>From: Fred Foldvary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >In which case you yourself are 80% Georgist, because if taxes there be not, >then landowners will bear the major cost of infrastructure now paid for by >the taxation of labor and capital. That will deflate their land value, now >puffed up by the capitalization of neighborhood benefits they don't pay >for. >The rent would be collected by the private providers, but such rent-based >public finance is Georgist nonetheless. This is how condominiums, >homeowner >associations, hotels, and other real-estate complexes operate today, so >this >is not just hypothetical.
We're on the same page here--a great deal of what is called "differential rent" or "economic rent" is simply the effect of government spending, "public goods" that could be "internalized." Even so, there would still probably be a lot of economic rent resulting from differences in fertility, site advantages in urban areas, etc. Where Georgists and mutualists differ, I think, is in the relative importance of economic rent versus absentee landlord rent. Tucker believed that eliminating absentee landlordism and making occupancy and use the basis of property claims would be sufficient to eliminate most of the inequities, and that economic rent should be tolerated as a necessary evil. I think the absentee ownership of land seriously exacerbates economic rent in urban areas. If the tenants (not only apartment dwellers, but small business people) of slumlords, real estate speculators, etc., ceased to pay rent, and if vacant lots could be homesteaded by the first occupier, that would be a massive change for the better, even if occupants were able to draw unearned benefits from advantage of site. >Presumably you do not disagree with the >central aim of Georgism, free trade. Oh, you got that right! _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
