Debunking concern trolling about UBI from the left once and for all

 So, arguing with lefties about UBI is more frustrating than arguing with right wingers in my opinion. At least the right stands where it does, for better or for worse, on issues like UBI and will absolutely fight against it on moral grounds. But the left is more...insidious. When the left argues against UBI, they largely make these ridiculous arguments in practice that strawman the crap out of basic income and impose ridiculous purity tests on the concept that are impossible to satisfy. And I want to address these. 

UBI will cause inflation!

The big kneejerk reaction is that UBI will cause inflation. First of all, this is ignorant as it doesn't understand what inflation is. Many of the critics just see UBI as injecting tons of money into the economy indiscriminately, when in reality, most plans have taxation. And while UBI might cause a little more of an aggregate demand bump as the poor tend to spend their income more than the rich, any idea that helps the lower classes like the minimum wage going up is going to do the same thing. If inflation is caused in part by the amount of money and in part by the velocity of that money, UBI, when funded properly, won't increase the amount of money, and while it may increase the velocity of money, it will do so in a way where any income bump to the poor gives them more money. Are you saying we shouldn't give the poor more money, that is the problem!

Now, admittedly, some industries suffer from market failures. Stuff like healthcare, education, and potentially housing. Healthcare and education should be addressed separately which is why I support medicare for all/universal healthcare and free public college. 

As for housing, this is the big one. The common go to of leftists is any additional money will be eaten up by landlords. Well, this ignores that competition does exist. You can't just raise rent $1000 because someone gets an additional $1000 a month. You still have to compete against other landlords. And if the housing market in a particular area like say NYC or San Francisco is so broken that yes, the demand is so high that rent prices just spiral upward, I'm not going to be overly sympathetic. I mean, just move. You're not going to be able to afford downtown Manhattan on a UBI. Sorry, you're not. You're going to have to settle for somewhere cheaper. And hopefully this will drive people out of those areas as they're no longer there trying to get scarce jobs as much, meaning that they can go elsewhere. 

Ricardo's law of rent is why those cities are so expensive, and rent is often proportionally high to its distance from the centers of commerce. That said I'm going to insist that if people cannot afford rent in a high rent area, they move.

But still, across the entire economy, UBI isn't going to greatly increase inflation, because it's not going to greatly increase income. Many people will be better off, but considering how it will be funded with taxation and reductions in other services, it will be kept in check. We're not just giving people $1k a month without any thought to the consequences.

Which brings me to the next argument...

UBI is regressive!

You can't win with left wing anti UBI guys. They argue that UBI is inflationary as if you're just giving out free money without redistributing it from somewhere, but then when we talk about funding UBI and replacing stuff, all of the sudden these same people are like, "NO, DON'T DO THAT!!!11!"

As we know from my funding exercises, we can't fund an entire $3.6 trillion UBI from taxing the rich alone. It requires broad based taxes to fund, and potential welfare cuts. They claim this is unfair to the poor. For example, they often argue against Yang's 10% VAT because the VAT is a "regressive" tax, meaning that the poor feel it more than the rich, as the rich invest their money and the poor spend it. Because it taxes the poor, it's unfair. It's "regressive". Instead, we need "progressive" taxes that tax the rich to redistribute to the poor.

Well, you can't fund UBI that way. I'm sorry. The fact is when you put that much money in the economy you have to remove it from somewhere else. And that 10% tax is a form of clawback mechanism. You need to get the money back you're spending on UBI somehow. Any social program will do this. They all have clawback mechanisms. Heck, most have mechanisms far harsher than a 10-20% tax. Many involve strict income cutoffs that amount to welfare cliffs or clawbacks much higher than 20%. 

These guys also ignore how much this UBI offsets that tax, and how beneficial it is. Under Yang's plan, anyone making under $120,000 is going to be a net beneficiary from UBI. Families with two adults benefit up to $240,000. That's how much money you need to earn to pay back that tax. 

My plan is similar, but more aggressive on taxation as I don't believe Yang's tax is enough and his deficit would be funded with deficit spending. But even under my plan, you would need to earn $66,000 as an individual to pay in. You would need a couple earning $132,000 to do it. These are not low incomes. My ideas would help the poor and the middle class in net.

Greg Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard, mentioned an interesting "dilemma" regarding this subject, which made it into Guy Standing's recent book about basic income (Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen, p. 72):

Consider an economy in which average income is $50,000 but with much income inequality. To provide a social safety net, two possible policies are proposed. Which would you prefer?

 — A universal transfer of $10,000 to every person, financed by a 20-percent flat tax on income.

 — A means-tested transfer of $10,000. The full amount goes to someone without any income. The transfer is then phased out: You lose 20 cents of it for every dollar of income you earn. These transfers are financed by a tax of 20 percent on income above $50,000. 

I have seen smart people argue as follows: Policy A is crazy. Why should Bill Gates get a government transfer? He doesn’t need it, and we would need to raise more taxes to pay for it. Policy B is more progressive. It targets the transfer to those who really need it, and the transfer is financed by a smaller tax increase levied only on those with above-average incomes. But here is the rub. The two policies are equivalent. If you look at the net payment (taxes less transfers), everyone is exactly the same under the two plans. The difference is only a matter of framing.

