Georgism

[Cambium]

Thought I'd pop something up to try and raise the profile of Georgism. Dont hear much about it on here. Wiki for starters. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

 

Quote

Georgism, also called in modern times geoism[2] and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that while people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land, including from all natural resources and the commons, should belong equally to all members of society.[3][4][5] Developed from the writings of American economist and social reformer Henry George, the Georgist paradigm seeks solutions to social and ecological problems, based on principles of land rights and public finance which attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice.[6][7]

Georgist campaign button from the 1890s in which the cat on the badge refers to a slogan "Do you see the cat?" to draw analogy to the land question[1]
Georgism is concerned with the distribution of economic rent caused by natural monopolies, pollution and the control of commons, including title of ownership for natural resources and other contrived privileges (e.g. intellectual property). Any natural resource which is inherently limited in supply can generate economic rent, but the classical and most significant example of land monopoly involves the extraction of common ground rent from valuable urban locations. Georgists argue that taxing economic rent is efficient, fair and equitable. The main Georgist policy recommendation is a tax assessed on land value. Georgists argue that revenues from a land value tax (LVT) can be used to reduce or eliminate existing taxes such as on income, trade, or purchases that are unfair and inefficient. Some Georgists also advocate for the return of surplus public revenue to the people by means of a basic income or citizen's dividend.

 

The concept of gaining public revenues mainly from land and natural resource privileges was widely popularized by Henry George through his first book, Progress and Poverty (1879). The philosophical basis of Georgism dates back to several early thinkers such as John Locke,[8] Baruch Spinoza[9] and Thomas Paine.[10] Economists since Adam Smith and David Ricardo have observed that a public levy on land value does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes.[11][12] A land value tax also has progressive tax effects.[13][14] Advocates of land value taxes argue that they would reduce economic inequality, increase economic efficiency, remove incentives to underutilize urban land and reduce property speculation.[15]

 

Georgist ideas were popular and influential during the late 19th and early 20th century.[16] Political parties, institutions and communities were founded based on Georgist principles during that time. Early devotees of Henry George's economic philosophy were often termed Single Taxers for their political goal of raising public revenue mainly or only from a land value tax, although Georgists endorsed multiple forms of rent capture (e.g. seigniorage) as legitimate.[17] The term Georgism was invented later, and some prefer the term geoism as more generic.[18][19]

 

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Cambium

[Herbsman]

Get off my land u commie bastard!

 

All & any taxation is theft.

[Degsy]

54 minutes ago, Herbsman said:

Get off my land u commie bastard!

 

All & any taxation is theft.

 

How did people get to own large amounts of land in the first place ?

[Gimps]

1 minute ago, Degsy said:

How did people get to own large amounts of land in the first place ?

They had the biggest stick.

[ratdog]

14 minutes ago, Degsy said:

 

How did people get to own large amounts of land in the first place ?

 

 

they killed the people on it and put a fence around

[Cambium]

1 hour ago, Herbsman said:

Get off my land u commie bastard!

 

All & any taxation is theft.

 

 

One of the qualities of Georgism is that if scrutinised to any degree, it should appeal to all 4 sides of the political spectrum.

 

Land ownership is the theft. Land tax is the compensation, especially when coupled with pigouvian taxes that disincentivise pollution or other down stream nastiness and the removal of labour taxes.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Cambium

[j.o.i.n.t]

Never heard of it...it is interesting. Nice share!

[uBercaMeL]

This is interesting but appears to suffer the same problem of the incentive for dishonesty not being designed against. The biggest/best bullshitters will still make the most money.

[Redeyezman]

It's to usher in one world government. See all governments want to get along with other governments, because if a government is ever really for their people they'd ruin the illusion for all the other governments. So by eliminating competition between governments then the wealth divide will be more uniform globally. All governments want more for themselves so it's not fair that some nations have wide middle class while others have narrow middle class and wide poverty. Once we only have super rich and super poor everywhere will things be fair. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Redeyezman

[Cambium]

@Redeyezman so you mean that georgism  is about ushering in what you describe? 

[Redeyezman]

On 6/23/2021 at 7:53 AM, Cambium said:

@Redeyezman so you mean that georgism  is about ushering in what you describe? 

