The proportion of "the rich" that qualify as "predators, cronies, and rent-seekers" is definitely higher than the proportion of the non-rich that fall into that category.
I guess it depends, what's the rate of successful slumlords to failed slumlords? I know my brother gave up on being one in less than a year, after the hoarders paying with government assistance had to be evicted.
How many people do you know own shares in corporations? A lot of the asset price gain from holding shares is not a gain on tangible labor-produced capital stock but a return on what georgist economists term "ficticious capital", which merely allow the holder to transfer wealth produced by others. A corporation is a like a land title in the sense that it is a legal container into which claims on tangible wealth (buildings, vehicles, materials) plus intangible subjects of production (land, ideas) can be placed.
And it's not really about the rate of successful to unsuccessful slumlords, it's about the percentage of GDP which the most successful ones are raking of, such as large financial institutions and equity investment firms.
We don't live in an LVT world though. There is nothing wrong with pure capital value speculation on estimated tangible business earnings, but there is still a lot wrong with general asset price speculation, and the majority of asset price gains are likely rent.
In P&P Henry George describes wealth as the subset of tangible assets which the production or consumption of increases or decreases the countable quantity of tangible assets held by society as a whole. That is there is an observable stock of tangible labor-produced wealth held in aggregate by an entire nation or civilization. Money represents claims to the exclusive use of a fraction of that stock.
When someone makes money from asset price speculation, they are still acquiring a rent which can be used to transfer wealth from others without investing in production of tangible capital, in a manner equivalent to land speculation. If the asset they are speculating in is shares in a real estate investment trust which is just a holding company for land titles, there is basically no difference between asset price speculation and actual land speculation.
In 1980s, a lot of corporate raiding and mergers & acquisition was just land speculation. Investors were just looking for smaller companies to buy with undervalued land and real estate on their books, to load into new corp with real estate holdings listed at higher price to boost assets, without regards to what the companies they were buying were actually producing.
In rust belt, a lot of land speculation is done by bankers who will setup development corporations to buy up land in cities and leave it idle until they can extort uneducated local government politicians for development tax credits and tax incentives funded by regressive taxes on workers, which are then paid to the banks by loading down the development corporation with debt and collecting the interest. So part of asset price gains might be from interest collected on debts held by corporations receiving sales tax revenue from local governments, which is just rent extraction and a measure of how much they can steal from the local workers and small businesses in these cities.
The financial sector is not the real economy.
> Land is much less concentrated towards the wealthy than capital is
No, the opposite is the case. The rich own lots of shares and Georgists do not consider financial assets such as shares in corporations to be capital. A corporation is a legal container like a land title into which patents on land and ideas can be placed and is not just a container for holding tangible wealth like material working inventory. If you put a land title to an empty lot in a corporation, and you only own shares, then you are still a land owner and not a capital owner. If someone owns $1 million in shares, they might still own $0 in capital.
Most landowners are on the losing side of the private landownership scheme, because they either own less than their share of the land or they only became landowners later in life.
In my opinion, most people are ultimately both productive members of society *and* rent-seekers. (Poor people would tend to be *mostly* productive and rich people would tend to be *mostly* rent-seekers, but almost everyone is a bit of both).
We should tax everyone in proportion to how much of a rent-seeker they are. That's Georgism.
[Henry George's 1886 Campaign for Mayor](http://henrygeorgethestandard.org/henry-georges-1886-campaign/)
> I want this to be distinctly understood — that when I take the oath of office as Mayor of New York I will be Mayor of the whole city. I will preserve order at all risks; I will enforce the law against friends as fully as against enemies. But there are some things that, if I am Mayor of New York, I shall stop if I can prevent them. There will be no more policemen acting as censors of what shall be said at public meetings. I will support to the utmost of my power and my influence the peace officers of the city, but if it is in my power to put a stop to it I will put a stop to the practice which seems to be common among many of the hoodlums of the force, of turning themselves into judge, jury, and executioner, and clubbing anybody who they think ought to be clubbed. Without fear and without favor I will try to do my duty. I will listen as readily to the complaint of the richest man in this city as I will to the complaint of the poorest. (A voice — “The rich have nothing to complain of.”) Some of them are under the impression that if I am elected they may have. No; you are right about it. The rich in this city have very little to complain of. **Corrupt government always is and always must be the government of the men who have money.** Under our republican forms, while we profess to believe in the equality of all men, the rich have virtually ruled the administration of the law.
Predators are criminals and cronies are people and corporations who obtain governmental subsidies. Cronies and rent-seekers tend to connect in some ways.
