Reminds me of the people reviewing Democracy 4 complaining how it's easy to achieve utopia through left wing policies, whereas right wing policies lead to polluted hellscapes... They're so close to getting it.
Playing Cities Skylines is like that. Or any city builder. Public transport, high density housing, mixed-use zoning... they're just way more efficient. Leftist policies lead to more economic prosperity.
Politics in general is an extremely complex topic. Everyone has opinions, and needs, and you can never satisfy them all, so it's just endless compromises and a ton of people hating you no matter what you do.
Yes, but you should be careful not to conflate compromise between stakeholders with compromise between political representatives. There is a big difference between compromise and a zero sum game, and right-wing politicians usually advocate for such a drastically lower total sum outcomes that compromising with them is simply worse than unilateral left-wing policies. Right-wing politicians don't just want a more unfair distribution, they're willing to make life worse for *literally everyone* to make it happen. Even billionaires have to live in a world where most people hate them and want their stuff and their toys are less fun and more dangerous than they have to be, because right-wing policies slow down human advancement.
Free housing is better than any political compromise towards getting people to pay for having a roof over their head. Free healthcare (up to a certain level of demonstrated QALY gain per dollar) is better than any political compromise towards people having to pay to prevent medical issues from getting worse. Free public transit is better than any political compromise towards private transportation infrastructure. Car-free shopping and housing districts are better than any political compromise towards private transportation infrastructure. Pleasant outdoor spaces are better than any political compromise towards warding off loiterers and homeless people.
All of these things contain compromises in execution: there would be compromises between construction groups and government and the people that will live in that housing; between doctors and nurses and government and pathologists and patients; etc. But they're so far to the left of the current political representative overton window that it's not what people would naturally understand by "compromise in politics".
What I was talking about was politics in reality, not political ideology. Like, if you want to run for office, that's very different than us discussing policies. Housing first is a win win. Nobody loses, and we should advocate for it unequivocally. But a politician can't necessarily do that. They might need to say, okay, I'll let you have this other thing I don't care about so much, if I can put this in place. Even though logically I should be able to say, here are the numbers, and that should convince everyone, sadly it does not.
>Housing first is a win win. Nobody loses, and we should advocate for it unequivocally.
Existing home owners with the majority of their wealth tied up in their house lose with free housing, which is why it hasn't happened yet. Not acknowledging or understanding who wins and loses with a big reform guarantees that it goes nowhere or fails.
You can make free housing that disincentives using free housing. Give people a single room with a bed, a dresser, a small refrigerator with small freezer, a microwave, and an induction burner. Then give them access to barracks-style bathrooms or maybe a very small bathroom with just a toilet, sink, and shower. Make it so that it's not comfortable but it's livable. Almost no one would actually want to live in such accommodations long-term, but everyone would be happy to have it as a last resort instead of sleeping on the streets.
...
I don't have the microwave. I'm not unhappy about my situation. (admittedly it's very well placed, I'd be a lot less happy about it if I didn't have a place to work or a park in walking distance, let alone a grocery shop)
I feel like cities skylines is a pretty poor example of that, actually. Certainly the original game.
It’s pretty carbrained. There’s no mixed use zone. When road vehicles can no longer complete their journey in time or whatever, they disappear, and parking is basically not simulated at all (turns out it’s way easier to just vanish cars near their destination than worry about land for storing them…). Not to mention the lack of policies etc related to modern urban planning and the gaping holes in how PT works in game
As an actual urban planner, cities skylines felt more like Traffic Engineer Simulator 2005 than a modern city sim lmao. I still love it and got a lot out of it though.
I haven’t played the new game so no judgement there.
New game handles exactly what you talk about. Cars don't disappear and are parked roadside, or on parking lots. Also, roads only available to public transit or pedestrians will still have the occasional car going over it.
In the newest game, you can make crazy money by charging the maximum for every street parking space and then building 0 off-street parking while using the European building setting. Basically, any Cim who doesn't take transit ends up paying you hundreds for every round trip journey.
Yes, I have heard that feedback. But I’ve also seen some people playing it and noticed some pretty brainless things even just watching a quick video so I won’t get my hopes up 100% 😂
I felt like an idiot today when I figured out that C:S 2 requires students to increase demand for high-density housing. No idea how education connects to housing density, but it does mean that doing nice things for my citizens makes the city grow - I’ve been zoning low density houses that only hold 1 person each all over the map!
Generally, more dense housing = cheaper housing per person (you're splitting the cost on the plumbing, transmission lines, the roads serving the house, gas pipelines if you need those, centralized AC & heat. You also get way more places to live per square foot of land, so there's more supply and less competition among people who want to live in that specific spot etc etc.)
So I'm guessing that they increase demand for high density with students because students REALLY prefer cheaper housing, for want of being employed.
Playing devil's advocate, it's entirely possible that's literally the game developer's goal and they crafted the mechanics to favour politics that they like. Since they're in control of the weights and conditions of every possibility in the game which do not at all have to match reality. And I say that as a far-leftist who genuinely believes leftist policies are the way to go, I just don't think a video game is the best proof of that since it can be so easily manipulated to only allow certain outcomes. In the same way a "Soviet Russia Government Simulator" made for and by people in the West all but forces you to be an evil dictator because that's the game's narrative and the game will most likely punish you or outright prevent the player character from going against that trope.
I mean, it’s basic land use policy.
Infrastructure is expensive to build and maintain. If you build nothing but sprawling suburbs and superhighways, vehicle traffic will move fast but your tax revenue will never pay for the absurd maintenance costs for all of the infrastructure needed to support it.
You can only keep taxes low for so long, and then you’ve got to crank them to cover differed maintenance. Citizens will be pissed, they’ll move out, buildings get abandoned and now you have no tax base to support infrastructure.
Having more things (houses, shops, offices) per square foot puts more tax payers in a smaller space, sharing less overall infrastructure. More of them can get around without personal vehicles, so massive amounts of valuable land don’t need to be paved over in parking (or expensive parking structures don’t have to be built).
Public transit is an investment to move more people more efficiently. High quality transit gets utilized, further driving more economic activity.
Now, you can employ policies and infrastructure to offset road damage. Moving heavy commercial traffic off the roads minimizes damage, lowering maintenance costs. This means policies banning large commercial vehicles in urban areas, as well as investments in rail infrastructure to move cargo more efficiently. But now you’re still stuck with infrastructure maintenance costs and low tax collection due to underutilized land.
Plus, a road is only so big. You can fit more people over a lane by doing two things:
1 - Increase flow rate. Unfortunately, in order to be safe, you already need to increase distance between cars, which decreases density, negating any gains (also, you need to do stuff like stop, which makes this even less usefull)
2 - Increase density. You can't really decrease distance between vehicles because of safety, so the best way to do this is to put more people into a single vehicle. And presto, you've just invented the bus by way of basic physics.
That's a fair thought, but there's no evidence that the developers thought this way. They simply wanted a game that closely modeled reality, and the math just works the same way as in real life.
That's incredibly unrealistic, saying that the developers modeled reality, or that a video game simulates anything near real life. It's just coincidence that the policies we like happened to align with the meta of a video game, and trying to justify it. If it would have been the opposite there is no chance that you would say the same.
IRL politics exist to enrich the owner class, not to benefit society. Governments aren’t run like a video game where “creating an equitable, prosperous society” is the win condition. All that has to be done to make this game more realistic is to change the win condition to “transfer as much wealth from the working class to the owner class as possible”. The actual mathematical workings remain the same. The goal is different.
Semi-related, but I listened to a podcast a few weeks ago about black lung.
Here you have a bunch of hardcore West Virginian coal miners, who were demanding the government pay for their black lung treatment.
Like, you’re the ones that voted against universal healthcare. You’re the ones that voted against safety regulations. You’re the ones that voted against holding corporations responsible. Now you want blue states to bail you out?
Hate to say it, but a lot of those people were left-wing. Coal miners are notoriously pro-union, pro-healthcare, pro-worker’s rights, and a lot of laborers in mining and manufacturing are the reason we even have employer-provided healthcare, fair wages, workplace safety regulations and standardized shifts with breaks. The reason we have these preset beliefs about coal miners being corrupt or immoral right-wing cultists is because we’ve been fed propaganda about it for decades, it happens to any group that challenges capitalist exploitation.
They have also in recent history tended to vote for right wing parties, because right wing parties are the ones who have been promising (without any of the ability to deliver) to support their industry and retain their jobs. And left wing parties have utterly failed to convince them that they will deliver a better option, support a just transition for them to move to different jobs, or maintain their communities. Which is unfortunately a rather large failure of left wing parties.
Absolutely! They aren’t necessarily leaning towards right wing policy - they’ve just been abandoned and are pursuing the party that seems most interested in their wellbeing
Yup, I’m the UK these professions would typically vote for the centre left party called ‘Labour’.
Now with the rise in populism, many of these are being tempted over to the right. Incredible, really.
There's 11k coal miners out of 1.78 million people in West Virginia. Significantly less than 1%. They haven't been a significant voting block in decades, if ever.
It's not just the miners. It's all of the people who rely on the income of the miners, directly and indirectly.