 I've seen the same thing, and this is the heart of the "regressive" argument. These guys will scream over a tax, when many of their conditional aid programs do the same thing and worse. They'll claim that the first scenario ain't fair because rich people get it, because it taxes the poor, etc. But that's the thing. They're the same thing. Yes, Bill Gates gets a UBI. He's also paying 20% of his income into the UBI program, which is millions, if not billions of dollars. So what's the problem? 

UBI IS progressive. It would raise millions out of poverty while increasing their freedom. But, progressives get so wrapped up on framing they end up defending backwards conditional safety nets with horrid clawback schemes, bureaucracy, means testing, etc., all because the structure of UBI is deemed "not progressive" simply because it taxes the poor and gives money to the rich, ignoring the net effects.

Speaking of which...

But but, UBI will destroy welfare!

A common argument against basic income is it threatens the the traditional welfare state. I kind of sympathize with this. Right wing basic incomes are a trojan horse that would make people worse off. Eliminating the entire safety net for a $500 check is insane. But, generally speaking though? if we could get a good UBI and it "destroys welfare", then good riddance. Welfare sucks. It isn't that generous, it provides heavily means tested benefits with strict restrictions like work requirements, drug testing, and lifetime limits, and you often have to go through a humiliating byzantine bureaucracy just to get and maintain benefits. It's no way to treat people, and no way to live if you're on it. 

I admit, some programs should remain, as they do things UBI can't do, and are sometimes more generous than what UBI offers. Stuff like healthcare, social security for seniors and the disabled, perhaps section 8 housing, etc. But at the same time, many programs can go. 

SNAP, a common staple that "progressives" defend, only offers a $204 maximum benefit for one, $680 for a family of four, and has an insanely complex formula to determine actual benefits levels. 

Meanwhile my UBI is $1100 a month for one, and anywhere from $2300-4400 for a family of four. 

Yang's offers $1000 per adult, meaning we're talking $1-4k depending on adults in a household.

TANF offers between $299-1086 for a family of three depending on state.

My UBI plan offers $1900-3300. 

Yang's offers $1000-3000.

SSI offers $794 for one person, and $1191 for a couple.

My UBI plan offers $1100 for one and $2200 for 2.

Yang's offers $1000 for 1 and $2000 for 2.

It gets worse, Scott Santens already discussed the problems with welfare other than just the raw amounts, like how many eligible people don't get it. I admit, some aspects of welfare you don't want to get rid of, and that's why I don't get rid of all of them. I understand how section 8, or medicaid are necessary and UBI can't replace them. At the same time many of these programs don't help those they're supposed to help, and even worse tend to impose ridiculous restrictions on people for the privilege. In some places only 7% of those eligible get TANF, only 24% get section 8, etc. The welfare state is failing people. Yet progressives defend it.

Now, admittedly, Yang's approach to it was more controversial to it than mine. He did this lazy thing of "well if you like your welfare benefits you can keep them" but those who did would not get UBI or would get less. He eased up on this through the campaign allowing some exceptions for social security beneficiaries or given his support for universal healthcare, possibly medicaid, but it was an approach that got some controversy. But given how much people get, how many people don't get it, and how many people hate welfare, isn't a UBI going to be better for most?

If anything, that's what these "progressives" fear. That UBI will be so popular, that these specialized programs won't be there for those who need them because they'll be so popular that they will lose funding. While I don't really support outright cutting larger or nonredundant ones, of the ones I mentioned above, is anything of value lost here? Seriously.

I don't get it. These "progressives" just have this idea that their programs are better, and while that might be true for a minority of people, for a vast overwhelming majority, my plan is definitely better, and Yang's is probably better. So why be against UBI?

UBI isn't generous enough

I already addressed this, but generally speaking, yeah, yeah it is. I've dealt with this in other articles, but raising UBI above the $1000-1200 a month mark is going to be difficult, if not impossible, and require taxes and cause perverse disincentives that could implode the economy. 

I admit Yang's plan has weaknesses. It not having any benefits for children is problematic in my opinion. But even then, it seems to help many people more than welfare would. 

It's better than most of the traditional safety net. You could admit unemployment, at an average benefit of $387 a week minus the pandemic stuff, is a bit more than a benefit of one, which amounts to closer to $254, but assuming UBI stacks in families, UBI quickly becomes better. And even then, under my plan, I would maintain some aspects of unemployment, and Yang would allow people to choose.

Social security is probably the big one that is flat out better. It's $1390 on average between SSDI and SSRI. And it can go much higher. That's why I barely touch that. And that's also why Yang conceded and allowed social security to not count against UBI. So I don't see the problem. UBI is basically just social security for all. 

I can see how, in the case of the most generous safety nets, and among fringe cases, welfare can help more, but UBI is gonna help more in most cases. That's why I only eliminated the largest safety nets and only trimmed the others, and why Yang allowed people to choose. I sought to eliminate redundancy, and Yang sought to give people choice. Any UBI advocate worth his salt is going to give you a better deal or at least a choice. No, UBI isn't intended as a right wing trojan horse to screw people. Unless you're dealing with right wingers.

The real problem with Yang...

I guess the big reason UBI gets so much crap is because of Yang being not a pure leftie. Outside of UBI he's a fairly standard democrat, which tends to upset progressives, being caught between the Yang gang and the progressive movement, I get it. I personally seek to meld the two. But it's hard when the left is ripping on UBI and Yang unfairly. 

