"Where Liberty rises, there virtue grows, wealth increases ...and in strength and spirit the freer nation rises... Where Liberty sinks, there virtue fades, ...and empires once mighty in arms and arts become a helpless prey to freer barbarians!" - Henry George, "Ode to Liberty"
@woodyHchipper@argentcorvus@mcsquared34 If a man is sold as a slave, is he labor or capital? Definitions matter if we want to make distinctions between things, which is necessary to be scientific. Land is a daily bionecessity which nobody produced, like oxygen. Capital is a product of labor, not a natural resource.
@woodyHchipper@argentcorvus@mcsquared34 Freedom is natural. Capitalism is marketed as freedom (and as natural). But, the version we have treats land (nature) like capital. That turns society into slaves on an investor-owned plantation. Capitalism as we know it is not natural and it's not freedom. It's neo-feudalism.
@ItsLulu_7 Getting rich doesn't impoverish others. Poverty is maintained by keeping the price of land, everyone's daily source of life via sleep, as expensive as possible. This is the result of taxing land at a low enough rate to keep land ownership a profitable store of value. #SingleTax
Yes. There are many examples of the general quality of life being improved by shifting taxation away from other things and onto land ownership. Estonia, Denmark, Singapore and Pittsburgh are all such examples.
Yes, it's true that capitalism as we know it is a failure, but if the truth about basic economics and the history of economic thought can be taught in public school, the next generation will evolve civilization.
The single tax (abolishing all taxation except on land ownership) will organically and thoroughly decentralize land ownership and land access. Socialism won't. Rather, the price of land will continue to be all we can afford since socialism seeks maximum public revenue in order to maximize public welfare.
Also, the single tax will, in no way, limit the amount of public welfare society can approve. The fact that less public welfare will be necessary will not reduce public revenue. In fact, government will have excess public revenue by eliminating poverty through the tax shift (minimizing rent while maximizing wages) and by making efficiency organic and systemic (through taxing for the use of the resource instead of for the amount of wealth produced).
Socialism is not the alternative to capitalism. Real freedom is. Capitalism is neo-feudalism, where the masses pay the few to live on land and to work. Socialism merely centralizes that wealth and power even more. As if more control is the answer. But the answer is individual economic freedom (access to land). Nature doesn't keep us poor. Nature is generous. We are kept poor by being charged for access to nature (land and society) by other people. The solution is to tax for location ownership exclusively. If land ownership is the only thing taxed, we will have free association and equal access to land.
We are taught that human nature is the problem, but government corruption is. Human nature is like the rest of nature, and we can have harmony and efficiency if allowed.
@JezziiB Labor is kept as cheap as possible by keeping land as expensive as possible, which is the result of taxing land low enough to reward land price speculation.
Being rich doesn't make others poor. And blaming the rich people instead of corrupt government leads to authoritarianism.
@Lormif1 Underdeveloped countries are riddled with poverty for the same reason as the first world - unequal access to land, everyone's daily source of life. Nature has provided everything we need to survive and thrive, but it's held for ransom by those in power.
The biggest hoaxes are that poverty is natural and that economics is complicated. But keeping labor cheap is so useful to those in power, our education system completely omits the topic of economics until college and then, teaches us land, a bionecessity, is a form of capital.
@MomentumTipping Agreed. The science of economics is carved in stone. But the economy and public awareness of how it works are controlled by those profiting from its injustice and public confusion regarding the reason for that.
Zero infants are born poor since they are all born into families or communities who nurture them until they are able to provide for themselves. Poverty is not the default state for humans or nearly any other living creature. Nature = providence. Poverty is created and maintained by a tax system that punishes wealth creation and rewards the hoarding of land, everyone's daily source of life via sleep.
@TMTinkerer@philosophymeme0 If the tax on land ownership is too low, investors can hold it for ransom. That makes land ownership as difficult as possible. But if the tax on land ownership is high enough to discourage owning it as a store of value, it will be as easy possible for people to buy and hold.
Abundance is the default state. Nature has provided everything we need to survive and thrive. Trade is natural, wealth production is natural. The progress of civilization is natural. Land hoarding is what keeps most of society slaves to the government and investors. Capitalism is neo-feudalism unless we abolish all taxation except on land ownership. That's the model classical economists proposed.
@OrevaZSN Scarcity is created by the profitability of land hoarding. That's why socialism always makes the problem worse. Socialism doesn't create equal access to land. It merely makes everyone even more dependent on those in power. There's only one way to decentralize land ownership.
@ATLCWorker Natural interaction among people and the land, not government money-printing, is THE SOURCE of wealth. Capitalism's failures are not due to a lack of government manipulation. They are due to the taxation of wealth production and unequal access to land. #SingleTax
@TMTinkerer@philosophymeme0 Without equal access to land, capitalism is just neo-feudalism. The original "laissez faire" economists were advocating land ownership taxation replace all other taxes. The reason we aren't taught economics in school isn't because it's too complicated but because it's too simple.