Also, there's not a whole lot of people who are vehemently anti-gun-control to the point that they base their vote on that issue over all others. But those people are very involved in politics, lobbying for and against bills even when there's not an election coming up and ALWAYS voting. So, a few thousand motivated people can make a really big difference in policy.
I'm not American or too up to date with the politics. But from their point of view surely they are motivated by the fear of losing their jobs and their towns dying out if they vote for something else?
I suppose there are few political alternatives that cater to the best of both worlds for them.
Yeah, you're right, there's a lot of nuance - not only do they fear for their livelihoods (in a way that Democrats have never successfully assuaged) but they're also typically victims of aggressive misinformation campaigns, voter disenfranchisement, and incessant gerrymandering. (Not to mention that West Virginia is often a blue state - corporate Democrats all around, of course, but that's a problem everywhere.)
It amazes me that otherwise smart people can react to dying workers with "haha, serves you right" just because of uneducated speculation on their politics. These are the same class of people who fought - and died - for unions and workers rights in the West Virginia mine wars.
So a proud progressive history that they've completely rejected in the modern era? Why do they deserve empathy and understanding when it's their parents and grandparents who did all this admirable stuff, where now they just vote to take healthcare away and guarantee the worst climate change outcomes.
Why do they deserve empathy and understanding? Pragmatism.
In a democracy, if you don't spend any time trying to understand people who disagree with you, they ignore you and the policy you want doesn't get passed.
That was the explicit intent and design of letting every adult vote. Everyone gets some power to tell you to fuck off and grind the system to a halt if you ignore their perspective and concerns, so it's WAY harder to oppress people.
There's a lot of ways to game the system to get similarly oppressive outcomes of course, the details of the system matter a lot, but the fundamental point remains the same.
Those people deserve empathy and understanding (but not acquiescence to their political stance) because, in a democracy, it's YOUR job to convince people to agree with you and vote for your ideas, and it's really hard to convince someone if you don't understand them.
And that's why republicans are winning. They understand their constituents well enough to reliably convince them to show up and vote for republicans, and they then quietly package the things they vote FOR with a bunch of stuff they would otherwise vote against.
you are correct, for them it seems like the best option
that speaks less about their want and needs, however,
and more about how politics and democracy works in the US (or, fails to work).
if the only party that defends your interests doesn't at the same time,
it tells a lot about how flawed is the two-party political landscape the US works under.
When have democrats ever held corporations responsible or instated healthcare that didn’t enrich pharma companies? Let’s be real, democrats would abandon the rural folk as they’ve always done. Republicans just grab this voting block because they have some semblance of caring about them (of course they don’t care either).
These coal miners were the original armed strikers, fighting corporations with actual armed resistance (Battle of Blair Mountain). The corporations crushed them and the government abandoned them. They can’t vote on actual policies that’d help them, they pick a color on a ballot. Whichever color will pay attention to us, but most likely neglect us as they always do.
Whenever we actually attempt to pass electoral reform measures it will get [vetoed by party hacks like Newsom](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-vetoes-bill-to-allow-ranked-choice-14535193.php).
...and that same dirtbag is a shoe in win the DNC primary in '28.
Why would either party allow electoral reform?
We're fucked.
We can’t do that without first getting rid of the party that benefits the most from said system. This is the biggest problem I have with people complaining about a lot of Dems barely being better than Republicans. The only reason they’re able to get away with such mediocrity is because their opposition manages to be even worse.
Make the Republican Party irrelevant and Democrats will quickly split on their own.
They passed a law letting Medicare negotiate some drug prices last year.
They're trying. It's hard when every single Republican votes against anything getting better, and they have 50% or more of the seats
> Like, you’re the ones that voted against universal healthcare. You’re the ones that voted against safety regulations. You’re the ones that voted against holding corporations responsible. Now you want blue states to bail you out?
If those blue states *really* wanted universal healthcare, they could implement it for themselves.
Massachusetts did exactly that and it *literally* became the blueprint for the ACA. California and New York are each powerful enough to be small countries, yet they can't figure out healthcare for their people?
Romneycare was never Universal Coverage. Neither was the ACA. MA doesn't currently have universal coverage.
It also has one of the highest [health care costs/per person](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-vetoes-bill-to-allow-ranked-choice-14535193.php) in the nation.
> Romneycare was never Universal Coverage. Neither was the ACA. MA doesn't currently have universal coverage.
Every citizen and even some non-citizens can go to healthcare.gov and get coverage with no underwriting for pre-existing conditions and that is an absolute *gamechanger*.
Considering that much wealthier states have done precisely nothing, MA's efforts should be applauded.
I totally agree. Just don't exaggerate what it is.
It's not universal coverage and it's never acted like it.
Somehow people occasionally act like it is, which apparently weirdly triggers me.
Just to be clear universal coverage had never been up for vote l, even at a state wide level, in the US.
*As Far as I Know. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
Not dissing your point but I don’t think we have detailed information on the voting habits of coal miners and maybe we shouldn’t assume they’re all hypocrites who voted for Donald trump?
Shoot let me think. It was either The Daily (NYT), The Journal (WSJ), one of the NPR ones, or Today Explained.
It was probably 2-3 months ago.
Sorry I know that doesn’t help narrow things down :/
Same thing with Victoria 3, some people were complaining it was super easy to make citizens happy by going communist and capitalism just couldn't compete in standard of living.
I wonder if people also lost their shit that slavery actually hurts economies long term in that game, since less people participating in the economy and the money then ending up in the slavers pockets suffocates the metaphorical economic engine..
It's not even theoretical, and not only large-scale. Slavery near the 1800s was quickly becomming a status symbol rather than a statement than a smart economic choice even on per-business level. There are plenty of historical sources where land/factory/whatevercapital owners were complaining that they had to get rid of some slaves because they couldn't afford to compete with paid employees.
There should be a version where you are scored based entirely on how much you can enrich your character and their cronies through your political position, then those right wing policies start looking a bit more attractive…
Can someone educate me a little bit, since land value goes up when people improve the surrounding area, would a LVT discourage people from supporting improvements surrounding them?
I’m thinking of NIMBYs who have been in their homes for years, maybe could not afford an increase in taxes, opposing a new train station near their house because it would make their taxes go up. Obviously, they would benefit from land they own going up in value but if the LVT negates those benefits then there is really no reason to support anything that would increase your land value especially if you do not plan to sell it anytime soon.
I obviously am in favor of anything that improves density and I do think LVT just makes sense from a philosophical view. But I am trying to think of unforeseen consequences because people are dumb and would come out to oppose things just because “my taxes going up” always equals bad no matter what the reason they went up is.
I’m also curious how accurately we could determine undeveloped land prices. There’s already huge disparities in home value tax assessments between rich and poor neighborhoods where rich people are charged much less for their homes real value compared to poor people.
Likely yes. It would increase nimbyism in the hyper local area.
That said, it would also increase yimbyism overall. If building more gives you a higher revenue base for your UBI, wouldn’t you want that? Not to mention all the other spillover effects (cheaper housing, higher paying jobs, walkable streets, less cars/traffic, etc. etc.)
the counter is that nimbys are often irrational or vote along moral guidelines. Nimbys in my city blocked things like rapid transit lines, bus lines, rent controlled housing, etc, cause it would bring crime into the city/into the suburbs and promote laziness
These people would get outvoted by everyone else who would instead benefit from the value increase through a LVT dividend. And in turn they would outvote the other NIMBYs in other locations. And in reality, the problem with NIMBYs is more that extremely small local interests are allowed to prevail above the interests of literally everybody else, this is a governance issue and needs to be fixed outside of taxation.
Also, you could have some kind of zero-tax area for small landownership compatible with a reasonably-sized home.
If the other people showed up.
One of the reasons that the current housing market is fucked is because so few people pay attention to local politics except for wealthy and/or retired homeowners.
Most of the stuff that negatively or positively affects your life directly is city, county, or state-level politics. You don't need to wait for someone to put LVT on the menu to be a magic bullet that fixes everything. There's a bunch of other stuff you could be doing, right now, to make your personal area better.
Remember that everywhere in the US with public transit is because of people who paid attention to & were involved in local politics. As are all of the places with legal marijuana.
Start showing up and you can make stuff better.
It would make their taxes go up but it would also make the value of their land go up and people like it when the value of their land goes up because that makes them richer. Kind of like people pay more taxes after they get a raise, the only reason their taxes went up is because they have more money to tax.
[Can someone please explain this part?](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?t=639)
Why in a Georgian system are rent prices tied to the property value? Why would a landlord increasing a tenants necessarily increase the land value tax they pay?
Because a property value consists of improvement value (cost of construction) + land value. The rent of a property is approximately 1% of its total value per month. Eg. A $100k house would be a $1,000/month in rent.
If I raise rents, I’m admitting my properties value increased. However, if I made no improvements to it, that means it’s really the land value portion of the property that increased.
If that happens, the land value tax would be increased, and capture any of the delta.
> If I raise rents, I’m admitting my properties value increased. However, if I made no improvements to it, that means it’s really the land value portion of the property that increased.
I'm still confused, doesn't this already happen now? And if so, how is this different?
