Public Transportation Systems

Rick Rybeck:

Fred Harrison: Wheels of Fortune

Frank Stilwell and Kirrily Jordan: The Political Economy of Land: Putting Henry George in His Place

George saw land as a community resource provided by nature, to which every human being had an equal right. He argued that, since land was fixed in supply, the system of private land ownership allowed the wealthy few to enjoy exclusive rights to land and its benefits, while alienating the poorer majority from land ownership and forcing them to pay rent to landowners in order to access this necessary resource. Moreover, the collection of rents by landowners allowed them to increase their wealth without contributing to the productive efforts of society. As the population grew, so too did the demand for land, forcing rents and land values ever higher. In addition, increases in land value resulting from publicly-funded developments, such as roads and public transport systems, unduly benefited landowners at the expense of the community. Such unearned gains from landownership encouraged speculation in land, pushing prices even higher, while exposing the economy to the risks of speculative ‘booms’ and ‘busts’. ...

Indeed, one could say that the term ‘tax’ is a misnomer because what is really involved is value created by the community being retained by the community rather than being appropriated by private landholders. For example, under current arrangements landowners receive ‘windfall’ gains when the market value of their land rises as a result of publicly provided infrastructure being built nearby, or when local government zoning decisions reclassify their land as appropriate for further development. In this way, individual landowners stand to reap huge benefits at the expense of community-generated processes. Such arrangements create an odd incentive: allowing landholders to appropriate the unearned wealth generated by rising land values, thereby rewarding this unproductive activity, while taxing productive endeavour. The Georgist land tax ‘remedy’, by contrast, would eliminate such perverse incentives and thereby more effectively align private and public interests in the use of society’s resources. ... read the whole article