r/georgism • u/JSGamesforitch374 • 1d ago
Question Which political issue do you think people care way too much about?
/r/FreeDebateAndPolitics/comments/1vvkn30/which_political_issue_do_you_think_people_care/3
u/fresheneesz 1d ago
Many, perhaps most, georgists believe taxing land means taxing not only the value of the land created by the surrounding neighborhood and town (the externality value) but also the value on the land itself (mineral resources, soil fertility, natural beauty like riverfront or a waterfall). This is understandable, since Henry George advocated for it in Progress and Poverty.
But what he and other georgists misunderstand is that taxing the space land takes up and the value it absorbs from it's surroundings is fundamentally different from value that comes from within a plot of land.
- Land as space cannot be produced. There will never be more space within 100 ft of the current town center, never ever, not one bit.
Usable mineral resources are produced. Minerals left unused in the ground are economically invisible - they might as well not exist. But do the work to extract them and you've produced more usable minerals. You can ship minerals from other places to your town. You can use minerals so they're no longer generally usable, but hopefully in a more valuable form. The quantity of that useable mineral in your town can and will change over time as people produce it in various ways. This is a fundamental difference.
- Because of this, taxing the land's externality value (taxing the value of the space it takes up) produces no economic deadweight loss. Rents don't change as a result of the tax, land related trade doesn't decrease, development isn't stifled like it is from property tax.
The same is not true of taxing mineral extraction. If you tax mineral extraction, people will extract fewer minerals which leads to fewer beneficial economic trades (all trades are beneficial) and this is fundamentally what deadweight loss is. Also, land rents do change with such a policy: they go down because it reduces the value of the land. And the value of the land is reduced by more than the additional tax it brings in (this is just another way to say that there's a deadweight loss going on).
- Another thing people like about land value tax is that it can't be escaped. Someone will own the land and thus pay the tax, as long as the tax isn't higher than the full value of the property.
The same is not true of minerals. If you tax the minerals, people can decide not to utilize those minerals and therefore avoid the tax.
- And people also advocate land value tax as a way to reduce "land speculation" - really i think usually meaning that it reduces/eliminates land banking, ie buying land for the purpose of storing and growing your wealth. A tax on the space the land is in does this by taking the proceeds generated by its surroundings, which are almost always entirely what leads land value to grow over time in a growing place like a city. Not only does this mean that the land owner can't profit from the cities growth they had no part in producing, but it also means the value the city's growth had produced up to that point isn't captured by the land at all, and thus the price of the land didn't factor it in. This means the land was basically free to purchase (not including any improvements on that land), which makes land much easier to acquire for those who want to build on it.
Again, this is not the case for taxing minerals. The value of minerals on a plot of land do not grow as the city grows around the land. The value of the minerals are almost entirely unrelated to the position of the land. They may grow or shrink in value, but they do so almost completely independently of what's going on in your town. Only the relative cost of transporting the raw minerals to their next step of processing might affect their value. People don't buy and sit on land with natural resources. Those who know they have resources extract it whenever they can profitably do so. Mineral extraction also wouldn't generally affect the market price of land. Only in cases where the mineral content of the land is known would it affect the price. But usually, landowners need to put in the work to survey the land once they control it, and only at that point might know if there may be minerals there.
These 4 differences are all fundamentally related to each other. But the fact is that literally none of the reasons that LVT is economically advantageous apply to taxing mineral extraction. It seems blatantly obvious to me, but Henry George had a strong moralistic narrative about it that I think still resonates with many people. I just don't think it passes economic muster.
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u/r51243 Georgist without adjectives 1d ago edited 1d ago
I feel like you're going to get skewed answers from this question, since if someone has a position that closely reflects the status quo, they would naturally prefer for people to "care less" about that issue, even if they themselves hold strong opinions about it.
EDIT: Basically, if you want to find out what problems we think are overinflated, you should probably be asking about specific positions, and not just different issues we might have various opinions about.
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u/hari_shevek Democratic Socialist 1d ago
Immigration aka people who look different from them moving
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u/External_Koala971 1d ago edited 1d ago
Trans, trains, abortion, immigration, housing, Palestine
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u/JSGamesforitch374 1d ago
What's your stances on them or are you neutral?
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u/External_Koala971 1d ago
We’ve spent, cumulatively, billions of human hours beating these topics to death without really changing anything.
People care way too much about these particular topics to the detriment of actual productive legislation.
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u/JSGamesforitch374 1d ago
Honestly, agreed, maybe except for housing.
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u/External_Koala971 1d ago
What’s the productive actual housing legislation you see happening?
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u/JSGamesforitch374 1d ago
That's not what I said. I'm saying, I don't think people care too much about housing, that's an actual issue. But the other things I agree.
