Georgism

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Georgism, also called Geoism, is an economically center-right, generally culturally center-left, and moderately libertarian ideology that is typically placed in the lower middle of the political compass.

Georgism seeks to achieve justice, prosperity, and progress through a fair distribution of economic rent and the annihilation of deadweight loss from inefficient taxes and harmful monopolies. He believes that there should only be one tax, being the land value tax. He views property rights as only extending to the properties of labor and capital, and since land is neither, it's free real estate. Though his main bit is only having one tax, he also generally supports free markets and free trade, and he sometimes promotes a citizen's dividend and pollution taxes, as a treat.

Overall, his ideology is centered around land & its distribution and his beliefs are often summed up with the phrase (usually in all caps) "landlords don't have rights", though this is somewhat of an exaggeration.

While his views on land rights and natural resource ownership are very collectivist, to combat unjust inequality, most of his other views are liberal and relatively individualistic, focusing on creating efficiency in the economy to create more land value to tax.

His father Physiocracy was quite old and absent when he was born, so he was mostly brought up by his uncle Classical Liberalism.

Of all his cousins, he's generally on best terms with Liberalism; but he also tries to keep friendly with Capitalism and File:Soc.png Socialism even though they seldom leave room for his views, especially when they're in the same room together...

History

Georgism is named after the American journalist and political economist Henry George (1839 - 1897). The defining theories and policies of Georgism stem from Henry George's 1879 book, Progress and Poverty, which sold more than any other book in the US except the Bible during the 1890s. In this book, George sought to find the reason why poverty persists even when wealth increases and technology advances; coming to the conclusion that private extraction of rents from land is the main culprit keeping down both profits/interest from capital and wages from labor.

Henry George is considered one of the last classical economists, largely building on the foundation of Classical Liberals such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. It was observed by them that a tax on what they called "ground-rents" and "the ordinary rent of land", the economic rent from location and natural resources, was the most just and efficient form of taxation, and this notion was followed by Henry George to its logical conclusion: replacing all other taxes with a tax on ground/land rents, i.e. a land value tax.

The movement itself is said to be much older than George, and a long list of economists, political figures, agitators, and land reformers are considered fore-runners: From the Gracchi brothers of the Roman Republic to the Diggers of England, the Physiocrats of France, and other File:Monkeyzz-Enlightenment.png Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Paine with his Agrarian Justice and the concept of a citizen's dividend. Several Agrarian revolts around the world also reflect the struggle against private enclosure of common land and disproportionate taxation (such as poll tax) upon tenants, the poor, and working people - with tax exemption and other privileges for the landed nobility and rich landowners. Henry George is, for the Georgists, the pinnacle of this movement for land reform and economic justice. Some modern proponents prefer to use the term "Geoism" to broaden the scope. Coincidentally "Geo-" in both cases comes from the Ancient Greek word for earth/land.

Campaign button from the 1890s. Seeing the Cat

Historically Georgism spread around the whole world, with important proponents in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.

Henry George himself became a political figure, running twice for mayor of New York City, in 1886 and 1898, being runner-up the first time (though in front of future president Teddy Roosevelt) and suffering from a fatal stroke in 1897 during his second campaign. Many of his early supporters styled themselves "Single Taxers" since it was envisioned that the land value tax would replace all other taxes. For a short period of time during the end of the 19th century, the Single Tax movement dominated the political labor associations in the United States, but it was largely supplanted by the Marxist ideology as this came to be generally accepted as the true form of File:Soc.png Socialism both in the US and elsewhere.

In the UK, both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats (more specifically the predecessor, the Liberal Party) have a history of support for land value taxation, especially during the first half of the 20th century. In a 1906 survey, Henry George was listed as the favourite author of 12 Labour MPs, coming in at a 5th place after authors such as Charles Dickens and "The Bible", and with nobody listing Karl Marx. The British Liberal support for Georgism peaked with the famous People's Budget including a land value tax, which lead to a constitutional crisis due to the resistance of the House of Lords, the majority Conservative landowners being strongly opposed to such a tax. The budget was eventually forced through, and as a result the House of Lords lost its power to veto budgets - but only after two general elections in 1910. The land value tax was never fully implemented however, since it was at first stalled (among other things by the First World War) and then cancelled by the coalition government in 1920.

In China the third principle of Sun Yat-sen's Tridemism was based on a land value tax directly inspired by Henry George's writings, and the Kuomintang brought this with them to Taiwan, where it's still upheld.