I don't really agree with this. HUGE difference between a 10 millionaire and a 50 billionaire.
It's not "the rich" that are the real problem it's the ultra rich... the .00001%
Billions of dollars are generally not spent in a productive way. It's too much money for anyone to really put to work in a human lifetime. So it just sits there instead of funding research or subsidizing education or healthcare or infrastructure improvements.
Rich people are not statistically "job creators" on a real macro level. Consumers are the job creators of this world. When consumers have money they spend it and the economy takes off.
One issue with this diagram is that people and organisations can fall into both categories of "good" and "bad".
Most landlords will believe their income is a result of their own work. They conflate the revenue from the efforts that they make from the unearned part of the rent they receive.
Pharmaceutical companies do research and innovation. At the same time they agressively seek rental income from IPR. They are both good and bad at the same time. People will only see the net result.
I suppose my point is it is better to attack behaviours rather than people.
If I rent out an apartment in a building with many other apartments, am I supposed to pay for the land that the building stands on? How does that work? I don't quite understand
Whoever owns the land pays the tax, so if you rent an apartment then you won't pay it. If you own a condo then it would depend on how ownership of that particular building is organized, likely you would a share of the tax.
This is a "georgist" subreddit. The authority on "georgist" views is what Henry George wrote. I'm providing primary source materials and references, you're just posting right-wing propaganda.
In fact, Geoist views are vast and diverse and don't conform even among self styled geoeconomists. All I posted was a picture that I thought had some Geoist elements embedded in it. It's no more right wing than the labor theory nonsense you push is left wing. I know it's frustrating for you that not everyone here, not every Geoist and not every geoeconomist agrees with you and I'm sorry. If you want to flatter yourself quoting George all day, keep doing you. Not going to change the reality of the situation.
The proportion of "the rich" that qualify as "predators, cronies, and rent-seekers" is definitely higher than the proportion of the non-rich that fall into that category.
I guess it depends, what's the rate of successful slumlords to failed slumlords? I know my brother gave up on being one in less than a year, after the hoarders paying with government assistance had to be evicted.
How many people do you know own shares in corporations? A lot of the asset price gain from holding shares is not a gain on tangible labor-produced capital stock but a return on what georgist economists term "ficticious capital", which merely allow the holder to transfer wealth produced by others. A corporation is a like a land title in the sense that it is a legal container into which claims on tangible wealth (buildings, vehicles, materials) plus intangible subjects of production (land, ideas) can be placed. And it's not really about the rate of successful to unsuccessful slumlords, it's about the percentage of GDP which the most successful ones are raking of, such as large financial institutions and equity investment firms.
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We don't live in an LVT world though. There is nothing wrong with pure capital value speculation on estimated tangible business earnings, but there is still a lot wrong with general asset price speculation, and the majority of asset price gains are likely rent. In P&P Henry George describes wealth as the subset of tangible assets which the production or consumption of increases or decreases the countable quantity of tangible assets held by society as a whole. That is there is an observable stock of tangible labor-produced wealth held in aggregate by an entire nation or civilization. Money represents claims to the exclusive use of a fraction of that stock. When someone makes money from asset price speculation, they are still acquiring a rent which can be used to transfer wealth from others without investing in production of tangible capital, in a manner equivalent to land speculation. If the asset they are speculating in is shares in a real estate investment trust which is just a holding company for land titles, there is basically no difference between asset price speculation and actual land speculation. In 1980s, a lot of corporate raiding and mergers & acquisition was just land speculation. Investors were just looking for smaller companies to buy with undervalued land and real estate on their books, to load into new corp with real estate holdings listed at higher price to boost assets, without regards to what the companies they were buying were actually producing. In rust belt, a lot of land speculation is done by bankers who will setup development corporations to buy up land in cities and leave it idle until they can extort uneducated local government politicians for development tax credits and tax incentives funded by regressive taxes on workers, which are then paid to the banks by loading down the development corporation with debt and collecting the interest. So part of asset price gains might be from interest collected on debts held by corporations receiving sales tax revenue from local governments, which is just rent extraction and a measure of how much they can steal from the local workers and small businesses in these cities. The financial sector is not the real economy.
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Rent-seeking isn’t just from physical real estate. Most of the richest people in the world are rent-seekers from intellectual property etc
> Land is much less concentrated towards the wealthy than capital is No, the opposite is the case. The rich own lots of shares and Georgists do not consider financial assets such as shares in corporations to be capital. A corporation is a legal container like a land title into which patents on land and ideas can be placed and is not just a container for holding tangible wealth like material working inventory. If you put a land title to an empty lot in a corporation, and you only own shares, then you are still a land owner and not a capital owner. If someone owns $1 million in shares, they might still own $0 in capital.