But on UBI, the dude means well. He just has a different way of doing things. And here's his big issue. The dude is inexperienced, and makes policy choices that can only be described as "lazy." He didn't want to think about cutting the safety nets, so he gave people a choice, but then that ended up having unforeseen consequences, so he backtracked later.

We're seeing the same behavior with Israel. He made an ignorant comment and is now walking it back.

Yang isn't a politician. He's inexperienced, and sometimes he doesn't know what he's saying or talking about. He says things, without thinking them through, and that gets him in trouble. And that's why his UBI plan has issues at times. These issues are taken as a sign of malice by the progressive movement, but really, it's ignorance. The dude is ignorant. He needs to learn. And that's why I'm patient with him. I see potential with him. I like his core ideology. But he needs to flesh that crap out and educate himself. It's why I support his Mayoral run. I want to see him get experience so he can actually be more seasoned and know how to do policy. Yang doesn't know how to do policy. And he wavers because of that. 

I'd like to apologize on progressives on the behalf of Yang, but I don't want to speak for him either. But yeah. That's my interpretation. Not a bad guy. Not looking to screw poor people. His ideas are just taken in the worst context. He means well, he's just a bit ignorant at times. Help him, without attacking him.

Conclusion

Look, UBI is one of the best political ideas I've ever heard of. It's why I'm so hardcore about it. I believe it has the strength of potentially dozens of traditional policies. It's a safety net. It's a right of citizenship. It's freedom from bondage. It can replace so many policies of the traditional regulatory state and do a better job in the process. It's not something progressives should be against, but for. Progressives against it just sound like irrational conservatives defending a broken system because it exists and they like it for some reason, without realizing its potential. UBI isn't a trojan horse when done right. It's our best hope for the future. And I would really appreciate not dealing with all of the dishonest, hacky arguments from the left. It just alienates me from my fellow progressives and lefties.

Biden pulling back on...everything is why we need to prioritize

 Look, I dislike Biden. But I also dislike political wishlists with no guide to how to get there. Which is why I spend so much time trying to find ways to make my own wish list work. We can't have everything, and we need to prioritize what we actually want. This is why, back in 2019, I became critical of the green new deal. We can't fund something that high, and UBI at the same time. We also can't necessarily fund M4A at the same time as UBI, although I'm still working on that one. It's hard, but...I did have those rudimentary numbers that seemed to work in theory. 

But, a huge reason on the surface that Biden pulling back on other progressive ideas like a public option and student loan forgiveness is...because of fiscal issues. Which is dishonest at worst ("how ya gonna pay for it?" is the argument of anyone who doesn't want to pay for something), and at best, it just shows a bad approach to priorities.

Let's look at what Biden's done.

First, we had the stimulus. And I was critical of this $1.8 trillion doozy from the get go. $1400 checks, okay, he promised that. Expanding unemployment, yeah, terrible idea. Literally disincentivizes work in theory, giving the GOP an optics win even if not true. We could've experimented with a UBI for 6 months instead (although given the complications the economy is dealing with now maybe that would've backfired). And yeah. It just seemed like a poor use of money. I'm not against giving people money. I mean my platform is based on the idea of it to some extent. But it depends on how you do it, and that's just a $1.8 trillion band aid that just ain't gonna last. 

Then he had his infrastructure bill. Okay, fair, this wasn't a huge bill. It did some good things. Given I DON'T support a full on green new deal it's a good compromise. Pass. Although it's not super expensive and shouldn't be that insane fiscally. 

He gave us 2 year free college, not 4. Weak. 

And he's giving us free preK, childcare, and paid family leave. All nice to haves, but were these even on my previous list of things? Mostly, no. And the one that was, was extremely low priority. 

In exchange for this, he's abandoning us on student loans, and a public option for healthcare, both fairly high priorities for me. And given his own plans, neither are particularly expensive. Full student loan forgiveness would cost around $160 billion a year over the next 10 years. Partial forgiveness, less. I forget what his public option cost but it was like $65 billion or something, as much as his childcare/preK proposal roughly. 

So, he's basically telling us he blew his load on relatively weak programs, and now he can't do anything I actually want him to do. 

And this is him at best. At worst, he's just abandoning us. 

Screw Biden. I'm so glad I didn't vote for this guy (and yes I'm aware Hawkins was another "wish list" kind of guy but at least I would likely get healthcare out of him).

Biden is a waste...

 So, there's a new article out saying that Biden's upcoming white house budget will be leaving out key campaign promises. Among these include his public option, student debt forgiveness, and slashing prescription drug prices. Basically, he's saying "look we're spending all of this money, we've spent enough, we're done."

What a joke. His public option was under $100B from what I recall. It was anemic as fudge. Student debt forgiveness would cost similar amounts. These aren't expensive promises we can't afford. They cost way less than my UBI, and even less than medicare extra.

This is a joke. Biden's administration is a joke. Compromises, on compromises, that he then abandons in the name of "fiscal responsibility." Screw this guy. And you wonder why I don't vote democrat. 

To be honest, if I had to update my scoring for his presidency based on that, he doesn't lose many points, but it would be enough to move him from a C to a C-.

