Comment by Imustaskforhelp
2 days ago
Yes, this was such a wonderful read. I think I maybe mentioned in this post or some other how I was discussing georgism with my friends and I couldn't really articulate the difference b/w georgism and communism partially because I had gotten into in depth about georgism some time ago, and I will admit that I had forgotten quite a bit of details.
This was such a beautiful ,might I say article on georgism. I would genuinely prefer if you could write it as a standalone article that I might share with my friends or can refer to.
Its such a nice read. Thanks for giving me the pleasure to read it.
Edit: I went further into the post and it seemed that mothball isn't having this discussion in good faith and wants to have a last word and yes they feel so right, almost being stupid might I say. But your way of recognizing it and saying it up front really both surprised me and made me respect ya since you actually went through their sources when they sent some and are doing this discussion in good faith.
I am maybe georgist because I feel like it genuinely made the most sense to me and uh maybe it makes also sense because land price seems to have gone so high that I can't hold land so maybe that's a bias but still georgism is such a good take yet landlords have such a lobby that I wonder if we can break it.
We really need to get more georgist thoughts.
Might I say,though this isn't strictly georgism but taxing/patching billionaire loopholes since software businesses are built on open source and is almost like land in the sense that community owns it, plus I feel like that concentration of power into such people is wrongful but I also know that its a really really tough issue as to taxing billionaires, do we tax their stocks? do we do what exactly??
Yet georgism is a right step in that direction except it is more quantifiable and (almost universally?) agreed to be a good taxation strategy.
In my understanding, the reason LVT/Georgism would work is because the base stock is fixed for the very long term (geologically, barring land reclamation projects from the ocean). Software has no similar basis, and thus would devolve to taxation like current stocks or bonds today, where growth of the capital stock can occur.
And that is another weakness of Georgism: it causes the base stock to be fixed.
Land speculators play an important role by introducing unimproved land into the market at a delayed point in time, adjusting the stock of available land to market demands, preventing economically inefficient prior improvements from happening which then make it even more expensive to use the land productively in the future.
The incredibly vital task of land speculation that adjusts available stock to market conditions, is virtually impossible under a LVT.
Please note George himself said his land scheme would "accomplish the same thing (as land nationalization) in a simpler, easier, and quieter way."[] It was well understood by George that what he was doing was communism.
[] Henry George, Progress and Poverty