patrick.net

Reality says

Regarding taxing commerce, that is quite a different issue when the topic is international commerce: there seems to be a trend pushing the world towards non-local economy, making every region dependent on imports from far places in order to survive.

I agree. Georgism is about an individual nation's tax system. Once you cross borders, you cannot assume the same rules apply. So many arguments for Georgism include an argument for tariffs.

Reality says

A Georgist tax system would make housing much much more expensive, literally sucking dry the middle class and working class

The overall tax burden should be lower under Georgism, because there would be no income tax or sales tax, or the systems involved to collect them.

You would also have the easy ability to adjust how much tax you pay by using less land, or less valuable land.

Reality says

The impossible task of deriving Georgist "land" value (different from transactable land with human improvement already included) can be extremely labor intensive, politically driven and highly corrupt.

I asked a Georgist about this at a meeting in SF, and his solution is that the tax should not be set by any bureaucrat, but simply bid on, letting the market determine the tax rate. That was Ingo Bischoff, who died recently:

https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/exclusive-interviews/anthony-wile-ingo-bischoff-on-why-a-land-tax-is-good-what-austrians-don39t-understand-about-real-bills-and-the-enduring-popularity-of-henry-george/

You have the right to profit from the work you do, and that profit should be entirely untaxed to encourage productive work.

In order for an artist to profit from displaying his sculpture or paint, he is also taking up the atoms that make up the sculpture or paint. He did not create those atoms.

But you do not have the right to profit from merely owning land, because you did not produce it. (Again, barring the edge case of created land.)

The current owner paid the previous owner, who (after some recursive steps) paid for the original case of whoever created the land. If the current owner surveys and divides his land into two pieces, then he literally is the creator of at least one of the parcels. What is property right if we can not have ownership over what we paid for?

Reality says

Land can not be moved, but assessing value of Georgist "land" (as opposed to transactable land with human improvement already included) is not only difficult but impossible.

It's simple if you just let people bid on it.

Reality says

see the miles of abandoned Detroit homes for real life example what it's like when annual tax due approaches rent

Detroit home abandonment is from the insanely high levels of violent crime and nothing else.

They would be bidding on the improvement in addition to the Georgist theoretical land. Without original survey, they would have nothing to bid on. Without years of defense against vagrants and trash dumpers, once again they would have nothing to bid on. That's assuming there is no structure sitting on the land, and no filling, leveling or draining of any kind (90+% of land in transactions have those physical improvements even when no building structure is present).

Reality says

Hongkong was/is a disaster as far as housing is concerned: the average housing unit floor area is 430sqft, and the average price is 23x median income.

Hong Kong has/had a much lower income tax rate than we do because so much of their revenue comes from the land tax instead.

This led to the explosion in commerce which makes Hong Kong so desirable as a place to live.

Violence drives out rent-paying renters and owner-occupants, but owners (who are not residents) abandon the place because tax being too high relative to rent cash flow.

Hong Kong was prosperous because it was the sole trading post between a closed communist China and the western world. The communist regime literally bought medicine and necessary industrial material through Hong Kong while the regime was fighting UN/Americans in Korea; the sanction-busters made good money on both sides. Millions of refugees fleeing communist oppression also provided the labor force for 1950's-70's small electronics manufacturing. The post-1980's financialization of Hong Kong might have been attractive to international hot money seeking relative tax haven (and almost guaranteed ability to buy and then sell condos for profit if getting out early enough), it's not a model we in the US can embrace as a country unless you are planning on moving somewhere else in a few decades when the bubble bursts and let communists take over the US (which may well be a valid description of what's happening now! LOL!)

HK, Dubai and Singapore show that a Georgist tax system would not result in workers retaining more of their income as disposable income every month. In a Georgist high housing cost system, the government (and the banksters) get another two trounches of middle class income through the housing value bubble/bust, and financing. The housing market becomes a giant pyramid scheme that everyone is forced into paying, and enjoy much worse housing conditions. Moving into ever higher high rises (in order to reduce per unit land use) also brings significant safety risks in case of fire or planes flying off-course. Notice, despite HK average housing unit floor area is 430sqft, most of HK land is not developed! Thanks to Georgist land restrictions/high prices.

