Oh my god, it's Henry George with steel chair

It is necessary that the platform to be adopted by the united labor party convention which is to meet at Syracuse on the 17th should firmly and clearly define the position of the party with relation to socialism. This is rendered necessary by the organized endeavor of the State or German socialists to impress their peculiar views upon the party - an endeavor that has become so notorious that any disposition to evade the issue whether or not the united labor party indorses these views, would give its enemies a specious pretext to make the charge that it does.

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In the theories of Marxian or German socialism - or socialism as we might as well call it to avoid repetition - the central point is the employer or capitalist. In that form of production which the socialistic writers denominate the capitalistic, and which they assume to be that of all production in the grade of civilization to which the most advanced modern nations have already attained, or, at least, in that to which they are advancing, this employer provides site, building, tools and materials, and buys labor, paying for it wages. He does not, however, pay in wages the whole value which the labor he buys adds to his material, but only a part of it, which the socialistic writers put at from one-quarter to one-half. The rest he keeps for himself. He, in short , buys labor as he buys commodities, and the price that he must pay and that labor can demand is, in the socialistic theory, fixed by the same law that governs the price of other commodities; that is to say, the minimum on which, in the existing state of society, laborers will consent to maintain themselves and reproduce. The tendency of competition for employment among laborers to reduce wages to this minimum and keep them there is assumed, in the socialistic theory, to be the general law, and is styled by them the "iron law of wages." That part of the value created by the laborers, which the employer does not return to them in wages, but keeps for himself, and which is generally assumed by socialistic writers to be from three-quarters to one-half of the whole produce, they style "surplus value." Gronlund, however, in his book, "The Cooperative Commonwealth," which is probably the best popular rendering into English of the socialistic theory, gives to this "surplus value" of Marx the much more intelligible name of "fleecings."' It is from this "surplus value," or "fleecings." that profits, rent, and interest are assumed to come, and from it the employers or capitalists maintain and augment their capital. This, in fact, the socialistic writers generally speak of as, and even more commonly assume to be, the source of capital, and from this idea is derived the assertion they frequently make that capital consists of unpaid labor.

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In this pamphlet Herr Engels thus states the difference between the socialists of the German school and those who think as I do:

"If Henry George declares land monopolization to be the sole cause of poverty and misery, he naturally finds the remedy in the resumption of land by society at large. Now, the socialists of the school of Marx, too, demand the resumption, by society, of the land, and not only of the land but of all other means of production likewise. But even if we leave these out of the question, there is another difference. What is to be done with the land? Modern socialists, as represented by Marx, demand that it should be held and worked in common and for common account, and the same with all other means of social production - mines, railways, factories, etc.; Henry George would confine himself to letting it out to individuals as at present, merely regulating its distribution and applying the rents for public, instead of, as at present, for private purposes. What the socialists demand implies a total revolution of the whole system of social production; what Henry George demands leaves the present mode of social production untouched, and has, in fact, been anticipated by the extreme section of Ricardian bourgeois economists who, too, demanded the confiscation of the rent of land by the state."

The difference is, in fact, even greater than Herr Engels represents it. We do not propose any such violent and radical change as would be involved in the formal resumption of land by society at large, and the letting of it out to individuals. We propose to leave land in individual possession as now, merely taking, in the form of a tax, as nearly as may be, the equivalent of that value which attaches to land by reason of the growth and advance of society; - and while thus appropriating for the use of the community a revenue which properly belongs to the community, to do away with the incentive given to the withholding of land from productive use by the individual expectation of profiting by its future increase in value.

This simple yet radical reform would do away with all the injustice which socialists see in the present conditions of society, and would open the way to all the real good that they can picture in their childish scheme of making the state the universal capitalist , employer, merchant , and shopkeeper.

Some of the world’s biggest retailers, including brands from Asia, are investing in flagship stores on Oxford Street as London prepares to pedestrianise and rejuvenate its most famous shopping street.

Although the plan to close the road to traffic has been controversial with residents and Londoners who face changes in transport routes, the majority of retailers are behind the scheme.

“We see this as a massive opportunity to create a really brilliant space for both our customers and wider visitors to Oxford Street and the West End. We’ve got such global competition that all the investment that both the retailers and other parties put in is really important,” said Naomi Simcock, chief operations officer for John Lewis, which has had a presence on street since 1864.

I purchased a book containing a lot of essays and other writings from Henry George himself and it’s fine, but I always find politically charged writings from around the same era lacking. I’m interested in whatever recommendations exist for a book that defends or advocates for Georgist inspired policy with the context of a modern economy; preferably American law as well.

For example, the oil underneath Saudi Arabia. No person put the oil there or planted it there.

Under your worldview, is there an economic model for which resource-rich nations should contribute more into international institutions due to a higher base capacity?

Alternatively, what about Venezuela? It is a resource-rich nation with poor management that is incapable of producing profit from its resources, and they therefore go wasted.

Apparently the 18-year real estate cycle might be delayed a little

For example the OECD is trying to enforce a global minimum corporate tax, OPEC is trying to monopolize oil to extract maximum rent, the EU is enforcing a minimum VAT among all member states. How do we fight these government cartels that try to reduce competition to extract maximum rent from us?

"You know Labor Theory of Value is wrong but still believe there is exploitation in the system."

"You can't pass a city parking lot without remarking on how little they are taxed."

"You're obsessed with cats."

In Georgism, the land value tax (LVT) discourages land speculation by taxing the unimproved value of the land.

In our open-source legal modeling, we took this a step further into dynamic usufruct: you have absolute, inviolable possession of a dwelling as long as you actively live in it, but if a property sits genuinely abandoned without an active sabbatical declaration, ownership reverts back to the community land pool. No landlords, no vacant secondary homes held as speculative assets.

The hard question is enforcement: How do you determine whether a home is genuinely abandoned versus someone just taking a prolonged hospital stay or extended family trip, without creating an intrusive bureaucracy of municipal inspectors or invasive smart-meter surveillance?

Have any legal trusts, intentional communities, or land-reform scholars found a clean, decentralized legal mechanism to prevent property abandonment without spying on citizens?

France needs to read my paper - Wilsons Blog