism, famously predicting that if it was ever tried, the inevitable result would be a dictatorship. Unlike Marx's predictions, that prediction of George's has a 100% validation rate. And he made that prediction while Marx was still alive. Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value (Georgism/LVT) does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes. Suffices to say, you are not sharing a grounded opinion on Georgism.
- mothballed 1y ago
  The Trojan Horse of Georgism does all the things you disdain, for land, which is the most vile of all because land creatures can't escape it. The genius is Georgism pretends like it's not Marxist by using market principles, but zeroing them out so you don't actually own it and you end back in land communism. >Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value (Georgism/LVT) does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes. This is not an accurate portrayal, there is an extensive list of problems with Georgism that destroys much of the important methods of allocating and using land, even if you could tax it accurately.[] [] https://cdn.mises.org/Single%20Tax%20Economic%20and%20Moral%20Implications_2.pdf https://cdn.mises.org/Single%20Tax%20Economic%20and%20Moral%...
  - tomrod 1y ago
    You're on a lonely island there, and despite the followup edit for a reference to the Mises Institute, your thoughts represents neither mainstream nor, especially recently, what their own Pete Boettke would declare, mainline economics. Thanks for your thoughts, I've reviewed them and found them inaccurate. Smith, Adam (1776). "Chapter 2, Article 1: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses". The Wealth of Nations, Book V. Tideman, Nicolaus; Gaffney, Mason (1994). Land and Taxation. Shepheard-Walwyn in association with Centre for Incentive Taxation. ISBN 978-0-85683-162-1.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      You're quoting how Adam Smith hated landlords/rent, yet you seek to enslave all of society by making the government the landlord of everyone. From Smith's citation you have here, you would seek to exacerbate the problem he identifies.
      - tomrod 1y ago
        Thank you again for your thoughts, this will be my last response to you since, based on our interaction, I believe you want the last word. You are substantively incorrect in assertions. You have yet move beyond an assertion that "Georgism is Marxism." I have provided both justification why you assertion is invalid, and pointed out that leading economists of all stripes (orthodox and heterodox) consider a land value tax to both be minimally distortive. Thanks for the opportunity to present Georgism as a superior policy over the clamor in your prior comments.
nostrademons 1y ago
"Land communism" isn't a bad way to put it. But I think you need to make a pretty clear distinction between "land" communism and, well, communism. Communism is based on public ownership of the means of production: if you own a steel factory, you don't really "own" a steel factory, the people own the factory and the state appoints a bureaucrat or manager to run it. You can receive no profit from it, you can't sell it, really you have no rights to it other than the state's promise to let you manage it (and whatever they pay you for that). Georgism explicitly still admits private property: if you own a steel factory, you actually do own a steel factory, you can make decisions about the management of that factory, you can sell it, etc. In many ways it's more capitalist than today's capitalism, because single-tax Georgism also states that there should be no income or capital gains tax, and so you receive 100% of the profits from building that factory. You just have to pay a tax to the state for the land that the factory sits on, set in proportion to what others would be willing to rent the land for. The distinction is pretty key, because it gets at the heart of human agency and incentives. Georgism does not admit private ownership of the land because the land was here before any humans were; no human suddenly built the land, and no human can destroy it, they can only manage its use. Likewise for other common goods (like pollution, the electromagnetic spectrum, natural resources, etc.) which Georgism seeks to manage. Georgism does admit private property, because when you construct a machine or a factory or invent a new process, that came out of your own efforts. It could be summed up as "private persons own what they build or buy, the public owns what was here before".