If Georgism ever moves to the implementation/application stage (and still waiting for examples) then it is likely to be as unrecognizable from the theory as economic policy is from economic theory.
Very perceptive, Arthur.
There have been many examples, ranging from Western Canada to Australia.
The Australians still collect much of their local taxation from land-values, but it's under constant attack from the Feds who want to do their own taxation. What is interesting is how local land-taxes spread across country.
Only the landholders could vote to change to land-value taxation and they did, and as I recall none of them reverted to improvement taxes.
They preferred to be land-taxed in a thriving economy to being "improvement taxed" in a stagnant one.
Several places in Western Canada stayed with land taxes for a long time - and some may still. However, in a broad sense both Canada and the US were land-taxed until the end of the 19th century.
Back in the fifties, I remember having an Ottawa lunch with Canadian Senator Arthur Roebuck - a good guy - and he said a basic reason for North American economic superiority over Europe was that North America always had land taxes. Well, we were good friends but I thought Arthur was pushing it a little.
That is until I learned that prior to the 20th century, most of the taxes were property taxes and most of the property was land. Maybe the old fellow was right! The land taxes were indeed sufficient incentive to keep land moving out of the hands of the speculators and into the hands of the producers.
The jewel in the crown of Georgism was Denmark. Since the mid twenties Denmark had placed a weight of taxes on land. By the sixties, the country had no inflation, a good trade balance - and a generally healthy economy based on a private farming system that owned its own packing plants and so on.
More than 96% of the Danish farmers owned their own land which was taxed at almost 100% with no other county taxes (local taxes).
The cities bore about a 50% of land tax. In the sixties, the Georgists who had 12 seats in Parliament were in coalition with two other parties. They were ready to pass final legislation to make Denmark Georgist. But, in the election a coalition of conservatives and landholders brought more money to bear on the Georgist Party than had ever been spent before. (Doesn't that sound familiar?)
The Georgists were smashed along with their supporters. The Conservatives came to power and the final legislation was stopped. Then over the next decades Denmark became a socialist state.
What's that?
One of the perhaps inevitable consequences of a conservative government is the slide into socialism. Conservatives seem rarely to have any philosophy to hold them together, except perhaps anti-socialism. (Nowadays, the same seems to apply to an unsophisticated left who believe only in anti-conservatism. Where are the knowledgeable and dedicated socialists I used to know?)
As a famous Liberal said some 50 years ago, "All a conservative government will be is a way-side halt on the road to socialism." That during the post-war labor government in Britain.
Nowadays, Denmark collects hardly any land-value - and that through the general property tax. It groans under the weight of its taxes and is the most expensive place to live in Europe - though the French might argue.
The Danes are marvelously civilized, yet the whole thing may tumble like a house of cards because they are now orthodox Keynesians using complicated economics. (Sorry about that.)
In Pennsylvania, they've had a permissive law going back I think to 1911, allowing land to be taxed higher than improvements. Cities that change over to higher land taxes show obvious and worthwhile advantages over those that don't. One reverse in Pittsburgh, where land was taxed 5 times as much as improvements. An outside firm revalued Pittsburgh and made a mess of it. As a result, the politicians sprang to change it after 90 years - and obvious and continuing benefits.
I expect this to reverse as the substitute wages taxes hit the people.
Next will be Philadelphia - a world city in such a mess that something drastic has to be done. There are tens of thousands of vacant lots, tens of thousands of tumbledown buildings and a population that is fleeing the city.
The Controller of the city has issued a report advocating a change to the land tax. The newspapers are supporting it. The Real Estate Association is demanding it.
The council? Well, a few days ago discussion of the controller's report was scheduled and a bunch of supporters came to contribute to the discussion - at I believe - 1.15.
The council got into a big argument about something inconsequential and spent the afternoon on it. The proponents of a Philadelphian land tax waited patiently. About 4pm the session ended and everyone went home.
But, they'll be back. The cries for change is gathering momentum.
There are other land-value tax examples. A long time ago "Raffles of Singapore" introduced land-taxes there. Hong Kong land is owned by the colony and leased.
Taiwan introduced Georgist style land reform after the war. It came via the Chinese generals from Sun Yat Sen who said he would run China on the decentralist ideas of Henry George. He never got a chance.
One result of Georgist land reform was that Taiwan, with a population density approaching 1,400 to the square mile, achieved a net export of food.
Yet, though the nuts and bolts of Georgism achieve good, and sometimes spectacular, results, you are right, Arthur. With the exception of Denmark that got close, we are far from the ideal of the Single Tax, a philosophy that is far less to do with revenue than to creating a society with liberty and justice for all.
During the fierce Land-Tax debates before the First World War, Churchill quoted Cobden - the man, more than any other, responsible through his Anti-Corn Law League for bringing Britain to Free Trade in the 19th century.
Said Cobden: "He who frees the land will do more for England than we who have freed her commerce."
I wish I had said that.
Harry
******************************
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
*******************************