That's Biden for you. A massive disappointment. Like I always knew he would be.

Putting Georgism to good use

 So, I realize I recently crapped on Georgism, as it is not my ideology of choice, and I feel like its proponents are too radical, rigid, and ideological. Clearly a "single tax" system is a horrible idea for any home owner, and a UBI based on LVT is not a reliable safety net. Georgists kind of remind me of Marxists, that in trying so hard to stick it to a certain group of society, they end up becoming their own villains. However, that is not to say that georgism is useless as an ideology. Its strongest ideological proponents might be misguided, but being a similar form of left libertarian, and realizing indepentarianism isn't much different than Georgism in some key ideological ways (realizing property makes people less free and believing people be compensated for it), I cant completely discard it altogether. And the more I think about it, certain aspects of it make sense. I just kind of believe if you follow Georgism in its pure form to its logical conclusion that they end up becoming their own villains. That said, I do want to try to utilize this ideology in more limited and targetted ways to solve problems in society as it is a lens worse considering. 

Local LVTs

Local governments generally use property taxes to fund their services. They do this because their abilities to tax are limited, as any other sort of tax can be avoided simply by moving or shopping somewhere else. That's the problem with local governments doing stuff. They end up dealing with a race to the bottom. But people can't take property with them. So, it's the one unavoidable tax locales rely on for revenue.

A LVT has the same effect. It is generally unavoidable as people cannot take land with them, so localities can use this tax to raise revenue. By shifting to LVT from property taxes, this would likely reduce the burden homeowners face from taxes and put more of those taxes on the productive sector and the rich. 

An LVT would likely solve a whole host of problems. George always asked, why do large cities like Philadelphia have so much poverty while other areas don't? And the answer is rent. Because of the population density, land value goes up, and so does rent. George does oversimplify. I live in Pennsylvania, and I can tell you poverty isn't limited to major cities. This is largely because of the twin scourges of automation and globalization on the job market destroying local economies, so let's not act like rent is the only problem. Rent is cheap in many areas but the jobs aren't there. The jobs are in major cities and people flood in looking for a better life driving rent up. An LVT would actually help this in large cities, ensuring that land is used productively, and increasing the housing supply. Even more so, if some revenues from an LVT are used to expand the housing supply via a government program, this could greatly expand housing, driving prices down further.

I'm under the impression every sufficiently large city with high rents should use an LVT to help alleviate this problem. I don't think it would resolve all of the problems with housing and the like, but it likely would help. 

Designing a national LVT for a housing program

As we know, a housing program has been in the works in various democratic candidate's platforms. It's part of Biden's infrastructure bill, which costs $1.7 trillion over 15 years. Bernie's plan was more expensive at $250 billion per year. Meanwhile, depending on the price of land, a 1% national LVT would likely raise $144-212 billion depending on the actual value of all of the land. Assuming a median land value of $84,300 on the typical American home, they would face a tax of $843 under this proposal. 

Now, to be fair, we might not want to tax the average joe for his use of land. I mean, that's my problem with Georgism. It turns the government into a glorified landlord...to fight landlords. Okay, well, why don't we add a personal allowance? We could structure an LVT like a wealth or inheritance tax where we only target it at the rich. I think Denmark has a system like this, and it works fairly well. We could say, okay, we don't want to tax the average joe for living in their home, so let's say any land value below $300,000 (should equal a roughly $1 million home) does not pay the tax. We could also make it, where that exemption only applies to your primary residence, to discourage rent seeking activities from people who wish to own multiple properties. Also, any properties for nonresidential use would automatically be taxed. I don't know how much this would bring in revenue wise but even half of the original amounts would be enough for some housing program. 

This would serve a balance between georgist ideas and my concern. If the target is the landlords, the rent seekers, people who inefficiently use land, I am not against taxing those people for their excessive land ownership. While everyone should have a right to a decent place to live, at some point ownership of land becomes excessive and harms others. I don't want to moralize what your typical middle class family does with their property. I feel like georgists do this too much. But I do sympathize with them on landlords, housing shortages, and hoarding/rent seeking activities. Georgism has a lot to offer, even if I dislike georgists.

Conclusion

I feel like georgism, as an ideology taken to extremes, would be very harmful to society. However, georgist ideas can work in moderation. I am of the opiniion every city, and especially every major city, should implement a land value tax. They tax property anyway, and an LVT would be a superior version of a tax.

I also think it sounds just too use a national LVT to fund a housing program. However, the LVT would either have to be very low, as to not harm your average homeowner much, or it would need a personal exemption to to ensure that lower and middle class families aren't impacted by it at all. This would redirect the tax toward the worst of the excesses georgism is intended to target, while not falling into the tyrannies and other problems that the most extreme version of it would implement. 

Am I an ideologue? A reflection

 So, you see this a lot. I crap on a lot of other ideologies and their supporters for being closed minded ideologues. Marxists, libertarians, georgists, conservatives, liberals, SJWs, I crap on everyone. They all have their own moral systems and I have issues with them all. But am I really any better? Short answer, yes and no.

In terms of no, yeah, I'm just as ideological as any of them. I admit it. I have a certain values set, I rigidly apply it. I even reject solutions that might make sense to reasonable people who don't share my worldview and merely use a different set of ethics. I have a certain set of values and I stick by them. 

