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points by grafmax 1 day ago | 0 comments
Real estate is 13.7% GDP, finance and insurance 8.7%, healthcare 7.5%, info/tech 5.7%, utilities and mining 3% - rentier capitalism is roughly 40% of the US economy.

George held land value as the only worthwhile rentierism to tax. The problem is bigger than just land value or platforms.

There is a reason billionaires astroturf [1] support for these half-measures. The "moats" they own (the monopolies and oliogopolies) are where they derive their wealth. tax

[1] https://coefficientgiving.org/research/announcing-our-new-12...

[–] sagarm 1 day ago
Are you trying to argue that finance, insurance, healthcare, tech, utilities, and mining don't produce anything? That's a pretty out there opinion.

Georgism calls out land because the supply is essentially fixed, so there's no economic cost to taxing it. In addition the value of it collectively created.

Every industry you named above absolutely responds to price signals.

[–] grafmax 12 hours ago
Just that they are primarily rent-seeking operations. They are based on access to what someone owns, rather than producing something. You own the utility, you charge access to it. You own the mine, therefore can profit primarily through ownership. You have assets and charge interest for access to them, adding countless surcharges in the process (finance). Tech is primarily based on network effects creating lock-in; tech firms are started by VCs building businesses at a loss leader then dialing up enshittification to profit. Healthcare is expensive because we have entrenched interests that don't want single payer - yet everyone needs it and prices can be hiked up, gouging consumers who are at a disadvantage. Without health insurance, the insane costs are boundless; insurance companies leverage their privileged regulatory positions as gatekeepers to a basic need to gouge consumers.

It's not that they don't produce anything of value, just that these industries in particular are primarily extractive and rent-seeking; companies are able to use their "moats" to resist competitive down pressures.

The problem with Georgism is that it is short-sighted. There is no economic cost to taxing rent extraction; billionaires fund Georgist narratives because it distracts from their own rent extraction.

> Every industry you named above absolutely responds to price signals.

As does land, what's your point?