Land and property improvements are already taxed (at least everywhere I’ve lived in the USA); I see no logical cause and effect relationships between the additional tax proposal and the alleged problems (nimby-ism) it is supposed to address.
Additionally, property tax rates vary massively from state to state and there's pretty strong correlation between property tax rates and housing supply and housing affordability. The legacy of California's Proposition 13 and its effects on housing supply are very well studied.
Property tax still has inefficiencies (it can punish someone who builds relative to someone who holds an empty lot), and Land Value tax would be more efficient in aligning incentives properly.
https://dailyanarchist.com/2012/06/12/what-is-georgism-follo...
>A common explanation of Georgism’s failure is that the philosophy itself is flawed and, ultimately, would strengthen collectivism and the state, not individualism. In this vein Tucker asked a fundamental question: How can a collective like society own land if such ownership is improper for individuals? Either land could be owned by an individual — and, thus, sold or transferred to another individual — or it was not subject to ownership at all. He considered collective ownership to be a contradiction in terms. Or, as Tucker might ask, “Can I sell my share? No? Then I don’t own it either individually or as part of a collective.”
>It is to such critiques of Georgism that Part II of this article will turn.
Granted, that might be a good criticism of Georgism from the perspective of a committed anarchist, but I was expecting, you know, economics.
That said I don't find this to be particularly convincing, given that they have mixed up labor and land, as well as failing to remember that Georgists are concerned with the benefit of land ownership (that is, rents) not the thing itself. The remainder is standard anarchist criticism of the state, which is fine I suppose if you are an anarchist but I don't think will convince anyone else (and I am not an anarchist)
"The anarchists' vagueness in attempting to define occupancy and use was best exemplified in the correspondence between Tucker and Stephen Byington (who subsequently became a "disciple" of Tucker's).
Byington wanted to know what would happen to occupiers of land or buildings when they would be away from their premises for a period of time.
Tucker, reducing his answer to an absurdity, replied that the very last user and occupier would not only lose his land but his personal property as well."
These are not serious worldviews.
Relativity. You have spent years hearing views that are contrary to Tucker.
Of course they seem insincere and worth scoffing at. Making the entire premise unfalsifiable and hewing to hand me down gossip from the past, as if it has a monopoly on “greater good”.
Meat based tape recorders rambling inanity of the dead.
You should look into squatters rights. Tuckers view is alive and well in some forms in our society. It’s hardly resulted in physics inverting.
Vain people defending hand me down story regarding private property on the other hand tends to result in a whole lot of atrocity.
Usually the obstacle is they're not permitted to, not least because the neighbours don't want it. LVT doesn't solve the neighbours not wanting it - at best they get a small tax reduction but they still live next door to a glue factory and will lose money selling their house. For some things it makes it worse: now people protest against mass transit they don't think they'll hear or will bring the "wrong sort of people" into the neighbourhood because land near a transit hub will be in a higher tax bracket. And if LVT is assessed on development potential of the land, homeowners that dont want to sell to developers should absolutely love some more restrictive covenants on the neighbourhood that mean the nice plot they live on is no longer classed as suitable to build anything bigger than the house they already live in.
Yes, that's the point, the current levels of incentive are not working so we need to crank it up
> LVT doesn't solve the neighbours not wanting it
The point is to crank up the pain, a lot. NIMBY-ism can be very local since not every parcel of land is being developed at the same time, but the beauty of LVT is that land value doesn't vary much in a local immediate area, so it hits everyone the same. The idea is that if everyone is hurting, they will seek relief as a group by overall relaxing restrictions that would better allow them to meet their tax burden.
> For some things it makes it worse: now people protest against mass transit they don't think they'll hear or will bring the "wrong sort of people" into the neighbourhood because land near a transit hub will be in a higher tax bracket.
This already happens. Those who want to NIMBY against new development will do so in any shape or form it takes, and it's not clear that the current paradigm is really effectively addressing this either.
> And if LVT is assessed on development potential of the land
LVT is assessed on land value, and development potential is but one piece. Other pieces include convenience, good amenities like parks and schools, etc.
Part of why I find LVT so appealing is that it has the potential to address (not necessarily completely solve, but address) the US's very unequal system of things like access to good schools, parks, convenience that are more or less funded by local property taxes; if you want good services, you will also be forced to open those up to others as well to address your tax burden.
Nope. If I'm hurting from my tax burden, I don't want to remove restrictions on development which will make my land more valuable (unless I've decided to move). On the contrary, there's nothing I'd love more than a zoning restriction which not only stops my neighbour building an apartment block overlooking my property but also reduces my taxes as my dwelling no longer sits on land which can be considered prime real estate for building apartments on.
(As an aside, talking about 'cranking up the pain a lot' on people who are guilty of the crime of enjoying a house they bought in an area which is nice as a benefit to the system is a large part of the reason that Georgism has never really got anywhere)
> This already happens. Those who want to NIMBY against new development will do so in any shape or form it takes, and it's not clear that the current paradigm is really effectively addressing this either.
But as I said in the part you reply to, LVT explicitly creates new incentives to NIMBY: people that do not find the noise of a mass transit system bothersome will find the tax increases bothersome (unless they're personally big users of the system). That's more people opposing the development than before. Indeed it creates incentives to NIMBY against stuff almost universally considered good because the further away the excellent public school is, the less tax you pay. This doesn't mean facilities will be built in deprived areas, it means people will seek to block them being built in good areas. A "solution" to NIMBYism which creates more NIMBYism is no kind of solution at all
The crime is not climbing the ladder, it's climbing the ladder and then pulling it up so only the few who overcome a much higher stumbling block can join. Or, as satire site Reductress put it, "‘All Are Welcome Here,’ Says Sign in Neighborhood Where Average Home Costs $2 Million"
> https://reductress.com/post/all-are-welcome-here-says-sign-i...
The pain is all felt by people that lived in an area when it really wasn't appealing, the people who would have been sufficiently proud of how that area's changes to turn down the carrot of life changing financial offers until LVT beats them with the stick of No, Really, You're Too Poor To Live Here
The wealthier, whiter sort of person that actively looks for $2m houses gets upsides as well as downsides, especially if they actually want to live in an area where only people who can overcome the stumbling block of high incomes can afford.
Or as a satirist might put it: "Rich Neighbourhoods Lack Diversity, Advocate of Accelerating Gentrification via the Tax System Suggests"
LVT would force these people (on the margin) to move to less desirable areas since their tax bill will go up. When they people will buy their house and want higher density housing put it since it's cheaper than single family homes under LVT. Over time all the single family home wanters will be forced to live further from the city center/desirable areas as land value continues to rise due to development in the area.
Not even going to get into the weird incentives/pressure this would create for zoning boards.