A land value tax seems like such an obvious solution to so much that ails our societies. Allowing legacy land owners to accrue vast sums of untaxed value due to the economic activity of everyone else in the vicinity of their land creates such perverse incentives.
A great example near me is in midtown Atlanta. For decades there have been empty lots that just sat empty and empty and empty until enough economic growth happened around them that their owners finally sold it for development. Even today, there are empty lots and vacant decrepit buildings in some of the most valuable locations for hundreds of miles because we are not taxing the value of the land these people are accruing.
The elites will go full throttle on "bullshit jobs" — after all, if unemployment hits 50%, who’s going to consume their crappy products? Give people a UBI? Hah! So they can start taking an active interest in politics? AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
Yes, land value tax has been advocated by many, but has any country implemented this and made it their main (or at least a major) source of tax income? Why not?
People don't like land value taxes for the same reason the anti-property-tax movement is in the news these days: It reverses 100 years of pro-homeownership messaging, and it turns landowners into renters from the government.
Wouldn't a better solution be to more heavily tax voluntary vices? Gambling, drugs, prediction markets, cash-sink "luxury" products, parasitic mobile games, etc.? I think it's fine by just about everybody if those particular industries -- the real "bad capitalism" -- become almost unprofitable by default.
The secondary layer of "bad capitalism" is in finance, speculation, and even legal services. There's no reason that those, also, cannot be much more heavily taxed.
At the same time, do the extremely smart thing that Asian economies -- China and Korea foremost among them -- have been practicing: Subsidize technical and industrial innovation, strategic industries, etc. Just cut the red tape and fund it.
A land value tax would also tax the poor -- it's not only fat cats who own land -- and strip of some value a vast number of presently-poor people hoping for a property inheritance.
In fact, it would tax the industrious poor with little recourse.
Vices, on the other hand, don't have to be engaged in, and should absolutely be discouraged.
“ it turns landowners into renters from the government.”
With the caveat that “the government” should somehow represent the will of society (I know, basic democracy seems like a big ask today), this seems like how it should be. The land belongs to us humans together, and if someone wants to control it exclusively, there should be something in return for the rest of us.
Wouldn't it also screw over poor people in gentrified neighborhoods who had no control over the situation? People would be forced to sell early or risk all their savings drying up and then being forced to sell anyhow.
> Wouldn't a better solution be to more heavily tax voluntary vices?
Buy a pack of cigs in New York.
Gambling also tends to get taxed a lot.
There's lots of folks that think prostitution should be legalized, so it can be taxed. The same argument was made for pot. I'm pretty sure that legal pot is heavily taxed. I have heard that illegal pot is cheaper.
It's not an easy solution. If it was easy, it would have been done, a long time ago.
"There's always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong."
A land value tax seems like such an obvious solution to so much that ails our societies. Allowing legacy land owners to accrue vast sums of untaxed value due to the economic activity of everyone else in the vicinity of their land creates such perverse incentives.
A great example near me is in midtown Atlanta. For decades there have been empty lots that just sat empty and empty and empty until enough economic growth happened around them that their owners finally sold it for development. Even today, there are empty lots and vacant decrepit buildings in some of the most valuable locations for hundreds of miles because we are not taxing the value of the land these people are accruing.
The elites will go full throttle on "bullshit jobs" — after all, if unemployment hits 50%, who’s going to consume their crappy products? Give people a UBI? Hah! So they can start taking an active interest in politics? AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
It should be prohibited to create youtube voice-over videos with annoying and distracting background music.
Is this just theory? Are there thriving societies that do this?
Curious, as I dont want my cynicism to creep in...
Yes, land value tax has been advocated by many, but has any country implemented this and made it their main (or at least a major) source of tax income? Why not?
Singapore has a pseudo LVT in the form of property taxes with land value capture.
> France needs to read my paper
We Italians should be taking some notes as well... :)
People don't like land value taxes for the same reason the anti-property-tax movement is in the news these days: It reverses 100 years of pro-homeownership messaging, and it turns landowners into renters from the government.
Wouldn't a better solution be to more heavily tax voluntary vices? Gambling, drugs, prediction markets, cash-sink "luxury" products, parasitic mobile games, etc.? I think it's fine by just about everybody if those particular industries -- the real "bad capitalism" -- become almost unprofitable by default.
The secondary layer of "bad capitalism" is in finance, speculation, and even legal services. There's no reason that those, also, cannot be much more heavily taxed.
At the same time, do the extremely smart thing that Asian economies -- China and Korea foremost among them -- have been practicing: Subsidize technical and industrial innovation, strategic industries, etc. Just cut the red tape and fund it.
> Wouldn't a better solution be to more heavily tax voluntary vices? Gambling, drugs, prediction markets
That's just taxing the poor.
A land value tax would also tax the poor -- it's not only fat cats who own land -- and strip of some value a vast number of presently-poor people hoping for a property inheritance.
In fact, it would tax the industrious poor with little recourse.
Vices, on the other hand, don't have to be engaged in, and should absolutely be discouraged.
“ it turns landowners into renters from the government.”
With the caveat that “the government” should somehow represent the will of society (I know, basic democracy seems like a big ask today), this seems like how it should be. The land belongs to us humans together, and if someone wants to control it exclusively, there should be something in return for the rest of us.
Wouldn't it also screw over poor people in gentrified neighborhoods who had no control over the situation? People would be forced to sell early or risk all their savings drying up and then being forced to sell anyhow.
> Wouldn't a better solution be to more heavily tax voluntary vices?
Buy a pack of cigs in New York.
Gambling also tends to get taxed a lot.
There's lots of folks that think prostitution should be legalized, so it can be taxed. The same argument was made for pot. I'm pretty sure that legal pot is heavily taxed. I have heard that illegal pot is cheaper.
It's not an easy solution. If it was easy, it would have been done, a long time ago.
"There's always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong."
-H. L. Mencken