https://rumble.com/v5gyx8t-commons-rent-tax-shift.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
Above is the link to the power point presentation on this topic.
Decades ago while on my vision quest to understand the root causes of poverty, wealth inequality and war I stumbled across the northern California branch of the Henry George School of Social Science. The eureka of my economic enlightenment happened during the fifth week of the class. After grasping the Law of Rent that clearly shows how, as a society structured such as ours grows in its capacity to produce wealth, land values increase faster than wages and thus wealth inequality advances from that point onwards. The market is not fairly harnessed to produce affordable housing and other basic needs for all because of a fatal flaw in the way democracy is constituted.
I learned why we need to implement a fundamental reform of taxation policy via an approach which in essence is based on the right to the earth’s land, natural resources and other commons as a birthright. Structured in this manner our system of public finance can address concerns for:
fair distribution of wealth.
environmental protection.
wealth production.
provision of adequate government services.
peaceful resolution of territorial conflicts.
We can hatch these and more birds out of one egg by making a clear distinction between private wealth and common wealth. Private wealth is that which is created by labor, by humans working with their hands and their minds. Common wealth is provided by nature and society collectively as a whole, the community.
This tax shift approach to public finance maximizes the production of needed goods and services by eliminating taxes on labor created wealth from:
income, especially from wages, payroll.
capital, meaning tools, factories, productive assets.
sales, especially for basic needs.
homes and other buildings.
The public finance system is then based on taxes and fees on the use of the commons, local to global. Commons domains include:
surface land sites according to land value.
timber, grazing, mining land values.
oil and minerals.
water resources.
emissions into air, water, or soil.
electromagnetic spectrum.
geo-orbital zones.
This tax approach would also eliminate subsidies especially those deemed no longer necessary, environmentally or socially harmful, or inequitable and unfair, such as payments for:
energy production.
resource extraction.
polluting industries.
agriculture and forestry.
investments for private capital/finance.
Ecological economics research and data indicate that true cost pricing of natural resource use and capturing that cost via ecotaxes and resource rent charges would be sufficient to eliminate taxes on labor and productive, sustainable (non-polluting) capital.
Whose planet are we living on? Who really owns the earth?
Most of our planet is now owned by some person or organization/corporation.
The majority population (60% to 90%) in EVERY inhabited country are landless - own no part of the planet whatsoever, not even their own homes.
The richest 5% in every nation, rich and poor, North and South, East and West, now own between 70% and 95% of their own countries.
Warfare over land and resources will destroy us all unless and until we find ways to equitably share the earth.
This equitable and eloquent tax shift approach can be administered via clearly designated commons rent domains in this manner:
Local Level – surface land.
States, Provinces (bioregions), Nations – oil and other minerals, watersheds.
Global Resource Agency – collects rent from transnational resource use (oceans, geo-orbital zones, et.al.) for purposes of peacekeeping and environmental monitoring, protection, and remediation.
If you would like to link up with tax shift movements worldwide send a message to the author (link below) or phone (east coast of the USA) 1-717-357-7617.
Also see this in Aradhana Airwaves substack: Palestine / Israel: Cutting the Gordian Knot
Much as I support the Georgist ideas and have actually one for improving on them too, I find our world so badly beset with various wars that it seems that LVT or its equivalent will never come due to too many other vital difficulties. Even when your enemy tries to kill you, it would be less safe but more ethical if you did not try to kill him/her in return. So its ethics versus personal safety in the days to follow, with our Georgist trailing dismally behind.