@Patrick,

Just came across this from Sam Altman, and I thought of you and Henry George. I think you will love his proposal.

This may come as a surprise to some, but I’m all for it if it works. As I previously mentioned, we are only on this earth for a brief moment. I just want my stay to be as enjoyable as possible rather than being a wage slave. 😂

Here’s my belief. The establishment will not allow it to happen. They hate Trump; they hate Elon; and they will hate Sam Altman. The wealthy and powerful people will not allow for their control to be taken away and assets to be taxed away.

Have fun reading.

https://moores.samaltman.com/

Eman says

Patrick,

Just came across this from Sam Altman, and I thought of you and Henry George. I think you will love his proposal.

This may come as a surprise to some, but I’m all for it if it works. As I previously mentioned, we are only on this earth for a brief moment. I just want my stay to be as enjoyable as possible rather than being a wage slave. 😂

Here’s my belief. The establishment will not allow it to happen. They hate Trump; they hate Elon; and they will hate Sam Altman. The wealthy and powerful people will not allow for their control to be taken away and assets to be taxed away.

Have fun reading.

https://moores.samaltman.com/

Ghostwritten. Probably AI written. And he totally ignores the Apportionment Clause problem. But most Georgists do.

But pretty good.

This part sums it all up:

Even more power will shift from labor to capital. If public policy doesn’t adapt accordingly, most people will end up worse off than they are today

Vyrdism is more of an answer than Georgism, at this point.

https://futuristech.info/posts/opinion-why-i-am-pro-vyrdism-and-not-pro-universal-basic-income-ubi

Eman says

Just came across this from Sam Altman

This reminds me of "Picnic on Nearside" by John Varley. It has a collection of stories that take place in a future similar to what Sam Altman describes.

I still like Georgism, but I'm horrified by UBI, which will definitely be used to starve people who object to total state control over their lives.

Vyrdism sounds interesting, but what is it exactly?

Patrick says

I still like Georgism, but I'm horrified by UBI, which will definitely be used to starve people who object to total state control over their lives.

Vyrdism sounds interesting, but what is it exactly?

Article gets into depth about it.

But basically, you to take something like UBI, pool it with others in a cooperative that invests and utilize productive assets - automated as possible. Or invest in it directly.

UBI— fine, all's well. I'm all for it. Then automation cleans up the rest. That means that your only source of income is UBI.

The State doles that out, so you always have to be cool with the State, lest they take away your UBI. The State has always been run by the bourgeoisie— those with wealth— so it's by their own grace that you're actually paid. "Unconditional" is the worst possible word to describe basic income. Your life is now reduced to whatever the State and those who own the State decide it's worth.

If you do anything they don't like, they'll take it away. That's why "unconditional" is the worst possible word to use— nothing is unconditional. It's a blatant lie to get people to sign onto it.

The only way UBI would "empower" people would be if the people used it to empower themselves, particularly by pooling capital to buy ownership of the machines. UBI by itself doesn't empower anyone. It actually makes you even less empowered because you're now dependent on a central body.

See how people can get fired over something they said on Facebook? Imagine a situation similar to that, except even worse. If you hold the wrong opinions, buy the wrong things, say the wrong things, who knows, there goes your "unconditional" basic income.

Think of it this way: What would you call it if I were a heavily automated nation's richest man and I gave out money to everyone in that nation every month? All goods and capital go through me first, and I pay out as I see fit. Everyone gets a certain amount of money.

You wouldn't call that "basic income". You'd call that an autocratic dictatorship. If I find you did something wrong, I could punish you by withholding your income.

If I tell you to do something, and you don't do it, I punish you by taking away your income.

If I tell you to support me, and you support the opposition, I punish you by taking away your income.