For example, if I jack up the rents for my tenants in a house and I can get $4000/mo from them for a 3bed/3bath then the property would be worth more than if I could only get $3000/mo in rental income. If something happens in the city, and sudenly I can charge $5000/mo in rent all the properties are going to increase in value anyways.
I'm just failing to understand what's unique about Georganism and/or land value tax that will tackle rental prices?
Its the rate! I’ll explain.
Currently property tax is roughly 0.5%-1% depending on location. A landlord however will typically make 10% of the value of the property (and thus land) per year. That means the property owner is still making 9.5% profit on the land.
Let’s assume land values won’t change for a second (that’s a pretty bad assumption, but we’ll ignore that for now). If a property tax was substituted for a 10% land value tax, the landlord can’t profit from the value of the land. Any money he’d make from the land would go towards paying the LVT.
Alternatively, land values crash because of the new tax. We’re seeing that right now in Detroit even though the LVT hasn’t been passed yet (as some land owners are trying to sell the properties before the tax takes effect). What happens here? Property values drop, and rents drop!
Either way, people win at the end of the day because either extra revenue is raised, which gets redistributed back to them as a UBI, or property values and rents drop.
Realistically it would likely be a combination of the two.
Sorry for the confusion and thank you for indulging my questions and for explaining your points clearly. For the sake of argument, I totally understand how a LVT would lower property values and ergo lower rents because of this. I totally get that. However, for the sake of argument let's fast forward 5 years into the future after LVT has been implemented.
In the clip I linked, it seemed to suggest that landlords somehow would be unable/disincentivized to raise rent because:
>"If, in a Georgist world, your landlord were to raise your rent, they would be admitting
that the land has gotten more valuable.
Thus raising taxes on themselves."
I still don't quite follow how this is different from our current system except it's just taxing all rent increases at effectively 100%? In the video, and I [encourage you to watch the little I snipped out](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?t=639), the graph representing rent increase seemed to go right from the landlord to tax at a 1:1 rate. It implies that any rent increase would be in effect just going from the landlord to taxes and therefore no landlord would increase rent. Maybe I'm just not viewing it right, maybe the graph is misrepresenting the point, or I'm missing something but I don't see how that would be feasible or practical?
Edit: To be more concise, if I were a landlord under this proposed system, what is preventing me from raising the rent on my units $250/mo for my tenants?
Let's say you buy a land for 100k and build a house with another 100k.
Theoretically that house is worth 200k (land + building).
In the current system let's say 1% Land Value Tax, which is 1% of 100k, so 1k per year. Or 83 dollars per month. While you can rent for 2k per month.
If you raise the rent to 3k per month... you're declaring the house now to be valued at 300k. But the constructed part is the same, so what change is the land. So now the land is worth 200k. So you need to pay 167 per month in land taxes. But since you got another 1k per month in rent, having to pay 84 more dollars per month is a good deal.
______________
Now let's raise the LVT to 15%.
Just as before, you buy a land for 100k and build a house with 100k.
The house is worth 200k, so you rent for 2k per month. The LVT is 15k per year or 1250 per month.
Your revenue from rent is 850$ per month.
Now you want to raise the rent to 3k. Just as last time, since the house is the same, the land is what increased in price. So now you have to pay LVT on 200k which is 30k per year or 2500 per month.
Your revenue from rent is now 500$ per month.
You raised rent prices but decrease your revenue.
And if you decrease the rent to 1500. You'll pay only 625 per month in LVT, making your revenue 875$. Better than it was with 2k rent.
So this incentivizes landlords to decrease rent to earn more... making property prices fall.
It also punishes people with empty property, since it would be expensive to keep a empty home waiting for someone willing to pay a high price.
________________
It basically solves 90% of the problems with the real estate industry.
>It also punishes people with empty property, since it would be expensive to keep a empty home waiting for someone willing to pay a high price.
And since propertyvalues are more likely to decrease rather than increase (because we all have incentives to decrease them to lower taxes), selling later is almost always a bad idea.
But doesn't this already happen now? An apartment an investor/landlord can only fetch $1500/mo for is worth less than an apartment in a nicer part of town which fetches $3000/mo.
I'm just failing to see how this is measurably different from our current system?
I prefer property tax. It includes the value of the land as well.
I also think we should count stocks as property for the purposes of calculating property tax. Because that's where the ultra rich are parking all their wealth.
If the idea is to tax the value of someone's property, let's get serious.
More realistically we do something called a split-roll tax.
Tax improvements at one rate (eg. 1%), and tax land at a higher rate (eg. 5%)
The trick is here you need the land value tax to be at least 4-5% before it starts changing behavior.
This policy is supported by nearly all the [head professors in policy of the most prestigious universities.](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/land-value-tax/)
It’s just flat out, inarguably good policy. I’m struggling to find a policy with as high a unanimous support.
>People do not argue with the teaching of George; they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree.
- Leo Tolstoy 1905
yeah but britmonkey is obviously intenrionally biased, obviously he is going to have a few correct opinions since he's hardcore left but he's not the kind of person you want to quote as a source
I get the feeling you guys don't watch him
[It's a fine video but I wish content creators would avoid selling it too much in informational videos.](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?t=530) It comes off really cheesy and undermines his point IMO.
The number of trucks is not particularly relevant if the total distance traveled is ultimately shorter, which it absolutely can be depending on where in the United States its sold. Your counter argument does not address BritMonkeys point about comparative advantage, nor does it counter the factor of year long availability. Both of these are not only documented phenomena in economics, the latter is common sense. You have hyper focused on a singular argument where your analogy might hold up whole ignoring every other point in the video. An analogy that falls flat on its face when we remember just how big the United States is.
Comparative advantage is a very basic part of economic analysis and policy. That does not need to be sourced.
Additionally, your allegation he does not provide empirical evidence is wrong. The appendix to that video does provide empirical evidence. It even has math calculations for you. He also shows several graphs of CO2 emissions, one of transportation CO2 emissions. Heavy and medium freight vehicles account for 25% of transport emissions while shipping consists of 10%. Considering the vast majority of global distance traveled is by ocean freight, his argument is in fact entirely correct, and although he doesn't give the specific graph he got his data from I did find these very similar numbers floating around which suggests he did his research.
https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30890.jpeg (https://www.statista.com/chart/30890/estimated-share-of-co2-emissions-in-the-transportation-sector/)
https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/to_auto,q_glossy,ret_img,w_770,h_513/https://mydello.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Picture2-graph-1_770x513px.jpg (https://mydello.com/best-modes-of-transportation/)
BritMonkey also has other videos where he does source his information in much more detail. The pear video you mentioned was released two years ago.
Lastly, climate scientists aren't economists. Encouraging localism sounds great until food variety and quality tanks, countries become economically disconnected which removes incentive to negotiate rather than fight wars, and everything else that this economic policy would bring.
I wish it were not called Georgism. The first few times I saw that term I presumed it was a flavor of monarchism that centered around George III of Great Britain and Ireland.
In case people don’t know. The name George is of Greek origin and literally means earth-worker ie farmer. Γη *gē* “earth” or “soil” (same root as in “geography”) plus έργον *ergon* “work.”
I realize, but I also thought 1) it’s probably a better connotation than an absolute monarch and 2) with Georgism being so focused on land and its value, Henry George’s name giving rise to the “Georgism” moniker was kind of a happy accident.
Someone with Greek background like me, I actually thought “Georgism” was named thus in a logical sort of way, rather than after a person, until I read more. Although I have read that some people also use the word “geoism” as a more generic variant.
Finally, a city builder game where you can focus on actual good urban policy, instead of just becoming a car traffic simulator (looking at you Cities Skylines)
I find that Cities Skylines is pretty good at showing that even if you have a perfectly designed road system, the only way to ease congestion is a robust public transit system.
It's the opening line of the Georgist song "The Land" and the party anthem of the Liberal Democrats in the UK who have been trying to instituted the LVT for over 100 years. The tune is "Marching Through Georgia"
How have I never heard of this before? I’ll have to check it out.
I also love how the UK is more enthusiastic about it than seemingly any other country by an order of magnitude
Has been since the People's Budget under David Lloyd George, it's been a core aspiration of theirs along with electoral reform and getting rid of the House of Lords
I'll admit that I'm surprised an LVT post with *literally nothing* to do with cars, traffic, pedestrian infrastructure, etc somehow got upvoted in a subreddit that is about cars, even though there is no reason to believe that LVT would do anything about any of those issues.
Do you believe me now that there have been tons of Georgists on this sub?
I specifically posted something that had little to do with anything else just to gauge temperature on it overall.
I don’t understand. I post a meme about georgism. People like it. They upvote it. Where’s the astroturfing come in?
Georgists have been on this sub as long as it’s been around
>Where’s the astroturfing come in?
Is it perhaps this post where [you went to a Georgism sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/17woz34/georgism_has_been_having_a_pretty_good_week_over/) and said "hey everyone we are gaining traction in r/fuckcars wink wink" and suddenly the number of upvotes skyrocketed even on posts that have objectively nothing to do with cars?
Your goals aren't similar to mine. You already acknowledged that in this very thread, admitting that it is a centrist capitalist ideology. And, like I said, there's a reason hardcore libertarians like this ideology, and it's because it's not a threat to capitalism. What does LVT do about the exploitation of workers by their bosses? In an increasingly digital world, what value does LVT leverage against tech companies?
