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Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

loukidelis.com

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Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#71

Post by larsiusprime »

kcb wrote: post #21
thaumasiotes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a different problem with the separation. In the modern day, the improvements may contribute more than 100% of the value of the land. In most cases the sole benefit of having land in a desirable city is that it is near other desirable things. This is unlike the agricultural model motivating Georgism, where the primary benefit of owning land is that you can grow crops on it. But taking the proposal literally that…

I still don't understand how Georgism makes any sense in a digital world. The biggest companies in the world require irrelevantly small amounts of land to operate. A person can make millions in a 10x10 box with a computer.

And yet real estate is still the world's biggest asset class, amounting to some 68% of all real assets worldwide:

https://www.gameofrent.com/content/is-land-a-big-deal

and the vast majority of that real estate's value is in land

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#72

Post by manholio »

It's depressing how the housing bubble and the consistent failure of western cities to properly control their expansion - and create adequate supply of housing and urban transit - has induced people into extreme versions of 19th century utopian socialism, such as de-facto nationalization of all land.

Instead of a working state with minimal powers that affords us the liberty to thrive, we are dreaming that a mythical and benevolent Leviathan will come and make order. Well, guess what, that benevolent Leviathan does not exist in practice, the state is made up and run by private individuals who are profit maximizing just like the grubby property owners gouging their tenants.

We know private property works, and that it has created a society where people enjoy political and economic freedoms unprecedented in the history of mankind. Yes, land is different, and while it's essentially unlimited (from a housing perspective), due to it's 2D structure there are strong externalities related to its use. There is a whole discipline related to solving those problems - urban planning. We can go even a step higher and force cities, using national/state law, to create the necessary housing supply and transport systems - if they are willing to for whatever reasons, say the illusive property appreciation induced by scarcity.

This is all much more tenable than a "100% tax".

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#73

Post by jjav »

josephcsible wrote: post #68
jjav wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well guess what? > Now they're millionaires. The difficulty with this reasoning is that it assumes that homes (and the land they sit on) have only economic value and nothing else matters. > No owners "lose" from property values shooting through the roof. In the story you just described they lost their homes they had built up and loved. For many people, a bunch of cash doesn't replace that.

They didn't lose their houses. They sold them. When ownership of your house goes to someone else, you lost it if your bank balance stayed the same, but you sold it if your bank balance went up by the value of the house.

> They didn't lose their houses. They sold them.

They lost their homes which is not just a house. There's a much more emotional aspect to a home that can't be expressed in merely dollars.

They were also forced to sell in the story, it wasn't a choice.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#74

Post by mekkkkkk »

josephcsible wrote: post #68
jjav wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well guess what? > Now they're millionaires. The difficulty with this reasoning is that it assumes that homes (and the land they sit on) have only economic value and nothing else matters. > No owners "lose" from property values shooting through the roof. In the story you just described they lost their homes they had built up and loved. For many people, a bunch of cash doesn't replace that.

They didn't lose their houses. They sold them. When ownership of your house goes to someone else, you lost it if your bank balance stayed the same, but you sold it if your bank balance went up by the value of the house.

Both things can be true at the same time, though. They lost their house because they were forced to sell it.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#75

Post by Kbelicius »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #37
boomboomsubban wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your issue is "what if someone owns huge chunks of land and doesn't try to make any money off it?" Then Hollywood gets built somewhere else where someone does want to make money. And eventually, those improvements may make the land the other person owns worth more money anyway and they'd be unable to pay the taxes.

> Your issue is "what if someone owns huge chunks of land and doesn't try to make any money off it?" That really has nothing to do with my issue. My issue is that, under the proposed system, two people who each own half of Los Angeles will pay a lot of property taxes, because the other half of Los Angeles adds taxable value to their half, even if their half is unimproved. But one person who owns the entirety of Los A…

> My issue is that, under the proposed system, two people who each own half of Los Angeles will pay a lot of property taxes, because the other half of Los Angeles adds taxable value to their half, even if their half is unimproved.

That is the goal, isn't it. To remove speculation from land ownership. Under this model the owner of the unimproved part of LA has no right to the increase in his land value since he did nothing to improve it. He either continues paying increasing taxes, sells it, or starts improving it. I see no bad side to it.

> But one person who owns the entirety of Los Angeles will pay no property taxes, because the unimproved land is worthless. This system guarantees that there will be a small number of people who own vast quantities of land, because that ownership structure minimizes the total tax burden.

What would be this persons incentive to own all this land under this model? Besides, somebody on the edges of this property starts some development and suddenly LA owners taxes raise.

> Sale of land would vanish to nearly nothing, because not only would the land have a very low cost of ownership - selling some of your land would raise the taxes you have to pay on the rest of it, the part that you keep!

This doesn't follow from anything. Land would have very low costs only if it is land that nobody wants, just like today. And selling your land will not lead to higher taxes on your remaining land unless the land that you sold gets improved in such a way that it increases the value of your land. Why do you think that landlords are entitled to value created by somebody else?

>The total amount of tax owed is different depending on the structure of who owns the land. Why does that make sense?

I agree, it doesn't make any sense. Luckily, your conclusion doesn't follow from anything that you wrote. The total amount of tax owed is different depending on the value of the land. Do you think that that also makes no sense?

