Georgist Conference on Zoom, Part Two
Jul. 12th, 2020 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenTo continue with the session on July 7, 2020, two questions were raised: Why do economists miss all this, and how do we interest young people?
Ted Gwartney said that not all economists entirely miss the importance of land rents and the benefits of land value taxation; he mentioned Joseph Stiglitz, and said that ten Nobel laureates had endorsed LVT. Unfortunately, these issues are not part of usual academic instruction or public dialogue. When Gwartney himself was young, he learned about Georgism, became active, and went into assessing. He recommends that young Georgists become assessors: It’s a well-paid occupation, and it enables you to do some good in the world by making assessments accurate, and correcting the tendency to overassess buildings and underassess land.
An issue is getting people to realize that there’s a problem, and what to do about it, rather than fatalistically accepting unemployment, recessions, and high housing costs as the way things are.
In British Columbia, where Gwartney was Chief Assessor decades ago, less than 1% of land value is taken in taxes; if they made it more, it would be possible to reduce other taxes.
He also mentioned California’s Proposition Thirteen, passed in 1978. Before that, the property tax fell about one third on homeowners, and two thirds on corporations; now the ratio is reversed, with two thirds falling on homeowners. A problem is that someone who bought a house ten years ago for $400,000 and could now sell it for $800,000 thinks that high housing prices are just fine, and typically won’t support reforms that would reduce the price of his house and land.
Ted Gwartney said that not all economists entirely miss the importance of land rents and the benefits of land value taxation; he mentioned Joseph Stiglitz, and said that ten Nobel laureates had endorsed LVT. Unfortunately, these issues are not part of usual academic instruction or public dialogue. When Gwartney himself was young, he learned about Georgism, became active, and went into assessing. He recommends that young Georgists become assessors: It’s a well-paid occupation, and it enables you to do some good in the world by making assessments accurate, and correcting the tendency to overassess buildings and underassess land.
An issue is getting people to realize that there’s a problem, and what to do about it, rather than fatalistically accepting unemployment, recessions, and high housing costs as the way things are.
In British Columbia, where Gwartney was Chief Assessor decades ago, less than 1% of land value is taken in taxes; if they made it more, it would be possible to reduce other taxes.
He also mentioned California’s Proposition Thirteen, passed in 1978. Before that, the property tax fell about one third on homeowners, and two thirds on corporations; now the ratio is reversed, with two thirds falling on homeowners. A problem is that someone who bought a house ten years ago for $400,000 and could now sell it for $800,000 thinks that high housing prices are just fine, and typically won’t support reforms that would reduce the price of his house and land.