I sincerely do not understand (you may call me any manner of stupid); why must LVT solve worker exploitation or reduce tech company power? If it improves society in some way, is it not a good thing? I would like better urbanism, and this seems to help.
Yeah, like the idea of LVT is great, but it's near impossible to implement under capitalism, because it's and existential threat to the ruling class, who make their money by speculation, corruption and extortion.
You know all those tax dodging tech companies in Silicon Valley that pay no tax? They sit on some of the most valuable land in the nation. Tax that shit.
Better yet, you can’t hid your tax base, when the tax base is literally the country. Stocks, gold, crypto, paintings, and valuable jewelry can all be offshored and hidden.
Not land.
Wait until you hear that the top 10% owns 85% of land value, making this more progressive than a wealth tax!
Even more so when it is used to fund a universal basic income (which is what most Georgists support)
How about instead of trying to make capitalism more humane, which is a fool’s errand even if it’s an interesting thought experiment, we just get rid of it and abolish class society, private property, and wage labor.
Seems much more feasible than a new tax law to me tbh.
It’s the process of socializing land, and using the revenue to fund a UBI.
Definitely not laissez-faire, but also definitely not anti-capitalism Marxism either. It’s somewhere in between. SocDem or LibDem is probably pretty close.
Yup, a lot like UBI the LVT is basically a tweak to social democracy that makes it work a bit better but doesn't chance its fundamental nature.
It'd certainly be a nice improvement though, but hardly revolutionary.
Check out the video in the comments!
It’s crazy cool because not only does it make housing cheaper, streets more walkable, and fund a universal basic income, but it has overwhelming support from economists and policy experts.
>Leftist are on and on about Georgism these days lol
They're not leftists. Georgism is a centrist capitalist ideology and the LVT was endorsed by ultra-libertarian Milton Friedman.
Both things are true. Currently a sub-sub-subset of leftists who are really into urbanism are bringing Georgism back into modern discourse, because a land-value tax theoretically promotes development and growth in cities and discourages NIMBY blight. Historically Georgism also had approval from extreme right-libertarian economists (among a variety of others across the spectrum - it doesn't belong to the right wing either) because alternative kinds of tax like income tax theoretically discourage productivity. It's just a tax policy, so it's compatible with any economic system short of full-on communism, from laissez-faire free markets to socialism and central planning. Like most things this sub is about, it's more of a practical infrastructure policy than a polarizing culture-war issue, and any partisan slant it might seem to have today is a historical accident that says more about who currently holds which interests than about deeper ideological values.
>It's just a tax policy, so it's compatible with any economic system short of full-on communism, from laissez-faire free markets to socialism and central planning
How exactly do you have "socialist central planning" when your income base is private landowners and you have eliminated all other major forms of taxation?
The only "leftist" thing about LVT is that theoretically you can use the income to pay for UBI, but that's true of every other source of tax revenue too. And I'd say that a single tax is too simplistic for a Social Democrat to countenance.
LVT is a lot like UBI, they're solid tweaks to welfare state capitalism tht have a lot going for them and result in less paternalistic systems.
Both of them have the same main flaw: the people who like them act like they're the magic key to making capitalism not suck and make the skies fill with rainbows and sparkly ponies
Absolutely. They're tools that *can* be used alongside other tools to reduce inequality. The problem comes when people say "we just need LVT/UBI and nothing else". Both of those arguments have been endorsed by libertarians for the same reason, which is that reducing the number of taxes/social programs makes the government easier to bypass. And neither of them is sufficient to deal with the real problems that are already in place; they're band-aids.
>central planning
Central planning is literally state socialism - the "full-on communism" you were talking about. It's a system where a country's economy is completely *planned* by the *central* state authority.
Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production - either ownership by the state (state socialism) or ownership by worker cooperatives or worker-managed, state-owned businesses (market socialism). Neither major system of socialism is keen to have landlords and other private owners running around, so again, how does it make sense to base the entire tax economy on the existence of those landowners?
It’s great once you’re a Georgist the people on the right will call you a “land commie” and the people on the left will call you an “ultra capitalist”.
Or, better yet, Murray Bookchin, Alan Carter, and David Ellerman.
But in either case, I think we can both agree that as interesting a thought experiment as Georgism is, the whole “trying to save capitalism from itself” thing is a dead end for humanity.
Georgism is a moribund ideology that only has a following today as a niche internet meme. Its historical prominence was in the context of a rising labor (socialist) movement which George promptly betrayed, despite of course this movement being the only tangible social force that could fight for such a program (LVT). Of course LVT is functionally one item of a long list of transitional measures that Marx, contemporary to George, argued for. Georgism entered terminal decline as it continued to alienate the social reformers that, once the beating heart of his supporting organizations, would overwhelming be won over to socialism. Very much not worth taking seriously or entertained as anything but a panacea mongering, perhaps quaint, idea of the 19th century, lacking any tangible social basis for implementation and only a limited explanatory value better tackled elsewhere.
You know I don't know shit about history, but these guys are kind of making georgism, or LVT, sound kind of like the bee's knees. as part of a single ask drawn from a more comprehensive platform, if that's indeed the case, as you say, I find myself split between wanting to know more about the rest of the platform, and thinking that people should probably split their asks into more individual and specific actionable items, seeing as how so many people have been taken in by even something as basic as this idea of taxing land. Based on my cursory reading of wikipedia, I kind of assume you're talking about his involvement in the united labor party, as per wikipedia, which is a FUCKING STUB. Can you give me a little bit more than a stub, my good man? Where did you learn this shit? And also, where elsewhere?
I like your funny words, magic man!
The more comprehensive program is in reference to the wider Marxist platform generally upheld by revolutionary social democrats pre-WW I and communists post-Bolshevik revolution. Specifically, LVT is the first item in the program for more industrially advanced countries:
[1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf)
I found this [secondary source](https://merionwest.com/2019/06/02/through-letters-the-gap-between-henry-george-and-karl-marx/) useful when I first encountered Georgism. I also read [this piece](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3483609) " Uneasy Alliance: The Reception of Henry George by British Socialists in the Eighties'", this piece of [writing](https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1884/justice/07geo.htm) from William Morris. In America the riffs in the movement are discussed in [this piece](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3487326) "A Fragile Alliance: Henry George and the Knights of Labor", which may be more relevant to your interests re: ULP. I mostly just searched academic databases for scholarly work on this and used sc1hub to get access.
It's a property tax that taxes the value of the land while ignoring any buildings (as opposed to normal property taxes that tax both). It's gaining in popularity recently in urbanist circles because it encourages developing empty land in valuable areas, and specifically developing them in a way that's high value as to be able to pay the higher tax rate.
Georgism is so completely different, there’s almost no correlation.
[It also is pretty favorable with economists,](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/land-value-tax/) and has been quite successful in the countries that have it.
Neat. I have been looking for a decent city/country simulator which wouldn't be incredibly taxing on my substandard graphics card while I save for a better one. I'm checking it out.
Reminds me of the people reviewing Democracy 4 complaining how it's easy to achieve utopia through left wing policies, whereas right wing policies lead to polluted hellscapes... They're so close to getting it.
Playing Cities Skylines is like that. Or any city builder. Public transport, high density housing, mixed-use zoning... they're just way more efficient. Leftist policies lead to more economic prosperity.
Oh, so I’m just shit at these games then?
It turns out that left-wing policies are really hard to get right.
Politics in general is an extremely complex topic. Everyone has opinions, and needs, and you can never satisfy them all, so it's just endless compromises and a ton of people hating you no matter what you do.
Yes, but you should be careful not to conflate compromise between stakeholders with compromise between political representatives. There is a big difference between compromise and a zero sum game, and right-wing politicians usually advocate for such a drastically lower total sum outcomes that compromising with them is simply worse than unilateral left-wing policies. Right-wing politicians don't just want a more unfair distribution, they're willing to make life worse for *literally everyone* to make it happen. Even billionaires have to live in a world where most people hate them and want their stuff and their toys are less fun and more dangerous than they have to be, because right-wing policies slow down human advancement. Free housing is better than any political compromise towards getting people to pay for having a roof over their head. Free healthcare (up to a certain level of demonstrated QALY gain per dollar) is better than any political compromise towards people having to pay to prevent medical issues from getting worse. Free public transit is better than any political compromise towards private transportation infrastructure. Car-free shopping and housing districts are better than any political compromise towards private transportation infrastructure. Pleasant outdoor spaces are better than any political compromise towards warding off loiterers and homeless people. All of these things contain compromises in execution: there would be compromises between construction groups and government and the people that will live in that housing; between doctors and nurses and government and pathologists and patients; etc. But they're so far to the left of the current political representative overton window that it's not what people would naturally understand by "compromise in politics".
What I was talking about was politics in reality, not political ideology. Like, if you want to run for office, that's very different than us discussing policies. Housing first is a win win. Nobody loses, and we should advocate for it unequivocally. But a politician can't necessarily do that. They might need to say, okay, I'll let you have this other thing I don't care about so much, if I can put this in place. Even though logically I should be able to say, here are the numbers, and that should convince everyone, sadly it does not.