If I tell you that 2+2=5 and you tell me it equals 4, I punish you by taking away your income.

What can you do to resist? Nothing. That income was your last hope to survive, and you blew it.

"But what if we haven't automated everything yet and I can still work?"

Oh, joys! Because now I can turn you into a debt-slave.

I give you basic income, and you disobey my laws, social order, and will? I take away your basic income— then demand you pay me back, with interest. You now have even less money than you started with. You don't pay me on time, I raise the interest rates. You're now indebted to me.

That's why it should never be seen as an ends to itself. It's a means, and only ever should be a means. That's why I support Vyrdism and technostism.

Technostism is just the word that describes an automated society. A technostistic society is one that actively automates labor, and a technostist is a person who actively seeks automation.

I am a technostist— I want to automate away as many jobs as possible, and I will do whatever I can to make sure jobs are automated. I am also a Singularitarian and national-transhumanist, which means I want to keep humans as far away from any new jobs as well.

So it's obvious that Grade-IV Automation will unemploy a lot of people. That's why I'm a Vyrdist— I feel we should own that automation, have it do our drudgery and labor, profiting off the technotariat. I'd like to go further into what Vyrdism entails, but right now I'm just trying to point out the flaws in thinking UBI will save us— it won't. At best, it's a means to an end, and that end is, in fact, Vyrdism.

What did I mean up there by 'Grade-IV Automation?' I believe there are multiple grades of automation:

• Grade-I is tool usage in general, from hunter-gatherer/scavenger tech all the way up to the pre-industrial age.


• Grade-II is the usage of physical automation, such as looms, spinning jennies, and tractors. This is what the Luddites feared.


• Grade-III is the usage of digital automation, such as personal computers, calculators, robots, and basically anything we in the modern age take for granted. This age will last a bit longer into the future, though the latter ends of it have spooked quite a few people.


• Grade-IV is the usage of mental automation, and this is where things change. This is where we finally see artificial general intelligence, meaning that one of our tools has become capable of creating new tools on its own.

AI will become capable of learning new tasks much more quickly than humans and can instantly share its newfound knowledge with any number of other AI-capable machines connected to its network. It is with this advancement and Grade-IV automation that technostism, and thus Vyrdism, become possible (and indeed, naturally begin occurring).

Example:

Meet Joshua. Joshie-boy is an anarchist who's been working at McDonalds. He fought for a $15 minimum wage way back in the prehistoric year of 2016 and got his wish. In the futuristic space year of 2026, he got the pink slip— the manager of his chain replaced all the workers with machines to save money. Luckily, the USA passed an ordinance that made UBI the law of the land back in 2025. Conservatives and liberals came to a compromise that, as long as all other welfare schemes were dropped and many regulations were ended, UBI would be granted. So even though Josh is now unemployed, he's still receiving a paycheck. That's nice. Good for him. He's still going to find another job though, right?

Well, not really. He's decided that he does not like the bourgeoisie at all, and will now use his basic income grant to keep him afloat while he protests the Man and the free market. That's all well and good. His roommate begs him to join a worker cooperative down the lane— in fact, a technate. However, Josh resists, figuring that it's still just a part of the capitalist system.

So, when he attends a protest, the government notes this and disimburses his basic income. Now, not only is he not receiving a basic income, but he's also indebted to the State. And guess what— since machines are starting to take over all the jobs, there's no way for him to pay off this debt. He could go to school, educate himself, learn how to repair the machines and whatnot... except the machines are learning how to do that too, and much faster than he can.

Game over. He's now property of the State. The Karma Police will be coming to collect him and seize his assets; he'll be relocated to a debtor's camp to work off what he owes.

Whoops.

Compare this to if Josh had joined that technate, a bunch of people who owned their own droids and held shares in other technates. He receives a seed loan to introduce him to the technate, which his droids eventually pay off, ultimately welcoming him into the technate as a full fledged networker. Now his paycheck comes off of actual robotic labor. He can even purchase more droids for himself and increase his net worth. And it doesn't matter if the State takes away his basic income— that isn't even a hundredth of his total income.