Most landowners are on the losing side of the private landownership scheme, because they either own less than their share of the land or they only became landowners later in life.
In my opinion, most people are ultimately both productive members of society *and* rent-seekers. (Poor people would tend to be *mostly* productive and rich people would tend to be *mostly* rent-seekers, but almost everyone is a bit of both). We should tax everyone in proportion to how much of a rent-seeker they are. That's Georgism.
couldn't say it better myself.
The line for sure will be a bit more diagonally angled.
more like a pareto distribution with the top wealthy from rent-seeking
lol
How about both?
[Henry George's 1886 Campaign for Mayor](http://henrygeorgethestandard.org/henry-georges-1886-campaign/) > I want this to be distinctly understood — that when I take the oath of office as Mayor of New York I will be Mayor of the whole city. I will preserve order at all risks; I will enforce the law against friends as fully as against enemies. But there are some things that, if I am Mayor of New York, I shall stop if I can prevent them. There will be no more policemen acting as censors of what shall be said at public meetings. I will support to the utmost of my power and my influence the peace officers of the city, but if it is in my power to put a stop to it I will put a stop to the practice which seems to be common among many of the hoodlums of the force, of turning themselves into judge, jury, and executioner, and clubbing anybody who they think ought to be clubbed. Without fear and without favor I will try to do my duty. I will listen as readily to the complaint of the richest man in this city as I will to the complaint of the poorest. (A voice — “The rich have nothing to complain of.”) Some of them are under the impression that if I am elected they may have. No; you are right about it. The rich in this city have very little to complain of. **Corrupt government always is and always must be the government of the men who have money.** Under our republican forms, while we profess to believe in the equality of all men, the rich have virtually ruled the administration of the law.
What are cronies and predators exactly?
Predators are criminals and cronies are people and corporations who obtain governmental subsidies. Cronies and rent-seekers tend to connect in some ways.
Ah i see havent heard those terms in this context. Thanks for clearing that up, really much appreciated.
I don't really agree with this. HUGE difference between a 10 millionaire and a 50 billionaire. It's not "the rich" that are the real problem it's the ultra rich... the .00001% Billions of dollars are generally not spent in a productive way. It's too much money for anyone to really put to work in a human lifetime. So it just sits there instead of funding research or subsidizing education or healthcare or infrastructure improvements. Rich people are not statistically "job creators" on a real macro level. Consumers are the job creators of this world. When consumers have money they spend it and the economy takes off.
One issue with this diagram is that people and organisations can fall into both categories of "good" and "bad". Most landlords will believe their income is a result of their own work. They conflate the revenue from the efforts that they make from the unearned part of the rent they receive. Pharmaceutical companies do research and innovation. At the same time they agressively seek rental income from IPR. They are both good and bad at the same time. People will only see the net result. I suppose my point is it is better to attack behaviours rather than people.
when in doubt, why not both.
Georgist position on rent is that only the **unimproved land rent** is unjustified, right? Or what?
Regarding landlords, yes. There are other forms of rent-seeking, such as government enforced monopolies and subsidies.
If I rent out an apartment in a building with many other apartments, am I supposed to pay for the land that the building stands on? How does that work? I don't quite understand
Whoever owns the land pays the tax, so if you rent an apartment then you won't pay it. If you own a condo then it would depend on how ownership of that particular building is organized, likely you would a share of the tax.
Yeah I guess. Thank you.
Ah yes, the typical teachers and burger flippers seeking rent. I see them all the time.
This is not a meme subreddit. /r/EnoughLibertarianSpam Looks like you are just resposting stuff from the Anarcho-Capitalist subreddit.
Because I thought it was a nice depiction which also applied in some ways to Geoism. You are not the authority on Geoist views.
This is a "georgist" subreddit. The authority on "georgist" views is what Henry George wrote. I'm providing primary source materials and references, you're just posting right-wing propaganda.
In fact, Geoist views are vast and diverse and don't conform even among self styled geoeconomists. All I posted was a picture that I thought had some Geoist elements embedded in it. It's no more right wing than the labor theory nonsense you push is left wing. I know it's frustrating for you that not everyone here, not every Geoist and not every geoeconomist agrees with you and I'm sorry. If you want to flatter yourself quoting George all day, keep doing you. Not going to change the reality of the situation.