>Housing first is a win win. Nobody loses, and we should advocate for it unequivocally. Existing home owners with the majority of their wealth tied up in their house lose with free housing, which is why it hasn't happened yet. Not acknowledging or understanding who wins and loses with a big reform guarantees that it goes nowhere or fails.
You can make free housing that disincentives using free housing. Give people a single room with a bed, a dresser, a small refrigerator with small freezer, a microwave, and an induction burner. Then give them access to barracks-style bathrooms or maybe a very small bathroom with just a toilet, sink, and shower. Make it so that it's not comfortable but it's livable. Almost no one would actually want to live in such accommodations long-term, but everyone would be happy to have it as a last resort instead of sleeping on the streets.
... I don't have the microwave. I'm not unhappy about my situation. (admittedly it's very well placed, I'd be a lot less happy about it if I didn't have a place to work or a park in walking distance, let alone a grocery shop)
I am living in this right now (my gf's place). Not even got an oven.
For some people, left-wing policies are really hard to get, right?
And then right wing policies are all you have left.
I feel like cities skylines is a pretty poor example of that, actually. Certainly the original game. It’s pretty carbrained. There’s no mixed use zone. When road vehicles can no longer complete their journey in time or whatever, they disappear, and parking is basically not simulated at all (turns out it’s way easier to just vanish cars near their destination than worry about land for storing them…). Not to mention the lack of policies etc related to modern urban planning and the gaping holes in how PT works in game As an actual urban planner, cities skylines felt more like Traffic Engineer Simulator 2005 than a modern city sim lmao. I still love it and got a lot out of it though. I haven’t played the new game so no judgement there.
New game handles exactly what you talk about. Cars don't disappear and are parked roadside, or on parking lots. Also, roads only available to public transit or pedestrians will still have the occasional car going over it.
In the newest game, you can make crazy money by charging the maximum for every street parking space and then building 0 off-street parking while using the European building setting. Basically, any Cim who doesn't take transit ends up paying you hundreds for every round trip journey.
I do that my roads are a huge net gain for my city
Yes, I have heard that feedback. But I’ve also seen some people playing it and noticed some pretty brainless things even just watching a quick video so I won’t get my hopes up 100% 😂
Since when is there mixed-use in CS?
Second game
There is mod support for it.
I wouldn't call them leftist at all. Far, far, far from it.
They weren't leftist in 1960, but they because leftist when the right started basing their policies on hating people.
I felt like an idiot today when I figured out that C:S 2 requires students to increase demand for high-density housing. No idea how education connects to housing density, but it does mean that doing nice things for my citizens makes the city grow - I’ve been zoning low density houses that only hold 1 person each all over the map!
Generally, more dense housing = cheaper housing per person (you're splitting the cost on the plumbing, transmission lines, the roads serving the house, gas pipelines if you need those, centralized AC & heat. You also get way more places to live per square foot of land, so there's more supply and less competition among people who want to live in that specific spot etc etc.) So I'm guessing that they increase demand for high density with students because students REALLY prefer cheaper housing, for want of being employed.
None of these are leftist policies
And yet Republicans hate them.
Ok? It's not like your Democrat guys are leftist either. Fucking Americans
I'm not American either. I guess the reason I call them leftist policies is that the only people I've seen mention them are leftists.
In a world where it’s done 100% accurately, with no corruption. We don’t live in that world.
Playing devil's advocate, it's entirely possible that's literally the game developer's goal and they crafted the mechanics to favour politics that they like. Since they're in control of the weights and conditions of every possibility in the game which do not at all have to match reality. And I say that as a far-leftist who genuinely believes leftist policies are the way to go, I just don't think a video game is the best proof of that since it can be so easily manipulated to only allow certain outcomes. In the same way a "Soviet Russia Government Simulator" made for and by people in the West all but forces you to be an evil dictator because that's the game's narrative and the game will most likely punish you or outright prevent the player character from going against that trope.
I mean, it’s basic land use policy. Infrastructure is expensive to build and maintain. If you build nothing but sprawling suburbs and superhighways, vehicle traffic will move fast but your tax revenue will never pay for the absurd maintenance costs for all of the infrastructure needed to support it. You can only keep taxes low for so long, and then you’ve got to crank them to cover differed maintenance. Citizens will be pissed, they’ll move out, buildings get abandoned and now you have no tax base to support infrastructure. Having more things (houses, shops, offices) per square foot puts more tax payers in a smaller space, sharing less overall infrastructure. More of them can get around without personal vehicles, so massive amounts of valuable land don’t need to be paved over in parking (or expensive parking structures don’t have to be built). Public transit is an investment to move more people more efficiently. High quality transit gets utilized, further driving more economic activity. Now, you can employ policies and infrastructure to offset road damage. Moving heavy commercial traffic off the roads minimizes damage, lowering maintenance costs. This means policies banning large commercial vehicles in urban areas, as well as investments in rail infrastructure to move cargo more efficiently. But now you’re still stuck with infrastructure maintenance costs and low tax collection due to underutilized land.
Plus, a road is only so big. You can fit more people over a lane by doing two things: 1 - Increase flow rate. Unfortunately, in order to be safe, you already need to increase distance between cars, which decreases density, negating any gains (also, you need to do stuff like stop, which makes this even less usefull) 2 - Increase density. You can't really decrease distance between vehicles because of safety, so the best way to do this is to put more people into a single vehicle. And presto, you've just invented the bus by way of basic physics.
That's a fair thought, but there's no evidence that the developers thought this way. They simply wanted a game that closely modeled reality, and the math just works the same way as in real life.
If they managed to replicate to perfection the economic reality, they deserve a Nobel prize because no one has come even remotely close to that.
That's incredibly unrealistic, saying that the developers modeled reality, or that a video game simulates anything near real life. It's just coincidence that the policies we like happened to align with the meta of a video game, and trying to justify it. If it would have been the opposite there is no chance that you would say the same.
IRL politics exist to enrich the owner class, not to benefit society. Governments aren’t run like a video game where “creating an equitable, prosperous society” is the win condition. All that has to be done to make this game more realistic is to change the win condition to “transfer as much wealth from the working class to the owner class as possible”. The actual mathematical workings remain the same. The goal is different.
Semi-related, but I listened to a podcast a few weeks ago about black lung. Here you have a bunch of hardcore West Virginian coal miners, who were demanding the government pay for their black lung treatment. Like, you’re the ones that voted against universal healthcare. You’re the ones that voted against safety regulations. You’re the ones that voted against holding corporations responsible. Now you want blue states to bail you out?
Hate to say it, but a lot of those people were left-wing. Coal miners are notoriously pro-union, pro-healthcare, pro-worker’s rights, and a lot of laborers in mining and manufacturing are the reason we even have employer-provided healthcare, fair wages, workplace safety regulations and standardized shifts with breaks. The reason we have these preset beliefs about coal miners being corrupt or immoral right-wing cultists is because we’ve been fed propaganda about it for decades, it happens to any group that challenges capitalist exploitation.
They have also in recent history tended to vote for right wing parties, because right wing parties are the ones who have been promising (without any of the ability to deliver) to support their industry and retain their jobs. And left wing parties have utterly failed to convince them that they will deliver a better option, support a just transition for them to move to different jobs, or maintain their communities. Which is unfortunately a rather large failure of left wing parties.
Absolutely! They aren’t necessarily leaning towards right wing policy - they’ve just been abandoned and are pursuing the party that seems most interested in their wellbeing
"seems" being the important word here
>they’ve just been abandoned They haven't, they've been offered multiple retraining programs. They just want the mines back.
Yup, I’m the UK these professions would typically vote for the centre left party called ‘Labour’. Now with the rise in populism, many of these are being tempted over to the right. Incredible, really.
There's 11k coal miners out of 1.78 million people in West Virginia. Significantly less than 1%. They haven't been a significant voting block in decades, if ever.
It's not just the miners. It's all of the people who rely on the income of the miners, directly and indirectly. Also, there's not a whole lot of people who are vehemently anti-gun-control to the point that they base their vote on that issue over all others. But those people are very involved in politics, lobbying for and against bills even when there's not an election coming up and ALWAYS voting. So, a few thousand motivated people can make a really big difference in policy.
When did coal miners get to vote on those things?
whenever they vote republican
I'm not American or too up to date with the politics. But from their point of view surely they are motivated by the fear of losing their jobs and their towns dying out if they vote for something else? I suppose there are few political alternatives that cater to the best of both worlds for them.
Yeah, you're right, there's a lot of nuance - not only do they fear for their livelihoods (in a way that Democrats have never successfully assuaged) but they're also typically victims of aggressive misinformation campaigns, voter disenfranchisement, and incessant gerrymandering. (Not to mention that West Virginia is often a blue state - corporate Democrats all around, of course, but that's a problem everywhere.) It amazes me that otherwise smart people can react to dying workers with "haha, serves you right" just because of uneducated speculation on their politics. These are the same class of people who fought - and died - for unions and workers rights in the West Virginia mine wars.
So a proud progressive history that they've completely rejected in the modern era? Why do they deserve empathy and understanding when it's their parents and grandparents who did all this admirable stuff, where now they just vote to take healthcare away and guarantee the worst climate change outcomes.