It turns out this technate is part of a very large federation. Several networkers had used the basic income they received to buy droids or start businesses, which then joined the technate federation. Cooperatives also took advantage of this. 50 million Americans are part of the federation— they actually have power; they have control over their lives; they are living comfortably, if not better than ever. They don't have to answer to any central figure at the top. If they break a law, too bad, they still get their monies. The Worker Cooperative Federation succeeds in actually lifting millions out of poverty, while UBI succeeds in putting millions back in it.

It's the difference between wealth creation vs. wealth redistribution. Decentralization vs. centralization.

Basically in that example, you are a pimp who gets his hoes to generate money for you. Only the hoes are AI agents (physical or purely digital) of some sort. You join a cooperative much like medieval craftsmen and merchants joined guilds, to get economies of scale, political protection, etc.

UkraineIsTotallyFucked says

If I tell you to do something, and you don't do it, I punish you by taking away your income.

If I tell you to support me, and you support the opposition, I punish you by taking away your income.

Or, how about, "As soon as I get total power by promising you income, I will withdraw it arbitrarily at will to fuck you over for the hell of it whenever I please."

This is what Macron did with the yellow vest pensioners, who thought that somehow by putting Macron in charge they were getting a promised and guaranteed social contract instead of an arbitrary tyrant. Never mistake the first check for a guaranteed trend, which is what the NATO and Jesuit subsidized border tourists aka fake refugees and illegals will discover as soon as their use is ended.

Yup.

One of the big advantages of Georgism is its simplicity.

Only land and other natural resources would be taxed, and the tax rate would be how much someone bids to have monopoly use of them per year.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/trump-drops-bombshell-proposal-allegedly-suggests-eliminating-income/

Trump Drops Bombshell Proposal: Allegedly Suggests Eliminating Income Tax in Favor of High Import Tariffs During DC Republicans Meeting

This sounds like a good step towards Georgism.

Patrick says

Trump Drops Bombshell Proposal: Allegedly Suggests Eliminating Income Tax in Favor of High Import Tariffs During DC Republicans Meeting

Wouldn't be nearly enough. A VAT and a business Gross Receipts flat tax might. Both at 10% rates at least.

And this:

Despite these tariffs, the prices of imported goods remained unaffected under Trump’s administration.

There are so many ways around tariffs these days. Globalism and standardized shipping containers are the main culprits.

Right, it's just a step in the right direction. The Land Value Tax is what would generate enough revenue to run the government we need. Not the one we have.

Patrick says

Right, it's just a step in the right direction. The Land Value Tax is what would generate enough revenue to run the government we need. Not the one we have.

Again, LVT can't be levied at the federal level, really. Apportionment.

We couldn't impose a federal income tax either until the 16th Amendment.

16th should be repealed and replaced with LVT.

Patrick says

We couldn't impose a federal income tax either until the 16th Amendment.

16th should be repealed and replaced with LVT.

We could for the same reasons we could impose an LVT. It's just that the apportionment clause issue made collecting both too much a pain in the ass both technically and politically.

Getting any Constitutional amendment passed and ratified these days is politically impossible.

Me arguing with a communist on my Substack:

https://patrickdotnet.substack.com/p/patricknet-memes-wed-sep-04-2024/comment/67915786

I sympathize with your wanting to believe, but it's not even remotely close. Communism murdered way WAY more people than fascism: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. People want to keep the results of their own labor, so communists have to kill people to take their stuff to "redistribute". And after a bit of this, no one bothers to produce anything anymore because they see it will be stolen. Then everyone still left alive is poor.

But let's talk about what we agree on: as productivity increased over the last 50 years or so, workers got none of the gains. It all went to stockholders.

All that stuff produced ultimately came from land. Thing of a car. Every part of it was from land: metal, glass, rubber, even the gasoline. No one made the land, but all the profits from land go to the land owners anyway.

