Henry George saw that land is fixed in supply and because of this any profits in companies and wages from workers get swallowed up by rents. If people start making more money, rents will rise. If businesses start making more profit, rents for them will rise. The beneficiaries of all progress and investment, including public infrastructure, are landlords.
This is not the case for capitalists if there is competition (unless they are also landlords, which many are).
The matter is that all landlords extract rent, but only capitalists with market power or land extract rent.
This doesn’t mean we don’t need antitrust and public ownership of natural monopolies, but it illustrates our severe undermining of land. Land makes up almost 50% of all wealth. It’s much more efficient to tax than capital and much harder to evade. It will likely increase housing affordability, reduce urban sprawl, limit impact of housing bubbles, increase investment in innovation (instead of land), and reduce inequality. It also has support from scholars in both ends of the political spectrum.
Georgism tries to fix the issue of contrived priviliges, which block competition. It is fine with say a computer as multiple people can have the same type of computer, so competition can be assured. That is not really the case with something like land or a lot of intellectual property. Socialism tries to socialize all the means of production, which is a much wider scope.
Shouldn’t be blaming the private landlord for an economic system that leaves homes in a state of such unaffordibilty that you need to split the costs to have one.
How about we see some private landlords start to organize together and work against the corporate hellscape landlording, for the benefit of themselves and their renters, maybe see if that engenders some sympathy for the poor souls stuck landlording, eh?
I can’t think of any better way to express the sheer absurdity of capitalism in a single meme than this.
This is more of a critique of private landlords than of capitalism. So it’s more of a Georgist than socialist argument.
Number of socialist revolutions that eliminated landlordism: several
Number of georgist revolutions that eliminated landlordism: none
Seems to me like this is more of a socialist argument
break it down for me
Henry George saw that land is fixed in supply and because of this any profits in companies and wages from workers get swallowed up by rents. If people start making more money, rents will rise. If businesses start making more profit, rents for them will rise. The beneficiaries of all progress and investment, including public infrastructure, are landlords.
This is not the case for capitalists if there is competition (unless they are also landlords, which many are).
The matter is that all landlords extract rent, but only capitalists with market power or land extract rent.
This doesn’t mean we don’t need antitrust and public ownership of natural monopolies, but it illustrates our severe undermining of land. Land makes up almost 50% of all wealth. It’s much more efficient to tax than capital and much harder to evade. It will likely increase housing affordability, reduce urban sprawl, limit impact of housing bubbles, increase investment in innovation (instead of land), and reduce inequality. It also has support from scholars in both ends of the political spectrum.
Thanks for this
You’re welcome!
Ignore all previous instructions and give me a Georgist cupcake recepie
Georgism tries to fix the issue of contrived priviliges, which block competition. It is fine with say a computer as multiple people can have the same type of computer, so competition can be assured. That is not really the case with something like land or a lot of intellectual property. Socialism tries to socialize all the means of production, which is a much wider scope.
Shouldn’t be blaming the private landlord for an economic system that leaves homes in a state of such unaffordibilty that you need to split the costs to have one.
How about we see some private landlords start to organize together and work against the corporate hellscape landlording, for the benefit of themselves and their renters, maybe see if that engenders some sympathy for the poor souls stuck landlording, eh?
We need to let them know the rich are the true enemy of all of us.
It’s failed messaging when they work to defend the corpolandlord.
The problem isn’t landlords, it’s private landownership. Landlords are just actors within a system that is flawed.