I’m not going to go deeper into the historical discussions here, I am not that much of an expert on those.
I also don’t find it very useful to discuss which “system” is superior. I think we need a mix of ideas from each. And that’s how all countries function anyways. I’m neither a Georgist, socialist or capitalist. I don’t think it’s helpful in deciding on an ideology and work from there. The only reason why I’m bringing forward Henry George’s ideas is because most people are not aware of them and how important they might be.
Socialism: We need unions, public investment in infrastructure and innovation, public ownership of natural monopolies, antitrust regulations, welfare state, workers rights.
Georgism: We need to fund these public investments and innovation, and welfare mostly from land value taxes. For many reasons; they are the most efficient taxes. They avoid the steady increase in inequality from land ownership as populations grow. They help us make better use of land. They help prevent housing bubbles. They incentivize investment in innovation instead of land. They fund public goods fairly via the benefit principle. They are justifiable in all fairness principles an natural law justice principles.
Capitalism: We need decentralized decision making and some freedoms of property rights to harness the potential individuals to come up with new ideas and to unleash their creativity. We need to use the power of competitive businesses to cover the needs of the citizens.
Edit: this is of course just my opinion. I’m not saying it as objective truth
And in general we need to make sure our rights are upheld by making sure elections cannot be bought.
We have countless authors with many ideas who each built on each other’s ideas. We should not fall into the trap of just relying on one author.
We don’t need to fund anything with taxes, that’s outdated classic economics. Modern monetary theory has proven otherwise. We don’t need taxes to fund things, states can create unlimited amounts of currency, the whole “this is funded by taxes” is simply not true. Taxes work primarily for three purposes: removing money from the economy to prevent inflation, imposing obligations denominated in a certain currency to enforce usage of said currency, and discouraging certain behaviors.
If the whole point of taxing is not to pay for anything, and the whole reason is simply to disincentivize landlordism, georgism simply offers no advantages over collective land ownership and public decisions over land usage. Wanna build housing? Build it. Wanna build schools? Build them. Wanna have a park? Have it. The obsession with taxation is outdated once we’ve found out that taxes aren’t paying for anything and we can have arbitrary amounts of currency created with the purpose of funding whatever projects we collectively decide. In this manner, Georgism is obsolete.
Do you think there are no consequences of creating more currency? Or do you think the consequences don’t matter?
Also the question of “wanna build housing?” seems to simplify the complexity of urban development. How much space should the housing have? How should it be designed? How much garden should it have? How many bedrooms? What about special needs like for handicapped? What about unique design preferences? All of these questions are fundamentally decentralized in nature. They exist in the preferences of the people. No one centralized unit can make sure most people get their preferences met. There are people who don’t care about their house but care a lot about community offerings and there are people who only care about their house. Should they get the same type of house? Where do people get allocated? Who chooses who gets to have what housing and where?
Do you think there are no consequences of creating more currency?
I didnt say “create unlimited money”, I said “states have unlimited potential for expenditure in self-denominated currency, and so taxation is not a way of paying for things”. Creating more public deficit has many consequences, both positive and negative depending on where and how this money is invested, but the response to this should be done by economic simulation, not by hard rules and guesswork as we do in most capitalist countries.
How much space should the housing have? How… […] of these questions are fundamentally decentralized in nature
Yes. But first, most people in capitalism do not get the housing they we want where we want it with the services we want it etc, we get housing where we can find and afford it, so capitalism is clearly not a solution to those questions or to decentralization. Chaos is not sinonym with decentralized decision making. Second, socialism has the highest potential for decentralized economic and urban planning. It seems to me that you believe socialism is when the government does things autonomously, but socialism is actually based on grassroots movements and decisions, and cybernetic decentralized planning could easily, massively improve what we have now. Even the old and outdated soviet model is an improvement: everyone could afford housing, which is much more important than rich people having the power to decide how many square meters they get.
Where do people get allocated? Who chooses who gets to have what housing and where?
Any form of decision would be desirable to the current allocation method: chaos based on wealth. An example would be union-owned housing such as the USSR, in which workers got to enjoy housing generally in close proximity to their workplace. Another example would be region-based lotteries with preference for local workers and local inhabitants. Almost anything would be a more fair allocation method than “poor people get fucked over”.
