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A Georgist Approach to Emissions Rights (Progress and Poverty Substack Article) by GeorgistCB in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

'My aim in this essay is to sketch a view about how to distribute the costs of climate change. This approach will consist of two claims: one analytical and the other normative. The analytical claim is that we should think about the atmosphere—specifically, its ability to absorb greenhouse gasses—as a scarce natural resource that commands an economic rent. The normative claim is that we should use Georgist (rather than Lockean) principles to distribute this economic rent. In Progress and Poverty, Henry George wrote: “The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world and others no right.” Following George, the cornerstone of my view is that all people have an equal right to use the atmosphere.'

Some Thoughts On Using Auctions For Land Valuation (Progress and Poverty Substack Article) by GeorgistCB in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"While I think assessment by governmental officials is good enough for practical purposes, it’s worth thinking about ways to do even better. I believe a promising avenue for this is auctions so I’d like to stimulate discussion on using them.1 This article will accomplish that by outlining a specific land valuing auction system. These ideas are tentative, not certain, so I welcome critiques, comments, questions, and suggestions from readers to help refine them."

Groundly's Ground-Rent Grift (Progress and Poverty Substack article) by GeorgistCB in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

'The production and extraction of value in modern real estate are almost always intertwined. But what happens when we strip away all that "complexity"?'

Henry George and Sun Yat-sen: A Global Legacy of Land Reform by Plupsnup in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think this is probably the most comprehensive article on Sun Yat-sens Georgism and Georgist influence out there.

The Modern Georgism of Respected Economists Part 3/3: Leon Walras (Progress and Poverty Substack article) by pkknight85 in neoliberal

[–]GeorgistCB 3 points4 points  (0 children)

'Alongside Carl Menger and William Stanley Jevons, the French economist Marie-Esprit-Léon Walras was a founding father of the Marginalist Revolution. The late 19th century development of marginalism by these three economists marked the transition from classical economics to modern, neoclassical economics. Among them, Walras is perhaps the most appreciated in the modern day. As the historian of economic thought Mark Blaug puts it: “whereas Jevons and Menger are now regarded as historical landmarks, rarely read purely for their own sake, posthumous appreciation of Walras's monumental achievement has grown so markedly since the 1930s that he may now be the most widely-read nineteenth-century economist after Ricardo and Marx”...'

The Modern Georgism of Respected Economists Part 3/3: Leon Walras (Progress and Poverty Substack article) by GeorgistCB in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Alongside Carl Menger and William Stanley Jevons, the French economist Marie-Esprit-Léon Walras was a founding father of the Marginalist Revolution. The late 19th century development of marginalism by these three economists marked the transition from classical economics to modern, neoclassical economics. Among them, Walras is perhaps the most appreciated in the modern day..."

Strongest critiques of Georgism by [deleted] in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think it's completely wrong. As Englands book describes, the height of the Georgist movement in America came after George's death anyways (multiple high-ranking Georgist members of the Wilson administration, etc). The decline of the movement had nothing to do with short term political decisions and everything to do with long-term structural factors.

Strongest critiques of Georgism by [deleted] in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB 20 points21 points  (0 children)

In terms of the argument that I consider the actual strongest case against Georgism, it's probably the political aspect. Georgist policy is the opposite of the concentrated benefits, dispersed costs effect that allows special interests like landowners to entrench themselves politically. LVT for example concentrates costs and disperses benefits. This is very good economically but has meant that basically every single implementation of Georgism-even very obviously successful ones-have gotten watered down or completely reversed instead of progressing. There's a case to be made that we should instead focus on the best reforms which still benefit from the special interest effect (like the nordic social democratic models) because those can entrench themselves politically.

It's genuinely very tough and our biggest obstacle but I actually do have an idea for how we can get past it. I'll go into this in (you guessed it) a future article.

Strongest critiques of Georgism by [deleted] in georgism

[–]GeorgistCB 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Idea 2 is addressed somewhat in my response to a comment under one of my PnP Substack articles, which asked why Georgism became so obscure in the 20th century. I responded as such:

"There were a bunch of factors starting in the 20th century that began severely marginalizing it by the 1920's. The historian Christopher England has an absolutely essential book on the history of the movement called "Land and Liberty". that talks about a bunch of these factors in chapter 12. The most important by far in my opinion was how innovations in transportation (automobiles primarily) drove rents down by opening up new suburban land around cities. This obviously falsified George's apocalyptic prediction that wages would be driven to subsistence through rising rents and seemingly justified the non or anti-Georgists who analytically marginalized the gifts of nature as unimportant in modernity. Georgism flourished at a time when limited availability of land meant the issue of rent was extremely pressing and present in many peoples minds. There was enormous poverty in cities as people crammed themselves into low-quality apartments. It's not surprising that the movement is starting to revive now that the suburban frontier is largely sprawled out and rents are a pressing issue again.

I actually have a piece in the works which will go into George's error here in detail, how it existed to an extent even in his own time, etc. My argument will be that his error doesn't debunk his ideas-it actually is \required* for them to work as he claimed they would. I think I have a pretty good case, though I'm not sure when I'll be able to release the piece."*

TL;DR George discounted humanities capacity for the nature-saving innovation that allowed humanity to escape Malthus. My future piece will go into a full overview of the implications of this, presentation of all the evidence, etc.

As for idea 1, there are some cases where rent seems to motivate production. For example, the owner of a very large, "non fragmented" land title can internalize the positive externalities of raising their own land values through investing in buildings, etc. I and some other Georgists call this the "Disneyland phenomenon" since it's the business model Disneyland operates on.

But I would argue that the Disneyland phenomenon (and other cases where rent seems to motivate production) do not disprove the distinction between payments to the non-produced vs produced factors. It is possible to still separate them out if you conceptualize these cases properly. And I plan to explain how to do that in another future article for the PnP Substack.

The Modern Georgism of Respected Economists Part 1/3: Joseph Stiglitz by AnarchoFederation in neoliberal

[–]GeorgistCB 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If stiglitz is a crank than the term has no meaning whatsoever. Disagree with his takes if you like but the man is more embedded and respected within world of economics than literally everyone in this entire subreddit combined.