So...georgism is an ideology I end up making a punching bag a lot of on here, but mainly because I keep coming across ideological crazies on the concept. I actually am low key friendly toward integrating some aspects of georgism into my own ideology and political platform (see: my housing policy), but the purists are way too extreme, and way too unreasonable. And after I ended up discussing the concept again, some other critics I came across actually found something else wrong with it that I overlooked, and that is the idea of farmers, particularly small time farmers.
Georgists love to claim that their LVT primarily falls on urban landlords, and that farmers would pay very little LVT. However, I crunched some numbers, and found this to be a lie. First, let's define what a small farm is. A small farm is a farm that generally speaking has a gross income of $250k or less. That's GROSS, not profit. Much of that is probably invested into the farming itself. The typical small farm is 231 acres. And the typical acre of farmland is worth $4442, although this varies a lot between states. In my own state of PA, it's closer to $7100 per acre. And let's be honest, unlike homes, the land value of farmland is, basically, the value of the farmland. There isnt much need to separate improvements from the land like you do with land with buildings on them. The vast majority of this land will have few to no buildings. So I'm going to assume it as it is. That said, your typical small American farm is going to be worth $1,026,102. Or in PA, $1,640,100. And if a 5% LVT is imposed on this, since that seems to be what georgists define as the rental value of land as defined as vacant lots in previous attempts to understand georgist policy, $51,305.10 in taxes, or in PA, $82,000. That's roughly 1/5 to 1/3 of a small farm's gross revenue, if they hit the limit. Since many of these farms may be less productive than that, their tax burden might be higher.
If you get a citizens' dividend of $4600 to offset that, that isn't gonna do CRAP.
Honestly, I feel like georgists miss the point. Taxes like that would indeed be quite devastating on small farmers. Even larger farmers might not do much better. A large farm is only up to $500k revenue based on some links above, and the acreage is generally even worse proportionally. A large farm, for example, would average 1421 acres. That's $6,312,082 in land value. Which translates to an LVT of $314.604.10, or a tax rate of >60%. Or in PA, $504,455, basically zeroing out that farmer's entire income. Ay-yay-yay.
Of course, georgists, never really give me good answers on this. Their entire ideology seems based on the fact that it will just work. Everything will just magically work. Homeowners won't be affected by this, farmers won't be affected by this, and if you're not for this you're for landlords exploiting us all. But, thankfully, I actually try to apply MATH to these ideas, and see who benefits and how. And...once again, I'm just more put off by the LVT than ever. While I aint necessarily against farmers paying SOME land tax, the rates georgists are for are insane. And this is just a 5% LVT. I'm not even getting into how some single taxers would likely tax land at 20-40% or something depending on what they wanna fund.
Look, georgism was an ideology aimed at the problems of densely populated urban areas in the 19th century. And while the LVT has some legitimacy as a policy preference to combat land hoarding in urban areas, it honestly needs to be crafted in such a way to carve out obvious exceptions to ensure that the policy only impacts those its intended to impact.
I feel like extremists of all stripes dont understand this, but to make your ideology work, you need POLICIES that get you there, and you need to study the effects of those policies to ensure they do what you want them to do. Too many ideologues all over the spectrum dont understand this. Whether they're right libertarians who think anarcho capitalist is a thing, or leftists who support anarchism/socialism/communism, or georgists supporting LVT, something all of these groups have in common is that they don't actually understand the nuances of policy. They just think if you implement their ideal system everything will be fine and utopia will be achieved. This isn't true. You need to study what the policy does, how it impacts people, who it benefits, what the costs will be. And while we can't always agree on what a good policy looks like, I feel like if you can't at least argue your ideas from a policy standpoint, that you really don't have room to talk.
This is also, by the way, why I spend so much darned time researching policy. I know I'm a bit of a UBI oriented nut, but do you not think I've studied the effects of UBI? I've read study after study on the subject and it just keeps coming out positive. For me, the only issue is funding, and that's why I spent so much time researching THAT. Same with healthcare. I literally aim for policies that end up doing what I want them to do. I know single payer would solve problems with access and cost, while fairly distributing the burden in taxes across the population. Hell, if we had single payer, most forms of funding would simply replace private mechanisms like employer contributions and insurance premiums, and most additional sources of funding would be taxes targetted at the rich. But you see, the reason I can support these policies is BECAUSE I've researched this stuff. I remember when I first came across UBI I was extremely skeptical about the idea. I only came to like it because as I kept researching it, the more I realized is that it can actually work! And it can do what it claims to. That's what separates me from ideologues of other ideologies. I've actually done research and am confident that my policies would actually work. Love them or hate them, I believe my views are at least viable.
I can't say that about other fringe movements I've encountered on the internet though. Most socialists with functioning political views just end up being really gatekeepy socdems or Bernie Sanders supporters. I mean, you can push for Sanders' policies. They work. I can vouch for them working for the most part. But anyone left of that comes off as cray cray. Libertarians, eh, I think minarchism is just another form of conservatism and could "work" but all right wing ideologies would go against my humanist principles on the economy in general and I dont think the outcomes would be great. Georgism is well meaning, but it would ultimately end up causing many negative externalities on many landowners not intended as the primary target of the tax. Farmers would be devastated. While farm land is cheap, farmers often own it in bulk and the economic payoff from farming clearly would not fit within georgist principles well. And of course, many homeowners without a consistent income in line with their tax burden would be forced out of their homes. At the very least, combined with a citizens' dividend, it would undermine the concept of the dividend, appropriating UBI to a mere tax refund rather than a safety net or means to liberate people from coercion.
Honestly, georgists, at best, just care about different things, which I can kind of respect, but when they start being disingenuous and writing off the bad consequences of their policies, that's another. And MAN this would be a terrible consequence of georgism. At minimum, many farmers would face taxes that amount to 20-35% of their gross revenue from this tax alone, and at worst, it could even exceed 100%. That's extremely destructive to the farming industry and would drive most farmers, outside of maybe the biggest factory farms, out of business.
I'd much rather focus on a form of taxation that taxes people in line with their actual earnings and liquidity, rather than based on land. If we wanna tax land to solve the problem of certain people exploiting the market for profit, then tax THOSE people, without taxing everyone. There's no reason we can't have a land value tax aimed only at landlords. And I actually want to emphasize that I actually support that idea, and I would use the revenue to fund my hypothetical housing program. But a large, flat LVT aimed at everyone? No, that's insane, and honestly, I think any decent policy wonk would see obvious problems with the idea.
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