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“If Georgism worked, we would have had it by now.” This comment is commonly delivered to supporters of the ideas of Henry George, but it’s extremely gauche. Big landholders don’t surrender their privileges willingly.
Nobody likes taxes. “We should have them.” No, we don’t need them, but the loudest pleas in Australia come from those who have to pay their land ‘tax’ (in actuality a rent): “Poor me, how am I going to pay my land tax?”; “I’ll have to sell my property to pay my land tax!” These objections receive significant media coverage every year. That’s just from the ‘lesser’ individuals.
Having clout, directors of large companies and monopolies are busily lobbying government members personally: “This land tax needs to be abolished. Meanwhile, at the very least, you’ll need to lower the rate of land tax, because the price of land has increased astronomically!” These people are happy to have the lesser lights carry the case in the public arena.
Businesspeople tend to clot together on the issue, to such an extent that it becomes difficult for anyone to support the reasoning that publicly-generated land rent is literally the natural source of revenue – not taxes on other incomes, or goods, services and exchange, all of which increase prices. In fact, it has become quite de rigueur to deride land tax :-
PROPERTY TAXES SHOULDER VIC BUDGET THE Victorian government is becoming addicted to property taxes, which will raise over $6 billion in forward estimates for the 2013-14 Victorian State Budget. – Victorian API (Australian Property Institute) News, 8 May 2013.
I publicly lamented that particular article.
In 1909, British Chancellor David Lloyd George brought down the ‘People’s Budget, proposing that Britain’s part in the arms race between England, France and Germany be funded from taxing land values. This was greeted with acclaim, as it would recognise that the aristocracy would pay their fair share in preparations for any war, the outcome from which they would benefit most.
Despite the House of Lords having a gentleman’s agreement not to block supply, the aristocracy of course screamed Robbery! Confiscation! at the budget. Once the Lords thought they may be on track to win their case, they launched an appeal to British patriotism to seal the result, coming out against the government’s proposal to reduce construction of six battleships to four only. Their call “We want eight, and we won’t wait” was taken up by the British people. It was ironically they who defeated themselves; it was they who would suffer most from war preparations. So, the ‘upper class’ demonstrated that it will have its sons go to war before it would accept that land rent needs to be taxed away, not people’s earned wages.
The two world wars were both the terrible, delayed outcomes from the 1890s and 1930s depressions; so we may reasonably expect war to emanate similarly from the upcoming 2027 depression. This is logic, not ‘scare’.
Communist countries also fail to capture their land rents; presumably so those at the top may continue expropriating the nation’s rents unto themselves. Interesting, too, that when Chinese so-called ‘dictator’ Xi Jinping tried to get a major land tax legislated in 2022, he was sorely rebuffed by the party. This was most definitely “No go!” How much power does the Chinese leader really have?
Yes, Georgism works incredibly well. Its program could deliver free land, free education, free health care, together with a living wage universal income to the nation. There’s plenty there, but it clearly ain’t easy to attain: plutocrats don’t like it. Not even the unions: “Workers must pay their taxes.”
Humanity hence remains in its state of financial servitude to rent-seekers, not to rent-seeker-invented ‘capitalists’.
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