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The recent Georgist uprising in the rat-sphere seems to be spreading outward, and gathering steam if anything. Lars Doucet, who wrote the original ACX post that blew up, is now releasing a book called Land is a Big Deal which summarizes his writings thus far.
There was also a major takedown of Detroit land assessment practices by a major land parcel data collector, ReGrid that dropped a few days ago. Major takeaways:
In addition, some fairly mainstream political candidates such as Chloe Brown who's running for Mayor of Toronto, seem to be gaining steam. Land value tax is a large plank in her platform.
I got interested in land reform through the original series of ACX posts, and frankly I'm surprised how interesting the problem is and how overall neglected the topic seems to be. Even extremely intelligent and well read folks I talk to about it are surprised when they learn that land value is usually just pulled out of thin air - the industry standard is to just take 25% of the purchase price and not give a shit about location or any other factors, which seems bizarre upon a critical review.
I've seen some discussion about Georgism/LVT here, but curious if anyone else has been following this?
Also, what are the arguments against LVT, besides low-effort "taxes are always bad and raising them is evil?" Genuinely curious for well thought out reasons why an LVT would be a bad idea.
Edit: For those new to this idea, a Land Value Tax in it's most basic form simply says we should tax away the value of the land, and only let people who sell land profit off of the 'improvements' they make, such as buildings, restorations, etc. For instance if you bought a piece of land and tried to sell it 1 year later off pure speculation, doing nothing to the land, you would not receive any profit.
My understanding is that this is effectively an opportunity cost tax. I.e., if you are sitting on a valuable plat which could generate 10 M$ in rents with 1 M$ of improvements, the market value of the plat should be about 9M$, and you would be taxed on that value, even if you were only generating 100K$ of rents (including imputed rents).
This is economically very efficient, as it encourages land to be used for its most economically efficient purpose. However, this butts directly up against peoples' real-world desires to "settle" - to establish a home in a place and be able to stay there indefinitely. If, for reasons beyond their control, the price of their property increases, they can be financially forced from their homes, which is about as soulcrushing as being foreclosed upon, while also seeming much more unfair. It destroys a person's ability to make stable long-term plans regarding a very fundamental fact of life. It also destroys residential community, by creating a disincentive to make a community that people want to live in, which has the natural effect of increasing property value. These are already problems with existing property taxes, that would be greatly amplified by taxing away all of the land value (leaving only rents).
After all, most people recoil about applying the same logic in other contexts: should a person's income tax be based on the amount of money they theoretically could be earning, if they worked as much as possible in the most valuable field they are qualified for, in the location with the highest salary? Hard-core utilitarians have seriously proposed this, but the concept of being treated as an economic ends with no function other than to produce social benefit, rather than a sapient being with noneconomic needs and desires makes most people reject this with prejudice.
The solution I've seen mentioned is that you can permit the homeowner to 'name their price' i.e. the value of what they think their home/land is truly worth, with the caveat being that if someone offers to purchase at said price they are legally compelled to accept it.
If they name an astronomically high price, then they are going to be taxed accordingly.
So the incentive would be that they name a price that is sufficiently high to make up for the the distress of leaving a cherished home, of finding and moving to a new one, and whatever other burdens would be placed on them if they were to move, but not so high that they couldn't afford the tax burden.
I've not thought of nor seen a solid rebuttal to this proposal. If a homeowner has a price they are genuinely willing to accept for a property they have an extreme emotional attachment to, then 'forcing' them to sell at that price is barely a harm. If they claim that the property is actually worth far more than any buyer would reasonably be willing to pay, then they are prevented from complaining if their inflated valuation is the one they pay tax on.
Because if we take the complete inverse of your scenario, we end up with nail houses where a person refuses all reasonable offers to sell, and ends up having all the positive features of their neighborhood stripped away and end up distressed anyway, but with no money to show for it.
This is even worse. Under either the present system or full gay space
communismgeorgism, at least I do not wake up one morning and get told I have to move out within the next month.You are robbing the entire owner surplus here. I am sure the grocery store would like to figure out exactly how much I am willing to pay for a loaf of milk or a jar of bread, or the car salesman to figure out exactly what a car is worth to me.
There is being more economically efficient, and then there is negotiating with the swarm of AI drones outside my house exactly how much my child's life is worth to me compared to their value of him in paperclips.
I have a bunch of things in my house that I would like to sell for their market price but the transaction costs are too high to bother. That is essentially negative surplus for me. But I also own things that I value much more than their market value in cash, which is positive surplus, so it balances out. So the idea of a future where I lose the positive surplus but lose the negative surplus is extremely distressing.
If you set your asking price correctly, then this should be priced in.
Again, if they set their price accurately and account for all the value they can reasonably extract from the land, they should be capturing close to all of the 'surplus' available to them, OR there's simply nobody out there that would match their asking price.
I guess I have a hard time accepting that someone would be so attached to a piece of land that they cannot express a price point at which they would gleefully part with it.
As opposed to parting with a human who is, from an emotional standpoint, of nigh-infinite value and not replaceable.
If you set your price high enough, you could use the sale proceeds to pay to have the entire property reconstructed in exacting detail at a different location, such that you would barely notice the difference.
Can you name one such thing that can't be replaced by a good-enough reproduction if it were ever lost or broken? Do you have some unique pieces of art or some item that has sentimental value only to you?
Otherwise, why do you value such items more than a near-identical one you could just buy on the market?
If you know even a smidgen about the financial acumen and long-term planning capabilities of the median American, you should realize that just about no-one will set their asking price """correctly""".
This makes the argument for getting value-producing assets out of their hands stronger.
Why are we letting financial illiterates sit on land that could be producing much greater value? This is no way to run an economy!
But more seriously, fine. Require that they consult with a professional before declaring a price. An agent of sorts. Ah, there we go. Lets set up a profession of "Real Estate Agents", who are familiar with local market conditions, that people can hire so they can set a good asking price for their house and not get taken advantage of by buyers. Maybe require licensing.
Crazy idea, I know.
Why are we letting financial illiterates sit on land that could be producing much greater value?
Because its their land, and properly their decision to sit on it or not. Not yours, not even "ours".
Right, and the issue of people being too financially illiterate to know the 'right' price for their property has been solved for decades upon decades, so this is simply not a good objection to the overall point.
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People are not cogs in an economy. An "economy" is literally the art and science of managing households. To destroy the concept of a household in the service of household management would be a horrifying historical irony, and so fundamentally inhuman I'm having trouble staying civil over it.
How is it unfair to have someone name the value they believe their house is worth for taxation purposes, but fair to have the government declare a value and tax on that value by fiat?
That's been my point the entire time. The most fair way to do a land value tax is to have the person who owns the land declare the value, whilst holding them to said valuation if a sale offer is made.
Financial illiteracy is not a viable objection to this because it is a solved problem.
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