We can have one without the other
Property taxes are the most important revenue source for most cities and towns in the U.S., providing funding for a variety of local services and infrastructure. Unfortunately, traditional property taxes’ emphasis on taxing the value of improvements – like homes and businesses – can produce… Read More »What are the on-the-ground effects of a land value tax? Lessons from the Pennsylvania experience.
The current conflict in Washington, dealing with the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars, is the much anticipated, frequently promised, but poorly defined ‘infrastructure bill’. As it stands, two versions are possible – one preferred by centrist Democrats and a few moderate Republicans that… Read More »Infrastructure Problems Exacerbated by a Poor System of Taxation
Although the political-economic philosophy of Henry George was once common to most literate people in the western world and even beyond, the past century has seen its resurgence in many quarters. This is due in part to the advent of easier communication through the Internet… Read More »The Basic Fundamentals of Georgism
The term frozen capital is used mainly to refer to any capital stock, unused or underused, that thereby reduces productive enterprise from operating at its optimum potential. In most instances, it is an accounting or bankers’ term,[1] often referring to inventory which is shelved or… Read More »Taxing Rent Thaws Frozen Capital
Henry George’s central insight is remarkable in the way that other breakthroughs in thought are remarkable, and maybe more so. His insight? Poverty persists and deepens as civilizations advance in their ability to produce wealth because land then increases in value; where land is allowed… Read More »Asking The Right Question
As the (delayed) tax day approaches, it is worth remembering that the income taxes coming due are largely a product of the early 20th century progressive movement to replace tariffs with income taxes. The arguments put forth by the progressives included the fact that tariffs… Read More »Protection or Free Trade Pt.2
Simon Winchester begins his new book, “Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World” by giving the history of the first land parcel he ever bought -123 acres of a forested and rocky mountainside in rural New York. When English explorer Henry Hudson… Read More »Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World – Book Review
After the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement and the creation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade after World War II, global free trade began a decades long period of expansion, dramatically increasing the role of international trade in the global economy by… Read More »Applying the lessons of George’s Protection or Free Trade, pt 1
There’s a lot to love about RSF, but the thing I appreciate most is its fundamental autonomy. Having spent most of my career with much larger organizations, many of which were baked into almost inconceivably large matrices of federal and state grants and regulations, or… Read More »No Brainer
