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Comment by ethanbond | Hacker News Reader

Easiest and most fundamental way is Singapore’s model of having public ownership of nearly all land and leasing it out on 99 year leases. All wealth (which is definitionally excess productive power) ultimately accrues to land value, so this is the only point of intervention you need.

In places with a strong concept of private ownership of land already, you can get economically identical effects from a high Land Value Tax.

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> All wealth (which is definitionally excess productive power) ultimately accrues to land value, so this is the only point of intervention you need.

that was generally accurate prior to the mid 1800s. I don’t see at all how this would be particularly (or at all) effective on its own these days.

Do people no longer pay high prices to be near locations of high productivity?

They do. What about the remaining 50-98% of wealth? This would do barely anything to solve the current problems related to inequality. The 99 years would just be priced in and everything would more or less stay the same.

All of that Georgism stuff makes about as much sense in the context of modern economies as the gold standard.

You oughta read the book :) People were already making the same argument in the late 1800s since even then wealth appeared to be detached from land. But it turns out it's not.

> But it turns out it's not.

Right. That’s certainly a very convincing argument..

> People were already making the same argument in the late 1800s

And they were already partially correct.

> You oughta read the book :)

What book?

If you're an average early-mid career person you pay more than your net worth to be near locations of high productivity. If you're a billionaire, you pay a small fraction of your net worth. If your wealth is hereditary and you don't actually produce anything yourself, you don't even need to live in a high productivity location

Depends on who you think should be paying the most, I guess...

Ehhh… 1/3rd of Singapore land is still freehold. There is a ton family wealth tied up in plots worth $100M+.

And not to mention the government’s encouragement of property flipping. They sell public housing below market cost, then intentionally prop up open market values by limiting new public housing. There are a few places where people bought at $400k and after the 5 year lock flipped it for $1M.

99 year lease does free up property for future use, but nobody holds until lease expiration, they sell to extract the wealth, then someone buys the remaining lease at basic the NPV of the current rental rates.

And in addition, Singapore is a fantastic place to transfer wealth generated overseas. Family offices are encouraged to move there, and the rule of law protects that wealth vigorously.

And the capital gains tax is 0%. You can bring in vast sums of wealth and generate 100% tax free earnings through investment.

It’s a pretty sweet place to be rich.

Totally. The point isn’t to make someplace a bad place to be rich, nor to prevent richness. The point is to prevent total capture of the economy by the wealthy. The fact that Singapore’s economy has grown so obscenely without the apparently corequisite skyrocketing inequality is pretty remarkable (even if imperfect etc).

From my visits to Singapore I'd say it does have skyrocketing inequality. The inequality is just "exported", i.e. all the poor are not Singaporeans, but largely from Malaysia. Essentially the extremely strict citizenship laws in Singapore make the citizenship itself extremely valuable hence less poverty.

You really haven't seen much of S'pore if you identify M'sians as the disadvantaged in S'porean society.

Global labor arbitrage is a huge component in S'pore's economy, so in addition to importing talent for it's more productive industries, S'pore is an attractive destination for less developed SEA and South Asia regions who arrive on a temporary pass for manual labor or domestic labor for a comparatively low wage that translates to comparatively more back home.

A major issue regarding this is these communities' isolation and dependence on their employer during their time in S'pore, with a lack of options or recourse should issues arise.

M'sian nationals, especially Malaysian Chinese, to my perception, typically work the same industries as the citizenry, and seem to be favored for permanent residency and citizenship. The citizenship process is a black box, but it is generally observed that Malaysian Chinese are the most likely and fastest to get citizenship, and it is speculated that it is for reasons of cultural affinity and racial quota.

There are poor people in Singapore. They're better hidden, and a different color, but they're there. There's also no minimum wage, for better or worse.

I didn't claim otherwise.

I must have misinterpreted

> without the apparently corequisite skyrocketing inequality

then, apologies.

Are there places where it's not "pretty sweet" to be rich?

Haiti maybe?

You make a good point. Places like the Congo, where the rich have to live in literal fortresses, with many guards with guns and armored cars, means that while it's still better to be rich than poor, they likely live a less free lifestyle compared to somewhere that's got a Gini coefficient less than 50.

How does that theory explain this https://smartwealth.sg/income-inequality-singapore/

Skyrocketing wealth, skyrocketing quality of life, and decreasing wealth inequality?

It explains it as-is. It’s an economic powerhouse with almost zero drag on its markets (thus skyrocketing wealth) that also semi-effectively mitigates productivity capture by the upper classes.

Thanks

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