Does Georgism Work? Part 2: Can Landlords Pass Land Value Tax on to Tenants?

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/does-georgism-work-part-2-can-landlords

[Lars Doucet won this year’s Book Review Contest with his review of Henry George’s Progress and Poverty. Since then, he’s been researching Georgism in more depth, and wants to follow up with what he’s learned. I’ll be posting three of his Georgism essays here this week, and you can read his other work at Fortress Of Doors]

Hi, my name's Lars Doucet (not Scott Alexander), and this is a guest post in an ongoing series that assesses the empirical basis for the economic philosophy of Georgism.

Part 0 - Book Review: Progress & Poverty Part I  - Is Land Really a Big Deal? Part II - Can Land Value Tax be passed on to Tenants? 👈 (You are here) Part III - Can Unimproved Land Value be Accurately Assessed Separately from Buildings?

There were a lot of great comments to Part I. Most zeroed in on the practical aspects of implementing Georgism, such as how to deal with what Gordon Tullock calls The Transitional Gains Trap. Others brought up various perceived political obstacles and a few other topics (yes, I know about zoning, which is also a big deal). With a few exceptions, I didn't see much pushback on the core thesis of Part I, that land is a really big deal. In fact, many of the strongest opponents of LVT seem opposed precisely because they agree that land is a big deal.