Honestly, everyone does. Ethics and morality have large subjective elements with no one correct objective answer. You're going to choose an ideology no matter what you do. There is no such thing as not having a side unless you literally pay no attention to politics at all and have no value system. Even the snarky centrist liberals who act like they're so great and wonderful and objective and claim to "follow facts", yeah, they still make tons of value judgments they're not willing to admit. That's one of the reasons I find them so insufferable. Their crap stinks like everyone else's and they're no better. Like me they sit in their ivory tower crapping on everyone else and claiming to be above them, but they're not. 

The fact is, everyone has a value system. They value certain things. The difference? And this is one of the reasons I AM better than that, is that I'm aware of this. Like, I get it. With my views, take them or leave them. I have my own brand of politics I'm trying to cultivate here. You might like it, you might not. That's totally up to you. But at least I'm honest about it and I'll tell you to make up your own mind, even if you disagree with me. I don't have a monopoly on truth. I advocate my case, but at the end of the day, the only reason you should accept my views over someone else's is because you like my values. I believe I follow facts, most people in most ideologies do to some extent (conservatism is the only ideology I see as completely devoid of intellectual value). 

Although to be fair that's another reason I would argue I'm better. I acknowledge limits to my ideology. For example. Ideologically I love me some single payer healthcare, if not a full on NHS style system (so jealous of the Brits and their top tier free at the point of service healthcare system that only costs 9% of GDP). But, due to recent analyses into funding, I've decided that single payer may not be a good idea on top of UBI. So I made a choice based in reality to instead formally support a public option. I still like single payer. But, I know in a world of limited amounts of money and having trouble acquiring the revenue and making it work, I'm kind of leery about implementing it. That's why on my recent purity test articles I only score 80/100 or something. I literally don't pass my own purity tests because I try to compromise with reality. I do this a lot. I argue about how I want everyone to have a choice not to work, but I also understand that if everyone makes that choice that the incentive structure will need to be changed and balanced with our realistic needs. I have my guiding stars morally, but sometimes I deviate from them because I have to be pragmatic and acknowledge reality. Not doing so just leads to getting so out of touch you support destructive ideas like violent revolutions (the left), massive LVTs that destroy the economy (georgists), or gilded age dystopias (the right). I mean, any ideology requires a bit of moderation. It's fine to have your morals, but sometimes you need to understand that a partial implementation is all you can do at the current time. 

A final way in which I am better is my ideology is my own. I don't just take some other dude's work and adhere to what they say 100%. I feel like a lot of the ideologues do this, which is particularly annoying in debates and leads to out of touchness. I mean, I constantly crap on my allies and heroes. I call myself an indepentarian but have critiqued Karl Widerquist (creator of the ideology) before. I am constantly ripping on Yang despite liking his human centered capitalism. I criticize Bernie a lot. Honestly, criticizing your heroes keeps you honest. And sometimes you gotta look at what other people do, and say, I like this, but I don't like that. So you take what you like, but you leave the rest. Obviously, some authors are going to influence us more than others. Some people like Widerquist, Van Parijs, Yang, Sanders, influence me significantly. Some influence me far less, but I still admit they have a point. Like Henry George, or Karl Marx. Some I might pick and choose a point or two from but largely dislike them, like Milton Friedman who made good arguments for NIT/UBI. It's good to read lots of sources and delve into tons of ideologies and take what you like but leave the rest. If you're not an ideologue to someone else's ideology, you likely won't ever agree with someone more than, say, 80-90%. And that's fine. Take what you like, leave the rest. That's what being a free thinker is about. Thinking for yourself. 

That said, yes, I'm aware I can be just as insufferably ideological as those I criticize. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since everyone has a value system. But there are key points in which I would argue I am better than those i criticize. I am more aware of my limits than most people, I'm willing to compromise my own ideology with reality, push comes to shove, and my ideology, despite being influenced by others, is truly my own, and I'll even purity test my heroes.

The problem with geolibertarianism/georgism

So, occasionally I come across a subset of libertarianism known as georgism, aka, geolibertarianism. These guys are an odd bunch. They often come off as the most annoyingly fanatical fanboys for their ideology I've ever come across, and I often find they are a waste of time to debate. At the same time, I don't think their views are totally invalid. So today, I'm going to be looking at this ideology, why I find it so objectionable, and where it is occasionally valid as my opinion of it isn't completely 100% negative.

What is georgism?

Georgism is an ideology based on Henry George's book "Progress and Poverty", a 19th century book describing how excessive land ownership can screw over those without land. Essentially, he's the Karl Marx of land ownership. Rather than discussing labor and the means of production, George discusses land ownership, rent, and landlords. Ultimately, his solution to these problems is to have a land value tax, which is a lot like a property tax, but rather than taxing all of property on land like a house, he supports taxing the unimproved value of the underlying land. Many georgists are so called "single taxers", meaning they believe that they believe the only tax that should exist is this massive land value tax. Some of them also support using this tax to fund a basic income, which is why I run into these guys relatively often on basic income oriented libertarian forums. 

