this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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Fuck Cars

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For those unfamiliar with Georgism and LVT (land value tax):

Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism,[2][3] and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society.[4][5][6] 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 which attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice.[7][8]

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 which 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.

And although LVT is the most central proposed policy of Georgism, Georgists also advocate for carbon taxes (and other taxes on negative externalities), severance taxes on finite natural resources like oil or minerals, intellectual property (IP) reform, and eliminating barriers to entry. (It should be noted that Georgists want to replace bad/inefficient taxes like sales, income, and property taxes with LVT, externality (aka Pigouvian), and severance taxes.)

As for why LVT? In short, it's just a really good tax. Progressive, widely regarded by economists as "the perfect tax", incentivizes efficient use of land, discourages speculation and rent-seeking, economically efficient, and hard to evade. Plus, critically regarding landlords, land value taxes can't be passed on to tenants, both in economic theory and in observed practice.

In fact, it's so well-regarded a tax that it's been referred to as the "perfect tax", and is supported by economists of all ideological stripes, from free-market libertarians like Milton Friedman — who famously described it as the "least bad tax" — to social democrats and Keynesians like Joseph Stiglitz. It's simply a really good policy that I don't think is talked about nearly enough.

Even a quite milquetoast land value tax, such as in the Australian Capital Territory, has been shown to reduce speculation and improve affordability:

It reveals that much of the anticipated future tax obligations appear to have been already capitalised into lower land prices. Additionally, the tax transition may have also deterred speculative buyers from the housing market, adding even further to the recent pattern of low and stable property prices in the Territory. Because of the price effect of the land tax, a typical new home buyer in the Territory will save between $1,000 and $2,200 per year on mortgage repayments.

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[–] Player2@sopuli.xyz 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's physically impossible to be 'unreasonably' angry at parking lots! Reclaim your city's land, people. You're all paying for it

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is how I wanna reclaim that land:

Either that or a buttload of housing

[–] Player2@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Meadows, parks, housing, literally anything besides an asphalt desert

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Imagine a grocery store surrounded by a garden full of fresh fruits and vegetables instead of pavement

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[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What if I'm here because I think most people are too stupid and distracted to drive and want them to have more and better options and far more stringent licensing so they're out of my way when I'm driving?

Also, I'm an urbanist who wants cities to suck less so we leave rural land alone so I can go out there and be alone.

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Well, you would have the "hating suburban sprawl that encroaches endlessly into rural/remote areas" in common with the two bottom panels. But maybe the 5th horseman is people who want dumb and awful drivers off the road?

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

want them to have more and better options

So, the public transit enjoyer?

Personally, I favor a LVT for financing free public transit...

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Personally, I favor a LVT for financing free public transit…

Hell yeah, I wrote a post on reddit about this very topic a while back. I'll copy it below:

In 1977, Joseph Stiglitz showed that under certain conditions, beneficial investments in public goods will increase aggregate land rents by at least as much as the investments' cost.[1] This proposition was dubbed the "Henry George theorem", as it characterizes a situation where Henry George's 'single tax' on land values, is not only efficient, it is also the only tax necessary to finance public expenditures.[2] Henry George had famously advocated for the replacement of all other taxes with a land value tax, arguing that as the location value of land was improved by public works, its economic rent was the most logical source of public revenue.[3] The often cited passage is titled "The unbound Savannah."

...

Subsequent studies generalized the principle and found that the theorem holds even after relaxing assumptions.[4] Studies indicate that even existing land prices, which are depressed due to the existing burden of taxation on labor and investment, are great enough to replace taxes at all levels of government.[5][6][7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem

Essentially, the idea is that building things like metro lines and light rail increases neighboring land values. Instead of letting those increased land values be captured by private landholders, we can capture it with a hefty land value tax (which is a terrific tax for a whole host of reasons, particularly for urbanists). And as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and others have shown, a strong enough LVT is capable of funding that public transit entirely. I.e., no fares, no ticketing, just transit paying for itself via its own increase in nearby land values.

It gets even better when you consider that ticketing and fare collection incurs not-insignificant costs for transit systems. It means more labor, more enforcement, and more construction costs. For example, new underground metro lines are very expensive in large part because tunneling is expensive. If you can dig less by not having to build large rooms for ticketing and turnstiles, you can save money on metro construction. Plus, free transit is great for increasing ridership, and it's doubly great for low-income folks.

Further, LVT heavily disincentivizes parking lots and low-density development on valuable land, so you'd heavily discourage park-and-rides and heavily encourage transit-oriented development.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh, interesting, so it has been widely communicated common-sense for half a century already.

I wonder why all governments seem to ignore those well-known economic ideas that have no downside except for not insanely benefiting the ultra-rich. (In fact, they seem to ignore all of those.)

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I wonder why all governments seem to ignore those well-known economic ideas that have no downside except for not insanely benefiting the ultra-rich. (In fact, they seem to ignore all of those.)

I think about this a lot, too. So many of our current problems we know excellent solutions for. After all, millions and millions of experts around the world have studied these problems and have proposed (and often converged upon) solutions. And yet actually implementing them politically is such an uphill battle.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

why all governments seem to ignore those well-known economic ideas that have no downside except for not insanely benefiting the ultra-rich

You answered your own question: They don't insanely benefit the ultra-rich.

If we don't give the ultra-rich all the money, the economy will suffer, and the only thing everyone in power can agree on is that we need to protect the status quo of the economy at all costs.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

I actually hate public transit for the same reason I don't like cities and suburbs: There's people there.

