Comment by kiba
1 year ago
Who to tax and how much is very much a political choice and how accurate assessment are very much political choices. You cannot pretend taxation policy is somehow a neutral proposition. Indeed, bad or good taxation policy have very real economic effect and impact on government finance.
If indeed you want adequate funding of government services, it's paramount that we find the most efficient way of funding government and Georgists believe that the most efficient way to tax people is the land value tax.
Social justice and economic efficiency need not be in conflict. Indeed, when a concept like the land value tax finds broad support from economists all over the political spectrum, it's time to sit up and pay attention.
The genius of georgism is it's just land communism where the government charges you rent for the land, disguised as a tax.
But don't take it from me, read George himself:
Of course George plays a little slight of hand game where he uses "tax" and capitalist mechanisms and only defends communism for land, which enables a lot of his supporter's arguments to play make believe about what it is. But George betrays this secret to those who actually reads his books.
Beyond that, there's serious inefficiencies in Georgism
- No incentive for efficient allocation of land (price is zero)
- The incredibly important role of land speculators, who help assign time preference to land by delaying its introduction in the market to when its value can be better captured, is basically destroyed
- People will all grab the "best" land as fast as they can with allocation basically left to favoritism or queueing
- Undeveloped land value can be impossible to separate from improvements
[] Henry George, Progress and Poverty p. 404.
> Who to tax and how much is very much a political choice and how accurate assessment are very much political choices. You cannot pretend taxation policy is somehow a neutral proposition. Indeed, bad or good taxation policy have very real economic effect and impact on government finance.
Tax rates are political. Assessing the value of an asset should be apolitical. Georgism intertwines the two, which causes a lot of issues.
> If indeed you want adequate funding of government services, it's paramount that we find the most efficient way of funding government and Georgists believe that the most efficient way to tax people is the land value tax.
You are correct that Georgists believe that, but I don't think it's a widely held opinion. The definition of efficiency is highly subjective because the metrics used to determine it are subjective.
> Social justice and economic efficiency need not be in conflict. Indeed, when a concept like the land value tax finds broad support from economists all over the political spectrum, it's time to sit up and pay attention.
Again, this is only efficient under a very specific set of objectives.
LVT has gotten a lot of attention, and has not performed well in practice just like every other socialist concept. It also does not have broad support.