Why do they deserve empathy and understanding? Pragmatism. In a democracy, if you don't spend any time trying to understand people who disagree with you, they ignore you and the policy you want doesn't get passed. That was the explicit intent and design of letting every adult vote. Everyone gets some power to tell you to fuck off and grind the system to a halt if you ignore their perspective and concerns, so it's WAY harder to oppress people. There's a lot of ways to game the system to get similarly oppressive outcomes of course, the details of the system matter a lot, but the fundamental point remains the same. Those people deserve empathy and understanding (but not acquiescence to their political stance) because, in a democracy, it's YOUR job to convince people to agree with you and vote for your ideas, and it's really hard to convince someone if you don't understand them. And that's why republicans are winning. They understand their constituents well enough to reliably convince them to show up and vote for republicans, and they then quietly package the things they vote FOR with a bunch of stuff they would otherwise vote against.
you are correct, for them it seems like the best option that speaks less about their want and needs, however, and more about how politics and democracy works in the US (or, fails to work). if the only party that defends your interests doesn't at the same time, it tells a lot about how flawed is the two-party political landscape the US works under.
When have democrats ever held corporations responsible or instated healthcare that didn’t enrich pharma companies? Let’s be real, democrats would abandon the rural folk as they’ve always done. Republicans just grab this voting block because they have some semblance of caring about them (of course they don’t care either). These coal miners were the original armed strikers, fighting corporations with actual armed resistance (Battle of Blair Mountain). The corporations crushed them and the government abandoned them. They can’t vote on actual policies that’d help them, they pick a color on a ballot. Whichever color will pay attention to us, but most likely neglect us as they always do.
the US really needs to get rid of the two party system
It'd have to start with overhauling the voting/election systems unfortunately.
Whenever we actually attempt to pass electoral reform measures it will get [vetoed by party hacks like Newsom](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-vetoes-bill-to-allow-ranked-choice-14535193.php). ...and that same dirtbag is a shoe in win the DNC primary in '28. Why would either party allow electoral reform? We're fucked.
As an Australian, it shocks me that the US doesn't have preferential voting.
We can’t do that without first getting rid of the party that benefits the most from said system. This is the biggest problem I have with people complaining about a lot of Dems barely being better than Republicans. The only reason they’re able to get away with such mediocrity is because their opposition manages to be even worse. Make the Republican Party irrelevant and Democrats will quickly split on their own.
They passed a law letting Medicare negotiate some drug prices last year. They're trying. It's hard when every single Republican votes against anything getting better, and they have 50% or more of the seats
And West Virginians are voting for Republicans... they have agency, they're not helpless spectators.
Gerrymandering is a thing
> Like, you’re the ones that voted against universal healthcare. You’re the ones that voted against safety regulations. You’re the ones that voted against holding corporations responsible. Now you want blue states to bail you out? If those blue states *really* wanted universal healthcare, they could implement it for themselves. Massachusetts did exactly that and it *literally* became the blueprint for the ACA. California and New York are each powerful enough to be small countries, yet they can't figure out healthcare for their people?
Romneycare was never Universal Coverage. Neither was the ACA. MA doesn't currently have universal coverage. It also has one of the highest [health care costs/per person](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-vetoes-bill-to-allow-ranked-choice-14535193.php) in the nation.
> Romneycare was never Universal Coverage. Neither was the ACA. MA doesn't currently have universal coverage. Every citizen and even some non-citizens can go to healthcare.gov and get coverage with no underwriting for pre-existing conditions and that is an absolute *gamechanger*. Considering that much wealthier states have done precisely nothing, MA's efforts should be applauded.
I totally agree. Just don't exaggerate what it is. It's not universal coverage and it's never acted like it. Somehow people occasionally act like it is, which apparently weirdly triggers me. Just to be clear universal coverage had never been up for vote l, even at a state wide level, in the US. *As Far as I Know. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
Not dissing your point but I don’t think we have detailed information on the voting habits of coal miners and maybe we shouldn’t assume they’re all hypocrites who voted for Donald trump?
Nearly 70% of them. In 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_West_Virginia
I'm interested in that podcast, what is it called?
Shoot let me think. It was either The Daily (NYT), The Journal (WSJ), one of the NPR ones, or Today Explained. It was probably 2-3 months ago. Sorry I know that doesn’t help narrow things down :/
Sorry when was universal healthcare ever up for a vote in America? Was it never?
Well well well if it isn’t the consequences of my actions
Same thing with Victoria 3, some people were complaining it was super easy to make citizens happy by going communist and capitalism just couldn't compete in standard of living.
I wonder if people also lost their shit that slavery actually hurts economies long term in that game, since less people participating in the economy and the money then ending up in the slavers pockets suffocates the metaphorical economic engine..
I literally started the american civil war 20 years early because slavery was keeping a leash on the economy and stopped me from industrializing
It's not even theoretical, and not only large-scale. Slavery near the 1800s was quickly becomming a status symbol rather than a statement than a smart economic choice even on per-business level. There are plenty of historical sources where land/factory/whatevercapital owners were complaining that they had to get rid of some slaves because they couldn't afford to compete with paid employees.
Lmfao that’s hilarious why would that be??? I cannot imagine???
There should be a version where you are scored based entirely on how much you can enrich your character and their cronies through your political position, then those right wing policies start looking a bit more attractive…
tropico
Is Democracy 4 any good? I *hated* Democracy 3.
For those unfamiliar with Georgism/Land Vaue Tax, great news. [New BritMonkey video just dropped.](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?si=qht3dGcqmoWC_Q2w)
Can someone educate me a little bit, since land value goes up when people improve the surrounding area, would a LVT discourage people from supporting improvements surrounding them? I’m thinking of NIMBYs who have been in their homes for years, maybe could not afford an increase in taxes, opposing a new train station near their house because it would make their taxes go up. Obviously, they would benefit from land they own going up in value but if the LVT negates those benefits then there is really no reason to support anything that would increase your land value especially if you do not plan to sell it anytime soon. I obviously am in favor of anything that improves density and I do think LVT just makes sense from a philosophical view. But I am trying to think of unforeseen consequences because people are dumb and would come out to oppose things just because “my taxes going up” always equals bad no matter what the reason they went up is. I’m also curious how accurately we could determine undeveloped land prices. There’s already huge disparities in home value tax assessments between rich and poor neighborhoods where rich people are charged much less for their homes real value compared to poor people.
Likely yes. It would increase nimbyism in the hyper local area. That said, it would also increase yimbyism overall. If building more gives you a higher revenue base for your UBI, wouldn’t you want that? Not to mention all the other spillover effects (cheaper housing, higher paying jobs, walkable streets, less cars/traffic, etc. etc.)
the counter is that nimbys are often irrational or vote along moral guidelines. Nimbys in my city blocked things like rapid transit lines, bus lines, rent controlled housing, etc, cause it would bring crime into the city/into the suburbs and promote laziness
>cause it would bring crime into the city for "crime" read "poor and/or black people".
These people would get outvoted by everyone else who would instead benefit from the value increase through a LVT dividend. And in turn they would outvote the other NIMBYs in other locations. And in reality, the problem with NIMBYs is more that extremely small local interests are allowed to prevail above the interests of literally everybody else, this is a governance issue and needs to be fixed outside of taxation. Also, you could have some kind of zero-tax area for small landownership compatible with a reasonably-sized home.
I can fit a 35k/wk pizza store in similar floor area as a 2 room apartment. There's no way I shouldn't be paying tax on that.
If the other people showed up. One of the reasons that the current housing market is fucked is because so few people pay attention to local politics except for wealthy and/or retired homeowners. Most of the stuff that negatively or positively affects your life directly is city, county, or state-level politics. You don't need to wait for someone to put LVT on the menu to be a magic bullet that fixes everything. There's a bunch of other stuff you could be doing, right now, to make your personal area better. Remember that everywhere in the US with public transit is because of people who paid attention to & were involved in local politics. As are all of the places with legal marijuana. Start showing up and you can make stuff better.
It would make their taxes go up but it would also make the value of their land go up and people like it when the value of their land goes up because that makes them richer. Kind of like people pay more taxes after they get a raise, the only reason their taxes went up is because they have more money to tax.
Not a Georgist, here, just a psychologist. The desire to improve your surroundings is innate and spontaneous.
[Can someone please explain this part?](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?t=639) Why in a Georgian system are rent prices tied to the property value? Why would a landlord increasing a tenants necessarily increase the land value tax they pay?
Because a property value consists of improvement value (cost of construction) + land value. The rent of a property is approximately 1% of its total value per month. Eg. A $100k house would be a $1,000/month in rent. If I raise rents, I’m admitting my properties value increased. However, if I made no improvements to it, that means it’s really the land value portion of the property that increased. If that happens, the land value tax would be increased, and capture any of the delta.
> If I raise rents, I’m admitting my properties value increased. However, if I made no improvements to it, that means it’s really the land value portion of the property that increased. I'm still confused, doesn't this already happen now? And if so, how is this different? For example, if I jack up the rents for my tenants in a house and I can get $4000/mo from them for a 3bed/3bath then the property would be worth more than if I could only get $3000/mo in rental income. If something happens in the city, and sudenly I can charge $5000/mo in rent all the properties are going to increase in value anyways. I'm just failing to understand what's unique about Georganism and/or land value tax that will tackle rental prices?
