Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879) was among the most important and widely read books published in the 19th century, but George’s work and the single tax movement it spawned had largely faded common knowledge by the 1930s. George’s central idea was that a single tax on land values was sufficient to fund the government, and that private appropriation of land’s value was the cause of the persistence of severe poverty even in the richest and most developed cities in the world.
https://schalkenbach.org/exploring-universal-basic-income-and-its-imple…
A Commonwealth Proposal in Canada
In Canada, a group of UBI advocates who make up an organization called Common Wealth Canada propose that collecting value from Canada’s land and resources would create $241 billion dollars of wealth annually that could be distributed to Canadians. They propose that it is enough to provide each adult with up to $7,600 per year in dividends.
https://time.com/6342827/ceo-of-the-year-2023-sam-altman/
Quote form Time article:
https://www.niskanencenter.org/detroit-could-be-the-largest-u-s-city-wi…
By ANDREW JUSTUS , ALEX ARMLOVICH
OCTOBER 19, 2023
Detroit has been on the decline for over half a century, and during that time property taxes have formed a barrier to development and economic growth. A new state law might allow split-rate land value taxes to change the calculus. It may do so in several ways, including:
Declining Rust Belt cities could get a unique boost from property tax reform
Using Power Well: Bob Williams and the Making of British Columbia - Bob Williams
with Benjamin Isitt and Thomas Bevan
Gibsons, B.C.: Nightwood Editions, 2022, 235pp.
Review by Francis K. Peddle
Henry George Foundation of Canada
August, 2023
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is backing an effort to reform the city’s property tax structure to reduce the burden on homeowners but warns a lot of hurdles stand in the way of any quick change.
https://www.bridgedetroit.com/why-a-legally-complicated-tax-change-coul…
By Rich Nymoen
Supporting economic development. Advancing equity. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Maximizing community investments. Increasing infill and lessening sprawl.
These are some of the potential benefits of land value tax (LVT) districts, according to Michael Krantz, acting program manager of Metro Transit’s office for Transit Oriented Development.
Making urban land a community asset could make cities more livable and equitable.
BY MATT PREWITT AND JOEL ROGERS, AUGUST 2, 2022
https://www.noemamag.com/how-to-harness-cities-hidden-public-wealth/
Matt Prewitt is President of RadicalxChange Foundation. He is a lawyer, writer and technologist focused on new institutions for power sharing and collective intelligence. Joel Rogers is a professor of law, public affairs, and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of COWS and the Mayor’s Innovation Project.
Even if you live hundreds of miles from Paddington or Stratford, you may know that London has just opened a vast and shiny new rail line. Once the 100km track is all joined up, a banker flying into Heathrow will be able to take one train directly into Canary Wharf, while a resident of Southall will be able to visit relatives in Seven Kings without ever having to change carriages, let alone lines.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/27/the-guardian-view…
Guest Essay by Fred Harrison
https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/the-evolutionary-blueprint?ut…
We have reached an inflection point in our globalised world. Existing social narratives are not fit for purpose, in that they are incapable of deploying policies that address the existential crises in the realms of economics, demography and ecology. A new social paradigm is needed.
The two greatest challenges facing the world in 2021—climate
change and growing inequality—could both be addressed by the
application of a fundamental remedy: Henry George’s misnamed,
misunderstood, and much-maligned single tax. Taxes are burdens,
charges levied on activities and commerce that very often discourage the
very kinds of productivity that the taxing body would be better off
encouraging. George understood this and proposed the elimination of
every tariff and tax save for the one on land. In a nutshell, that’s it. Henry
AKHIL SAXENA | DECEMBER 3, 2021
In many major American cities, housing affordability has become a pressing issue. In cities like New York and San Francisco, rents have continued to rise over the past decade, leading to increased homelessness and housing insecurity.
https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2021/12/the-perfect-tax-land-value-tax…
Jeff Smith has written a remarkable monologue, with Thomas Paine telling his life story and the story of his times (the times that tried men's souls). I have converted this into a video and did my best to play the role of Paine as he might have spoken. So, take a listen, provide any comments and forward the link onto others.
New Brunswick has lowered the taxes on the working poor. It reduced the tax rate on the lowest tax bracket in favour of a carbon tax. Last week, New Brunswick announced that it would trim personal income taxes, returning some of its carbon revenue to taxpayers.
Maria Lily Shaw, an economist at the Montreal Economic Institute, said New Brunswick’s plan to cut taxes is “partially positive” but that it falls short of being revenue neutral. Still, Ms. Shaw said, the province is headed in the right direction, by reducing other taxes as carbon revenue increases.
by Frank de Jong
“No army can stop an idea whose time has come” — Victor Hugo
https://schalkenbach.org/pricing-carbon-is-a-magic-job-machine/
Hugo was referring to the French Revolution, but his quote also nails the unstoppable logic of carbon pricing. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada wrote, “Climate change is a real and existential threat to the entire world, and evidence shows a price on pollution is a critical element to addressing it.”
“Nature would prefer not to sell herself, but if forced to it by growth, would at least like to divide equally among her children the revenue from the forced sale of her previous gifts.” — Herman Daly
Four transformative ideas are now putting economic theology through its paces: Land Value Taxation (LVT), Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), Universal Basic Income (UBI), and Bitcoin (BTC).
Let’s examine why...
https://schalkenbach.org/lvt-mmt-ubi-btc-the-alphabet-soup-of-economics/
“We continue to privatize the essence of our humanity. Those of us who claim to own land and therefore claim the rents that are produced in our societies are actually enacting the role of slavery. We are appropriating other people’s humanity.”
https://www.prosper.org.au/2021/01/we-are-rent-with-fred-harrison/?fbcl…
Part I of Fred Harrison's latest work. Humans became a hugely successful species because we generated rent and shared it. But now the rent is being appropriated and misused by a minority impoverishing the majority and destroying nature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8sPymki0JI&ab_channel=geophilos
The cost of housing is rising so much faster than wages that buyers increasingly rely on family wealth
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/09/inheritance-work-…
In many of the world’s largest and most expensive cities, young people find themselves in a strange predicament. Although their educational credentials and employment prospects put them in the “middle-class” category, many have virtually no chance of ever making it on to the property ladder.
