[estearum]

Yes, you are correctly identifying that all land rights stem from one's ability to claim nature's productive power as his own and monopolize all output from it.

This was self-evident in the feudal era, when landlords (Lords) had to at least raise their own militaries to assert this monopoly right. But the modern State and the landlords reached a compromise: the State will provide security to protect the lords' monopoly on nature so long as the landlords don't raise armed forces.

Totally absurd arrangement.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

It may be absurd, but do you have a workable framework that can replace it? If not, it makes zero to no difference whether it is absurd or not. It works for the society in place.

[estearum]

Yes. A high land value tax prevents the capture of unearned wealth by owners of land without introducing market inefficiencies or price distortions.

The current arrangement demonstrably does not work for society in place, and as AI (whether in this wave of innovation or the next) increases productivity further, it will work less and less by virtue of further increasing land rents, thereby pricing out larger and larger swaths of society from a place to live, work, or otherwise exist.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Huh? Last time I checked, municipalities big and small fight for every bit of investments they can get and they typically get it by offering a swath of incentives at the cost of the actual taxpayer. That high value land ends up being tax free for the actually wealthy while a schmuck like me get his bill increased and argues with otherwise well-meaning people that akshually high taxes are good for me.

[estearum]

What are you arguing here?

It seems like you're arguing that the people who own high value land should pay higher taxes than those who don't.

I agree!

[iugtmkbdfil834]

I think that what I am saying is that, in practice, the well-intended solutions like the one that was listed above are effectively nullified as they do not seem to anticipate real world human reactions. What ends up happening is that it is only a subset of the people, who own land that pay higher taxes. The solution is to remove any and all subsidies. Governments of all levels have not exactly proven to be a reliable steward over the past few centuries..

[estearum]

Well it's pretty easy to have a useless conversation if you're going to act as if the words your interlocutor are saying are "effectively nullified."

My solution does anticipate real-world human interactions: don't give rich landowners tax breaks. This is baked into the premise of having a high tax. A tax that is effectively not-high is by definition not a high tax, ergo is not the solution I am proposing. If I proposed a solution of "have a tax that is claimed to be high but actually is not," then your response would be valid. But my solution was: have a high land value tax.

Your solution is dismissible by your same logic. "While removing any and all subsidies is well-intended, in practice real-world human interactions dictate that will not occur."