u/GGray2

What appeals to me most about Georgism is that it allows smaller competitors in the market to gain entry into the market more easily than our current world where those who own land have a distinct, anti-competitive advantage. The New York shop owner who owns land almost can't not make money, and the New York show owner who rents nearly can't make money. By shifting rent value extraction away from the land-lord to the government to use for the public good, we help not only improve the equality of society but increase market competition.

That being said, I think that Georgism as presented by y'all on reddit overvalues land as the the sole exclusive anti-competitive force in the economy that extracts market value. I completely agree that we need a land tax, but I cannot agree that the primary force of inequality in America is from monopolization of land. I pulled the data from the federal reserve, and the majority of land ownership by value is held by the group of Americans below 10% and above 50%.

Should land be taxed directly? Yes! but exclusively? No. I think that we are underestimating the other anticompetitive resources that are held. Henry George Minerals himself recognized this when suggesting that Natural Resources and Radio Frequencies should be taxed similarly because of their exclusivity. We could say the same for pollution. But he also thought that segments of the market where not able to freely compete. He recommended taxing natural monopolies like Utilities, Transportation, and Information Networks.

I think all that is good, but it quickly turns into a game of wack-a-mole. The the biggest value segments in modern society being monopolized is user bases, data, research, branding, copywrite, patent, FDA exclusivity, regulatory barriers, available capital to risk, personal connections, etc.

Although many of these things could and should be managed (I think all of us here would love to see copyright reigned in), I don't think the government could or should try to regulate every possible anti-competitive resource that is available. I think the thing we need to address directly is the anti-competitive nature of large corporations themselves. Large corporations can do things that individuals could never do. I think that it is important to not tax capital earnings, labor, or sales (as old George reminds us: taxation of these things reduces productive output). But by capital, George meant tools, buildings, or machinery. The things which are productive in creating value. I think that stock ownership is not productively useful. It provides an initial value for investors to divest during IPO and for the company to raise capital for buying tools, buildings, or machinery, so it has some value, but that value for the company degrades over time as capital investment shifts to renting off profits of large corporations who have a competitive advantage over small corporations. It isn't in the same class as the LVT, which can theoretically go to 100% without any loss in productive value. But some amount is appropriate. Far more appropriate than having the tax burden be entirely upon income taxes and property taxes.

0.05% TAX on REAL ESTATE	Value Held by Group (millions)	Group Tax (millions)	Group Pop. (millions)	Land Value/Person	Tax Per Person	Net Per Person
0.1	$1,917,100	$95,855	0.3	$5,599,007	$279,950	-$276,654
1	$4,492,285	$224,614	3.1	$1,457,777	$72,889	-$69,593
10	$14,579,909	$728,995	30.8	$473,128	$23,656	-$20,360
50	$22,220,993	$1,111,050	137.0	$162,244	$8,112	-$4,816
100	$4,824,873	$241,244	171.2	$28,183	$1,409	$1,887
Total:	$48,035,160	$2,401,758	342.4	$7,720,339	$7,014	-$3,718

Compare the number above and the number below. Understanding that the above value includes both land value and property value, inequality is by far being contributed to by corporations who give wages that are too low and not by landlords who are keeping rents too high. Again, I am a huge supporter of Progress and Poverty and I think we need a nation wide LVT, but I don't think it is sufficient on it's own. I think that by providing both a land tax and a stock tax we can effectively end rent-seeking behavior from both sides and open up room for labor to be as productive as possible.

0.02% TAX on STOCKS	Value Held by Group (millions)	Group Tax (millions)	Group Pop. (millions)	Stock Value/Person	Tax Per Person	Net Per Person
0.1	$13,664,419	$273,288	0.3	$39,907,766	$798,155	-$794,859
1	$14,645,963	$292,919	3.1	$4,752,714	$95,054	-$91,758
10	$20,999,944	$419,999	30.8	$681,462	$13,629	-$10,333
50	$6,518,742	$130,375	137.0	$47,596	$952	$2,344
100	$602,485	$12,050	171.2	$3,519	$70	$3,226
Total:	$56,431,553	$1,128,631	342.4	$164,812	$3,296	$0

Just to be clear, the proposal I am making is not a tax on company revenues or profits. It is a tax on investors for owning stock. It is the exact same as inflation which is caused by governments printing money. They are taxing cash assets by increasing the amount of cash available, deflating the value of the currency at a slow and consistent rate. If the government required corporations above a certain size to print additional stocks equal to 2% of their current amount of stocks to be given to the Government to sell on the open market, the financial books of the company would be unaffected.

With the understanding that a stock tax would effect the retirement of the labor force, my proposal is to divide the earnings from the stock tax equally to all American citizens as an automatic deposit into their 401k, effectively replacing the failing social security system currently in place which drags down the productive labor of working Americans and is prone to demographic inequalities. I think that if you look as percentile costs being born by both taxes that the Stock tax will be far more politically viable as a way to begin to reduce taxes on labor and real capital investment.

I genuinely think that I could get George himself to agree to this. If he saw the current power of large corporations, he would despise them. (Yes, I also think we should break up large corporations to increase competitiveness, but some amount of large scale can increase efficiency. There can't exist 10 ASMLs who all compete, each with their own R&D budgets to pay for with their limited market share.).

Alternatives to just handing the stocks to people evenly would be to hand stocks to an trust to be owned by the employees of said corporation to slowly convert all corporations into employee owned firms or slowly converting all corporations into non-profits which reinvest all their profits into increases in business (i.e. real capital investment instead of stock buy-backs and dividends).

I am excited to hear y'all let me have it. I'll see you in the comments!