Comment on Rent is theft
Riverside@reddthat.com 3 days agoMeh. I’m a commie, and it’s just a half measure. It attacks the problem of landlordism, sure, but it doesn’t fight concentration of wealth in other forms, such as financial capital, capitalist ownership of media and means of production, or even climate change.
Moreover, it doesn’t provide any means for organizing and actually carrying out the policy, which is why it never happens. Ideology and politics aren’t exclusively a theoretical field in which we can democratically test every policy without disturbance, and Georgism doesn’t answer the simple question: why would the landlords in power allow the workers to tax them our of power?
See there’s an issue you want a one size fits all that’s never going to happen. Focus on fixing one thing that will help the population astronomically.
why would the landlords in power allow the workers to tax them our of power
Well through public ridicule or at gunpoint I’d imagine
See there’s an issue you want a one size fits all that’s never going to happen
It’s happened historically in several countries, whereas georgism has happened in a total of 0.
Well through public ridicule or at gunpoint I’d imagine
Great. Now, who are the people organizing and agitating the workers to gather the numbers and strength to do this at gunpoint? Hint: again, not the Georgists
Most countries used to tax land. The taxing of wages and capital is a fairly new concept. And many countries have currently adopted land value taxes in a smaller scale. Pennsylvania has experience with it. Denmark adopted it because of Henry George. Many countries have public land leasing like China and Singapore and the Netherlands.
atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I think people don’t really realize that land makes up more than 50% of wealth. Unlike wealth taxes, it doesn’t produce inefficiency. However, you’re right that monopoly power in business is also a problem to solve. We need the return of antitrust, public ownership of natural monopolies, standards where needed, unions, and public R&D funding with public patents. But there is nothing that can effectively stop landlords from taking all the gains made by increasing wages and causing a divergence between renters and owners that will only get worse as long as demand in cities increases. Unless you tax land. Much of the stock market is also attached to land appreciation in the assets of stock traded companies.
Riverside@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Why not remove the concept of landlords altogether then? Collectivizing the lands would be an even more complete version of land tax
atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
A land value tax is exactly that. If someone wants to buy the rights to a plot and build something or if someone wants to buy the rights to live in a house, that price will already include the land no matter if it’s technically publicly owned or privately owned. Henry George agreed with you, he said that land should be public property, and that the best way to do that is to tax it according to its value.
Riverside@reddthat.com 2 days ago
But why leave the building initiative in the hands of the market+tax instead of just collectively making political decisions about what gets built where?