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#76

Post by anamax »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #59
anamax wrote: post #22

Oh goody. Another group with an equation that they confuse with a complete picture of reality. (When you point out that reality comes up with different answers, they try to change or camouflage reality.) Note that Georgists don't tell us HOW the value of this "land value tax" is determined. It certainly isn't uniform across the US, but where does it change and why? In addition, Georgists insist that "public infrastru…

A buy or sell offer system works pretty well for determining value. Claim whatever value you please for tax purposes. Anyone can put your land into the commons by giving you your claimed value multiplied by a small safety factor. The current owner then gets priority on public housing or continued stewardship of the asset. Anyone can purchase your land in a forced sale by offering your claimed value x a larger safety…

> A buy or sell offer system works pretty well for determining value.

Georgists, which are the subject of this thread, explicitly say that taxes should not be NOT based on improvements, just the "land value". So if the improvements have significant value, buy sell doesn't work.

I'll let you fight that with them.

> Profitability (no matter whether your abstraction for ownership is property or political favour) as a fundamental concept is a tax on the poor to the benefit of the wealthy.

Twaddle. The garbage man doesn't show up unless he's paid. Farmers don't grow enough food for others unless they're paid.

To first approximation, no one provides any essential service for free.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#77

Post by mekkkkkk »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #47
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inhabitants don't lose. Play your scenario out. A bunch of poor people buy 100 acres of land for $1, and they turn it into a paradise. It becomes cool, so rich hipsters wanna buy up chunks to Instagram it. The first person sells a patch of land he bought for $0.01 for $1M. Suddenly, property tax on everyone's $0.01 parcels shoots up from $0 to $12,000 per year. These people have no jobs, so they can't afford $12,…

The other thing people who own land can do: take out a mortgage to build more homes on their land, live in one and either sell the subdivided land/co-op/condo units or rent them to others. The only people who can be “driven out” are the renters, but if you let owners subdivide and build more, even they should be able to stay in the neighborhood indefinitely. It’s only once you break the chain by not building new home…

Wouldn't mortgaging and bootstrapping profitable land use become incredibly hard in a world where 100% of land value was taxed?

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#78

Post by jelliclesfarm »

Property taxes are a way for the governments to make sure that you never own your home. Ever. It is the most brazen thievery that has now been normalized and a crime against people who have been gaslit into believing that they have ‘rights’ under a state that they think they chose by the democratic process of election.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#79

Post by jelliclesfarm »

derac wrote: post #53
mjmahone17 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don’t see what’s wrong with your (in my mind) utopic vision. Everyone who wants to live in a mass of humanity 1000 ft tall should be able to afford to live in that mass, and we should be researching ways to make it more and more affordable. The only way it doesn’t work is if the community makes it impossible for more new people to get in, or if there isn’t enough economic opportunity to support all the people…

I do think they should get rid of prop 13, demolish all single family homes, and replace them with high-density buildings. What many people mean however, is that they want to continue to live there in the same single-family house forever. This is why prop 13 exists in the first place.

High density housing will not work in places with a high standard and quality of living. It will certainly erode individual rights, create environmental decline and infringe upon privacy.

In developed countries, high density housing will either make the city unbearably expensive(NYC) or bring down quality of life.(SF)

High density is a sign that resources are scarce but demand for them has increased. The sign of a well functioning and professional state is one that has a healthy middle class and enjoys low density sustainable standard of life.

Often the case for high density housing is married to sustainability goals. But sustainability goals exist in the first place because resources are scarce and it is becoming difficult to live in a sustainable manner.

The rational solution is to place a moratorium upon expansion of the city and the population. Only in Bizarro World would the logic of cramming more people even more densely in the name of sustainable design would make sense.

The true scarcity mentality is with governing bodies and elected officials who do not have the vision, integrity or collective access to more than one brain cell. They fail to create networked sustainable communities and manipulate their vote banks.

One might choose to be fair and honest to admit that calls for high density housing is often where successful immigrants congregate due to their employment. Often said immigrants are on work visas and often are not eligible to vote in local/national elections.

Is it a coincidence that elected officials impose high taxes only in certain cities/counties and extract every dollar they can squeeze from a work force who are cuffed to their visa sponsored high paying jobs? The golden goose is slaughtered and well done. Stick a fork in it and let the taxes drip.

There are no high density initiatives in Visalia, CA. Only in Bay Area. Because why build infrastructure and public transport when you can keep taxing those who can’t even vote in the first place. At least in CA, it’s win-win over and over.

Every city that has a highly paid immigrant work force is on the chopping block and will start passing high density housing initiatives. Success must be penalized..it seems. Affordable housing is subsidized housing. And who subsidizes it? The developers will tack that cost to the market value homes. Which would..surprise!..create more unaffordable cities. It’s a vicious cycle that should obvious to most who pay mortgages for all of their working lives.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#80

Post by Aunche »

lazide wrote: post #8
cousin_it wrote: post #3

I'd like to better understand the concept of "unimproved land value" vs. "improvements". For example, let's say there's a neighborhood of people who are quite poor but charitable toward one another. So they build nice gardens accessible for free, little galleries, drinking fountains and so on. As a result, other people want to move in, land value in the community increases, and eventually the original inhabitants can…

By 'lose the land', really they'd be forced to sell or go bankrupt/accrue tax debt. Which is pretty terrible if the folks are little old ladies settling down to avoid the cruel harsh world, and now need to find somewhere else to live when they are least capable of doing so (being on a fixed income and all). The 'can't put old widows out of their homes' scenario is why California's Prop 13 came to be, btw. Even withou…

>The 'can't put old widows out of their homes' scenario is why California's Prop 13 came to be

That's the Prop 13 lobbyist's excuse. In reality, these old widows are never at risk of being kicked out of their house at all. I'm sure plenty of investors would be willing to pay off the widow's taxes in exchange for ownership of the property after they pass.

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