Or think of a landlord. OK, he built or maintains a building. That's real work and he should get paid for that part. But owning the land? That's not work. That's just taking from others, also called "non-productive rent-seeking":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

That unearned land rent is the only appropriate object of taxation, and should be taxed at 100%. Taxing away the profits from land ownership will not hurt the economy in the least. It's not like less land will be produced.

But taxing earned income is bad, because that discourages work. And taxing sales is bad because that discourages commerce, and commerce makes everyone better off as people engage in voluntary trade with each other.

So the owners of businesses are doing something good by producing, but something bad by taking unearned profits from land ownership. Neither the pure capitalist nor pure communist is doing the right thing.

The impediment to implementing Georgism is psychological. As people start to accumulate land, they LIKE the ability to exploit everyone else without working anymore, simply by owning the land. Everyone hopes to exploit everyone else by owning as much land as possible. Mostly we see this when people buy a house. They want the price of the house+land to go up without doing any work. So pretty much everyone who buys a house instantly becomes anti-Georgist because he or she is hoping to take unearned income from others who need somewhere to live.

Patrick says

So pretty much everyone who buys a house instantly becomes anti-Georgist because he or she is hoping to take unearned income from others who need somewhere to live.

That scenario only works if one owns a trailer park and charges trailer owners to park without providing any services. Owning the land under my house is not an example of charging someone else or getting unearned income. In fact, I have to pay the county a tax apportioned to that land so that is like Georgism in practice.

Owning the land under your house is a bet that the land value will rise due to the development of the economy nearby so that you can eventually sell it for more and profit from the work of others.

But yes, to the degree that property tax is taxing land, it is a bit of Georgism already.

The house value and improvements to the land should be completely untaxed.

Patrick says

Owning the land under your house is a bet that the land value will rise due to the development of the economy

"development of the economy?" Try "inflation." Inflation that causes the tax to increase every other year and increases the cost of selling and replacing.

Well yes, there are both.

All assets inflate without necessarily increasing in value as the Fed prints ever more dollars.

But there is also an increase in land value as the economy around that land develops. That can run the other way as well, as in Detroit.

I would argue that the land value only goes up as long as the population keeps increasing. Once we reach an infection point where world population growth stalls or reverses to decline, it will likely not appreciate anymore or even depreciate.

Trump is going to open up federal lands for development. it’ll be wild again.

Patrick says

Me arguing with a communist on my Substack:

Well, there's your problem right there.

Communists are to be shot, not 'argued with'.

HeadSet says

"development of the economy?" Try "inflation." Inflation that causes the tax to increase every other year and increases the cost of selling and replacing

Both you and Patrick are correct.

FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden says

Trump is going to open up federal lands for development. it’ll be wild again.

Sure he will.

He also just promised to young ppl he would slash the cost of a house by 50% by abolishing regulations that cause expensive housing construction costs.

But those regs are almost entirely local and state. He can't touch those even if Congress goes along.

But it is excellent politics for him to make these empty promises.

mell says

I would argue that the land value only goes up as long as the population keeps increasing. Once we reach an infection point where world population growth stalls or reverses to decline, it will likely not appreciate anymore or even depreciate.

Yes, that seems true. Detroit is confirmation. As the population shrank, driven away by violent crime, the land prices also declined dramatically.

Job density also matters. Where jobs are increasing, land prices increase, soaking up unearned income off the work of others. Which is pretty much the central thesis of Georgism.

Patrick says

Job density also matters. Where jobs are increasing, land prices increase, soaking up unearned income off the work of others. Which is pretty much the central thesis of Georgism.

State to state comparison would not to look at Detroit (although that stands out all on its own) but say, California or even Oregon vs West Virginia).

Patrick says

Where jobs are increasing, land prices increase, soaking up unearned income off the work of others.

So, the many times that lands prices have decreased, does that mean that those "others" have soaked income of the landowner?

I don't see how.