Georgism

"Georgist" redirects here. For the Romanian political group, see National Liberal Party-Brătianu.
For systems of taxation based on one tax, see single tax.
Georgist campaign button from the 1890s in which the cat on the badge refers to a slogan "Do you see the cat?" to draw analogy to the land question[1]
Shoshinsha mark emoji used by Georgists online due to its resemblance to a yellow and green shield.[2]
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Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism,[3][4] and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that people should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society.[5][6][7] Developed from the writings of American economist and social reformer Henry George, the Georgist paradigm seeks solutions to social and ecological problems, based on principles of land rights and public finance that attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice.[8][9]

Georgism is concerned with the distribution of economic rent caused by land ownership, natural monopolies, pollution rights, and control of the commons, including title of ownership for natural resources and other contrived privileges (e.g., intellectual property). Any natural resource that is inherently limited in supply can generate economic rent, but the classical and most significant example of land monopoly involves the extraction of common ground rent from valuable urban locations. Georgists argue that taxing economic rent is efficient, fair, and equitable. The main Georgist policy recommendation is a tax assessed on land value, arguing that revenues from a land value tax (LVT) can be used to reduce or eliminate existing taxes (such as on income, trade, or purchases) that are unfair and inefficient. Some Georgists also advocate for the return of surplus public revenue to the people by means of a basic income or citizen's dividend.

Henry George popularized the concept of gaining public revenues mainly from land and natural resource privileges with his first book, Progress and Poverty (1879). The philosophical basis of Georgism draws on thinkers such as John Locke,[10] Baruch Spinoza,[11] and Thomas Paine.[12] Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes.[13][14] A land value tax also has progressive tax effects.[15][16] Advocates of land value taxes argue that they reduce economic inequality, increase economic efficiency, remove incentives to under-utilize urban land, and reduce property speculation.[17]

Georgist ideas were popular and influential during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[18] Political parties, institutions, and communities were founded on Georgist principles during that time. Early devotees of George's economic philosophy were often termed Single Taxers for their political goal of raising public revenue mainly or only from a land-value tax, although Georgists endorsed multiple forms of rent capture (e.g. seigniorage) as legitimate.[19] The term Georgism was invented later, and some prefer the term geoism as more generic.[20][21]

  1. ^ "Seeing the Cat". Henry George Institute. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  2. ^ Dougherty, Conor (November 12, 2023). "The 'Georgists' Are Out There, and They Want to Tax Your Land". The New York Times.
  3. ^ Foldvary, Fred. "Geoism Explained". The Progress Report. Archived from the original on March 17, 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
  4. ^ "Geoism Explained on Public Access TV by... Me (VIDEO)". HuffPost. 14 June 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2023. We talked about Geoism/Georgism
  5. ^ "An Introduction to Georgist Philosophy & Activity". Council of Georgist Organizations. Archived from the original on 29 April 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
  6. ^ Heavey, Jerome F. (July 2003). "Comments on Warren Samuels' "Why the Georgist movement has not succeeded"". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 62 (3): 593–599. doi:10.1111/1536-7150.00230. JSTOR 3487813. human beings have an inalienable right to the product of their own labor
  7. ^ McNab, Jane. "How the reputation of Georgists turned minds against the idea of a land rent tax" (PDF). Business School, The University of Western Australia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2014.
  8. ^ Gaffney, Mason; Harrison, Fred (1994). The Corruption of Economics. London: Shepheard-Walwyn. ISBN 978-0-85683-244-4.
  9. ^ Hudson, Michael; Feder, Kris; and Miller, George James (1994). A Philosophy for a Fair Society Archived 2018-11-05 at the Wayback Machine. Shepheard-Walwyn, London. ISBN 978-0-85683-159-1.
  10. ^ Locke, John (1691). "Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising the Value of Money". Archived from the original on 8 February 2016.
  11. ^ Gaffney, Mason. "Logos Abused: The Decadence and Tyranny of Abstract Reasoning in Economics" (PDF). Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  12. ^ Agrarian Justice, Wikisource edition, paragraph 12
  13. ^ Smith, Adam (1776). "Chapter 2, Article 1: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses". The Wealth of Nations, Book V.
  14. ^ Tideman, Nicolaus; Gaffney, Mason (1994). Land and Taxation. Shepheard-Walwyn in association with Centre for Incentive Taxation. ISBN 978-0-85683-162-1.
  15. ^ Binswanger-Mkhize, Hans P; Bourguignon, Camille; Brink, Rogier van den (2009). Binswanger-Mkhize, Hans P.; Bourguignon, Camille; Van Den Brink, Rogier (eds.). Agricultural Land Redistribution : Toward Greater Consensus. World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-0-8213-7627-0. ISBN 978-0-8213-7627-0. A land tax is considered a progressive tax in that wealthy landowners normally should be paying relatively more than poorer landowners and tenants. Conversely, a tax on buildings can be said to be regressive, falling heavily on tenants who generally are poorer than the landlords
  16. ^ Plummer, Elizabeth (March 2010). "Evidence on the Distributional Effects of a Land Value Tax on Residential Households" (PDF). National Tax Journal. 63: 63–92. doi:10.17310/ntj.2010.1.03. S2CID 53585974. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  17. ^ McCluskey, William J.; Franzsen, Riël C. D. (2017). Land Value Taxation: An Applied Analysis. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 9780754614906. Retrieved 9 October 2017 – via Google Books.
  18. ^ The Forgotten Idea That Shaped Great U.S. Cities by Mason Gaffney & Rich Nymoen, Commons magazine, October 17, 2013.
  19. ^ ""Economics" and Political Economy". Understanding Economics. Retrieved 27 March 2015.
  20. ^ Tideman, Nic. "Basic Principles of Geonomics". Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  21. ^ Casal, Paula (2011). "Global Taxes on Natural Resources" (PDF). Journal of Moral Philosophy. 8 (3): 307–327. doi:10.1163/174552411x591339. Retrieved 14 March 2014. "Geoism" can also invoke a philosophical tradition encompassing the views of John Locke and Thomas Paine as well as Henry George ...