🚀 go-pugleaf

On 7 Oct 2004 17:13:33 -0700, fbonsignore@beethoven.com (Fabrizio J.
Bonsignore) wrote:
 
>But I don`t think a particular tax structure would solve
>underdevelopent.

Certainly it is not a sufficient condition, all by itself.  If a
country is torn by civil war, or saddled with a massively corrupt
government, or overwhelmed by pandemic malaria, AIDS, etc., land rent
recovery alone will not turn it into a tiger economy.  But most
underdeveloped countries in Latin America do not have those problems
(though corruption is pretty bad in some of them).  

>Even if taxation were able to absorb Ricardian rent, we would then
>have the problem to distribute that G income.

There is no shortage of worthwhile things to spend the money on, from
crime prevention to primary education to transportation infrastructure
to control of infectious diseases and pests.

>The budget is subject to
>a political process and there are no guarantees that the assignment
>will be spent in such a way that it will promote development, even if
>it is totally absorbed by public works (infrastructure) or bureaucracy
>(labor), which most certainly won`t be the case. It is not a pure
>market solution. There is no easy way to solve underdevelopment.

Usually, there is: leave people free to produce, and let them keep the
added value their productive efforts yield.  But that means minimizing
what is given to those who contribute nothing, like landowners.

>I proposed a policy to handle land ownership with the purpose of
>evening out wealth distribution, on the assumption that for families
>owning a place to live is better than renting.

The problem is, your solution does not socialize land rent.  It
socializes improvements.  It punishes and robs those who have
contributed to the wealth of the community by constructing
improvements where others live, while leaving the vast non-residential
landholdings of the idle rich untouched.  It is a Band-Aid solution
that would undoubtedly make the problem worse in the long run, not
least by providing a convenient example of "failed land reform."

-- Roy L