🚀 go-pugleaf

<royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:4165afff.17748290@news.telus.net...
> 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.

Right.

My impression is that at least in Brazil they *are* controlling the 
political process, unfortunately.  IIRC Chico Mendez had something to do 
with confronting the landholding class, and he was murdered.  And (IIRC) no 
one was really charged.

>>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.

You know a URL with their letters to each other that people make reference 
to?

>
> -- Roy L