There have been several other Georgist parties around the world since then, however, most of them only gaining little support. The Justice Party of Denmark was the most successful, with their highest result being 8.2% of the national votes in 1950, gaining 12 seats in the Danish parliament. The movement in Denmark resulted in a land value tax being introduced in 1920, which is still being levied (though today only at low rates and at municipality level). The only current Georgist party in the UK is the Young People's Party, though there are several political movements in the English speaking world, including the UK based Labour Land Campaign and LibDems ALTER.

Many current Georgist movements and organisations such as the UK based Henry George Foundation with its Land&Liberty publication, the Henry George Foundation of Australia, the New York based Henry George School of Social Science, and the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation aren't linked to specific political parties, rather trying to spread knowledge about Henry George's ideas and campaign for land value taxation across the political divides.

Of modern economist proponents of Henry George's ideas the most prominent are Mason Gaffney and the two Nobel laureates, Joseph Stiglitz and William Vickrey. There's also been notable support for land value taxation from the editorials and chief commentators of Financial Times and The Economist.

Ideological Foundations

Arguments for or against Georgism usually boil down to two forms of argument; Arguments regarding an inherent moral superiority of the system (deontological arguments) and arguments regarding the positive outcomes of the system (consequential arguments).

Deontological Arguments

WIP

Consequential Arguments

WIP

Personality

Georgism is generally open minded and has a friendly disposition - except when he is confronted by extremist proprietarianists! While he is very skeptical towards landlords in general (still acknowledging the rent due for buildings as opposed to that which is derived from location) he truly hates real slumlords and other entirely unproductive and harmful rent-seekers. Other times that you might see him on edge is when he sees old privileges upheld by landed nobility...

He may be found quite often more or less loudly advocating for his favourite economic remedy: Land Value Tax (LVT); but the virtues he describes will often depend on who he's trying to persuade - since, in his mind, these are so many and so great that anyone can potentially see the light (or the cat, as he likes to express it).

How To Draw

Flag of Georgism

The Georgist flag is a bicolour of Yellow or Gold with Green. With the former representing wealth and free trade and the latter representing land and natural resources in general.

  1. Fill a ball with green.
  2. Cut in half and fill top/left half with gold.
  3. Draw the eyes.
  4. (Optional) Either
    1. Draw, in black, a square separated in 4 at a 45 degree angle.
    2. Add cat ears and three grey whiskers on each side.
Color Name HEX RGB
Green #0ED145 14, 209, 69
Gold #FFDA2B 255, 218, 43


Relationships

Friends

  • Geolibertarianism - Ah yes, my more uncompromising son; not so fond of our statist left-wing family members.
  • Geoanarchism - Opposes the state even more than his brother. Wait, son, how are you going to tax the land without a state? Nevermind, it's the intention that counts.
  • Social Georgism - Hmhmhm... Should we spend it all on welfare?
  • Social Libertarianism - Same as the above, not the worst policies to operate.
  • Geosyndicalism - Yes, organize the tenants and teach them about LVT!
  • Tridemism - Probably the closest we got to taking over the world.
  • Classical Liberalism - Taught me classical economics that usually supports my views on landlords and rent-seeking.
  • European Social Liberalism - Used to promote my ideas; unfortunately only when votes could be gained...
  • Environmentalism - Polluting and exploiting our natural resources lowers the value of the land, and thus reduces future tax revenue!
  • Social Democracy - I really think she could be warming up to the idea of a land value tax...
  • Democratic Socialism - Probably already wants to make land common property.
  • Neoliberalism - Sometimes supports my ideas, in spite of his distorted Neoclassical understanding.
  • Libertarianism - Thinks LVT is the least bad tax.
  • Mutualism - Not sure I understand him, but at least he thinks land shouldn't be a commodity.
  • Anarcho-Pacifism - Also wants to achieve radical changes in a peaceful manner, how wholesome!
  • Distributism - We've had our disagreements, but we also have so much in common!

Frenemies

  • Maoism - Shares opinion on Landlords... It's complicated.
  • Marxism - Hates landlords, but doesn't properly distinguish between land and capital. Also called me Capitalism's last ditch.
  • Anarcho-Syndicalism - Extremist, but I like the cat symbol.
  • Modern American Liberalism - More concerned with shouting about fluffy social justice than furthering real reforms for economic justice...
  • Agrarianism - Old granny (wrongly) thinks farmland has high land value, and thus generally opposes LVT.
  • Chinese Blueshirtism - A fascist? A fascist agreeing with me? That is one of the things I have just not expected.
  • Futurism - Oh, wait another one??

Enemies

Further Information

Literature

Some of Henry George's major publications

Books by other authors

Wikipedia

Videos

Short (less than 10 minutes)

Long (More than 10 minutes)

Online Communities

Gallery

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