Tax reform ideas / a Land Value Tax?

[Clinamenic]

Does anyone know of any theoretical attempts to generalize Georgism beyond land value? i.e. into a general theory around how communally-generated value should be distributed to the community.

I think Georgism could be a hell of a lot more actionable there, i.e. some really interesting public goods funding experiments happening in web3 right now. Over $100 million of non-dilutive public goods funding was just given out in this manner, without any expectations of return on investment.

 

[ghost]

What are you looking to generalize? There's ways to think about it with things like intellectual property, "Brand (brain land) Value Tax". But it's not nearly as clear cut a case as land.

I don't know why everyone wants to do things with the theoretical insights of georgism that are other than bringing about a land value tax and then spending the proceeds on public goods.

 

[Clinamenic]

What are you looking to generalize? There's ways to think about it with things like intellectual property, "Brand (brain land) Value Tax". But it's not nearly as clear cut a case as land.

I don't know why everyone wants to do things with the theoretical insights of georgism that are other than bringing about a land value tax and then spending the proceeds on public goods.

Well re: land, I want to see that happen, and I’m also just curious if, seeing as the premise of this theory as it pertains to land seemed to be very popular, it might also strike a similar chord if generalized to other things. Namely, just the belief that community-generated value (or value which spontaneously emerges from collective industry/activity) should return somehow to the community, just as a general principle. Just seems like a difficult thing to argue against. You could argue, however, that it is difficult to quantify and difficult to implement, which is true, because the examples I have in mind which do quantify and implement it (retroactive public goods funding on Optimism layer-2s on Ethereum) is quite niche, even though it did see $100m distributed philanthropically and the infrastructure is poised to keep this funding going through a built-in transaction fee irrigation system (which could be likened to a land tax on block space, but I don’t know how useful that comparison is).

Anyway, whether or not it is accurate or useful to apply the term Georgism to this theory and practice, I think the idea itself is interesting.