It’s a matter of “He who controls the purse strings calls the shots“.
That’s the way of the world, and it’s increasingly those individuals who control the rent calling our ‘shots’.
Doesn’t that, alone, make a case for public capture of our rent, like the Saudis do with their oil? They’re a powerful lot because of their control of oil and oil rents, but we could match them if we wanted to do so, because the rent flowing from our land is just as real as that flowing from their oil.
It’s just that we’ve come to believe the rent of land is ours as individuals, not the country’s: and we’re wrong there!
It wasn’t always like that. In what has become to be known as The Progressive Era, Australia used to capture much of its rent at all three levels of government. WE had an extremely low cost-of-living. The USA taxed real estate at only local and state government level, as shown here.
Note, it was The Progressive Era, not the ‘communist‘ era.
It’s a pity that we began to fall for the story that “There’s not enough rent!” at the 1930’s depression. We were sold a pup by neoclassical economists, because the truth of the matter is that all taxes and their excess burden, come out of rent. (ATCOR & EBCOR)
Let’s hope that’s something we rectify at the next financial collapse?