I often hear people claim that Hong Kong and Singapore are Georgist. More specifically, I hear that they have Land Value Taxes. Their success is often attributed to their Georgism.
Hong Kong has a property tax that is not at all an LVT. Singapore has a tax that it claims is a LVT, but it’s really just a property tax that is reassessed when a new building is proposed, rather than complete. I guess that improves incentives, but it seems pretty minor.
There is more to the spirit and letter of Georgism. The central conceit is state ownership of land, which both cities try to monopolize, offering only 99 year leases. I guess this cuts down on long-term “speculation,” but George’s proposals usually seem focused on a shorter term.
The modern account is to emphasize that the value of cities is the positive externalities from all the development. A government should encourage the production of positive externalities, in particular more building. The cities do take this to heart and make it easy to build. Maybe Georgism is really simple and that’s the key point. So many other cities fail it, but it’s not because of failing to grasp the abstract argument for an LVT or the difficult details of implementing it, but because of much more basic and fundamental failure.
I often hear people claim that Hong Kong and Singapore are Georgist. More specifically, I hear that they have Land Value Taxes. Their success is often attributed to their Georgism.
Hong Kong has a property tax that is not at all an LVT. Singapore has a tax that it claims is a LVT, but it’s really just a property tax that is reassessed when a new building is proposed, rather than complete. I guess that improves incentives, but it seems pretty minor.
There is more to the spirit and letter of Georgism. The central conceit is state ownership of land, which both cities try to monopolize, offering only 99 year leases. I guess this cuts down on long-term “speculation,” but George’s proposals usually seem focused on a shorter term.
The modern account is to emphasize that the value of cities is the positive externalities from all the development. A government should encourage the production of positive externalities, in particular more building. The cities do take this to heart and make it easy to build. Maybe Georgism is really simple and that’s the key point. So many other cities fail it, but it’s not because of failing to grasp the abstract argument for an LVT or the difficult details of implementing it, but because of much more basic and fundamental failure.