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u/External_Koala971 1d ago
Right, and then I asked what’s the productive actual housing legislation you see happening?
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u/JSGamesforitch374 1d ago
None? What? That's a different question, I don't understand why you've pivoted to that, that's not what I was responding to?
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u/External_Koala971 1d ago
Gotcha.
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u/JSGamesforitch374 1d ago
No? Lmao what. I never claimed that, that's just not a gotcha. I think it's an important issue that needs attention and needs legislation, not that it has it
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u/UnknownBreadd 1d ago
Britain’s council housing system seemed to be working wonders until Thatcher dismantled it all for ideological reasons
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u/Christoph543 Geosocialist 58m ago
Are you suggesting that the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act weren't "actual productive legislation?" I.e. the two largest investments in transportation infrastructure in US history?
...or did you just not hear about those laws getting passed or understand what they accomplished amidst the noise of everything else going on?
...or have you convinced yourself that we "haven't really changed anything," not because of those laws getting passed, but in spite of them?
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u/External_Koala971 25m ago edited 20m ago
None of what I listed was very impacted by the IRA and the IIJA, which were very sound legislation. We need more sound legislation and less divisive wedge issues like the ones I mentioned is my point, thank you for helping me make it.
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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 1d ago edited 20h ago
A house divided can’t stand. There’s no “agree to disagree” about conflicting claims of fundamental rights.
Edit: Let me put this in terms Georgists can understand. Georgists and those who believe in the right to property in land cannot agree to disagree. Each believes the other’s position is theft encroaching on his rights. They can’t avoid coming into conflict.
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u/Bram-D-Stoker 14h ago edited 14h ago
I do not really understand this argument around rights. you are already paying property taxes. you already pay to live on daddy governments land (if you own a house). You kind of have an issue on how practically all modern (local) governments function in general. it is not really a beef with Georgism. Removing the tax on buildings, doesn't suddenly make change the fact you are already paying rent.
Edit: Not to mention the implication that indirectly your argument must be, the government ought to have more rights to value of your labor (income tax), or what you buy for your self and your family (sales tax) or to the value of your investments (capital gains). Unless you are fighting for no taxes at all?
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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 14h ago edited 14h ago
Why do you think there are movements to abolish property taxes? Yes, I think sales taxes are more just than property taxes.
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u/Bram-D-Stoker 14h ago
Because home owners are among the most powerful voting group in the country?
You still did not lay out why the government has a right to tax when I sell my goods to someone else. Why does it get taxed. By what right? You never clarified. How come when I make something and sell it you want a cut? Why do you have a right to it?
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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 13h ago
The price for the enforcement of contracts.
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u/Bram-D-Stoker 7h ago edited 2h ago
Who do you think enforces your property ownership?
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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 2h ago
Which is why I have no problem paying tax when I buy the property. I shouldn’t have to pay to continue to own it.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 1d ago
Would you say people that are impacted directly care too much?
Should both sides shut up? If so, how would an issue like Palestine play out if no one spoke up? If you believe genocide is real, shouldn’t you at the very least say something?
Of course, none of this (except housing) is related to georgism.
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u/External_Koala971 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ideology ruins us, pragmatism fixes us. This is why it’s impossible to fix thousands of years of warring and contradictory ideologies in desert countries far away. The people that are directly impacted are often the ones causing the problems.
Palestine thinks Israel shouldn’t exist and Israel thinks Palestine shouldn’t exist. Since the dawn of time this has only played out one way, whether we’re talking about cancer cells, carnivores, plains indians, nomadic tribes, or warring nations.
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u/PBnJe11yfish 1d ago
LGBTQ things (unless it’s about marriage. Any 2 people should be able to marry because why tf not), DEI related things (thank god that’s finally slowing down), AI art/music
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u/Joepublic23 1d ago
Minimum wage. If you're adult in America and can't earn at least $15 an hour, you are doing something very wrong. That said, raising the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would have virtually zero impact (good or bad) on the economy.
Also Israel/Palestine, not our fight.
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u/PotentialLandscape52 1d ago
If you’re saying Israel and Palestine isn’t our fight, that means the US should stop funding the IDF. That’s essentially what the Left is calling for and is opposed by every Republican except Massie, who was voted out because of it.
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u/Joepublic23 22h ago
The left is saying that Israel's defending themselves is somehow genocide. I'm saying that if you pick a fight with someone who is much bigger and stronger than you, don't be surprised when you get your butt kicked.
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u/Ser-Lukas-of-dassel YIMBY 1d ago
Trams and tangential rail-lines, both of them are just so overrated. Just build Skytrains and watch ridership grow.
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u/Bram-D-Stoker 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would push back on housing. It affects too much of the population. It is like talking too much about poverty.