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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36932 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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Apparently the UK's entire net worth was £10.7 trillions in 2020 according to the ONS, their chief statistic agency. What's remarkable is that a whopping 60% of that is "non-produced, non-financial assets".

That's a fancy way of saying land. Why isn't this fact more well known? Should we expect it to be different for other countries? And why aren't more people talking about Georgism?

I made a top-level comment here a couple of weeks ago that tried to outline some of the major updates on the Georgism discussion in the ratsphere.

(Editing for less strawmanning.) I think that a lot of the problem is that Georgism strikes at the heart of fundamental value differences for folks. Many people seem to equate Georgism with Communism, or redistribution of wealth, which I don't find convincing.

For instance:

@bnfrmt:

LVT is equivalent to the state seizing all land, and renting it back at market rates; it's expropriation on a massive scale.

@Brannigan:

Georgism at heart is about identifying what is often the most precious possession a person can have, that most of the middle class has spent 30 years of their lives working to pay off, to render to their posterity, and stealing it from them despite the fact that they haven't really done anything wrong.

@laxam

"We know better than you how you should use your land", is roughly analogous to, "We know better than you what you should put in your body".

@Westerly

This strikes me as rationalists rationalizing their own class self-interest. The same way EA just so happens to only support democrat politicians, rationalism coincidentally just so happens to work out extremely well for the types of people that are rationalists. Easy to be YIMBY when you are 25 and living in a rented apartment in San Francisco.

@naraburns

My concern with LVT is that I regard most kinds of property tax (as well as income tax) as fundamentally immoral

@The_Nybbler

Still low-effort is "it's communism, but only with land". But given how bad communism has turned out, I think it's sufficient. The Georgist LVT is equivalent to the government owning all the land and leasing it out to the highest bidder.

@MeinNameistBernd

Frankly advocating "georgism" is the "break out the guillotines" limit for me, because the victims are my people and the preparators are /r/neoliberal vampires.

These are not cherry picked responses - all of these had at least 10 upvotes, and in many cases 25+.

Some of the responses were less charitable, which has led to me getting heated on this topic, such as people literally calling me a vampire (and getting 15+ upvotes) for arguing for a type of land reform.

Responses like "LVT is equivalent to the state seizing all land, and renting it back at market rates; it's expropriation on a massive scale." are not knee-jerk emotional responses, and they are light, not heat. That when this light is shed on Georgism, it becomes obviously (to most) a bad thing is a problem with Georgism, not the comments.

How is changing the way land is taxed equivalent to the government seizing all land? None of the anti-Georgists have been able to explain this to me.

An LVT does not have to be 100%, and besides even if it is people still own the improvements aka buildings on the land. What's really being taxed is the 'locational' aspect.

To me this argument is the equivalent of saying "income tax is the state seizing all work" which I just don't find reasonable.

How is changing the way land is taxed equivalent to the government seizing all land?

The value of land is the future present value of the cash flows it generates. Those cash flows are what Georgism seizes.

As one site puts it "Land Market Value is the land rental value, minus land taxes, divided by a capitalization rate." If land taxes are equal to land rental value, the land market value is zero, and the entire value of the land has been seized.

Yes, an LVT does not have to be 100%. But the Georgist land tax is, and the relatively small reductions from 100% modern Georgists accept to try to get around practical problems don't really change much. If you're talking about a much smaller LVT, you're not talking about Georgism.

In my experience most Georgists I’ve talked to prefer a 60-80% land tax, to make up for practical problems in the implementation. Maybe those aren’t the ones that write books etc.

I guess the fundamental difference for me is that I find the land market to be inherently flawed due to the fact that nobody creates land and it cannot be created, only improved.

I find the land market to be inherently flawed due to the fact that nobody creates land and it cannot be created, only improved.

The Netherlands would like a word with you.

Land on the seabed is still land - they are simply improving it. Making land on the seabed usable and able to be built on is an improvement, this argument has been tossed at Georgism for over a century.

Under the Georgist framework all of the ocean is still 'land,' if that makes sense.

this argument has been tossed at Georgism for over a century

Why do you suppose that is? The colloquial meaning of "land"--let's say, "the patches of dirt that are not submerged beneath rivers, lakes, or seas"--makes claims like "nobody creates land and it cannot be created, only improved" clearly false. So when Georgists say "land," they apparently have a technical definition in mind that goes beyond what people think when they hear Georgists say "land."

That sets the whole discussion up for failure straight out of the gate, because you're either being deliberately or inadvertently obtuse about the central subject of discussion. In the United States today, the physical coordinates over which people claim ownership are often the least of what their "real property" (as we call owned land) entails. On the prevailing "bundle of rights" view, in addition to the physical coordinates you own, your "property" also includes things like a right of quiet enjoyment, a right of access, a right against trespass, and so forth. Those are real rights, and often they are not the kind of right that you can really put a fair dollar value on.

There is a school of legal thought, "Law and Economics," which holds roughly that the purpose of law is to facilitate efficient economic exchange. Its founder, Richard Posner, has broadly disclaimed its universal applicability. Much of the law is concerned with economic exchange, yes--but not all of it. Individuals have important interests that should not be violated, not even if the majority says so, not even if the majority would benefit. Just as "land" on your view can also mean "the sea," "real property" means much more than spatial coordinates over which you happen to have dominion. Whatever its effects on markets, Georgism fails to appropriately account for its effects on people.

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