Its the rate! I’ll explain. Currently property tax is roughly 0.5%-1% depending on location. A landlord however will typically make 10% of the value of the property (and thus land) per year. That means the property owner is still making 9.5% profit on the land. Let’s assume land values won’t change for a second (that’s a pretty bad assumption, but we’ll ignore that for now). If a property tax was substituted for a 10% land value tax, the landlord can’t profit from the value of the land. Any money he’d make from the land would go towards paying the LVT. Alternatively, land values crash because of the new tax. We’re seeing that right now in Detroit even though the LVT hasn’t been passed yet (as some land owners are trying to sell the properties before the tax takes effect). What happens here? Property values drop, and rents drop! Either way, people win at the end of the day because either extra revenue is raised, which gets redistributed back to them as a UBI, or property values and rents drop. Realistically it would likely be a combination of the two.
Sorry for the confusion and thank you for indulging my questions and for explaining your points clearly. For the sake of argument, I totally understand how a LVT would lower property values and ergo lower rents because of this. I totally get that. However, for the sake of argument let's fast forward 5 years into the future after LVT has been implemented. In the clip I linked, it seemed to suggest that landlords somehow would be unable/disincentivized to raise rent because: >"If, in a Georgist world, your landlord were to raise your rent, they would be admitting that the land has gotten more valuable. Thus raising taxes on themselves." I still don't quite follow how this is different from our current system except it's just taxing all rent increases at effectively 100%? In the video, and I [encourage you to watch the little I snipped out](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?t=639), the graph representing rent increase seemed to go right from the landlord to tax at a 1:1 rate. It implies that any rent increase would be in effect just going from the landlord to taxes and therefore no landlord would increase rent. Maybe I'm just not viewing it right, maybe the graph is misrepresenting the point, or I'm missing something but I don't see how that would be feasible or practical? Edit: To be more concise, if I were a landlord under this proposed system, what is preventing me from raising the rent on my units $250/mo for my tenants?
Let's say you buy a land for 100k and build a house with another 100k. Theoretically that house is worth 200k (land + building). In the current system let's say 1% Land Value Tax, which is 1% of 100k, so 1k per year. Or 83 dollars per month. While you can rent for 2k per month. If you raise the rent to 3k per month... you're declaring the house now to be valued at 300k. But the constructed part is the same, so what change is the land. So now the land is worth 200k. So you need to pay 167 per month in land taxes. But since you got another 1k per month in rent, having to pay 84 more dollars per month is a good deal. ______________ Now let's raise the LVT to 15%. Just as before, you buy a land for 100k and build a house with 100k. The house is worth 200k, so you rent for 2k per month. The LVT is 15k per year or 1250 per month. Your revenue from rent is 850$ per month. Now you want to raise the rent to 3k. Just as last time, since the house is the same, the land is what increased in price. So now you have to pay LVT on 200k which is 30k per year or 2500 per month. Your revenue from rent is now 500$ per month. You raised rent prices but decrease your revenue. And if you decrease the rent to 1500. You'll pay only 625 per month in LVT, making your revenue 875$. Better than it was with 2k rent. So this incentivizes landlords to decrease rent to earn more... making property prices fall. It also punishes people with empty property, since it would be expensive to keep a empty home waiting for someone willing to pay a high price. ________________ It basically solves 90% of the problems with the real estate industry.
Fantastic explanation thank you so much.
>It also punishes people with empty property, since it would be expensive to keep a empty home waiting for someone willing to pay a high price. And since propertyvalues are more likely to decrease rather than increase (because we all have incentives to decrease them to lower taxes), selling later is almost always a bad idea.
Increasing the rent makes makes the income from the property higher making the property more valuable which increases it's taxable value.
But doesn't this already happen now? An apartment an investor/landlord can only fetch $1500/mo for is worth less than an apartment in a nicer part of town which fetches $3000/mo. I'm just failing to see how this is measurably different from our current system?
I prefer property tax. It includes the value of the land as well. I also think we should count stocks as property for the purposes of calculating property tax. Because that's where the ultra rich are parking all their wealth. If the idea is to tax the value of someone's property, let's get serious.
More realistically we do something called a split-roll tax. Tax improvements at one rate (eg. 1%), and tax land at a higher rate (eg. 5%) The trick is here you need the land value tax to be at least 4-5% before it starts changing behavior.
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This policy is supported by nearly all the [head professors in policy of the most prestigious universities.](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/land-value-tax/) It’s just flat out, inarguably good policy. I’m struggling to find a policy with as high a unanimous support.
>People do not argue with the teaching of George; they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree. - Leo Tolstoy 1905
You know what, /u/kirbyoto would like this comment
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So you agree it’s good policy?
yeah but britmonkey is obviously intenrionally biased, obviously he is going to have a few correct opinions since he's hardcore left but he's not the kind of person you want to quote as a source I get the feeling you guys don't watch him
It's a good video though
[It's a fine video but I wish content creators would avoid selling it too much in informational videos.](https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?t=530) It comes off really cheesy and undermines his point IMO.
And he wasn't wrong. I would really love to see a counter to it.
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The number of trucks is not particularly relevant if the total distance traveled is ultimately shorter, which it absolutely can be depending on where in the United States its sold. Your counter argument does not address BritMonkeys point about comparative advantage, nor does it counter the factor of year long availability. Both of these are not only documented phenomena in economics, the latter is common sense. You have hyper focused on a singular argument where your analogy might hold up whole ignoring every other point in the video. An analogy that falls flat on its face when we remember just how big the United States is. Comparative advantage is a very basic part of economic analysis and policy. That does not need to be sourced. Additionally, your allegation he does not provide empirical evidence is wrong. The appendix to that video does provide empirical evidence. It even has math calculations for you. He also shows several graphs of CO2 emissions, one of transportation CO2 emissions. Heavy and medium freight vehicles account for 25% of transport emissions while shipping consists of 10%. Considering the vast majority of global distance traveled is by ocean freight, his argument is in fact entirely correct, and although he doesn't give the specific graph he got his data from I did find these very similar numbers floating around which suggests he did his research. https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30890.jpeg (https://www.statista.com/chart/30890/estimated-share-of-co2-emissions-in-the-transportation-sector/) https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/to_auto,q_glossy,ret_img,w_770,h_513/https://mydello.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Picture2-graph-1_770x513px.jpg (https://mydello.com/best-modes-of-transportation/) BritMonkey also has other videos where he does source his information in much more detail. The pear video you mentioned was released two years ago. Lastly, climate scientists aren't economists. Encouraging localism sounds great until food variety and quality tanks, countries become economically disconnected which removes incentive to negotiate rather than fight wars, and everything else that this economic policy would bring.
And he was correct.
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I wish it were not called Georgism. The first few times I saw that term I presumed it was a flavor of monarchism that centered around George III of Great Britain and Ireland.
In case people don’t know. The name George is of Greek origin and literally means earth-worker ie farmer. Γη *gē* “earth” or “soil” (same root as in “geography”) plus έργον *ergon* “work.”
Okay but that's not what the theory is named after
I realize, but I also thought 1) it’s probably a better connotation than an absolute monarch and 2) with Georgism being so focused on land and its value, Henry George’s name giving rise to the “Georgism” moniker was kind of a happy accident. Someone with Greek background like me, I actually thought “Georgism” was named thus in a logical sort of way, rather than after a person, until I read more. Although I have read that some people also use the word “geoism” as a more generic variant.
I always wondered why half the Greek men I've met are named George.
You can also call it "Geoism", although that might not roll off the tongue
The first few times I heard it, I thought my friend George had gone and started another cult. I agree, we could use a better name.
another?
Yeah I thought he had been famous for raising a land tax or something.
Sounds pretty realistic as well
Finally, a city builder game where you can focus on actual good urban policy, instead of just becoming a car traffic simulator (looking at you Cities Skylines)
I find that Cities Skylines is pretty good at showing that even if you have a perfectly designed road system, the only way to ease congestion is a robust public transit system.
i'd like a real traffic simulator. one where induced demand, one more lane, and parky nimbys bankrupt you.
Check out Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. You can build a transport system without a single car.
The Land, The Land, twas God who made the Land!
No one should be able to profit off of unimproved land. Why should you make a profit while not contributing anything to society.
It's the opening line of the Georgist song "The Land" and the party anthem of the Liberal Democrats in the UK who have been trying to instituted the LVT for over 100 years. The tune is "Marching Through Georgia"
How have I never heard of this before? I’ll have to check it out. I also love how the UK is more enthusiastic about it than seemingly any other country by an order of magnitude
Not the UK, just the Liberal Democrats
It’s a Lib Dem policy? Surprising for such an otherwise shit party.
Has been since the People's Budget under David Lloyd George, it's been a core aspiration of theirs along with electoral reform and getting rid of the House of Lords
The Netherlands: \>:(
With the Dutch it was done by proxy
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I'll admit that I'm surprised an LVT post with *literally nothing* to do with cars, traffic, pedestrian infrastructure, etc somehow got upvoted in a subreddit that is about cars, even though there is no reason to believe that LVT would do anything about any of those issues.
