In a word, “no”. George, and Georgists, are all-in on the laissez-faire and the “free” market. George was not a socialist, he rejected that label, and he even carried on a public squabble with K.Marx. From today’s RationalWiki…
Public ownership of land titles and public control of land are not usually considered to be within the Georgist philosophy, only the capture of commonly created wealth (economic/commons rent). The exception is in Georgist communities that make use of land value trusts, public leasing systems (e.g., Hong Kong and Singapore), and Georgist proposals for ‘land value covenants’. In these cases, land-titles may be altered or be transferred to the public as a technicality. Georgists are usually opposed to taxing what they consider to be legitimate forms of private wealth, wages, or man-made capital.
Well, things have seemed to settle down, and maybe it’s time for a little “profit taking”, as they say on the “free” market…
Above ITT I mentioned that the most prevalent form of “objection” by the liberals would be in the form of Begging the Question. Here we have a perfect example (see note below).
The liberals are stuck on the horns of a stupid dilemma of their own foolish making.
Standard economics claims that moving =from= our pre-pandemic status-quo =to= a system with less rent-seeking than our pre-pandemic status-quo =would= result in more wealth creation. While the liberals are claiming the opposite: that moving =from= a system with less rent-seeking than our pre-pandemic status-quo =to= our pre-pandemic status-quo =would= result in more wealth creation.
Either standard economics is wrong =or= the liberals are wrong.
Above ITT I also mentioned that, to compare different systems, we’d need to (a) be able to talk about each in a stand-alone manner, and (b) we would need an agreed metric. Just like the long gone ACers, point (a) here just seems to be completely lost on the liberals (see note below).
Note:
Let’s say a liberal and Duder decided to get into a pick measuring contest. I’d imagine it’d go something like this…
Duder: OK, you measure yours with a witness & I’ll do the same.
Liberal: Sure thing Duder!
Duder: My witness says mine is 10", what does your witness say?
Liberal: I don’t need no stinkin’ witness. Because liberal ball scratching has proven to be a more effective engine for creating penis length, my monster boa cannot possibly be shorter than your little ding-a-ling.
Above @bbb7979 (i) completely failed at evaluating our pre-pandemic status-quo in a stand alone manner, and (ii) directly and explicitly assumed the conclusion he was “proving”.
@geewhysee made post #926 at 7:30 am pdt April 22nd. Let’s see how this marinade is doing after simmering for 32 hours…
25 posts of clovis nonsense
0 engagement from -any- of the liberals
I invited @geewhysee over here to give you liberals someone to ‘argue’ with. He put in the effort to make post #926. And you liberals just flat out ignored him. I think that you liberals have acted in just an incredibly rude manner here.
So how do we confiscate the land so there is no “rent seeking”, do we build and put people in concentration camps and kill them off when they refuse to hand over their land to the neo bolsheviks?
The alternative economically is to have central planning. The government owning the means of production. Collective farming. Governments seizing the means of landlordism.
We will call that experiment “The Great Leap Forward” and it works well for everyone everytime.
I think all @Sabo is suggesting is that tenants not pay their rent and police then not shoot the tenants. Seems less violent than what you’re talking about.
When landlords stop paying taxes and municipalities go bankrupt because they have no more property tax revenues, where will Sabo go to get the money? The next logical step is to use those police officers to point guns at said owners to seize their assets and properties.
When landlords stop paying mortgages because renters stop paying rent, Sabo will allow the entire banking industry to go bankrupt because he’s anti capitalist right?
Who needs the banking system amirite? We lived great during medieval times.
So the end game is to live like Mad Max where everyone just drives around randomly.
All this cute little word games doesn’t go above level 0 thinking.
Naw. What I’m doing here in this part of the thread is pointing out that, judged by the criteria espoused by standard economics, our pre-pandemic status-quo <<<< Georgism.
These fantasies of Red Dawn, or whatev, are highly amusing. Manichean “reasoning” is quite the drug. According to @danby, it would take a horrific regime to force our pre-pandemic status-quo to accept less rent-seeking… and if we believe standard economics, more wealth-creation. Or in other words, our pre-pandemic status-quo creates less wealth than a horrific regime… again if we believe standard economics. SMH.
Meanwhile, back here in reality, the Georgists were a political third party, like the Greens and Libertarians…
This is why idealists not bothering to understand why things are the way they are before lecturing us on how they should be is such a problem. I can totally agree with you about how things should be and still think you’re a fucking moron. This is because I understand the why of things.
When you want to make things change you have to address the causes not the symptoms. I really need to mute this thread. It’s primary purpose seems to be to allow otherwise somewhat sane left wing posters to make absolute caricatures of themselves and demolish any respect the rest of us (who live in the real world not the idealized world) have for them.
Sabo, you’re an excellent fucking fabricator when it come to producing word salad. But you’ve turned into a stew of Einbert and Spank. That shit prolly takes time some time to detox from.
Sure, I can see why you call Henry George an idealist. But I think you are way off base when you characterize him as “not bothering to understand why things are the way they are”. I know you are way too lazy to follow a linkee to a Wikipedia, so I’ll quote an excerpt here instead (below). Do all these other folks not bother “to understand why things are the way they are” too ???/?
Its one thing to advocate for medicare for all (which the rest of the civilized world has figured out) and another thing to collapse the entire economic system.
There needs to be rent control everywhere, but that’s probably it.
@Sabo is so content to bang the drum about elimination of rent seeking by landowners he ignored all of the other questions and criticisms in my initial reponse.
I think most on here who support landlords wouldn’t have to strong of an opinion on the efficiency of a land value tax versus a progressive income tax or a VAT or a sales tax or a capital gains tax or whatever other type of tax we want to think about in a vaccuum. In some regards (eg ecologicaly) it is better, but since it is not in use anywhere, it is a theoretical concept that does not need to be defended against any real world outcomes, whereas the status quo can be pointed at for all of the current evils in society regardless of whether it is a root cause or just the least bad option in the face of human nature and social dynamics.
The idea that this would be a progressive tax and not lead to an increase in wealth inequality is IMO rooted in a 19th century understanding of the link between the wealth and land ownership. Guys like Gates and Bezos would be more than content to lose their income and capital gains taxes for this and not own any more land than what their house is built on. This is probably one of the reasons someone like Friedman liked the idea. The rich wouldn’t be disuaded from working or investing due to pesky progressive income and capital gains taxes and consumers wouldn’t be disuaded from purchasing luxuries due to sales taxes, a rich libertarian like Peter Thiel’s dream tax scenario.
Also do we have evidence we can extract enough reveue from land value to actually fund a modern social welfare state? I am pretty skeptical. Does Sabo plan to combine this with other forms of taxation, do all layers of government have overlapping LVT or do one or more of Federal, State, and Local governments not exist? What is the actual proposed new tax policy and how do we know how much revenue would be raised?
