I'm not sure if this is the place to debate the merits of Georgism, but most Georgists emphasize that natural land value generate rents that should be taxed to fund public goods, and possibly a social dividend. Various Georgists blame all sorts of societal ills on the lack of proper taxes. I have also heard wildly disparate estimates of the size of this thing called natural land value.
My main objections are first, that land value is a phenommena of the mind which contemplated alternative uses for this resources. This is a matter of subjective opportunity cost, not "natural value". So the usual results about competition over rents apply, and this copetition is far more productive than Georgists appreciate. If there is actually such a thing as natural land value, I see no way of measuring it outside of the market process that prices land- and this does not involve so called natural value of uniproved land, but opportunity cost in the Austrian sense.
Georgists often invoke the Lockean proviso in defending their claims. Private property in land suppsedly deprives "the people" of what is rightly theirs. Richard Epstein (not Posner)argues in Takings that the gians from trade in modern commercial society more than compensate people for anything supposedly lost in ending the state of nature, so the Lockean proviso is of no consequence. I strongly agree, and would add that problems with intergenerational tranfers raised by Parfit in his book Reasons and Persons render discussions as to what people now deserve based on what "we" suppsedly had in some mythical state of nature completely absurd. I am not sure if Foldvary or Gaffney really push this Locekan proviso thing, but...
Its been a few years since I have really looked at this Georgist stuff, so dont quite recall how this relates to the business cycle, but my guess is that the pursuit of land rents somehow caused the housing boom. Low mortage rates and loose Fed policy appear to be a better explanation.
--- On Thu, 4/15/10, Humberto Barreto <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Humberto Barreto <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: SHOE: QUERY -- Gaffney -- Austrian economics and business cycles
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010, 8:20 AM
> MacKenzie writes that "My own read on
> Georgism is that Posner dealt
> the last fatal blow in his 'Takings' book, and this chapter
> of history
> should end there." Please cite chapter and verse so we may
> find this "last
> fatal blow". Better yet, quote it here, or epitomize it for
> us, to spare us
> a trip to the library.
>
> It is not clear to whom or what you are responding. I urged
> others to read
> Foldvary's accurate forecasts. Foldvary is as much and
> perhaps more an
> Austrian than a Georgist, but all these labels and
> classifications and
> stereotypes of individuals are misleading and lazy.
> Foldvary is Foldvary.
>
> It is wrong, IMHO, to dismiss accurate forecasters by
> calling them stopped
> clocks. It's not as though Foldvary forecasted the crash
> every year. He
> specified 2008, both times. To dismiss a true prophet is
> close to accepting
> the false prophets who were on top of the control system -
> and still are,
> alas, both in D.C. and in academe. Academics have a
> reputation and a history
> of lagging reality, as they did from 1929-36, at least. Now
> is a good time
> to redeem ourselves by becoming headlights, rather than
> tailpipes.
>
> MacKenzie's main point seems to be that he "knows about"
> Georgism, and it is
> "wrong" - period. That tells us nothing substantive.
> Something specific
> would be helpful.
>
> Mason Gaffney
> [log in to unmask]
>
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