Political Systems
Sep. 23rd, 2003 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslhonest intelligent socialists do exist:
Cosma Shalizi on Market Socialism
My dreamed-up system: "State Owns Some of the Land - Rent as the Only Tax"
Advantages:
* Unlike other taxes, it does not disincent healthy economic activity, such as trading (sales tax, transaction taxes, income tax), working (income tax), investing in good business (capital gains tax).
* If the state owns the land, it even doesn't infringe on liberty by collecting the rent.
* It must be responsible with its budget, since it has no way of collecting more money.
One possible objection: so if the state is just another real-estate corporation, what is the incentive for them to serve us?
My response: what is the incentive they have to serve us now?
As far as a state is needed, I am (almost) convinced that this would be a good way to finance it.
Cosma Shalizi on Market Socialism
My dreamed-up system: "State Owns Some of the Land - Rent as the Only Tax"
Advantages:
* Unlike other taxes, it does not disincent healthy economic activity, such as trading (sales tax, transaction taxes, income tax), working (income tax), investing in good business (capital gains tax).
* If the state owns the land, it even doesn't infringe on liberty by collecting the rent.
* It must be responsible with its budget, since it has no way of collecting more money.
One possible objection: so if the state is just another real-estate corporation, what is the incentive for them to serve us?
My response: what is the incentive they have to serve us now?
As far as a state is needed, I am (almost) convinced that this would be a good way to finance it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 05:59 pm (UTC)Your land system is pretty good. The bureaucratic aspects would be problematic, but could be overcome if it was implemented properly.
I think a tax on land site values might work better, for reasons of allocation, as pointed out above. The government tends to get "politicized", for obvious reasons.
that article on "market socialism" got me thinking that what we have in the US is essentially the opposite - "centrally planned capitalism" - the worst of both worlds... unless you are one of the planners. (banks, large land holding families, etc... the true elite)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-09 04:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-09 01:59 pm (UTC)Mason Gaffney has a good book on this called "The Corruption of Economics".
The best attack on him is a sort of orthogonal one first raised by Lysander Spooner - that with control of the currency by fractional reserve banking, most of the land ends up in the hands of the banks anyway, so currency reform is the primary reform.