• AeonFelis
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    6 hours ago

    Back in the 19th century, Henry George suggested to solve this with a very high land value tax.

    The idea, in a nutshell, is that a good chunk of the worth of a property is not the building itself but the land it is built on - and that component does not come from the landlord’s investment, it comes from the community’s effort. Take that away, and housing prices will dramatically drop (or at least - stop rising so steeply) because real estate will no longer be such an attractive investment avenue, since most of the value that comes from the land will be taxed away. The part that remains - the value of the building itself - is the part that landlords really do have to build and maintain themselves.

    I’m usually skeptical about economic ideologies that claim to be both morally correct and utility increasing - simply because I’ve never seen an economic ideology that doesn’t claim to be both these things. But here I think Georgism did manage to show a direct link between the two, so I’m more inclined to believe in it.

    • BannedVoice@lemmy.zip
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      2 hours ago

      Despite the fact I got downvoted to hell for my comment I appreciate the well thought out and articulated response. Very well said.