I’m not going to go deeper into the historical discussions here, I am not that much of an expert on those.
I also don’t find it very useful to discuss which “system” is superior. I think we need a mix of ideas from each. And that’s how all countries function anyways. I’m neither a Georgist, socialist or capitalist. I don’t think it’s helpful in deciding on an ideology and work from there. The only reason why I’m bringing forward Henry George’s ideas is because most people are not aware of them and how important they might be.
Socialism: We need unions, public investment in infrastructure and innovation, public ownership of natural monopolies, antitrust regulations, welfare state, workers rights.
Georgism: We need to fund these public investments and innovation, and welfare mostly from land value taxes. For many reasons; they are the most efficient taxes. They avoid the steady increase in inequality from land ownership as populations grow. They help us make better use of land. They help prevent housing bubbles. They incentivize investment in innovation instead of land. They fund public goods fairly via the benefit principle. They are justifiable in all fairness principles an natural law justice principles.
Capitalism: We need decentralized decision making and some freedoms of property rights to harness the potential individuals to come up with new ideas and to unleash their creativity. We need to use the power of competitive businesses to cover the needs of the citizens.
Edit: this is of course just my opinion. I’m not saying it as objective truth
And in general we need to make sure our rights are upheld by making sure elections cannot be bought.
We have countless authors with many ideas who each built on each other’s ideas. We should not fall into the trap of just relying on one author.
We don’t need to fund anything with taxes, that’s outdated classic economics. Modern monetary theory has proven otherwise. We don’t need taxes to fund things, states can create unlimited amounts of currency, the whole “this is funded by taxes” is simply not true. Taxes work primarily for three purposes: removing money from the economy to prevent inflation, imposing obligations denominated in a certain currency to enforce usage of said currency, and discouraging certain behaviors.
If the whole point of taxing is not to pay for anything, and the whole reason is simply to disincentivize landlordism, georgism simply offers no advantages over collective land ownership and public decisions over land usage. Wanna build housing? Build it. Wanna build schools? Build them. Wanna have a park? Have it. The obsession with taxation is outdated once we’ve found out that taxes aren’t paying for anything and we can have arbitrary amounts of currency created with the purpose of funding whatever projects we collectively decide. In this manner, Georgism is obsolete.
Do you think there are no consequences of creating more currency? Or do you think the consequences don’t matter?
Also the question of “wanna build housing?” seems to simplify the complexity of urban development. How much space should the housing have? How should it be designed? How much garden should it have? How many bedrooms? What about special needs like for handicapped? What about unique design preferences? All of these questions are fundamentally decentralized in nature. They exist in the preferences of the people. No one centralized unit can make sure most people get their preferences met. There are people who don’t care about their house but care a lot about community offerings and there are people who only care about their house. Should they get the same type of house? Where do people get allocated? Who chooses who gets to have what housing and where?
I didnt say “create unlimited money”, I said “states have unlimited potential for expenditure in self-denominated currency, and so taxation is not a way of paying for things”. Creating more public deficit has many consequences, both positive and negative depending on where and how this money is invested, but the response to this should be done by economic simulation, not by hard rules and guesswork as we do in most capitalist countries.
Yes. But first, most people in capitalism do not get the housing they we want where we want it with the services we want it etc, we get housing where we can find and afford it, so capitalism is clearly not a solution to those questions or to decentralization. Chaos is not sinonym with decentralized decision making. Second, socialism has the highest potential for decentralized economic and urban planning. It seems to me that you believe socialism is when the government does things autonomously, but socialism is actually based on grassroots movements and decisions, and cybernetic decentralized planning could easily, massively improve what we have now. Even the old and outdated soviet model is an improvement: everyone could afford housing, which is much more important than rich people having the power to decide how many square meters they get.
Any form of decision would be desirable to the current allocation method: chaos based on wealth. An example would be union-owned housing such as the USSR, in which workers got to enjoy housing generally in close proximity to their workplace. Another example would be region-based lotteries with preference for local workers and local inhabitants. Almost anything would be a more fair allocation method than “poor people get fucked over”.