Given the choice between public transit and walking I'd take the latter, every time. If I could walk across water I'd do that rather than fly.

[–] 5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm here because I think most people are too stupid to drive

Unironically, average and middle-class car-think.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A couple weeks ago I pulled up next to a very old man driving his very old wife with an oxygen tube in his nose.

Both of them need better options.

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[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 28 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Eooo, clean sweep

  • except the helmet thing wear your fucking helmets you vain bastards
[–] Jeanschyso@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah, but I was scared for my life with or without a helmet when sharing with cars. Now I still am, but they're also scared for me. A couple guys I met told me so. They recognized me at a store and told me "it's dangerous to not wear a helmet. I had to follow you from further out". I realized then that wearing a helmet could encourage not just myself, but others, to do dumbass shit.

I guess it depends on your community. I live in a small exurb that's got solid rural roots. There's like 3 big streets and 2 of them have the same name.

But yeah I wear a helmet in winter cuz ice n'shit. I'm dumb, not stupid

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 9 points 1 year ago

Oh I'm still wary af wearing a helmet. The purpose of the helmet isn't to make you glibly fearless as a rider.

it's to stop a simple accident becoming a life-altering injury. Plain and simple.

[–] chocoladisco@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, never.

Source: grew up in the Netherlands

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago

the only valid excuse. God damn I wish we had your infrastructure. Or at least drivers who aren't homicidal dickheads towards anything that isn't a v8

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah seriously. I'm not supportive of mandatory helmet laws because stats say people ride less with it, to the point that it actually has negative overall health benefits.

But the fact is that from an individual decision standpoint, helmets work really well. And they work especially well in the kinda of incidents that you're still likely to get into even with good infrastructure. Lower speed crashes between two cyclists, a wheel sliding out from under you, etc.

So from an individual standpoint, you're a ducjing idiot if you get on a bike without a helmet in anything other than the most extreme of circumstances (like riding a share bike where you didn't expect to be riding one and no helmet is available).

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[–] kralk@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

The only reason I wear a helmet is so the defence can't use it as an excuse when I'm run over.

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[–] Gigan@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cyclist, but I always wear a helmet. The rest is accurate.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 10 points 1 year ago

Cyclist / YIMBY dual class. Wear a helmet, hate parking lots, really hate suburbs.

[–] Fargeol@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Which one are you?

Yes.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

YIMBY = Yes, In My Back Yard?

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Yup, exactly

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 13 points 1 year ago

I'm Mr Walksalot.

Going for a meal 4 miles away.

Sets off an hour early.

See you there, fuckers.

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Maybe, perhaps, someday, I can be all of the above.

At once.

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

gets unreasonably angry at parking lots

Literally cackling

[–] KermitLeFrog@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I'm basically all of these lmao

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Top two (but with a helmet)

[–] Random_German_Name@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago

And then there are YIMBYs with a bike in a train

[–] maynarkh@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago

It is an unreasonably good feeling to be taking my morning dump on a train whooshing past the morning traffic jam.

[–] Styxie@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago

100% a public transit enjoyer. I get annoyed with people in my city who complain endlessly about how shitty our bus service is. I've been getting the bus daily since childhood, and it used to be so much worse. 15 minute minimum wait, often it just wouldn't show up, and expensive fares. Now it's uncommon for me to wait for more than 5 minutes, the fares have reduced, and it's reliable. The only issue is that the bus gets stuck in traffic because there are twice as many cars on the roads now compared to 25 years ago. So great job drivers, you've created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Most of it comes from people who have next to no experience of using public transit, and will just latch onto any excuse not to use it, when in reality they're snobs who don't like to admit that they think getting the bus is below them. It's not. I used to get the bus into college with one of my lecturers (RIP) who owned a fucking law firm, and it keeps people humble in my experience. I honestly think society would be healthier if people used public transit more.

[–] toasteecup@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Yimby here and my partner is so done with my shit some days

[–] Jeanschyso@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Duuuude I'm 3 of them!! I just don't understand money at a grand scale enough to be into one tax system over another. Seems neat the way you explain it but I really don't fucking understand money like that.

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Ha, don't worry about the LVT and Georgism. A lot of the reasoning gets more technical into economics, but probably the most important thing to know is that LVT is simply a really good tax with very desirable properties (especially from an urbanist/YIMBY/anti-car perspective), and it is widely regarded by economists. You definitely don't even have to be Georgist to support LVT; the mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, is heavily pushing for LVT in Detroit despite not even having heard of Georgism until recently when a journalist with the New York Times pointed it out to him.

But yeah, we're all anti-car allies here!

[–] TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would be all of the above if I could afford one of those fancy, low down bikes with the pedals out front.

I also really like zeppelins and blimps and wish we lived in a sci-fi alternate universe where we had those instead of planes. Or along side planes at very least.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

fancy, low down bikes with the pedals out front.

A recumbent?

[–] TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes that! I can't ride a regular bicycle.

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My transit maps are not imaginary, they're aspirational.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

TIL I'm not a cyclist since zero of these things apply

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago
[–] rockhandle@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Mostly yimby and public transit enjoyer. I just find a bus or a train to be a much more comfortable way to reach my destination than a bike (although I do love biking too) or a car

[–] soot_guy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Public Transit Enjoyer -love the smell of urine at the stops and elevators -enjoy filthy music from a speaker in a fellow rider’s back pocket that is looking for confrontation -take in bit of cigarette smoke from someone who could care less and lights up in the cart.

I’ve had many good public transit experiences, when any of those happen it just sucks

[–] EinfachUnersetzlich@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

You mean couldn't care less?

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