Georgism

Georgism, in modern times also called Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that persons (including corporations) should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society. Developed from the writings of American economist and social reformer Henry George, the Georgist paradigm seeks solutions to social and ecological problems based on principles of land rights and public finance that attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice. Georgism is concerned with the distribution of economic rent caused by land ownership, natural monopolies, pollution rights, and control of the commons, including title of ownership for natural resources and other contrived privileges (e.g., intellectual property). Any natural resource that is inherently limited in supply can generate economic rent, but the classical and most significant example of land monopoly involves the extraction of common ground rent from valuable urban locations. Georgists argue that taxing economic rent is efficient, fair, and equitable. The main Georgist policy recommendation is a land value tax (LVT), the revenues from which can be used to reduce or eliminate existing taxes (such as on income, trade, or purchases) that are posited to be unfair and inefficient. Some Georgists also advocate the return of surplus public revenue to the people by means of a basic income or citizen's dividend. George popularized the concept of gaining public revenues mainly from land and natural resource privileges with his first book, Progress and Poverty (1879). The philosophical basis of Georgism draws on thinkers such as John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, and Thomas Paine. Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value does...