land rent sites:
progress
henrygeorge
earthsharing
landvaluetax
landpolicy
labour+land
schalkenbach

Lower land prices

Land rent makes land less attractive as an speculative investment, so it lowers demand. It also raises supply as speculators sell. Lower demand and higher supply means land prices go down. This provides affordable land for anyone who needs it.

Millions of acres put back to productive use

Under the present system it makes sense for some land to be left derelict or under used, waiting for the price to go up. But land rent makes this idle speculation too expensive. All such land would be either sold or used productively, giving a massive boost to the economy.

More jobs, lower prices, more entrepreneurs

As land rent replaces taxation, employers find it much cheaper to employ more staff. Also, manufacturers are not taxed for production, so it pays them to produce ore, thus lowering unit prices. Add the availability of low cost land and reduced paperwork (since all the old taxes are ended) then we have utopia for entrepreneurs

A more stable economy, no more boom and bust cycle

The current “boom and bust” economic cycle is made worse by speculation, The biggest part of speculation is land speculation, where people hope to make easy money based on land prices always increasing regardless of what they do. Land rent dampens land speculation because there is no longer unearned wealth to be made. So land rent prevents the worst book and bust cycles. It thus gives more security to everyone, allowing individuals and industry to plan further ahead and create more wealth.

More justice, better leaders

Land rent levels the playing field. It means everyone plays by the same rules. Nobody gains advantage from simply owning land, or oil, or from having a family that owned land or oil. The only wealth you or your family has is wealth that was created through your genius and hard work.

As a result, the people with wealth or power are the people who deserve it. The people at the top are the smartest and most skillful people. So we get better decisions, and life is better in every way

Guaranteed minimum income for all

Since land rent comes from all the land and is owned by all of society, everyone has a claim. Obviously a wise government will spend it where it can do the most good, but everyone can expect at least a minimum income, in the highly unlikely event that they do not have a job.

How to end poverty

If a nation has more wealth and more justice, poverty naturally ends. Land rent gives an extra helping hand to the poor, because land value is created by (and thus owned by) the whole of society, not just the wealthy. So the poor have a real claim on nation’s wealth, they do not have to beg for charity.

How to end poverty in the third world

The first world routinely pressures the third world to do what the first world wants, through trade, quotas, trading rules, targeted aid, World Bank loan terms, direct military action, diplomatic threats, funding local organizations, and in numerous other ways.

We already have vast influence, but we seem unable to fix anything. Perhaps we should focus on the one policy that will fix the root cause of all the other problems. Keep it simple. focus on land rent, and let other nations then fix their own problems. And if those nations are led by tyrants, land rent can help there too.

...and create even more wealth

As noted on the panacea page, land rent helps with a thousand different problems. Many of the world’s problems, like war and mistrust, help to create poverty. By reducing these problems, land rent further increases wealth.

Land rent is the only sensible way to pay for society.

There is a strong economic argument for shifting taxes from production to natural resources. Almost all economists, from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to modern Nobel Prize winners like the US economist William Vickrey, agree that land value is a surplus arising from production. By taxing this surplus a Government does not distort the economy, unlike taxes such as income tax and sales taxes that lead to higher prices and lower levels of production.
- Dave Wetzel, Land tax needed to avoid wasted resources, The Observer : April 6, 2003

The bottom line is that land rent is the ideal system for creating wealth: it’s just good economics.

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