So I've beaten up on georgism a lot on this blog, mainly due to my indepentarian perspective, but tonight I got to hear Karl Widerquist discuss georgism a little in his lectures, since he talked about private property and different models of property rights. He acknowledged that both is theory and real libertarianism were offshoots of georgism (something I'd vaguely agree with given all three are forms of "social libertarianism" broadly speaking), but indepentarianism seems to go a lot further than just georgism. At this point I'm gonna be giving my thoughts, so this isn't really just regurgitating what Widerquist said, but kinda taking it in my own direction.
Georgism always came off to me as a fancy version of right libertarianism. In this system, people have a right to the fruits of their labor, but the land belongs to everyone and people should be compensated for land claims. This seems intuitive on some level, but as I saw it, georgism just ends up starting with right libertarianism, and then deciding land value taxes are the only just tax. So they like land taxes, to the point of supporting it (and pigovian taxes) as the only forms of just taxes, but then support no other taxes. As I've demonstrated in my previous articles on georgism, this just leads to creating a system in which the government becomes the ultimate landlord. Everyone pays taxes to the government for owning land, but are given a UBI ("citizen's dividend") back. And if you pay less than you get, from having a smaller or less valuable parcel of land, you may get more than you give in taxes. However, let's face it. This doesn't really change a lot in and of itself. It doesn't necessarily make land cheaper. If anything it could make it more expensive in the long term as you never own the land outright. So everyone is paying rent to a landlord, or taxes to the government, and since everyone has to occupy 3D space, everyone will be subject to these taxes just by existing in 3D space. This would force many people to become productive in order to maintain their access to their homes. Which...forces them into wage slavery. Some might claim that they won't HAVE to becausr their UBI would be a net benefit to them, but that form of UBI would be severely weakened and not really designed to free people from the system. it might compensate those with below average value land claims, but it won't free many people at all from being forced to participate in the system in the first place.
Widerquist plainly states that we not only need guaranteed shelter, but also things like food, water, healthcare, etc. And while giving people those goods directly can be "inflexible" as he calls it, it's better to give them a UBI IMO unless there's a market failure, like exists for healthcare. Honestly, indepentarianism is just a much more robust theory. It understands people cannot be free if forced into the service of others, and seems aimed at addressing all coercive relationships, not just those between landlords and renters. While that is one issue within capitalism, the employer-laborer system is also exploitative. In order for people to be free they need to be immune to all coercive relationships possible. So unlike georgism that's like, you deserve to have access to land and then you're on your own, which just ends up leaving you to be a wage slave in the grand scheme of things, widerquist's (and van parijs' too, for that matter, as its a close sister theory to widerquist's IMO) theory ends up expanding on this and recognizing people need to be free from all coercive relationships.
Which is why I dunk on georgism. While I see where they're coming from, their views seem extremely dogmatic, fixated on one problem, and seem to miss the forest for the trees. It's a good precursor of modern 21st century political ideologies, but it really ends up just being very dated at this point, and not that good.
As far as the land value tax? Eh, I can accept it, but only under certain limitations. Replacing local property taxes because it's more progressive for one. Or, if done nationally, it's done in a way to only tax obvious serial exploiters of land ownership. Everyone should have access to A home. You should have a primary residence free of taxation, as a right of citizenship, given you actively use it as a primary residence (as opposed to letting it sit vacant or renting it out to others), and it should presumably be less than extravagant. Meaning, if you have some sort of huge mansion or estate that's like many many times the average home value, maybe it should be taxed. There comes a point where your land claim gets so big that it's arguably actively denying others the ability to live in a place of their own. When it gets that big it should be taxed. If you're owning secondary properties and renting them out, they should be taxed, etc. I wouldn't just put a blanket tax on everyone. You can't solve the landlord issue with capitalism by making the government a landlord everyone has to pay their dues to just to exist in 3D space. UBI is intended to be an income you could live on with no coercion. That ideally means not just rent, but also food, water, climate control, other necessities, etc. I understand even my UBI may not be adequate, at least on a single person basis, for all of those things, but on a household level (so say 2-3 people with a UBI of roughly $30k-ish between all household members), it should be just about right.And if we throw in universal healthcare, it should work.
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