Does Georgism work? Five years later
Five years after a viral essay, Georgism advocate Lars Doucet details new land value tax legislation in Virginia and Kentucky, international momentum, and practical strategies for local implementation.
read it Offers a rare look at how a fringe economic theory achieves policy wins, detailing concrete tools, legislative updates, and strategic lessons for advocates.
summary
Five years after popularizing Henry George's economic ideas, Lars Doucet reviews the state of Georgism. He explains that online debates are less effective than providing local policymakers with open-source GIS tools and economic models. Real-world momentum has picked up with land value tax enablement laws passing in Virginia and Kentucky, alongside growing international interest. He also updates his stances on core economic objections, concluding that land value remains exceptionally high and that taxes are rarely passed on to tenants outside of specific rent-controlled exceptions.
key points
- Advocates achieve better results by providing local politicians with complete, data-driven legislative packages and open-source mapping tools rather than arguing online.
- Land value tax enablement laws passed in Virginia and Kentucky, while South Korea and parts of Europe show massive structural potential for land value taxes.
- Empirical evidence confirms land value taxes are not passed on to tenants, barring rare edge cases involving pervasive rent control.
who should read it
Economic reformers, local policy advocates, and readers interested in urban planning and tax policy.
discussion positive
consensus
Commenters largely agree that local politics heavily favors obstructionist NIMBYs and that presenting ready-to-use policy proposals is the only practical way to bypass bureaucratic inertia.
pushback
Some push back on whether land supply is truly inelastic, noting historical examples of land reclamation and how poorly managed land can become blighted or abandoned after disasters.
> we illustrate how conventional property taxes punish those who improve properties and invest in the city by providing housing and business, while those who own vacant lots or surface parking lots are rewarded for holding land out of use.
This was made dramatically obvious in Christchurch, New Zealand, after the 2011 earthquake.
Land that previously housed people or businesses in the central city became unsealed carparks run by an overseas company that dominates parking businesses here, for years, and many still are, 15 years on.
Likewise, the owners of buildings rendered unusable by …
Provides a vivid real-world counter-example from post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand, showing how existing property tax incentives worsened urban blight through empty parking lots.
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