 

Yes it's about government getting equal rent for a type of land regardless of where it is on earth. This will allow all governments to elevate equally. I don't think it will happen though because every culture has a culture they collectively despise and could never stand to see them as equal. It's the human experience. If we could fix it, we would have by now. Nothing's fixable. Best to just get by as best you can on your own.

[Cambium]

Just now, Redeyezman said:

Yes it's about government getting equal rent for a type of land regardless of where it is on earth.

 

No it isnt. Land would be taxed according to its value.

 

[Redeyezman]

Just now, Cambium said:

 

No it isnt. Land would be taxed according to its value.

 

Right. I said the type of land. A type of land where gold and oil are is taxes differently than where fresh well water is. If you understand corporations already have all the types and potential totally mapped out its not that hard to understand land value. It's already priced into markets when sold. The original George guy said there would be no confiscation of land, just confiscation of rent/tax. 

 

The Eurocentric mind always demands land be returned as a way of appearing righteous. So it will be updated and manipulated to confiscate because  voters just want new version of socialism they swear will work, but in the end it's all just different approaches to steal.

[uBercaMeL]

Quoting Einstein might well be a plonkers exercise (as he said) - 'I never said half the crap people say I did'

but after applying his awesome reasoning to physics he became interested in and wrote about economics and sociology, and many are unaware he advocated for socialism (for some reason most seem to consider it infantile idealism)..

He wrote an article called 'Why Socialism', which I tried to quote but the formatting was missing so it just showed as a wall of text. If anyone is interested (it's only a few pages) google 'red and green einstein socialism' and it's the first link.

I grew up reading Iain M banks, Greg Egan, and other nerdy sci fi writers, and in almost all of their non-dystopian visions of the future socialism/communism prevailed. Maybe they just bought the idea that Marx, Engels etc portrayed that one way or another it is inevitable.

 

[Cambium]

Quote

The Guardian view on taxes: high time landowners paid their fair share

Our current tax system rewards a landlord more than a doctor. We need to shift towards taxing wealth more and better

Fri 27 May 2022 18.25 BST

Even if you live hundreds of miles from Paddington or Stratford, you may know that London has just opened a vast and shiny new rail line. Once the 100km track is all joined up, a banker flying into Heathrow will be able to take one train directly into Canary Wharf, while a resident of Southall will be able to visit relatives in Seven Kings without ever having to change carriages, let alone lines.

 

Amid all this wizardry, some aspects of the Elizabeth line remain reassuringly true to the finest traditions of British infrastructure. Naturally enough, it is years over deadline and billions above budget. But one innovation especially worth highlighting lies not in its engineering but its economics. A big chunk of the cash for building came from businesses along the route. Through a special extra tax, sometimes called the Crossrail supplement, bigger companies stumped up over £4bn of the £19bn project. The principle for the levy is a simple one: the businesses along the line will benefit from increased customers and easier commutes for employees.

It sounds straightforward. It is straightforward. So why is the principle so rarely applied to our taxes? Over a century ago, Boris Johnson’s hero Winston Churchill argued: “Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains – and all the while the landlord sits still … he renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.” It was a rousing call for a land value tax, a levy to capture rising land prices, and over the decades it has been supported by eminent economists and taken up in various forms in cities across the globe, from Australia to eastern Europe.

 

In the UK, Whitehall reviews have chewed over the issue, but still there has been no significant progress. Although the Crossrail supplement is a partial acknowledgment of the arguments for a land value tax, it is no such thing. The result will be a huge loss of potential gains for the public purse. At the south-eastern terminus of the new Elizabeth line stands Abbey Wood station, which is now just 20 minutes from the City, as opposed to the previous journey time of three-quarters of an hour. Unsurprisingly, developers and investors have rushed into the area, doubling local property prices over the past decade. Across London, the average rise has been closer to 55%.

 

And yet those huge unearned gains will go almost untaxed, depriving ministers of being able to claim they have funds to build more rail lines. Another example is HS2, now projected to cost the public more than £100bn and to push up land values all along the route – yet with no levy to claw back any of those gains.

 

Our current tax system rewards a landlord more than a doctor. We need to shift towards taxing wealth more and better; to that end, existing taxes on property often fail. Council tax is based on bricks and mortar rather than land, and is based on property values in 1991. A tax on land values would be a levy on something that cannot run away or be sheltered in some island haven, and would also deter hoarding by developers. And it would help build a much better public realm.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/27/the-guardian-view-on-taxes-high-time-landowners-paid-their-fair-share