The moral justifications for this tax are vast from their perspective. Being a form of libertarianism, these guys often believe that people are entitled to the fruits of their labor and are often relatively tax shy, but at the same time, they believe that no one made land, and that it is moral to tax land to ensure everyone can get some. They believe a massive land value tax would heavily discourage speculation, encourage landlords to develop their buildings efficiently, and essentially solve the housing crisis in America by ensuring land remains available and affordable for all. They believe that the land value tax is an economically efficient tax in that it does not discourage labor or economic activity, and has few disincentives of deadweight loss attached to it.

This sounds all well and good, but is this too good to be true?

Overrated snake oil

While there are many valid applications of this ideology as a lens applied to a specific set of problems, its adherents are, shall we say, overzealous. This, being a 19th century ideology, feels a bit dated now in the 21st century, and it tends to simplify a lot. Clearly there is a lot more wrong with the economy than just land ownership, speculation, and greedy landlords. This is a problem, but it's not the only problem or even the primary problem. 

But, zealots be zealots. Georgists are some of the most obnoxiously pushy and overzealous people I've had the displeasure of encountering on the internet. They're like Marxists, or right libertarians, but worse. All the world's problems can be boiled down to land ownership, and all solutions boiled down to the land value tax. I admit this is a problem, but I'm not sold on the land value tax in the way these guys want to use it.

How much money can be derived from a land value tax?

You know, in my UBI proposal I toyed with a land value tax, which I obviously shelved to fund it. First of all, land assessment is tricky, and often subjective. How much is all the land of the US worth? Well, it varies. The estimate I previously used said $14.488 trillion for all privately held land, but other estimates say as high as $23 trillion, with 21.2 trillion being privately owned. It's iffy, no one really seems to know, which is a problem in itself. I'll go with the higher number for this estimate. 

Well, how much would it take to fund the full $4.4 trillion of the federal budget as it existed in 2019 before the pandemic made us spend like drunken sailors? Well, it would take a 20% tax. Not even including a UBI. What would this actually do to people? Well, the median household income is just short of $69,000, and the median home value is $281,000. Roughly 30% of a home's value is land, meaning $84,300 is land and therefore taxable. At 20% tax, this would amount to $16,860 in federal taxes, which is 24.4%. Currently the middle quintile currently pays 14%, which would be a horrible replacement of federal taxes as they exist. And while LVT advocates might claim this would reduce home values making them more affordable, the other 70% of a property value is the stuff on top of the land, so it would only reduce the value by a 3rd. Isn't the MORE expensive for the average joe? People claim this would encourage more efficient building, but let's talk about what that means, more high rise, densely packed property buildings. This sounds great for like, New York City, but for much of the country, not so much. 

And don't get me going about a UBI. To fund my entire $3.6 trillion UBI, you would need a 17% land value tax, amounting to $14,300 in taxes, more than my UBI is worth for one person. This would be on top of the above budget, minus some cuts. Assuming $800 billion in cuts you would still need $2.8 trillion, which would require a 13% LVT. This would be nearly $11,000 in taxes. Admittedly, the tax burden under my income tax would be higher, around $13,800, but it varies, doesn't it? If the lower assumption is used at $14.5 trillion for land value, it's a 19% tax, which makes people pay more. And this isn't even including variability in income, which is another elephant in the room.

UBI is supposed to provide security and stability. It's supposed to give everyone a floor they can rely on no matter what. By taxing income, I tax based on what can afford to pay. But LVT taxes on assets, regardless of liquidity. That's also the secret to its "economic efficiency". Basically, the tax is there whether you work or not, and if you don't work, well, you're screwed. So you can earn all you want with no consequence, but if you choose not to, you might be in a bind. And given income varies across a person's lifetime, LVT seems like a particularly cruel way to tax. Say you're on social security. Limited income. You're old. You can't work any more. You wanna live in the home you spent the last 15-30 years paying off. Well, tough luck. Can't pay the tax? You're out on the street. While UBI offsets this somewhat, it doesn't change the fact it could be cruel to people on limited incomes who can't or won't work. Say you lost your job, well, tax still comes in, and now your safety net is paying back the tax. Or say you just choose not to. Say you worked your house off, and now you choose not to work any more. Well, you still got taxes to pay, so tough luck.

LVT is unattractive to me because it's essentially a tax on existence. We are three dimensional beings in a three dimensional space, and land is the two dimensional space we live on. Since we need to occupy space, we need to pay taxes under this scheme. Rather than UBI giving people money compensating them for being born into a system of property rights that forces them into the labor force, UBI in this case is paying people back for land ownership. And given the UBI payment will be $1100 a month, but the median LVT is like $900, that kind of eats up most of the UBI does it not? The UBI under georgist regime is not a true LVT. It's just a citizen's dividend. I tax people too, but I tax them on labor, in accordance with their ability to pay.

Here's the thing. Broken down by month, LVT amounts to the equivalent of $900 a month in rent for the typical homeowner. Meanwhile, the typical rent is is $1,100, and the median mortgage payment is $1,500. LVT is almost as much as rent. And that's not even including the fact that rent and mortgages would still exist in an LVT based society, they'd just be cheaper. Say prices dropped 30%. Okay, that's still $770 for rent and $1050 for a mortgage. You would only see rent go down if we saw everyone tear down entire neighborhoods to minimize land usage so that they would build more efficiently. Which brings us to another problem...

