Georgism

"Georgist" redirects here. For the Romanian political group, see National Liberal Party-Brătianu.

Henry George

Georgism, named after Henry George (1839-1897), a U.S. political economist, is a philosophy and economic ideology that follows from the belief that everyone owns what they create, but everything supplied by nature, most importantly land, belongs equally to all humanity.

Georgists argue that all of the economic rent (ie, unearned income) collected from land, the broadcast spectrum, mineral extraction, tradable emission permits, fishing quotas, airway corridor use, seignorage, space orbits, etc. and extraordinary returns from natural monopolies should go to the community rather than the owner and that no other taxes or burdensome economic regulations should be levied. In practice that implies a high land value tax (LVT), although no change in land rental prices (other than those caused by reduction of other taxes and regulations) for reasons first explained by Adam Smith.The Wealth of Nations Book V, Chapter 2, Article I: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses:

Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent.

Synonyms and variants

Most early advocacy groups described themselves as Single Taxers, and George endorsed this as being an accurate description of the movement\'s main political goal - the replacement of all taxes with an LVT. In the modern era, there are groups inspired by Henry George with more of an emphasis on environmentalism or monetary economics.

In today\'s more economically complex world, a quick and total change to LVT is very difficult to sell politically, so the term "Georgist" has come into vogue, being a more general term which encompasses even incremental changes towards the ideal of replacing unjust and economically destructive taxes on economic activity by recovery of the economic rent of land for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates land value.

Some Georgists are not entirely satisfied with the label. Henry George is now little known and the principle predates him. Some use the term "Geoism", with the meaning of "Geo" deliberately ambiguous. "Earth Sharing", "Geoism", "Geonomics" and "Geolibertarianism" (see libertarianism) are also preferred by some Georgists; "Geoanarchism" is another one. These terms reflect a difference of emphasis, and sometimes real differences about how land rent should be spent (citizen\'s dividend or just replacing other taxes); but all agree that land rent should be recovered from its private recipients.

Predecessors

Those who expressed similar thoughts before Henry George include: Benjamin Franklin^{[citation needed]}, John Locke^{[citation needed]}, John Stuart MillPrinciples of Political Economy Book 5 Chapter 2:

The ordinary progress of a society which increases in wealth, is at all times tending to augment the incomes of landlords; to give them both a greater amount and a greater proportion of the wealth of the community, independently of any trouble or outlay incurred by themselves. They grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. What claim have they, on the general principle of social justice, to this accession of riches? In what would they have been wronged if society had, from the beginning, reserved the right of taxing the spontaneous increase of rent, to the highest amount required by financial exigencies?,

William Ogilvie of Pittensearhttp://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Ogilvie_Essay_1782.html An Essay on the Right of Property in Land by William Ogilvie, of Pittensear, Professor of Humanity and Lecturer on Political and Natural History, Antiquities, Criticism, and Rhetoric in the University and King\'s College of Aberdeen 1782, Thomas Paine (notably in "Agrarian Justice"Agrarian Justice paragraph 12:

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.),

William Penn^{[citation needed]}, Adam SmithThe Wealth of Nations, Book V, Article I, "Taxes upon the Rent of Houses", Patrick Edward Dove^{[citation needed]}, Herbert Spencer^{[citation needed]} and the Physiocrats^{[citation needed]}.

Famous Georgists

• William F. Buckley, Jr. http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Buckley_HG.html William F. Buckley, Jr. Transcript of an interview with Brian Lamb, CSpan Book Notes, April 2-3, 2000
• Winston Churchill Winston Churchill: Land Price as a Cause of Poverty
• Clarence DarrowTranscript of a speech by Darrow on taxation
• Henry FordTranscript of 1942 interview with Henry Ford in which he says, "The time will come when not an inch of the soil, not a single crop, not even weeds, will be wasted. Then every American family can have a piece of land. We ought to tax all idle land the way Henry George said — tax it heavily, so that its owners would have to make it productive".
• David Lloyd George People\'s Budget
• George Grey The Life of Henry George, Part 3 Chapter X1
• Walter Burley GriffinCo-founder of the Henry George Club, Australia.
• William Morris Hughes
• Mumia Abu-Jamalhttp://www.henrygeorge.org/mumia.htm
• Tom L. Johnson
• Wolf Ladejinsky Andelson Robert V. (2000), Land-Value Taxation Around the World: Studies in Economic Reform and Social Justice Malden, MA:Blackwell Publishers, Inc. Page 359.
• Francis Neilson
• Albert Jay Nock
• Sun Yat Sen^{[citation needed]}
• Herbert Simon
• Leo Tolstoy.Article on Tolstoy, Proudhon and George. Count Tolstoy once said of George, "People do not argue with the teaching of George, they simply do not know it".
• Mark Twain Archimedes[1], an article originally bylined "Twark Main"
• William Simon U\'Ren
• William Vickrey http://www.wealthandwant.com/auth/Vickrey.html.
• Blas Infante, Father of Andalusia Arcas Cubero, Fernando: El movimiento georgista y los orígenes del Andalucismo : análisis del periódico "El impuesto único" (1911-1923). Málaga : Editorial Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros, 1980. ISBN 8450037840

In the 2004 Presidential campaign, Ralph Nader mentioned Henry George in his platform.http://www.votenader.org/issues/index.php?cid=7

In Denmark, the Georgist Justice Party has previously been represented in Folketinget. It formed part of a centre-left government 1957-60 and was also represented in the European Parliament 1978-79.

Single-tax communities

• Arden, Delaware, founded 1900 by Frank Stephens and Will Price.
• Fairhope, Alabama, founded 1894 by Fairhope Single Tax Corporation

Notes

See also

• Tragedy of the anticommons
• Mutualism
• Geolibertarianism
• Excess burden of taxation

External links

• The Henry George School, founded 1932
• Henry George Foundation of America
• Henry George Papers, New York Public Library
• Understanding Economics
• Henry George Biography
• Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
• Center for the Study of Economics
• Maryland Land Value Tax Project

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