Book Review: Progress and Poverty
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Book Review: Progress and Poverty
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Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#2Progress and Poverty was once the most popular economics book ever written. The Georgist Theory in it, and the land value tax proposed by it is still endorsed by economists today.
This review clearly illustrates the ideas from George that land captures gains that in a more fair society we'd want to go to labour.
Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#3Progress and Poverty was once the most popular economics book ever written. The Georgist Theory in it, and the land value tax proposed by it is still endorsed by economists today. This review clearly illustrates the ideas from George that land captures gains that in a more fair society we'd want to go to labour.
>"... the land value tax proposed by it is still endorsed by economists today."
Your comment is somewhat misleading, as it seems to suggest that all or most economists endorse Georgism, which is not true. Some vocal minority of economists are pro-Georgism, but I haven't seen any data suggesting it is the most popular taxation scheme.
Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#4Progress and Poverty was once the most popular economics book ever written. The Georgist Theory in it, and the land value tax proposed by it is still endorsed by economists today. This review clearly illustrates the ideas from George that land captures gains that in a more fair society we'd want to go to labour.
I may have to pick this up -- as someone with no economics training at all, a land value tax seems extremely appealing and intuitive to me. I'd already like to become a complete partisan in favor of this policy, but I guess it would make sense to read what the actual justification is, for it, haha.
Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#5Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#6Progress and Poverty was once the most popular economics book ever written. The Georgist Theory in it, and the land value tax proposed by it is still endorsed by economists today. This review clearly illustrates the ideas from George that land captures gains that in a more fair society we'd want to go to labour.
I may have to pick this up -- as someone with no economics training at all, a land value tax seems extremely appealing and intuitive to me. I'd already like to become a complete partisan in favor of this policy, but I guess it would make sense to read what the actual justification is, for it, haha.
The biggest problem with LVT is surprisingly simple: accurately assessing the value of land is very hard, and ensuring that the assessment process is fair is therefore extremely hard.
LVT experiments in history tend to run into problems when people feel that their land has been valued incorrectly, leading to a vocal minority that despises the law. That results in something like this:
https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...
Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may have to pick this up -- as someone with no economics training at all, a land value tax seems extremely appealing and intuitive to me. I'd already like to become a complete partisan in favor of this policy, but I guess it would make sense to read what the actual justification is, for it, haha.
The biggest problem with LVT is surprisingly simple: accurately assessing the value of land is very hard, and ensuring that the assessment process is fair is therefore extremely hard. LVT experiments in history tend to run into problems when people feel that their land has been valued incorrectly, leading to a vocal minority that despises the law. That results in something like this: https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/i…
Could you tell us where these experiments were held, and how far they went? For example, were other taxes eliminated at the same time?
Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may have to pick this up -- as someone with no economics training at all, a land value tax seems extremely appealing and intuitive to me. I'd already like to become a complete partisan in favor of this policy, but I guess it would make sense to read what the actual justification is, for it, haha.
The biggest problem with LVT is surprisingly simple: accurately assessing the value of land is very hard, and ensuring that the assessment process is fair is therefore extremely hard. LVT experiments in history tend to run into problems when people feel that their land has been valued incorrectly, leading to a vocal minority that despises the law. That results in something like this: https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/i…
Huh. Property tax is already a thing of course, but I guess if the LVT was going to replace all taxation the stakes would be much higher.
In an urban setting, it seems to me that the land value should be... reasonably uniform, unlike property, which should make assessing much easier, right? But that's just getting the number. Whether people are happy with the number is a whole 'nother problem.
Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may have to pick this up -- as someone with no economics training at all, a land value tax seems extremely appealing and intuitive to me. I'd already like to become a complete partisan in favor of this policy, but I guess it would make sense to read what the actual justification is, for it, haha.
The biggest problem with LVT is surprisingly simple: accurately assessing the value of land is very hard, and ensuring that the assessment process is fair is therefore extremely hard. LVT experiments in history tend to run into problems when people feel that their land has been valued incorrectly, leading to a vocal minority that despises the law. That results in something like this: https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/i…
People who disagree with their assessed value should be given the option to declare whatever value they like. If they take this option, the state should have the option of buying their property at the declared value, plus some extra to cover transaction costs.
Re: Book Review: Progress and Poverty
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may have to pick this up -- as someone with no economics training at all, a land value tax seems extremely appealing and intuitive to me. I'd already like to become a complete partisan in favor of this policy, but I guess it would make sense to read what the actual justification is, for it, haha.
The biggest problem with LVT is surprisingly simple: accurately assessing the value of land is very hard, and ensuring that the assessment process is fair is therefore extremely hard. LVT experiments in history tend to run into problems when people feel that their land has been valued incorrectly, leading to a vocal minority that despises the law. That results in something like this: https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/i…
Focusing on that one issue presents an incomplete picture, to say the least. LVT has been tried many places, and has been no less successful than other tax systems. Here's a pretty thorough analysis and discussion of empirical results.
https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/ass...
Of course there are secondary and/or orthogonal problems that need to be solved. Of course there are some people who complain, either because they are truly being overtaxed or (more often) because they think they personally would do better under some other system. Just like literally every other tax system including the ones most of us live under right now. LVT is no panacea, but there are legitimate reasons to believe it's a fundamentally better starting point than the mishmash of income, sales, and property taxes we have now.