Implementing a full on LVT like this would be apocalyptically bad

Okay, remember the 2008 recession? What was it caused by? A HOUSING CRISIS! Basically, home values dropped dramatically, causing the entire economy to crash. What would this do? Oh, 2008 on steroids. It would implode the entire housing market overnight, causing mass disruption all over the place. People would suddenly see massive increases in taxation causing their home values to plummet. People might even be forced out of them and they would be foreclosed upon. Because the taxes are so extreme, no one would want to buy these homes, causing the values to implode. This could, theoretically reduce the tax burden when reassessed, but, you gotta keep in mind, you would be throwing millions out onto the street in the process, because the taxes are so high. We would have homeless people, and tons of homes that no one can afford to pay taxes on. At best, with the UBI, it would be a wash in a lot of cases because the UBI would refund the taxes, but at the same time, this UBI is NOT a safety net. It's just a tax refund to protect people from these insane taxes. That's the issue with georgism on UBI. UBI is secondary to their crazy tax scheme. To be fair, UBI might benefit some, if they have a middle class job, with multiple household members, but it would likely destroy the underprivileged in society just trying to get by on more limited means. This is very much a right wing pro capitalism version of UBI. 

It might even destroy the housing market so hard it has the opposite effect. Last I looked, and I hate to defend banks and landlords by the way, but landlords don't make tons of profit on homes. Maybe a few hundred a month. You need to own several properties to make a living off of it. While perhaps we can argue landlords aren't an occupation that should exist on a large scale, it still doesn't change that housing is expensive. Same with banks, who typically make a 0.5-1% profit on homes. The vast majority of the costs come from supply and demand. And people still need places to live, regardless of LVT. So all this arguably does is drive up housing costs if anything, potentially making them unprofitable, and causing the system to potentially collapse. 

We might a period where no one even makes homes, because considering how much it costs they might be unprofitable. Again, the argument that LVT doesn't get passed along to renters and buyers comes from the fact that George seems to assume people will just build these tall, massively dense apartment complexes to compensate. But is that really a solution? George seems to make the same mistake Marx does. In hating the bourgeoisie and their perceived laziness, he wants to make everyone workers with his labor theory of value. In this sense George is similar to this in that his solution to the problem with high rents and skyrocketing housing costs is to...make everyone renters, with the government being the landlord.

Unlike Marxism, I want to make everyone a shareholder and a member of the bourgeoisie, and UBI is basically your dividend. Ideally, I would also like to make everyone a homeowner, and make it more able to be done.

In fairness to georgism

I'm going to be honest. I admit housing market problems exist, and George is even right about them. I say this with the same conviction when I say that Marx is right when he talked about the exploitation of the working class. I mean, it's true, the system sucks, exploitation does happen, and it's unjust to some extent and should be fixed. 

My main issue comes from 2 particular things.

1) Single taxers wanting ALL taxation to be LVT

2) UBI advocates who want UBI to be funded via LVT when it seems to defeat the purpose of the UBI in my opinion. 

Would I support a more limited LVT? Sure. Which is why I toyed with the idea of a 1% LVT to help fund UBI. Although in all honesty though, perhaps that money would be better spent on a housing program. You tax housing slightly, then use the revenues to build more housing, alleviating supply gaps without radically changing the free market system. That might be fair. 

I would support an LVT at local levels to replace property taxes, as this would actually shift tax burden toward the rich and away from the little guy. 

Also, I'm going to be honest, some people just own way too much land. Perhaps land should be taxed like wealth. Where you pay a percentage of land held, but only over a certain value. That would stop people from hoarding scarce resources at the expense of others. Remember, I have nothing against normal people owning homes. My beef is with rich people hoarding stuff. And likewise with landlords. Maybe there should be a tax on land owned outside of your primary residence, or if your primary residence is over a certain value. I would be for all of these things. 

Conclusion

I don't want to completely hate on georgism. I believe it has some valid concepts. I just think that its loudest proponents and defenders are quite frankly, batcrap insane. I don't believe a LVT funded UBI is the best way to go as it ignores the liquidity of individual peoples' situations and forces them into the labor market simply for having a place to live. And I think single tax LVT would be ridiculously destructive to the economy and peoples' lives. That doesn't mean some more limited form of LVT wouldn't be helpful. Georgism really is like marxism. One of those ideas that conceptually sounds great on paper, but its ideological fanboys are some of its greatest problems with it. Because they are so rigid and so extreme, they end up ruining the idea as it wouldn't work as well as they think it would in practice.

Political compass in minecraft! How did it work out? What works best?

 So, I came across an interesting youtube video where the user set up a server of 256x256, divided it into 4 quadrants of the political compass, and then an experiment to let people choose their quadrant and see which one worked best. To some extent, there was no best, it was a political roursch test. What your idea of best depends on what quadrant you're in, as they mostly followed their own quadrants ideals for better or for worse. I'm lib left so I have my preferences, so let's get into it.

Libertarian left- Libertarian left seemed to do "the best" in my opinion, but of course, your opinion may very. But generally speaking, they tended to just be the most chill and laid back. They made a lot of nice things, and it came off like your typical minecraft server with limited space. Lots of large creations that looked nice. However, as pointed out, because there was no ownership of the land, and because there was little coordination, sometimes the stuff people made clashed, and sometimes space was wasted, for example on apartment complexes no one actually used. Still, it was chill, people mostly did what they wanted it and turned out nicely.

