🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 14:16:42 GMT, "sinister" <sinister@nospam.invalid>
wrote:

>"Fabrizio J. Bonsignore" <fbonsignore@beethoven.com> wrote in message 
>news:768f7623.0410070553.346b0d71@posting.google.com...
>> Latinamerican countries follow all 'recipes' of academia and yet fail
>> to achieve sustained development. Could it be that people actually
>
>Therein lies the problem.  As poster "royls" points out repeatedly on this 
>list, economics (academic and otherwise) has become corrupted insofar as 
>they have obscured the "Georgist" critique of taxation---to wit, in its 
>broadest form, that Ricardian land rents should be mostly taxed away, and 
>other taxes that are both more distortionary (less efficient) and less 
>equitable should be reduced.
>
>I haven't researched what those in favor of land value taxation have to say 
>about tax structures in Latin America, but given the penury in places like 
>Brazil, I can't imagine it's good.  Not to mention all that anecdotal stuff 
>about huge landholdings in there.

Right.  There is little or no public recovery of land rent through
taxation in most Latin American countries, and their chronic economic
stagnation and huge inequalities of wealth and income (the highest in
the world) bear that out.

>In case you're not familiar with it, LVT proponents wouldn't necessarily 
>advocate breaking up large estates and then making land grants (though Latin 
>America might be so screwed up that that might be a necessary initial step).

It's not necessary, unless the large landowners are using their wealth
and power to control the political process, have land reform advocates
assassinated, etc.

>Rather, they advocate taxing away (at least much or most of) Ricardian land 
>rents---that is, the income on land due to the land itself (its location, 
>fertility, etc, as opposed to improvements on the land).  This allows a 
>market solution that promotes *both* efficiency and equity.  One of the few 
>win-wins in economics.  One interesting point is how modern economists have 
>gone out of their way to obscure it; Georgists and their allies argue that 
>it's because they're in the pockets of the wealthy, many/most of whom are 
>(big) landholders.

Yes, Professor Mason Gaffney's 'The Corruption of Economics' details
how fundamental principles of economic science were deliberately
subverted in the late 19th and early 20th C specifically to deny
Single Tax advocates the logical tools they used to prove their case.

>Finally, note that there's nothing "socialist" about LVT schemes.  Nor 
>anything remotely Marxist---the person who did the most to push LVT (Henry 
>George) had substantial disagreements with Marx.

Indeed, George and Marx apparently detested each other.

-- Roy L