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

What is land rent?

Land rent means taxing land. Not buildings, not work, not commerce, just bare land. Or if land has buildings (as most land has) then the equivalent value of the land if it had no buildings.

Land gets its value its improvements (buildings etc) and from its location. The improvements were made by the hard work of the owners. But the location has value because of what society does, because of roads and schools and good neighbors.

If society taxes buildings and improvements, it steals people’s hard work, their time and energy, their life. Most taxation is therefore theft. But if society taxes the location, then it simply claims back the value it creates. Land rent distinguishes between the individual’s property and society’s property.

Why land rent matters

Land rent creates fairness in the most basic of all issues: who controls the ground beneath our feet.

Land rent is the only rational tax, because it is based on a sound theory of property (you create it, you own it).

Land rent means an end to every other tax. So it becomes much cheaper to create additional jobs and manufacture goods. So wealth increases.

Land rent is the only tax that is not a form of theft, so it encourages honesty and work.

Land rent is the only way to provide enough land for everyone on earth, because it stops land speculation, so it lowers demand for land and hence the price of land goes down.

In short, land rent is the simplest way to create a healthy and fair society. This benefits nearly every area of life and solves most of the world’s major problems.

Land rent ensures that all land is used for maximum profit. Yet by better measuring the value of land, it preserves forest and increases the acreage of national parks, for reasons explained in the “save the world” page.

The economic benefits of land rent

If you tax work, the amount of work goes down, because some work becomes less profitable. But if you tax land, the amount of land remains the same. So if you want to encourage work, you should tax land, not work.

Land rent is the only guarantee of fair property rights. If people can charge rent but they pay no rent themselves, eventually one person or one elite will own everything and nobody else can have any property unless it suits the elite. To see why, play the game Monopoly. Monopoly is based on "The Landlord's Game," invented by Lizzie Magie as a way to show why we need land rent.

Land rent is the most efficient way of creating wealth because it gives resources to those who can use them best (that is, those who can generate the most wealth from the land).

Land rent creates economic justice, by ensuring that everyone keeps the wealth they create, and any extra is given back to society. So nobody has unfair privileges, and everyone has an equal chance to succeed.

Land rent provides a fair system for all, because it generates wealth for society, yet it is so simple that corruption and inefficiency have nowhere to hide.

God and human equality

If you believe in God, then God gave men equal rights to the land. Land rent simply charges people who stop others from using God’s land.

If people are created equal, then nobody has a right to charge others for the use of land, unless they (the land owner) also pays rent to society.

Most people have a gut feeling that people should cooperate and be nice to each other. A land rent system provides the basis for such a world, for the reasons given above.

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