Authoritarian left- If you want efficiency, authoritarian left nailed it. One guy basically took over the quadrant and put everyone to work in a way that abided by central planning. The result looked a lot like a capital city in a communist country, with large communist monuments everywhere. Compared to lib left, they were a lot more coordinated, and used their space far more efficiently. They took advantage of their limited space by building upward, establishing multiple levels of a densely packed communist city. Unlike real communism, no one starved either since there were wheat fields stacked literally on top of each other, creating a weird vertical farming sort of thing. Unlike real communism, if you like efficiency, it was great. Probably had the highest level of "advancement" of any society on the compass on this server. Just not my cup of tea because, well, I like freedom. 

Libertarian right- While both sides of the left developed very advanced civilizations, the right was...a different story. Anarcho capitalism should be perfect for minecraft. It's an ideology that involves staking out your claim, building an empire out of your own sweat and tears, and abiding by the nonaggression principle. But...it...didn't work out. Arguably because of the lack of space. After all, these guys had 128x128 to build their ancap utopia in. And it just...didn't work. First of all, much like the IRL right, these guys were given villagers to trade with. They ended up murdering them all and taking their stuff and using the resources to build their own homes. These homes were not advanced at all, unlike both of the right factions, they were small little huts well out of the way of each other. Because they were strict with private property and not encroaching on each other, they never advanced beyond that. They just had small little huts and tried to stay out of each other's way. Often times they wouldn't any way, and there would be turf wars in which they would start fighting each other and burning down each others' homes and taking their crap. They didn't always abide by the nonaggression principle. Funny how that works. Look, I have no doubt anarcho capitalism can work in minecraft, but it's an ideology that relies on having a nearly limitless expanse of land where every person can truly be an island unto themselves. When people are forces to share the same environment with each other, anarcho capitalism...doesn't work. While the left, which had no sense of private property, managed to make some great things because they weren't so atomized, the right...didn't. It's like they never advanced beyond some tribal society. To prove a point though they did have some nice toll roads, but that's about all they had. 

Authoritarian right- I don't know what happened with these guys, they just imploded. I mean, I'm not even sure this is an adequate representation of the auth right. For the most part, they just lacked the members of the other factions. And a lot of the people who went to this quadrant ended up being edgy. They literally build an Auschwitz like concentration camp at first, and then for some reason their entire world flooded, which the host in the video referred to as being like global warming. Water levels rose, land was flooded, it ended up being very islandy. The concentration camp was torn down and eventually replaced with some skyscrapers, and the swastikas were taken down and replaced with "Brexit" signs, but it just devolved into this weird water world type thing that was arguably the least developed of the four factions. I'm not sure this could even be considered a representation of the ideology, because technically modern capitalism is moderately auth right and they're the most advanced in real life. Here, they just destroyed their own environment, engaged in ethnic cleansing, and the yeah, it ended up imploding.

Conclusion

I wanted to write about this simply because I found this experiment interesting. I highly suggest watching the video, it's very interesting. But yeah. I'm not sure these are adequate representations of the real life ideologies. I mean, authoritarian communism ended up being the most "advanced" society arguably, when its inefficiencies in real life end up making it more stagnant. The authoritarian capitalists ended up being severely underdeveloped compared to reality. Libertarian right ended up about as expected, given my low opinion of anarcho capitalism. Libertarian left seemed the most attractive to me, but that's basically....a normal minecraft server. You build stuff. You have fun, you chill out. No one thinks about it too hard.Stuff emerges organically, and while it may lack the scientific precision of authoritarian ideologies, most of the fun is in that organic emergence. Some auth left hive mind might be the best system in theory from a developmental standpoint, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of how you end up actually living in practice. Without freedom, whats the point with that level of advancement? You can't enjoy it. You're not free to. 

I guess part of the issue with all of these ideologies was scale. Obviously right wing ideologies work a lot better when you have tons of space. This is why many rural areas, especially in America, lean conservative. The whole rugged individualism thing is a frontier attitude of going west, staking out a claim of your own, and making a modest living working the land. Anarcho capitalism obviously can work very well in a very wide open environment with more than enough land for everyone. Enough for you, enough for me, enough for everyone to just live in their atomized bubble and stay out of everyone else's way. Arguably authoritarian capitalism could've worked too in such a way. Authoritarian righters also often get planning stuff right in practice, much like the authoritarian left in this server. I mean it's why most societies are authoritarian right in some form.

As far as the left goes, they did very well on a small scale. The communists were able to make an extremely efficient society that made the most of their meager land, and obviously everyone there had a pretty high standard of living relative to the other quadrants. While on the large scale they are rife with inefficiencies, they did a much better job in such a limited environment. Even the libertarian left did a better job as their commune style living also led to fairly good results. 

But ultimately, it depends what you value. I could never prefer an authoritarian society. Communism and even auth right IRL can make crazy advanced societies in real life, but coming at the expense of freedom, I struggle to deem such a society as worth the cost. Likewise, I couldn't live as an ancap unless land truly was limitless. Otherwise such a society would become stagnant and unjust very quickly. Lib left is where it's at for me. Do what I want when I want it and still end up pretty well off. A society where everyone is taken care of, but people are free to do as they want. My version of heaven.