r/georgism

I keep on arguing with my friends, they claim that rich people would just buy up all the land from poor people who can't pay the LVT. Then they simply build housing or whatever on the land and nullify the tax. they claim that georgism doesn't actually prevent this in any way. got any arguments?

Basically as up top, does Henry George believe in zoning of any kind?

Secondly, is Georgism exclusively LVT or are other taxes allowed (not labor taxes, but carbon taxes or wealth taxes)

Finally, does Georgism dictate how taxes raised should be spent in anyway? Or does he leave it up to the collector to decide?

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!

The NY Times ghosted me. Probably an automated ghost, as I did get an automated response that my letter had been received, along with a promise, “(You will receive an auto-reply only once every four days.)”

Anyway, that’s ok, Mr. Times. I figured you were out of my league, but sometimes, you gotta make your move, if only for the story to tell afterwards. Here’s my story (that is, I knew I could just share my letter here on Substack, in the very likely event that it was not published by the New York Times):

Note: They have a very strict 200 word limit for letters-to-the-editor.

>Max Clark
Los Angeles, CA
(***) ***-****

>I’m writing in response to Hélène Landemore’s article, “No Shy Person Left Behind”. The article focused on the growing movement of citizens’ assemblies, “groups of ordinary people, selected by lottery, who come together to learn about a public issue, hear from experts and advocacy groups, deliberate with one another and make recommendations.” I volunteer with Public Democracy LA and we also advocate for citizens’ assemblies. We are proud of the LA Charter Assembly we helped facilitate, but here’s our dirty secret: we are activist refugees.

>Unfamiliar policies, or those without appeal to voting blocs, are sidelined by politicians and parties who prioritize electoral success above all else. Citizens’ assemblies bypass this systemic problem with elections.

>In my case, advocacy for Henry George’s Land Value Tax (LVT) has been ineffective. We are living on a Monopoly board. Ownership of Boardwalk and Park Place enables landlords to siphon the wealth of laborers. The Land Value Tax reclaims their wages.

>Most economists support the LVT, yet most politicians ignore it. This is why I advocate for citizens’ assemblies, not because I have a burning desire to assemble random strangers, but because policies like the LVT exist and everyday Americans can recognize its justice.

In progress without poverty,

Max Clark

There was a news article in which a city council member was asking for ideas to rid the city of blighted properties and I emailed him back explaining suggesting switching out the traditional property tax with a land value tax (or at least a split rate one) and linked him a few videos explaining Georgism and what a land value tax is. He replied that he never heard of it before and would look into it. Not expecting anything to come out of it, but it was nice getting a response that wasn't a prewritten one that gets emailed to everyone.

What would a set of Georgist Amendments look like?

https://x.com/ubi\_works/status/2046601627214266431?s=20

What do Georgists think of the pied-a-terre tax proposed by Mayor Mamdani? Is this effectively a partial LVT or could it have negative side effects?

Local magazine did a write up about a proposed law to remove property tax and did a comparison to when previous residents tried to move to only a single tax, the land value tax. Thought it was interesting. Link to the article.

Ive come from another sub Reddit and I don't really understand Georgism. What's it's stance on the economy (eg: profit, worker unions) , and how accepting it Is (eg: lgbtqiaa+, abortion, womens rights)?

Thanks for the replies!

Other than wrongly blaming "capitalism", this video dives into an interesting history of land speculation and its (negative) impact on society.

Republicanism, as in the fact that you have multiple different governments in one union, specifically the United States.

The tension is, do Georgists believe in a true nationalization of land? Or a state by state decision on to implement LVT? Quite frankly I would apply the same reasoning to a national sales tax, under Republican tradition such a tax is given to the state, wouldn’t it be a little bit weird and unfair if the federal government was taxing states land? I don’t even think that’s constitutional in the first place.

So do Georgists believe in land nationalization or land provincialization, haha what a funny word I just searched up, new word unlocked

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