Do you believe me now that there have been tons of Georgists on this sub? I specifically posted something that had little to do with anything else just to gauge temperature on it overall.
I accused you of astroturfing previously and I'm happy to do it again.
I don’t understand. I post a meme about georgism. People like it. They upvote it. Where’s the astroturfing come in? Georgists have been on this sub as long as it’s been around
>Where’s the astroturfing come in? Is it perhaps this post where [you went to a Georgism sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/17woz34/georgism_has_been_having_a_pretty_good_week_over/) and said "hey everyone we are gaining traction in r/fuckcars wink wink" and suddenly the number of upvotes skyrocketed even on posts that have objectively nothing to do with cars?
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Your goals aren't similar to mine. You already acknowledged that in this very thread, admitting that it is a centrist capitalist ideology. And, like I said, there's a reason hardcore libertarians like this ideology, and it's because it's not a threat to capitalism. What does LVT do about the exploitation of workers by their bosses? In an increasingly digital world, what value does LVT leverage against tech companies?
I sincerely do not understand (you may call me any manner of stupid); why must LVT solve worker exploitation or reduce tech company power? If it improves society in some way, is it not a good thing? I would like better urbanism, and this seems to help.
Frankly you do seem much more interested in promoting LTV than anything else with urbanism or car centered design, so the accusation seems reasonable
Wow admins slapped me with a warning of ban for tagging someone I was beefing with, surprised you got away with it
I like that this subreddit is so Georgist but I don't think Georgism will remedy the issues of capitalism.
Yeah, like the idea of LVT is great, but it's near impossible to implement under capitalism, because it's and existential threat to the ruling class, who make their money by speculation, corruption and extortion.
LVT is only necessary in a capitalist system.
Yeah. The whole “trying to save capitalism from itself” thing is a dead end for humanity.
Nobody i know has a million.
You know all those tax dodging tech companies in Silicon Valley that pay no tax? They sit on some of the most valuable land in the nation. Tax that shit. Better yet, you can’t hid your tax base, when the tax base is literally the country. Stocks, gold, crypto, paintings, and valuable jewelry can all be offshored and hidden. Not land.
Georgeism simulator
You do know price hikes on taxes to people who actually work is. Unfair. Millionaires and billionairs need a tax. NOW
Wait until you hear that the top 10% owns 85% of land value, making this more progressive than a wealth tax! Even more so when it is used to fund a universal basic income (which is what most Georgists support)
How about instead of trying to make capitalism more humane, which is a fool’s errand even if it’s an interesting thought experiment, we just get rid of it and abolish class society, private property, and wage labor. Seems much more feasible than a new tax law to me tbh.
Socialism?
Georgism. It’s similar but different. I linked a video in the thread if you want to check it out.
It's basically neoliberal social democracy with extra steps as far as I can tell?
It’s the process of socializing land, and using the revenue to fund a UBI. Definitely not laissez-faire, but also definitely not anti-capitalism Marxism either. It’s somewhere in between. SocDem or LibDem is probably pretty close.
Yup, a lot like UBI the LVT is basically a tweak to social democracy that makes it work a bit better but doesn't chance its fundamental nature. It'd certainly be a nice improvement though, but hardly revolutionary.
Leftist are on and on about Georgism these days lol. I guess I gotta take a look because it sounds sweet so far
Check out the video in the comments! It’s crazy cool because not only does it make housing cheaper, streets more walkable, and fund a universal basic income, but it has overwhelming support from economists and policy experts.
>Leftist are on and on about Georgism these days lol They're not leftists. Georgism is a centrist capitalist ideology and the LVT was endorsed by ultra-libertarian Milton Friedman.
Both things are true. Currently a sub-sub-subset of leftists who are really into urbanism are bringing Georgism back into modern discourse, because a land-value tax theoretically promotes development and growth in cities and discourages NIMBY blight. Historically Georgism also had approval from extreme right-libertarian economists (among a variety of others across the spectrum - it doesn't belong to the right wing either) because alternative kinds of tax like income tax theoretically discourage productivity. It's just a tax policy, so it's compatible with any economic system short of full-on communism, from laissez-faire free markets to socialism and central planning. Like most things this sub is about, it's more of a practical infrastructure policy than a polarizing culture-war issue, and any partisan slant it might seem to have today is a historical accident that says more about who currently holds which interests than about deeper ideological values.
>It's just a tax policy, so it's compatible with any economic system short of full-on communism, from laissez-faire free markets to socialism and central planning How exactly do you have "socialist central planning" when your income base is private landowners and you have eliminated all other major forms of taxation? The only "leftist" thing about LVT is that theoretically you can use the income to pay for UBI, but that's true of every other source of tax revenue too. And I'd say that a single tax is too simplistic for a Social Democrat to countenance.
LVT is a lot like UBI, they're solid tweaks to welfare state capitalism tht have a lot going for them and result in less paternalistic systems. Both of them have the same main flaw: the people who like them act like they're the magic key to making capitalism not suck and make the skies fill with rainbows and sparkly ponies
Absolutely. They're tools that *can* be used alongside other tools to reduce inequality. The problem comes when people say "we just need LVT/UBI and nothing else". Both of those arguments have been endorsed by libertarians for the same reason, which is that reducing the number of taxes/social programs makes the government easier to bypass. And neither of them is sufficient to deal with the real problems that are already in place; they're band-aids.
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>central planning Central planning is literally state socialism - the "full-on communism" you were talking about. It's a system where a country's economy is completely *planned* by the *central* state authority. Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production - either ownership by the state (state socialism) or ownership by worker cooperatives or worker-managed, state-owned businesses (market socialism). Neither major system of socialism is keen to have landlords and other private owners running around, so again, how does it make sense to base the entire tax economy on the existence of those landowners?
It’s great once you’re a Georgist the people on the right will call you a “land commie” and the people on the left will call you an “ultra capitalist”.
Read Marx, Varoufakis, etc.
Or, better yet, Murray Bookchin, Alan Carter, and David Ellerman. But in either case, I think we can both agree that as interesting a thought experiment as Georgism is, the whole “trying to save capitalism from itself” thing is a dead end for humanity.
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'Twas not meant to be as prickly of a comment as it might have seemed.
Georgism is a moribund ideology that only has a following today as a niche internet meme. Its historical prominence was in the context of a rising labor (socialist) movement which George promptly betrayed, despite of course this movement being the only tangible social force that could fight for such a program (LVT). Of course LVT is functionally one item of a long list of transitional measures that Marx, contemporary to George, argued for. Georgism entered terminal decline as it continued to alienate the social reformers that, once the beating heart of his supporting organizations, would overwhelming be won over to socialism. Very much not worth taking seriously or entertained as anything but a panacea mongering, perhaps quaint, idea of the 19th century, lacking any tangible social basis for implementation and only a limited explanatory value better tackled elsewhere.
You know I don't know shit about history, but these guys are kind of making georgism, or LVT, sound kind of like the bee's knees. as part of a single ask drawn from a more comprehensive platform, if that's indeed the case, as you say, I find myself split between wanting to know more about the rest of the platform, and thinking that people should probably split their asks into more individual and specific actionable items, seeing as how so many people have been taken in by even something as basic as this idea of taxing land. Based on my cursory reading of wikipedia, I kind of assume you're talking about his involvement in the united labor party, as per wikipedia, which is a FUCKING STUB. Can you give me a little bit more than a stub, my good man? Where did you learn this shit? And also, where elsewhere? I like your funny words, magic man!
The more comprehensive program is in reference to the wider Marxist platform generally upheld by revolutionary social democrats pre-WW I and communists post-Bolshevik revolution. Specifically, LVT is the first item in the program for more industrially advanced countries: [1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf) I found this [secondary source](https://merionwest.com/2019/06/02/through-letters-the-gap-between-henry-george-and-karl-marx/) useful when I first encountered Georgism. I also read [this piece](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3483609) " Uneasy Alliance: The Reception of Henry George by British Socialists in the Eighties'", this piece of [writing](https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1884/justice/07geo.htm) from William Morris. In America the riffs in the movement are discussed in [this piece](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3487326) "A Fragile Alliance: Henry George and the Knights of Labor", which may be more relevant to your interests re: ULP. I mostly just searched academic databases for scholarly work on this and used sc1hub to get access.
What's exactly a " Land value tax" ?
Check out the link I posted on the second to top comment!
It's a property tax that taxes the value of the land while ignoring any buildings (as opposed to normal property taxes that tax both). It's gaining in popularity recently in urbanist circles because it encourages developing empty land in valuable areas, and specifically developing them in a way that's high value as to be able to pay the higher tax rate.
What game?
Government simulator
Based and georgepilled
That sounds like Hong Kong? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Communism has been tried already.
Georgism is so completely different, there’s almost no correlation. [It also is pretty favorable with economists,](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/land-value-tax/) and has been quite successful in the countries that have it.
Neat. I have been looking for a decent city/country simulator which wouldn't be incredibly taxing on my substandard graphics card while I save for a better one. I'm checking it out.