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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:
@Brannigan:
@laxam
@Westerly
@naraburns
@The_Nybbler
@MeinNameistBernd
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.
Income tax is the state claiming ownership over work.
Think of it this way ... for any given tax, what would it take for a private non-government actor to implement that "tax". If I was a private actor and I wanted to charge someone rent for getting to use a parcel of land ... then I would need to own that land.
If I was a private actor and I wanted to take a cut out of all the money that someone gained, then I would have to own that person like a slave.
The power to regulate is also a form of ownership.
An alternative interpretation, is that the state doesn't own the things it taxes, it is instead just stealing. The libertarian refrain "taxation is theft" is along these lines. But that is what it boils down to, either the state has ownership, and thus the right to determine how the thing they own is used, or they don't have ownership and they are just constantly stealing.
Thank you for explaining the libertarian view - I understand where those folks are coming from. I suppose I find it disingenuous because it seems that people who aren't full libertarians and are on-board with other taxes seem to have knee-jerk responses when it's a tax on land rather than something else.
Maybe I'm incorrect, and everyone saying the government is stealing our land really is a full out libertarian that doesn't support any taxes. I will ask next time, but it doesn't seem likely.
There are also people who realize that what the government is doing through taxation is basically theft, and their response is something like "Ok yeah taxation is theft, but the theft is for a good cause. Plus its not like a lot of other theft, and the word theft has some negative baggage, so you are just using the association to say that taxation is bad". That is sort of Scott Alexander's response if I remember him correctly.
It can be both a massive theft and the correct thing to do. But if it is a massive theft and you are treating it as just a minor adjustment in policy then that might lead to you misunderstanding the anger coming your way.
If I was going to justify a land value tax I would start with requiring the income tax to be abolished. And that the land tax would explicitly exist as a way of funding defense of that territory. There is a massive amount of tyranny and injustice around the income tax, and the idea that the value of people's work is literally being stolen from them on a nation wide scale. Returning people's freedom over the money they earn through work seems like a worthwhile tradeoff for taking away the ability to meaningfully own land. But thats not how this discussion started out.
I can get behind that framing, and I know many other Georgists argue for that. My issue with that promise though is I think an LVT should be phased in gradually. If you do that it becomes much harder to immediately wipe out income tax.
You could set them to ratchet down over time as an LVT increased which I think makes sense, but is far less appealing to the masses than “I’ll wipe out income tax and replace it with something else!”
All that said, interesting framing on the taxation is theft. I think we have common ground in that the main draw of the LVT is that it’s more fair and less game-able in theory.
Based on the implementation of previous tax schemes it would be highly unlikely for the income tax to be ever fully phased out. Its not like the US really got rid of any other taxes once it had income taxes. For a while they got rid of alcohol taxes by banning all alcohol, but thats about it.
Having income taxes and LVTs seems terrible.
I understand the pessimistic view of the government, but just because something hasn't been done in the U.S. before, doesn't mean we can't accomplish it. That type of worldview, status quo bias or whatever you want to call it, is self-perpetuating in that if everyone assumes something can't be done, it won't be done!
Strong agree on this point. Like I said above, main selling point for me is that LVT captures value better and has much better incentives than income tax.
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